Tag: Browns

2025 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 10

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

Week 10 in the NFL started with one of the worst games you’ll ever see in this league between the Broncos and Raiders. Sunday night ended with one of the worst games I’ve ever seen Aaron Rodgers play. Who knows what Monday night holds, but hopefully it’ll be better than a Sunday where the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump were both referenced during live NFL broadcasts. How fitting.

In all, we had eight games with a comeback opportunity, which is the most in the last four weeks but still not the 9+ we had every week in Weeks 1-6. Maybe Monday gets us there though I’m still going with the Eagles to win that one.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Colts vs. Falcons: Game of the Week

This might be the shortest edition of Stat Oddity I’ve ever written for a regular-season slate (2,800 words), but that’s because I didn’t sleep well Saturday night as I actually set my alarm to get up and watch this entire game. It’s the only international game I’ll be doing that for this year, and it was 100% worth it.

I thought both offenses were great early on, then once Daniel Jones threw that pick before halftime and both teams mismanaged the shit out of that clock, the game took a real turn. The pass pressure was dialed up on Jones, he’s making mistakes more akin to how we knew him with the Giants. But the Colts still have those great weapons like Alec Pierce and Tyler Warren, and of course Jonathan Taylor was a badass on Sunday. The 83-yard touchdown run was crazy, bad tackling, speed, the whole 9 yards.

But the Falcons certainly had their shot to win after taking a 25-22 lead on a great drive where their run game looked dominant. They had Jones in a 3rd-and-21 but still managed to let him scramble for 19 yards. With the Colts out of timeouts at 1:26, that snap needed to be the one that set up the Falcons to win. Instead, it led to 4th-and-2, and Warren came down with the risky throw to convert. The Colts eventually settled for a field goal and overtime after another grounding penalty on Penix.

In overtime, I feel like you want to go second now with these new rules. Know exactly what you need and get to play with all four downs to get it. Hopefully some decent time too so you don’t need to rush much. I think it’s also better to go second if you’re not the better offense as you might need that extra down.

Alas, the Falcons won the toss and wanted the ball first. After being gifted one first down on a poor holding penalty on the defense, they didn’t get another and punted. Ho-hum. The Colts didn’t have far to go for the winning field goal, but with that kicker, you’re much better off just going for the touchdown. Taylor provided that from 8 yards out and the game was over with him hitting 286 yards from scrimmage and 3 more touchdowns.

It’s not like Jones didn’t help earn the win, but this was probably the day where Taylor overtook him for the Colts’ MVP candidate. That was big time overseas and the Falcons are not a bad defense.

The Colts had a bye week before their showdown in Kansas City in Week 12, and they need it to fix up some things with their pass pro as Jones’ great sack rate is in the toilet after these last two games.

Meanwhile, I’d say it’s hard to believe the Falcons are 3-6 and haven’t won since the Buffalo win. But is it that hard to believe? These are the Falcons. They have their own brand of choking that only the Chargers can beat. They were 0-8 on 3rd down and 3-29 on their last three games. That’s inexcusable with these skill players.

But that’s Falconing. Still, the Colts outgained them 519-290 in yards, so the right team won in the end. Great game to watch from start to finish.

Bills at Dolphins: Super Bowl Hangover in Week 10?

I’m so used to Buffalo beating Miami that it’s still hard to believe this one happened the way it did. Sure, the Bills had another turnover regression moment with 3 giveaways, all in Miami territory, but it’s not like Tua Tagovailoa didn’t throw 2 picks too. He just didn’t have any sacks and the run game (197 yards) shredded Buffalo.

This is why you don’t give too much credit to Buffalo for beating Kansas City in the regular season. You have to do it in the playoffs, and the Bills sure looked like a team who was hearing everyone kiss their ass all week and they never had any intensity to step up for this game too. The Dolphins led 16-0 early and Buffalo never really threatened save for that first touchdown drive. But then they failed on the 2-point conversion (0/4 this year), so it was still a 10-point game before Miami added onto the lead.

I’ve been saying since September the Bills just don’t look right this year despite the No. 1 seed talk because of such a favorable schedule. Well, losing at home to the Patriots and losing on the road to Atlanta (hasn’t won since) and now Miami (poor team) was part of that easy schedule, and they’re 0-3 in those games. They may have even lost to Miami at home if not for that roughing the punter penalty in the 4th quarter of a tied game.

The Bills have a lot of issues, and I’ve been up too long this day to write about them all and how they relate to Josh Allen and his share of blame. That can wait for Wednesday’s QB rankings.

But the Bills are definitely struggling right now, and they’ll get a somewhat competent Tampa team next week to try to sort this out against.

Steelers at Chargers: Little Fight

You know it’s a rough night for the Steelers when Mike Tomlin’s defense had a more respectable outing than his offense and even his special teams. Chris Boswell missed a 45-yard field goal and they had another embarrassing muffed return that was fumbled to the Chargers.

But this was Aaron Rodgers’ first really bad game with the Steelers. In fact, it was one of the worst games of his career as only a garbage time touchdown drive saved some of the numbers from being in the bottom 3 of his long career for one game. Just never looked comfortable all night, missed some open receivers on big plays, ran backwards into the end zone for a safety early, and just looked pretty off. It happens, but that’s the first time he really shit the bed in a Steeler uniform.

But the defense did a respectable job against Justin Herbert and his receivers. Would have been even better if they could catch the interceptions thrown to them.

The Ravens are right on the Steelers’ heels now, so it’s only going to get tougher and the stakes higher. I don’t think the Steelers are a good team right now since they’re pretty incapable of playing complementary football. If they can ever show up on both sides of the ball for the same game, then they may have something in a goofy AFC this year where the Patriots, Colts, and Broncos are all 8-2.

But this team is flawed, and the lack of a good wide receiver besides D.K. Metcalf, who hasn’t even been that great, is a huge misunderstanding of what Rodgers is as a quarterback. That was always the concern, and that’s why this offense still has no real identity after 9 games.

Rams at 49ers: NFC West Juggernaut No. 1

The NFC West teams were all in battle against each other in the same window, and both games ended up being bloodbaths. The Rams jumped out 21-0 on the 49ers, which is usually not how Sean McVay vs. Kyle Shanahan goes. It’s also unheard of for the 49ers to mount a huge comeback win in these spots, so I’m surprised they even got it to 28-20 at one point early in the fourth quarter.

But the defense, missing studs like Nick Bosa and Fred Warner, never had an answer for Matthew Stafford, who remains red hot with his third-straight game of 4 touchdown passes and no picks.

Mac Jones quietly had a solid game too, but it never really mattered because of the way the Rams got off to that fast start.

Cardinals at Seahawks: NFC West Juggernaut No. 2

The other NFC West battle was over even earlier. The Seahawks were up 28-0 not even a full minute into the second quarter with DeMarcus Lawrence returning two fumbles from Jacoby Brissett for touchdowns. The Arizona offense was sitting on negative net points before finishing the game with net 8 points in garbage time.

Apparently, the 2025 Seahawks turned into the 2007 Patriots (Games 1-10 Version) during their bye week. I’m sure playing the Commanders and Cardinals has a lot to do with it, but Seattle looks pretty legit to me. Those games with the Rams, starting next week, should be special.

Lions at Commanders: Dan Campbell Takes Over

Well, I think playing a defeated Washington team that didn’t have Jayden Daniels and a team the Lions were looking for some playoff revenge for played huge factors in this 44-22 rout that helped Dan Campbell move to 13 straight wins and covers following a loss since 2022.

But who knew the best person to replace offensive coordinator Ben Johnson might be offensive coordinator Dan Campbell? He took over play-calling duties for this one and the Lions responded with 44 points on 8 drives (no punts) before running out the clock. Close to perfect with 546 yards to back it up.

Again, I think the state of the opponent mattered a lot. But Detroit could be peaking going into Philadelphia next week, a huge NFC showdown we never got to see last season.

Patriots at Buccaneers: TreVeyon and the Hendersons

The Patriots may have had about three good rushes all game long in Tampa, but two of them basically powered their only points of the second half after rookie TreVeyon Henderson scored on touchdown runs of 55 and 69 yards in a 28-23 win.

It took a Rhamondre Stevenson injury to finally see the speed we saw a taste of in the preseason from Henderson, but this wasn’t the only rookie who had a breakout game. Kyle Williams scored on a 72-yard touchdown catch that was mostly YAC to showcase his speed, so the Patriots are discovering weapons as the season goes on.

When I look at the Buccaneers, I can acknowledge that Emeka Egbuka is one of the most polished rookie wideouts ever. A gifted player with natural ability and real WR1 potential for years to come. But I also think the offense is quite obviously not the same when you don’t have Bucky Irving, Mike Evans, and Chris Godwin out there.

Baker Mayfield has also all but given up on scrambling since the 3rd-and-14 run against the 49ers, so I’m not sure what that’s all about. Hiding an injury? The fact is the Bucs were held to 16 points on 10 drives at home before their last touchdown had a strong odor of garbage time following Henderson’s huge run, which he didn’t have to necessarily score given the clock situation. But I can’t fault him for that one.

Henderson scored as many 55-yard touchdown runs in one half as the Patriots had (2) in every Tom Brady start in 2001-19 combined. That’s how special those plays are, and they certainly helped on a day where Drake Maye wasn’t his best, completing 16/31 passes with a red-zone pick that he forced in a spot where he actually would have been better off taking a sack (that’s ironic) in a 21-16 game late.

That gave Baker a chance to take the lead, something he’s done so well this year. But the pressure got to him on 4th down and the Bucs turned it over on downs before Henderson’s last big run.

Ravens at Vikings: McCarthyism May Not Be Sweeping the League in 2025

Yeah, we’ll keep saying J.J. McCarthy is young and needs a lot of developing. He certainly showed it in this game as he got worse the longer it went on. Meanwhile, the Ravens had a shaky start with a lot of field goals before finally finding the end zone after the Vikings barely coughed up a fumble on a kick return.

It took a lot for Lamar Jackson to keep his streak alive of 30 games with a touchdown pass, but he got there. Then the Vikings made it a one-score game anyway before the defense stopped McCarthy late.

Three straight wins for the Ravens (4-5) and they’re building confidence.

Jaguars at Texans: Game Over, Man

Yeah, I’m out on the Jaguars (5-4) as a playoff team this year. Blowing a 19-point lead in the fourth quarter to Davis Mills is exactly the kind of game that could trigger a losing streak and implosion to a season.

It’s not like the Jaguars were ever that far better than Houston in this game. They just feasted on field position early, then the defense took care of Trevor Lawrence late, including an unbelievable pick six to even cover the spread in the end.

Good to see a great defensive unit earn a win here as the Texans have been playing hard for DeMeco Ryans on that side of the ball. Just didn’t expect Mr. Long Neck to be the one to lead one of the greatest comebacks in franchise history while C.J. Stroud nursed a concussion.

Saints at Panthers: Attaboy for Tyler Shough

I knew you couldn’t trust the Panthers (-5.5) with a big spread but I didn’t think they’d lose this convincingly. The Saints took the lead with 9:21 left in the second quarter and never looked back in a 17-7 win. They shut down Rico Dowdle (18 carries for 53 yards), and as expected, Bryce Young wasn’t able to build a passing game.

Meanwhile, rookie Tyler Shough shined in his first NFL win with 282 yards and 2 touchdowns. Funny how he was more impressive in this one game than Cam Ward’s been all year as the No. 1 pick. I know, Ward will get the “bad coaching” pass for 2025, which is valid to a point. But with the way Shough and Dart have played this year without the greatest of situations around them, it makes you wonder about that draft class, especially with the Shedeur Sanders slide too.

Giants at Bears: Winning the Games Eberflus Didn’t

Despite the 6-3 record, I don’t think the Bears are a serious contender and still wouldn’t trust them to make the playoffs. But this year is about Caleb Williams getting better and Ben Johnson winning the games Matt Eberflus almost always lost.

On that front, this year has been a success after the Bears rallied from 10 down in the fourth quarter with a 24-20 win after Williams was excellent on two quick touchdown drives. Poor Russell Wilson took another failed comeback on his record after coming off the bench for a concussed Jaxson Dart, which was always the concern with his playing style. Dart is a special player when he’s healthy but who knows how long that will last.

At this point, I don’t see any value in bringing Brian Daboll back next year. He loses way too many games like this with the defense blowing the lead and the offense unable to recover.

Browns at Jets: Special Special Teams

If you had to script how Justin Fields can win a 27-20 game against a stingy defense, this would certainly do the trick:

  • Jets had two special teams touchdowns in the first quarter
  • Fields had 54 passing yards with 42 coming on a game-winning screen pass touchdown to Breece Hall, who showed off after a week the team traded its two best defenders and easily could have dealt him too
  • Dillon Gabriel was sacked 6 times

Leave it to the Browns to lose a game to a team like this in a game script like that.

Next week: Some of these games will be flat out duds, but with this much great stuff on the schedule, it has to be the best Sunday of the season.

  • Bucs at Bills
  • Chargers at Jags
  • Bengals at Steelers (Unc Bowl II)
  • Seahawks at Rams (NFC Game of the Year?)
  • Chiefs at Broncos (AFC West Game of the Year?)
  • Lions at Eagles (SNF)

2025 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 5

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

It only took until Week 5, but we’ve reached that point in the NFL season where “no team is great” and everyone has a loss. Everyone has a win too, except for the Jets. As Artie Lange once said, there are times where girls won’t fvck you, but the Jets will always fvck you.

But I knew Sunday would be a crazy day when so many games had a small spread, and some of those games actually were among the biggest blowouts. This was one of the worst weeks I’ve ever had at picking winners as I’m 4-9 heading into MNF with the Chiefs left.

Definitely the kind of day that should make you reevaluate everything from the MVP to John Harbaugh’s job status in Baltimore to who might win the AFC East. The remaining members of the 1972 Dolphins could pop the champagne tonight, and the 1976 Buccaneers, 2008 Lions, and 2017 Browns are warming up the Faygo bottles for the 2025 Jets.

We’ve had eight games with a comeback opportunity this week, but it’s very interesting to note that Sunday had five double-digit comeback wins after zero in Week 4 and five in Weeks 1-3 combined.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Patriots at Bills: AFC East Game of the Year Decade?

The good news is we still have an AFC East race in 2025 between the Patriots and Bills. The bad news is the Bills may have just given the Patriots and their fanbase the relevance they’ve been seeking again for the past few years.

In the first half, both teams looked like they have been taking advantage of weak schedules and weren’t ready for primetime. Lots of penalties by Buffalo, and the Bills even coughed up two fumbles, including the first one by a non-quarterback (Keon Coleman) since the 2024 season started.

That contributed to the Bills losing the turnover battle 3-1, ending their record 26-game streak of not losing the turnover battle. But even those two early fumbles only led to a New England field goal as the Patriots gave one right back with Rhamondre Stevenson, who is known for that. At least he redeemed himself with two touchdowns.

Yes, the second half was like night and day as the offenses actually strung together scoring drives. Josh Allen had a bad pick in the red zone late in the third quarter on a night where James Cook was held in check. That led to a touchdown and 20-10 lead in the fourth quarter for New England.

In his first prime-time game, Drake Maye was nothing special in the first half. But he came of age in the second half with some brilliant throws that do look like a younger Josh Allen when he was breaking out in 2020. Except there was a hostile crowd in the background this time as Maye led the Patriots on scoring marches of 74, 90, and 37 yards in the second half.

Even after Buffalo tied the game at 20, Maye didn’t blink despite being 0-6 on previous game-winning drive attempts in his career. I thought his broken tackle to get a pass away to an incredible game from Stefon Diggs on the drive’s opening play was the best play of them all as a sack here could have blew things up in regulation.

Then he followed that up with a perfect 19-yard throw down the sideline. I wasn’t sure if New England’s rookie kicker was going to deliver, but maybe sixth-round pick Andres Borregales is about to start his own legacy after he was perfect on a 52-yard kick with 15 seconds left. Adam Vinatieri would be proud of that one, and I don’t think Stephen Gostkowski ever had one that significant in his long career.

The Bills didn’t have enough time to answer and took the loss to ensure we wouldn’t see any team start 5-0 this year. The Bills were only able to score 20 points on 10 drives as it’s a lot harder to score efficiently when you lose some fumbles and have poor average field position at your own 23 on the night.

The penalty yardage also cracked 90 for both teams, so it was a sloppy performance all around for both that I’m sure they’d like to improve on. But it wasn’t a fluky upset by any means like when the 2021 Patriots won by completing 2 passes on a windy night in Buffalo. The Bills haven’t been that sharp these last few games, and the Patriots made them pay for it.

I will say it’s not a great sign if the Bills need a double-digit comeback in the fourth quarter at home when they face a team that’s even remotely competent like Baltimore (Week 1 version) and now New England. The schedule is of course their crutch, but the Patriots get a very similarly easy schedule, and they don’t have to play the Chiefs, Texans, or Eagles. They get the Raiders, Giants, and Titans.

Granted, the Patriots already lost to the Raiders in Week 1, but this win should really boost their confidence. What they can’t do is let this be the peak of their season as the game was obviously personal (his word, not mine) for Stefon Diggs, who played a fantastic game in his return to Buffalo.

