From two quarterbacks potentially having career-defining moments to another being at the centre of an “unfair” chant from his own fanbase, this week’s NFL action was not short of drama.
The spotlight on rookie coach Nathaniel Hackett’s game management is only burning brighter while two Super Bowl contenders have contrasting starts to the season.
Read on for all the key talking points from week two of the NFL!
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‘UNFAIR’ CHANTS POSE BIGGER QUESTION FOR STUTTERING STEELERS
Steelers fans have made their thoughts clear. It may just be two games into the season, but it is already time for rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett.
Mitch Trubisky managed just 168 passing yards for one touchdown and an interception on the weekend in a 17-14 defeat to New England, following up what was hardly an inspiring first-up win over Cincinnati.
Pittsburgh has only been able to put up 243 yards of total offence in the first two weeks and while the offensive line and offensive coordinator Matt Canada can take a share of the blame, the spotlight is squarely on the quarterback situation.
The crowd at Acrisure Stadium started chanting for ‘Pickett’ during the loss to the Patriots, although former Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger thinks those calls are premature.
“They started chanting ‘Kenny’ [and] I just don’t think it’s fair that it happened to Mitch today because I wouldn’t blame Mitch for the performance today,” he said on his podcast.
“I don’t think he was bad – did he miss a couple throws? Yes, every quarterback does. I just saw Aaron Rodgers miss a throw and he’s one of the greatest to ever play. It’s going to happen sometimes.”
Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin said he would “exercise appropriate patience” with Trubisky and the offence, although that admission in itself may further support the calls to start Pickett sooner than later.
After all, if you are taking a patient approach with the offence, surely it makes more sense to put a rookie in that sort of situation, where there are no expectations for immediate success?
“If we’re going to be patient, why aren’t we patient with a rookie?” asked ex-NFL center Jeff Saturday on ESPN’s ‘Get Up’.
“If you’re going to have the vet in there, you have him in there for a reason — that you can make challenging throws at appropriate times. Right now, if you have him in handcuffs not allowing him to do what he needs to do, you’re hurting your football team.
“I understand why they went with Trubisky, I thought it was the best play, [but] not if you’re telling me we can’t challenge the Patriots down the field because they’re really good at stopping big plays. If we’re going to be patient, let’s be patient with a rookie.”
Well, it is obviously more complicated than that, particularly when Trubisky — a six-year veteran — does not even have the freedom to be “audible” on every play.
Instead it is Canada calling the shots in an offence that lacks creativity and unique design, meaning it could be easy to see Pickett’s development and confidence only suffer if he was thrown in.
Joe Flacco was on the wrong end of similar chants last week though and it seems like winning is the easiest way to silence it.
FUNDAMENTAL FAILURES EXPOSE FIRST-YEAR COACH
Speaking of chants, rookie coach Nathaniel Hackett was the recipient of a humiliating one on the weekend.
First, he took the ball out of Russell Wilson’s hands to attempt a 64-yard field goal against the Seahawks. You know, the quarterback the Broncos signed to a $245 million extension?
But if that was not bad enough, the Denver home crowd started to chant ‘4… 3…. 2… 1’ as new coach Hackett’s issues with game management continued against the Texans.
The Broncos conceded 13 penalties in the 16-9 win, with the worst of the lot coming when an Hackett was hit with a delay of game when struggling to decide whether to go for it on a fourth-and-2 in the third quarter.
And with just under eight minutes left in the game, Hackett had to use his last timeout to avoid another delay of game penalty.
“I don’t blame them,” Hackett said of the crowd’s reaction.
“I would be booing myself. I know I can be a lot better. I just want to make sure that I’m as efficient as I can possibly be and communicate the best way that I can. Up to this point, I haven’t done that.”
It was refreshing to see Hackett own his shortcomings instead of directing blame elsewhere, but at the moment it seems like he will be making these kinds of apologies every week.
“The crowd was counting down the play clock, partially to help and partially to mock. This is not good,” ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio said on NBC Sports.
