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If you had the Minnesota Vikings starting 2-0 with Sam Darnold ranking among the NFL’s statistical leaders, set down your Gjallahorn and listen up. You’ll want to know the odds of this fast start turning into a career revival for a quarterback written off by two franchises. Those odds aren’t as terrible as one might think.

The Pick Six column leads this week by resetting expectations for Darnold based on two factors: what we’ve seen from him this season, and what 11 years of Quarterback Tiers data reveals about veteran lower-tier quarterbacks trying to salvage their careers. We’ll also revisit what my former Football GM Podcast co-host Randy Mueller projected for Darnold back in March, which is looking prescient at this early stage.

The full menu this week:

• What are the odds for Sam Darnold?
• Raiders win: Tale of two Harbaughs
• Chiefs vs. Bengals vs. Ravens
• Are these the Saints or ’07 Pats?
• Serious concerns in the AFC South
• Two-minute drill: Callahan’s ire

1. Beating the New York Giants in Week 1 was one thing. Upsetting the defending NFC champion San Francisco 49ers on Sunday was another. Time to believe in Darnold?

First off, Darnold playing well for the Vikings isn’t a shock to everyone. Before Mueller left The Athletic and joined the New Orleans Saints’ front office last month, the former NFL Executive of the Year made a film-based case for Darnold reviving his career in Minnesota.

You can listen to his thoughts, expressed in March, in the audio above. Mueller lauded the Vikings for doing what so many teams fear: moving on from an expensive veteran quarterback (Kirk Cousins) without knowing what the future holds.

That plan included signing Darnold for one year and $10 million, before it was known Minnesota could maneuver in the draft for the since-injured J.J. McCarthy. Mueller loved the plan partly because he thought Darnold’s 2023 tape with San Francisco showed progress.

“For the first time in this kid’s career, he had answers in his backpack to make decisions that helped him make progressions, reads, and he had an offensive line that actually protected him,” Mueller said then. “I think Sam Darnold was in horrible situations before he got to San Francisco, but he played really good in San Francisco in some film that, for me, was easy to decipher his strengths and weaknesses.”

It’s early to draw conclusions. Darnold started 2-0 with Carolina in 2021 during his last starting opportunity. Then as now, his team’s defense was a driver of team success – better than average by more than two touchdowns per game. The Vikings’ defense, led by second-year coordinator Brian Flores, is off to its best two-game start since at least 2000 by total EPA (expected points added) and EPA per play.

Darnold is keeping interesting company among veteran quarterbacks voted into Tier 4 in the 11 years of QB Tiers.

Geno Smith, Baker Mayfield and Tua Tagovailoa are the encouraging comps. All three climbed into higher tiers after struggling early in their careers and landing in Tier 4, which includes veteran quarterbacks who ideally would not start a full season. So many others faded away. Smith and Mayfield are cleaner comps than Tagovailoa because they changed teams.

Darnold is among 61 quarterbacks voted into Tier 4 since 2014.

Twenty-three of the other 60 are relevant comps for Darnold. That is the number after removing young prospects (20 or fewer career starts, such as Bryce Young this year) and journeymen with more than than 70 (Mark Sanchez, latter-career Joe Flacco etc.).

The three success stories — Smith, Mayfield and Tagovailoa — steadied their careers once paired with supportive head coaches/offensive coordinators and formidable No. 1 receivers. Darnold checks those boxes in Minnesota with coach Kevin O’Connell and wideout Justin Jefferson, who scored on a 97-yard reception from Darnold against the 49ers on Sunday.

We’re really about to put an active player in Canton.@JJettas2

📺: @NFLonCBs pic.twitter.com/cephalTst9

— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) September 15, 2024

Darnold ranks third in yards per attempt (9.5) through two games and sixth in passer rating (111.8). He’s 14th in EPA per pass play.

The Houston Texans, Green Bay Packers and New York Jets are next on the schedule for the Vikings. Minnesota will have better feeling by its Week 6 bye as to whether Darnold’s solid start is sustainable.

2. The Harbaugh brothers brought a combined 550-11 advantage over their coaching counterparts into Week 2. Antonio Pierce did not care.

The Pierce-coached Raiders overcame more than reigning MVP Lamar Jackson and the defending AFC North-champion Baltimore Ravens during their 26-23 upset victory in Week 2.

Las Vegas also overcame an incredible experience gap.

Career games as a head coach before Sunday: Harbaugh 282, Pierce 10.

“It’s a staggering difference,” an exec from another team said. “Harbaugh is grinding through another year with all the same processes in place. Pierce is probably still learning the names of his coaches’ wives.”

Pierce’s 6-5 record as head coach includes victories against Andy Reid, Sean Payton and, now, John Harbaugh.

Entering Week 2, I had circled the experience gaps in the two Harbaugh games Sunday.

In Carolina, the Los Angeles Chargers’ Jim Harbaugh went into Week 2 with a 268-1 lead over Panthers counterpart Dave Canales in total NFL/NCAA games as a head coach. His team rolled to a 26-3 victory.

Most surprising Sunday: Harbaugh’s Ravens, long a powerhouse on special teams, shanking a punt in the late going, setting up the winning drive for the Raiders.

3. Another week, another close call for the Kansas City Chiefs. Here’s where my mind went after their victories against Baltimore and Cincinnati.

The Chiefs are 2-0 by the narrowest of margins after outlasting Baltimore in Week 1 and converting a fourth-and-16 in the final minute to beat Cincinnati on Sunday.

These were coin-flip games in the end. The Chiefs scored on defense against the Bengals and needed a pass-interference call to convert that fourth-and-16 on a day when Patrick Mahomes tossed two interceptions and Travis Kelce caught a single pass for five yards.

We shouldn’t make blanket statements based off two outcomes that easily could have gone the other way for Kansas City, which won 26-25. But as the Chiefs outlasted another AFC challenger, I recalled a note from colleague Dianna Russini’s column Saturday pointing out how Mahomes and Kelce did not miss a practice all summer.

I thought of the Bengals practicing without key players during their training camp, including Ja’Marr Chase, who was pushing for a new contract. I thought about the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson skipping four of Baltimore’s first five voluntary OTAs, forfeiting $750,000 in incentives.

Are these little things indicators of anything relevant when the Chiefs’ most established stars are their most consistently reliable ones?

“These guys are completely committed and they still have time for State Farm commercials and podcasts,” a rival coach said of the Chiefs’ leaders.

These are the sorts of things that come to mind when the margins are so small and Kansas City prevails without playing its best. On a more granular level, the Chiefs will eventually need to resolve their issues at left tackle, although probably not against the Atlanta Falcons next week.

4. The Saints scored on their first 15 possessions of the season with Derek Carr at quarterback. We did not see this coming.

Carr has started 162 total NFL games. His first two starts with Klint Kubiak as his offensive coordinator have produced the second- and 19th-best team performances of his career for offensive EPA per play.

The second-best production came Sunday during a 44-19 road victory against the Dallas Cowboys. Carr completed his first five passes for 192 yards.

The Saints’ Carr-led drive log looks like it was stolen from the 2007 Patriots.

“These guys are producing like the ’07 Patriots and the ’99 Rams, but those teams threw the f— out of the ball,” a defensive coach said of the Saints. “These guys are running it. It’s only two games, but damn.”

The Saints rank 28th on the Cook Index, passing only 41 percent of the time on early downs in the first 28 minutes of games, before score differential and time remaining tend to influence play calling. Kubiak’s former boss, Kyle Shanahan of the 49ers, ranks 29th at 41.2 percent. That suggests Kubiak is approaching games the way Shanahan would approach them, at least early on.

The Saints handed Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer the 10th-worst defensive EPA game of his 365-game career as a coordinator or head coach, per TruMedia.

What’s different about these Saints?

Their first real scheme change on offense since Sean Payton took over in 2006 might be providing a jump-start. Kubiak’s scheme is credible, especially in the run game (Alvin Kamara has 198 yards and four touchdowns). From a personnel standpoint, rookie first-round left tackle Taliese Fuaga has upgraded the line.

The Saints’ defense has played a big role in the 2-0 start, helping New Orleans begin six drives in opponent territory. Only Buffalo has started more drives on fields so short (seven).

That helps explain how New Orleans is plus-62 in point differential against Carolina and Dallas. Since 2000, only the 2019 Patriots (plus-73) had a greater differential through two weeks.

Regression is coming. The Saints’ current pace on offense, if sustained for a season, would eclipse the 2004 Colts for the top spot in offensive EPA per play since 2000. That isn’t happening, but for the first time since the Saints signed Carr, there’s actual reason for optimism on offense.

5. ‘We suck right now’ is putting it mildly in the AFC South

The Houston Texans are 2-0.

The rest of the AFC South is 0-6 and difficult to watch.

“We suck right now,” was how Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence summed up his team’s offense.

The Jags are not alone.

These are long seasons, and for as embarrassing as it must have been for the Colts to fall 16-10 at Green Bay to the Malik Willis-quarterbacked Packers, Indy has lost two games by a total of eight points. It shouldn’t be reason to panic. It’s just tough when your passing game lacks the precision to sustain drives and your run defense allows 200 yards each week, and your best defensive lineman, DeForest Buckner, keeps getting hurt.

“We got to hit our base plays because we can’t always just rely on the big shots,” Colts receiver Michael Pittman said.

That’s going to be tough with quarterback Anthony Richardson averaging 13.7 air yards per attempt, by far the highest average in the league. Lawrence ranks second at 11.2, an indication these offenses are lacking the rhythm created when quarterbacks connect on routine shorter passes consistently. Nothing looks easy for these passing games.

