Tag: 49ers

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 15

~ Scott ~ 6 Comments

Just another strange week in the NFL in the 2023 season. It started with the end of the Brandon Staley era in Los Angeles after the Raiders scored 63 points. One of the best halves of the year was played between Nick Mullens and Jake Browning in Cincinnati. There were multiple eventful Hail Mary attempts in Cleveland. The game of the week was a 21-point blowout.

All that just to tell us the 49ers are the best team in the league, and we’ll see if the Ravens have anything to say about that next week. But that’s next week.

This week is still going with MNF to come, but we have only had 4 games with a comeback opportunity. That would tie the lowest mark in the 13 seasons I’ve been doing this weekly, and it would be the lowest in a week where all 32 teams played. We had four teams win a game after trailing by double digits, which is a high number, but just not much drama late in games.

I would be shocked if Monday night did not get this week up to 5 opportunities given it’s Pete Carroll’s Seahawks on a Monday night, the 2023 Eagles are going to be there, and maybe a Flu Game for Jalen Hurts (questionable with illness).

I’m not going to cover the Saturday tripleheader below, because I think it was pretty self-explanatory. The games got progressively more one-sided as the day went on with Detroit blowing the doors off the Broncos, making them look like the team that started 1-5 and gave up 70 points in Miami. See what happens when Detroit protects the ball and the Broncos aren’t feasting on turnovers?

The Steelers blew a 13-point lead (5th time under Mike Tomlin) and still went on to lose by 13-plus points for only the second time in franchise history. Tomlin’s decision to punt, down 11 points, with one of the best kickers in the league was another low point for him.

The sloppy first half of Vikings-Bengals actually paved the way for one of the best finishes of the season in overtime. Jake Browning now has as many 7-point comeback wins in the fourth quarter as Joe Burrow in his career (2). Nick Mullens threw arguably the funniest interception of the season, but it was also the 6th game this season where both quarterbacks passed for over 300 yards and multiple touchdown passes:

Tee Higgins had one of the best plays of the year, showing the awareness at the goal line and why he would be a No. 1 wideout on most teams. But that whole half was a good example of what can happen when quarterbacks, even backups like Mullens and Browning, give their great receiving talent chances to make plays.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Cowboys at Bills: Familiar Tune for Dallas, New Hit for Buffalo

I need to stop putting high expectations on these big matchups this year. If Mike McCarthy didn’t put his starters back in facing a 31-3 deficit, this might have ended with the Cowboys failing to score a touchdown and neither starting quarterback passing for 100 yards. Yeah, there was rain, but this game was pain.

There are certainly more important things than the MVP award, but I think Dak Prescott just threw it away this year after doing the only thing he couldn’t do: have a total dud performance. Prescott threw for 43 yards in the first half and never looked comfortable, running into a sack on an early third down. The Cowboys have some explaining to do in how the offense can look so unstoppable at home and pedestrian on the road. Only a low-pressure drive, down 31-3, got the offense into the end zone with the game out of reach.

Throw in some early 15-yard roughing penalties on the Cowboys, and this was quickly a 14-0 game when it could have only been 3-0 and maybe the offense could have figured things out. But the Cowboys took themselves out of this one early and never recovered, and that’s been a theme in their big losses under McCarthy. That’s why this team going on the road in the playoffs every round is a big problem.

As for Buffalo, we have gotten so used to the Bills putting the ball in Josh Allen’s hands in big games since 2020 to the point where they don’t even try to run the ball with their running backs. If there is any clear difference in the offense since Ken Dorsey was fired as the offensive coordinator, it would be the impact of running back James Cook.

He had the best game of his career Sunday, making this the least Josh Allen game ever as the quarterback only threw for 94 yards on 15 passes. He even finished with just 8 runs for 24 yards and another touchdown run. But this was the Cook show with 25 carries for 179 yards, a touchdown on the ground, and 42 receiving yards and a great touchdown grab.

Cook did anything he wanted to this defense in the rain, which was a good strategy for sure. But it was still surprising to see Allen throw just 15 passes, or for Dalton Kincaid to have multiple drops at tight end. This was the least the passing game had to do for Buffalo in a game in years.

I’m not sold this is going to be the strategy for Buffalo moving forward, but it did lead to 28 first downs and 31 points against a solid defense. Those early penalties did help extend drives that otherwise end with a field goal attempt and punt, but the Bills moved the ball well and only had 6 possessions with Allen before calling off the dogs in the fourth quarter.

It was just nice to see Buffalo try something different in a big game and make it work. It was disheartening to see Dallas falter in familiar fashion. I flirted in the summer with this being my Super Bowl matchup, but if I had to pick one of these teams to go the distance right now, I’m going with Buffalo, which is still only the No. 9 seed as things currently stand.

But Buffalo will be one of the most “team you don’t want to face in January” teams in years. The Cowboys could lose to Baker Mayfield in the wild card round at this point if this is how they are going to continue playing in big road games.

Ravens at Jaguars: Not a Top Tier Team in Jacksonville

Sunday night could have been a really good game, but Jacksonville’s shortcomings and the way the Ravens control games this year made for a dud of a finish. Once the Ravens scored a touchdown to start the fourth quarter and take a 17-7 lead, the life was sucked out of this one with Jacksonville’s 3-and-out. The Ravens added a field goal, Trevor Lawrence was strip-sacked, the Ravens added another field goal (23-7), and Jacksonville eventually turned it over on downs in the red zone with 3:19 left.

But what a crazy first half. The Jaguars repeatedly moved the ball into scoring territory, but they missed a pair of long field goals, Lawrence flat out fumbled the ball in the open field on a scramble, and he botched the end of the half by not spiking the ball and throwing a pass in bounds inside the 5-yard line to see the clock expire with the Jaguars out of timeouts. Major mistake.

But a game like this does continue to show the flaws in Jacksonville’s roster, especially with Chrisitan Kirk out injured. The Jaguars only scored 9 points against the Chiefs, 3 points against the 49ers, and now 7 points against the Ravens – three Super Bowl contenders that they got to host at home this year and lost to.

Lawrence’s accuracy is too inconsistent, Calvin Ridley (39 yards on 12 targets) hasn’t been the No. 1 stud we thought he could be, and the running game with Travis Etienne just hasn’t been there most of the year.

As for the Ravens, they are just a lot to deal with given Lamar Jackson’s unique skills. He only passed for 171 yards in this game, but he made some key extended plays, and he ran for 97 yards on the way to the team rushing for 251 yards.

The Jaguars are in real danger of losing the AFC South title now that the Colts and Texans are all 8-6. But it feels like this team is going to be limited in playoff success this year regardless of where it finishes in the regular season.

With Baltimore, we’ll see the ultimate test when they travel to San Francisco next Monday night.

Chiefs at Patriots: They Still Haven’t Cut Toney?

As far as Kansas City games go in 2023, this 27-17 win in New England was tame. But they may have been in trouble if they were playing a better team than the Patriots, who were 2-of-12 on third down.

The Chiefs lost another turnover battle (2-1) thanks to a couple of interceptions thrown by Patrick Mahomes on passes that went to his receivers first before they were taken away. The egregious one was yet another play by Kadarius Toney that looked just like his Week 1 drop-to-pick against the Lions. At least this one didn’t get returned for a touchdown, but it did set up the Patriots on a short field for their last touchdown drive to make the game 27-17. Toney just has to go. It is ridiculous to keep putting him on the field when his 4 targets resulted in 5 yards and that turnover.

Travis Kelce was held to 28 yards, but this was a big game for CEH, who had to carry the load with Isiah Pacheco out again. His 20-yard run was the only rushing play of note for the Chiefs, but CEH had a strong receiving game with 64 yards and a very nice touchdown grab.

We’ll see how the Chiefs fare at home against the Raiders next week after Vegas scored 63 points on the Chargers largely by feasting on turnovers. The Chiefs were dying to cough up the obligatory fumble in this game, so they better start protecting that ball better because you’re not going to play the likes of Bailey Zappe and Aidan O’Connell in the playoffs.

Texans at Titans: Luv Ya Blue (No Tie)

It sure did not look like the Texans showed up to play after allowing a big opening touchdown drive by rookie Will Levis, and then Case Keenum threw a pick-six on a play that looked like a new quarterback out of sync with his players. The Texans trailed 13-0 at that point while the Oilers Titans were thriving in their Houston throwback uniforms, which apparently ticked off some of the natives in Texas this week.

But Keenum settled down and the Texans basically beat the Titans at their own game. Devin Singletary rushed for 121 yards while Derrick Henry, the Houston Killer, was held to 9 yards on 16 carries. Levis was pummeled and sacked 7 times.

Keenum got away with one of the dumbest, most dangerous passes of the season that Dalton Schultz somehow turned into a catch, and the Texans forced the game with a touchdown to Noah Brown, who stepped up with Nico Collins out.

After 7 straight scoreless drives and the game getting late into overtime, it really looked like a tie was inevitable, something this 2023 season has avoided so far. When Singletary’s 34-yard touchdown run was wiped away for holding, it really felt like we were going to get a god damn tie.

But much love to returning kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn for making a 54-yard field goal to give the Texans a 19-16 win and avoid that tie. We now have a 3-way tie at 8-6 in the AFC South. That’s the only kind of tie I want to see in the NFL.

49ers at Cardinals: Is San Francisco Inevitable?

It was only Arizona, but San Francisco’s 45-29 win to complete the sweep and clinch the NFC West was the team’s 6th-straight win by at least 12 points, something that’s only been done 23 times now.

In the salary cap era, only the 1996 Packers, 1999 Rams (twice), 2005 Colts, 2007 Patriots, and 2009 Saints have had a streak this long before these 49ers. Those are historic teams with three of them winning the Super Bowl.

Brock Purdy threw 4 more touchdown passes and has taken a considerable lead over Dak Prescott in QBR while adding to his other league-leading efficiency stats. He is the MVP favorite now with roughly -150 odds after Dak Prescott’s dud in Buffalo. Deebo Samuel scored another pair of touchdowns and Christian McCaffrey put in 3 more. Both were left completely wide open on one of their touchdowns, which is crazy to think could happen.

Even in a game where Arizona piled up 234 rushing yards, it never really felt like the Cardinals had much of a chance. In fact, the Cardinals are the first home team in NFL history to score at least 29 points and rush for at least 200 yards and lose by more than 14 points.

The 49ers have really been the NFL’s best team since Purdy took over at quarterback, and injuries have been the main thing to hold them back in their losses in that time. We’ll see how they look next Monday night at home against the top-seeded Ravens. But if it’s anything like the streak the 49ers have been on, the Super Bowl odds are about to get even better for this juggernaut.

In a league lacking in consistency, the inevitably of the 49ers is impressive.

Bears at Browns: Hail Flacco

This felt like one of those fluky Chicago games from one of their playoff seasons where they get a tipped ball for a pick-6 after an earlier pick set them up for a 1-yard touchdown drive.

Basically, this game was a good example of why the Cleveland defense does not have a better ranking in points allowed, because the Chicago offense barely contributed more than 3 points to this score. Joe Flacco got a little loose with the ball in his third start for the team and was intercepted 3 times.

But against a tough run defense like Chicago that held the Browns to 17 carries for 30 yards, you need a quarterback to hang in there and pass on them. Flacco can still do that as he put the ball up 44 more times in this one for 374 yards.

Flacco passed for 212 yards in the fourth quarter alone as the Browns have a formidable offense with Amari Cooper and tight end David Njoku. But the Bears are also one of the great fourth-quarter collapse teams in the league, and you could feel that 17-7 lead wasn’t going to hold up for Matt Eberflus. Hell, the first play of the quarter was Justin Fields taking a sack on a 4th-and-1.

Flacco eventually led the team back with a 51-yard touchdown threaded in there to Cooper, who did the rest after the catch. The defense forced a quick 3-and-out, and Flacco found Njoku for gains of 31 and 34 yards to set up a go-ahead field goal with 32 seconds left.

That is barely enough time for Chicago to get into range, but kicking was probably going to be difficult on this day. Eventually, they settled for the Hail Mary finish after already getting a crack at it to end the first half with Fields’ pass intercepted in the end zone.

This one was quite the adventure with Darnell Mooney having a real shot at it on the ground, but the ball left his hands, and he kicked it to a defender for another interception in one of the wildest finishes we’ve seen this year.

This is the kind of ending we are used to seeing go against Cleveland, but not this year. At 9-5, the Browns have clinched a second winning season under Kevin Stefanski, and they are in position for the No. 5 seed. That might be Coach of the Year material for the 2020 winner of the award.

Buccaneers at Packers: Refreshing to See Some Great QB Play in Tampa…

There was a time when a Florida team winning at Lambeau Field in December would have been a huge headline, but it was only 42 degrees, and the Packers haven’t had the best week after losing to Tommy DeVito and the Giants on Monday night.

This was also the third year in a row that Baker Mayfield played in Lambeau in December, and with his third different team, he was not walking away a loser again. In fact, he had arguably the best game of his career with 381 yards, 4 touchdowns, and a perfect 158.3 passer rating. He did take 5 sacks and lose a fumble as the pass rush was on him early, but the passes Baker got off, he was slicing and dicing the Packers down the seams.

Every time the Packers pulled within a score in the second half, Baker had an answer. His 52-yard touchdown pass to ice it to David Moore almost ended in disaster with the receiver foolishly releasing the ball close to the goal line. But the touchdown stood and Green Bay trailed 34-20.

It was the sixth time this season the Buccaneers (7-7) scored at least 20 offensive points on the road. They didn’t do it even once in 2022.

Falcons at Panthers: We Might Need to Get Arthur Smith Up Out of There

I kind of love this stat: Carolina is 2-12 but has yet to run a single play with a fourth-quarter lead this season. Both wins have come on field goals on the final snap of the game. They did it to Houston in Week 8 and now again to the Falcons for the second year in the rain in a 9-7 barnburner.

I knew this game was trouble when the weather reports came out, so I largely avoided any bets on it. You just can’t trust the Falcons, but they probably should have won this one.

Atlanta, leading 7-3, was running a give-up play to Bijan Robinson on a 3rd-and-10, and he ended up fumbling, giving the Panthers the ball at the Atlanta 21 as the game was moving to the fourth quarter. The Panthers stalled but were right to kick the field goal to make it 7-6. You just can’t trust the Bryce Young-led offense to convert a 4th-and-4 from the 7, keeping it a 7-6 game would likely keep Atlanta in conservative mode instead of playing from behind, and you can just win on a field goal. Oh yeah, it’s also the Falcons, the NFC’s version of the Chargers.

The defense wasn’t holding up its end of the bargain with Atlanta driving into the red zone, but that’s when Desmond Ridder threw a pass that his season, if not his time in Atlanta, may be remembered best for:

https://twitter.com/tankathon/status/1736487658442916294/video/1

What the hell was that? Point shaving? Anything even remotely conservative should lead to a field goal and 10-6 lead with under half a quarter left, making the Panthers think touchdown or bust. Just an atrocious decision that could cost this team the playoffs.

Young still had to drive his offense from the 5 in the rain, but he only needed to set up a short field goal for a win. He got the job done with one of his only good drives all season, moving the ball 90 yards on 17 plays, mostly through his arm. The Falcons burned all their timeouts and still couldn’t stop Chuba Hubbard on a 3rd-and-3 run, allowing for the 23-yard field goal by Eddie Pineiro to be the final snap of regulation.

He made the kick and for the second time this season, the Panthers earned a win on the last play. It was the first time since October 21, 2018 that the Panthers won a game after trailing by more than 1 point in the fourth quarter.

Of course, it had to be at the expense of the Falcons.

Giants at Saints: [Insert Somehow Still Acceptable Derogatory Reference About Italians]

I think Tommy DeVito needs about 2 more wins before his agent can get Adrien Brody to play him in a movie. But it’s not going to happen like this. The Giants scored two field goals in New Orleans, including one from 56 yards away that saw the kicker get injured in the process. DeVito also had to leave the game temporarily for a concussion check, but he returned to end up in more pain as he took 7 sacks.

I said it was a miracle that the Packers did not sack him once on Monday night, because his sack rate is abysmal and should be over 20% again. Saquon Barkley also had his worst game in a while with 14 yards on 9 carries as the Saints just dominated up front. Meanwhile, Derek Carr was kept clean and finished 23-of-28 for 218 yards and 3 touchdowns, somehow playing his best game without the services of Chris Olave.

In all, a pretty bland 24-6 win. No spicy meatballs for the Paisan.

Commanders at Rams: Is There a Coaching Staff in Washington?

We know Jack Del Rio’s dusty ass was fired during the season, but is there even a coaching staff left in Washington? People really want Eric Bieniemy to be a head coach, and sure, it’s tough to not want a coordinator who sees his offense go into halftime scoreless.

But then I had to love how Cooper Kupp was left wide open on a 62-yard touchdown to start the second half. Gotta love when a defensive back is peeking 20+ yards into the backfield as if keeping an eye on Matthew Stafford from that distance while Kupp blows past you is going to do anything.

Then the Commanders, down 28-7, seemed to pull the plug a little early on Sam Howell with 9:05 left, but maybe it was because of the pick he threw on his last play. But Jacoby Brissett entered the game and this almost turned into some 2005 Mark Brunell to Santana Moss kind of batshit craziness. Terry McLaurin caught a 29-yard touchdown, then it looked like he had a score from 49 yards out with 4:47 left, but he was down at the 1.

Remember when Andy Reid was known for horrible clock management? Bieniemy must have made him proud as it took 3 minutes and 1 second over 9 snaps for the Commanders to finally score the touchdown to make it a one-possession game:

I can’t believe that sequence was real life. This could have very well been a game with a realistic 21-point comeback there if they got that score much quicker. Then Ron Rivera must not have watched the Titans on Monday night, because he botched not going for 2 here. The extra point was blocked, fittingly, and it was still 28-20 anyway with 1:46 left.

The Commanders did have all of their timeouts, but maybe they would have gotten the ball back if they didn’t take an eternity to score from the 1. This is another team that needs major housecleaning in the offseason.

Jets at Dolphins: Just End the Season

Seriously, we’ve seen enough of the 2023 Jets. They have been eliminated from the playoffs after losing 30-0 to a Miami team that didn’t have Tyreek Hill. The Jets had 80 net passing yards on 43 pass plays due to sacks. Maybe that will end this silly talk of Aaron Rodgers returning from a torn Achilles, because why would anyone even want to play behind this line? They still can’t run block either, finishing with 12 carries for 23 yards.

The Jets join the 2018 Redskins (lost 24-0 vs. Eagles) and 1999 Browns (lost 43-0 vs. Steelers) as the only teams since 1990 to not pass for more than 80 net yards and not rush for more than 25 yards in the same game.

Next week: Seven island games in one week? The NFL really wants to take over our Christmas with TNF, a Saturday doubleheader, a normal Sunday lineup, and a Monday tripleheader. Not many games are appealing either, but TNF is actually legit with seeing how Derek Carr will fare in a pseudo playoff game against the Rams. There’s also the crazy possibility of Mike Tomlin’s final home game if things go off the rails here the rest of the way. Maybe Dallas will fare better in Miami’s weather, but yikes, talk about two teams who don’t beat the good teams this year, especially on the road. The highlight of the week is clearly the finale on MNF with Ravens-49ers, a possible battle of No. 1 seeds, a possible Super Bowl preview for Christmas.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 14

~ Scott ~ 7 Comments

Week 14 in the NFL was a lot to take in. Or a little if you were caught watching either of the two games that were scoreless at halftime. Seriously, we go 4 years without a scoreless first half and get two in one afternoon? That second one almost went the distance to 0-0 in regulation but thank God for Nick Mullens (said no one ever).

The Cowboys blew out the Eagles, who lost back-to-back games against their main NFC contenders by 20 points. Sounds pretty 2022 Vikings to me.

The Bills won another game in Kansas City after an egregious offside penalty on the offense wiped out one of the coolest, game-winning type of plays you’ll ever see. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a dumb penalty, Kansas City.

Did offense feel worse than usual this weekend? We still have a MNF doubleheader that does not look good, but there has yet to be a quarterback to post a 75.0 QBR this week. Most weeks have multiple players in the 80s and 90s. The highest was Matthew Stafford (73.4) in a loss in Baltimore. This is so unusual that it hasn’t happened in any week of the regular season since 2006, the first season we have QBR data for. Maybe Tua or Jordan Love puts an end to that tonight, but Monday night shenanigans, the MetLife playing surface, eh, we’ll see.

There were 7 games with a comeback opportunity this week, though for the second time this season, no team came back to win from 10 points down. The Steelers and Chiefs almost did that, but again, we’re seeing arguably the darkest patches of the Mike Tomlin and Andy Reid eras in Pittsburgh and Kansas City. Losing back-to-back home games to 2-10 teams is brutal (and historic), and the Chiefs are on a 2-4 slide and just lost wire-to-wire in back-to-back games for the first time with Mahomes at quarterback.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Bills at Chiefs: Toney, Toney, You Gotta Go

Another week, another Kansas City loss where the Chiefs gave up two early touchdowns, lost the turnover battle, a receiver royally screwed up a lead-changing play, and Patrick Mahomes’ last gasp on 4th-and-long fell incomplete.

Then there’s the latest officiating controversy.

But I don’t think it was that controversial. The irony of it was Kadarius Toney scored the touchdown and it would have been his most memorable play had the schmuck not lined up offsides.

Offensive offsides, who even does that? But before that ending, it was another game where the Chiefs played disappointing, mistake-filled football. They let the Bills dominate early with passes to their running back (James Cook) while Mahomes seemingly can’t throw a screen to CEH without disaster happening like an opening-drive interception in Buffalo territory.

Rashee Rice provided the obligatory fumble late in the third quarter when the Chiefs were driving in a 17-14 game. They did tie the game in the fourth quarter, but a quick 3-and-out with a chance to take the lead wasn’t good, then Josh Allen continued to show why he’s been so successful in Arrowhead with a go-ahead drive for a field goal.

The only problem with that was a total mismanagement of the clock, and you would think Buffalo more than any team would be observant of the clock against the Chiefs. They are 13 seconds away from going 4-0 in this building since 2021. The Bills had a chance to set up the field goal as the final play, but Allen threw 3 low-percentage balls to receivers that all fell incomplete and stopped the clock with the Chiefs keeping 2 timeouts. It made no sense. Even the last throw before the 2-minute warning was barely caught for a 1 yard to run clock.

So, Mahomes had a full 1:54 in a 20-17 game, which is an eternity for him to get a go-ahead touchdown, let alone a field goal. But four plays into a good looking drive, it happened. Mahomes found Travis Kelce over the middle and he somehow had the stones to lateral the ball across the field to Toney, who went the final 24 yards for what should have been a huge go-ahead touchdown and possibly the game-winning score to end Buffalo’s season.

It will go down as an all-time great play that never counted. It was aesthetically pleasing, in a big moment, risky as hell, and a huge reward. But it’s all for naught cause the biggest clown on the roster was lined up offsides.

Is that going to be called 100% of the time on the offense? No, I don’t think so. Is it ever called on the offense? Apparently 11 times this year, so less than once a week. I understand the argument that it was inconsequential to the play, but I also think the strong reaction from the Chiefs, namely Mahomes and Andy Reid, is way overblown. Just don’t line up offsides and it’s not a penalty. How hard is that? Does a veteran really need a warning for this late in the fourth quarter? I could see if he was repeatedly doing it in the game, then the officials should inform him of that. But there’s just no excuse to line up in the wrong spot on a play where the clock wasn’t even running.

Like the other Kansas City drives this year, they fell apart after the big play was not made. Think of the Toney drop against Detroit that could have easily set up a game-winning field goal, the MVS dropped touchdown against the Eagles, the no-call for DPI on MVS against the Packers last week, and now this offsides wiping out a touchdown.

It’s like the Chiefs get so frustrated from these plays that they forget to finish the drive. Namely, the offensive line forgets as the protection turning to dog shit has a lot to do with these drives fizzing out a couple plays later. Mahomes had to throw away passes under pressure, and just like that, it was 4th-and-15. Here we go again.

Mahomes’ arm was hit just as he threw the ball and it came out funny with no chance of ever being caught. Another game over after Mahomes threw incomplete on a 4th-and-10+. That’s happened in all 5 losses this year. It happened in exactly one Kansas City game in 2018-22 and that was Super Bowl 55 with a lopsided score.

The Chiefs are 8-5 and barely hanging onto the No. 3 seed right now. It is looking likely that they will have to play a road playoff game this year. I guess it is possible for the Chiefs to win out (12-5), then hope Miami loses multiple games to Cowboys/Ravens/Bills to finish with a No. 2 seed or better. Then they’d have to hope No. 1 (Baltimore) chokes in the divisional round, which isn’t impossible of course. But it’s not looking good. At this point, the Chiefs might get shut down by New England and lose to Bailey Zappe next week. Jake Browning with the Bengals is a possibility too.

