Author: Scott

NFL Week 11 Predictions: Taysom Hell

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

This is probably the worst NFL season to write game previews due to the coronavirus making it difficult to judge which players are going to be allowed to play that weekend.

So naturally, it’s the season where I started writing them weekly at Sportsbook Review. I wrote about Eagles-Browns before finding out Myles Garrett has COVID-19. I also did Packers-Colts this week, a game that could be a really good one on a solid looking Sunday slate.

I’m most proud of my Chiefs-Raiders preview. I think it’s the best one I’ve written this season, really parsing out the anomalies the Raiders and Chiefs had in Week 5 to produce the biggest upset of the season so far.

But the one that bugs me the most this week is my Falcons-Saints preview, something I turned in around Wednesday. I really just assumed Jameis Winston would start the game for Drew Brees while Taysom Hill was sprinkled in to run his usual QB draw plays here and there. Either way, I liked the Falcons to pull off the upset when they were a 5-point favorite.

Come Friday, we hear that Hill is starting the game and there’s no offensive package planned for Winston. Ain’t that a bitch? So Hill is the only QB in New Orleans who is allowed to play 100% of the snaps in this offense. Either he has dirt on Sean Payton or he is his love child. It just hasn’t made sense what he sees in Mormon Tim Tebow, but unfortunately it’s up to the Atlanta defense to put an end to the madness with a good showing.

The spread has dropped from 5 to 3.5, and I’m still going with Atlanta, but the game has to be one of the highest variance outcomes this week. Not a good one to bet on other than the over on Hill’s rushing yards (about 40.5 right now) since he loves to keep the ball on those plays.

Personally, I would have started Winston. Sure, he might throw three interceptions, but he can also throw for 300 yards and three touchdowns. Hill might fumble three times while only passing for 130 yards. I think the Falcons are catching the Saints at the right time and they’ll even get them without Brees again in a few weeks.

NFL Week 11 Predictions

Finally, I had a good read on TNF when I picked the Seahawks in a less offensive rematch against the Cardinals.

It would really fill out the Chargers’ BINGO card to lose to the 0-9 Jets, but I still picked the Chargers in that one. I probably should at least take the Jets ATS, but oh well, let’s leave it for now.

Update: Missed DET (-1.5) at CAR. I’ll take the Lions in that one.

NFL MVP Update: Why Not Kyler Murray?

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Just past the midpoint of 2020, I always like to weigh in on the NFL MVP race around this time. In my first non-game preview piece for Sportsbook Review, I looked at the MVP cases for the three leaders according to the oddsmakers at Bovada: Russell Wilson (+185), Patrick Mahomes (+200), and Aaron Rodgers (+333).

How close is this thing? I wrote that article just before MNF and the odds have changed again as the bets pour in. Mahomes (+180) is the favorite, followed by Wilson (+225), Rodgers (+300), and Kyler Murray (+550) has crept up to fourth after Sunday’s memorable comeback win. Murray was +700 on Monday night, by the way.

Since I was trying to stay under a word limit, I wanted to add a little more context to my piece here, including some answers to tweets about it. Also, I have a table to share that probably would look like crap on that site as it barely fits on here well because of how wide it is.

This is a table of MVP winners (QB only) back to 1987 that I’ve maintained for several years now as a fine litmus test to see who is in the running. I included the four 2020 quarterbacks at the bottom with their ranks in ESPN’s QBR, YPA, the FO efficiency stats, and the drive stats that I always push as being important. Remember, you can build a very good QB ranking list from just looking at the average rank in offensive yards per drive for the careers of these quarterbacks.

You can see leading the league in these metrics (#1, darkest green) is a great way to justify winning MVP as a quarterback. Perhaps the most telling one is that no one has been able to win MVP without finishing in the top five in points per drive, and even 2003 Steve McNair, a co-MVP who should not have gotten a share of it with Peyton Manning, was the only season that finished fifth.

This also leads credence to the way I wrote about the race: it’s mostly between Mahomes and Rodgers as Wilson is trending downwards.

As for why not Murray, he certainly could win the award when it’s all said and done. I think he would have to throw for 4,000 yards, rush for 1,000 yards, and finish with over 40 total touchdowns to have a case. Winning the division would also really help. That’s doable, but when I pitched this article a week ago it looked like a three-man race to me, the oddsmakers agreed, and then only until a crazy Hail Mary that DeAndre Hopkins came down with did we really start to think of Murray in this conversation.

But the numbers also show why I think the Murray MVP talk is premature. He’s not in the green for any stats, and he would have the lowest rank of any MVP winner for most of them, especially the passing ones.

Now you can say what about his rushing value? Why isn’t that factored in? You can’t say it’s not factored in as QBR certainly looks at that, and we’ve already seen this play out with 2015 Cam Newton and 2019 Lamar Jackson. The difference is Jackson was still very efficient as a passer last year, certainly more than Murray has been this year through nine games. As for Newton, well you can see why I have always been on the Carson Palmer bandwagon for 2015 as the best quarterback start to finish that season. Newton is an outlier on this MVP table, and 2015 is an outlier in his career as well.

So I am interested to see how the rest of this one plays out with several interesting matchups left, including the next game on Thursday night between Wilson and Murray. That could be the game where Murray leapfrogs Wilson in the standings for good, or it could also be Wilson regaining the lead going into the weekend. This is far from decided.

Finally, I’ll just say that throwing $10 on Ben Roethlisberger (+2500) wouldn’t be the worst bet you can make this week. I still don’t think 16-0 is going to happen for the Steelers. They will slip up at least once. But if he got them there with about 40 touchdown passes, and the running game continues to stink, then that’s going to be a really hard case to ignore.

Imagine that, the season where Russell Wilson was finally going to get MVP votes turns into a year where Big Ben gets his first and wins it all.

I know, it’s 2020, this is going to end horribly with Tom Lucky Fvcking Brady winning MVP, but just let me have some nice thoughts.

Steelers on Historic 3-Game Winning Streak

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

No, the title is not a typo. The Steelers are 9-0 this season, but their 3-0 start to November has been historic for a reason that may only excite the anti-running game crowd.

The Steelers are the first team in NFL history* to win three straight games without rushing for 50 yards in any of them.

*Since 1940, but given the way offenses ran the ball prior to that, it’s safe to assume this is a record for all time.

They rushed for 48 yards in Baltimore, 46 yards in Dallas, and 44 yards at home against the Bengals, a lousy run defense, on Sunday. At this rate, the Steelers will attempt to go 19-0 by rushing for 24 yards in the Super Bowl.

This is so unusual that the Steelers already tied the single-season record for most wins without rushing for 50 yards (3). It has been done by five other teams with the 2008 Colts the last to do it.

But this is three games in a row, which has never been done. The 2020 Chiefs actually are on the doorstep of doing this too. They rushed for 50 yards against the Jets and 36 yards against the Panthers in their last two wins. So if we adjust it to “50 or fewer yards” and the Chiefs do it again on Sunday night against the Raiders, then they would join the Steelers.

Maybe it’s just something about this pass-happy pandemic season, but it is concerning that the Steelers couldn’t grind out more yards against Dallas and Cincinnati defenses that rank 30th and 31st in rushing yards per carry. Pittsburgh’s running game has been inconsistent all season, but at least James Conner would break some long runs here and there in the first six games. It hasn’t happened since and the offensive line is also not getting the job done in short-yardage situations. The Steelers rank 21st in short-yardage runs.

On the flip side, the Steelers were playing from behind for much of the Baltimore and Dallas games. No chance to pad the numbers late on the ground. But Sunday, that game was a rout and they still couldn’t run for anything.

Pittsburgh is in Jacksonville this week. When they met in 2018, the Steelers erased a 16-0 deficit for a 20-16 comeback win by rushing only 11 times for 26 yards. Ben Roethlisberger went from having one of his worst three-quarter starts ever to one of his best finishes in his career. The Steelers would like to avoid a repeat of that game script this week.

While Pittsburgh has a respect for the tradition of running the ball that maybe only Chicago can rival, there has never been a season where it’s probably less important to run than this one. Passing numbers are off the charts and Roethlisberger has been feasting with the quick, short passing game. He has already thrown 22 touchdown passes to four interceptions and has four solid wide receivers and a tight end (Eric Ebron) to choose from.