We knew Tennessee’s Will Levis would struggle, and we knew Richardson would lack consistency as a passer. But if this is what the Jaguars are going to look like three years into the Doug Pederson/Lawrence marriage, so much for that $55 million-a-year extension Lawrence recently signed, right? Road games against Buffalo and Houston over the next two weeks will turn up the pressure.

6. Two-minute drill: No punches pulled

Titans coach Brian Callahan’s harsh words for Levis stood out Sunday after the second-year quarterback’s latest costly turnover.

“It was dumb,” the Titans’ new coach said of Levis’ ill-fated lateral attempt. “It was the same exact thing he did last week, and he cost us points in the red zone, and that is what it is. He’s a grownup and he knows better and so I was really irritated that he cost us three points in a game that we probably needed it.”

Levis tried to lateral the ball instead of taking a sack when the Titans were in field-goal range during their 24-17 loss to the Jets.

The sack-fumble Callahan referenced cost the Titans 4.6 EPA, which reflects the points lost on the would-be field-goal try, plus the Jets’ expectation for scoring on the ensuing drive. Against Chicago last week, two Levis turnovers cost Tennessee a combined 12.5 EPA in a game the Titans lost by seven.

Callahan’s harsh words might not have stood out as much years ago, but coaches today generally aren’t so pointed toward their players in public. It’ll be interesting to see how Callahan’s style develops. …

It’s tough finding true surprise teams in the NFL, but my case for Arizona centered around Kyler Murray’s return to fuller health with greater knowledge of coordinator Drew Petzing’s offense. Beating the Rams 41-10 was shocking nonetheless.

Murray’s stock tanked in early 2022 when reports revealed the Cardinals had placed a “homework clause” in his new contract. The torn ACL he suffered in 2023 prevented him from doing anything on the field to change perceptions. Yes, Murray’s size is limiting, but when healthy, he’s a talented dual threat-player for any team that can tailor its system to his strengths.

We saw that Sunday when Murray passed for 266 yards and three touchdowns, and carried five times for 59 yards. He held the ball for longer than eight seconds before finding tight end Elijah Higgins for an 18-yard touchdown — not how anyone would draw it up, but a reflection of what Murray can do outside of structure.

Another note on the Cardinals: They rank among the NFL’s top five in snaps played by rookie draft choices. That included 43 offensive snaps from first-rounder Marvin Harrison, whose four receptions for 130 yards all came in the first quarter. …

The 90 percent make rate (35 of 39) for field goals of 50 yards or longer is about 20 percentage points higher than the season-long totals have been recently. The make rate through two weeks was 91 percent in 2008, but teams attempted only 11 in the first two weeks that season. That’s the difference now. Rate and volume are both higher than in the past. …

The Chiefs (nine seasons) and Bills (five) own the longest active consecutive streaks of reaching the playoffs. Guess who is third? Not San Francisco. Not Dallas. Not Philadelphia or Baltimore. It’s the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who emerged from Detroit with a 20-16 victory against the Lions and a 2-0 start to the season. That’s a quality victory for a team that can improve to 3-0 when Denver visits next week.

(Top photo: Adam Bettcher / Getty Images)

In the grand scheme of the 2024 season, the identity of the eighth seed in the WNBA postseason bracket is relatively inconsequential. The New York Liberty have been the best team in the league for essentially the entire year. Their net rating of plus-12.1 points per 100 possessions is more than 15 points better than any of the three teams vying for the final playoff spot, and a three-game series should be short work for the title contenders.

But the ultimate outcome shouldn’t overshadow the fun of the process, and the minor miracle it would be for the Washington Mystics to claim that final bid. As a reminder, the Mystics lost 12 consecutive games to start the year. The 2015 Los Angeles Sparks currently hold the WNBA record for the longest opening losing streak (0-7) before making the playoffs. Seven games represented 20 percent of that 34-game season in 2015, but Washington crushed that mark by going 0-fer for 30 percent of this year, yet it has rallied to sit in the No. 8 seed with two games to play.

The Mystics weathered injuries to Brittney Sykes, Karlie Samuelson and Shakira Austin while trading away Myisha-Hines Allen. That simply meant more playmaking duties for Ariel Atkins, who has the highest assist rate of her career; more offense from Stefanie Dolson, now the league’s second-best high-volume 3-point shooter; and real rotation minutes from Emily Engstler and Sika Koné, each already on the third teams in their young WNBA careers. Somehow, that has coalesced into a season that has combined player development with a postseason chase, one that will result in at least one lottery pick whether they make the playoffs or not thanks to a superb trade from the 2023 WNBA Draft.

The three-team race between the Mystics, Sky and Dream likely will last until the final day of the season (Thursday), and it has provided a two-week appetizer to a postseason that always seems to zoom by. For now, Washington lands in the projected field of eight. In lieu of rankings this week, here’s how I predict the playoffs will unfold as well as some information to keep in mind for each playoff team with the postseason only two games away.

Predicted champion: Minnesota Lynx

1. New York Liberty

Taking away favorite status from the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces is a tall order, but that’s what the Liberty have done during a dominant regular season. Three players have put together All-WNBA-worthy seasons for New York, and the surrounding depth far exceeds what the Liberty were working with in 2023. But heading into the postseason, it’s hard to overlook the recent swoon of Sabrina Ionescu. The fifth-year guard is averaging 17.4 points and 6 assists since the Olympic break, but while shooting 35 percent from the field and 29 percent from 3-point range. New York hasn’t seen any meaningful slippage despite Ionescu’s struggles, boasting a 12.6 net rating during that stretch while remaining in pole position for the top seed in the playoffs. However, the Liberty will need a better version of Ionescu against the top teams in the league . They lost to Connecticut and most recently Minnesota with their lead guard shooting 3 of 13 and 4 of 21, respectively.

2. Minnesota Lynx

The hottest team during the second half of the season is on pace to set an all-time record for assist percentage. The Lynx have assisted on 76.6 percent of their field goals this season, a testament to their revamped style of play involving quick and precise ball movement that keeps defenses in rotation. Minnesota has five players making at least 40 percent of their 3-point field-goal attempts, including the newly-acquired Hines-Allen, as the Lynx consistently turn down good shots for great ones to cash in on the open looks created by an extra pass. Opponents haven’t yet been able to solve the Lynx’s egalitarian offense, and they’re running out of time.

BIG SHOT BRIDGET. pic.twitter.com/gacXonfeh6

— Minnesota Lynx (@minnesotalynx) September 15, 2024

3. Connecticut Sun

The Marina Mabrey era in Connecticut thus far has to be considered a success. When the Sun traded for Mabrey, the popular assumption was that she would be starting to inject a little more perimeter shot creation into Connecticut’s offense. But instead of disrupting the starting lineup, the Sun have mixed and matched around Mabrey, figuring out who is cooking on any given night during the first three quarters while generally handing the keys to Mabrey in the fourth to close. She is second on the team in fourth-quarter minutes since arriving (behind Alyssa Thomas) and first in fourth-quarter points. Connecticut is 19.6 points per 100 possessions better with Mabrey on the court since the trade, and she is knocking down 42 percent of her triples in a Sun uniform. Although Connecticut hasn’t climbed in the standings, the Sun are 9-1 against the other teams on their side of the playoff bracket, putting them in strong position to advance to a sixth consecutive trip to the WNBA semifinals.

4. Las Vegas Aces

A’ja Wilson is two rebounds away from the most prolific scoring and rebounding seasons in WNBA history in the same year. As a result, the Aces will have the best player on the court in every playoff game they compete in this season, however long that postseason run is for the defending champs. After wasting Wilson’s 42-point effort against Dallas, Las Vegas has won its last seven games that the two-time MVP has played, including four in a row against Connecticut and Indiana. The Aces have won in blowout fashion, held on in clutch situations and reeled off double-digit comebacks in the process. Las Vegas’ full body of work still doesn’t scream championship contender, but it’s hard to bet against a team with this historical track record, especially when Wilson is the ultimate trump card in any matchup.

Skylar Diggins-Smith has been a force over the past month, averaging 18.9 points and 6.2 assists while shooting 46 percent from the field. Perhaps more importantly, she has been Seattle’s closer of late. She had nine fourth-quarter points in a win in Los Angeles on Wednesday, then she followed with game-winning free throws in Dallas on Friday, before providing the game-saving steal with Seattle up one possession against the Sparks on Sunday. Diggins-Smith hasn’t played in the postseason since 2021, when she helped Phoenix make a surprising run to the finals. In the aftermath of that loss, Diggins-Smith sounded excited about all the lessons she had learned in terms of preparation and mentality, and this is her first chance to apply those (incidentally, against the last team she beat in the playoffs — the Aces).

6. Indiana Fever

The Fever seemed to bump up against a metaphorical ceiling this week, failing to take down Las Vegas in two tries and suffering a season sweep at the hands of the champs. But Indiana won’t see the Aces until a potential finals series, and even accounting for those two games, the Fever still have the league’s best offense over the past month. They’re collectively shooting 40 percent from 3-point range on the highest volume of attempts in the league, which will provide for a fascinating matchup in the first round against either Minnesota or Connecticut, which are the top two 3-point defenses in the league.

GO DEEPER

From shaky start to playoff bound, how Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever revived their season

7. Phoenix Mercury

The Mercury aren’t exactly soaring into the postseason, with three wins in their last 10 games, and Kahleah Copper currently out with a back issue. Given that Bec Allen has also been out since the Olympics, it’s hard to evaluate this version of Phoenix. At this point, the Mercury have to hope they can avoid Connecticut as long as possible, because no team has been worse against the Sun. They’ve lost their four matchups by an average of 20 points and shot a historically poor 1 of 27 from 3-point range in the first of those defeats. Phoenix didn’t fare much better against Minnesota, but a 1-3 record during the regular season provides more hope than matching up with Connecticut.

