NFL Week 2 Thoughts - Broncos, Cardinals & Jets

In week 1 it felt like my teams could do no wrong. How quickly things change in the NFL. In week 2 many things changed for the Broncos, Cardinals and Jets. Lets get started with the highlight of the week.

Cardinals @ Patriots

How awesome was this game? As a Cardinals fan you heard it all going into this game. Patriots have never lost a home opener at Gillette Stadium, Bill Belichick 12-0 in home opening games as a head coach.

But the Cardinals somehow did it. That is why I love this team. Even in their history of struggles, they find a way to win the tough games.

Last time these two teams met was back in 2008 at Gillette and the Patriots won that game 47-7. So yea, I had my doubts too that the Cards could win this one.

To quote what I said in this blog last week "I think the Cardinals D is VERY underrated and I look forward to seeing what they can do next week against the Patriots and Tom Brady."

After week 2 is all said and done, I feel even more confident in saying, "I think the Cardinals D is one of the most underrated defenses in the NFL."

In what was a field goal battle early on, Arizona held down and dominated the Pats offense. Yes, I know that Aaron Hernandez went down with an injury and yes, I know the Cardinals needed a little bit of luck on their side to hang on for the win. I still can not believe that Stephen Gostkowski missed that field goal after he had been perfect all day. Crazy.

To hold Tom Brady to just 28 completions on 46 tries and just one touchdown with one interceptions is pretty darn good. Brady had a QBR rating of just 30.6 and the high powered New England offense that seems to score touchdowns when ever they want, did not find the end zone until the 2:06 mark in the 4th quarter.

The Cardinals offense is still a bit of a mess and this goes back to me saying maybe Peyton Manning would have been a better fit in Arizona. It could just be the fan in me talking, but I feel like this team is ready and on the verge of winning a Super Bowl. The only thing holding them back is that big question mark at quarter back, I feel like they have the talent every place else on offense. For right now, who needs it. The Cards are 2-0 and as they say, it is defense that wins championships.

Remember these names; Daryl Washington (LB, 11 Tackles), Calais Campbell (DE, 10 Tackles, 2 Sacks), Paris Lenon (LB, 8 Tackles), Darnell Dockett (My personal favorite, DT, 4 Tackles), Patrick Peterson (CB, 3 Tackles) & Adrian Wilson (S, 3 Tackles).

Keep an eye on this defense. Next week Arizona returns home. Who would have though it would be a 2008 NFC Championship game rematch between The Cardinals and Eagles in week 3 and both teams would be 2-0. Not me.

Jets @ Steelers

Not to much to say about this game other than I think the Jets blew it big time. I am a huge Rex Ryan fan, but this week I feel like he screwed up bad.

The Jets went back to looking like the Jets from the preseason. They had one good drive in the football game and that was it. The only time the Jets had back to back 1st downs was when Tim Tebow was in at quarterback. Sad thing is he only got to play 3 downs.

No reason to keep a game changer like Tebow on the sidelines. What a waste of a great talent. Mark Sanchez is your guy and that is fine. Some of the best Steeler defensive players were out with injury and Sanchez and the rest of the Jets offense struggled against a Steelers D not at 100%.

Sanchez was 10/27 for 138 yards and a touchdown.

Last season against the same team, Tebow was 10/21 for 316 yards and 2 touchdowns. Enough said.

Sanchez is your quarterback and that is fine, but don't forget to use your game changer.

Jets play at Miami next week. The birthplace of Tebowmania in the NFL.

Broncos @ Falcons

Speaking of Tim Tebow...we still have four more weeks before the trade deadline.

Ok, so I will cut the guy a little slack, but man Peyton did not look good when he threw the ball deep and I am sure he will be the first to tell you that. He was fine every place else, but that deep ball was not having it on Monday night.

This is just coming from a lone observer, but it looked to me like Manning was just confusing his entire offense the whole game with all that pre snap audible stuff. Just play football.

