As we’re almost ready to close the books on week two of the 2014-2015 NFL season, we should all feel quite tired – exhausted, really. For this week has been the most tumultuous in recent memory. In this week’s National Football League – Foreign Perspective essay I will be focusing on the curious cases of Ray Rice & Adrian Peterson, as well as one of the weirdest Sunday Night matchups in recent memory. This week’s essay is titled ‘Fire & Brimstone’.
Let’s begin with the name we’ll hear announced at M&T Bank Stadium nevermore. The whole Ray Rice-case was handled poorly. First off, he needs to be punished for that – not just by the NFL. He has to be punished, or it just sets a tone you don’t want when discussing domestic violence. Two games was not enough, and later Roger Goddell even admitted that, something I actually approve of – admitting your mistakes is a step in the right direction. But we need to seriously look at the NFL, something’s wrong here. Where was that tape months ago? How come Goddell supposedly only saw it when TMZ leaked it? The NFL should be better than that. In any case, currently he’s suspended indefinitely, and has no longer got a job as a Raven. Baltimore rejoice.
Had this been the only case, then I wouldn’t have written about it. I wouldn’t have. I don’t need to tell you what this does to female fans – how it belittles them. I don’t need to tell you that.
Sadly, the NFL woke up to yet another terror late last week… This time involving a big, big NFL star. One of the biggest NFL role models was former NFL MVP Adrian Peterson – running back star from the Minnesota Vikings. But as we know, he’s been troubled with personal horrors for a long time. We all know about the various MCL and ACL injuries, but the real horror came in 2013, when danger hit home. One of Adrian Peterson’s sons, one he had never met, died at the age of two – when the boyfriend of the mother of the child allegedly assaulted the child. I, myself, supported him a lot during this situation – and he handled it perfectly; I might add.
Now, on the 12th of September – Adrian Peterson was indicted on charges of reckless or negligent injury to a child. Peterson whipped his son with a tree branch, and allegedly used this switch to strike his buttocks, legs, back and ankles – following a punch to the scrotum of his son. His son…. The severity of this issue is just… Ugh. I have a tough time writing eloquently about this matter, in stead I’ll direct you to comments made by former Minnesota Vikings Wide Receiver, Chris Carter.
Moving on…
To the second week of regular season NFL action. I will not mention the aforementioned cases any more in this post. Today I’m going to write about the NFC North, and the Chicago Bears specifically again.
With the help of NFL RedZone and NFL GamePass, I managed to watch most of every NFC North game this week. I’ll begin by commenting on a team I labelled a Power Ranking Pretender last week. The Minnesota Vikings played the New England Patriots at the TCF Bank Stadium on Sunday (Minnesota Vikings – dome = cold winter). Both teams had something to prove, as New England were falling behind in their surprisingly tough AFC East division – and the Minnesota Vikings only had a win against an injury plagued Rams team in week one.
Surprisingly, Minnesota opened the game well – and Running Back, Matt Asiata, opened the scoring early on. However, the Brady Bunch fought back – and perhpas proved that the Minnesota Vikings are nothing special. I guess we’ll find out for sure in week three against the needy Saints.
Meanwhile, the Detroit Lions needed to prove that they were the best team in the NFC North, when they went up against a Carolina Panthers team that had had a less than convincing week one win. Quickly, we found out that the Panthers defense is no joke whatsoever. Sacking Stafford multiple times was no problem, and perhaps they highlighted a big Detroit problem going forward. Both Minnesota and Detroit dropped to 1-1, and gave Green Bay and Chicago a chance to catch up…
Green Bay did just that. After falling to 0-1 against the defending Super Bowl champions, the Packers opened at Lambeau Field against the New York Jets – and a defense of core strength – but poor cornerbacks. Rather quickly, the Jets shocked the world and went up by 18 points. Sadly, slowly but surely the Packers started cutting it down – and setting up a win in the end. A surprisingly hard-fought win gets the Packers to 1-1.
My main event this week was the Sunday Night Football on NBC game between the San Francisco(/Santa Clara) 49ers and my Chicago Bears. Not only that, it was the first ever regular season game at the new Levi’s Stadium. Now, I know that most Bears fans went in with the knowledge that the Bears had not won in San Francisco since 1985. So we needed a magical performance, and the exact statement game from Jay Cutler that I called for in the build-up to the game.
Luck was not on the Bears’ side early on, inspite of a Chris Conte interception the Bears were trailing by 17 points. Then Jay Cutler got hit hard – that ignited a fire inside the heart of Jay, Brandon etc. – Suddenly the Bears were driving with force, and though they were helped by the 49ers’ penalties – they were forceful. Three TDs to Brandon Marshall, and one to Martellus Bennett. The Bears were on fire. But it took a great defensive performance to do it, and two magic interceptions by rookie cornerback Kyle Fuller as well.
In what should be remembered as a signature/statement win for Jay Cutler, he threw for 4 Touchdowns, 0 Turnovers and a QB Rating at 119.2.
Bring on week three
I'm Jeffrey Rex 