8. Washington Mystics

The Mystics have the third-best defense in the league since the Olympic break, and perhaps the most surprising element of their success is how many younger players have contributed to that defensive effort. Emily Engstler was cut from two teams before landing in Washington, but the Mystics defense is 7 points per 100 possessions better with her on the court, as exemplified by a game-saving block against Atlanta Friday. Koné played 244 minutes over two seasons before arriving in Washington, yet she has been immediately empowered with the Mystics. Who could have possibly imagined a drive-and-dish from Engstler to Koné after the Hines-Allen trade (and not during garbage time)?

BIG TIME BLOCK by Emily Engstler 😤

WAS – ATL | ION 📺 pic.twitter.com/CT5gmvjcbQ

— WNBA (@WNBA) September 14, 2024

Washington may not have the top-end talent of some playoff-bound teams, but the Mystics certainly have the element of surprise. There is not a lot of tape on the players who are powering Washington’s second-half surge.

(Photo of Caitlin Clark: Emilee Chinn / Getty Images)

The party line for the Los Angeles Dodgers is that there isn’t one way to win a World Series. The 2023 Texas Rangers became champions pitching Max Scherzer at less than full strength in Game 3 and Andrew Heaney in Game 4. The 2021 Atlanta Braves did it going with bullpen games in Games 4 and 5.

The Dodgers, even without Tyler Glasnow and all of their other injured starting pitchers, figure that Jack Flaherty and Yoshinobu Yamamoto and whoever else they start in the postseason will be sufficient, and that their offense, defense and bullpen might be good enough for them to prevail over a wide-open field. Maybe they’re right. But at this point, what else can they say?

Considering the decimated state of their rotation, it would be one of the most baseball things ever if this was the year the Dodgers overcame their October demons and won their first World Series in a full season since 1988. A third straight Division Series knockout, however, would appear just as likely. And wouldn’t it be the most Dodgers thing ever if they rolled out Clayton Kershaw and his aching toe to get swept in Game 3?

The latest blow to the rotation, the loss of Glasnow to a sprained right elbow, was not exactly a shock. Glasnow, 31, has never been a picture of durability. Past injuries are the best predictor of future breakdowns. The Dodgers knew when they acquired Glasnow from the Tampa Bay Rays for right-hander Ryan Pepiot and outfielder Jonny DeLuca, then awarded him a five-year, $136.5 million contract, that they were taking a gamble.

What the Dodgers got out of Glasnow — 22 starts and 134 innings, both career highs — was actually about what they expected. They factored in that he would miss time during the regular season, as he did in July due to lower back tightness, but the point was to get him to October. Glasnow started on four days’ rest only once. Fourteen of his starts were on five days’ rest, seven on six or more.

And still, he couldn’t finish the season.

It’s easy to look back and say the Dodgers would have been better off signing free-agent left-hander Blake Snell and keeping Pepiot, who has a 3.76 ERA in 115 innings. But when the Dodgers acquired Glasnow in mid-December, they believed the price for Snell was too high, and other motivations were in play.

As it turned out, Snell lingered on the market for 3 1/2 more months before agreeing to a two-year, $62 million contract with the San Francisco Giants that included an opt-out after one year. The Dodgers, who love nothing more than acquiring distressed assets at their preferred price, were among the teams on Snell at the end, angling for a bargain. With Glasnow, they thought they already had one.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto will make his second start Monday after missing three months with a strained rotator cuff. (Kiyoshi Mio / USA Today)

After signing Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers still needed multiple starting pitchers, knowing the two-way superstar would be unable to pitch in 2024. At the time they acquired Glasnow, they already had lost out on Aaron Nola and not yet signed Yamamoto. Glasnow on Opening Day would be nearly three years removed from the Tommy John surgery that was the source of most of his subsequent physical troubles, in the view of the Dodgers and other clubs. To the Dodgers, his upside as a No. 1 starter was worth the gamble.

That gamble still might pay off in the future, and it would not look so bad this season if enough of the team’s other starters had stayed healthy. Injuries are always partly the result of bad luck. Dustin May’s esophageal tear while working toward a rehabilitation assignment certainly fits that description. But the Dodgers can’t blame this awful run solely on misfortune, and they know it. Andrew Friedman, their president of baseball operations, said recently the team this offseason will spend time “reimagining” their pitching development and protocols.

Pitching injuries are an industry-wide problem, but the Dodgers this season have placed 12 different starting pitchers on the injured list. In June 2023, Baseball America reported that the hardest-throwing staff in baseball belonged not to a major-league club, but the Dodgers’ Double-A affiliate in Tulsa. Four of that team’s six starters — Nick Frasso, Emmett Sheehan, Kyle Hurt and River Ryan — since have undergone major arm surgeries.

Teams prioritize swing-and-miss to reduce the odds of random outcomes on balls in play. The Dodgers, with their recent tortured postseason history, are perhaps even more hellbent on leaving little to chance. Whatever they’re doing, though, isn’t working. And while they are hardly the only team facing a pitching crisis, they’re the only one that last offseason spent more than $1 billion in free agency, including nearly a half billion on pitching. Thus, they have the most to lose.

Their bullpen, at the moment, is relatively healthy, and could be reinforced by the return of Tony Gonsolin from Tommy John surgery. The Dodgers also are not ruling out Kershaw and Gavin Stone pitching again this season. But Bobby Miller has regressed significantly at a time when a number of the team’s other young arms have broken down. Walker Buehler, coming off his second Tommy John, was somewhat better Sunday night, but barely resembles the pitcher who started Game 1 in three of the Dodgers’ four series during their 2020 championship run.

Even the Dodgers’ best options come with questions. Yamamoto, who will make his second start Monday night after missing nearly three months with a strained right rotator cuff, is still building back up. Flaherty has a career 3.60 ERA in 25 postseason innings, but is carrying his heaviest workload since 2019.

When assessing the rotation, it’s easier to envision what might go wrong for the Dodgers than what might go right. Creative paths to 27 outs likely will be necessary, adding to the pressure on manager Dave Roberts, whose decision-making in past Octobers has drawn scrutiny.

The counterargument is that if the quality of a rotation was the overriding determinant of postseason success, the Braves would have won more than one World Series while capturing 14 straight division titles. This is how the Dodgers are rationalizing the loss of Glasnow, banking on relevant historical examples to reinforce that all is not lost.

Maybe it isn’t. Winning the World Series, though, will be a lot more difficult this way. The Dodgers’ reasons for acquiring Glasnow were not unfounded. But when a team that can’t keep pitchers healthy takes on more risk, it shouldn’t be surprised when the whole thing starts to backfire.

(Top photo of Tyler Glasnow: Harry How / Getty Images)

One penalty, 25 fouls, countless blasts of the referee’s whistle and 14 yellow cards… behold the worst-behaved game in Premier League history.

Chelsea players received eight bookings and Bournemouth six at the Vitality Stadium on Saturday, setting a record for cautions, under the stewardship of match official Anthony Taylor.

The previous highest number of yellow cards in a match was 12 when Chelsea played London rivals Tottenham in 2016, and the same number for Wolves against Newcastle in 2010.

Earlier today (Sunday), it briefly looked like yesterday’s record might last less than 24 hours, when seven yellows were shown in the first 45 minutes of Tottenham against Arsenal, equalling the Premier League record for a first half, but greater discipline was employed in the second half of that match.

So Bournemouth against Chelsea, which was won by the latter 1-0 courtesy of Christopher Nkunku’s 80th-minute goal, now wears the crown for being the worst-behaved Premier League match ever.

Here The Athletic examines every booking to see what was going on…

Booking 1, 18mins

Bournemouth midfielder Ryan Christie gets us up and running. The 29-year-old caught Cole Palmer on top of his right quad with his knee, just as the England international had received a pass and flicked it past him in one nimble motion.

Down on the turf, Palmer appeals for the foul, sees it given, then shows some more pain for good measure. Christie takes the booking with only mild complaints.

Ryan Christie, party starter (Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images)

Booking 2, 31mins

The ball is lofted forward towards Bournemouth’s €47million (£40.3m; $51.7m) summer signing Evanilson, who jostles to win the header with Wesley Fofana. The Chelsea defender makes what appears to be minimal contact with his arm to the Brazilian’s cheek, but it’s enough to send him down clutching his face. Evanilson gets the free kick he hoped for and Fofana is in the book.

“The referee felt it was too aggressive, (but) I would disagree there,” says former Republic of Ireland international Andy Townsend, on Peacock’s co-commentary. “I don’t think what Fofana did was anything unusual. Yes, he got slapped across the face, but it wasn’t an elbow.”

Booking 3, 35mins

Again, Palmer’s quick feet are getting people in trouble. He receives another pass out on the right side and Lewis Cook steams in to close him down but catches him ever so slightly.

Both Bournemouth defensive midfielders are in the book now. Cook had been keeping Palmer close and this will make their job of thwarting him much more fraught.

All said and done, it’s a soft booking — and Cook leads the Premier League ranking for most fouls committed so far this season with 13.

Booking 4, 36mins

Minutes after he went down looking for a foul, Chelsea full-back Marc Cucurella dishes it out himself.

Evanilson challenges Levi Colwill near the touchline and Cucurella bounds over, turns his back and barges the striker, kicking his leg out. He then dares to seem surprised when Taylor blows his whistle and delivers the yellow.

Booking 5, 37mins

Fofana’s weak pass back to his goalkeeper Robert Sanchez — as Evanilson sprints in behind — makes life difficult for the Chelsea No 1. As the Bournemouth forward chips the ball over Sanchez, the goalkeeper clatters him. Contact was fairly minimal but a penalty is not unreasonable.

