This weekend in NFL stupid

Every week in the National Football League, a lot of stupid happens. But no week is stupider than Week No. 1. Let's break down some of the stupidest things that took place on the first Sunday of the 2013 NFL season…

The stupidest opening play

While New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning deserves some stupid credit for his stupid interception to DeMarcus Ware on the first play from scrimmage Sunday night against the Dallas Cowboys, the first stupid moment from the first Sunday of the year belonged to Tennessee Titans return man Darius Reynaud, who took a knee on the opening kickoff against the Pittsburgh Steelers despite the fact his left foot had crossed the plane of the end zone. Boom. Safety. Stupid.

Fast forward to the 20-second mark here:

The stupidest team

The Buffalo Bills should have upset the New England Patriots. They outplayed the Pats, but Bill Belichick's team was significantly less stupid. In a two-point home loss, Buffalo took 10 penalties for a total of 75 lost yards. 

Leading by four in the third quarter, the Bills had all the momentum. Fred Jackson had a 15-yard catch-and-run on third down to bring them into New England territory and it looked as though they were primed to take a two-score lead. But guard Kraig Urbik took a stupid illegal hands to the face penalty, killing the drive and the momentum. They'd punt it away and never score again for the remainder of the game. 

Throw in the fact that Doug Marrone's Bills were inexplicably running what was basically the hurry-up offense with a one-score, fourth-quarter lead and Buffalo easily takes the stupid cake for Week 1.

The stupidest late hit

If Lavonte David doesn't do this, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers win on Sunday. If he does, they lose. Simple as that…

That is one of the stupidest plays in NFL history, which is a shame because David is a very good, underrated player.

“I wouldn’t have hit him if I thought he wasn’t going to stay in bounds,” David said after the game, via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. “They said he was out of a bounds so the guy called the flag. To me, he was in bounds.” 

That doesn't help his case when it comes to stupidity. Poor dude.

The second stupidest late hit

That David play bailed out Clay Matthews, who probably cost his team four points for a completely unnecessary late hit on Colin Kaepernick inside the red zone…

The stupidest officiating moment

There was a lot of stupidness that went into that one play in the Green Bay Packers-San Francisco 49ers game. Not only did stupid Clay Matthews make a stupid split-second decision to hit kaepernick late, but the officials stupidly flagged 49ers offensive tackle Joe Staley for retaliating. The league has since said that shouldn't have been a penalty. And on top of all that, the officials replayed third down after the offsetting penalties. Since they were dead ball penalties, though, it should have been fourth down. San Fran got an extra down and scored. Just a stupid mess. 

Bill Leavy was the referee, and he has reportedly been downgraded by the league

The stupidest rule that nobody can get right

Like, what the hell…

All right, that was really stupid. See you next week.

About Brad Gagnon

Brad Gagnon has been passionate about both sports and mass media since he was in diapers -- a passion that won't die until he's in them again. Based in Toronto, he's worked as a national NFL blog editor at theScore.com (covering Super Bowls XLIV, XLV and XLVI), a producer and writer at theScore Television Network and a host, reporter and play-by-play voice at Rogers TV. His work has also appeared at Deadspin, FoxSports.com, The Guardian, The Hockey News and elsewhere at Bloguin, but his day gig has him covering all things NFC East for Bleacher Report.

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