Week Two of the NFL season was a doozy.
With 11 games going down to the wire, fans all over the country got their money's worth.
Of course that's not to say that everything was perfect. Here at #TheWorst, we celebrate the truly embarrassing moments from around the league. As always, submit your nominees via Twitter, email or the comments below.
Worst Player
There was a lot of pressure to put Geno Smith up for this category, but while he wasn't good, he's a rookie playing his first night game at Foxboro. Even #TheWorst has a little heart.
We'll get to Smith yet, but for now, let's center on Brandon Weeden of Cleveland. Easily the worst player I've seen up close since Curtis Painter vacated my hometown, Weeden's play has been brutal all year.
He's ranked 32nd in the league in passer rating, has hit for 6.0 yards per attempt (better than only Blaine Gabbert), been sacked a league-high 11 times and has put up 16 points in two games.
Oh, and he's 43 years old.
So, to the Cleveland Browns I say this: read the next section very, very carefully and learn from it.
If you want a quarterback to hit inanimate objects thrown at him by angry fans, Weeden is your man!
Worst Team
I hate beat a dead cat, but I had so many entries in this category that it would be professional malpractice to leave them unflogged. In fact, any column called #TheWorst that didn't spend serious time on the Jacksonville Jaguars would instantly live down to its name.
@NateDunlevy The Jaguars. Just the Jaguars.
— Angry Bills Fan (@chrisskreager) September 17, 2013
I got roughly 7,500 similar tweets and messages this week.
So let's say a word about the Jags, shall we?
While I feel like the two-toned helmets of gloom they wear deserve their own special ring in hell, the Jags are the classic example of how to screw up the quarterback position. To wit:
They massively over-draft a quarterback in a mediocre quarterback draft. They do this with a lame-duck head coach.
Said coach, one Mssr. Jack Del Rio (that's French for Swamp Weasel), throws Blaine Gabbert out mid-season in an attempt to scapegoat the kid for the crappy coaching job he's done. Of course, the quarterback isn't just bad. He's historically awful to depths we've rarely seen. He's downright Carr-ian (Carrian-Of or pertaining to the nature of David Carr. See dog, crap).
At this point, the Jaguars fire their coach and bring on a new coach and scheme, thus resetting the clock on their young quarterback. Gene Smith forces the new coach (Mike Mularkey) to promise to play the kid no matter what. Instead of immediately recognizing the mistake they made (which was plain to everyone), they doubled down on Gabbert. But just to show they do realize something is wrong, they bring in Chad Henne as a backup.
It goes poorly.
Gabbert is such a disaster that Mularkey loses his job after just one season, but not before his coaching staff completely looses confidence in the player. Smith gets fired, and a new regime comes in. Of course, they get a top pick in a quarterback draft even worse than the one in 2011, so they take a right tackle, believing that what will save Gabbert is another rookie on the offensive line.
Gabbert has spent the last several months randomly banging into things and throwing passes into the ground. Meanwhile, Henne is now starting for the injured Gabbert, but has himself been positively Gabbertian.
We are now in Year Three of a quarterback who never should have played a down after his rookie year, in which he never should have played.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you stone-cold own #TheWorst.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gyw2roHUHME
"This is one of the games I picked us to win!" Sigh. Language NSFW
Worst Media Event
The fact that fans in Jacksonville held a Sign Tim Tebow rally slated to last three hours and 16 minutes was bad enough.
The fact that only 20 fans but 30 media members showed up for it?
That's the freaking worst.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0IuCqRDASZw?feature=player_embedded
Oh Lord. This is so fantastic.
Worst Comparison Manning Brother Chart
Presented without comment.
Worst Win
This was a hotly-contested category this week, what with the Ravens and Saints narrowly beating a couple of bad teams, but the run-away winner has to be the Patriots 13-10 suck-fest over the New York Football Jets. The New York Football Jets, of course, are not to be confused with the New York street gang also known as the Jets. They are famous for snapping and singing, where as the Football Jets are known from snapping under pressure.
Some may argue that any win over a division rival is a good win. The Jets always play the Patriots tough, you say. Well, for everyone who wants to point to all the close games the Jets and Pats have played over the years, allow me to offer up to you the butt fumble.
The Patriots we all know and hate should have eviscerated this team. They know it. They Jets know it. We know it.
There may not be a "bad win" win in the NFL, but for those forced to endure the second half of that game saw more punts than points. That's #TheWorst.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=j2zvKCPk7cU
Sure. Let's finish off that mess with a fight. Just super.
Worst Loss
A bad loss in the NFL is usually one a team expects to win, but drops. The Eagles, Colts and Panthers all had losses like that.
The worst loss is one where your team never competes.
Just six days after getting stunned at home by the Philadelphia Eagles, the Washington Redskins fell behind 31-0 into the third quarter. They put up some cosmetic points late, but that's little solace.
Washington has now given up 71 points in two games. Only the New York Giants have surrendered more.
More importantly, Robert Griffin the third (also known as "El tres-o") looked like a guy coming off of ACL and LCL surgery. Which, you know, he is.
We've become conditioned to believe that Adrian-Peterson-like recoveries are foregone conclusions. They aren't. The fact is that the Redskins have a terrible defense and one-legged quarterback for the near future.
At least they'll have a great first-round pick in 2014. Oh wait…
http://youtube.com/watch?v=w0ApI9gKA4c
Phil Sims should preface everything he says by saying, "I'm dumb". It's redundant, but I appreciate the reminder.
The Best
Week Two saw one of the best performances of the year from one of the best quarterbacks of the last decade. Aaron Rodgers lit up the Redskins for 480 yards and four scores.
The best win of the week obviously goes to the Seattle Seahawks for their curb-stomp over division rival San Francisco. That's going to be a fantastic race all year, and we'll get to see the two teams square off again at least once before the season is over.
Finally, the best catch of the week goes to T.Y. Hilton of Indianapolis who made one of the greatest plays I've ever seen live.
What's awesome is how the Colts pull him off the field regularly so they can throw passes to a fullback.
That's the #TheWorst.