It’s a silver-lining for Sanchez, who saves the spot kick.

Booking 6, 38mins

Our first booking of the evening for dissent.

Some context is helpful here. The threshold for dissent — talking back, over-protesting or verbally slighting the ref — was reduced last season. The reveamped Premier League rules mean that when more than one player approaches the official, at least one of those players, and potentially more, will be shown an automatic yellow card. The league has stuck by that approach this season to crack down on dissent.

So Bournemouth’s Adam Smith is shown yellow, perhaps for demanding that Sanchez be sent off.

Booking 7, 52mins

“He’s running out of room on that piece of paper,” says Peacock’s match-commentator Chris Wise as Taylor punishes more verbals, this time from Chelsea striker Nicolas Jackson.

The Senegalese had been giving it the ‘beseeching arms’ gesture to Taylor, who was in no mood to offer mercy.

Booking 8, 57mins

Colwill lunges into a challenge as Antoine Semenyo darts onto a knockdown, but the defender gets both ball and man. That’s three of Chelsea’s back four in the book.

Players question the card for Colwill, not pictured (Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images)

Booking 9, 57mins

“There’s another yellow card there, brandished by Anthony Taylor,” says Townsend. “So many petty, unnecessary ones.”

And it does seem a touch petulant from the ref, shown to Jadon Sancho for arguing the toss over a free kick. Sancho does the praying-hands thing and grins as Taylor books him.

“He’s taking no prisoners for dissent, Anthony Taylor,” says the former Arsenal striker Alan Smith on Sky Sports.

Booking 10, 59mins

The most impressive bit of Justin Kluivert’s yellow here is the sheer bloody-minded determination. He sprints a good 20 yards to catch Noni Madueke as Chelsea counter-attack.

Danger is paused as a professional foul is well dispatched.

Then a remarkable 20 minutes pass by without a booking…

Booking 11, 80min

A proper old-fashioned yellow for Bournemouth defender Marcos Senesi to get us back on a chaotic track. He flies right through the back of Joao Felix, who lets out a yelp of pain.

The Argentine tries to plead for clemency but has no chance.

Booking 12, 87min

A change of pace as Taylor treats us to a booking for neither foul nor dissent. This time, it’s youthful exuberance that lands Chelsea’s Renato Veiga in trouble.

The 21-year-old had broken the rules by hurdling the advertising hoarding and leaping into the crowd to celebrate Nkunku’s goal with supporters.

Booking 13, 90mins+1

Chelsea substitute Joao Felix is making an energetic cameo…

… as he decides to chase down Alex Scott before shoving his hand in the Bournemouth man’s face.

Booking 14, 90 min+6

One last punishment for dissent, then. Semenyo ensures we go out with a prolonged moan.

Some of his rant is even delivered to Taylor’s back, as the ref perhaps tries to give him the benefit of the doubt. Taylor allows 20 seconds of griping before turning around and offering his record-breaking final flourish.

“You are embarrassing,” sing the frustrated Bournemouth fans.

And that’s it. Fourteen players booked — and that’s not even including those for both head coaches, Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola and Chelsea’s Enzo Maresca. Cue likely fines from the Football Association for both teams and a darkened room for Taylor to go and lie down in.

(Top photo: Robert Sanchez gets a booking; Ryan Hiscott via Getty Images)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Joe Burrow stood on a podium in the bowels of Arrowhead Stadium holding a dejected stare of disbelief and the tone of nursing an open wound of defeat.

“As frustrating as I’ve had,” he said of the Bengals’ 26-25 loss to the Chiefs, unable to even explain why. “I’ll need a couple days to figure that out.”

Likely because for the vast majority of Sunday, the Bengals were the better team than the back-to-back Super Bowl champions. One week after looking like a far worse team projected to finish near the top of the draft.

Joe Burrow speaks to the media following Week 2 at Kansas City. https://t.co/Rr7JOURZr9

— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) September 15, 2024

Inside the defensive corner of the tiny locker room, rookie seventh-round pick Daijahn Anthony sat at his locker, still wearing part of the uniform he wore for the second regular-season game of his life. His stare was similar.

A chain given by his grandmother was in his locker next to a phone he used earlier in the day to take video of the field, looking up and around in awe of a building he would play in for the first time.

Instead of reflecting on that moment of gratitude, he was swimming in guilt over a fourth-and-16 pass interference penalty that turned a win into a loss in arguably the best rivalry in the game today.

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Key takeaways from Chiefs-Bengals: KC’s clutch defense, Cincy’s early season blues

On the other side of the defensive bank of lockers stood Ja’Marr Chase. After nearly a half-hour of quietly getting ready and not talking to reporters, Chase stood up for two minutes to offer one-sentence answers caked in frustration from a game, month and year that’s had far too many complications for the typically jovial star receiver.

He snapped off responses that he didn’t want to talk about an outburst toward an official that went on and on featuring “abusive language,” according to referee Alex Kemp. It eventually drew an inexcusable 15-yard penalty in the defining moments of the fourth quarter.

“I don’t like losing,” Chase said.

Ja’Marr Chase was asked a few times about the unsportsmanlike penalty and said he was not talking about it.

Ref Alex Kemp did in the pool report.

He calls it “abusive language toward a game official.”

Full explanation: pic.twitter.com/ZFxjUFCyIJ

— Paul Dehner Jr. (@pauldehnerjr) September 16, 2024

No matter where you turned following the game, you felt the emotion. Raw, unfiltered feelings of all types.

“We know what it comes down to, it’s going to be us and them,” safety Vonn Bell said. “It’s an emotional environment.”

These games elicit them. Bell stood at this exact spot following an AFC Championship Game loss to Kansas City knowing it might be his last run with these teammates and his last shot at the Super Bowl.

Anthony sat mere feet from a locker where Joseph Ossai also lamented a penalty — with B.J. Hill next to him in defense — that set up a game-winning field goal by Harrison Butker in 2022.

The reality added to the intensity. That history of three straight losses to Kansas City, a third consecutive 0-2 start to the season and the Week 1 debacle that had the Bengals inexplicably the butt of jokes on national networks.

Yet, there’s another reality at play here.

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They executed a game plan that should have been enough to knock the champs off their pedestal. Kansas City needed a scoop-and-score fumble and fourth-and-16 prayer to avoid moving to 1-4 against Burrow.

They reminded the league of what Chase said earlier in the week, calling the Bengals the team to beat in the AFC.

“We should act like it, we should play like it,” he said then.

They did.

They rattled Patrick Mahomes, at times offering memories of the 2021 AFC Championship Game where he made uncharacteristic turnovers and poor decisions. Akeem Davis-Gaither stepped in front of a pass intended for Travis Kelce for an easy interception. Cam Taylor-Britt made a leaping one-handed grab for another. They turned first-and-goal from the 2 for Mahomes into a field goal. Trey Hendrickson got rookie Kingsley Suamataia benched and everyone in front of him beat on his way to two sacks and three drawn penalties that put the Bengals into the fourth-and-16 endgame. It appeared to be the culmination of their return to the role of Achilles’ heel to the Chiefs’ invincibility.

HOLY 😱 What an INT by @CamTaylorBritt_!

📺: #CINvsKC on CBS/Paramount
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/f7r9MeCGIv

— NFL (@NFL) September 15, 2024

“We showed everybody what we are made of,” Taylor-Britt said. “We got a chance to show our real spark.”

After a week of nervous chatter about Burrow’s wrist and hesitancy, he hit his new weapon, rookie Jermaine Burton, on a gorgeous 47-yard go ball. He showed off the usage of three tight ends as true weapons in an offense with more versatility than ever in his career, connecting with them 14 times for 151 yards. They were a potent answer for the double-Chase defense. An oft-maligned offensive line kept Burrow clean enough, including 4.2 seconds to hold the ball while Andrei Iosivas broke free on fourth-and-goal for his second touchdown.

“Thought I played fast and decisive today,” Burrow said, calling it the best he’s felt throwing since last season’s wrist injury.

That’s 2 TD’s for @AndreiIosivas!!

📺: #CINvsKC on CBS/@paramountplus pic.twitter.com/0ZZGQZu1oq

— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) September 15, 2024

They scored on six of nine true possessions, only twice going three-and-out. They did it without Tee Higgins, who looks ready to return next week.

Coach Zac Taylor showed aggressiveness and variance in his game plan, shifting from under center to two and three tight ends and finding explosives out of the underneath middle and up top. He showed aggressiveness on fourth down, and his team rewarded it.

Considering the car wreck put on tape last week against New England, this represented a critical return to a team they were supposed to be and one that should be reckoned with in January.

“I’m really proud of the way we fought,” Taylor said. “Disappointed we lost, it’s an emotional loss for us. But at that same time, I like where our team’s mental state is at right now and how we fought on the road against a really good opponent.”

Moral victories are like dirty words around a professional athlete. They play to win, they expect to win. Moral victories are for losers.

The mere mention of them, especially around a team that’s been to and expects to return to playing in late January and February, draws a side-eye.

“In this league, it’s about winning,” left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. said. “That’s the most important stat. Starting 0-2, that’s never a good feeling. Can’t necessarily say I sink my teeth into moral victories.”

Players might not like them and they rarely have a place. Brown is right, careers are built and ended by the final result. Yet, in Week 2, there’s room for much more nuance.

The season will be long and the Bengals have done this before, now 0-2 for a third straight season. Over the past five seasons, only two teams have made the playoffs after 0-2 starts, one of them was the 2022 Bengals who saw their season end here at Arrowhead.

