Necessary Roughness, Week 4: HOLDING!

Tom Brady’s tweet about holding calls last Thursday had an obvious effect the last two weeks, but it was only enough to grant us a single Sunday of relief from the scourge of yellow flags that turned the first two weeks of the season into an endless funeral doom album. This week the zebras were back on their bullshit calling what seemed to me to be an extraordinary amount of holding penalties (both offensive and defensive), bringing the games I was trying to enjoy to a near halt. Check out the stats from nflpenalties.com. If you average out all penalties across all plays, the first two weeks we had a penalty on roughly 8% of plays. Last week it dipped to about 7% and this week it came back up to 8%. 1% doesn’t sound like much, but that represents a 15% increase from week three to week four.

The vast majority of these game-slowing bullshit calls seem to be for holding. Offensive holding is the kind of thing you could call on damn near every single play of every single game of football on earth, so we rely on the refs to only call the most egregious examples and/or ones that directly impact the play. Defensive holding is a little tougher and apparently there’s a mandate to call it more often this season. I feel like the same standard should apply to defensive holding as is given to offensive: if you’re on the opposite side of the field from the action and you get held .3 seconds before the ball is thrown… so what? The NFL is allegedly trying to increase player safety, but a holding call on the Bills actually turned this hit on Josh Allen (which knocked him out of the game) into a non-play. These refs need to CHILL.

Giants 24 – Washington 3: The Giants really did everything they could to literally hand this game to Washington. Four turnovers off four fumbles and two picks… yeesh. Luckily, the QBs on Washington were more than happy to cough it right back up with four picks of their own. I was happy to see Janoris Jenkins finally come to life after being smoked and shredded like a pork butt in Tampa Bay last week. Jabrill Peppers looked like a first round pick and maybe almost a worthwhile trade for OBJ? Does anyone else smell burnt toast or has my fandom just caused me to stroke out?

Danny Dimes was a little inconsistent this week compared to last, but that’s only natural. I love how he looked the entire D away from Gallman on the play below before flipping it to him for the easy TD. My biggest concern with him is that he takes some pretty decent hits and has a habit of diving forward on his shoulder instead of sliding when he scrambles. DO NOT DO THAT, DANNY. Wayne Gallman isn’t Saquon, but he’s totally fine and could start on a lot of teams. Not much to say about Washington except that they suck butts. Haskins looked better to me than his stats indicate. Are they going to start him from here on out? The season’s fucked, they might as well, right?

Buccaneers 55 – Rams 40: I hate teams like the Bucs. I don’t want to watch them play and yet here I am for the second straight week writing about them. I’ll be honest: I spent the back half of the afternoon on RedZone so I didn’t get to see this one start to end, but goddamn. The NFC looks wide open right now doesn’t it? Shaq Barrett is a fucking monster. Although they were down by three scores late in the game, it never felt like the Rams were totally out, but Goff couldn’t get his head straight and the defense was a complete sieve.

Chiefs 34 – Lions 30: Another titan looking awfully vulnerable! I caught the tail end of this game. All the announcers would tell me is that it wasn’t Mahomes’ best. I’ll take Mahome’s 40th best start over half the QBs in the league most weeks. I guess the Lions are contenders now? Matt Patricia’s defense and the first legit running game the Lions have had since Barry Sanders looks like a potent combo. This play was about as Lions as it gets though:

Patriots 16 – Bills 10: No dildos on the field. I’m disappointed, #billsmafia. I was STUNNED to tune in and watch Matt Barkley throwing passes late in the game. Poor bastard didn’t stand a chance.

Saints 12 – Cowboys 10: This is the kind of thing that gets me ready for a week of work. Falling asleep during the third quarter of a 10-9 game and waking up to find that the Saints squeaked by the ‘boys on a field goal. Teddy Bridgewater looked good! Every time he scrambles I hold my breath though. Knee stuff really makes me squirm. I don’t want to see this guy’s leg amputated on the field. Saints defense were the MVPs in this one… Look at these pedestrian ass stats from what is supposed to be a new explosive Cowboys offense!

Fantasy Pimp of the Week: Nick Chubb! For all the hype surrounding Baker Mayfield and the Browns’ receiving corps, Nick Chubb is the one guy doing what everyone hoped he would. This week he put up 165 yards and three TDs on the ground in the first game in which the Browns looked like they were supposed to. Jarvis Landry gets an honorable mention here for snagging 167 yards of his own in this one. Look at this one, though… CHRIST he looks big and fast and scary!

Some random thoughts:

• Loved the hell out of this piece of disrespect from Mike Evans:

That’s a high risk/high reward type of move. If the Rams had come back, he’d look like the biggest asshole in Florida.

• Gardner Minshew had almost nothing to do with this play, except I think that Leonard Fournette may have given him the best nickname in football: “Jock Strap King.” It sounds like something out of One Punch Man.

The Number Twelve Looks Like You has an album called Wild Gods and it’s OUT RIGHT NOW. It’d be real swell if you bought it, or streamed it or did whatever you wanted with it. We’re also hitting the road with Godmother and Pound. Get in touch with me if you wanna play Magic or watch football at any of these dates:

10/1 Brookyln, Kingsland https://bit.ly/2XPKnC8
10/2 Long Island, NY AMH http://bit.ly/2NU6enp
10/3 Somerville, MA ONCE https://bit.ly/30wSBMj
10/4 Buffalo, NY Rec Room https://aftr.dk/2XDdetb
10/5 Montreal, QC Bar Le Ritz PDB https://bit.ly/2XHPxQt
10/6 Toronto, ON Sneaky Dees http://bit.ly/2XGiG9X
10/8 London, ON Call the office http://bit.ly/2JsHwWW
10/9 Lansing, MI Macs Bar https://bit.ly/30FkEJH
10/10 Berwyn, IL Wire https://bit.ly/2xOfVZz
10/11 Indianapolis, IN Citadel https://bit.ly/2XKV1tU
10/12 Columbus, OH Big Room Bar https://bit.ly/30vR3Cc
10/13 Pittsburgh, PA Smiling Moose https://bit.ly/2JMgbOx
10/15 Baltimore, MD Ottobar https://bit.ly/2XSqrcS
10/16 Richmond, VA Canal Club https://bit.ly/2XNf7il
10/17 Philadelphia, PA Voltage Lounge https://bit.ly/2JMoWrx
10/18 Teaneck, NJ Debonair Music Hall https://tixfast.com/number12