There’s a lot of season left, and the AFC East isn’t out of reach now that you got this win in Buffalo. But the great teams, the Patriots of old, they would build on this win and get a streak going. The Patriots have the Saints, Titans, and Browns next. Let’s see if they can get to 6-2 or not.

Maybe the oddsmakers weren’t crazy when they had this team favored in 11 games in May when the earliest lines came out. But as this game and many of the other games in Week 5 around the league showed, no one is great enough to just run the table anymore. It’s a week-to-week league, and this week the Patriots were a little better than Buffalo.

Remember, both of these teams almost lost to the Dolphins. No super teams in 2025. Game on.

Broncos at Eagles: Where Did That Come From?

We’re getting some solid evidence that Nick Sirianni is only as good as his coordinators he relies on so much. Vic Fangio stayed after the Super Bowl win, and his defense was awesome for three quarters on Sunday, forcing seven punts on eight drives while only giving up a field goal.

But in the fourth quarter, the Broncos flipped the script with three scoring drives for 18 points, including a curious decision to go for two by Sean Payton when it was a 17-16 game instead of earlier when the Broncos were down 14 as most teams like to do it. It all ended up working out, but I’m not sure the process was the best there.

Speaking of bad process, what the hell is the Philadelphia offense this year? The offensive coordinator (Kevin Patullo) is clearly in over his head as he can’t seem to strike any balance at all. The Eagles either throw the ball short the whole game, or like in this game, they neglect the run altogether.

How does Saquon Barkley get 6 carries for 30 yards to 46 plays for Jalen Hurts in a game you led 17-3 in the fourth quarter? How? Sure, the wideouts bitched about their targets last week, and that star duo got 18 targets this week. Technically, more like 19 as A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith were caught fighting over the incomplete Hail Mary to end the game in the most fitting fashion ever.

But all the passing this week didn’t help the Eagles score any points on their last five drives after that great big pass play to Barkley for a touchdown that made it 17-3. Denver finally clamped down and got multiple sacks on Hurts.

Before Denver’s final field goal, I think the late hit penalty on Zack Baun was iffy since the runner was still trying to churn forward for the yard he needed, so I understand why Baun did the hit. I also don’t think this type of late hit gets called that often.

Having said that, in hindsight, it may have helped the Eagles get a chance to win the game. Had there been no flag, the Broncos would face 4th-and-inches there. I have to think Sean Payton goes for it to end the game as 1 yard would run out the clock with the Eagles down to their last timeout. Either they call it right away or right after the 2-minute warning, but either way, if the Broncos convert 4th-and-1 with a running clock, the game is over right there.

So, that’s one way to think about the Baun call not deciding the game as I don’t think it did. What the Eagles really needed was another one of those blocked kicks but no such luck this week.

The winning streak is over, and the Eagles are going to have to play much better than this. They’ve gotten away with things for four weeks, but the Broncos had enough tricks up their sleeve to get past this team in Philly.

More will do it to them too if they don’t sort this offense out. 18 points shouldn’t be enough to beat this team, but on Sunday, it was good enough.

Texans at Ravens: Ruh-Roh

When you put Baltimore’s injuries this way, maybe I was foolish to pick them to beat a Houston team that also didn’t want to start 1-4 and can play strong defense.

But 44-10? What a walloping from a Houston team that was stuck in a 6-0 slugfest with the Titans to start the fourth quarter a week ago. I just hope people don’t act like this is all Lamar Jackson being out as the Ravens clearly are missing top players in the trenches, the secondary, linebacker Roquan Smith, and Derrick Henry (15 carries for 33 yards) just hasn’t been the same guy since the Buffalo fumble on opening night.

The final stat line for Cooper Rush is going to look bad with 3 interceptions, but he had 2 incompletions at a time when the Texans had already scored three touchdowns. The picks came later as the Texans scored on their first eight drives before calling the dogs off.

With the Rams coming up next and some of these injuries lingering, I’m not sure coach John Harbaugh can make it to next season at this rate. They might just say you’ve had enough cracks at it, we’re going in a different direction. Though, I’m not sure how many coaches would do well with a team missing this many highly-paid players.

The non-quarterback skill positions are where the Ravens are at their healthiest, but those players usually aren’t worth a lick if you don’t have a good quarterback or tackle to get them the ball.

Houston clearly viewed this as a get-right game and C.J. Stroud and company were excellent. He knew to get the ball out fast after past struggles to score any touchdowns in three games against this defense.

But that defense on Sunday? That’s not the Baltimore defense I know. I feel like the plane lady. “Those motherfvckers are not real.”

But the 1-4 record? Very real right now.

Buccaneers at Seahawks: Passing Clinic from the 2018 Class

Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold have been playing well this year and last season, but Sunday’s 38-35 shootout took things to another level. You can say it was one of the most efficient passing shootouts we’ve ever seen with the ball rarely hitting the ground.

The kind of game where the last one with the ball wins, but that’s the kind of game you don’t want to get into this year with the Buccaneers, who have now won four games by 1-3 points in five weeks. They turned things around late after trailing by 7 too, and when it looked like Darnold would be the one to drive for the field goal, he hit his lineman in the head with a ball that was then deflected for a crushing interception.

Light work for Mayfield already in field goal range, so the Bucs had an easy one to finish it off for the big win. Seattle’s defense has played so well but had no real answers for the Tampa passing game even without Mike Evans.

Emeka Egbuka continues to be one of the most impressive rookie wideouts you’ll ever see too. Caught all 7 targets for 163 yards and another touchdown. He just plays like he’s a 5-year vet in his absolute prime.

Tough way for the Seahawks to lose some ground in the NFC at home.

Commanders at Chargers: I’m Disappointed

I really thought this game had the potential to be Sunday’s best with the Chargers coming off a loss and Jayden Daniels returning for the Commanders. Daniels did his part, but the Chargers were very disappointing with 10 points scored. Justin Herbert learning exactly how hard it is when your right tackle is wasting big gains with penalties, your left tackle (Joe Alt) is out, and you’re getting a pass deflected at the line (again) for a pick.

It looked like Herbert threw his red-zone pick right to the defender but it was a deflection. That was the killer as the score was 20-10 at the time in the fourth quarter.

Then the Commanders drove 99 yards for a touchdown they didn’t necessarily need on 4th-and-goal, but I’ll sure take it since the Deebo Samuel score hit a parlay for me. I like to think that’s good karma for me singing the praises of Daniels since early last season.

But yeah, I think Herbert has really damaged his MVP chances these last two games, and the Chargers are looking like a team that’s not ready after all to overtake the Chiefs in the AFC West. Long way to go but funny how big a difference two weeks can make in this league.

Raiders at Colts: Geno Smith Spending His Nights in the Casinos?

“Diminishing returns” was probably the phrase I used the most this offseason about Geno Smith’s tenure in Seattle. But he was better than this in 2024. He’s just throwing anything he feels like with the Raiders, and he couldn’t even get the ball in the end zone once in this 40-6 loss.

Meanwhile, Daniel Jones was sharp again. No sacks, no turnovers. The Colts scored six straight touchdowns at one point. Granted, turnovers and a blocked punt meant three of them covered 58 yards, but they had drives of 83, 88, and 68 yards too.

A good sign that this offense and defense can just roll an inferior team like this.

Browns vs. Vikings: London Calling, And You Are Not the LOAT

I missed most of this game (sleeping), but it seems like Dillon Gabrield handled himself pretty well. No turnovers. Led a couple of touchdown drives (one of respectable length/effort) against a defense that’s supposed to be so hard to figure out.

But probably not going to be the next LOAT if your defense is giving up a clutch drive to Carson Wentz in London.

I thought Cleveland stayed pretty conservative on offense late and didn’t put this one away. You give Wentz five drives with those weapons to get a go-ahead touchdown, and chances are he’ll do it eventually. He was good on the last drive as was Jordan Addison on the game winner.

Lions at Bengals: Jake Browning Is Blowing It

I know some of the numbers look gaudy like those for Jared Goff, but the Detroit offense was not that special in Cincinnati. The running game only averaged 3.6 yards per carry. Detroit had 14 points on six first-half drives, but that included a 17-yard drive after a Jake Browning interception.

I think this game is the opposite of Ravens-Texans in the way the backup quarterback was the one throwing the game away early here before the defense did so late. Browning’s three picks were largely brutal and in his own end of the field, making it too easy on Detroit’s offense.

The nicest thing I can say is Browning did well enough after it was 28-3 that he’ll probably keep his job for the next game. But this was just so poor early that the Bengals never stood much of a chance.

Titans at Cardinals: What. The. Fvck?

You want to see one of the worst blown leads in NFL history? Bookmark this game. The Cardinals led 21-3, so Cam Ward gets his first win and first game-winning drive with an 18-point comeback, but I can’t really give him much credit outside of the last drive was nice to set up the field goal.

But it should never have come to that. Arizona’s inability to add to the 21-6 lead in the second half is all-time bad stuff from an NFL team.

First, Kyler Murray has a fumbled snap play at the Tennessee 20 where he looks woozy and has to temporarily leave the game; just a weird looking play they described as a foot issue.

In the fourth quarter, third-year back Emari Demercado breaks off what should be a 72-yard touchdown run to make it 28-6. But when he started slowing down despite L’Jarius Snead’s pursuit, I knew he was in trouble. This was going to be a Leon Lett situation all over again. But then he dropped the ball early to celebrate and it became the 2008 DeSean Jackson play, which is about the dumbest thing you can do in a game. Adonai Mitchell (Colts) just did this shit last week to cost the Colts a game.

I would cut his ass tomorrow. He’s a UDFA who just fumbled the biggest run of his career. He’s expendable. Make a point to the rest of the league that if you do this, you get cut.

From there, good deep throw by Ward to Calvin Ridley for 47 yards to set up a touchdown, though the Cardinals missed an extra point some would argue they shouldn’t have been kicking anyway. So, it was still a 2-score game at 21-12. Then with just under 5:00 left, Ward gets picked on a tipped ball that is somehow fumbled, recovered by the Titans and good for a touchdown to make it 21-19. Just one of the craziest bounces you’ll ever see.

Let’s not close the book on Ward’s LOAT case yet. My goodness. Then of course, lackadaisical Murray and his offense couldn’t close the deal on their end with some conservative runs by the coordinator. That put it on the defense in the last two minutes, and for the third week in a row, the Cardinals watched a team win on a field goal with no time left on the clock, a first in NFL history.

This was some serious 2006 Rex Grossman shit by Tennessee winning the game that way. I wouldn’t be surprised if Arizona (2-3) craters from here a la Chicago last year after the Hail Mary in Washington.

Giants at Saints: Dropping the Dart on Your Foot

I picked the Saints to get their first win for coach Kellen Moore and quarterback Spencer Rattler as they just have more weapons to lean on than the Giants do with Malik Nabers out. That certainly proved true, but it’s not like the Giants didn’t literally fumble this game away after an early 14-3 lead before the Saints scored the final 23 points.

Jaxson Dart, they show his mom more in one game than all of Taylor Swift’s screentime in 2024. But Dart had a really bad fumble in the second half where he just dropped the ball on a scramble. Then Cam Skattebo, the other Great White Hope here had a bigger fumble that was returned for a touchdown one play into the fourth quarter when the Giants were down 19-14. That was a dagger.

Should the Saints have drafted Dart? Maybe. But this game certainly didn’t make them feel regret.

Dolphins at Panthers: One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Super Bowl to Call

I know Mark Sanchez has a different role (analyst) for FOX than Eric Collins (play-by-play), but it’s amusing to view this weekend as the one where FOX likely lost one and gained the other. We’ll see what the facts say about the Sanchez fight/stabbing case, but it doesn’t sound promising for his innocence and future employment.

Meanwhile, Collins may have just supplanted Gus Johnson as the guy who can bring energy to NFL games you really don’t want to watch. This guy got a 17-0 stinker between the Dolphins and Panthers where Miami forgot how to score and the Panthers kept making big play after big play behind Rico Dowdle (206 rushing yards) and company.

It ended up going back and forth, and you would have thought from the way Collins, the voice of the Charlotte Hornets, called the game that you were watching a Super Bowl or something important.

When I heard Collins say, “the Dolphins are hanging on like a cat on a screen door” I knew something great was going to come out of this guy’s mouth after that gem, and he took the internet by storm with his enthusiastic calls:

From now on, I want Eric Collins calling D-crew games. Screw hearing the likes of Spero Dedes or Jonathan Vilma doing games involving the Cardinals, Titans, Panthers, and Saints. Give me Mr. Collins from now on. Please and thank you.

But yeah, the Dolphins (1-4) are pure trash to blow a 17-point lead to a team as bad as Carolina.

Cowboys at Jets: Just End the Season…

Any idea that the Cowboys were a road fraud on offense this year was shut down by the poor defense the Jets play on a weekly basis for Aaron Glenn. The Cowboys were balanced with four touchdown passes from Dak and 180 rushing yards. I never even heard of Ryan Flournoy (2024 sixth-round pick), but the Cowboys got 114 receiving yards out of him with CeeDee Lamb still out.

Dallas led 30-3 late in the third quarter before some points in garbage time for Justin Fields and the offense. That’s two weeks in a row I picked the Jets and got burned badly. I just don’t think you can pick them to win right now. They’re poor on both sides of the ball.

Next week: Eagles-Giants on TNF isn’t the best way to start a week, but maybe some divisional drama can emerge. No chance in hell I’m getting up for Broncos-Jets in London or Germany or whatever they’re doing this week. We’ll see if the Rams can drop the Ravens to 1-5, and at this point, why shouldn’t they? Sunday afternoon is pretty bad (Bucs-49ers the best?) but it gives way to a hell of a game at night with Lions-Chiefs. Then it’s another one of those silly MNF overlapped doubleheaders (Bills-Falcons and Bears-Commanders). Much better games than last week’s, at least.

2025 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 1

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

Earlier this week, I decided my Super Bowl LX pick is Ravens over Packers, and for about 10 hours on Sunday, that looked great. But the Ravens did what they do best by blowing their 8th multi-score lead in the second half of a game since 2022 – three more than any other team in that time.

That 41-40 finish in Buffalo will be the leading candidate for Game of the Year until something can even think of topping it. The game was also dramatically different from the rest of a Week 1 where no other team even scored 35 points until the Bills and Ravens both did it.

This was shaping up to be the lowest-scoring Week 1 in 15 years, though the 81 points here may have saved it from that claim. Still, we had a ton of low-scoring games, which meant a ton of close games as 12 of the 15 games so far (Vikings-Bears pending) had a comeback opportunity with four delivering comeback wins.

It was a fun start to the season, and we still have to see what J.J. McCarthy and Ben Johnson can bring to the NFC North race.

Ravens at Bills: Game of the Week Year with Familiar Ending

Well, I can no longer say we haven’t had a Josh Allen vs. Lamar Jackson game where both threw the ball really well. But what a massive letdown for the Ravens, who should have been able to get a tiebreaker for home-field advantage by winning this game over a Buffalo team that gets every big game at home this year.

They might get everyone at home in January too after this, and this loss could be the beginning of the end for John Harbaugh in Baltimore.

At some point, you can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results. That’s the definition of insanity. For whatever reason, Harbaugh’s Ravens blow leads like this more than any team in the NFL, and it wasn’t always like this.

  • The Ravens lost four games with a 15-point lead from 1996-2021, but they have done so four times since 2022 alone (twice to Buffalo).
  • From 2008-17, Harbaugh’s Ravens (Joe Flacco era) were 84-13 (.866) when leading by at least 9 points at any point in the game.
  • From 2018-25, Harbaugh’s Ravens (Lamar Jackson era) are 69-15 (.821) when leading by at least 9 points any point in the game.

That may look like a modest decline, but it’s more pronounced since 2022 when the Ravens are 33-10 (.767) in such games despite being an annual Super Bowl contender each year with great defenses and an MVP-worthy quarterback.

I don’t have the time today to go through all the losses, but I know a common theme has been bad ball security coming back to bite the Ravens. This is what I struggled with when writing the Baltimore preview for 2025. Can we conclude coaching is at fault when players fumble the ball, throw interceptions, muff kicks, drop 2-point conversions, or drop game-sealing interceptions with such frequency in big spots?

No coach, let alone Harbaugh, can grip the ball for these players. There’s only so many ways you can preach ball security in practice, but that doesn’t mean a lick on game day if someone punches the ball out.

It’s not like Harbaugh had Rashod Bateman taking a jet sweep with the Ravens clinging to a one-score lead. That was Derrick Henry, on a monster night for him, who fumbled with 3:10 left, putting the Bills 30 yards away from the end zone and making this comeback doable.

Don’t forget rookie kicker Tyler Loop missed the extra point after Henry’s last touchdown run, which would have made it a 16-point game with 11:42 left. Don’t forget when Awuzie dropped an interception with 10:48 left while the Ravens led 40-25.

Those aren’t on the coach, and things like this happen so frequently to Baltimore in big spots. But Harbaugh is the coach, the common link between these games, so he is going to take the blame.

But you should try to put the blame on spots where coaching has an impact. The Ravens had a poor end of each half, calling a terrible play to Justice Hill out of a timeout in the second quarter that short-circuited a drive where the Ravens kicked a field goal a little sooner than they needed to, leaving some seconds on the play clock.

Buffalo got the ball back and made sure every single one of those last 25 seconds counted. Baltimore played a soft prevent and Allen was able to complete a pass to Kincaid for 22 yards, getting out of bounds with a generous one second left. The Bills kicked a 43-yard field goal, so that was a bad sign of things to come.

