It was a bad day for a lot of quarterbacks yesterday. Brandon Weeden was awful. Andrew Luck was terribad. But so too were guys like Michael Vick and Matt Stafford. Before Michael Vick threw the game winning touchdown, he tried his damnedest to throw the game losing interception in the end zone right between the numbers to a dropping linebacker. Matt Stafford kept throwing way, way, way too high over the middle. We kept joking that "at least he threw it hard..." Cam Newton a bad day, for that matter. Ryan Fitzpatrick, if not for some garbage time TDs, you're looking at a pretty awful day. Matt Cassel had a dreadful day. For all Russell Wilson's lighting up the preseason he ends up with a 62.5 rating in a loss to the Arizona Cardinals whom I'd previously expected to be the worst team in the NFL this year. Drew Brees had the lowest passer rating he's had in a meaningful football game since Week 5 of 2010. I don't know this for a fact but this Week 1 was more interception heavy than any Week 1 I can remember, and that was a point that Daniel Jeremiah echoed.
That is a freaky coincidence then. I wonder why? Maybe teams remembered how bad defenses were Game 1 last year they were super prepared this year? I dunno.
It was because you had 5 rookie QB's starting (Combined at least 10 ints) and a few established qb's just had terrible days at the same time.
Yeah, but like CK pointed out some pretty established vets dropped some coiled piles too like Brees, Vick, Stafford, etc.
The lack of preparation (due to lockout) a year ago was thought to hurt offenses more than defenses...but I think we found out just the opposite. This year there's a full off season of preparation so it may have swung back the other way a little bit, offenses still trying to get away with some of the things they were doing last year, but defenses lying in wait for it.
What's difficult is determining how this WEEK 1 compares with other WEEK 1's...because WEEK 1 may have its own trends aside from just averages for the full season. But if we're going off just averages from the full seasons, right now Week 1 is at 66 rushing and receiving touchdowns, with 4 teams yet to play, versus 2010 and 2011 weekly averages of 71.9 and 71.6, respectively. Hard to tell where that number will end up until after tonight. If you figure total offensive scoring (rush & rec TDs, XPs, FGs)...then Week 1 had 630 points (with 4 teams left to play), versus 655 and 662 point weekly averages in 2010 and 2011. The 2010 and 2011 above numbers were adjusted to reflect that Week 1 has 16 games whereas the average Week in a 17 Week season has about 15 games. Extra curricular touchdowns (INT, FUM, BLK, PR, KR) definitely spiked, though. There were 10 in the 14 games this week whereas a 16 game Week over 2010 and 2011 would have averaged about 7.1 to 7.5. We still have 4 teams to go and they could add to the extra curricular total. As has been hypothesized there were a few more interceptions yesterday than we'd normally expect. 2010 and 2011 would've averaged about 32 interception in a 16 game week, whereas yesterday featured 34 interceptions just in the 14 games with still two more games left to play.
Only one tipped pass today. First TDs both running and passing. Threw the out really well. Had a bit of a problem with feeling pocket pressure. Probably got away with one intentional grounding. Kept poise after a rough second quarter again.