If the lack of a running game dooms Pittsburgh’s season, it’s going to happen because they are too slow or bullish about it to stick with the pass and avoid killing drives with runs. But given this team’s history in the Roethlisberger era, a running back fumble or failure to convert a 4th-and-1 is more likely to hurt the team in the playoffs than any arbitrary rushing total they finish the game with.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 10

~ Scott ~ 12 Comments

The 2020 NFL season has its signature play now. “The Hail Murray” may be a bit on the nose, but it’s a great way to describe the amazing job Kyler Murray did to get a pass off to DeAndre Hopkins that he managed to catch over three defenders for a 43-yard touchdown to beat the Bills with two seconds left.

I’ll cover that play and more from a week that felt closer than it was. Margins were fairly tight, but there were actually as many fourth-quarter lead changes in the final 39 seconds of Bills-Cardinals as there were in the rest of Week 10 combined.

Previous weeks in Stat Oddity:

Double-digit Comebacks Continue

For the 10th week in a row, we had at least two games won after a team trailed by double digits. This time it was New Orleans climbing out an early 10-0 hole against San Francisco and the aforementioned classic between the Bills and Cardinals saw Buffalo blow a 23-9 lead in the second half.

That is 31 with the home stretch still to come. We are not in record territory yet, but any season over 40 would be right up there.

The Hail Murray: Bills at Cardinals

Well that was an exciting display between two of the NFL’s youngest and most athletic quarterbacks, Kyler Murray and Josh Allen. Neither had a traditionally great passing day, but Allen caught a 12-yard touchdown to start the game for Buffalo, and Murray scampered around for another 61 rushing yards and two scores on the ground. Murray is up to 10 rushing touchdowns this season while Cam Newton has nine for New England. Newton still holds the single-season record for quarterbacks with 14 rushing touchdowns in 2011, but Murray could top that unless Newton breaks his own record first.

This 32-30 win by Arizona was also a showcase for how adding a great wide receiver can change an offense. It does not always work out (see: Antonio Brown in Oakland/New England, Odell Beckham Jr. in Cleveland), but there is no denying that Stefon Diggs (Bills) and DeAndre Hopkins (Cardinals) have connected with their young quarterbacks in a way that has these teams feeling like contenders this year because of their ability to score.

Diggs caught a 21-yard touchdown with 34 seconds left that looked to be the game winner, but as we see more each year, offenses can answer in quick time. The Cardinals luckily had two timeouts left as well, but driving 75 yards was never going to be easy. They didn’t make it look easy either with Murray holding onto the ball long and having to create, but one throw from midfield decided the game after Hopkins managed to come down with this ball:

How rare is it to see a team take over in the final 35 seconds and drive for a game-winning touchdown? This is only the 10th time it has happened since 1981. There were two other occasions where a team tied a game with a touchdown and won in overtime.

Most of these should ring a bell, and the Cardinals are actually the first team to win twice this way in the last 40 years. These are the kind of plays fans will always remember, and for Hopkins, it becomes the signature play of his career.

Now we’ll just see if Arizona (6-3) has any more special moments this season.

Ravens Wash Out, But Lamar Didn’t Melt Away

Baltimore had a surprising 23-17 loss in New England on Sunday night. Normally, losing in that building would be expected, but the Ravens were a touchdown favorite against a Patriots team lacking in talent. However, the Patriots played a strong first half, took a 13-10 lead into the locker room, expanded it to 20-10, and never looked back. The loss ends Baltimore’s regular-season record streak of 31 straight games scoring at least 20 points, the first time they failed to do so in Lamar Jackson’s career.

I have written plenty this season about Jackson’s front-running tendencies. He is now 0-6 when trailing by at least 9 points in the second half, and the Ravens haven’t actually won a game after trailing by multiple scores at any time in the game since early in 2016 against Cleveland, two years before Jackson was drafted.

Fortunately, we are still talking about six games. Aaron Rodgers infamously started his career 0-26 when trailing by two scores in the second half.

Jackson has a long way to go to catch up to that mark, but in a league where Patrick Mahomes is a respectable 3-6 and the rival Steelers are 2-0 this season alone in the same situation, that comes off as something to be bothered by.

However, the good news is Jackson was not the issue this night. He passed for 249 yards, something he hasn’t done since Week 1, in a game with pouring rain that was at its worst when he had the ball in the final minute. That would have been an amazing game-winning drive, but it only moved 4 yards.

The wet conditions wreaked some havoc with the Ravens’ offense. There were dropped passes and bad snaps. More notable than the final drive was the penultimate drive. A bad snap with 6:01 to play turned a new set of downs into a 2nd-and-26, a tough spot for anyone in this league.

The vaunted Baltimore rushing attack? It only contributed 17 carries for 60 yards despite the return of Mark Ingram to the backfield. That’s not good enough in the rain where Jackson led the team with 55 rushing yards. Meanwhile, Damien Harris rushed for 121 yards for the Patriots, who only needed 118 passing yards from Cam Newton to get the win. The Patriots also had a trick play with wideout Jakobi Meyers throwing a 24-yard touchdown in the first half.

The Patriots (4-5) are still in 10th place in the AFC, sitting behind a logjam of six teams with 6-3 records, not to mention the division-leading Bills at 7-3. Go figure, Tom Brady bounced the year before the AFC had arguably the strongest opening 10 weeks to a season since the merger:

Speaking of Brady, here are some interesting numbers:

  • Tom Brady finished 4-5 in his last 9 starts with the Patriots (11 total touchdowns)
  • Cam Newton is 4-4 in his first 8 starts with the Patriots (12 total touchdowns)

Sure, we can laugh at Newton for only having three touchdown passes this year, but he has already rushed for nine scores. Those still count for six points too. We can also enjoy the schadenfreude of seeing New England struggle to win games, but the fact is this has been going on there ever since the Ravens took it to them on Sunday Night Football a year ago. If Newton can beat the struggling Texans next week, he’ll have a better record in nine games than Brady had in his last nine here, and the talent supply has clearly depleted in New England.

So, the hole may be too big for the Patriots to climb out of to make the playoffs, but if this big win triggers a run to a No. 7 seed, then things could get very interesting for that opponent. It could even be the Chiefs, who were in a close game with the Patriots earlier this year without Newton available.

Bucs, Rams Set for Week 11 Showdown

When Tampa Bay isn’t playing New Orleans this year, you could argue this is the best team in the NFC. The Buccaneers completed a season sweep of Carolina with a 46-23 victory that did get a little inflated with short fields in the second half, but this was one of the most dominant games of the season after the Buccaneers were thoroughly dominated by New Orleans a week ago.

Tampa Bay outgained Carolina 544-187, a difference of 357 yards. That is the third-largest difference in a game since 2015, only topped by 2019 Ravens-Dolphins (+443) and 2015 Broncos-Packers (+360). That’s very good company; Denver won the Super Bowl and Baltimore was the No. 1 seed last year.

But sweeping the 2020 Panthers isn’t exactly adding to an impressive resume for the Buccaneers (7-3), still living off that season highlight of demolishing Green Bay 38-10 in Week 6. Fortunately, the schedule makers have come through. Next Monday night, the Bucs will host the Rams and a week later it’s Mahomes and the Chiefs. We’ll learn so much more about where these teams stand after those games.

The Rams got to 6-3 with their biggest win of the season, knocking the Seahawks down a peg, 23-16. Sean McVay is now 5-2 against the Seahawks, and Russell Wilson turned the ball over three times as Seattle scored a season-low 16 points. It’s a little disappointing the Rams didn’t score more and lost left tackle Andrew Whitworth to a torn MCL, but the defense was impressive against a non-NFC East or Bears offense for a change.

You never know what you’re going to get from the Rams these days, but a good showing in Tampa, combined with the uncertainty over Drew Brees’ ribs in New Orleans, could lead to more guesswork on how the NFC will play out this season.

Any one of the Buccaneers, Rams, Seahawks, Packers, Saints, and Cardinals could be capable of going on a run to the Super Bowl this season.

