5 NFL thoughts: The Giants are a disaster, Micah Parsons’ future and more

Here’s the debut of a new weekly column for me. I’ve long done “5 Eagles thoughts” here at PhillyVoice, but I’m trying out an NFL-wide version here during football season.

Let’s get after it…

The New York Giants are a joke

To say I feel bad for the New York Giants, their $160 million quarterback or any of their fans would be incorrect. I’d say it’s just the opposite. It’s a hilarious situation they’ve found themselves in.

After one simply okay season from Daniel Jones, they handed him a massive contract that locked the franchise into mediocrity at best and abject disaster at worst. The 2024 campaign is looking quite like the latter.

A hapless Vikings team pulverized them at home on Sunday while the Giants sported the most ridiculous uniforms in the entire sport.

That all transpired two days after they watched their best player of the last decade in Saquon Barkley look like a superstar again for the Eagles, scoring three touchdowns in his debut with the Birds.

Make sure to text your friend from college who’s a Giants fan after every Barkley touchdown this year. They’ll love that weekly reminder.

Jimmy Kempski will have his hands full next offseason cutting it down to just 10 reasons why this organization is a dumpster fire.

The Cleveland Browns are a joke

Combined with a heinous off-the-field profile, Deshaun Watson is a bottom-five quarterback in the league currently, making him the most loathsome player out there.

Will this go down as the worst trade in NFL history? Cleveland parted with a massive haul of draft picks and gave Watson a contract worth $240 million fully guaranteed. That might have been a questionable decision if he was still one of the game’s better QBs and an upstanding guy outside of football. When those legal troubles are combined with a horrific pocket presence and a contract that will prevent the Browns from being contenders for years to come, it’s a horrendous situation for Cleveland, but they deserve it. They knew what they were buying.

Houston made out like bandits and the draft capital acquired for Watson has built them into a perennial AFC South favorite for the next half-dozen years.

With the non-QB talent in Cleveland, they just might have been the second-best team in the AFC behind Kansas City if they simply kept Baker Mayfield, who’s getting the last laugh as he looks ready to lead Tampa Bay to another NFC South title.

The Carolina Panthers are a joke

Taking into account purely on-field reasons, there may be no more hopeless franchise in the NFL than the Carolina Panthers. In a league that prides itself on parity to prevent teams from being this bad with no light at the end of the tunnel, Carolina has defied those odds to become a terrible, boring product with no future for their fan base to cling to.

They feel like the Process Sixers sans a savior like Joel Embiid waiting in the wing.

Why watch? Why care? Is it college hoops season yet in North Carolina?

I might feel bad for them if not for the egregious pass interference calls that Ricky Manning Jr. got away with during the 2003 NFC Championship Game.

Tom Brady had a lukewarm broadcasting debut

What was the most memorable moment of Tom Brady’s FOX broadcasting debut in the Cowboys-Browns game? I’m not really sure. I barely remember him talking.

Brady was quiet, reserved and not the ultra-confident and cool player he was on the field for two decades. It was just one game and I’d imagine Brady will be better as the season goes on, but I expected more from the greatest football player of all time from Day 1.

He’s not someone I assumed would be a perfect fit for broadcasting and media. He has more rings than the two of them combined, but he doesn’t have the on-camera charisma of a Manning brother nor does he have the zany vibes of the “Inside the NBA” Hall of Famers. Brady was just kind of there on Sunday. Still, it’s Tom Brady.

Brady will be the color commentator for the Cowboys-Saints matchup at 1 PM in Week 2. The game will air on FOX in the Philadelphia market.

Will Micah Parsons receive a new contract with the Dallas Cowboys?

Wideout CeeDee Lamb had his payday this offseason. Hours before the Cowboys’ Week 1 kickoff, quarterback Dak Prescott received his, a four-year deal worth $231 million guaranteed. I was a little shocked. I assumed Prescott and Dallas would part ways this upcoming offseason after this weird contract dance they’ve done for the last few years. Prescott is now the highest-paid quarterback in NFL history.

Micah Parsons is the Cowboys’ best player but he doesn’t have a contract extension inked yet. Will Dallas be able to afford him given these gigantic contracts they’ve handed out? It would be a historic mistake not to. Parsons is as elite as they come and, even at this early stage of his career, looks like he has all the makings of a future Hall of Famer.

If Dallas somehow makes that grave error and can’t afford him, Parsons sure does love talking about the Eagles…

Bonus: My Games of the Week

Three games I’m most looking forward to in Week 2:

1. Cincinnati at Kansas City

2. New Orleans at Dallas

3. Chicago at Houston

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