Hi Folks,
We do a ton of insightful, thoughtful and serious features here at Footballguys with smart people thinking deeply for you.
This is not one of those features.
This is Random Shots and it's a few pages of me downloading my goofy and dysfunctional mental hard drive that gets stuffed with way too many random items from too many hours watching, reading about, and listening to football every weekend and throughout the week. It's the only way I manage. Here's hoping it has some value for you.
We'll see. Now let's get to it.
J
Aaron Rodgers completed this pass Sunday.
The internet freaked out with headlines like "Packers QB Aaron Rodgers Somehow Threw a Perfect Pass With Both Feet off the Ground"
In just one more way Random Shots readers are smarter than the average fan, you folks just shrugged saying you see virtually the same pass in the Random Shots header every week...
Jalen Mills sold the Pass Interference here.
Turns out that wasn't the only questionable decision Mills made Sunday...
Clay Matthews was fined for complaining about the officiating.
I'm a pretty reasonable guy and I try to see both sides of an issue. I think I can see where the league is coming from.
But this kind of sucks.
Especially when he's right.
My favorite extra point of the weekend.
Four-time cancer survivor Casey O'Brien made it on to the field for the Minnesota Gophers.
Sorry, it must be a little dusty in here...
Someone told Travis Kelce they were playing in Moscow...
As you may know, the University of Oklahoma has the goofy little wagon they use for doing donuts in the endzone.
It's called the "Sooner Schooner". That's right. I'm not making that up. "Sooner Schooner". Wikipedia, the standard source for all knowledge, says, "Prairie schooner is a fanciful name for the covered wagon, drawing on their broad white canvas covers, romantically envisioned as the sails of a ship crossing the sea." Sounds about right.
Last year, they struggled with keeping the flag guy from falling out of the tailgate.
This weekend, they couldn't even keep it upright.
Clearly, two miniature ponies are more than these guys can handle.
I know you've all been worried, but rest easy, PETA's finally weighed in.
That should clear everything up.
Music note this week is from The Steel Drivers, Chris Stapleton's old band.
"Ghosts Of Mississippi" sounds like the South to me. One of the YouTube video comments nailed it, "That chorus is pure shine straight out of a Kentucky holler with a little dab of muddy Louisiana swampland."
J.J. Watt always has time for catch. I've got time to share.
Keep. The. Play. Alive.
Saquon Barkley, you're kind of ridiculous.
Todd Gack has the full support of every defensive coordinator in the league outside of Carolina.
My buddy Matthew Berry with Field Yates doing his best Tom Brady impression...
Adam Thielen with the sweet toe tap. Unfortunately, this one was costly.
I normally rail on people who panic about the rain. The San Francisco at Washington game Sunday poked a bit of a hole in my theory...
To be fair, it rained pretty dang hard...
Seriously though, this game produced some fantastic pictures.
This one from Geoff Burke is amazing.
Maybe we bought in too fast on Daniel Jones?
Or maybe he's good...
Ok then.
Unis.
Big difference between that "s" and "t".
And trust me, from someone who makes a ton of errors, I get it.
Teams usually wait till the end of the game to use the "Let them score so we can get the ball back" strategy.
The Giants decided to try it in the first quarter.
One of the things I love about Aaron Rodgers is he elevates the players around him. It's like he expects his teammates to perform on his level. And often they do.
This was a tough catch for Aaron Jones and Rodgers didn't hesitate to challenge his running back here with a great pass.
As you'd expect after the Week 6 debacle, Lions fans were ready Sunday.
Jamal Agnew tried a different approach.
I don't expect these to go away anytime soon though...
Some things never change...
Washington's season thus far...
I get that Senorise Perry wore #32 at Louisville. Since then, he's worn #34 and #35 for other NFL teams. Buffalo seemed like an odd spot to go back to #32...
To be fair though, Perry was born in 1991. O.J. Simpson's last season was 1979.
As if I didn't feel old enough already...
Speaking of Buffalo. God Bless Bills Fans.
The Vikings are a weird team.
He gave us a scare but Saquon Barkley's ankle looks pretty good to me.
Someone at FOX is getting a "talking to".
Deshaun Watson was on the short end of a bad call Sunday when the officials whistled a play dead too early.
I get this one though. Watson is one of the league's bright young stars and the officials have a split second to make a call. We have the obvious advantage of hindsight in seeing what he was able to do after the whistle.
With that said, the new supposed ability to challenge pass interference is one of the more puzzling things I've seen in a while.
Seriously. Someone needs to remind Cousins he can't throw the deep pass...
I bagged on players hurdling last week.
Here's the other side of the argument.
And defense too...
Tyrod Taylor may be the backup but that cardigan is Pro Bowl material.
