Football is a beautiful game. The balletic brutality of finely-tuned athletes at their best. The science of schematics at the highest level.
Players pushing themselves beyond even their own expectations to do things that are simply unbelievable. Football is also a very silly game. Those same perfect athletes can do some really goofy things.
Coaches make decisions that have you reaching for the aspirin. And referees don't always appear to be watching the same games the rest of us are. With the Worst of the Week, we "honor" those in the NFL whose efforts fall short in surprising, gobsmacking, infuriating, and hilarious ways.
Here's the Worst of the Week for Week 1 of the 2024 NFL season. The Jawaan Taylor Rule (Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union-USA TODAY NETWORK) Last season, right tackle Jawaan Taylor of the Kansas City Chiefs was the NFL's most penalized player with 20 infractions, and a lot of this had to do with the league cracking down on Taylor's tendencies to get early releases off the snap, and to line up too far behind the center's belt line to gain further advantage against edge-rushers trying to collapse the pocket. In the regular season opener pitting the Chiefs against the Baltimore Ravens, referee Shawn Hochuli and his crew were clearly focusing on the alignment of the tackles.
.. but it was Baltimore left tackle Ronnie Stanley who kept getting busted with it.
Stanley was called for two illegal formation penalties on the Ravens' opening drive, and right tackle Patr.