The NFL Wrap: Patrick Mahomes breaks touchdown record as Bills star Vontae Davis quits mid-game

This weekend in the NFL saw the Cleveland Browns mess it up again, a second tie game of the season already, and more fireworks from the Kansas City Chiefs. Here are some of the big talking points from Week 2...

Kickers: should teams start paying for good ones?

A quick search of the phrase ‘NFL kicker’ into Google today will bring up a mixture of hard-luck stories, partisan outrage and a list of free-agents who might be the answer to the league’s collective Week 2 kicking trauma, as the Raiders, Browns, Vikings and Packers were all left to rue missed field goal attempts.

The debate is over whether some franchises are taking the position seriously enough. As we saw yesterday, misses can be the difference between victory and defeat. When you’re the Browns, and you haven’t won since Christmas Eve 2016, that’s a big deal.

Kickers are pretty much consistently the lowest paid players on the roster (although amongst the best paid when you break down how much time they actually spend on the field). Save money on your kicker, and you can spend it better elsewhere, on someone who does more than boot a football through some posts, or so the wisdom goes. Since the NFL’s minimum salary is dictated by years spent in the league, that often means hiring a young player (or even a rookie in the case of the Vikings' Daniel Carlson, who missed three times on Sunday).

Yet ask yourself, what could you probably do with, when facing the posts with seconds on the clock and the chance to win a Super Bowl? A bit of experience, perhaps?

Opposite ends of the age-scale, the Patricks are flying

No QB in history has ever thrown for more TDs in the first two weeks of an NFL season than the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes. The 23-year-old, in his first season as a starter, has led the Chiefs to a 2-0 start, throwing six touchdowns in Sunday’s landmark 42-37 road win at the Steelers, to add to the four he threw last week against the Chargers. The Chiefs' defense has got more holes than a golf course, but if they average 40 points a week, as they have done so far, that might not matter.

Meanwhile, over in Tampa Bay, 35-year-old QB Ryan Fitzpatrick has started the year on fire. The Buccaneers have stunned everybody by emerging from what looked like a nightmare start, against the Saints and defending Super Bowl champions the Eagles, with two wins in the bag. The veteran, who only started the season because Jameis Winston is suspended until Week 4, has thrown more four TDs and 400+ yards in both of those games.

A bizarre incident – but serious questions

Things are bad in Buffalo. 0-2 bad. But are they this bad?

Down 28-6 at half-time against the L.A. Chargers, former Pro Bowl cornerback Vontae Davis promptly quit the Bills and retired from the sport on the spot.

“Today on the field, reality hit me fast and hard: I shouldn’t be out there anymore,” Davis said in a statement, an excuse which didn’t cut much mustard with a lot of fans and, even some team-mates.

What he wrote next, however, is far more worthy of discussion: “It’s more important for me and my family to walk away healthy than to wilfully embrace the warrior mentality and limp away too late.”

The NFL has long since had a problem with said “warrior mentality”. Be honest about an injury, miss a game, and you might just come back to find that starting spot isn’t yours anymore. The league has made big moves this season to protect players, most notably the ban on leading a tackle with the helmet. But real progress is as much dependent on attitude change as any change in the rulebook.

Did we get too excited about the comeback in New York?

The Giants are 0-2, after a 20-13 loss against the Dallas Cowboys, and much of the pre-season optimism has evaporated already. Quarterback Eli Manning was ready spend the final years of his illustrious career chasing a third Super Bowl. Odell Beckham Jr. was back from injury and ready to remind everyone why he’s one of the best wide receivers in the game. And Saquon Barkley, the number two overall draft pick, was ready to come straight in and revitalise the run game.

Except so far, Manning’s looked sluggish, OBJ has been underused and Barkley has made some outstanding plays, but not enough yards. Now, some are questioning whether a star running back was actually the smartest use of the franchise’s highest draft pick since 1981, when five other teams found QBs good enough to go in round one.