NFL Week 2: Staggering Eagles face the mighty Saints (mighty Saints?), who demolished the Cowboys

Entering Monday night, Eagles fans took much delight in Dallas’ misery. After their 99-second collapse, they should recognize that in a few days, they might be commiserating with the Cowboys’ faithful.

Jerry Jones stood stunned on Sunday after a 44-19 home loss, having seen the Saints’ Derek Carr (two touchdowns, one interception) inversely outplay Dak Prescott (one touchdown, two interceptions). A week after Big D’s big D shut down the Browns in Cleveland, New Orleans back Alvin Kamara scored four touchdowns, (to the delight of fantasy owners like myself).

Saints offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, the eldest of Gary’s three sons and one of the men who engineered the Brock Purdy Experience in San Francisco last season, neutralized game-wrecker Micah Parsons and embarrassed new Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, highlighting the void left by former DC Dan Quinn, the latest sacrificial lamb at the head of the Commanders’ staff. The Eagles don’t have a Micah Parsons. In fact, they don’t have an edge rusher with a sack in six games, dating to last season.

So, while any loss by the Cowboys might be delicious, the flavor will sour if you’re the next team up, as the Eagles are. On the road. On a short week, having just hosted Monday Night Football.

Also: No A.J. Brown for a second straight week. The Eagles’ best player on Monday told ESPN his calf strain will cost him at least another week, if not more.

As such, come next Monday, it’s most likely going to be Nick Sirianni pledging, “We will correct this,” as Jones promised postgame, and, “We have a lot of work to do,” as Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy observed.

» READ MORE: Nick Sirianni needs Eagles defense to bail him out. Bryce Huff, Josh Sweat, Jordan Davis, and Jalen Carter can’t do it.

In fact, there’s a chance that the Birds will be parroting those sorts of comments for two weeks in a row, considering they’ll be returning to the scene of their last two postseason humiliations.

A few years ago, Baker Mayfield was as much the face of Progressive Insurance as Flo and Jamie and brilliant Dr. Rick, whose becoming-my-parents therapy I could probably use. Mayfield was a cocky kid who was over-drafted, and he never deserved the fame.

Now, maybe he does.

Mayfield has logged passer ratings of at least 90 in seven of his last eight starts, which includes two playoff games, one of them a career-best 119.8 postseason rating in last season’s wild-card win over the Eagles in Tampa, Fla. Mayfield wasn’t with the Buccaneers two years earlier for the Eagles’ other wild-card loss, but head coach Todd Bowles was, and his defenses limited Jalen Hurts to a 78.4 passer rating in those two games, along with five sacks and just 44 rushing yards on nine carries.

Mayfield was quietly fizzling in Cleveland. After a tumultuous 2022 — the Browns traded him to the Panthers, who waived him, allowing the Rams to claim him — he landed in Tampa on a one-year, show-me deal. He showed out and earned a three-year, $100 million contract.

Mayfield delivered a career-best 158.3 rating at Green Bay in December. He had his fourth-best day in the Buccaneers’ opener this season against Washington, then managed a 90.9 in a signature win Sunday in Detroit. The No. 1 overall pick by the Browns in 2018, Mayfield needed five seasons to reach a Pro Bowl (via alternate status). If he keeps winning with the Bucs, he’ll prove to be a bargain and might be in the running for an MVP in Season 6.

Especially if he whups the Birds again when they visit in two weeks.

A lot of attention went to the late pass-interference call against the Bengals that set up the Chiefs’ last-second field goal to win Sunday’s game in Kansas City — Harrison Butker’s 11th game-winner — but none of that happens unless defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo didn’t make the perfect call at the perfect time.

Spags spent eight seasons working for innovative Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson, a blitz maestro. He rose from Eagles defensive backs coach and linebackers coach to defensive coordinator for the Giants, where he won his first Super Bowl, to head coach for the St. Louis Rams. After Spagnuolo had two more DC stints elsewhere, Andy Reid rehired him in KC in 2019, where he has won three more rings. All of which is to say, Spags is among the premier defensive minds in the NFL. As evidenced Sunday.

The Bengals led, 25-23, with 3 minutes, 27 seconds to play, and they faced third-and-6 from their 42. A first down likely would have greatly hindered the Chiefs’ chances to win, but it wasn’t in Spags’ DNA to back down. To the contrary. He called a blitz by second-year safety Chamarri Conner, who hadn’t logged a sack in his 22 career games. Conner came from Joe Burrow’s right, and Burrow was looking left, and Conner dropped him. The Bengals punted.

Conner had scooped-and-scored with a Burrow fumble earlier in the fourth quarter, a play that moved the needle considerably more than did the sack, as did Patrick Mahomes’ 23rd game-winning drive (counting playoffs) and Butker’s latest big kick. But without Conner’s sack and Spags’ guts, the Chiefs — who would have had to at least use their timeouts, and might have needed a TD to win — probably aren’t 2-0, and the Bengals, perhaps the most talented AFC team, aren’t 0-2.

Ayn Rand devotee, anti-vaxxer, and darkness retreater Aaron Rodgers looks to have regained the brilliant form and mental acuity that made him the best regular-season quarterback in NFL history.

Rodgers threw a pair of lovely TD passes to running backs in the Jets’ 24-17 win at Tennessee on Sunday, hit Mike Williams with a great first-down pass on a 5-for-5 winning drive, and audibled to a play on which Braelon Allen romped 20 yards for the winning touchdown.

The win averted an 0-2 start, and with the Patriots and Broncos visiting the next two weeks, if Rodgers stays sharp, the Sultan of Smug could have the Jets at 3-1 when they play the Vikings in London, alleviating pressure on coach Robert Saleh and GM Joe Douglas, who was the assistant GM behind the Eagles’ quick turnaround from 2016 to 2017.

» READ MORE: Jalen Hurts can stumble all he wants. This Eagles offense, with Saquon Barkley, is the best in team history

Imagine how good they’ll be if they ever get Haason Reddick to end his holdout.

The contention that Purdy is a product of his ultra-talented environment grew Sunday when the 49ers lost in Minnesota without multipurpose back Christian McCaffrey, the NFL’s most potent weapon, who is on injured reserve with Achilles tendinitis. Don’t forget that Purdy struggled last season when he didn’t have multipurpose receiver Deebo Samuel in the lineup, and now Samuel also will miss multiple weeks, also with a calf injury.

It appears that Arizona’s Marvin Harrison Jr. (four receptions, two TDs, 130 yards vs. Rams) might be good enough to save the jobs of both QB Kyler Murray and head coach Jonathan Gannon. ... With QB C.J. Stroud, receiver Nico Collins, and head coach DeMeco Ryans’ defense, the 2-0 Texans are easily the most enjoyable team to watch right now. ... The Brian Daboll Watch is officially on, as his Giants look hopelessly disorganized again. ... In case you missed it, new Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh — the man who created Colin Kaepernick with the 49ers, then won a national title with Michigan but left the program under NCAA investigation — has a pregame ritual in which he pounds the pads of starting quarterback Justin Herbert. Jim’s brother, John Harbaugh, the coach of the Ravens, is by far the most normal coach in the NFL. His younger brother is by far the weirdest.