For those insane football fans who watched the entirety of the first football game of the 2022/23 season, Thursday night’s game tested everyone’s patience.
A weather delay, a penalty on the first play, and Jason Garrett all mixed in to create a pretty predictable showing for the first football game of the season.
Instead of doing a whole report on the game, let’s just see whose stock increased and diminished last night.
Stock up – Travon Walker
It’s not every year you see a number one overall pick play in the Hall-of-Fame game. Walker lived up to the billing in the short time he played, though.
Walker recorded a sack, a roughing the passer penalty (that really wasn’t), and was, quite frankly, all over the field when he played.
The Raiders did have some of their starters playing on offense, so it was good to see Jacksonville’s first-round selection make an impact as he did.
Stock Down – Josh Jacobs
Jacobs has totaled over 3,000 career rushing yards in his first three seasons with the Raiders. He’s been a complete back and has been one of the more important cogs to the team in recent memory.
So what in the world was he doing playing and getting consistent touches last night?
It’s pretty clear Josh McDaniels wants to run a runningback-by-committee approach, and McDaniels may have said Jacobs running in the most meaningless preseason game is nothing to worry about, but logic tells a different story.
Jacobs isn’t a power back, but he runs very physically and those kinds of backs have short shelf lives. It could be that a new coach in Vegas is only trying to speed up that process.
Stock Up – Jarrett Stidham and Nick Mullens
In the modern NFL, a competent backup quarterback is a necessity. The Raiders, as shown yesterday, may have two.
Stidham got the start with most of the Raider offense sitting and played very well. The former Patriot completed 8/15 passes for 96 yards and showed solid command of an offense he has played in for years.
Nick Mullens also performed admirably, completing 8/11 passes. Las Vegas blew out Jacksonville quite easily and a big reason was because of the quarterbacks playing well.
If Derek Carr were to get hurt for a game or two, Vegas at least has a confident understanding that they have two quarterbacks who can step in and win a football game to keep the ship running.
Stock Down – Jason Garrett
Is anyone else sick of former Cowboys getting tv jobs? You have the success stories like Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin.
But as of late they’ve been replaced with duds like Jason Witten and now Garrett. The former Giant and Cowboy was on the network for the first time this season and just seemed completely overmatched.
Whether it was talking about Allen Robinson being underrated, or just bizarre stories that left people confused, Garrett’s first game as a broadcaster wasn’t exactly great.
The fact that a coach that won just two playoff games in 10 years is the choice to be a lead broadcaster for NBC Sports is baffling.
Stock Up – Football Fans
Whether you watched parts, all, or nothing of the 27-11 drubbing Las Vegas put on last night, one simple fact remains.
Football is back.
After months of getting news scraps from the draft, free agency, and training camp, fans now get to see their favorite teams in action and take their own stock in just how good their groups can be this year.
Add in college football, and we won’t have a football-less week until the middle of February.
For the sport, it’s good to be king.
Stock Down – Doug Pederson
Doug Pederson is a Super Bowl-winning head coach. So why would I put so much stock in a bad performance last night?
It doesn’t really have to do totally with last night. Pederson was fired in Philadelphia after a 4-11-1 season. People may debate the why, but it’s a pretty clear answer. Pederson wanted to hire the guys he knew and was comfortable in key offensive positions.
Those same people had horrific years with the Eagles and Jeffrey Lurie made the difficult choice to part ways with the man who brought him a title. Pederson then had a year to modernize his game plan and adapt his RPO system into a more cohesive offense.
Is it going to be perfect? No. But after one game, it’s clear that Josh McDaniels has his team a little further ahead than Doug Pederson at this point.
The Jaguars have historically been a mess, and Pederson wants to change it, but the early returns from his offense last night is that it’s the same route combinations, and reads that got Pederson fired in the first place.
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