Undefeated Update: Steelers Cruise to 9-0

It was about time the Steelers played a game that did not come down to the final snap. Pittsburgh built a 22-7 halftime lead, did not surrender another touchdown, and Ben Roethlisberger finished with 333 yards and four touchdown passes. Pittsburgh did everything well except for run the football. The Cincinnati rushing offense looks strong on paper (21 carries, 139 yards), but 88 of those yards came in the fourth quarter after they were down 36-7, including a 39-yard fake punt, so judge that according to its worth (hint: it’s nothing).

The 2020 Steelers are the 12th team in NFL history to score at least 24 points in each of their first nine games.

The offense continues to produce, but the defense did something notable in this game too. The Bengals finished 0-for-13 on third down, only the eighth time since 1991 that has happened. It’s the first time since the record holder happened: the Ryan Lindley-led Cardinals were 0-for-15 on third down against the Jets in 2012 in a game that threatened to set offense back decades. The 2009 Jets also held Tampa Bay to 0-for-14 on third down. The other six games were all 0-for-13.

The time will likely come soon enough when the Bengals enter this rivalry with the better quarterback in Joe Burrow, but on Sunday, the rookie was no match for what Roethlisberger and this young cast of receivers have been doing this season.

As a bonus, thanks to the comfortable Pittsburgh win, I was able to flip over to the full ending of Bills-Cardinals, the finish of the year so far.

NFL Week 10 Predictions: 2020 Has Lost Home-field Advantage Too

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This NFL season was always going to be different with empty stadiums or barely-filled stadiums due to COVID-19. We have still seen record levels of scoring and offense, but what is the impact of a lack of a crowd on home-field advantage?

In the NFL, the home team usually wins 57-58% of the time. This is built into the Vegas point spreads too, giving a team about 3 points just for being at home. But when you think about this year, it doesn’t seem like it has mattered much with offenses converting on third down at historic rates and referees not doing much to call offensive holding or offensive pass interference. If referee bias– caving to the noisy crowd to make impactful calls — doesn’t exist because of the pandemic, then home-field advantage isn’t even worth a field goal anymore.

When the Chiefs traveled to Baltimore for a huge game in Week 3, it ended up being more lopsided than the two meetings Kansas City won in Arrowhead the last two seasons. When the Saints traveled to Tampa Bay last Sunday night, the 38-3 massacre was the biggest rout of Tom Brady’s 21-year career. But maybe those are just matchups where one team owns the other.

Here are the numbers through Week 9 for the home team’s winning percentage. 2020 is included without the first game from Week 10, the latest example of no home-field advantage with the Colts wiping out the Titans 34-17 on Thursday night. It was Indianapolis’ most complete game of the season.

For the first time in the last 20 years, the home team has a losing record through Week 9 (65-67-1).

However, that’s not the most interesting development. It appears home-field advantage has been trending downwards for a couple of years now, or before the pandemic started. The 2017 season was the lowest from 2001-2017 at 53.0%. Then we had that 2018 season go high up to 59.7%, a season with a lot of good teams playing high-scoring games with the home team usually winning — another reason that 13-3 Super Bowl was a horrible way to end 2018. Then it dropped to 50.7% in 2019, which was the lowest start to a season since 2001 before this year.

There is no guarantee we see regression the rest of the year. In 2019, home teams finished by winning 51.8% of games, the lowest since 1972 (50.8%), and down from 60.2% in 2018 and 56.6% in 2017.

So that means 2020 could be the first season since the 1970 NFL merger where home teams have a losing record in the regular season. We still have almost half the season to complete, and that’s assuming things won’t be derailed by COVID-19, which is surging near 200,000 cases a day now. Positive tests in the NFL are up too. In fact, you could even see instances of a road team traveling, getting COVID, then having to sit players for a home game the following week, possibly hurting their performance in that game. It’s just another thing to keep an eye on this season.

Week 10 Home Splits

I don’t have a lot to say about the Week 10 slate, but there are two games that catch my attention in regards to home-road splits in division games.

One of my favorite stats: Ben Roethlisberger is 67-4 as a home starter when the Steelers allow fewer than 21 points, but three of those losses are to the Bengals. These were all games in the 2009-2015 era, but Roethlisberger has a fascinating home/road split against the Bengals in his career.

He ‘s owned the Bengals in Cincinnati, but at home has barely thrown more touchdowns than interceptions and suffered those aforementioned low-scoring losses that are so out of the ordinary for his career. Now the Bengals aren’t a good defense this year and the secondary should be very thin tomorrow, but we’ll see how Roethlisberger does after the knee injuries and lack of practice from being on the COVID list. It’s a game where you could see an upset from a competitive Joe Burrow, or because the NFL is often illogical, Roethlisberger might throw four touchdowns in an easy win for the undefeated Steelers.

We also have Russell Wilson taking on the Rams in a big game for Seattle this week. Wilson is 7-9 against the Rams and has been sacked 61 times in those games. He’s never taken more than 51 sacks in any of his 16-game regular seasons to this point, so the Rams often get after him (thanks, Aaron Donald). Two of the three games where Wilson has taken a career-high 7 sacks came against the Rams. He’s lost four of the last six meetings since Sean McVay took over as coach, and it would be five in a row if Greg Zuerlein did not miss a game-winning field goal last year in Seattle.

Wilson is 2-6 on the road against the Rams, and the Rams are a 2-point favorite at home this week. I have to say I like the Rams in this matchup based on past meetings, though Jared Goff and McVay worry me these days. This is a game where you obviously need to attack the secondary with your wideouts like most offenses have against Seattle’s historically-bad pass defense this year, but why do I feel like Darrell Henderson will have 10 carries in the first quarter? If Goff is on for this matchup, I think the Rams take it and make the NFC West race even more interesting.

NFL Week 10 Predictions

Fooled again by a Thursday game, I underestimated just how bad the special teams are for Tennessee.

A few upsets I like include Washington and Chicago. I know, the Bears playing in prime time again is terrible, but even worse is the fact that it’s Minnesota. Since Kirk Cousins went to Minnesota, he is 0-3 against Chicago and hasn’t broke 6.5 YPA in any of those games. The Vikings average 12 points in those games.

But it would be another nice road win in 2020 for the Vikings to pull that one out.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 9

~ Scott ~ 15 Comments

Clue: The day after Donald Trump lost the election, this famous friend lost 38-3 on Sunday Night Football, ruining the season debut for Antonio Brown, his new roommate and other alleged rapist friend.

Answer: Who is Tom Brady?

We’ll miss you, Alex Trebek. R.I.P.

Previous weeks in Stat Oddity:

Saints at Buccaneers: STOP THE COUNT, THEY’RE DEAD!

Wow, that was insane.

With the NFC West regressing, Seattle not having to play GB/TB/NO this year, the NFC East’s historic sucking, and the Packers in stasis without any real tough games left, you could easily argue this Saints-Buccaneers game was the biggest NFC matchup in the 2020 regular season. The winner would move into first place with Tampa Bay eying a No. 1 seed thanks to destroying Green Bay.

But if you thought that 38-10 rout of Green Bay was what made Tampa Bay the Super Bowl favorite in the NFC (if not NFL), then where are you now after the Saints (6-2) handed them a 38-3 home loss that was the biggest ass kicking of the season?

The 35-point margin is the largest halfway through 2020.

This was an absolutely unreal performance by the Saints on offense and defense. When Tampa Bay crushed Green Bay, it was literally a meltdown by Aaron Rodgers. He essentially threw two pick-sixes (one returned to the 2) and just crumbled from there. This game, it was pure domination. The Saints started with four touchdowns on five drives, only getting stopped when Jared Cook lost a fumble at the 2 after trying too hard to score. Meanwhile, Tom Brady came out ice cold and had four three-and-outs before he threw the first of his three interceptions on the night. Rob Gronkowski looked awful, Mike Evans struggled again with the Saints, and Antonio Brown (31 yards) was not much of a factor in his debut. Brown did at least break up a pick or else Brady would have had a four-interception night.

The Buccaneers finished with 194 yards, were stopped in a goal-to-go situation for the first time all year, and were 1-for-9 on third down (0-for-3 on fourth down). Even when it felt like the Saints were keeping the door open for a comeback, namely Cook’s fumble and his third-down drop that led to a field goal try instead of a touchdown, Brady and the Bucs never threatened. Their only points came on a cheap field goal late in the fourth quarter to avoid a 38-0 shutout.

