Tag: Chargers

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 4

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

Another week closer to the reality that this is the NFL season where Sam Darnold won MVP. It’d be weirder than Brian Sipe winning it in 1980. Get your bets in now. I did earlier this week at +2800.

On the bright side, I think passing yardage may have increased in Week 4 as many of the quarterbacks you can still trust seemed to throw for 200 or more yards this time. Well, just ignore Sunday night, the supposed Game of the Week. That one lost the plot after one Derrick Henry run.

But I kind of called it during the late window that a Buffalo dud was going to set up a very messy AFC race on what could be a pivotal day for the conference. The Chiefs probably lost Rashee Rice for the season, the Bills looked really bad in their opportunity to lay claim to being the best team in the league right now, and it looks like Houston might be the only hope of breaking things up in January from being a Chiefs-Ravens-Bills tilt that will come down to seeding.

As for the NFC, I don’t know at this point. Might as well throw in some futures bets on a Commanders vs. Vikings NFC Championship Game. Who the hell knows anymore?

We had nine games with a comeback opportunity so far this week. I would imagine one or both Monday night games can add to that total.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Bills at Ravens: Game of the Week Is Dud of the Week

This game was over after 250 seconds. If you’re a Buffalo fan, it should bring back all your worst fears that this team is simply never going to get over the hump as it’s currently constructed.

Sean McDermott is a defensive coach, but he’s not overly conversative like you’d expect. The Bills like to go for it on fourth down, but they are inconsistent about it. That’s why you’ll see McDermott flex his chest on a 4th-and-1 call with Allen at his own 39. But God forbid it’s 4th-and-2 at the 50. Then we’re going to punt it away and pin them deep. Then Derrick Henry takes off for an 87-yard touchdown on the first play and it’s basically game over there.

After going down 14-3 to Henry’s first receiving touchdown since 2019, the Bills had another 4th-and-1 at their own 39, and guess what they did this time? They punted. All the Ravens did was take up half the quarter to score another touchdown and make it 21-3.

The only reason you stuck with the second half is because you know the Ravens stink at holding big leads. They blew a 17-point lead to the Bills in 2022 in Baltimore, so there was some hope.

Sure enough, Josh Allen makes a crazy 50-yard bomb from the sideline, Lamar Jackson starts taking grounding penalties and sacks, and the Bills are suddenly driving in a 21-10 game.

Then they threw it all away for nothing. With Curtis Samuel taking the direct snap, they tried a trick play by throwing it back to Allen, but he never got the ball off as the Ravens were all over him, and it ended up being a fumble that nearly injured Allen.

Six plays later, Jackson was in the end zone and the Ravens were up 28-10, ready to never look back before winning 35-10. There was just no need for a trick play there as the Bills had them reeling, and they’re not built to have to resort to tricks like that. The Ravens are missing plenty of normal assignments on defense this year.

Just an embarrassing display of coaching and game management by the Bills all night. They almost never get blown out, but they did here, their worst loss since their 27-10 playoff rout at home at the hands of the 2022 Bengals.

So much for it being Buffalo’s year. Not that this one game says it can’t be, but it sure didn’t look like a favorable matchup for Buffalo on either side of the ball, and that’s rare you’d ever say that about the Bills against anyone in the NFL.

But if the Ravens can play like this, then they can beat anyone. I’m just wondering why they can’t do this in January when they try to turn Lamar into Dan Marino when he’s just never going to be that. At 0-2, they have gone fully into leaning on Henry, Lamar’s legs, and he’s not even throwing more than 18 passes a game. Guess what? It’s working and they’re scoring points. You can’t do it every single week, but this is how they should be playing.

They understand that in September. Let’s see if they understand it in January too.

Chiefs at Chargers: Push It Real Bad

Mark this one on the calendar as it may be the moment where the Chiefs blew their three-peat opportunity.

After skipping the obligatory fumble last week in Atlanta, the Chiefs were quick to bring it back in LA thanks to Carson Steele, who probably just blew his shot at replacing Isiah Pacheco as the lead back. But it’s one thing for the Chiefs to have the obligatory fumble. This season, they’ve added Patrick Mahomes throwing an obligatory braindead interception in the first half as he did it for the fourth game in a row.

I don’t get it at all, because he otherwise is usually protecting the ball well and making good decisions. But just once a game he’s completely losing it with an awful throw, and this one was arguably the worst dropback of his career given the damage it caused.