Mahomes’ strong reaction to the ending was weird to me. It almost felt like he was letting out years of frustration with calls like this, maybe even going back to the Dee Ford offsides in the 2018 AFC Championship Game loss, another rare offsides call that had nothing to do with the play at hand. Hard to think of any team in between 2018-23 with bigger offsides penalties than the Chiefs with these two. Then with the way last week’s game ended in Green Bay, it’s just been a frustrating season for Kansas City and I think he chose to take it out on the refs instead of strangling Toney, who really needs to be cut. He provides no value and has almost single-handedly cost them games against the Lions and Bills this year.

But not knocking out the Bills (7-6) when you had a chance could prove fatal. Imagine if this propels Buffalo to make the playoffs and this ends up being a 7/2 or 6/3 wild card matchup. That would not be good for the Chiefs, who struggle with Buffalo as much as any opponent.

But we’ll see how things go from here and if Buffalo can build from this with a tough remaining schedule. The Chiefs only have 4 games left to improve, but it feels like both sides of the ball are declining right now.

Trading away Tyreek Hill and trading for Kadarius Toney is epic team mismanagement. That’s almost as bad as getting Trent Richardson for Andrew Luck in Indy when he literally needed any other good player besides a running back.

This is the first time since 2017 where the Chiefs failed to have a lead in back-to-back games. Those were the ugly losses to the Giants (12-9 in overtime) and Buffalo (16-10). Do you know what that slide led to? Andy Reid gave up play-calling duties to offensive coordinator Matt Nagy, who is the OC now in 2023.

Might need a new plan here, because this isn’t working. I made this prediction before Week 7 when the Chiefs were 5-1, and it was tongue-in-cheek at the time. But my goodness, this is where the Chiefs are seemingly every week now. A game-winning play is botched, the offensive line falls apart, and there’s Mahomes throwing a miracle ball on 4th-and-long to end the game.

This is who Kansas City is in 2023 and I don’t see it changing this time. And that is why the frustration is boiling over on the field now.

Eagles at Cowboys: Another NFC Stomping

The big NFC round robin is complete now, and the 49ers come out looking like the best team after stomping the Cowboys (42-10) and Eagles (42-19) this year. The Cowboys and Eagles split their matchups with Philadelphia winning 28-23 at home and then Dallas returning the favor with this 20-point win.

So, only 1-of-4 games ended up being a competitive 60-minute game. But this is what I was saying about the Eagles the last few weeks. They rely on winning close games this year while the 49ers and Eagles blow teams out. They are your classic “win big, lose close” teams, and they just blew the Eagles out by 20 points in back-to-back weeks.

The crazy thing with this game is that the Eagles never even scored a touchdown on offense. Their only touchdown was Jalen Carter returning a fumble of Dak Prescott 42 yards for a score in the third quarter, the last time this looked like it might be a game.

Prescott said as much after the game that he didn’t have his best night, and he certainly didn’t. The Cowboys left plenty of points on the field, and we did at least see how awesome their new kicker is as Brandon Aubrey improved to 30-for-30 on the season at field goals with makes from 60, 59, 50, and 45 yards, making it look easy in the process. Yes, this has “misses first time all year in a crucial playoff moment” written all over it, but he was money in this game, becoming the first kicker to make from 59 and 60 in the same game.

But Prescott did not hurt his MVP case. In fact, he’s the outright leader now after he threw for 271 yards and 2 touchdowns, notching a 12th-striaght home game with at least 27 points scored (third-longest streak in NFL history).

Dallas was in control and moving the ball well from the opening drive. The Eagles were too sloppy with the ball. Jalen Hurts, who didn’t even pass for 200 yards again, lost a fumble on his team’s opening drive. A.J. Brown had a nice game, but he also fumbled on the team’s opening drive of the second half at midfield, down 24-6.

Down 27-13 late in the third quarter, Hurts threw for 3 yards on 3rd-and-11, then a 1-yard completion to DeVonta Smith on 4th-and-8. Those are failed completions. Finally, any chance of an improbable 17-point comeback was snuffed out when Smith fumbled a completion in the red zone with 6:38 left. Game over. The Eagles’ top 3 skill players all lost fumbles in this one.

But as I said last week, the 49ers and Cowboys could have beat the Eagles by 50 points each in these games, and there’s still a good chance Philadelphia gets the No. 1 seed, the bye week, and gets to host the rematch with these teams, who are now all 10-3. The Eagles don’t play any good teams the rest of the way. The Cowboys have to go to Buffalo and Miami the next two weeks, tough road games against contenders. The 49ers have to host the Ravens on Christmas, a tough game.

But we can save talk about future games for down the road. It’s just an eyesore on Dallas’ resume to lose that game to Arizona as a 13-point favorite, because that could be the one that costs them a No. 1 seed. Strong performance here by the Cowboys, and maybe the back-to-back beatings puts some doubt in the Philadelphia locker room.

But chances are the Cowboys (and 49ers) will have to do it again to Philly in January.

Rams at Ravens: Unexpected Hero in Unexpected Overtime Classic

Lamar Jackson is now 19-1 against the NFC in his career, but this may have been the toughest win to earn yet. I really did not see this coming as the Rams were a 7.5-point road underdog, and we’ve seen the Ravens destroy some NFC teams at home this year like the Lions (38-6) and Seahawks (37-3). My thought on Lamar against the NFC is that those teams just aren’t familiar with playing him yet and it takes some experience as he is such a unique talent.

But the Rams scored on 4-of-5 drives to start the game, had no turnovers on the road, and Matthew Stafford showed up for this one. Both quarterbacks had 3 touchdown passes and Stafford was only 6 yards away from matching Lamar with a 300-yard passing game. Jackson also rushed for 70 yards.

It was a tight, enjoyable back-and-forth game with plenty of points – exactly the kind of experience we almost never get in 2023. The Rams took a lead on a safety at one point when a bad snap was kicked out of bounds by Jackson to avoid a touchdown going on the board. But the defense made a stop, and Jackson put Justin Tucker in range for a 33-yard field goal to regain the lead with 11:17 to play in a 23-22 game.

A couple drives later, Stafford threw a touchdown, but the Rams failed on the 2-point conversion, leading 28-23 with 4:41 left. Not many comeback drives in situations like this in Lamar’s career, but he pulled this one off just when it looked like things were falling apart at the end with a 3rd-and-17. Zay Flowers was left open for a 21-yard touchdown with 1:16 left, and the Ravens made the crucial 2-point conversion this time to take a 31-28 lead.

Stafford has plenty of experience doing this, and a big play to Cooper Kupp moved the ball to the Baltimore 22. But the Rams were not able to get any more than 4 yards from there, so they settled for a game-tying field goal and overtime.

The Ravens went 3-and-out in overtime, which we don’t penalize enough for the team that goes first on offense, because now all the Rams had to do was get a field goal to win. But the Rams also went 3-and-out, and Sean McVay let an inexcusable delay of game penalty happen on the drive to make it 3rd-and-9. You get timeouts in overtime; you should use them there to avoid that mess.

The Rams punted, and while you usually don’t expect much on these plays anymore, the Ravens made them pay with Tylan Wallace returning the punt 76 yards for a touchdown. It almost had a Steve Young vs. Vikings quality to it with Wallace stumbling after 3 broken tackles, but he housed it for only the 4th game-winning punt return touchdown in overtime history:

And that is the shocking way the Ravens moved to 10-3 and the Rams dropped to 6-7. A much better game than you could have expected from this one. This is the second non-offensive game-winning score of the year. The first was T.J. Watt’s fumble return touchdown from Deshaun Watson in Week 2 in Browns-Steelers.

Vikings at Raiders: Almost 0-0

I thought 6-0 last week in New England in decent weather was bad, but 3-0 indoors in Vegas?

At some point, I stopped being mad at the lack of scoring and was rooting for history to be made with a scoreless overtime tie, which has never happened in NFL history. It may have happened without a quarterback change by the Vikings, which led to the game-winning drive as Nick Mullens finally strung together some completions after Joshua Dobbs could not.

We were really close on this one:

  • The last scoreless tie in the NFL was in 1943 between the Giants and Lions before overtime existed.
  • Vikings-Raiders is only the 11th game since 1940 with no more than 3 combined points.
  • It is the NFL’s first 3-0 game since the 2007 Steelers beat Miami in the game where the punt stuck in the ground. Pittsburgh’s score came with 17 seconds left, so this game was the longest an NFL game had gone scoreless since this one in 2007.
  • Almost 30 years to the date, the Jets and Redskins played a 3-0 game on 12/11/1993 with the Jets scoring in the first quarter. That makes Vikings-Raiders and Dolphins-Steelers the only games with fewer than 6 combined points in the salary cap era.

So, we didn’t get the record, but we can say this is the 2nd-longest game to last scoreless since 1978.

Given the shitshow the Vikings put on against the Bears their last timeout, Kevin O’Connell has to explain why things are broken right now, and Dobbs may be out of the starting lineup next week now that a division title is within reach.

Justin Jefferson returned from his hamstring injury in this game, but he unfortunately didn’t last long after taking a nasty shot to the back. But the Vikings still have weapons. Certainly enough to do better than 9 punts on 11 possessions. The game only had 1 missed field goal (by Minnesota) and the Raiders turned it over 3 times in the second half, including a big fumble in the red zone by Hunter Renfrow, and Aidan O’Connell was immediately intercepted after Greg Joseph’s 36-yard field goal provided the only points at the 2-minute warning.

I’m not sure Mullens is the answer going forward, but it doesn’t look like Dobbs is. I’m also not sure you can hire an interim coach who loses a home game indoors 3-0 like Antonio Pierce just did.

And oh joy, both teams will be in island games this week with the Raiders playing the Chargers on Thursday night and the Vikings on Saturday against the Bengals.

Seahawks at 49ers: Drew Locked Up Some Millions

Not much was expected from this game with Drew Lock starting for an injured Geno Smith. The spread moved above 14 points, but I did like Seattle to cover that as divisional rematches can be weird.

This one was a little weird as Lock played a competent game and the Seahawks were within striking distance. But the 49ers averaged 9.9 yards per play on their way to 527 yards as the studs were not being stopped on this day. Christian McCaffrey kicked it off with a 72-yard run on the first snap, though he was taken out for a breather and never scored a touchdown despite having odds in the -350 range to do so this week. Ouch.

Deebo Samuel had another huge game with 149 yards and a touchdown. Brandon Aiyuk (126 yards) was also over 100 yards, and George Kittle caught a 44-yard touchdown, because of course he did. Where was that on Thanksgiving when I needed 40 yards from him to win $2,500?

But anyways, it was the Kittle touchdown two snaps into the final quarter that shifted everything as Seattle was only down 21-16 before that score. Lock was then intercepted twice, and the 49ers ran out the clock for another win that all but wraps up this NFC West race.

But Lock probably made himself a few million in the process as a competent start against what looks like the best team in the league could keep him around for years to come in a league starved for quarterbacks.

Yet it is Mr. Irrelevant who continues to break football minds as he had another big game with 368 yards on just 27 attempts. It wasn’t the big YAC plays this week like last week in Philadelphia too as Purdy dropped some balls right in the basket in big moments. He’s legitimately very good in running this offense, and while a lot of quarterbacks may be in his shoes, you look around at the 0-0 scores on Sunday and the other offenses that struggled to find the end zone at all like the Eagles, and you have to say Purdy is a remarkable story.

Lions at Bears: No 12-Point Comeback This Time

I think you have to be worried if you’re a Detroit fan that this thing is about to spiral out of control. No, they still haven’t lost back-to-back games yet this year, but losing out and losing the division title to Minnesota is now a real possibility.

The Lions needed the miracle comeback of the season to erase a 12-point deficit against the Bears at home just a few weeks ago. This performance was even worse in Chicago as the Bears did what they did on offense again, but the Lions had no strong finish this time. In fact, things only got worse with the Lions going scoreless on their 7 possessions in the second half, including a fumble, two failed 4th downs, and an interception on their last 4 drives.

It was an aborted snap by Detroit late in the third quarter that led to a short field for the Bears, who turned it into a touchdown and 25-13 lead. Fittingly, it was another 12-point comeback opportunity, but Jared Goff just didn’t have it in the elements this day. The running game was solid with David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs both going over 60 yards, but when it came time for a 4th-and-1 conversion, Gibbs was stuffed in the backfield for a 4-yard loss.

The Lions were taking their time on the ensuing drive in a 28-13 game, and Goff eventually threw incomplete on 4th-and-17 with 5:16 left. More pressure on him on the next drive led to an interception on 4th-and-24 with 2:31 left to seal it.

Detroit played much better in the first matchup when turnovers put them in a hole. This time, the Bears more or less controlled play from the opening kickoff, something we have rarely ever seen in the Matt Eberflus era.

The Lions have now allowed at least 26 points in all 5 games since the bye week. Without a home win against Denver next week, this is going to get very dicey with games against the Vikings and a trip to Dallas left.

Colts at Bengals: Nice System in Cincinnati…

I hope Jake Browning’s thumb is good because this is getting really interesting in Cincinnati. For the second start in a row, Browning completed at least 75% of his passes with at least 275 yards in a win against another playoff contender in the AFC.

He didn’t take any sacks against the Colts, and his only real mistake was a pick-six that was a receiver error as he handed the ball to the defender on a silver platter. That also proved to be Indy’s final score of the game as the offense only mustered one touchdown drive in a 34-14 loss. It was only the second time all year the Colts failed to score 20 points in a game under Shane Steichen.

They picked a bad time for it with the Bengals in that wild card mix. But Browning clearly won this battle of backups, and Gardner Minshew may have even stayed in the game despite a possible concussion early in the game. The Colts failed to score on their final 5 possessions.

The Colts (7-6) might be in real trouble when you consider how games with the Steelers, their next opponent, usually go. Not only do you have to contend with Minshew’s mistakes, but the running game has essentially gone nowhere in 4-of-5 games.

The Bengals (7-6) are not finished as they have stumbled onto something to work with at the quarterback position in Browning.

Jaguars at Browns: Lawrence Returns But So Has Joe Flacco

Trevor Lawrence has still never missed a start due to injury in his NFL career, but sometimes you wonder if it’s not for the best if a player takes a week to rest. Lawrence barely averaged 5.0 yards per attempt as he threw 50 passes, including 3 interceptions, a 31-27 loss in Cleveland that felt like a 5-hour game.

Cleveland led wire-to-wire with Joe Flacco stepping up to throw for 311 yards and 3 touchdowns, simultaneously making you want to praise Kevin Stefanski for finding quality play in another quarterback not named Deshaun Watson while also questioning just how good that Jake Browning performance was on Monday night if the Jags are playing defense like this. Seriously, David Njoku was left wide open several times for big plays in this one.

But the Jaguars continued to struggle running the ball effectively, and the turnovers were hard to overcome. The game went on so long in part because Cleveland also turned it over 3 times. Each team had 16 possessions (kneeldowns excluded).

The big turning point was the second play of the 4th quarter when Lawrence was picked on a deep ball on 3rd-and-1 in a 21-14 game. I guess the Jaguars can’t even trust Travis Etienne to get a yard when they needed it most. Flacco used that short 48-yard field for another touchdown drive. But the Jaguars kept scoring and applying pressure, even coming up short on a 4th-and-3 with 3:30 left. By the time Jacksonville scored with 1:33 left, there was only time for an onside kick in a 31-27 final. They didn’t recover and the game was over.

Fortunately for the Jaguars (8-5), the Colts and Texans lost too. But the Browns are gaining confidence at 8-5 and just may have a quarterback answer in Flacco if you can believe it in 2023.

Buccaneers at Falcons: Baker Mayfield Brings NFC South Race to a Standstill

The Bucs were 1-15 when allowing 20 points under Todd Bowles since 2022, but make that 2-15 and give Baker Mayfield just as many wins doing it as Tom Brady had last year. The Buccaneers (6-7) are currently leading the NFC South as the Falcons and Saints are also 6-7 for the league’s worst division around.

But Baker did pull out a little Brady in this one as the Falcons were generally the better team, but Younghoe Koo missed two field goals he usually makes, and the Tampa defense was opportunistic in intercepting a screen pass and getting a safety to lead 19-10.

But the Falcons rallied to take a late 25-22 lead. Mayfield’s accuracy and decision making looked woeful on the ensuing drive as he looked like he was playing for a touchdown with under 30 seconds left instead of calmly taking the easy plays in a 3-point game with enough time left. But he finally got on track with a huge 3rd-and-10 conversion to Chris Godwin for 32 yards, then two plays later, he found Cade Otton for an 11-yard touchdown with 31 seconds left to take a 29-25 lead.

The Falcons did a solid job using their 2 timeouts to get into range for the win at the Tampa Bay 31 with 4 seconds left. But that last throw absolutely had to be in the end zone on the final play, and for some reason, Desmond Ridder threw short, completing a pass to Drake London for 28 yards to the 3-yard line to end the game. Didn’t understand that decision at all as Ridder had time to throw a little deeper to the end zone.

The Falcons and Bucs have split with each team winning on the road this year. Who is the best team out of Saints, Buccaneers, and Falcons? Damn if I know. The winner of the division should just be a sacrificial lamb to the NFC East runner-up.

Broncos at Chargers: Did We Just Lose Justin Herbert?

That would be something if this turned out to be the final game of the Brandon Staley-Justin Herbert era for the Chargers. Herbert left with a fractured index finger on his throwing hand, which is obviously not good.

It was already shaping up to be a rough start for Herbert, who had a pick at the line that led to a 3-yard touchdown run by Javonte Williams, his first score on the ground in 2 whole years.

Almost fittingly, Herbert was injured on a 4th-and-2 attempt in the second quarter as Staley bypassed a 47-yard field goal. Easton Stick, a 5th-round pick by the team way back in 2019, replaced him for the rest of the game. That was a tough assignment as the Chargers finished 1-for-6 on 4th down thanks to going 0-for-12 on 3rd down.

The Chargers (5-8) are toast, and the Broncos (7-6) are only a game behind the Chiefs (8-5) in the AFC West if you can believe that.

Texans at Jets: The Most Unexpected 300-Yard Passing Game

What a strange game. It always felt like a trap for the Texans, but who could have imagined 11 straight punts and a knee to go to halftime scoreless, then for Zach Wilson to throw for 301 yards in a 24-6 win?

The weather wasn’t as windy as some expected, so it wasn’t the issue. Not when Wilson was able to pass for 301 yards and multiple touchdowns in his first start in weeks. C.J. Stroud, the rookie who entered Week 14 leading the league in passing yards, only passed for 91 yards before he left the game injured in the fourth quarter.

But this was a case of not having your top two wide receivers and tight end while facing a tough pass defense on the road. The Texans already lost Tank Dell for the year, tight end Dalton Schutlz was still out, and Nico Collins left the game early with an injury. Stroud had his hands full and the Texans just did not deliver this afternoon.

But Wilson had his way with the defense as he completed 27-of-36 passes with Garrett Wilson going over 100 yards, and Randall Cobb even caught a touchdown.

Amusingly, the Jets tacked on 3 field goals in the fourth quarter on drives that all lost yardage as they were set up in Houston territory after 4th down stops by the defense. But the damage was done before that point.

Panthers at Saints: The NFC South Is Really This Bad

The passing offense was absolutely grotesque well into the second half of this game:

Derek Carr ended up finishing with 119 yards on 18 completions, taking him out of record territory, but it was still a putrid showing against the NFL’s only 1-win team. Bryce Young also struggled mightily again as he is regressing instead of showing improvement in his rookie season.

The Saints were almost going to win this one with 7 points on offense and the other 7 from a blocked punt return touchdown. But the defense stopped Carolina on a 4th-and-1 in a 14-6 game, then Carr hit a 44-yard completion that was more yardage than he had in the first 50 minutes combined. That drive was finished with a 7-yard touchdown to Chris Olave, then Jimmy Graham later caught a touchdown to blow it open 28-6.

We can talk about the Saints’ struggles on offense, but the Panthers are beyond putrid. There was already that Week 4 game against Minnesota where the Panthers scored 6 points (two field goals) despite holding the ball for 38:29. They came close to that again in this one with 34:50 in time of possession but only a pair of field goals to show for it.

Not only is Young failing to flash signs of improvement, but he’s f’n boring to watch too. Things are a real mess in Carolina right now and it is unlikely a good coach is going to want to take this job in 2024.

Next week: Are we really going to start the week with Easton Stick and Aidan O’Connell? A Saturday triple-header with no must-see games? It has to be Dallas at Buffalo to carry Sunday, because even SNF (Ravens-Jaguars) has lost some luster with the Jaguars on a losing streak. They flexed KC-NE out of MNF for Eagles-Seahawks, but I thought that was a mistake even before this KC losing streak. I much rather see if the Chiefs can avoid losing to Bailey Zappe than to watch another game with fading Seattle (and Philly for that matter) right now.

NFL Week 14 Predictions: The Dallas Cowboys Have Never Had an MVP QB Edition

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

It feels like for the course of the Super Bowl era, the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys has been one of the most popular and scrutinized players in the NFL. Yet that player has never won an MVP award. Troy Aikman was never really in that conversation with Brett Favre and Steve Young in the 1990s. Tony Romo only had a case in 2014 but wasn’t going to topple Aaron Rodgers. Then there was Roger Staubach, the best of them all, but he played in the dead ball era of the 1970s and was never even a first-team All-Pro.

Could this be the year that Dak Prescott brings that award home for the Cowboys if he keeps doing what he has? I don’t want to make an MVP case at 4:39 A.M. when my nose won’t stop running and I’m tired, but let’s just say 20 touchdowns over the last 6 games is the kind of thing you usually only see in an MVP year. If he keeps rolling like this with a tough upcoming schedule, then I think he has the best case of anyone this year.

But performing at a high level on Sunday night against Philadelphia is crucial. If he flops in this game like he did in San Francisco on SNF In Week 5, then you can probably forget him getting this award unless he is lights out in every game after it and no one steps up. But he just has to keep doing what he has the last 6 games, keep doing what he has against the Eagles since 2021, and it should work out for him.

We have a very interesting case study with point differential this week as it will tell you in the NFC that the 49ers (+163) and Cowboys (+168) are much better than the Eagles (+41) and Lions (+41). In the AFC, the Chiefs (+67) are trailing the Ravens (+137), Dolphins (+118), and Bills (+101). But the Bills are the first team since the 1950 Eagles to be over +100 thru 12 games and only have a 6-6 record to show for it. Big game in Kansas City this week for the Bills to try saving this season.

This Week’s Articles

When Should NFL Teams Move on from Coaches Like Mike Tomlin and Bill Belichick? – The Patriot Way is dead, and the standard is no longer the standard in Pittsburgh. I took the time to do a deep dive on why the Steelers and Patriots are unlikely to ever win their 7th Super Bowl with Mike Tomlin and Bill Belichick as their head coach. When should a team move on from a coach who brought them past success? It looks again like that window is about 5-6 years where if things aren’t getting any better, they need to change. Tomlin did himself no favors by losing a 2nd home game this week to a 2-10 team, and the Steelers were outplayed in both games by Arizona and New England. These weren’t fluke losses but I can certainly show you some fluke wins by the Steelers this year.

NFL Week 14 Predictions

I loved the Patriots to cover in Pittsburgh, but I sure as hell didn’t think they’d be sad enough to let Bailey Zappe throw 3 touchdowns in the first half. The over always felt like a trap, but I don’t regret it nor do I regret betting on exactly 31 points to hit. The latter probably does without that blocked punt providing the only short scoring drive after halftime. But what a mess for Pittsburgh as I noted they would miss the only 2 things Kenny Pickett is good at in this matchup (not turning it over and leading a GWD, or things you don’t get from Mitch Trubisky).

A lot of backup QBs playing this week, and I guess you can also say I’m not feeling many of the underdogs this week either.

LAR-BAL: Is Lamar Jackson’s health acting up again in December? Missed practice with an illness but should be good to go. He usually owns NFC teams. But not a game I’m very interested in, betting-wise.

CAR-NO: Derek Carr really doesn’t want Jameis Winston to start so that fans can see he’d get more points on the board. He’ll show up to the stadium in a full body cast and still play if he has to.

Every week I cost myself thousands of dollars in parlay wins because I screw up a game pick or two and get all the picks from that game wrong. That game this week could be Colts-Bengals as I am very high on this being a strong offensive game. Both teams scoring 20+, the over hitting, the RBs scoring touchdowns, Browning playing well again. I like it all. Hopefully it won’t be a 13-10 game with a bunch of turnovers and missed FGs.

JAX-CLE: I can’t believe Trevor Lawrence might play after what happened Monday night, but that’s also why I think Cleveland loses. Just the kind of game they’d blow when you think they’d have a golden opportunity at a win. But I can see the defense stepping up and turning over Flacco a few times as he tries so many deep balls.

TB-ATL: I don’t know at this point. Atlanta won in TB last time, so maybe the Bucs return the favor for a split?