Tampa Bay set an NFL record with just 5 rushes, and one of those was a kneeldown by backup Blaine Gabbert to end the game. The Buccaneers’ vaunted defense even made Taysom Hill look unstoppable. Hill was the game’s leading rusher (54 yards), completed two passes for 48 yards, and caught a 21-yard pass.

Drew Brees was fantastic with four touchdown passes, doing so for the record 38th time, and regaining the all-time lead by three over Brady.

It helped that Michael Thomas (5 catches, 51 yards) and Emmanuel Sanders (4 catches, 38 yards, TD) returned to the wide receiver corps, but the Saints were as dialed in as a team can be in this game. They tied the league record with 12 different players making a reception.

You still suspect these are both playoff teams, but that makes it even more shocking just how one-sided this was. Since 1970, only 13 games between playoff teams saw one take a 31+ point lead at halftime, and only one of those games (2010 Patriots at Bears) was by the road team.

For the first time in his career, Brady has been swept by a divisional opponent. For the first time in his career, Brady has a division rival worth a damn. Funny how that works. I’ve been saying this for years about the historic advantage the AFC East provided Brady in securing high playoff seeds over the years. We’ll never see another quarterback have such an advantage in his division for two decades like Brady did. The minute he left for a division with a first-ballot HOFer in Brees and an MVP like Matt Ryan, he’s already been swept by the Saints.

In my preseason predictions, I had the Saints finishing 13-3 and the No.1 seed while the Buccaneers at 11-5 and No. 5 seed. We’ll see where this goes, but the Saints are in a good position now. Both teams still have to host the Chiefs and Vikings and play the Falcons twice this year.

Does this make the Saints the new favorite in the NFC? Perhaps, it is a flawed conference where it’s hard to trust anyone right now. If this is what the Saints can look like at “full strength” then you must think they have as good of a shot as anyone.

All I know is, much like when the Chiefs went to Baltimore in Week 3, the Saints left no doubt as to whether they are a nightmare matchup for the Buccaneers. But then you think about Tampa Bay trailing by double digits in five games this year, blowing a 13-point lead in Chicago, now this domination, and it starts to become clear: Green Bay was the anomaly game this season.

Now we just have to see if the Buccaneers can ever put things together this season, or if the Saints end up being the team that goes on a run that lands them back on this field in February.

Small Game Steelers, But Spare Me the Worst 8-0 Team Ever Talk

My fear of the Steelers blowing off a small game to Dallas was well warranted. If you know this team well, you know they always underperform in games like this. The 15-point spread was always a bit too high coming off the three emotional wins in a row, and the fact that Dallas had an unknown fourth-stringer (Garrett Gilbert) at quarterback with a strong cast of skill players around him. This was going to be competitive, but it really shouldn’t have been the toughest win yet of the season for the 8-0 Steelers.

This was like the Steelers’ 2011 Colts/Curtis Painter or 2011 Chiefs/Tyler Palko or 2017 Colts/Jacoby Brissett wins. Yeah, they were ugly, but at least they were still wins.

The lack of an offensive identity is starting to catch up with Pittsburgh after a second straight slow start where they wasted four drives while the Cowboys jumped out to a 13-0 lead. The run defense also had some issues again and Gilbert played admirably for someone without experience, but the Steelers are taking too long to figure out the opponent.

Still, it was yet another game where they finished with 24 points, Ben Roethlisberger threw for 306 yards and three touchdowns, and they had zero turnovers. They probably should have had 26 or 27 points, but Chris Boswell was shaky on the day with two missed extra points (one blocked). Mike Tomlin also screwed up big time by going for a fourth-and-1 with 43 seconds left to seal the game when he should have kicked a short field goal to take a 27-19 lead. You can’t worry about a block there. It’s a routine kick and they already blocked one. Getting two in one game would be crazy improbable. Keeping yourself open to a loss with a touchdown is not the right move, and for the second week in a row the Steelers had to knock down a pass at the goal line to save the win.

Alas, the Steelers join some elite company as the fifth team to start 8-0 and score at least 24 points in every game: 2007 Patriots, 2009 Saints, 2011 Packers, and 2015 Patriots.

Now I would be the first person to start a debate on the worst 8-0 team in NFL history, but I cannot see how the 2020 Steelers win that title.

Not when the 2013 Chiefs exist, a team that started 9-0 by beating several backup quarterbacks with a boring brand of offense when Andy Reid was getting his feet wet in Kansas City with Alex Smith. Once that team started playing real quarterbacks (Peyton Manning, Philip Rivers, Andrew Luck) and teams, they finished 2-6 and blew a 28-point lead in their first playoff game.

I also refuse to buy that the Steelers aren’t better than the 2008 Titans, who started 10-0 in Jeff Fisher’s final playoff season with the team. That team finished 13-3 and had 13 touchdown passes with Kerry Collins as the main starter. They also went one-and-done, losing to the Ravens at home.

I would also bring up the 2015 Panthers, who started 14-0, and I was always saying they were the worst 15-1 team in NFL history (lost the Super Bowl to Denver and finished 6-10 the next year). When the Panthers were 8-0, they were doing it with the best defense in the NFC and Cam Newton was not having a great season. He was just getting ready to go on a big run, but he certainly didn’t have the numbers when they were 8-0 (14 TD, 9 INT, 53.7% complete, 7.40 YPA, 81.4 PR).

Roethlisberger has not been hitting the deep balls this year and it is getting frustrating. I think he can still turn that around, but similar to the Saints and Drew Brees, we should acknowledge that the way they do things now still is effective. It puts points on the board and wins games. Combine that with a defense that may not be anywhere close to historic, but even just merely good puts you a leg up on most of the league in 2020, and you have a pretty solid contender in a year where no one is blowing the field away.

Clearly, I do not see the Steelers going 16-0. They’ll slip up eventually, but I still think winning in Baltimore was a huge deal, a better win than most teams can point to this season, and they have a chance to complete a sweep of the Ravens on Thanksgiving.

I would love nothing more than to see the Steelers play the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game, but until that feels more likely, let’s not make the whole season about that. Just like we shouldn’t overreact to this 24-19 (should have been 27-19) win in Dallas. Did Tampa Bay not just win 25-23 over the Giants? How did Sunday night go for the so-called NFC favorites? A New Orleans team that was in overtime with Chicago a week ago just destroyed them 38-3 in their house. That same New Orleans team squeaked by Carolina a couple weeks ago in a 27-24 game. Carolina just came up a FG short of knocking off the Chiefs in Arrowhead.

Pandemic football is a little different. You never know who will be available to play in a given week these days. If you want to put the Chiefs in a class of their own as the defending champs, that’s fine. But there’s no reason to say the Steelers aren’t up there with any other team in the league (Ravens, Saints, Buccaneers, Packers, Seahawks, etc.).

The Latest Records for the Chiefs

STOP THE COUNT! After a 33-31 decision against Carolina, Patrick Mahomes is now 45-0 in the NFL. That’s actually 45 games and 45 times he’s had a lead, but Sunday was one of the toughest wins yet this year for the Chiefs, now 8-1 and going into a bye week.

More history was made by Kansas City on Sunday. Mahomes threw his 100th touchdown pass in his 40th regular-season game, setting a new record (Dan Marino, 44 games).

The Chiefs also broke a record for the second time in the Mahomes era for consecutive games with at least 23 points (playoffs included):

This deserves some real attention. It’s practically unheard of in the NFL to break a record streak, have one off game, then immediately start up another record-setting streak. I showed you the only other team to reach 20 games was Joe Gibbs’ Redskins. The No. 4 spot is a tie at 19 games between Peyton Manning’s Broncos (2012-13) and Tom Brady’s Patriots (2006-07). The second-longest streak for the Patriots was 15 games in 2012 while the second-longest streak for a Manning-led team was 13 games for the 2004 Colts.

Now scoring is up in the NFL in the Mahomes era, but we just don’t see other teams in the league approaching these numbers. The longest streaks since 2017 that don’t belong to the Chiefs are 12 games by the 2018 Rams and a pair of 11-game streaks by the Ravens – oddly, one of them happened in 2017-18 pre-Lamar Jackson. The second-longest active streak of 23-point games is nine by Seattle.

