Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Week 2! There is still a lot of football left to be played, and we should be thankful. If your team took an L this past week, that is perfectly ok and there is still time to turn this thing around. If your team won this past week, must be nice and I don’t want to hear about it. (That’s not true. I do want to hear about it. Visit the Contact page and share your thoughts.)
Another thing we have to keep an eye on is the thermometer as we count down to a crisp 56 degrees. That is literally the name of this site…so…if you’re surprised to have just read that, it’s on you. As we get into the beautiful fall season, keep the cameras ready, because the first person to tweet me a picture on a game day of a legitimate, unaltered and very real thermometer reading 56 degrees will win some kind of prize. Not sure what that is yet, but it will be something and it will be significant. Think in the ballpark of Olive Garden gift card.
Thursday Night Football
Buccaneers vs. Panthers
The first NFC South divisional game this season should be an interesting one for both teams. Now I am obviously a fan of Carolina, so I will keep the jokes to a minimum here. I do expect Carolina to win the game with a dominant run effort followed up by a much-better-than-last-game passing game. The Panthers D should be able to have a field day with Jameis Winston under center. I have said this for a long time, but the most nervous I have ever been in recent Panthers/Bucs history was with Ryan Fitzpatrick as the QB. With him, you had no idea what you were going to get. He might throw 5 INTs and get sacked in hilarious ways, but he also could light up the scoreboard and show up at the press conference looking like Conor McGregor. The most nervous I was prior to that was every single game that we had to play against Mike Alstott. I know the defenses on his teams were a force. I don’t want to discredit them in the least. But I don’t know how I would begin to try to tackle that guy. I probably wouldn’t. Folks usually couldn’t.
*Post-production note, I sat in my room and watched the whole video above. Mike Alstott was a monster.
It just seems like Jameis can’t get out of his own way at times, and the up-and-coming Panthers secondary will be eager to test him out.
Crab legs.
I said I would keep the jokes to a minimum, apparently both in quantity and length. I’ll be at the game in Charlotte, so keep an eye on the twitter for information you can only get from my specific section of the stadium. The fans can be more interesting than the game at times.
Prediction
Panthers 27 – Bucs 16
September 11
The NFL is a great outlet for people to root for and represent their community, and most of the time, friendly lines of division are drawn to represent that fandom. Today though, and on a much more serious note than I usually go about writing these blogs, I hope that we leave those lines of division on the field or at the tailgate. September 11, 2001 was one of the worst days in American history, and nothing can begin to make right the wrong that was done. Nothing can change the outcome that the families of those we lost still have to endure. But something came out of that tragedy that I had not seen in my young life then, and have not seen again since. Americans set aside their differences and came together as one. We loved each other. We were looking out for one another. We realized that we were stronger united.
A lot has happened since 2001, and a lot seems to divide us now more than ever. I don’t know what the answers are, but I really hope that we can start to turn this thing around. I won’t get too far into the weeds, but I just ask that you say a prayer for the families impacted on that terrible day as well as one for your fellow man, woman and child. Please take a second to thank a first responder and/or someone in our armed forces, and think of ways that we can positively impact our communities. We’ll figure this thing out, and we’ll continue to love football as we do it. May God bless these United States of America.