“Nobody else does this. Here you are, two games into your coaching career working for owners who didn’t hire you, and you are failing at one of the most fundamental aspects of the job. Especially when you are the head coach and the play caller, you pick the play, you communicate the play.”
ARE THE FALCONS WASTING ‘RARE’ TALENT?
Any frustrated fantasy football managers out there who took Kyle Pitts early in their draft, thinking he would be a set-and-forget option at the tricky tight end position?
Well, it may be a small sample space, but the first two weeks of the season are a major concern — for both Pitts’ fantasy owners and Falcons fans.
This was supposed to be the year that Pitts broke out, having put up the second-most receiving yards among rookie tight ends in league history last season.
Instead Pitts, who was the highest-drafted tight end in NFL history, has seen just 10 targets across two games with rookie receiver Drake London instead getting all the attention.
That does not look like changing anytime soon either according to Falcons coach Arthur Smith, who was asked about the 21-year-old’s lack of involvement in the offence.
His response, well it went viral online, and not for the right reasons.
“It’s not fantasy football, we’re just trying to win,” he said. The problem? Atlanta is not doing a whole lot of winning right now either.
Smith did also say that Pitts is “a huge part of our offence” and that he “has a huge impact on the game” but neither has been true this season.
Falcons quarterback Marcus Mariota said Pitts is “going to get his targets” and that it will change “week in and week out” depending on game flow and how the opposition defence matches up.
For a player of Pitts’ talents though, surely the Falcons can do more to get him involved regardless of what the game flow is saying and Smith knows it too.
“He’s rare,” the Falcons coach said of Pitts in October last year.
“When you put the fourth pick on somebody, that’s a lot of expectations. I’ve seen some guys not be able to handle it, but fortunately Kyle has handled it. He’s exactly who we thought he was.”
At the moment though, Pitts the opposite of what we thought he would be this season.
IS THIS THE YEAR TUA AND HURTS BREAK OUT?
Be it injuries, poor play calling, an inferior offensive line — there have been plenty of reasons why Tua Tagovailoa has not succeeded as Miami’s quarterback. Some of it is on him too.
This season though, it was all on Tagovailoa to prove he could take the Dolphins on a playoff run or risk the Dolphins head in a very different direction.
Miami had traded five draft picks for Tyreek Hill and then given the former Chiefs wide receiver a $120 million deal over four years to give Tagovailoa another weapon to work with.
It had also hired offensive guru Mike McDaniel, and while early, it looks to be paying dividends immediately.
Tagovailoa enjoyed the best performance of his career in week two, throwing for 469 yards and six touchdowns in a 42-38 comeback win over the Ravens.
With it, he became just the second quarterback in franchise history to record at least 400 passing yards and five touchdowns in a single game.
“Yesterday was the first time that I saw Tua, when it came to a coach designing something and it’s there, you hit it,” former NFL QB Dan Orlovsky on ESPN’s ‘Get Up’.
“When the coach designs something and it’s not there, you stay patient and check in down. Then there’s moments in the game when the defence wins the rep and I need you to go above the Xs and Os and go and make something happen. He did that multiple times. it was the biggest day of Tua’s NFL career.”
Host Mike Greenberg said that if Tagovailoa goes on to be a “great quarterback” in the NFL, the win over the Ravens will be “the moment it began” and it is hard to argue.
He was not the only quarterback who may have had that moment this week.
Like Tagovailoa, Jalen Hunts entered the 2022-23 season with question marks surrounding whether he was the franchise quarterback to take the Eagles back to the Super Bowl.
If he wasn’t, Philadelphia had enough draft capital to find options elsewhere but it does not look like the Eagles will be doing that if Hurts’ performance against the Vikings was anything to go by.
Hurts ran for 57 yards and two touchdowns in the 24-7 win but it was his passing work that really showed the 24-year-old’s growth this off-season, going 25-for-31 for 333 passing yards and a touchdown.
