In the opening week of the 2024 NFL season, an unusual degree of low-quality football abounded. Final scores of 18–10, 16–10, 20–17 and 22–10 dotted the scoreboard, and even quarterbacks in high-scoring games found themselves struggling against aggressive modern defenses.
It was a week uninspiring enough to get football's intelligentsia talking about what ails the sport's most important position. On Tuesday morning, Thursday Night Football color commentator and ex-Ohio State quarterback Kirk Herbstreit offered two theories as to why September football has become so shaggy in an interview with ESPN's Kevin Clark on This is Football.