We risk taking Mahomes for granted this early into his career, but that may be changing since this latest win seems to reignited the MVP race this year. Mahomes is up to 25 touchdown passes and one interception this season, which has never been done before in the NFL to start a season. He just threw for another 372 yards and four touchdowns in a 33-31 win after his running game finished with 10 carries for 30 yards. Mahomes is now second in QBR (85.3) and the Chiefs could set a modern record for the most yards per drive in a season as they were over 43 yards coming into the week.

This is the most enjoyable team to watch in the NFL today. The skill and creativity are second to none, and they find plenty of different ways to win now. Sunday was a little tougher than usual, but that’s always fun to watch too. It was actually the first time this season the Kansas City defense had to uphold a one-score lead in the fourth quarter. The game was right there for the win for Carolina, but Teddy Bridgewater is 0-6 at leading game-winning drives this season, the worst record in the NFL. Only needing a field goal, he took too much time with completions not going out of bounds and I did not agree with the final sequence when they bypassed a Hail Mary for a 67-yard field goal that was well off.

So I’ll miss not being able to watch the Chiefs in Week 10, but the march towards history resumes in Vegas in Week 11 when the team will look to avenge its only loss in the last 18 games.

Pete Carroll: What a Day for an Extension

While the Saints found a defense on Sunday night, the Seahawks continued to exhibit none after a 44-34 loss in Buffalo. The Seahawks are the first team in NFL history to have nine straight games where they scored and allowed at least 23 points, which includes last January’s 28-23 playoff loss.

That is a hell of a change for a team that once led the NFL in scoring defense four years in a row from 2012 to 2015. Those days are long over, we have gone from Legion of Boom to Let Russ Cook, and Pete Carroll just signed on for a multi-year extension.

Not the greatest timing right before this loss that makes you question if the Seahawks are headed for another No. 5 seed, a Wild Card win over a terrible NFC East winner, and then a divisional road loss.

This was a strange game in that Russell Wilson turned the ball over four times, the Seahawks registered seven sacks on Josh Allen, but Allen still completed 31-of-38 passes for 415 yards, three touchdowns and zero turnovers. It is the kind of game he would never have in 2018-19, but Allen is better this year and the Seahawks are historically bad against the pass.

The 2020 Seahawks have allowed 2,897 net passing yards, the most through eight games in NFL history. The previous record belonged to the 2002 Chiefs (2,589 yards). Apparently, trading good picks for a safety (Jamal Adams) isn’t a cure-all for the defense. Adams returned to action on Sunday and it was the nadir of the season so far as Allen had 282 yards and all three touchdowns at halftime alone.

What really caught my eye were some words from Carroll after the game about his surprise that Buffalo abandoned the run and came out passing:

Look, I know I’m just a data nerd who doesn’t leave the house, but it literally would take minutes to go through Buffalo games in 2020 and see that an Allen-dominant offense (his passes and runs) that ignores RB carries is something they are comfortable with this year. Here is some proof I grabbed in a couple minutes:

  • Jets (Week 1): 38 Allen dropbacks to 6 handoffs in first half
  • Raiders: 20 Allen dropbacks to 9 handoffs in first half
  • Titans: 24 Allen dropbacks to 10 handoffs in first half (38 to 13 through 3Q)
  • Jets (Rematch): 25 Allen dropbacks to 4 handoffs in first half
  • Chiefs: 27 Allen dropbacks to 14 handoffs through 3Q

It’s not that crazy for Buffalo to do this, and sure enough it treated the Seahawks like the Jets. Allen had 32 dropbacks to two handoffs in the first half against Seattle, so they took it to another level since it was working so easily.

I love the stat that Buffalo was 1-12 against playoff teams in 2018-19 and already lost this year to the Titans and Chiefs. The Bills usually don’t beat teams like Seattle, but Seattle is a team with a quarterback who is usually amazing – he wasn’t on Sunday – and a defense that is terrible.

While Carroll and company finally seem to understand this year that passing early and often is a good strategy, they still seem oblivious to the idea that other teams know this too and attack Seattle’s pass defense accordingly.

Carroll said he didn’t recognize his team on Sunday, but it looked like more of the same to me with too many giveaways to make it a hopeless road trip. Sean McVay and Jared Goff are next with the Rams, who also feature a defense that held Wilson to two field goals in the last meeting (28-12 loss in 2019).

We’ll see if there are any adjustments.

Dalvin Cook Actually Matters

If the Vikings are going to recover from a 1-5 start, it was sparked by Dalvin Cook’s domination of division foes the last two weeks. He scored four touchdowns and had 226 yards from scrimmage in last week’s upset win over Green Bay. On Sunday, he rushed for 206 yards in a 34-20 win over Detroit to get Minnesota to 3-5.

Add this to the file on “Why the Hell Is Matt Patricia Still Employed?”. The Vikings became the eighth offense since 1940 to average 8.0 yards per carry and 10 net yards per pass attempt in a game. It has only happened two other times since the 1970 merger: 2017 Chiefs vs. Jets (in a 38-31 loss) and 2012 49ers vs. Bills (45-3 win).

The Vikings just had one of the most explosive, but balanced offensive performances in NFL history. Minnesota finished with 275 rushing yards and averaged 8.1 yards per carry. Kirk Cousins completed 13-of-20 passes for 220 yards, three touchdowns and only one sack. His net yards per attempt was 10.1.

With an upcoming schedule that features the Bears, Cowboys, Panthers and Jaguars, it is not a stretch to say the Vikings could still win 9-10 games and reach the playoffs.

Almost, Atlanta

Well, Georgia blew one big lead this week, but for that I am grateful. How about the sports teams though? Can’t the Falcons ever just win a game with ease? You know, like the 2016 NFC Championship Game when they routed Green Bay?

On Sunday, Atlanta punted to Denver with 5:38 left and a 34-13 lead. That’s an easy win and 4-point cover, right? Think again. The Broncos drove 69 yards (nice) in 1:45, forced a three-and-out that included one incomplete pass, then drove 82 yards in 90 seconds to make it 34-27. Atlanta just needed one first down to ice the game, but botched that badly. On a 3rd-and-6 run, the Falcons were penalized for illegal formation. Denver declined that penalty, but it still stopped the clock. So instead of punting the ball back at 13 seconds, the Falcons had to punt at 50 seconds. Huge mistake.

Fortunately, the defense forced Denver into a pathetic four-and-out to end the game, but you can just see how this team (now 3-6 when it should be 6-3) is going to torture its fans with impressive starts against the Buccaneers and Saints before it all goes horribly wrong later this season.

New AFC Three Stooges: Texans, Bengals, Chargers

Unless you’re the Colts in Week 1, the 2020 Jaguars (1-7) have been like a Pandemic Relief Package granting wins to their opponents, especially those in dire situations. Houston completed the season sweep with a 27-25 win over the Jaguars, though rookie quarterback Jake Luton was more than respectable in his first start. He led a late touchdown drive (capped off by his 13-yard scramble score) but was unable to complete the two-point conversion to tie the game.

Houston is 2-0 against Jacksonville and 0-6 against the rest of the NFL this year. A couple other AFC teams are in similar spots. The Chargers are 2-6 after another close loss to the Raiders as their only wins have been against the Bengals and the Jaguars; the latter being rookie QB Justin Herbert’s lone win so far. The Jaguars were also the first NFL win for Joe Burrow and the Bengals.

That means out of six combined wins for the Texans, Chargers and Bengals this year, four of them are against Jacksonville, one against each other (LAC-CIN), and the Bengals also beat the Titans recently. Don’t forget the Texans took the Titans to overtime, their closest loss of the season so far, and even the Jaguars only had a 33-30 loss to the Titans in Week 2.

For the second time this season, Herbert saw his receiver drop a game-winning touchdown on the final play of the game after Donald Parham could not hang on in the end zone on a play that was initially ruled a touchdown. Mike Williams also did not come down with a ball on the previous snap. Against Carolina, the Chargers botched that incredible lateral (dropped by Austin Ekeler) that would have won that game too. Burrow can relate. In Week 1, A.J. Green caught a game-winning touchdown against the Chargers, but it was negated for offensive pass interference. Deshaun Watson can relate too. He thought he had a touchdown pass on fourth and goal down 31-23 against Minnesota, but it was overturned on replay to an incompletion and game over.

