It's Monday...

Yes ladies and gentlemen, an especially entertaining week 1 is nearly in the books, the Cowboys are tied for last place, and last night’s exciting ending was capped off by a veteran player who just joined the team and hasn’t even rented an apartment yet.

Also, getting thrown out of the first game of the season, before you’ve even taken your first snap of the season, because you let loose a loogie onto Dak Prescott? That’s peak Philly right there.

Last night’s 81-point Baltimore/Buffalo shootout might seem like it did not involve much defense, but the final score really doesn’t show how much the Ravens completely dominated this game, until they didn’t.

Except for a brief 7-0 lead in the first quarter, Buffalo was playing from behind for the entire night. For three quarters, Baltimore was averaging 9+ yards per snap, and scored every single time they had the ball. The Bills found themselves down by 15 points with about 5 minutes to go in what seemed like an impossible game. Many cold, bored and/or frustrated fans headed for the exits, and missed the biggest comeback of the week.

On a 4th and 2 from about 10 yards out, Josh Allen found himself scrambling to avoid a very small pass rush, because all of his receivers were tightly covered. He lobbed up a bit of a prayer that was above and behind tight end Dawson Knox. Knox got one hand up in the air and deflected the ball, but couldn’t bring in the catch. Normally, that would end the drive, but somehow this deflected pass landed in the arms of a diving Keon Coleman (who’d been making highlight-ready catches all night long) in the corner of the end zone, which cut the lead to 8 points. On the next drive, Derrick Henry lost the football on his own 30 yard line with 3:06 to go. In three plays, the bills quickly turned that one into another touchdown, but then missed the 2-point conversion.

It was at this moment that the Bills defense really woke up, and between three great plays and good clock management, they forced Baltimore to punt the ball back to them with 1:33 to go. Then it was the Josh Allen show. In less than a minute of game-time, he moved the ball all the way down to the Baltimore 10 yard line, where veteran kicker Matt Prater knocked it through for the win as time expired.

41 year old Prater wasn’t a professional football player at the start of last week. He last played for the Arizona Cardinals in week 5 of last season, and it was assumed that the injury that sidelined him last season would ultimately mean retirement. But, he was inexplicably signed to the Bills practice squad on Thursday. This move made sense 24 hours later, when Bills kicker Tyler Bass was put on injured reserve (so he’ll miss at least 4 games, by rule). Matt Prater got the call on Friday that he’d need to put on a uniform in Buffalo on Sunday night. He got on a redeye flight, found a hotel room, suited up and kicked three solid field goals, including the game winner.

“He walks into a special teams meeting and I’m like, ‘Oh, we got a new coach.’ Then I’m like, ‘Wait! that’s Matt Prater.’”

Keep in mind that Baltimore rookie kicker Tyler Loop missed an extra point that I’m sure he wishes he could do over. As a rookie, his job is probably safe, so he’ll be able to make up for it next week at home against the Browns. The Bills will take the bus to New Jersey to play the Jets next Sunday.

You can’t talk about kicking woes without mentioning Jake Moody, who missed from 27 yards and then had a 36 yard attempt blocked. This seems to be a bit of a continuation of his questionable performance from the end of last season, and it is causing much frustration on the sidelines. Though he did end up making a game-tying kick in the 4th and the final extra point, Moody was kept on the bench for two 4th down plays where if the coach had more confidence in him, he’d probably have been asked to kick. The niners are probably shopping for a kicker as we speak.

Neither of these teams looked great out there, but Seattle looked better for most of the game. San Francisco is already worried about some concerning injuries to key players, and though they’re looking at a pretty easy schedule for a few more weeks, they did not look like a team who’s going to dominate much of anything until their best guys get healthy again.

SF goes to New Orleans next Sunday. Seattle goes to Pittsburgh.

Unless you were watching primarily to see how Indy’s newly acquired QB Daniel Jones would debut, this game was unwatchably bad, though it may just be foreshadowing the quality of a number of future Dolphins games this season. Jones did fine, but don’t count your chickens until you’ve seen him play against an NFL-quality defense.

Miami fans will have to endure a very stinky Hard Rock Stadium when they host the Patriots next week. Indianapolis will host the Broncos, in the battle of the horseys.

The Giants kicker is safe, but there are definitely some questions around Russell Wilson’s possible position on the bench next week. Washington’s defense is good, but not that good. Still, the New York offense just looked outclassed all day long, starting with the passer.

On the Washington side, the addition of Deebo Samuels to the roster is exciting, and his presence was certainly felt in Maryland. This team might finally be ready to shake out the stink of Daniel Snyder for good. Maybe that’s something that the national guard can do once they’re done with the raking and mulching?

Washington has a short week before playing in Green Bay on Thursday. The Giants are headed to Dallas.

This was a back and forth game all afternoon, and when the falcons lined up at the end of the 4th to kick a game tying, overtime inducing field goal, the whole audience was looking forward to another quarter of football.

Then Atlanta kicker Younghoe Koo missed. By a mile. And the game was over. It remains unclear whether his time with the Falcons is also over, but his team and coach seemed even more frustrated with Koo than SF is with Moody.

Tampa Bay goes to Houston to play at 4:00pm pacific in the first half of a Monday Night doubleheader. Atlanta goes to Minnesota for the Sunday Night game next week (and if Koo blows it again on a national game, he probably have to buy his own plane ticket home from Minneapolis.)

With that, let’s head to tonight’s game…

Tonight, the Minnesota Vikings travel to Chicago to take on the Bears on the ryegrass-overseeded GameOnGrass-backed Tahoma-31 bermudagrass of Soldier Field.

Soldier Field is both the smallest and the oldest currently-operating NFL stadium. There are currently plans to build a domed waterfront stadium in Arlington Heights, but the Bears (who have been playing there since 1971) will likely be playing at Soldier Field for the next few seasons, at least.

The field itself was installed in 2022 less than a week before the season opener, because of the previous Kentucky bluegrass field’s atrocious condition and appearance during a nationally televised preseason game. In all fairness, it is difficult to grow good grass through a Chicago winter, but the field at Soldier Field has been a low point since the place opened in 1924 (and the astroturf years of the 70s did not make it any better).

The game tonight is going to be interesting for its quarterback matchup. Tonight is Vikings QB JJ McCarthy’s first NFL start. He was picked in the first round of the 2024 draft, but tore his meniscus during preseason and had surgery that ended his rookie year before he played a single real snap. Tonight, he’ll start for the first time. On the Bears side, we have DC-native Caleb Williams, who was also a 1st round pick in 2024. He is returning for his second year, but he has a new coach (Ben Johnson — formerly the Offensive Coordinator for the Lions, and possibly the best OC in the league) and offensive system to show off.

Meanwhile Minnesota’s 2nd year defensive coordinator Brian Flores will be dialing up his usual mix of confusing defensive looks and spreads, and really testing the Bears offensive line. The Chicago O-Line has been porous recently, but in the off season, they made some trades to try to beef it up and give Williams some room to throw.

Last season, the NFC North sent three teams to the playoffs. This game, with young quarterbacks, new coaches, and a decidedly different style of dynamic defense should make for a great preview of what this conference will look like this season. It should be fun to watch.

The Vikings are favored by 1, with a 43.5 over/under. The smart money likes the Bears, but takes the over instead.