Tag: Buccaneers

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 11

~ Scott ~ 10 Comments

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

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

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

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Bears at Lions: Never in Doubt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chargers at Packers: A Full Helping of Chargering

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vikings at Broncos: The Close Game Regression Bowl

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Huge problem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seahawks at Rams: Not Feeling the Field Goal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cardinals at Texans: The Shootout That Became Defensive Slugfest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Giants at Commanders: Those Pesky Division Games

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

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

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

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

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

Circle this one on Jack Del Rio’s resume.

Cowboys at Panthers: Predictable

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

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

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

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

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

Titans at Jaguars: Just Your Typical, Unwatchable Jacksonville Game

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

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

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

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

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

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 9

~ Scott ~ 12 Comments

It says a lot about this NFL season when Sunday’s best drama came from the games where Joshua Dobbs, Taylor Heinicke, Baker Mayfield, and C.J. Stroud were dueling in the fourth quarter and not from any of the “big games” Week 9 featured.

The main events were far from classics, and only Cowboys-Eagles, a division game, had a dramatic finish as both teams tried to hand the game over to their bitter rival before the Eagles won 28-23. It was also the only big game where the loser broke 20 points as Miami flopped 21-14 in Germany to the Chiefs, the Seahawks were blown out 37-3 in Baltimore, and the Bills were always playing from behind in Cincinnati in a 24-18 final that didn’t feel that close. 

It was a long day, and I mean that literally with the clock change dragging things out an extra hour to the point where I fell asleep during the middle of the late afternoon slate. Not that I needed to see the no-show performances from the Panthers and Giants.

There were 8 games with a comeback opportunity this week, and I expect that number to rise on Monday night with some classic Chargering to end Week 9. But a classic week it was not.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Dolphins vs. Chiefs: Tyreek Hill Delivers Belated Touchdown Gift to Kansas City

Not much can get me out of bed at 9:30 AM, but I wanted to watch this one as it had the potential to be an instant classic and have a huge impact on shaping the narrative for the second half of this 2023 NFL season. Everything from the award races to the Super Bowl odds and No. 1 seed in the AFC was up for grabs here.

Beyond that, it’s just a good game on paper where you had to question if the No. 1 Miami offense can actually score on a top defense and beat a good team. You questioned if the Kansas City offense could still win a shootout with the limitations at wide receiver and how bad they looked in last week’s 24-9 loss in Denver.

In the end, all we really learned is that Miami is a paper tiger, Tyreek Hill killed his chances of having an MVP case this season, and the Chiefs have even more question marks on offense than previously thought.

For a big game, this was a huge disappointment to watch. The game started great for about 4 minutes with Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs looking sharp on an opening touchdown drive, then Jaylen Waddle got the Dolphins going with a 15-yard catch. This was going to be great.

But then on the second play from scrimmage for Miami, Waddle was clipped on a running play and left the game with a knee injury. He would later return, but he never felt like a big part of the game plan after that.

For the next several drives, these offenses could not solve these defenses, and they were repeatedly stuck in 3rd-and-long situations. The Chiefs were also getting stuck in bad field position as Mecole Hardman has no conscience in fielding punts inside his own 10.

But the Chiefs eventually broke the scoring slump with a great 95-yard touchdown drive that consumed 8:28. Down 14-0, the Dolphins had a chance to get a double score as they were getting the ball first in the third quarter. But Miami started playing the clock too much in not wanting to give Mahomes the ball back, and they even tried to throw a screen to Hill with under 50 seconds left in the half. More than 35 yards away from the end zone and wanting to make a huge impact against his former team, Hill tried to do too much, and the Chiefs swarmed him, knocking out the ball for a huge fumble that was picked up, then wisely lateraled to another Chief for a 59-yard return touchdown to give the Chiefs a shocking 21-0 lead.

And you didn’t think you’d ever see Tyreek Hill score another touchdown for the Chiefs.

At halftime, the Kansas City defense looked fantastic, and while it was not a dominant half for the offense, Mahomes was on pace for almost 300 yards and 4 touchdowns despite barely getting Travis Kelce involved. Everything was coming up Chiefs as Miami looked like it was a fraud that could only beat the worst teams in the league.

But in the third quarter, Tua Tagovailoa finally hit a big pass for 31 yards to Cedrick Wilson Jr. for Miami’s first touchdown of the game. Bradley Chubb forced Mahomes into a bad strip-sack to give Miami a short field, then Chris Jones was called for a ridiculous penalty that cost the Chiefs 4 more points as it was going to bring up a 4th-and-10. Instead, Raheem Mostert ran for a 13-yard touchdown, and we had a 21-14 game going into the final quarter.

From there, some of the baffling play calls for the Chiefs came to the forefront. I’m not sure how Andy Reid can justify a run on 2nd-and-10 with La’Mical Perine (not even Samaje) for 1 yard when Miami clearly had the momentum. Mahomes threw a deep ball on 3rd-and-9 to Marquez Valdes-Scantling, and the fact that he couldn’t draw a DPI flag or make the catch there sums up why this wideout situation is a big problem.

But with the Dolphins taking their sweet time to drive to the Kansas City 38, the defense stood tall for the Chiefs again. They forced back-to-back negative plays, including an 11-yard sack of Tua to bring up a 3rd-and-26 that was incomplete. Hardman again acted the fool and fielded the punt at his own 3, but the Chiefs were only going to need a couple of first downs to run out the final 4:10 on the clock, shockingly ending this one at 21-14.

But with a 3rd-and-1, the Chiefs tried a play-action pass with Mahomes having to eat the ball under pressure and throw an incompletion. This team doesn’t believe in the quarterback sneak anymore because Mahomes had a freak injury (dislocated kneecap) on it in Denver in 2019, so they purposely deprive themselves of one of the most successful plays in NFL history. They don’t even coach up a backup to do it well as we’ve seen this team try to do the Brotherly Shove with Noah Gray under center from a field goal formation. It’s ridiculous.

They didn’t need a quarterback sneak though. They could have just run Isiah Pacheco on 3rd-and-1 as that guy takes every carry like its his last day on Earth. But nope, the Chiefs screwed it up, and at this point, I thought they deserved to lose the game with this chickenshit play calling in the 2nd half.

Miami was 75 yards and a 2-point conversion away from potentially taking a 22-21 lead. Mostert was bottled up most of the game, but his runs of 25 and 19 yards quickly moved this to the Kansas City 31. That’s where Tua all but sank his MVP chances this year with 3 straight incompletions, including a woeful throw on 3rd down that had to be a miscommunication with the receiver (Wilson).

On 4th-and-ballgame, this game got the stinker ending it was building up to all morning. A bad snap got away from Tua and he just ate the ball to end the game. He didn’t even get a chance to throw a pass or for the Kansas City defense to do anything to stop him. Just another error at the worst moment.

Neither quarterback passed for 200 yards, which is absurd when Mahomes had 147 yards at halftime, and Tagovailoa had -1450 odds at FanDuel to throw for 200 in this game. Noah Gray led the Chiefs with 34 receiving yards, which was 20 more yards than Kelce. Hill finished with 8 catches for only 62 yards, but it’s the fumble that he’ll be remembered for in this game. The offenses were a combined 6-for-22 on third down.

The good news is the Kansas City defense is for real (for now). The bad news is the offense is in a funk and not doing much to help itself out of it.

  • In Mahomes’ first 101 starts, the only game where the Chiefs and their opponent both had under 300 yards of offense was the 2019 Denver game where he dislocated his kneecap and left early in the 2nd quarter, so that doesn’t really count.
  • But in the last 2 weeks in Denver and here in Germany, the Chiefs and their opponent have not topped 300 yards of offense. From 0 games in 101 starts to 2 in a row. Crazy stuff.
  • The Chiefs had 174 net passing yards and the Dolphins had 175 net passing yards. It is the first Kansas City game where the Chiefs and their opponent did not exceed 175 net passing yards since the 30-0 win over the Texans in the 2015 AFC wild card round.

This is not normal for Kansas City. Having said that, I’d still rather be in their shoes than Miami’s. Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, but three times is a pattern. The Dolphins looked outclassed against the Bills, Eagles, and now Chiefs. No one really cares what you do against the Panthers and Giants. Miami was underwhelming again in this game, and I’m not sure what the solution is going forward. Hope De’Von Achane can break 50-yard runs at the highest rate in history after he returns from injury?

I’d say more about the Chiefs, but I’ve been up over 20 hours cause of this game, I’m still mad about how weak it was offensively, and I’m going to bed. We’ll figure it out over the bye week, but the offense has to step up soon.

Cowboys at Eagles: Dallas, Always a Bridesmaid

While the final quarter was a litany of mistakes by both teams, this division battle was the best main event of Week 9. If we’re calling it down the line, this was the best high-scoring game between contenders since the Lions and Seahawks went to overtime (37-31) way back in Week 2. Yeah, things have been rough this year.

But Dak Prescott played well, throwing another 3 touchdowns to have 14 scores in 4 games against Nick Sirianni’s team since 2021. This was only the second time that Dak and Jalen Hurts have met, but it was worth the wait with Hurts passing for another 200 yards, 2 scores, and running in another touchdown on his trademark play.

But you can kind of see the advantage of division games in that Dallas was not outmatched that significantly in this game even as a 3-point road favorite in a hostile environment. The Cowboys came back to take a 17-14 halftime lead into the locker room before the Eagles scored two touchdowns in the third quarter to lead 28-17.

But the fourth quarter really was a mess for both teams:

Dallas went for it on 4th-and-1 at the Philadelphia 1 with 10:10 left. The young tight end did not run his target deep enough and came up just inches short of the end zone, turning the ball over on downs. I think there was an argument to kick a field goal in a 28-17 game, but there’s also a good argument to go for it with the field position advantage, but that sequence was a big, missed opportunity for Dallas.

The Eagles went 3-and-out, and sure enough, Dallas only had to go 52 yards for a quick touchdown. But on the 2-point conversion, Dak just stepped out of bounds short of the end zone, so that was another case of inches costing the Cowboys more points as there is a huge difference between 28-25 and 28-23.

After another Philadelphia 3-and-out, a Dallas drive short-circuited after back-to-back sacks, and Prescott threw incomplete to a draped receiver on 4th-and-8 who wasn’t CeeDee Lamb, which I couldn’t agree with. But instead of the Eagles running out the final 1:17, they nearly fumbled the game away on a 3rd-down run when D’Andre Swift collied with A.J. Brown in motion, and the Eagles were lucky to recover that fumble.

The Cowboys had 46 seconds to drive 86 yards without a timeout. Immediately, they got a 36-yard defensive pass interference penalty after a horrible play by corner James Bradberry, who almost seemed to fake an injury in embarrassment for his coverage lapse. A roughing the passer penalty was called on the next play, and while it was weak contact, it was definitely late after the play. Just like that, the Cowboys covered 61 yards in 14 seconds, and this was looking realistic, especially after the other corner, Darius Slay, pulled up with an injury.

Lamb caught a pass for 11 yards and got out of bounds, then the Eagles were flagged for 5 more yards for encroachment. The Cowboys were 6 yards away from pulling this off, but that’s when it all went to hell, and shades of past playoff failures against the 49ers. First, Prescott definitely looked like he audibled to a quarterback draw, which would have been another ill-fated decision as he is not as fast as he thinks he is, and the Cowboys were out of timeouts. But a false start shut that down.

Then Prescott took a huge 11-yard sack, the Eagles’ 5th of the day, and he rushed a throw into the end zone instead of spiking a pass and maybe having 2 more shots at the end zone. Move it back 5 yards for a false start, and the Eagles were down to 1 play and 27 yards away. They probably could have tried a short throw and run out of bounds to get 6-to-8 yards closer since the Eagles gave up that whole short area of the field. But they went for the deep throw and it wasn’t deep enough as Lamb caught it at the 4-yard line and fumbled as the defense was right there and never going to allow him to score.

We’ve seen worse Dallas performances before, but it was still disappointing in how well things were going to start that last drive. The Cowboys also held the Eagles without a 30-yard play, they ended Brown’s record streak of 125-yard games by holding him to 66 receiving yards, and they held the Eagles to 3.3 yards per carry.

But it still was not enough to get a win in Philadelphia, which has a big lead in the NFC East now. It was expected the Eagles would win this first matchup at home, but the Cowboys need to build on the positives and hope the Eagles slip up with their tough upcoming schedule.

Bills at Bengals: Buffalo Has a Cincinnati Problem

If you had to pick a team in the AFC that you could trust to go into Kansas City or Baltimore in January and win big games, you should pick Buffalo above most. Some will say Cincinnati, but Buffalo has a track record on par with them, if not better when it comes to beating Lamar Jackson and going drive for drive with Mahomes.

However, we have seen about 8.5 quarters of Bills vs. Bengals going back to last January, and it looks like the Bills have a big problem with this Cincinnati team. The pass rush can’t seem to get to Joe Burrow with his quick release, his receivers are too good for this secondary to hold up, and the Bills put everything on Josh Allen, who tends to make mistakes, especially against a master game planner like Cincinnati defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo.

The Bengals (5-3) have won 4 in a row and the whole AFC North would be in the playoffs if they started today. This loss drops Buffalo (5-4) to No. 9 in the AFC, and they have some issues with the inconsistent offense and defensive injuries.

I’m sensing a bad pattern for Buffalo in these big AFC matchups where Allen is expected to carry the load where the Chiefs and Bengals do more to help their quarterbacks with a running game and other receivers. After Stefon Diggs and a rookie tight end (Dalton Kincaid), Allen is struggling to get Gabriel Davis producing as a No. 2 receiver this year, and they rarely ever run the ball with the running backs in games like this.

This puts a lot of pressure on Allen as this Buffalo defense tends to fold against the better passing offenses in this league. They can make the Jets look bad twice a year, but they usually don’t make an impact on the contenders.

Each team only had 9 possessions in this game, and Buffalo wasted 2 of them with turnovers, and they botched the end of the first half when an intentional grounding penalty knocked the Bills out of long field goal range. You could have argued there was a missed tripping penalty on the Bengals before that grounding call, but it was a weak night for the officials too.

But the biggest mistake was by that rookie tight end as Kincaid fumbled in the red zone in the fourth quarter when it was a 21-10 game. The Bengals turned that into a 5:10 field goal drive to go up 24-10, the Bills scored a touchdown with a 2-point conversion, but they wasted a timeout with one of the worst challenges you’ll ever see. Don’t challenge something so inconclusive that won’t even give you a first down when time is your main enemy in a 2-score game. Don’t challenge something that only brings up 2nd-and-10 with the clock stopped. Make up for it, as the Bills did in 2 snaps, but by the time the Bengals got the ball, they only had 3:32 to burn through with Buffalo down to 1 timeout.

A surprise pass down the field led to a 32-yard gain right way, then the Bengals kept it on the ground with Joe Mixon and he beat Von Miller to the marker on a 3rd-down run to end the game. The Bills trailed by double digits on each of their last 5 drives, which isn’t that different from the playoff loss last year where they trailed by double digits on 7 of their final 8 drives.

Buffalo seems to bring out the best in this Cincinnati team as Burrow again had a great game with 348 yards as Tee Higgins (110 yards) took over on a quiet night for Ja’Marr Chase (4 catches for 41 yards). The Bengals didn’t run it well this time (17 carries for 50 yards) but they at least put the game away on the ground.

It may not sound like much at 24-18, but the Bengals led wire to wire and controlled the game from the start. This is what they do in big games in Cincinnati. They score 19-to-27 points and they allow 16-to-27 points almost every time, and they get the big turnovers in clutch moments like they did again with the Kincaid forced fumble.

No playoff team has dropped more than 27 points on the Bengals since the 2021 Chiefs in the first meeting of that rivalry, a 34-31 Cincinnati comeback win. That’s 13 straight games holding playoff teams to 27 points. If the best teams the Bengals have played this year make the playoffs again, that could be an 18-game streak when you include the 2023 Browns, Ravens, Seahawks, 49ers, and Bills.

The Bengals play the Chiefs very well, but they look to be even better against Buffalo, and this loss could be a big one now that Bills fall back to second in the AFC East and lose the head-to-head tie-breaker with the Bengals for a wild card spot.

Seahawks at Ravens: Who Is Writing These Baltimore Game Scripts?

Apparently, Lamar Jackson is 18-3 SU against NFC teams, but the spread record (12-8-1 ATS) was nowhere near that strong. Ask anyone who got burned last week by the Ravens (-9.5) in Arizona when they struggled to move the ball and couldn’t hold a big lead late to easily cover the spread.

That Arizona game is going to look even fishier now that it came between two home games where the Ravens absolutely blasted the Lions (38-6) and Seahawks (37-3), who are supposed to be considerably better than 1-win Arizona.

The Ravens either play these absurdly lopsided games, or they puke all over themselves in losses to the Colts and Steelers. It’s frustrating, but when this team is clicking like it was on Sunday, they look like the team I picked to win the Super Bowl before the season started.

This game was a punt fest in the first quarter, but after rookie Jaxon Smith-Njigba bobbled a third-down pass on the opening drive, that was arguably the beginning of the end for Seattle. Gus Edwards scored 2 more touchdowns after a trio last week, Geno Smith turned it over twice in the 2nd quarter, and the Ravens led 17-3 at halftime. Baltimore kept it going with field goals, then blew the game open with Keaton Mitchell breaking a 40-yard touchdown run. I never even heard of him before Sunday. Mitchell finished with 138 yards on 9 carries, further proving how silly it is to spend big resources to find running backs in this game.

Mitchell’s big run was more points than the Seahawks mustered all day as Smith was held to 157 yards passing, and Kenneth Walker had 9 carries for 16 yards in a 37-3 blowout loss.

Even Tyler Huntley came into the game in the fourth quarter and led his team to more points than Geno did, throwing a touchdown pass to Odell Beckham Jr. to keep him happy.

The Ravens, my preseason Super Bowl pick, are a hard team to watch when most of their games are blowouts or sloppy performances. But if they can win at home like this the next two weeks against the Browns and Bengals, they will be in full control of the tough AFC North, and maybe the best team in the whole AFC if the offense can keep this balance.

Look for Jackson to overtake Tagovailoa in the MVP race and be right there with Mahomes and Hurts.

Buccaneers at Texans: The Unexpected Shootout of the Year

On a list of unexpected shootouts in NFL history, this one would have to rank somewhere between Baker Mayfield vs. Derek Carr (2018 Browns vs. Raiders) and Matthew Stafford vs. Brady Quinn (2009 Lions vs. Browns).

Mayfield has been on the losing end of several of these before. Mayfield is the only quarterback in NFL history to lose multiple games when his team scored at least 42 points, and that happened to him 3 times in Cleveland.

Mayfield did his job in this one with Tampa Bay holding multiple 10-point leads, and Mayfield led multiple touchdown drives in the fourth quarter alone, including a great one with 46 seconds left that included a key 4th-down scramble, and he found Cade Otton for a 14-yard touchdown.

But this win was earned by C.J. Stroud, who may have just had the best rookie quarterback performance ever, and who definitely put the team on his back and should run away with the Offensive Rookie of the Year award.

With an irrelevant running game, a Swiss cheese defense, and an injured kicker, Stroud led the Texans back with 470 passing yards, 5 touchdown passes, and no turnovers. The 470 yards are a rookie record, replacing the 433 yards that Andrew Luck had in 2012 against Miami. The only other true rookie to pass for over 400 yards with 5 touchdowns was Stafford against the aforementioned 2009 Browns, but Stroud is the only one to do it without throwing any interceptions.

Let’s leave rookies out of it. Stroud joins Dan Fouts as the only quarterbacks to ever throw for 400 yards, 5 touchdowns, 0 interceptions, and lead a 4QC/GWD. Fouts did it against Joe Montana’s 49ers in a classic duel.

Houston’s injured kicker in the second half led to more adversity as the Texans ended up trying four 2-point conversions. They also let running back Dare Ogunbowale kick a 29-yard field goal to take a 33-30 lead with 8:45 left, and the back nailed it.

But that wasn’t going to hold up as the game winner after Mayfield’s last drive put Houston behind 37-33 with 46 seconds left. The Texans had 2 timeouts left, but what ensued is one of the best game-winning touchdown drives you’ll ever see.

Stroud used both timeouts after 2 completions for 20 yards, then spiked the ball after a 14-yard completion. But the real dagger throw was a 26-yard pass to Tank Dell near the sideline where he got out of bounds with 10 seconds left. The next throw needed to go into the end zone, and Stroud delivered right back to Dell for the 15-yard touchdown strike with 6 seconds left.

The Buccaneers only had time left to fumble the lateral-filled play. Stroud finished with 8 completions of 20-plus yards in a monster performance for a quarterback of any experience level, let alone a rookie.

I’ve been lukewarm on Stroud’s rookie season from a historic perspective, but a game like this moves him up significantly.

Vikings at Falcons: The Joshua Dobbs Game

The other unexpectedly amazing finish on Sunday came in Atlanta. We knew the Falcons allowed Will Levis to have a record-tying debut last week in Tennessee, and we know the Falcons are capable of blowing any game in any situation.

But this was something special. Jaren Hall was starting for Minnesota after Kirk Cousins tore his Achilles, and this rookie also looked sharp early in the game with 78 yards passing in the first quarter. He just missed on a touchdown throw to T.J. Hockenson, but Hall was concussed on a scramble, putting Joshua Dobbs into the game.

Dobbs was just acquired via trade from Arizona this week, and he reportedly had no practice snaps and was only beginning to learn the offense as he was not expected to play in this game. But he had to play, it started really rough with a safety and strip-sack, but once he calmed down and remember it’s just football, he looked like the quarterback we have seen in Arizona this year with the ability to scramble and make things happen.

Dobbs led all runners in the game with 66 yards and a touchdown. He also passed for 158 yards and 2 touchdowns, which is pretty solid production for someone who just joined the team. He also was 1-9 as a starter in his career and 0-5 in game-winning drive opportunities.

But this game went back and forth, and it looked like Atlanta had the upper hand after Taylor Heinicke, starting for the benched Desmond Ridder, led a 79-yard touchdown drive to put the Falcons up 28-24 with 2:08 left.

You don’t expect much from Dobbs here, but again, these are the Falcons. This is what they do. Like how the 2022 Raiders made Baker Mayfield a legend for a night with a 98-yard drive to win the game for the Rams just 48 hours after he joined the team, Dobbs pulled off his own miracle for his first game-winning drive in the NFL.

It came down to a 4th-and-7, and this scramble by Dobbs is one of the best plays you’ll see all season:

Three plays later, Dobbs threw a 6-yard touchdown to Brandon Powell to win the game. The Falcons had 22 seconds and 2 timeouts left, but they couldn’t get into range for Younghoe Koo for a field goal in the 31-28 loss. It was the first blown 4th-quarter lead of the season for the Falcons, but what a way to do it, and against a team you are directly competing with for a wild card spot.

At least Dobbs, who has the highest QBR in Week 9 (86.6), can say he has his moment in the NFL, and he could even end up starting a playoff game as the Vikings are currently the No. 7 seed.

Bears at Saints: Bagent Is Definitely Chicago Material

The Bears actually played a solid game in New Orleans with tight end Cole Kmet showing up big early with 2 touchdown catches, including an incredible grab on a risky pass from rookie Tyson Bagent.

The game was tied at 17 going into the fourth quarter, and that’s when the Saints broke the tie with a touchdown drive that mixed some Derek Carr passes with contributions from Taysom Hill, who technically threw the game-winning 3-yard touchdown pass to tight end Juwan Johnson. With Carr and Hill splitting time on the drive, I ended up giving both credit for the game-winning drive, which is technically the first of Hill’s unique career.

At this point of the game, Bagent had over 200 passing yards, 2 touchdown passes, and 70 rushing yards – numbers that Justin Fields put up in a game just once in his career. But Bagent showed he is perfect for Chicago after he immediately answered the Saints’ drive with a bad interception. The Saints botched the moment by hurrying Carr on a quarterback sneak, which is never a good idea, and he was short and turned it over on downs.

The rest of this game was a mess. Bagent threw another pick in a 24-17 game, the teams traded 3-and-outs, then the Saints missed a 47-yard field goal with 2:26 left as this new kicker (Blake Grupe) has choker written all over him.

Fortunately, the defense forced Bagent into a strip-sack for his 4th turnover to finally wrap this one up to move to 5-4. The Bears are now 1-13 at comeback opportunities under coach Matt Eberflus. It’s uncanny how many of those game-losing drives have ended with the quarterback turning the ball over, but this is why Chicago has the reputation it does.

Rams at Packers: McVay Doesn’t Care for Lambeau

The Rams haven’t won in Green Bay since 2006. Throw in a Matthew Stafford thumb injury that led to Brett Rypien starting, and this felt like a good day for the Packers to end their losing slide. Hell, they even scored a touchdown in the first half, but it would be the only points they had early.

Despite the 20-3 final, this was a 10-3 game going into the fourth quarter when the Rams were stopped on a 4th-and-2 run at midfield. The Rams got the ball right back too, but Rypien was intercepted, and that led to a field goal and 13-3 lead for the Packers. The Rams went 3-and-out, and the Packers put it away with a 72-yard touchdown drive with Jordan Love finding rookie tight end Luke Musgrave for a 20-yard touchdown.

It’s not the kind of win that’s going to change minds in Green Bay, but at least Love was 20-for-26 with no picks. At least we know Matt LaFleur can still beat the Bears and the Rams (at home).

Commanders at Patriots: Dead Last in the AFC

At least some things never change in New England. Somehow, this was called roughing the passer on Washington:

That led to a field goal to give the Patriots a 17-10 lead, which was already built on a short-field touchdown drive after recovering a fumble, and the Patriots intercepted Sam Howell in the end zone to end the first half.

But that’s where the typical New England things ended. The Patriots trailed 20-17 for the entire fourth quarter. It looked like Mac Jones had a completion out past the 40, but Washington challenged rookie Demario Douglas’ 22-yard catch, and it was reversed to an incompletion to kill the drive.

This is where the offense is these days. Relying on 6th-round rookies, the ghosts of Ezekiel Elliott, DeVante Parker, and JuJu Smith-Schuster, and they were even firing bombs to Jalen Reagor on third down on Sunday. The only thing surprising about Jalen Reagor in a Patriots uniform is that Bill didn’t draft him himself.

Later, it looked like Douglas was going to redeem himself with a big punt return to the New England 43, but the Patriots were offsides on the punt, giving the Commanders a fresh set of downs. Again, when do you see these mistakes on special teams from a Belichick-coached team? Happening a lot these days.

Jones and the offense eventually got the ball back with 2:07 left, but they were at their own 9. The drive reached the Washington 41, but that’s when Jones’ pass for JuJu went off the receiver’s hands and was caught for a game-ending interception. The throw was totally fine.

While the quarterback position continues to fail the new Patriots, so does most other positions, especially the wide receivers. This team needs a multi-year rebuild, which sounds like the job of a young coach to me. Maybe one that will let a general manager do their job and the coach does their job of just coaching.

The Patriots (2-7) are dead last in the AFC.

Colts at Panthers: The Worst Day Yet for Carolina Fans

In hindsight, the Panthers holding C.J. Stroud and the Texans to 13 points last week for their first win feels like a miracle given what these teams did in Week 9. After Stroud had an incredible game against Tampa Bay, that raised the bar again for what Young, the No. 1 pick in the draft, needed to do against a Colts team that has been bleeding points this season.

The result was terrible as the Panthers scored 3 points halfway through the third quarter, and Young ended up throwing a pair of pick-sixes to Kenny Moore to lose 27-13 at home. The Panthers wasted a defensive effort that saw them hold the Colts to 3.5 yards per play. Indy’s streak of being the only team to score 20 points in every game this season likely ends if the Carolina offense did not give up 2 touchdowns, including that awful one right before halftime.

