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The New York Jets are looking pretty bad right now, and Aaron Rodgers’ play is the main problem

The New York Jets are looking pretty bad right now, and Aaron Rodgers’ play is the main problem

Wow, what a wild football weekend.

I don’t know about you, but it seemed like there was a crazy and impactful play in almost every game on Sunday. Quarterbacks threw pick-6s in their own end zones, guys fumbled at the 1-inch line, and Kirk Cousins ​​threw for 509(!) yards in a prime-time game.

Also, are the Vikings 5-0? Have we entered the Twilight Zone and no one told me?

Of course, a busy week in football means there’s plenty to talk about in today’s edition of The Skinny Post. So much football, in fact, that we might well call this week’s version “The…Hefty Post”?

Wow, that was bad. I’ll manage it.

In order! On football!

The Giants looked competent in a win over the Seahawks without Malik Nabers. Are you buying this team now that they’ve turned things around?

Michael: The Giants traveled to Seattle and picked up a nine-point win over the Seahawks without their star receiver Malik Nabers. They essentially won on a blocked field goal, which they returned for a touchdown. Had they not blocked it, the team probably would have gone to overtime, and who knows what the outcome would have been. Luckily, the Giants didn’t have to worry about that.

Daniel Jones looked like the quarterback they are paying him to be. He completed 23 of 34 passes for 257 yards and two scores without throwing an interception. On the ground, former Iowa Hawkeye and rookie running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. rushed for 129 yards on 18 carries.

Defensively, they didn’t take the ball away, but ultimately played well enough and matched the Seahawks blow for blow until the end, where they closed the door with a clutch play. My question here is: Could this be what the Giants look like for the rest of the season? Was this just a bad game for the Seahawks? Should we even play a role in this win for New York?

As our resident Giants hater, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

RJ: There’s no chance I’m willing to believe the Giants are competent in any way, but I’m in no way here to influence Sunday’s win parade. It was hard-fought and impressive. Several things can be true!

What was certainly impressive beyond the general goings-on here was that Seattle looked so strong last Monday night. I hardly think the Giants can challenge in the NFC East or NFC as a whole, but they have a chance to be a bit of a spoilsport for someone in the future.

Ultimately, I think this suggests to me most that Brian Daboll’s group hasn’t completely abandoned him yet. That’s admirable, I think, but ultimately their ceiling is so obvious.

Aaron Rodgers is now a disaster on the field, not just off it like before

RJ: Sticking with our New York theme here, the Jets were terrible in London on Sunday.

I know Aaron Rodgers, as we found out, was overcoming a lower ankle sprain, and that was fun, but he ended up throwing three interceptions. He himself said after the game that he was told that it was the first time he had thrown multiple picks in the first quarter.

I am, as mentioned, a Cowboys fan, so I have doubted Rodgers and been burned many times (literally every time), so my point of view here is not from a biased perspective…it is. .. bad? Really bad?

You can’t convince me that today’s Aaron Rodgers is one of the top-half quarterbacks in the NFL just by talking about how good a functional quarterback he is. When you factor in the never-ending tension and drama that comes with it, the situation is obviously that much worse. The team announced Tuesday that it was moving on from now-former head coach Robert Saleh, but was he really the problem?

Thank God for New York that both the Yankees and Mets are doing well, but think about this for a moment: Is it possible that the Jets have the bleakest outlook of all four New York football and baseball teams? Given that the Jets have the biggest star on their roster – all due respect to Aaron Judge – that’s pretty unacceptable.

Rodgers should improve the Jets’ character. So far he’s more of the same.

Michael: Honestly, I think Rodgers is still a “more than good” quarterback in the NFL. However, his interception against the Vikings was entirely his fault. His first interception was just a throw into the face of linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel. I know the play was a now screen and you had to turn around and throw the ball, but he did so with the full understanding that Ginkel, who has done it twice in his career so far, wasn’t there would be.

