2022-23 NFL

 After three weeks to start the season, I honestly have no idea what to make of the NFL landscape right now. Record dictated much of these rankings, but I must admit that my gut tells me a lot of the teams in the Top 10 are going to end up frauds. At least two of the AFC West teams are going to end up being frauds. For now, we’ll say they’ll be the Las Vegas Raiders and Los Angeles Chargers. Another team in the Top 10 I think will end up bring frauds are the Carolina Panthers. The Denver Broncos cracked the Top 5 this week and people will fade that and I get it, they have played a bunch of scrubs. If you dig a little deeper into those games you will find a Broncos team that is tied for the league lead in point differential at +50 through three games. Their defense held those scrubs to a mere 10 points a game, with 6 of those coming off a special teams error. The Broncos are a good football team and the real test for them begins in Week 4 against the Baltimore Ravens. Here are you f...

 Injuries and news we're monitoring around the NFL on this Week 3 Sunday: Tennessee Titans receiver A.J. Brown (hamstring) is questionable to return against the Colts. New Orleans Saints left tackle Terron Armstead (elbow) is questionable to return vs. New England. New York Giants linebacker Blake Martinez suffered a knee injury in the first quarter against Atlanta and was quickly ruled out of the game. Receiver Darius Slayton (hamstring) was also ruled out in the first quarter. Indianapolis Colts defensive end Kwity Paye (hamstring) was ruled out against Tennessee. Jacksonville Jaguars guard Andrew Norwell (ankle) is questionable to return against Arizona

 Week three of the 2021-22 NFL season is upon us and some important matchups should be on the viewing schedule Weeks one and two of the NFL season provided some fun must watch matchups, but week three is going to be even better. A rookie quarterback is making his first start, a possible NFC championship matchup, and an AFC West matchup that could have division winning implications. No. 3: Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Los Angeles Rams        3:25pm CT on FOX This matchup between Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford very well could be the matchup NFL fans are watching for the NFC title. Brady looks even better than last year with nine touchdowns through two games, and Stafford has found a new love for the game playing on the Rams. Both teams are 2-0 to start the season and that is no surprise given their roster talent. Bucs receiver Antonio Brown has been placed on the COVID-19 list and is unlikely to play this weekend. A key offensive weapon not being available against the ...

 On an evening in which notable injuries brought about unfortunate news for the Carolina Panthers, they still emerged undefeated. Despite injuries to Christian McCaffrey and Jaycee Horn, Sam Darnold and an impressive defensive effort led the Panthers to a win over rookie quarterback Davis Mills and the Houston Texans on Thursday night Sam I am . Panthers quarterback Sam Darnold got the job done in the win column for the third week in a row, looking sharp in the second half with some big throws behind solid protection. It took Carolina’s offense a few drives to find its footing after Christian McCaffrey’s injury, but with D.J. Moore getting open throughout the night, Darnold anchored things with 304 passing yards. Still, the ball security issues that plagued him as a Jet cropped up again in the form of two fumbles. Darnold’s awareness as the pocket breaks down around him is still lacking, but fortunately for him, Panthers center Matt Paradis recovered b...

Carson Wentz's availability for Week 3 remains firmly in doubt. The Colts quarterback was not on the practice field Thursday as he continues to nurse a pair of sprained ankles, according to multiple beat reporters on the scene. Wentz, who exited midway in the fourth quarter of Indianapolis' Week 2 loss to the Rams, has now missed two consecutive days of practice. The QB told reporters Wednesday that he's "throwing the kitchen sink" at his treatment in hopes of playing against the Titans on Sunday afternoon. So far, it appears he still has a few more hurdles to clear.

 Micah Parsons now has Jalen Hurts in his sights, and the list goes on from there. The Dallas Cowboys' dynamic rookie linebacker was switched to defensive end to cover for the club's short-handed defensive line in Week 2, and responded with a sack of Los Angeles Chargers star Justin Herbert for a loss of 18. He's apparently got a taste for quarterbacks now, because Parsons said Wednesday that he's now looking to sack every passer on the Cowboys schedule -- starting with Hurts this week, when Dallas takes on the Philadelphia Eagles in Dallas' first NFC East game Monday night. "Every quarterback (we face this season) is on the hit list. I want all of them," Parsons said, per The Athletic's Jon Machota. "(Jalen) Hurts is on the hit list now, too. You got to look at it like you're trying to be like The Terminator out there." It sounds something like a throwback to former Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco's famous 2005 list, which he he...

