We are well into trap season, as more teams got snared this weekend, including Tampa Bay losing in all phases of the game to Washington, and Denver and the Chargers both losing at home.
But the big story of the week was in Carolina, where the man with the big hat and the strange font on Instagram made his triumphant return.
This week, the Panthers signed Cam Newton to a $10 million dollar contract in a desperate move to try and obscure the fact they still owe Sam Darnold $18.8 million next year (and this after signing Teddy B for two years then abandoning ship after one).
Newton spent nine years as a Panther, and damn if he doesn’t look fit in that uniform.
On Cam Newton’s flight to Phoenix, he remarked on his incredible feel-good reunion with the Panthers. With a mouth full of (I think) rice? Cam said something that struck me.
“All of this would be cool and shit... It would be a good drinking story. But it would be really embarrassing if I came back and we didn’t win. I’m here to win and that’s what we’re going to do”
And as a 7-point dog at kickoff, that is exactly what the Carolina Panthers did to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday.
Did the Cards have D Hop? No. Did they have Kyler? Nah.
Do I care? Also nope.
Cam freaking Newton was back in the Teal and Silver and running around the field like a 5-year-old kid with his arm out to slap hands with every fan he could make contact with. Thank God Cam is vaccinated this time around. His stat line? As wild as the Cam Newton experience can sometimes be: One rush for a TD and one passing TD and a combined 22 yards of offense. At one point he was 2-3 for ZERO yards and had two TDs.
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Of course, CMC is back in the fold and healthy again which is really the heart of this team’s success. CMC generated a total of 161 yards of offense on his own and the Panthers mopped the floor with a team that almost nobody believed they could beat. The win was so impressive, NFL pundits are back to writing about whether Carolina can win the NFC South.
They can’t. But it's a cute story and cute narratives are what drives interest and clicks and lines the pockets of media companies who pay talking heads to write more cute narratives.
Win. Win. Win.
Speaking of other teams that got right this week, the Dallas Cowboys put that trap game loss to Denver in their rearview mirror, and backed the truck over the dead body of Arthur Blank with a blowout win over the Falcons, 43-3. The exclamation mark was in the second quarter where Dallas scored a whopping 29 points.
I thought Dallas was dead, right?
LOL.
Listen, we all overreact. We all can be prisoners of the moment. But let’s be real. That Denver trap game was meaningless. They are terrible. Sometimes, even as a good team you put up a stinker.
What really matters, though, is how you respond. Dak was 24-36 for 291 yards and two TDs. Dallas was having so much fun they even let Zeke throw a pass. Really. It was the first pass of his career.
And the Cowboys covered (again). They’re 8-1 ATS this year, so fade them at your own peril. This team is good and they’re going to get better, even if they get caught in a rat trap again.
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Speaking of good teams that put up a stinker and get smushed in the jaws of a trap game, let’s talk about Tampa, shall we?
No one thought, after their bye, the defending Super Bowl champions (9.5 point favorites btw) would struggle to score on one of the NFL’s worst defenses, let alone lose outright. Washington, coming into this game was 1-9 against the spread. This loss was shocking and frankly, embarrassing.
So embarrassing that Bruce Arians unloaded on the team after the loss, calling the Bucs a “very dumb football team.”
How dumb were they? The Bucs turned the ball over twice, took six penalties, went just 4-of-10 on third down and made a bunch of bone-headed decisions throughout the entirety of the game. This is now the second time in three weeks that the Buccaneers lost to a team that they should have beaten and the other week was after a bye.
Not great, Bruce.
Blame it on injuries, blame it on the bye week festivities, shit, blame it on the fact Brady doesn’t like to play in the cold anymore but something has to change.
Tampa, as Bruce Arians so poignantly stated, has some soul searching to do. Next Monday? The NY Football Giants in another game I can see being much closer than Vegas predicts.
It’s certainly not time to worry about Tampa’s title aspirations but it is time to fade them ATS for pretty much the rest of the year.
Or at least until they prove they’re for real, like last year, in the postseason.
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Lots of other story lines this weekend. Have the Chiefs saved their season at the expense of the snakebit Raiders? Is Aaron Rodgers REALLY wispy eyed and remorseful or is he just mad he got caught? And the Detroit Lions not losing but not actually winning is an objectively hilarious fact. Najee Harris admitted after the game he didn’t even know NFL games could end in a tie. But a tie isn’t like kissing your sister, it’s God saying both teams are so bad no one deserves to win.
It was another fun weekend in the NFL and I cannot wait to see what new wild storylines come out next Sunday.
See ya then.
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