NFL Week 3: The Amon-Ra St Brown Cup

 

 

 

Greetings Tipsters

 

Three weeks in and the undefeated teams so far are Pittsburgh Steelers, Seattle Seahawks, Minnesota Vikings and Kansas City Chiefs. Sure, no surprise about the Andy Reid/Patrick Mahomes Diabolic Duo, but the other three? Let’s see how that plays out.

 

The real surprise is that Carolina Panthers won! After benching #1 pick Bryce Young, journeyman ginger Andy Dalton marched the team downfield and scored a touchdown on his first drive. So, going forward, let’s unpack, take a deep dive, and start with team owner David Tepper.

 

Dave’s a multi billionaire hedge fund manager and was a minority owner of Steelers, the most stable team in the league (three coaches since 1969, all have won Superbowls) before buying the Panthers. He didn’t absorb any of that stability nonsense, by god no, he’s a Master Of The Universe! He bought the Panthers (first season 1995) in mid 2018, fired Ron Rivera, Head Coach, mid-season 2019, offered the job to Matt Rhule at the first meeting, before he’d met all the other applicants. Those blokes are breathing deep sighs of relief now.

 

Matt was sacked mid-season 2022, Frank Reich got the job, was sacked mid-season 2023, handsome Dave Canales has the job now, poor bastard. Keeping count? That’s four HCs and three interim HCs in five years. Along the way, several good footballers were traded out for little return. And then…the Bryce Young trade.

 

The Chicago Bears had first pick in the 2023 draft, the Panthers gave them their best receiver and a stack of draft picks, including two first rounders and then selected Heisman Trophy winner Bryce, all 5’10” and 200lbs of him. Rumour has it that HC and GM wanted CJ Stroud but Dave overruled them. CJ went #2 to the Texans (see last week’s column).

 

Bryce landed in a shitfire, the team won two of seventeen games last season; he got sacked a helluva lot. It’s not uncommon for a great college quarterback to have a hard time in the pro league, all but one of those drafted in 2021 and 2022 have been cut or traded, but Bryce really struggled. By all accounts he is a smart, hard working, a good bloke but, after throwing for 245 yards in the first two games this season, he was benched.

 

Dave, worth $6B or so, was driving through Charlotte NC last year and saw a sign outside a restaurant ‘Let the GM make the draft picks’ so he pulled over, went in there and had a go at the staff. He knocked someone’s hat off. A few weeks later he poured a drink over a fan at a match. It must be hard being a billionaire team owner, I’d like to try it.

 

Anyway, Bryce was benched, Andy takes over and the Panthers beat the Raiders 36 to 22. It might give lie to the theory that Bryce was a victim of poor coaching and lousy O line and recievers, but Andrew Gregory Dalton is 36 and 6’2”, he’s been a pro since 2011, was a decent QB with the Bengals for several years. He knows the speed and violence of pro football. Bryce hasn’t had a chance to get used to it.

 

Will he ever? Unlikely. He’s short, that will dissuade most teams. In the short term, the Dolphins might want to trade for him if Tua doesn’t return, he might fit Mike’s scheme, but he’ll probably end up a long term backup QB, bouncing around the league and earning $6M a year for running the scout team and suiting up on the sideline. Not a bad gig, but not a $55M starters job like he might have expected on draft night.

 

The Detroit Lions were up 20 against the Arizona Cardinals 13 at halftime and the second half was a dreary list of punts and turnovers. Still, we won. The NFC North is a tight division, aside from the Bears. The Packers lost the first game and QB Jordan Love to injury, but Malik Willis, backup who didn’t do much in Nashville, has won two games now thanks in part to coach Matt LeFleur who is great at designing offensive plays.

 

The Tennesse Titans, formerly the Houston Oilers, are the only 0-3 team so far, the Jaguars and Bengals have a game in hand as of time of writing (note angry cat coincidence) but the Jax Jags play the Bills in Buffalo so will likely join the Titans, based in Nashville, the city that Keith and Nicole call home, in the basement. Cincinatti host Washington – a study in ownership contrasts.

 

Washington’s owner, for a few decades, was Dan Snyder, an odious creature. He managed to be the subject of a Congressional investigation, an extraordinary achievement, so fled to the Med to soak up the rays on his luxury cruiser. He was eventually forced to sell but the team went for $6B, so he pocketed some good coin.

 

Cincinnati is owned by the Brown family, late patriarch Paul Brown was a visionary, patented a radio receiver in the QB’s helmet in 1953, commissioned a 40 minute colour movie about the Cleveland Browns’ training camp in 1948, a true legend. Mike Brown, his son, is current owner and, while he may be wealthy on paper, everything is tied to the team. Money in escrow for a player’s guarantee aint as easy for Mike as it is for many other owners. Mark Davis is in a similar state but he, or his advisors, parlayed the Raiders brand into a stadium in Las Vegas.

 

Other end of the scale, Stan Kroenke. He owns sports teams in every big market around the world. He bought the St Louis Rams, wanted to move the team back to LA. City showed him a bunch of legal guarantees, he had to pay $750M to get out of it, after he’d bought the old Hollywood Park racetrack and built a $5.5B stadium there. At least he paid for it all himself and didn’t blackmail city/county/state governments like most do.

 

Cheers Tipsters

 

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More from Earl O’Neill can be read Here.

 

 

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