Week 3 Sundays always bring more noise than signal, and this one left two small stories worth a beat each. One is about who might score. The other is about who pays for how someone behaves. Different sports, same instinct from the people in charge: assume the consequences will handle it.
Start with the props. CBS Sports rolled out its favorite Week 3 scoring picks, five players it thinks can capitalize on their matchups and find the end zone during Sunday's action, and the name worth circling is Jadarian Price, the Seahawks rookie running back. Rookie touchdown props are the softest corner of that market. Books price them off draft slot and summer highlight reels, not off whether the offensive coordinator actually trusts a first-year back with the ball inside the five. If Price is on the field in the red zone Sunday, the price is wrong and the bet is obvious. If he isn't, no picks column on the internet matters, because goal-line carries go where the coaching staff's trust goes. That's the only thing I'd watch.
Now the stranger story. Texas defensive end Colin Simmons picked up an unsportsmanlike conduct foul so bizarre that, per ProFootballTalk, it might have earned him a lifetime ban from 345 Park Avenue, and it landed in a week when the NFL spent its time going overboard with fines. Steve Sarkisian's response was to blame society. Read that for what it is: a head coach standing in front of a microphone, protecting a player he needs on Saturday, and reaching for the widest possible target so nobody has to talk about the kid. Coaches do this constantly with defensive linemen who lose their heads. It is not a philosophy. It is a shield.
The tell is the week it happened in. The league office handed out fines like it was settling a grudge, and the message it sent was that money is the tool for behavior. Simmons then did something that made the fine machine look toothless. That's the real story, and it has nothing to do with society. If a player's conduct costs his team fifteen yards, the coach controls the only punishment that stings, which is the next snap and the one after that. Sarkisian knows this. Saying it out loud would require benching a starter, so he blamed everyone instead.
My read on both: the league can fine whatever it wants and the market can price whatever it wants, but behavior and touchdowns both get decided by coaches. Sit Simmons for a series and the penalties slow down this week. Hand Price the ball at the one and the prop cashes. Nobody needs to wait on society or the sportsbook to find out which staff is willing to make that call. Give me the rookie.
