The Scottie Scheffler comparisons were thrown out immediately when the news broke on Sunday morning. Tyreek Hill, one of the biggest stars in the entire NFL, was detained by police in handcuffs on the side of the road while driving to Hard Rock Stadium for the Dolphins’ season opener against the Jaguars. Little did we know just how apt the Scheffler comp really was.
After Scottie spent the morning in a Kentucky jail for a very minor traffic incident, he casually went out and fired a five-under 66 in the second round, one of the low rounds of the day. Tyreek’s afternoon followed a similar fashion. After a slow start that saw him sitting at just over 20 receiving yards for much of the day, Hill took advantage of his best attribute — speed — and flipped the game on the Jaguars’ head.
And just like one very smart and very handsome person predicted immediately following the arrest, Hill celebrated the score by getting handcuffed.
Like Scheffler — who had all charges dropped with a quickness — Hill also ended up getting quick judicial justification for whatever happened, with an officer involved being put on administrative leave before the Dolphins even made it back to the locker room. Hill also said he had “no idea” why he was pulled and noted, like Scheffler, he didn’t say who he was when the arrest happened.
There’s probably a larger societal point to be made here, but this is a football column so let’s focus on what the end of this game says about the two teams involved instead. The Jaguars had no business losing this game. They held a 17-7 lead with 2:27 left in the third quarter of this game and had done an incredible job on defense, keeping Hill quiet and generally snuffing out the high-powered Dolphins offense.
Making matters worse, on the very next play, Travis Etienne fumbled into the end zone. The Dolphins recovered and the first play of their drive was the 80-yard bomb to Tyreek. Suddenly instead of 24-7 and game over, it was 17-14 and game very much on.
What occurred over the rest of the game is truly inexplicable: newly minted (literally in the sense of him getting paid this offseason) franchise quarterback Trevor Lawrence attempted just ONE PASS on the Jags’ final three drives. Technically two — the Dolphins jumped offside and the Jags accepted the penalty, so there was no play. Lawrence also dropped back two more times, on the Jags final possession, and was sacked both times.
The Jags totaled 13 yards on 11 plays on those three drives. Miami managed to get six points on their final three drives and Jacksonville left south Florida as big-time losers. The AFC is going to be highly competitive and the Jaguars handed the Dolphins a critical win early in the season by being outrageously conservative down the stretch. Lawrence was healthy, had been dealing and he was getting great contributions from rookie Brian Thomas Jr., and offseason free agency addition Gabe Davis.
Turtling up made no sense in the moment, not with the ability for Lawrence to stretch the field and force Miami to be honest on defense. It certainly makes no sense in hindsight, either.
Bengals Pay Price for Not Paying?
It’s hard to look at what happened for Cincinnati on Sunday and think about anything other than the team’s unwillingness to pay Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase this offseason as bad karma and bad business for the 2024 season. The Bengals fell 16-10 to the lowly New England Patriots, losing as the biggest favorite (they closed around nine-point favorites), wiping out a huge chunk of survivor leagues and putting themselves in a massive hole to start the season while opening up some pretty huge questions for the viability of this offense.
Joe Burrow averaged less than 6 yards per pass attempt on the day, didn’t throw a single touchdown and found himself in not-so-elite company when it came to the Expected Points Added (EPA).
Burrow, despite what the memes will tell you, is a truly elite quarterback. But you have to wonder how much of an impact the Bengals not coughing up the cash to get Higgins and Chase locked up impacted the offense. Higgins was famously miffed about being franchise tagged and it seemed clear Cincy wasn’t going to pay him and simply draft Jermaine Burton to replace him after 2024. Unfortunately, Burton’s in the doghouse, might be staring down the barrel of a redshirt season and when Higgins suffered a hamstring injury heading into Week 1 (the timing and the info surrounding said injury are awfully odd, by the by) it really put the focus on Chase and the backups.
Chase was himself pretty peeved about not getting a new deal this offseason from the Bengals, who apparently initiated the contract convos. The former first-round pick eventually declared he would play Sunday, but would be limited. Chase caught all six of his targets but was hardly effective, going for just 62 yards.