 Broncos linebacker Bradley Chubb's 2021 debut lasted less than an entire game. Now, he's hoping his 2021 season will last longer than his brief showing in Week 2. Having re-injured his ankle on Sunday against the Jaguars, Chubb will undergo an arthroscopic procedure Wednesday on his ankle and hopes to return this season, he announced through the team on Tuesday. "I'm going to push everything I can to get back to these games and hopefully it's sooner rather than later. My mindset is just going to be attack it 100 %every day," Chubb said. Chubb said he's been dealing with a bone spur in his ankle and the procedure will be to "clean it up" and "scope it out." NFL Network's Tom Pelissero reported Chubb's timetable will depend on how the surgery goes, though a surgery such as this generally takes six to eight weeks of recovery time. Chubb is likely headed to injured reserve. The initial hope was that Chubb's ankle would respon...

Jarvis Landry is out for at least three weeks The Cleveland Browns placed the wide receiver on injured reserve Tuesday due to a knee injury. The move means Landry will miss a minimum of three games. Landry played just two snaps in Sunday's 31-21 win over Houston before suffering an MCL sprain. The receiver caught a screen pass from Baker Mayfield for nine yards, hurting his knee at the conclusion of the play. It's a blow to Mayfield, who will be without his most trusty target beginning Sunday against the Chicago Bears. Landry has caught 236 passes for 2,990 yards and 13 touchdowns from 2018-2020 while missing just one regular-season game.

 The waiver wire is different every week. Some weeks have a clear-cut top option who you should be willing to use your top claim or a good portion of your waiver budget on. Last week for instance was like that when Elijah Mitchell appeared as the Niners' top running back. But then there are other weeks where there is not that slam dunk pick up, but there are several players who can still make an impact. This is one of those weeks. While there is no league-altering option on the waiver wire this week, that doesn't mean you still can't find some players who can make a difference for your fantasy team. The top option this week is Cowboys running back Tony Pollard. In Week 2, he played 35 percent of the snaps, with 13 carries and three targets, going for 140 total yards and a touchdown. That was good enough to make him a top-five running back in Week 2. But the numbers do not tell the whole story. Pollard was explosive, having three rushes go for over 10-yards (Ezekiel Ell...

Much like Minnesota Vikings radio announcers, Mike Zimmer thought Greg Joseph's 37-yard game-winning field-goal attempt was a formality for a big road win over the Arizona Cardinals. "I felt good about that kick," Zimmer said, via the Minnesota Star Tribune. "I know he missed the extra point earlier, but it's kind of like that. He's been kicking good, we're indoors, it's a perfect surface. I'm thinking, 'This should be an easy one here.' " That easy kick sailed wide right, and the Vikings suffered their second last-second loss of the 2021 campaign, losing 34-33 in Arizona. "We're probably two plays away from being 2-0," Zimmer said. "We'll just keep grinding, keep fighting, and we'll just keep going from there." After making all three extra points and his only field-goal attempt in Week 1, Joseph botched the field goal and one PAT in Sunday's loss. The loss is a bitter pill to swallow after the Viki...

  Bart Scott Promises To Shave Off Eyebrow If 49ers Lose To Eagles - TMZ Sports An Eagles victory this weekend could be VERY costly for ex-NFL star Bart Scott ... ‘cause the former linebacker guaranteed he’d shave off one of his eyebrows if Philly beats the 49ers!! The 41-year-old made the promise during ESPN’s “Get Up” show on Thursday ... saying he’s that confident San Francisco will come away with a win over the Eagles on Sunday. “Can we have a one-shot on me and [former NFL player Damien Woody]?” Scott asked during a fiery segment breaking down the Eagles vs. 49ers matchup. “Listen, I bet you that if the 49ers lose to the Philadelphia Eagles, I’ll shave my eyebrow off. What say you?!”

 With Week 1 in the books, it is more important than ever to state: do not overreact to one week! We spend months leading up to the season analyzing and studying and then are ready to throw it all out the window after one game. I'm not saying nothing we saw in Week 1 mattered, but if you drafted a player in the early rounds and they disappointed, do not think about sitting them! Unless that player was Brandon Aiyuk … you can bench him this week.  But for those non-star players in your lineups, the matchups greatly come into play. Matchups were the reason I had Sam Darnold over Justin Herbert last week (humble brag!). Let's look at the toughest and best matchups at each position. To do so, I will be looking at the fantasy points given up to each position from last year plus Week 1. It is not a perfect science, but it is better than using just Week 1, which is purely dependent on who the teams played.  Best QB matchups Tom Brady vs. Falcons: The Falcons have allowed 2...