Even Adam Thielen was a non-factor this week with 5 catches for 29 yards. Young took 4 sacks and threw 3 interceptions. It was an embarrassing loss for coach Frank Reich, who was facing his former team with rookie coach Shane Steichen getting the decisive win.

The Colts (4-5) are still alive while the Panthers (1-7) have to play this Thursday night in Chicago in a game no one really wants to watch.

Giants at Raiders: Post-Nut Clarity in Vegas

Finally, a Week 9 game that played out almost to expectations. The Raiders got that post-firing of Josh McDaniels bump and played their best game of the season by finally scoring 30 points, all on offense with Aidan O’Connell leading three 60-yard touchdown drives to start the game.

Josh Jacobs lost out on a 100-yard rushing game with his last carry in the 30-6 blowout, but he scored twice. Davante Adams was still quiet (4-of-7 for 34 yards), but at least he caught more than 1 ball this week. The Raiders also kept O’Connell clean with no sacks and no turnovers, something Jimmy Garoppolo was unable to do in a game this season.

But it certainly helped to be playing the Giants, who lost Daniel Jones to potentially a torn ACL. Backup Tommy DeVito was sacked 6 times and picked twice in a big game for the defense.

We’ll see how interim coach Antonio Pierce fares against better opponents, but he at least was able to do things with this team that McDaniels had not in the first half of this season.

Cardinals at Browns: The 2000 Ravens Would Be Proud

We may never get confirmation from a whistleblower that the 2023 Cardinals tanked the season, but we have circumstantial evidence they are doing it:

  • Letting DeAndre Hopkins walk
  • Cutting Colt McCoy in late August
  • Bringing Joshua Dobbs in late in camp to be your Week 1 starter
  • Blowing a 28-7 lead at home in the third quarter to the Giants, one of the only teams that is garbage enough to finish with a worse record than this talent-less Arizona roster
  • Making Dallas your unfortunate patsy to prove you are trying to win
  • Slow roll Kyler Murray’s return to action from a torn ACL, which is typically a 9-month recovery that has gone about 10.5 months for him (and counting)
  • Trade Dobbs for peanuts to Minnesota at the trade deadline
  • Start rookie Clayton Tune, which sounds like the banjo kid from Deliverance, in a real game in Cleveland

That latest move led to a 27-0 loss that should have been predictable, yet it was still somehow worse than imagined. Clayton Tune finished 11-of-20 for 58 yards, 2 INTs, took 7 sacks for 41 yards, and he finished as Arizona’s leading rusher with 5 carries for 28 yards.

Tune is just the 5th quarterback since 1960 to take 7 sacks and throw for fewer than 60 yards on at least 20 pass attempts. Bobby Douglass did it twice for the Bears in 1969 and 1971. Dan Darragh did it for the 1968 Bills against the Raiders, and Bill Nelsen had such a game in 1965 for the Steelers against the Cardinals. Tune is the only one of the 5 to be shutout.

The Cardinals had 7 first downs, were 1-of-12 on third down, and they had 58 yards of total offense. It’s going to add to some incredible stats for the Cleveland defense in 2023, but it is hard to take this defense at face value given some of the opponents faced, including this gift from the Cardinals.

It reminds me of the 2000 season when the Ravens had those fantastic numbers on defense, and so did the Titans who were playing largely the same schedule in the old AFC Central. But those Ravens legitimized their run by doing it in the playoffs too, and the Browns will have to answer in those big games when they see Lamar Jackson and the Ravens again next week, and when Joe Burrow, who they have owned in the past, gets another shot with a healthier calf.

That’s to say nothing of a potential playoff run for this team, which now sits at 5-3. There hopefully won’t be any quarterbacks like Clayton Tune in the postseason. It was bad enough we had Tyler Huntley and Skylar Thompson in last year’s tournament.

Next week: The Week 10 schedule is legitimately horrific. Just look at the prime-time games for starters: Panthers-Bears on TNF, Jets-Raiders on SNF, and Broncos-Bills on MNF. If that’s not bad enough, there’s another Sunday 9:30 a.m. game with Colts-Patriots. You couldn’t find a worse island game schedule. It gets worse. The Chiefs, Eagles, Dolphins, and Rams are on a bye week. The big games are 49ers-Jaguars, Browns-Ravens, and I guess Texans-Bengals looks a lot more attractive than it did any other week this season.

Just save your money for Week 11.

NFL Week 8 Predictions: No Bye Weeks Edition

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

I’m not sure why, and I’m not complaining, but there are no NFL teams on a bye week in Week 8, which is usually right in the thick of the byes. Instead, we have all 32 teams in action and they still somehow picked one of the worst prime-time slates possible, and I would have said this back in April.

I’ll try to get through Bucs-Bills later without swearing too much, but I really hope Bears-Chargers, a Sunday night game between the league’s two No. 14 seeds, somehow delivers a great game. It seems like those games everyone expects will suck sometimes turn out to be one of the best games that week. Hell, it might even produce more points than Dolphins-Eagles did last week if the Bears show up to take advantage of that Brandon Staley defense.

But yeah, it’s not a schedule worth hyping. That will come next week when we talk Dolphins-Chiefs.

This Week’s Articles

Why Are NFL Quarterback Sacks At a 25-Year High? – My story this week is on sacks, which are at their highest rate since 1998 and we can mostly blame Sam Howell and the Giants for this. But there are other issues like too many inexperienced, mobile quarterbacks, not enough quality offensive linemen, and a long list of great pass rushers.

NFL Week 8 Predictions

That fourth quarter in Bucs-Bills almost ended my days of gambling. Even though I knew early on it was going to end 24-18 so I’d lose both bets ($1600), the way it happened with that ridiculously long, 4th-down filled, penalty filled, tipped and deflected TD and 2PC for 8 point drive was a masterclass in the universe fucking me over. It is enough to probably make me leave out the spread/MOV in these island games. You just can’t trust these teams. Give me props and unders instead this season.

I think Eagles win easy after going to OT with the Commanders to start October.

I really like the Jaguars as I think the Steelers, the lesser team, are due for a loss, and that defense can force this bad offense into multiple turnovers. Only wild card is if Trevor Lawrence gets overwhelmed with quick pressures by T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith, because the Jacksonville OL does allow that. But if Lawrence has protection, he should shred this secondary with those receivers, and I like Kirk more than Ridley.

Just got a hunch Derek Carr plays his best game in Indy. I’m done with that offense if he stinks in this one.

Got multiple links above to explain my Houston upset by Carolina pick. It’s time. Not only is Carolina winless, but the Cardinals are the only other team who doesn’t have 2 wins already. You can’t tell me this team has been that bad. I also don’t buy Houston as a playoff team yet. Give me Carolina, the team that’s lost 56 straight games when trailing in the 4th quarter. Maybe that finally ends this week too.

Got a 24-20 feel for Rams-Cowboys.

So it’s Will Levis at QB for the Titans? Maybe Malik Willis and Will Levis? Man, will DeAndre Hopkins ever score a TD this year? I like him to, but I’m going to take the Falcons cautiously.

Battle of New York is a better under bet than anything, but I feel like Tyrod gives them a better shot than Daniel Jones would. Either way, feels like the game most likely to end in a push (decided by 3), so I took Giants ATS just in case. But the Jets do have the better defense. I just trust Zach Wilson even less than Taylor in the battle of backups.

Patriots usually bomb in Miami. Might have been a week early on a big Waddle game (100+ and a TD)

I feel like Kirk Cousins and the Vikings are the better team than Green Bay right now, but that’s not really a game I’d bet on for the scoreboard. Check my Scott’s Seven link above for the parlay idea on Cousins & Love.

Browns-Seahawks might be my least confident game of the week. Staying away from it.

Also probably staying away from Bengals-49ers with Brock Purdy’s concussion uncertainty. Generally want to fade a QB coming off a concussion. But I can see a game where the Bengals lose by 3 points after the 49ers finally figure out how to win a close one.

Big spreads the rest of the way but we know the Ravens and Chargers are capable of making any game close. Hell, you could say that about the Chiefs, and I still believe the Broncos have a close one in them this year with that team. That’s why I like Chiefs win by 1-13 more than either team +/- 7.5.

  • Ravens by 11 (Zay Flowers TD)
  • Chiefs by 7 (Pacheco TD)
  • Chargers by 3 (Keenan Allen and D.J. Moore over 80 yards each)
  • Lions by 10 (Gibbs TD/100+ RYD)

A praying mantis visited my kitchen door today. Some believe they are supposed to bring good luck. Let’s hit something huge this weekend.

They owe me after that horseshit Tampa Bay TD drive. WTF? Even Brady didn’t have anything like that in 3 years down there.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 4

~ Scott ~ 17 Comments

Rarely do we get such instant context on games from the previous week, but Week 4 was dishing it out early:

  • Miami scoring 70 points on Denver made more sense after the way the Broncos were making Justin Fields look like an all-time great until he inevitably choked away another game in the fourth quarter.
  • Not only did the Bills hold Miami to 20 points, but they gave up 3 points last week to a Washington team that scored 35 in Denver and 31 in Philadelphia.

That Buffalo defense is special even without Von Miller, and the Bills are looking like top dog in the AFC again, which must mean it’s October. This is the time of year we see them go into Kansas City, win the game in impressive fashion, and reach the peak of their season before coming up short in the playoffs. That’s exactly what happened in 2021 and 2022, but this year’s Buffalo trip to Arrowhead will have to wait until Week 14 after their bye.

A lot can change between now and then, and Sunday was a good reminder of how injuries are impacting this season. Still, some teams put up spirited fights outside of one of the worst 4:00 p.m. slates in recent memory. But the only fourth-quarter lead change in Week 4 happened in Chicago, and only 6 games featured a comeback opportunity this week (Week 3 had only 7).

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Dolphins at Bills: Game of the Ye-Yeah It Turned into a Blowout

After last year’s trilogy of meetings were decided by 8 points, a 48-20 rout was definitely a surprise here. But Buffalo’s performance was both a triumph and statement that this is still one of the best teams in the league with a level of balance that Miami simply does not have yet.

The Bills scored on 8 of their first 9 possessions and stopped Miami from scoring on 8 of their last 9 possessions. This one started with the look of an epic shootout as the teams exchanged touchdowns on the first 5 drives. But Buffalo never trailed, nor did it leave any real opening for Miami to seize. Josh Allen was fantastic, completing 21-of-25 passes for 320 yards and 4 touchdowns.

Stefon Diggs caught 3 touchdowns, and there was no better display of how far Miami has to improve defensively than his 55-yard touchdown that had abysmal tackling attempts by Miami defenders. That started to blow the game open at 28-14, then Raheem Mostert lost a fumble and the Bills led 31-14 at halftime.

An interception thrown by Tua Tagovailoa in the third quarter may have been the beginning of the end as the Bills turned that short field into another touchdown and 41-20 lead. The Bills sacked Tua on a 4th-and-1 on the ensuing drive, though unfortunately that was the play where corner Tre’Davious White tore his Achilles. He tore his ACL on Thanksgiving 2021, so that is two of the worst injuries in the last three seasons.

But the Bills did a fantastic job on defense even without Von Miller available. Miami’s longest play in the first three quarters was 22 yards. So far, it has been the division rivals (Bills and Patriots) who have held this offense to 20-24 points while the AFC West hacks (Chargers and Broncos) were lit up for 36 and 70 points.

But Miami’s offense will be great this year. The defense is where the team seems to be coming up well short of championship aspirations. The Bills are playing great on both sides of the ball now, and in hindsight, it’s not that surprising they would dominate this game as they usually controlled play against Miami last year too.

Just have to stay in control of the turnover battle, which is probably good advice for any Buffalo game. But props to the Bills for delivering a great performance against a team coming off a historic one.

Chiefs at Jets: I Lack Any Taylor Swift Reference Knowledge

Sunday night proved to be an awkward 23-20 game after it looked like the Chiefs were ready to blow this one apart with a 17-0 first quarter. But the officials were not going to allow this to turn into Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth trying to make Taylor Swift jokes for 2 hours, so they botched a face mask penalty in the end zone for a safety, then made up a horse collar tackle while ignoring a New York face mask on another drive that ended with points for the Jets.

Patrick Mahomes was also charitable with two of the ugliest interceptions of his career, and the Jets only trailed 20-12 at the half. They tied it one drive into the third quarter, and it was a stretch where Zach Wilson actually looked like a legitimate starting quarterback.

In fact, some would say Wilson outplayed Mahomes, a thought more taboo than the pornography Wilson almost certainly favors. Things are very close in QBR with Mahomes (66.3) barely edging out Wilson (65.9) in Week 4.

But Wilson cost himself there when he fumbled in the fourth quarter at midfield after the Chiefs took the lead on a field goal. The Jets were driving and looking good, but Wilson got frazzled on a solid snap and lost the ball. The Chiefs pounced on it at the New York 47 with 7:24 left, and then they put together a fairly impressive drive that managed to drain the rest of the clock.

Despite the picks, Mahomes’ QBR was as high as it was because he was the most impactful rushing quarterback of the week. Just as he did in the title games last postseason, Mahomes used his legs to put the opponent away. On a 3rd-and-23, Mahomes scrambled for a 25-yard gain.

Later on another 3rd-and-20 after penalties, Mahomes looked to have thrown his third interception, but it was wiped out by a defensive holding penalty on Sauce Gardner. Last year, Sauce was getting away with a lot of contact as if he was a 5-year veteran in his prime. I never understood why that was happening, but they seemed to unfairly go after him here on a play with marginal contact. He did get a little grab on Valdes-Scantling, but it didn’t seem to affect the play much. This was a more egregious call than the 3rd down in the Super Bowl that allowed the Chiefs to run the clock down for the game-winning field goal.

The refs giveth and the refs taketh away. It was just one of those nights for the officiating. The Chiefs still had work to do and they were converting more third downs. On a 3rd-and-8, Mahomes used his legs one more time by running for 9 yards. He could have easily scored a touchdown to hit the over and perhaps cover the spread, but the smart football play (the only thing that matters) was to go down and end the game. By scoring, you give New York hope with a chance to score, recover an onside kick, and score again. The Browns screwed up a game last year to the Jets when Nick Chubb scored a touchdown in a situation where he should have slid at the 1 like Mahomes did. It’s not worth it when you can end the game with knees and not risk injury to your defensive players.

Very smart play by Mahomes on what was really a bottom 5 kind of night for his career. But the support from the run was there with Isiah Pacheco rushing for 115 yards. The defense showed a lot more cracks this week, but it had a strong start and finish to the game.

But I think you have to take these results with some caution for the Chiefs. If Wilson and the Jets can push them like this, what can a Buffalo or healthier Baltimore team do in the playoffs to them? The lack of wide receiver production is going to be a problem when they run into the teams who can really score, which would also include the NFC contenders (Eagles, Cowboys, and 49ers).

Commanders at Eagles: A Different Kind of Philadelphia Win

Figures, I thought the Eagles were ready to start rolling after a good win in Tampa Bay last week while the Commanders were destroyed against Buffalo. But division games can be tricky, and it was only a year ago when the Commanders shocked the Eagles in Philly as a 10.5-point underdog.

Washington was trying to do it again with an early 10-point lead, and they were doing well at moving the ball on third down and getting the ball out of Sam Howell’s hands quicker this week.

But the ingredient Washington was missing from a remake of last year’s upset were the 4 turnovers by the Eagles, who had none on Sunday. In fact, it was one of Jalen Hurts’ best passing games as he had 319 yards and 2 touchdowns with both scores going to A.J. Brown, who was in rare form with 175 yards.

Brown scored a late touchdown to give the Eagles a 31-24 lead, though he was penalized for taunting after it. The Commanders were able to drive 64 yards for a touchdown, but they stopped shy of going for a 2-point conversion and the win with no time left. What ever happened to Riverboat Ron? It was always a big lie, but this would have been an ideal spot for the underdog to go for the win. Isn’t that the kind of moment you hire a coordinator like Eric Bieniemy for?

So, that was disappointing for Washington. The Commanders went three-and-out in overtime. The Eagles showed their mastery of the QB sneak with a 4th-down conversion at midfield, and they drove into range for Jake Elliott, who was good from 54 yards out to spare us another NFC East tie.

If you’re the Eagles, I think you are a little concerned at how well Washington moved the ball, and how your running game (27 carries for 104 yards) was relatively contained. But this kind of win is good for the Eagles, who don’t want to just be another front-runner who only wins the easy games. They came back from 10 down, they did it without a big running game and Hurts did it using his arm late in the game.

Broncos at Bears: The National Embarrassment Bowl

With the way the Broncos and Bears played last week to start 0-3, this game ending 31-28 did not come as a surprise. The fact that one team would blow a 21-point lead would also not surprise much.

But for Chicago to blow a lead at home like that after getting this kind of stat line out of Justin Fields? That was a bit shocking. This went from the darkest moment in Sean Payton’s history to a victory.

The Denver defense absolutely has problems. The Broncos only faced 6 possessions by the Raiders in Week 1, which concealed some flaws in the defense. More was exposed when Denver blew a 21-3 lead against Washington at home in Week 2. Then of course the Broncos allowed 726 yards and 70 points in Miami last week.

But to allow Justin Fields to go into halftime completing 16-of-17 passes for 231 yards, 3 touchdowns, and a perfect passer rating? Absolutely disgusting defense. It continued into the third quarter too when the Bears added another touchdown to make it 28-7. But Russell Wilson was not playing poorly, and he was able to lead a 75-yard touchdown drive. The Bears punted, and Denver was soon back in the end zone.

Then the stunner happened. On a first down at midfield, the Bears tried to pass and Fields coughed up the ball under pressure for a fumble that was returned for a game-tying touchdown with 6:55 left.

To his credit, Fields made a 20-yard scramble on a third down to extend a drive that reached the Denver 18 with 2:57 left. But instead of kicking a field goal, the Bears went for the first down and were stuffed. I’m not sold on that decision as the Broncos had enough clock stoppages to get the ball back.

Wilson immediately found rookie Marvin Mims for a 48-yard catch, and that was enough to set up Wil Lutz for a 51-yard game-winning field goal. But Fields had 1:46 to answer the field goal. This is the situation he found himself in numerous times last year and they failed at them. Despite his earlier success in this game, this time was no different. Fields was hit with a grounding penalty and then threw a game-ending pick 2 snaps later.

Fields is now 1-13 (.071) at fourth-quarter comeback opportunities in his career. The closet quarterbacks I know to that terrible record are Seneca Wallace (2-12) or Josh McCown (6-37).

The Broncos may still be terrible and in the running for the worst defense in the 21st century. But at least they are not worse than the Chicago Bears.

Bengals at Titans: Cooked?

Was I impressed by Cincinnati’s win on Monday night against the Rams? No, but I was even more worried about the Titans after their lifeless performance against Cleveland last week. I really thought the Bengals would grind out another close win in Tennessee like they did in the 2021 playoffs and 2022 regular season.

But boy did the second quarter put an end to that idea. The Bengals continued to be in their offensive funk as the unit never had a play longer than 17 yards on the day. Joe Burrow was susceptible to pressure on his bad calf, and the Titans were suddenly lighting it up on offense. The Titans quickly strung together touchdown drives of 78, 73, and 80 yards to take a 24-3 lead into halftime. Derrick Henry even threw another touchdown on a trick play to end the run.

The Bengals moved it 72 yards for a field goal on the opening drive, then had next to nothing for the rest of the game. Tee Higgins left with fractured ribs, which did not help.

This game was basically over at halftime. With the Bengals at 1-3, you wonder just how far away we are from declaring their season a wrap too. This team looks cooked.

Ravens at Browns: Fish in a Barrel

The Ravens came into this game as an underdog with an embarrassingly long injury report. However, it ended up being the Browns who were home underdogs after late word that quarterback Deshaun Watson was out to go along with Nick Chubb’s season-ending injury. The Browns had to rely on rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson.

It went about as well as you’d expect it to for a 5th-round rookie in his first start against a veteran team like Baltimore and coach John Harbaugh. DTR was 19-of-36 for 121 yards, 3 interceptions, and 4 sacks. The Browns were 4-of-16 on third down and managed a single field goal on 12 drives.

The Baltimore defense caught a huge break with Watson and Chubb out. The offense had its hands full with a dominant Cleveland defense, but the one name not on that injury report was Lamar Jackson, who accounted for 4 total touchdowns and completed 15-of-19 passes for 186 yards. Mark Andrews was also active and had 80 yards with 2 touchdowns. Rookie Zay Flowers caught a 43-yard bomb on a 2nd-and-29 conversion.

The Ravens still had some weapons, and most importantly, they had their uniquely skilled quarterback to lead 4 touchdown drives in this 28-3 win.

Tougher tests still to come, but the Ravens look to be in the driver’s seat for the AFC North this season.

Patriots at Cowboys: Belichick’s Biggest Loss Ever

Bill Belichick was coaching his 498th game on Sunday, but this was the first time he ever lost by more than 31 points. The 38-3 loss is indeed the biggest loss of Belichick’s career, replacing the 31-0 season opener against the 2003 Bills.

Dallas was dominant in multiple phases following last week’s upset loss in Arizona. But this game also showed that Mac Jones is not it. Hell, this pick-six shows he is just not a franchise quarterback:

Jones was benched for Bailey Zappe after it was 31-3, but I’m not sure where Belichick can go from here. His roster is so underwhelming and top defenders like pass rusher Matt Judon and rookie corner Christian Gonzalez left the game injured.

Again, the Jets may end up being the only saving grace for the Patriots and why they won’t finish last in the AFC East this year. But if Sunday’s outcomes are any indication, the Jets may still end up finishing ahead of New England in 2023.

Cardinals at 49ers: McCaffrey’s Day

The 35-16 final is probably going to conceal that the Cardinals (+14.5) were again competitive with a team far above their talent level this year. San Francisco was so efficient with Brock Purdy completing 20-of-21 passes that it was hard to get possessions in this game.

The Cardinals went three-and-out on their opening drive, but of their other 6 possessions, they had multiple first downs on all of them and moved the ball well. They just did not finish enough drives in the end zone, and their only turnover on downs came with 7 seconds left in a 19-point game.

But the 49ers showed again how their elite talent can just take a game over. Christian McCaffrey scored 4 touchdowns and had 177 yards from scrimmage. Brandon Aiyuk returned after missing last week and caught 6 passes for 148 yards. On a day where George Kittle had a 9-yard catch and Deebo Samuel never even had a target, the 49ers showed they can run their offense through essentially two players.

Just the other day I looked at the best offensive performances in NFL history. Oddly enough, the 49ers just came very close to being high on that list. Maybe they should for what they did with so few possessions. The 49ers are the third team to have one incomplete pass in a game on more than 20 attempts.

But this game was close to perfection when you consider 2-of-8 drives for the 49ers were taking a knee to end each half. Of their 6 real drives, they had 5 touchdown drives (62, 75,75, 75, and 77 yards) and their only stop was in the third quarter when a sack of Purdy blew things up and the 49ers failed to convert 3rd-and-24.

So close to perfection.

Rams at Colts: The Legend of Puka Grows

It was odd to see this game as a pick ‘em on Saturday night. I felt pretty confident in picking the team with the Super Bowl-winning coach and quarterback over the rookies, and more than that, you had Aaron Donald going up against an interior line combo named “French Fries” at center and right guard.

It was all Rams at 23-0 halfway through the third quarter, but I have to give Anthony Richardson and the Colts credit for hanging in there and tying this game up. Richardson only completed 11-of-25 passes, but he made some timely throws and runs to lead his team back.

Unfortunately, the job wasn’t finished. The Colts went three-and-out with all incompletions by Richardson after they got the ball back in a 23-23 game with 1:32 left. The game ended up going to overtime, which is where the Rams won the coin toss, received, and never gave the ball back after Matthew Stafford found Puka Nacua for a game-deciding 22-yard touchdown, the rookie’s first score of his career.

Nacua has been an unbelievable story with the best 4-game start by a rookie receiver in NFL history. The Cooper Kupp injury has certainly helped open opportunities for him, but it is exciting to think about what this duo can achieve together when they get out there at the same time.

Good job by the Rams to get back to .500, but blowing such a big lead to an inexperienced team is part of the reason why expectations are still a bit low for McVay’s team. But I also found what the Colts did encouraging as last year they were the team that would have blown the 23-0 lead and lost the game.

Buccaneers at Saints: Baker’s Feeling Dangerous

The Buccaneers enter their bye in first place in the NFC South with a 3-1 record. Their 26-9 win in New Orleans snapped the Saints’ 11-game streak of not allowing more than 20 points, which had not been done since the 2013-14 Seahawks.

Getting this type of production from Baker Mayfield in a game where Mike Evans left with a hamstring injury is impressive. I always felt that Mayfield could outplay Tom Brady’s 2022 performance, but I never thought the defense would have his back, or that they’d find as much luck in close games.

But the Buccaneers controlled this game, and in all seriousness, Mayfield’s legs and willingness to scramble are a huge bonus for this offense that it did not have with a 45-year-old quarterback who was tired of being hit last season. Mayfield finished 25-of-32 for 246 yards, 3 touchdowns, and the 26 points were easily the most the Bucs have scored in a road game in the last two seasons. Mayfield’s 69.0 QBR now ranks No. 7 in the league, and he was one of only two quarterbacks above 90.0 in Week 4. Nice.

As for the Saints, maybe Derek Carr needed to rest that shoulder for a week, because 23-of-37 for 127 yards passing is nasty work. In fact, it’s historic as the 127 yards are the fewest anyone has ever had in a game with exactly 23 completions.

But the culprit for this low total was Carr completing 13-of-14 passes for 33 yards to running back Alvin Kamara, who made his season debut after serving a 3-game suspension. Carr’s first game with Kamara was downright historic but for all the wrong reasons:

  • Kamara had 13 catches for 33 yards with a long of 10 yards.
  • Before Kamara, no one ever had at least 13 catches for fewer than 71 yards in a game.
  • Before Kamara, the fewest yards for anyone with at least 10 catches was 34 yards by running back Jamel White in 2002 for the Browns against the vaunted 2002 Buccaneers.
  • Brian Westbrook once had 12 catches for 46 yards against the 2006 Titans, which was the only other time someone had fewer than 50 yards on at least 12 catches.

It looks like Kamara had a success rate of 6-of-13 on his catches, which is better than expected but still not great. It’s 4-of-13 if you go with the standard of needing 45% of yards on first down instead of 40%. Kamara had catches that lost 7 and 6 yards, which are the plays that dragged his numbers down the most.

The Saints have been struggling on offense all season, and facing a familiar division foe did not help here. But if Mayfield can keep this up, then Tampa Bay may still be the best team in the NFC South.

Vikings at Panthers: Not Even Regression Could End Carolina’s Streak

Carolina is now the only team that has not had a lead in the fourth quarter this season. I really thought the Panthers would end their 53-game streak of losing when trailing in the fourth quarter. The stage was set with the Vikings leading 21-13 and a whole quarter to go.

But while rookie Bryce Young had better passing stats (25-of-32 for 204 yards), he took 5 sacks and some big hits on the day that hurt the offense, which only chipped in two field goals. Carolina’s only touchdown was thanks to a 99-yard pick-six thrown by Kirk Cousins. But Cousins also threw two touchdowns to Justin Jefferson, who was held to 85 yards this week.

It was an odd game as Carolina held the ball for 38:29 but never found the end zone on offense. By my research, this is the most time of possession in a game that a team has ever had without scoring an offensive touchdown. The only other team in modern history to hold the ball for at least 35 minutes without a touchdown was the 2012 Colts (37:32) in a 24-9 wild card playoff loss to the Ravens in Baltimore.

I also have the Panthers as the only team in NFL history to hold the ball for more than 38 minutes and score fewer than 17 points. Just a weird game.

