The Afternoon After: If Peterson is ‘All-Day,’ CJ is ‘All Year’

As usual, my thoughts about the weekend’s NFL games based on whatever I saw – I’m cheating by posting this “The Night Of,” but it’ll still be valid tomorrow afternoon.

Objects in the rear-view are actually farther than they appear

I’m in a fantasy football keeper league. Last year, I had the good fortune of drafting Chris Johnson, Matt Forte and Andre Johnson. As such, my partner and I came to a crossroads this year, and long story short, we ended up with Forte, Andre Johnson and Tom Brady.

With every week that goes by, I realize that we let the wrong guy go, which will haunt me for years. Lost in the uncreative media’s need to embrace one guy – namely Adrian Peterson – as the best running back in the NFL is that Chris Johnson is quite possibly better.

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The afternoon after: Jets need to overcome history of teases

Though I know football, it’s not really my thing. But I’ll give it a shot. Here are a few observations I have from watching some games this weekend.

  • This year's Joe Flacco?I think the Jets are for real, but it’s tough to truly commit to them. In the past, every time they won a huge game and it seemed like they were going to take that leap to the upper echelon of the NFL, they lost their next game in crushing fashion and it was back to square one. It’s rare you find a franchise as snakebit as they have been, at least since Namath’s knees went. But the defense truly does look legit, Mark Sanchez looks like the quarterback they’ve been waiting for perhaps since Namath – i.e. a star, albeit one not asked to carry the mail just yet – and you have to be impressed that not only did they say they were going to beat the Patriots, they went out and did it. Challenging the Patriots is like calling out Floyd Mayweather – usually not a good idea. But they pulled it off. Their next three games are home against the Titans, at the Saints and at the Dolphins – two explosive offenses and a divisional rival. If they go 2-1 in those games, things may be different.

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