It makes zero sense to draft Burrow, pay him a ton of money, and draft two wide receivers with high picks to help Burrow but hold off on paying said receivers for fairly questionable reasons. By not paying anyone, it’s possible the Bengals paid the worst price possible, a debilitating loss to the Patriots in Week 1 that opened up a lot of questions about the viability of this offense in 2024.
… is pretty untenable for the Browns at this point. The only person enjoying Watson’s performance on Sunday should have been Tom Brady, who couldn’t be heard over the cascading boos coming from Browns fans as Watson turned in yet another unimpressive performance against the Cowboys in a 33-17 loss that wasn’t nearly as close as the score indicates.
Watson finished 24-for-45 for 169 yards (3.75 yards per pass attempt), a pair of picks and a touchdown pass to Jerry Jeudy that came essentially in garbage time.
Yet another meh effort from Watson remains in stark contrast to Baker Mayfield’s continued success. But even if you want to be reasonable and just let Baker move on and simply focus on Watson, it’s impossible not to be completely frustrated by where the Browns find themselves with their “franchise” quarterback.
Cleveland gave up three first-round picks to the Texans for Watson. The Texans have revitalized their franchise thanks in large part to those picks (and, in fairness, landing C.J. Stroud). The Browns promptly gave Watson an unprecedented, fully guaranteed contract that has become a complete albatross for the club.
Even if the Browns wanted to force their way through the season and move on from Watson after this year, well, they couldn’t. Watson’s pre-June 1 dead cap number for cutting him would be $172 million. Say it out loud: one hundred and seventy-two million dollars. The 2024 NFL salary cap for every team was $224 million. And it’s not even as simple as just eating the biggest dead cap number in NFL history either.
This is an unmitigated disaster for Cleveland. And the Browns have zero leverage with Watson either: he may or may not be injured, and if he is, he can shut it down with zero repercussions.
Only one hope exists for Cleveland … Deshaun magically gets better. Hope is not a strategy but it’s the only thing the Browns can cling to right now. And for a while in the future as well.
Rookie QB debuts
Really can’t call the three rookie starts we saw on Sunday anything more than a “mixed bag” and that’s being pretty generous. Let’s remember playing quarterback in the NFL is hard and it’s really hard when you’re a rookie quarterback who was taken high in the draft, because you’re likely going to a less-than-desirable situation.
Now that wasn’t the case for Caleb Williams, per se, but you wouldn’t have known he was loaded to — ahem — bear with weapons with how Williams and the Chicago offense performed on Sunday afternoon. Granted, the Bears won, but they did it thanks to Will Levis throwing an absolute melt of a pick six, Chicago scoring another special teams touchdown and the offense generating a total of 148 yards. 2.8 yards per play is ugly. Trust me, I know, I watched my Wolfpack on Saturday night do the same against Tennessee. But the Titans aren’t as good defensively as the Vols, making this a very auspicious start for the Bears, even if it resulted in a win. Caleb finished with, and this is not a typo, 93 passing yards. Not great, Bob! He didn’t use his legs and the Bears didn’t use Rome Odunze either. The draft capital felt wasted and all eyes should be skeptically on Shane Waldron’s offense moving forward.
Jayden Daniels DID use his legs on Sunday, rushing for the most yards in the first half of a game by any quarterback in Commanders history, becoming just the second Washington quarterback with 70+ rushing yards and a rushing score in a game and ultimately finishing with 88 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns. It was an awesome day for Fantasy football owners, but the passing production really wasn’t there. For now, let’s chalk it up to a questionable Washington offensive line against a good Tampa Bay defense and glance warily in the direction of Kliff Kingsbury who continues to line up his team’s top receiver in the same spot on almost every play. The Commanders did get completely blown out, 37-20, after all.
Bo Nix nearly pulled off an upset but I’m not entirely sure we can pinpoint his passing for nearly defeating the Seahawks. Nix finished 26-for-42 for 138 yards and if you’re wondering if that’s a low yards per attempt, well, you’d be correct: yes it is! It does not put him in great company either:
We know it’s going to be quick and short with Nix in this Sean Payton offense and playing in Seattle with your first start against a Mike Macdonald defense is a tough assignment. I trust Payton to coach Nix up so, as with the other rookies, am certainly not going to hit the panic button just yet.