But props to the Minnesota defense for shutting the door twice in the fourth quarter, making those long drives by Carolina meaningless without any points. The Vikings sacked Young on 3rd-and-8 at the Minnesota 35 on the first attempt, which led to a punt. The final drive saw the Panthers with a 1st-and-goal at the 9, but Harrison Smith ended up sacking Young twice on the final 4 plays, including a game-decider on 4th-and-18. Smith finished with 3 sacks as the Vikings were again not afraid to blitz with Brian Flores calling the shots. Smith should probably win a Defensive Player of the Week award for this performance, which also saw him sack Young in the third quarter, which produced a go-ahead fumble return touchdown.

The pressure on Young led to Minnesota’s first win of the season. Cousins was once 0-29 to start his career in games where he had a passer rating under 85.0. He is 7-3 ever since and leave it up to the Panthers to allow the Vikings to get by in a close game again.

Falcons at Jaguars: Hide Desmond Ridder’s Passport

There was no way I was getting up early to watch this one. When I did wake up (still earlier than usual), it was already 10-0 Jacksonville before Desmond Ridder threw a pick-six to make it 17-0 in the second quarter.

I saw this unfold live on the Disney+ app, so I was watching the Toy Story version of this game. Since I did not have the real game to compare it to, I cannot say how great it was, but I thought the technology was very interesting and impressive that they could do this on the fly with a delay of only a minute or so from the live action. I’d hate to watch a more important game like Bills-Jaguars or Dolphins-Chiefs in this format, but for some turd like Falcons-Jaguars, it was a fun little experiment. I did notice some ball carriers glitched badly in their animation in the fourth quarter.

But nothing was worse than the Atlanta offense, which has 13 points over the last 8 quarters as we are getting more evidence that Ridder simply is not the guy for the job. He is still young and inexperienced, but the Falcons have some questions to answer like how backup tight end Jonnu Smith can have 6 catches for 95 yards in this game – numbers Kyle Pitts has put up in only 3-of-31 career games for Arthur Smith.

I can only imagine what it was like to be a Falcons fan and get up early to watch this mess:

Raiders at Chargers: It’s Never Easy with This Team

Can the Chargers ever just win a normal game without making it look so hard? Even on a day where they drew rookie quarterback Aidan O’Connell and Khalil Mack sacked him 6 times, the game still was hanging in the balance in the final minutes.

Part of it was an uncharacteristically poor passing game by Justin Herbert, who had his first game with multiple touchdown runs, but he took some shots from the Raiders and injured his hand. That did not help matters with the passing, but it was wild to see Herbert struggling so much on a day where the defense and running game showed up despite Austin Ekeler, Derwin James, and Joey Bosa all out with injuries in addition to Mike Williams, who tore his ACL last week.

But I’m seriously getting annoyed with the volatility in the results we are seeing from offensive coordinator Kellen Moore.

  • Week 3 at Vikings: Herbert had a career-high 40 completions and 405 passing yards
  • Week 4 vs. Raiders: Herbert had a career-low 13 completions and 167 passing yards

Talk about regression to the mean. Herbert was barely over 100 yards before he hit a 51-yard dagger to Josh Palmer with 1:51 on a 3rd-and-10 to finally ice the 24-17 win.

It shouldn’t have been this hard but the Chargers struggled to put the Raiders away. Vegas scored a touchdown to make it 24-17 with 3:59 left. Herbert was still running and giving it all despite the hand taped up, and he nearly pulled off a great 3rd-down scramble. That set up 4th-and-1 at the Los Angeles 34 with 3:34 left. When I’m facing a rookie quarterback that’s taken so many sacks like O’Connell did, I’m punting there. Brandon Staley decided to go for it, and the Chargers botched the quarterback sneak again with Herbert getting stopped short.

Why give an unproven quarterback such a short field as an advantage? Davante Adams made a spectacular catch on 4th-and-10 to put the ball at the 3-yard line. Chargering was about to do it again. But on the very next snap, O’Connell reminded us he was a rookie and threw a bad pick to Asante Samuel Jr., who inexplicably went down at his own 11 with 2:33 left instead of returning that pick for a touchdown like his father surely would have. Some suggest Staley was signaling for Samuel to go down, but that is unclear on the video.

That mistake could have come back to bite the Chargers, but Herbert’s perfect pass to Palmer was the final dagger in this one. I still find it very hard to trust the Chargers with this coach and game management, and we know Mack just had his biggest game as he only shows up to stick it to the Raiders these days. But the Chargers are back to .500 even if that only puts them at 11th in the conference right now.

Steelers at Texans: AFC Is Passing Pittsburgh By

You probably have to go back to the 2000 season, the days of Kordell Stewart, to find the last time I watched so few live snaps in a Steelers game. That was the last year where I did not spend my entire Sundays watching football as I was a wrestling fan back then.

I just couldn’t be bothered to care about this game while more interesting ones were on the RedZone channel. Pittsburgh’s offense continued to be terrible and unwatchable, and the defense was also picked apart by a Kyle Shanahan disciple (Bob Slowik) who likely loved what he saw in the Week 1 tape between the 49ers and Steelers.

Right now, the Steelers look like a team that can only scrape by teams with quarterbacks who will make enough dumb mistakes against them like Deshaun Watson (Browns) and Jimmy Garoppolo (Raiders) did. Otherwise, they’re getting their ass kicked by 23-24 points this year.

But there’s nothing more defining for the Matt Canada era than what happened late in the third quarter. Pittsburgh’s offense had done nothing all day, but Najee Harris made a few impressive efforts on runs and catches to give the team a chance. Instead of going to Harris on a 4th-and-1, the Steelers call a shotgun pass and it ended with Kenny Pickett getting sacked on the play that injured his knee. The severity is unknown, but it is possible he avoided a season-ending torn ACL.

But it’s still an awful outcome for this team as they need to get as much of the evaluation on Pickett as they can this year before deciding what to do in 2024 at quarterback.

Meanwhile, C.J. Stroud looks like the real deal for Houston after another 306 yards, 2 touchdowns, and no picks. He also took 0 sacks despite playing behind a makeshift line. Add Houston to the list of 12 or 13 AFC teams that have a better quarterback situation than Pittsburgh right now. I also wasn’t familiar with Nico Collins’ game before the season, but he looks like a legitimate No. 1 wide receiver, which have killed Pittsburgh’s defense every week. Collins had 168 yards and 2 touchdowns in this one.

The Texans are right in the thick of this AFC South race. The Steelers look like a team that will only continue to slip in the conference until major changes are made. Mike Tomlin said changes are coming, but at some point the criticism is going to have to fall on him for not having this team prepared on either side of the ball.

The Steelers rarely would lose games in this fashion. But the 30-6 loss in Houston is the 6th time in the last 29 games where the Steelers lost by more than 21 points. They had 6 such losses in all of 1998-2020 combined (23 seasons).

No wonder my viewing habits on Sundays are changing. The standard is not the standard anymore.

Next week: We go from one Game of the Year to another in the NFC with the 49ers hosting Dallas on SNF. The Jaguars are also staying in London to play the Bills in what should be a better game than the Atlanta one. I’m already not looking forward to the Steelers playing Baltimore in what could be another game between the two where a backup quarterback is starting. Not like Mitch Trubisky is a downgrade from Kenny Pickett, of course. Finally, Arizona has a chance to do the once unthinkable and put the Bengals in a much better position for the No. 1 pick in the draft than anyone could have imagined.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 1

~ Scott ~ 20 Comments

In framing the 2023 NFL season as the year of uncertainty, I at least thought there would be more points in Week 1. Only a fantastic, back-and-forth game between the Chargers and Dolphins saw both teams score more than 21 points this week. If the Jets-Bills game on Monday night does not do that, then it will be the first time since 2008 that Week 1 had just one game where both teams surpassed 21 points.

Forget points. What about seeing more teams with 200 net passing yards? Many quarterbacks failed to pass for 150 yards this week, making it feel like a trip back several decades on Sunday. The sacks in many games contributed heavily to the low yardage.

There were 18 teams that failed to hit 200 net passing yards in Week 1 with one game to go. That’s almost half the total from the last 4 seasons combined for Week 1 (35). It is the most since 19 teams did it in 2008.

There were 11 quarterbacks with a QBR under 30.0, which is more than the last two seasons combined (10) in Week 1.

These performances suddenly make Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs (minus Travis Kelce) look not so bad in Thursday night’s loss against Detroit. Hell, the Bengals just lost 24-3 in Cleveland. If the Bills lose on Monday night, that would be 0-3 for the top teams in the conference.

While the AFC has the better quarterbacks and deeper pool of contenders, the NFC elite just may be the three best overall teams in the NFL. They were flexing early on Sunday too:

  • The 49ers led 20-0 in Pittsburgh before winning 30-7
  • The Eagles led 16-0 in New England before hanging on 25-20
  • The Cowboys routed the Giants 40-0 in New York

That was a combined 76-0 start for those teams before they allowed any points. We’ll see how the Jets and Bills look Monday night, but this was a great week for the NFC’s best teams and a lot of question marks for the many AFC contenders.

Maybe these teams need to start going back to playing more starters in the preseason games. Things were looking rather sloppy in a lot of these games. Eagles coach Nick Sirianni already said he’ll reevaluate their preseason approach next year.

Glad the NFL is back but this was not that memorable of an opening weekend. I predicted Chargers-Dolphins would be Sunday’s top game, so hopefully my prediction for Jets-Bills being an instant classic works out too. In all, 9 games this week had a comeback opportunity, which is pretty normal. However, not a single team came back from a double-digit deficit to win, which happened at least once every week last regular season when 50 teams did so (NFL record).

Dolphins at Chargers: Game of the Week

After writing 6,750 words for a week I just said wasn’t that memorable, I saved the best game for last, and yet I don’t have that much to say about it. What can you say about a shootout with so many lead changes where neither team ever led by more than 7 points? It’s great.

After arguably the worst passing game of his career against the Chargers last year, Tua Tagovailoa had what I think is the best passing game in his NFL career on Sunday. He passed for 466 yards and 3 touchdowns, and he made some really stellar throws in big spots.

Of course, Tyreek Hill was also spectacular with 215 yards and 2 touchdowns, including the game winner on a perfect throw with 1:45 left. That put the Dolphins up 36-34 after the extra point failed, which should have been a huge deal, but new coordinator Vic Fangio’s defense made sure it wasn’t.

As for the Chargers, it was an odd game offensively that also reversed the script from last year’s 23-17 win over Miami when Justin Herbert had a career-high 39 completions. This time, Herbert only attempted 33 passes while the Chargers rushed for 234 yards, only the third time in the Herbert era they have rushed for 200 yards.

The first game with Kellen Moore as offensive coordinator produced great rushing results, which is exciting to think about the potential from when this team is not playing a passing game that can be as lethal as speedy Miami.

But for all the good things the Chargers did, there were some Chargering moments that caught up with them.

  • After tying the game with 9 seconds left in the first half, the Chargers let Miami get off two big passes, and J.C. Jackson was penalized 30 yards for defensive pass interference on the second one, leading to a 41-yard field goal with no time left as Miami took a 20-17 lead into the locker room.
  • Even when Jackson tried to redeem himself with his first interception in a Chargers uniform in the third quarter, he returned it from 5 yards deep in the end zone, sticking his offense at their own 4 instead of a touchback. That led to a three-and-out (nearly a safety on a Herbert sack) and set up a 35-yard field for Miami’s offense, which instantly struck with a Hill touchdown after he burned Jackson (eventful day).
  • Down 36-34 with 1:45 left, the game-winning drive attempt quickly went to waste after Herbert was penalized for intentional grounding on what looked like a busted play. He was then sacked to bring up 3rd-and-29, got a chunk, then took a game-ending sack on 4th-and-12 after Fangio sent heat.

Game over. The Chargers join the 1963 Vikings (against Johnny Unitas’ Colts) as the only teams in NFL history to score at least 34 points, rush for 200 yards, and have zero turnovers in a home loss. Teams are now 165-2 when they do those things in a game.

The Chargers technically blew another one, but Miami was worthy of winning this game. Tua and Hill were as good as ever. In a sea of bad games, this was a spectacle you had to see.

49ers at Steelers: The Preseason Is a Lie, Part I

While I did like the Steelers as an upset pick, there was a thought in my mind all week that their preseason results are going to blow up spectacularly in their face this September. Watch them go from scoring 5 touchdowns on 5 possessions with the starting offense in August to being one of September’s lowest-scoring teams.

Sure enough, the Steelers played awful football and only managed a touchdown drive before halftime in a 30-7 loss, the biggest margin of defeat at home in Mike Tomlin’s career.

It took the Steelers six possessions before they could even get their initial first down. By then, they were already down 20-0. Brock Purdy looked outstanding and had the week’s highest QBR (91.3). His chemistry with Brandon Aiyuk looked stronger than anything the Steelers had going with Kenny Pickett and his receivers.

This game also was a great reminder why no defensive player should ever seriously be in MVP consideration. T.J. Watt was an absolute beast with 3 sacks and 2 forced fumbles, nearly stealing a ball from Purdy in the first half. But his contributions aside, the Steelers were crushed on defense with Christian McCaffrey breaking a 65-yard touchdown run behind some key blocks just 2 plays into the third quarter. The Steelers never put up a real fight after that knockout punch.

Pickett was sacked 5 times and threw just 1 touchdown on 46 attempts as that continues to be a struggle for him. Watching Purdy make a cut on a 3rd-and-12 scramble to convert for a first down had me chuckling that this guy could go last in the draft and the other guy was the first quarterback off the board. It was a total mismatch from the first snap.

So, the burning question: Are the 49ers this good or are the Steelers this bad? Time will tell, but this should be a wake-up call for the Steelers at how far they have to go to get back to being Super Bowl contenders. Last year, the Steelers were annihilated 38-3 by Buffalo and 35-13 by Philadelphia, two Super Bowl contenders like the 49ers look to be again. Otherwise, the Steelers were in all other games last year. But when they face a legitimately elite team, they really don’t stand a chance yet.

The AFC North race can turn on its head next week when the Ravens face the Bengals and the Steelers host the Browns, who held Cincinnati to 3 points. These teams could do a 180 in those division games, but if the Steelers can’t score against Cleveland either, then the “Fire Matt Canada” chants will get louder and louder.

But on Sunday, the Steelers had far more issues than just their offensive coordinator. I wouldn’t push the panic button on the streak of non-losing seasons coming to an end, but the preseason is a lie, and we should really stop paying attention to it.

Eagles at Patriots: Good Enough to Lose Close

Similar to the Cowboys-Giants game later Sunday night, it looked like the Patriots were going to get run out of their building because they couldn’t stop turning the ball over in the rain. Mac Jones was off on a pass that was deflected and returned 70 yards for a touchdown. Then Ezekiel Elliott christened his New England debut with a fumble on the next play, giving the Eagles a short field and another touchdown for a quick 16-0 lead.

Didn’t it used to be the Patriots who took over games like this? But the weather improved, and so did Jones’ accuracy. He threw some of his better passes of his career in this game, and the Patriots were back in it, down 16-14 at halftime.

It was a strange game for the Eagles. It took a long time for Jalen Hurts to break 100 passing yards (finished with 170). The running game was nowhere near as dominant as it usually is in the first game without Miles Sanders. Dallas Goedert did not have a catch.

The Patriots mostly outplayed the Eagles (382-251 in yards, 24-17 in first downs), but those pesky turnovers that have hurt them in so many games like this since 2020 were decisive again.

Still, the Patriots continued to hang around even after the Eagles led 25-14 with 5:33 left. Jones threw another touchdown to Kendrick Bourne, but a crucial 2-point conversion run by Jones was wiped out for a holding penalty. The end of this game looks much different if it was 25-22 instead of 25-20, because the Eagles were not able to close things out. Hurts immediately fumbled on the next play, which sounds like the New England we used to know. But the Patriots went four-and-out after a sack blew up the drive.

The Eagles again failed to end it after Hurts was incomplete on a 4th-and-2 pass at the New England 44 with 1:57 left. That set the stage for Jones, who was doing well until rookie Jalen Carter recorded his first NFL sack. A failed completion set up a tough 4th-and-11 at the Philadelphia 20. Jones threw a solid pass to the sideline to sixth-round rookie Kayshon Boutte. The initial TV angle made it look like a conversion, but the instant replay showed he clearly did not get both feet down. I’m not sure how the sideline judge blew that one, but replay got it correct, and the game was over. Another one-score loss for Belichick against a team that is likely still a top contender.

Jones is 1-9 (.100) at 4QC/GWD opportunities, the worst record among active starters (min. 10 games). This was one of his better attempts, but the end result was still another loss. For the coach who could seemingly do no wrong in games like this – this is Belichick’s 100th career loss in a game with a game-winning drive opportunity – the Patriots are only good enough now to lose close games against teams like this.

Cowboys at Giants: The Walking Dead

When the Giants lose, they at least leave no doubt who the inferior team was. If you thought the 38-7 playoff loss to Philadelphia was bad, the Giants basically knocked themselves out with a 16-0 first quarter in the rain against Dallas on Sunday night.

It was so bad I took a power nap in the second quarter and started watching the Daryl Dixon spin-off series for The Walking Dead universe at halftime. The Giants were fine for about 5 minutes, then they were hit with a false start, a fumbled snap, and a blocked field goal that was returned for a touchdown.

Later, Daniel Jones tried a short pass to Saquon Barkley on a 3rd-and-19, and he was popped, releasing the ball and that too was returned for a pick-six. This meant light work for the Dallas offense as Dak Prescott, who is 11-0 against the Giants since 2017, only threw for 143 yards on 24 passes. Jones ended up taking 7 sacks as the Cowboys looked incredible on defense. The Giants had 5 fumbles in the rain but were fortunate to only lose 1. The Cowboys protected the ball much better.

I think we already knew from last year that there was a gulf between these teams with the Cowboys and Eagles outscoring the Giants 78-7 over the last 8 quarters of meaningful action. But this was still a shockingly one-sided performance. The Giants are just the 12th team in the Super Bowl era (1966-present) to lose by 40 points in Week 1. They are the 5th team to lose by a shutout of at least 40 points.

Dallas is my NFC Super Bowl team, so I’m cool with that after one game. But the Giants unfortunately will be in prime time in 3 more games by Week 6, including trips to the 49ers and Bills.

I guess I’ll just have to find more TV shows to watch at halftime.

Bengals at Browns: $500 Million for These Quarterbacks?

You have to love the battle of Ohio this decade:

  • Since 2020, Browns coach Kevin Stefanski is now 6-1 against Bengals coach Zac Taylor, including a 5-1 record in games against Joe Burrow, who just signed the biggest contract in NFL history at $55 million per season ($275M total).
  • Stefanski always gets big quarterback production against the Bengals except for the last two games when Deshaun Watson was his starter, who is supposed to be his best quarterback after the Browns gave him a record deal worth $230M fully guaranteed.
  • On Sunday, these quarterbacks played in a game with 29 combined drives and just one drive gained more than 45 yards.

Burrow and the Bengals had a rough Week 1 loss against the Steelers last year too when he turned it over 5 times and took 7 sacks. But at least the Bengals eventually moved the ball in that one and would have won the game if not for an emergency long snapper situation botching two game-winning kicks from short distance.

This was just brutal as Burrow, who had a calf strain in preseason, finished 14-of-31 for 82 yards. He was sacked twice – Myles Garrett took him down on a 4th-and-4 in the fourth quarter – and the Bengals were 2-for-15 on third down. Cincinnati saw enough of Burrow and benched him with 5:15 left while still keeping Ja’Marr Chase and Joe Mixon in the game with the starters. Mixon’s 22-yard run in the second quarter was the only Cincinnati play that gained more than 12 yards. Burrow was 0-for-8 on passes to Tee Higgins.

Was the calf that bad, should Burrow have sat out and waited to face Baltimore next week, or does Cleveland just own him? Time will tell what exactly happened here, but this was a shockingly awful performance.

Burrow is just the 8th quarterback to throw more than 30 passes and gain no more than 82 yards:

  • Paul Christman (1945 Cardinals at Lions): 7/36 for 80 yards
  • Jack Concannon (1969 Bears vs. Lions): 12/35 for 79 yards
  • Dieter Brock (1985 Rams at Bears, playoff game): 10/31 for 66 yards
  • Stan Gelbaugh (1992 Seahawks vs. Eagles): 9/31 for 66 yards
  • Kordell Stewart (1998 Steelers at Dolphins): 11/35 for 82 yards
  • Chris Weinke (2001 Panthers vs. Jets): 12/34 for 76 yards
  • Ryan Lindley (2012 Cardinals at Jets): 10/31 for 72 yards

Rough company. The Browns did not fare great through the air themselves, but anything looked better than Cincinnati’s effort. The Browns rushed for 206 yards with Watson (45 yards and a score) doing some of his best work with his legs.

We’ll see how the Bengals respond to this, because things are not getting any easier with Baltimore coming to town for a big showdown.

Buccaneers at Vikings: Close-Game Regression Begins

And so, it begins. After going 11-0 in close games and 8-0 at 4QC/GWD opportunities in the 2022 regular season, things were going to catch up with Kevin O’Connell and the Vikings this year. It only took one game against Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers, but they finally lost a close game in the regular season too under O’Connell.

Justin Jefferson was still great with 150 yards, and rookie teammate Jordan Addison had a 39-yard touchdown to make a name for himself early. But Alexander Mattison did not fare well in replacing Dalvin Cook as he was held to 44 yards on 14 touches. The offensive line had a rough start with Cousins losing a fumble on an aborted snap and strip-sack. Cousins also had a big red-zone pick before halftime in a 10-10 game, a sour note on a half where he threw for 273 yards.

As the Vikings showed us in 2022, the margins between winning and losing can be razor thin in the NFL. Last year, things usually went right for the Vikings in tight games. This time, they were offside on a field goal that led to a first down and a touchdown pass from Baker to take a 17-10 lead.

While the Vikings tied things up to put themselves in line for another 4QC, the offense went three-and-out on its last two drives. The last one was short-circuited quickly by a 4-yard loss on a completion to tight end T.J. Hockenson, who had 8 catches for only 35 yards.

Props to the Buccaneers for being aggressive. They went for a 4th-and-1 at their own 32 in a tied game, and Baker converted on a sneak. The drive eventually stalled, but Chase McLaughlin made a clutch 57-yard field goal to take a 20-17 lead with 5:10 left.

The Buccaneers scored 20 points on the road one time all last year, and that included a pick-six in New Orleans. In one start with Baker replacing Tom Brady, they did it Sunday in Minnesota. But it was Baker’s legs again finishing the game in the 4-minute offense after he scrambled for a first down on a 3rd-and-3. Three plays later, Chris Godwin made a nice catch to convert 3rd-and-10 and ice the win.

I’m not sure the Buccaneers can win many more games with this offensive output, but this remains the formula for the team. Just keep it close into the fourth quarter. This won’t be the last time the 2023 Vikings drop one of these games they would have won last year.

Raiders at Broncos: Sean Payton Matches Nathaniel Hackett’s Debut in Score But Not Hilarity

No teams played more close games (15 each) or blew more fourth-quarter leads last year than the Raiders (6) and Broncos (5). Sure enough, they were in another tight game as neither team led by more than 7 points.

But just like Nathaniel Hackett a year ago, Sean Payton lost his opener with Russell Wilson at quarterback by a 17-16 final. At least this time the offense was getting the plays in on time at the goal line, and they did not try to win the game on a 64-yard field goal.

However, the results and some execution were still underwhelming. If you can name the most famous call of Payton’s career in New Orleans, you would pick the surprise onside kick in Super Bowl 44. To make an immediate impression on the Denver crowd, the Broncos started the season with a surprise onside. It would have worked if not for an illegal touch penalty, so the Raiders had a short field to score a touchdown to start the game.

The reason this 17-16 score is way different from last year’s loss in Seattle is that this was a very offensive game with a combined 13 possessions between the two teams. One of those was a kneeldown by the Raiders with 12 seconds left to get to halftime, so it was really 6 possessions per team for a total of 12 drives, a massive outlier. In fact, it might be the fewest possessions in a game in NFL history. The one I used to always point to for that was 2006 Colts at Texans, but that had 13 total possessions that weren’t kneeldowns. Raiders at Browns in 2020 also had 13 possessions.

Mistakes get magnified in a game like this with so few possessions. The only two complete drives in the third quarter saw the Broncos miss a 55-yard field goal and Jimmy Garoppolo made his only big mistake with a red-zone pick as Denver led 13-10.

But the Broncos settled for another field goal to lead 16-10, and Garoppolo did his thing on a 75-yard touchdown drive to take the lead with 6:34 left. Jakobi Meyers caught his second score on the day.

Wilson was not terrible with the 6 drives he had, but usually when he completes 27-of-34 passes, you expect more than 177 yards. Fittingly, a failed completion ended up being the offense’s last snap as an 8-yard gain on 3rd-and-11 was not enough to convert. Denver punted and the Raiders had 5:08 to burn, hanging onto a 17-16 lead.

The Raiders blew these games time after time last year, but this could be an area where Josh McDaniels trusts Garoppolo more than he did Derek Carr. On a big 3rd-and-8, Garoppolo went back to the hot man in Meyers, and he was tackled short on a nasty hit that would have brought up 4th-and-1 at midfield.

I have to say I understood where the defender (Kareem Jackson) was coming from there. If he doesn’t hit Meyers hard, the Raiders convert, and the game is all but over. It had to be a significant hit to stop his force short, and it was just an unfortunate collision that left Meyers down for some time. But he was able to get up and should be okay, thankfully. I’m just not sure what the defender can do better in that split second as he was just trying to save the game, not injure anyone.

The penalty for the hit gave the Raiders a first down. On a 3rd-and-7, Garoppolo showed some good patience and scrambled for 8 yards to ice the game and hand Payton a 17-16 loss in his first game with Denver, possibly a game with the fewest possessions in NFL history.

The Broncos tie the Raiders for the most blown fourth-quarter leads since 2022 with 6 a piece. We’ll see how things go with Wilson going forward, but the lack of possessions did produce a misleading final score. Still, it was a case of Denver coming up short again with this quarterback (no pun intended).

Packers at Bears: The Old Familiar Sting

Silly me. I thought early in the week that the Bears and Packers would play a fun, exciting game where both young quarterbacks played well, signifying a new beginning after decades of the Packers walking over this team with Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers. Then once I saw that Christian “String Cheese Ligaments” Watson was out and Romeo Doubs was questionable, I changed my pick to the Bears, the team I spent the most time researching why they likely won’t have a good year as some thought.

Sure enough, the Packers rolled them 38-20 in Chicago. Those big YAC plays the Bears had in the preseason that I said wouldn’t translate to the real games, the Packers had a few of them in this game as Aaron Jones went off for 86 receiving yards on 2 catches. He finished with 127 yards from scrimmage and 2 touchdowns to lead the Packers.

Jordan Love was solid in his first Week 1 start, but I would say his stat line (15-of-27 for 245 yards, 3 TD) was one of the more misleading ones in Week 1 because of the YAC. But he did a good job.

Justin Fields technically had one of his better passing lines (24-of-37 for 216 yards), but he still took 4 sacks, and he threw a pick-six that was an awful throw turned into a touchdown by an incredible effort from Quay Walker on defense. The Bears were down 24-6 with a minute to go in the third quarter before they finally found the end zone, so it was not a good game for this unit again.

It was bad for both sides of the ball, which was my whole issue with Chicago. How does a team that ranked dead last in passing and defense get so much better without making a change at quarterback, head coach, or either coordinator? Oh, Fields was 2-of-2 for 25 yards to D.J. Moore. The question is why not more targets? Moore had as many targets as Chase Claypool, who finished without a catch.