Then you go to the last two minutes. Henry fumbled, Buffalo scored, but the Ravens stopped the 2PC to keep a 40-38 lead. The Bills kicked deep, and the Ravens took over with 1:51 left. The Bills still had all three timeouts. In 2025, you have to treat this situation with a 2-point lead as if you were facing a 2-point deficit. That doesn’t mean you’re going to throw risky passes or hurry up to the line to snap it (opponent would use timeouts anyway). But you need to approach it like you need first downs, because the truth is you do.

The Ravens took a conservative approach and it cost them. The run to Zay Flowers on second down was most egregious. Then after a short completion brought up 4th-and-3 at the Baltimore 38, many thought Harbaugh should have gone for it with 1:33 left after Buffalo used its final timeout. It’s 3 yards and you win the game. It would have been the craziest example of this since Bill Belichick did 4th-and-2 at his own 28 in 2009, but is it really that crazy anymore in 2025?

I don’t care if you have the No. 1 defense in the league, which Baltimore clearly isn’t built for right now if this game is any indication. Ray Lewis, Terrell Suggs, Haloti Ngata, and Ed Reed aren’t in that lineup. But even if you had that defense, you can’t rely on stopping a team from getting into field goal range anymore, and these kickers can make from 60-plus yards now. The game has changed.

Put the ball in Jackson’s hands and let him have a run-pass option. I’d probably give him a 60% chance to convert there, if not higher. Game over if he comes through. But even if he fails, you still have some advantages here with all three timeouts. Maybe you stop Buffalo after 3 snaps and they kick a field goal. Maybe they miss.

Granted, the same thing could have happened. The Bills use several plays to get a couple of first downs and kick a short field goal to win the game 41-40. But at least you would have had the chance on 4th-and-3 to end things on your own terms with the player you believe was robbed of a third MVP.

They didn’t do it, and Harbaugh said he trusted the defense, and he’s going to keep trusting his defense.

If that’s the case, why would we ever trust anything to change with the Ravens? They’re just going to keep making mistakes in big spots. Buffalo has their number. Josh Allen has 5 career wins that are either divisional round playoff games or comebacks of 15+ points, and four of those games are against Baltimore.

Never mind the Kansas City hurdle the Ravens haven’t solved save for one night in 2021 when CEH fumbled in game-winning field goal range. Speaking of fumbles, by recovering Henry’s, the Bills are now +18 in lost fumble recoveries since 2024 and they haven’t lost the turnover battle in 23 games (NFL record). Unreal streak that keeps defying all odds to continue.

Alas, guess what else was different about that 2021 Kansas City win? Harbaugh went for it that night, letting Lamar run on 4th-and-1 at his own 43 with just over a minute left to ice the game.

I guess 1 yard doesn’t scare him as much as 3 yards, but if you’re still coaching scared with Lamar as your quarterback in 2025, maybe someone else needs to be his coach in 2026.

Steelers at Jets: Have a Day, Aaron Rodgers

I thought for sure this would be an ugly game to watch as Steelers openers usually are in the last decade. Then when you consider all the new players, the way Aaron Rodgers and D.K. Metcalf didn’t get any work in the preseason in this new offense, and the revenge game factor for Justin Fields and the Jets, and I was expecting a field goal fest.

Well, it ended up being the shootout of the afternoon as the Steelers’ high-priced defense with several Hall of Fame candidates had no real answers for Fields, who had one of the best games of his career.

After Rodgers took a sack on his opening play, then watched Metcalf drop his first target, it felt like this was going to be a shit-tacular day. But Rodgers impressed me by converting multiple third-and-longs, he still showed great accuracy and arm strength, and he carried this offense on a day where the running game was marginal (54 yards) and the defense was of little help.

Metcalf finished with 83 yards, Jonnu Smith caught a touchdown on a push pass, and it ended up being Jalen Ramsey who delivered the hit stick on Garrett Wilson to secure the win after Chris Boswell drilled a 60-yard field goal that might have been good from 70. Ice cold kick, like a serial killer would make.

My two big stats on Fields have been 0-22 when the opponent scores more than 20 points and 2-18 at 4QC opportunities. Add another loss to each. In fact, I did a live bet on Steelers ML at +370 when they were down 26-17 because I saw them scoring again and keeping that streak alive. Sure enough, the Jets fumbled a kickoff and Rodgers and Boswell delivered.

Fields played very well and was about the last reason the Jets lost this game. But sure enough, when he’s got the ball in the final minute with a chance to go get a field goal to win the game, he can’t beat the pass rush and goes four-and-out. Par for the course for him.

The Jets have now blown 7 fourth-quarter leads going back to last year, the most in the NFL. The offense was far better than expected, but the defense was like nothing ever changed.

And they let Rodgers get the last laugh.

Lions at Packers: On Script

This game was more or less what I expected with Detroit trying to adjust to new coordinators and the Packers feeling hyped about the Micah Parsons trade. Still, I wouldn’t have counted on the Lions to only rush for 46 yards on 22 carries, or for Jared Goff to have one of the least effective 31-for-39 games you’ll ever see.

Jordan Love was strong early to build the lead, and the Packers basically just cruised the rest of the way. Parsons made his impact felt with a sack in the fourth quarter.

It’s a good statement win for the Packers in their quest to reclaim the NFC North. We’ll see where these teams are for the rematch on Thanksgiving (Week 13).

Bengals at Browns: Comical Regression

From my Bengals preview in July:

“However, I’m willing to bet things work out for the Bengals this year, even if it’s by pure, dumb luck. A random bounce going their way with a turnover on defense, a clutch kick going their way for a change, and maybe Burrow will even win a game or two that the Bengals trail in the closing minutes just to spite me.”

It only took one game for several of these things to happen:

  • After the Browns took a 16-14 lead in the third quarter, they were scoreless on their final six drives, never needing more than a field goal on any of them.
  • Joe Flacco’s pass to Battle was deflected off his hands into the Bengals for an interception that put Joe Burrow at the Cleveland 34 where he moved the ball 17 yards for a go-ahead field goal, after getting the offense’s only first down of the second half, and producing a precarious 17-16 lead.
  • At one point in the fourth quarter, Burrow took three consecutive sacks that each lost 6 yards.
  • That helped Cleveland start its ensuing drive at the Cincy 42 with 6:56 left, but kicker Andre Szmyt, in his NFL debut, missed a 36-yard field goal with 2:22 left. He missed the extra point in the third quarter, creating this situation.
  • The Bengals went three-and-out, then Flacco was intercepted again.
  • Flacco got one more chance from his 1-yard line with 19 seconds left, and the clock ran out on the Browns in a tough loss.

The Bengals needed a hotter September start, the defense needed to play better, but let’s hope they didn’t blow all their luck in Week 1 because what the fvck was this performance?

Burrow passed for 113 yards as the offense only finished with 141 yards. Cleveland had 327 yards but failed to score after a good start. The Bengals are the first team since the 2015 Raiders to win a game with under 150 yards of offense and not scoring more than 17 points. The day the pass rush killed Brock Osweiler in Denver.

The Jaguars played some solid defense against Carolina, so I’ll be curious to see how the Bengals fare next week after this absurd game.

49ers at Seahawks: The Catch IV?

Just think of how many great touchdown catches to win playoff games the 49ers have in their history from Dwight Clark to Terrell Owens to Vernon Davis. You’re probably not going to attach “The Catch IV” label to a Week 1 game, but what backup tight end Jake Tonges did in Seattle on Sunday was really cool and memorable.

The 49ers were hurting again. George Kittle, a Seattle serial killer, left the game after a touchdown with a hamstring injury. Jauan Jennings was injured again.  Brandon Aiyuk is still out. The 49ers needed someone to step up as kicker Jake Moody is a bum who missed more kicks in a tight game.

Insert Jake Tonges, who has been in the NFL since 2022 but never registered a receiving target before Sunday. Yet there he was on the game-winning drive, hauling in three passes for 15 yards and snagging away a touchdown with 1:34 left to take a 17-13 lead.

Sam Darnold led some nice comebacks last year for Minnesota, but he was tested here against an elite front. On the day, he managed to throw for 124 of his 150 yards to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the clear WR1 in Seattle with Tyler Lockett (Titans) and D.K. Metcalf (Steelers) gone.

But after finding JSN for 40 yards, Darnold was 9 yards away from the end zone before Nick Bosa stripped him of the ball and the 49ers recovered to seal it for new (but returning) defensive coordinator Robert Saleh. It’s exactly the kind of game the 49ers were losing last year, so it’s a positive sign they got this one in the win column.

Dolphins at Colts: Another Day Closer to Death Indeed

Yeah, Mike McDaniel isn’t seeing October at this rate. Falling behind 30-0 and allowing Daniel Jones to score on all seven of his possessions is nasty work. But it’d be different if the offense was at least competitive. Instead, Tua Tagovailoa had arguably the worst game of his career with three turnovers and a 2.7 QBR. He just had no success against a Colts defense that lacks stars.

Daniel Jones being this year’s Sam Darnold would be something, but until further notice, this probably had a lot to do with how inept the Dolphins are right now. But I did say the Colts had a solid roster, quarterback aside, and rookie tight end Tyler Warren came as advertised with 79 yards on 8 touches.

Buccaneers at Falcons: Is Michael Penix the MUPE (Most Unlucky Player Ever)?

When Bijan Robinson took that short pass 50 yards for a touchdown in the game’s opening minutes, I thought we’d be getting the shootout these teams had in Atlanta last year when Kirk Cousins threw for over 500 yards.

But this was a surprisingly defensive battle. The Atlanta pass rush showed it was improved and got after Baker Mayfield frequently, causing him to barely average over 5.0 yards per attempt. He even ended up leading the game in rushing (39 yards) after Bucky Irving (14 carries for 37 yards) and Robinson (12 for 24 yards) were contained on the ground. I’d say the Bucs missed Liam Coen calling the offense, but it’s also a tough division game.

Special teams were really feast or famine for both teams in this one. But the Falcons were down 17-13 in the fourth quarter when they went on an epic march of 91 yards in 18 plays with plenty of penalties, two replay reversals, and do-overs for an Atlanta offense that struggled to close drives. Eventually, Michal Penix showed great scrambling ability and athleticism to stretch out for a 4-yard touchdown run on 4th-and-goal with 2:17 left to take a 20-17 lead.

But Mayfield finally found a rhythm and threw a 25-yard touchdown pass to Emeka Egbuka with 59 seconds left for the rookie’s second score of the game. However, kicker Chase McLaughlin missed the extra point, a huge one that kept it a 23-20 game instead of making the Falcons need a touchdown in a minute. Just huge.

Penix, with his two timeouts, did a really nice job of getting the team in range, but the drive eventually stalled once he was out of timeouts and had to play against the clock in addition to the defense. Still, a 44-yard field goal should be very makeable for any kicker today, and Younghoe Koo has generally been a good kicker.

But to send this game to overtime, Koo was wide right with 0:02 left and that’s how the Bucs held on for this big NFC South win. Circle this one.

I’ve said for years how Tom Brady was never the GOAT but always the LOAT, the Luckiest of All Time. Well, we should try to figure out which quarterback deserves the title of the unluckiest of all time, and since UOAT is an ugly acronym, I was thinking we could use “MUPE” to stand for Most Unlucky Player Ever.

I’d also workshop these ideas:

  • DUP – Doomed Unluckiest Player
  • DUPE – Doomed Unluckiest Player Ever
  • MOAT – Misfortune of All Time

Penix has only started four games in the NFL, but he’s gone 0-3 in the last three starts with these things happening:

  • Led a game-tying touchdown drive vs. Washington before his kicker missed a 56-yard game-winning field goal and his defense allowed a game-winning touchdown drive in overtime where he never touched the ball.
  • Led two game-tying touchdown drives in fourth quarter vs. Carolina before his defense allowed game-winning touchdown in an overtime where he never saw the ball again.
  • Led a go-ahead touchdown drive with 2:17 left before the defense gave up the lead, then his kicker missed a 44-yard field goal that would have forced overtime.

This might be on brand for the Falcons as a franchise historically, but this is still a lot to take for a 3-game sample. We’ll see if Minnesota adds to Penix’s woes in prime time next week.

Texans at Rams: Puka Is Always Open

14-9? Okay, where’s the other half of scoring? That’s it?

It was a game where each team had nine possessions, but the Texans never found the end zone and the Rams had their share of struggles. But credit to the Rams for forcing some huge takeaways, including a late fumble by Houston’s Dare Ogunbowale just as he crossed into the red zone with 1:43 left.

One thing the Rams can always count on is Puka Nacua getting open and making the catch. He finished with 10 catches for 130 yards while Davante Adams had 4 catches for 51 yards in his team debut. It’s easy to see who is still clearly WR1 here.

Giants at Commanders: August Is Not Real

Yeah, I should have seen this one coming before still taking the over. The 2025 Giants had the most prolific passing offense of the 21st century in the preseason when they averaged 345.0 passing yards and 35.7 points per game.

But that’s August, that’s fool’s gold. Sure enough, in Week 1 of a game that counts, the Giants scored 6 points and had 157 net passing yards in Russell Wilson’s debut. Brian Daboll is already getting asked if he’s committing to Wilson as his starter for Week 2 after the Giants punted on six of their nine drives.

Throw in that brutal schedule and we’ll see rookie Jaxson Dart start games down the line. Maybe sooner than later.

But it could have been a little smoother for Washington, which botched the end-of-half drive where a grounding penalty ran out the clock in the red zone. Then they had to punt their first three drives in the second half. But Jayden Daniels still found his way to 21 points, keeping the scoring streak alive in Washington, after Deebo Samuel stamped off a great game with a touchdown run to give him 96 yards from scrimmage on eight touches.

We’ll get a real litmus test for Washington against the Packers this Thursday night. But clearly, the preseason is no litmus test for anything in the NFL. The Giants still stink offensively under Daboll.

Raiders at Patriots: Favored in 11 Games, Eh?

There were some bad performances in Week 1, but I think the Patriots have to rank among the worst because of what it does to expectations this season. This team was somehow favored to win 11 games when the betting lines came out in May. Their preseason win total was still O/U 8.5, but they were favored in 11 individual games, which always felt way too high for this team.

But if you can’t beat the Raiders at home, you might not be even sniffing 8 wins this year. Could anyone actually tell if Mike Vrabel was coaching the team on Sunday? Was that just Jerod Mayo with Druski’s excellent makeup team making him look like Vrabel?

This was a bad performance. The Patriots shut down Ashton Jeanty (19 carries for 38 yards and a short touchdown), but Geno Smith shredded them for 362 yards with many big completions. He converted a 3rd-and-20 late in the game while the Pats still trailed 20-10, which was a dagger.

New England’s offense put the ball in Drake Maye’s hands 54 times, but all he could produce was 13 points on 11 drives. One missed field goal isn’t doing that many favors. The Patriots are going to have to play much better than this or they won’t stray far from the 4-13 record they’ve had the last two years.

Titans at Broncos: Looked Like Two Rookie Debuts at Quarterback

It may not mean a thing, but I think Denver blew a golden opportunity to establish some fear in the AFC West that this could be the team’s year. They were an 8.5-point home favorite against a flawed Titans team starting rookie quarterback Cam Ward in his NFL debut.

But this was a dogfight for 60 minutes in large part because Bo Nix played like he was a rookie in his first game. The Nix who struggled last September showed up again as he threw a couple of picks and couldn’t sustain drives.

Fortunately, the Denver defense was legitimate. The Titans scored 12 points on four field goal drives that covered a grand total of 65 yards. That’s impressive defense. Even when Marvin Mims muffed a punt in the fourth quarter that gave the Titans a great chance to take the lead in a 13-12 game, the Denver defense sacked Ward for 27 yards on consecutive plays to knock them out of range.

That’s when the running backs took over with rookie R.J. Harvey showing off his speed on a 50-yard run, then veteran J.K. Dobbins scored from 19 yards out. I’m surprised Sean Payton later didn’t go for a 54-yard field goal to make it 23-12 and cover the spread. But he watched Nix throw incomplete on 4th-and-8 instead. Weird.

But the defense came up with one more stop, including a strip-sack on fourth down as Ward went down six times in an expectedly rough debut. Still, the scoreboard should have been much worse for the Titans.

Cardinals at Saints: Bland Jerseys Prevail Against Power Rangers

This was a bland game to look at with the Cardinals’ jerseys looking like they were waiting to be filled in with more red. I don’t know how much Kyler Murray was feeling under the weather with a reported illness, but he only threw for 163 yards and took 5 sacks as the Cardinals were never able to blow this one open against what is expected to be one of the worst teams this season.

But behind Spencer Rattler, the Saints found themselves in a 20-13 game late with a reasonable situation to tie or take the late lead on a 2-point conversion. But punching the ball in from the red zone was something Rattler struggled with on the final two drives. He ended up throwing three straight incompletions from the Arizona 18 to end the upset attempt.

The Saints actually finished with more first downs and yards than the Cardinals in a respectable debut for rookie coach Kellen Moore. But they’ll have to clean some things up after 13 penalties for 89 yards.

