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Random Shots From Week 4

Joe Bryant's Random Shots From Week 4
By Joe Bryant, October 7, 2020

Random Shots From Week 4
Photo: USA Today Sports

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

It's October. Let's do this.

Hat Tip to Clayton Gray.

Things can get heavy sometimes. Maybe you, like me, could use a little Philip Rivers mic'd up today.

We talked a couple of weeks ago about Dan Marino and his behind the back passing.

This led to a rabbit hole as these things sometimes do. I found myself digging through Sonny Jurgensen video.

Which led me here...

The whole video is fascinating if you've got 15 minutes. Jurgensen would have been a Random Shots poster guy.

Hat Tip to Mike Gillman.

Hurdling defenders is awesome.

Until it's not awesome.

Tiger catches a ball.

Hat Tip to David Dodds.

Human (Clemson) Tiger catches a ball.

The potential here seems limitless...

What do you say, Vikings fans?

Hat Tip to Jeff Haseley.

Tom Brady and Justin Herbert have the largest age gap between starters since 1950 (20 Years, 219 Days apart).

Because I know y'all need to know that kind of stuff.

Hat Tip @SNFonNBC

Jarvis Landry scores a touchdown! Baker Mayfield GMs...

i think my favorite part was the crow hop windup. Landry looked like he was in a punt pass and kick competition to see how far he could throw it.

Hang on. You mean to tell me Drew Brees isn't terrible and Nick Foles is not an Elite QB destined for the Hall of Fame?

What next?

Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers aren't washed?

Or

Seems like a budding relationship in Tampa Bay between Tom Brady and Ke'Shawn Vaughn.

What kind of sorcery is Bruce Arians using to keep his mask on here?

Any of you folks tire of Red Zone? I kind of have. I found I was getting such a distorted view of the actual game and for the last couple of weeks, I've switched to watching the regular broadcasts of the two most interesting games on Sunday Ticket.

It's been fantastic.

When they go to the commercial break, I never thought I'd be this happy it's a car commercial...

Yup.

Colin Cowherd is right. Just because they're in Texas, doesn't mean the Cowboys have to play defense like a Big 12 team...

Justin Herbert can play.

Competition matters and that's a real defense there.

It's completely unfair and I hate it for Tyrod Taylor as he seems like a great guy. But barring injury, this seems like Herbert's job.

This might be the most predictable music note in a while. Eddie Van Halen died Tuesday. He was just 65 years old.

A point there. Van Halen's debut album was a musical milestone for me. I'm 56 years old and I remember right where I was when the first three tracks hit me as a fourteen-year-old in 1978. That's something.

But what's really something is Eddie Van Halen was 23 years old when the album debuted. The lesson there is simply, "Don't doubt young people". They're enormously capable.

As I thought about what I'd post for this, I started down a dozen different paths. Then I realized I was overthinking it. These are my two favorite songs from one of my favorite albums. I've seen them live a half dozen times but I picked the studio versions because for all the style and cool and MTV video stuff, this band was about the music for me and tons of others. So I'll get out of the way and just share two songs that redefined music for me as a teenager.

And even though it's typical David Lee Roth half-serious innuendo shtick, I've always loved this song. Eddie Van Halen's semi bluesy familiar but new guitar work on this pushed me towards good music and this song just personifies fun.

High-Fiving in 2020. Bengals fans will take it.

Hat Tip to Jeff Pasquino.

I don't need those fancy GPS embedded chips on the Next Gen stat feed to know Kyler Murray is fast.

I can see that he looks like he's on a Slip-N-Slide when he gets down.

When they measure vertical leap for defensive backs, this is why.

24 looked like Larry Bird here...

There's a never-ending supply of this type of content...

I'm not saying it's good content. Just there's a lot of it.

I know Aaron Donald is the greatest player to ever step on a football field and all that. Whatever. I respect Nick Gates for not taking anything from him.

It's the old Billy Joel line, "Don't take any #### from anybody."

This is your headline in Detroit: "Lions Become First Team In NFL History To Lose 6 Straight Games In Which They Led By Double Digits".