Will be interesting to see where these teams go from here, but Sunday was that old familiar sting of the Packers beating the Bears and looking better off at quarterback in the process.

Jaguars at Colts: Encouraging Signs from Both Teams

For the first time in 12 meetings, the home team did not win in Jaguars vs. Colts. But division games can be unpredictable, especially in Week 1. My research early in the week on this game showed that since 2009, Week 1 road favorites in division games were 5-22 ATS and 9-16-2 SU – truly abysmal records.

But I still went with the Jaguars, and frankly, the Colts should have covered. It was not the kind of performance I would say is repeatable for the Colts, because they scored a ridiculous fumble touchdown after many players gave up on the play thinking it was an incomplete pass, and tall receiver Michael Pittman Jr. scored a 39-yard touchdown on a WR screen. Not the kind of play you’d expect from him.

But Anthony Richardson, the “raw” prospect in the draft behind more polished, accomplished passers Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud, had the best debut among the three rookie quarterbacks on Sunday. Richardson was 24-of-37 for 223 yards and that screen touchdown. He did take 4 sacks but only lost 8 yards on them. He also rushed for 40 yards and a touchdown, and he probably would have ran for a second to cover the spread late in the game if he didn’t pull up injured. It will hopefully be nothing serious.

For the Jaguars, they had some shaky moments, but Trevor Lawrence was able to lead the game-winning drive after falling behind 21-17. Calvin Ridley lived up to the hype in his team debut, catching 8 passes for 101 yards and a touchdown. But the teams were a combined 5-for-24 on 3rd down, keeping it a close game for most of the way.

Richardson threw his only pick right after the Colts fell behind in the fourth quarter, which is the kind of rookie mistake you expect. Without Jonathan Taylor, the Colts had no running game besides their rookie quarterback. Deon Jackson turned in an epic trash performance with 13 carries for 14 yards and a pair of lost fumbles. Even his 5 catches only produced 14 yards.

If they can work something out with Taylor and get Jelani Woods healthy at tight end, Richardson will have a more formidable offense around him. But I think after the season the Colts had with Jeff Saturday, looking semi-competent against the division favorite was a respectable job by coach Shane Steichen.

Let’s see how these Jaguars fare when they get a chance to drop the Chiefs to 0-2 next week.

Texans at Ravens: Pour One Out for J.K.

Not sure how much you can really say about Baltimore’s 25-9 workmanlike win over Houston. The defense only forced rookie C.J. Stroud into one turnover, but they also did not let him find the end zone. In his debut in Todd Monken’s new offense, Lamar Jackson did not have an MVP-caliber start to his season with 4 sacks and no touchdown passes or runs, but the connection to rookie Zay Flowers was already looking good (9-of-10 for 78 yards).

The Ravens avoided a close finish with a rebuilding Houston team, but injuries continue to be a problem. They already played this game without corner Marlon Humphrey and tight end Mark Andrews, and they lost top running back J.K. Dobbins to a torn Achilles. It is a brutal blow to a young back who already has a broken fibula (college) and torn ACL (2021) in his past. The Ravens also may have lost safety Marcus Williams to a torn pec (results pending).

This team, my Super Bowl pick, just needs to stay healthy because there is a path for them in this AFC. They will be in Cincinnati next Sunday in a big one with a chance to drop the Bengals to 0-2.

Rams at Seahawks: The Other Embarrassing NFC Wild Card Team Loss on Sunday

Just to recap, earlier this summer I was all in on picking the Rams and Seahawks to swap places in the NFC West this year. The Seahawks had to come back in the fourth quarter twice to sweep the Rams last year, Geno Smith is usually bad at comebacks, and the Rams did not have their 3 best players in either game. It was that close to both teams finishing 7-10.

But the Seahawks won those games, made the playoffs as the No. 7 seed, and I still wasn’t feeling them this year and predicted a losing record. But the Rams’ roster shocked me when I realized how many people they were missing as it really is a team where Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp play catch while Aaron Donald lines up with 10 NPCs. Then Kupp landed on IR and I couldn’t even name the receiver Stafford ended up dominating with in one of the more surprising final scores this weekend.

I really thought this game was either Seahawks win by 17 or Rams win a close one this time. But the second half reversal was stunning as the Rams outscored Seattle 23-0 after halftime. It wasn’t a dominant ground game either as the backs finished with 37 carries for 81 yards (3 short touchdowns too).

Stafford looked healthy and vintage with 334 yards passing, including 119 yards each to two receivers you wouldn’t count on to do that (Puka Nacua and Tutu Atwell). I never even heard of Nacua, a 5th-round rookie, until Sunday.

Almost as importantly, Stafford was never sacked. That was a huge problem for the Rams last year when they were dealing with elite fronts in bad losses to the Bills, 49ers, and Cowboys. But against the Seahawks, Stafford was clean and dealing. Meanwhile, Geno passed for 112 yards for the entire game, continuing the late-season slump from 2022.

Sean McVay has gotten the best of Pete Carroll for years now, but without a healthy Stafford last year, he couldn’t finish the job in those losses. I’m not sure the Rams can sustain this when they play non-division games, but it was an impressive road win to start the season when many felt this team was heading to a race with Arizona for the bottom of the league.

But Seattle may have its own share of issues to deal with this season.

Panthers at Falcons: Bijan Robinson’s OROY Campaign Starts Well

The top quarterback (Bryce Young) and top running back (Bijan Robinson) in this year’s draft met as rivals for the first time. Not surprisingly, the one playing the easier position had the better day in a 24-10 win as Robinson’s first touchdown saw him break 3 tackles. It was not a play many backs in this league would make, so again, I concede the Falcons for being one of the only teams in a league who could justify drafting him at No. 8. At least we know they’ll use him.

But were they already using him too much? Robinson had 13 touches on the team’s first 28 plays. He actually finished with fewer touches than Tyler Allgeier (18 to 16), who scored a pair of touchdowns and led the team with 75 rushing yards. But wide receiver Drake London had no catches on 1 target and tight end Kyle Pitts only had a couple of catches for 44 yards. Desmond Ridder was 15-of-18 passing but for only 115 yards. They seem to be hiding him just as much as they did Marcus Mariota last year.

We’ll give the young offense time to grow, but I think the reason you end up in a 10-10 game going into the fourth quarter with Carolina is the lack of passing and the points that come in the passing game. The Falcons were also 2-of-10 on third downs. But a 21-yard run by Bijan, by far his best running play, set up Allgeier for the game-winning touchdown to break a tie with 14:12 left.

The Panthers have now lost 51 straight games when trailing in the fourth quarter, including an 0-30 record at 4QC opportunities (down 1-8 points with the ball).

Young did not have a good debut, finishing 20-of-38 for 146 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT. Safety Jessie Bates had a strong debut for Atlanta in making both picks. Young said after the game he needs to see the depth of the safety better, and hopefully that’s not an inference to his height being a factor in not seeing that. But he definitely had a tough job without DJ Chark available, and no passing offense in 2023 should be trying to go through tight end Hayden Hurst, who had a team-high 7 catches and caught Young’s first NFL touchdown pass.

A 16-yard scramble in the third quarter was Young’s longest play of the day. There should be better days ahead, but for now, this was the result Atlanta wanted. Bijan looking good and the defense taking advantage of a limited, inexperienced offense.

This is how they win in the NFC South this year.

Titans at Saints: Derek Carr Has a Defense, Take 1

This game and Broncos-Raiders were the easiest calls for games that were going to be decided by 1-8 points this week. But the expected low-scoring battle was even lower with the teams trading field goals.

Derek Carr made his Saints debut, and this really is the ideal setup for him. A soft division where he can be the best quarterback, solid weapons, a real defense for a change, and a shockingly easy schedule. Keep the games close and he can pull out several close wins to get this team a home playoff game in January.

The first test passed, but he did have some bad moments like a pick before halftime in scoring range, which maybe was karma for getting away with what looked like a fumble return touchdown on an earlier field goal drive.

But Ryan Tannehill was not doing himself many favors in keeping the calls for rookie Will Levis quiet. Not only did he toss 3 interceptions, but he missed some big plays down the field too.

Despite trailing 16-9 going into the fourth quarter, the Titans kept settling for field goals. You can definitely question Mike Vrabel on the last one as he went for a 29-yard field goal on a 4th-and-6 at the 11 with three timeouts left. With the offense struggling to move the ball, why not just take that chance for a 6-yard gain when you’re already deep in the red zone? Maybe you convert and go on to take the lead with a touchdown. If you fail, you still have the 4 clock stoppages to get the ball back, and even with the field goal, you still need to force a 3-and-out (or turnover) to get the ball back in a 16-15 game.

Vrabel is usually aggressive, but after going a league-worse 0-6 in 4QC/GWD attempts last year, maybe he is just getting conservative. All I know is the Titans remain a defense that is great at stopping the run and forces you to throw a lot against them. The Saints took advantage on a 3rd-and-6 when Carr had Rashid Shaheed, an underrated and underutilized weapon last year, running wide open for a big 41-yard gain. The throw and catch both could have been a little better as Shaheed’s momentum carried him out of bounds to stop the clock, and he almost didn’t control it with two feet in. But big play there.

On a 3rd-and-4 to ice it, the Saints broke one of their only good runs of the day, but Jamaal Williams had the ball knocked out after he was past the sticks. Fortunately, the bounce went the Saints’ way, and they were able to kneel out the clock.

We’ll need to see some more points on the board from this offense, but if Michael Thomas can stay healthy with Chris Olave, they seem to have a trio here now with Shaheed finishing with 89 yards and a touchdown.

Carr was 3-48 with the Raiders when he failed to score at least 17 points, so this 16-15 win is unfamiliar territory for him. We’ll see how often they do things like this in 2023, because the rest of the division did not show a lot of scoring prowess on Sunday either.

Cardinals at Commanders: The Preseason Is a Lie, Part II

To conclude the week and the reminder that the preseason is a lie, Washington was the other team I let myself get tricked by based on August results. Some of my favorite prop picks and parlay builders all week were Sam Howell over 1.5 touchdown passes (+154), Jahar Dotson touchdown, and Dotson going over 43.5 yards (or whatever it was) in a comfortable, 7-point cover for the Commanders at home against lowly Arizona.

But none of it worked out. The Commanders barely got the win, needing a strip-sack from Josh Dobbs – he seems to have an issue with these – to set up a short, 29-yard field going into the fourth quarter with the team down 16-10. Howell scrambled for the go-ahead touchdown, then the defense finished the job the rest of the way as Dobbs had 3 fumbles (2 lost) in the game.

But I thought this was setting up perfectly for Howell to shine against this defense and generate all those headlines about how the Chiefs miss Eric Bieniemy as their offensive coordinator when the reality is they miss Travis Kelce and having any wide receiver who can catch a ball.

This was not good, because I thought they would attack Arizona with short, decisive passing, yet Howell showed his inexperience and took 6 sacks, including a brutal fumble for a touchdown where he was trying too hard. The run game only averaged 3.3 yards per carry too.

The Commanders got the 20-16 win, but this should have been a layup instead of a struggle. If this is how they are going to play Arizona, then I am already having some regrets going with 7 wins for Washington. Arizona may also win more than 2 games if that defense can keep up the pass rush.

But it is only Week 1 and teams shake off bad starts all the time. The only problem is we used to have some assurance that they would bounce back when it was Aaron Rodgers having a brutal game (2021 vs. Saints), the Patriots melting down in the Miami heat, or the Saints losing a shootout in the Superdome on opening day.

As the great Michael Irvin once said, we’re losing recipes.

We are dealing with a lot of new coaches and quarterbacks around the league. Rookie quarterbacks were 0-3 and new coaches were 0-5 on Sunday. Some of them are going to figure it out, and some showed their true colors on Sunday.

Strap in as this is going to be another odd season.

NFL Stat Oddity: 2022 Wild Card Weekend

~ Scott ~ 3 Comments

Much like those Burger King commercials tossing “You rule!” at the end, I pretty much feckin’ cringe when I hear “Super Wild Card Weekend.” So, I couldn’t bring myself to call it that in the headline, but it was a great weekend of games.

Even with several backup quarterbacks and plenty of playoff inexperience, every team showed up competitively for at least three quarters. Every team except the Chargers, who only showed up for two.

Just four weeks ago, we had the largest comeback in NFL history, which I did a big story on for the Vikings. Twenty-eight days later, we had the fifth-largest comeback win in Jacksonville. The wild card round is now home to three of the five biggest comebacks in NFL history, all from a deficit of 27-plus points.

But the 49ers’ rookie quarterback did something we hadn’t seen since 1937, the Chargers cemented their legacy as the Falcons of the AFC, the Bills are the only team capable of making the No. 7 seed look like it belongs, the Giants ended another historic NFL winning streak, and Joe Burrow willed his defense to the longest fumble return touchdown in playoff history (and maybe the most significant one ever).

Oh yeah, there were also a shitload of bad third-and-1 calls in every game as teams don’t seem to understand how important possession is in the postseason. Between the third-and-1 calls and the turnovers, there is a lot to go over here.

This season in Stat Oddity:

Cowboys at Buccaneers: Not with a Bang But a Whimper

So, was that it? We were fooled last year, but the Rams loss was really such a perfect game for Tom Brady to end his career with. But he just had to come back for this, an 8-10 finish with the worst offense of his career and an embarrassing home playoff loss in a 31-14 game that wasn’t even that close.

This letdown of the week against Dallas was so forgettable that I’m not even going to bother creating a separate link to cover it. I’ve just pasted it at the top of the week’s recap after 2 A.M. Hard to believe a playoff game with Brady, Mike McCarthy, and Dan Quinn could be this dull.

First, we were treated to five minutes of neither team looking like it could gain a first down. But once Dallas broke through with a touchdown, Brady had a long drive to answer going into the second quarter. After a weekend that was so competitive and dramatic, this was a wire-to-wire win that had one moment of competitiveness.

Then it was over in an instant after Brady forced a brutal pass from the 5-yard line and it was intercepted in the end zone, his first red-zone pick with the Buccaneers. What a time to make it.

The Cowboys drove 80 yards from there and Dak Prescott finished with the naked bootleg for a 1-yard touchdown run on a fourth down. He would also throw his second touchdown of the half to tight end Dalton Schultz, but kicker Brett Maher missed all three extra points in the half as Dallas led 18-0.

The Bucs looked terrible, but this rope-a-dope strategy has been their bread-and-butter all year. They had to make a run in the second half, right? Well, the Cowboys were still hot in the third quarter with another 86-yard touchdown drive to take a 24-0 lead that wasn’t 28-0 because Maher somehow missed four straight extra points.

It appears Gisele was the one with the dark magic, because Brady only seemed to have time to make a voodoo doll for Maher, his only source of luck in this game. According to Elias, Maher’s four misses are the most missed extra points in any game (regular season or postseason) in NFL history, and he did it on four in a row.

It’s still a nice addition to the list for the LOAT in maybe his final game, but this was a snoozer with no real drama in the second half.

From the ESPN broadcast, we learned that Tampa Bay was 3-for-59 (5%) on third down with 10+ yards to go this season, the worst by any offense since 1980. Throw in 0-for-5 in this game and that’s 3-for-64, one of my favorite new stats.

The Bucs would not go scoreless as Brady finally found Julio Jones, who looked as good as he did all year, for a 30-yard touchdown on the third quarter’s final play to make it 24-6.

But any hope of a wild fourth quarter was quickly put to rest by Prescott, who was money on the night. Bypassing a fourth-and-4 because of how bad Maher was, the Cowboys used a bunch formation and somehow got CeeDee Lamb wide open for an 18-yard touchdown, Dak’s fourth of the night to go along with 305 yards and a rush touchdown. Just by far his best playoff game, and the kind of performance you want to see from a 12-win team against an 8-9 fraud.

Brady had three more drives after that, and he got a touchdown on the second one. The Bucs also recovered an onside kick, just the fourth in the league this year, at the 2:00 warning, but it was too late by then. Mike Evans even dropped a long touchdown on one of the few good Brady throws of the night just to fvck my last bet.

It was amusing to not look at the stats once during this game and only check them after it was over. Brady finished with 66 passes but only 351 yards. Brady is the only quarterback in the Super Bowl era to throw 65-plus passes in a game and score fewer than 17 points. George Blanda once threw 68 passes in a 24-10 loss against the 1964 Bills in the AFL.

Home games where Tom Brady’s team trailed after all four quarters:

  • New England: 6-for-162 (3.7%)
  • Tampa Bay: 8-for-27 (29.6%)

The problems for the Bucs were the same they were all year in their worst moments. They were one-dimensional, they were ineffective on first down, seemingly every second down was a WR screen, and a dump pass to the running back was their best play. The deep shots were almost all bad, and Brady threw countless passes into the dirt as Micah Parsons and pass rush ate well against that line.

Dallas did just about everything very well but special teams. On the bright side, at least Maher made the extra point on his fifth try, so hopefully he will get that out of his system for next week in San Francisco. That’s where Dallas is headed after finally winning its first road playoff game since the 1992 NFC Championship Game in San Francisco. This is a way better matchup than having to watch Brady and this putrid offense against a team they trailed 35-0.

As for Brady’s future, he’ll have to decide that. I’m not sure this season could be any clearer that he should have never ended his retirement after 40 days. The 49ers aren’t going to want him when they have three better options in 2023. Any team he goes to is going to have to be stacked and in win-now mode, and there are almost none of them out there that don’t already have their quarterback.

Will he really think going to the AFC West at 46 years old, with the Raiders and Josh McDaniels, and dealing with Mahomes and Herbert (and maybe Russell Wilson with a good coach again) is a good path to get to the Super Bowl again?

The NFC South is still his safe haven, but this Tampa team is poorly coached and not good enough anymore to go on a deep run.

The same can be said of Brady, who without a Jared Cook fumble in New Orleans two years ago likely never gets out of the divisional round in the last four years. No matter where he goes to play next, they are going to be dealing with an old quarterback who doesn’t want to get hit anymore, doesn’t hold the ball to extend plays, doesn’t give you the rushing threat almost every starter has these days, and he’s going to throw passes in the dirt and bitch his teammates out on a weekly basis while looking miserable.

Even Michael Jordan knew better than to give the Wizards a third season or a third NBA team his services. Tom, just hang them up, and take the god damn FOX money so you can still be an annoying part of our NFL Sundays.

Ravens at Bengals: Clutch Defense to the Rescue for the Offensive Team Again

It is starting to get unfair, isn’t it? The young, offensive-driven team with the franchise quarterback, three great wide receivers, solid backs, a marginal offensive line, and a coach you still would struggle to pick out of a Costco cashier lineup is now 4-1 in the playoffs.

And once again, they used a clutch takeaway on defense with the game tied and the odds stacked against them.  

From the 1-yard line in a 17-17 game in the fourth quarter, Baltimore quarterback Tyler Huntley tried to extend the ball on a quarterback sneak on third down and had it swatted away, popped out right to Sam Hubbard, and he returned it 98 yards for a game-winning touchdown with 11:39 to play. It is the longest fumble return touchdown in NFL playoff history.

Given what was at stake, you could argue this is the first or second-biggest fumble return touchdown in NFL history. The only other game-winning fumble return touchdown in the fourth quarter or overtime of a playoff game was when Arizona’s Karlos Dansby got the ball after a strip-sack of Aaron Rodgers to beat Green Bay 51-45 in overtime in the 2009 NFC Wild Card. The Packers were deep in their own end at the time.

While there were still over 11 minutes left when this happened, the Ravens were in prime position to take a 24-17 lead on a night where the Bengals once again failed to crack 300 yards on this Baltimore defense. It’s happened all three times this year, though at least this one can be argued that they only had seven real drives.

But this was a massive swing in playoff win probability for a Super Bowl contender, and given the record length, you have to consider it right up there with any fumble return touchdown ever.

AFC North Race Changed on Lamar Jackson’s Health

The Bengals have not won a Super Bowl yet, but they were certainly close last year, and here they go again with their fourth one-score win in the postseason. The four playoff wins are double what the Ravens (2) have mustered as postseason wins in the last decade since winning Super Bowl 47. That’s also one more playoff win than Mike Tomlin (3) has in his last 12 seasons since losing Super Bowl 45.

But this year’s AFC North race was heavily tilted by Lamar Jackson’s knee injury in Week 13. The Ravens never scored more than 17 points in their final seven games after that injury.

The fact that they didn’t score more than 17 in this game would have surprised no one before the game, but if you tuned in for the fourth quarter, you were shocked to see how they crumbled in the moment this time.

Leading Up To the Historic Fumble

I pointed out multiple times this week that the Week 18 game between the Ravens and Bengals, which the Ravens played many backups for, featured 28 offensive drives. That is a gross number of drives for two offenses of playoff teams. There were a lot of punts and turnovers in that game.

But this game had just 16 possessions, and the Ravens even had two extra possessions than the Bengals, though not for the best reasons.

These teams thrived on long drives, but the Ravens seemed to capture some real belief in an upset after a quick-strike in the third quarter following Joe Burrow’s sneak touchdown to take a 17-10 lead back for Cincinnati. Huntley found Demarcus Robinson wide open for a 41-yard touchdown pass after he burned corner Eli Apple on a double move to tie the game.

The Bengals went three-and-out, and the Ravens began their fateful march as the game moved into the final frame. Just when it looked like another bad third-and-1 play was dialed up, Mark Andrews came down with a great 25-yard reception, his best play in a postseason game where he has been criticized for his lack of plays in the past.

But after a 35-yard run by Huntley set up first-and-goal at the 2, he really messed up by short-arming a throw in the flat to Patrick Ricard. The play was there, but Huntley missed his fullback. That led to the pivotal third-and-1, and obviously I am in favor of a quarterback sneak. But it looked like a full yard away or better, so when Huntley decided to leave his feet and stick the ball out, you kind of felt disaster was coming. Sure enough, the Bengals knocked it out and Hubbard made the record-setting return.

The lunge to stick the ball out on the sneak, often done so well by Drew Brees in his days, is really a last resort play. You can do it on fourth down or maybe a two-point conversion from the 1, but in this situation where you know the Ravens could just go for it on fourth down, it was really risky to do it on third down. A tactical error for sure.

Ravens Flopped After the Fumble

Unsurprisingly, the Ravens struggled to score the rest of the way. But the Ravens also got hosed on a weak roughing the punter call to extend a Cincinnati drive, though the Bengals failed to gain a first down on their final four series of plays. 

It looked like the Cincinnati offense was blowing it, and after a bad punt effort for the Bengals, Huntley had the ball back with 3:14 left at the Cincinnati 46 – tons of time and an incredible situation to be in for the underdog. You know John Harbaugh was going for two instead of overtime, but would the Ravens score too fast?

We should have been asking would they score at all, because the Ravens seemed to play the clock more than they remembered to call good plays. It took two minutes to move 18 yards. While everyone would love to score in the final seconds and win by one point, things rarely work out that nicely.

The Ravens even tried squeezing a run in only to be denied by a holding penalty. Huntley’s passes were not even close to connecting with a human being, and just like that it was fourth-and-20 from the Cincinnati 27 with 8 seconds left.

Hail Mary was the only choice. Huntley stumbled a bit before regaining himself, making the throw, and only on a deflection did the Ravens have a slight shot at a miracle catch before the ball hit the ground, ending their season and allowing the Bengals to double them up in playoff wins for the last decade.

Burrow the Babyface LOAT?

Cincinnati’s offense scored 17 points, did not have a single 20-yard play, did not have a single first down without penalty on the final four series, and yet they still won the game by the skin of their teeth against a backup quarterback.

That is some LOAT material if I’ve ever seen it, which was something I floated out repeatedly last postseason about Burrow turning into the new Tom Brady.

But this is already the third playoff game where Burrow’s defense forced a turnover in a tied fourth quarter or overtime. They intercepted Ryan Tannehill at midfield in the AFC divisional round last year to set up a game-winning field goal in the final minute. They intercepted Patrick Mahomes in overtime in the AFC Championship Game to set up another game-winning field goal. Now the longest fumble return touchdown in playoff history against the Ravens.

Since 2001, there have only been 16 turnovers in a tied fourth quarter or overtime in a playoff game. Burrow has been the beneficiary of 3-of-16. The only other quarterback with more than one was Drew Brees, who had two in the fourth quarter against the Vikings in the NFC Championship Game. Even Brady has never had one of these go his way if you can believe it. Burrow also threw an interception in Kansas City last January, so he has been involved directly or indirectly in the last four of these moments.

So, this is one area where Burrow is blowing the LOAT and everyone else out of the water.

But what’s not very LOAT like is losing a third starting linemen in the last three weeks as left tackle Jonah Williams left with a bad looking injury. Neither is having to go to Buffalo when the NFL should have considered this a neutral situation just as much as Bills-Chiefs, but I have all week to write about the future here.

Hell, I had to write three different previews this week for this one Ravens-Bengals game (four if you count the prediction blurb on this blog), so let’s just save the preview talk for later. But this game did turn out a lot better than I thought it would even though my predictions was Bengals 24-16. The Ravens are a tough out. But we may never see Jackson again in a Baltimore uniform, so this could be the end of an era there.

Meanwhile, the Bengals play on.

Giants at Vikings: Giant Streak Killers End Kevin O’Connell’s Run

It finally happened. The 2022 Vikings lost a one-score game after going 11-0 at them in the regular season. They failed at a comeback and game-winning drive opportunity after going 8-0 in them. Going back to last year’s Super Bowl run with the Rams, Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell had streaks of 14-0 in close games, 11-0 at game-winning drives, and 10-0 at fourth-quarter comebacks.

They’re all over too as the best streak-killing franchise in the NFL ended another one:

  • It was the Giants who beat the 1934 Bears (13-0) in the NFL Championship Game.
  • It was the Giants who ended the 49ers’ three-peat Super Bowl attempt in the 1990 NFC Championship Game.
  • It was the Giants who beat the 1998 Broncos (13-0) to deny them a perfect season on their way to repeating.
  • It was the Giants who beat the 2007 Patriots (18-0) in Super Bowl 42 to deny 19-0 perfection.
  • Now it was the 2022 Giants who end another Minnesota season filled with history-making wins.

If you studied the game these teams played in Week 16, then you should have expected something close, high scoring, and dramatic. The teams did not disappoint. In fact, they were even better than expected.

I joked Saturday that Daniel Jones would throw for 300 yards and rush for 100 yards in Minnesota. He came close with 301 passing yards and 78 rushing yards, only the second quarterback in playoff history to hit those numbers. Lamar Jackson had 365 passing and 143 rushing in that upset loss to the 2019 Ravens when he had 83 dropbacks.

Jones only had 55 dropbacks, but it was one of the best games of his career, if not the best given the moment. He found plenty of open receivers and his legs were dynamic in the first half when he did most of his damage.

Kirk Cousins did not play a bad game by any means, and he was within reach of a ninth comeback and game-winning drive after leading the Vikings to a 24-24 tie in the fourth quarter as the teams traded long drive after long drive. On a weekend with many turnovers and short fields, it was refreshing to see a 31-24 game where all but one scoring drive was 75-plus yards.

But it was the Vikings’ game-tying field goal in the fourth quarter that was the shortest scoring drive at 56 yards. The Vikings were going to go for a fourth-and-1 at the New York 16, but they had to change course after a poor time for a false start.

Jones was no stranger to game-winning drives this year, and he led his sixth of 2022 by driving the Giants 75 yards for a touchdown. Isaiah Hodgins had a huge game with 108 yards and a touchdown, and he had a 19-yard catch on the go-ahead drive. Jones converted a fourth-and-1 run, and Saquon Barkley scored his second touchdown run in his first playoff game to take a 31-24 lead with half a quarter left.

The Vikings went three-and-out on an uninspiring drive, and it was starting to look like the close-game streak was on life support. But the Giants blew a shot to run out the clock after Darius Slayton spoiled a strong game by dropping a pass on third-and-15 with room to run, stopping the clock.

