The approximately 345 people sitting in the Los Angeles Coliseum got a real rarity on Sunday afternoon: a
Los Angeles Rams
team playing good football. Los Angeles’ on-again-off-again franchise hung a forty burger on the woeful, Andrew Luck-less
Indianapolis Colts
. And Indy was a big story here: they are a trash football team capable of competing for the top pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. But do not sleep on the possibility of the Rams — and I swear I’m saying this with a straight face — competing for the NFC West title.
Sweeping generalizations after one week of football are stupid, but not stupider than preseason predictions. And being nimble with respect to adjusting to what you saw in the first week of the season is critical when you move forward. And what we saw was the Rams, who won by a final of 46-9, looking good in a number of different phases.
For starters,
Jared Goff
looks like a different quarterback. It would be hard not to perform better than his ugly rookie season last year, but the leap from Jeff Fisher’s offense to Sean McVay’s paid immediate dividends. Last year, according to Pro Football Focus, Goff went 4 of 17 on targets that were 20 yards or more down the field. No bueno.
It was a totally different story on Sunday, with Goff going vertical with great frequency.
Yes, that is four 20-plus yard passes on Sunday alone, including a dime to rookie receiver
Cooper Kupp
.
Kupp, who finished the day with four catches (on six targets) for 76 yards and a touchdown, is going to be a hot name on the Fantasy waiver wire this week, and with good reason. He could be a PPR monster, and he’s going to become Goff’s security blanket. He’s a legit weapon.
Todd Gurley
had a distinctly better air of happiness to his running on Sunday. He found the end zone, and although he only ran for 40 yards on 19 carries, he looked closer to his old self than he did that miserable 2016 version. It’s pretty clear playing in a middle school offense all of last year wore on him.
And
Sammy Watkins
also finished 5 for 5 in terms of targets and catches. Goff might have multiple viable weapons on this roster now, along with a half decent running game.
Even more important is the defense. Wade Phillips has a long history of quickly improving or completely turning around defenses, and early returns for the 2017 Rams are very promising. Playing without
Aaron Donald
, who finally ended his holdout on Saturday afternoon, the Rams swarmed the overwhelmed Colts and backup quarterback
Scott Tolzien
. L.A.’s defense returned a pair of interceptions for touchdowns and could have had one more. They sacked Tolzien four times and embarrassed the Colts offense so badly that Chuck Pagano forgot who he got beat up by.
Pagano was also forced to reach deep in his empty bag of tricks and throw
Jacoby Brissett
, acquired last weekend in a trade from the
New England Patriots
, on the field after Tolzien was such a nightmare.
The Colts are a major mitigating factor in analyzing the Rams here: do not underestimate how bad this franchise can be in 2017 if
Andrew Luck
plays less than eight games. CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora reported Sunday that Luck will miss several more weeks before a potential return. (The Colts haven’t said half a season is on the table and are being vague about his injury; I think he could miss a lot of time, especially if they get out to a bad record early. Dragging him back to try and go 6-10 would be stupid. So maybe the Colts will do it.)
We don’t want to overreact to the Rams because they throttle-jobbed an overmatched football team. But research has shown good teams often blow out bad opponents, and the Rams flat blew the Colts out. This game was over before halftime even started thinking about creeping around.
The Rams have flaws, including a potential lack of ability to pass block or run block against higher quality defenses. But what’s intriguing about them, at least after a single game, is that they can be competitive on offense, and defensively they could be a real problem once Donald is back in the fold. After seeing the
Seattle Seahawks
,
Arizona Cardinals
and 49ers all struggle in various offensive areas, it is not unreasonable to think of the Rams as a competitor for the division or a wild-card run as soon as this year.
Sacksonville
The same could be said for the
Jacksonville Jaguars
, for a similar reason. They went up against an offense in the
Houston Texans
with major question marks —
Tom Savage
was pulled out of the game before it was 3 p.m. ET, which is not great for a guy that Bill O’Brien spent all training camp talking up.
Deshaun Watson
immediately rolled to a touchdown but then sputtered out; the Texans offense was lethargic and unable to protect either quarterback. The Jaguars would finish the game with a whopping 10 sacks, setting a franchise record for most sacks in a game. New free agency addition
Calais Campbell
finished with 3.5 sacks, the most ever for a Jacksonville player in a single game.
Again, the quality of competition is a factor here. But the Jaguars were up against a divisional opponent and, as you may have noticed above, there is another terrible offensive team in this division. The
Tennessee Titans
did not overpower the
Oakland Raiders
defense the way we expected they might have. The AFC South might be — and stop me if you’ve heard this before — freaking terrible.
The Jaguars heading into the season looked like a team that could be dead in the water because of
Blake Bortles
, but it’s possible that they can limit the negative damage he does this season by virtue of running the ball and playing defense. Campbell was a monster on Sunday, but there were other great performances as well:
Myles Jack
finished with 14 total tackles,
Dante Fowler
picked up a sack and
Yannick Ngakoue
picked up a pair of sacks as well. Add in
Leonard Fournette
rushing for 100 yards on 26 carries and the Jaguars got big-time production from guys they invested heavily in the last two years.
