Five Wide: 2022 Week Two

By Thomas Willoughby

Redzone is stunning, isn’t it? Weird place to start, but having watched an iteration of BT Sports’ European Goals Show, which attempts to bring a “Redzone” style format to our football, I’m amazed all over again. No slight on what they do on Champions League nights, but when you see Scott Hanson hold down a whole league for seven hours straight, you can’t help but get engrossed. Here, instead of moving around which terrestrial channel gets to show highlights, put Redzone on ITV4 or something. The ultimate way of getting people into the sport, guaranteed.

What a week for Redzone, by the way. Basically every game felt like it could be a classic in any other year. And how blessed we were that it all happened in one night. Anyway, let’s have a quick scan over week two, and get a lay of the land!

Bills On A Tear

How good are the Bills looking, man? Two games, two wins, and a combined score of 72-17. Against the reigning champs and last season’s #1 seed in the AFC. Josh Allen and company are absolutely cooking right now. It’s very, very easy to see why they’ve won the title of “bookies favourites” over the past couple of weeks.

Special mention has to be placed at the feet of the aforementioned Josh Allen. That guy is dealing right now. Four passing touchdowns, seven on the season, the guy seems to have just snapped. The injustices he feels the Bills were dealt during that playoff game against the Chiefs last season were enough for him to say “enough’s enough”. The feeling I’m getting from Allen and the Bills’ offense is the same as what I got from the Legion of Boom in 2013. They felt wronged after a late defeat in the divisional round of the play-offs the previous season, and just lay waste to everyone in front of them. 

They’ve not got it easy, still. The Dolphins, Ravens, and Chiefs make up 3 of their next 4 games, and you’d be hard-pressed to make a case for them starting 6-0 with that schedule. But, having already faced two of the alleged better sides in the league, you wouldn’t necessarily put it past them.

Joshua Bessex-Getty Images

Comeback SZN

If week one was defined by the failings of the league’s kickers, week two will be defined by the art of the comeback. Everyone’s favourite redzone story-line. As the clock strikes “witching hour”, losses do indeed become wins, and vice versa, and this weekend was a perfect example of that. 

Nowhere was that more prevalent than in Baltimore, where, with 13 minutes left on the clock, the Baltimore Ravens held a 35-14 lead, and looked well on their way to their second win of the season. I can only assume Tua Tagovailoa saw your tweets about him, because what happened next has never been achieved in NFL history. He ended the day with 469 yards, 6 touchdowns, and a 42-38 victory for the ages. Imagine blowing that big of a lead! How embarrassing!

Not to be upstaged, former Raven Joe Flacco, took the Jets to Cleveland looking for their first win of the year. And they actually did a pretty good job of matching the Browns, before it got away from them in the second half. No shame in that. What there is shame in, however, is scoring a touchdown to put your team up by 13 with 1:55 left…only to lose. The Jets scored a quick TD, recovered an onside kick, and rallied to victory. 31-30. Incredible.

Not to be upstaged, the late window produced one hell of an effort as Kyler Murray’s men found themselves in a 23-7 hole in Las Vegas. Murray then decided to take matters into his own hands, seemingly covering every blade of artificial grass on the field, as he sought to overturn the deficit with his legs alone. Every single play extended, every single tackle swerved. The victory, claimed. 29-23 in overtime. Madness.

A Vowel, Please, Carol

We all enjoy a joke, don’t we? A bit of a laugh, now and then? Alright, good. Let me tell you about the funniest thing that happened in the NFL this week. Russell Wilson, acquired by the Denver Broncos this offseason to the tune of 2 first-round picks, 2 second-round picks, a 5th round pick, AND three players of varying quality, made his home debut this weekend. The Broncos, hosting the entirely beatable Houston Texans, looked absolutely woeful. That wasn’t the funny part, though. The funny part was that the Broncos fans decided they would count down the play-clock to avoid penalties. Nice.

The Broncos have had a rough start to the season. A week one defeat to a Seahawks team desperate to let us know how much they disliked their former signal-caller was easy to write off as the “preseason week four” talk I brought up last week. The Texans, though, didn’t have that same fire in their belly. Revenge is the greatest motivator, in my experience, and I don’t think Christian Kirksey, for example, is motivated by the comings and goings of Russell Wilson. But the Broncos looked rough, again. They struggled to move the ball effectively, and generally stunk the place out. So the fans took matters into their own hands.

