What's hot and what's Knott in football - week 2

By Rhys Knott

Two weeks into the 2024 football season, but there’s still an air of cobwebs being blown away. When so few starters played in preseason it does still feel like the season hasn’t properly started.

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If that seems outlandish consider this, there have been 78 false start penalties accepted in the first 31 games of the year and some calls have been missed too. That’s not all, just wait until you find out how many interceptions were thrown and sacks were allowed in Week 2 (spoiler alert, it’s 159). 

The clunky offense has always been an early season issue in football, but this seems a little extreme. 

In addition to those stats the first raft of players placed on IR (hello Nick Chubb) won’t play until Week 5, so the literal false start to the season vibe looks set to continue throughout September.

What's hot in Football - week 2

The hottest place for football in Week 2 was Kansas City, it was 90° at 3 pm. The Chiefs’ run game was almost as hot as the weather, they racked up 149 yards on the ground at 4.7 yards per attempt. 

Steve Spagnolo’s defense wasn’t quite as hot, but they did end the game with three sacks and a fumble that they returned for a go-ahead touchdown. 

For the Bengals, Andre Iosivas was positively smoking (he’s also the most interesting man in football, he was born in Japan to a Romanian father and a Filipino mother but grew up in Honolulu. Young Andre graduated from Princeton with a degree in Political Science and Government. Oh yeah, and he was a three-time Ivy League champion in the heptathlon too). 

Iosivas only caught the football twice for seven yards in Week 2, but both of those catches resulted in touchdowns! Might wanna throw it his way more often guys, just an idea. 

Honorable mentions should also go to Mike Gesicki (whom Zac Taylor has realized is really just a tall receiver); the 6-foot-6 Penn State product hauled in seven catches for 91 yards. Also Cam Taylor-Britt, who gave those sticky gloves a real workout when he plucked the football out of the sky with one hand for a pick. But none of that could prevent the Chiefs winning in Burrowhead Stadium. 

Weather wise Miami was a close second when it came to bringing the heat, for a couple of reasons. Primarily the temperature. 85° Fahrenheit (29.4 in Celsius) at 8:15 pm is no joke unless you happen to be a country heavily reliant on fossil fuels. 

Ed Oliver was hot in Miami, but not just due to the weather.

The 26-year-old had his way with whichever backup left guard the Dolphins decided to line up opposite him. Oliver’s single sack, three tackles, two tackles for a loss, and solitary QB Hit only tell half the story. 

Oliver’s compadre Christian Benford had a day out too. Benford began by forcing a pick when he out-competed Grant Dubose who saw the football bounce off his shoulder pad and into Ja’Marcus Ingram’s hands. 

Benford’s night only got better when he ended up taking an interception. Benford profited when Robbie Chosen decided to sit down in a zone while he appeared to be man-covered. 

Despite the Dolphins’ performance level falling somewhere between “insipid” and “plain awful” they had one positive.

De’Von Achane managed to rack up 96 yards on the ground and 69 receiving yards along with a touchdown. 

Achane had 43% of the Dolphins’ receiving yards and 49.6% of their rushing yards, so, yikes!

Meanwhile, in the more temperate climate of Detroit Aidan Hutchinson went absolutely nuclear on poor old Baker Mayfield. Aaron Glenn’s defense managed to turn the football over twice while notching up five sacks against the Buccaneers. Hutchinson had 4.5 of those sacks! 

But Hutchinson’s impression of a wrecking ball couldn’t stop Baker running in an 11-yard touchdown that would eventually win the game. The top of the NFC South is looking very hot in 2024. 

Even with Hutchinson’s heroic feat and scorching temperatures, there’s nothing hotter in football right now than the Saints offense.

They’re averaging 45.5 points per game in 2024 after averaging 23.6 per game in 2023. It’s an incredibly small sample size, but it still begs the question, just how bad was Pete Carmichael?  

The only offense in football that can come close to matching the Saints is Drew Petzing’s Cardinals. They racked up a whopping 489 yards, but only scored 41 points. That was 13 more than they managed against the Bills though. 

Kyler Murray became the second Cardinals quarterback with a perfect passer rating, joining Kurt Warner.

Murray had 325 total yards in Week 2, the entire Panthers offense has only moved the football 352 yards so far this season! 

Shout out to the best player in the 2024 draft too, Marvin Harrison Jr. scored with his first two touches of the football in the Cardinals home opener. Some say I benched him in fantasy football (I did).

After a mystifying debut, MHJ now has 134 yards and two touchdowns on just five catches!

What's Knott in football - week 2

Well, the Panthers are obviously Knott. David Tepper’s football vanity project is becoming more tragic by the week. Not only are they averaging 176 yards per game they’re only scoring six and a half points per game. 

Joey Slye is also definitely Knott, the 28-year-old had a 48-yard field goal attempt blocked. That kick would have put the Patriots 6 points ahead with less than four minutes to play. Instead the Seahawks tied it up on the ensuing possession and eventually went on to win in OT. 

Pass protecting was surprisingly Knott this week too.

Six quarterbacks were sacked five times or more! Caleb Williams somehow managed to look like a competent starting quarterback despite not having much help from the run game or his offensive line. 

Even though he escaped the Texans clutches twice and threw the ball to defenders twice the USC product still hit the deck seven times! The rookie even scrambled out of bounds a couple of times too!

Poor Caleb could have been hauling himself off the turf 11 times on Sunday Night Football!  

Williams wasn’t the only quarterback who threw interceptions this week though. Pass accuracy was very much Knott in Week 2.

16 signal callers threw the football to a defender at least once, Anthony Richardson and, as previously mentioned,  Tua led the way with three a piece! But five guys threw two picks! Better luck next week then lads. 

RHYS KNOTT

NFL/FANTASY FOOTBALL ANALYST

Rhys has been watching the NFL for 30 something years and still hasn’t managed to pick a team to support. When he’s not fixatED on pass rushers you can find him blithering on about most sports on Twitter @wrhys_writes

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