Mahomes tried to make a tackle on the defender and ended up taking out Rashee Rice’s knee in the process by accident. I’d expect to hear season-ending news on Monday for Rice after that hit. Just a brutal loss for the receiving corps as Rice clearly emerged as their new No. 1 target with Kelce about to turn 35 and looking slower.

Things just got so much harder as this game showed. At the very least, they were playing the Chargers, who don’t want to hear about big injuries as they have their own. Justin Herbert wasn’t 100% and couldn’t move well in this game, and that hurt their ability to score as they never did again after taking that 10-0 lead on short fields from the takeaways.

To their credit, Mahomes found rookie Xavier Worthy for a 54-yard touchdown bomb. If he can run a fuller route tree, they might be able to survive the loss of Rice on top of losing Hollywood Brown. But it’s going to put a lot of pressure on Kelce to deliver at a high level again, and they probably still need another wideout as Skyy Moore is Kadarius Toney quality. He’s a game destroyer.

But while I have my doubts about Worthy turning into an asset like Rice did last year, his final catch to ice the game on third down boosted my confidence. If he can become a full route runner, then maybe they’ll find a way to manage. But their three-peat chances took a major hit. I might even say the division would have been in danger had the Chargers not botched these last two weeks by playing Justin Herbert in Pittsburgh when they should have been resting him to get to this more important, winnable game.

But maybe the best news for the Chiefs after a brutal game was seeing how vulnerable Buffalo looked in Baltimore. Their revamped offense sure didn’t look threatening in that game once you realize they’re relying heavily on Khalil Shakir, Dalton Kincaid, and rookie Keon Coleman in that passing game. No one looks to be running away with this AFC, and it looks like mostly the same old foes. Is Derrick Henry going to run wild like that in January? Not likely. Not every week at least.

So, the Chiefs still have that edge over their rivals. But the injuries are piling up with Hollywood Brown, Pacheco, and now a huge one in Rice, who looked so good to start the season. Maybe it’s karma given he probably should have been suspended this season instead of the NFL waiting so long.

It’s still a lousy development if you had an interest in the three-peat happening. Watching this team each week, it gets harder to imagine things ending well this season. But maybe the script writers are playing the long game and have a vision in mind. A lot can happen between now and the playoffs, and somehow the Chiefs are still 4-0 along with the Vikings.

Steelers at Colts: The Full Justin Fields Experience

I called this one back in March when the Steelers made the bold trades to get rid of Kenny Pickett and acquire Justin Fields.

“You could call him Kenny “OneDrive” Pickett because if he only needed to score one touchdown to win the game, he wasn’t bad at doing it. Meanwhile, Fields was a nightmare in games even if he just had to set up a field goal attempt in a 3-point game.”

Pickett needed to go, but if there was one thing he was good at, it was delivering on the final drive to win the game. He was 7-4 (.636) on game-winning drive opportunities, an elite record. But Fields was 3-16 (.158), and we have seen him fail repeatedly in those situations in Chicago.

In drives that start in the final 10:00 when his team just needs a field goal, Fields is 2-for-17 at delivering a successful field goal drive. He’s 3-for-17 if you’re going to credit him for setting up a 65-yard field goal miss in Pittsburgh in 2021. One of those wins was in a game against the 2022 Texans where he started with the ball in the red zone after a Davis Mills interception, so he didn’t even have to do anything for that one. The other success was in Minnesota last year in a 12-10 game after Fields fumbled on the previous drive. But he was given another chance in that one.

Fields was able to hide his flaws in Weeks 1-3 when the Steelers were allowing 8.7 points per game. But similar to last year, Shane Steichen’s Colts were taking it to this defense. T.J. Watt was a ghost against that strong offensive line, and the Steelers were possibly fortunate that Joe Flacco had to finish the game as they got away from the run and deep passes that were killing Pittsburgh early. But once again, Anthony Richardson was injured on a run. With a bad hip, they watched him try to run the ball again only to slide late, show he was favoring that hip, and he took a helmet-to-helmet hit in the process. I really am doubting this guy’s long-term future in this league. He just can’t stay healthy on runs despite wanting to do it frequently.

Anyways, the Steelers allowed 27 points to the Colts, so it was going to take a superhuman effort from Fields. He definitely made some plays, and George Pickens sold him on a brutal fumble, but Fields had his own terrible fumble that was a game changer in the second half. He also had issues with the snap once again, a problem that’s been persistent since the preseason.