Panthers at Jaguars: Generational Weather Delay

You had a lot of “generational talent” on display in this game with two No. 1 picks at quarterback and Travis Hunter made his NFL debut. But Bryce Young might be in danger of getting benched after Week 2 for the second year in a row because this was bad just like much of his early career starts.

The 26-10 final doesn’t even do it justice because he tried to get the pass away on a fourth down in the fourth quarter that was returned 75 yards for a pick-six, but he got bailed out by a holding penalty and threw a touchdown on the next play. This could have easily been 30-3 with Jacksonville not even playing close to their best (or so it seems).

But the running game was strong (200 yards) for coach Liam Coen’s debut, and the defense obviously took care of business before and after the hour-long lightning delay. We’ll keep following the Travis Hunter story, but he finished playing 45 snaps (39 offense, 6 defense). That’s not a high number at all, but I guess they’re easing him in slowly.

Still, I would have thought him being a full-time corner and a part-time receiver in certain packages (hurry up, end of halves, third downs) made the most sense. Reportedly this is a fluid situation they’ll adjust for opponent. Guess we’ll just have to see what they’re cooking here for the coach I picked to win the AFC South and Coach of the Year award.

Next week: Really solid TNF with Commanders-Packers, but we’ll see Monday night how exciting Vikings-Falcons might be on SNF. Don’t like the MNF double-header happening (TB-HOU, LV-LAC), but at least it looks like the games aren’t overlapping this time. Sunday afternoon is really all about the Super Bowl rematch as Patrick Mahomes tries to avoid the first 3-game losing streak of his career.

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 14

~ Scott ~ 2 Comments

Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be a hugely consequential day in the 2024 NFL season, but Week 14 felt like a big one with the Chiefs (12-1) getting some cushion in the AFC after the Bills were upset by the Rams in the shootout of the year that was still a wire-to-wire win for Sean McVay’s team. The Chiefs also came through with yet another close win to clinch the AFC West for the ninth year in a row.

The Steelers also took care of business against the Browns, so that Week 16 game in Baltimore can win them the AFC North regardless of what happens in Week 15. But we’ll worry about that game when it’s here.

We had eight games with a comeback opportunity, and so far, no team came back from a double-digit deficit to win this week. Could that mean more trouble for the Bengals against Cooper Rush in Dallas? We’ll see.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Bills at Rams: The Puka Nacua Show

If you’re a fan of the Rams, you have to be wondering where the hell was this offense for coach Sean McVay when they couldn’t even score a single touchdown at home against Miami on MNF in Week 10. That could still be the loss that keeps them out of the playoffs, but they turned heads with this strong offensive performance against Buffalo in a stunning 44-42 win.

Right from the opening drive, it was clear they came prepared for this one. But while the running game looked good early, it became much more dependent on Puka Nacua making incredible catches to extend drives for Matthew Stafford.

As for the Bills, it was wild to see how this usually dominant team could not stay ahead of the Rams. They had nine possessions in the game and here’s what happened with the scoring margin at the beginning of each:

  • Down 7-0, 1-yard Josh Allen touchdown run
  • Down 10-7, blocked punt returned for touchdown (17-7) after three straight Josh Allen incompletions
  • Down 17-7, 41-yard touchdown on a screen pass
  • Down 24-14, punt before halftime
  • Down 24-14, 3-and-out to start third quarter
  • Down 31-14, 51-yard touchdown pass to Khalil Shakir
  • Down 38-21, 1-yard Josh Allen touchdown run
  • Down 38-28, 21-yard touchdown to Mack Hollins
  • Down 44-35, 1-yard Josh Allen touchdown run

That means the Bills only had the ball one time the entire game where they trailed by fewer than 7 points, and that was the damaging 2nd drive when they punted quickly and it was blocked for a huge touchdown. They found themselves trying to chase that all day, and despite getting two huge touchdowns on YAC plays, they still couldn’t force the Rams into enough stops to get the ball back with a chance to ever tie or take the lead.

The Rams are usually not great in closing games out under McVay, especially in the 4-minute offense. But he had a plan for this one. Instead of kicking a long field goal to try to take a 6-point lead with several minutes left, he did the smart thing by going for it. The Rams got away with a false start, but Stafford was able to find Tutu Atwell for a huge 11-yard gain with the clock moving down near 3:00.

The old McVay kicks the field goal there and relies on his defense. He learned something here, or maybe Sunday was just a really great day for him, his offense, and Nacua. Fittingly, it was Nacua who capped off the drive with a 19-yard touchdown. But after the Rams missed the extra point with 1:54 left, there was a slight door open in a 44-35 game.

The Bills got down the field quickly thanks to some penalties, but it was  on 1st-and-goal at the 1 with 1:06 left where they made a serious error in strategy, the latest blunder in the Sean McDermott era. The Bills tried to run Allen on the sneak again, a play that he was 3-for-5 on in this game at the 1. But you can’t be doing that, not scoring, and burning a precious timeout at 1:02 to run it again.

In his career (regular season), Allen has 20 touchdown runs from the 1-yard line and 9 touchdown passes from the 1. It’s clear which strategy he feels more comfortable doing, and that number is only 16 touchdown passes if we extend to the 2-yard line as well. He wants the higher-percentage play in the run instead of trying to find a throwing lane that tight in or risk another sack.

But in this particular spot, you really don’t have the time to be running the ball because of that fear of getting stopped and wasting too much time. You have to avoid using any timeouts, because you want to avoid doing the onside kick or at least avoid having to recover one to have a realistic shot. By taking the timeout at 1:02, that meant it was going to come down to the onside kick recovery. Tom Brady, who sounded worse than usual as he was losing his voice, was all over this strategic failure, the latest blunder for the Bills in the McDermott era in a loss.

Allen eventually got his touchdown run, his third of the day to go along with three touchdown passes, a stat line that only Otto Graham put up in the 1954 NFL Championship Game. But that’s why I said on Twitter that they were trying to pad Allen’s stat line with the easy, high percentage score of a run so people can inflate the value of this 3+3=6 stat instead of sticking to a needed strategy of making a throw in this spot, which is usually going to be tougher than someone sneaking over the line for a yard. Again, Allen’s success rate from the 1 on that play here was only 3-for-5 on Sunday.

Sure enough, they made it come down to the onside kick, which they didn’t recover. The Rams ended up punting and the clock expired at the end of the punt. All those points and touchdowns for a wire-to-wire loss where the Bills never even had the ball in a one-score game after the blocked punt for a touchdown early in the second quarter.

I’ve been very critical of McVay in games like this in the past, but he was mostly on the money with his approach here. He outcoached McDermott and the Bills, and Nacua and Stafford were outstanding.

If this propels the Rams (7-6) to a division title run by running the table, then it takes on even more significance. But the Bills gave up a huge opportunity to the Chiefs with a game in Detroit to come next, and with the way that defense is banged up, it could be another 44-42 game.

Will the Bills fall short in that one too? They’re only 2-2 against current playoff teams this year. As for Allen’s MVP odds actually improving from -250 to -450 after a loss, there’s always later in the week for another article on that. I need sleep.

Chargers at Chiefs: Another AFC West Wrapped Up

Like Spotify, the Chiefs were mailing in their AFC West Wrapped for 2024. Another 19-17 victory against a division rival? Just type up the script and send it in. Maybe add a doink FG by the backup kicker to end this one with a little spice.

But it was business as usual for the 2024 Chiefs, which means a win, which means a weekly fraud alert by social media for the “worst 12-1 team ever.” But I would say it’s alarming that the games are playing out so similarly as the 2020 Steelers and 2023 Eagles started falling into familiar scripts before their collapses too. The Chiefs are in a much better spot than those teams and have the track record to believe in them, but you can’t keep blowing 13-point leads this quickly every week, you can’t keep giving up so many pressures and sacks on Patrick Mahomes, and you have to remember to run the ball.

A lot of these Kansas City issues were on display even with new left tackle D.J. Humphries, who left the game with a fourth quarter injury. Pretty bold move to go empty backfield with Wanya Morris back at left tackle, but they made it work out.

Mahomes didn’t play his best game, but he also threw his best pass of the night to DeAndre Hopkins on a 3rd-and-16 with the Chiefs trailing in the fourth quarter, and for the second week in a row, the veteran did not make the catch in a big moment. He had an excuse of the defender hitting him this time, but you still have to hang onto a pass that would have made it first-and-goal. The Chiefs settled for a 50-yard field goal from backup kicker Matthew Wright, and he was good.

But the Chargers held the ball for 8:29 before settling for their own field goal to regain a 17-16 lead with 4:35 left. Justin Herbert was missing his only reliable receiver in Ladd McConkey and his best running back in J.K. Dobbins. That certainly made the job easier for the Chiefs, but once again, they struggled to get any takeaways in a game that didn’t have any again on either side. The only turnover in Kansas City’s last three games was the fumbled snap by the Raiders on Black Friday.

This was also a low-possession game with 9 drives for each quarterback. But after Herbert took the lead, he never saw the field again on a night where he played decently with 213 yards. Even Quentin Johnston made a few nice catches and caught a touchdown.

But in leading his seventh game-winning drive of 2024, Mahomes again used his legs to deliver decisive plays like the 3rd-and-10 conversion to Xavier Worthy. At the 2-minute warning, the Chiefs faced a hug 3rd-and-7, because giving Herbert the ball back there may mean you never see it again in a loss. But Mahomes again scrambled, dodged a sack, and found a waiting Travis Kelce for the conversion.

From there, it was just a matter of setting up the field goal as the last snap. Wright came on and bounced the kick off the left upright before it deflected in okay for the game-winning kick. The Chiefs have won the AFC West nine years in a row, trailing only the record set by the 2009-19 Patriots (11).

The Chiefs are 12-1 and “Chiefs win by 1-13 points” is literally 12-1 as a bet this year. The only other team to win 12 games by 1-13 points in a season was the 2004 Steelers, another record the Chiefs could break with ease this year.

Maybe the Chiefs can throw in a twist next week in Cleveland and introduce some defensive takeaways to the mix courtesy of Jameis Winston.

Panthers at Eagles: Xavier Legette? More Like Leggette Your Ass a Bus Ticket Home After That Drop

If you’re a fan of the Carolina Panthers, this month should be the most optimistic you’ve felt about the team since 2018, if not longer ago. While they didn’t get the win in Philly as a 13.5-point underdog, this should be remembered as the day where Bryce Young was about to lead a 97-yard game-winning touchdown drive against a stingy defense, and Xavier Legette did this:

https://twitter.com/MySportsUpdate/status/1865862520889618860

I thought he had it live. But after that huge drop, there was a delay of game penalty, and Young eventually threw incomplete on 4th-and-9 to end the game, a 22-16 punch to the gut after it looked like Young did everything right.

Jalen Hurts had a really rough passing day (108 passing yards and 4 sacks), but the running game produced 209 yards with 124 yards to Saquon Barkley. Go figure, I had 125 as my bet, and it probably happens if the Eagles didn’t have a penalty on 2nd down while they were hanging onto their one-score lead, causing them to throw more.

But the Eagles (-13.5) never led by more than 6 points, and even that only happened early in the fourth quarter after Hurts threw a short touchdown pass. Not the most impressive win for the Eagles by any means. They lost the pass-rush battle to Young and the Panthers.

Damn near lost the game too. Pittsburgh gets a shot next.

Falcons at Vikings: Sam Darnold’s Day to Shine

I rarely say this, but I felt kind of bad for Kirk Cousins in Minnesota this week. This was going to be his big revenge game, and while he struck early, it was Sam Darnold who shined with 347 yards and 5 touchdown passes.

After Cousins tied the game at 21 with a touchdown and 2-point conversion with 39 seconds left in the third quarter, by the next time he took the field, it was a 35-21 deficit and barely half a quarter remained. The special teams coughed up a fumble on the ensuing kickoff after Darnold’s go-ahead touchdown pass to Jordan Addison, who caught 3 on the day to go along with a pair for Justin Jefferson.

Then with the clock not in his favor, Cousins’ pass was intercepted by one hand by Byron Murphy with 6:26 left. The Vikings added yet another touchdown in the 42-21 rout that was tied at 21 to start the quarter.

The Falcons (6-7) have lost the division lead to the Buccaneers (7-6), so we’ll see where things go from here, but it’s not looking good for preseason favorite Atlanta.

Browns at Steelers: No Pickens, A Few Problems

I’d be lying if I said the Steelers didn’t have any issues without George Pickens, who was a surprise inactive on Sunday morning due to a hamstring injury suffered late in the week. But the Steelers’ issues early had more to do with the players they were targeting rather than the players they should get involved with Russell Wilson in Pickens’ absence.

Once they started throwing to them, we saw production with Mike Williams down the field and tight end Pat Freiermuth had a good game with 48 yards and a touchdown. But Wilson only threw for 158 yards this week.

This game was also decided by Chris Boswell being a much better kicker than Dustin Hopkins, who missed from 38 and 43 yards. It wasn’t even that cold here Sunday, so he had even less of an excuse for those misses. Throw in a big Jameis Winston pick on a double-clutched screen that led to a short-field touchdown to get the Steelers going, and it was a team loss by the Browns.

You can’t beat the sight of Kadarius Toney (the one and only) muffing a punt with 2:53 left in a 27-14 game. He’s always trying to destroy games for his teams. But the Steelers were able to get to 10-3 and avoid their first sweep at the hands of Cleveland since 1988.

Seahawks at Cardinals: I Guess Geno Owns Arizona?

I know I’m not the only one struggling with these NFC West teams this year. The Seahawks took the first game 16-6, so I figured the Cardinals would play better offense at home and steal this one for the split.

Welp, I didn’t realize the Seahawks are now on a 7-game winning streak against the Cardinals with Geno Smith 6-0 as a starter in those games. Arizona has struggled to score in these games, and that was the problem again after an opening-drive touchdown was followed by a pair of Kyler Murray interceptions.

Meanwhile, it was a clean game for Geno without any sacks or turnovers. Zach Charbonnet was sharp with 134 yards and 2 touchdowns in a starring role without Kenneth Walker available.

But the Year of the Kicker falling apart around the league did Arizona in too here. Down 27-18, they rightly settled for a 40-yard field goal with half a quarter left. But it was off the goal post from kicker Chad Ryland, a big miss. He was the bust the Patriots drafted in 2023 and they got rid of after one season. He was doing better for Arizona this season, but that one stings.

The Seahawks burned valuable time and added a field goal to get to the weird 30-18 final score. The game ended with Murray taking a sack deep in the red zone and the Cardinals long out of timeouts since they used them so early in the quarter in an arguably reckless way.

But it’s looking more likely by the week that the Seahawks (8-5) are going to emerge from this division as the winner. But they do play the Packers and Vikings next, so it’s far from over.

Jets at Dolphins: A 14th Straight Postseason Without the Jets

Aaron Rodgers (339 yards) finally had his first 300-yard passing game since 2021, and it still wasn’t enough to avoid a fifth blown lead in the fourth quarter this season for the Jets. This time they are officially eliminated from the playoffs with a 3-10 record.

They were up 23-15 in the final quarter, but Tua Tagovailoa had the hot hand again against this defense, and he found Tyreek Hill on a fourth-and-4. Even after the Jets took a late 26-23 lead, they went backwards on consecutive plays on that drive to make sure the Dolphins would have time left to answer, and instead of getting a touchback, Miami’s long kick return out to the 46 made it a lot easier to get the game-tying field goal for overtime from 52 yards out.

The Dolphins won the coin toss and went on offense. Even though tight end Jonnu Smith has been a revelation in this offense in the last month, he didn’t have a catch until overtime. They found him on back-to-back plays (the same play, in fact) for 20 and 14 yards, then he also finished the drive with a 10-yard touchdown to win the game 32-26.

We’re starting to see a lot more 300-yard passing duels in recent weeks, but Tagovailoa took the best Rodgers could do and one-upped him at the end for the win. Miami (6-7) is not dead yet but must keep on winning every week to have a shot at the last wild card.

Bears at 49ers: Well, It Wasn’t ALL Matt Eberflus

Normally, I’d expect a little bump in performance in the first game after a team fires its terrible coach, but I also expected a bounce-back performance from the 49ers (-3.5) in this game against Chicago. I had no idea it’d be 24-0 with the 49ers outgaining the Bears 319-4 in yards in the first half. That’s not a typo.

It got a little closer in the second half, but not even Kyle Shanahan’s mastery of blowing leads could make this one interesting. Caleb Williams fumbled on a Tuck Rule play, except the Tuck Rule is long gone. The 49ers held on to win 38-13, and we’ll see if it’s too little too late to save their season at 6-7.

Saints at Giants: No Field Goal Is Safe Anymore

We can talk about Drew Lock starting 0-for-8 or Derek Carr throwing the first interception by the Giants since Sam Darnold in Week 1, but do you really care at this point?

What’s interesting here is that the Saints blocked a 35-yard-field goal in the final seconds when it looked like the Giants were going to force overtime in a 14-11 game. It was very similar to the endings with blocked field goals in Chiefs-Broncos and Packers-Bears this season. That’s three times for something we rarely ever see.

I think that adds some great, legitimate intrigue to these moments. If you look at the way they blocked the kick, you wonder why we don’t see this a little more often. It feels more doable than recovering an onside kick these days.

Raiders at Buccaneers: Your Average Baker Rollercoaster

There’s some Jameis to this Baker Mayfield season in Tampa Bay. After two early touchdowns to build a 14-0 lead, this one lingered into the fourth quarter after Mayfield turned it over three times in the second quarter.

