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The NFL season kicked off in dramatic fashion last night between the Kansas City Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens. We now find ourselves amidst a four-day stretch of games between both the NFL and college football, and it's beautiful. Before we tackle our first NFL Sunday of the year, let's check out the two main events leading right up to it.
By Spencer Galloway | September 6th, 2024
Photo by Associated Press
Friday Night Lights, Goodell Style
Earlier this morning, I saw an ad from the NFL (or Peacock? What's the difference at this point?) of Joey Graziadei hyping up tonight's Eagles-Packers matchup in Brazil. If you're not up to speed with pop culture or network television (in 2024, why would you be?) then just know that Joey was America's sweetheart on The Bachelor to kick off this summer. Apparently, the NFL hasn't played a game on a Friday night in over 50 years! Whatever, as long as this game is more exciting than the season finale of The Bachelor. To anyone who didn't realize it was Kelsey's rose to lose halfway through the season, I mean come on.
Pop culture references aside, the NFL totally impeding on your kid's Friday night high school football game is just another step in Roger Goodell's plan for TOTAL WORLD DOMINATION BAHAHAHA. Kidding. Kinda. Not really! No one really batted an eye in 2006 when the NFL stomped out the poor JV kids who play games on Thursday nights, but now that they're attacking the Friday night lights, I don't know where this will end. How soon until we play games on Wednesday? Tuesday? How much longer do we have until we have a team play their first back-to-back, just like we do in the NBA?
Football and Fridays have a lot in common, and since I have no reason or desire to attend high school football games, selfishly, I am all in on our first matchup of the weekend.
Green Bay Packers at Philadelphia Eagles
Friday @ 7:15 pm CST
While I personally take a great deal of joy in seeing Eagles fans lose out on a home game, I don't imagine either team here ends up with any sort of home-field advantage, and instead, we get one of the great TV smorgasbords of random NFL jerseys that anyone can find in their closet. Likely one of a retired quarterback or a Ray Lewis jersey. I understand the appeal to go global if you are the NFL, but aren't you supposed to send the dumpster fire teams out abroad, like the Jaguars? (The Jaguars, who have almost played an ENTIRE NFL SEASON abroad at this point!) The Packers and Eagles are both legitimate Super Bowl contenders, each with MVP hopefuls at quarterback (yeah I am THERE with Jordan Love).
Jordan Love and Jalen Hurts have some of the best weapons in all of football and are two of the most capable playmakers in the sport to make the best use of said weapons. Each team also added dynamic playmakers to tag along in the backfield with their star quarterbacks this offseason. For Green Bay, they went with Josh Jacobs, and for Philadelphia, they went the route of Saquon Barkley. Seeing veteran running backs in jerseys different than what you're accustomed to often screams washed, but in the case of both Jacobs and Barkley, I believe they are both young enough and, if healthy enough, are still two of the most explosive runners in the sport. I am optimistically thinking of them as both having Christian McCaffrey-esque rebirths in the middle of their prime after being dealt to a new team.
Friday night in college football is for the freaks and geeks, those who definitely don't need any advice on what to watch because they are already watching everything. So sit back, and relax (unless you're riding out a 12-leg parlay you so confidently constructed earlier in the week), and enjoy watching two of the most high-powered offenses in the NFL square off in Brazil, in what is sure to be one of the most confused crowds on who to root for in recent memory.
3 Texas Longhorns at 10 Michigan Wolverines
Saturday @ 11 am CST
This brings me to college football's lone appearance in this week's mention of "must-see" action. Not that there aren't football teams playing this Saturday that are worth your attention, there are, there just aren't any with quite the stakes or gravitas of Texas' long-awaited visit to The Big House. These teams had quite different experiences in their season-openers just a week prior. Texas put on a clinic on both sides of the ball, albeit against a much inferior Colorado State team, shutting them out 52-0. Michigan on the other hand, in their first appearance since both Jim Harbaugh and J.J. McCarthy left town this offseason, got off to a slow start against Fresno State. A team that the reigning national champions should have had no issues running out of the building kept it a game for longer than most expected.
Photo from FOX Sports
Nonetheless, this is a matchup between two top-ten foes, each towards the top of their powerhouse conferences. A rare sight that only the first few weeks of the college football season can grant us. Texas has not been shy about going outside of their comfort zone to flex their muscle, ousting Alabama in Tuscaloosa just last season, Texas' final season in the Big 12. That win ultimately propelled the Horns for the rest of the season into their first-ever College Football Playoff berth. Had they won their matchup against the Washington Huskies, we would have gotten this Michigan matchup a whole lot sooner.
With Michigan scrambling to name their starting quarterback so close before the start of the season, deciding between Alex Orji or Davis Warren, and lacking the continuity that Texas embodies, I greatly feel this is Texas' game to lose. Steve Sarkisian and Quinn Ewers have been running things their way in Austin for some time now, and things seem to be clicking well. Really well. They showed off new WR talent Isaiah Bond and Matthew Golden, and how dynamic they have made a Texas offense that just lost Xavier Worthy to the Kansas City Chiefs (his two-touchdown debut should have the rest of the NFL shaking, btw).
I'm looking to see Texas truly establish itself as a blue-chipper once again. Michigan, a blue-chip program themselves, might just be the sacrificial lamb needed to make it happen.
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