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“NFL Matchups”
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Some of the best play the best this weekend in the NFL.  Some of the others have the weekend off to try and fix the rash of upset losses the last couple of Sundays.

CHARGERS-JETS…Hard to believe Bfandon Staley’s team has a worse record than the Jets who don’t have QB-Aaron Rodgers.  Justin Herbert faces a big challenge against a good pass rush.  Who knows what Jets QB-Zach Wilson does against a strong Bolt pass rush.  We do know he has been sacked 23-times already.

MIAMI-CHIEFS…You like offense, everyone does, then don’t miss this one.  Tua vs Mahomes.  Tyreek Hill against his old team.  Enormous down the field strikes and neither defense is dominant.  The Chiefs are #4 in offense, and #4 on defense.  Miami leads the world in offense ranked #1 (453YPG).  The only blemish on KC’s offense (351YPG) is the fact KC has turned it over 16-times in 7-weeks.

RAVENS-SEATTLE…Lamar Jackson is having a superb dual season-run and throw.  Baltimore is averaging (350YPG).  Lost in all the talk about Baltimore is a cement tough defense, #2 in the NFL, with 31-sacks and 15-takeaways.  Don’t know how the Seahawks-Geno Smith will cope with that.

COWBOYS-EAGLES…Throwback old NFC-East war.  Dak Prescott is hot, so is WR-Cee Dee Lamb.  Jalen Hurts has been dynamic run-and-throw, but the Dallas defense is fast and furious (287YPG) with quarterbacks completing just 58% of their passes.  But Philly has 25-sacks going into this one so it won’t be an easy day either for Dak.  One of these QBs is going to crack and cough the ball up.

BILLS-BENGALS…Josh Allen, turnovers and all, is completing (71%) of his passes…has (2165Y) thru the air and has added (189Y) rushing.  Not sure the Bengals defense can cope with that.  Joe Burrow’s team has won 3-straight and they are coming together.

A good weekend ahead after some bad upsets the last couple of weeks.  But this should be a Sunday you don’t take your eyes off the TV set as we get to the midway point of the schedule

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“SPORTS & CHAOS”
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Quite a 48-hours in sports as we search for answers to our questions about the NBA team not named the Lakers in Los Angeles..

CLIPPERS….How do you look at what they did?  The acquisition of veteran guard James Harden, his talents (24PPG), his track record of failures in Houston-Philadelphia-Brooklyn.

Do you gain alot by adding his on-ball skills to a team that has two other stars that also need the ball, in Kawhi Leonard and Paul George?

Did you really give up anything in the trade, four players who were guys off the bench, or 1-first round pick way off in the future and the 2-second round picks who will likely be cut from rosters?

Toxic talent or just a situation that was out of control?

Tough call really.  There is no doubt Harden can still ‘ball’, but it is an issue because the offense seems to stop when he has the ball in his hand.  And last I checked the NBA says you can have just 1-ball on the court at a time.

Will he be a scorer first, a distributor second?  Will he dominate possessions making Kawhi and PG after thoughts in the game plan?

Did the Clippers trade away all their backup bigs who contributed in a wide variety of ways, what you got on different nights from Marcus Morris’ tough grit, to Nick Batum’s 3 point shots, to the upside of KJ Martin’s future as a big, to the explosiveness we saw on occasion from Robert Covington?

I don’t care about the number 1-pick way down road.  Those number one’s have become bargaining chips in trades more times than not.

And I don’t care Harden is a walk free agent, in the final year of a 35M-contract, for owner Steve Ballmer is worth 88M in wealth, so he can buy the league if he wants.

But the real issue is  team chemistry, knowing how Harden created issues, poisoned things with the Houston Rockets, Philadelphia 76ers and Brooklyn Nets.

I don’t believe dalmation dogs can change their spots, and I don’t think Harden coming home to Los Angeles will make much of a difference.  And that has to be a big issue for Coach Tyronne Lue.  Can or will Harden run what needs to be run on the court with the other two stars?

Of course if injuries strike down Leonard-George again, for a fourth year in a row, then you’d be glad to have Harden’s big time scoring abilities.

This will be a chemistry experiment for sure.  How he plays, how he fits, if his track record is left behind.  Is he a good teammate for 15-minutes then reverts to his old self?  Will it become a struggle between he-Kawhi-PG once we get into the full season?

Explosion on the court, or implosion on the team?  Might be a chaotic season for the Clippers if it is not a championship season.

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“AZTECS FOOTBALL-ANYONE CARE?”
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They set a standard and now they have fallen from that pedestal.

They were supposed to be the ‘Show’ in town after the NFL left, you do remember ‘1-Team-1 Town’ and they are no longer that.