Sometimes you have to peel away the emotion and see the logic. In September, you have to even more. The Bengals mostly played at a championship level against a championship opponent. They look more than capable of repeating their odds-beating past.

The result might be hard to digest through the long stare of disbelief, suffocating guilt or overflowing frustration, but that’s the truth that will inevitably matter when this game is filed into the big picture.

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“I feel like s— hurt,” Taylor-Britt said. “We are back at square one, 0-2 once again. Every year I have been here it’s been the same way. We always find a way to bounce back and come together as one and go win.”

Once they get done wading through their emotions, they should realize Sunday proved they are in a great position to do so.

(Photo: Kevin Sabitus / Getty Images)

The summer duel between Aaron Judge and Bobby Witt Jr. for the AL MVP is reminiscent of a classic of the genre.

On one side, a ferocious slugger vying for the Triple Crown, leading the league in OPS and flirting with 60 homers. On the other, a transcendent five-tool star hitting 30 homers, stealing 30 bases, and playing exemplary defense in the middle of the diamond.

It would be easy, at first glance, to see a parallel to 2012, when Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers edged the Angels’ Mike Trout.

But the comparison comes with one problem:

Cabrera vs. Trout was a convenient proxy battle for old school vs. new school — the classic masher against the young king of WAR (Trout had significant leads in both versions of wins above replacement). Yet for most of the summer, Judge has played the role of Cabrera and Trout, chasing a Triple Crown while hurtling toward 10.0 WAR and beyond.

As of Sunday, Judge led Witt in Baseball-Reference WAR (bWAR, 9.6 to 9.1) and FanGraphs WAR (fWAR, 9.8 to 9.7). The margins are slim when considering the variance of the wins above replacement metric, yet when paired with his offensive fireworks and pursuit of 60 home runs, Judge is a heavy favorite in the betting markets and a virtual lock to take home his second MVP in three seasons.

The somewhat muted conversations over Judge vs. Witt — as well as Shohei Ohtani vs. Francisco Lindor in the National League — have illustrated a recent shift in Most Valuable Player voting, conducted each year by the Baseball Writers Association of America.

If Judge is crowned AL MVP, it will likely be the sixth time in seven years that the award goes to a position player with the most Baseball-Reference WAR. (It could also be the fifth time in seven years that the AL MVP is the leader in fWAR.)

Twelve years after Cabrera vs. Trout, the voting trends underscore an intriguing relationship between WAR and the MVP Award: Baseball writers have never been more educated on the merits, flaws and limitations of wins above replacement, an advanced metric with multiple forms that has revolutionized how the sport views overall value. And yet, they have also never been more likely to select an MVP who sits atop the WAR leaderboards.

In some ways, the relationship is simple enough: Gone are the days when MVPs won on the backs of RBI totals and puffed-up narratives. The advent of WAR offered a framework for value that has produced a smarter and more informed electorate. But as the MVP aligns closer and closer with the WAR leaderboards, it’s easy to wonder: Have MVP voters, in the aggregate, become too confident in WAR’s ability to determine overall value?

“If you’re a voter in a season like this and all you do before you cast your ballot is sort our leaderboards and grab the name at the top, I don’t think you’re doing your diligence,” Meg Rowley, the FanGraphs managing editor, said in an email. “First, that approach assumes a precision that WAR doesn’t have.”

Judge and Ohtani — who, in his first year in the NL, could be the first player with 50 homers and 50 stolen bases — both possess leads in bWAR that are well within the stat’s margin of error. (Lindor leads Ohtani in fWAR 7.4 to 6.9.)

Judge and Ohtani — who, in his first year in the NL, could be the first player with 50 homers and 50 stolen bases — are both overwhelming favorites to win, though both have advantages in bWAR that are well within the statistics’ margin of error. (Lindor leads Ohtani in fWAR 7.4 to 6.9.) 

“No one should view a half a win difference as definitive as to who was more valuable,” Sean Forman, the founder of Baseball-Reference, said in an email.

For Don A. Moore, a researcher who studies biases in human decision-making, the prominence of WAR when it comes to voting could represent an example of “overprecision bias,” which is characterized by the excessive certainty that one knows the truth.

“Human judgment tends to reduce the complexity of the world by zeroing in on a favorite measure or an interpretation or an explanatory theory,” says Moore, a psychologist and professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. “That leads us, so easily, to neglect the uncertainty and variability and imprecision.”

Moore’s focus is in the area of “overconfidence.” He is also a somewhat casual baseball fan with a soft spot for the “Moneyball” story.

“On the one hand,” he says, “it’s great if vague, subjective, potentially biased impressions can be clarified and improved by quantification.”

In this way, the development and acceptance of WAR stands as a triumph over the decision-making that ruled MVP voting for decades. But for an academic who sees overconfidence everywhere, his work also proffers a warning:

“It’s easy for us to zero in on some statistic and forget that it’s imprecise and noisy and there are other approaches,” Moore says. “So overprecision leads all of us to be too sure that we’re right and ask ourselves too little: What else might be right?”

The story of wins above replacement is really the story of baseball in the 21st century. So let’s do the short version: It began, roughly speaking, in the early 1980s with two pioneers of the sabermetric movement: Bill James and Pete Palmer. 

James, the godfather of sabermetrics, was, at that point, utilizing a primitive concept of “replacement level” to rank players in his annual “Bill James Baseball Abstract.” Palmer, meanwhile, had introduced the system of “linear weights,” which determined an offensive player’s value in “runs” compared to a baseline average. By the 1990s, Keith Woolner built on the work and developed value over replacement player, or VORP, which was acquired and promoted by Baseball Prospectus. With the basic ideas in place, the refinement, innovation and improvement continued for another 15 years. 

What emerged was a consensus: an all-encompassing metric that measured a player’s offense, defense and base running in “runs above replacement” and then converted that number into wins: WAR.

There was no official formula, which meant that sites such as Baseball Prospectus, Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs were free to develop their own versions. The crude nature of metrics for defensive and base running meant that WAR was often noisy in small samples. But the statistic presented a solution for one of baseball’s eternal problems.

“If you want to properly value defense, it’s hard to know how to do that unless you have a framework,” says Eno Sarris, a baseball writer at The Athletic and a past MVP voter. “How do I compare a shortstop who is 40 percent better than league average with the stick to a DH who is 70 percent better than league average with the stick? Without a framework, it’s guesswork.”

FanGraphs began publishing its WAR statistic on its website in December 2008, while Baseball-Reference unveiled its own WAR variation for the 2009 season (before a major overhaul in 2012). The metric’s public arrival offered more than just a better mousetrap. Both sites could retroactively calculate WAR for past seasons, which meant that past MVP votes were subject to historical peer review.

Willie Mays, for instance, led the National League in bWAR 10 times, often by significant margins. He won just two MVP awards.

“That seems like it’s backwards,” Sarris says.

In 1984, Ryne Sandberg won the MVP award, and also led the league in WAR. (Charlie Bennett / Associated Press)

To look back at the MVP votes of the past is to see a snapshot of what the sport valued at a given moment — and a number of surprising (and often contradictory) trends. Whether it was the Reds’ Joe Morgan in the 1970s, Robin Yount in 1982, Cal Ripken Jr. in 1983 or Ryne Sandberg in 1984, baseball writers often did reward players with versatile skill sets who led the league in bWAR (if anyone would have known how to calculate it). They also gave the award to relief pitchers three times from 1981 to 1992, while one of the most predictive stats for MVP Award winners was RBIs. From 1956 to 1989, the RBIs leader won the MVP 50 percent of the time in the NL and 47 percent of the time in the AL. (Since 1999, the NL RBIs leader has won the MVP just eight percent of the time while the AL RBIs leader has won the award 24 percent of the time.)

“It was very different,” says Larry Stone, a longtime columnist at the Seattle Times who started covering baseball in 1987. “I’m almost — not ashamed — but embarrassed. I think I just looked at the counting stats mainly — home runs, average and RBIs were huge. And often the tie-breaker was the team’s performance. There was not much sophistication back in those days.”

Of course, it was also true that sometimes the MVP was blatantly obvious no matter what statistics were used. When Barry Bonds won four straight MVPs in the early 2000s, he led the league in bWAR each time. When Albert Pujols broke Bonds’ streak in 2005, he, too, led the league in bWAR. As supporters of WAR often point out: The basic offensive numbers in the formula are the same ones we have measured for the last century.

The data on MVP voting, however, started to shift in the 2000s as WAR entered the public square. Noticing the trends, a baseball fan named Ezra Jacobson embarked on a project last winter to research the yearly difference between each league’s leader in bWAR and its MVP. Not surprisingly, he found the average had been shrinking for decades. In the 1980s and 90s, the average difference between the AL MVP and the leader in bWAR was 2.1 and 3.04 WAR, respectively. In the 2010s, the difference had dwindled to 0.9. In the 2020s, it’s 0.05. 

Voters have become more informed and increasingly formulaic and uniform.

“I think the voting is massively improved from where it was,” says Anthony DiComo, who covers the Mets for MLB.com and has been an NL MVP voter. “Show me the MVP voting in recent history that was wrong? There have been some you could argue either way.

“If you go into the way past, there’s quite a few in history where you can say: ‘Geez, they got it wrong. This guy should not have been MVP.’ And I don’t think that really happens that much anymore.”

The voting electorate consists of two BBWAA members from each American League and National League city, creating a total of 30 writers for each league award. When Stone received his first ballot in the early 1990s, the letter included a list of five rules that had been on the ballot since 1931.

Voters were instructed to consider: 

1. Actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense.
2. Number of games played.
3. General character, disposition, loyalty and effort.
4. Former winners are eligible.
5. Members of the committee may vote for more than one member of a team.

