NFL Week 1 is over, and perhaps the biggest news happened minutes into the final game: Aaron Rodgers’ season (career?) is over thanks to a torn Achilles tendon suffered on his first series as a Jet. Ex-NFL GM Michael Lombardi joined the Junkies on Tuesday to discuss that situation – and what he would do if he was Jets GM – and MNF as a whole, as well as the latest NFL news from Week 1!
That included his thoughts on Sam Howell and the Commanders’ performance, but when EB said he’s trying to overlook the bad things and focus on the good, Lombardi cited a Jackson Browne line about exaggerating wins.
“To me, that game shouldn’t have been as close, and the only way it would’ve is if Washington was in giving mood, and they were. In the second half, they did what I thought they should do, and let the defense win the game,” Lombardi said. “People call it conservative, I call it smart football – your opponent wasn’t the Cardinals, it was yourself, and they were beating themselves. They are good on d and cannot lose games themselves – let the opponent beat you. That’s been kind of the way they’ve done it under Rivera; they make too many mistakes and the details don’t seem to get cleaned up, and there are 2 or 3 plays they don’t make to lose the game.”
Overall, he said he likes Sam Howell, but…
“I like Howell and think he can be a good player, but I worry about their offensive line, especially against good defensive fronts,” Lombardi said. “The win total for them was 6.5 and I thought they’d go over because they have a good team, but we’ll see.”
Take a listen to that and all of Lombardi’s NFL thoughts above!