I'm not exactly sure why, but this flew all over me.
It's just fundamentally wrong.
I know rich people can blow money on all kinds of ridiculous things. Matt Patricia makes enough money to trash a thousand of these tablets and not bat an eye.
It's the principle. You don't throw a tablet on the ground because you're mad. I don't care if it's on the grass or if it's got a case. It's just wrong to me.
What I found fascinating in myself is a player can spend a zillion dollars on a car and I feel nothing. But this guy trashing a tablet got me going. Weird.
Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. You may remember Patricia thinking it was cool to rock the Goodell Clown shirt after the Super Bowl win.
Which led to one of my favorite Random Shots graphics we created a few months later after Kansas City hung 42 points on Patricia in Week 1 of the following season...
Hat Tip to my buddy Kyle Lebeda.
Eric Ebron, you're kind of ridiculous too.
Stefon Diggs killing it on and off the field.
The worst beat of the weekend for Fantasy GMs was easily David Johnson. He started the game and then was pulled in favor of Chase Edmonds and you know the rest.
The Cardinals felt compelled to post this.
And that's why you don't leave the social media keys to the unpaid interns. In one tweet the team becomes the most hated team in Fantasy Sports. Well played.
Aaron Rodgers Sunday...
Bill Belichick starts off every season as my Coach of the Year candidate until I see otherwise.
Belichick's been great but Frank Reich's not getting nearly enough credit in Indianapolis.
That's amazing.
Heads up play or accident? Trey Quinn isn't saying...
Miami's season in one clip.
But let's not lose sight. That's also a fantastic play by Micah Hyde.
Give this Skycam Operator a raise. This is amazing.
Thanks to Footballguy Keith Overton for the help with that one.
For you movie guys, this was probably the closest thing the NFL gets to the famous Copacabana Steadicam shot from Goodfellas.
So good.
I love the NFL and the incredible athleticism. Guys like Mike Williams make the impossible seem almost normal.
For many though, this is the NFL. I'm one of them.
What a classic picture from Getty's @patricksmith04.
Television today is incredible.
Here's a reminder to stop for a second and appreciate the production effort we take for granted. Much of it's amazing.
This clip from Jose Altuve's home run is an example. The FOX people pull together multiple shots and different angles all in real time.
Simply fantastic. Well done.
This Raider sack celebration in the first quarter was described as "savage".
I'm not sure Aaron Rodgers is a guy you want fired up.
What's "savage" is this stiff arm.
Oh, Chicago...
I sent this to my buddy and Bears fan Jeremy Johnson.
Jeremy replied, "They couldn’t find a good quarterback at a Hall Of Fame meeting."
I know these guys are tough but making fun of Tarik Cohen for being short seems kind of lame.
Maybe the Chargers were right not to cave for Melvin Gordon...
I fully admit I'm a peacemaker at heart but I love this kind of thing.
Earl Thomas and Russell Wilson with a nice moment after the game.
Pete Carroll, not so much.
They're back, Baby...
Thanks to NFL_Memes and Justin Bonnema for that one.
You knew these were coming...
Much was made during the week of Eagles coach Doug Pederson's talk before the game.
Ezekiel Elliot with the appropriate response: "We don’t need inspiration from him to go out there and play hard. This rivalry is enough. Honestly, we don’t give a f— what Doug Pederson says."
Baltimore cornerback Marlon Humphrey was ready for that Seattle weather.
The Broncos may not have been able to pull out the win. But you can't say Dalton Risner and Ronald Leary didn't bring their A-game for Instagram.
You may know I live in Tennessee now but I grew up in Texas and it's my adopted second home. I'm not a big baseball guy these days but I'm still pulling for the Astros in the World Series.
As you'd expect, so is J.J. Watt.
And that leads me to Jose Altuve where I'll wrap up.
Altuve is a star for Houston and the hero of the ALCS with a walk-off home run to push Houston to the World Series.
He's been told everything from he was too short to too young to not good enough. And never gave up.
I get it. You're likely not going to play for the Houston Astros. Neither am I.
But don't lose the value of this story. We all have areas where the world sees us as "not good enough" or "less than". Don't give up.
And let's be clear. There might be some grains of truth in what the world is telling you. You may very well have areas you need to improve. So improve. Learn a new skill. Become a better person. You know what to do.
Thanks to Footballguys Keith Overton, Clayton Gray, David Dodds, Justin Bonnema and Kyle Lebeda for the help on this one. If you've got a Random Shot of your own, send me an e-mail at bryant@footballguys.com.
Thanks for playing along and I hope you make the most of whatever you're doing in your life. Love your neighbor and stick together.
Peace and Grace to you.
J