I can't count how many times Manning had to grab Willis McGahee and move him around because he was in the wrong spot with Manning doing so much play changing at the line.

McGahee of all people was the most productive part off the offense, rushing for 113 yards and two scores.

Give credit where it is due, like John Gruden said, the Falcon defense played tough and played tricky. Loved how the Broncos defense played in response to that and kept us in the football game, but it was not enough to overcome early mistakes. You just can't win a football games turning the ball over four times in one quarter.

The defense did their best to keep Denver in it, but in the end, they themselves ran out of energy and and ran out of time.

I am ready to see more Von Miller early in the ball games making big plays. And Coach Fox, don't forget about Lance Ball. You have a special talent sitting on the sidelines, let him loose and see what he can do.
 

NFL Week 1 Thoughts

I had a pretty awesome week 1 to the NFL season, it is pretty rare that I have a day when both my NFL teams win let alone all three of my teams win the first year I start cheering for the Jets.


Jets @ Bills

I started cheering for the Jets following the Tim Tebow trade, but I was always a little bit of a Jets fan over the last few years. I really enjoy Rex Ryan as a head coach, if I were a football player, he would be the kind of person I would want to be coached by. He seams like a players coach to me, an overall good guy that likes to have fun, and people seem to hate him for some reason, so naturally, that makes me a fan of his.

Also to me, the Jets are a little bit of that underdog team that I like to root for, even in their own city. The first thing you think of when you when you hear the words "New York Football" are the Giants. It is simple. They have the history, the championships and even had the stadium named after them before MetLife was built, Giants Stadium.

Being a fan of such sports team like; The Cubs, The Bobcats, The Rays and The Arizona Cardinals, I thought I knew all about what bad sports were. I was wrong. I had never seen a team play as bad at the Jets did in all four preseason game that I watched. No way I thought I was going to see what I saw on Sunday.

48 Points. Mark Sanchez was 19/27 for 266 Yards, 3 Touchdowns and 1 really bad interception on the 1st drive of the game. Sanchez was awesome after drive one. Yes I was watching the Jets game just to see Tebow play, but it was Sanchez who put on a show.

I will say I did enjoy watching the two quarterbacks swap in and out. As a fan, I really had a good time with the two quarterback system. Simply put, it made the game fun to watch.

Tebow did not play his best, he had 5 rushes for 11 yards and an onside kick recovery. As Skip Bayless pointed out on Twitter, he appeared to be having some back issues, however I know this whole thing is a work in progress and I know the real Tebow I saw play in Denver the last two seasons will show up soon in New York.

The only thing I did not like from the Jets is once they got the big lead they appeared to me, just my opinion, to give up a little bit and let the Bills fight back into the game scoring three touchdowns in the second half. In the NFL you can't do that too often before it comes back to bite you. On the Bills side, I was really impressed with CJ Spiller. 14 rushes for 169 yards and a score. Keep an eye out for this guy the rest of this season.

Seahawks @ Cardinals

Up next for me was the Cardinals game. For the second year in a row the Cardinals opened up their season at home vs a rookie quarterback and for the second year in a row they were winners, 20-16.

The Cardinals and the Seahawks are the only two teams in the NFL that have millions of dollars invested into their backup quarterbacks haha. In his debut for the Seahawks Russell Wilson looked a little messy, but I think in time he has the chance to be really good and the kind of quarterback that Pete Carroll really likes.

The Cardinals quarterback problems got even worse. I still to this day, even as a Broncos fan, think that Peyon Manning's best fit would have been to go to Arizona and play for the Cardinals. But that is another blog for another time.

John Skelton was all right in the game. He was 14-28 for 149 yards along with a pick and a fumble. The Cards took a big lead into the locker room at the half but then the Seahawks fought back to take the lead. It was then that Skelton went down with a leg injury and backup Kevin Kolb came into the game and went 6-8 for 66 yards and the game winning touchdown.

