Tag: 2023 NFL Week 3

Tyreek Hill’s wholehearted endorsement of Tua Tagovailoa was so humble

Tyreek Hill showed so much confidence in his QB with this classy gesture.

Amidst a blistering 3-0 start, the Miami Dolphins have become the talk of the NFL. Their latest stunt? An unprecedented 70-20 shellacking (!) of the Denver Broncos in which they scored 10 offensive touchdowns. That is not a typo. Tua Tagovailoa and Co. reached paydirt on 10 separate occasions against a purported “professional” Denver defense.

Tagovailoa himself was predictably sharp. The fourth-year starter completed 23-of-26 passes for 309 yards and four scores. And frankly, perhaps the current leading MVP candidate achieved it with little resistance.

As such, after the game, Tagovailoa earned quite a ringing endorsement from another important Dolphin — Tyreek Hill. In a response to compliments of his own game from Robert Griffin III, Hill deferred to Tagovailoa, calling the Miami signal-caller “special”:

If Hill, a no-doubt future Hall of Fame receiver, is all the way in on Tagovailoa, then we should all be. The Dolphins resemble an early AFC favorite for the Super Bowl — in no small part thanks to this dynamic duo. It looks like both are very much on the same page.

The Titans were tired of Myles Garrett wrecking their offense so they hilariously sent 2 guys to shadow him

The Titans respected Myles Garrett’s dominance so much that they abandoned traditional offense.

Three games into the 2023 season, the incomparable Myles Garrett looks capable of winning his first career Defensive Player of the Year Award. (And he won’t have to unleash his nasty crossover to do it.) On Sunday, amidst a one-man rampage, the Tennessee Titans showed they were tired of Garrett’s pure domination in an unconventional way.

In a game that saw Garrett amass five quarterback hits, three-and-a-half sacks, and three tackles-for-loss, the Titans just threw their hands up by the fourth quarter. In the name of trying to sustain any offense against an unblockable monster, Tennessee started shadowing Garrett with not one but two blockers.

I am not exaggerating. They literally had two people follow Garrett wherever he went across their offensive formation. But in a 20-3 affair at the time (Tennessee eventually 27-3), the effort was already too little, too late.

Oh, and they even got a delay of game penalty for this sequence:

Garrett has long been one of the NFL’s more terrifying forces off the edge. In 2023, with the Browns’ star-studded elite defense finally playing up to snuff, he’s deservedly getting more shine than ever.

Justin Fields’ introspective answer about appreciating ‘little things’ after Bears’ latest loss was so sad

The Bears should be ashamed of what they’ve done to Justin Fields.

After an avalanche of catastrophe, the Chicago Bears hit a new rock bottom on Sunday. The juggernaut Kansas City Chiefs ran the Bears off the field and off of America’s television screens. Chicago was so utterly uncompetitive that not even a megastar like Taylor Swift made it worth keeping an eye on the team.

Standing out from the latest Bears’ exercise in frustration was Justin Fields. Once expected to take a monster leap in his third NFL season, Fields has been lost in 2023. On Sunday, in particular, the 24-year-old quarterback completed just 11-of-22 passes for an abysmal 99 yards, one touchdown, and one pick. There was a low point where he even needed to be saved by teammate D.J. Moore after seemingly suffering a head injury.

Fields spoke candidly to a gathered media contingent following Chicago’s latest defeat. And in an extended answer about what he’s learned during the Bears’ challenging 0-3 start, the signal caller sounded like a broken quarterback looking for a silver lining that probably isn’t there anymore.

Fields was once hailed as the franchise quarterback the Bears had desperately been seeking for decades. An electric weapon who did all the “hard” things easy, he presented a tantalizing game-changing element Chicago never had under center. Three games into his third season, he looks like yet another bust at football’s most important position for a bottom-feeding franchise that has no idea what it’s doing. And, based on his short speech here, he certainly seems to know it.

At the very least, it sounds like Fields might want a chance to prove what he can do somewhere else. Because he’s probably (definitely?) not going to get the opportunity as a member of the Bears.