The futures may be bright for these teams given Burrow and Herbert’s rookie performances, and Watson getting a new coach in 2021, but for now they just cannot seem to find a win unless it’s coming against Jacksonville or each other.

NFL Week 9 Predictions: Steelers vs. Who?

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

So I don’t really have a game to highlight this week. If you’re wondering why I wouldn’t touch on Seahawks-Bills or Saints-Buccaneers, it’s because I already did game previews for both. I also have two more up for Bears-Titans and Broncos-Falcons.

I also brought up the Chiefs on here, albeit in a tongue-in-cheek way (seriously, fvck Donald Trump forever).

I’ve done the big Pittsburgh games the last two weeks, but this time they’re in Dallas for a late afternoon game about to be forced on the masses. The Cowboys are starting (I think) Garrett Gilbert at quarterback. He was a 6th-round pick by the Rams in 2014 and has managed to throw six passes in the NFL.

I know nothing about him, but would have assumed he was the son of former Chargers backup QB Gale Gilbert, and sure enough, that is true. Gotta love NFL nepotism where the nobody son of a former nobody can stick around for years while Colin Ka–you know the rest.

Normally, this is a game that would scare the hell out of me as a Steelers fan. The dreaded road game where they play down to the competition, especially after hearing praise for this 7-0 start.

The last time the Steelers were a 15-point favorite, they lost 27-24 to the 2009 Raiders. The last time the Steelers were favored by more than 11 points on the road, they lost 27-24 in OT to the 2009 Chiefs. Maybe it’s not a coincidence both were in 2009, a mistake-prone season, but it’s something to think about before picking that game. Mike Tomlin is 23-5 SU and 10-18 ATS as a double-digit favorite.

Dallas is 0-8 ATS this year, but I haven’t seen the Steelers win on the road by more than 15 points since Christmas 2017 (34-6 in Houston). I’ll cautiously take Dallas ATS, Pittsburgh SU.

NFL Week 9 Predictions

Started off with a win on TNF with Green Bay beating the varsity 49ers.

I like the Ravens a lot to rebound this week. That spread surprises me the most.

STOP THE COUNT, Patrick Mahomes Is Undefeated in the NFL

~ Scott ~ 4 Comments

People are talking about the biggest FRAUD in NFL history, and thanks to me, your fearless leader, we will expose the truth today.

According to the fake news media, Patrick Mahomes has a 35-9 record as a starting quarterback in the NFL (including the playoffs). Our lawyers have asked for video proof of these nine losses, but we were told to use a service called NFL Game Pass that does not even work! We clicked on a Chiefs game and it showed us a Tyler Palko start from 2011.

WHAT ARE THEY HIDING AND WHERE’S THE EVIDENSE?

We have claimed, for Bigly Great QB Purposes, that Mahomes has NEVER lost a game in his NFL career, and is in fact 44-0.

In all 44 games, he’s had a lead, a big lead actually, and on nine occasions the Cheatin’ Lyin’ Democrats allowed the game to continue and somehow the other team ended up with more points.

If you only count the LEGAL SNAPS in these games, Mahomes has never lost. At worst, he ran out of time. But we’re going to the courts with our lawyers to get this corrected, and we already have the proof that we’re willing to share with everyone today.

If you look at the 9 games Mahomes has “Lost”, you can see he had the lead until ILLEGAL SNAPS took place. Roger Goodell, working with Nancy Pelosi (Nancy as I call her) and Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, found their new hoax to cost the Chiefs these games when all they had to do was something so simple, so simple they don’t even think about it.

STOP THE COUNT.

When this quarterback, a great quarterback, puts the team so far ahead (promises made, promises kept), where do all these other points come from? They just magically start adding touchdowns to the scoreboard for the other team and call that a win. The lead, it could be 15 points, and in no time, like a miracle, it just goes down to 0.

That’s not how it works in America!

Look at these nine games. All they had to do was STOP THE COUNT and Mahomes is 44-0.

If the NFL does not correct this fraud, we will be going to the Supreme Court!

Annnnnnd that’s about where I had my fill of the bit. It’s a new day in America, and hopefully a better one.

Two things.

First, the Chiefs have had a lead at some point in the game in 51 straight games dating back to the 2017 season. The only streak I’m familiar with that is longer is the first 70 games of the Russell Wilson era in Seattle. Not even Manning or Brady had a streak like this.

In closing: Donald Trump should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 8

~ Scott ~ 13 Comments

November 1st was the date I highlighted where we would have so much knowledge about this year’s AFC race. Most of the big matchups have already taken place this season. So far, the Chiefs (7-1) and Steelers (7-0) look to be separating themselves from the pack, both featuring a nice balance of offense and defense with key victories in Baltimore.

Previous weeks in Stat Oddity:

The Ravens (5-2) remain a threat, but more on them below. Buffalo (6-2) also finally got the big win over New England that should put the Bills in the driver’s seat to take back the AFC East for the first time since 1995. Tennessee is slipping with another loss, and now has the same 5-2 record as Indianapolis with two meetings to go there (usually won by the Colts in that series). But those two teams look a tier below the best in the conference.

Chargers: Greatest Hits

The Chargers would be an interesting Wild Card contender, at minimum, if only 2020 wasn’t playing out like an album filled with their Greatest Hits on how to lose games.

Like come the fvck on, San Diego.

Don’t give up a 21-yard scramble on 3rd-and-20 to Patrick Mahomes. Don’t drop the beautifully designed lateral for a game-winning touchdown against Carolina. Don’t fumble before halftime with a 17-point lead to ignite a Tampa Bay comeback. Don’t miss a game-winning field goal in New Orleans. Don’t give up three touchdown drives in the fourth quarter to Dancin’ Drew Lock, or let him get bailed out with a DPI in the end zone on fourth-and-ballgame. Now you are 2-5 and even the Broncos have a better record in the conference. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 2-5 team this realistically close to being 7-0 before, but here we are.

Some things never change, even in 2020.

Lamar Jackson: No Shortage of Kryptonite

Can you judge the true value of a player based on seven, non-consecutive games in their career? I’m not sure if you even should, but I do know that the results of four-to-six games from different careers have led to many people arguing over Joe Montana, Peyton Manning, and Tom Brady for the greatest quarterback of all time.

When it comes to Lamar Jackson, there are some troublesome trends that popped up against Pittsburgh, some of which I highlighted after the Ravens lost 34-20 to the Chiefs in Week 3.

Jackson is 24-7 as a starter, but he’s 0-2 at home in the playoffs, 0-3 against the Chiefs (Baltimore’s main conference rival), and now he’s 1-1 against the Steelers (main division rival) with seven turnovers in those two games. Jackson turned the ball over four times in Sunday’s 28-24 loss, including a pick-six to start the game and a pair of red-zone fumbles. So he can’t stop turning the ball over (or taking sacks) against Pittsburgh, and he’s only seen the gap between his production and that of Patrick Mahomes grow in those matchups.

Those two home playoff losses, where the Ravens never held a lead at any point, are the only starts in Jackson’s career where the team didn’t score at least 20 points. The Ravens actually tied the NFL’s regular-season record on Sunday, held by the 2012-14 Broncos, with 30 straight regular season games with at least 20 points scored. But it wasn’t enough as the Ravens needed another touchdown and Jackson wasn’t able to deliver on the final two drives.

In his career, Jackson only has one fourth-quarter comeback win: last year in Pittsburgh. The deficit was 3 points, and Jackson got his game-tying drive going with a questionable roughing the passer penalty on the Steelers. In overtime, Jackson went three-and-out, but quickly got the ball back at the Pittsburgh 34 after JuJu Smith-Schuster lost a fumble. The Ravens didn’t even attempt to put the ball in the air and Justin Tucker won the game with a 46-yard field goal.

Since that little comeback, the Ravens have almost never trailed in games, and certainly not in the second half. But the last three times that’s happened (playoffs against Tennessee, Week 3 vs. Chiefs, Sunday vs. Steelers) the Ravens lost all three games. Overall, the Ravens are 2-7 with Jackson when trailing in the second half of games by any deficit.

