Here are my thoughts from Week 3 of the NFL season, based purely on what I was able to see. I finally was able to secure a spot at a local watering hole with lots of friends and lots more football fans, so I was able to take in portions of almost every game!
Game of the Week
Miami Dolphins 38 v. Oakland Raiders 14 (in London). Only because the NFL requires me to make this the Game of the Week due to its being played in London. Just kidding, the NFL lets us all do what we want to do. Right?
San Francisco 49ers 26 v. Philadelphia Eagles 21. Two playoff-looking teams in a dogfight, with San Francisco just needing (and wanting) it a bit more. San Francisco held the vaunted Eagles offense scoreless in the second half, to come back from a 21-13 deficit to win the game. I don't think San Francisco is as good as they have been the past two years, but if they can survive until Game 10 (when Aldon Smith returns) they could make some waves late in the season.
Best Team Performance
New York Giants. In a game between two teams that looked like the had finally turned the corner coming in, the Giants absolutely annihilated the Washington Whatever their Name is Eventually Going to Be. Eli Manning looked, dare I say, "Elite" in carving up Washington's secondary, and Rashad Jennings and Andre Williams both had their way with the defense as well.
Least Impressive Team Performance
Tennessee Titans. Normally there would be nothing wrong with losing a game on the road to the Indianapolis Colts, but the Titans looked like they didn't even show up. Perhaps it was because they had to play the entire game with Charlie Whitehurst at quarterback, but having Whitehurst lead the team in rushing also evidenced just how unimpressive this performance was by Tennessee.
Most Impressive Individual Performance (Offense)
Phillip Rivers, QB - San Diego Chargers- Another total annihilation of the Jaguars, in large part because Rivers went 29-39 for 377 with 3 TDs. Yes the Jaguars are horrible, but Rivers did exactly what you are supposed to do to bad teams. Honorable mention to Demarco Murray of the Cowboys.
Most Impressive Individual Performance (Defense)
Husain Abdullah, FS - Kansas City Chiefs. He did some of everything on the defensive side of the ball for the Chiefs in their defeat of the New England Patriots. He had 8 tackles, 3 passes defensed, a QB hit and the interception that he returned for a touchdown.
Most Impressive Individual Performance (Special Teams)
Dustin Colquitt, P - Kansas City Chiefs. Once again, his booming punts kept filed position in the Chiefs' favor all game. Averaged 45 yards a punt, only two of which were returned - for a total of 10 yards.
Most Impressive Team Performance (Premier League)
Chelsea. Defeated Aston Villa 3-0 to maintain their place at the top of the Premier League Table with 5 wins and a draw in 6 matches. In addition, Chelsea managed to get 3 goals passed Brad Guzan, the goalie that most experts believe had been playing the best to start the season.
Most Impressive Individual Performance (Premier League)
Edin Dzeko - Manchester. Dzeko scored a brace against Hull City, the second being the go-ahead goal as City defeated Hull 4-2.
Goat of the Week
Brad Wing, P - Pittsburgh Steelers - After the Steelers were unable to gain a game-winning first down after getting the ball back up 4 with 1:44 remaining in the game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Brad Wing shanked a 29 yard punt giving the Buccaneers the ball at Pittsburgh's 46 with 40 seconds left, which Tampa used to score the game-winning touchdown.
Goat of the Week (Premier League)
Wayne Rooney, Manchester United - After scoring an opening goal, Rooney proceeded to earn a straight red card, which also results in him missing this weekend's clash at home against Everton.
Hit of the Week
Jason Garrett, Coach - Dallas Cowboys - For his hits on Cowboy Wide Receiver Terrence Williams after Williams caught his second TD pass of the game.
Breakthrough Performance
Travis Kelce, TE - Kansas City Chiefs. After showing promise earlier in the year, Kelce broke out with an 8 catch 93 yard performance that included a touchdown. Much more important than just the stat line was that Kelce looked like the type of tight end that could be a primary receiver, catching the ball, creating mismatches, running after the catch and making people miss.
Finally
Jacksonville Jaguars - They lost, and badly, but they finally gave the start to rookie Blake Bortles, who looks to have the skills and demeanor to be a real quality quarterback in the NFL.
Impact Injury
DeAngelo Williams, RB - Carolina Panthers. To a team that relies primarily on running the ball and its defense, this injury really hurts, especially when added to the list of other injured running backs, Jonathan Stewart, Mike Tolbert and Fozzy Whittaker.
Team Rising
New York Giants - Perhaps the problem with the Giants was not that they were terrible, it may just have taken time to get used to the new offensive coordinator and his system, but boy have they ever. They host the Falcons, and are at divisional rivals the Eagles and Cowboys before the bye week, so we will learn a lot about the Giants in October.
Team Falling
New England Patriots - Every sports talk show was asking if the Belichick-Brady dynasty is over.
Best Teams
(All undefeated teams will be top ranked teams until none are left - then the rankings will be the result of my true thoughts and not just records).
1. Cincinnati Bengals
2. Arizona Cardinals
3. Seattle Seahawks
4. Philadelphia Eagles
5. San Diego Chargers
Worst Teams
(All winless teams will be bottomed ranked teams until none are left - then the rankings will be the result of my true thoughts and not just records)
32. Jacksonville Jaguars
31. Oakland Raiders
30. Tennessee Titans
29. Cleveland Browns
28. Washington Whatever their New Name is Going to Be
Middle Teams
15. Kansas City Chiefs
16. Green Bay Packers
17. New York Giants
18. Chicago Bears
Preview - Game(s) of the Week
Bonus Game (since last week most of the match up sucked, this week, we have ore interesting games) - Arizona Cardinals and Denver Broncos. The undefeated Cardinals bring their stellar defense on the road against the Broncos' vaunted offense. If Arizona can win this game, they will definitely make a statement to the rest of the league.
