Week 1 always excites, which is why I need to provide an immediate disclaimer: please don’t overreact. You’ll see shock results and major conclusions drawn with the smallest of sample sizes. Unless they confirm what you already knew, they could be mirages. I’ll be touching on the Thursday night kickoff game, the special Friday night…
Week 2 always brings us some crazy outcomes. A top-10 team went down at home, and so did Notre Dame! Two FCS teams earned wins against “mismatch” opponents. Given that so many unheralded teams made noise, I thought we’d make this week’s theme about the underdogs. Aside from my first section, which addresses a game…
The moment we’ve been waiting for is finally here. The Ravens and Chiefs kick off the 2024 season on Thursday in a much-anticipated matchup, but first, I thought I’d look at where the various teams stand on opening week. After all, we’ve now seen these teams in the preseason. Please don’t be mad if your…
The NCAA football season has finally arrived. Last year was hectic; this year is set to be complete mayhem. Realignment accelerated, culminating in the Pac-12’s demise. The transfer portal became more hectic than the caricature in those Dr. Pepper commercials. But now is when things settle down and we just play football! In case you…
Just like that, the preseason is over. It goes by quickly with only 3 games! Starters have had their chance to get in sync, camp battles have been won and lost, and roster spots have been secured. Players now await the decisions of their front offices. Each team must go from 90 players to just…
Welcome to what used to occur in week 3 of the preseason! With only 3 exhibition contests, the second game is the one where you see the most starters. Teams are fine-tuning their plans for the regular season, as opposed to last week when we were merely getting our feet wet. Some squads were trying…
Two teams kicked off the preseason last week, but NOW it’s officially preseason week 1. All 32 teams participated this week, and one even made a big roster cut! Since we switched to a 3-game preseason schedule, teams have been split on playing their stars in games 2 and 3, but many keep them out…
Welcome back to NFL football! We eagerly awaited the annual Hall of Fame Game, which featured the Houston Texans and Chicago Bears. It has been too long without football, and even though this tilt rarely includes much playing time for starters (if any), we had fun just getting back to the game. As usual, the…
Football is almost back! The first preseason game, the Hall of Fame game, takes place this Thursday. As we did last year, we’re going to try and make some predictions for the 2024 NFL season. We had a middling go of it in 2023, but I suppose that’s to be expected when you’re trying to…
For some reason, you all love reading about returners (so do we!). We at Takeaways are here to please, and so we bring you the top 10 returners for the 2024 season! As with last year’s edition, for these rankings, both kick returners and punt returners will be evaluated. Neither type of returner will be…