But the Raiders lost another quarterback to injury with Aidan O’Connell getting an air cast on his leg, and I can only hope it had to do with a previous injury getting worse, because the hit I’m seeing that “caused it” makes it look like contact sports won’t be for him.

Desmond Ridder replaced him for the fourth quarter of a 14-10 game, but he went three-and-out before the Buccaneers put it away with back-to-back touchdown drives in a 28-13 final that was misleadingly lopsided? Or maybe it was fittingly accurate. I don’t know anymore with teams like this. I just know the Raiders almost never win these games anymore.

Jaguars at Titans: No Longer a TNF Special in December for People to Ignore

Remember when they’d throw this game on a Thursday night in December when people probably wanted to go Christmas shopping or something? Well, let’s be glad they have some higher standards these days for Amazon Prime paying out the ass for these games. No one wants to watch a 10-6 shitfest between Mac Jones and Will Levis.

But I really thought this was the one game all season where you could trust Will Levis, who wasn’t horrible the last month, to put up some points and stats at home in an “easy win” against Mac Jones. And yet, it was a 10-6 comeback win as Jones improved his 4QC/GWD record to 3-14 in his career.

Levis had his chances to answer, but some laxed route running by Calvin Ridley and no special catch by Nick Westbrook-Ikhine (no longer under the radar) in the red zone led to a turnover on downs. The offense never got the ball in the end zone and now both teams are 3-10. Terrible stuff and probably one of the lowest-rated Titans-Jags games of all time.

Next week: The big one (Bills-Lions) loses some luster with the Buffalo loss. But that helps bolster Rams-49ers a bit on TNF to start the week and you might as well call that a playoff game since the loser should be done. We’ll see if the Chiefs can actually get some turnovers from Jameis Winston in Cleveland. Is Steelers-Eagles really going to be on the same time as Bills-Lions? Would prefer to see those at different times. Packers-Seahawks is solid for SNF. A weak MNF double-header (Bears-Vikings and Falcons-Raiders) to end it. Desmond Ridder Revenge Game? Ugh.

NFL 2024 Week 14 Predictions: Last Big Bye Edition

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

After Week 14, the bye weeks will be over, and the NFL will be down to the final four games for every team this regular season. Week 15 has some huge games, and we already had the Game of the Week on Thursday night with Detroit’s win over the Packers. It’s the first time since 1956 that the Lions had the outright best record in the NFL since 1956.

But we could see the AFC West decided Sunday night in Kansas City, and the Steelers could inch a step closer to the AFC North by avoiding their first sweep by the Browns since 1988. The Seahawks-Cardinals game is also huge for the NFC West race.

One thing I tried to take into consideration this week for picks was just how close games were in Week 13. We had 12-of-16 games decided by 1-7 points, and it should have been 13 if Jameis Winston wasn’t so damn INT happy in Denver. Then we had a 34-31 game in Detroit to start this week, so things have been really tight, so I’m thinking about some two-score outcomes this week, which might be hard given how many of these games are evenly matched and/or division games. But that was something I tried to consider when it came to picking the spreads.

This Week’s Articles

NFL Week 14 Predictions

I had the Lions winning 27-24 (GB +3.5), so I was just off by a touchdown for both sides. Good game though. I’d be worried about Detroit’s defensive injuries. It’s likely that Dan Campbell is going to keep rolling the dice on fourth down through the playoffs, and he may be justified each time even if they don’t always make the right play call or convert. At least in the 2nd half of games he should be doing it. Can let some things slide early without giving the opponent a potential edge with field position.

LV-TB: After a scare in Carolina last week and the Raiders losing their personal Super Bowl in KC, I think both teams revert to form in this non-conference matchup and Baker leads his guys to a 7+ point win at home.

CLE-PIT: Browns haven’t won a regular-season game in Pittsburgh since 2003. Let’s keep that streak alive and see if T.J. Watt can answer Myles Garrett’s huge game in the last matchup since he was very quiet for the Steelers, and Russell Wilson threw the ball great in the snow. Just needed more protection early, and I think the Steelers may have unlocked some things about what they can do offensively last week against the Bengals. It doesn’t have to always be the moon balls, Russ. But I still think Jameis is crazy enough to keep it close, so here’s your classic Tomlin win by 1-6 points.

JAX-TEN: Will Levis hasn’t had a terrible month and I think he carves up one of the worst pass defenses in the NFL. Throw in Mac Jones starting for the Jags and this is one of the only times all season I feel some confidence in riding the Titans to cover.

CAR-PHI: Initially I had Carolina +13.5, a bet that would have easily won the last four weeks with two outright wins and two losses by 3 points each for the Panthers, who are getting improved play from Bryce Young. But then I started thinking about the mismatch on both sides of the ball, the quest to get Saquon Barkley the MVP and rushing title, and I changed my pick to the Eagles covering 13.5. Yeah, they’ve already barely survived the Browns (20-16) and Jaguars (28-23) at home during this winning streak. But I think you go against conventional wisdom here that the Panthers are “better now” and just take the Eagles to smash them. Even 34-20 works fine here.

ATL-MIN: Another game where I nearly changed my final pick to account for more blowouts, but I just think Kirk Cousins plays his ass off the best he can to keep his job this week. Going up against his former team. The Vikings have had some tight games the last month and you never know when Sam Darnold will offer up some turnovers. I still like the Vikings to win but for Cousins to keep it close.

NYJ-MIA: The Jets have blown so many bets (real money and hypothetical in my spreadsheets) for me in 2024. I’m tired of them. I don’t care for the Dolphins either but I’m taking them at home against a bad team.

NO-NYG: Even without Taysom Hill, I think the Saints can run the ball well against the Giants and am trusting that to cover against Drew Lock. Yeah, it’s probably the trap of the week as the Saints are like the NFC version of the Jets’ 2024 fool’s gold.

SEA-ARI: Could be another low scoring NFC West game where the 4Q is decisive. The Seahawks took the first matchup a few weeks ago. I think the Cardinals play better on offense this time and get to Geno Smith late for a win here. Tough division to figure right now though.

CHI-SF: Normally I’d like to take the team that just fired its bad head coach to get a boost. But at the same time, I think the 49ers remember this week they still have a lot of good players taking the field and Shanahan is supposed to be an elite coach. Brock Purdy will love the California weather instead of snowy Buffalo. They aren’t playing a playoff team like the Packers or Bills this week. They get back on track with a win.

BUF-LAR: This is one of those games where if the Rams win, I think it could propel them to a division title run. But I just can’t trust a team that couldn’t find the end zone at home against Miami, who gave up 255 to Saquon, who probably won’t slow down James Cook and Josh Allen. It should be another Buffalo win.

LAC-KC: Lots of changes since Week 4 when the Chiefs struggled early to come back and win 17-10. Justin Herbert will be healthier this time against a defense that is playing far worse. But the running game takes a big hit without J.K. Dobbins, and he can’t trust any receiver but Ladd McConkey. The Chiefs are better offensively now than in Week 4, but the 10 sacks allowed the last two weeks are a killer. However, it looks like Wanya Morris won’t be destroying the offense at LT this week, they should use Isiah Pacheco more in his second game back, and it’s a chance to clinch the division title at home. Give me KC, and yes, Chiefs by 1-13 points has hit in 11-of-12 games this season.

CIN-DAL: For Monday night’s battle for the 2nd-most disappointing team of 2024 (Jets are No. 1), I am taking Cooper Rush to go to 2-0 in his career against Joe Burrow. Micah Parsons leads a sack parade against Burrow, CeeDee Lamb plays like the mob isn’t holding his family hostage (see Thanksgiving game), and the Cowboys pull it off to end Week 14. Even if I’m wrong, the Bengals are still a massive disappointment with a 5-8 record and virtually no shot at the playoffs.

NFL 2024 Week 9 Predictions: Groin Groans Edition

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

Even with an extra hour this weekend, I’m still very late in getting these NFL Week 9 picks ready. It’s been a long week, and with the election this Tuesday, it could be even tougher to stay productive with time (i.e. not doomscrolling and blocking pro-fascist shitbirds) this week.

But when I look at the Week 9 schedule, I think what a great time this was for Lions-Packers, what should have been the Game of the Week. Maybe it will get there, but I’m bummed out that Jordan Love has a groin injury, Josh Jacobs has an ankle injury, and they’re going to try playing in what could be a rain game. Doesn’t sound ideal at all if you ask me.

But I’m focused on a lot of streaks this week as I’ve already written about and will note below.

This Week’s Articles

NFL Week 9 Predictions

The Jets finally came through for me, and I certainly called my shot on this game:

https://x.com/ScottKacsmar/status/1852196245957132793

Pats-Titans: Oof. That’s what you call a 1 p.m. Sunday game. I think the Patriots have probably played better football, but I’m going Titans just because I’m not sure where they get another win right now, and I don’t see them going 1-16.

Saints-Panthers: Double oof. Spread is a bit high for a road favorite in a divisional game who hasn’t won a game since Week 2 and is only just getting Derek Carr back, but that speaks volumes about how bad the Panthers are on both sides of the ball right now. Saints end their losing streak here.

Broncos-Ravens: One of the most interesting games this week as I could see the Broncos winning by 1-7 points or losing by 1-24 points. No typos. Just depends which version of Bo Nix shows up, but I’m going to go with the Denver cover in a loss. Maybe a 24-16 game that looks respectable for them on the road.

Raiders-Bengals: Joe Burrow is just 5-5 SU in games where he’s a touchdown favorite, which is an abysmal record. I think the Raiders can keep it close. Backdoor cover against the Chiefs last week.

Chargers-Browns: Big expectations for a fun game between Herbert and Jameis. I could see both teams scoring 20+, but don’t expect Jameis to get away with a game-ending pick in back-to-back weeks. I’ll take the Chargers to win.

Cowboys-Falcons: Seems like two teams headed in opposite directions and the Falcons should win. But that’s why I’m going to zag on this one and think Dallas shows up when the lights aren’t bright and they can score enough this week on the road to get a late win. Minimal pass rush for Dak Prescott to worry about.

Dolphins-Bills: I never trust Miami in games like this. Josh Allen owns them and the Bills are getting back to dominating the scoreboard with the huge KC game coming soon.

Commanders-Giants; This first meeting was when the Commanders went 7-for-7 at scoring a FG on every drive. I think they move the ball well again and find the end zone a few times in this one. Daniel Jones has to be running out of chances to start games for this team.

Bears-Cardinals: Bears lost last week on a Hail Mary while the Cardinals came back from a 9-point deficit to win on the last play. Another one where I think momentum is flipped, but I’m still taking the road underdog to win as I think the Cardinals struggle to run so freely against that defense, and Caleb Williams will play better than he did last week. Arizona’s just not very trustworthy right now to stack wins.

Jaguars-Eagles: Jags are playing better but I think the Eagles looked great last week and should have few problems against this defense.

Rams-Seahawks: Could be close, but it’s as simple as the Seahawks are down DK Metcalf and the Rams have their top 2 WRs back healthy. Or at least healthy enough to play the game. Allegedly.

Lions-Packers: Teased it above but I’m going to go Lions in the first matchup. Think the Packers can beat them in Detroit though like they did last season when the road team won both matchups. Just bad timing here with Love’s groin and the way the Lions are hot offensively. Plus I assume Tom Brady is calling this game for FOX and it seems like all of his games see the favorite run away with things.

Colts-Vikings: No, I do not see the Colts playing an 11th-straight game decided by 1-6 points to tie the NFL record set by the 2010-11 Cowboys. I also don’t think they hand Minnesota a 3rd-straight loss, and that’s why I think Vikings rebound and win by 7+. Of course, this is a rematch of the game that saw a 33-0 comeback by Minnesota two years ago, but I think it’s more likely the Vikings win this one by 33 points this time than need such a huge comeback.

Bucs-Chiefs: The Chiefs win but don’t cover. What’s new? I think it’s more interesting if Mike Evans and Chris Godwin were healthy, but you have to basically be the Chiefs to lose your top two receivers and still figure things out to win games. But I do think Baker Mayfield has a shot to at least push the Chiefs into a higher-scoring game than they’re used with 28 straight games finishing under 51.5 points, and they haven’t scored more than 28 points in KC (Arrowhead) since Week 7 last year.

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 8

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

In the last couple of weeks, the NFL’s 2024 season was running low on upsets and lead changes. But like clockwork, a so-so Week 8 on paper delivered one of the best Sundays of the season. I even alluded to something like that happening this weekend in the Week 8 predictions:

“But yeah, I have low expectations for this week, which means it will probably be an epic Sunday of close games after so few last week.”

It was. We had 10 games with a comeback opportunity (after 12 in Weeks 6-7 combined), four games with a lead change in the fourth quarter, and we saw one of the greatest Hail Mary finishes in professional football history (and that came in the week’s lowest-scoring game).

It also reportedly was the day with the most catches by tight ends in NFL history, so that’s a good way to celebrate National Tight Ends Day. If only we had a few more good ones in the league right now.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Bears at Commanders: Game of the Week

I basically had the recap to this one written in my mind twice before having to discard it for the insane actual ending that took place.

First, when it was 12-7 Washington, I was going to say that no matter who you put at quarterback, these teams are destined to play ugly, low-scoring games like this. A 12-7 final was the score between these teams in 2022 on a Thursday night game.

But the Commanders’ inability to finish any drive for a touchdown was hurting them put this one away even if Matt Eberflus’ team is the worst in close games. Jayden Daniels may have missed some throws he’d hit if the rib injury that nearly kept him out wasn’t there, and the Bears were making Bears things happen to lift their struggling quarterback like a 56-yard touchdown run by D’Andre Swift and blocking a 51-yard field goal in the fourth quarter. Or was the kick short? I thought it said block when it happened.

Either way, this is some Rex Grossman 101 on how to get carried to a win as Caleb Williams was giving them nothing in this rookie quarterback showdown.

Then with 6:21 left, the funniest NFL play in years happened. Maybe the funniest since The Butt Fumble in 2012. The Bears had the ball at the 1-yard line and could have taken the lead. But instead of doing a QB sneak or going to a running back, they brought in offensive lineman Doug Kramer and decided to go a little Refrigerator Perry by handing off to him for the dive run. What ensued had me laughing harder than any comedy I’ve seen in years:

It’s just that image of a big man, who clearly shouldn’t be handling the football here, losing it immediately, and the ball flying so far ahead of him as if the universe said “fuck no, this isn’t happening for you” that had me laughing my ass off for a good 40 seconds.

That was just too good. But then the Bears got the ball back, and Williams started completing passes, then he got the bail-out flag for DPI on 4th-and-3 to set them up at the goal line. That’s when my mind went to the idea that he’s played like shit all game and he’s probably still going to get a win against this defense. So, he’s the Tom Brady in this new rivalry to Daniels’ Peyton Manning. The inferior quarterback with the better defense is going to get the win again. Sure enough, they got the touchdown run and 2-point conversion pass to take a 15-12 lead with 25 seconds left.

Now, some people are going to chalk this up to a lucky Hail Mary, and there’s some truth to that. But give Daniels credit for the way this offense managed the drive after a bad kickoff left them with 76 yards and 19 seconds. They had one timeout left, which was key. After short-hopping the first throw, Daniels hit a completion to Zach Ertz for 11 yards, used the timeout, then took another sideline completion for 13 yards instead of forcing something that wasn’t going to be there that far away. That bought him a chance from the 48, needing a 52-yard touchdown pass.

But when he scrambled back and was around the 30, I was thinking he’s never going to recover to get the ball deep enough for the end zone. But after the play seemingly went on forever, Daniels finally launched and the crowd was there with a Bear tipping it right to Noah Brown, alone in the end zone for one of the most shocking touchdown finishes in NFL history.

https://x.com/NFL/status/1850683356742312348

Adding to the play’s mystique right away was the footage of Chicago DB Tyrique Stevenson caught jawing with fans in the crowd while the play was already underway. He joined the crowd late and ended up being the player who hit the ball that went to Brown for the win.

Just one of those unbelievable finishes to get the Commanders to 6-2. That might be a wrap on Offensive Rookie of the Year with Daniels throwing for 326 yards and rushing for 52 more. Williams only passed for 131 yards on 10-of-24 passing with 41 yards on the ground.

I don’t think a Hail Mary should be the centerpiece to an MVP campaign, but it is in line with the idea that Daniels understands drive engineering beyond his years, and you literally have to defend the whole field from him as a triple threat to throw it short, deep (he hit a 61-yard pass to McLaurin earlier in game), and as a runner.

Just the kind of ultimate weapon at quarterback, and we know his numbers in college were insane in 2023 (but not in previous years), and he’s doing these things in the NFL now. It’s been incredible to watch, and he really pulled a rabbit out of the hat to steal this one.

So, the funniest play in over a decade if you ask me, and a Hail Mary that is in the running for the best in NFL history. It wasn’t much of a game before those moments, but they will make it an unforgettable first matchup between Daniels and Williams.

Cowboys at 49ers: Almost Kyle Shanahan’s Masterpiece

Kyle Shanahan only gets partial (albeit a lot of) blame for 28-3 since he was Atlanta’s offensive coordinator and not the head coach. I think his masterpiece choke is still ahead of him, and Sunday night certainly would have been a contender if the 49ers really blew a 27-10 lead in the fourth quarter to a lifeless Dallas team by allowing two of the most wide-open touchdowns to CeeDee Lamb you’ll ever see.

