NFL Open Thread: Live from Melbourne

Let us one more time enjoy the stylings of Drake Meh-be:

Three Drake Maye interceptions. Impatient decisions, coverage tricks, and a disaster. pic.twitter.com/UmKQfivgFR— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) September 10, 2026

In all seriousness, Maye represents the difficulty of evaluating players in small samples. One the one hand, his MVP -caliber season was aided materially by a historically ridiculous schedule. On the other hand, his much more dubious last four games haven’t just come against good defenses, but two of the best defenses of the last decade (Seattle and Houston) and a very, very good defense in a blizzard (Denver.) I’m inclined to split the difference and assume that he’s a good player who’s not going to be in the MVP discussion this year. That last pick, though, woof, even though Jobe made a great play on it.

A few other notes:

• The coaching talent in the NFC West is something, isn’t it? The two gentlemen featured tonight evidently need no introduction. And while I know McDonald is only starting year 3, it’s not just that he has a championship — since the bye in his first year the Seahawks are 24-5, and I believe all of those losses were one possession games as of the two minute warning in the second half.
• Cris Collinsworth was great last night. It’s pretty rare for a color guy who has been doing it this long to be as well-prepared and locked in this long into the gig. Tony Romo was like this in his first year, and then before too long settled into Generic 2nd Regional Game Color Guy.
• The contrasting ways in which Shanahan and McVay have approached the trip to Australia is fascinating. Intuitively, what the former is going makes more sense to me, but really nobody knows, and McVay has never lost an international game so I guess he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
• Trump has been so bad that even Aaron Rodgers is out. I’m confident that he will in fact get fooled again.

AFC preview podcast here, NFC preview podcast here.