Even worse, the fans have stopped coming and the media has almost stopped caring-covering SDSU basketball.

You know you have fallen fromthe ranks when the common phrase around town is ‘when does Aztecs basketball start?’.

Brady Hoke has his hands full.  His team is (3-5).  They are (10-11) over the last two years.  They are bottom tier ranked in the NCAA in all types of offensive metrics.  The defense is no longer what it used to be.

SDSU is struggling to create the type of NIL money that would allow them to be players in recruiting and maybe more so in the Transfer Portal.

And the empty seats at the shiny new Snapdragon Stadium are almost equal to the fans in the seats.

And now the Hoke led program looks like it has hit ‘rock bottom’ with the horrendous (6-0) loss to winless Nevada, losing to a team that had lost 6-straight and 16-in a row over two seasons.

History has shown the modern day Aztecs lost to an (0-10) UNLV team in the Ted Tollner era.  The lasting memory of Chuck Long was a (73-6) trashing at TCU.  This looks like rock bottom for Bradyi Hoke.

Yes there are a bunch of winnable games left on the schedule, starting with Utah State his weekend, but the damage looks severe.

It might be coaching, it might be lack of talent, it might be scheme.  It could be a combo of all three.

How to rescue the season, regain credability, gain back the community?  You need more than 24-hours in a day to fix all that has happened at SDSU.

Coach Brady Hoke on the firing line:
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Coming off bye week-guys have worked our tails off
We have to stay together as a team and we will get better
The consistency is not where we want it
2-bye weeks is unusual
We are building mental toughness
15-new starters on this roster
We have competition for starting job
We must play 1-game at a time..try to get bowl eligible

Maden not play very well last game..he has not regressed
We need consistency upfront to help the quarterback
Run 1-play well…next time we run it..we don’t run it very good
Offense is not too conservative
We look at we do well and build game plan around that

We have to do better job creating turnovers-not doing that
Turnover margins against us
You don’t know if our younger players can handle the season
Giving up (420YPG) …poor tackling this year…teaching leverage
Need better upfront play-getting off blocks
If you bring more on pass rush-you put yourself in man coverage

2-bye weeks in 3-week window..
Brought staff is earlier…did earlier recruiting-refined playbook
We may make starting lineup changes
Not fair to seniors to start playing younger players now

Tell fans-can’t think about that too much
Understand fans unhappy-we’re not happy either
This is about the kids out there…support them

Players understood how bad a loss the Nevada game was
No one accepts losses…
Questioning the program is fair..but I know

Rock bottom-I don’t know history but this was not a good loss
We are pissed off but we are working to turn this

Utah State-same record-fighting good and bad games
35-points a game..run 2-quarterbacks..force alot of turnovers on defense

Bowl games…part of good experiences for our players…that’s what we strive for
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(Brandon Dixon-Cedarius Barfield)

Bad game on offense-Nevada..have to move forward
What happened was embarrassing
Not running the ball against Nevada…not protect QB better
We are pissed off…alot of goals coming into the season
Record not show what we wanted
Chunk of plays allowed on defense..people not in right position
We have guys to play better football
Past years, our guys had more experience to make right plays
2-bye weeks…the bad loss just sits there..not the best feeling
We have to look past bad game
Running back room..very good
Offensive line-need reps to get better to get blocks-get to second level

Utah State spreads you out…they throw the ball alot..WRs catch lots passes

Coaches handle this adversity..offensive coaches fixing our mistakes…we watch the films-we know what we have to do….defensive coaches frustrated but it is details-it is a technique thing…it has pulled us closer together…coaches teach us to bring our younger guys along..

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“RAIDERS-SILVER & BLEAK”
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They have won in the past.  You wonder when they will win again.

The fans in the stands are better than the team on the field.

In the back of the closet are their Super Bowl trophies from decades ago, dusty, dented, and the only thing Raiders fans have to hold onto, memory of Al Davis, the outlaw image and the wins.

But Kenny Stabler, Marcus Allen, Jack Tatum…that was a lifetime ago.

The Raiders always elicit hope, with all their fascinating free agent signings.  There is always expectations with coaching moves, like the rehiring of Jon Gruden.  There’s always excitement with the costumed fans in the stands.  There is always a show to see.

And there is always disappointment.

For every great talent, like pass rusher Maxx Crosby, there are busted first round draft picks littering the highway.

For every great acquisition like Davante Adams, there is the haunting shadows of high picks whose careers washed out because of DUI fatal accidents and gun arrests.

No matter how hard they try to fix the quarterback situation, Jimmy Garoppolo replaced Derek Carr, but the team is worse.

The roster turnover on a yearly basis is ridiculous.  The GM turnover is as crazy as the roster being flipped yearly.