 Daniel Jones' legs and arm kept the New York Giants going on Thursday night, while Taylor Heinicke's connection to Terry McLaurin countered for the Washington Football Team. As the NFC East rivals went back and forth, it was Heinicke who led Washington down the field with the game on the line and kicker Dustin Hopkins who delivered a 43-yard field goal for a 30-29 win on "Thursday Night Football." McLaurin over Bradberry. Washington Football Team wide receiver Terry McLaurin gave Giants cornerback James Bradberry all sorts of problems Thursday, and showed again why he's one of the best receivers in the game. McLaurin caught 11 passes for 107 yards and a touchdown, and although he beat some zone coverage here and there, a lot of his damage came against the Giants' Pro Bowl cornerback, who also was flagged for holding McLaurin in the fourth quarter. Late in the game, Bradberry jumped in front of a short route by McLaurin for an interception that could easily h...

John McClain makes his picks for the NFL's Week 2 schedule: Thursday's game N.Y. Giants (plus-3) at Washington: WFT 23-17 Sunday's games Houston (plus-12½) at Cleveland: Browns 30-20 New Orleans (minus-3) at Carolina: Saints 27-20 Cincinnati (plus-2½) at Chicago: Bears 19-17 Las Vegas (plus-5½) at Pittsburgh: Steelers 27-19 Buffalo (minus-3½) at Miami: Bills 30-27 L.A. Rams (minus-3½) at Indianapolis: Rams 28-27 San Francisco (minus-3½) at Philadelphia: 49ers 20-17 Denver (minus-6) at Jacksonville: Broncos 27-24 New England (minus-5½) at N.Y. Jets: Patriots 24-20 Minnesota (plus-3 ½) at Arizona: Cardinals 28-23 Atlanta (plus-13) at Tampa Bay: Bucs 31-17 Tennessee (plus-5 ½) at Seattle: Seahawks 26-23 Dallas (plus-3) at L.A. Chargers: Cowboys 30-27 Kansas City (minus-3½) at Baltimore: Chiefs 29-27 Monday's game Detroit (plus-11) at Green Bay: Packers 34-13 Last week 6-10 (.375) straight up; 7-8-1 (.469) vs. spread

 Many things about fantasy football are unpredictable. It's the uncertainty that brings us back to the fake game year after year. If we knew for sure what was going to happen, this wouldn't be as fun. More importantly, I'd be out of a job. So … hooray for chaos!  But not everything about fantasy is so murky. The biggest known heading into Week 1 is that we really didn't know much. We spent plenty of time speculating. The entire offseason was one big fever dream of what we think could happen this year. Alas, what we wish for and what we get are frequently not the same.   In that spirit, we lick our Trey Sermon and Michael Pittman-sized wounds, take stock of what we learned, and try to get better in Week 2. Let's go.  Broncos nation wasn't particularly thrilled with Teddy Bridgewater  being named the starter, but he acquitted himself well in the season opener. This week, the matchup is even more in his favor against a Jaguars defense that made Tyrod Ta...

 The Denver Broncos made a statement in Week 1 that things might be different in the Mile High City. How did that improve their subjective rankings across the NFL heading into Week 2? Given where I started off last week, things kind of remained where they were this week. A few teams tumbled and rose, but by and large they remained in the same tiers where I had them. The only real petty thing I did was dropped the Baltimore Ravens like a stone for keeping me up late and making me reorder things because they decided to stop playing in the fourth quarter against the lowly Las Vegas Raiders. The biggest gainer was the Arizona Cardinals. I thought they would be good this year, but I didn’t expect them to whoop up on the Tennessee Titans like they did. I had the Denver Broncos ranked 16th to start the season and felt I was being overly optimistic for a team coming off such a poor season. They looked better than 16th even if it was against a team near the bottom of my rankings in the New ...

 The 32 things we learned from Week 1 of the 2021 NFL season: 1. Nice league-wide tribute prior to Sunday's kickoff commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America. The NFL also produced a touching tribute video voiced by actor Steve Buscemi, a former member of the FDNY, which struck the right chord given the context of the country's current difficulties. Two decades can seem like a lifetime, yet it also feels like only yesterday when then-Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and the NFL took a prominent role in navigating the crisis before helping the country heal ... to some degree anyway. 2. Is this finally the year Seattle QB Russell Wilson gets at least one MVP vote? He got off to another hot start, throwing for four TDs and 254 yards (while attempting just 23 passes) as the Seahawks opened with a road win at Indianapolis. Wilson's 2020 season perfectly illustrates the folly of charting the MVP race from Week 1. But if you're going to do that, y...