4. Kansas City Chiefs v. San Francisco 49ers - If we get both teams that played last week, this will be an exciting and very tough game to watch.
3. Atlanta Falcons v. New York Giants - Assuming that the Giants' offense has in fact gelled together, this could be the best offensive scoring game we have seen in a long, long time.
2. Houston Texans v. Dallas Cowboys - The battle for Texas is also the battle to go 4-1!
1. Baltimore Ravens v. Indianapolis Colts - The Colts continue their tough opening schedule after their brief respite against the Titans last week. The Ravens have looked downright dominating at times.
Trivia
When was the last time that the NFL actually had interesting games or teams in London?
Sports Bar Review of the Week
As stated earlier, I was at a Sports Bar this Sunday, so that is the bar that gets the review.
Duffy's Sports Grill, 225 Clematis Street, West Palm Beach, FL
I must confess that I have been to this place too many times to count, as well as many other locations within this growing Florida chain. Generally, I like Duffy's, but this review is strictly about this past visit at this one location, and not about my normal overall thoughts and other locations.
The place was packed, but not overly so, a little bit surprising considering that the Dolphins (local team), Bills (huge local following), Bears-Packers (big rivalry) and other games were on. Our waitress was named Jessie, and she came immediately upon us sitting at the table and ordered our drinks..
This is a generic sports bar, in that its menu is exactly what you would expect; wings, burgers, salads, entrees, appetizers. But what makes this place great is it is on a very busy downtown corner, with sight-lines down both streets to see the activities, and lots of televisions facing in every direction. From practically any seat you can have a great view of 4 different televisions, and you can see more, just not as direct. Lots of planning is done prior to Sunday to make sure all of the games are accurately spaced-out so that each patron can view many different games should they choose to do so.
The food is what I would consider very good bar food. Normally I would get the wings, but for some reason I wanted to try something different, off the "football menu" - the buffalo chicken sliders. However, the name is a bit of a misnomer, as this was not mini-buffalo chicken sandwiches. This was chicken meatballs, stuffed with blue cheese (which was piping hot and delicious), and then shaken in a wing sauce of your choice. My choice was the spicy garlic, which is outstanding. We also had an order of chicken nachos, which are good, but exactly what you would expect.
In addition to the standard food fair, Duffy's has pretty standard beer selection, with some craft beers being present on the menu as well, but nothing outside of the ordinary. After realizing I had settled down for some long football watching, I had boring Bud Light, while others in our group had Stella Artois. Duffy's does also have a full bar, which some in our group may - or may not - have taken advantage of.
A pretty good time (except for the outcome of the football game I was watching) until the end. Jessie was great and pre-delivered separate checks to our party. She knew because she had waited on several of us on a number of occasions previously. All the tabs were paid, except for one guy who simply questioned the amount of beers placed on his tab. He was charged for 5 beers, which does not seem like a big deal so I will break it down for you. Duffy's has 2-for-1s, so that meant he had 10 if he was charged for 5. Again, not so bad for watching an entire set of early games, except for the fact that Duffy's also has large beers, which is what was ordered at our table. So that means he actually had 20 regular beers. This is over the course of just over 3 hours. So basically he was finishing a beer every 10 minutes. Mathematically this does not make sense for someone at a restaurant (at a party, at home, the beach, at the tailgate, maybe, but not in the restaurant). When he questioned his tab, Jessie rightfully summoned the manager over, who was entirely and completely argumentative from the start. He said those were the beers that were ordered, and we were going to pay for them or he was going to have security escort us out to the cops. (Downtown West Palm Beach has a private security company that patrols the area - paid for by the City). Now, the bill was not that high, the cost was not the issue, we were just questioning the number on that one particular tab. The manager said that it had to be correct because nobody else was drinking Bud Light. Now I know that was not true because I was, and so was the guy sitting next to me. So basically, what was a simple question about the potential for extra drinks being on a bill - which has happened to me before at this establishment so I believe it to be a possibility in this case - turned into a tremendous overreaction from the manager and about 12 people who no longer want to go to this establishment.
Too bad the manager didn't know that I write this review section up weekly. Let's just hope that the readership of this blog rises enough to make a difference.
I want to be clear, I have no problems with our waitress Jessie. Perhaps she made a mistake in ringing up beers, perhaps not. Perhaps one of my beers ended up on my friend's tab - in which case I would have paid it no problem. Who knows? But, she was a good waitress, and when the issue presented itself she went to the manager.
He, however, was nothing but argumentative and never wanted to even listen to us speak - much less listen to my mathematical breakdown as detailed above. At least ACT like you are listening to your customer.
Service (during the games) - NFC North
Service (management) - AFC East
Drinks - AFC South
Food - NFC South
Cleanliness - NFC West
Sports Rating - NFC West
Overall (not including management) - Minnesota Vikings (3rd in the NFC North)
Overall (including management) - Pittsburgh Steelers (3rd in the AFC North)
Rating System Best to Worst: NFC West, NFC North, NFC South, AFC West, AFC North, AFC South, NFC East, AFC East
Trivia Answer
In the game against the Eagles, Pierre Garcon had 138 receiving yards and DeSean Jackson had 117 receiving yards. The last time the Redskins had two receiver over 100 yards in the same game was 2003. The receivers were LAVERANUES COLES (180 yards) and ROD GARDNER (118 yards) on September 13, 2013 against Atlanta.