If there was consternation over the rules, it usually came back to No. 1.

“The word ‘value’ is the one you ponder,” Stone says.

For decades, the vague nature of “value” allowed MVP voters to promote a host of different meanings. (Leave it to a group of writers to fuss over language.) Did an MVP have to come from a winning team? Or was the value actually in helping a team defy expectations? In 1996, the Rangers’ Juan Gonzalez won the AL MVP over Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez despite being worth just 3.8 bWAR — or more than 5.0 WAR less than Griffey and Rodriguez. This was, in part, because the Mariners teammates split some of the vote. But it was mostly because Gonzales helped the Rangers make the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.

“In the 90s,” said Tyler Kepner, a veteran baseball writer at The Athletic, “it always seemed to be: ‘Who was the best player on the team that seemed least likely to win going in?’ ”

When Bob Dutton, a former baseball writer at The Kansas City Star, became national president of the BBWAA in the late 2000s, he took on a research project to confirm the original intent of the word “value.” “It was always supposed to mean ‘the best player,’ ” he says.

WAR brought a framework for considering players in their totality. As a consequence, it has caused a generation of younger writers and voters to reframe the idea of value, separating it from team success. WAR has not just become a metric for determining value; it’s become synonymous with the idea. The evolution likely helped pitchers Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw win MVP Awards in 2011 and 2014, respectively: both pitchers led their leagues in WAR.

“It reflects the times we’re in,” Kepner said. “As front offices and the game itself values data more and more, it stands to reason that the voting would reflect that as well.”

Anecdotally, it’s nearly impossible to find an MVP voter who blindly submits a ballot copy and pasted from a WAR leaderboard. Considering there are multiple versions, that would be difficult. Rowley, the managing editor of FanGraphs, and Forman, the founder of Baseball-Reference, both emphasize that WAR should be a starting point in determining the MVP — not the finish line.

DiComo, a past voter, begins the process by compiling a spreadsheet with the top 10 in a number of statistics: weighted runs created plus, expected weighted on-base average, bWAR, fWAR, and win probability added. The first step creates a small pool of candidates. He supplements that with conversations with players, executives, managers and other writers. Then he might use other numbers as he ranks the top 10 on his ballot.

The goal, he said, is “to tease out a lot of my own biases that might exist without even knowing it.”

(Full disclosure: I voted for AL MVP in 2016 and 2017 and used a process roughly similar to this one.)

If there’s one significant difference in the voting process 30 years ago — beyond the information available — Stone notes that it used to be “more of a solitary exercise, which meant you couldn’t be influenced.” Not only are the WAR leaderboards public and updated daily, but individual MVP ballots are publicly released on the internet.

“I do worry about groupthink,” Stone says.

“My argument,” DiComo says, “is that we’ve gotten so good at measuring this, and voters tend to think about it more and more similarly. So it’s like: ‘Yeah, if there’s a small edge, in reality there’s a big edge in voting because everyone is seeing that small edge and voting for the guy who has it.’”

WAR has not remained static over the years; FanGraphs now uses Statcast’s defensive metrics in their WAR formula. Still, while defensive metrics have improved significantly from the early 2000s, they are still based on a sample of plays drastically smaller than, say, 700 plate appearances. Even as WAR improves and becomes ever more relied on, it remains only a partial measure.

Brown, the professor at UC-Berkeley, likened the flaws of WAR to economists using gross domestic product, or GDP, to measure economic growth.

“Everybody knows it’s woefully imperfect for capturing what we actually care about when it comes to economic growth,” Brown said of GDP. “But the thing is: It’s better than the alternatives. So we end up relying on it very heavily.”

The same can be said of WAR. It is not a perfect stat, but it is the best we have. Its creators and supporters are clear and explicit in explaining that a half win (0.5 WAR) is not statistically significant in determining which player had a more valuable season. But the thing is: Small margins are often determinative.

A decade later, the Trout-Cabrera MVP race might have gone a little differently. (Harry How / Getty Images)

Every MVP winner for the last decade has finished within 0.6 WAR of the league lead among position players at either Baseball-Reference or FanGraphs. The last MVP who did not: Miguel Cabrera in 2012.

Stone, who retired last year, had a vote that season. Cabrera was the first player to lead the league in batting average, home runs and RBIs since 1967. But Trout was so dominant in WAR that Stone was torn.

“I agonized over that,” he said. “I ended up voting for Cabrera, just because I thought the Triple Crown was such a monumental achievement.”

Cabrera received 22 of 28 first-place votes; Trout took the other six. But 12 years later, the winds have continued to change. If the vote happened today, Stone believes the result might be different.

“I think it might be closer,” he said. “I think there’s a chance that Trout might win.”

(Top photo of Judge: Luke Hales / Getty Images)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — After back-to-back losses to begin his NFL career, Bryce Young sat out a Week 3 trip to Seattle last year with a sprained ankle that many figured was more of a mental break for the No. 1 pick.

Well, the Carolina Panthers again are headed west in Week 3 coming off consecutive defeats — both much worse than last year’s — and it’s worth asking if Young could benefit from getting the week off.

Or longer.

With each loss, Young looks less and less like the answer at quarterback. The 5-foot-10, 2021 Heisman winner completed a respectable 18 of 26 passes Sunday in the 26-3 defeat to the Los Angeles Chargers. But those completions went for a paltry 84 yards, the fourth-lowest passing total in franchise history for a quarterback with at least 25 pass attempts.

Young looks overwhelmed. He’s jumping to make throws over pass rushers and seems scared to throw the ball downfield, probably because nothing good has happened when he’s done so. One of Young’s few downfield attempts was intercepted by safety Elijah Molden in a play that looked eerily similar to Young’s first-pass-of-the-season pick in the 47-10 embarrassment at New Orleans.

Fans booed loudly after Young’s interception Sunday, then booed after another third-down throw went short of the first-down marker. The crowd that featured Charlotte rapper DaBaby and several fans with bags on their heads booed as Panthers players left the field at halftime — with 15 1/2 games remaining.

They weren’t the only frustrated ones.

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Veteran receiver Adam Thielen lost his cool and began yelling on the sidelines after Young was sacked midway through the third quarter, when Thielen still hadn’t been targeted. He later apologized to Young, even though he said his “boiling over” moment wasn’t directed at Young specifically.

The Panthers’ receiving numbers looked like something from a middle school game.

Running back Chuba Hubbard led the team with four receptions … for 12 yards. Diontae Johnson had a team-high six targets, which resulted in the Molden interception and three receptions. Johnson’s longest catch covered 7 yards. Young’s longest completion was a 12-yarder to tight end Tommy Tremble on the first play of the second half.

Johnson was asked if he was surprised by the lack of downfield shots.

“We all are,” he said. “But it is what it is. We’re not the ones calling the plays. So our job is to go out there and execute every play that they call and put it on film.”

Coach Dave Canales stood up for Young when asked if he would start next week at Las Vegas.

“Bryce is our quarterback,” he said. “We’re going to just continue to shore up and fix the things we need to fundamentally from a scheme standpoint. These are all valuable reps. These are all valuable games. We’ll learn a lot from this game and hopefully we’ll take another step this week.”

Canales faces a tough decision when it comes to Young. Benching him in favor of Andy Dalton after two games would be an indictment of his offense and the scouting ability of general manager Dan Morgan, who was the assistant GM when the Panthers traded four draft picks (two firsts and two seconds) and wideout DJ Moore to the Chicago Bears to take Young with the first pick.

But Canales risks alienating the locker room and the fan base if he continues to play a quarterback who doesn’t give the Panthers the best chance at winning. If the fans were restless Sunday, the reception will be even ruder in a few weeks if the Panthers are still winless and Young is struggling.

Owner David Tepper will probably take the decision off Canales’ plate at that point. Some would encourage the Panthers to grit their teeth through a rough season to get the No. 1 pick. But losing the fans is what prompted Tepper to move on from Ron Rivera and Matt Rhule.

Fans were heard chanting expletives along with Tepper’s name and encouraging the hedge-fund billionaire to sell the team.

And the Panthers are in danger of turning every home game into a stadium takeover for visiting fans amid boobirds and fans with bags over their heads.

Fans at Bank of America Stadium are turning on the Panthers, especially after their performance Sunday against the Chargers. (Bob Donnan / USA Today)

The Panthers dropped their first two games this year by a combined 60 points, the second-largest differential in consecutive losses in team history. When the Panthers were playing out the string in 2019 after Rivera was fired, the Panthers lost to the Indianapolis Colts 38-6 before falling to the New Orleans Saints 42-10 in the season finale.

The QBs in those games were Kyle Allen and Will Grier, an undrafted free agent and third-round selection — not the No. 1 pick taken just ahead of C.J. Stroud. While Young was tossing passes at or near the line of scrimmage, Sam Darnold — the starter for the Panthers’ 2022 resurgence under Steve Wilks — was leading the Minnesota Vikings to a 23-17 win over the San Francisco 49ers.

With a 97-yard touchdown pass to Justin Jefferson, Darnold in one play surpassed Young’s passing total for the day. Darnold and Baker Mayfield, another ex-Carolina QB, are both 2-0 to start the season.

Canales pointed to third down as the source of the offensive problems. The Panthers converted 1-of-12 third-down chances and are 2-of-22 on the season. It would help if those third-down plays featured passes to receivers standing beyond the first-down marker.

“Just make sure we’re challenging the sticks,” Canales said. “Some of it was by design and the plays come off how they will. But in general we had opportunities on both sides on third down to make plays, and it comes down to making plays.”

