This week’s $.10 is abbreviated due to a family obligation on Sunday.

$.01--One of the big things to monitor every year in Week 2 is to see which teams that turned in surprising results in Week 1 keep the momentum--positive or negative--going. Sunday’s matchup between the Carolina Panthers and the New Orleans Saints provided an exceptional contrast in sustainability. 

The Panthers smoked the Saints, 26-7, in Charlotte in a game that was never really competitive. That’s because the Panthers defense that gave the Jets fits in Week 1 did the same to the Saints offense. 

Yes, that’s the New Orleans offense that dominated Green Bay in Week 1’s biggest romp, a 38-3 shellacking where Jameis Winston was almost perfect in throwing for 5 TDs. In that game, the Saints offense had two consecutive touchdown-scoring drives of 15 plays apiece in the first half. In Carolina, they ran 17 total offensive plays before halftime. It’s the fewest ever in a half for a Sean Payton-coached Saints team. They finished with 128 net yards on 43 plays

The Panthers defense was devastatingly effective. The Saints managed just 6 first downs and had just one drive on the day that gained more than 25 yards. Alvin Kamara ran for 5 yards on 8 carries and had one carry that bagged 6, a sign of just how thoroughly the Panthers devoured the Saints offense.  

Carolina had no such issues lighting up a Saints D that nearly shut out reigning MVP Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. Sam Darnold was comfortable and coolly efficient, completing 26-of-38 for 305 yards, 2 TDs and one INT that led to the Saints only score. Six different Panthers receivers caught at least three passes, with Darnold consistently finding the right option.

Now the Panthers are 2-0 and look like they’re not going away anytime soon. On the flip side, the Saints are one of the weirdest 1-1 teams in recent memory, blowing out a conference championship participant from last year and getting destroyed just as haplessly one week later. Carolina hits the Texas road the next two weeks, first at Houston and then Dallas. Both games are eminently winnable for Matt Rhule’s Panthers.  

$.02--When the following statistical fact was tweeted out after Thursday night’s game, I read it in stark disbelief. Since the start of the 2017 NFL season, no team has racked up more losses than the New York Giants. New York is now 18-48 in that time after losing to the sweet music of Taylor Swift Heineken and the Washington Football Team to kick off the Week 2 slate. 

That’s a flabbergasting stat. Since 2017 the Cleveland Browns have suffered through an 0-16 season. The Detroit Lions dealt with three seasons of Matt Patricia. The Jacksonville Jaguars have lost 10 or more games in three of the four ensuing seasons, too. Yet none have been worse overall in the last four-plus seasons than the New York Giants. 

The Giants are on their fourth head coach in that time. Joe Judge, like Pat Shurmur and Ben McAdoo (interim coach Steve Spagnuolo gets spared here) before him, simply cannot start a season on a positive note. New York is 0-2 for the fifth straight season. Judge and the Giants came close to breaking through on Thursday night, but they couldn’t overcome Washington’s backup quarterback, who was throwing the ball too high for comfort all night long. There were too many dumb (and correctly called) penalties on both sides of the ball for New York, the most notable being Dexter Lawrence jumping offsides to give WFT kicker Dustin Hopkins a second chance at a game-winner. Hopkins made the reprieve kick after yakking on the original, bailed out by the mistake-prone Giants. 

The prolonged lack of success for New York is even more surprising given the high-profile talent on the team. Saquon Barkley was a consensus brilliant pick with the No. 2 overall pick in 2018. Kenny Golladay was the top free agent WR this offseason around the league. Adding James Bradberry a year ago proved great. Daniel Jones hasn’t been terrible at quarterback either. Jones hasn’t been a transformative talent but he’s shown he can play to some degree. It just hasn’t equaled wins for New York, and that’s not good news for Judge or GM Dave Gettleman.  

$.03--Two teams made big trades this past offseason for new franchise quarterbacks. The Rams went all-in on Matthew Stafford, sending Detroit two first-round picks, a third-rounder and starting QB Jared Goff. The Colts sent a third-rounder in 2021 and a conditional 1st/2nd in 2022 to Philadelphia for fallen star Carson Wentz. The two faced off in Indianapolis on Sunday in a mano-a-mano battle to see which team made the better trade. 

Through two weeks, Stafford has been everything the Rams hoped for when making such a blockbuster commitment. Meanwhile, Wentz has quickly validated why the Eagles dumped him on the highest bidder for a lower bid than expected. 

Stafford and the Rams are 2-0 after holding on to salvage a 27-24 road win over the Colts. The longtime Lions QB threw for 278 yards, 2 TDs and an INT in the win. It wasn’t perfect, between the INT and some misfires on third down and in the red zone, but Stafford and Cooper Kupp (9 catches, 163 yards, 2 TDs) were lethal against the Colts scattershot secondary. 

Wentz had a decent game too, but couldn’t keep up with Stafford and the Rams. The Colts failed to score on two separate possessions inside the Rams’ 5-yard line in the first half. Right or wrong, that falls on the quarterback. Wentz got sacked on 4th down on the first one and threw his INT on the second. But what really hurt the Colts was Wentz leaving the game in the second half with an ankle injury that did not look severe but also didn’t look good. 

The Eagles tired of Wentz’s growing frequency of mistakes and his ongoing propensity to keep getting hurt. The Colts suffered a nasty dose of reality on both fronts in the loss. The QB that they really wanted in a trade, Stafford, proved the better option. The 0-2 Colts now have even more QB questions after making the trade for Wentz.  

