The Guardian NFL debate: the season's big questions assessed

Welcome to the first presidential debate of the 2016 NFL season, held just after week 3 concluded. There are many important issues to discuss, from the Eagles blowing out the Steelers in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, to grievous mismanagement of the clock by first-year head coach Dirk Koetter in Florida.

Your moderator will be bolded questions and the debate will be fact-checked throughout by Guardian editors and also commenters reading along at home. Without further delay, let’s begin.

Which 1-2 struggling contender is in bigger trouble: the Cardinals, Panthers or Bengals?

Opinion 1: Thank you for your question and thank you to everyone reading this important debate. A one-point victory over the Jets in week one is all that’s kept the Bengals from being 0-3. They have to travel to New England next month and they also have three games on their schedule against the undefeated Ravens and Eagles, match-ups that didn’t look too challenging back in August. And instead of Andy Dalton raising his game with Tyler Eifert injured and Marvin Jones lost to free agency, he has noticeably regressed. Cincinnati are in serious danger of not having a playoff game to lose this year.

Opinion 2: Sorry, I don’t have lame zingers like that. I just have facts and analysis. And in all the excitement over Ryan Fitzpatrick’s six-interception game on Sunday, Carson Palmer’s four-pick game got a little overshadowed. But it was a reminder that for all his tools and experience, Palmer can pull out stinker games with the worst of them. If the Cardinals don’t beat the Rams this Sunday, they’ll find themselves in a real hole with the Vikings, Panthers and Seahawks (twice) all still waiting on the schedule. If the Bengals are struggling with Dalton, then the Cardinals must be even worse off with the quarterback Cincinnati got rid of to play Dalton. I clearly win this topic with that bulletproof logic.

Who will be the first NFL coach to get fired this season?

Opinion 1: It would be justified if Dirk Koetter lost his job for Sunday alone. The guy has a clock management specialist on his staff in Andrew Weidenger and yet he ignored his assistant’s call for a timeout, wasting Tampa’s chance to win the game in the final minute. For a team that should be on the fringe of making the playoffs, Tampa can’t afford mismanaged home losses to teams like the Rams. But Koetter is in his first year at the helm, so Tampa won’t fire him because it would force the front office to admit they screwed up forcing Lovie Smith out for a 57-year-old first-time NFL head coach whose last job running a team ended 10 years ago after a middling 40-34 stint at Arizona State. So I’ll go with Detroit’s Jim Caldwell, the original failed college coach who should be nowhere near the head coach job on an NFL team. Every Vikings offensive player you’ve heard of is on IR and the Packers have taken a step back, yet the Lions still can’t get past either of them in the NFC North. Caldwell should have been fired last year – and also never hired in the first place in 2014. I cede the rest of my time, but Koetter probably somehow used it all.

Opinion 2: I’d like to run a positive season, so instead of focusing on who should be fired – and it’s obviously Gus Bradley, Mike McCoy, Rex Ryan, Caldwell and Sean Payton, who is coming fast for Jeff Fisher’s title of “Head Coach Most Likely To Go 7-9 Every Season” – I want to talk a little bit about the assistants who may deserve head coaching jobs. Philadelphia are already worried about losing defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, whose top-ranked defense held the supposedly explosive Steelers attack to just three points on Sunday. Ideally, for the sake of entertainment, Schwartz will stay in state but go to the college ranks and takeover at Penn State where he and Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh can shove each other again once a year. Then there’s Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. His first stint as head coach of the Broncos as a prepubescent boy was a disaster, but he has matured and learned and, with Tim Tebow now gone to baseball, McDaniels will more easily be able to move on from his QB crush and have success.

Are the 3-0 Eagles now serious contenders in the NFC?

Opinion 1: I think we all need to take a moment to consider that Carson Wentz is just three games into his NFL career before we declare him a star or his team a legitimate contender.

It wasn’t long ago in the Eagles own division that Robert Griffin III had clinched a spot in Canton as a rookie. Four years later, he stands on the sidelines each Sunday while the Cleveland Browns attempt football. Just three years ago – in the very same city of Philadelphia – it was Nick Foles who looked like the future by throwing for 27 touchdowns and just two interceptions in barely more than half the season. At the start of training camp this year, Foles couldn’t even find a team to employ him.

Has Wentz looked promising? Sure. He was the No2 overall pick in the draft, a pick the Eagles got by trading up, so he better look promising at a minimum. Let’s not forget that he’s played so far against the Browns, the Bears and a Steelers secondary that has been bad since Radio Shack was in its heyday. Let’s stop pretending that Wentz is the first rookie quarterback to win games out of the gate. Ryan Leaf did it. As did Mark Sanchez. We won’t know if Wentz is legit until the end of the season. And even then we won’t know for sure.

Opinion 2: First of all, you didn’t really address the question about whether the Eagles are a contender in the NFC. Have some respect for the moderator. I will answer the question clearly: the Eagles most definitely are contenders. They’re already 3-0 and in sole possession of first place in a division that was won last year at 9-7. They are also already two games ahead of the supposed favorites in the NFC – the Panthers and Seahawks – and having success not with tricks and luck, but behind a stifling defense and efficient quarterback play. You’re probably too dumb to remember this, but that’s the exact approach Denver used to win the Super Bowl last year.

As for Wentz, only an idiot or someone who hasn’t watched any of his games and is just cherry-picking stats and factoids would compare him to RG3, Foles, Leaf or Sanchez. The original offense Griffin ran in Washington left him exposed to injury and he never adjusted. After getting drilled in the preseason and in weeks 1 and 2, Wentz has already listened to his coaches and avoided hits in week 3 – while playing his best game so far. As for Foles, he thrived in the first year of Chip Kelly’s video game offense before NFL teams adjusted. Sanchez merely game-managed his way through the start of his NFL career, while Wentz is making plays – including on third down where he had an 85.7% completion rate on Sunday, the best in the league. And Ryan Leaf? Come on. Have you no sense of decency?

Finally, would you call Tom Brady a system quarterback?

Opinion 1: First off, I would like to express my apologies to the good people of New England for even having to read that question. It’s very disrespectful to Mr Brady, who is an NFL legend. With that said, yes, Tom Brady is a system quarterback. The Patriots are now 13-5 without Brady in the lineup since he took over the starting job from Drew Bledsoe many years and cheating scandals ago. If your team doesn’t miss a beat with you not playing, your franchise wins because of the system, not because of one specific player. But with all due respect, Tom Brady might be the greatest system quarterback of all-time.

Opinion 2: I watched Tom Brady. I analyzed Tom Brady. Tom Brady was a fantasy quarterback of mine. Jacoby Brissett is no Tom Brady. If you want to call Tom Brady a “system” quarterback, be my guest. But at least acknowledge that he created the system with Bill Belichick. There’s no Patriots system without Brady, just like there’s no Apple without Steve Jobs or downfall of the United States without Donald Trump.

Thank you for reading the first debate about week 3 of the 2016 season. Check back for possible future debates if America exists after 8 November.