This was a weird game as the Dallas defense was playing well in the first half to build a 10-6 lead, imploded in the third quarter, then somehow made this a game in the last 10:00 despite it looking dead.

You could see Shanahan can’t help himself as he kept calling passes for Brock Purdy when it got to 30-24, and on a 2nd-down sack, it was a miracle Purdy didn’t fumble on a blindside hit. That might have been the play of the game for San Francisco. But the 49ers still went three-and-out, and Dak Prescott had a full 3:05 to go get the winning touchdown like he did in Pittsburgh this season.

Except this time it was a disaster as the Cowboys didn’t gain a single yard and went four-and-out. I don’t know what the plan was on that drive as the only good play was Prescott throwing deep on third down to Turpin, and I’m not even sure that was smart given the down and distance, and it didn’t look like Turpin was going to get his feet in bounds with possession even if he caught it cleanly.

Then the 4th-down throw was just another prayer to a receiver who had no targets all night before that. Whatever, Dallas. It was fun while it lasted, but there’s a reason a massive comeback just never seems to happen for teams coached by Mike McCarthy. They’ll tease and tease you, but then look at that finish. Terrible, and that’s why you’re 3-4 and fading fast.

But the 49ers make you nervous as it doesn’t feel like any lead is safe with this team. Remember, they looked like they were going to blow a 20-point lead against the Seahawks a few weeks ago.

But as long as they keep getting double-digit leads in games, they’re probably going to win enough games to stay relevant through the playoffs. As for Dallas, I’m hoping we get some flexed games late in the season as this team is just tough to watch right now.

Ravens at Browns: Jameis Eats a W

Division games are weird, but what a relief for Cleveland to have a real quarterback who can take chances, make big plays, and not take a million sacks like Deshaun Watson did. Sure, Jameis Winston can always turn it over, and he tried his hardest with one of the worst dropped interceptions you’ll ever see from Kyle Hamilton with the game on the line to rescue Winston’s ass in this one.

But the Ravens did a pretty fine job of beating themselves with drops on both sides of the ball, and even Justin Tucker missed a 50-yard field goal in a clutch situation early in the fourth quarter as he hasn’t been himself this year on long kicks.

That’s not to say the Browns didn’t play well and really challenged the Ravens for 60 minutes. They would have held this high-powered offense to 3 points at halftime had Jameis not lost a fumble and set up a short field for the Ravens.

But the teams went back and forth throughout the half, and the Browns were in ideal situations, like a 24-23 deficit with 2:31 left to answer. I actually thought they screwed up with 1:08 left after getting a first down. In that spot, you wouldn’t mind just running a few times and kicking the field goal on the final snap.

But the Browns had a false start, the dropped pick by Hamilton, and just like that, you’re staring at a 56-yard field goal without a great kicker on the roster.

That’s when Jameis may have succeeded by fooling the Ravens by going deep in a situation you didn’t think he would, and he found Cedric Tillman wide open for a 38-yard touchdown with 59 seconds left. But the Browns missed the 2-point conversion, so it was only a 29-24 lead.

Lamar Jackson had a timeout, so 70 yards was doable for this offense. But once he got to the 24, I’m not sure spiking was the greatest decision, and they’d end up floundering on their last three cracks at the big play as no one could get open in the end zone. The Browns held up and got the win as an 8.5-point underdog.

I don’t think the formula is overly complex for beating the Ravens this year. The defense simply isn’t as good this season, the offensive line can give up some sacks at times, and you just have to contain those explosive runs by Henry and Jackson. The Browns are used to playing this team, even beat them last year with Predator, so it’s not that surprising that the Ravens have lost 3 games to entities they lost to last year too (Chiefs, Gardner Minshew, and Cleveland). They still have two games against Pittsburgh too, and if the Steelers can win Monday night to improve to 6-2, this loss becomes extra important.

But it is looking more and more likely that the Ravens won’t be the No. 1 seed again this season, or that they will have to go to Kansas City for any playoff rematch. As for the Browns, they waited too long to start Jameis, but at least they’re here now.

Jets at Patriots: Just End the Season

I asked in my Week 8 picks if this team was really pathetic enough to lose to the Patriots, Well, I got my answer. What does it take for this team to win a game anymore? They gave Aaron Rodgers a running game here, the receivers made some plays, the run defense wasn’t terrible, and Drake Maye left the game injured and was replaced by one of the worst comeback quarterbacks in Jacoby Brissett. Still, the Jets blew it.

I know the special teams are lousy, and I said that the other day on Twitter before they added to their legacy in this one by allowing a 62-yard punt return in the third quarter to set up the Pats on a short field for a touchdown. Then Greg Zuerlein missed a 44-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter that would have put the Jets up 19-14. Zuerlein could probably be cut at this moment and it wouldn’t hurt the team and might even help them if his confidence is really this shot.

But not converting on a 2-point conversion with 2:57 left certainly hurt the Jets as it always does when you leave yourself open to trailing on a touchdown. The defense couldn’t stop Brissett on multiple third-and-longs, then Rhamondre Stevenson pushed ahead for the touchdown on 4th-and-1 with 22 seconds left. Unlike the Jets, the Patriots converted their 2-point try to take a 25-22 lead.

Rodgers was in no man’s land, and even if by some miracle he got into field goal range, I’d bet on Zuerlein to miss it. But a completion to Davante Adams for 16 yards only saw the clock run out and drop the Jets to 2-6, the No. 15 team in the conference right now.

It’s shocking, but it’s also largely explainable. Poor situation play, a quarterback who isn’t what he used to be, a hack of a coordinator on offense to start the season, and some truly abysmal special teams play.

But still, 2-6? That’s brutal. Just end the season.

As I said the other day, Rodgers might just head into a dark retreat before the election, never to be heard from again (except for Tuesdays with Pat McAfee).

Chiefs at Raiders: All the Streaks Intact for KC

Go figure, the Chiefs (-9.5) were the only favorite not to cover the spread in the last six games on Sunday. But they still controlled this game in Vegas, their 13th win in a row, and they are back to consistently scoring 26-to-28 points on 8-to-10 drives as they have the last three weeks. That should scare you as this 7-0 team keeps showing improvements.

Just imagine how good things could be if the Chiefs eliminated the obligatory interception, which has taken over from the obligatory fumble this season. Yes, Patrick Mahomes was intercepted again in this game, and for the fourth time in a row, it wasn’t a bad play by him. His hand was hit as he threw, and you could see it coming as the Chiefs were penalized deep in their own end for holding on consecutive plays before that happened.

The Chiefs definitely have a left tackle problem (Wanya Morris), but one thing they still have is defense. After the interception set up the Raiders at the KC 3 in a 17-13 game, the defense delivered a goal-line stand, sacking Gardner Minshew on 4th-and-goal. Later on, CBS’ Trent Green had just finished saying that Minshew protected the ball before the Chiefs forced a fumble from him in a one-score game.

The Chiefs at least have a right tackle in Jawaan Taylor. Despite his penalty issues, the reason you didn’t hear much about Mason Crosby in this game is because Taylor took care of business. The offense looked very solid outside of that one penalty-to-pick sequence, and DeAndre Hopkins made a couple of nice catches in his team debut after getting the trade papers on Wednesday. Travis Kelce also finally caught a touchdown in 2024. The Chiefs were 12-of-15 on third down before Mahomes took 3 knees to wrap up the win after the team recovered an onside kick with 2:00 left.

We’ll see how much longer this team can keep up its unique winning streak in addition to the way it hasn’t allowed more than 27 points in any game since Super Bowl 57 (Eagles), nor has it scored more than 28 points since its last trip to Vegas in Week 12 last season.

But as long as the wins keep coming…

Bills at Seahawks: Can’t Stop the Rain (or Buffalo)

If I had known Thursday night that DK Metcalf was going to be out and it would rain badly during the game, I never would have suggested to bet Seahawks over 19.5 points to extend their streak of scoring at least 20 points in every game this season.

Sure, Josh Allen threw his first pick of the year and was fortunate to get away with a fumble in the slick conditions, but Seattle had no juice without Metcalf to move the ball consistently. The running game was nonexistent (Geno led team with 16 rushing yards), and Jaxon Smith-Njigba is not WR1 material yet.

That all ended in a mess in this 31-10 loss that never felt competitive. Actually, I take that back. The Seahawks had a shot when it was 7-3 Buffalo and they had 4th-and-goal at the 1. But Smith was stepped on at the line and just fell down, turning the ball over on downs.

The Bills hit them with a double score from there to make it 17-3, and that was enough to win this game if we’re being honest. A tough loss for the Seahawks, but also another game where the loss of a WR1 had a big impact. I don’t think it would have helped the defense defend Keon Coleman or Khalil Shakir, but at least the Seahawks would have scored some more points.

Eagles at Bengals: The Close Game That Wasn’t

I thought for sure this would be a close game in the fourth quarter so much that I had a +3000 SGP contingent on the Eagles winning by 1-6. All the other props hit as the skill players I expected to show up did with A.J. Brown having another big yardage game, Jalen Hurts actually scored three times on the ground, and Saquon Barkley did his thing again.

But the way this game played out was shocking as it went from a strong Cincinnati start with a red-hot Joe Burrow to an even game to a Philly blowout in what felt like a matter of minutes.

Where everything went south for Cincinnati was late in the third quarter. Hurts threw a great 45-yard touchdown to DeVonta Smith to take a 24-17 lead, and that seemed to set some panic in the Bengals, who went for a 4th-and-1 at their own 39. Don’t love the call, because this team isn’t like the Eagles where we know what’s coming on 4th-and-1 and we expect it’s going to work. Sure enough, the Bengals ended up throwing a pass outside the numbers to Ja’Marr Chase that was multiple yards short of the sticks, and it went down as a 2-yard loss. Terrible play.

The Eagles didn’t fully make them pay as they moved the ball and kicked a field goal, but it was still a 10-point game now in the fourth quarter. On the ensuing drive, Burrow threw a deep pass that was tipped from one defender and caught by C.J. Gardner-Johnson on the deflection, showing some great instincts. It was like watching Colin Kaepernick against the 2013 Legion of Boom, except it wasn’t in the end zone and this ball was coming down fast, so great reflexes by Gardner-Johnson to pull that one in.

Then the Eagles embarked on a brilliant drive that consumed half the quarter despite only facing third down once, and they finished it with another Hurts touchdown. It was 34-17 with 4:39 left – game over.

Now the Bengals (3-5) are talking about winning 7-of-9 to finish 10-7 for the playoffs. Yeah, it’s possible because of the AFC. But if those teams like the Steelers (5-2), Chargers (4-3), and Broncos (5-3) keep winning games, teams the Bengals still have four games against, it’s a moot point. Besides, the Bengals are 0-4 at home. Who is fearing this team right now?

But if this version of the Eagles can show up more, then that team has a shot in the NFC. I’m very curious to see how their matchups with Washington go. The first one is a Thursday night game in Week 11.

Titans at Lions: The Worst Special Teams Game Ever?

Earlier this week on Twitter, I said that I don’t view the Lions as an elite team after the Aidan Hutchinson injury. What I meant was I don’t see them finishing the season elite on both sides of the ball in the way that teams like the Ravens, 49ers, Bills, and Cowboys did last year. The Chiefs also played much better offense in the postseason and had one of the best defenses. You don’t win Super Bowls by winning a bunch of shootouts, and I don’t think Detroit was really blowing anyone out except for Dallas this season to this point.

Well, that made Sunday’s game awkward, because Mason Rudolph was shredding them early with two quick touchdown drives, Calvin Ridley had over 100 yards in the first quarter, and my proclamation of the post-Hutchinson defense looked right on.

But then the Lions just kept scoring on short fields that the Titans we regiving them with huge mistakes on special teams and blunders on offense. It was unreal. The Lions had drives that started at the Tennessee 23, 25, 12, 22, and 26 in this game, scoring 5 touchdowns on those drives. They also had a punt return touchdown among numerous other long returns. Definitely one of the worst special teams games you’ll see from a team.

At one point, Jared Goff had 28 passing yards and the Lions had 42 points. What the fuck? That’s not even net passing yards as Goff took 4 sacks and got away with 2 fumbles that weren’t recovered by the defense. That’s why his QBR was only 15.3, the second lowest this week.

The Lions finished with 61 net passing yards and 52 points, a combo that is hard to fathom in the NFL, especially when only one touchdown return boosted those numbers. But it was all the short fields and a 70-yard run by Jahmyr Gibbs that did the damage.

The Titans also had some pathetic play calling that stunted their scoring output despite the way they moved the ball well behind Mason Rudolph. But what a historic blowout. You have to go back to the 1950 Giants to find the only other time in the modern stats era (since 1933) where a team scored 50 points without surpassing 65 net passing yards. The stats in that game don’t even look real and may not even be 100% accurate. Who trails 20-0 before ripping off 55 points with 423 rushing yards and 51 passing yards?

But the Lions put on a show Sunday. Now they might get a break in their trip to Green Bay next week if Jordan Love can’t play.

Packers at Jaguars: Malik Willis’ Progress Is Season Saving for Green Bay

No one will know how Malik Willis would have performed in Tennessee this year if they kept him on as the backup instead of letting him go with Mason Rudolph in town. But Willis’ progress in Green Bay has been key to overcoming these Jordan Love injuries as the starter was knocked out with a groin injury in this one and his status is up in the air.

The Jaguars have played better in recent weeks, and they gave the Packers all they could handle in this one. Even after trailing by 10 points in the last 10:00, the Jaguars were able to tie the game at 27 with 1:48 left.

Just two plays into the ensuing drive, Willis hit a deep ball to Jayden Reed for 51 yards after the defender fell down on the play-action fake. That was basically all the Packers needed as they just ran the clock down before Brandon McManus walked them off for the second week in a row with a 24-yard field goal in a 30-27 win.

We know the Packers need Love to win a Super Bowl, but they are still thriving with Willis in this offense too. But they need to hear some good news on Love with the first Detroit game coming up next Sunday.

Colts at Texans: Can Indy Send Some Receivers to Houston If Anthony Richardson Is Going to Waste Them?

Watching Anthony Richardson is like a shock to the system when you think of the Colts with one of the most consistently accurate quarterbacks ever (Peyton Manning), and even Andrew Luck would get on a hot streak where he couldn’t miss.

But Richardson is something entirely different, and I don’t think it’s the type of quarterback you can ever expect to sustain offense with. He’s better at throwing 50-yard bombs than he is at anything under 10 yards. How can that work? In this game, he had a 69-yard touchdown pass, but he was 2-of-15 for 81 yards at halftime and gifted the Texans with a short field for a touchdown thanks to an awful pick.

I’m not sure how Shane Steichen stuck with him at quarterback instead of going to Joe Flacco, who you know can hit the easy throws in what was a winnable game for first place in the division.

I also don’t think Steichen was justified in not making the change. The Colts scored 10 points on their final 5 drives, but when it came time to set up a game-tying field goal, Richardson was MIA. He also dipped out of the game at one point for saying he was out of breath, something you just never hear from a quarterback.

As for the Texans, this was basically a repeat of the Buffalo win (also 23-20), except C.J. Stroud wasn’t the one turning it over in the fourth quarter to give the opponent a chance this time. The stat sheet will show fumble with the Colts in the red zone with 3:00 left, but that was Joe Mixon failing to handle a pitch on a run. They credit that to the quarterback since he was technically the last person with possession.

The Texans are fortunate the Colts were down and that didn’t go for a touchdown return to make it 27-23, because they didn’t have a ton of offense with Stefon Diggs leaving the game with no-contact injury. No word yet on that, but it didn’t look good for an offense that is already missing Nico Collins.

But at least the Houston defense finished the job against Richardson, who was 10-of-32 passing for 175 yards and 5 sacks. Remember, this defense held Josh Allen to 9-of-30 passing in a game a few weeks ago.  This makes Houston the only defense since the merger to hold 2 quarterbacks to no more than 10 completions on 30-plus attempts.

The Texans swept the Colts for just the second time ever. That was that 2016 season where the Colts blew the division to Brock Osweiler. Getting swept by Stroud is understandable, but it’s not looking good for Richardson to get on that level with consistent play.

Falcons at Buccaneers: Kirk Cousins’ Favorite Defense

These teams may have played the Game of the Year in Week 5, and this one started off strong too. Kirk Cousins threw for 509 yards last time and was on pace for a huge number again with 224 yards at halftime in this one. But he was held to 52 yards after halftime as his legs became a bigger story. Kyle Pitts also nearly went full Leon Lett in this one but was bailed out by replay on a very close call when his second touchdown was nearly fumbled through the end zone because of an early celebration.

Baker Mayfield had to get things done without Chris Godwin and Mike Evans, but he started well by utilizing tight end Cade Otton and the running backs (Rachaad White and Bucky Irving). But it felt like Atlanta eventually got wise to the lack of trust at wide receiver for these Bucs, and Mayfield started getting into some trouble with turnovers as has been the case in recent weeks.