But similar to Chicago, Fields ran for some scores and it was a 27-24 game with the ball in his hands. Then just like in Chicago, he screwed things up without even getting into range for a kick. This time it was a near-fumble on a snap that he wasn’t ready for. Fields took the blame for it. It’s hard to say if he was being a good teammate or if he legitimately was the main reason the play happened, but again, this keeps happening since preseason. Just figure it out.

Fields could not rescue the drive after that fumbled snap set up a 2nd-and-22. The only reason his fourth-down pass wasn’t intercepted was because the defender, who didn’t need a catch there, dropped it. Tale as old as time.

Fields is 0-22 when his team allows more than 20 points in his career. I said in the offseason that the Steelers would falter in the close games they’re constantly in if Fields had to deliver game-winning drives, especially in higher-scoring games like this one. It was all on display on Sunday in Indy.

That’s why I would start Russell Wilson as soon as possible. We know what we’re getting with Fields, and it’s just not good enough. At least with Wilson, we know what’s been possible in the past, and we need to see if he can still be that guy here.

Saints at Falcons: Not the Worst Weekend in Georgia Football History After All

While Alabama was up big on Georgia on Saturday night, I tweeted that Derek Carr was going to lead a fourth-quarter comeback against the Falcons on Sunday.

Well, they were a minute away from securing it. But Kirk Cousins got the 30-yard penalty he needed on defensive pass interference to set up Younghoe Koo for the 58-yard game-winning field goal in a 26-24 thriller.

But make no mistake about it, the Saints gave this game away. Rashid Shaheed muffed a punt he probably had no business trying to catch, and it was recovered in the end zone for a (rare) touchdown. Carr threw a pick-six, so the Atlanta offense never found the end zone in this one despite the 26-24 score.

Then I also don’t get New Orleans’ strategy. Down 23-17, you’re going to run the ball on 3rd-and-goal from the 5 with under 5:00 left? Yeah, I understand you’re going to go for it on fourth down, but you better have a hell of a run that gains real yards there to make it worth it. Instead, Alvin Kamara had no blocking and lost 2 yards, setting up 4th-and-7. You almost wonder if the field goal was the better choice at that point, and Carr threw incomplete for Shaheed.

But Kamara finished the next drive in the end zone after the defense forced the three-and-out. You could see the Saints were suddenly thinking about the clock again as Carr’s feeble quarterback sneak attempts felt like someone who was trying to burn clock instead of scoring. That’s why the 6-point lead is such a shitty state to be in both offensively and defensively these days. You don’t want to score too soon on offense, because you fear losing to the long-range field goal from one of these kickers today that seemingly take little time to set up.

One DPI flag, and it was a fair call, and the Falcons were already in business. Koo delivered the kick and now both teams are 2-2 in the NFC South. The Saints are still winless when trailing in the fourth quarter since Carr arrived there last year, but they really should have won these last two games. Guess that’s why Dennis Allen is 5-26 in such games in his career.

Up next for the Saints is a trip to Kansas City next Monday night. Sure to do wonders for their fourth-quarter woes against the team no one can seem to kill.

Eagles at Buccaneers: Baker’s Day

I’m really not sure why the Eagles were a small favorite in this one on the road without A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Lane Johnson. That clearly had an impact as Jalen Hurts took 6 sacks, threw for 158 yards, barely ran, and Saquon Barkley achieved very little outside of his 59-yard run.

You’re not going to keep up with Baker Mayfield and all of Tampa Bay’s weapons with Dallas Goedert as your No. 1 target. The Buccaneers rolled over the Eagles with ease early and it would have been 28-0 if not for an easy dropped touchdown. But to that point, this was as big of an ass kicking as any game this season.

The Eagles got back into it at 30-16, including a 2-point return on a blocked extra point. But everything went downhill after Lavonte David forced a strip-sack of Hurts in the red zone as turnovers continue to plague him.

The receiver injuries are a big deal, but the sloppy play has been there all season for the Eagles. It wouldn’t surprise me if they let Nick Sirianni go if he misses the playoffs this year.

Vikings at Packers: Is Sam Darnold Really Going to Sustain This Run?

You might think a game that was 28-0 and ended 31-29 would be a little more exciting, but it felt like this was the game that would not end even though it never really felt like Green Bay was going to pull off the comeback.