 If ever there was a player who symbolized consistent greatness, it was Minnesota Vikings center Mick Tingelhoff. Through 17 autumns with the Vikings, Tingelhoff never missed a game, starting 240 straight in a career that saw six Pro Bowl trips and five All-Pro selections. Tingelhoff passed away at the age of 81 on Saturday, the Vikings announced. "Mick Tingelhoff was the anchor of the great Vikings teams during an amazing era that included four Super Bowls," the Wilf family said in a statement. "A humble but strong leader, he defined toughness. Mick's legacy will live on as a Hall of Famer, on the field and off the field. Our thoughts are with his family and friends." Tingelhoff's astounding streak of 240 starts in a row is the most for a center in NFL chronicle and second in the Vikings' history behind only defensive end Jim Marshall's unbelievable run of 270 in a row. Furthering just how impressive Tingelhoff's durability was, he made all th...

 Happy 2021 NFL season! NFL franchises use contextualized data to create competitive advantages. In order to realize an edge, teams need to employ the right data in the right way at the right time. This means distilling, interpreting and applying only the most influential data in a framework that accounts for their personnel, their opponents and their evolving game situations. My goal is to be your analytics department. Each week this season, I'm giving you a peek into which numbers flag in my models as the most impactful ... or the most misunderstood. This column will follow the format of: one trend to monitor, one news story through the lens of analytics and a couple of my favorite, or least favorite, projections. As always, let me know if your eye test is picking up on something interesting, or if there's a stat or trend you'd like me to look more deeply into. You can hit me up on Twitter @cfrelund. As with any great analytics department, the more collaborative this is, ...

 om Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers went back and forth with Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys to open the NFL season in enthralling fashion on Thursday. It was Brady and the defending Super Bowl champions who began their season with a victory, though, as the Buccaneers drove down for a game-winning Ryan Succop field goal in the waning seconds to defeat the Cowboys, 31-29. Chase Goodbread breaks down what you need to know from Thursday's action. Trick bag still full for Brady. Tom Brady opened his 2021 season going right back to Brady things. He put all sorts of different throws on display in leading the Bucs' first TD drive, serving notice to the league that he not only still has the fastball, but a wide range of other pitches. A rifle-like throw to Rob Gronkowski into a tight window over the middle plainly had plus velocity. On the very next play, he dialed up a deep toss to Antonio Brown with drop-in-the-bucket touch and trajectory for a 28-yard strike. He finished, of...

 The start time for Thursday night’s 2021 NFL season opener between the Cowboys and Buccaneers is the same as the start for every Thursday night game on the NFL’s schedule this year. The first NFL game of the season will kick off at 8:20 p.m. ET. It will air on NBC — which is broadcasting its 16th consecutive NFL season opener — and will be preceded by a pregame show that starts at 7 p.m. That will allow fans plenty of time to get ready for the action. The pregame could be quite fun as well. The Buccaneers will be celebrating a Super Bowl victory in front of their home crowd at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. The team sold out its season tickets for 2021 long ago and figures to play to a packed house. Last year, the 24,835 fans at the Super Bowl was the largest crowd to which they played due to COVID; this year, expect more of the 65,890 seats in the stadium to be filled. Below is everything to know about the TV schedule for the NFL season-opener between the Cowboys and the Bu...

1. The continued emphasis on young quarterbacks . The NFL has never been more willing to play young quarterbacks, and that will especially be the case this year. This season will join 2012, when five rookie quarterbacks started Week 1, as the only seasons in the Super Bowl era that three rookies started in Week 1. The AFC East will start four quarterbacks – including Zach Wilson of the Jets – under the age of 25 for the first time since 1985. Incredible. 2. The Browns to be legitimately good for a second straight year. The Browns’ fan base has been disappointed so often since the team was re-established in Cleveland in 1999, so let them get to the playoffs a second straight year. In fact, let them make a meaningful postseason run to help even the scales of karma. 3. A change to the touchback rule on fumbles out of the end zone. This has been a topic of debate for years, and let’s hope the powers that be give serious consideration to allowing the team that fumbles in the end zone to at...

 Over the weekend, Dallas Cowboys offensive guard Zack Martin tested positive for COVID-19, making him likely the first NFL player to miss a 2021 game due to the virus. While Martin is vaccinated and there remains a chance he could be taken off the reserve/COVID-19 list by Thursday’s season opener, head coach Mike McCarthy believes he’ll miss the game. Martin will likely not be the only player to miss a game due to COVID, so before the season begins, let’s revisit the new protocols the NFL has set for the 2021 season. Specifically, the NFL has adopted very different protocols for vaccinated vs. unvaccinated players when it comes to receiving a positive test or coming into close contact with a COVID-positive person. Here’s a handy breakdown of what will happen if/when a team is dealing with a possible COVID situation with one of their players. For simplicity’s sake, we won’t get into protocols on travel, mask-wearing, etc. This is simply a guide to follow in case a player is placed ...