Meanwhile, my timeline is filled with Texans fans wailing about the ELITE LEVEL PAIN that comes with being a Houston fan.

I'm not joking.

Umm, sorry you only make the playoffs every other year.

Texans fans are Spalding here and Lions fans plus a half dozen more teams are Judge Smails.

The Eagles are in first place.

After winning for the first time this year.

In October.

Wow, maybe Doug Pederson going for the tie actually knows what he's doing? Imagine that.

Real talk on Brady.

He threw another pick-six Sunday.

No surprise, the internet did what the internet does.

Here's what's different this year than last though. And this isn't as much a knock on Jameis Winston as it is a credit to Tom Brady.

This team kept believing. They kept playing hard. Brady shook it off and went on to a big game and Tampa won.

Coach Bruce Arians said after the game, "We knew we played poorly. It was just a show of character. I can honestly say, had this been last year, we would have gotten our ass beat by 20. [With] Tom -- he's never behind in his mind, so we can always make plays to win games."

We talked a couple of weeks ago about Panthers WR Robby Anderson learning how things work in Carolina.

This week he heard, for what appears to be the first time, "Sweet Caroline". The look on his face was "This is fun but I've got no idea what y'all are singing."

Current state of the NFC East.

Truth.

Can you imagine the squalling if the Patriots had done this?

I drafted Patrick Mahomes II so I love the TD "passes". But Andrew has an argument.

The reality though is Mahomes throws so many ridiculous deep touchdowns that nobody can say much about these.

At least we can all agree Mahomes wins the Oscar for this week.

Looked like Dwayne Wade.

Embattled Houston coach Bill O'Brien was fired this week.

Former Texan DeAndre Hopkins showed class.

On the other end of the spectrum was J.J. Watt.

You got something to say, say it.

Tampa center Ryan Jensen with the "These guys make a lot of money. These guys earn a lot of money."

College Football Note. Alabama and Nick Saban face Ole Miss and former Saban assistant Lane Kiffin this week.

Asked whether Saban, 68, is the kind of guy to stay in touch with old work buddies, Kiffin made it known they don’t share fantasy football advice or schedule golf trips very often.

“Yeah, that’s not really his wheelhouse,” Kiffin said. “He’s not really sending out texts every once in a while just checking on you. Uh, no.”

Wrapping with this one.

Green Bay tight end Robert Tonyan Jr had himself a day (or night) Monday night.

We can learn a lot from this play.

Tonyan is a nice athlete but he's not "special" or unique among NFL players.

He ran his route here. Was tackled in what probably was a penalty. Somersaulted up. Got open. And caught a touchdown. One of three touchdowns for him on the night.

The lesson for us (and as usual, I'm talking mostly to myself here) is clear: Perseverance is highly underrated. You don't have to be the most talented. He's not. You don't have to have a great pedigree. Tonyan went to Indiana State and was an undrafted free agent in 2017. You just have to keep fighting. It's not going to be fair. You're going to get tackled and the referee isn't going to throw the flag. You're going to have to get up (or somersault if you're salty), do what you'd intended to do and run the route and hopefully catch the touchdown. This is probably the main reason I love sports. It's a real-life example played out right in front of our eyes on how to do a ton of non-sports stuff.

Rock on Robert Tonyan Jr. And rock on, Footballguy to your Somersaulting self. See you out there.

Thanks to Footballguys Keith Overton, Clayton Gray, David Dodds, Mike Gillman, Jeff Haseley, and Jeff Pasquino for the help on this one. If you've got a Random Shot of your own, send me an email 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

Photos provided by USA TODAY Sports
Tags Fun Brandon Aiyuk Keenan Allen Robbie Chosen Tom Brady Aaron Donald Nick Foles Leonard Fournette Melvin Gordon III Justin Herbert DeAndre Hopkins Malik Jackson Jarvis Landry Patrick Mahomes II Baker Mayfield Kyler Murray Aaron Rodgers Tyrod Taylor Robert Tonyan Jr J.J. Watt Jameis Winston

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