Cole’s Corner: Takeaways from the NFL Weekend: Week Two
Brady and Belichick’s Patriots (once again) look like the team to beat.
The New England Patriots played the Buffalo Bills on Sunday and won by a score of 40-32. New England netted a little over 500 yards of total offense with Tom Brady passing for 466 yards and 3 touchdowns. Just as well, Rob Gronkowski had 7 receptions for 113 yards and one score. New England’s defense also had 3 interceptions and 3 forced fumbles. Essentially, New England kept rolling this week after a win against Pittsburgh and don’t appear to be slowing down any time soon. Belichick’s team is coming back from the deflategate scandal with a real chip on their shoulder.
Larry Fitzgerald can still play.
I don’t want to make too big of a deal out of it, but Fitzgerald’s performance against Chicago was absolutely electric. He caught eight of nine passes for 119 receiving yards, as well as hauling in three touchdown passes. At 32 years old, Fitzgerald made it extremely evident that he’s still a capable force in this league.
Cowboys are undefeated, but it sure doesn’t feel like it.
Dallas beat Philadelphia on the Sunday night game 20-10, moving to 2-0 on the season. With that being said, The Boys have taken some immense blows on the way. In week one, Dallas lost Dez Bryant for 10-12 weeks with a bone graft, which took away another offensive dynamic, building on the loss of DeMarco Murray this summer. This week Dallas went into a big game with high hopes, yet on edge hoping they could try to dominate offensively without their biggest offensive weapon. About halfway through the third quarter, and in the midst of shutting out their opponent, Tony Romo suffered a fracture in his left clavical bone, which will leave him out for quite some time. With that, Dallas is without their holy trinity of offensive power from a year ago and the season has lost some direction for the Cowboys.
Where is that Dynamic Eagles offense?
Chip Kelly came into the NFL in 2013, looking to be an offensive mastermind in an ever-changing league. Three years in and Kelly’s offense (headlined by DeMarco Murray and Sam Bradford) has looked atrocious to start the year. Through two games, they’ve had approximately 600 offensive yards with Bradford making up the majority of it. Although having 500+ pass yards, Bradford has thrown twice as many interceptions as he has touchdowns. DeMarco Murray, the reigning offensive player of the year, has only rushed for 11 total yards. While we’re only two weeks in, the Eagles should be coming close to hitting the panic button on their offensive game plan.