The ending of the game was crazy with the Cardinals defense holding the Seahawks on the goal line to prevent the Seahawk win. I think the Cardinals D is VERY underrated and I look forward to seeing what they can do next week against the Patriots and Tom Brady.

Bad memories last time the Cardinals played the Patriots. If you don't know what I mean, Google it, its worth a Google. Lets see if Kolb can win his job back next week.

Steelers @ Broncos

The night was caped off over at Hunter Robinson's Hunter's Mountain home for Sunday night football.

The big debut for Peyton Manning in the orange and blue. I never cared much for Tim Tebow when he played at Florida. I did not hate him or anything like most people do for some reason, but I just never really paid attention to him. When Tebow became a Bronco, I became a fan.

The more all the "experts" on ESPN (talking to you Steve A. Smith and Collin Cowherd) trashed Tebow and said he could not play football (never mind the broken records, SEC championships, National Championships and Heisman Trophy) I became more of a fan of his. Not only is Tebow a great quarterback and a great football player, he is a great person.

So for quite a while I will do nothing but compare Manning to Tebow when I watch a Broncos game. Again, this is just me, but Manning struggled just a little bit against the same Steelers team Tebow dominated a season ago. Manning also had to dig into the Tebow bag of tricks and pull out a 70 yard Demaryius Thomas Touchdown in the game to save himself.

What disappointed me the most is when Manning really struggled early in the game, John Fox and company let Manning run the no huddle offense and the Broncos would go on to score three touchdowns.

Why was Tebow not able to do this same thing last season when he struggled? Tebow always played his best when the game was on the line, in the no huddle spread offense, throwing the football all over the place quickly. Peyton got to do this all game long every time he got into a tight spot. Tebow did not receive that same treatment. They held him down until the 4th quarter before they left him break loose.

None the less, Manning did play as well as I expected him too and the Broncos took down the Steelers 31-19. I was most impressed with Tracy Porter's play on defense with his first game as a Bronco. He was awesome and he looks like he could be that missing piece that Broncos were waiting for to help out Champ Bailey at corner.

3-0 for my teams in week one...lets make it 6-0 next week!

Gaming World - Troy Trojans 2027 Season - FAU

Two wins away from just the 2nd 12-0 season I have had at Troy University as head coach in seven tries. In fact, in 18 years of coaching, this would be just my 2nd 12-0 season. Only if the Trojans finish out strong aginst a couple of Florida schools.

The fourth ranked Trojans close out our very successful three game homestand with a game aginst my old team, the team I got my start with, FAU. (Check out History of Coach Burck, for more information)

This is just my second time coaching aginst FAU as they made the made the jump to Conerence USA two seasons ago. Since I left the Owls back in 2018, they have been the dominate team in the Sun Belt winning no fewer then 8 games over the last nine seasons, and 10 games more than half of the time. So they were looking for an upgrade and much like Troy was a few years before, FAU made the Conference USA jump. 

I had coached aginst Troy before when I was at FAU and the games were always blowouts from Troy...Now I was Troy coach and the more things change, the more they stay the same.

You can see going into this game how we were ranked miles ahed of the Owls.

FAU would hold strong in the first few minutes of the game even forcing two interceptions on our star and heisman canadate quarterback Alonzo Roberts. The defense played even better and the owls scored no points off of thoese turnovers.

Troy bounced back with two first quarter touchdowns. FAU would add a field goal in the second quarter to cut the Troy lead down to 11, but after that, it all broke lose.

Even school passing records held by Troy legend Josiah Higdon fell on this day.

In four minutes we scored three passing touchdowns of no less then 37 yards a touchdown pass. Roberts to Kyle Kidd for a 38 yard TD pass and Roberts to Adam Rogers for TD passes of 47 and 37 yards.

We would add on to that lead with a 36 yard touchdown pass in the third quarter to Shaun Castillo and then the starters came out of the game. 

Alonzo is the man, 534 yards passing and 7 Touchdowns.

You can see how much Troy overpowered FAU here.

When he got back into the locker room following the FAU win, we got this huge news.

