What happened on Thursday to Hoodie and Brady is quite rare.
Alex Smith and the Kansas City Chiefs handled them rather easily and that just
doesn’t happen in Foxboro on championship banner unfurling, season opening,
Thursday nights. This game started off very much according to script after a
rather showy ceremony where the Pats celebrated all their championships,
including the latest one. They earned it of course and we can’t really
complain. Not after what the Falcons did in the Super Bowl. Then the game
started and Brady drove them down the field to score as he always does. The
Chiefs fumbled the ball and gave it right back to the Pats on Kareem Hunt’s first NFL carry. What an inauspicious beginning to Hunt’s career
if you are a superstitious person like me.
This is how Pats have been wining for years. They are the better team
most of the days, but they don’t have to be. They just don’t make mistakes and they
induce the other team in to such mistakes. In football, more than any other
sport, mistakes make a huge difference between winning and losing, sometimes winning
and losing big. The ball and breaks always seem to go the Pats way. It’s no
luck if it keeps happening repeatedly because that means the Pats are doing things a certain
way causing the ball to bounce their way.
The Pats drove the ball again after the fumble and seemed to
score on an impressive Gronk reception. Seemed like any other typical Thursday night in
Foxboro. But the review pulled the ball back as it showed that the ball hit the ground. The drive
surprisingly stalled as the Chiefs stopped the Pats when Hoodie went for it on
4th down. This was great for the Chiefs who made the best use of this event. A Pats score there to go up 14-0, this game might have been a completely different story. Instead, the Chiefs steadied the boat and Hunt got going. They went toe-to-toe with the
champs, cut down on the big mistakes, and kept scoring. Pats defense didn’t look
great. As the second half got going, It became obvious that the Alex Smith
led offense had the talent and juice to score. Alex Smith hit Tyreke Hill and
Kareen Hunt on long bombs and this KC chiefs offense looked much more potent
than it had looked anytime during the last few years. They may have some special weapons, though Jamaal Charles was no joke for stretches during those years.
Their defense was better than the Pats for sure and got some key stops. They
won it going away at the end with Alex Smith putting up gaudy numbers like Tom
Brady and Brady looking a little, shall we say, old. It is too early to
write-off Brady. But he does have to get old at some point. Lets see if it is
this year.
It is good to have football back and to sit on the couch and
watch a game that mattered. Of course, more games that matter are coming our
way on Sunday. Not to mention, college football is getting going as well. The
first 2 weeks of college football used to be for non-conference pasties. Now, they
are switching that up too a little bit to have a strong kick-off week. They
play a few big non-conference plays before going into the pasties for a week or
two and then jump back into conference play. For instance, Alabama played Florida
State last week on prime time and settled into Fresno State this week. Both are non-conference team, both FSUs, but completely different football pedigree. Of
course, for Alabama, they all seem like pasties anyways. Coming back to the NFL, the Seattle at Green Bay and NYG at Dallas games are
the big ones. I can’t believe Ezekiel Elliott got out of the suspension this
year via the legal option much like Brady did 2 years back. I thought he didn’t
have the time to pull it off, but the court somehow obliged and gave an early
Christmas gift to a whole bunch of risk-taking fantasy football owners who
picked EE in round 2 or higher. Good for
EE and his teams, both real and fantasy.
I still don’t think EE gets off the suspension as the
arbitrator actually upheld the 6-gamer. The only question is, is he going to
serve it later this season or next season like Brady did. Unless the courts go a step or two further
and suspend the suspension, he will miss 6 games at some point. I doubt the courts will do anything more to help EE, but then again, I am not an expert on
law or the judges in Texas courts. All I know is, EE is a truly elite player,
but this is a bad message to send to the society if he did indeed beat-up the
woman. The guy seems like a bad dude and hope he changes his ways. It will also
be interesting to see how the players handle these rules in the next NFL CBA. Right
now, the Commish has a lot of power and he is not shy about using them. On the
field, week 1 will be exciting for everybody. There is hope and excitement
everywhere including some of the inferior teams. I am especially curious to see
how the San Diego chargers look, what does Leonard Fournette do in Jacksonville
and Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco do to their respective teams. The 49’ers host
Cam and a tough Panthers’ team, but what can the offense can do? Last but not
the least, I am always ready for some Brees. Can the Saints compete this year
or they just going to be an offensive juggernaut as always with an added
side-show in Adrian Peterson? We will
not have all the answers this weekend, but we will start to learn a lot. And
sorry Browns and Jets fans, I still can’t think of anything to get excited about your teams,