DET-CHI: The Detroit defense is under the radar sucking right now. This has upset potential given the way the Bears should have won the first meeting a few weeks ago if not for the comeback of the year by the Lions.

HOU-NYJ: C.J. Stroud might not throw for a lot of yards, but he doesn’t need them against the Jets, who can’t score 14 points anymore. I like a lot of field goals in this one.

SEA-SF: The spread keeps going up, so I changed my ATS pick to Seattle out of pity. You never know with divisional rematches with teams in must-win mode like the Seahawks. They gave Dallas a scare last week and the backdoor cover is always on the table with 2-touchdown spread. But the 49ers should virtually lock up the NFC West here.

MIN-LV: Again, I don’t know right now. Joshua Dobbs was awful in that last game against the Bears. The Raiders gave the Chiefs a couple good quarters recently. Maybe Justin Jefferson is rusty in his first game back and first game with Dobbs. I originally went with Raiders cover, Vikings win, but then I just changed it to a flat out upset win for the Raiders at home.

DEN-LAC: Check my Scott’s Seven picks for a parlay on this one. I like a close game here of course.

BUF-KC: Bills were my upset pick and I almost feel obligated to go through with them as my pick for that reason. But I am having doubts with this crazy Sean McDermott 9/11 story causing a distraction before a must-win game. The football gods might be in a punishing move, then I look at Isiah Pacheco’s health and the way Josh Allen has played so well in Arrowhead, and screw it, let’s just go with it. Chiefs could use a season with some real adversity as I don’t believe the defense is going to hold up the rest of the year. Already played their worst game of the season in Green Bay last week, allowing 27 points on 7 drives. Now the injuries are starting to hit.

PHI-DAL: Like last week, the Eagles are a team that’s been winning the close ones while the 49ers and Cowboys are classic “win big, lose close” teams. Should be an interesting one as it was one of 2022’s best games with Dallas winning 40-34 against Gardner Minshew, who David Carr probably thinks would be a better start in this game than Jalen Hurts.

TEN-MIA and GB-NYG: Talk about low expectations doubleheader for MNF. I probably should have did some SGP+ for that slate, which would include another 100 yards and a TD for Tyreek Hill, another TD for De’Von Achane,, under 16.5 points for the Titans, Jordan Love 2+ TD passes, and his over in passing yards in a GB win.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 13

~ Scott ~ 8 Comments

I had some high expectations for Week 13 in the NFL, but it looks like the week peaked on Thursday night when the Seahawks gave the Cowboys their best shot in a 41-35 shootout.

While there have been 9 games with a comeback opportunity this week, the only one on Sunday with any fourth-quarter lead changes was Colts vs. Titans. You know it’s a weak slate when Gardner Minshew vs. Will Levis was the highlight game of the afternoon with a wild variety of big plays leading to a walk-off overtime touchdown that could have the Colts in a better playoff position than some of these teams like the Steelers, Browns, and Broncos.

The NFC’s Game of the Year saw the 49ers blow the Eagles away over the final 45 minutes, scoring 6 straight touchdowns before running out the clock in a 42-19 win. The way it happened only further complicated the MVP race in my book, but I knew going in Jalen Hurts was not the choice.

One thing that caught my eye this week was that even if you fire Frank Reich (Panthers), Matt Canada (Steelers), and Jack Del Rio (Commanders), the roster flaws are still going to be there this late in the season. It’s too hard to shake those deficiencies, and if the in-house promotion taking over those roles was good enough in the first place, things would have been working better earlier in the season. Coaching matters but firing a coach near wintertime is unlikely going to spark much change. You have to wait until the offseason to really clean house and fix things for next year.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

49ers at Eagles: Having a QB to Get Those Receivers the Ball Did in Fact Matter a Lot

Yeah, I may have reverse jinxed the Eagles this week if all the talk about point differential and Jalen Hurts being a sham of an MVP season weren’t clues to that. But even I was surprised at the switch the 49ers hit in the second quarter after the first 15 minutes, which they usually do great in, saw Brock Purdy complete 0 passes and the Eagles take a 6-0 lead. The Eagles looked ready to throw early with Hurts playing decisively on third downs to his wideouts. But the 49ers stiffened in the red zone and held them to field goals.

Once the 49ers got their initial first down, it was lights out from there. They scored 6 straight touchdowns on drives that covered 85, 90, 75, 77, 75, and 48 yards. No one can compete with an offense in that kind of rhythm. Christian McCaffrey had a solid day on the ground (93 yards), but it was the incredible YAC by Deebo Samuel and the receivers that won the day again for the 49ers.

Samuel showed his rare mix of speed and strength on a 48-yard touchdown in the third quarter when it looked like the Eagles might make it close, and then even Jauan Jennings showed a nice move on an 18-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. Samuel had one more in him from 46 yards out that was mostly YAC, and he had a rushing touchdown earlier, so it was a hat trick.

Purdy threw for 314 yards and 4 touchdowns. Not bad for a quarterback who had no completions in the opening quarter, and who didn’t escape the first drive of the title game without a major injury. He orchestrated the offense perfectly, though I would say he was much more impressive as a passer against Dallas in Week 5, the other game this year when he threw 4 touchdowns and dropped 42 points on a main NFC contender. I don’t know what you do with this MVP race now, but I know Purdy and Dak Prescott should be ahead of Hurts, who quietly finished with 298 yards and 2 total touchdowns in a game the 49ers controlled for the last 45 minutes. Hurts also momentarily left for a concussion check but finished the game.

For a big game with such a lopsided 42-19 score, it was odd to not see a single turnover or missed field goal. There wasn’t even a failed 4th down until 2:07 remained and the Eagles gave it back.

We can assume these teams are both going to the playoffs, so this could be only the third game since 1970 between playoff teams where there were no turnovers and someone won by at least 23 points. The Eagles have the worst such loss in 2013 when they lost 52-20 to Peyton Manning’s Broncos. Manning’s Colts also beat Jeff Fisher’s Titans in a 23-0 game in a Week 17 playoff rest scenario.

But as I was saying Saturday, the Eagles’ fortunate close wins against the Chiefs and Bills combined with their remaining schedule still gives them an edge for the No. 1 seed, so Dallas or San Francisco could still have to come back to Philly in January to get to the Super Bowl. We’ll see what happens next week in the NFC East rematch, but maybe if the Eagles are 0-2 against those teams in December, they’ll both have confidence they can come back to Philly and win again.

Chiefs at Packers: A Slightly Different Kind of KC Loss

You rarely see Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs lose a game like this. In fact, it’s the first time in his career where the Chiefs scored more than 9 points and never held a lead. It is only the third wire-to-wire loss in Mahomes’ career, joining the 2021 Titans (27-3) and 2023 Broncos (24-9).

This was a limited-possession game with each team only getting the ball 7 times, which means every mistake gets magnified. The Chiefs arguably lost it in the first half when they converted their two long drives into field goals after Mahomes took a career-high 3 sacks in the red zone as Green Bay’s pass rush was great again. Meanwhile, the Packers converted their drives into touchdowns and led 14-6 behind another strong showing from Jordan Love, who became the first quarterback to drop 27 points on the Chiefs defense this year. The defense had a few injuries in the game and failed to impress.

While the Chiefs had back-to-back touchdown drives and were in position to take their first lead in a 21-19 game in the fourth quarter, we got a taste of the officiating blunders to come. Mahomes threw incomplete on a 3rd-and-8 to a receiver (Richie James) who was on the ground and he thought he’d get the flag call, but it didn’t come. It was the only 3-and-out in the game.

The Packers turned that into a field goal and 24-19 lead. After getting a soft defensive pass interference flag, the Chiefs turned the ball over when Mahomes floated a bad decision throw to Skyy Moore, who was beat to the ball by Keisean Nixon for an interception with 5:14 left. Good things just never happen when this offense goes to Moore, and I’m not sure why that was the call when Travis Kelce and Rashee Rice had solid nights. So did Isiah Pacheco on the ground, but the Chiefs even went away from him in some key moments to try getting their worst players involved again. A recurring theme this year.

The Packers burned more clock and made the Chiefs use their timeouts before kicking a field goal to make it 27-19. Mahomes had to drive 70 yards in 69 seconds, but that’s doable. The officiating was just horrendous on this drive as penalties seemed to be switched to random mode:

  • They called the Packers for a 15-yard unnecessary roughness hit on Mahomes on the sideline when he was still in bounds on a scramble. Bad call.
  • They blew a live fumble play that wasn’t a fumble as Rice was down, and in the ensuing scrum, they disqualified Pacheco for hitting someone back in retaliation, a dumb 15-yard flag.
  • Mahomes went for a deep shot to Marquez Valdes-Scantling, and after one of the most blatant defensive pass interference you’ll ever see, no flag came out. The ball should have been inside the 5.
  • MVS got out of bounds on a 9-yard gain with 19 seconds left, but his forward momentum was stopped and it should have been a running clock.

The Chiefs’ strategy from the Green Bay 33 made little sense as they only had one great shot at the end zone, and it was the final play on the Hail Mary. There was a clear shove on Kelce in the end zone, which could have been called for DPI and an untimed down, but no flag came of course.

What a mess. I’m actually okay with the no call on the Hail Mary. It needs to be something really egregious like pushing a guy to the ground or holding his arm back or not playing the ball at all and tackling the receiver. But that no call on MVS was ridiculous. Textbook DPI and they were afraid to call it on the home team in a big spot.

It was the first time this year the Chiefs lost and Mahomes wasn’t seen throwing incomplete on 4th-and-25+ to end the game. But given they were 33 yards away from the end zone on the last play, that 4th-and-10 might as well have been 4th-and-33.

The Packers (6-6) are very much in this playoff race. Beating the Lions and Chiefs in back-to-back weeks is more impressive than any wins teams like the Dolphins and Cowboys have this year.

As for the Chiefs, what can be said that wasn’t clear going into the season? They gambled on a bad wide receiver room, and it’s been the main source of their problems this year along with Kelce losing a step at 34. Even in the first half of this game, those were coverage sacks in the red zone with receivers not getting open. You don’t expect to only get 7 cracks at the ball, but that can happen, and that’s why the Chiefs are a liability to get into a shootout this year since they are simply not as efficient on offense as they were in 2018-22. The defense played its worst game of the season and the result shows it. Never led.

I could see the Chiefs, who are 2-3 against NFC teams this year, losing to Buffalo next week too, a team that has success against them and is playing for their playoff lives.

Colts at Titans: Amusing AFC South Battle

I keep saying it every week but the Colts are doing an exceptional job at scoring with backup offensive players in a year where so many offenses are struggling. If the Colts (7-5) keep doing this and sneak into the playoffs, I think you have to look at Shane Steichen for Coach of the Year.

This was a one-sided game early with the Colts trailing 17-7, but they crawled back with field goals, then things got wild late in the third quarter when they blocked Tennessee’s punt and returned it for a touchdown. But in going for a 2-point conversion, Minshew’s pass was intercepted and returned the distance for the rare pick-2 to make it a 22-19 game with the Colts ahead.

Incredibly, the Colts blocked the next punt too after demolishing and injuring punter Ryan Stonehouse. But despite having a 1st-and-goal at the 7, the Colts settled for a field goal and 25-19 lead. The Titans were able to tie it with Will Levis throwing a 3-yard touchdown to DeAndre Hopkins, but Nick Folk was wide left on the extra point, failing to give his team the lead. Stonehouse was the regular holder on kicks, but quarterback Ryan Tannehill had to take over for him due to the injury. Maybe that threw off the kicking process for Folk, who later had to punt in the game and did an adequate job with that.

The teams traded punts to eventually go to overtime where the Titans won the toss and received first. After a lengthy drive with penalties, they settled for a field goal and 28-25 lead. But like we saw last week with Bills-Eagles, the team going last with the ball was able to calmly drive with over 4 minutes left for a game-winning touchdown, playing 4-down football without having to conserve much time. Minshew hit a 55-yard pass to Alec Pierce, then two plays later the Titans played some unbelievably soft coverage on Michael Pittman Jr. in the end zone on a 4-yard touchdown to walk it off for the Colts. That was open all day for the Colts an Pittman, who had 11 catches for 105 yards.

The future of the AFC South looks to be in good hands with Jacksonville thriving, and the Colts and Texans are already competing for the playoffs in Year 1 of their regimes.

Lions at Saints: The Almost Comeback

When you see a team jump out to a 21-0 lead not even 7 full minutes into a game, you do get a bit more worried about a big blown lead than if you built it up more naturally with long drives and less time left.

The Lions were all over the Saints early, but it was a shaky finish to a 33-28 final. The Saints were down 27-21 going into the fourth quarter, but that’s when Derek Carr lost a fumble, and the Lions had another short-yardage drive for a touchdown. Carr was injured on the next drive with a concussion, shoulder, and back injury. Maybe a rib too because why not? Rough day for him all around.

Jameis Winston took over and the Saints saw the full Jameis experience again. Chris Olave helped this comeback get close with some circus catches on the day, including a deflected ball by Jameis that Olave caught for 30 yards to convert a 3rd-and-13.

But down 33-28 late, Winston threw 3 straight incompletions with 6 yards to go at the Detroit 40. The Lions were able to run out the final 2:56 on the clock after Jared Goff made a nice little throw on the run to convert a 3rd-and-9 to Josh Reynolds, who ducked down to make the low catch for 12 yards to end the threat.

Two qualities Carr was supposed to bring to New Orleans was solid durability, but he’s been knocked out of multiple games with injuries this year, and the other was an edge in close games as he has pulled off a lot of comebacks and game-winning drives in his career. But the Saints are now 0-5 at comeback opportunities, the worst record of any team this season.

Chargers at Patriots: Everything Is Over in New England Except for the Score

Bill Belichick is a noted historian of the game, so I wonder what he thinks of this run his team is on right now.

The 2023 Patriots are on a 3-game losing streak where they lost 10-6 to the Colts, 10-7 to the Giants, and now 6-0 to the Chargers. This is not normal in any era of professional football that’s happened after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.

These are the only teams since 1940 to go 3 straight games without scoring or allowing more than 10 points: 1940 Steelers (4 games), 1940 Lions (3 games), 1946 Steelers (3 games), 1993 Jets (3 games), and 2023 Patriots. At least when the Jets did it in 1993, they still found a way to go 2-1 in those games.

The 2023 Patriots are the first team since the 1938 Chicago Cardinals to lose at least 3 straight games when allowing no more than 10 points. It happened to those Cardinals in 4 straight games.

I almost feel bad for Belichick (not really) in this one, because it may have turned out differently if Rhamondre Stevenson didn’t get injured and fumble on a play in the first quarter when it looked like the Patriots were driving. Stevenson was off to another good start with 39 yards in the quarter, but he was knocked out with a serious leg injury and lost a fumble on top of it. The Patriots never got deeper than the Chargers 28 the rest of the game.

But do you know how absurd it is to have a 6-0 game in 44-degree weather with marginal wind and no precipitation? They held Justin Herbert to 6 points and still lost. Philip Rivers, who lost so many big games to the Patriots in his career, had to be jealous as hell watching Herbert get a win here.

Because it was a ridiculous game all around. The Chargers scored two field goals on drives that went 27 and 7 yards. That’s it. This game somehow ended 6-0 despite no missed field goals and the only turnover was Stevenson’s fumble.

This is only the 5th game in the salary cap era (since 1994) to have 6 combined points or fewer, and only the 2nd that wasn’t influenced by extreme weather or rested starters:

  • 2003 Steelers at Jets (W 6-0): One of the worst football watching experiences I ever had as very heavy snow killed the game, but the Steelers also missed a pair of short field goals (43 and 20 yards).
  • 2007 Dolphins at Steelers (W 3-0): The infamous wet field that was so bad a punt landed and immediately stuck to the ground.
  • 2017 Cowboys at Eagles (L 6-0): Week 17 game where the Eagles (No. 1 seed) were resting starters and the Cowboys missed an extra point on their only touchdown.
  • 2018 Colts at Jaguars (W 6-0): Jacksonville might as well be the Bermuda Triangle when the Colts go down there, and this was the weirdest loss of Andrew Luck’s career.

The Patriots did fail on a couple of 4th downs to turn it over, but this was still a historic, low-scoring game. The Chargers sacked Bailey Zappe 5 times to help win the game. Herbert converted a late 3rd-and-11 to seal the game and not give the Patriots one more try.

We know they weren’t going to score anyway. Now with the Steelers and Mitch Trubisky up next, the Patriots may continue this unfathomable streak of sucking all the points (and joy) out of games.

Broncos at Texans: Russ Wasn’t Cooking Today

I wanted to see what Denver’s offense would do against a formidable Houston offense that doesn’t turn it over much, so they would unlikely fuel Russell Wilson with a bunch of short fields like he’s enjoyed during the 5-game winning streak for Denver.

Sure enough, the Texans had no turnovers, and sure enough, the Broncos struggled to move the ball. The Broncos were down 13-0 and Courtland Sutton didn’t even make a catch until late in the third quarter on a great 45-yard effort.

But instead of a comeback win to keep this streak going, Wilson ended up throwing 3 interceptions on the team’s final 4 drives. But since the Houston offense lost Tank Dell to injury and C.J. Stroud had some misfires and took 5 sacks, it was a 22-17 game late. Houston definitely left some points on the field in this one and had to rely on the defense to put it away.

It looked like Wilson might pull this one out after he scrambled for a first down on a 4th-and-2 at the Houston 8 with 23 seconds left. But the defense stiffened, and after trying to scramble and make a heroic throw, Wilson was picked off in the end zone to ice the win for Houston (7-5), a key tiebreaker in this AFC race.

Falcons at Jets: The Beat Goes On

The Falcons squeezed out a 13-8 win in a game where neither team’s starting quarterback had 150 passing yards, neither team reached 14 points, and neither team averaged better than 2.6 yards per carry.

That sounds about right. But for as unimpressive as Desmond Ridder can be, he didn’t let the Jets take advantage of a big turnover. The Falcons had to survive 9 punts and a safety, but they did it thanks to a defense that finished strong.

The Jets benched starter Tim Boyle for veteran backup Trevor Siemian, but he was not an improvement. He had 4 opportunities at a go-ahead touchdown in a 13-8 game, but he never got deeper than the Atlanta 48, and that even includes a drive where he took over at the Atlanta 48.

The Falcons (6-6) weren’t about to let Siemian add his name to the list of quarterbacks to upset them this year. The Jets have gone 6 straight games without scoring more than 13 points. One more game and it will tie the longest streak in the NFL since the 2003 Giants had a 7-game run of futility.

Browns at Rams: Flacco vs. Stafford in the Year 2023?

I don’t know where Cleveland’s season is heading at 7-5, but I hope people can understand these back-to-back 17-point losses to the Broncos and Rams were much closer than the scores suggest. Last week it was a big fumble on a doomed play call in a 17-12 game that started the avalanche.

This time, it was Joe Flacco’s first start with the team, and let’s be honest, he played better than the average Deshaun Watson start for Kevin Stefanski. It was not surprising to see him have a connection with Eljah Moore (83 yards) after they played together with the Jets last season.

But Flacco may have trusted his arm and Moore a little too much on an ill-advised pass. Flacco had just led a touchdown drive that should have tied the game, but the Browns were wide right on the extra point, keeping the Rams ahead 20-19. Flacco got the ball back, but instead of taking his time to set up the go-ahead field goal, he immediately threw deep for Moore and was intercepted with 6:32 left. The interception was also returned deep into Cleveland territory, setting up a 24-yard touchdown drive after Cooper Kupp caught a short score with 3:48 left.

I thought that would have been a great spot for a 2-point conversion to go up 9, but Sean McVay settled for the 27-19 lead. The Browns went 4-and-out, setting up the Rams for another short field and 30-yard touchdown drive to make it 34-19. With the game basically out of reach, Flacco was hit with an intentional grounding penalty and a pair of sacks to end up with a safety for the Rams, which is how we got to 36-19 (surprisingly, not a unique score in NFL history).

The short fields didn’t help, but the Cleveland defense also failed to get any sacks or takeaways. This team isn’t going to win many more games if that continues to happen. Meanwhile, the Rams are 6-6 and right back in the playoff mix.

Dolphins at Commanders: You’ve Watched Tyreek Hill Play Before, Right?

The Dolphins have lost their No. 1 scoring team status to Dallas for the time being, but what do you think happened when they played the No. 32 scoring defense in Washington? They dropped 45 points on them too like Dallas did on Thanksgiving, including a pick-6 on a screen.

But it was touchdowns of 78 and 60 yards to Tyreek Hill that highlighted Washington’s awful day on defense. They have watched Hill play before, right? Eric Bieniemy could have told the defense a thing or two about what this guy does, but they were still burned twice for big ones as Hill finished with 157 yards, good for his pursuit of 2,000 yards.

It was just a weird, pointless game in that Washington trailed 31-7 at halftime and still finished with 28 runs to 26 passes. A couple of those runs were Sam Howell scrambles off passes as he picked up another 2 rushing touchdowns, but that’s still pretty much 50-50 play calling despite the huge margin.

Cardinals at Steelers: Playing Down to the Competition Isn’t What It Used to Be When the Standard Is This Low

On the one hand, the Steelers losing 24-10 at home to the 2-10 Cardinals with James Conner seeking a revenge game (105 yards, 2 TD) wasn’t that surprising. It’s hardly the first time in the Mike Tomlin era they played down to the competition. But the way they looked so outmatched in a game that took over 4 hours to complete because of two weather delays was appalling. They made Trey McBride look like prime Gronk, and the Cardinals almost couldn’t miss on third down for a long portion of the game.

Then there’s the offense, which is averaging 3 points per first half without Matt Canada, and 13 points per game without Canada. They basically call their best plays on the opening drive, then it’s back to the same old garbage for the rest of the game. You see Kenny Pickett throw a play-action bomb to George Pickens on a 2nd-and-1 for 38 yards and think that’s smart, that’s anti-Canada progress. But where is anything like that the rest of the game?

Then Pickett was injured again, the 5th time in 25 appearances that he was unable to finish because of injury, which is an absurd number. He’s almost ready to match Ben Roethlisberger’s number and he played 18 years.

The Pickett injury preceded the game’s critical swing point. The Steelers faced 4th-and-1 at the 1 and of course you’d go for it there. Mitch Trubisky was at quarterback and they tried to hammer it in with Najee Harris, but I bet you a spread run with Jaylen Warren had a better shot of converting. Maybe they wanted to keep it simple with Trubisky coming into the game cold on a rainy day, but that was a blown opportunity.

Still, you don’t expect the Cardinals to drive 99 yards for a touchdown to end the half with a 10-3 lead. McBride came up huge on the drive, and he had what I thought was a touchdown that replay took away, meaning we still don’t know what a catch is in 2023. At least he got the touchdown on the next play, so no controversy there.

Trubisky fumbled a low snap in the third quarter and the Cardinals turned that into a 21-yard touchdown drive. Chris Boswell then missed a 45-yard field goal to make sure it was a shit sandwich with all three units contributing. A facemask penalty on a punt return set up Conner for his 2nd touchdown run on what was a 33-yard touchdown drive. So, the defense allowed touchdown drives of 99, 21, and 33 yards. One clearly their fault, the others more questionable, but none of it really mattered because the offense was lousy again.

Pickett has shaken off his injuries before and played the next game, but it sounds like this ankle one will knock him out for a few weeks, especially with the Patriots up next this Thursday night. Does it even matter for the team’s performance? Nope. But it could only complicate how they view him going forward, because making the playoffs when poor play like this is still so rampant with the team would be a bad thing.

They need to start thinking about the future – a real one, and maybe one that includes a whole new coaching staff, because the standard is just stale.

Panthers at Buccaneers: Same Old 4th Quarter Story

Chris Tabor is the interim head coach of the Panthers, and in the first game after Frank Reich was fired, it was the same old story for Carolina. Nothing sparking in the passing game with Bryce Young, defensive lapses that led to Mike Evans dominating (162 yards and a 75-yard touchdown) despite Baker Mayfield not finding any of his other receivers, and of course a failure to rally in the fourth quarter.

The Panthers were able to turn a 21-10 game into a 21-18 game, but when Young got the ball back, he couldn’t convert a 3rd-and-1 and 4th-and-1 with the game on the line. First, why is he throwing on both critical downs when Chuba Hubbard had over 100 yards rushing and there were over 2:00 left? Just run the damn ball once or twice. You had the 2-minute warning and were at your 40 in a 3-point game. Like I said in the intro, these interim coaches are unlikely to be any better, and in some cases, they’ll be even worse.

Good night, Irene. The Panthers are 1-11. Too bad they can’t get the No. 1 pick and take a franchise quarterback in 2024…

Next week: The NFL clearly had high expectations for Week 14, but the teams weren’t up to the task. Bills-Chiefs is at least still interesting because Buffalo’s season is on life support and they basically need to win out, and the Chiefs are more vulnerable than ever. But it’s not as strong as the build-in to their last meeting. And while Eagles-Cowboys is a big one on SNF, it’s not really for first place in the NFC East like you’d hope it would be. I still think Eagles can win out even if losing this game and claim the division on a tiebreaker. But it is another chance for Dallas to establish some dominance and confidence against a key rival.