$.04--NFL quickies

--John Harbaugh can never get enough credit for the job he does in Baltimore. The Ravens’ improbable comeback win over the Chiefs on Sunday night was a coaching masterstroke. Granted it helps to have such a unique weapon in Lamar Jackson, but the trust in Jackson that Harbaugh shows and the tailoring the team to his specific set of skills is not something many coaches would be comfortable risking. Huge win for the Ravens after trailing nearly the entire game. 

--The Browns are 1-1 after a decent but slightly uncomfortable 31-21 win over visiting Houston. Two quick takeaways from this one:

A. Cleveland defensive coordinator Joe Woods deserves all the heat he’s going to get this week. They’re more talented than they play and that’s on Woods, who is quickly losing any benefit of the doubt from the injuries that ravaged the Browns defense last year. 

B. The Texans aren’t nearly as bereft of talent or as terrible as many made them out to be. The giant swath of semi-capable veterans signed from other teams--including 6 former Browns who start--gives Houston a higher floor than some other “bad” teams like the Jets and Lions. They’re not apt to win much but they’ll be competitive most weeks if they can stay healthy. 

--Speaking of the Jets, not even the legendarily atrocious Nathan Peterman could do as badly as Zach Wilson did in his first game against Bill Belichick and the Patriots. Wilson threw four INTs in his first 10 pass attempts,, including this gift of a giveaway. Granted it’s not easy when your top receiving threat is Braxton Berrios, but that’s an awful start by the No. 2 overall pick. 

--Most surprising result of Sunday: Buffalo 35, Miami 0. I picked the Bills to win on the road, but a 35-point shutout?! That’s how you bounce back from a rough Week 1 loss. As bad as the score was for Miami, the fact that oft-injured QB Tua Tagovailoa left with a nasty-looking rib injury is potentially even worse. Those whispers about Deshaun Watson are going to keep getting louder…

--Bears fans got their wish in seeing Justin Fields take over for Andy Dalton in Chicago’s win over the Bengals. Coach Matt Nagy’s hand was forced when Dalton got injured. Fields posted a QB Rating of just 27.7, lower even than Wilson’s, but his Bears held on for the win. Joe Burrow throwing INTs on three straight second-half passes, including a pick-six, allowed Fields to deliver a win. Both young QBs will be better, but this game was not one either Burrow or Fields will look back fondly upon. 

--The Vikings fell to the Cardinals, 34-33, when Minnesota kicker Greg Joseph missed wide right from just 37 yards on a potential game-winning field goal as time expired. The bad kick wasted a very impressive day from Kirk Cousins and an even more impressive outing from RB Dalvin Cook. Arizona’s defense does deserve some credit for making more plays late, but that’s a game the 0-2 Vikings had to win. 

--The Falcons are 0-2 after giving up 80 points and 8 TD passes to the Eagles and Buccaneers in the first two games. Just as negatively, QB Matt Ryan threw two more TD passes to the Tampa Bay defense in the Bucs’ too-easy 48-25 romp on Sunday. If you’re looking for a sleeper team to garner the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 NFL draft, the Falcons might be for you. 

$.05--One of the unfortunate byproducts of the social media age is the overreaction to the immediacy of the moment. It’s true in all realms of modern society. Its insidious talons dig into the NFL draft prospect evaluation process every fall Saturday, proving sports are perhaps the leader in the race to instantly and absolutely pass historical judgment on every single event.  

I’ve contributed my fair share to the hysteria. Twitter is really good at amplifying notes on players, and instant reactions to plays are part of the fun of being on social media during live events. I enjoy watching college football games and interacting online with those watching the same game. It’s like being in a sports bar except I’m drinking a fantastic craft beer and eating chicken tenders for less than half the price of what it would cost for an identical layout of Bud Light and overcooked boneless wings at the bar. 

But there’s a downside. There is no broader context to the tweets beyond the very play being discussed. And in the NFL draft evaluation process, the forest often gets obscured by so many social media trees. One of the most important facets of evaluating a prospect is to get as full of a picture as possible. One play, as spectacular or egregious as it might be, is just one dot in the overall painting of the prospect. Yet here we are on social media making radical proclamations that a player is either No. 1 overall or undraftable based on that one microdot. It’s not just fanboys doing it, either; online evaluators I trust and respect fall victim. I’m sure I have too, though I try very hard not to be that guy.  

I saw it firsthand while watching the Oklahoma-Nebraska game on Saturday. Sooners QB Spencer Rattler is a likely top-10 overall pick but a divisive prospect. He did not look like a top-10 overall prospect in Oklahoma’s underwhelming 23-16 win. If you were to just watch this particular game, you might wonder how Rattler is even one of the top 10 quarterback prospects for the 2022 NFL draft.  

He forced throws into coverage too often. He missed some open receivers. Rattler showed the propensity to get rattled from pressure that wouldn’t cause a bead of sweat on some other QB foreheads too. That’s the overarching theme on Rattler from the day, but he punctuated an otherwise humdrum performance with a few choice, fantastic plays. 

No, one great throw does not erase three bad ones. Likewise, one astonishingly terrible interception doesn’t erase the rest of a near-perfect game, something that the sharp critics of Justin Fields at Ohio State did a bit too zealously a year ago. The broader context of a performance gets lost in the crossfire of absolutist hot takes reacting to one specific play. That’s not how this is supposed to work.  

NFL scouts watch hundreds of reps for a player before even thinking about formulating an actual scouting report. Even if they could, they would never broadcast their quick notes on one play. It lacks context. It lacks substance. It’s just one dot in a Jackson Pollock painting that takes days of work to fully take in and appreciate.  

That’s one of the reasons why I don’t tweet as much as I used to, specifically on college football and draft matters. A postgame summary of a performance carries much more value than a reaction to a single play or highlight, and even that is but one tree in an evaluation forest. Try and remember that when Rattler or Desmond Ridder have games like they did on Saturday.