Efe Obada: Washington Commanders confidence, Zach Wilson defence, Buffalo Bills vs Jacksonville Jaguars in London and Taylor Swift fever in NFL

The Washington Commanders may have lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, but as a team, it actually gives us so much confidence as the season progresses. The Eagles are Super Bowl contenders and we weren’t expected to win that game, but we showed ourselves, and everyone else, the standard we can play at.

Last year, we were the team that ended their winning streak, and we’ll have another chance to beat them again this season.

4

We weren’t demoralised after that overtime loss at Lincoln Financial Field, we are just focusing on getting that losing taste out of our mouth and moving on to the next. 

It’s a short week for us as well, so that means all our focus has turned to facing the Chicago Bears on Thursday night. Things happen slightly differently when there’s such a quick turnaround between games. It’s just about the mental reps and recovery so everyone is ready to go.

It usually takes awhile to recuperate your body after a NFL game;  it’s about resting, hydrating, sleeping and recovering as much as you can. There aren’t any contact practices this week, instead it will be all walkthroughs and watching plenty of film to make sure everything is good to go.

One benefit of having that short week is we have longer until the next game…which also means I can watch the other NFL games on Sunday. The highlight of that will be catching the Buffalo Bills vs. Jacksonville Jaguars at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. What a game that will be!

I know the Bills are the favourites, but Jacksonville have the advantage of being acclimated to the time changes, the weather and everything else as they already played, and won, at Wembley last week. It’s a different stadium this week, but any little advantage you can get could make all that difference.

I remember a couple of years ago Jacksonville beat Buffalo in a home game, so they’ve shown it’s possible. Jags have a young quarterback in Trevor Lawrence, who is already great at running and extending plays. It’s going to be a closer game than people think it will be.

Speaking of quarterbacks, I loved seeing players from all around the league defend New York Jets quarterback Zach Wilson, after he was called ‘garbage’ by broadcaster Rodney Harrison. Chris Jones picked him up on it and Micah Parsons has been vocal about it too.

Everyone has an opinion. I get that it’s their job to create hype and controversy, but as an ex-player, it’s just something you don’t do. To jump on a kid and belittle them when they’re going out there giving their all, taking accountability and doing the work to get better, it just doesn’t sit well with me. He’s a high draft pick with high expectations and didn’t initially live up to those.

4

4

They brought in a veteran in Aaron Rodgers and essentially replaced him to give him time to learn and develop under him. That didn’t happen as Rodgers got injured in that very first game of the season and he got thrown into the fire straight away. In my opinion, I think he’s turning it around in these last couple of games. He nearly beat the Chiefs in that Sunday night game at MetLife Stadium.

That was an entertaining match and how can you not speak about the stir that Taylor Swift is causing right now. It’s good for the league, Kansas City and for Travis Kelce, and she’s got a huge following. I’ll be honest, over here with the Commanders we are so far removed from that stuff that we don’t care. But what I do know is that we’re going to get a great album next!

On Sunday, talkSPORT 2 will bring you live commentary of the Jacksonville Jaguars vs the Buffalo Bills from Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, followed by 11 straight hours of gridiron action live from 6pm.