Weekly WTF Moments – Week 3 of the 2017 NFL season
In what was a crazy weekend for the NFL, where does one begin with a column named “WTF”?
I know some of you may want me to start with the whole anthem drama, but how about we leave that for other politically charged sites and get to the business of WTF happened this week in the National Football League.
Let’s start with the Thursday night game. For me, a Rams versus 49ers game was good enough reason to go to my scheduled book club meeting. It was going to be a low scoring, not very exciting, dud of a game between two California teams right?
Uh wrong! My phone was blowing up the minute I left said book club meeting!
Eleven seconds into the game 49ers QB Brian Hoyer threw a pick-six… on his first pass. For the third time this year, the Rams defense came up with another pick-six, this time a leaping interception by Rams CB Nickell Robey-Coleman.
Then the game just got ridiculous on both ends of the ball. (Almost as ridiculous as those Rams jerseys.)
Hoyer marched down the field and ran in for his own rushing touchdown and it was just back and forth all the way to the end when the Rams finally emerged victorious in a crazy 41-39 final.
WTF?
Book Club will have to go on without me for the next TNF game!
Moving on, some of the teams that pulled off wins this weekend definitely give us pause for the WTF.
Did they really win? Jets over Dolphins? Redskins over Raiders?, Bills over Broncos?
They did not.
Wait, oh yes they did! WTF?
Speaking of Denver, there has been a few unsportsmanlike conduct flags thrown in the past couple of weeks that I personally thought were well deserved. Others not so much. But when the 2016 Defensive Player of the Year, Von Miller, sacks Bills QB Tyrod Taylor, then offers him a hand to get up, only to pull it back and leave him on the ground… well, that’s just childish.
And apparently a 15-yard penalty.
Come Von, WTF? Grow up!
http://gty.im/853101566
Now one win that I wasn’t really surprised at all about was the Jags over the Ravens. (YES!)
Oh sorry, showed my bias there a bit.
Those two teams gave us football for breakfast as it started in my neck of the woods at 6:30 am. And in an NFL fail, it was not televised on CBS, FOX, NBC, ESPN, or NFL Network. You couldn’t find the game on Twitter or Amazon Prime either. It was only streamed exclusively through Yahoo.
Yahoo?
Is this 1998?
Want to know how dead of a platform Yahoo is? My WTF Podcast cohost Joe Kuzma has a streaming stick and said after he installed the Yahoo app, he didn’t even have to do anything else. The only thing you could do with it was watch the Jaguars and Ravens game.
WTF?
If you are a Ravens fan, it wasn’t a pretty sight. (If you’re a Ravens fan, I question why you’re on a Steelers site in the first place, but thanks for reading!)
First, the Ravens traveled to London, England to play. If you saw Joe Flacco‘s interview the day before the game, he looked tired and jet-lagged. I had a feeling. Flacco played like he looked with 2 interceptions, and a 12.0 QB rating.
Oh, and Baltimore lost by 37 points.
But what gets me to my WTF in this game, was not the 44-7 win but with a 37-0 lead, for some unknown reason, the play call from Jacksonville was to fake a punt.
WTF? Really? Why?
Did John Harbaugh piss off your coach or something?
That is an unsportsmanlike conduct in itself to use tricks when you are in the 4th quarter and only 9 minutes left with that big of a lead. I know it’s not a rule, but it’s like stealing bases in a baseball game when you are ahead by 10 runs. It just isn’t done.
I expected more from the Jags when it comes to integrity and the spirit of the game. I am not a Ravens fan at all, but that’s unnecessary.
Now other teams will also plan for it. WTF?
We mentioned choreographed celebrations on the show last week and how they are really lackluster and not giving us the spontaneous entertainment factor we were all missing.
Well, we should be careful what we wish for.
After a TD by New York Giants WR Odell Beckham Jr., he got down on all fours and acted like a dog… lifting his leg to pee on the field.
W-T-F???????
Another 15-yard penalty, and possibly a fine.
So twerking and peeing are penalties. Do we actually have to remind players of this? They are men and not boys, right?
The Steelers had a WTF game of their own. Not WTF plays, but a WTF GAME.
We have been talking about two ugly wins so far? Well, this loss does not get any uglier than it did this weekend. It makes me think our Week 3 loss to Philly last season wasn’t so bad. (Okay, that was bad too.)
In this game against the 0-2 Bears, Pittsburgh had a blocked field goal and muffed a punt. They played from behind all game. Ben’s throws were off, receivers dropped passes, and don’t even get me started on the refs missed holding calls, (more like accosting our players) when it counted.
All this in 90-degree heat in September.
So the AFC North went 0-4 in Week 3. Not that I am happy about it, but it sure helps that Pittsburgh did not lose any ground in the division with across the board losses.
To end on a happy WTF, did you see the rookie kicker from Philly kick a 61-yard field goal for the win over the Giants 27-24?
But what was a really funny WTF moment was the Eagles Twitter feed after with a video of a mic’d up QB Carson Wentz saying “This guy’s a superhero if he makes this. I’ll freaking… I’ll freaking give my paycheck. I’ll give him my game check if he makes this.”
Yep, those were his words, LIVE.
Time to pay up. He made it. I checked. That’s $31,764.71 for that field goal. Not bad for a few minutes of work!
Until next week.