A testy Sean Payton cut a reporter off mid-question after the Broncos surrendered 70 points

Sean Payton can clearly feel the walls closing in.

It is almost October, and Sean Payton’s Denver Broncos have yet to record a win. Sunday’s embarrassing laugh of a loss to the Miami Dolphins — where Denver surrendered an unthinkable 70 points — was unquestionably an early rock bottom.

And based on Payton’s shortness after the game, he certainly understood that reality.

A reporter started asking Payton about the Broncos’ historic margin of defeat. But before they got to their question, they tried adding additional context to what they were saying. A frustrated Payton didn’t even let the reporter get to their question.

He cut them off and moved on without a second thought:

In a way, even with the Denver Nuggets’ recent NBA title, the Broncos are still easily the most popular team in town. Denver is a football city when it comes to sports first. For Payton to sit winless three weeks in after all the hype about his arrival in the offseason is a failure. And he knows it.

The above clip reads like a guy who might already be in over his head.

NFL Week 3 Awards: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce weren’t enough to keep the Bears on TV

The Bears are so awful that even Taylor Swift can’t keep attention on them.

The Chicago Bears continue to reach new levels of futility. And their descent into darkness doesn’t seem like it’s ending any time soon.

On a visit to the Kansas City Chiefs Sunday, the Bears were, quite literally, ran off the field after a half. Matters grew so grim for Chicago that Fox decided to switch off their game (a nationally televised matchup!). Mind you, dear reader, this was a game that featured Taylor Swift (and her budding romance with Travis Kelce) as well as football’s best quarterback, Patrick Mahomes.

That’s right. The Bears — the NFL’s worst team — are so dreadful that the producers of a major American sports network decided they weren’t worth keeping on the TV for the sake of live shots of one of the world’s biggest music stars. Talk about an awkward situation for the league’s charter franchise, which has now lost 14 consecutive games dating back to 2022.

If Chicago loses three more games, they’ll be tied for the seventh-longest streak in NFL history since the NFL-AFL merger in 1966. If they lose six more games, they’ll be tied for the third-longest losing streak. And if they unthinkably lose out the rest of the season — 14 games! — they will be owners of the worst losing streak the league has seen in almost six decades.

Call it a hunch, but I have a feeling many network executives will want the Bears off TVs in the coming weeks. They’re just not worth the trouble right now.

Fox switched away from the Chiefs’ blowout to protect America from watching the Bears

The Bears got the plug pulled on them in a game that involved Patrick Mahomes and Taylor Swift.

For a moment, it felt like the Chicago Bears might have faint hope. They forced the Kansas City Chiefs to punt on their first possession, and maybe, this time, things would be different. Instead, the ceiling caved in on what might be the NFL’s worst team.

Kansas City cruised to an easy 34-0 first half, making the Bears look like a team that played in a completely different league. Justin Fields’ offense never quite got going. Matt Eberflus’ defense had positively no answer for Patrick Mahomes. And the Bears continued to flail around in a disaster season that was clearly already circling the drain. It got so bad through 30 minutes of play that Fox actually switched away from the game — one that involved Mahomes AND music megastar Taylor Swift — and which was originally a nationally televised contest.

After all, who could possibly want to continue watching the Bears bumble around hopelessly?

This is the state of the Bears in 2023. Even the major networks are giving up on their hopes, and it isn’t even October.

Bears’ abysmal first half against the Chiefs had fans convinced they’re the NFL’s worst team

The Bears are hopeless and broken just three weeks into the 2023 season.

No one expected the Chicago Bears to upset the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. In fact, most probably expected the defending Super Bowl champions to cruise over one of the league’s worst teams. And even that feels like an understatement of how abysmal the Bears looked against the Chiefs in Kansas City.

In the first half, Chicago ran 22 offensive plays, scored zero points, and averaged 3.9 yards per play. The Chiefs, meanwhile, accumulated over 300 yards of offense and scored 34 points seemingly without breaking a sweat. And that is just one overarching indication of the chasm between what looks like the NFL’s worst team (the Bears) and a team that could repeat with another Super Bowl (the Chiefs):

Remarkable work by the Bears!