NFL Week 13 Predictions: NFC Game of the Year Edition

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

We are running out of big games in this 2023 NFL regular season now that Bills-Chiefs and Bengals-Chiefs have lost a lot of luster. But we will get the NFC Game of the Year this Sunday in Philadelphia, and hopefully it can live up to what we saw last week with Bills-Eagles.

Having said that, I’ve been looking at the standings and remaining schedules and it’s not as big of a game as I’d like this weekend. Even if the Eagles lose at home to the 49ers, we still might see the Eagles finish No. 1, 49ers finish No. 2, and Cowboys stuck at No. 5 even if they finish 14-3, so that’s a bummer.

Basically, the 49ers need to win this game and hope the Cowboys take care of Philly next Sunday night in Dallas. That way if the 49ers win out and both teams finish 14-3, the 49ers get the top seed due to the head-to-head tiebreaker. Even if the 49ers, Eagles, and Cowboys were all 14-3 (it could happen), the 49ers would get it based on beating both while the Eagles would be 1-2 in those games and the Cowboys would be 2-1.

Cause I can’t see the Eagles losing to Seattle, Giants (twice), or Arizona after this stretch. Maybe Seattle if Geno Smith plays so well like he did Thursday night, but Dallas still won that game and Seattle may be on their way to an 8-9 finish and no postseason. So, it has to be the 49ers and Cowboys these next two weeks that stop Philly’s momentum as this team keeps winning almost every close game this year, a sharp contrast from the 49ers and Cowboys blowing teams out for the most part. (That’s your first hint which way I’m really leaning here as we are in #ReverseJinxSeason)

If the Eagles beat the 49ers, then it’s almost a lock going into Week 14 that it’ll be No. 1 Eagles, No. 2 49ers, and No. 5 Cowboys, so that would also make next week’s NFC East rematch less important. Basically, we need to blame the Chiefs and Bills for screwing up the last two weeks and not beating Philly to make this 3-team NFC race much more interesting if they all had 3 losses.

Final NFC note: I’m well aware the Lions are 8-3 too but I feel confident that team is of a lower caliber than these teams, and they will lose in Dallas, and maybe even lose a Vikings game to finish 12-5 at best. They shouldn’t interfere with my 1-2-5 seed predictions. Solidly No. 3 in the NFC, which is almost like winning a Super Bowl for the Lions.

I think the best outcome for the playoffs in the NFC would be Dallas crushing the NFC South winner, the weak wild cards losing to the No. 3 Lions and No. 2 49ers, who would then meet in the divisional round in a fresh matchup. The No. 5 Cowboys return to Philly to face the No. 1 Eagles first and see if they can knock them out, then maybe it’s another trip back to San Francisco to complete the revenge tour to get Dak Prescott, who is gaining steam for MVP, in the Super Bowl like I predicted before Week 1.

But the main thing is getting Cowboys-Eagles first instead of seeing Dallas lose to SF again and the Eagles only having to beat one of those teams in January.

This Week’s Articles

The 10 Greatest Field Goals in NFL History – Thanks to Jake Elliott’s 59-yard game-saving FG, I jumped on the chance to research the best FGs in NFL history and found that a few kickers are worthy of ranking twice on that list. But No. 1 is not up for debate.

NFL Week 13 Predictions

Welp, I should have learned my lesson from TB-BUF to not bet on the final score for TNF this year. I nailed the props and TD scorers in this game, but screwed myself thinking Dallas was going to win by double digits and the Seahawks wouldn’t score over 17.5 points. They doubled that with 35 points in one of the most unexpected shootouts of the year.

But TNF hasn’t been that awful this year. It’s SNF and especially MNF where scoring goes to die this year, and I’m still making bets that way this week.

LAC-NE: I’m just taking a swing that the Chargers are going to commit a comedy of errors like they usually do against the Pats, and that Bailey Zappe gets Brandon Staley fired.

ARI-PIT: The Steelers have a chance to play really well at home against an overmatched opponent, but Kyler Murray is a veteran QB, something they have not faced recently. In other words, look for the Steelers to win a 24-20 nail-biter against a 2-win team. But I do like the rushing props in this one as it might rain Sunday.

DEN-HOU: Should be a one-score game. I’m still backing Houston but it’s a bummer tight end Dalton Schultz is out as I wanted to bet on him as I think C.J. Stroud gets his slots and seams receivers going this week.

DET-NO: I’m just counting on the Lions to get back on track and win by a TD. Could be a game where both teams score in the 20s if the Lions don’t start playing better offense, but we know the Saints settle for a lot of FGs with Carr at QB.

IND-TEN: I like the over more than picking the winner here. Titans usually score more at home and Hopkins and Moss went off in the last game that was more offensive than the 23-16 score suggests (low possession game).

ATL-NYJ: Could there be value again in betting on high reception totals for the Jets (Wilson/Conkln/Hall) if Tim Boyle is going to keep dinking and dunking? Scary proposition for an Atlanta defense that already lost to Levis/Dobbs/Kyler in a 3-week stretch. Not a game I’d put much on but Falcons should win a low-scoring game.

MIA-WAS: I think Sam Howell will throw a lot of passes and Tyreek Hill will have a lot of yards and score at least one touchdown. Firing Jack Del Rio was necessary but it’s hard to imagine a good game from the Washington defense here. But I think it could be a 31-24 game.

CAR-TB: Firing Frank Reich was kind of stunning given the timing, but they were playing awful football for him. Not sure that changes much this week. I like Rachaad White to find the end zone at least once.

SF-PHI: Think I’ve shared a lot on this game in the links above, but I do look at the 49ers as a front-running team that could play into Philly’s comeback hands in the second half. But my favorite bet is the over as I think it’ll look a lot different from the title game. I also think Jalen Hurts is going to struggle to throw for many yards for the 3rd week in a row, and it will come down to turnovers as it always does for these teams.

Since 2022, the 49ers are 23-1 when they have 0-1 giveaways and 0-7 when they have 2+ giveaways.

CLE-LAR: The return of Joe Flacco. God, we need to see him start a playoff game again. Get more data points on that. I think the Browns could upset this one for sure, but I hedged and took CLE ATS/LAR ML. But could see Myles Garrett and company getting after Stafford. Flacco is a wild card; not so much in thinking he will be great, but what degree of terrible could he be on short notice? Not a fun game to bet on.

KC-GB: When these teams played in 2021, it was the lowest-scoring game (20 total points) and fewest passing yards (166) of any game in Patrick Mahomes’ career that he started and finished. That gave me assurance to take the under, as did the season-long performance of these teams, and I also think it’s another spot for the Chiefs to win but opponent covers. Should be a good one that wasn’t looking so good a few weeks ago before Jordan Love started playing better.

CIN-JAX: Can I just get one Evan Engram TD in 2023? Even if it’s a 24-13 game, let’s just see a little more action than that garbage game the Vikings and Bears played last week.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 11

~ Scott ~ 10 Comments

Week 11 in the NFL has been quite good, but hopefully the best is still to come Monday night with Eagles-Chiefs. As for Sunday, we saw suplexes, the craziest comeback of the season took place in Detroit, a game that arguably defines the Justin Herbert era in Los Angeles, and the week you started wondering if Tommy DeVito was a better quarterback than Kenny Pickett. My God, how I miss the days of Big Ben and Eli.

But we’ll rip on Kenny Pickett a few times below. There were better games than that this week, including a solid Sunday night game that saw Russell Wilson move into a tie for 8th place in fourth-quarter comeback wins. Hours earlier, Matthew Stafford moved into a tie with Dan Marino for sixth place on the same list.

Week 11 has 8 games with a comeback opportunity so far. I’m going to need some extra time to prepare for Monday night, so this is going up before 4 a.m. and I look forward to what comes of this next game.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Bears at Lions: Never in Doubt

This may be the kind of game we expect to see the Bears lose these days, but it’s usually not a team like Detroit on the winning end of things. Whether they forgot how to face Justin Fields, were looking ahead to Thanksgiving this Thursday against Green Bay, or looking back too fondly of how great they played on offense in Los Angeles last week, this was a trashy performance that needed the comeback of the season to salvage for a 31-26 win.

Jared Goff threw two interceptions in the first half, it could have been three, and it turned into three in the third quarter while the Lions were trailing 20-14, having just fumbled a kickoff that led to D.J. Moore catching a 39-yard touchdown.

This was looking rough all around, but the Bears gave them a little opening in the fourth quarter. After the last Goff pick, the Bears had a drive that extended into the fourth quarter and saw Chicago face a 4th-and-1 at the Detroit 23 with 14:15 left. I think you go for the jugular and go for that one, hoping to make it a 28-14 game with less time on the clock. Instead, the Bears went safe and kicked a 40-yard field goal to make it 23-14.

Detroit still went three-and-out thanks to Montez Sweat killing the drive with a sack. The Bears grinded almost 9 minutes off the clock with what should have been a game-clinching drive. Fields had a 29-yard scramble that put him over 100 yards on the ground on the day, but the Bears did stall out eventually. They kicked a 39-yard field goal on a 4th-and-5 with 4:15 left to make it 26-14. At least that field goal was more defensible since it was 4th-and-5, and it made the Lions have to score two touchdowns to win the game.

With only 4:15 left, it is very hard to manufacture two scores (at least one being a touchdown) to win a game in the NFL. It has now only happened 28 times since 2001, and somehow this is the third time since 2020 that it’s happened in a Bears-Lions game:

Goff got his playmakers involved and Jameson Williams was open on a 32-yard touchdown with 2:59 left. That quick strike only needed 76 seconds. The Bears played right in Detroit’s hands with a run-run-incomplete 3-and-out drive, and Goff had an eternity left with 2:33, a timeout, and 73 yards to drive.

This was David Montgomery’s revenge game, his first against Chicago, and it wasn’t going so well to this point. But he looked determined on this drive with gains of 13, 12, 9, and 10 yards on the ground and on receptions. It was Jahmyr Gibbs who had a pivotal run to the 1-yard line with 31 seconds left when the Bears took a timeout, sensing what was coming next.

Sure enough, Montgomery got his Hollywood script ending and scored on the 1-yard touchdown run with 29 seconds left. Rookie tight end Sam LaPorta, on his quietest day of the season, caught a key 2-point conversion to make it 29-26.

Chicago still had two timeouts, so it was doable. But as I’ve said before, Fields might be the worst quarterback in NFL history at getting a field goal in the clutch. On the first snap of the drive, Aidan Hutchinson got to him and forced a fumble, which was eventually kicked thru the end zone for a safety. Detroit won 31-26, completing the wildest comeback of the 2023 season.

Fields is now 1-14 at fourth-quarter comeback opportunities. The Bears just never seem to be able to put these games away under Matt Eberflus.

It is an exciting win for Detroit, a great story for Montgomery, but it may be a wake-up call that they need to start playing better. The only complete performance over the last month was against the Raiders. The whole team was wiped out in Baltimore, the defense didn’t show up against the Chargers, and this game featured a lot of spotty play in every unit, but Goff’s turnovers were probably the biggest red flag. But he managed to redeem himself against a team known to blow games just like this.

A lot still has to happen before we respect the Lions as a team that wins games like this, but they are 8-2 and keeping up with the Eagles and 49ers in the NFC standings.

Chargers at Packers: A Full Helping of Chargering

Is it possible for a game to go as you expected but still be surprised by the outcome? That was this game for me.

The Packers were my upset pick, and I talked about Jordan Love throwing multiple touchdowns at home for the first time in his career against this bottom-ranked passing defense so that he could break this 7-game streak without Green Bay scoring 21 points. That all happened and he even had the first 300-yard passing game of his career. I also predicted it to be a tight, one-score game, or the usual Chargers game on a Sunday afternoon.

But the level of Chargering in this one was truly something special. Justin Herbert finished with 260 yards and 2 touchdown passes, and he even led the game with 73 rushing yards. It was in a way one of the best games of his career, but the numbers won’t back that up because his skill players short circuited a handful of likely scoring drives. They started the game with a drop on 4th-and-4, Keenan Allen dropped a touchdown early, Austin Ekeler fumbled at the 2-yard line in the fourth quarter, and rookie Quentin Johnston dropped a pass down the sideline on a crucial 3rd-and-6.

It would not have been a routine catch, though I bet Zay Flowers, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and Jordan Addison make it, but it was very catchable. If caught, it either could have been the game-winning touchdown, or since Johnston doesn’t look that fast on an NFL field, it could have at least set up a game-tying field goal for overtime. Would the Chargers have made the kick? Probably not, because these are the Chargers we’re talking about.

I didn’t even mention the Packers were about to be screwed with a 4th-and-20 coming up with under 4 minutes left, but Asante Samuel Jr. was penalized 24 yards for defensive pass interference, extending what became the game-winning drive. Love threw a 24-yard touchdown pass to Romeo Doubs with 2:33 left. Herbert had a moment of mortality with a quick three-and-out after he was sacked on third down. But the Chargers got the ball back after using their timeouts to stop the run, and that was when Johnston had the big drop with 23 seconds left. The game ended for good when Herbert’s 4th-and-1 pass was incomplete with the Chargers out of timeouts.

Herbert’s QBR (82.9) was the highest for any quarterback to lose in Week 11. It was the highest (82.0) in Week 10 against Detroit out of all losing quarterbacks. This is a consistent theme with the Chargers.

Herbert may not be perfect, but the people trying to blame him for these last two weeks for the Chargers slipping to 4-6 are out of their mind. This is already the third lost comeback of the 2023 season for Herbert, who also led go-ahead touchdown drives in the fourth quarter in losses to the Dolphins and Titans to start this season. While not a lost comeback, he also had game-tying touchdown drives against Dallas and Detroit in games the Chargers still lost.

Looks like I need to start up a new Chargers BINGO card for the Herbert era.

Vikings at Broncos: The Close Game Regression Bowl

When the 2023 schedule came out, I highlighted this game as a big regression opportunity between the team that kept making comebacks last year (Vikings) and the team that kept blowing leads (Broncos). That’s why I had this as a Denver win in my preseason predictions.

Sure enough, the Vikings blew a late lead and are now 5-5 in close games of which they’ve played a league-high 10 of. Last year, they were 11-0 in the regular season in close games. Denver is only 4-3 in close games, but that includes a 4-3 record at game-winning drive opportunities, which isn’t bad at all in a season where under 35% of those are successful.

We have enough history to show that if you give Russell Wilson enough chances, he can make you pay. This was his 34th fourth-quarter comeback win, which ties him with Johnny Unitas and John Elway for the 8th most all time.

I don’t know if the Vikings got premature news on Justin Jefferson’s health or what, but their game plan did not seem right to me. Not nearly enough passes to T.J. Hockenson and Jordan Addison, and they ran the ball 28 times with the running backs, which is also unusual. You had to figure it was going to be a weird night once the Vikings gave a direct snap to T.J. Hockenson on the third play of the game, and he gave the ball to Joshua Dobbs, who fumbled. Did I mention this was to just convert a 3rd-and-1?

But speaking of regression, what is going on with this Denver defense and turnovers? That’s now 12 takeaways in the last three games with another 3 in this game. That was mostly the difference as Minnesota’s offense was better outside of those mistakes. The Broncos were under 300 yards of offense again and they were 2-for-12 on third down.

But what did Denver do? Kept making those field goals, hung in there to get enough turnovers, and down 20-15, Wilson was able to lead his lone touchdown drive of the night to win the game. Courtland Sutton and Samaje Perine were huge on the game-winning drive, which was completed with more end zone stretching highlights by Sutton for a 15-yard touchdown with 1:03 left.

However, Denver failed on the 2-point conversion, so it was only a 21-20 lead with Minnesota having all its timeouts left. The legend of Dobbs could have really grown here with a game-winning drive, but the Vikings got really caught up in a short-yardage situation after Jordan Addison ran out of bounds 1 yard shy of a first down. That led to the Vikings having to burn 2 timeouts, and this was not moving along well. Pressure got to Dobbs, and he was called for intentional grounding, which set up 4th-and-25. Not surprisingly, his deep ball was incomplete, and the Broncos held on for another tight win this week.

Minnesota’s (6-5) 5-game winning streak is over, and the Broncos (5-5) are on a 4-game winning streak. I don’t know if either team is playoff worthy, but close game regression has hit each appropriately this year.

Steelers at Browns: Half the AFC North QBs Go Down and Kenny Pickett Is Still the Worst

It feels like Sunday was a breaking point for many who were still believers in Kenny Pickett after this 13-10 loss in Cleveland to a backup rookie quarterback (Dorian Thompson-Robinson). I’ve always been skeptical of Pickett as a franchise quarterback, and this game was one of his worst yet. He was 15-of-28 for 106 yards, and he took 3 sacks for another 29 yards. That’s 77 yards on 31 passes. That’s nothing.

More than that, Jaylen Warren carried this offense to all 10 of its points, starting with a 74-yard touchdown run after the Steelers were scoreless at halftime. While DTR was not great for Cleveland, I think it says a lot that his coaching staff let him throw 43 passes in such a low-scoring, tight battle. In fact, Cleveland is only the third team ever to throw at least 43 passes in a game it never trailed, a game that didn’t go to overtime, and where they allowed no more than 10 points while scoring no more than 13 points. It only happened in 2007 Ravens vs. 49ers and 2004 Dolphins vs. Browns.

DTR definitely had some accuracy issues, but he was not afraid to let the ball go, and he was accurate late in the game in leading a game-winning field goal drive after Pickett went three-and-out in a drive that only took 24 seconds.

More drives like that and I don’t see how the Steelers don’t go shopping for a quarterback after the season. It’s one thing to be generally lousy in the game like the opening sack he took that should have been a safety where he looked like he had no awareness. It’s one thing to be lousy at scoring points. But if your reputation of coming through in the clutch is going to lead to drives like the last couple in a 10-10 game in the fourth quarter, then you are just wasting the team’s time. You bring nothing to the table.

While watching this game, I was flipping back to the RedZone channel during commercials and saw a rookie like C.J. Stroud move in the pocket, set his feet, and fire bombs to give his guys a chance or threading the needle on dimes to the sideline while under pressure, and I turn back and there’s Pickett with 34 yards at halftime. Only a net of 15 if you take off the sacks. There’s no comparison. And it’s not just Stroud. I could see it in Week 1 when Brock Purdy, the last pick in a 2022 draft that saw Pickett go ahead of every other quarterback, vastly outplay him.

Even Tommy DeVito threw 3 touchdowns for the Giants on Sunday after he had 2 last week against Dallas. He’s up to 6 touchdowns or as many as Pickett has in 10 games this season. Come on.

I will say Najee Harris has the right outlook on things, noting that the Steelers aren’t going to keep winning by playing poorly like they have been.

The Steelers were outgained for the 10th time this year. There were signs of fool’s gold with their 7-2 finish after last year’s bye week, but at least the 2022 Steelers can say they outgained their opponent in yards in 8 of their last 9 games.

This year’s offense is a joke, and while Matt Canada was taking almost all of the criticism early, people may finally be able to see the quarterback is a huge problem too.

Huge problem.

Buccaneers at 49ers: At Least It Wasn’t 35-7 This Time

Brock Purdy must like playing the Buccaneers. He made his first NFL start against them last year, led Tom Brady’s team 35-0, and on Sunday, he had a rare perfect passer rating (158.3) game with 21-of-25 for 333 yards and 3 touchdowns. He did take 4 sacks to help keep that number intact, but it was one of Purdy’s best games with Brandon Aiyuk having a monster game with 156 yards and a touchdown.

Christian McCaffrey started a new touchdown streak right away in the first quarter, and the 49ers largely rolled along to a 27-14 win. Not as dominant as last year’s meeting, but Baker Mayfield was better than the King of Kings. He just wasn’t able to finish drives off in the red zone in the fourth quarter as the Buccaneers had a couple of long marches stall in a scoreless final 14 minutes.

The 49ers (7-3) could certainly use a Philadelphia loss this week (at Kansas City) or next (vs. Buffalo) to further build the hype when they meet in Week 13, the Game of the Year in the NFC.

Jets at Bills: Buffalo Not So Much Back as Jets Are Good as Gone

The Bills won their first game after firing offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey, and it was fairly convincing as the 32-6 score suggests. But was it really?

Could Dorsey have called a 3-and-out drive that lost 9 yards to start the game after the Bills forced a fumble on the opening kickoff? The Bills still got a field goal out of it, but the offense went backwards. On the second drive, Stefon Diggs had a fumble go out of bounds, so the new OC must be better at using his mind to teleport the ball out of bounds unlike Dorsey on Monday night against Denver.

But the Bills were held to three field goals before another short field (23 yards) presented itself after a Zach Wilson interception. That made it 16-0. The only turnover of the game for Buffalo was a Hail Mary interception thrown by Josh Allen to end the half, but I’m sure that’ll fuel someone else’s narrative on this team.

The Bills (6-5) played fine against an unraveling division foe that benched its quarterback for Tim Boyle in this game. I just think Dorsey was a scapegoat and this one game doesn’t prove anything either way, unless you think the Bills will get 81-yard touchdown passes to Shakir more often now. After all, it’s only the 2nd completion in Allen’s NFL career of more than 75 yards, and that should be credited to the OC, right?

Meh, whatever. We’ll see what happens in Philadelphia next week.

Seahawks at Rams: Not Feeling the Field Goal

It was a little surprising to see the Seahawks blow a 13-0 lead in this one, because the Rams did not look good. Matthew Stafford was having a rough day, Cooper Kupp misjudged a deep ball for a touchdown, and left the game injured. But Kenneth Walker was injured for the Seahawks, and Geno Smith was hurt on a hit that almost led to an interception on a pop-up.

The Rams hung in there while the Seahawks kept settling for long field goals, which would ultimately doom them. Drew Lock’s entry into the game in the final quarter did not help. He had a three-and-out drive and an interception.

The Rams finally came to life with a touchdown run by Darrell Henderson, then after the Lock pick, Stafford took over at his own 21, got bailed out of a 3rd-and-15 with an illegal hands to the face penalty, and the Rams bled the clock down to 1:31 after kicking a 22-yard field goal to take a 17-16 lead.

That’s plenty of time for Seattle to answer, and even better, Geno replaced Lock at quarterback. D.K. Metcalf ended his little touchdown drought earlier in the game, and his 21-yard catch to get the ball inside the 40 looked like a game-changing play. At that point with under 35 seconds and no timeouts left, I think Seattle should have spiked it. Instead, the Seahawks ran the ball for a 2-yard gain, which meant a hurried spike with 8 seconds left, leaving almost no time to run another play unless you want to get risky.

Again, I think they blew the strategy there. Spike it on first down, complete one more good pass over the middle or to the sideline, and you can set up the field goal from there. I flat out don’t get the hurried run with a running clock and no timeouts.

Pete Carroll basically cornered himself into a 55-yard field goal to win the game, and while kickers are better than ever from long distance, that’s a tough kick for Jason Myers. He was wide right with 3 seconds left, and that was the ball game.

The Rams complete the sweep of Seattle, repaying the Seahawks for their sweep last year in close games against Sean McVay’s team. The Seahawks (6-4) have to host the 49ers this Thursday night with a questionable quarterback, so this division race could be wrapping up soon enough.

As for Stafford, he gets his 36th fourth-quarter comeback win, tying him with Dan Marino for No. 6 in NFL history.

Cardinals at Texans: The Shootout That Became Defensive Slugfest

This had great potential to be a fun shootout, and it was in the first half. Kyler Murray threw his first touchdown pass of the season on a 48-yard bomb to Rondale Moore to get the scoring started. By halftime, Houston led 21-10 and rookie C.J. Stroud was sitting on 259 yards and 2 touchdown passes, or what Kenny Pickett might accumulate if games were 20 quarters long.

The third quarter saw Houston’s new kicker miss a 48-yard field goal, Murray scoot into the end zone on a 4th-and-goal touchdown as only he can, and it set up what should have been a dramatic fourth quarter with the Cardinals only down 21-16.

But the score never changed. The Cardinals came up short in turning the ball over on downs, they muffed a punt, Stroud was picked, Murray missed on a 4th-and-4, Stroud was picked for a third time in the game not unlike last week when he had a chance to put the game away in Cincinnati.

Arizona tried to take that last pick the distance for a game-winning drive that started with 4:58 left, but they short-circuited after the 2-minute warning when Murray’s pass to James Conner lost 5 yards and set everything back. Murray has not had the right connection with Hollywood Brown yet in his return, and he was the incomplete target on the game’s last two plays, including a 4th-and-8.

