Two Dome Dwellers

I’m not going to say that the New Orleans Saints were heavily favored in this game, but they are a favorite to contend for a Super Bowl this year. The Atlanta Falcons had a rough 2013 season with high expectations. Their 2014 season has lower expectations, but I didn’t think they would give the Saints any problems in the first game of the season. The outcome could have been different had Marques Colston not fumbled in the first possession of overtime for the Saints. Since he did, the Falcons wasted no time getting into field goal range for Matt Bryant. With the Falcons somewhat stunning victory over their division rivals what does it mean for them? For now it gives them confidence, but they should keep their own expectations tempered so as to not have a repeat of last season. For the Saints they are too talented to let this keep them down. They’re still the favorites to win the division. The rematch between these two should be interesting when they meet in New Orleans.

Be Careful What You Wish For

New England Patriots QB Tom Brady was quoted before the season saying that he’ll retire when he starts “to suck”. We’ll after the Patriots first game of the season against the Miami Dolphins, he might want to rethink that statement. To be fair it wasn’t Brady’s fault. The Patriots were leading 20-10 at halftime. They were shutout in the second half and allowed the Dolphins to score 23 points. Brady had no help from his offensive line and it was probably because of the dire straight they were in, but they didn’t even bother running the ball with 56 pass attempts by Brady. Miami had excellent production on the ground and used it to their advantage for the entire second half. Like the Saints losing their first game I don’t see this becoming a problem for the Patriots, but it was amazing to see their revamped defense look so terrible. Miami has had a lot of success at home against Tom Brady, but not so much in New England. The rematch will be different.

Bad On So Many Levels

From the third play of the game it went down hill for the Dallas Cowboys. When the camera panned out to show the crowd at Cowboys Stadium there didn’t appear to be many Cowboy fans in the stands. Quite perplexing for the first home game of the season for ‘America’s Team’. There were a lot of questions with the 49ers defense and how they would play without two of their best players, LB Aldon Smith and LB NaVorro Bowman sidelined by suspension and injury respectively. They gave up only 3 points to the Cowboys in the first half and only 17 points total. Not bad considering the Cowboys with all of their defensive woes still have a great offense that can score a lot of points. At least when Tony Romo doesn’t throw three interceptions and DeMarco Murray doesn’t fumble on third play of the game. It was encouraging to see the Cowboys run the ball with Murray getting 22 carries. That trend needs to continue, but the turnovers have to be kept to a minimum if they want to win some games this year. Don’t expect the defense to help them much this year.