This was one of those games where I’m grateful to be in Portugal and not catching it in real time. I have Rhamondre Stevenson in one league unfortunately, but none of the prominent players on the Jets (who I don’t have) went crazy, either. And I finally got a Thursday night ATS win in the books. I probably should have used it in the Circa Millions, but I hate submitting the whole slate on Thursday.

- Aaron Rodgers looks sharp at 40 still. He even moved well in the pocket and scrambled for some yards. The Jets might actually be good.

- Breece Hall is getting the requisite work (16 carries, five targets), but Braelon Allen (11 carries, 3 targets) looks more or less just as good. On the one hand, Hall won’t dominate the workload the way say Jonathan Taylor or Saquon Barkley might on their respective teams, but on the other, he’ll stay fresh and still get plenty. If Hall goes down, Allen is probably a top-five back instantly.

- Rodgers spread the ball around, but the Jets tree is pretty narrow: Garrett Wilson, Allen Lazard, Mike Williams, Tyler Conklin and the backs. Wilson had a modest game, but it was a good sign they kept going to him and eventually got him the TD (while he was covered by top corner Christian Gonzalez) even with a big lead.

- Conklin looks like a top-10 TE right now. I’d expect Williams to overtake Lazard before long as the team’s No. 2 wideout. He’s just better and more explosive.

- There’s not much to say about the Pats. Antonio Gibson looked okay after Stevenson was pulled following his fumble. DeMario Douglas took Hunter Henry’s place as the lone productive pass catcher. Maybe you could use one of those two in a pinch.

- It’s time to see more of Drake Maye who looked comfortable and confident in mop-up duty. The circumstances are rough, but Jacoby Brissett is best suited as a stop-gap game-manging backup, not someone who should block real prospect. 

 I like the idea of letting maye sit the year or for as long as possible. Love developed very well by doing that. Rodgers fought with the OC about playing more two RB sets. I didn’t watch the game but my guess is that hall isn’t really losing playing time to allen. They’re just both out there a lot. 

 Allen is just really good too. And it is cutting into his total market share of the touches, but he’s still getting plenty. 

Could be right about Maye, but it’s basically free experience at this point as the Pats aren’t winning anything.  

 Hall has 20+ touches in all 3 games so far this year. I guess allen prevents him from getting to 25+ but very few RBs get there.

That “experience” can be detrimental as it destroys a young players confidence. 

 Could even be beneficial if it saves him some wear and tear, but probably looking at 250-carries instead of 280 if he had a lesser backup. 

I’m of two minds on that. Think most of the ones whose confidence gets destroyed weren’t gonna make it anyway. And a dead-end season should be cost-free audition time for the entire team.  

 I disagree with you. Love was horrendous the first half of last season and the season before that. And that was after he sat behind rodgers for a significant amount of time. I was convinced he’d never turn it around. And now that I’m seeing mayfield and geno have such amazing turnarounds, it seems pretty clear that they need more time to develop. We’re seeing that a bit with Darnold. The sink or swim mentality isn’t effective and it can take a long time for a QB to build back their confidence. Research also shows that people enter flow states more often when the tasks they are doing have a good amount of challenge. But when the challenge is too high, it actually becomes detrimental. We are seeing that with Caleb now. Athletes need to enter flow state because there is too much information to process. And everything comes at you faster at the pro levels. Practice reps, preseason play time, and garbage time snaps can help with that. Over time they can work their way up. Even Mahomes sat a year behind Alex Smith. Brady sat for a while. Those are the two greatest QBs ever.


Bryce Young is a good example. He was actually getting worse compared to last year even though he had better weapons and a stronger o line. 

 Love might have been doing this two years ago — maybe he just needed the experience. 

Baker’s best season until last was his rookie year. And Peyton played and got destroyed as a rookie. CJ Stroud was good out of the gate. Mahomes’ sitting might have cost the Chiefs a Super Bowl — he was great in his one start in Week 17. 

Geno was set to start for the Jets 10 years ago, but he got punched in the face and broke his jaw, Ryan Fitzpatrick played well and Geno never got the job back. 

QB does take more practice than say RB, but IMO very few who got their confidence crushed ever would have made it. 

Agree re the flow state, but being bad isn’t a death sentence for a rookie QB as long as he shows *some* signs and gets better.