Last week, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow became the NFL’s highest-paid player when he signed a $275-million contract. This week, he had the NFL’s most talked about haircut.
He clipped off his long, flowing locks for a tapered fade. So why the new look?
“When you have a game like that on Sunday,” he said with a smirk.
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He couldn’t play much worse than he did in the opener against the Cleveland Browns, even if he tried. He passed for a career-low 82 yards, which is awful for a player who averaged 279.7 passing yards per game last season and finished fourth in MVP voting.
He’s not panicking, though. Too many games remain, including Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens. Still, no team wants to start the season 0-2. No team that started 0-2 has won the Super Bowl since the 2007 New York Giants, and fewer than 10 percent of teams that started 0-2 have made the playoffs since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.
“Long season, everybody’s got bad games. That’s gonna happen, and what makes you who you are,” Burrow told reporters, “and what hopefully makes you the player that you are is how you respond to games like that and how consistent you can be afterward.”
The Raven beat the Houston Texans, 25-9, last week. The Ravens allowed just 268 yards and three field goals.
“Their defense is tough, very physical, very sound in their scheme,” Burrow said. “They do a great job of sending blitzes at you that you don’t see on tape before. They have a lot of great week-to-week game plan stuff, so you have to be able to adapt to it. They got good players, good coach, good scheme, it’s going to be a challenge.”
Here are some other highlights entering Week 2 of the NFL season…
Detroit Lions looking for roaring start
The Detroit Lions haven’t won a division title since 1993. Starting the season 2-0 with a win over the Seattle Seahawks would get them off to the kind of fast start a team building confidence needs.
Two years ago, Seattle beat Detroit, 51-29. Last season, Seattle won, 48-45.
“This team always presents problems. It’s been a thorn in our side for two years, so we know what’s going to be coming in here,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “We’re going to assume the best out of them. They got after us pretty good last year, so that’s something we won’t forget.”
Los Angeles Rams looking halt San Francisco drought
San Francisco has beaten the Los Angeles Rams eight straight times in the regular season, but it doesn’t seem to matter all that much.
The Rams beat San Francisco, 20-17, in the 2022 NFC Championship game .
Still, Los Angeles coach Sean McVay would like to end that streak.
“I think the biggest thing is they’ve been a great team,” McVay said told reporters. “It’s been challenging, and we’re going to do our best to come away with the result we’re hunting up.
“The previous games — every single week is a new entity. Every single year is a new year. One thing that hasn’t changed is they’re a great team again, and we’ve got a great challenge.”
The challenge starts with stopping Brock Purdy, who is 6-0 in the regular season as a starter.
He passed for 220 yards and two touchdowns against Pittsburgh. Now, it’s about getting to 2-0 and keeping pace with Philadelpha in the NFC and taking an early lead in the NFC West.
“(San Francisco head coach) Kyle (Shanahan) is as good as it gets in terms of being able to put all their different playmakers in the right spots, and then they’ve got the personnel to make it come to life,” McVay said.
Tua Tagovailoa not expecting a New England picnic
Tua Tagovailoa shut up his critics with a 466-yard passing performance in Week 1.
He knows New England coach Bill Belichick isn’t going to let him throw the ball around like that against New England.
Belichick’s approach has always been to take away what an offense prefers to do and make them adjust. So don’t expect Tyreek Hill to catch 11 passes for 215 yards this week against the 0-1 Patriots.
“Coach Belichick has been coaching in this league for way longer than I think I’ve been alive,” Tagovailoa told reporters. “So he knows exactly what he’s looking at when he coaches his guys.
“It’s nothing new under the sun for that guy. So we’ve got to come out, we’ve got to be prepared. We understand that that’s a physical team and they’re going to make us earn everything that we can.”
Stefon Diggs, Josh Allen and Buffalo’s woes
Buffalo is among the favorites to reach the Super Bow. For that to happen Josh Allen must play better. And he need to find a way to keep Stefon Diggs happy.
Diggs pointed to his head and told him to, “play smart” during the Bills’ 22-16 loss to the New York Jets.
“I say this to the quarterback, I say this to the running backs, I say this to the receivers, to the o-line,” Diggs said on Von Miller’s podcast. “When you see me pointing to my head, I say ‘let’s play smart.’
“For the O-line, that’s like let’s not be holding. For the receivers, let’s stay onsides or get your depth.”
Diggs is one of Buffalo’s three captians. He’s serious about being a leader.
“We’re in a high-pressure, heightened anxiety or whatever it is — football is that,” Diggs said on the podcast. “If you can bring a guy a couple notches down in those moments, you just never know how much further you can go as a team.
“I just try to give (Josh), ‘Hey, we got this. Don’t even worry about this. Let’s play hard; let’s play smart.’ ”
It marked the third time Allen had thrown three interceptions in a game. He also lost a fumble.
“As a quarterback in this league, the best ones are able to kind of put this behind them but take away lessons from it and not let it affect how they play the next game in a negative way,” Allen told reporters. “Try using it to my advantage and learn from it. It’s not the first time I’ve thrown three (interceptions).chris jone
“It’s trust in your teammates. It’s having guys come and talk to you and tell you to wash it and get rid of it. So just leaning on those guys in the locker room and looking forward to playing my best ball.”
Chris Jones’ big return for Kansas City Chiefs
Defensive tackle Chris Jones re-joins the Kansas City Chiefs at a critical time.
Detroit beat the Chiefs in the opener; his return should create a feel-good vibe in the locker room, even though they’re 0-1.
Signing Jones to a new deal — he received incentives that could earn him an additional $5-6 million, but no new guaranteed money — seemed like a good way to shift the conversation from the loss.
“These are the decisions you have to live with,” Jones said. “I would change it, but I’m grateful for how it turned out.”
Jones tied his career-high with 15.5 sacks and was named All-Pro. He finished third in Defensive Player of the year voting.
“Chris is an elite player in this league, and over the last seven years, he’s really developed into a leader on our team,” Chiefs general manager Manager Brett Veach said in a statement. “He’s been instrumental to our success and Super Bowl championship runs, and it was a priority for us to keep him in a Chiefs uniform.”
Jean-Jacques Taylor is an NFL Insider for Sportsnaut and the author of the upcoming book “Coach Prime“, with Deion Sanders. Follow him on Twitter.