It’s just three weeks into the season, but the Bears are probably already in “tank for Caleb Williams or Drake Maye” territory with another potential No. 1 overall pick in April. They haven’t been remotely competitive and resemble a squad who has — for all intents and purposes — quit without a fight. This tough Chicago situation, as many NFL fans started to believe, probably won’t get much better any time soon.

The longest losing streak (between years) in NFL history is 26. These Bears, theoretically, could break that mark if they don’t win before the end of the season. It is that bad in Chicago.

Robert Saleh’s endorsement of Zach Wilson as the Jets’ starting QB couldn’t have been more hollow

There’s simply no way Robert Saleh actually believes in Zach Wilson.

After Aaron Rodgers’ devastating Achilles injury, the New York Jets were forced to turn to disappointing former top draft pick Zach Wilson. The results, at least thus far, have been predictably catastrophic.

In his first start in Rodgers’ absence, Wilson threw three picks in a blowout loss to the Dallas Cowboys. Wilson wasn’t really much better in a winnable home game — on paper, anyway — against the division-rival New England Patriots on Sunday. Wilson was horrific, completing 18-of-36 passes for just 157 yards in a 15-10 defeat to help drop the Jets to 1-2. Anyone who had hoped adjacency to Aaron Rodgers during the offseason would’ve helped Wilson grow should be shelving those unrealistic thoughts now.

After the Jets sputtered about, head coach Robert Saleh was asked about keeping Wilson in as New York’s starter. While he didn’t tear Wilson down, Saleh’s answer couldn’t have possibly sounded less confident:

That does not sound like a coach who believes in his quarterback. In fact, the use of “right now” sounds like Saleh is just hoping New York finds someone else to salvage what is quickly resembling a lost 2023 season. Wilson is predictably sinking the Jets, and they’re running out of time and excuses.

NFL fans all had Dan Orlovsky jokes after Gardner Minshew stepped out of the end zone for a safety

This embarrassing club now includes Dan Orlovsky, Jimmy Garoppolo, and Gardner Minshew.

Every week, NFL quarterbacks manage to remind us of the atrocious hair-pulling play they’re capable of. But the arguably worst position to be in is channeling former long-time backup Dan Orlovsky — who once infamously stepped out of bounds in the end zone for a safety.

The Indianapolis Colts’ Gardner Minshew has now joined this notorious club.

As the Colts tried to mount a road comeback against the Baltimore Ravens, Minshew found himself trying to mount a drive from Indianapolis’s own end zone. And when he finished his drop back on a third-and-long play, Minshew seemed to forget he didn’t have all that much room to work with — to disastrous results.

The veteran backup clearly stepped out of bounds and gifted the Ravens a safety, which ended up being crucial in a 19-19 affair that went to overtime.

Oof:

After Jimmy Garoppolo joined this club last year, Orlovsky was no longer alone in his embarrassment anyway. But the NFL analyst still celebrated Minshew adding his own unfortunate lack of awareness to his resume:

Good for Orlovsky. You knew, eventually, he wouldn’t be the only person to have that end-zone safety blemish on their rap sheet.

Video caught a Falcons fan looking miserable in a sea of Lions fans and it was so relatable

We’ve all been here and it’s the worst feeling.

We’ve all been there. We love our team so much that we travel cross country to support them, regardless of the road environment. But when the game actually comes, being stuck amongst the home fans is one of the worst, more alienating feelings imaginable.

Take this Atlanta Falcons fan in attendance for their game against the Detroit Lions on Sunday. As the Falcons somewhat sputtered about in a 10-3 affair, the Fox broadcast camera caught him with a towel over his head while a raucous Lions crowd roared on a crucial early third down.

At the very least, at that specific moment, he did not appear to be having a good time. And we totally get it:

Our condolences to this guy, who probably spent a hefty penny even just traveling to Detroit. You’d hope his Falcons could at least play better and give him more joy in a hostile sports environment.