The lucky Vikings, the worst 13-win team in NFL history, were full of life again with just under 3:00 left and 88 yards away from the end zone. After a horrific roughing the passer penalty gifted them 15 yards and a first down, you could already see the 32-31 win coming after a two-point conversion. O’Connell was going to set more history with a fourth-straight playoff win by 1-to-3 points.

But after the Vikings got to midfield, things stalled. Cousins threw a good ball to K.J. Osborn on a third-and-8, but the defense held up, and maybe even got there a little early and held up Osborn. No flag. On fourth-and-ballgame, the Vikings ran a play that will be crucified for quite some time.

While T.J. Hockenson had a great game with over 100 yards again, he’s not exactly Rob Gronkowski with the ball in his hands. He wasn’t going to break a tackle on a 3-yard throw and pick up the first down with YAC. But that’s where Cousins threw the ball, and that’s how Minnesota’s season ended. All those record comebacks and they throw a full 5 yards short of the sticks on fourth down to a draped receiver.

It sure was a letdown and the kind of failed completion that Cousins is better known for than the comeback legend he was in 2022. But I have to say the design of the play was poor, and most of the receivers were too far away from the marker either way. Cousins could have just chucked up the ball to Justin Jefferson, because we know that’s worked before on fourth down. It probably gives them a better chance than what he ultimately did, but he didn’t take it after a quick pressure was in his face as the Vikings had a glaring offensive line issue that was part of their downfall.

But the Giants also did a fabulous job of taking Jefferson (7 catches for 49 yards) away, especially after an opening drive that saw him catch four balls for 30 yards. He had just 19 yards the rest of the way as the Giants made sure to keep an eye on him.

The Giants did not blitz much like they are known for doing, but like in Week 16, they did a great job of limiting the big plays against the Vikings. With Jefferson a non-factor after the first drive, they also took away the drive-sustaining plays he can make as he had 12 catches in Week 16. The Vikings were also outrushed by the Giants by Jones alone 78-to-61.

It is hard to put too much criticism on the Vikings’ offense. They scored three touchdowns and a field goal on eight drives. They just faltered in the fourth quarter, which is something I have been expecting since October. The fact that it came in a playoff game at home against the Giants is likely not just coincidence, but it says more about how well the Giants played in Week 16 than any playoff choking issue or curse on the franchise.

But Brian Daboll and his staff did an excellent job, and Jones was very sharp on the road. They’ll face a much tougher task in Philadelphia next week, but maybe this is their chance to get revenge for 2008 when the Eagles upset the top-seeded Giants and ended their repeat bid.

It is New York’s first playoff win since Super Bowl 46. As for the Vikings, they will be a very trendy pick for big regression next year in their record. But again, I’m not going to bother talking about that now when we have most of 2023 to point out how the Vikings just aren’t winning the close games like they were last year.

Because no one is this lucky to win every close game in the NFL. 

Dolphins at Bills: Buffalo Marathon Ends with Legitimate Scare

No one circles the wagons to barely beat the No. 7 seed by three points at home like the Buffalo Bills.

I am not sure how an NFL game can last nearly four hours without going to overtime, but if it wasn’t for Buffalo, No. 7 seeds would look illegitimate after three years of this playoff format.

The only No. 7 seeds to not lose by 12-plus points played at Buffalo: 2020 Colts lost 27-24 in a thriller and the Dolphins were a 14-point underdog but still had their shot in a 34-31 game in the fourth quarter.

You have to give Miami rookie coach Mike McDaniel a lot of credit for playing the Bills tough all three times despite having the lesser team. On Sunday, he was down to a third-string rookie quarterback and did not have his best running back (Raheem Mostert).

The Dolphins only rushed 20 times for 42 yards. Skylar Thompson was 18-of-45 passing for 220 yards, though he had several big drops, especially from Jaylen Waddle, who looked a bit soft in his playoff debut. Tyreek Hill was no Buffalo killer this year with 69 yards on seven catches and 15 targets.

But even with those abysmal numbers and an early 17-0 hole, this game was very close and a legitimate scare for the Bills, who have spent most of this year as the Super Bowl favorite. They were fortunate they didn’t have to face a healthy Tua Tagovailoa in this one.

It’s the Turnovers, Stupid

This was mostly a game because of turnovers, which isn’t surprising in the playoffs. But the Bills better get control of this, because turnovers are likely going to be the downfall to their season. They had a neutral turnover differential in the regular season with 27 giveaways (third most) and 27 takeaways. Not what you’d expect from a 13-3 team.

They lost the takeaway battle 2-3 in this one. We are still waiting to figure out what kind of playoff quarterback Josh Allen wants to be, and right now, a chaotic one is the best answer. He was absolutely brilliant in the two games last season, but between this game and his first two runs, he’s looking more like a Brett Favre (young and old) out there.

Even from the first drive of the game Allen was up to some shenanigans with the ball coming out of his grasp on a third-down run before it went out of bounds. Then he was picked on a deep ball by Xavien Howard with the Bills up 17-3 in the second quarter, and that started the comeback.

Khalil Shakir dropped a 54-yard pass from Allen, which came a few drives after Dawson Knox tried to use the ground to help him catch a touchdown, so it was a day filled with some amazing catches and some poor jobs by players on both teams at catching the ball.

But Buffalo was close to blowing them out before halftime. Sloppiness won out. Miami had settled for another field goal, and three plays later, Allen was intercepted again after trying to go for Cole Beasley. The Dolphins turned that into an 18-yard touchdown drive and game-tying two-point conversion, shocking the crowd, but not before the Bills added a field goal to take a 20-17 lead into the locker room after a two-hour half.

But the third quarter started worse with Allen getting stripped of the ball and seeing Miami recover it for a touchdown to take a 24-20 lead – Miami’s first third-quarter lead in a playoff game since playing Buffalo in the 1998 season. A long time ago.

Allen was sacked seven times with three turnovers on the day, and he started to press when trailing on two bad drives in a row. But this was where the Dolphins really missed an experienced quarterback, because they couldn’t take advantage of Buffalo’s implosion. On a third-and-19, Thompson made his dumbest play of the day to force a pass that was intercepted, putting the Bills at the Miami 33 and setting up an easy short field for a go-ahead touchdown. Miami never led again.

You can understand why teams like screens and draws in those situations. You’re unlikely to convert, so just get out of there with something safe. McDaniel miscalculated letting his rookie throw, and if he was going to throw, he should have just thrown a bomb instead of a ball that put Buffalo that close to the end zone for some much-needed help.

Closing It Out (Barely)

The Bills seemed back on track with consecutive touchdowns and a 34-24 lead, but like in Week 15, the Dolphins kept coming back. Another touchdown drive made it 34-31, and Allen was again pressing with sacks and incomplete shot plays. Allen also took back-to-back sacks in the four-minute offense and nearly lost another fumble.

But for all the good McDaniel did as an underdog here, the management of getting plays called in and getting the snap off in time was piss poor. The Dolphins also wasted two timeouts early in the half, and they even had to spend their third timeout with the clock stopped and 4:13 left. That really made their last drive in a 34-31 game do-or-die without any timeouts, and they botched that too by getting a delay of game penalty on a fourth-and-1 to make it fourth-and-5. I don’t know how you get caught trying to change personnel with under 15 seconds on the play clock on the biggest play of the game. I refuse to just blame the rookie quarterback for this problem that lasted most of the game.

Supposedly, McDaniel tried to justify the delay of game by saying they were told they had a first down and didn’t think it was fourth down. Either way, this was poorly managed throughout the game, and it hurt Miami.

On the fateful fourth down, Thompson’s pass to Mike Gesicki wasn’t bad but the defense was better. It was incomplete with 2:22 left. The Bills could run most of the clock out, and they did after Devin Singletary fought forward for a 7-yard gain on third-and-7.

At least that’s how they marked it on the field. You’ll never convince me he made the yard to gain, and it should have been fourth down. The Bills probably sneak it and get it anyway, or Miami probably doesn’t do anything with it in under 40 seconds. But I still would prefer to see a more legitimate ending, because it sure felt like Miami got screwed on that spot. 

Miami is the first double-digit underdog to cover the spread in the wild card round. Buffalo has been my pick all year to win the Super Bowl, but boy, let’s just hope the Dolphins had some secret sauce for them, or else this is going to be a fast exit.

Chargers at Jaguars: I Think This Just Might Be the Chargering Masterpiece

They have done it. In Justin Herbert’s 50th NFL start, the Chargers carved out their masterpiece by blowing a 27-0 playoff lead to the Jaguars in a 31-30 loss that would be shocking to most fanbases, but it was almost inevitable for the Chargers.

Not only is it the third-biggest playoff comeback and fifth-biggest comeback in NFL history, but the Jaguars pulled this one off against all odds after losing the turnover battle 5-0.

You are not supposed to beat the 3-13 Lions by going -5 in turnovers, let alone win a playoff game. But this is Chargering. The game will stand out in the record books for years to come:

  • Trevor Lawrence joins Bobby Layne, George Blanda, Joe Ferguson, and Russell Wilson as the only five quarterbacks to throw four interceptions and win a playoff game. Blanda was the only one to throw five picks. But those other four teams all had multiple takeaways in the win.
  • The Jaguars are the first team in NFL history to win a playoff game with five turnovers and no takeaways. Teams were 0-10 doing this. Jacksonville is the ninth team since 1970 to win a game doing this when you include the regular season.
  • Since 1950, NFL teams allowing 30-plus points with 5+ giveaways and no takeaways are now 3-164 (regular season and playoffs). The last win was 1970 Bills against the Jets.
  • This is the first time a team won a playoff game with a turnover margin of -5 or worse. Teams were previously 0-26 in the playoffs, and all but one lost by double digits.
  • In 50 starts, the Chargers have blown more 17-point leads (4) in Justin Herbert’s career than they did in the previous 19 seasons (3) from 2001-19 since they drafted Drew Brees.
  • The Jaguars had one comeback win from a deficit of 16+ points in their first 455 games. They have three such comebacks in their last 10 games (17 vs. Raiders, 17 vs. Cowboys, 27 vs. Chargers).
  • The Jaguars had lost 41 straight games when allowing more than 20 points. After snapping that streak against Baltimore in Week 12, they are 4-1 in such games.

But much like how the Colts didn’t really deserve a 33-0 lead against the Vikings four weeks ago, the story of this game was a fortunate start by the Chargers that they weren’t playing well enough to sustain. The Jaguars have been making comebacks lately, and we know the Chargers are the right team in the AFC to pull one off against.

Digging the 27-0 Hole

Trevor Lawrence was the quarterback who never lost a Saturday game in his career, and he never threw a first-quarter interception in the NFL, a fact I wasn’t aware of until Saturday night. But he threw three interceptions in this first quarter, a fourth in the second, and the Jaguars also muffed a punt. Lawrence joined Tom Brady (vs. 2009 Ravens) as the only quarterbacks since 2001 to turn the ball over three times in the first quarter of a playoff game.

Right from his first pass, a double-deflected ball at the line that was intercepted, you knew we might be in for an adventure. That helped Justin Herbert to an easy 18-yard touchdown drive where Austin Ekeler did most of the work on a 13-yard scoring run to take a 7-0 lead.

Lawrence was then picked off on a fourth-and-7 by Asante Samuel Jr., though I felt there was an arm grab and it could have easily been penalized. He must have been watching his dad’s tape with the 2000s Patriots for how to get away with contact in big games. The Chargers turned that into a field goal and 10-0 lead.

But after some bad luck with a double tip and no penalty call, Lawrence’s third interception (also to Samuel Jr.) was an abysmal decision. That set up a 16-yard touchdown drive that was all Ekeler runs. In one quarter of his playoff career, Herbert had more touchdown drives that started in the red zone (2) than Peyton Manning (1) had in his first 25 playoff games.

What the hell was going on out there? The Jaguars were destroying my narrative of Herbert becoming this quarterback with the weight of the world on his shoulders every postseason, and now he’s getting every break in the world. Herbert had several passes tipped and deflected in this game, yet they all kept harmlessly hitting the ground. If Lawrence threw them, they would have been picked. It was the No. 1 pick who was looking like the unlucky one.

But Herbert had a few good third-and-long throws on another touchdown drive to get a 24-0 lead. Lawrence threw his fourth pick and third to Samuel, but this was the beginning of the turning point for the game.

The Turning Point

The Chargers did not do anything with Lawrence’s fourth pick, going three-and-out. However, the Jaguars gave them the ball right back by muffing the punt return, setting Herbert up at the Jacksonville 6, a golden opportunity for a third touchdown drive that started in the red zone. Even Tom Brady would be jealous of this.

But Herbert badly missed a wide-open Keenan Allen in the end zone and the Chargers had to settle for a field goal and 27-0 lead. Would things have been different if Mike Williams (back) was active? Maybe, but he’s not 10-foot-tall either. Herbert just missed it badly.

But this sequence has a lot to do with why the Jaguars survived a five-turnover meltdown, because they basically consolidated their last two turnovers into one part of the game, and it only cost them a quick 3 points after the Chargers failed in goal-to-go.

Still, that was only one of two golden opportunities the Chargers blew in the second quarter. The next part, which officially got the comeback going, was when the Chargers got cute on a third-and-1 and tried to do a jet sweep to Michael Bandy. The timing was off, the ball was fumbled, and it nearly ended up being a disastrous turnover.

At 27-0, you still had to view it live as a “wow, Chargers are just getting everything to go their way” moment by them not losing possession and giving Jacksonville a short field. However, it was a disastrous moment as the Chargers could have put this game away with a two-minute drill and taking a 30-0 or 34-0 lead into halftime.

Instead, Jacksonville took advantage of a bad punt and short field to finally get on the board with a touchdown drive, converting a fourth-and-1 along the way, for a 27-7 deficit at halftime.

If you know the Chargers well, you know this was going to be a game again.

The Second-Half Comeback

I’m obviously not going to put this blown lead all on Herbert, but he did have some costly misfires and didn’t do much to help after the big lead, a lead that he didn’t do much to earn.

To start the third quarter, he had three straight incomplete passes at the Jacksonville 38, and the Chargers punted instead of getting more points. The Jaguars turned that into a long touchdown drive to make it 27-14. Gerald Everett caught a ball for 21 yards that was actually a drop, but the Jaguars did not challenge in time, so that was a big drive starter that helped the Chargers to a field goal to make it 30-14.

But they would never score again. Lawrence got hot, Zay Jones scored a 39-yard touchdown, and Joey Bosa got heated with his first unsportsmanlike penalty. The Chargers led 30-20 going into the fourth quarter.

But here is where head coach Brandon Staley really blew the game for his team. I even tweeted that we’re going to find out how smart he is if he acknowledges how much better a 17-point lead is than a 13-point lead is better than 10. He had to be thinking touchdown on a long drive, but the Chargers came up short just outside the 20.

There was a holding penalty that would have made it third-and-13, but the Jaguars declined. Had they knew that Staley would go for this fourth-and-3 like he should have, then maybe Doug Pederson accepts that penalty. But Staley was content with the field goal and the kiss of death known as a 13-point lead.

He got what he deserved as Dicker the Kicker remembered which team he plays for and missed a 40-yard field goal, bringing a tear to Nate Kaeding’s eye somewhere in the galaxy.

Had the Chargers been focused on the three-score lead, they could have wrapped this one up. But Lawrence continued to drive his offense and found Christian Kirk for a 9-yard touchdown with 5:25 left. Bosa was again penalized for throwing his helmet in a fit of rage after he felt the officials missed a false start on the touchdown. I certainly think they missed it too.

But by enforcing the penalty on the extra point, the Jaguars could go for two from the 1-yard line, which is the right call in that spot. Lawrence used his size to do the sneak with full extension, and the Jaguars were only down 30-28.

This was happening for sure now. Just a question of how the finish would look.

Once Herbert took a sack on first down, you knew Lawrence was getting his chance for a game-winning field goal. The Chargers went three-and-out and Lawrence had 3:09 from his own 21, plenty of time.

But a very poor decision to throw on a third-and-1 put the drive in jeopardy with 1:27 left and just out of field-goal range. I’m not sure why you wouldn’t run Travis Etienne there against the No. 32 run defense in yards per carry. On fourth-and-1, it looked like the Jaguars were going to do the trendy push sneak, and they went with a big formation that felt like trouble for them getting a push.

But with a risky call that worked out great, they pitched the ball to Etienne on the edge and he turned up the field for a 25-yard gain and even stayed in bounds to burn more clock. That set up kicker Riley Patterson for a 36-yard field goal on the final play, and he nailed it to complete the comeback and get the 31-30 win.

Doug Pederson is now 6-0 ATS and 5-1 SU as a playoff underdog. This is his first playoff win without Nick Foles.

It looks like Staley is going to survive another year, but his mismanagement of Week 18 and this game, among other things this year, cast real doubt that he’s ever going to lead this team to anywhere but disappointment.

This was a game about field position early. The Chargers scored 27 points on their first seven drives because three started in the red zone and all of them started at the Los Angeles 32 or better. But they managed just one field goal on their last five drives, all of which started inside their own 25.

Once the Jaguars stopped gifting the Chargers short fields, the game completely turned around. Lawrence did a wonderful job of shaking off a brutal start in his first playoff game to deliver.

As for Herbert, he was kind of like Matt Ryan four weeks ago in Minnesota. He was more of a supporting actor than the driving force behind the lead or a significant part of the choke.

Never in doubt. But after a wild start, the Chargers remembered they are the team we thought they were, and they let Jacksonville off the hook with a Chargering masterpiece.

Seahawks at 49ers: When You Break a Sammy Baugh Record…

The first game of the weekend feels like ages ago thanks to the excessively long Buffalo game and the journey we had to take from Jacksonville’s 27-0 deficit to a win.

But San Francisco’s 41-23 win was interesting in that it produced arguably the best playoff game by a rookie quarterback since pre-World War II days in the NFL.

We knew Brock Purdy had this streak going of six straight games with multiple touchdown passes, and only Justin Herbert (2020) had done that in seven straight among rookies. We also know Purdy usually throws for 200 yards, but you have to go back a long way to find a time a rookie quarterback put up numbers like that in the playoffs and his team won.

Of the few rookie quarterbacks to win a playoff game, most did it the game manager way, like a Joe Flacco (2008) or Mark Sanchez (2009). They’re the only two to win two playoff games, but Purdy has a chance to join them after he threw for 332 yards and three touchdowns against Seattle.

  • You have to go back to Bob Waterfield in 1945 to find the last rookie quarterback to throw two touchdowns in a playoff win.
  • You have to go back to Sammy Baugh in 1937 to find the last rookie quarterback to throw for 300 yards and three touchdowns in a playoff win.
  • Hell, Baugh was the last rookie to throw for 200 yards in a win way back in 1937 too, but that’s the company Purdy keeps now.

Baugh and Waterfield did it in championship games, so you can say that’s a lot more impressive in that era than facing the 9-8 Seahawks. But Purdy belongs high on a list of best playoff debuts for any quarterback regardless of age.

Was it all pretty? No, I counted four or five risky throws that a better defense (or a luckier one) may make him pay for in future rounds. Deebo Samuel also showed his world-class YAC with a 74-yard touchdown that was all him. But I did like the improv skills that Purdy showed on his two touchdown passes to the running backs, and he made an incredible play in the fourth quarter to Brandon Aiyuk that was unfortunately dropped in the end zone as Aiyuk had to focus on getting his feet in bounds and forgot his hands.

Where the hell did they find this kid? That one incompletion there is something you won’t see many quarterbacks make in many years of playing. Like, some could play 23 years and literally never do anything close to this.

So I definitely came away intrigued even more with Purdy. As for the rest of the game, you have to say Seattle did a good job for three quarters. They survived the early Kyle Shanahan script, Geno Smith was calm in his playoff debut, they strung together plays, DK Metcalf showed up for a great game, and they even got a penalty on a late hit that set up a field goal and Seattle led 17-16 at the half.

But that Deebo YAC on a third-down short of the sticks led to a huge first down out of the break, and the 49ers were back on top 23-17 with Purdy’s 1-yard rushing touchdown. But I really thought at this point that Geno was dialed in and about to show this defense is falling apart at the wrong time. He converted a third-and-12, the Seahawks were driving into the red zone, then the ineligible man downfield penalties started hitting hard.

It was third-and-14, and one quick pressure led to Smith coughing up the ball, and Nick Bosa was there for the recovery with 2:25 left in the quarter. Total game changer and the 49ers rolled from there. The offense scored another touchdown to go up 31-17, Seattle’s line again self-destructed with penalties to bring up third-and-22, which led to a punt, and that’s when Samuel turned on the jets for the 74-yard dagger to make it 38-17.

Geno immediately threw a pick out of desperation and maybe frustration, and the 49ers just used that to burn more clock and add a field goal after Aiyuk failed to hang onto that play above. Seattle would add a touchdown to make it 41-23 but only 1:48 remained and the game ended after a failed onside kick.

An overmatched Seattle played this very well for three quarters, but when you have four different players capable of a 30-yard play for the 49ers, it was too much offense to handle.

Based on the way the other teams have looked in recent weeks, it is hard not to think the 49ers have all the right stuff to beat anyone and be the legitimate favorite to win it all. I don’t even know what we’re going to do with Purdy if he literally throws multiple touchdowns every week and wins every game on his way to a Super Bowl. He’d be leading the No. 1 scoring offense most likely since he took over. The only thing close to this is Kurt Warner’s story with the 1999 Rams, and while I’m not ready to say Purdy looks that accurate or great, it’s the only historical comparison we really have.

The kid just matched a Sammy Baugh record from 1937. What are we even supposed to do with this info? You expect it all to go horribly wrong in a game or two because he is a rookie and Kyle Shanahan is his head coach, but what if it doesn’t?

Maybe this is just their year.

NFL 2022 Wild Card Predictions

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

It has already been a strange, competetive, mediocre season, so who knows how this postseason will go. My preseason pick was Buffalo beating Tampa Bay 45-17, and I’m really not shying away from that yet. It could definitely happen with the way this NFC is.

In lieu of my usual full-length playoff previews on this blog, I have links to similar full-length previews that I wrote:

This will still be the only place I post my final score predictions for each playoff game.

Some articles I did this week:

Seattle Seahawks vs. San Francisco 49ers (-10)

Preview: Seahawks-49ers

I just want to see if Seattle can score more than 13 points, which is how many points the offense has in eight quarters this year against this defense. I expect the 49ers to win, though Kyle Shanahan and a rookie quarterback is one hell of a playoff combo for classic Shanahanigans. But probably not this week as the Seahawks do not match up well with this team. But I expect it to be closer than the last meeting in SF, and to be the highest scoring game of the season between these teams.

By the way, the team going for the 3-0 split is 14-9, so it usually happens. 49ers didn’t pull it off last year against the Rams, but this is an easier opponent.

Final: 49ers 27, Seahawks 19

Los Angeles Chargers vs. Jacksonville Jaguars (+2.5)

Brandon Staley really got Mike Williams hurt right before the playoffs, and the Chargers still lost to Denver. Frankly, I can’t understand why the Chargers are favored in this game, or why the spread has only gone up. They’re on a short week, they were bad last week, they lost Williams, they already lost 38-10 to this Jacksonville team, and they’re on the road here against a team that is statistically better by most metrics. Not a lot better, but better.

I can’t help but think Justin Herbert is going to feel the sting of a one-man show road playoff loss where he throws for over 300 yards, but gets nothing on the ground while the Jaguars crank up Travis Etienne against the defense that ranks No. 32 in yards per carry allowed.

I am concerned about the lack of points in the passing game in the last three weeks for Jacksonville, but we’ll see. This one should be close. Jacksonville’s last seven home games have all been decided by 1-to-7 points.

Final: Jaguars 27, Chargers 24

Miami Dolphins vs. Buffalo Bills (-13.5)

Rookie quarterbacks tend to stink in the playoffs as is, but Skylar Thompson is below average and probably replacement level. Mike McDaniel will have to cook up something amazing to keep this one close, or the Bills will have to have a bunch of turnovers. They were No. 3 in giveaways despite playing 16 games.

But the blowout of Miami by Buffalo that I’ve been waiting for since that Week 3 game should happen here. Just unfortunate it’s happening under the circumstances where the Dolphins don’t have their best QB or RB available for this game.

Final: Bills 34, Dolphins 13

New York Giants vs. Minnesota Vikings (-3)

Giants-Vikings

Be sure to read my previews on this game for all the good stats and records involving these teams who love playing close games. I can’t help but think the Giants are going to play well on offense and have a real shot to pull this one out. But I’ll cautoiusly pick the Vikings to win at home.

Final: Vikings 30, Giants 27

Baltimore Ravens vs. Cincinnati Bengals (-8.5)

Ravens-Bengals

I’m just a bit tired of seeing Baltimore (without Lamar Jackson) this season. This game should be better than the Week 18 crapfest these two just played, but I do not see the Ravens being able to score enough to win with Tyler Huntley. At the very least, their defense has been way better this year against Cincinnati, so I think the team is good enough to keep it close and cover.

Final: Bengals 24, Ravens 16

Dallas Cowboys vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+2.5)

Upset: Bucs over Cowboys

I’ve pretty much been saying since October after the Cowboys lost in Philadelphia that they would lose in the wild card round to the Buccaneers. With the way Week 1 happened and the way the Cowboys played in Washington and have been turning the ball over, I see no reason to change the pick now. If anything, they are just preparing to make sure they have a letdown here.

The team without a winning record who gets to host a playoff game is still 4-1 in those games. It’s an advantage the NFL needs to eliminate. However, I’m not sure this Dallas team would win at home either. Remember 19-3? Just figures Dak Prescott would have his worst games of the season to start and end the year.

Just curious to see how Dallas is going to blow this one. Leonard Fournette had his only 100-yard rushing game of the season in Week 1. Playoff Lenny time? Dallas is the only game this year where Tampa held a team under 10 points.

A Dan Quinn defense that has already blown leads of 14 and 17 points after halftime to Green Bay and Jacksonville? A Dallas offense that has thrown a pick-six in three of the last four games? The brain trust that brought us the QB draw in the closing seconds of last year’s wild card loss?

Yeah, save the popcorn for Monday night.

Final: Buccaneers 23, Cowboys 20

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 18

~ Scott ~ 5 Comments

After 271 games, the 2022 NFL regular season is over. The simplest preview of the playoffs is that it looks like a 3-team buzzsaw in the AFC (Chiefs-Bills-Bengals) and the 49ers may be tempting fate in the mine field that is the NFC and get to the Super Bowl with a rookie quarterback playing better than anyone could have imagined.

Plenty of playoff articles to come, but for now, let’s put Week 18 to rest with its eight comeback opportunities and relatively low drama. Let’s face it, there isn’t much to say about many of these games, and I don’t want to go into 2023 preview mode this early, so this will be a light finish.

But first, a look at how I did on the preseason predictions.

Season Predictions: Worst Fears Confirmed, But Not Exactly the Worst Year Ever

I always knew I had my work cut out for me after nailing so many picks for the 2021 season when I got 28 teams within two games of their final record. Regression to the mean was coming, and I took some chances on my 2022 NFL predictions with picking the Colts and Broncos to win double-digit games and make the playoffs, for Arizona to turn a messy offseason into another postseason, for the Rams to finish as the No. 1 seed for their title defense, and for the Chargers to unseat the Chiefs in the AFC West by one game.

Even one of my best predictions was one I couldn’t ultimately reap, because I said before Week 1 that my initial run through of the schedule was too kind to give the Eagles a 14-3 record, so I watered it down to 11-6 as my final prediction. Sure enough, they did finish 14-3 on their way to the top seed in the NFC.

