NFL Week 5 Thoughts...Winds of Change

Things are changing in Cleveland. That kick doesn't make it over the upright in any other game prior to Baker Mayfield taking the field.Yea, I know that Mayfield has nothing to do with the kick, but that kind of kick would have been destined to fail in any other season.

Before the season I was talking to a co-worker who is a Chief's fan. We talked about how one player sometimes changes the whole attitude of a team. Joe Montana changed everything for the 49ers. Tom Brady turned a so-so Pats team into Champions. I'm not going to go there yet, but right now, Mahomes and Mayfield are looking like the next "saviors."

Mahomes had his worse game (0 TDs, 2 INTs) and yet the Chiefs beat the Jags easily. KCs defense was MIA so far, but they showed up in Week 5. Jags were the AFC favorite going into Week 5, but the Chiefs have to be the top AFC now.

If you didn't know the distance and just watched the Graham Gano FG without sound it just looks like a routine kick. Down the middle and cleared the crossbar easily. Knowing that it's a 63 yard FG for the win in overtime...go crazy Carolina fans!!! The person that added the Titanic music is a genius.

Remember when the Colts went for it on 4th down and lost the game because they didn't make it? Yea, that was just last week against the Houston Texans in OT. So this week, Dallas has 4th and 1 on the Texans' 42 and decide to punt. 4 plays later, Deshaun Watson hits DeAndre Hopkins for 49 yards that sets up the Texans' game winning FG in OT. In poker they talk about pot odds. Basically it's a risk-to-reward factor on whether you should make the call or not. Frank Reich and Jason Garrett apparently never played serious poker.

Reich took too much of a risk going for it on 4th and 4 on their won 43. There was no guarantee of scoring even if he did make it. Garrett should have gone for it on 4th and 1 on the Texans' 42. K Brett Maher made a 48 yarder earlier in the 4th. Anything inside the Texans' 35 would have given Maher a decent shot of winning the game.

Yea, the Colts might have made it and the Cowboys may not have, but the risk-to-reward made the proper call to go for it NO for the Colts and YES for the Cowboys.


That was the Chargers best game so far this year.

Chargers D put a lot more pressure on the QB with LT Corey Liuget back from a 4 game suspension. Raiders didn't get into the end zone until a near meaningless TD in the 4th. Raiders biggest threat to score happened in the 3rd. DE Melvin Ingram made a great play on a defensive wrinkle where he dropped back into the passing lane and intercepted a Carr pass in the end zone. Raiders didn't convert a 3rd down in the first half.

Was it because of Liuget being back in the lineup? I didn't see anything that points to that, but I also didn't see anything that changed from the previous weeks. The Chargers blitzed less, but they didn't have to. All 3 sacks came from the D-Line. My first thought was "it's the Raiders," but they put up 45 points and 565 yards against an improving Browns' defense last week.

Despite Stub Hub not being a home field advantage the Chargers are 7-1 in their last 8 games there (the loss against KC in Week1).

I'm tired of articles talking about how the visiting teams fans outnumber the Chargers fans like it was something new since moving to LA (I won't even give one a link). Raiders fans have out numbered Charger fans even in San Diego. People writing these articles were never Chargers followers or they would know that anytime a popular team or other California team visited SD their fans outnumbered Charger fans at the game.

The Chargers won't play at Stub Hub again until Nov 18th. They do have a home game on Oct 21st, but that game is in London. They have the bye in Week 8, so it gives them a break in the middle. Not sure if the long hiatus from LA will be a disadvantage or not, but if they can pull off winning all 4 games they may see a few more Charger fans when they get back to Stub Hub. They're all winnable games (@Browns, Titans in London, @Seattle, @Oakland).

I'll end this post with a tip of the cap to Chargers Owner Alex Spanos who passed away today. He had been dealing with dementia since 2008. Pulled this from an article posted on CBS Sacramento...

Born in Stockton on Sept. 28, 1923, Spanos took an unlikely road to NFL ownership. After working in his father’s bakery and serving in the Air Force during World War II, Spanos borrowed $800 from a banker to buy a truck from which he sold sandwiches to migrant farm workers in the San Joaquin Valley. He began investing in real estate and started a construction company that mostly built apartment buildings, eventually expanding its footprint across the Sunbelt and Midwest.
Spanos and his wife were generous philanthropists, giving to many causes related to hospitals, universities and youth programs. He gave extensively to the University of the Pacific, his alma mater in Stockton, where the Alex G. Spanos Center houses the Tigers’ basketball and volleyball teams.

 I didn't know him and words seem inadequate to express the sorrow felt by the Spanos family today.