Again, it would be misleading to not point out that Jackson was impressive on Sunday Night Football last year against the 8-0 Patriots and their No. 1 defense. That was a big game with a real playoff atmosphere and he performed very well in a 37-20 win. However, you could find some criticism in that game in that he only threw 23 passes and for 163 yards. If Marquise Brown didn’t go low to catch a pass on the third play of the game, the Ravens start that one with a three-and-out instead of a touchdown.

On Sunday, Brown reminded us that there’s some DNA shared with his cousin Antonio Brown when he blew up on Twitter to say “What’s the point of having [soldiers] when you never use them (Never!!).” He quickly deleted the tweet. Brown’s only targets in the game came early in the fourth quarter, and he finished with one grab for a 3-yard touchdown.

That touchdown came on a fourth-quarter drive where Jackson made plays with his arms, but it was another game where he struggled to throw for 200 yards, didn’t complete 50 percent of his passes, took four sacks, fumbled three times, and relied too heavily on the run (16 carries for 65 yards).

Down 28-24, the Ravens used a very run-heavy drive where Jackson did not put the ball in the air once. On a fourth-and-3 at the Pittsburgh 8, it was obvious that he was going to run the ball again. He did so on a quarterback draw, but the Steelers were ready to stop it short on a play that actually became Jackson’s fourth turnover after he fumbled again with 1:57 left.

It’s seven games in a 31-game career, but the patterns are hard to ignore. When Jackson knows he’s in a big game, he looks to press, relies heavily on his legs, is erratic with the ball, makes bad decisions, and turns the ball over way too much. If that’s what he’s going to keep doing when they’re in a playoff game or playing a top rival, then it’s going to be hard for the Ravens to ever have postseason success.

As you can see from the seven games, the only win was when a Pittsburgh offense that did not have Ben Roethlisberger available served the game up on a silver platter in overtime last year.

Jackson will get a third shot at the Steelers in Pittsburgh on Thanksgiving night. Given the remaining schedule, it’s really his last shot at redemption before a presumptive third playoff run begins for Baltimore in January. Maybe the third time will be the charm, but the last time I said that for Jackson and this team, the Chiefs won 34-20 and Jackson completed 15-of-28 passes for 97 yards.

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, but three times is a pattern. If he has three bad Pittsburgh games to go with the three Kansas City losses, and then three lousy playoff games on top of that, then there is no reason to pick Baltimore to win anything for the foreseeable future.

Kryptonite isn’t supposed to come in so many flavors.

Steelers Continue Historic Season

I still to this day get the question if I’m a Steelers fan. The answer has always been yes, but I have never been afraid to be critical of the team or to pick against them in a big game. Being a massive Steelers homer is not a role I’ve ever had an interest in.

So when I see the Steelers at 7-0 and having a historic season by many measures, I have to say I’m happy, excited, and still a little confused. Is this really the best Pittsburgh team since the 2005 Super Bowl run? I could put them ahead of 2008 if only because the offensive line made that season such a struggle on that side of the ball. This year’s team is young, talented, and more balanced with Ben Roethlisberger having an impressive season in his return from injury.

I had this team making the playoffs, but 7-0 and winning in Tennessee and Baltimore like that? No matter where the heroes emerge, the Steelers walk away each week with the win and at least 26 points on the scoreboard. That puts them in elite company in NFL history:

Again, this is why I feel confused. Are the Steelers really in the same company as 15-1/16-0 teams that set the record for scoring in a season? Even the 2015 Patriots were one of Bill Belichick’s stronger teams before a weak finish. I know scoring is at an all-time high this season, so that takes some shine off that part, but you still don’t see anyone else but Seattle doing it so consistently this year. The schedule also wasn’t much to write home about, but road games against 5-0 Tennessee and 5-1 Baltimore? Pretty solid.

Sunday was the team’s biggest test of the year as Baltimore is a rough place to play historically. I mentioned that Roethlisberger was 0-7 in Baltimore when the Ravens scored 20+ points. They scored 24, but he still got the win, leading his 36th fourth-quarter comeback win that puts him in more elite company:

That was after one of the worst first halves of Roethlisberger’s career, but the offense really turned things on in the second half, something you wouldn’t always see in recent years with this team. Things just feel different this year with the youthful energy all over the offense. Even Eric Ebron made his mark on Sunday’s comeback win.

By getting past this game, the Steelers can realistically look at a 10-0 start with @DAL/CIN/@JAX as the next three games. Now those would be three trap games for this team in any year, so we’ll see how they handle that after really getting up emotionally for the last three matchups. But they very well could be 10-0 when they see the Ravens again on Thanksgiving night in Pittsburgh. If they win that game, it almost locks up the division with five games to go.

I wrote here the last two weeks why I picked against the Steelers, only to see them win by scores very similar to what I predicted for the games. Now things can change quickly in this league, but I have to say I do not see myself picking against Pittsburgh the rest of the regular season. That does not mean my official prediction is for a 16-0 season, but I just think they should be favored in every game except for maybe the Week 14 trip to Buffalo.

I haven’t felt this good about the Steelers since it looked like Jesse James scored a game-winning touchdown against the 2017 Patriots (real ones know). So I’m just going to continue enjoying the ride this season, and we’ll find out together if it’s going to be one of historical significance or not.

Huge Favorite Is a Good Look on Patrick Mahomes

One thing we (thankfully) rarely see in the NFL is a 20-point favorite. Even less common: a 20-point favorite who covers the spread. The Chiefs were a 19.5-point favorite (so basically 20) against the Jets, making it only the 15th such NFL game since the merger on record. In the first 14, the favorite was 14-0 SU, but only 3-11 ATS.

Make that 4-11 ATS as the Chiefs won 35-9 on Sunday.

Now usually we see these huge spreads in games between the Patriots and a scrub starting a backup quarterback, like the 2007 Eagles (A.J. Feeley) or 2011 Colts (Dan Orlovsky). From 1994-2006, there were not any 20-point favorites in the NFL, but since 2007, it’s happened nine times. The Patriots had five of those games and they were 0-5 ATS.

Guess we just found something else Patrick Mahomes is better than Tom Brady at, as he lit up the winless Jets with 416 yards and five touchdown passes. He did that despite the Chiefs rushing 20 times for 50 yards. The much-hyped Le’Veon Bell Revenge Game? Well, Adam Gase must have spent all his time preparing for it as run defense was the only thing the Jets did well in this game. Sure, the offense actually surprised by attempting four field goals on four first-half possessions, but the second half was vintage Jets: five three-and-outs, a fumble, and they declined to push to beat the spread on the final drive, handing off three times.

Oddly enough, Bell was the best hope the Jets had at beating the spread. He lost 3 yards on a 3rd-and-2 run to end a drive in the second quarter. In the third quarter, he was stopped for no gain on a 4th-and-1 run at the NYJ 14. It wasn’t until Mahomes’ fifth touchdown pass with 10:58 to play that the Chiefs finally had the spread covered, but that was enough.

Most games with at least four touchdown passes in a player’s first 39 games (regular season):

  • Patrick Mahomes – 10
  • Dan Marino – 6
  • Matthew Stafford – 6
  • Kurt Warner – 5
  • Jared Goff – 5
  • Deshaun Watson – 5

Here are the previous three games where a team covered a 20-point spread:

  • 2019 Cowboys (-22) vs. Dolphins (W 31-6)
  • 2013 Seahawks (-20) vs. Jaguars (W 45-17)
  • 1991 Bills (-20) vs. Colts (W 42-6)

Must be an AFC East thing. This will almost certainly not be the last time the Chiefs are a 20-point favorite in the Mahomes era.

New England, This Has Always Been Cam Newton

One thing I have repeatedly said this year is that of the Patriots’ 12 wins in 2019, they could have won 11 of them with a replacement-level quarterback. The only time Tom Brady was really vintage Brady last year was in the second Buffalo game, a 24-17 comeback win played in late December. That was Buffalo’s chance to take over the division, but they were denied again by Brady and Belichick.

Well, flash forward to Sunday and the Bills were 4.5-point favorites against the reeling Patriots, losers of three straight. It was going to be an extra challenging game with Julian Edelman and star cornerback Stephon Gilmore out. It’s hard to run a passing offense through James White’s YAC. But go figure, the one year where you actually couldn’t name New England’s wide receivers (Jakobi Meyers, Damiere Byrd) or running back (Damien Harris) or tight end (Ryan Izzo), Deion Sanders is nowhere to be found to give the New England quarterback absurd praise.

