NFL / clay matthews

The third Sunday of the NFL season is in the books so here are the different thoughts and opinions I have on various things I witnessed yesterday. Just remember I am a Dallas Cowboys fan and I'm extremely biased. Feel free to agree or disagree about anything mentioned here. All comments are welcome.They should have just stayed home Prescott under pressure all day long (Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times) Boy that was ugly. The Cowboys offense regressed to its pitiful Week One form in Seattle. Dak Prescott had to run for his life the whole game and was sacked 5 times. It didn't help that the wide receivers corp once again failed to find any open spaces in the Seattle D. Then we have Zeke Elliott. Elliott rushed for 127 yards on 16 carries, but made two huge mistakes that sealed the defeat for Dallas. First he made a foolish error by stepping out of bounds before hauling in a 31-yard TD pass from Prescott despite the fact he was wide open. I mean wiiiide open. After the game he said he needs better sideline awareness. Duh. The TD was nullified and the Cowboys had to settle for a field goal. Later in the fourth quarter Dallas was driving the ball in Seattle territory for a change when Elliott busted out for a 26 yard run. Yay! Then he fumbled and Seattle recovered. Boo! Elliott needs to lead the offense and he killed two potential TD drives with his mistakes. The Lions go to Big D next week and Dallas better win or @mikey will have bragging rights over me. The Horror!There goes the survivor pool Nobody saw this coming (John Autey / Pioneer Press) Since the Browns actually had a winnable game on the schedule this week (I know, very rare), I along with most of America had to find another patsy on the week three slate to take advantage of for our survivor pools. Thank God for the Buffalo Bills. 16.5 road dogs to the mighty Vikings. Sweet! Buffalo could not have possibly played any worse in their first two games. The awesome Vikings D against a rookie QB? In Minnesota no less. What could possibly go wrong? Right game, wrong team. 27-6 Buffalo for the win. Where the hell did that come from? Kirk Cousins showed his generous nature by continuously turning the ball over to the Bills and a defense that got shredded two straight weeks came ready to play. Cousins couldn't even crack 300 yards passing with 40 completions. The Vikings ground game was non-existent, 14 total rushing yards. Congrats to the Bills. Minnesota is a championship pretender this year. They just skated by the Niners and could only tie a Packers team with a one legged QB. And they needed the aid of an atrocious roughing-the-passer penalty to salvage the tie. Good luck against the Rams. This had to be the most soul crushing home loss in Vikings history. Right? What's that Gary Anderson? Oh yeah. 1998 NFC Title Game. Choke! That was pretty bad. Only kick Anderson missed all season. Brutal. Couldn't be a home loss worse than that. Wait, Drew Pearson wants to chime in. The Famous Hail Mary 1975 NFC Playoffs. Who could possibly forget Roger Staubach hitting Drew Pearson with the Hail Mary to beat the Vikings in Minnesota during the 1975 playoffs? Good Times. If it seems like I'm dumping on the Vikings, well I am. Lesson learned here: Don't ever rely on the Vikings winning a home game. So long survivor pool, see you next year.There goes the survivor pool Part II Rare photo of Lions not sucking (Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press) Of course people smarter than me already realized the Vikes were no sure thing at home, so they had to find another patsy to pick on. Detroit Lions, come on down! The Lions were absolutely destroyed by the Jets week one and showed a little life but still lost to the Niners week two. No way they could stave off an angry Tom Brady! Whoops. As Jon Gruden once famously said: "Anything goes on any given sunday especially on monday night!" You know what he meant. Or maybe you don't. Maybe quotes like this explain Oakland's awful start. Anyway a Detroit Lions defense that couldn't contain Jimmy Garoppolo shut Tom Brady down stone cold. 133 passing yards with a TD and a pick. Brady looked old and tired by the end of this one. Even more amazing, the Lions had a hundred yard rusher (barely). Rookie RB Kerryon Johnson converted 16 rushes into 101 yards. Why is that amazing? No Lions running back had rushed for 100 yards in a game since Reggie Bush topped the century mark on Thanksgiving Day 2013. That was 70 games ago. We were younger then and had more hair. Congrats to the Lions. Nothing salvages a lousy day of football like watching the Patriots getting their asses handed to them.Just put a skirt on QBs already and outlaw sacks Maybe he should just stand there with his hands in his pockets (Adam Wesley/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wis) Another week in the NFL, another week with an outrageous roughing-the-passer penalty called on Clay Matthews. This crap is getting old. Poor Clay is becoming the poster-boy for the NFL's drive to eliminate QB sacks from the game. Sadly he's not the only one being victimized. There were two roughing-the-passer calls in the Seattle-Dallas game, one on each team, and neither was even close to deserving a flag. In fact the one called on Seattle was so ridiculous broadcaster Troy Aikman said I'm done talking about this and sat there silent for the entire next play. I respect his decision to give the impression that if this considered "football" he wants no part of it. At the same time I condemn him for forcing more Joe Buck on me. Ugh. What are pass rushers supposed to do? Ask the QBs to take a knee so they can tap their shoulders? Will that become a flag for hurting a QBs self esteem? Seriously, what is the NFL's endgame here? Eliminating sacks altogether? Dammit I have a lot of questions! This issue has managed to unite fans, players and broadcasters in their mutual hatred towards the new roughing-the-passer rules. I haven't heard anyone anywhere admit they think this good for the game. To bad the league office never listens, even when their credibility is at stake. This was one crazy week Browns actually win! (Joshua Gunter, cleveland.com) This was just a crazy week. The Browns won a game! Budweiser handed out free Bud Lights to Cleveland fans to celebrate. Maybe they should have handed out free beers when the Browns lost, they needed it more then. The Giants beat the Texans on the road after looking like complete garbage the week before in Dallas. I can't resist, Houston you have a problem. The Jaguars celebrated their dethroning of the Patriots by losing to the Titans at home 9-6. The highlight of the game was Titans DL Taylor Lewan barfing on the sidelines. Kind of summed that game pretty well I thought. Adrian Peterson hates the Packers so much he morphed into a 25 year old version of himself to rush for 120 yards and two TDS to lead the Skins to a 31-17 victory. Some personal rivalries die hard I guess. Drew Brees was so desperate to beat the Falcons he rushed for two TDS in addition to passing for three more. In his entire career Brees has never rushed for more than 3 TDs in a season. Patrick Mahomes "only" threw 3 TD passes against the Niners. The pressure must be finally getting to him. Heh. Whew what a week. Let me know your thoughts on Week Three.