At the end of the day, I was off by 2.78 wins on average, which is the same as I did in the 2020 pandemic season. A far cry from the 1.28 games in 2021, but not unchartered territory for me.

Since I had the Bills finishing 13-4 and Bengals finishing 9-8, and that game was thrown out, it probably deserves an asterisk to say I had a second team to the exact record when Buffalo was 13-3 and I had 13-4. But the Bills, my Super Bowl pick, still look good going into the playoffs, and after the Damar Hamlin story, I actually feel even more confident in them pulling together to finish this job. But still much work to be done for the Bills.

I’ll have more articles this week looking back where some of these teams went wrong or where I went wrong. Those West divisions certainly had me hoodwinked and bamboozled.

This season in Stat Oddity:

Lions at Packers: Did Detroit Just End Aaron Rodgers’ Career?

It is 5:30 AM and this is my last game to write about after a long weekend. I don’t really want to go down the eulogy for Aaron Rodgers rabbit hole again, but that could have been the end last night. The way he walked off the field with Randall Cobb at his side, the subtle salute to the fans before going in the tunnel, this felt different than the playoff loss to the 49ers last year.

As for the game, it was pretty much a greatest hits of Green Bay in a big home loss with playoff implications:

  • Aaron Jones lost another big fumble in scoring territory before halftime that the Lions turned into a field goal.
  • Defense gave up a huge 43-yard bomb to Kalif Raymond to the 1-yard line.
  • Some bad play around the red zone (misfires, sacks on third down) left the Packers settling for too many field goals.
  • A terrible fourth-and-1 run was snuffed out by the Lions at Green Bay’s own 32, which led to an early Detroit field goal.
  • Mason Crosby hit the crossbar on a 53-yard field goal in the third quarter.
  • Lions converted a fourth-and-2 on their way to the go-ahead touchdown drive with 5:55 left as Jamaal Williams scored two short touchdowns against his former team.
  • On a third-and-10, Rodgers flinched under pressure and just threw up a deep ball that was picked. Better than getting sacked or checking down for a yard, but he never saw the ball again with 3:27 left.
  • Amon-Ra St. Brown caught a pass in his prostate area.
  • The fearless Lions, playing with nothing to lose, were aggressive and smart in running out the clock by declining penalties, trying bold laterals by design, and ultimately putting the game away with a fourth-and-1 pass conversion from Goff to DJ Chark.

It really is a shame the Lions (9-8) were eliminated before the game started with Seattle’s win, and that their season is not continuing next week. Because this team is playing well and they can score. Jared Goff did not throw an interception in the last nine games this season and he will finish No. 5 in QBR (61.2) on the season. Crazy stuff.

Rodgers will turn 40 next season in December. Peyton Manning, Philip Rivers, and Ben Roethlisberger all recently retired after their age-39 season. Does Rodgers follow suit? We’ll just have to wait and find out, but it really does seem like he’s gotten all he could get out of this run with the Packers. I have some faith that Matt LaFleur can make Jordan Love work, but it will be a lot different not seeing Rodgers in Green Bay.

Titans at Jaguars: Fumbling Away the AFC South

Going back to Saturday night’s showdown for the AFC South, this really felt like some 1990s Tom Coughlin vs. Jeff Fisher matchup to me. The game was a grind after some early fireworks, including rookie Treylon Burks trying one of the wildest laterals you will ever see in a play where the clock was not a factor.

But the Titans ended up blowing a 10-0 lead, the 50th time (NFL record) that happened in the 2022 season, and they failed to score on their final five drives. You have to wonder if they win the game if they just play the most conservative approach possible down the stretch.

In the biggest game yet for the Trevor Lawrence era, the offense wasn’t exactly dealing. In fact, the Jaguars are the first team to pull off a fourth-quarter comeback win without gaining a first down in the fourth quarter since the 2000 Panthers against the Chargers (credit to ESPN Stats & Info for putting that one out there).

A game like this is why I really need to add a no decision column to my fourth-quarter comeback opportunity records for quarterbacks, teams, and coaches. Lawrence had the ball in a 16-10 game to start the fourth quarter, and the Jaguars were already in field goal range thanks to a Josh Dobbs interception. The drive gained 7 yards (no first downs) and ended with a 36-yard field goal.

Okay, but it was still a 16-13 Tennessee lead. The Jaguars went three-and-out on their next two drives with Lawrence going 0-for-5 in success rate (0-for-6 in the quarter).

But after draining more than 5:00 off the clock and barely over 3:00 left to play, the Titans faced a third-and-6. Josh Dobbs had a decent game all things considered to this point. But the last thing he could do was turn the ball over. The blitz came and got him from the blind side and he lost the ball on a strip-sack that was picked up and returned for a 37-yard game-winning touchdown by Josh Allen with 2:51 left. It was close to being a forward pass, and the review was surprisingly fast, but it did look like a fumble.

Huge mistake. The Titans aren’t built for comebacks this year with the weak passing game. Dobbs took a sack at midfield that brought up a third-and-12, and the Titans took their first timeout at 1:46. Right there, I felt like they should have hurried up and ran the next play. If they couldn’t make 12 yards in two plays, then maybe they could use their three timeouts to get the ball back for a second drive.

But when you use the timeout, you are basically putting the game all on this drive, and a false start only made it worse to bring up third-and-17. Then a 4-yard completion burned a second timeout for the Titans, and now the game was going to be decided on a fourth-and-13. I thought that was managed poorly.

Dobbs threw well short of the sticks and the play gained 9 yards before the Titans turned it over on downs. Game over. Jaguars win the AFC South and their biggest game since the 2017 AFC Championship Game. Jaguars come back from 2-6 to 9-8 while the Titans lost seven in a row after a 7-3 start. We’ll see if Mike Vrabel doesn’t fall on the sword for this slide. They already canned the general manager (Jon Robinson) in December.

The Jaguars are going to have to play better to beat the Chargers, but that should be a much more offensive game than this one. Tennessee was tough against the run and the Jaguars only had 10 handoffs for 22 yards. Look for much more from Travis Etienne against the Chargers.

But yeah, I did not credit Lawrence for a fourth-quarter comeback in this one since the game-winning score was fully provided by the fumble touchdown. It clearly was not a game-winning drive either. I’ll have to consider working on a no contest column after this game in the offseason. Similarly, Kirk Cousins should get a no contest for his 4QC attempt against Buffalo since the go-ahead score was that fumble return touchdown. Games like this are tricky and they seem to be popping up a little more frequently these days.

Just protect the ball, guys.

Rams at Seahawks: Playoff-Bound Geno

Before this season, Geno Smith had three fourth-quarter comeback wins in his career, but he had two huge ones this year against the Rams to help push the Seahawks (9-8) into the most unexpected playoff spot of the season.

The Seahawks had to come back in the fourth quarter against the Rams to win 19-16 in overtime, then needed to watch the Lions upset the Packers at night to get the job done for the playoffs.

It didn’t seem likely when the day started, but what has ever seemed likely with this Seattle team? From Geno making the Pro Bowl and leading the NFL in completion percentage to Kenneth Walker quite possibly winning Offensive Rookie of the Year – he was my pick at +3000 odds in an August article – to winning four more games than Russell Wilson’s Broncos to losing home games against the Raiders and Panthers, this season has been crazy for Pete Carroll’s group.

Baker Mayfield threw up a prayer in overtime that was intercepted, and from there, Seattle drove into field goal range to let Jason Myers redeem himself from missing off the upright to end regulation with a 32-yard field goal to win the game.

The Seahawks are going to be a double-digit underdog in San Francisco next week, but you never know against a rookie quarterback in a division game.

Crazy to think we may have seen the last of Sean McVay coaching the Rams (5-12) in this game too. Big changes coming there.

Jets at Dolphins: Can We Just Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water Here?

I’m sorry, but Skylar Thompson vs. Joe Flacco in a 6-6 game in the fourth quarter just reeks of irrelevant end to the season for AFC East Stooges rather than a postseason-clinching game.

But this is where we were after Miami’s five-game losing streak. They got the proper help from the Bills beating the Patriots, and they just needed to beat the lowly Jets.

As much as I didn’t want to see overtime either, I wish the refs didn’t feel the need to call a phantom horse collar tackle.

That wiped out a third-and-7 situation and put the Dolphins inside the Jets 40. Four plays later, the Dolphins hit a 50-yard field goal to take a 9-6 lead with 18 seconds left. The Jets tried the lateral play, but all it did was go down as a safety, giving the Dolphins (-3.5) perhaps the most unearned, inexplicable cover of the season in a 11-6 final.

Miami gets the rubber match in Buffalo next week. They probably will give the Bills a better game than the Steelers would have, but if Tua Tagovailoa cannot go, then it is not an attractive matchup in my book. The AFC East was awfully close to sending just one team to the playoffs, but we’ll see what the Dolphins can do in Buffalo.

Ravens at Bengals: The Settled AFC North

We can stop talking about the coin flip and unsettled AFC North race. The Bengals won it fair and square this year after beating the Ravens 27-16 in a slog of a game that saw 28 total possessions between the teams.

The Bengals quickly led 17-0, but things did not come easy for the offense after that. They were fortunate to be facing third-string rookie quarterback Anthony Brown, who threw two early picks before hitting some big plays later.

Really, I’m not looking forward to seeing these teams match up a third time next week in Cincinnati. Not unless Lamar Jackson makes his return, but even then, given his playoff history and more than a month of missing practice, how good can he be? I think the Bengals could have held back and ran a fake game plan in this one to still get the easy win. I’m not expecting much from the Ravens next week.

Patriots at Bills: New England Never Stood a Chance

While it was likely hard for the Bengals to take the field of the site of Monday night’s tragedy with Damar Hamlin collapsing with cardiac arrest, imagine the emotions going through Buffalo players on Sunday. Fortunately, they got the best news possible on Hamlin this week, and they were able to put on a show with him following along on social media.

Nyheim Hines put his name in the history books by returning the opening kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown, the kind of thing you could only script if we’re being honest. Then he did it again later for a 101-yard return just 13 seconds after the Patriots took their only lead of the game. There were four kickoff return touchdowns all season before Sunday, and Hines just added a pair himself. Incredible stuff.

And yes, this is just the second time under Bill Belichick that the Patriots have allowed two special teams return touchdowns in a game. The last was against the 2015 Eagles and those were both related to punts (one return, one blocked punt return).

The Bills needed this too after a shaky start with back-to-back turnovers between the quarters. But Josh Allen found some big plays and continues to be one of the toughest quarterbacks Bill Belichick has had to defend. He finished with 254 yards and three touchdown passes, including a dagger to Stefon Diggs for 49 yards on third-and-10 to take a 35-23 lead in the fourth quarter. That stood after Mac Jones tossed two picks, including a deflected one in the final minutes.

For the third year in a row, the Bills emphatically beat the Patriots late in the year to show who runs the AFC East now. This is technically the second season in a row the Patriots were eliminated from the playoffs with a loss against the Bills.

The Bills are the No. 2 seed, will probably be the last 13-3 team we ever see, but they are still in position to do what they wanted to do all along this year. The AFC Championship Game will even be played at a neutral site should it be Bills vs. Chiefs again.

Something tells me that crowd will be heavily tilted to Buffalo no matter where the game is played.

Browns at Steelers: Pittsburgh Bests Cleveland for 30th Straight Season

What does that title mean? Since 1990, the Steelers have finished ahead of the Browns in the final regular-season standings in every season for a total of 30 straight. Remember that the Browns did not exist in 1996-98 before coming back in 1999.

When you get to face a sack merchant like Deshaun Watson, it was kind of inevitable that Pittsburgh would pull this off. I called it months ago:

I did not call for a 9-8 season and nearly sneaking into another postseason, but that happened too. The Steelers finish the season allowing no more than 17 points in seven straight games, their longest streak since 2001.

It was not the prettiest win. Diontae Johnson came up just short of a touchdown, making scoreless history with the most targets (147) and catches (86) in a season without a touchdown catch. Kenny Pickett also failed to throw multiple touchdowns in any game this season, though he did find George Pickens on a 31-yard score in this one – only the second offensive touchdown that occurred outside the red zone for Pittsburgh in 2022.

Watson took seven sacks, and it could have been several more if he wasn’t elusive. But on one sack, he was clearly pulled down by the facemask, yet no flag was thrown as if the referee acknowledged who he was, sided with the dozens of accusers, and said to hell with this predator. I can’t say I didn’t laugh my ass off at that moment. However, if you ever wanted hard proof that make-up calls exist in major sports, watch the roughing the passer call on Cam Heyward they later bailed out Cleveland with to make up for that missed facemask. Total bullshit.

The fact that came the drive right after the missed facemask makes it such a clear case of a make-up call. The Browns would get a touchdown to make it 20-14, but for Pickett’s inaccuracies on the day, he was money on every third-and-long down the stretch. The Steelers scored to put it away at 28-14, just the second time all season they scored more than 24 points.

At the end of the day, losing 16-10 in Miami was a killer for the Steelers’ wild card hopes, but I think this team would have been smoked in Buffalo next week anyway. I’m mostly just mad that they let Zach Wilson and the Jets score two touchdowns in the fourth quarter in Week 4. That was the real kick in the nads this season.

It was a weird season for the Steelers. They beat Brady, they beat the Raiders, they split with every AFC North rival, and yet they still missed the playoffs despite a 9-8 record to extend to a 19th straight non-losing season, tied with the 2001-19 Patriots for the second-longest streak in NFL history.

Expectations should be higher next year. As for Cleveland, what a joke Watson was this year after Jacoby Brissett played so well. Believe it or not, Brissett is going to finish No. 8 in QBR (59.7) this season. Watson did not qualify with enough attempts, but his 38.6 would have ranked 27th between Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson.

Yeah, it’s been a wild year for many around the NFL. But at least we still have the standard of Pittsburgh finishing ahead of Cleveland in the AFC.

Chiefs at Raiders: Quick Work

The first game this weekend had some of the least drama as the Chiefs made quick work of the Raiders to wrap up the No. 1 seed in a 31-13 win. No 17-0 comeback this time. No 30-29 finish. No 37-34 shootout between Jarrett Stidham and Patrick Mahomes like Stidham had with the 49ers’ top-ranked defense a week ago. No, just domination by the Chiefs, who had six sacks.

The game was a letdown in that regard as you would have thought it’d be more dramatic with the way these teams played so many close games. It was only the second time this season the Raiders were not in a one-score game in the fourth quarter.

The Chiefs no doubt picked on an easy schedule down the stretch and took full advantage of the Bills-Bengals cancellation to get to 14-3 and the No. 1 seed despite losing to the next two seeds. But one thing I will say about the AFC West race that never materialized is that the Broncos (5) and Raiders (6) both finished with as many wins as they had blown leads in the fourth quarter. Those teams were absolutely underachievers, but they were also much better than their records.

Things could improve quickly with better coaching in 2023, though it seems like McDaniels will be safe in Las Vegas. I’m not sure how – just losing to Jeff Saturday should be a firable offense.

Giants at Eagles: No. 1 But Not Dominant

Jalen Hurts returned after a two-game absence for his shoulder injury, but it was not the most inspiring 22-16 win over a Giants team playing a bunch of backups and the Eagles favored by 16.5 points at home.

You could twist yourself into a pretzel debating if the game’s final score was indicative of the closeness, but you cannot deny Hurts showed some rust and it just wasn’t that impressive of a win given who New York was playing, including Davis Webb at quarterback. It was the first game all season where Hurts did not throw or run for a touchdown, though Boston Scott scored another one to prove he is the Giants Killer.

But the Eagles let a 19-0 game get to a miracle onside kick recovery away from being really interesting at the end. Ultimately, they are still the No. 1 seed, but I will take the 49ers over them in a playoff game, and I still think Tampa Bay will beat this team if they match up in the divisional round.

Cowboys at Commanders: Howell Bad Was Dallas?

I did not watch a lick of rookie quarterback Sam Howell in the preseason, but I know his stats were impressive and likely the result of good work. Granted, we’ve seen fool’s gold from rookie quarterback preseason stats before with Blake Bortles and Daniel Jones, so take those with a grain of salt.

But if I was given a choice of Carson Wentz or Sam Howell to start against the Browns last week, I would have gone to Howell no doubt. You know how I feel about Wentz. He’s the guy you go to if you don’t want to advance in the playoffs. If he played this game, I doubt he wins it too.

We have our first .500 team in the 17-game era as Washington’s upset win produces an 8-8-1 record. It was an upset with Dallas favored by 7.5 points on the road, and even if the Cowboys were not properly motivated, this performance was a shit show. They were trying to become just the seventh team to score 27 points in a 10th-straight game, but they couldn’t even get to 7 points this week.

Prescott threw another pick-six and was 14-of-37 for 128 yards. This was even worse than the performance he started the year with in Tampa Bay in Week 1’s 19-3 loss.

Oh yeah, it’s finally time for the playoff matchup I’ve been talking about since October. Is there any doubt the Cowboys are going to shit the bed in Tampa Bay with turnovers and lose that game too? I don’t even think they should be favored at this point.

Cardinals at 49ers: Ready to Break the Glass Ceiling

Watching Brock Purdy throw multiple touchdown passes in six straight games while Kenny Pickett couldn’t do it once this year in twice the games is frustrating. You can’t just put it all on scheme and weapons either. George Kittle caught 11 touchdowns this year, most of them from Purdy in the last month, and he never had more than six scores in a season before 2022. It just seems like Kyle Shanahan trusts this rookie in a way he didn’t trust Jimmy Garoppolo.

But we’ll find out plenty in the weeks to come with Purdy in the playoffs as he attempts to become the first rookie quarterback to start (and win) a Super Bowl. He’s already seen Seattle’s defense once and did fine in that game, but we’ll see how it goes. Being the No. 2 seed is pretty good this year in the NFC as it likely means Seattle, Minnesota, then possibly hosting Tampa Bay, the team they were up 35-0 on a few weeks ago.

This could be the year we see a rookie quarterback in the Super Bowl, and let’s face it, in the first 56 seasons there were almost no situations this advantageous between the weapons and defense around a rookie quarterback. No one would really blink an eye if he wasn’t Mr. Irrelevant and a third-string rookie quarterback.

As for Arizona, a miserable season, but salute to J.J. Watt on an incredible career. One of the best to ever do it and he was a force down the stretch this season. Injuries are the only thing that slowed him down.

Buccaneers at Falcons: Stats Over Winning, Eh?

The Buccaneers were my upset pick this week, because there was no way Tom Brady was going to play in a game just to accumulate some meaningless counting records for most pass attempts and completions in a season just because he throws the ball more than anyone in 17-game seasons.

No way was he playing for records over not having his first losing record (8-9) or suffering his first loss against an Atlanta team he was 11-0 against.

But it happened. Even when Brady could have come in at the Atlanta 22 after his defense forced a fumble in a 10-10 game in the second quarter, he stayed on the bench while Blaine Gabbert came in to lead that short-field touchdown drive. It would be the last score of the game for the Bucs, who also played Kyle Trask in the fourth quarter of a 30-17 loss. Total preseason approach.

The Buccaneers finish with a losing record and Brady’s first loss to the Falcons. I’m still stunned that happened. At least Desmond Ridder finally threw the first two touchdown passes of his career, and rookie running back Tyler Allgeier had a big game to finish with over 1,000 rushing yards.

But the Bucs are still beating Dallas next week. Just accept it. It’s inevitable.

Chargers at Broncos: Who Was Brandon Staley Trying to Impress?

You could argue Brandon Staley did as poor a job as anyone in managing their team’s situation in Week 18. He is new to this postseason thing, but Staley came into the game locked into the No. 5 seed and going to Jacksonville next week. I’m not one for blowing these games off with 60 minutes of rest, but you have to keep the big picture in mind at some point.

It’s not like the Chargers were getting productive minutes out of this game. They lost Mike Williams to injury in the second quarter. That’s tough to blame Staley for, though he has been an injured player this year and probably should have been made inactive in the first place. But the Williams injury should have been a reminder to not push for this one, and to definitely not have Keenan Allen in the game late in the fourth quarter catching a touchdown pass from Chase Daniel in a losing effort.

Like, what the hell was the point of that? It’s not like he was trying to get to 1,000 yards on the season or anything. Asking Justin Herbert to throw nearly 40 passes in three quarters of action was just insane on Staley’s part, and all the Chargers got out of it was a loss, no momentum going into next week, and possibly a big injury to one of their best receivers. Not good.

Meanwhile, I got burned badly riding with Russ this season in Denver, but this game was the kind of player I expected to see show up more often. Wilson had three completions of 50-plus yards on his way to 283 yards and three touchdown passes. It was the first time all season the Broncos scored 30 points.

Depending on the head coach hire in Denver, I’ll probably pick them again next year to do well. The jokes have been there all season, but I think we’re underestimating how quickly they could turn things around with the right coach. This team blew five fourth-quarter leads and had plenty of talent on injured reserve. Let’s not bury Wilson’s career just yet.

Vikings at Bears: No. 1 Pick Belongs to Chicago

Unlike the Chargers, the Vikings did this right by getting good work in for the starters before resting and winning comfortably, 29-13 for a change, against the Bears. They even won big without intercepting Nathan Peterman, who started in place of Justin Fields, once on 19 passes. Tim Boyle played too and played the role of Peterman better than the OG himself, throwing two picks on eight passes.

With the Chicago loss and Houston win (thanks, Lovie), the Bears hold the No. 1 pick with a 3-14 record. A lot to say about this going forward, but I think you have to at least work out and interview the top quarterbacks, including Alabama’s Bryce Young. It’s a really bad look for Fields to get drafted high in 2021, then two years later you are picking No. 1 in the draft with him there. That’s not normal nor is his lack of passing production.

Interesting times ahead in Chicago with major cap space and draft capital.

Texans at Colts: Lovie Smith’s Last Victory for the Bears

The Texans already fired Lovie Smith on Sunday night, not even waiting for the clock to strike on Black Monday as it’s known around the league. I wouldn’t have hired him in the first place, but that makes two years in a row the Texans went one-and-done on a coach. That’s some Jim Tomsula/Chip Kelly stuff there (2015-16 49ers).

But I hope it was an act of defiance and a nod to his old team in Chicago that Lovie played for the win in his final game even though it would hand over the No.1 pick in the draft. He’s not losing to a chump like Jeff Saturday, who only beat a bigger chump in Josh McDaniels in his first game coaching.

The Texans led by 10 points multiple times but sure seemed to be in tank mode after back-to-back interceptions by Davis Mills, including a pick-six. The Colts took a late 31-24 lead and it would have been very easy for the Texans to come up short while looking like they tried everything to win.

Maybe that was even the plan, but the Colts kept giving up fourth-and-long conversions. The worst was a fourth-and-20 when an Indy defensive back made Rahim Moore look competent by going up for an interception, seeing the ball go through his hands, and landing in the end zone for a 28-yard touchdown with 50 seconds left.

Of course you go for two in this situation, and even then the Texans could have intentionally ran a garbage play to secure the No. 1 pick. But they converted and held on for the 32-31 win.

The Texans finish 3-13-1, edged out by the Bears and their 3-14 record. The Bears even beat Houston way back in Week 3, so you can say Lovie gave them two gifts this season.

Was it worth it? We’ll see if someone offers a king’s ransom to the Bears for that top pick. Lovie wasn’t a good hire, but they gave him a terrible team to work with. It was a no-win situation this year.

Panthers at Saints: They’re Going to Do This Shit Again Next Year, Aren’t They?

I’d prefer to pretend this 10-7 game didn’t even exist, but I guess I have to cover Sam Darnold getting a game-winning drive in a game where he was 5-of-15 for 43 yards, two interceptions, and a 2.8 passer rating. Yes, 2.8.

This was about the worst outcome possible for the NFC South if you wanted to see major changes next year. Just the last two minutes alone encapsulate why these teams need to clean house at head coach and quarterback. Darnold threw a pick, the Saints totally botched the situation and burned 16 seconds before having a 55-yard field goal blocked, then Darnold made one completion that set up a game-winning field goal with no time left.

It is the first Carolina game-winning drive since September 29, 2019. The streak of 50 straight losses when trailing in the fourth quarter still stands and will have to be broken next season. But if the Panthers keep the same coach and quarterback, it may not end again.

With the bottom three teams finishing at 7-10 and Tampa Bay at 8-9, watch them all think this is fine because they “were close” to winning the shit division. So, they’ll stick with Steve Wilks and Sam Darnold in Carolina, Andy Dalton and Dennis Allen in New Orleans, Arthur Smith and Desmond Ridder (better argument there at least) in Atlanta.

Why would Brady bail on that division when it’s practically a free ticket to a home playoff game in a sad conference? Look at the AFC where seven first-round quarterbacks are in the playoffs, and someone like Kenny Pickett is going to want to crash that party next year. Don’t sleep on Russell Wilson turning things around with a new coach either, and Bryce Young might still end up in Houston.

The NFC is a con and I expect this postseason to play out accordingly. Bet on the LOAT now if you want the best price you’re going to get.

Next Week

  • PLAYOFFS!?
  • A 3-0 sweep coming for the Seahawks at the hands of San Francisco?
  • Was 38-10 a rib-injury influenced fluke between the Chargers and Jaguars?
  • Can Tua Tagovailoa (or at least Teddy Bridgewater) return for the playoffs in Buffalo?
  • Will the Giants finally put an end to Minnesota’s close-game win streak?
  • Can Lamar Jackson return for the playoffs, and will he actually play well this time?
  • How badly are the Cowboys going to implode in Tampa Bay on Monday night? Thank Christ that game will not have Tony Romo on the call. I’ll Manning Cast the shit out of this one.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 17

~ Scott ~ 5 Comments

I have been warning people for weeks about how shaky and fraudulent this NFC is. On Sunday, the top three teams almost all lost, but the 49ers were able to pull one out in overtime because the Raiders are just that creative at losing games under Josh McDaniels.

But the Eagles lost for the second week in a row, and Minnesota’s close-game magic is still intact after another ass-kicking. This time it was at the hands of Green Bay, which just has to win at home against Detroit to make the playoffs again.

Great job, NFC. Even when Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady are playing the least-inspiring football of their careers, you can’t drive the stake through the heart and rid yourselves of them. The Buccaneers won the NFC South again as expected, but you won’t believe how many close games the Panthers have lost in the fourth quarter going back to 2018 now. Scroll down to the second game recap for the answer.

Blowouts were up this week, and only seven games featured a comeback opportunity. Let’s just hope that means they are saving a classic finish for Monday night when the Bills meet the Bengals. I strongly believe more now than at any point this season that the best postseason result is to see that three-way battle play out in the AFC with the Bills/Chiefs/Bengals and the last one standing takes on the 49ers in the Super Bowl.

But that might be too much trust in the team that nearly lost to Jarrett Stidham on a wild Sunday.

This season in Stat Oddity:

49ers at Raiders: The Purdy-Stidham Shootout We Never Knew We Needed

It was just last week when I said I was getting bored already of the Brock Purdy-led 49ers. Bored of the wire-to-wire wins. Bored of the defense being great. Show me what happens if he has to win a high-scoring game or come back late. Show me if he can bounce back from a mistake. Give me as much info as possible before the playoffs to see how he might handle different situations, because things are not always going to be this easy.

Well, little did I expect one of the season’s best shootouts to come between Purdy and Jarrett Stidham, the latter making his first NFL start in place of the benched Derek Carr. If you told someone in August this would be a Week 17 game, they would assume both teams had horrible seasons and injuries.

Well, there have been injuries, and the Raiders are having a horrible season. But they are undeniably the most creative team at finding ways to lose. The Raiders have now blown six fourth-quarter leads this year, and this was the fifth time they have blown a double-digit lead.

But the finish to this one was wild with almost every drive ending in a turnover or score. Just when you thought the 49ers would pull away after a well-designed YAC play, the Raiders would hold them or answer with their own big play.