And I genuinely sympathise with Broncos fans. Since the end of the Peyton Manning-era, they’ve had very little to get behind, save for a bit of a run last season. Wilson was supposed to represent their return to the playoffs, and, instead, they’re worried he might not even get a playoff in time. The AFC West is such a tough division to operate in right now, and they need every single win they can get to hang with the cream that is the Chargers and Chiefs. Still, there’s something quite poetic about Wilson leaving Seattle, only for the Broncos fanbase becoming a 12th man.

David Zalubowski-Associated Press

Jimmy G-Sus: The Ressurection

On a pre-season Touchdown Review Show Podcast episode (best podcast in the world bar none, by the way), my bold prediction was that Jimmy Garoppolo would start at least one game for the San Francisco 49ers this season, despite Trey Lance being handed the keys to the offense. Sadly, that prediction is to come true, albeit not for the reasons I gave. Lance suffered an ankle injury that ended his season, and required surgery. While he recovers ahead of 2023, the man he replaced has the opportunity to right some wrongs. Revenge is the greatest motivator, after all.

Listen, I don’t think Jimmy Garoppolo is a great quarterback. He’s safe, and he won’t lose you games, but he’s not likely to win you games, either. The 49ers know this, which is why they were willing to spend 3 first-round picks on a project. While he’s not going to win you games himself, he has overseen a bunch of wins with the 49ers. It wasn’t necessarily surprising to see him replaced this offseason, given the price on the head of Lance, but it was somewhat surprising to see the lack of interest surrounding Garoppolo across the league as a whole. You’d have thought someone would be interested in picking up a man 2 and a half years from starting in the Super Bowl.

This season now feels pivotal for both Garoppolo, and for the 49ers. If San Francisco make a push deep into the playoffs again this season, would it be crazy to suggest Jimmy might remain a ‘niner beyond the summer? Way too early for anyone (me) to suggest that. But, based on this celebration alone, I think he’ll have some pretty loud supporters should it become a conversation down the line.

Changing Of The Guard

There comes a point in every bad team’s season where they start to look at making serious changes in an attempt to either salvage their year, or help set up their future. The most obvious way of attempting to make in-season material change is to replace their quarterback with a younger option. Especially if they made the call to draft someone during the offseason. At this moment in time, the top three quarterbacks taken in the 2022 NFL draft play for teams with a collective record of 1-5. Who’s going to make the change first?

The Steelers swung for Kenny Pickett in the first round of the draft, selecting the Pittsburgh product 20th overall. He currently sits behind Mitch Trubisky, who struggled mightily against a (granted) good Patriots defense. The Steelers are an organisation used to winning, however, and you can’t imagine they’ll take too kindly to a similar performance against their divisional rivals, the Browns, this Thursday night. I feel like Pickett could be in line for his first start sooner (week 4 vs Jets) rather than later.

Desmond Ridder was the second off the board, heading to Atlanta. The Falcons, as you well know, are terrible. They have, however, played two allegedly good teams close, losing 26-27 and 27-31 to the Saints and Rams respectively. Marcus Mariota occupies the starting QB role for the time being, and it’s difficult to make the case for changing the signal-caller while they’re still competitive. Mariota is injury prone, however, and has never played a full season. Expect Arthur Smith to cling onto Mariota for as long as he can before feeling like a change is necessary (week 10 vs Panthers).

The Titans are in an odd space. They finished as the number one seed in the AFC heading into the playoffs last season, but a turgid performance in the divisional round, plus a pretty horrific 0-2 start has shone a light on the deficiencies of Ryan Tannehill. In the third round, the Titans selected Malik Willis; a maverick QB with a supreme amount of raw talent, whom likely requires time to hone his craft. Given the Titans are in an extremely weak division, I don’t expect their woes to last. They’ll be in with a shout of reclaiming the South, so don’t expect a start from Malik Willis this season.

Features Image Credit: Mitch Stringer-USA TODAY Sports

Thomas Willoughby

NFL ANALYST & SOCIAL MEDIA

THOMAS IS A WRITER, AND REGULAR GUEST ON THE TOUCHDOWN REVIEW SHOW PODCAST, FOR THE TOUCHDOWN. YOU CAN FIND HIM @WILLO290592 ON TWITTER

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