NFL Kickoff Week 2: League fails to paper over concussions

Even after a smashing success of a first Sunday of the regular season, reality returned to haunt the NFL going into Week 2. Mounting pressure on the league to address why Cam Newton was allowed to take unpenalized helmet-to-helmet hits then remain in the game lead to the announcement of a $100 million league donation - it seems way more proactive when you call it an “initiative” - to help design better helmets and research brain disease.

Of course, throwing money at the problem seldom works, and when the NFL does it the money typically goes to the places willing to say what the league wants to hear. In the meantime, the NFL’s effort to curb concussions on the field has been ineffective. In 2015, the amount of diagnosed concussions was way up, though the NFL would like to spin that as only proof that players are more forthcoming about their injuries and that spotters are better at spotting. The Cam Newton story, as well as Case Keenum’s last year, casts serious doubt on that.

To say nothing of the vast amount of subconcussive hits, the accumulation of which is actually the thing scientists believe leads to CTE, the NFL isn’t having success making the game safer.

Over the offseason, the NFL passed a rule change to make kick returns less dangerous as those plays account for a disproportionate amount of concussions sustained in a game. The league moved the starting position of a drive following a kickoff touchback from the 20 to the 25-yard-line, a move clearly intended to decrease the amount of kick returns. By the end of Sunday’s games, even with the extra inducement of yardage, the amount of touchbacks was actually down seven percent compared with Week 1 games from the year before. Coaches are now instructing for kickers to hit the ball just short of the goal line, with the Patriots showing that the first Sunday night of the year. We’ll have to see how that data bears out over a few more weeks, so suffice it to say, it’s a discouraging start.

There’s only so much goodwill the NFL can buy and the returns are diminishing with each purpose. It won’t be long before no one really believes the league has any real concern for safety at all, or any ability to ensure it.

Sean McDonough: not so bad!

It was with extremely little fanfare that Sean McDonough began his tenure in the Monday Night Football booth this week, and that’s likely by design. He’s a straight-forward but not totally wooden play-by-play guy who can bounce things off Jon Gruden and let Chucky do his shtick. That’s about all that’s needed in the current booth. At no point during the Steelers-Redskins game was I catching myself going, “Oh wow, I could really use some Mike Tirico right now.” And it felt like there was no much chatter about him, which is probably the best testament to a debuting person in the booth.

New Orleans is the house of the dead

After releasing running back C.J. Spiller a week into his second season with the team, the Saints had to take on $4.5 million of his salary, meaning New Orleans is now carrying an astounding roughly $40 million in dead money for this year. And yet there’s reportedly zero momentum toward firing GM Mickey Loomis. Probably the best thing you could say about what the Saints have done recently is that Jimmy Graham has mostly been a disappointment in Seattle. The Saints’ woes were compounded in the Week 1 loss to the Raiders by the injury to cornerback Delvin Breaux, which was initially feared to be season-threatening, though now appears to be sidelining him for six weeks. That’ll leave another weak spot in an already vulnerable defense, and the next three weeks feature winnable games against the Giants, Falcons and Chargers before the bye. They’ll have to take at least two of those or hope the division is a disaster again, or there will eventually be some change afoot with the team. There is certainly some uncertainty with the ownership situation, but it’s still hard to see Sean Payton and Mickey Loomis surviving a third losing season in a row, with Drew Brees headed out the door any year now.

The old Rex Ryan back, except for the winning

Rex is ditching the lap band and is giving fiery, expletive-laden speeches again. None of that translates to wins as of yet, but who cares - no one really expects Buffalo to win. It’s all about appreciating this while it’s entertaining.

"I'm going to tell you we're the f---ing best because I believe it. Let me f---ing say it. And if it doesn't work, I'll be the first m-----f----- that goes. And everyone one of you, I f---ing know you've got my back. All I want is every f---ing thing you got. I'll take every f---ing bullet known to man."

Oh yeah, I’d be fired up to narrowly miss the playoffs if I were on that team.

Coaches, they’re just like us, only way more stressed out

Ron Rivera said he fell asleep at the start of the fourth quarter of the Rams-49ers game on Monday. This is the level of security that trading for Andy Lee provides. After a third quarter punting clinic that saw L.A. and San Francisco trade seven punts between one another, Rivera knew for sure he wouldn’t soon see his own Pro Bowl punter be outclassed by one of these teams.

Flacco’s eliteness is self-aware