Even after the 49ers took a 34-27 lead with 2:17 left, Stidham confidently led the team right down the field to tie. Davante Adams made an incredible catch for 45 yards, keeping the ball from hitting the ground. Adams definitely helped Stidham a lot, but it’s not like Carr played without Adams this year. I’m not sold Carr could have repeated this Stidham performance, throwing for 365 yards and three touchdowns and taking a top-ranked defense to 34-34 in overtime.

But it really should not have gone to overtime. Purdy locked onto Brandon Aiyuk all the way down the field, and even got away with a pop-up ball after he was hit to get another completion to Aiyuk to set up a field goal. But before you could think about crowning a new LOAT, Robbie Gould badly missed a 41-yard field goal wide right. We’d go to overtime where the Raiders won the coin toss. Again, not LOAT material.

But then the other shoe dropped as Stidham was intercepted and the ball was returned to the Las Vegas 7. Purdy came out and took a knee, because otherwise I wouldn’t be giving any credit for a game-winning drive. Gould then redeemed himself with a 23-yard field goal to win it 37-34.

Incredibly, the game of the day’s overtime finish was seen by very few around the country because of absurd NFL broadcasting rules. It is 2023 now, so I’m not sure how that can still happen.

I felt denied the chance to see the Raiders blow another one in real time. But this was definitely right up there with Marcus Mariota vs. P.J. Walker (37-34 in Week 8) as the unexpected shootout of the season.

Panthers at Buccaneers: The Inevitable NFC South Outcome

It may have taken 17 weeks and sunk to lows few could have imagined, but the 2022 NFC South race is over, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have won the division title for the second year in a row. Just like we expected.

It took another double-digit comeback in the fourth quarter and three Sam Darnold turnovers to pull it off, but you couldn’t say same old 2022 Bucs in this game. This was different as Tom Brady played his best game of the season, and really one of the best of his career in the 30-24 win.

When these teams met in Week 7, Mike Evans dropped a long touchdown pass on the first drive despite being wide open. When I saw that, I figured they were going to kill Carolina that day, but the blunder seemed to set a tone for the rest of the day, and the Bucs never pulled themselves out of it and lost 21-3 in a shocker. Since then, the team’s play has been so poor offensively that we are just used to seeing this now. They win after defenses get tired in the fourth quarter and they can go hurry-up just like they did in Arizona last week.

But Sunday was different. Even when Carolina took a 14-0 lead early, it’s not like they were making Brady play poorly, which is always the most surefire way to beat him. You are not going to rely on winning a shootout at the end or making his teammates screw up. You beat him by beating him down and making him play like shit. This has been the case since 2001. Chris Godwin fumbled a pass on the opening drive for the Bucs, but they didn’t fall apart this time after a first-drive mistake. Ryan Succop also failed on three different kicks on the day.

Evans not only made up for Week 7, but he took full advantage of the secondary not having corner Jaycee Horn (wrist surgery) by constantly getting open down the same right sideline and catching three touchdowns to go along with 207 yards in maybe the best game of his career.

When the Bucs fell behind 21-10 in the fourth quarter, Evans was still the key target with touchdown catches of 57 and 30 to make the comeback and take a 24-21 lead. But Darnold had his chance to be the hero. He had two turnovers earlier in the game, snapping his streak of four straight games without an interception.

But Darnold’s defense sacked Brady on a third down, made him so angry he spiked the ball and drew a 5-yard penalty for delay of game, and Darnold was given 2:32 to deliver his own signature drive in the biggest game of his career.

It went about as well as you expect from a quarterback with a 3-14 record at fourth-quarter comebacks. On the very first snap, Darnold was sacked and stripped of the ball. The Bucs took over at the Carolina 6. Two plays later, Brady snuck in the touchdown for a 30-21 lead after Succop missed the extra point.

Carolina got a field goal to make it 30-24, but it did not recover the onside kick. Good timeout management helped the Panthers get the ball back with 26 seconds left, and it could have been in incredible field position after a bad snap on the punt. But the punter was able to pick the ball up and somehow gather himself to get off an incredible kick downed inside the 3. But a penalty negated that and there was a re-kick.

Still, that play really saved the day for Tampa as Carolina could have taken over 30 or 35 yards away from the lead. Instead, Darnold had to go 92 yards in 26 seconds without a timeout. Yeah, good luck. The lateral play to end it was one of the better attempts you’ll see, but it ultimately failed.

That was the end of the NFC South race. Brady finished with 432 yards on a reasonable 45 attempts this week. Darnold had 341 yards, but the three turnovers were costly. As expected, the vaunted Carolina running game was held in check with just 16 carries for 47 yards from the running backs this week.

So, you could say it was same old Panthers. The stench of Matt Rhule is hard to get out, but these issues have been going on even longer than his arrival in 2020.

  • The Carolina Panthers have lost 50 straight games when trailing in the fourth quarter.
  • Carolina’s last 4QC win was October 21, 2018 in Philadelphia, a wild one from a 17-0 deficit in a 21-17 win.
  • Since that day, the Panthers are 0-29 at fourth-quarter comeback opportunities, or the games where they had the ball, down 1-to-8 points.

This is an insane stretch spanning five seasons now. We just saw Tampa Bay the last two Sundays win a game after trailing by double digits in the fourth. You don’t need a Brady to do this. The next game up is Pittsburgh and rookie Kenny Pickett has marched down the field for a game-winning touchdown in back-to-back weeks.

Twenty-nine straight losses? It is absolutely embarrassing. Even the last game-winning drive for the Panthers was in 2019 in a game where Kyle Allen threw an incomplete pass in a 10-10 game against Houston on the first play of the fourth quarter, then Joey Slye made a 55-yard field goal for a 13-10 lead in a 16-10 win. Not exactly the stuff of legends.

I have no idea if Brady will retire again or try to join another team, but since the 49ers don’t need him, he would be crazy to leave this NFC South. It is the gift that keeps on giving, and since the race still turned out to be this close, don’t be surprised if his new Three Stooges decide to not make wholesale changes for 2023.

Brady can win the South again with a sad record, host a playoff game, and who knows what can happen when you have this many Perennial NFC Pissants who can implode in January when you are talking about the Packers, Vikings, Cowboys, Eagles, and 49ers.

He will never go back to the AFC when he has this advantage in the NFC.

Steelers at Ravens: Latest Prime-Time Chapter in the Rivalry Delivers

Steelers-Ravens is the only division rivalry in the NFL where the teams can play entertaining games despite neither reaching 20 points. They did it again Sunday night in a 16-13 classic after Kenny Pickett delivered a game-winning touchdown pass in the final minute for the second week in a row.

Pickett did very little before that last drive, but it was that kind of game with the Steelers rushing for nearly 200 yards with Najee Harris (111) going over 100 for the first time this season.

Baltimore killed the Steelers on the ground in Week 14, but Pittsburgh did a better job holding them to 120 yards in this game, 95 fewer than last time. Pickett also avoided the three interceptions that Mitch Trubisky threw in that 16-14 loss.

The Steelers had a rough sequence on defense late in the first half when Cam Heyward was called for a ridiculous flag at the bottom of a pile that ended up costing the Steelers four points on a late touchdown pass when it should have been fourth down and a field goal attempt. But the defense stepped up in the second half and gave Pickett enough chances to get it done again in the fourth quarter.

The third chance was the charm, starting with 4:16 left at the Pittsburgh 20. Pickett had three big completions on the drive, including a 28-yard completion at the two-minute warning. But he saved his best play for the third-and-8 when it looked like the Steelers would never crack the end zone after settling for field goals all night. Pickett escaped pressure and improvised to find Harris in the end zone for a 10-yard touchdown with 56 seconds left to take a 16-13 lead. Minkah Fitzpatrick was able to put the game away with an interception off Tyler Huntley with 13 seconds left.

What Pickett has done the last two weeks is incredible in the rarity of it all. Maybe it deserves a tiny asterisk because of how historically bad the Raiders and Ravens are in 2022 at holding these leads. Yes, this technically is another double-digit blown lead after halftime for the Ravens, who led 13-3 in the third quarter.

But just consider how infrequently the other great quarterbacks of this century have pulled off what Pickett has done two weeks in a row now, and that is lead a game-winning touchdown drive in the final 5:00 when only a touchdown would do (trailing 4-6 points).

Game-winning TD drives led in final 5:00 of 4Q in career (down 4-6 points)

  • Tom Brady – 9 (2002 CHI, 2007 BAL, 2009 BUF, 2013 NO, 2013 CLE, 2017 PIT, 2021 NYJ, 2022 LAR, 2022 NO)
  • Drew Brees – 4 (2002 KC, 2010 DAL, 2016 SD, 2018 PIT)
  • Peyton Manning – 3 (1998 NYJ, 2006 NYJ, 2009 NE)
  • Aaron Rodgers – 3 (2012 DET, 2014 MIA, 2018 CHI)
  • Patrick Mahomes – 2 (2020 ATL, 2022 LAC)
  • Ben Roethlisberger – 2 (2009 GB, 2010 BAL)
  • Kenny Pickett – 2 (2022 LV, 2022 BAL)

In the last two games, Pickett has already matched the career total of such drives from his predecessor, Ben Roethlisberger. Pickett and Mahomes are also the only quarterbacks on this little list who were able to notch a second before their seventh season as a starter.

After starting 2-6, the Steelers (8-8) are just one home win against Cleveland away from a 9-8 record, extending to a 19th straight season without a losing record. Pittsburgh actually was in more dire of a situation last year when it snuck into the playoffs in the final week. But even if the Steelers do not make it back this year, they are building something for the future here.

Saints at Eagles: Agents of Chaos

There is little rhyme or reason to the Saints since Drew Brees retired. They have destroyed Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady while getting destroyed by Daniel Jones and Sam Darnold in other games. They’ve been involved in three shutouts since last December, winning two of them. They gave up 40 points in Philadelphia last year but cut that in one fourth on Sunday.

These Saints are merely agents of chaos, and now that they are eliminated from the playoffs, all they can do is throw a real wrench in the NFC standings. This 20-10 win in Philadelphia is the latest in unexpected results for these Saints. Even though Andy Dalton took six sacks and threw a pick, he still outplayed Gardner Minshew, who also took six sacks in the game.

But trailing 13-10 in the fourth quarter, Minshew threw a pick-six after Marshon Lattimore (back in the nick of time) jumped a route for an easy score with 5:27 left. Minshew could then only gain half of the yards needed on a fourth-and-22, and the Saints were able to run out the final 3:35 on the clock.

The Saints held the ball for 37 minutes and had a huge advantage in plays early in the game in building a 13-0 lead. A.J. Brown taking advantage of a blown coverage for a 78-yard touchdown was seemingly going to get the Eagles right back into it at 13-10 going into the fourth, but the Eagles were scoreless on their final four drives.

Even the vaunted QB push sneak was stuffed at midfield with 8:32 left in the fourth quarter. It’s not so much that Minshew did a poor job with it that Jalen Hurts would have done better, but the Eagles just rushed the whole play despite it being a big moment. They got zero push, and Minshew was just stopped cold for no gain. Maybe the stronger, more athletic Hurts gets more out of it, but it was poorly managed and rushed by my view. I do not believe good things happen on the sneak when you rush it and no one on the line is really dug in.

Last week it was the four turnovers that did the Eagles in, and almost none of that was Minshew’s fault. This week it was the one turnover, but it was on him and it was a crucial pick-six. The Eagles also lost one of their double-digit sack defenders (Josh Sweat) to a scary injury, but he says he will be back this season. Still, injuries are really piling up at the worst moment for this team.

It seemed like a foregone conclusion in October that the Eagles would be the No. 1 seed this year, but now they could be the No. 5 seed if they do not finish the job here. I think they beat the Giants, who really have nothing to play for next week, and wrap up the No. 1 seed next week. But this is an extremely bumpy ending for a team that once looked like it had no major flaws.

Vikings at Packers: The Worst 12-Win Team Ever

If the 2022 Vikings aren’t winning a close game, they are getting their ass kicked in a game decided before halftime.

In a first quarter that took forever, the Packers were up 14-3 despite Aaron Rodgers having one successful dropback. The Vikings allowed a 105-yard kickoff return touchdown and a deflected Kirk Cousins pass on a fourth down was intercepted for a touchdown.

It basically just snowballed from there as the Vikings managed to miss a field goal and see the Packers turn that into a 56-yard field goal to take a 27-3 lead into the locker room.

A scramble touchdown by Rodgers put the Packers up 41-3 in the fourth quarter before the Vikings added two touchdowns in garbage time to bring their pathetic season scoring differential to minus-19 points – by far the worst for a 12-win team in NFL history.

Incredibly, even with Minnesota’s garbage time numbers, Justin Jefferson finished with one catch for 15 yards on five targets. I am not convinced these Packers are a legitimate threat in the playoffs, but they are improved from the team that started 3-6. With how shaky this NFC field is, the Packers can do something this year if they beat Detroit at home and get in next week. They control their destiny, and they will be underdogs in the playoffs for a change.

Let me stress something: THIS IS NOT 2010 AGAIN. That team was elite on both sides of the ball and lost a lot of close games, including two after a concussion for Rodgers. But the Packers are creating turnovers and doing a lot of things to win in ways that go far beyond Rodgers playing like a Hall of Fame quarterback.

I think they win next week and get in the tournament. Then… who knows with this NFC. These Vikings are still alive for the No. 2 seed and they are as fraudulent as it gets.

Broncos at Chiefs: Too Close for Comfort Again

Like a “choose your own adventure” book, NFL games can have plenty of different outcomes, and that may be extra true when it is a division rematch. Every week we try to pick the right narrative of how a game will unfold, and that’s what we end up betting on with our predictions.

Conventional wisdom would have said the Denver team that nearly came back from 27-0 down last time against these Chiefs would give them a hard time again after firing Nathaniel Hackett. Maybe the defense that intercepted Patrick Mahomes three times can do something similar.

But my idea was to go against conventional wisdom, which does often work in the NFL as this league is devoid of logic at times (see Jarrett Stidham vs. 49ers). I liked the Chiefs to blow Denver out this time, and for Travis Kelce to end his four-game scoring drought. Jerick McKinnon can’t keep catching touchdowns every week, can he?

As it turns out, this was more of the same from last time. Mahomes only threw one pick instead of three, but it was a bad one in the red zone that kept things close in the first half. Throw in your obligatory KC fumble coming on a punt return to give Denver a short-field touchdown, and Denver ended up with a couple leads in this game, including a 17-13 lead to start the fourth quarter.

But Mahomes found Blake Bell on the first play of the final quarter, and he did his best Kelce impersonation for a 17-yard touchdown to take the lead again. Kelce and Mahomes have not connected on a touchdown in five straight full games together for the first time. McKinnon even scored two more receiving touchdowns, becoming the first running back since Bill Dudley in 1947 to score a receiving touchdown in five straight games.

After a terrible Russell Wilson interception, McKinnon’s second score seemed to give the Chiefs a comfy edge at 27-17. But this Kansas City defense is an adventure in itself. Wilson was able to overcome a fourth-down interception with an illegal use of hands penalty, and he finished the drive with his second rushing touchdown to make it 27-24.

Wilson got the ball back with plenty of time to take the lead, and it looked like he might do it with the ball nearing midfield after the two-minute warning. But we might be starting to see the impact of Mahomes as teams are really taking their time against him, wary of the clock situation if they score too fast. The Broncos probably tried an ill-advised run on third-and-5, and that set up fourth-and-2.

Wilson took a sack by Chris Jones, but the referees sure did swallow their whistles for a long time instead of calling in the grasp. It’s as if they were baiting the Chiefs to forcibly throw Wilson down or do something to get a 15-yard penalty and automatic first down. Wilson even looked like he maybe got a throw off, but it goes down as a sack on fourth down.

Three plays later, Mahomes converted a third down to Kelce to ice another close call. But with 328 yards and three more touchdown passes, it will likely be enough for Mahomes to win MVP barring something unbelievable on Monday night and in the season finale against the Raiders. The Chiefs should be rooting hard for the Bengals on Monday night, because that is their best hope of getting the No. 1 seed. I do not see this team in the Super Bowl if they have to beat both the Bengals and Bills in the playoffs after their recent struggles with them. Can they beat one in Arrowhead? Sure. But I’ll fade them if they’re the No. 2 seed and they have to beat both, including (likely) Buffalo on the road in the AFC Championship Game.

The Chiefs are 13-3, but they have been slumming it with the likes of the Broncos and Texans in the last month. It would be nice to see them pound the Raiders in Vegas on Saturday, but as the 49ers showed this week, no game is a sure thing this season with the way these teams play week to week.

Conventional wisdom is dead.

Dolphins at Patriots: Oh, Teddy

Well, I guess I was wrong that the Dolphins would beat the Patriots without Tua Tagovailoa, who is 4-0 against New England. Tua did not lead the offense to many points or have great stats in those games, but he by and large avoided the big mistakes that a Bill Belichick team will feast on.

And that is where Teddy Bridgewater screwed everything up. Leading 14-10 late in the third quarter, Bridgewater threw an interception, possibly broke his finger, and took a stiff arm to the face on the return touchdown. It is the fourth straight game the Patriots have scored a defensive touchdown, which had not been done by a defense since the vaunted 2002 Buccaneers.

Miami never led again, and Bridgewater may not play again this season with the finger injury. That leaves third-string rookie Skylar Thompson as the last quarterback standing in Miami, losers of five straight.

Thompson had a couple cracks at a go-ahead drive, but he too threw an interception against Belichick’s defense. Eventually, Mac Jones threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to Jakobi Meyers, who redeemed himself by holding on after a tough landing to take a 23-14 lead with 4:37 left.

Miami eventually got the ball in the end zone to make it 23-21 with 1:04 left, but the Patriots recovered the onside kick to end the game. The Patriots are currently the No. 7 seed, but they are in a three-way tie with the Dolphins and Steelers at 8-8 for that last wild card spot. But the Dolphins have the easier draw next week with the Jets while the Patriots have to play a Buffalo team that could have varied degrees of motivation. The Steelers need both teams to lose, which is hardly impossible.

But quarterback injuries are definitely killing the Dolphins again, and it may prove to be the final nail in the coffin on a once promising season.

Browns at Commanders: Does He Know?

The Commanders (7-8-1) are eliminated from the playoffs after a 24-10 home loss to Cleveland, which saw Deshaun Watson lead as many touchdown drives in the second half (three) as he led in his first 18 quarters this season.

There was some pretty atrocious tackling and coverage on Amari Cooper in that half, but let’s get right to the elephant in the room. Ron Rivera blew this season by going back to Carson Wentz at quarterback. Why did he think that would work given Wentz’s history of poor play in big moments? Why did Taylor Heinicke deserve to get benched after a couple of turnovers on the road against the league’s best defense (49ers)?

Worse, Rivera sounded and looked like he genuinely did not know his team could be eliminated Sunday.

Yeah, you’re done, and Wentz might get you fired next like he did Doug Pederson in Philadelphia, and he had a hand in Frank Reich’s departure in Indy after blowing that shot at the playoffs last year.

This is who he is, and it only took him three snaps to throw his first of three interceptions in the game. Let this be the last straw for teams thinking they can fix Wentz.

Colts at Giants: Welcome Back to the Playoffs, New York

At least one New York team is ending its playoff drought. The Giants (9-6-1) are in and the No. 6 seed after a 38-10 beatdown of the Colts. It was the first time all season the Giants scored more than 27 points in a game. Daniel Jones had a field day with 91 rushing yards and two touchdowns on the ground and two more through the air.

The Giants dominated the Indy line as you’d expect, but if this game will be remembered for anything, it would be this absurd celebration by Giants rookie Kayvon Thibodeaux right next to an injured Nick Foles, who would leave the game.

Absolute bellend. It wasn’t even a snow game. And you would think after the eighth or so snow angel, the Colts may have retaliated, but protecting the quarterback has not been a priority from that group this year.

Jets at Seahawks: Geno Smith Ends New York’s Season

It is only fitting that Pete Carroll and Geno Smith would end the postseason hopes of the first NFL team to get rid of both. Frankly, I have no idea why Seattle was a home underdog in this one. The Jets looked cooked last week, and even if they went to Mike White, he’s not exactly a proven commodity. He threw an early pick and looked inaccurate for much of the game.

Kenneth Walker hit a 60-yard run on the first snap from scrimmage, and that opening-drive touchdown was technically enough to outscore the Jets, who lost 23-6 after more sacks and hits on White. The Jets (7-9) are eliminated from the playoffs after a 6-3 start.

The Jets apparently need to shop for another quarterback for 2023. Hey, do you think Seattle would part with Geno Smith?

Rams at Chargers: The No. 5 Seed Is Possible for Chargers

Apparently, the Rams are only interesting every other week under Baker Mayfield. His no-show in the passing game made for an uninteresting 31-10 Chargers win, the first time since November 2017 that the Chargers won back-to-back games by at least 17 points.

But if you give Justin Herbert a defense and a running game (30 carries for 190 yards against the Rams), then look out. The Chargers (10-6) could beat the AFC South winner in the wild card round if they can get that No. 5 seed from the Ravens.

Meanwhile, with an 11th loss, the Rams have secured the worst Super Bowl title defense season in history with a 5-11 record. We know they sold out the long-term for the short-term success, but 5-11 is still a surprising and disappointing outcome.

Bears at Lions: Detroit Stays Alive with Rout of Chicago

The Lions (8-8) are back to .500 after making short work of the Bears in a 41-10 blowout. It’s like watching two different sports with these teams. While both rushed for 200 yards, the Lions also got 255 passing yards out of Jared Goff with three more touchdown passes.

Justin Fields finished 7-of-21 for 75 yards while taking seven sacks for 45 yards. Sure, he rushed for 132 yards, but it led to 10 points when you only put up 30 net passing yards on 28 passing plays.

The Bears are the first NFL team to complete no more than 7 passes while allowing 40 points in a game since Jeff Fisher’s 2009 Titans lost 59-0 in New England. That was a snow game. This was in a dome against the No. 32 scoring and yardage defense.

But now it looks like the Bears can finish with the No. 32 scoring defense.

Jaguars at Texans: Meaningless Game Is Houston’s Worst of the Year

Welp, my worst pick of the week was thinking the Texans had some secret sauce against Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars after nine straight wins, including 3-0 in the Lawrence era.

As it turns out, Lawrence just needed a 62-yard Travis Etienne touchdown run (only play of drive) and a fumble return touchdown to score more than enough points to beat the lowly Texans.

Houston’s 31-3 loss is by far its worst of the season, surpassing the 18-point loss to the Raiders that happened after Houston blew a fourth-quarter lead.

But it did not matter what Jacksonville did in this one. It’s all about Week 18 against Tennessee for the AFC South title.

Cardinals at Falcons: Another One for Kliff to Thank the Players for Losing Close

Good luck to the Hard Knocks crew in trying to hype up the David Blough vs. Desmond Ridder battle in Week 17. It was actually not that poorly played of an NFL game with both offenses hitting 20 first downs, only one turnover on an aborted snap, and it was played in a tight, one-score window for 60 minutes with three lead changes in the last 10 minutes.

It’s just hard getting people to care about such a game at this point of the season given the low stakes. After the Cardinals took the lead on a 57-yard field goal from Matt Prater, rookie quarterback Desmond Ridder was able to lead the first game-winning drive of his career. Drake London didn’t fumble away a Ridder completion for a change, and the Falcons did a textbook job of milking the clock and getting as deep as possible for Younghoe Koo’s 21-yard field goal to win the game 20-19 with no time left.

It was like one of those close 2021 Atlanta wins when Ryan would use up the game clock for a field goal, denying the defense the chance to blow the lead again. The best way to do it, of course.

Next Week

  • Next week’s season finale? Let me just take in Bills-Bengals first.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 15

~ Scott ~ 8 Comments

When your weekend starts with the biggest comeback in NFL history, you know things are going to be wilder than usual. The NFL’s Week 15 can lay claim to being the wildest week of the 2022 season with a record 33-point comeback, two more 17-point comebacks, three overtime games won on touchdowns, two non-offensive game-winning touchdowns, a snowy fourth quarter classic in Buffalo, and we still have to see what Baker Mayfield can do in Green Bay on Monday night.

After a lack of drama and lead changes in Week 14, the week I called the worst of the year, every single game but one was within one score at some point in the fourth quarter. It took the greatest kicker of all time having a 50-yard field goal blocked in his face to not have it happen in 100% of the games this week.

That does not mean we had 15 games with a comeback opportunity. We had 11 for the first time since Week 5 now that the bye weeks are over. But what a week it was with plenty to recap.

This season in Stat Oddity:

Colts at Vikings: The Biggest Comeback/Collapse in NFL History

For a special recap of this historic game, check out my feature, The 2022 Vikings Are Young, Dumb, and Full of Comebacks

Giants at Commanders: Fumbles and Bad Refs

We finally had a winner in Giants-Commanders this year despite how close this was to going to overtime with the score 20-20 again. But Taylor Heinicke and Washington had a brutal night at the ends of each field. The Giants got back on track with a win thanks to the familiar formula of pressure defense and grinding out the fourth quarter.

The Commanders could have taken control early like they did two weeks ago when these teams met, but a third-down sack of Heinicke knocked them out of field goal range on the opening drive, then rookie Kayvon Thibodeaux had perhaps his play of the season with a strip-sack returned for a touchdown in the second quarter.

Washington trailed 17-9 to start the fourth quarter but struggled to hold onto the ball and put it in the end zone. Antonio Gibson narrowly avoided another lost fumble on a drive that ended with a 51-yard field goal two plays later to make it 17-12. Just like two weeks ago, the Giants couldn’t put things away on offense despite driving into Washington territory.

But after Heinicke hit a deep ball to Jahan Dotson for 61 yards, that drive would also stall after he was strip-sacked for the second time on third-and-goal with 6:06 left. The Giants added another 50-yard field goal to make it 20-12, but we were in almost the exact same situation as two weeks ago with Heinicke having the ball with a chance to tie. The clock was less favorable, and they would need a two this time, but it was very close to the same thing.

The Giants also looked like they were going to blow it again on a night that showed the Commanders have a really nice trio of wide receivers in Terry McLaurin, Curtis Samuel, and rookie Dotson. But do you know who apparently are not fans of this receiving trio? The refs. After a Heinicke scramble set up third-and-goal from the 1, Brian Robinson’s touchdown plunge was nullified by an illegal formation penalty on McLaurin.

This is the kind of thing you could struggle to notice at the snap, and according to former official Terry McAuley via NBC broadcast, this was a weak call that did not need to be made. McLaurin says the ref told him he was lined up fine, so make of that what you will.

But the big stink came on fourth-and-6. Heinicke threw a pass out of desperation to Samuel in the end zone, and corner Darnay Holmes was there early, interfered with Samuel, but no flag was thrown for defensive pass interference. Game over, Giants win.

Now in that video, Holmes is perfectly fine at the beginning. Samuel even uses his right hand to push Holmes away at the 7-second mark. But after that push creates some separation, you can see Holmes panic and start to ride Samuel’s back at 9-10 seconds. By 12 seconds, he decides to grab onto the receiver’s chest with both hands and leap on his back again to help knock the ball away.

What more do you need for DPI? Oh yeah, I guess it would help if Samuel was Mike Evans and Heinicke was Tom Brady, because we know that is getting flagged 100% of the time if they were involved. It would also have gone the way of Davante Adams no matter if Aaron Rodgers or Derek Carr threw him the ball, and the same is true for Mahomes and Kelce, or any other star players you want to throw into the mix.

Officials call the game differently at the very end of the game even though a foul is a foul is a foul. Call it preferential treatment or giving the benefit of the doubt, but some players tend to get calls others wouldn’t from refs too. That’s just an unfortunate part of the game.