There is a constant churn of coaches, coming, going, failing, the latest being Josh McDaniels, who as a head coach, may be a better offensive coordinator.  His tenure in Las Vegas sure looks like his short stay in Denver.

The home games are played in the spectacular Allegiant Stadium, so different than the dump that was the Oakland Coliseum.

This owner Mark Davis, does not carry the juice, the clout, the expertise that his late father Al Davis had once upon a time.

But as the game changed, from football to big business, the Raiders started to fail.  They have never recovered. The franchise they dragged from the East Bay to the Nevada desert had a record of (90-182) in the decade leading up to the move to Sin City.

The NFL didn’t want the Raiders in LA, so they allowed them to move to a sweetheart deal in a new stadium in Vegas.  But that hasn’t made a difference in the football fortunes.

How bad is it?  The woeful Detroit Lions, one of the more incompetent franchises for decades, beat the crap out of the once tough Raiders on Monday Night Football for the whole nation to see.

The once pitiful Lions outgained the Raiders (486-152).  They ran off (81-45) plays advantage. A (29-12) edge in first downs.  The Detroit’s running back Jahmyr Gibbs had more yards (189) than the entire Raiders team.

You just wonder when it ends, when they turn the corner, when they reward the fans for all the years of support during the many years of lousy football.

The Silver & Black, really the Silver & Bleak.  It’s sad when the fans in the stands are a better show than the team on the field.

So much for the Commitment to Excellence or the Glory of the Raiders is in their future.

Not this day, this set of games, the season or recent years.  ‘The future looks as dark as the past.  The Black Hole has lots of different meanings, doesn’t it?

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“NFL WEEKEND-STUNNING SUNDAY”
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Somebody has some explaining to do, after an upside down weekend around the NFL.

A quick look at NFL storylines:

CHARGERS…Thank goodness the hapless Bears were on the schedule at this point.  Justin Herbert was dazzling early, hitting 15-passes in a row while the Bears were pretty poor from start to finish. The Bolts won (30-13).  It was a vintage Austin Eckler outing, (119) all purpose yards.  Herbert finished with (298) passing.  It was a coming out party for two backups, TE-Donald Parham and #1 pick Quinton Johnston combined to catch (9R-93Y).  It counts as one win and the Bolts head to New York to play the Jets.

DENVER-CHIEFS…Looking for an explanation on this one.  The Chiefs turned it over 5-times.  Patrick Mahomes looked ordinary.  Russell Wilson looks old, but did throw for 3-TDs because the Chiefs turned it over and gave them a short field.  Kansas City did not look like Kansas City and that is strange.

DALLAS-RAMS…Terrible beat down and now Matthew Stafford has a thumb injury.  Dak Prescott is rolling with a (304Y) passing day.  Cee Dee Lamb had his second big boy game in a row (12R-158Y).  The Cowboys pass rush looks elite.  The Rams look spent

BENGALS-49ers…No one could predict 3-losses in a row, but the 49ers have skidded to their bye week with that.  Joe Burrow (28-32) 283Y-3TD looked like the Joe Burrow of old.  J’Marr Chase had a 10-catch-100 yard day.  Brock Purdy does not look like he did in the past, with 2-picks on 2-passes in a row, then a fumble after that.  The fact this happened infront of their home fans was a shocker too.

EAGLES-WASHINGTON…No one saw this (38-31) shootout coming.  Jalen Hurts throws 4-more TDs in his 319-yard day.  How about Sam Howell’s (397Y-4TD) passing day against a Super Bowl type Philly defense.

MIAMI-PATRIOTS…Tua keeps doing it, this time a (324Y-3TD) blowout win against the Bill Belichick defense.  The Pats are (2-6)

STEELERS-JAGUARS…Jacksvonville plays really hard and seems to have an offense without alot of name recognized stars.  The Steelers went 21-minutes without a first down and QB-Ken Pickett is now hurt.

VIKINGS..Coming back from a bad start,now a bad ending, with Kirk Cousins possible season ending torn Achilles injury.  A devastating blow.

SAINTS…They put up (511Y) in offense, Derek Carr had a bounceback 300-yard passing game, but the Saints don’t look dominant.  They could have lost to the Colts.

JETS-GIANTS…Somebody said they should have televised this game in black and white grainy TV, it was so bad.  Jets won.  The Giants lost its QB-Tyrod Taylor who went to the hospital with rib issues.  So bad the Giants had 7-yards passing in the game, not being able to throw the ball, having to give it all the time to Saquon Barkley.

HOUSTON-CAROLINA..Battle of last year’s lst round draft pick, and Bryce Young was a bit better than CJ Stroud, so the Panthers won their first game of the year, nipping the Texans.

A strange weekend for sure.  Looking for explanations of how this could happen.

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