Speaking of Fournette, he did that with the Jaguars’ limited offensive line against a Texans front seven that features J.J. Watt,
Jadeveon Clowney
and
Whitney Mercilus
. The Titans didn’t look like world beaters in terms of running the ball on Sunday afternoon, and the Colts defense looked worse than an FCS opponent Fournette might have drawn at
LSU Tigers
. He could have a field day against Indy.
Again, it is dumb to generalize about season-long outcomes after a single week of the season. But the Jaguars could have an elite defense and could have an above-average running game. If they can keep Bortles from steering the plane straight into the face of the metaphorical mountain, this could be a team that wins 7-9 games. The division is not on lockdown.
Enjoy the moment, Buffalo
Do you know that right now, and for at least one more week, if you go to the official NFL standings page the
Buffalo Bills
are in first place in the AFC East? It’s true, I swear.
The important thing here to remember is, and this may sound familiar, it’s only one week. The Bills got to play the
New York Jets
, who are going to be terrible. The Patriots played the
Kansas City Chiefs
, who are not going to be terrible. The
Miami Dolphins
were displaced by Hurricane Irma (which was really smart because they were set to play the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
, and Tampa ended up getting the brunt of the storm even worse than Miami did) so they will not play until next week.
No chance am I going to sit here and tell you the Bills are going to be better than you think, or that they can win the division. But there were some interesting things coming out of this game.
Zay Jones
did not make a major impact.
Jordan Matthews
sort of did.
LeSean McCoy
fantasy owners are going to hate
Mike Tolbert
, who got 12 carries and vultured a touchdown.
Offensive line issues abound
It only takes one bad aspect of a team to really wreck a potential playoff run, and there were multiple theoretical contenders who flashed some big time concerns about their offensive line’s ability to block this week.
The Texans were mentioned above: their upcoming schedule includes the
Cincinnati Bengals
(short week on TNF), Patriots (road, Bill Belichick potentially against a rookie quarterback), Titans and Chiefs (who looked great in Week 1). A trip to Seattle is a nightmare scenario for a team with a bad offensive line and a question mark at quarterback. If Houston can’t protect Watson (or Tom Savage when Bill O’Brien eventually flips back to him in 45 minutes or whatever), this season could get long, quick. This is a critical stretch coming for Houston, particularly if the Titans and Jaguars can win games early.
The Seahawks spent all day Sunday acting like they were matadors and
Mike Daniels
was an oncoming bull. He and the
Green Bay Packers
defensive line spent the afternoon hanging out in
Russell Wilson
kitchen, sacking him three times and getting seven quarterback hits on the svelte, mobile quarterback. It is not easy to get that much pressure on such a mobile guy, but Wilson was on the run all day.
Seattle’s run game was hardly impressive either. Wilson led them in rushing yards with two carries for 40 yards, while
Chris Carson
produced 39 yards on six carries.
Eddie Lacy
ran the ball five times for three yards. That’s not ideal. Seattle has made a clear decision not to invest in the offensive line and suffered some injuries after that decision. This could be a chickens-come-home-to-roost situation.
The
New York Giants
might be the biggest concern of all these teams. For the second straight year, it looks like
Eli Manning
is going to be sprinting away from constant pressure; the Giants feel compelled to keep trotting out
Ereck Flowers
at left tackle despite his inability to pass protect. It showed up in a big way as the
Dallas Cowboys
, who are not a high-level defense in terms of talent on the pass rush front, were able to consistently get pressure on Eli.
The offensive line’s best job blocking actually came during introductions.
New York ultimately scored three points (the Yankees outscored the Giants and Jets combined on Sunday!), and
Odell Beckham
absence showed up in a big way. Last year the Giants would routinely throw slant after slant after slant in Beckham’s direction — his athleticism and explosiveness would end up resulting in a few jailbreaks and the play design would help to limit the pressure teams could get Manning. Without Beckham on the field, the Giants looked like a trainwreck. Regression could rear its ugly head here.
Early question about replay work
The
Washington Redskins
were outplayed by the
Philadelphia Eagles
for most of Sunday’s game, so the final outcome was justified, but the Redskins were certainly dogged by the officials in the closing minutes against Philadelphia on a review of
Fletcher Cox
defensive touchdown.
With just over a minute and a half remaining the game and trailing 22-17, the Redskins had a 2nd-and-3 approaching midfield, when
Brandon Graham
busted into the backfield and forced Cousins to fumble. Cox scooped the ball and rumbled to the end zone, icing the game for Philly.
One problem: that probably wasn’t a fumble. It almost certainly appeared that Cousins arm was going forward on the play in question.
Washington should have gotten the ball back with an opportunity to convert a 3rd-and-3 with almost 1:30 left on the clock and trailing by five points. Both the Redskins and Eagles were under the impression that the Redskins would get the ball back — Cox had to run off the field because the Eagles had to run a two-point conversion. Cousins was apoplectic about the replay decision.
It’s disconcerting because with that much replay it should be clear that Cousins didn’t fumble the ball. And this was one of the first replays we’ve seen with the centralized setup where the league made the call from the New York offices. It doesn’t look like decision-making is going to be any more consistent.
The football lesson from this particular play, by the way, is that the Eagles can be nasty on defense this year.
Ronald Darby
suffered an injury, and that dings their secondary, which is not good. But the talent on the front seven with Cox, Graham,
Timmy Jernigan
,
Vinny Curry
and
Derek Barnett
— all of whom registered quarterback hits against Cousins — is going to cause major problems for opposing offenses.