Oh, Deion is no stranger to praising Cam too, but the Patriots were game in this one. It helps that Buffalo’s defense isn’t as good this year, but New England was able to rush for 188 yards with Newton completing 15-of-25 passes for 174 yards.

In that last matchup with Buffalo, Brady led the Patriots to 24 points on nine drives. He only had to complete one short pass that Edelman took 30 yards on the game-winning drive, which was finished off by the ground game. This time around, Newton was the one looking to get the Patriots to 24 points on their ninth drive again, but that would have only set up overtime. Down 24-21, New England wanted a game-winning touchdown, which was a possibility after driving into the red zone. However, Newton took off on a designed run and fumbled on contact at the Buffalo 14 with 31 seconds left. The Bills recovered and that was the game.

It was easily the best Newton has looked since his COVID diagnosis, but it still wasn’t good enough for the win. The Patriots have now lost four in a row for the first time since 2002. New England is 0-3 this season in fourth-quarter comeback opportunities.

For Newton, this isn’t anything new. His career record at 4QC/GWD opportunities is 17-41-1 (.297), one of the worst among active quarterbacks. You can see in the updated table that Josh Allen (.611), who picked up his 11th game-winning drive in this one, and Brady (.561) have the best active winning percentages.

According to Stathead, Cam Newton is now only the sixth player since 2001 to lose a fumble in the red zone in the final minute of the game while down a field goal. Ex-Chargers running back (of course) Melvin Gordon did it at the 1-yard line against the Titans last year. Oakland’s Derek Carr infamously fumbled through the end zone on SNF against the Cowboys in 2017. Colin Kaepernick fumbled on a run at the 1-yard line for the 49ers against the 2014 Rams. Brett Favre (2006 GB vs. STL) and Kurt Warner (2002 STL-WAS) both coughed up the ball on strip-sacks in the red zone to end games.

In all, it is a rare ending to a game. However, Newton coming up a drive short has been the story of his NFL career from his first game to Super Bowl 50 to Week 2 SNF in Seattle to this crushing loss on Sunday.

It would only be fitting if the Bills delivered the final nail in the coffin to the Patriots (2-5), but maybe the Dolphins and (gasp) Jets will get their licks in as well. Then again, losing out and getting swept by the Jets so both finish 2-14, but Patriots draft Trevor Lawrence could be the master plan at this point.

NFL Week 8 Predictions: Steelers vs. Ravens

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

If you need an alternative to Cowboys-Eagles at night, it’s my understanding that Young Justice will be streaming on HBO Max starting tomorrow (Nov. 1).

The actual game of the day is clearly the renewed rivalry between the Steelers (6-0) and Ravens (5-1). For a change, it’s a game where both teams have their intended starting quarterback. It’s actually the first time Ben Roethlisberger will match his offense with Lamar Jackson’s offense. The Ravens are a 4-point home favorite, though playing in Baltimore isn’t as daunting this season as it would be under normal, non-pandemic circumstances. The Chiefs already waxed the Ravens 34-20 in that building this year.

How will the Steelers fare? I have to say last week’s win in Tennessee was both encouraging and discouraging. I picked the Steelers to lose 27-24, which is the score they ended up winning by after Stephen Gostkowski missed a field goal that would have forced overtime. But some of the road concerns with protecting the ball popped up again. Yes, Ben Roethlisberger threw three interceptions, but there were some extenuating circumstances there with throws into the end zone late in each half and a ball deflected high into the air at the line. What gets overlooked is the Steelers fumbled on the first two drives, but were fortunate to recover both and score 10 points. Throw in some drops and penalties and it was a sloppy performance despite the 20-point lead, third-down domination and ultimately a win.

On the other hand, the defense looked solid in holding down a potent Tennessee offense. They’ll have to do that again with the Ravens’ special ground attack that again leads the NFL in yards and yards per carry. Now one reason I’m optimistic this week is that Jackson has not been dominating through the air this season. He hasn’t thrown for 200 yards in his last four games and barely reached that number in his second game. Also, in his only start against the Steelers last year, he passed for 161 yards, 1 TD, 3 INT and was clearly pressing in a rare instance of the Ravens trailing in the second half of a game. Unfortunately, the Steelers had Mason Rudolph and Duck Hodges at QB that day and JuJu Smith-Schuster lost a fumble in overtime that set up the Baltimore victory.

Now with Roethlisberger at quarterback, the Steelers have a more potent offense to match with Jackson, but this will still have to be a defensive game. In his career, Roethlisberger is 0-7 in Baltimore when the Ravens score 20+ points. Guess what? The Ravens have scored 20+ points in all 28 of Jackson’s regular-season starts. He’s only been held under that number in both playoff games, which looks really bad for him, but there’s nothing he can do about that this weekend. The playoffs and Kansas City have been the problem teams in his career, but we’ll see if the Steelers can force him into a bad game for the second time in two tries.

It doesn’t seem likely that the Steelers can dink and dunk their way to a productive offensive day against this aggressive Baltimore defense. I think Roethlisberger has to hold the ball longer, maybe take some sacks, but also fire some shots down the field to Chase Claypool and James Washington to get some big plays that lead to points. It’s what the Chiefs have mastered with Mahomes against this defense. If it’s a minimal running day combined with the dink and dunk, look for Baltimore to hold the Steelers to a season-low in scoring. But if Roethlisberger does air it out more, he of course has to avoid the turnovers he had last week.

This should be a good one, but I’m just going to lean towards the rested Baltimore team that has played very well this year outside of that Kansas City game. It would be a huge win for the Steelers as the schedule really favors a 10-0 start before the teams meet again on Thanksgiving night. However, I think the Steelers will be looking for the season split that night as they’ll need a game to adjust to this team.

Final: Ravens 26, Steelers 20

NFL Week 8 Predictions

Here are the rest of my picks this week after another L on TNF. The Falcons just always do the opposite of what I want them to do.

We have our biggest spread of the week with the Jets as a 20-point underdog against the Chiefs. My Twitter is so far in favor of the Chiefs covering, but I wavered on this one.

You have to account for the obligatory Chiefs fumble and a lot of garbage time. While I could see the Chiefs winning 34-13, I don’t think they’ll have a monster blowout in back-to-back weeks after taking care of the Broncos 43-16 last week. I think the Chiefs will look for a huge ground game with Le’Veon Bell making his second appearance with the team in a revenge game for him on Adam Gase. When the Chiefs are ball-control efficient, that just depresses the score more and gives the Jets a chance to hang around in a 26-7 type of game. Honestly, I’d sooner bet on the over for Bell’s rushing yards than anything involving the point spread in this game. Chiefs by 14+ sounds good though.

NFL teams that are 20-point underdogs are 10-3 ATS and 0-13 SU since 1980.

Vote to Dump Trump

Finally, I just wanted to say that I screwed up four years ago when I did not vote for president. I was not a fan of Hillary Clinton, but I knew she was the superior choice to Donald Trump. They were not equally bad. I didn’t vote because I didn’t actually think this country would elect someone like that, and now we’re paying the price in the Supreme Court and who knows where else going forward. Clinton won my county, but lost my state (PA) in 2016 and we can’t let that happen again.

So this time I made sure to send in my mail-in ballot early and made the only logical choice I could: Joe Biden/Kamala Harris. I would have preferred Bernie Sanders over Biden, but I know this is the only vote I can make that will accomplish the goal of getting rid of Trump and his awful administration.

I know I’m probably preaching to the choir since I’ve spent much of this year cleansing my followers of MAGA/Trump supporters, but I hope you voted to remove Trump too. The next week, or weeks to come, could be a dangerous time for our country. I’m very concerned that on Tuesday night Trump is just going to declare victory since facts mean nothing anymore, and that any votes that come in after midnight are “fraudulent” and that there are many “irregularities” with the mail-in ballots, which we know will be largely Biden/Democratic voters. I’m worried they will try to steal this election, which is why the bigger the blowout, the harder it will be for them to pull this off.

So please vote this week if you haven’t already. And if you’re going to vote for Trump, put down the Kool-Aid first and think this through.