A thing I love about this Houston offense is the way it seems to have a different receiver go nuclear every week. It was Nico Collins earlier this season, then it was Noah Brown the last two weeks, and Sunday’s turn was Tank Dell’s, who had 149 yards and a touchdown. Collins, Brown, and Dell all have multiple games with 140 receiving yards this season, and if that’s not a single-season record for a team, I’d be surprised.

So, I looked it up, and it is a record. The 2023 Texans are the 26th offense to have at least six 140-yard receiving performances in a regular season (record is 8 by 1967 Jets, 2018 Steelers, and 2022 Dolphins), but they are the only one to do it with three receivers having multiple big performances.

Like to see Stroud cut out the big picks late in games while nursing small leads, but that’s about the only thing he’s doing lately that makes you remember he’s a rookie and not an elite veteran.

Raiders at Dolphins: Didn’t Think They Had It in Them

I really did not think the Dolphins had a 20-13 game in them. It’s disappointing for both teams that they didn’t score more in a game where Davante Adams (82 yards) and Tyreek Hill (146 yards) both found the end zone. But Josh Jacobs was held to 39 yards on 14 carries, and the return of De’Von Achane was short-lived for Miami as he left injured after 2 touches for 5 yards.

But these defenses controlled the second half when only a pair of Miami field goals were scored. Every time it looked like the Raiders had a drive going in a 20-13 game, the Miami defense shut the door with a 3rd-down sack, a couple of 4th-down stops, and the final pick was a great play by Jalen Ramsey on a deep ball in the end zone with 25 seconds left to ice the win.

The Miami offense was not up to putting the game away, so the defense stepped up for it. Can they do that against a contender and not a Vegas team with rookie Aidan O’Connell at QB?  We’ll see.

Giants at Commanders: Those Pesky Division Games

I couldn’t believe some of the lines on this game this week with the Giants at +9.5 and the Commanders O/U 23.5 points. Sure, it’s a different offense this year with Sam Howell and Eric Bieniemy, but it’s still a struggling offense that takes too many sacks. That was the case in Week 7 when the Giants beat this team 14-7 in an ugly game.

If there is one thing the Giants have proven they can do consistently over the years, it is beating Washington. Tommy DeVito ended up throwing for 246 yards and 3 touchdowns in this game despite taking 9 sacks. The last team to win a game by double digits despite allowing 9 sacks was the 1984 Falcons, and that’s because they had 8 sacks on defense against the Eagles.

This game is the 145th in the Super Bowl era where a team had 9 sacks on defense while allowing no more than 4 sacks on offense. This is only the second time in those 145 games where the team lost by more than 3 points. The only other game was the 1966 AFL Championship, won 31-7 by the Chiefs over Buffalo.

Sacks were the only thing keeping this close as the Commanders lost the turnover battle 6-0. The sixth turnover was a pick-6 with the ball at midfield and 29 seconds left in a 24-19 game. It happened because of pressure.

Isaiah Simmons could have just gone down and ended the game there at 24-19, but of course my teaser parlays never hit for this reason. 31-19 it is as the Giants have a rookie quarterback who has as many touchdown passes (6) in the last 3 games as Kenny Pickett has in 10 games this year. I promise, that’s the last Pickett mention today.

Circle this one on Jack Del Rio’s resume.

Cowboys at Panthers: Predictable

Dallas accomplished two things it had not done since Week 1’s 40-0 win over the Giants:

  • Win a road game by more than 3 points
  • Get Tony Pollard a touchdown

You probably figured the 33-10 win over 1-win Carolina came easy, but this was only a 17-10 game going into the fourth quarter. That’s when Dallas blew the game open in two snaps. Pollard took off for a 21-yard touchdown, then a Bryce Young pass was intercepted for a touchdown by a defense that was +350 on the day to score, which is ridiculously high. Just like that it was 30-10 and game over.

The Carolina defense did what it could in limiting Dallas to 4.6 yards per play (no plays over 25 yards). But the Panthers lacked any big plays and Young was also sacked 7 times (2.5 sacks by Micah Parsons).

The 2023 Cowboys are only the third team in the Super Bowl era to notch 6 wins by at least 20 points in their first 10 games, joining the 2007 Patriots (8) and 1999 Rams (6). Those were historic Super Bowl teams. I’m not sure Dallas will join them there too, but they definitely know how to squash a scrub (Arizona aside).

Titans at Jaguars: Just Your Typical, Unwatchable Jacksonville Game

The Jaguars are 7-3 after toying with Tennessee in a 34-14 bore that saw the Jags score the game’s first 27 points. Trevor Lawrence threw a pair of touchdowns to Calvin Ridley and rushed for another pair himself.

Rookie Will Levis had 51 passing yards late in the third quarter when it was 27-0 before finishing with a gaudy stat line (13-of-17 for 158 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs, and a 143.8 passer rating) that ultimately meant nothing.

I think the Titans (3-7) are largely going through the motions right now, and the Jaguars play a brand of football that just isn’t that sexy or enticing to watch. Their games haven’t seen a fourth-quarter lead change since Week 1 in Indy, and their only other game this year where either team was within 3 points in the fourth quarter was the 31-24 win in New Orleans where a 24-24 tie was broken late by Jacksonville.

At least you can say their games have been decided decisively, but when you can’t score against the contenders (12 points total in losses to the Chiefs and 49ers), you’re going to get looked over for 34-14 wins over the Titans, who look like a 1980s nightclub slowly coming to grips with the Last Days of Disco.

Next week: For Week 12, thanks to Thanksgiving and Black Friday, the NFL is giving us 5 island games that are all division games, and they might all stink. Great. At least SNF has potential with Ravens-Chargers, but that could be a blowout too. I think Bills-Eagles is the week’s best game and that’ll be a 4:25 start. I enjoy those late-window games where they start in daylight and turn dark by halftime. Just hope it’s not decided in the first half too.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 8

~ Scott ~ 13 Comments

I’m not sure what was crazier in the NFL in Week 8. The Broncos finally beat the Chiefs, the Carolina Panthers finally won a game after trailing in the fourth quarter, or Sam Howell only took one sack against the Eagles. Several years have passed since two of those things happened, and Howell’s life has been shortened by several years this season.

Even the Chargers played a game where they led by at least 17 points (3 possessions) for the entire second half. That hadn’t happened in the last 60 games for them.

But Sunday was a streak-killing one around the league.

Just not for the 49ers, who got a 17th-straight game with a touchdown from Christian McCaffrey, their 3rd-straight loss, and Kyle Shanahan fell to 0-37 when trailing by at least 8 points in the fourth quarter. Business as usual there.

But we have a lot of games to cover, and there were 9 games with a comeback opportunity this week. We also had a pair of double-digit deficit comebacks after having none in Week 7 as the Colts (17-7) and Commanders (14-3) blew early leads.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Chiefs at Broncos: Things to Do in Denver When Your Streaks Are Dead

It was bound to happen eventually. The Chiefs would have a bad game, and their streak would be over. Which streak? Well, how about all of them?

  • 16 straight wins vs. Denver Broncos (longest active streak vs. one team) – OVER
  • 40 straight games without losing by more than 4 points (NFL record) – OVER
  • 40 straight games without losing by more than 7 points (4th-longest streak ever) – OVER
  • 40 straight games with a fourth-quarter/overtime lead or tie – OVER
  • 16 straight road division game wins (longest team streak in NFL history) – OVER
  • Patrick Mahomes – 35 straight games with a touchdown pass, including playoffs (longest active streak) – OVER
  • Patrick Mahomes – 16 straight road division game wins as starter (2nd-longest streak for starting quarterback behind only Joe Montana, 20) – OVER

Mahomes was also reportedly 25-0 against teams who were 2 games below .500 before Sunday, though I’ve never put much stock in anything based on record at the time.

But the reason these streaks largely go back 40 games is that was the 27-3 loss to the Titans in 2021, the only game where Mahomes and the Chiefs lost wire-to-wire (never led). Well, Sunday in Denver was the second wire-to-wire loss for Mahomes and the Chiefs. It is only the 4th loss by more than 8 points for him.

Was it the weather? They have played in colder, and the snow didn’t materialize during the game. Was it Mahomes having the flu this weekend? He didn’t seem to be lacking in energy as he ran for his life throughout the game, which was a bigger issue itself.

It really is as simple as you can’t turn the ball over 5 times on the road and expect to win in this league. But in a weird twist, I came away from this game with more confidence in the Kansas City defense and less confidence in the offense going forward.

If you look at Denver’s offense in this game, while Russell Wilson passed for 3 touchdowns, he only had 114 yards on 19 attempts, and it gets worse when you consider he took 6 sacks for 27 yards and lost a fumble. That means the Chiefs held Wilson under 100 net passing yards twice in 17 days.

While Denver scored 24 points, those drives came on short fields where the offense only gained 39, 50, 10, and 10 yards. That’s 24 points on 109 yards. That’s ridiculous. Denver started at the 50 or better on every scoring drive.

This is why the turnovers hurt so much, and the Kansas City defense did its best to mitigate them:

  • Turnover No. 1 was a bad one as Marquez Valdes-Scantling fumbled a completion in Denver territory, which led to a 50-yard touchdown drive for the Broncos.
  • Turnover No. 2 was a Mahomes interception that ended up not mattering since the Chiefs stopped Wilson on a 4th-down run, and the Chiefs were 5 yards ahead of where they were before the pick 90 seconds later.
  • Turnover No. 3 was a strip-sack of Mahomes in the red zone, which was big, but Wilson also lost a fumble on a sack, and the Chiefs got a 56-yard field goal out of it, so it may have been a 4-point mistake at most.
  • The Chiefs blocked a 38-yard field goal to start the third quarter, which was another mini-turnover for Denver.
  • Turnover No. 4 was the killer as Mecole Hardman muffed a punt when the Chiefs were going to get the ball back in a 14-9 game with 11:15 to play. Instead, the Broncos had a 10-yard touchdown drive to go up 21-9.
  • Turnover No. 5 was moot when you’re throwing up a prayer on 4th-and-27, don’t get the flag for contact on the receiver, and by catching the ball, Jusitn Simmons cost his team 6 yards in field position.

I know a particular group of people, likely from New England area codes, are going to say I took the blame off Mahomes. I didn’t. It was one of the worst games of his career. But any rational analysis will tell you his turnovers were not as impactful as the fumbles by his skill players, especially that muffed punt by a problematic player they shouldn’t have brought back.

For as bad as this was, I still think the Chiefs can pull this one out if they had the ball in a 14-9 game. The muff killed them and changed how the rest of the game would be played.

I also think the Chiefs erroneously fell in love with throws short of the sticks early in this game and paid for it as Denver was not biting this week. A minus-4 yard completion to Isiah Pacheco blew up the opening drive for a 3-and-out. A minus-1 yard completion to Rashee Rice, who later had a bad drop at midfield, on a 3rd-and-2 killed another drive at the goal line, leading to a field goal instead of a touchdown. Jerick McKinnon was also stuffed for a 3-yard loss on a 3rd-and-2 run in the red zone that led to another field goal.

The Chiefs didn’t attack enough this week, and by the time the game got into a 2-touchdown deficit, Mahomes was under pressure a lot. I also think going for the deep touchdown shot on 4th-and-2 at the Denver 26 with 7:40 left was highly questionable. The fact the target was Skyy Moore makes it downright laughable as he is the player you call plays for if you want the offense to die.

The Kansas City offense played very poorly in this one and Denver was good enough to take advantage. But unlike the other 3 blowout losses for the Chiefs (Super Bowl 55, 2021 Bills, 2021 Titans), this one was not a bad defensive performance too. I’m learning to trust that unit.

The problem coming into this season was who do they have to catch the ball after Kelce. Through 8 games, the answer looks like not much. With the trade deadline this Tuesday, they may need to do something drastic, because the way this season is going, it’s ending early in January with Mahomes trying to make a throw on 4th & 25+.

In a way, this could be a well-timed loss for the Chiefs. You don’t want everyone kissing your ass week after week, and sometimes it takes a good ass kicking to fix what’s wrong and improve. The way the Chiefs played to get to 6-1 was not good enough for a championship run. They need to be better than that, and we’ll see if the trip to Germany and a high-profile opponent like Miami can bring out their best, or if it only further shows they have taken a step back this year to the pack.

Time to start some new streaks, because they left them all behind in Denver in one of the ugliest performances of the Mahomes era.

I had an inkling ever since Sean Payton signed in Denver that this would be the game when the streak ends. But 24-9? Was never in my mind. And to think the Chiefs scored only 3 field goals on a day when DeAndre Hopkins caught 3 touchdowns…

Bengals at 49ers: Someone Let Them Know Beating Dallas Wasn’t the Super Bowl

Don’t look now, but the Bengals have moved up to No. 9 in the AFC, and they look more stable and reliable than the other 4-3 teams ahead of them (Steelers, Browns, and Jets). But the Bengals still trail those teams because they are 0-3 against AFC teams this season.

However, by winning in San Francisco, the Bengals completed a 4-0 sweep of the NFC West. This was the biggest one with the 49ers being the best team, or so we thought before what is now a 3-game losing streak with Brock Purdy’s turnover issues catching up to the offense.

That was always the main issue going into this season. What if those interceptions that Purdy gets away with start getting caught? Well, concussion related or not, the mistakes are turning into turnovers and the team is losing games that were within a score in the fourth quarter over it.

This one also exposed the defense some more as Joe Burrow was 28-of-32 for 283 yards and 3 touchdowns in one of his best games of his career. The way Kirk Cousins was quick and decisive with good protection on Monday night seemed to carry over for the way the Bengals played this game on the road. Even the running game was strong with Joe Mixon rushing for 87 yards and a touchdown.

Despite suffering a concussion on Monday night and getting cleared in record time under the new protocol, it would be hard to say that was the issue for Purdy here. He led the team with 57 rushing yards, which is a separate issue as it makes you ask why Christian McCaffrey (12 carries for 54 yards) wasn’t more dominant on the ground. But Purdy had solid passing numbers without Deebo Samuel in a 17-10 game that was about to go to the fourth quarter with the 49ers in the red zone.

That’s when his Mr. Irrelevant-looking mistake bit him as he tried to throw a pass near the sideline and it was intercepted and almost returned the distance for a touchdown. The Bengals did not turn that one into any points, but they intercepted Purdy on the next play from scrimmage too, and that one set up a 17-yard touchdown drive in one play after Ja’Marr Chase pulled in a score to make it 24-10.

Purdy threw a touchdown to McCaffrey, his second of the game, but the Bengals were flawless in a 4-minute offense situation with a 78-yard touchdown drive that consumed 5:18 and put the team back on top 31-17 with 2:54 left. Purdy was strip-sacked by Trey Hendrickson, then later padded the stats a bit with two meaningless completions for 69 yards.

No team steps up for every big game, but the Bengals answered the call here with excellent performances in the passing game, running game, and for the defense to hold down what was another elite offense with a bunch of big turnovers.

Eagles at Commanders: Almost a Repeat of Last Time

I guess I’m still stuck on what the 2022 Eagles were, because both Washington matchups this month burned me on predictions. I thought the Eagles would blow them out at least once, yet this game almost went to overtime at 31-31 just like the first game did. For some reason, Sam Howell turns into Steve Young when he plays this defense, which does not have the same pass rush as last year’s Super Bowl team.

Fortunately, these Eagles have an even better version of A.J. Brown as he just set the NFL record with his 6th-consecutive 125-yard receiving game. He barely hit the number (130), but it was enough to score 2 touchdowns and help this team to a 7-1 start.

But Washington did not make it easy again on the Eagles, who were even stopped on the Brotherly Shove after a Jalen Hurts fumble on 1st-and-goal at the 1, and they had to come back from a 24-17 deficit in the fourth quarter. DeVonta Smith caught a 38-yard touchdown to tie the game in his best game in many weeks, then the defense came up with an interception to put the Eagles at the 7-yard line for a short touchdown drive that ended with a pass to Julio Jones, who decided to dress as a red zone threat for Halloween.

Howell had a lot of good moments in this game, and it showed the potential he has if he can cut down on the sacks and other mistakes. But there were a few too many pivotal moments that went against him and the Commanders. The Philadelphia comeback from a 14-3 deficit started after Howell, who hit 20 of his first 21 passes, misfired on a 4th-and-1 pass late in the first half. Later, he threw the pick to Reed Blankenship that put Washington down 31-24, then on a 4th-and-8 at the Philadelphia 40, his pass was low and would have been a very tough catch for Terry McLaurin.

Then after getting one more chance to tie the game or possibly take the lead, Howell suffered his only sack of the game on a 4th down when Haason Reddick got to him and knocked the ball out, setting up the Eagles for a 16-yard touchdown drive to put it away at 38-24.

Washington still got another touchdown to screw the Eagles -7 bettors in a 38-31 game, but it was too late. At the very least, Howell did not tie records for the longest streaks in NFL history taking 4 or 5 sacks in a game. But the Eagles still completed the sweep of Washington, now a 3-5 team.

Jaguars at Steelers: Mike Tomlin’s Boogeyman

Nothing is scarier to Mike Tomlin’s Steelers than the Jacksonville Jaguars getting off the team bus in Pittsburgh. In franchise history, the Steelers have only been swept at home in a season twice, and both times it was the Jaguars against Tomlin in 2007 and 2017.

The good news for Steelers fans: Don’t worry about a Jacksonville sweep happening this year, because this team won’t have a home playoff game.

The Steelers (4-3) may not have any playoff games if they keep playing like this. The ironic thing about those Jacksonville sweeps is that in both seasons, the Jaguars had the kind of offense that is more of what the Steelers aspire to be. Physical, strong running game that sets up the pass, tough quarterback, and a solid offensive line.

In 2023, the Jaguars are again what the Steelers wish they can be on offense. Trevor Lawrence was the first quarterback taken in his draft class, he struggled as a rookie, but he improved last year with a new set of talented receivers. They used a first-round pick on running back Travis Etienne, hoping to turn his college production into pro production alongside his Clemson teammate.

While no one had Kenny Pickett anywhere near the level of Lawrence as a prospect, he was the first quarterback taken in 2022, and there was a thought he could improve in his second season alongside a talented receiving duo (George Pickens and Diontae Johnson), and the team used the pick right before Etienne in 2021 to take Najee Harris.

But on Sunday, it couldn’t be any clearer that Pittsburgh’s plan is failing while the Jaguars (6-2) are on the longest active winning streak in the NFL at 5 games.

  • Lawrence passed for 292 yards in the rain and survived the pass rush of the Steelers despite 3 sacks on quick pressures his line is known to allow.
  • Pickett was 10-of-16 for 73 yards and was knocked out of the game in the first half with a rib injury.
  • It took the Steelers 5 drives to gain a first down.
  • Etienne had the game’s longest play with a 56-yard touchdown catch while Harris had 55 yards on 12 touches.
  • George Pickens’ 22-yard touchdown catch was his only catch in the game while Christian Kirk, Calvin Ridley, and tight end Evan Engram combined for 20 catches for 217 yards.

It was Pittsburgh’s miserable offensive performance that wasted a defense that had 3 takeaways, and the Steelers were still trailing 17-3 with that 3-0 edge in the turnover department.

Enter Mitch Trubisky for Pickett, and one of the things a good backup should do is manage the game and not make the fatal mistakes to blow it. But Trubisky has a higher interception rate (2.8%) in Pittsburgh than he did in Chicago (2.3%) as he was careless with the ball again.

After Pittsburgh’s defense sacked Lawrence out of field-goal range in the fourth quarter, Trubisky had the ball in a 17-10 game with 10:14 left. But he quickly threw a poor pass deep that was picked off. The Jaguars had no problem turning that into another field goal, and taking a 20-10 lead with 4:35 left. The Steelers turned it over on downs, and that was basically a wrap. Trubisky threw another pick on a Hail Mary to end the game and make the turnover battle look closer at 3-2 Pittsburgh, but that is still no excuse for the Steelers to waste as many drives as they did on offense.

Pickett or Trubisky, I’m not sure there’s a difference or it matters right now. Not as long as Matt Canada is calling a pathetic offense and Tomlin seems to have no input on how to fix it.

The Steelers could take advantage of a rookie quarterback (Tennessee’s Will Levis) on a short week this Thursday to win another home game. But when it comes to playing a legitimate contender with a great offense like the Chiefs or Eagles, we see how the Steelers get blown out in recent years. When they play a playoff-caliber team like Jacksonville, they usually fold in those games too with the offense struggling to do anything.

This team is stuck in purgatory, and until major changes come, they will not ascend to being anything better than that.

Rams at Cowboys: Early Knockout

I miss the old days when the Cowboys had normal game scripts. This one was over when CeeDee Lamb caught his first touchdown to give Dallas a 26-3 lead with 12:45 left in the second quarter. Never mind the 43-20 scorigami that followed.

That’s right, it was a 23-point game just minutes into the second quarter. Oddly enough, the Dallas offense was the least impressive part of this run due to some sacks that made them look underwhelming. The special teams kicked ass with a 58-yard field goal, a punt blocked for a safety, and a 63-yard kick return on the free kick.

The defense intercepted Matthew Stafford for a 30-yard touchdown, then Micah Parsons sacked him on a third down before the punt block.

This was just an ass-kicking with the Rams never getting closer than 16 points the rest of the way. Stafford didn’t finish the game with a thumb injury that may have gotten worse on a play where he caught a 2-point conversion. Yes, he caught a pass.

It was the kind of mess I thought we’d see more often from the Rams this year given the roster limitations. But if Stafford is hurt and they already seem to have broken the Cooper Kupp connection (under 30 yards in back-to-back games), then what good is this team going forward?

Dallas just has to stay the course, because the talent is there to put it all together at the right time. Beating the Eagles next week would be a huge statement.

Patriots at Dolphins: Tua Moves to 6-0 vs. Belichick

I have said before that it’s kind of annoying that Tua Tagovailoa gets to be the first and only quarterback to go 5-0 against Bill Belichick, because he’s been facing the weakest of the New England teams, and he hasn’t even done a whole lot in those games (4 TD, 3 INT). He just avoids the big mistakes and his defense forces the Patriots into them with some huge fumbles.

But on Sunday, Tagovailoa had his best game yet against Belichick to move to 6-0 against the Patriots in his career. He passed for 324 yards and 3 touchdowns, the first time he had over 270 yards and more than 1 touchdown pass against New England.

But much like in Week 2, this was a 24-17 game in the fourth quarter with the Patriots (+8.5) hanging around. And just like in Week 2, the Dolphins hit a big play to turn the Patriots back after they made it a one-score game with Mac Jones finding JuJu Smith-Schuster on a 3-yard touchdown pass on fourth down.

Back in the day, the Patriots would force Miami into a mistake and get the ball back so you know who would have real chances to complete the comeback. But that’s rarely the case with these new Patriots.

Sure enough, the Patriots allowed Miami to convert a 3rd-and-9 to Tyreek Hill at midfield, then gave up a 31-yard touchdown to Jaylen Waddle on a 3rd-and-1 with 2:43 left to effectively end the game at 31-17.

This is the kind of thing that would never happen to New England in the dynasty years. Literally never, cause I had to look it up seeing as how the Dolphins did something similar in Week 2 when Raheem Mostert had a long touchdown run to go up 2 touchdowns on the Patriots.

We always hear about Belichick being so good at limiting the big plays, playing his bend-but-don’t-break style of defense, and making teams earn it on long drives. I thought allowing a 30-yard touchdown in a game you’re trailing by 1 score that makes it a 2-score game would look really bad. I looked it up, and sure enough, this never happened once to the Patriots in the Tom Brady years in 2001-19. But since, it’s happened 4 times now, including both games against the 2023 Dolphins. It also happened against the 2021 Colts and 2022 Bills, so that’s 4 times in the post-Brady years, none in the Brady era. You can’t make this stuff up.

Even if you drop it to 20 yards so that it’s all touchdowns from outside the red zone, it’s 2 (2006 Jets, 2017 Chiefs) vs. 4 times.

Belichick is the coach, so he has to take some blame for this. But it’s another one of those things that I refuse to credit Brady for not allowing to happen during his two decades. He didn’t play defense, unless you think he was a witch that had the power to will his teammates from the bench to do things for him.

I think it’s more of the Patriots don’t have defenders worth a damn like they used to step in and make a play, and it’s also the divisional opponents that have gotten so much more talented on offense (Bills and Dolphins, at least) that are doing this to them better than anyone.

Down 14 inside of 3:00, the Patriots went 4-and-out to end this one, dropping them to 2-6 in a division that now has the 6-2 Dolphins, 5-3 Bills, and 4-3 Jets.

New England is dead last in the AFC going into Week 9.

Browns at Seahawks: Late Pick Dooms Cleveland

On a list of hard-fought wins, this one would have to rank highly this season for Seattle. Both quarterbacks threw 2 interceptions, and it could have easily been more for both with the way the defenses were flashing all day long.

But it was P.J. Walker’s late pick that doomed the Browns. I get why they wanted to throw on a 3rd-and-3 at their 41 with the Seahawks still having a few timeouts and it was going to be the 2-minute warning after that play. But you have to protect the ball better, and Jamal Adams was able to deflect it to a teammate for a huge interception that set up Geno Smith at the Seattle 43 in a 20-17 game.