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Canales called parts of the second half as though the Panthers were leading 23-3, not trailing by that score. Late in the third quarter, the Panthers went run-run-pass, then punted on fourth-and-2 from their 25. In fairness, the run game was the only thing that was working: Hubbard averaged 6.4 yards on 10 carries.

But this is a passing league, and Canales’ vision was a strong rushing attack making things easier for Young with play-action and bootlegs. Canales keeps saying it takes time to “become us,” but there’s been little evidence this can be a competent offense with Young running it.

“I love Bryce to death, man,” said Thielen, who finished with two catches for 20 yards. “He works his butt off. He’s a great player. This is not a Bryce Young issue. This is an offensive, team issue. We are all in this together.

“There is no individual on this offense that is to blame. It’s a collective thing. I’m excited about where we can go. But we need to figure out a way to have urgency to get that done.”

It all sounds and looks a lot like last year, and we know how that ended. Something or someone has to give.

(Top photo of Joey Bosa and Bryce Young: David Jensen / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The second Sunday of the season brought a little more drama than last week, with the Chiefs barely escaping the Bengals, the Raiders coming back to beat the Ravens in Baltimore, the Bucs holding off the Lions in Detroit, the Seahawks going to overtime to knock off the Patriots and go to 2-0, and the Jets getting their first win behind Aaron Rodgers, hanging on in Nashville. One game that wasn’t close? The Saints, one week after blowing out the lowly Carolina Panthers, did the same in Dallas to the high-flying Cowboys.

There goes Alvin Kamara for 57 yards!

📺: #NOvsDAL on FOX
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/F0NOkTSZ7g

— NFL (@NFL) September 15, 2024

It’s still early, but we are learning more and more about how the 2024 season will play out. The Athletic NFL writers Mike Jones, Ted Nguyen and Dan Pompei share their thoughts on all of these storylines and more.

Do you take Sunday’s survival against the Bengals (a scoop-six, a late fourth-and-16 pass interference by a rookie DB) as a positive sign that the Chiefs are resilient, or a sign that the defending champs have a lot more work to do than they’ve had in past seasons?

Jones: You’re not always going to be able to win in blowouts. Sometimes, you have to win gritty, and that’s exactly what the Chiefs did on Sunday. They overcame three turnovers (two Mahomes interceptions) and a 1-for-8 showing on third down, and still managed to win against one of the toughest teams that they’ll face this season (and one they very well could meet again in the playoffs). Three turnovers would have ruined a lot of teams, but not Kansas City. The Chiefs never flinched. They maintained their poise and still managed to put together a balanced attack, which included 149 rushing yards (Isiah Pacheco led with 90 on 19 carries) and 151 passing yards from Mahomes. Do they still have work to do? Sure. Are they indeed resilient? Absolutely. Is there more tough sledding ahead? You bet. But, they’re built for this.

Pompei: The Chiefs beat the team that might be their primary threat in the AFC on a day when a lot of things didn’t go right for them. That’s what great teams do. Great teams also take advantage of other teams’ mistakes. The Chiefs are starting the season like a great team, which is how they ended last season. The challenge for them is going to be addressing their issues while sustaining their grit over the next 15 games and beyond. The combination of Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes and Harrison Butker means they are going to have an excellent chance of winning every close game.

Nguyen: Looking at this game from the Bengals’ side: As much as 0-2 hurts, I thought this was a positive game for Cincinnati; they were a controversial pass interference call away from beating the defending champions. Steve Spagnuolo is as good as any defensive coordinator at taking away an offense’s main threat. He focused on taking away Ja’Marr Chase, as the Chiefs held him to only 35 yards. He was going to make the Bengals’ other receivers beat them and Cincinnati almost pulled it off. I thought they’d be doomed without Tee Higgins, but Mike Gesicki had a big game, Jermaine Burton had a big catch, and second-year receiver Andrei Iosivas had two touchdown catches in the red zone. This game shows that the Bengals could have the tools to reshape this offense and become a top unit down the stretch.

Mike Macdonald’s Seahawks go to 2-0 on the same day the Baltimore Ravens go to 0-2 after giving up 20 second-half points to Gardner Minshew and the Raiders. Is this a potential brain-drain situation brewing in Baltimore?

Jones: The Ravens are missing more than Macdonald. This offseason, they also saw defensive assistants Anthony Weaver (the Dolphins’ new defensive coordinator) and Dennard Wilson (the Tennessee Titans’ DC) leave for jobs with other teams. They also lost some key defensive playmakers, like Patrick Queen and Jadeveon Clowney. So, this defense is definitely going through some growing pains under first-year coordinator Zach Orr, who was promoted from inside linebackers coach. The secondary is an area of concern, and on Sunday they gave up nine catches and 110 yards and a touchdown to Davante Adams, and nine catches and 98 yards to tight end Brock Bowers. The defense doesn’t deserve all of the blame for this loss, however. The offense struggled on third downs, converting 3 of 11, Baltimore committed 11 penalties for 109 yards, and also saw Justin Tucker miss an early field goal. The Ravens have to do some fine-tuning in a hurry. They really needed to pick up a win today, because next week they face the Cowboys on the road, and then comes a date with the Buffalo Bills. Things could get out of hand quickly if they’re not careful.

Nguyen: The Ravens were bound to take a step back, losing a talent on the offensive line, the defense (Queen, Clooney) and losing MacDonald, who is the best defensive play caller in football in my opinion. Still, this was a bad game for them to drop. Derrick Henry is having a rough time getting going because he’s never been nimble enough to deal with penetration. When he gets downhill he’s dangerous, which we saw a glimpse of but, he might have a lot of inefficient carries behind this line. The Ravens were in control for most of the game and then Davante Adams and Brock Bowers took over. The pass interference call on Brandon Stephens against Adams was definitely questionable but Baltimore shouldn’t have let it get close. The Ravens always seem to figure things out even if they start slow, and they have the talent to get back into the race, but starting 0-2 is extremely difficult to come back from historically.

Pompei: There is a reason Macdonald is a head coach now. He’s good. Sure, the Ravens miss him, especially during this feeling-out stage of the season. As Mike pointed out, they lost more than Macdonald, and it showed in the fourth quarter when they gave up 13 points. The Ravens aren’t built to win when their defense softens — but that isn’t to say they won’t find ways to play the kind of defense the Ravens are known for. That was an out-of-character game for Baltimore. The loss was about more than their defense. Their offense also wasn’t as sharp as expected, especially the offensive line.

GO DEEPER

5 takeaways from Raiders-Ravens: Minshew gets hot, Ravens fall to 0-2

Saints dominate in Dallas, Bucs win in Detroit… may I interest you in the NFC South bandwagon?

Pompei: Yes, you may. It’s a better division than it has been given credit for. The Bucs were a solid team one year ago, and the evidence through two games says they are better this year. Seven years into his career, Baker Mayfield really is hitting his stride. And even though the Bucs don’t have all they had when Tom Brady was there, Tampa still has the character of those teams — as evidenced by their road upset of one of football’s best teams. And all credit to the Saints, who were an easy team to overlook. The skeptics will say they are playing a little over their skis. They will have a chance to prove they are not against another NFC East powerhouse next week, when they host the Eagles.

Jones: The Buccaneers played the Lions tough back in January’s NFC divisional round, so Tampa going to Detroit this weekend and coming away with a victory doesn’t surprise me all that much. But I’m completely stunned by what we saw out of the Saints. Last week’s blowout win was impressive, but we all took that with a grain of salt because it was the atrocious Carolina Panthers. But to go out there and score another 44 points against a Dallas defense that’s regarded as one of the best in the league, and to hold a very good Cowboys offense to only 19 points? I definitely didn’t anticipate this. After last year’s underwhelming showing, I really wondered if Derek Carr would even make it through the season as the Saints’ starting quarterback. But new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak has done a masterful job of positioning Carr and all of his weapons for success. Meanwhile, the Saints’ defense denied the Cowboys on all three trips inside the red zone and recorded two takeaways. This was the most complete performance as we’ve seen through two weeks of the season.

Nguyen: The Buccaneers have a physical front that would give any team trouble (even despite Vita Vea’s injury), and Baker Mayfield is continuing his bounce back this year with the plethora of weapons he has (like Mike Evans and Chris Godwin). It was really impressive to go into Detroit and pressure Goff the way that they did. The Lions have struggled to pass block the first two games of the season. The Saints, meanwhile, are one of the biggest surprises of the season. The defense was expected to be stingy but the offensive line looked like it could be one of the worst in the league — instead, they’ve been maulers. New Orleans has rushed for 370 yards in two games. New offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak has this offense rolling. Derek Carr looks a perfect fit in this quick-pass, play-action offense.

GO DEEPER

Key takeaways from Saints-Cowboys: How good is New Orleans’ offense?

Is a dud in Minnesota for a second straight year reason for the 49ers to worry about this offense?

Nguyen: Brian Flores has a very unique defense that clearly gave Brock Purdy trouble last season, and that was the case on Sunday. Luckily for Purdy, they won’t have to play a defense like that every week. With all of their offseason drama and the absence of Christian McCaffrey, they were bound to have a game like this. Brandon Aiyuk needs to be a bigger part of this offense but they’re bringing him along slowly. I don’t think it’s something the 49ers have to worry about long term.

Jones: Offensive struggles from the 49ers are understandable. As good as Jordan Mason is, he doesn’t bring the same versatility that McCaffrey boasts. Meanwhile, they didn’t have a lot of practice time with all of their top offensive players this preseason — it takes time to regain cohesion. Brian Flores is a very good defensive coordinator, and he did a good job of pressuring Brock Purdy and making things difficult for San Francisco. Yes, Mason rushed for 100 yards and a touchdown, and Deebo Samuel had eight catches for 110 yards, and George Kittle had seven catches for 76 yards and a touchdown. But the 49ers were 2-for-10 on third downs and turned the ball over twice. Kyle Shanahan is always going to have his players well-prepared, but this offense is missing one of the most dynamic playmakers in the league, so the road is going to be more challenging until McCaffrey returns.