What can be done to change that? I’m not sure. I just know it is a very bad look for the league when NBC’s rules expert (McAuley), a former official himself, can quickly look at these plays and call the illegal formation unnecessary and the missed DPI blatant.

I am not saying we need a game where every play in the final 2:00 is highly scrutinized and reviewed for every possible little penalty. But maybe some kind of “eye in the sky” in New York with all the best angles and replays can quickly be the third-party ruler in these cases and come up with the best calls for game-deciding plays like this one.

But they know we’re still going to watch the next game no matter how bad the last call (or no call) was.

Patriots at Raiders: Belichick Is Going to Bury Jakobi Meyers with Joe Pesci in the Desert

Bill Belichick is now 11-12 against his former New England assistants, including an 0-2 record against Josh McDaniels. But in none of those games did his team ever look as stupid and undisciplined as they did in Vegas.

Forget that play. We’ll get to that. Before the final minute, you had the Patriots completely botch a goal-to-go sequence, blow a coverage on a second-and-20 resulting in a Darren Waller touchdown, have a punt blocked, and Mac Jones struggled to throw for 100 yards.

But the nice thing was they were playing the 2022 Raiders. Despite leading 17-3, you know this team forgets there are two halves to each game. Once again, the Raiders blew a two-touchdown lead after some big plays by the Patriots quickly put together a go-ahead touchdown drive with 3:43 left. New England went from trailing 17-3 to leading 24-17.

Derek Carr adopted the Brady approach of “suck fast and hope for DPI” after throwing three incomplete passes, the last being a deep ball on third down that almost connected with Mack Hollins. But since the drive was so bad and only consumed 27 seconds (punt included), Carr was going to get another shot, because you knew the Patriots would be conservative with Jones and the lead.

In fact, Carr had 2:11 left to tie it. The game could have been over with a four-and-out, but the New England defense lost Hollins on the sideline for a 12-yard gain to keep the game alive. On a play that should quiet the Raiders fans who think the refs are always out to get them, the Raiders were ruled to have scored a touchdown when Keelan Cole hauled one in the back of the end zone from 30 yards out with 32 seconds left.

There was a video of what looked like his one foot may have been on the white and out of bounds. But this was one of those plays where it stood just because you had to stay with the call on the field, which was a touchdown. Had they ruled it incomplete on the field, it likely would have stayed incomplete and brought up third down.

Tough one for Patriots fans, but they have a long way to go to make up for all the crap that went their way the last two decades. The game was only tied and likely headed for overtime, except the Patriots did one of the dumbest things in NFL history:

We have seen fumbles returned for touchdowns on the final play of the game before. It happened when Washington upset the Eagles this year. It happened to the Raiders in overtime in Arizona when Hunter Renfrow coughed up the ball.

But those were different situations. You don’t see a team try to lateral in a tied game with overtime in their back pocket, because that would be stupid for the exact reason we saw. I just said the other day that Chandler Jones was having the worst season of his career, but hey, at least he has a highlight play for the rest of his life to enjoy.

I don’t actually mind the initial lateral from Rhamondre Stevenson. It was risky and it wasn’t planned that way, but he made a decent play. But if you are Meyers, who says he knew it was tied and not meant to be a lateral, then how in the world do you make that lateral that far back into the field of play because you thought Mac Jones was open?

Him?

If he can’t throw a Hail Mary from his 45, he wasn’t going to do anything here. Just an incredibly bad decision by Meyers and maybe even a worse throw as that ball was right to Chandler Jones and nowhere close to Mac Jones. If Kendrick Bourne or Nelson Agholor made the play Meyers did, they probably get cut Monday.

With games coming up against the Bengals, Dolphins, and Bills, the Patriots (7-7) are likely toast for the playoffs. When you look at the roster, it makes sense. But you never expect the Patriots to do something so incredibly stupid like they did on Sunday.

That’s what you expect the Raiders to do.

Dolphins at Bills: Buffalo Powder Is Different Than Miami Powder

Unlike Sunday night, this was just a great, dramatic game between two quality division rivals in Buffalo on Saturday night. I could watch these teams play a best-of-seven if things are going to be as good and interesting as the first two games this year.

I had been waiting since Week 3 to see this rematch, because I thought the Bills shot themselves in the foot that game and blew it way more than Miami found a way to win it. I was ultimately wrong about the Bills blowing them out here in the cold, but it was a great game with neither team able to lead by more than one possession.

The much-hyped snow did not arrive until the fourth quarter, but when it did, that made every snap an adventure down the stretch. But the game was filled with intrigue as a better version of Tua Tagovailoa showed up than the last two weeks. But the biggest surprise was Raheem Mostert (136 yards) giving the Dolphins a dominant run attack they haven’t had this year.

That’s what made the fourth quarter so questionable when the Dolphins took to the air on six of their final seven plays after the snow started. How do you not feed Mostert on a third-and-1? Instead, Tua threw a quick pass that lost 2 yards and the Dolphins settled for a 47-yard field goal.

Allen made up for his strip-sack on the previous drive with an excellent 44-yard run and a great touchdown throw to Dawson Knox for a 5-yard score. Allen dove for the end zone on the game-tying two-point conversion, and despite NFL Network cutting to a commercial break long enough for analyst Mark Sanchez to scarf down two hot dogs, the play was good and not a fumble as it appeared.

Miami’s pass-happy drive in a tied game with the snow coming down just did not make sense to me. The Bills had the ball back with 5:56 left in a 29-29 game. Allen led a drive as good as any in his career with pinpoint accuracy and sharp decision making. When any little slip or bad bounce of the ball in the increasingly slick conditions could end the game, this was impressive stuff in a very important game. I would say he’s put himself back in the MVP race if the losses to the Jets and Vikings weren’t so damaging.

Devin Singletary pulled up short of a go-ahead touchdown with 34 seconds left, which was probably the smartest thing to do in that spot. The field was cleaned off by Buffalo players well enough to give kicker Tyler Bass a very fair shot at a 25-yard field goal. He nailed it and the Bills won 32-29 and should be the AFC East champs when it’s all said and done.

I still think Miami is a playoff team this year, but with its second three-game losing streak of the year, you can see how the inexperience with success is hurting Mike McDaniel and Tua.

After zero game-winning drives in the 2021 season, the Bills are already up to four engineered by Allen this year (at Ravens, at Chiefs, at Lions, and vs. Dolphins). When you take away someone like Von Miller, on top of a loss like safety Micah Hyde, it is going to be more of a grind for this team. There is no easy path to the Super Bowl in this AFC.

More and more, the AFC is looking like a three-team race that will be a repeat of last year: two coin-flip games between the trio of Buffalo, Kansas City, and Cincinnati. Fortunately, we get to see the Bills and Bengals in prime time in Week 17, the first matchup between Allen and Joe Burrow in their NFL careers.

Eagles at Bears: Just Some Hiccups

How did Jalen Hurts fare in his first game as the odds-on MVP favorite this year? He probably played his worst game of the season with two early picks, but he still finished with 376 total yards (315 passing) and scored three rushing touchdowns in a 25-20 win.

The Bears did their usual thing: plenty of rushing yards, some good highlights from Justin Fields, but not good on third down, not enough passing, and no fourth-quarter comeback despite the Eagles letting them hang around in a 17-13 game after a doinked field goal attempt.

A.J. Brown got open for a 68-yard catch that set up Hurts’ third touchdown to basically wrap it up at 25-13 with 4:20 left. The Eagles had some blown coverage on a 35-yard touchdown to Byron Pringle with 2:42 left, but Philadelphia was able to convert one more third down to Brown to move the chains and end the game with a 25-20 win to move to 13-1.

A better team could have made the Eagles pay in that first half, but Fields had some really bad plays on third-and-1 early, and too many sacks (six for 61 yards) on the day.

The Eagles will not go into their big game with Dallas next week at their sharpest like the last three weeks, but after the way Dallas has played against Houston and Jacksonville, does it matter? Even a Dallas win is unlikely to cost the Eagles the No. 1 seed. Still, I am surprised to see the Cowboys are a 1.5-point home favorite next Saturday.

Cowboys at Jaguars: The Return of McCarthyism

If Houston was supposed to be the wake-up call for this Dallas team to get its shit together before the showdown with the Eagles, then the message was initially received. Then in the third quarter, (Mike) McCarthyism crept in and this team fell apart, blowing a 27-10 lead and losing 40-34 in overtime.

I do not know if the Jaguars are legitimately turning it around after a 2-6 start, or if they’re just the lucky beneficiaries of playing two of the worst teams ever to hold leads (Raiders and Ravens), a Tennessee team during its worst losing streak in years, and now this Dallas team that should have lost to Houston a week ago.

I do know turnovers have played a crucial part in Jacksonville’s recent wins against Baltimore, Tennessee, and now Dallas. A Dak Prescott interception late in the third quarter set the Jaguars up 39 yards away from another touchdown to quickly make this very interesting after it was 27-10 not even three minutes before that.

Like last week against Houston, Prescott would atone for his mistake with a 75-yard touchdown drive, finding Noah Brown for another 13-yard score to take a 34-31 lead. The great Dallas defense we keep hearing about? It mostly did its job the rest of the way. Trevor Lawrence put a nasty spin move on the defense, but he got a bit greedy on the play and fumbled in Dallas territory with 1:28 left.

It wasn’t a dagger with the Jaguars having all three timeouts left, but the Cowboys botched this drive. Two runs for net 0 yards by each back, then Dak tried to throw a deep one to Brown that fell incomplete. The Cowboys burned 27 seconds and even saved the Jaguars a timeout, which they desperately needed.

With CeeDee Lamb catching all seven targets on the day – he had five of the offense’s seven longest gains – I think you have to be aggressive and work an early-down pass in there, maybe off play-action. If the end result is just going to be giving them the ball back anyway with time to do something, then I am giving my best players a chance to end things on offense.

Lawrence had 1:01 to get a field goal and he needed just about every second of it. Zay Jones was the big target on the day with three touchdowns, and his 19-yard catch to the Dallas 30 was a game saver. The game is over there if the Jaguars didn’t have that last timeout. Silly Cowboys.

The Jaguars were good from 48 yards out on the field goal to send it to overtime. The Dallas defense again did a great job to force a three-and-out. But after a few Tony Pollard runs, Dak’s first dropback in overtime was a disaster with a tipped ball going to Rayshawn Jenkins for a 52-yard game-winning pick-six.

You just can’t trust these teams this year. It would be such a McCarthy thing to restore false hope and beat the Eagles next week. But guess what? The Eagles are unlikely to be caught for the No. 1 seed, let alone the division at this point.

We would really be looking at the NFC’s Game of the Year next week in Dallas if this team didn’t blow a 14-point fourth-quarter lead in Green Bay and a 17-point third-quarter lead in Jacksonville.

13-1 at 12-2 on Christmas Eve? Hell yeah, that would have been a spectacle. But if you’re talking about the NFC Game of the Year this season, the answer has never been more obvious what that should be.

It’s the 49ers at Eagles in the NFC Championship Game. It sure isn’t a game involving this Dallas team.

Bengals at Buccaneers: Joe Burrow Pulls the Remaining Horseshoe Out of Tom Brady’s Ass

If I told you a team in this game blew a 17-0 lead by doing a stupid fake punt, turning the ball over four times in a row, which set up three touchdowns inside the opponent’s 40-yard line, then wasted a huge fourth-down sack with a tacky 5-yard penalty, you’d bet everything you owned on the team who blew it being Cincinnati, right?

Well, this was some role reversal. This game went from nauseating (blame Tony Romo’s hard-on for Tom Brady) to hilarious in record time. The Bengals trailed 17-0 late in the first half and got into the locker room with 83 yards, the worst first half for any Joe Burrow start in his career. Meanwhile, the Buccaneers actually looked like a competent, balanced team like they were in 2020-21.

But before I could even start joking that Brady at age 45 plays tighter defense on Burrow’s receivers than Mahomes or Allen could ever dream of, this one took a sharp turn in the third quarter. The Buccaneers tried a fake punt from their own 26, and the direct snap to Gio Bernard seemed to catch him by surprise, and the play failed. The Bengals only got a field goal out of it, but better than nothing.

Then Brady threw a pick as he tried to make one of those very low throws to a diving receiver, but he got the defender instead. Still, his defense looked like it was going to force a four-and-out after Burrow took a 23-yard sack on fourth-and-3, or one of the worst plays you’ll ever see a quarterback make. However, he was bailed out by a defensive holding penalty on Lavonte David.

If Kevin O’Connell stole part of Brady’s lucky horseshoe back in January with the Rams, then Burrow must have snuck in there at halftime to extract the other piece lodged up Brady’s ass. This turnaround was absurd.

The Bengals turned that first turnover into a touchdown. Three plays later, Brady was strip-sacked and the Bengals were 13 yards away from the lead, which they took quickly at 20-17.

How about three in a row? Brady was just trying to hand off on a running play, and I’ve never seen the ball just pop right out of a quarterback’s hand when he was about to do so. The ball never got to the back and that goes down as another turnover for Brady.

The Bengals turned that into a touchdown too on a drive from 39 yards out with Ja’Marr Chase getting in on the action. Burrow even got away with a dropped interception or two this half. Everything was clicking for our young LOAT.

But Brady could come back, right? Cue the DPI throw to Mike Evans, and this was still a ballgame at 27-17. But nope. Under pressure, Brady’s pass fluttered from the contact and the Bengals came up with a diving interception and great defensive effort for the fourth straight turnover. That one only led to a quick three-and-out, but it changed field position, and Tampa responded with a three-and-out back. Perhaps a curious decision to punt on fourth-and-1 from your own 11 with 9:26 left after the game this team was having.

This time, Burrow put together a more legitimate drive on a longer field (62 yards) and he put away the Bucs with his fourth touchdown pass to a fourth different receiver. He even drew the Bucs offsides on a fourth down during the drive.

Brady added a 75-yard touchdown drive in garbage time to get the Bucs to 23 points for just the second time in 2022, but the Bengals recovered the onside kick to end it at 34-23.

I should be enjoying this Tampa Bay season a lot more than I am, and I know I would had the Rams and Saints not blown those two games against them. This team should be 4-10 right now, last place in the worst division. But ever since Week 1, I felt it was inevitable they were going to win the division and get rewarded with a home playoff game. Even as they continue to lose, I still think the odds of them beating Dallas in the wild card round in Tampa are incredibly high.

But this was still stunning because they went from looking the most competent they have all season to just a pure disaster all around.

Are the Bucs the first team in NFL history to give up at least a 34-0 scoring run in back-to-back weeks? They were down 35-0 to the 49ers last week. The quick answer is no. The 1961 Raiders were shut out 55-0 and 44-0 to start their season 0-2 if you can believe that. The 1978 Colts also did really bad with 38-0 and 42-0 losses to begin their season.

But for Brady, eight days ago he had only experienced a team scoring more than 31 straight points on him once (2020 Saints led 38-0 and won 38-3). Now it’s happened the last two games.

I just hope this doesn’t somehow end up as the Super Bowl matchup, because there is no way the Bengals are repeating this.

Chiefs at Texans: Just Needed the Rosencopter

The comparison of Peyton Manning to Patrick Mahomes wouldn’t be complete without a hard-fought win in Houston against the Texans when you least expect it. But the Chiefs are now 4-9-1 ATS, second-worst record in the league, after failing to cover a 14.5-point spread that was, frankly, ridiculous for a road team. Not to mention what happened with these teams a week ago.

This would have been a brutal loss for the Chiefs as they had nearly 300 more yards (502-219) than the Texans. But once again it was the turnovers that kept it close, and it was a turnover that made sure the Chiefs would still win.

This week it was not one but two obligatory fumbles by the Chiefs, including one from Isiah Pacheco and one from JuJu Smith-Schuster. JuJu’s led to the Texans taking a 21-16 lead into the fourth quarter.

But Patrick Mahomes used his legs again on a 5-yard scramble for a touchdown run. He completed the two-point conversion pass and the Chiefs led 24-21. But like I said in Week 11 after the Chargers game, we got to see what is becoming the signature Mahomes comeback. He leads them from behind with a go-ahead touchdown, the defense gives it up, then he still gets the win with a touchdown anyway.

But this one had no business going to overtime like that. After the Texans used a long drive to kick a game-tying field goal, Mahomes had the Chiefs right back in scoring range thanks to a 14-yard scramble on another third down. But instead of trying to get a little closer for a kicker who had missed another extra point, Andy Reid seemed content with staying conservative and settling for a long field goal. A designed run by Mahomes for 2 yards and a RB screen that lost a yard prove that.

Butker has been solid from long range, but from 51 yards out with 12 seconds left, he was wide right and the Chiefs were going to overtime. The Chiefs won another coin toss, but Mahomes made one of his few mistakes in the game by taking a sack on third down that knocked the offense out of field goal range.

But Davis Mills immediately returned the favor on a scramble when Frank Clark knocked the ball out and the Chiefs recovered. All that was missing was Mills spinning through the air a la the Rosencopter.

Unable to trust Butker, the Chiefs couldn’t just take a knee from the 26. With Pacheco fumbling earlier, the Chiefs turned to Jerick McKinnon, who has been money for them as of late. He immediately ripped off a 26-yard touchdown run against a run defense I crap on every single week in previews, prop picks, and recaps. That was the right call for sure, and while Mahomes gets a cheap game-winning TD drive, he should have had the game won on a field goal in regulation. Mahomes had the highest QBR (92.3) in Week 15.

Still, it turns out to be the fifth time that Mahomes has led a fourth-quarter comeback win with two go-ahead touchdown drives. That’s already more than the total Aaron Rodgers (two), Peyton Manning (one), and Tom Brady (one) have in their careers combined.

Mahomes finished 36-of-41 passing, setting an NFL record for highest completion percentage (87.8%) in a game with at least 40 pass attempts. He hit his last 20 passes, starting with a great touchdown grab by Marquez Valdes-Scantling to end the first half. He also had the two-point conversion pass in there, so it’s arguably 21 in a row.

Mahomes didn’t hit anything deep in this game as the Chiefs dinked and dunked and picked the Texans apart in the 0-15 yard range. They used short passes as an extension of the run game against the worst run defense, so it was a smart plan. Mahomes’ success rate was 30/49 (61.2%), which is very high for a game. If they can ever figure out how to hang onto the ball better, they wouldn’t need overtime and late-game heroics to beat teams like this.

Titans at Chargers: Herbert Gets Help

Justin Herbert is back to .500 (23-23) in his career after getting more help than usual in a 17-14 win over the Titans. Sure, he still had to throw for over 300 yards, including an absolute dime for 35 yards to Mike Williams on the game-winning drive, but he got some decent contributions from his running game and defense in this one.

Herbert was able to win his first game when throwing multiple interceptions. He was previously 0-6 when that happened. Hell, before Sunday, Herbert was 6-20 when throwing an interception.

The Titans had a team record four straight games without a takeaway before playing some volleyball in the end zone before halftime to end that streak with a Herbert pick. Incredible play. It was that kind of stuff that kept this a 7-7 game for so long. It didn’t help that Ryan Tannehill and Austin Ekeler were knocked out early, but both returned to finish the game. Ekeler showed his strength on a touchdown run and finished with 12 carries for 58 yards. That may not sound like much, but when you can get Herbert 22 carries for 82 yards from the running back position, that’s better than a lot of Chargers games.

After Ekeler’s touchdown gave the Chargers a 14-7 lead in the fourth quarter, both offenses struggled. Eventually, the Titans got the ball back with 2:57 left. Derrick Henry was able to get over 100 yards rushing, and the Titans needed it with Tannehill looking limited on his ankle injury. The drive was starting to flounder before back-to-back throws by Tannehill picked up 45 yards. The Chargers were wise to use timeouts after each red-zone snap, because Mike Vrabel is definitely a coach who will wind the clock down and go for two to win after the touchdown.

Tannehill snuck in the touchdown himself with 48 seconds left. The extra point was the right decision. Overtime and a possible tie would still be advantageous to the Titans in their division race with Jacksonville.

But even without a timeout and 44 seconds left at his own 23, Herbert is good enough to get the job done. He picked up 22 yards in 12 seconds with receivers getting out of bounds, hit the great throw to Williams for 35, then got the spike down. A delay of game penalty wasn’t great, but it wouldn’t be a Chargers game without some drama.

Dicker the Kicker was true from 43 yards with 4 seconds left. The Titans were stopped on the kick return to end the game at 17-4. Tennessee (7-7) has lost four in a row while the Chargers (8-6) are up to the No. 6 seed thanks to the head-to-head win over Miami last week and the losses by the Patriots and Jets.

We are getting closer to Herbert in the postseason after he’s led five game-winning drives in consecutive seasons. Herbert’s 13 game-winning drives are tied with Matt Ryan for the third most in a quarterback’s first three seasons. Only Russell Wilson (15) and Dak Prescott (15) had more.

Lions at Jets: Greg Not Enough Leg Helps Detroit Continue Playoff Push

Bit of an unexpected passing duel outdoors in December between Jared Goff (252 yards) and Zach Wilson (317 yards on 18 completions) with only one turnover in the game.

But most of the game was about defense. You figure the Lions would be at a disadvantage with the No. 31 defense in points and No. 32 in yards while the Jets have been one of the best, but it took one play to swing things. After the Jets took a 17-13 lead, the Lions faced a fourth-and-1 at midfield at the two-minute warning. The Lions rolled the dice with a pass, and backup tight end Brock Wright leaked out uncovered and caught an easy one that he was able to turn into a 51-yard touchdown. It was Detroit’s only 20-yard offensive play in the game.

Only needing a field goal, Wilson took some annoying sacks, but he also did a good job with some miraculous throws and catches by rookie Garrett Wilson. An even greater fourth-and-18 conversion went for 20 yards to Elijah Moore, and the Jets were able to use their final timeout with a second left after that play.

Overtime or a Detroit win would come down to the leg of Greg Zuerlein on a 58-yard field goal. The kick wasn’t even close, and the Lions escaped with the 20-17 win. Both teams are .500 now with 7-7 records. Huge win for Detroit with a more than doable remaining schedule of Panthers, Bears, and Packers.

Ravens at Browns: Not Baltimore’s Day

Hard to believe this was the only game in Week 15 where one team led by 10+ points for the entire 15 minutes of the fourth quarter. It was a lousy kicking day with both kickers missing twice, though Justin Tucker being one of those kickers is the shocking part. He had a 50-yard field goal blocked in the first minute of the fourth quarter to keep it a 13-3 game.

Beyond the uncharacteristic, awful kicking day, the Ravens just didn’t seem to recognize the situation. Cleveland’s offense sucks with Deshaun Watson, who has managed two touchdown drives in three games, and you were playing this game without Lamar Jackson again. Take easy points when they come, so that means not going for it on fourth-and-1 at the Cleveland 7 on your long opening drive by giving the ball to the fullback Patrick Ricard, who was stuffed.

There went three points. Tucker missed a 48-yard field goal before halftime despite making from 53 earlier, so that’s six points. To start the third quarter, Huntley forced an awful pass on third down in the red zone that would have been short of the sticks even if it was caught, and that was intercepted. There’s nine points. The Tucker blocked field goal could have been 12. DeMarcus Robinson also lost a fumble near midfield on a completion in the third quarter.

Just a poor game all around by the passing game and kicking unit. Defense and run game (nearly 200 yards again) were just fine.

It’s the first of Huntley’s eight major appearances that wasn’t decided by 1-to-3 points. The Ravens (9-5) are now in second place in the AFC North and things may very well stay that way the rest of the season.

Falcons at Saints: Bad Start to the Ridder Era

Atlanta rookie quarterback Desmond Ridder made his first start, getting a quick taste of the Saints rivalry. It did not go well. Ridder finished 13-of-26 for 97 yards, took four sacks, and ran six times for 38 yards. The Falcons gave him nearly 200 yards of rushing support to help keep the game close, but he definitely showed some inaccuracy and a lack of experience as you would expect from a third-round rookie in his first start.

Ridder joins a weird list of five other quarterbacks to throw for fewer than 100 yards on more than 25 pass attempts in their first NFL start since 1950:

  • Don Meredith (1960 Cowboys; turned out to be a good player for Dallas)
  • Will Cureton (1975 Browns; only game in his career)
  • Heath Shuler (1994 Redskins; first-round bust for Washington)
  • Jonathan Quinn (1998 Jaguars; forgettable career backup who was a third-round pick in 1998)
  • Doug Pederson (1999 Eagles; much better career as head coach)

We’ll see where Ridder ends up. Rookie wide receiver Drake London had 70 of Ridder’s 97 passing yards, but he also had the big blunder of the game that prevented Ridder from becoming a legend in his first start against the hated Saints. Down 21-18, Ridder looked to convert a fourth-and-5 to London at midfield, but he was stripped of the ball and the Saints recovered with 2:06 left.

The Saints kind of botched the clock situation from there, so Ridder got the ball back with 9 seconds left. After a short completion, he took off for an 18-yard run and dipped out of bounds even though the clock had already expired.

Take note, New England. That’s the moment where you are supposed to throw a lateral back into the field of play.

Ridder will learn. Maybe.


Steelers at Panthers: Pittsburgh Sweeps NFC South

I should have known better with that shit division. The Steelers completed their 4-0 sweep of the NFC South with a 24-16 win in Carolina that wasn’t even that close. The Steelers converted 12-of-16 third downs, used the first 11:43 of the third quarter to go on a 21-play, 91-yard touchdown drive, and completely shut down Carolina’s running game (16 carries for 21 yards).

Earlier this week, I researched what happens the next game after Mike Tomlin’s run defense gives up 180 yards like it did last week against Baltimore, and they still usually allow an average of 107 yards the next game. There’s rarely a huge improvement. But this was a complete shutdown of D’Onta Foreman and Chuba Hubbard.

The Steelers would be right in that 8-6 or 9-5 wild card mix if they played this complete of a game a few more times this year against those weaker opponents like the Jets, Patriots, Browns, and even the Dolphins.

Surprisingly, the AFC is only 34-34 vs. NFC this season. However, the NFC South is 3-15 against AFC teams. Of course.

Cardinals at Broncos: Playing Out the String

Week 15 is a little early for a game to be irrelevant, but this matchup had it in spades with the 4-9 Cardinals against the 3-10 Broncos with backup quarterbacks for both sides. Even Colt McCoy didn’t finish the game for the Cardinals due to a concussion. Backup Trace McSorley had to replace him, and McSorley was intercepted in the fourth quarter while trailing 17-9, giving safety Justin Simmons a pick off each Arizona quarterback.

That led to a 5-yard touchdown drive, which all but put the game away at 24-9 in case you were wondering how Denver managed 24 points. Keep in mind the Cardinals entered the week allowing the most points in the league this season, so giving up 24 to Brett Rypien and the Broncos is on brand.

Both teams are 4-10 now and their recaps will only get shorter from here on out. Happy holidays.

Next Week

  • Jags-Jets is the NFL’s classic “if you want to get some late Christmas shopping done Thursday night, go for it” matchup. But this year it’s better than usual with both teams in the playoff hunt and must-win mode.
  • Saturday’s early slate is a bit meh when NYG-MIN is the highlight, but we’ll see how the Vikings follow that 33-point comeback.
  • The Game of the Year in the NFC is probably going to be a 49ers-Eagles NFC Championship Game that we deserve, but I guess Eagles at Cowboys in the 4:25 slot will have to suffice for the regular season. Dallas’ loss in Jacksonville takes some more luster off this one.
  • Watching Derek Carr against the Steelers or a Christmas movie at night? Tough call.
  • Boy, the NFL got hosed on Christmas day. Hard to blame them for thinking GB-MIA, DEN-LAR, and TB-ARI would be hits, but they ended up scheduling five of the most disappointing teams in the league this year.
  • Chargers-Colts should be up for some shenanigans on Monday night.