With the patience and poise of a veteran, Hurts went 5-for-5 passing for 63 yards on the opening drive of the game, finishing it off with a four-yard touchdown.
“They’ve got something special there in Philadelphia and if Hurts plays like he did last night, watch out,” former NFL quarterback Chris Simms said on ProFootballTalk.
“They’re a real Super Bowl contender in my mind.”
It can be easy to forget that just four years ago the Eagles were coming off their first Super Bowl win, with a young quarterback in Carson Wentz who looked every bit a long-term option to build around.
Instead, he was the latest in a long list of Philadelphia quarterbacks to be quickly cast aside, joining Michael Vick, Nick Foles and Sam Bradford among others.
But Florio said it could be different with Hurts, who he believes will only continue to “get better”.
“Jalen Hurts has always had that kind of natural charisma, that leadership but I feel like the Eagles organisation has been reluctant and slow to embrace him,” Florio said.
“We’ve heard the chatter. They were in the Deshaun Watson conversation, maybe others for quarterbacks who were potentially available, constantly looking and looking. Turning over stones in the search of a franchise quarterback.
“To me last night, he [Hurts] morphed into the guy who can go out and win a game on his own.”
CONTRASTING FORTUNES FOR SUPER BOWL CONTENDERS
The message was simple. If the Bengals were to repeat last season’s heroics and make the Super Bowl again, they needed to improve the offensive line.
Joe Burrow was sacked seven times in the championship game against the Rams, bringing his season total to 70.
To put that number into context, the most times any quarterback has been sacked in a season where they won the Super Bowl is 54 (Ben Roethlisberger in 2008).
Unfortunately things have not got any better, with Burrow sacked 13 times in the opening two weeks of the season and the Bengals at 0-2 heading into this weekend’s game with the Jets.
“Joe Burrow is on track to be sacked a preposterous 111 times this season,” Myles Simmons said on ProFootballTalk.
“The record is 76.”
Although Simmons did not lay all the blame on the offensive line, instead calling it one part of a “systematic problem” at Cincinnati.
“They’ve got a lot of things that they’ve got to correct and look at,” he said.
“Frankly, I think they should go to more of a quick passing game and think of it more as you’ve got to speed up the clock in Joe Burrow’s head. We’ve got Ja’Marr Chase, we’ve got Tee Higgins, we’ve got Tyler Boyd, we’ve got Joe Mixon, we’ve got weapons.
“Just speed the darn thing up so you prevent being hit so much. He’s not going to last the whole season if he keeps getting hit like this. You can’t take 13 sacks in the first two weeks of the season and expect everything to be fine going forward.”
It is not like the Bengals don’t know that though, with center Ted Karras telling reporters the team’s “biggest goal” is to help Burrow “have confidence” in them.
“I feel like it’s something we haven’t done yet,” he added.
It is a very different story in Buffalo, another Super Bowl contender that is actually living up to the billing.
This is a team that has very few flaws, if any, with all-round talent on offence, defence and special teams.
“It’s a killer instinct; it’s a blood in the water instinct,” linebacker Von Miller, one of Buffalo’s key offseason additions, said after their 41-7 win over the Titans.
“I don’t know how it was before I got here, but now it’s pedal to the medal. We have an attitude of domination. We’re not playing the game to just win the game. We’re playing the game to dominate the game.
“We’ve got a team full of killers and it’s led by our quarterback and our head coach.”
Speaking of their quarterback, Allen was at his brilliant best on Tuesday, going 26-for-38 for 317 yards and four touchdowns in just three quarters on the field.
Gabe Davis showed flashes of his potential in the first-up win over the Rams while Stefon Diggs continues to build his lethal combination with Allen, making 12 catches for 148 yards and three touchdowns against the Titans.
The defence is also causing plenty of damage, with nine sacks (second-best in the league) through two weeks and four takeaways (two fumbles, two interceptions) against the Titans.
Two Super Bowl contenders in two very different positions to open the new season.