Pompei: If the 49ers’ offense was hitting on all cylinders in Week 2, that would have been a surprise. Between the training camp holdouts of Aiyuk and Trent Williams and the absence of McCaffrey, they are allowed a bumpy beginning. But with three of their next four against NFC West rivals, they will need to figure it out soon. That may mean they need more from their quarterback. Purdy wasn’t terrible Sunday, but he turned the ball over twice — once with an interception and once with a fumble — and was sacked six times. He wasn’t the reason the 49ers lost, but he may need to be the reason they win (or at least one reason they win) in the short-term.

GO DEEPER

Vikings stun 49ers, improve to 2-0 under Sam Darnold

Last week we talked about Caleb Williams’ struggles, what do you make of Jayden Daniels so far, especially after Sunday’s field-goal happy day against the Giants?

Jones: I really like what Kliff Kingsbury has done to position Daniels for success through two weeks. He helps him get into a rhythm by getting the ball out of his hands quickly and moving the ball downfield in chunks. And Daniels has a good feel for knowing when to use his legs. He was very accurate on Sunday, completing 23 of 29 passes for 226 yards and ran the ball 10 times for 44 yards. He took care of the ball as well. I know Terry McLaurin fans are a big anxious right now because the talented wide receiver had another quiet day (six catches for just 22 yards). But right now, it’s about helping Daniels find a rhythm and deliver the ball quickly as he plays behind a shaky offensive line. Now, Washington needs to do a better job of capitalizing in the red zone. Daniels directed some really nice drives deep into Giants territory, but five false start penalties in the red zone really hampered the Commanders’ efforts and forced them to settle for seven field goals and score no touchdowns.

Nguyen: Daniels didn’t play as well as his numbers suggested last week — a lot of his stats came in garbage time. This week, early on in the game, he looked very tentative and hesitant in the pocket, like he didn’t know what he was looking at but he would make the occasional play with his legs. Like a typical Kingsbury offense, a lot of Washington’s production came from the option game and screens. What’s encouraging is how resilient Daniels is. He took a lot of hits but never wavered. He made some strong in-structure throws, including a beauty to Noah Brown in the middle of the field late in the game to win the game.

Pompei: Of course the Commanders would rather see Daniels lead touchdown drives than field goal drives, but more touchdowns are likely to come if he builds on his performance Sunday. Three things stood out about Daniels Sunday: 1) He led a game-winning drive, with the Commanders going 65 yards on eight plays before Austin Seibert’s 30-yard field goal put away the Giants; 2) He completed 79 percent of his passes, that’s a reflection of accuracy, and it’s also a reflection of processing and decision making; and 3) He ran for 44 yards, sometimes sensing when to pull the ball down. His running left Giants defenders uneasy. It was a very nice second start.

(Top photo: Scott Winters / Icon Sportswire / Getty Images)

Which Texans offseason addition was more impressive in Week 1 vs. the Colts: Joe Mixon or Stefon Diggs? Caleb Williams’ performance left a lot to be desired, but what positives did you take away from his debut vs. the Titans?

Three of The Athletic‘s NFL writers discuss.

Mike Sando: Mixon became the sixth player since the start of the 2020 season to carry at least 30 times and average at least 5.0 yards per rush in a game. That’s tough work and more impressive than Diggs, whose six receptions were not remarkable.

Jeff Howe: Wow, this would be a great barroom debate. Mixon gives the Texans an element they didn’t have last season when they finished 22nd in rushing, and C.J. Stroud was going to be great regardless of Diggs’ arrival because they’re already so good at receiver. But if Diggs comes as self-advertised and recaptures the difference-making ability, it might be enough to get the Texans over the top in the playoffs. For now, I’d say Mixon is the better answer, though. As for Williams, I’m not worried about him long-term, but I don’t know how many positives there were Sunday. More than anything, the Bears look ready to play at a high level on defense and special teams, and that could mean more to their success this season than anything.

Zak Keefer: I covered Sunday’s Houston Texans-Colts game, and I thought Mixon was running like he was five years younger. He absolutely torched the Colts in the second half. The week before in practice, he told his offensive linemen, “Let’s go get 150 to start it off.” He finished with 159 and salted the game away late in the fourth. If he can become a consistent threat in Bobby Slowik’s scheme, this will be one of the top offenses in football. As we saw, the receiving room is stacked. As for Williams, the most encouraging takeaway was how he handled it; this was a dud of a debut, but he handled it like a veteran, praising his defense and special teams and vowing to get back to work. Having the humility to bury a bad game and start over the following week is vital for a young quarterback. He’ll get a good look at how one of the best in the league, Stroud, does it Sunday.

Oct. 7, 2001, isn’t a date most NFL fans will remember, and if you’re a fan of the New England Patriots, it’s a day you’d want to forget. The Miami Dolphins routed the Patriots 30-10 that afternoon to drop New England to 1-3 on the season. The starting quarterback for New England in Miami? A 24-year-old named Tom Brady, who was making his second career start in the NFL.

Here is how The Boston Globe reviewed Brady’s day:

“It made for an especially difficult afternoon for novice quarterback Tom Brady. After being asked to do very little and doing that very well against the (Indianapolis) Colts, Brady played his age in his second pro start and second relief appearance for Drew Bledsoe, completing 12 of 24 passes for a mere 86 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions.”

Things got better. The Patriots finished with an 11-5 record and a division title before winning Super Bowl XXXVI in New Orleans. The rest, as they say, is history.

Fast forward 23 years. On Sunday afternoon in Dallas, Brady made his second start as the lead analyst for Fox’s No. 1 NFL booth — and it went much better for him than that second career start as a quarterback did. Brady was sharp and enthusiastic early for viewers. He immediately offered insight into why the New Orleans Saints offense was unique and would be challenging for Dallas given the different personnel groupings and various motions used. Viewers saw that play out on the first drive for the Saints, as quarterback Derek Carr found wide receiver Chris Olave for a 39-yard completion.

“Nice route here by Olave,” Brady told viewers. “Again, play-action pass. He wasn’t involved early last week, and I’m sure they wanted to get him the ball early in this game. Derek standing there in a clean pocket. Look at that tight spiral. Just a flick of the wrist. Catch and run. What a way to start for the Saints!”

“The speed of these two WRs forces separation in this zone coverage.”@TomBrady breaks down the big pass from Derek Carr to Olave to set up the @Saints touchdown!

📺: FOX | @NFL pic.twitter.com/lG5BriNNfc

— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) September 15, 2024

Brady personalized some stuff, and that was winning commentary, including how he felt about facing 35-year-old Saints linebacker Demario Davis when he was a player. He mocked himself for a viral moment last week — Fox rules analyst Mike Pereira leaving him hanging on a fist pump. He audibly groaned when Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott missed a third-quarter first-down pass in the flat that would have been a touchdown. He made a great point for viewers in the fourth quarter when Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb took an awful hit. Brady explained to the audience that a quarterback can reduce bone-crushing hits by controlling what the safety can do. He sounded much more comfortable on-air with play-by-play partner Kevin Burkhardt.

Perhaps most importantly: Fox’s top NFL crew got to describe much more offense than it did in the opening week. It was 35-16 New Orleans at the break, with the teams combining for 536 yards in the opening 30 minutes. The final was 44-19.

Something else that was good: Where Fox leaned heavily into Brady genuflecting during pregame and early in its game broadcast last week, viewers weren’t pounded over the head that it was The Tom Brady in the booth. (We know.) Executives should continue to remind on-air staff to treat Brady as if he’s been part of the group for years. It’s a much smarter message.

One thing that particularly helped Brady on Sunday was Fox had shorter ad breaks. That gave Brady some time coming back from commercials to explain via an all-22 look why something happened. For instance, here was Brady on Alvin Kamara’s 57-yard touchdown reception in the second quarter:

“This is a play that every team in the NFL has. They motion (Rashid) Shaheed across. (Trevon) Diggs goes man to man. They have been running this play action, hitting these chunks, so what do you do to complement that? You run a screen play off it. (Eric) Kendricks has him in man. You get the cover ’backer. Then it’s off to the races. How many times have we seen Kamara do that, just that home run ability.”

“You can’t make that mistake on CeeDee Lamb to overrun that tackle.”@TomBrady breaks down the long TD from Dak to CeeDee! pic.twitter.com/7sAPOY9dPS

— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) September 15, 2024

On the downside: Brady is still coming to the replays a little late, he seems reticent to criticize coaches, and we still don’t get second-level analysis, which for my definition is teaching me something new about the game that I didn’t see if I was following the ball. For me, that’s the separator between being a good NFL analyst and a great one.

Brady’s third career start came Oct. 14, 2001, against the then-San Diego Chargers. He completed 33 of 54 passes for 364 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions and led New England from a late 10-point deficit to a 29-26 overtime win. That game, looked at in a historical perspective, was the turning point of the 2001 season for New England.

Brady will be in Dallas again next Sunday to call the Cowboys against the Baltimore Ravens, a late-afternoon game that will be heavily publicized by Fox and the NFL given the viewership potential. It will be the third Cowboys game for Brady in as many weeks, and that familiarity will help his comfort level. He also now has a successful game to build upon.

GO DEEPER

Tom Brady, in his NFL broadcast debut, was a man learning the job in real time

(Photo before Sunday’s game in Dallas: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)