Week 1 in the NFL isn’t quite in the books, but there’s already plenty to rant about. Start with the ongoing joke that is the preseason. This trend of resting starters and treating those games like glorified practice sessions feels like it accelerated under Sean McVay, and now it’s just owners extracting ticket money while the product suffers. You saw the results in Week 1: players looking out of shape, tackling that would get you cut in high school, and overall sloppy football. Maybe a few coaches will decide they actually want to win their opener and play their guys in the preseason. I know the media still wants to crown McVay as some kind of football genius, but the way he handled the Australia game told you everything. Flying in the day before, looking completely jet-lagged, and getting thoroughly outplayed by the 49ers isn’t the mark of an all-knowing coach.
Moving on, at this point I have little doubt that Justin Herbert is simply an average quarterback. He’ll string together a great game here and there and hit a couple of ridiculous throws, but he’s not elite. Hiring Mike McDaniel as offensive coordinator made almost no sense. Outside of one loaded Dolphins offense a few years back, McDaniel has been equally overrated, and Sunday’s messy performance against the Cardinals only reinforced it with some truly questionable play-calling.
Switching over to college football, the first thing that jumps out is Ohio State. Their problems really started with the decision to hire Matt Patricia. He’s another coach who rode the Patriots’ dynasty wave, then flopped in Detroit and has done little else. Why Ryan Day brought him in remains a mystery. Speaking of Day, in this era of analytics, why on earth would you not let Texas score with a minute left so you could get the ball back and try to win it with a field goal? That decision backfired in spectacular fashion.
Looking at the preseason polls, Oklahoma is a perfect example of why they shouldn’t exist. The Sooners were ranked in the top 11 and looked awful in every phase while losing to a very average Michigan team. Finally, college football under NIL has become little more than a bidding war for whoever has the deepest pockets. I can already predict the playoff picture: Texas, LSU, Ohio State, Oregon, and the usual SEC and Big Ten suspects. Same faces, over and over.
That’s all for this week in football, same chaos, same overrated names and the same reasons to keep ranting until next Sunday.