We talk about Geno not having a great record with comebacks, but he made the Cleveland defense fold like a cheap suit on this drive. Noah Fant had a 27-yard gain, and with a good block, Jaxon Smith-Njigba was able to spring free for a 9-yard touchdown with 38 seconds left to take a 24-20 lead.

This one probably goes to overtime at worst if Walker did anything but throw that pick. He still had a chance to do something with 38 seconds and 2 timeouts, but the Seahawks sacked him on third down, then he threw incomplete on 4th-and-19 to end the game.

Thanks to the 49ers (5-3) losing their third in a row, the Seahawks (5-2) are in first place in the NFC West. They won’t meet until Thanksgiving, but it should be interesting to see where this race goes with the Seahawks going to Baltimore next.

The Browns kind of stole a couple from the 49ers and Colts the last two weeks, so giving up one here in Seattle only feels fair for this 4-3 team that has lost some luster with the defense the last couple of games.

Texans at Panthers: Everyone’s a Winner Now

I was all about the Carolina Panthers (+3.5) getting their first win as my upset pick this week. Thought we would see more offense than 13-12, but the Panthers had no running game to speak of with the backs accounting for 20 carries for 33 yards. Bryce Young also took 6 sacks, so it was a miserable day for the offensive line.

Still, we rarely see NFL games with this much offensive struggle. It was the first game since 2018 Bills-Titans to end with neither team reaching 14 points and 230 yards offense. That game also happened to end 13-12.

The Texans punted on 6-of-9 drives and lost a fumble in the third quarter. But after taking a 13-12 lead when C.J. Stroud rushed for a 1-yard touchdown on a fourth-down play, the Texans never put the game away. They also missed a big 2-point conversion that would have made it 15-12 and protected against a field goal.

But this set the stage for the Panthers to end one of the league’s most embarrassing streaks. Since 2018, the Panthers had lost 56 games in a row when trailing in the fourth quarter. Their opportunity here would be the easiest comeback type there is with a 1-point deficit and an entire quarter to do something about it.

But the streak did finally end after a bumpy ride to get there with Young taking a pair of 3rd-down sacks in the quarter to end drives. But after the Texans stalled out inside the Carolina 40, Young got the ball back at his own 9 with 6:17 left to have his moment. He made some easy plays, and then overcame another sack by getting a screen pass to Adam Thielen, then fitting a ball in a tight window on a 4th-and-2 at midfield. The running game finally made a positive contribution with Chuba Hubbard using 3 runs to make a first down and burn precious clock.

The Panthers consumed the final 6:17 off the clock and set up the field goal as the final play. After the Texans were penalized for illegally trying to disrupt the kick, the 23-yard field goal from Eddy Pineiro was finally through the upright and the 56-game losing streak was over.

The advanced stats hate sacks, so you’ll probably see Stroud come out higher than Young in this game, but I think Young hung in there well on a day he had no running game, minimal protection, and the Panthers started 3 drives inside their own 10, including the one to win the game.

Maybe with a win in the books, we’ll see some better play out of the Panthers going forward. At least I can’t keep dogging them for always losing this kind of game like they did the last 5 years.

Ravens at Cardinals: Onside Kick Leads to Absurd Backdoor Cover for Awful Team

I guess the stats won’t reflect it since there were 27 points scored in the final 10 minutes alone, but I really thought this was a poor offensive game for both teams. It’s funny how the Ravens could put on one of the best performances by any team this season in stomping a solid Detroit roster last week but send them to Arizona and they couldn’t even walk away with a double-digit win like every other Arizona opponent has since Week 4.

Lamar Jackson did not stack big games this week as he only passed for 157 yards, and he would have been 0-for-5 on targets to Odell Beckham Jr. if not for a defensive penalty flag. Zay Flowers had 5 catches for 19 yards.

Like I said, this was largely a dud with two Joshua Dobbs interceptions leading to short field touchdown drives for the Ravens. But even after they led 31-15 with 2:51 left, the Ravens (-9.5) couldn’t cover the spread. They gave up a touchdown, stopped the 2-point conversion to keep it 31-21, but the Cardinals recovered a rare onside kick. We get so few of those in an NFL season, and this one was a waste as it only served to piss off Baltimore bettors. Matt Prater hit a 47-yard field goal with 26 seconds left to make it 31-24, and of course they didn’t recover a second onside kick.

Should have known better that it was too good to be true that the Ravens could win back-to-back games by double digits.

Saints at Colts: Defense Fails Again for Indy

In a season where so many teams are struggling to score, I appreciate Shane Steichen for getting his Colts to score 20+ points every single week. They did it again by halftime in this one, even leading 17-7 at one point, as the New Orleans defense is losing its shine more and more each week.

Unfortunately, the Colts are one of the worst defensive teams in the NFL, and this game was one of the lower points of the season as they made Derek Carr look like a viable deep passer. Carr finished 19/27 for 310 yards and 2 touchdowns, including 153 yards on 3 catches by Rashid Shaheed.

This was an offensive explosion for the 2023 Saints while the Colts were rough in the second half. Gardner Minshew avoided the strip-sacks this week, but he was picked near the goal line in the third quarter, then both fourth quarter drives when the Colts were only down by one touchdown failed. The Saints put it away with a field goal after Shaheed’s second 50-yard catch of the game converted a 3rd-and-13 situation with 2:52 left.

Maybe the Saints (4-4), the preseason division favorite, are still the right team to back in the NFC South this year. But this was already the 4th home game this season where the Colts gave up more than 28 points.

If that sounds like a lot for Week 8, that’s because 4 home games allowing 29+ points is the most by any Colts team in a full season since 1997 (4).

Jets at Giants: Sucking on Offense Everything Everywhere All at Once

If you thought it was pretty bad last week when the Giants and Commanders played a game with more possessions (27) than points (21), this one was even worse. Or does sucking more on offense actually make this the better game since the expectations were for them to be bad, and it somehow blew those away?

This is the kind of nonsense you grow to expect from The Battle of New York. This game had a whopping 34 possessions and 23 points, meaning the last two Giants games have had a total of 44 points on 61 possessions (0.72 points per drive). This team is single-handedly killing offense in 2023.

And yet, the Giants should have won this game in regulation despite having minus-8 net passing yards, something that hadn’t been done in the NFL in a win since the 1977 Eagles did it against the Giants (of course). The Giants lost Tyrod Taylor to a rib injury, backup Tommy Devito had time between his Jersey Boys rehearsals to score a rushing touchdown, and the Giants were on track to win this game despite punting 12 times.

That just goes to show how bad Zach Wilson is. After he took a 15-yard sack on 4th-and-10 with 1:26 left, the ending should have been nearly routine despite the Jets having 2 timeouts left.

But Brian Daboll, who should never get another Coach of the Year vote ever again, screwed up. He had a 4th-and-1 at New York’s 17 with 28 seconds left. You run the ball in this situation. It’s a 70% conversion rate flat, and even higher if you go with any kind of quarterback sneak. You don’t kick a field goal and leave them time in a 6-point game to beat you with a miracle touchdown. At worst, you don’t convert, and they’ll still play for the field goal anyway and overtime. That’s why you take the slight risk and go for the yard to end the game.

He chose field goal, and Graham Gano added to his growing list of chokes with a wide left 35-yard kick on a day that was not ideal weather on a field with a shit surface. One of the worst decisions of the season.

But little did anyone expect Wilson to make the Giants pay. He found his receivers twice for gains of 29 yards each, and he was able to get the offense ready for a spike with 1 second left. Greg Zuerlein was not going to miss his 35-yard field goal, and he sent the game to overtime. Stunning collapse.

If there was ever a game where you didn’t want to go first on offense in overtime, this should have been the one. The Giants had 3 plays all game that gained 10 yards, and one was a 17-yard run by Taylor, who was out. And yet, Daboll elected to receive first. What did he think was going to happen? They were going to magically put together a touchdown drive against one of the best defenses in the league to end it?

The Giants punted for the 13th time in the game, because all it took was a holding penalty on first down to completely kill the drive with a 1st-and-20.

To Wilson’s credit, he did convert a big 3rd-and-10 to avoid going three-and-out again for the Jets. Then a 30-yard defensive pass interference penalty set up Zuerlein for the 33-yard game-winning field goal to end this one 13-10.

I said on Saturday this game was most likely to end in a push with the Jets winning by 3. I think the Jets are one of the worst 4-3 teams I’ve ever seen, but the Giants deserved to lose this one with the stupid things they did late in the game.

Falcons at Titans: Farewell to the Ryan Tannehill Era

When your quarterback is in his mid-30s, coming off a bad year, and your team drafts a quarterback with a top 50 pick, that veteran’s days are probably numbered. Will Levis plummeted on draft night after some thought he could go in the top 4, but it was only a matter of time before he’d get a shot in Tennessee, especially with Ryan Tannehill’s extensive injury history.

That moment came in Week 8 and Will Levis joined Fran Tarkenton and Marcus Mariota as the only quarterbacks in NFL history to throw 4 touchdown passes in their debut. Let’s hope his career turns out better than Mariota’s did.

I loved the prop of DeAndre Hopkins scoring his first touchdown as no one was more due than him, but 3 in one game with the rookie quarterback? Tannehill had 2 touchdown passes on 158 attempts this year.

Now that does sound like something a classic Atlanta defense would do against a rookie, but I was still surprised at the Titans having that many big plays. Levis had three 30-yard touchdown passes in this game.

Was every ball perfectly thrown or against tight coverage? No, but I think you have to be fairly encouraged after a debut like this, especially with how little the Titans were getting out of their passing game with Tannehill. I think Mike Vrabel needs to stick with the rookie even when Tannehill is healthy.

As for the Falcons, they pulled Desmond Ridder for Taylor Heinicke in this one, or was it a concussion concern? Either way, Ridder wasn’t getting the job done and lost another fumble.

Heinicke had some shots in the fourth quarter to lead a game-winning touchdown drive, but it didn’t work out either time. I think the Falcons should have ran the ball on 4th-and-1 at their own 22 with 1:33 left just to make sure they’d get the first down before hurrying up, but Arthur Smith had other ideas.

Now the Falcons have quarterback questions, and the Titans have some new hope on their side. Levis had as many touchdown passes in his debut as Ridder had in his first 7 starts combined (4). Levis also had as many touchdown passes in his debut as Kenny Pickett’s best 3 games combined (2+1+1), and Pickett could be Levis’ next opponent if he is cleared to play Thursday night.

We’ll see how it goes, but Game No. 1 was a smashing success for the rookie.

Vikings at Packers: Et tu, Kirk? 😦

I have taken my share of shots and jokes at Kirk Cousins’ expense over the years, but I am truly upset that his season just likely ended to an Achilles tear after he was playing some of his best ball and may have led this team to a wild card position.

For all of Cousins’ shortcomings, he is still one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the league, and he’s been a gamer with only one game missed to injury for a positive COVID test in his career. In a league where so many quarterbacks are struggling, having someone you could reliably expect to throw for 250 yards and 2 touchdowns means something.

Right, Green Bay fans? An accurate quarterback matters, and Jordan Love just isn’t that guy yet. He may never be. But it’s also true that this experiment of surrounding Love with a ton of young skill players is not working out for Matt LaFleur. Christian Watson’s big touchdown run from last year is looking like a fluke. Even the running game failed as Love led the Packers with 34 rushing yards in this game, another slow start for the offense that saw Green Bay trailing 10-3 at halftime.

The Packers never got closer than 24-10 in the fourth quarter, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t multiple opportunities to make this a game. The worst part was after Cousins was injured (non-contact) in the fourth quarter, the backup came in and coughed it up on a strip-sack just 3 plays into the drive. The Packers immediately started in the red zone, but just like the previous drive, they turned it over on downs after Love was unable to finish the job. A 15-yard scramble on 4th-and-16? Please.

At 2-5, Green Bay looks effectively done for the playoff race this year. At 4-4 with such a favorable remaining schedule, I’m not sure what the Vikings do. Trade for Kyler Murray? Eh, I don’t know about that one. It’s just unfortunate as this is the year that will be remembered for the quarterback Achilles injuries, Cousins and Rodgers. One was going to be an MVP candidate, and the other was actually leading the league in touchdown passes the week he was injured.

Just the most unfortunate part of this game, and if you’re a Green Bay fan, you know how good you had it when Brett Favre started 321 games in a row.

Bears at Chargers: NBC Gets the Dud It Deserved

Our 14th and final game is fittingly the Sunday night pillow fight between the Bears and Chargers, who both entered Week 8 as the No. 14 seed in their conference. Not only should this game have been flexed out of SNF, but it never should have made the prime-time schedule. I could have told you that in April or even in March when the Bears traded the top pick to Carolina.

I’m not convinced this is any more of a game if Justin Fields was the starter as the Bears had no answers for Justin Herbert’s passing (31-of-40 for 298 yards, 3 TD) while the offense neglected to throw to D.J. Moore in the second half against arguably the worst pass defense in the league.

Seriously, what kind of Chargers game has them with a 30-7 lead in the fourth quarter with not even a hint of a collapse around the corner? That was garbage, and I hope the NFL remembers that the next time they have the chance to flex out a bad game on what is supposed to be the prestigious spot in their weekly programming.

Instead, we had to listen to Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth talk up Tyson Bagent for 3 hours. Oh, the horror.

Next week: Bring on the legitimately big games. Chiefs-Dolphins, Seahawks-Ravens, Cowboys-Eagles, and Bengals-Bills are all part of the Week 9 schedule. I might have to actually get up before 10:00 AM for this one.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 6

~ Scott ~ 15 Comments

You know it was a crazy day in the NFL when the only teams to blow a double-digit lead were the last undefeated teams (49ers and Eagles) and the only winless team (Panthers). To top it off, the Bills had the largest point spread (-15.5) of any team this season, and they were a yard away from losing to the Giants at home on Sunday night.

But winning ugly is still a lot better than the alternative of losing dumb. There was a lot of bad football played this Sunday, and it is looking like this will be a season similar to 2021 where there are no truly great teams. That’s how you end up with the Titans as a No. 1 seed, a default MVP because they don’t know who else to give it to (Aaron Rodgers), and the only Super Bowl ever without any top 3 seeds (Bengals and Rams were both No. 4 seeds).

You just cannot trust these teams anymore, and a big part of the problem is on the offensive side of the ball. Monday night pending, a whopping 8 teams won this week without scoring more than 20 points – tied for the most in any week in the 32-team era since 2002. That may have been 9 teams if the Raiders didn’t get a safety against the Patriots to finally break 20 points this year.

The only other times this happened in 8 games was in Week 1 of the 2007 and 2010 seasons and Week 3 of the 2011 season. Those were all 16-game slates too while we had 14 games this week (15th on Monday), so it is the highest rate of winners scoring under 21 points in a week in the NFL regular season since Week 5 of the 1999 season when 9-of-14 games were won with fewer than 21 points. That week ended with the Jets and Rick Mirer losing 16-6 to the Jaguars on Monday night, so let’s hope Cowboys-Chargers has higher standards than that.

There were 10 games with a comeback opportunity, though only 3 were successful. They just so happened to be the ones to knock the 49ers and Eagles from the ranks of the undefeated, and Buffalo was spared the embarrassment of losing as a 15.5-point favorite.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

49ers at Browns: If Brock Purdy Is Tom Brady, Then Jake Moody Is Billy Cundiff

Sunday in Cleveland was the kind of game that a lot of NFL fans wanted to see Brock Purdy deal with to see what he’s really made of. Everything had gone so smoothly for him. He was 13-0 when he threw 20 passes in a game and had a passer rating of at least 87.4 in all of them, a streak we may never see again to begin someone’s career.

Purdy had only trailed in the fourth quarter once in a game where he had both functioning elbows, and that was the Raiders game last year, a defense known for blowing games. There was only one other game that was tied in the fourth quarter, and that was the Dallas playoff game.

This was a major test of adversity as the 49ers were playing a very tough Cleveland defense on the road, there was a little rain, and Deebo Samuel and Christian McCaffrey did not finish the game due to injuries.

Despite leading 10-0 early, the 49ers were down 13-10 in the fourth quarter, and Purdy’s accuracy was shot. He was getting hit, he threw his first interception of the season, he had a few drive-killing sacks, and he was going to have to pick himself up and have an answer for why he’s getting outplayed by Cleveland backup quarterback P.J. Walker.

But Walker lived dangerously in this one, and in fact, his 24.1 QBR was the worst by a winning quarterback in Week 6 and below Purdy’s final number (40.0). Walker threw a second interception and that was returned to the Cleveland 8 with 11:04 left. Jordan Mason immediately rushed for an 8-yard touchdown and the 49ers were back up 17-13. The Browns were held to a field goal, then the 49ers badly botched their drive to put the game away with Purdy getting called for grounding and throwing an incompletion on a drive that lasted 25 seconds. But with Walker throwing wildly and what looked like a 4th-and-10 on the way, it looked like the 49ers were going to survive.

A comeback and game-winning drive where your defense and running game did all the work to bail you out on your worst day, and you blew it in the four-minute offense? Damn, Purdy really is the new Tom Brady.

But there are so many reasons we’ll never see the LOAT again. For one, the NFL has gotten incredibly soft with hard hits, and the 49ers were hosed on a bad call on that 3rd-and-10 incompletion for what looked like a clean hit to the shoulder area. But because it was hard and looked like it hurt, out came the flag for unnecessary roughness, and instead of a 4th-and-10 with the game on the line, Cleveland had a fresh set of downs. It was a messy game with both teams having at least 12 penalties for over 105 yards each.

There was still work to be done, and Jerome Ford did much of it with runs of 14 and 22 yards. Walker didn’t actually gain any yards on this drive, which ended with a 29-yard field goal to put the Browns up 19-17 with 1:40 left.

That set the stage for Purdy, who was going to have to lean on Brandon Aiyuk. That’s where he went for a couple of completions for 33 yards, and the 49ers got conservative inside the 30, which is usually a no-no in this league.

Purdy spiked the ball with 9 seconds left, and you have to say he did his job. But just like his first game-winning drive attempt against the Raiders last year, his kicker failed him. Last year it was veteran Robbie Gould who missed a 41-yard field goal to win Purdy’s 4th start. Instead, it sent the game to overtime where the Raiders threw an interception, gifting Purdy a kneeldown and short field goal for his first game-winning drive.

This time it was rookie kicker Jake Moody, who the team used the 99th pick in the draft to get. Let’s just say this early legacy game for him did not go well as he was 9-for-9 coming into Sunday, but he missed twice in this game. The probable game winner was only a 41-yard kick, but Moody hooked it wide right, and the Browns (+9.5) survived for one of the biggest upsets this season.

It took 14 starts, but Purdy has his first legitimate loss in the NFL, and it came at the mercy of a kicker. Meanwhile, Brady started 381 games in his career and just once, in his 183rd start against the 2012 Cardinals, did he lose a game after a clutch field goal was missed.

Purdy’s hero growing up was Dan Marino, who lost 10 games in his career after a clutch field goal was missed. I’ve yet to ever find a quarterback with more than that (Drew Brees also had 10). Let’s hope Purdy doesn’t turn out like Marino in that regard or as someone who had his best title shots in his first two seasons.

But the 49ers looked awfully mortal in this game. Cleveland earned it on more merit than just getting a weak penalty and missed kick. The Browns beat the 49ers 334-215 in yards. Cleveland has allowed 1,002 yards in 5 games, the 3rd-best mark to start a season since 1970 behind only the 1971 Colts (836) and 1970 Vikings (945).

Thie historic defense got the best of the historic offense this time. Now you just have to hope Moody doesn’t let this crush his psyche because kickers are fragile like that.

Eagles at Jets: Down Goes the Other 5-0 Team in Inexplicable Fashion

I don’t think the Eagles had a second to gloat about the 49ers losing in Cleveland, because their game kicked off with the Jets before the 49ers’ game ended.

This was another shocker with a 5-0 team going down in the second half, but at least there was some precedent for this one. The Jets basically relied on their Week 1 blueprint against the Bills where the defense forces several takeaways from the quarterback, Garrett Wilson makes some plays, and Zach Wilson stays out of the way of the game-winning touchdown. Wilson took 5 sacks but the Jets avoided any turnovers.

Meanwhile, Jalen Hurts led his team in rushing (47 yards and another touchdown), but it was a very quiet day for his running backs (14 carries for 33 yards). Hurts also threw 3 interceptions, which is so unlike him.

The Eagles led 14-9 at halftime but never scored again. In the fourth quarter, Hurts threw a pick in New York territory, then Jake Elliott missed a 37-yard field goal with 8:13 left. But the Jets could not capitalize. Hurts had a chance to put the game away with a 3rd-and-9 conversion, but his third interception of the game was one of the worst of his career:

That set the Jets up 8 yards away from the end zone, and immediately Breece Hall scored as if the Eagles wanted him to. That’s kind of a bold decision in a 14-12 game as the Eagles had two timeouts to get the ball back with time for a field goal to win it, but I guess they figured maximizing time for a touchdown was their best shot. Not an easy decision.

Hurts had 1:46 and 2 timeouts to drive 75 yards for a touchdown, which is hard but doable. However, he did not get a single first down and the Eagles turned it over on downs after his 4th-and-8 pass was incomplete.

That formula of forcing 4 takeaways against the Eagles still works well in beating them. It happened twice last year by the Commanders and Cowboys. That’s the kind of crazy effort it usually takes to beat this team, but the Jets hung in there, protected the ball, and chipped away with field goals before getting the ultimate break with that last pick.

It’s not a formula you can sustain, but the Jets are 3-3 going into the bye, and frankly I thought that was the best-case scenario with this early schedule if the team had Aaron Rodgers. The schedule will get easier, and in this sea of mediocrity engulfing the AFC this year, the Jets still have a shot.

Giants at Bills: WTF?

The Bills (4-2) win this week’s award for “Win That Felt Most Like a Loss.” Buffalo came dangerously close to losing to the lowly Giants despite being favored by 15.5 on Sunday night in another barnburner for island games this year with its 14-9 final.

Maybe the spread was wacky, but this was a Buffalo team that recently won 3 games in a row by 28+ points each, and a New York team starting Tyrod Taylor that has been awful in basically every half but one (Arizona) this season.

But it was a game that makes you ask many questions.

Are the Giants better with Tyrod Taylor starting than Daniel Jones (neck)? Maybe so, but they still scored 9 points and botched the end of each half from the 1-yard line. They should have just kicked a field goal to end the first half instead of trying to run Saquon Barkley for a touchdown as time ran out on the Giants.

Did Barkley make the offense better in his return? Eh, he had 24 carries for 93 yards with a 34-yard run his longest play, and he caught 4-of-5 targets for a whopping 5 yards. That’s 98 yards on 29 plays, so that’s not very good, and they lost the confidence to go back to him with the game on the line on the last play, throwing incomplete to Darren Waller in the back of the end zone on a play that made zero use of Tyrod’s mobility. Some wanted a flag but I’m okay with not bailing out the high throw. It was already an untimed down to begin with after a penalty on Buffalo extended the game.

Is the Buffalo offense okay? We know the defense has most of the injuries, but that doesn’t excuse why the Bills were scoreless at home going into the fourth quarter against the Giants. Josh Allen had a bit of Stefon Diggs tunnel vision on the night as Diggs had 100 of Allen’s 169 passing yards. Tyler Bass did not help with a couple of missed field goals, but when push came to shove, the Bills responded in the fourth quarter with a couple of nice touchdown passes from Allen to two of his more unheralded/unknown receivers (Deonte Harty and Quintin Morris).

But the Bills were lucky to be playing the Giants, the team that needed 8 yards and saw Tyrod throwing passes 38 and 47 yards in the air to end a drive on downs with 1:45 left. But that didn’t end the game as Allen threw an incomplete pass on a 3rd down and Bass missed a 53-yard field goal with 1:25 left that would have gave Buffalo a nice cushion at 17-9.

That made the long 14-play march possible to end the game, and the Giants were just one yard, one better play call away from pulling off this upset. Instead, the Giants are who we thought they were, taking their record in prime time to 5-25 (.167) since 2017.

Lions at Buccaneers: Better Team Won

I’m not sure these teams are as good as their 1-loss records suggested going into Week 6, but I do know the better team won this game. Even though the Lions lost David Montgomery to an injury and had no running game, Jared Goff (353 yards and 2 touchdowns) played much better than Baker Mayfield, who failed to lead a touchdown drive.

It was just some of the little things in this game that showed why Detroit is better.