The second interception was a blatant fall. It was so high that his own receiver couldn’t reach it if he extended it fully above his head. The final and game-winning interception was Mike Williams terribly subdued. You know, the same 6’3″ Mike Williams who made big money on big, LEAPING grabs for Philip Rivers and Justin Herbert over the last seven years.

When Rodgers made precise, tight throws, his receivers dropped one or two, but the macro decisions that led to that loss were 100 percent Rodgers’s. Washed? Perhaps. Just maybe.

Caleb Williams did the Caleb Williams thing but couldn’t make up much ground on Jayden Daniels for Offensive Rookie of the Year

Michael: It was a bye week for the Chargers, so I spent that Sunday getting up before sunrise and driving an hour south to spend time with friends. We watched the game in London before watching the Bears beat the Panthers. My friend, a Bears fan from Chicago who lives here near the Twin Cities, was thrilled to finally see Caleb Williams do something special.

Luckily he had the Panthers on offer and he didn’t disappoint.

Williams threw for 304 yards and two touchdowns on 20 of 29 passes. He also threw a 34-yard chip on the ground and would have scored a rushing touchdown had an offensive lineman not been flagged for a penalty.

The rookie didn’t turn the ball over and had several plays where he used his legs to avoid sacks and extend plays/drives. It was a performance you would expect from this year’s No. 1 pick. However, I don’t think it has hurt the early race for this year’s Offensive Rookie of the Year. Jayden Daniels and the Commanders did their thing. They scored more than 30 points and took care of a weak Browns team. Through five games. Daniels threw for 1,135 yards and rushed for 300 yards. He has four passing touchdowns and four rushing scores.

If you compare that to Williams’ 1,091 passing yards and five scores, you might think it’s pretty close, but Williams is way behind Daniels’ ground game with 113 yards and zero scores.

I really liked what I saw from Caleb on Sunday, but Daniels is in a different league at this point in the season.

RJ: It was poetic that Caleb’s arrival came against the Carolina Panthers considering how we got to this point. I’m thrilled that Williams is starting to find himself and thrive, and that Bears fans can finally breathe a little relief.

But he won’t be able to catch Jayden Daniels for now. What we’re seeing in Washington is pretty remarkable and I’m excited to see if it continues as the season progresses. If not, that could obviously open the door for Caleb to win ROTY, but it’s been a while since we’ve had this good a back-and-forth between the top two picks in a class. Overall, I’m here for it.

You somehow can’t help but feel like Chicago is still behind the rest of its division, which makes the conversation interesting. The NFC East is a bit strange right now with the Bears still in last place at 3-2. Sometimes the luck of the draw is simply against you.

Should we panic about the 49ers?

RJ: I think it’s pretty wild that the San Francisco 49ers blew a game at home against the Arizona Cardinals. I believed in Arizona a little bit this year, but no one predicted that.

The 49ers had been great for so long, but we all thought that at some point they would have to bottom out. Is that now? Is the floor the floor? I don’t think so, but the old 49ers teams wouldn’t throw games away like that.

Remember, San Francisco already has three losses this season. They lost a total of five games last year and four the year before. At least this seems to be the least indestructible version of who they once were.

Am I overreacting?

Michael: I don’t think it’s a crazy reaction to it. Yes, the 49ers don’t have all-world running back Christian McCaffrey. However, they definitely have Nick Bosa and George Kittle as well as Fred Warner and Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk. They have a lot of great players, some of the best at their respective positions, and that’s a lot more than many other teams can say about their rosters. The 49ers have plenty of talent to still be a phenomenal team, and that’s why I’m panicking about the 49ers.

Brock Purdy, despite all the talk about him over the last two seasons, is still a pretty good quarterback. He was great in Kyle Shanahan’s system. But he’s still prone to making mistakes that everyone else makes. The NFL is about inches and a mistake or two here or there that can turn the tide of a game. Sometimes the dice just don’t roll your way. Purdy, like anyone else, is prone to making mistakes in key situations that can lead to a loss. It just so happens that they are seen more this year than in previous seasons.

The 49ers will probably be fine, but now they have to show me and the rest of the league that it was just a slow start and now the start of something different.