The second week of the NFL season delivered all sorts of beautiful chaos. Can you believe that we have several more months left of this?
Sample sizes are growing and while we are still a little too early to draw hard conclusions about anything, we are getting closer to that point. Some teams look unstoppable where others are still winless. Many teams have flirted with both greatness and disaster. As noted, it is beautiful chaos.
Our mission here at The Skinny Post is to evaluate it all as best as we can.
Let’s dive into Week 2, and make sure to take our surveys and let us know what you think.
Are we buying the Indianapolis Colts and Daniel Jones?
Entering Week 2 I picked the Colts to beat the Broncos so I will stand and wait for your applause.
A lot of people are comparing this Colts team and their early success, particularly on offense, to what the New Orleans Saints did last year. I get it. Paper tigers and all of that jazz.
I’m not going to go as far as saying “something feels different” about Indianapolis, but this is the most functional that they have looked in a long time. Daniel Jones is clearly pulling the right strings, but Jonathan Taylor and Michael Pittman Jr. are both really shining. Everything just seems to be happening in the best way and Jones is executing it all in a manner for it to sing.
The first game against the Dolphins did not leave me believing in the Colts because Miami was pretty bad last year and it doesn’t look like they have reinforced the right areas to be much better in 2025. However, the Colts not only playing a competitive game against the Broncos, but also finding a way to win the game and coming up clutch in the end has me believing in this team wholeheartedly.
Daniel Jones’ time with the Vikings and Kevin O’Connell last year looks like it’s paying off in spades.
How do the Bengals even process things right now?
Personally? I have no idea. It helps that the offense still employs guys like Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, but the level of play from that unit is going to take one heck of a drop without Burrow running the show. Chase and Higgins will help keep them afloat as long as the offensive line can keep Jake Browning clean enough, but I don’t see that being the case week-in and week-out. Browning will sometimes look like Cinderella and at other times he’ll resemble the pumpkin.
The question remains: Will the Bengals’ 2-0 start to begin the season be enough of a floatation device for the team en route to fighting for a playoff spot? As it stands, this team will live and die in regards to the postseason by the arm of its backup quarterback.
Losing Joe Burrow for almost all of the season is brutal. I don’t know how Bengals fans can currently hold excitement for anything, all due respect to the rest of the Bengals roster.
As a Cowboys fan I am reminded of back in 2015 when the team started 2-0 and lost Tony Romo in that second win. It was 10 years ago and that season on its own felt like a decade. Life without a franchise quarterback is miserable and I fear that the Bengals are in for quite the spell.
I hope I am wrong. The Bengals have proven to be fighters. But this is tough.
Was Sunday an indication that the Giants have a chance?
Speaking of the Cowboys… wow they sure revived Russell Wilson.
In absolutely no way do I think that the Giants have a chance of doing anything serious this year, but I was certainly taken aback at their offensive resurgence.
Here’s the thing, though. Right now I feel like that was more representative of who the Cowboys are defensively than the Giants offensively. The worst possible thing the Giants could do now is believe this mirage and lie to themselves.
We are going to watch them do that on Sunday night against Kansas City, though. Imagine if the Giants manage to pull off the upset to get their first win of the season and the team to fall to 0-3 is actually the Chiefs!
I think the answer is yes?
I think the Cowboys have looked better than expected in their first two weeks and their incredibly dramatic matchup with the Giants on Sunday is honestly more towards the credit of New York than to the detriment of Dallas.
Wilson looked like his vintage self, throwing moonshot after moonshot to his speedsters on the outside (wow Malik Nabers is good!) and they happened to work out more than not. That’s not likely to be the case each week, but I believe it showed this Giants team is not going to go quietly in any game this season, but especially against the NFC East.
Something tells me this will NOT be the last suspenseful and incredibly stressful outing for the Giants this season.
Which team should feel better about themselves than their performance so far would suggest? Which team should feel worse?
I don’t think this fits the first part, but I gotta hand it to the Seahawks who once again look solid under Mike Macdonald. They lost a close one to the 49ers on an unfortunate fumble near the end zone on the final drive of the game and then they competed with the Steelers well until they smartly capitalized on a special teams blunder to swing momentum in their favor.
This squad was the only 10-win team to not make the postseason in 2024 and I firmly believe they will reverse those fortunes this year. I expect them to play well through the rest of their division games and have a chance to claim the NFC West crown by the end of the regular season.
After seeing how the Vikings finished the second half against the Falcons on Sunday night, I think I have to go ahead and suggest Minnesota will be taking quite the step back from their 2024 win-loss record. Their big-money signings this offseason are not paying off from the jump (especially their new center and right guard) and now they are without starting quarterback J.J. McCarthy for multiple weeks due to a high ankle sprain.
The perception in the preseason was that this was going to be one of the best supporting casts for a first-time starter in recent memory. Those may as well be famous last words because the football world said the same thing about Caleb Williams and the Bears last year and they ended up last in the NFC North with six wins.
It has felt to me like the San Francisco 49ers are not getting enough respect. I know that they only beat the Saints on Sunday, but they did so with a quarterback who the entire league had basically thrown away in Mac Jones. To me this revives the idea that Kyle Shanahan can get it done with just about anybody. It sounds silly to say that San Francisco should feel better about themselves when they are 2-0, but my point is I think the sleeping monster has maybe woken up.
On the other side of the coin I think that the Detroit Lions might be feeling themselves a little bit too much after Sunday’s blowout of the Chicago Bears. It had to feel good to beat Ben Johnson and to rebound from the shellacking they took in Week 1 at Lambeau Field, but we are learning that the Bears are pretty moribund. I’d pump the brakes on any “the Lions are back” takes until we see more.