Sure, anything is possible with the Minnesota franchise, but a 28-point Green Bay comeback? I’m not buying that even if Jordan Love seems more about these games than Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers ever did. But he needs to stop putting them in a hole as this was not a strong return for him from his MCL injury. He threw 4 touchdowns, but he also threw 3 interceptions and had to throw it 54 times.

The Vikings continued to be very efficient on offense with Sam Darnold in building that 28-0 lead. He got into some turnover trouble with this one, and the Packers have been great at that defensively so far, but when it was 28-22, Darnold delivered right away with a great drive for a field goal to regain that 2-score cushion at 31-22. A drive like that tells me something is different for him this year as that probably would have been turnover No. 3 by him in the past on that drive, leading to a loss.

By the time Green Bay scored again, only 56 seconds remained, and you know how onside kicks go these days. So, it was never officially a comeback opportunity since the Packers never had the ball down one score.

That makes Minnesota the only team this season to not have any close games in the fourth quarter by that criteria. Didn’t I predict them to go 4-13? They’re already 4-0. This is going to be a disaster for my predictions, but I guess we’ll see if it’s sustained or not. But the Vikings have wins over the 49ers, Texans, and Packers in three straight weeks.

It’s impossible to admit they’re not playing very well right now. Even if it’s one of the hardest things to explain.

Broncos at Jets: Forget Everything I Said This Week About the Jets

Can we just ban games at MetLife Stadium? The Giants couldn’t score a touchdown there Thursday night, the Cowboys struggled too, and then these teams threatened to set offensive football back 80 years with some rain hampering things.

But what an embarrassing 10-9 loss for the Jets, who were a 7.5-point favorite. Bo Nix was on his way to some futility records as he couldn’t even complete a pass beyond the line of scrimmage in the first half.

Nix really went into halftime with a line of 7-of-15 for minus-7 yards, which shouldn’t even be possible. But he led a long touchdown drive in the third quarter, then the running game did all the work on the game-winning drive for a 47-yard field goal by Wil Lutz.

Aaron Rodgers had three shots to answer this, but the pass rush kept getting to him, and he’s just not able to escape like he used to. People are going to point to Greg Zuerlein missing the 50-yard field goal with 47 seconds left as the reason for the loss, but let’s be fair. The Jets caught a break when Lutz missed a 50-yard field goal with 1:27 left, or else it would have been 13-9, and Rodgers would have needed a touchdown on a day he just couldn’t finish a drive off for one.

Rodgers was 37-1 in starts where his team allowed fewer than 13 points before this 10-9 loss. The only loss was a 7-3 game against Detroit in 2010 that Rodgers left early with a concussion, so he never lost a game he finished when the team allowed fewer than 12 points. That’s exactly the kind of game the Jets brought him here to win with ease, but it just didn’t work out Sunday.

Under this coaching staff, it’s hard to believe this won’t be the last time they disappoint in a low-scoring loss this year. But losing to a rookie quarterback who threw for 60 yards on 25 attempts is just beyond the pale.

Rams at Bears: They Popped a Run

I guess I screwed up with this one. I thought maybe Jared Verse and company would rack up some sacks on Caleb Williams, and they ended up getting 3 as Williams had arguably his most complete game without any turnovers. Very few incompletions.

It helped that they finally gave him a running game. D’Andre Swift was averaging 2.0 yards per carry, and he ripped off a 36-yard touchdown run in this one as he finished with 93 yards on 16 carries. Amazing what some balance can do there, or literally anything better than 2.0 yards per carry.

Definitely a letdown for the Rams after the comeback against the 49ers last week. But Matthew Stafford was in position for another one here with the ball in his hands in a 24-18 game with 1:03 left. Granted, he had to go 92 yards, so it probably wasn’t happening. But it could have at least been dramatic. Instead, he instantly threw a pick under pressure and that was a wrap for the 1-3 Rams.

Commanders at Cardinals: Best Rookie QB Ever?

Ask me for the best rookie quarterback seasons ever, and I’d say Ben Roethlisberger sold me first on that title in 2004. Then I have always given Dak Prescott credit for doing it every week as a fourth-round pick for the 2016 Cowboys. I thought Deshaun Watson, back when I liked him, was on pace for the best rookie quarterback season before he tore his ACL in practice in 2017. Then C.J. Stroud did something special last year.

