{"id":28388,"date":"2021-10-18T18:06:03","date_gmt":"2021-10-18T22:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=28388"},"modified":"2021-10-18T18:09:21","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T22:09:21","slug":"even-a-low-drama-nfl-sunday-taught-us-a-lot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2021\/10\/18\/even-a-low-drama-nfl-sunday-taught-us-a-lot\/","title":{"rendered":"Even a low-drama NFL Sunday taught us a lot"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Matt Meusel<\/em><\/p>\n

After being blessed with five straight Sundays of close games and down to the wire finishes, we finally got our first stinker during the early slate of NFL games on Sunday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Six of the seven games in the early kickoff window ended in double digit deficits, making it clear that we may need to rethink a few teams that got off to good starts during the first month of the year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Los Angeles Chargers<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Woof. Hand up, I thought this team had all the momentum in the world and had a real chance of winning at Baltimore. It wasn\u2019t even close. The Ravens ran all over L.A. en route to a dominating 34-6 victory. <\/span><\/p>\n

Baltimore is the best rushing offense in the NFL and the Chargers had a hard time stopping the run all year. In that sense, I can\u2019t say I\u2019m surprised the Ravens rushed for 187 yards and three scores, but I am surprised at the play of Justin Herbert and how he gave his team no chance to win. <\/span><\/p>\n

After being in the MVP discussion through five weeks and deservedly so, Herbert didn\u2019t show up to play and it cost his team a crucial loss that could have major implications for playoff seeding when we reach the end of the regular season. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the meantime, Baltimore looks like the team to beat in the AFC.<\/span><\/p>\n

Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

My opinion on this team is still the same. Their defense has massive problems and the quarterback is having a turnover problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, it was still very important to get this win and get back to .500, but they did it against a Washington team whose defense fell off a cliff from last year and their starting quarterback is still Taylor Heinicke. Everyone on Monday morning will be saying \u201cThe Chiefs are back\u201d but I think we need to see a lot more consistency from them to believe this is still a Super Bowl contender.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mahomes threw another two interceptions on Sunday, making it six on the year. If Ryan Fitzpatrick is playing for Washington today, Kansas City would be 2-4 and in an awful spot.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why are the Arizona Cardinals still not getting the attention they deserve? <\/strong><\/h4>\n

Kyler Murray has led this team to a 6-0 record with four games on the road. Sunday\u2019s score against the Browns looked better than it actually was if it wasn\u2019t for a Baker Mayfield Hail Mary touchdown to end the first half. <\/span><\/p>\n

The MVP is Murray\u2019s to lose a third of the way through the season and this team has so many weapons at his disposal. Arizona will be 7-0 after they play Houston next week before another big test against Green Bay on a Thursday night. They have taken the mantle as the most fun team to watch and until a defense is able to figure anything out to slow down Murray and his cast of characters, this team will be sitting pretty going into the playoffs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Featured Image: Kyler Murray of the Arizona Cardinals attempts a pass during a game against the Washington Football Team on September 20, 2020. Photo: All-Pro Reels via Wikimedia Commons.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Matt Meusel After being blessed with five straight Sundays of close games and down to the wire finishes, we finally got our first stinker during the early slate of NFL games on Sunday.\u00a0 Six of the seven games in the early kickoff window ended in double digit deficits, making it clear that we may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18588,"featured_media":28389,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1024,1050,1032,1035,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18588"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28388"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28391,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28388\/revisions\/28391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}