A misplayed fake punt by the Bucs helped put them in a 2-score hole for the fourth quarter. But a safety after the Falcons couldn’t handle a snap made it a 31-19 game with plenty of time. Cade Otton caught his second touchdown, then the Falcons looked like they had a chance to run out the final 6:52. Cousins had a huge 13-yard scramble, converted a quarterback sneak on 4th-and-1 before the 2-minute warning. But when Younghoe Koo had a chance to give that important 8-point cushion with 1:01 left, he was wide right on a 46-yard field goal.

Uh-oh, typical Atlanta finish coming next, right? But that might have been the case with big-time receivers like Evans and Godwin available. The Bucs drove as deep as the Atlanta 33, but after a false start, Mayfield’s last gasp on a Hail Mary did not connect in the end zone. We’d get the real thing in Washington later that day.

But with the success of a team like the Commanders, it looks like the NFC South is only getting one playoff team this year, and the Falcons are in great shape now with a 5-3 record and a sweep over Tampa Bay. That was always the best way to end their reign in the NFC South, and don’t forget that Atlanta still has some of its easiest games left late in the season while the banged-up Bucs are in Kansas City next week.

Cardinals at Dolphins: Tua’s Back, But So Is Good Kyler?

Tua Tagovailoa returned to action for the first time since Week 2, and the good news is he put 27 points on the board, and he even made a big slide to protect himself on a third-and-long scramble.

The bad news is the Miami defense did not show up. Kyler Murray passed for 307 yards without taking a single sack. For an offense that has routinely been stuck to 17 points or less for the last month, Murray was able to overcome a 27-18 deficit in the fourth quarter. He led one touchdown drive, the Dolphins punted from midfield, then the Cardinals used up the final 5:01 on a stellar drive to set up a 34-yard field goal to win 28-27 on the final snap.

The Cardinals (4-4) are technically leading the NFC West thanks to that comeback win against the 49ers. The talent is there for this to be a really good offense, so we’ll see if they can put together more games like this. But it’s a tough loss for Miami (2-5), which falls to No. 10 in the AFC.

Saints at Chargers: The Ladd McConkey Game

It was a breakout moment for rookie wideout Ladd McConkey, who finished with 111 yards and 2 touchdowns in a 26-8 win that again came relatively easy for the Chargers. Justin Herbert played efficiently and even ran for 49 yards. He also survived a cheap shot from the Saints at his legs. I thought Greggggg Williams was long gone there? But the spirit remains.

It’s still surreal to see the Chargers winning a 26-8 game. In fact, the 2024 Chargers are the first team since the 2002 Panthers to go seven games into a season with none of the games going over 39.5 points. That was John Fox’s rookie season as coach and that streak lasted the first 8 games of the season.

If the Chargers can survive Jameis next week with this streak, they have a great shot to have the longest streak to start a season since the 1992 Seahawks, who hold the post-1930 record at 15 games.

But the Chargers (4-3) are at least winning this way.

Panthers at Broncos: Run It Up

Is it possible the Panthers only scored a garbage time touchdown with 18 seconds left because they were pissed at the Broncos for perceiving they tried to run up the score with a fake kick and throwing deep on fourth down with a 28-7 lead near the two-minute warning?

Either way, that late score gave Bryce Young 14 points in his latest start, or one more point than he led Carolina to in his previous four starts combined. Still, that’s 27 points over 5 games, and he is just not looking the part of NFL starter in Carolina.

But we should probably give some much-needed attention to how terrible the Carolina defense has been too after trading Brian Burns this offseason. Not that he could alone turn things around, but they’re really poor on that side too against the run and the pass. Rookie Bo Nix was absolutely shredding them and finished with 284 yards on 28-of-37 passing.

The Broncos are 5-3, but let’s see where things stand after they play the Ravens, Chiefs, and Falcons these next three games.

Next week: Jets were a rough game for C.J. Stroud last year, but who can trust the Jets to beat anyone at this point? Chargers-Browns is suddenly more interesting with Jameis (as God intended, you know). Broncos can test that defense against the Ravens in Baltimore. Flexing Jags-Eagles out of SNF was a good move, but Vikings-Colts is basically the same caliber at this point. Unless they put Flacco in to carve up that defense. Detroit-Green Bay would be the GOTW, but what is Love’s status? Terrible timing for a groin injury. Kansas City has a great shot to go to 8-0 against Tampa Bay on Monday night.

NFL Stat Oddity: 2023 Wild Card Weekend

~ Scott ~ 3 Comments

And that’s why we don’t call it Super Wild Card weekend, because not much was super about that 3-day trek of games. Sure, we saw dazzling playoff debuts for C.J. Stroud and Jordan Love, the Detroit Lions finally won a playoff game for the first time since 1991, and the fraud department was busy sending home teams who didn’t stand a chance of going the distance (Dolphins, Steelers, Eagles), or it exposed the defenses who beefed up their stats against the weakest opponents (Cowboys and Browns) and folded when it mattered most.

On those fronts, it was a strong week of action. But if you told me every home team would win except for Dallas, the team that won 16 games in a row at home and usually in dominant fashion, I might not have believed you.

I definitely wouldn’t have believed you if you said there wouldn’t be a single lead change in any game after the 12:00 mark in the second quarter of Browns-Texans on Saturday.

But that happened too. The other 5 games were all wire-to-wire wins, putting this postseason on pace for some history in that department if teams don’t start showing up with better efforts.

I’m still getting over the flu, but a good night of sleep is one hell of a dose of self-medication for that. I feel good enough to share some thoughts on these 6 games before I go back for more sleep and to start preparing data, previews, and picks for the divisional round, my favorite weekend of the NFL year.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Browns at Texans: When the Young Kid Puts Down Old Yeller

We might look back one day and laugh at the time Joe Flacco, days before his 39th birthday, was a road favorite over C.J. Stroud in a playoff game. But as someone who picked Cleveland to win a tight one, I’m using this game as a good lesson on what to take away from a recent meeting before a playoff rematch.

The season-long trends mattered more than the recent trends where Flacco was dealing (albeit with a high interception rate), and Stroud was kind of mediocre down the stretch outside of a great job in Indianapolis to get into the playoffs.

But Houston’s ability to scheme receivers open, especially at home, combined with Stroud’s already advanced skills at throwing off platform and giving his guys chances proved to overwhelm a Cleveland defense that I feared was a paper tiger all along. In the playoffs, you aren’t facing Joe Burrow on a bad calf, or a slumping Ryan Tannehill, or getting Matt Canada fired again in Pittsburgh, or feasting on Arizona rookie Clayton Tune.

There was just something fishy about a defense that allowed at least 22 points in every road game this year, and you can’t blame that all on their league-leading 37 turnovers as that has been a problem all year for Cleveland. Blame the offense on the Pittsburgh loss for Deshaun Watson’s 2 turnovers getting returned for touchdowns, sure, but that was not the norm for them.  

Turnovers ended up being a story in this game, but Houston was already up 24-14 in the third quarter before Flacco had his back-to-back pick-sixes that crushed any hope left for Cleveland. But things were already looking bad before that as Myles Garrett contributed more offsides penalties than any impact plays on defense.

Both offenses were hitting plays early as this one was on pace for over 1,000 total yards. But after Kareem Hunt scored his second touchdown to give the Browns a 14-10 lead, the Texans answered back with a 1-play drive that saw backup tight end Brevin Jordan leak open for a 76-yard touchdown. Houston led 17-0 with 12:00 left in the second quarter and we literally never saw another lead change the rest of wild card weekend.

The Browns were stopped on 3 straight drives to end the half as pressure got to Flacco. When these teams met in Week 16 and Cleveland won easily, there were multiple lessons we should have taken away from that game and applied to this one:

  • Obviously, having Stroud back at quarterback was huge, but Houston also didn’t have top pass rushers Will Anderson and Jonathan Greenard in Week 16. They were back and Anderson had 1-of-4 sacks of Flacco.
  • Pressure got to Flacco on that fateful first pick-six, and he tried to throw the ball away, only to have it returned 82 yards for a touchdown by Steven Nelson.
  • Cleveland’s lack of a running game in Week 16 was a problem again as they only produced 17 carries for 43 yards this time. Hunt was stuffed on a key 3rd-and-1 run, which led to Flacco’s next pick-six on a 4th-and-2. If the running game is adequate, he’s never throwing in that desperate situation and blowing the game open at 38-14.
  • Flacco overcame his running game woes in Week 16 with huge plays to Amari Cooper, who had 265 yards. But he injured his heel that game and we didn’t know how he’d play in his return game. He finished with 59 yards and was clearly not 100%, and that didn’t help Cleveland’s cause.

Cooper’s decline of 206 receiving yards is the 5th-largest drop in a playoff rematch in NFL history by a receiver.

Flacco started the game well, but the cumulative pressure got to him, and the double whammy of picks was a game destroyer, making the fourth quarter pretty forgettable as Houston won 45-14.

But you did see the value in this game of having a young quarterback with mobility as Stroud could evade pressure and feather the ball to his receivers with accuracy. The barely mobile Flacco tried to throw one away and it ended up going back the other way for a game-changing touchdown.

I still stand by the data that says there’s no correlation between two team’s turnover margins and what their turnover margin will be in a playoff matchup against each other. Even at extreme levels like the gap in this game, the turnover-prone team usually beats the turnover-averse team.

But there will be no improbable Flacco Super Bowl run this year, and the Cleveland defense is in fact not even close to being a legendary unit. The history made here is that Stroud only needed a half to tie the record for touchdown passes by a rookie in a playoff game with 3.

Dolphins at Chiefs: Still Wish It Was Colder?

My favorite bet for the entire week was Dolphins under 19.5 points. When they usually can’t get to 20 points on the road against good teams in fair weather, how were they going to do it in the 4th-coldest game in NFL history at minus-4 degrees at kickoff?

One 53-yard touchdown pass to Tyreek Hill was all the Miami offense had to muster. The Chiefs were excellent on defense as that was the only 20-yard play they allowed in the game.

When Mike McDaniel thought a 22-20 win over Dallas was enough for his players to tell the media to (with all due respect) “fvck off” about his team’s record against winning teams, that’s what my reaction was all year long to people who thought this team was a serious Super Bowl contender and not just a paper tiger.

McDaniel has now lost 10 straight road games to playoff teams.

All I can add on this loss is that it’s the kind of performance that should make Miami hold off on giving Tua Tagovailoa a record-setting contract extension, because you know that’s what his agent will be seeking as the next quarterback due to get paid. I’m not saying they have to part ways, but I’d be very careful about making that deal happen. He just doesn’t get the job done in games like this, and guess what, Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes don’t look like they’re going anywhere in the AFC anytime soon. Same with Lamar Jackson, and oh yeah, now you have to think about C.J. Stroud in Houston too.

Tua’s QBR of 15.8 made him the only quarterback under 40.0 this week.

But enough about Miami. I want to talk about this Kansas City performance the rest of the way. I thought Patrick Mahomes played very well, and I would not have guessed he’d have that kind of night based on how bad the first 2 snaps looked. But one big 3rd-and-10 conversion to Travis Kelce, who held on that time, and the Chiefs were off to a strong start. Mahomes had a few big scrambles too, and he even cracked his helmet on the frozen night and did not miss a play.

Mahomes did not take any sacks, and the only turnover was an obligatory fumble late in the game by CEH with the game out of reach for Miami. I thought Mahomes had a good read of the blitz from Miami, and he threw the ball away when he had to. The only drawback was the red-zone performance where the Chiefs settled for 4 field goals, looking similar to Week 17 when they kicked 6 field goals against the Bengals. That can catch up with you against a better team than Miami like they’ll play going forward. It also helped that the Dolphins were so injured on defense, which is why I think they just kept blitzing Mahomes, which is usually a no-no.

Throwing some deep balls on third downs to Mecole Hardman, who has the worst ball-tracking skills ever, is another dangerous tactic I don’t want to see the Chiefs continue this postseason against better teams. But they had no problem beating Miami without playing their best.

Now we get a real road game for this team and against a Buffalo team that arguably plays them better than anyone. It could be another classic.

Just glad we don’t have to entertain the Dolphins as contenders anymore this season.

Packers at Cowboys: Doomsday in Dallas Used to Mean Something Different

My preseason Super Bowl pick was Dallas going on a revenge tour, beating the 49ers in San Francisco in the title game, and ultimately losing to the Ravens in the Super Bowl. Well, Baltimore fans better get nervous, because I literally never pick the correct Super Bowl winner, and now my loser is gone after a shocking first-round exit at home in a 48-32 loss.

In Mike McCarthy’s best shot yet to become the first coach to win a Super Bowl with multiple teams, he instead became the first coach to lose to a No. 7 seed. We know the Packers always gave the Cowboys fits during Aaron Rodgers’ tenure, but we might have to expect more years of misery at the hands of Jordan Love after this game.

Right from his first pass on the opening drive, Love came out smoking. In fact, Green Bay’s decision to receive after winning the toss was one of the best coaching decisions all weekend. You need to set the tone when you play a front-running team that is used to leading like Dallas. All the pressure was on Dallas to win this game as the No. 2 seed, and Green Bay was immediately able to take a lead and build that pressure after consuming half the quarter.

Love was masterful in his first playoff start on the road, completing 16-of-21 passes for 272 yards and 3 touchdowns. He had no sacks or turnovers, and his favorite receiver was the open one. Jayden Reed led the team in receiving categories this year, but he had no catches in this game. Christian Watson was the expected No. 1 coming into the season, but he is always injured. He returned this weekend and had only a 9-yard catch against a defense he broke out against in 2022 when he scored 3 touchdowns. It was Romeo Doubs with the dominant game as he had 151 yards and a touchdown. Rookie tight end Luke Musgrave also broke wide open for a 38-yard touchdown as Matt LaFleur was having a great time roasting his predecessor.

I’ve said for 20 years since those pesky 2001-04 Patriots teams won 3 Super Bowls that it can be really advantageous to have a group of talented receivers with no clear No. 1 receiver. That was when the Patriots played dink-and-dunk passing with Troy Brown, David Givens, David Patten, and Deion Branch. Mix in your backs and tight ends, and defenses couldn’t go into games on a weekly basis and figure out who to focus on or draw more attention to with double teams. Technically, it was Troy Brown early on in that run and Deion Branch later, but any of them could get open and do something after the catch on any given play.

The 2023 Packers are kind of enjoying that advantage right now with this young group of receivers, including Doubs, Watson, Reed, and Dontayvion Wicks. Throw in a veteran back and Dallas killer like Aaron Jones (118 yards and 3 touchdowns), and the Packers had a variety of ways to make Dallas look silly.

Similar to the Browns, the Cowboys had some paper tiger warnings on defense since they padded their stats against awful offenses like the Jets, Panthers, Patriots, and those sack merchant lines for the Giants and Commanders (twice each). You saw Brock Purdy shred them in San Francisco. You saw Jalen Hurts at least put up one great game against them when the Eagles were playing better earlier in the year. Even Geno Smith went into Dallas and put on a passing clinic and 35 points, but that usually doesn’t happen to Dallas in Dallas.

But the Cowboys were rough on defense, and they were not prepared for a team with a quarterback who came in red hot like Love. Since the Dallas offense is usually so efficient, the Cowboys also faced the fewest drives of any defense this year, so their per-drive numbers were not elite this season.

But I’m not sure anyone imagined a 48-32 game in favor of the Packers. Worse, it was 27-0 at one point after maybe the worst start to a game in Dak Prescott’s career. You knew it was going to be a long day when he had 0 passing yards in the first quarter for the first time in his career. From the opening drive you could see he was just a little off with CeeDee Lamb after they were so good down the stretch this year. Then Jaire Alexander beat Brandin Cooks to an interception, and the Packers only needed to go 19 yards to make it 14-0.

The Cowboys continued to stubbornly stick with the run on early downs, and Prescott was not getting into a rhythm and converting enough third downs. Down 20-0 at the 2-minute warning, that’s when disaster struck as Dak did not see Darnell Savage on a pick-six that was returned 64 yards to put the Packers up 27-0.

Dallas was fortunate to get a touchdown on the final play of the half after it clearly looked live that there was a false start or something funky pre-snap. But nothing was called, and Jake Ferugson caught the first of what would be three touchdowns on the day.

But the Packers are not the Chargers. They weren’t going to blow a 27-0 lead. This might have been a little more interesting had Dallas pulled off a double touchdown score, but the Cowboys were held to a field goal to start the third quarter, making it 27-10.

Fox’s Greg Olsen put it perfectly. A comeback like this isn’t possible if your defense can’t get stops. I’ve written about this several times now since Super Bowl 51, including this 2018 post about Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady. It’s not like Brady is the only quarterback who could make a 25-point comeback in a playoff game. He just may be the only one who is lucky enough to have his defense hold a juggernaut offense with the MVP at quarterback to no more points the rest of the way and to even force a short field on a fumble.

I’m not deflecting the blame from Dak in this game. He blew it. But it’s also true that Dallas scored 32 points over its final 7 drives, and we might have had a game here if the Dallas defense didn’t allow 3 straight Green Bay touchdown drives to start the second half.

That blown coverage on Musgrave made it 41-16 with 16:27 left in the game, basically asking for Dallas to make the greatest comeback in history at that point. After turning it over on downs, the Cowboys watched the Packers convert a 4th-and-2 for another touchdown to make it 48-16 with 10:23 left. Goodnight, Irene. They couldn’t even get the little 4th-down stop with minimal pressure on both teams at the moment.

