It was the Bills, but the Chargers did what they needed to do...at least for a half.
In the first half they had 5 drives, 4 red zone trips, 4 TDs. Up 28-6 at halftime. Then they went to sleep in the 2nd half getting outscored 3-14 for the final 31-20 score.
Ken Wisenhunt added a wrinkle to the Chargers running attack putting in some misdirection plays. He even had RBs Austin Eckler and Melvin Gordon on the field at the same time. Eckler rushed for a career high 77 yards. Gordon's untouched 20 yard TD was off a counter. Look closer and you'll see an unbalanced line with both OTs on the right side (#76 is LT Russell Okung lined up on the far right. #88 is TE Virgil Green lined up at LT). Bills jumped the play thinking it was going to be a jet sweep to the right.
Does Joey Bosa make that much of a difference? I'm giving Gus Bradley credit for designing some cleverly schemed blitzes involving rookie safety Derwin James who has two sacks and a couple pressures in the first two games, but this team didn't need to blitz last season to put pressure on the QB. Buffalo rookie QB Josh Allen was pretty comfortable in the pocket in the 2nd half despite the Chargers big lead. A situation Bosa and Melvin Ingram fed on last year. Ingram did register 1.5 sacks and the Chargers had 5 total, but watching the game there were too many plays where Allen had all day to throw. Report is that Bosa has a bruised bone in his left foot and his return date is still unknown.
On a more happy note, TE Hunter Henry was seen working out in a knee brace this week. It's been just 4 months since he tore his ACL, but it was reported that he was doing some stop-and-start and change of direction drills. Still too early to say when he'll be back, but the odds of Henry seeing the field this season is getting better.
Patrick Mahomes!
Wow! I understand that he can't possibly keep this pace up. 10 TDs in two games is on a pace to throw 80 TD passes in a season which would shatter Peyton Manning's 55 TD record. If Mahomes averages just 2 TDs the rest of the way he would be at 38. So far any question regarding releasing Alex Smith has been rendered mute.
Fitz-Magic!!
Did anyone start Ryan Fitzpatrick in Week 1 or 2 on their fantasy team? I didn't think so. Back-to-back 400 yard, 4 TD games for Fitz. You also have to give it to him for his post game look after beating Philly 27-21 in week 2. Check it out here.
The Saints defense was supposed to be better this year, but Fitz lit them up. Then he backed it up against the defending champs. He gets to face the Steelers next week who Mahomes just carved up for 6 TDs. If he has another great game do you start Jameis Winston who is expected to be ready for Week 4?
AFC Front runners
The Jaguars were without their top WR (Marqise Lee) and starting RB (Leonard Fournette) and still beat the Pats easily 31-20. Patriots have the Chiefs, Packers, and Vikings on the schedule. Right now, I don't see them beating any of those teams. I still think the Pats make the playoffs since the AFC East is pretty weak. While I'll admit it's not smart going against Brady-Bilichick, especially this early in the season, but the Jags took Rob Gronkowski out of the game (2 catches, 15 yards) and Blake Bortles torched the Pats D for 377 yards and 4 TDs.
Announcers Not Knowing the Rules
Some of these guys are ex-players and have also called the game for a long time. So in tribute to the famous words "I didn't know the game could end in a tie," here are three plays where the announcers should have know better.
In the Chargers-Bills game TE Virgil Green lost control of the ball in bounds as he was going out of bounds. Crowd went crazy. Bills challenged. The refs upheld the call on the field, which was Chargers maintaining possession. The announcers watched the slo-mo replay which showed a clear loss of a position by Green before his knee touched out of bounds and claimed the officials made the wrong call. The rule states that if a player touches the ball while out of bounds, the play is dead. One of the smartest plays I ever saw was on a fumble bouncing towards the out of bounds line. Instead of trying to jump on the ball, the player purposely stepped out of bounds and stretched out to touch the ball. His team didn't recover it, but because he was out of bounds and touched the ball the play was dead and they retained possession. Same thing here. Even though Green lost possession he still had contact with the ball when his knee hit out of bounds.
In the same game, the Bills punt returner muffed a punt. A scramble for the ball caused it to go into the end zone where the Bills recovered. Announcers said it should have been a safety. The refs called it correctly as a touch back with the Bills getting the ball at the 20. A muffed punt is not a fumble (you have to gain possession for it to be a fumble) and thus the recovery in the end zone is a touch back. Now had the Chargers recovered it would have been a TD because the ball was touched by the receiving team first.
During the Chiefs-Steelers game, Big Ben threw a pass while crossing the line of scrimmage. Announcers said it should have been called back because the ball had crossed the line. The rule states that the passer has to be across the line of scrimmage for it to be an illegal forward pass. That's all of the passer. If even his foot is behind the line it's a legal forward pass.
NFLs New Roughing the Passer Rule
Rule 12, Section 1, Article 13 (2)
A rushing defender is prohibited from committing such intimidating and punishing acts as “stuffing” a
passer into the ground or unnecessarily wrestling or driving him down after the passer has thrown the ball, even if the rusher makes his initial contact with the passer within the one-step limitation provided for in (1) above. When tackling a passer who is in a defenseless posture (e.g., during or just after throwing a pass), a defensive player must not unnecessarily or violently throw him down and land on top of him with all or most of the defender’s weight. Instead, the defensive player must strive to wrap up or cradle the passer with the defensive player’s arms.
So what did Clay Mathews do that violated this rule? Mathews didn't lift Cousins, he grabbed him with one arm and took him down. He didn't lift him. He didn't drive him into the ground. In fact, Mathews put his free arm down to keep from putting his full weight on Cousins. He didn't "Burp" him...whatever the definition of that is. I'm guessing that's when the defender wraps his arms around the QB and lifts him off the ground before slamming him to the turf, but that sounds more like the Heimlich then a Burp. I'm not going to say it definitively cost GB the win...Diggs still has to make the TD catch and 2 pt conversion...but I don't know what else Mathews can do to let up on that play.
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