  • Mayfield had a pass tipped and intercepted deep in his own end that turned into a field goal to start the scoring for Detroit. Meanwhile, Goff had a few passes tipped that fell harmlessly to the ground.
  • On a 3rd-and-12, Mike Evans had an awful drop on what would have been a conversion for Tampa Bay. In the third quarter, Evans also negated a 3rd-and-1 with a push off that was flagged for offensive pass interference.
  • On a 3rd-and-13, Amon-Ra St. Brown took a screen pass and got an incredible block from Craig Reynolds to free him up for the game’s first touchdown.
  • Detroit’s other touchdown pass saw incredible adjustment to the ball from Jameson Williams for a 45-yard score.

The Lions are 5-1 with a +55 scoring differential. It hasn’t been this good for the team since 2011 (5-1, +64), and even that felt less impressive than this since Green Bay was undefeated at that moment and the defending champion.

This is finally Detroit’s year in the NFC North, and if Sunday is any indication, maybe the whole NFC if the Lions can stay healthy and improve as the season goes on.

Colts at Jaguars: The Streak Continues

I’m not sure why, but the Colts seemingly lose their shit every time they go down to Jacksonville where they have not won since 2014. This streak has gone on through several coaches and quarterbacks now.

Sunday was easily the worst performance yet by the Shane Steichen-coached Colts, and Gardner Minshew was a mess with 4 turnovers (3 interceptions, 1 lost fumble). The mistakes boosted the Jaguars to 37 points even though Calvin Ridley was held to 30 yards, Trevor Lawrence passed for 181 yards with 3 sacks, and the running game averaged 2.9 yards per carry.

Like I said, the Colts might as well book these Jacksonville games in the Bermuda Triangle instead of Duval County. It looked like it might actually start out as a legit, heavyweight fight with the Jaguars following a long Indy field goal drive with a long touchdown drive that went into the second quarter.

But that interesting start was the end of the efficiency as Josh Allen forced Minshew to fumble on the next snap, and the Jaguars turned that into a 22-yard touchdown run by Travis Etienne. The Colts continued to shoot themselves in the foot, and they trailed 31-6 in the fourth quarter.

There was a rally attempt with the Colts getting a touchdown (31-13) and a Lawrence interception, but I feel like they should have kicked a field goal on 4th-and-5 at the 15 with 11:06 left. Just keep the game going and get it to 2 possessions. But Minshew threw another pick. Even then, the Jaguars went three-and-out and the Colts got a touchdown to make it 31-20, but a long kick return took a lot out of Indy, which gave up a cheap field goal (34-20) before the Colts went 4-and-out (cue another cheap field goal).

With Minshew a mess and Anthony Richardson considering season-ending surgery for his shoulder, it’s looking like Jacksonville (4-2) may have just ended another season for the Colts (3-3).

Seahawks at Bengals: Looked Like a Cincinnati Playoff Game

If you don’t understand the header, let’s do a quick refresher on what a playoff game looks like in the Zac Taylor-Joe Burrow era in Cincinnati.

  • There have been 7 playoff games, and despite the 5-2 record, the Bengals have only gotten anywhere from 17-to-27 points from the offense in each game.
  • The offense has only contributed one touchdown in the fourth quarter of these games.
  • Burrow has passed for 270 yards or fewer in 6-of-7 games.
  • Only the 27-10 win in Buffalo last year was decided by more than one possession.
  • In 4 games, the Cincinnati defense has forced a crucial turnover in the fourth quarter or overtime.

With Seattle coming in as a formidable opponent, this looked like it might be a great shootout with both offenses scoring touchdowns on their opening drives. But it was a struggle from there with the Seahawks only adding a pair of field goals on their final 10 drives. After starting the game with back-to-back touchdowns, the Bengals would have gone scoreless on their final 8 drives if not for a 0-yard field goal in the fourth quarter that was set up by a Geno Smith interception.

Burrow, who only had 185 passing yards, threw 3 straight incompletions before Evan McPherson made a 52-yard field goal to make it 17-13 and conclude the scoring with 11:47 to play. Seattle dominated in yardage (381-214), but between 4 sacks and 2 picks for Smith, the offense kept getting turned away in scoring territory.

Smith had four possessions in the fourth quarter alone and was unable to get points on any of them. Despite D.K. Metcalf (30) and Tyler Lockett (36) each having a 30-yard completion in the final six minutes on two different drives, the Seahawks could not break through in the red zone.

That duo of Trey Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard made sure Geno was stopped with sacks on 1st-and-goal from the 7 and 4th-and-goal from the 6 with 2:03 left. After getting the ball back and getting quickly to the Cincinnati 11 after Lockett’s big catch, the Seahawks again looked frazzled. Smith threw incomplete on 3rd-and-8, and then again under pressure on 4th-and-ballgame with 35 seconds left to end it.

The Bengals are now 3-0 against the NFC West and 0-3 against AFC teams this year. Are they a contender again? It’s hard to say, but they at least picked a good week to win unimpressively when other contenders either lost or looked worse against worse competition.

But seeing Smith repeatedly get turned away in the fourth quarter was a throwback to what has become the typical Cincinnati playoff game for this team. Burrow had some more Fran Tarkenton-esque scrambles in this game that I think can put the calf concerns to rest, but that’s not to say the offense is back on track. Ja’Marr Chase, who had all 3 of the team’s plays that gained more than 11 yards, may be on track, but the rest of the offense has some catching up to do.

Ravens vs. Titans: London Snoozer

Not a lot to say about the last London game of the year as the Ravens held on for a 24-16 win. You had to expect a good Baltimore start after how sloppy things were last week in Pittsburgh. Zay Flowers finally caught his first NFL touchdown.

Derrick Henry hit a long run for 63 yards, but the Titans once again failed to see their offense travel. While technically the home team in this one, the Titans are 0-4 outside of Nashville this year and have not scored more than 16 points in any of those games.

Ryan Tannehill only passed for 76 yards in 3 quarters, but the Titans were cooked with him getting carted off. Malik Willis is not a legitimate quarterback, and I would be concerned as a fan that rookie Will Levis was not the No. 2 quarterback. Willis came into this game with only a 21-13 deficit in the fourth quarter, and we know these Ravens blow leads, but Willis has a bad habit of holding onto the ball too long.

A pair of Willis scrambles led to a punt, the Ravens tacked on a field goal to make it 24-13 with 4:16 left, then it was time for one of the saddest field goal drives you’ll ever see as Baltimore was flagged 4 times and the Titans also had a 5th penalty called. Willis somehow took 5 sacks on the drive and 4 of them still counted as only 1 was voided by a Baltimore penalty. That’s how you end up wasting 1st-and-goal from the 1, but I’m not sure if kicking the field goal on 3rd-and-goal from the 20 was the right call with 41 seconds left. Things were so bleak that you might as well try for the touchdown that close.

What’s Willis going to do from midfield with 35 seconds left if the onside kick was recovered? Take 3 more sacks? But the onside kick was free of drama and the game ended with the Ravens moving back to first place with a 4-2 record. We’ll see what the injury is for Tannehill, but things are slipping away early for the Titans (2-4), who have a bye week.

Panthers at Dolphins: The Team Who Scores, the Team Who Loses

The Panthers jumped out to a 14-0 lead, scored a late pick-six, and they still lost by 21 points to fall to 0-6.

This team feels like a money laundering scheme that involves Adam Thielen catches. He’s the only part of the team that goes off consistently as he had another 11 catches for 115 yards and a touchdown.

But the Miami offense is just too good for opponents like this. Even after going three-and-out twice in the first quarter, the Dolphins scored 5 touchdowns on their next 6 drives with Tyreek Hill dominating deep (163 yards), and Raheem Mostert rushed for 115 yards and scored 3 more touchdowns with De’Von Achane out.

With the Eagles next week and the Week 9 game in Germany with Kansas City looming, I can’t wait to see how Miami does against last year’s Super Bowl teams. Carolina is not the litmus test.

Commanders at Falcons: Ridder the Enigma

The good news: Desmond Ridder stacked 300-yard passing games after he had the best game of his career last week against Houston. The bad news: Ridder threw 3 interceptions in this 24-16 home loss that may have been the worst game of his career.

Sam Howell took another 5 sacks and the Washington running game only averaged 3.3 yards per carry on the way to 193 total yards of offense, so it was not the defense that lost this game for Atlanta. Washington had an 11-yard touchdown drive after a long punt return, and in the third quarter, Washington had a 24-yard touchdown drive after Ridder was picked on a great diving read by Kyle Fuller.

But Washington never scored again, bringing Atlanta to 15 straight games without allowing more than 25 points, the longest streak in the NFL since the 2013-14 49ers (17 games).

The Falcons were able to get one touchdown, missed the 2-point conversion, but it felt like a one-score game with Atlanta unable to do anything for a solid hour. There were numerous chances, including one where a legit roughing the passer call for Ridder wiped out a fumble. That led to a drive that reached the 2-yard line, but Ridder ended up throwing an interception in the end zone with 5:11 left.

The next chance was a quick 4-and-out, then the final drive ended with Ridder’s third interception in desperate times with 26 seconds left after the Falcons reached the Washington 34.

Rough days like this will happen to the best of them, but it sure is weird to see an Atlanta team let down by its offense while the defense was more than serviceable, especially in the fourth quarter.

Patriots at Raiders: Belichick Really Can’t Beat McDaniels

You have to admit it’s pretty amusing that Bill Belichick is 0-3 against Josh McDaniels as a head coach. Now, McDaniels has had home-field advantage for every game, he’s had the better quarterback in the last two games in Vegas, and they have all been one-score games where a turnover (or something on the order of one) killed the Patriots at the end.

This one went McDaniels’ way again even after Jimmy Garoppolo left with a back injury that was serious enough to land him at the local hospital. But Brian Hoyer did a respectable job in his place (6-of-10 for 102 yards), and that means it was two former New England quarterbacks who helped drop the Patriots to 1-5.

At least it was close this week. Mac Jones had an uneven game that will be hard to analyze. He did throw another terrible interception this week, but then he also threw one of the best passes in his career on a 2nd-and-11 deep in his own end with a 19-17 deficit. DeVante Parker dropped it. The drop wasn’t overly egregious and it wasn’t a simple play, but you have to make one like that for your team. You have to wonder why this team settled for a poor man’s DeAndre Hopkins when they could have had the real thing this year. Hopkins makes that catch.

After an inexcusable delay of game – Patriots were sloppy again this week – made it 3rd-and-15, Jones was swarmed in his end zone and Maxx Crosby was there on the sack for a safety.

What an awful way to blow a cover as the Patriots were +2.5. Their only hope was recovering an onside kick on the free kick, but that didn’t work, and the game was over with the Raiders winning 21-17.

It is also amusing that it took a safety to get the Raiders (3-3) to 20 points for the first time all season. But the Patriots had no sacks on defense, and while they got their first takeaway since Week 2, it was a fluky interception on a deflected pass that wasn’t Garoppolo’s fault.

The better team won, and dare I say, the better coach when these two meet up won again.

Saints at Texans: Carr (Repeatedly) Fails First GWD Attempt in New Orleans

One thing I got right about the 2023 Saints is that they are providing Derek Carr with the best defense of his career. The Saints finally became the first team to intercept rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud, but they unfortunately fumbled it right back to him on the play in the first quarter, and the Texans scored a touchdown on that drive to boot.

But the Texans only put up one field goal after halftime, so this game was in Derek Carr’s wheelhouse for another fourth-quarter comeback. This was actually his first attempt of the season as he was injured in the Green Bay loss when the Saints blew a 17-0 lead in the final quarter.

This was supposed to be the spot where Carr would make his mark in New Orleans, but instead, the Saints went scoreless on their last 3 drives in a 20-13 game:

  • Kicker Blake Grupe picked a bad time to have the shortest miss of his season from 29 yards out with 11:07 left. Remember, he’s the kicker who missed from 46 yards to win the game in Green Bay.
  • On a 4th-and-4 at the Houston 15, Carr checked down to Alvin Kamara in the backfield on a play that required a Hulk-like effort to break tackles. Kamara came up short and the Saints turned it over on downs with 4:31 left.
  • Needing to go 85 yards in the final 2:41, Carr got to the Houston 24 before throwing 4 incompletions, including a pick on fourth down just shy of the end zone on a pass intended for Michael Thomas (still without a touchdown this year) with 16 seconds left.

The Saints are 3-3 and not in any real danger with the entire NFC South losing on Sunday. But this team has not scored more than 20 points in 5-of-6 games this year. The Carr-led offense, despite some solid talent at the skill players, is not working out. It also has been outperformed by a Houston offense with a rookie quarterback and some unheralded receivers that had lower expectations this year.

Carr underachieving doesn’t necessarily surprise me, but I thought he’d be better than this.

Vikings at Bears: Hoodwinked, Bamboozled, Led Astray

The Bears (+3) were my upset pick for the week, so this dud at home was a bummer. I knew Justin Fields was out of games against the Washington and Denver defenses, but I did not think highly of Minnesota’s defense either. Naturally, Fields threw for 58 yards on 10 throws and took 4 sacks before leaving the game with a dislocated thumb on his throwing hand.

When you have a quarterback you know is a high injury risk, how do you not do more at backup quarterback than Tyson Bagent?

On the undrafted rookie’s second dropback, he was strip-sacked, and the Vikings returned it for a 43-yard touchdown to take a 19-6 lead in the third quarter. But the Vikings did not do a good job of putting the game away without Justin Jefferson available.

It looked like Bagent might lead a 13-point comeback in the fourth quarter after he ran in his first NFL touchdown with 7:46 left. The Vikings went three-and-out after barely burning a minute off the clock. The Bears were slow rolling their drive down the field with the running game featured, but eventually, Bagent had to throw.

Correction: Chicago chose to throw deep for D.J. Moore just shy of the 2-minute warning in a spot that would have been fine for another run. No need to rush. Bagent badly underthrew the pass and it was intercepted by Minnesota. The Bears had all their timeouts, but after getting one first down, Minnesota was able to run out the rest of the clock with Chicago never getting another chance.

The Vikings (2-4) are still a bad team, but the Bears (1-5) are the worst in the NFC North. I won’t drink the Kool-Aid again this year.

Cardinals at Rams: Cooper Kupp Still Top Dog

Tyreek Hill has an amazing highlight reel of big plays and still has top-end speed. Justin Jefferson is doing incredible things for a young receiver. But for my money, Cooper Kupp is still the best all-around wide receiver in the league right now. No one is more consistent at producing in any matchup, and he does it at every level of the field. Only durability is a knock on him.

But one team that did have his number was Arizona. Kupp played in 31 games since 2021 and the only 4 games where he was held under 79 yards were all against Arizona. But that was a different coaching staff and roster.

Against Jonathan Gannon’s no-name defense, Kupp was dominant again with 148 yards and his first touchdown of 2023. Matthew Stafford only had 78 yards to his other receivers in the game. But the Rams also ran the ball very well with 179 yards.

Despite those big performances and the final score (26-9), this was a 16-9 game to start the fourth quarter with the Cardinals 12 yards away from the end zone. But Joshua Dobbs was intercepted on that play, and the Rams turned that into a long touchdown drive that was almost ruled a fumble through the end zone. But that was definitely a touchdown.

The Rams added a field goal after a strip-sack of Dobbs, so the turnovers have caught up with this offense, and the thin roster made thinner by injuries is starting to get exposed on a weekly basis.

Now we remember why the Cardinals were the favorites to land the No. 1 pick.

Next week: Maybe what this season needs is another classic Herbert-Mahomes matchup in Week 7. It would be even better if the Chargers beat Dallas on Monday night but I’m not so sure about that one. Early on Sunday, what are we getting excited about? Cleveland eating Gardner Minshew for lunch? The Raiders in Chicago after Garoppolo and Fields left Sunday’s games injured? No, it’s Lions-Ravens as the highlight of the 1 p.m. slot. We’ll see which Baltimore team shows up. Sunday night actually nailed it for a change with Dolphins-Eagles. Plenty of intrigue as Philadelphia’s sloppy play caught up to them in a loss, and we have never seen the Hurts-era Eagles beat a good team with a top quarterback like the Dolphins have going right now.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 5

~ Scott ~ 16 Comments

Well, I guess we’ll have to wait until Week 13 for the real Game of the Year in the NFC this season when the last two unbeatens in the league (49ers and Eagles) meet in Philadelphia. That rematch of last year’s championship game is still the only time Brock Purdy has lost a start in the NFL.

The Cowboys were so outclassed by the 49ers on Sunday night that Bill Belichick and Sean Payton should send Jerry Jones a gift basket for taking some of the heat and attention away from them suffering the lowest points of their careers.

It started as a pretty weird day with Buffalo losing to the London Jaguars after winning their last 3 games by 28+ points each. Then the Ravens gave a game away to the Steelers, the Colts are 3-2 after flipping the script on Tennessee, the Chiefs almost lost Taylor Swift Travis Kelce for the season, and the 49ers showed us what a super team looks like on Sunday night.

But there is a growing one-sidedness to this season. We only had 1 lead change in the fourth quarter in Week 4, and this week we only had two before Monday Night Football. Only 3 of the last 35 games have had a fourth-quarter lead change. That rate should usually be around 25% of games, not 8.6%. We’re going through a drought of exciting games as it mostly has been one team jumping out to a lead and hanging on.

In Week 5, there were only 7 games with a comeback opportunity, which would be the third week in a row without 8 opportunities. But I have a feeling Monday night will add one more. Before we get there, let’s recap Sunday’s action.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Cowboys at 49ers: Game of the Ye-Yeah It Was Another McCarthy Clusterf*ck

If this was a measuring stick game, then the 49ers took the stick and beat the Cowboys to death with it. They also put the rest of the league on notice that this is the best team in the NFL right now.

The closest Dallas came to staying with the 49ers on the scoreboard was for the 3 minutes and 50 seconds that this game remained 0-0 before George Kittle scored his first of three touchdowns on the night. Dallas trailed by at least 7 points for the final 56:10 on the way to a 42-10 loss.

I’d say it reminded me of the times when Mike McCarthy’s Packers went 0-4 against Jim Harbaugh’s 49ers in 2012-13, but those games were never this lopsided. This was much worse than the last two postseason losses for Dallas against the 49ers, which was supposed to be the motivating factor for the Cowboys to look better in this matchup if San Francisco is the new measuring stick in the NFC. Remember, it was 12-12 in the fourth quarter in the divisional round last year.

But it is looking like McCarthy will move to 0-7 against the 49ers in the years where they make the playoffs. This was the worst performance yet on both sides of the ball.

Save for one 78-yard touchdown drive, Dak Prescott played an awful game, finishing with 3 interceptions, 3 sacks, and only 153 passing yards before he was yanked in the final quarter of a blowout. Also, so much for Tony Pollard making an impact after he was injured in the playoff game last January. He had 8 carries for 29 yards, getting outrushed by Deebo Samuel (30 yards).

While the Dallas defense did come up with 3 stops in a row early in the game, they followed that by allowing 5 touchdowns on the next 6 drives. Good night, Irene. Brock Purdy looked more like the quarterback I saw shred Pittsburgh in Week 1 with a passing clinic as he ran his record to 13-0 in games where he attempts 20 passes. Purdy had 4 touchdown passes, confirming the Cowboys were no longer playing the Giants, Jets, Cardinals, and Patriots.

Christian McCaffrey scored a touchdown for the 14th game in a row despite the fact he only averaged 2.7 yards per carry and had a season-low 2 catches. But there were not even moral victories for Dallas in this one. This was the worst performance any team this year’s had against the 49ers.

It may only be a game in Week 5 and crazier things have happened before, but I don’t know how any Dallas fan could not be extremely pessimistic about the rest of the season after this. The Cowboys (3-2) still have to play the Eagles (twice), Bills, Dolphins, Lions, Chargers, and Seahawks. For a team that’s already lost to the Cardinals, we might as well mention they play the Commanders (twice) and Rams too.

Dallas was my Super Bowl loser pick in the NFC this year, and losing this game in Week 5 was part of my script. But even I would start walking that pick back after what I saw on Sunday night.

Meanwhile, the 49ers’ biggest question this year was if Purdy is a legitimate starter or if last year was a fluke. After Week 5, I think we have to admit he is capable of leading this team all the way.

The 49ers are 17-1 in their last 18 games, and you know what happened to the quarterback position in the only loss. They are only the 5th team to start a season at least 5-0 with 30 points scored in every game, joining the 2000 Rams, 2007 Patriots, 2013 Broncos, and 2018 Rams. Those last three teams all lost the Super Bowl that year, and the 2000 Rams lost a wild card game.

There’s a lot of season left, but we are witnessing something historic with the 49ers. As for Dallas, it is looking like the status quo, which means Macarena was on the Billboard Hot 100 more recently than the Cowboys were in the NFC Championship Game.

Ravens at Steelers: Respect the Rivalry

People who do not respect this rivalry do not understand that no matter what talent gap exists between these teams, they are always capable of playing a tight, low-scoring game that goes down to the wire.

Having said that, I am still in shock that the Ravens took a 10-0 lead with 12:23 left in the 2nd quarter and never scored again in a 17-10 loss. It is no understatement to say the Ravens left 30+ points on the field in one of the most egregious losses in the history of this rivalry. This is right up there with Kris Brown missing 4 field goals for Pittsburgh in 2001.

I’ll blame everyone on Baltimore except for Justin Tucker. Lamar Jackson was sharp early, but his receivers were terrible with a handful of drops before halftime. After the pressure increased as the game wore on, Jackson’s accuracy and decision making also fell apart, and he became another scapegoat in this terrible loss.

I have no idea what John Harbaugh and the Ravens were thinking to end the first half. Instead of bringing out Tucker for an easy 41-yard field goal on a 4th-and-2, the offense ran a play, and Jackson hurried a terrible throw that fell incomplete. There goes 3 points.

The Ravens may have escaped this one if not for a big blocked punt in the fourth quarter that almost turned into a touchdown, but the Steelers settled for a safety and 10-5 deficit. It was running back Jaylen Warren rather than Najee Harris who sparked the offense to get a field goal and make it 10-8. But even after getting a three-and-out, the Steelers fumbled the punt return and gave the Ravens a golden opportunity with a first-and-goal at the 7.

But on 3rd-and-5, Jackson forced a pass in the end zone to Odell Beckham Jr. and Joey Porter Jr. made a monster interception with 4:06 left. Down 10-8, Kenny Pickett is good for about one scoring drive a game. Sometimes they are timely ones like his game-winning touchdown drive against the Ravens last year.

This didn’t seem like a spot where he would step up after the offense struggled again, but he did. George Pickens had a huge quarter and came alive with two 20-yard plays. The last was a shocker as you would think the Steelers would set up a game-winning field goal with no time left, but they went for the dagger and Pickett hit Pickens deep after he beat Marlon Humphrey for a 41-yard touchdown with 1:17 left. Pittsburgh led 14-10 for the first time all day.

Jackson had plenty of time to answer, but on the second play of the drive, Alex Highsmith forced him to fumble on a sack, and T.J. Watt was there for the recovery. The Steelers saved the Ravens 40 seconds with a penalty on a kneeldown, a huge mistake. But the field goal made it 17-10 with 49 seconds left.

Things were not going well for the Ravens on the drive, and Watt made sure he was going to end it this time with a sack of Jackson on 4th-and-7 at his own 28. Game over. The Steelers somehow survived this one.

The 2023 Steelers are 3-2 and in first place in the AFC North, and I just find that so comical because this offense continues to suck. Frankly, the defense isn’t that good either, but this team’s magic sauce right now is getting quarterbacks like Deshaun Watson, Jimmy Garoppolo, and Jackson – he added to his poor track record vs. Pittsburgh – to make enough mistakes to allow them to steal a win late. The Steelers have given up 30 points and been dominated by the 49ers and Texans, two teams running the Kyle Shanahan offensive system with quarterbacks (Brock Purdy and C.J. Stroud) who seemingly can’t throw interceptions right now.

But give them a sack merchant or a risky thrower, and they are going to get enough big plays from the likes of T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith, and Minkah Fitzpatrick to make the difference. Maybe Porter Jr. is the latest defender to save the day.

I’m still shocked the Ravens failed to score on their final 9 drives despite numerous opportunities to do so. Hell, I’m still shocked they watched Gardner Minshew pull an Orlovsky and they still lost that game to the Colts. Ditto on Sunday with the way the Steelers fumbled a punt at the 7-yard line late in the game.

Who wins the AFC North? Damned if I know at this point. It’s a mess of a division this year.

Chiefs at Vikings: Repeating Is Hard

Winning a Super Bowl is hard. Winning two in a row seems impossible these days in the NFL. But you know what might be even harder? Winning a ton of close games in back-to-back years.

The 2008-09 Colts pulled it off when Peyton Manning was at the height of his team-carrying powers, but most teams regress hard in close games the following year. The Vikings are feeling that now. After starting his career 8-0 at game-winning drive opportunities, Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell is 0-5 going back to the wild card playoff loss to the Giants.

This was another failed comeback, but unlike last year, this was another difficult situation with the Chiefs leading 27-13 to start the fourth quarter. Even though it looked like Travis Kelce fell victim to a brutal non-contact leg injury in the first half, he found a way to come back on a bad ankle in the third quarter and caught several passes before scoring another touchdown, his first since turning 34 the other day.