But I must say, for being down 32 with just over 10 minutes left, the Cowboys came closer to 8+8+8+8 then you’d ever want to see as the leading team. They didn’t even recover an onside kick. They just used their timeouts, scored quickly, and got the pair of 3-and-outs on defense they needed earlier in the game.

This was an incredible one-handed catch from CeeDee Lamb in the end zone away from Dallas going for 2 to make it 48-40 with just over a minute left. Sure, they’d need to then recover an onside kick and score another touchdown with a 4th straight 2-point conversion just to force overtime, but getting to 48-40 with an onside chance after it was 48-16 not that long ago? That would have been an impressive rally attempt.

But the game should have never gotten that out of hand in the first place, and that is why I wouldn’t be surprised if McCarthy gets the axe for this game. It’s also going to be hard to ever trust Dak in a big game after he had his best season, they were healthy for this game, and he and the offense just laid a turd for the first half.

Green Bay getting hot at the right time behind a quarterback playing outstanding ball is good stuff. We don’t see that too often anymore in the NFL playoffs, so we’ll see if he can slay the San Francisco dragon that Aaron Rodgers never could. He already got past the Dallas dragon that tripped up Brett Favre in the 90s.

But these Cowboys are not the Cowboys of the 90s. The fact that Jerry Jones keeps hanging onto those glory hole days and thinking every year is going to end up like that again is why he must annually be so disappointed when his team flops in the playoffs.

But I have to say, even by Jerry’s standards, this flop was the worst one yet, because things were breaking for them this year.

Rams at Lions: Puka Gets a Tug and No Happy Ending

Of all the games this week that should have been high scoring and come down to the final drive, this was the one to pick. In the end, we got an exciting first half with 38 points and both quarterbacks dealing, and then we got 3 field goals and still not a single lead change after halftime as Detroit held on for the 24-23 win.

Yeah, it’s awesome that the Lions finally won a playoff game. But excuse me for being a little bummed out that this game didn’t have more touchdowns or a better dramatic finish. This was the matchup for it with these underwhelming defenses, and they lived up to it early with all the scoring drives. Detroit scored 3 straight touchdowns to begin the game.

I thought Matthew Stafford played very well through the pain of a cut on his hand that left him bloody. He may have saved the game on the final play of the first quarter by converting a 3rd-and-16 with the Lions already up 14-3 and humming along. But some of the red-zone struggles and difficulty of hooking up with Cooper Kupp proved fatal to the Rams in this one. It also didn’t help that Kyren Williams kept leaving for health reasons as the league’s leader in rushing yards per game only put up 61 yards in Detroit. Stafford must have really felt at home, trying to carry a team with minimal rushing support and a defense that was getting shredded.

But by the end of the night, the Lions barely rushed for more yards than the Rams (82 to 68). Both offenses were 3-for-9 on third down. I thought fourth down might play a bigger role in this game with Dan Campbell being much more aggressive than conservative Sean McVay, but both teams were 1-for-1 on fourth downs.

The Rams can probably kick themselves for outgaining the Lions by 91 yards in a game with zero turnovers and still losing 24-23. But that’s what happens you go 0-for-3 in the red zone at scoring touchdowns and kick 3 field goals under 30 yards.

Were any of the field goals the wrong call by McVay? No, they were all 4th and 6 or longer. They were the right decisions at the moment. My beef with McVay in this game is a common one I’ve had for him going back several years now: He blew his timeout management in the second half again.

Stafford took a sack 3 snaps into the third quarter and McVay wasted a timeout on a 3rd-and-11. Save that shit and take the 5-yard delay penalty. The Rams ended up throwing an incomplete pass and punted. He did it again in the fourth quarter before a 3rd-and-8 deep in his own end, down 24-20. More defensible than the first one, I still don’t think it is worth it most of the time in that situation. The Rams ended up converting by a screen pass to Puka Nacua, who was awesome.

You know Nacua is a real one when he can make Kupp look like a secondary receiver in this offense. Puka was outstanding in his playoff debut with 9 catches for 181 yards and a 50-yard touchdown.

Unfortunately, Nacua was also involved in the play of the game that will be remembered most by Rams fans. On 3rd-and-14 at the Detroit 44 with 4:20 left, the Rams were in a tough spot. A conversion is hard there, but at least they could get some yards and try a reasonable go-ahead field goal. Stafford went for the big play to Nacua, and his jersey was grabbed from behind and the pass fell incomplete. Receivers usually get that call but there was no flag this time.

The Rams really had no choice but to punt from their 44, and they were down to just 2 clock stoppages because of the piss-poor clock management earlier. The Lions are good in these situations because they are aggressive under Campbell, and they were able to run out the clock after 2 first downs on pass plays. Amon-Ra St. Brown had a great playoff debut too and got over 100 yards on the night with his 11-yard catch to seal the game.

Goff had a couple of scary plays in this game that serve as reminders for why you don’t like to trust him in big games. But overall, he played well, and the Lions did enough to survive this one. Now they get to host the Buccaneers with a shot at the NFC Championship Game very much in play as they are a home favorite this week.

From no playoff wins in 31 seasons to possibly an NFC Championship Game appearance or more? Crazy stuff for Detroit.

Steelers at Bills: The Standard in Postseason Scoring

The downside to the Steelers making the playoffs has become the quick exit that almost feels inevitable. Pittsburgh lost its fifth playoff game in a row, meaning Mike Tomlin has not won any playoff games in the last 7 seasons (2017-23).

This is also the fifth time under Tomlin that the Steelers allowed at least 31 points in a playoff game while forcing no takeaways. The only team with that many playoff games since the 1970 merger is the Denver franchise, which has done this 6 times. But the Steelers have done it 5 times since 2007.

  • Pittsburgh is the first team in NFL history to allow at least 31 points in 5 straight playoff games.
  • Pittsburgh has allowed 202 points in its last 5 playoff games, the most in any 5-game span in playoff history, surpassing a record they already held with 187 points in 2016-21.
  • Pittsburgh has scored at least 16 points in 29 straight playoff games, extending its NFL record in that area but that’s not making up for the recent blowouts.
  • Pittsburgh is the only NFL team with an active 5-game losing streak in the playoffs where it failed to cover the spread in each game.

Pittsburgh’s best hope in this game was for it to be played during whiteout conditions with heavy snow and wind, increasing the likelihood of randomness like fumbles. But after watching it play out at its rescheduled time on Monday in fairer cold conditions, I’m not so sure Buffalo still doesn’t win comfortably.

Not when Josh Allen had 1 fe”r rushing yard than the 75 yards the duo of Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren combined for. The Steelers were supposed to be the more physical team that leaned on their backs, but James Cook outrushed them too with 79 yards on 18 carries for Buffalo. Most of Allen’s damage was on his 52-yard touchdown run, which featured some really poor tackling from the Steelers, a common theme on the day.

Without T.J. Watt available, the Steelers struggled to force any splash plays against the Bills, who did not even flirt with a turnover. No real dangerous throws from Allen, and they had no fumbles to lose. Since 2017, the Steelers are now 2-13-1 when Watt plays fewer than 50% of the snaps in a game.

It is hard to decide which side of the ball hurt the Steelers more in this one. The offense came out playing scared and taking almost no deep shots to the wide receivers. Pittsburgh’s only 20-yard play in the game was a 33-yard gain by tight end Pat Freiermuth, who fumbled at the end of the play and was fortunate it was ruled to go out of bounds because it sure looked like Buffalo recovered it in bounds.

George Pickens was less fortunate on a fumble that set up Allen for a 29-yard touchdown drive that took one play as he found Dalton Kincaid wide open. When it looked like the Steelers were going to cut the 14-0 lead in half, Mason Rudolph made his worst throw in the red zone to waste Pittsburgh’s longest drive (88 yards) with an interception. Allen made his big touchdown run from there to build a 21-0 lead, a big early hole being the common lead in every Pittsburgh playoff loss during this streak.

A blocked field goal saved this from total blowout territory as that led to a 33-yard touchdown drive before the half ended. But even that sequence showed just how poorly prepared the Steelers are for these big games. The Buffalo punter was injured on the blocked field goal. Instead of using his timeouts to try to make Buffalo punt in the last minute of the half, Tomlin sat on his timeouts and only called one on 2nd-and-17 with 2 seconds left? What good does that do? Allen took a knee to end it. After a first-down sack, the Steelers should have been using those 3 timeouts to get a punt block ready. Just poorly managed all around.

After Rudolph threw his second touchdown of the game to Calvin Austin to make it 24-17 in the fourth quarter, this got a little interesting. But the Bills easily drove for quality play after quality play on a 70-yard drive that ended in another touchdown after awful tackling from Minkah Fitzpatrick and company led to Shakir scoring from 17 yards out to make it 31-17 with 6:27 left.

That’s game. A missed 27-yard field goal by the Bills after the Steelers turned it over on downs is the only reason we aren’t talking up 34 points as the new piss-poor scoring standard for this defense in the postseason.

I mentioned at the beginning that Tomlin hasn’t won a playoff game since the 2016 season. If he returns next season for Year 8 of his playoff win drought, it’ll only be the fourth time a team has done that with a coach in the Super Bowl era. Jim Mora (Saints) and Marvin Lewis (Bengals) infamously never won a playoff game in their career. Don Shula’s 8-year drought in Miami (1974-81) led to a Super Bowl loss in 1982, but that was a different league back then. You didn’t have 7 teams making the playoffs in each conference, and he had multiple seasons where he finished 10-4 and didn’t even make the tournament.

The Steelers shouldn’t have been expected to win this game, especially without Watt, but at what point does hanging onto a streak of non-losing seasons prevent the team from ever getting back to real Super Bowl contention? This is purgatory. There’s no high draft pick and quarterback fix to come out of this season, and it’s not like the effort was all that respectable here. Hell, even Miami lost 34-31 and covered the spread with Skylar Thompson at quarterback in Buffalo in the wild card round last year. They at least forced turnovers.

SOS is supposed to be a distress call for help, but when it comes to the Steelers, it’s like the organization is content with the same old shit.

Eagles at Buccaneers: My Apologies to the 1986 Jets and 2022 Vikings

I just want to start by saying I apologize to the 2022 Vikings for comparing the 2023 Eagles when they were 10-1 to your team. The Vikings actually finished with 13 wins and put up a fight in their home playoff loss to the Giants, which came down to the final drive.

I also have to apologize for comparing the Eagles to the 1986 Jets, the only other team to start 10-1 and not get to 12 wins. The Jets rebounded in time for the playoffs to beat the Chiefs in the wild card round and gave a superior Cleveland team hell in the divisional round in a double overtime loss.

After scoring a record number of points (35) for a Super Bowl loser last year, the Eagles scored a season-low 9 points in a 23-point loss to the Buccaneers in the wild card round, completing their full collapse. We will have a new NFC champion again. Only the 2013-14 Seahawks have repeated since 1999.

They knew it was going to be tough going in without A.J. Brown, but DeVonta Smith stepped up with 8 catches for 148 yards. But the running game was held to just 42 yards on 15 carries after the Eagles were the only team to smack the Bucs for 200 yards in Week 3, which feels like an eternity ago now.

Philadelphia’s tackling also made Pittsburgh’s look good. Was there a tackling ban in Pennsylvania passed over the weekend? This was an atrocious effort from a team that looked like it gave up on the season. Jason Kelce’s career possibly ending on a sour note like this is sad.

My favorite bet in this game was the under (43.5), which hit to wrap up 2023 as a season where the under was 15-5 on Monday nights. Loved that bet all season, but I sure did not expect to see Baker Mayfield throw for 337 yards and 3 touchdowns after he could barely move in Carolina in Week 18. But he looked good, and he’s done something Tom Brady couldn’t: win a playoff game with Todd Bowles as his coach.

But you knew it wasn’t Philly’s night when the Brotherly Shove was stopped on a 2-point conversion in the second quarter when the Eagles got a penalty to put the ball at the 1-yard line. The Bucs got extremely low on the play, and the Eagles didn’t get their normal push, and it helped when you send a linebacker high at Jalen Hurts and grab him by the facemask. That definitely should have been a penalty, but now we’ll wait to see if the league makes any move against this team’s favorite play in the offseason.

I thought for sure we’d get only our second game with a game-winning drive opportunity out of this one, but that went to shit in a hurry late in the third quarter. Down 16-9, Hurts tried too hard on a 3rd-and-6 and found himself retreating to his end zone despite the line of scrimmage being at his 14. Instead of throwing the ball away, he dug the hole deeper and took a safety due to the penalty for intentional grounding, the right call.

That made it 18-9, then two plays later, some more of that horrific tackling left Trey Palmer open for a 56-yard touchdown. I would have tried the 2 to make it 26-9, a three-score game, but the Eagles already looked so beaten down that 25-9 was just fine.

But that little sequence killed any chance of a close finish. Mayfield even hit another blitz with a 23-yard touchdown to Chris Godwin for good measure to make it 32-9.

This is the kind of loss that could get Nick Sirianni fired just one year removed from a Super Bowl loss. Hell, they had the best record in the NFL in Week 12 not even 2 full months ago.

The data always said 10-1 was a mirage. The eye test never passed for this year’s team. But to fall this far so quickly, even I am a little surprised this happened.

The NFC truly does love a flash in the pan.

Next week: I think they saved the best game both days for the night slot with Chiefs-Bills the best choice to close the weekend. After all these runaway games, it sure would be nice to get an epic divisional round much like we got in 2021 when every game was decided at the end with two of the matchups the same (GB-SF and BUF-KC). We’ll see what happens but there is usually at least one road upset in this round.

NFL 2023 Wild Card Predictions

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

We’ve reached the NFL playoffs, and for what feels like the fourth or fifth weekend in a row, I’m writing this after 3 AM and feeling sick. This time it’s the full-on deep cough and a slight fever, so I may have picked up the flu or something this week. A lot of stuff going around out there.

But I felt better earlier this week when I put in over 12,000 words on playoff previews, I may have gone a little overboard with that, and I wanted to share those links since they are my full previews these days. I no longer have to prepare games just for my blog while maybe only doing 2 games in detail like back in the day. But you tend to forget just how big a 6-game playoff slate is until you start writing these out. But it’s one of my favorite things to do each year, and I like to try holding back on the better teams to have more material for future rounds assuming they make it. So far, the No. 7 seed is 0-6 against the No. 2 seed since 2020, but you never know when the Cowboys and Bills are involved.

We also have some extreme weather in the AFC games I’m most invested in this week, so that could be weird. For the love of Christ, the Chiefs better not even think of running cutesy trick plays in that -30 wind chill. The obligatory fumble will be plural.

This Week’s Articles

NFL Wild Card Predictions

I’m posting my full grid now that I post on Twitter late on Saturday nights. Not a ton of picks outside of receivers and TD scorers this week.

Browns at Texans: Very interesting game. I think Amari Cooper and Nico Collins both cool down from their most recent explosive performances (Cooper in Houston, Collins in Indy), and I really like David Njoku to be a big target for Joe Flacco, who I expect to play well again. But he is volatile and I like him to throw a pick. But in the end, I’m going to trust Cleveland’s defense to make enough plays to escape this one with a win.

Browns 24, Texans 20

Dolphins at Chiefs: I’ve called the Dolphins a paper tiger since October. Now they play in a freezing cold game against a defense that already held them in check in Germany. The Dolphins are also more banged up. Look, I think the Chiefs are in for a tough postseason and I picked them before the season to finish No. 3 and lose in Buffalo in the divisional round. I’m not backing down from that right now when we’re this close to making it happen. But the Chiefs better hope they don’t make the deadly mistakes with ball security to give the Dolphins a chance.

Chiefs 20, Dolphins 14

Steelers at Bills: Steelers are 2-12-1 when T.J. Watt doesn’t play at least 50% of the defensive snaps since 2017. He’s out this week, but what kind of game is it going to be when there could be several inches of lake-effect snow? I think this really favors Pittsburgh to keep it closer than it normally would be, and the Steelers have scored at least 16 points in 28 straight playoff games, the record. Even Mason Rudolph has scored 16 points in 12-of-13 career points. I don’t think the weather allows the Steelers to get blown out here.

Bills 21, Steelers 16

Packers at Cowboys: Could be a fun one if Jordan Love is on point, but I think Dallas is too good at home and will shred that Joe Barry-coached defense. But we’ll see if Love has any of that Aaron Rodgers killer instinct in him that always seemed to come out against Dallas (not so much other teams, though).

Cowboys 31, Packers 23

Rams at Lions: Should be the best shootout of the weekend. I think the Lions pull it off and finally end that playoff drought at home. Quality run defense to put the game on Stafford’s shoulders, and I think Dan Campbell’s 4th-down aggression is the difference this time as Sean McVay is very conservative. That will pay off in a cumulative effect over the night.

Lions 30, Rams 27

Eagles at Bucs: The turd of the week, who is even healthy? Jalen Hurts and Baker Mayfield are playing, right? A.J. Brown maybe not? I still have to do prop picks for this game and that’s not going to be easy if we don’t get some clarity on these injuries. But while I don’t think Tampa is a good playoff team or even worthy of being in the tournament, I can’t go through a whole weekend after a regular season like that and only pick the favorite to win each game. So, Tampa is my upset pick (feel better about this if Brown’s ruled out) as I think the Eagles complete their collapse from 10-1 to getting bounced in Tampa in the wild card round.

Bucs 20, Eagles 16

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.