NFL Week 2 winners and losers: Garoppolo, Tua Tagovailoa, Kyler Murray, Nathaniel Hackett…

Week 2 of the NFL was bonkers! The Ravens blew a 35-14 lead and the Cardinals made an epic comeback, the Bengals allowed Cooper Rush and the Cowboys to beat them, and the Colts played as they always do in Jacksonville. Here are the Week 2 winners and losers after all that.

NFL Week 2 Winners

Tua Tagovailoa

The Dolphins quarterback made a lot of people eat their words after logging 469 yards and six touchdowns against the Ravens. Tua Tagovailoa led Miami to an epic comeback after being down 35-14 in the fourth quarter. Tagovailoa completed 13 of 17 passes for 199 yards and four touchdowns JUST in the fourth quarter. He got the ball to nine different players of ten targets.

Jimmy Garoppolo

While it’s quite sad news about Trey Lance, whose broken ankle will keep him out the rest of the season, it’s good news for Garoppolo and also great that the Niners kept him as their backup in the end. The good thing about Jimmy G and the 49ers is that he knows Mike Shanahan’s system well. At the end of the game against the Seahawks on Sunday, he finished 13-of-21 for 154 yards and one touchdown and the Niners won 27-7. This news also means a huge pay increase for Garoppolo, so he’s a big winner this week.

Kyler Murray

The Cardinals and Murray got off to a slow and unimpressive start. They were losing 20 to nothing at halftime and only had 86 yards total on offense. Murray had only completed six passes for 53 yards and had one interception. But boy did he turn things around. In the second half, the Cardinals outscored the Raiders 23-3 with Murray scoring the touchdown that tied the game and sent it into overtime. On top of that, he converted two 2-point conversions, one of which he ran a total of 85.7 yards to get the ball two yards over the goal line.

Look at this craziness:

Aaron Rodgers and his Ayahuasca journey

This is more about Rodgers’ spiritual awakening due to psychedelic drugs than it is about his performance, but in both ways, he was a winner. You may have heard about the Packers quarterback’s trip to Peru this offseason, in which he experimented with Ayahuasca, a legal drug that he says changed his mindset and improved his overall well-being. After a touchdown pass to Allen Lazard in the Packers 27-10 win over the Bears, the team celebrated by pretending to take Ayahuasca.

While his teammates all fell over after taking the imaginary drug, Rodgers himself shook in ecstasy, the apparent real impact it has had on the quarterback. As back-to-back MVP, we have to just say…carry on.

NFL Week 2 Losers

Joe Burrow

Last year’s Super Bowl losers are now 0-2 to start the 2022 season. Not only that, but Burrow threw four interceptions in Week 1 and then somehow got even worse in Week 2. The Bengals were up against a Cowboys team with a QB2 and that didn’t score a single touchdown on the Buccaneers, even before losing their starting quarterback. Burrow had 199 passing yards, averaging 5.5 per attempt. After suffering through seven sacks last week against the Steelers, Burrow still failed to get the protection he needed from his o-line, with six sacks by the Dallas defense.

No dice, Joey.

Matt Ryan

Colts quarterback Matt Ryan had one of the worst games of his career, going 16-for-30 for zero touchdowns and three interceptions in the Colts shut-out loss to the Jaguars.

A loss to Jacksonville and a tie with the Texans doesn’t give much hope for the future of the Colts nor Ryan, who was traded from the Atlanta Falcons. He was supposed to be an experienced and accomplished veteran that would take them out of their slump, but alas…he has completed just 48 of 80 passes for 547 passing yards and one touchdown…and four interceptions. Not to mention, he’s been sacked seven times in the last two games.

Nathaniel Hackett

Losing to the Texans may say something about your team, but beating them…doesn’t say much. Thus, though the Broncos may have won their game in Week 2, Nathaniel Hackett, their head coach, is still a Week 2 loser. Hackett’s poor time-clock management is what really makes him a loser here. You may have noticed how the Broncos were left scrambling to snap the ball in Week 1 - that would be because Hackett failed to call plays with any kind of time left. Really, this is a Week 1 loss bleeding into Week 2. The Broncos only needed a field goal to win last week, and because Hackett allowed 40 seconds to go to waste they didn’t even get a chance. In Week 2, the Broncos were at 4th and 6 at the end of the first half. As Hackett pondered whether or not to go for it, the play clock ran out and decided for him. Then, his epic fail happened in the second half. The Broncos were down by three and on 3rd and 1, Hackett called an option play with Andrew Beck as the ball carrier, which cost them a yard and brought them to 4th down. He then left the offense on the field to go for it, changed his mind, and then brought on the field goal unit. McManus kicked the field goal, but too late. The play clock ran out, which gave them a Delay of Game penalty. They could have re-tried the field goal - it was a doable 59 yards. That would have tied the game. But nope…Hackett decided to punt it instead. The Broncos fans have to be going insane.

He has lost his mind.

Gunner Olszewski

Gunner Olszewski may not be the biggest Week 2 loser (that title belongs to Hackett), but he’s certainly the most entertaining. He was once one of the best punt-returners in the league. The Patriots helped make him into that. Now with the Steelers, Olszewski said he was excited to “show out” against his former team. That’s not exactly what happened.

What did happen is that on Olszewski’s only punt return of the game, he was smacked right in the face by the ball, which then bounced right into the hands of Patriots player Brenden Schooler. They converted that into a touchdown quite easily and quickly, and won the game, 17-14.