Early-onset carnage

 We've got the Dolphins at the Bills tonight in the NFL's weekly Let's See What Happens When We Make Teams Play Two Games In Four Days extravaganza, and the best thing you can say about that is both starting quarterbacks are still upright.

Josh Allen is doing Josh Allen things for the unbeaten Bills. Tua Tagovailoa went 26-of-32 for 315 yards and two scores for the Dolphins last week, but the 0-2 Fish still lost at home to the Patriots because apparently that's who they're going to be this season.

But, hey. At least they're not the Bengals, who have to get along without Joe Burrow for the next three months because he mangled his toe bad enough to require surgery.

Ditto the Vikings, who lost J.J. McCarthy to a high ankle sprain for an indeterminate length of time Sunday.

Ditto the Jets, who lost Justin Fields perhaps for the season with a concussion. Ditto the Washington Commanders, whose precocious star Jayden Daniels is day-to-day this week with a knee sprain. And ditto the 49ers, who already had lost Brock Purdy by week 2 and are hopeful he'll be good to go this week. 

So two weeks into a season that lasts longer than the director's cut of "Gone With The Wind", five QB1s have already gone on the shelf or partly on the shelf. Makes you wonder where we'll be 16 weeks from now, when the NFL finally and reluctantly says "OK, that's enough games I GUESS" and calls it a season.

I figure either Virgil Carter or Ken Anderson will be suiting up for the Bengals by then.

And where's Richard Todd these days, speaking of the Jets?

Paging Joe Kapp. Paging Joe Kapp. The Vikings need you to come down from your celestial abode, lower your head and run over a linebacker or two.

And bring Sammy Baugh's heavenly spirit with you. The Commanders aren't the Racial Slurs anymore, but they're still Slingin' Sam's old team.

I exaggerate for effect, of course, but if the league's going to lose or partly lose five starting quarterbacks every two weeks, that means all 32 starters are going to be in the MASH unit by season's end. This is highly unlikely to happen, of course, but the prospect of tuning in Colts-Texans in week 18 and seeing Riley Leonard squaring off against Graham Mertz still exists.

Look. I get it. It's the NFL, giant humans crashing into one another like Mack trucks at 70 mph. Owies are going to happen. Ligaments will tear. Muscles will pop like balloons. Joints will come unjointed.

But the annual carnage season starting so early, and including five quarterbacks, must surely be disquieting for the NFL's boardroom set. QBs being the league's most valuable asset, rule czars have bent over backwards to all but bubble-wrap them.

You can still touch a quarterback, but you can't, you know, TOUCH HIM. You can't hit him above the chest. You can't hit him below the chest. You can't throw him to ground in a disdainful manner, or plead gravity if you land on top of him, or hit him really really hard when he's not looking.

 And of course, you absolutely cannot -- cannot -- accidentally touch his helmet, because the zebras will dust for fingerprints to make sure. 

And yet.

And yet, two weeks in, the quarterback trauma unit is already filling up. 

It's gonna be a long season. Keep your phone handy, Slingin' Sam.