The last remaining unbeaten team in our way had been defeated by Iowa. Troy now had a chance to sneak into the National Championship picture.

Who can say no to the Trojans as the #2 team in the nation with these crazy numbers? 63 Touchdowns breaks Higdon's school record for passing touchdowns in a single season. He had 60 in his senior year for the Trojans, Roberts has 63 with three games still to go. 

Even better, Alonzo has moved into 1st place for Heisman consideration following his huge game vs FAU and Wisconsin's loss to Iowa. Roberts looks to be Troy's second Heisman Trophy winner.

Not national players of the week, but the Conference will recognize a few Trojans as Player of the Week.

The entire Troy University football team gathered around the TV to watch ESPN's top 25 countdown show on Sunday night and it was soon made official. For the second time in Troy University history, the Trojans were ranked as the #2 team in the entire nation. 

Bowl projections also showed us going back to the big game, this time in the Superdome. Troy vs. TCU. The Horned Frogs still had two games left and so did we. Could both teams finish out unbeaten? 

There is a lot of talk about playoffs in college football. Well for this season, for the Troy University Trojans, we had the playoffs laid out right in front of us. Three little wins away from being crowned the best team in all of college football.

The playoffs begin for the Trojans with a road game at the Swamp in Florida, a Conference Championship game vs. a nine win UTEP team that took us to Double OT a few weeks ago. That game in Jerry World at Cowboys Stadium. If we get though both of those games with wins...It is on to the SuperDome and a BCS National Championship game. 

Three final games, all on the road, in three massive stadiums, The Swamp, Cowboys Stadium & The Superdome....we begin here.

#2 Troy Trojans 2027 Season - (11-0), (9-0)

W - vs MTSU - 72 -6

W - vs Rice*   - 51-24

W - at Tulane*- 42-13

W - at UTEP*- 44-41 (OT 2)

W - vs Houston* - 50-18

W - at Memphis* - 59-31

W - vs Southern Miss* - 24-19

W - at ECU* - 49-28

W - vs UCF* - 45-28

W - vs Notre Dame - 66-13

W - vs FAU* - 59-10

Week 13 - at #13 Florida

Week 14 - BYE

Week 15 - Conference USA Championship Game

Gaming World - Troy Trojans 2027 Season - UCF & Notre Dame

The 8-0 Trojans vs. the 6-2 UCF Knights. We are just five little wins away from a perfect 13-0 season and a fifth Conference USA Championship in seven years.

The Knight and the Trojans have a little bit of history from their A-Sun days and over the last few seasons we have kind of brought this rivalry back. UCF use to be the big dogs in Conference USA going 13-0 in back to back seasons in 2012-2013, getting to the National Championship game twice, but never winning, losing to both Auburn and Oregon. But as of late, Troy is the new big team is town, and the Knights do not like it one bit.

UCF is a strong team and their 6-2 record proves that, we fell behind FAST. UCF took advantage of an Alonzo Roberts interception and a Bryan Rhoden fumble to go up 21 to 0 in the first quarter.

We would quickly answer back with a short seven yard touchdown to make the game 21-7, followed up by a 29 yard touchdown pass from Roberts to Kyle Kidd. The Knights would add one more score before the half and it was 24-14 going into the locker room...our defense was mad...our offense was mad....UCF would not score again in this football game.

After a slow third quarter, the score was 24-21 in favor of the Knights, but the Trojans would fight back to score 24 forth quarter points and sneak away with the win.

This time player of the game goes to the other wide receiver on the team, Chad Gordon, 203 yards and three touchdowns.

We land another big time quarterback named Kory Walters. A four star player from Ohio. Don't expect him to start anytime soon for this team as I feel like Van Green will be our QB next season, but in the years to come, be on the look out for this kid, he could be a really special.

We can't forget about importance of a good kicker, Here is a good three star player we stole from an ACC and Big XII School.