Just when you thought the Vikings had some momentum, Kelce came back to finish the game while Justin Jefferson was out with a hamstring injury. He played much of the game, but the Chiefs held him to just 28 yards.

But the Chiefs rarely make it easy on themselves. After the Vikings made it 27-20, the Chiefs looked like they were going to go for a 4th-and-1 at their own 47 with 9:05 left after the Vikings used their last timeout. But the Chiefs were only trying to draw the Vikings offsides before they punted.

That’s the kind of decision I still don’t get with Andy Reid. You have Mahomes and you still had Kelce playing. Why not just go for it? Chances are you will convert, then you can end up adding more points and get this to a 2-score lead with little time left for the team out of timeouts.

I don’t know if it’s false trust in the defense or just the old hubris of doing things the way they’ve always done them. But this is the kind of situation I’d like to see the Chiefs start going for. Instead, they gave Cousins a shot at tying the game.

Without Jefferson, that was going to be tough. Inexcusably, the Vikings were flagged for delay of game when they wanted to go for a 4th-and-7 at the Kansas City 19. The respect for Mahomes’ ability to run out the clock is crazy but justified, because the Vikings still went for the 4th-and-12 instead of taking a field goal with 4:54 left. The Jaguars did something very similar in Week 2 against the Chiefs. Before these two plays, you have to go back to 1999 to find the last time an offense, down 7-8 points with more than 4:00 left in the fourth quarter and the ball inside the opponent 30, went for a 4th-and-10 or longer instead of kicking a field goal.

The Chiefs brought pressure, Cousins just threw one up for the end zone, and the flag for DPI was rightfully picked up as the pass wasn’t even close. There could have been a penalty on the Chiefs for their player taking his helmet off after the play. T.J. Watt was called for that in Pittsburgh in the early slate. We’ve seen this get called and we’ve seen it go uncalled. Refs are not consistent on it. I’m not a big fan of the rule period, so I don’t mind that one being let go. It still happened after possession changed, so it would have remained Kansas City’s ball.

But this time, Mahomes did not bleed the clock. He thought he could pass into the flat for a game-clinching first down, but the Vikings were there to stop it short. The Chiefs punted and Cousins had to drive 81 yards in 1:07. Crazier things have happened. It looked like Cousins had a decent shot at a Hail Mary from just 38 yards away on the final snap, but the Chiefs put that to rest right away with a game-ending sack of Cousins.

The Chiefs are 4-1 and seem to have avoided the worst with Kelce’s injury. It is a quick turnaround to play Denver on Thursday night, but you know this team will have something cooked up. But it gets scary when you see Kelce having injury issues and Mahomes has narrowly avoided some serious hits too. The repeat dream is over if this connection is not available to the Chiefs.

Bills vs. Jaguars: Josh Allen Loses Again to His Namesake

Did it help that Jacksonville stayed in London after winning there (albeit at a different venue) last week? Did it hurt that Buffalo did not arrive until Friday? I don’t know what impact, if any, it had but it probably had something to do with the Jaguars jumping out to an 11-0 lead against a team that was so dominant since Week 2.

The London travel difference had me worried about this game for Buffalo. I also remembered the weird 9-6 loss the Bills had to Urban Meyer’s Jags in 2021 when Josh Allen the quarterback imploded against Josh Allen the defender.

But this was a weird Buffalo loss as it was not the turnovers that did in the Bills this time. Their only turnovers came in the fourth quarter, and while Allen threw an interception in an 11-7 game, it was on a 3-and-15 and served as a good punt. The only other turnover was an ill-advised lateral in the final seconds when the Bills needed a miracle anyway.

The Bills punted 6 times before the fourth quarter, something the Bills have done only one other time since 2020 (7 early punts vs. 2021 Jets). That’s impressive for the Jacksonville defense, but oddly enough, I was a little more impressed with the way the Bills kept Jacksonville from scoring despite so many defensive injuries. They lost Matt Milano and Von Miller in this game among others. But twice they were able to force Trevor Lawrence into a fumble deep in scoring territory.

Unfortunately, the injuries did catch up to Buffalo as Travis Etienne burned them late in the game on his way to 136 rushing yards and 2 touchdowns. The Bills only rushed for 29 yards on 14 carries, and that even includes Allen’s contributions as a runner (4 carries for 14 yards and a touchdown). Gabe Davis and Stefon Diggs both hit 100 yards, but the Bills were stuck on 7 points for too long and caught playing catchup to a Jacksonville team that showed up to play.

The penalties were also out of control in the fourth quarter on both sides. One Buffalo touchdown drive saw 6 plays get flagged for something. But the most egregious one was a roughing the passer to wipe out a sack of Allen on a 3rd-and-1 that would have turned it into 4th-and-12 and likely a field goal attempt late in an 18-7 game. That whole play was screwed up because there was so much uncertainty whether it was 3rd-and-1 or 1st-and-10 for Buffalo. The Bills caught a break with that call, then wasted it after Etienne broke loose for a 35-yard touchdown to regain a 12-point lead.

The Bills did a great job driving 75 yards in 45 seconds for another touchdown, but the onside kick is impossible these days. By the time they got it back in a 25-20 game, they had to go 94 yards in 22 seconds. That’s when Diggs tried a lateral that was fumbled to end the game.

The Bills having a London letdown after last week’s huge win is not that surprising, especially when you consider the defensive injuries. Is it the kind of loss that adds to this team being untrustworthy in big games? Well, it was still a hell of a lot better than what the Cowboys did on Sunday night. I’m not that worried about Buffalo yet, but the injuries definitely need to chill out.

Bengals at Cardinals: Ja’Marr Chase to the Rescue

The Cardinals were my upset pick for Week 5, but I haven’t been able to get a Cincinnati game right since Week 2 when I said the Ravens would beat them.

Going to Arizona, a team playing better than expected, without Tee Higgins (ribs) did not seem like an ideal spot for Joe Burrow to get right, but he definitely knew where Ja’Marr Chase was all game. Chase had no touchdowns coming into the game but scored 3 here on his way to 15 catches and 192 yards. That’s a career game for most wide receivers, but it’s not even the best Chase game we have ever seen.

It was just the best one in 2023 as the league’s worst offense finally put things together to have a successful outing. But the game really turned on Arizona when the defense got a goal-line stand only for Joshua Dobbs to force a pick-six from his own end zone in the second quarter.

The Bengals took the lead and never looked back. Arizona had no turnovers in the last 3 games, but Dobbs had 3 turnovers in this game. The Cardinals also lost James Conner to an injury, which is not uncommon for him.

There were some bright moments for Arizona after a pick and some sacks of Burrow, but overall, the team was outclassed by a Cincinnati team that has not been playing well this year at all.

Does this mean the Bengals are “back” this year? I have no idea. I thought things were going to be better after the Los Angeles win, but then they shit the bed in Tennessee the next week. But they get the Seahawks next week, and both Cincinnati wins are against the NFC West so far. Maybe an unfamiliar opponent will help in addition to probably getting Higgins back.

Eagles at Rams: We’re Going with Brotherly Shove Now?

With the growing coverage and controversy around the “Tush Push” or “Brotherly Shove” quarterback sneak, this game was a great example of just how much better the Eagles are at it than everyone else. That strong offensive line combined with the strength of Jalen Hurts just makes it look unstoppable even when the defense knows exactly what is coming. Hurts just pushes through until he gets the first down.

He did it again in epic fashion before halftime with the Eagles down and only 2 seconds left on the clock. But when this team is at the 1-yard line, Hurts scoring is almost automatic. They called their sneak and he scored again to take a 17-14 lead after a good half saw Dallas Goedert and Cooper Kupp dominating for their respective teams. Kupp made his season debut and did not miss a beat even with sharing the ball with rookie sensation Puka Nacua.

But to the detriment of my best parlay on Sunday, the second half was a flop for scoring:

  • Stafford was hit for an intentional grounding at midfield on third down.
  • Hurts was intercepted in the end zone on a brilliant catch by Ahkello Witherspoon.
  • A screen to Puka on a third down at the Philadelphia 43 was blown up and nearly a lost fumble for the Rams.
  • The Eagles settled for a 26-yard field goal to take a 20-14 lead with 12:29 left to play.
  • Stafford missed a deep third down to Kupp, then the Eagles burned more clock for another field goal with 4:06 left.
  • Haason Reddick sacked Stafford on back-to-back plays, including a 4th-and-12 with 2:46 left.
  • Hurts converted another 3rd-and-1 with the sneak, but the Eagles were eventually stopped on a 4th-down run with only 61 seconds left.
  • The Rams were in no hurry to seriously try scoring as the clock expired with the ball inside their 40.

Just a brutal way to lose out on what looked like an easy over, but each team only had 8 possessions, and the Rams failed to score on their last 5. The Eagles had two field goal drives that consumed over 8:00 each. It was another efficient performance for a team that is rounding into shape, but they will have to play even better than this to knock off the 49ers in the NFC this year.

Titans at Colts: AFC South Dark Horse?

This one shocked me as I did not expect Zack Moss (195 scrimmage yards and 2 touchdowns) to be the dominant back in a game with Derrick Henry and Jonathan Taylor. In fact, I didn’t expect the Colts to run well at all against the Titans, who were allowing a league-low 2.9 yards per carry coming into Week 5.

That is what the Titans do going back some time now. They shut down the run and force you to throw, which is not something the Colts are cut out for like the old days. But they were proving that all wrong in this game as they ran the ball at will on the Titans with Moss getting most of the work as they eased Taylor back, and the passing game was solid with Gardner Minshew replacing an injured (again) Anthony Richardson. The Colts were 20-of-26 passing for 253 yards and only 1 sack. The Colts scored 23 points on 7 drives and gained at least 40 yards on their last 6 drives.

But the other side of the coin was the Tennessee running game, which stalled with 20 handoffs for 77 yards. Henry only had 43 yards and was stuffed on the play of the game on a 4th-and-1 at the Colts 5 in a 20-16 game with 8:03 left.

The Colts had an epic 14-play drive for a field goal that only left Ryan Tannehill a minute to drive 75 yards in a 23-16 game. Things were not going well, and he was intercepted with 10 seconds left to secure the win for the Colts, who are now 3-2.

This will go down as another low-scoring road loss for the Titans, but the game was more offensive than it looks with the tiny number of possessions for each team. But that just magnifies the 4th-down stop the Colts had on Henry.

With a game at Jacksonville next week where the Colts haven’t won since 2014, the team is in an odd position where they might be better with Minshew at quarterback than the rookie. But more than anything, they might have some real durability concerns with Richardson, who has already failed to finish 3 games due to 3 different injuries. He also missed a full game in Week 3 after a concussion. Maybe he can shake off these early injuries like Matthew Stafford did in Detroit years ago, but for now, Richardson is not someone the team can count on to stay in the game.

After what happened to end the careers of Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck in Indy, this is definitely a worrisome look. But Minshew is one of the best backups in the league, and the Colts already gave the Jaguars a tough game in Week 1.

Jets at Broncos: Hackett Gets the Last Laugh

Oh, did we learn some things in this one.

  • Sean Payton can talk the talk, but he can’t walk the walk anymore, going 0-3 at home to Jimmy Garoppolo, Sam Howell, and Zach Wilson.
  • Zach Wilson is not as good as Justin Fields at exploiting a terrible defense, but he played a serviceable game until a bad luck interception stuck to a defender late in the game.
  • Nathaniel Hackett and the Jets finally unleashed Breece Hall and he answered with 194 scrimmage yards and a touchdown.
  • Russell Wilson fell in love with scrambling and passes to running backs against this tough defense, but when push came to shove late in the game, he couldn’t find his wideouts to get a game-tying field goal.
  • Denver’s season is over at 1-4 with both Kansas City games coming up and a game with Buffalo soon.

Both offenses thrived on their running backs in this one. While not getting shredded by Zach Wilson was a triumph for the Denver defense, it was still a lousy game overall as the Jets piled up over 400 yards after driving for at least 40 yards on 7 straight drives to end the game.

But a late interception in field goal range gave Russell Wilson and the Broncos a chance from their own 3 in a 24-21 game with 2:14 left. Long field but plenty of time. Wilson did get the offense out to the 41, but with the Jets getting closer and closer in the fourth quarter, they finally got Wilson with a forced fumble that was picked up and returned for a touchdown to ice the game.

Should the Jets have gone down and kneeled it out to win 24-21? Probably, but you can tell it was personal for this team to stick it to Payton and the Broncos in their own building. It’s not like Wilson was going to put up 10 points in 29 seconds.

The better team won, and with the way Denver approached this must-win game, perhaps it is the better coaching staff too in New York. Hackett was unquestionably awful as Denver’s coach last year, but Payton is doing a shockingly bad job that could go down as being even worse.

I never would have guessed things would start this poorly for Denver this year. Fortunately, losing at home to Hackett and the Jets (without Aaron Rodgers) is probably the worst it can get this year. That’s saying something for a team that already had a game where it allowed 70 points and 726 yards.

Giants at Dolphins: Run Those Bums Off the Field

Look, the Giants are just trash. This team has played like shit for 9-of-10 halves this season, only coming back against Arizona’s nameless defense when that team was still formulating its tanking plan for Caleb Williams.

The Giants finally scored a first-half touchdown in this game, and of course it was on a 102-yard pick-six as Tua Tagovailoa got greedy before the half. A second interception in the third quarter also set up the Giants for a 4-yard field goal drive, so 10 of those points are directly on the Miami passing game.

But nothing says trash Giants team like a 10-play, 18-yard field goal drive in the fourth quarter. The Dolphins were able to cover the 13-point spread without playing anywhere near their A game.

But with these ridiculous speed demons on the field, how could they not beat the Giants by a couple of touchdowns? Miami had plays that gained 64, 69, and 76 yards, and it was basically all about the speed of Tyreek Hill and De’Von Achane. The latter now has a run of at least 55 yards in three straight games. He’s already a third of the way to Derrick Henry’s career total of 55-yard runs (9) and a quarter of the way to Chris Johnson (12). It’s Week 5 of his rookie year. His speed is just absurd to watch, and it is almost unfair that the league let Miami draft him in the third round.

Thanks to the explosive play of Achane and Hill, the Dolphins averaged 9.7 yards per play, a huge number we rarely see. Miami is the first team in NFL history to have two games in a season where the offense averaged at least 9.5 yards per play. Only five other offenses in the Super Bowl era had multiple games in a season averaging over 9.0 yards per play. Oddly enough, the 2018 Dolphins with a whole different cast was one of those teams.

Miami has averaged 8.31 yards per play over the last 5 games. The only team in NFL history with a better 5-game span was the 2000 Rams (8.51).

It looks like the 2000 Rams are the team these Dolphins are chasing in the record books. Miami’s 2,568 yards of offense are the most ever through 5 games in a season in NFL history, surpassing the 2000 Rams (2,527 yards).

But if you look at the 135 teams to have at least 2,000 yards of offense through 5 games, only 8 of those teams (5.9%) won the championship that season, and almost half of them only had to win one playoff game to do it back in the day (1941 Bears, 1951 Rams, 1958 Colts, 1988 49ers, 1995 Cowboys, 2009 Saints, 2019 Chiefs, and 2021 Rams).

For Miami’s sake, you want to be more like the 1999 or 2001 Rams than the 2000 team that had a horrible defense, turned the ball over too much, and lost a wild card game to the Saints. But the defense at least dominated the Giants, Daniel Jones left with a neck injury, and the Dolphins can beat up on a winless Carolina team next week to get to 5-1.

We’ll be history watching with this offense all season, but historically, this does not yet have the makings of a championship team. But that speed is sure fun to watch dominate the bad teams.

Texans at Falcons: Promising Day for Desmond Ridder

If you wanted a game with solid quarterback play and multiple lead changes, this is one of your only choices the last couple of weeks. Neither team was able to break 2.8 yards per carry, but their quarterbacks avoided turnovers. In fact, C.J. Stroud was able to set the record for most pass attempts without an interception to begin his career.

Stroud also did a more than respectable job in the first game-winning drive attempt of his career. Down 18-12, he engineered a 75-yard touchdown drive, finding tight end Dalton Schultz for an 18-yard score with 1:49 left to take a 19-18 lead.

The only knock you can make is that the Texans went 3-and-out on their previous drive, which led to an Atlanta field goal and 18-12 deficit. By only going up a point with so much time left, it left the Falcons some low-hanging fruit to simply get into range for a game-winning field goal with no time left.

That’s exactly what they did as Desmond Ridder had the best game of his NFL career with 329 passing yards on 28-of-37 passing. He also ran for a touchdown earlier in the game. Ridder ended up leading two go-ahead drives in this one, throwing a touchdown pass to Bijan Robinson early in the quarter and then he was 5-for-5 for 44 yards on the game-winning field goal drive. Younghoe Koo was good from 37 yards away with no time left in the 21-19 win.

It was a very good day for Ridder when you consider the running game was held to 86 yards on 32 carries. He finally got Kyle Pitts involved with a game-high 87 yards on 7-of-11 passing. He finished strong even after his teammates fumbled on back-to-back drives in the third quarter. The Falcons can win with a quarterback like this, but Ridder will have to show he can do it more often.

Saints at Patriots: Belichick Can’t Tell a Single Soul That His Soul’s Gone

I said this would be the worst New England team in the 21st century. But 34-0 at home to Derek Carr a week after losing 38-3 in Dallas? The 2023 Patriots are only the 9th team since the merger to lose back-to-back games by 34 points. The last to do it was the 2019 Dolphins, a team accused of tanking.

I doubt Bill Belichick is actively tanking when he’s trying to get the all-time wins record without getting fired by Robert Kraft first, but this is a mess. Mac Jones had 3 more turnovers, including another awful pick-six as the first score of the game, a 25-yard return by Tyrann Mathieu. The second interception was not his fault at all, but there are a lot of problems with this team now and Belichick is out of solutions.

For one, you need talent, and his roster might be battling Arizona for the worst talent in the league. When you take Matt Judon and Christian Gonzalez away from the defense, that leaves a very bland lineup that cannot provide the necessary carnage to give this weak offense a shot.

This game was over at halftime. The Patriots are the only team since 1991 to get shut out at home while going 1-for-14 (or worse) on third down. The 8 first downs are the fewest by the Patriots since Belichick took the job in 2000.

Can it get lower than this? The Patriots (1-4) go back to Las Vegas next week where Belichick can fall to 0-3 against Josh McDaniels in his career.

Panthers at Lions: By Air and Ground

The 2022 Lions had a respectable season, but one of the biggest eyesores was that 37-23 loss in Carolina where they were outrushed 320-45. On Sunday, the Lions got some revenge in a complete team effort, 42-24 win despite not having Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jahmyr Gibbs available on offense.

But the Lions showed that their other draft picks and additions are more than enough to beat a bad Carolina team that has still never had a fourth-quarter lead this season. David Montgomery basically gave the middle finger to the Gibbs truthers with a 42-yard touchdown run on his first carry as he finished with another 109 yards on the ground. Rookie tight end Sam LaPorta scored two touchdowns and looks great.

The defense held Carolina to 99 rushing yards and picked off Bryce Young twice, including an incredible one-handed snag in the backfield by Aidan Hutchinson. I’m impressed with a defensive lineman who now has 4 interceptions in his first 22 games. Even J.J. Watt only had 3 of those in his career, and that includes his memorable pick-6 off Andy Dalton in a playoff game his rookie year (2011 AFC wild card).

The Lions (4-1) are doing very well and will get a decent road test in Tampa Bay next week. It is too early to talk 0-17 for the Panthers (0-5), but with a trip to Miami next, you can count on 0-6 going into the bye. But they’ll have shots against the Texans/Colts/Bears out of that to get their first win.

Next week: Quick turnaround for the wounded Chiefs as they look to make it 16 in a row against Denver on Thursday night. You will not get me up early to watch Titans-Ravens overseas. Seahawks-Bengals got much more interesting with the Cincinnati one, and I have no idea which team to trust in that one. I’m sure Nick Bosa will be in rare form against Deshaun Watson, and with the Eagles facing the Jets, I think there’s a solid shot we have two 6-0 teams in a week.  

NFL Week 5 Predictions: Old School Cowboys vs. 49ers Edition

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

You have to go back to 1992-1994 to find the last time Cowboys vs. 49ers was such a big deal as it is right now. That was when the teams met in the NFC Championship Game every year and the winner went on to win the Super Bowl. When those teams met, it was big.

The 49ers and Cowboys of 2021-23 are not that successful, but they are two of the elite teams in the NFL in this era. They meet Sunday night in San Francisco in what is easily the game of the week. Maybe even the Game of the Year in the NFC if the Eagles are not going to achieve a higher level of play. The Cowboys will try to avenge their playoff losses from the last two seasons, but the 49ers are on a hot streak and Brock Purdy has never lost a game unless he was injured on the opening drive.

When I did my 2023 NFL Predictions before Week 1, I had Dallas losing this game but gaining valuable information for a playoff rematch that they could finally prevail in. I really do believe this lack of information and experience on the 49ers has hurt Dallas in the postseason games as often times those games are rematches from the regular season. But Dallas hasn’t played the 49ers in the regular season since 2020, so this game will be a great test to see where they are.

But I’m not wavering in my Week 5 pick. While I still think better days are ahead for Dallas this year, I like the 49ers to win this one at home. I think the Dallas defense will continue to be successful and keep the 49ers under 30 points, which no one else has done this year. But when I look at the Dallas offense right now, I’m not a fan of the dink-and-dunk approach with Dak Prescott this year (lowest aDOT in league and only QB under 6.0 yards), and the red zone offense has been horrible. The defense has faced an easy schedule and doesn’t have Trevon Diggs (ACL) to face a ridiculously stacked offense with Brandon Aiyuk stealing the show these days from George Kittle and Deebo Samuel. The Christian McCaffrey touchdown is a sure thing these days too.

I hope the game is close and exciting, but I see a slugfest that is ultimately won by the 49ers.

Final: 49ers 24, Cowboys 20

This week’s articles:

NFL Week 5 Predictions

I would be lying if I didn’t admit the death of Dick Butkus gave me the last step of confidence to trust the Bears to end their 14-gmae losing streak against Washington on Thursday night. They did, and RIP to an absolute legend.

The London Game scares me for multiple reasons, and one of them is definitely the 9-6 loss Buffalo had in 2021 in Jacksonville. What if Josh Allen implodes again with turnovers against the other Josh Allen’s defense? But the Bills have won 3 in a row by 28+ points, which is one game shy of the NFL record. They were the last team to do it in 2020, and that time their next game was a 27-24 win over the Colts in the wild card round. But Jacksonville staying all week overseas feels like a possible advantage for this game. I dunno, so I ended up taking Buffalo to win a tight one.

Call me a hater but I’ll keep betting on C.J. Stroud to throw an interception until he does. He’s 26 attempts away from the record for most attempts to begin a career without one. Just play the odds. It’ll come.

CAR-DET is one of the bigger spreads and I loved Carolina’s side a lot more at -10.5 than I do -9.5, but the Lions have some worrisome injuries, and you never know when a repeat of last year could happen. But I think Detroit does win this time.

Frankly, the 1 p.m. slate sucks this week. It should be a lot of low-scoring battles, and I’m not overly looking forward to Ravens-Steelers as I can’t stand watching Matt Canada’s offense anymore. But the people arguing about how it won’t be close should give more respect to just how much these teams live up to their brands of playing physical against each other. Even in the 3 games that Lamar Jackson has played against the Steelers, he’s won 26-23 in overtime, lost 28-24 at home, and lost 20-19 after a failed 2-point conversion play. I think it’ll be decided by one possession again. Don’t forget the Ravens have played a ton of close games since 2021 too. Mike Tomlin is 12-1 against a 4.5-point spread following his last 13 losses by 12+ points.

Finally looking forward to a 4:00 slate that has 4 games instead of 3, and they are all intriguing in their own way.

Cardinals dropping Bengals to 1-4 is my upset pick of the week.

Jets-Broncos has that funny Nathaniel Hackett-Sean Payton beef to settle, and I would love to see both teams score 30+ (+1500 odds on that) in a crazy shootout where Zach Wilson and Breece Hall go off and so does Russ and Marvin Mims as these coaches try to outdo one another. I’m actually worried about picking Denver but think they shouldn’t go 0-3 at home. But man is that defense something uniquely terrible.

Eagles-Rams is a game I like the over more than the spread. Should be a good one unless Stafford is getting crushed behind that line. And I’m getting Chiefs-Vikings after the Ravens-Steelers game and I look forward to seeing a Mahomes game-winning drive in that one to add to Minnesota’s regression misery this year.

I already talked about SNF. For MNF, of course I love Davante Adams to have a big game against Green Bay.

Let’s win some more money this weekend (and this time don’t blow a big chunk on Divine Fortune at 8 AM when you should be sleeping).