So next week it is our rematch with Notre Dame, this time at Troy. We signed on with the Fighting Irish last season for a home and home series. We went to South Bend last season and got destroyed. Alonzo was our quarterback for that game and he threw four interceptions. I can't even remember the final score of that game, but it was bad. One year later, we are 9-0 and the Irish are 3-6....Time for REVENGE!.

Before we get into the Notre Dame game, we take a quick look at the BCS polls and see we have moved up to #5 and even bigger news...

We lose LSU from the ranks of the unbeaten teams. We are now down to just three, us, Wisconsin and TCU. Even funnier, I think, is even in the year 2027 when Alabama plays LSU there is not one single touchdown scored, all field goals haha.

As we step back into non conference play, lets take a quick look at the Conference USA standings, you can see we are in 1st place, but should we slip up at all against FAU, UCF could sneak back into the title picture.  

Over in the east it is UTEP as the #1 team, so we could be looking at a rematch of the double overtime game from earlier this season in the Conference USA Championship game.

Pretty cool right here, Veterans Memorial Stadium is the 18th toughest stadium to play in all the Nation. 120-28 record at home for the Trojans. 

The wide out tandem of Chad Gordon and Kyle Kidd are ranked among the best in all of college football.

You can thank this man for that, Alonzo Roberts had pretty much lead the NCAA in passing yards since week one. He has 800 yards passing MORE than the second best QB in the nation.

Talk about revenge on Notre Dame...this game got real ugly in a hurry. In the first quarter alone, Alonzo Roberts had touchdown passes of 21 and 70 yards to Kyle Kidd and a 67 yard touchdown pass to Chad Gordon. Kidd and Gordon added more touchdown scores in the third quarter and before we knew it, half way though the third quarter, we were benching our starters.

The total opposite of the beating that happened last season in South Bend from the Irish.

20 completions for 503 yards and 7 touchdowns. Enough Said.

The win over the Irish helps land us a big recruit. Four star receiver from Alabama. We beat out fellow Conference USA rival UCF and In State rival Alabama. Mr. Porter could be starting for this team next season as we graduate pretty much all of our receivers except Gordon and Kidd, but I would expect them both to make an early jump to the NFL draft, leaving us with four starting freshman receivers...yikes.

Welcome to Troy Alabama Ian Bell!

the first bowl projections of 2027 our out and they have us going to the Fiesta Bowl to play Alabama. I much as I don't like to see this, I would rather be in the National Title game, it would be cool to have the chance to beat Auburn and Alabama in back to back Fiesta Bowls.

Roberts is just 5 touchdowns away from breaking Josiah Higdon's Troy touchdown record of 60 touchdown passes in one season. Still can't get over 56 touchdowns and 7 Interceptions...crazy. Roberts could be close to closing in on some NCAA passing records too. It is a shame he did not really develop into a great quarterback until his senior year. I would love to have him on this team a few years longer.  

Roberts and Robinson bring home Conference player of the week honors. I feel Alonzo got snubbed just a bit as I find it had to believe any one else in the nation put up better numbers than him this week.

The 66 points put up on Notre Dame jump us over Alabama and Penn State to #3 in the nation! You may think we are running the score up a little bit on these teams, but some times that is what we need to do to move up in the BCS polls, win big!

Up next is the school where I really made a name for myself as a coach, FAU. We welcome them into the 18th toughest stadium in the nation as we close off the season with them and then a road trip to the swamp and the University of Florida!

#3 Troy Trojans 2027 Season - (10-0), (8-0)

W - vs MTSU - 72 -6

W - vs Rice*   - 51-24

W - at Tulane*- 42-13

W - at UTEP*- 44-41 (OT 2)

W - vs Houston* - 50-18

W - at Memphis* - 59-31

W - vs Southern Miss* - 24-19

W - at ECU* - 49-28

W - vs UCF* - 45-28

W - vs Notre Dame - 66-13

Week 12 - FAU*

Week 13 - at #14 Florida

Week 14 - BYE

Week 15 - Conference USA Championship Game