But Jayden Daniels is doing something truly special here with Washington, and that could land him the title of best rookie quarterback ever if he keeps this up. I’ll get more into the stats later this week when I do my QB rankings at 365Scores, but Daniels ran his streak to 16 straight scoring drives (kneeldowns excluded) in this game. That is as far as we know the longest streak ever by a quarterback.

Again, maybe the dynamic kickoff is helping here as more drives than ever start at the 30, and we saw a 15-drive scoring streak by Derek Carr to begin this 2024 season. But Daniels has a super high completion percentage and he’s stacking points in an offense that wasn’t expected to be this great under new coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, who suddenly looks like a genius again.

But they flat out cooked Arizona with 7-of-9 drives ending in scores. Daniels threw his first pick in the NFL, but that’s fine. He’s only punted once in the last three games.

Similar to last week, Kyler Murray led an opening-game touchdown drive and then did very little the rest of the way in the 42-14 loss. This was despite James Conner rushing for 104 yards and Marvin Harrison Jr. catching another touchdown. I know tight end Trey McBride was out with a concussion, but Murray has enough weapons to score more than 14 points and throw for more than 142 yards against that bad Washington defense.

But what a surprising 3-1 start by the Commanders. They get Cleveland next week at home, so it might be 4-1 too.

Browns at Raiders: Sack Merchant Goes Down Again

It’s difficult because I truly believe Antonio Pierce is not cut out for this job with this particular team. But they have scrappily come up with 10-point comeback wins in games they really had no business winning. The Browns were up 10-0 early while the Raiders were missing their two best players, Davante Adams and Maxx Crosby.

But the Raiders were patient with the running game that finally paid off with some production. The only eyesore was Zamir White coughing up a fumble for a touchdown to start the fourth quarter and give the Browns a shot after they were down 20-10.

However, Cleveland missed the extra point and keeping it 20-16 proved to be huge as they could never get the ball in the end zone the rest of the way. Deshaun Watson had his chances, but even without facing Crosby, the sack merchant in him came out in the end and he took a sack to end the game on a 4th-and-3 at the Vegas 9 with 35 seconds left.

They could have just kicked the field goal for overtime there had they not missed the extra point to start the fourth quarter. Oh well.

Bengals at Panthers: Cincinnati Finally Gets a Win

No, the Panthers did not stack wins, but let’s not forget the defense stinks too and they traded Brian Burns to New York. It would have helped to have a pass rusher like that to go after Joe Burrow, who did not take a sack. But he did throw an awful pick in the fourth quarter that gave the Panthers some hope after falling behind 31-14 at one point.

Andy Dalton may not be a miracle maker, but he is clearly better than Bryce Young right now. Seeing the Panthers score 24 points in consecutive games is a good sign that Dave Canales will get his offense right eventually in Carolina.

Came up short in this one, but you have to like the fight of the underdog. They had the ball in a 31-24 game late before Dalton threw three incompletions in a row in a disappointing drive with 4:23 left. The Bengals were able to stick to the ground game and added a decisive field goal with 1:14 left in the 34-24 win, their first of the year.

Lower the temperature on the hot seat for Zac Taylor, but let’s not get comfortable. They have to play the Ravens next week, so 1-4 may be in their near future. If Dalton and Chuba Hubbard are doing this to your defense a week after Jayden Daniels and Brian Robinson got you bad, good luck with Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry.

Jaguars at Texans: My MVP Delivers

Trevor Lawrence hasn’t won a start since that big game in Houston last year when it looked like the Jaguars would repeat as AFC South champions. What a change-up there with Houston being the team favored to do that this year. This win will help even if it wasn’t a dominant response after last week’s ugly loss to the Vikings.

It looked like Lawrence might end the streak as the Jaguars were up 20-17 and driving for more when the fourth quarter started. I fully agree with running Lawrence on 4th-and-1 at the 1, but they just didn’t make it happen. Huge stop by Houston.

I think C.J. Stroud did a great job overcoming 12 penalties for 93 yards by Houston. That made things really hard in the fourth quarter when you’re facing 2nd-and-25, 3rd-and-18, and 3rd-and-20 because of these penalties on your linemen. There were a couple of big holds on Laremy Tunsil, who was hurt at one point in the game.

It wasn’t looking good when Houston had to punt with 3:51 left, but the Jaguars only burned 57 seconds off the clock thanks to a pair of incompletions by Lawrence. The Texans avoided any more penalties, and Stroud was able to drive 69 yards for the game-winning touchdown with 18 seconds left.

The Jaguars were very close to a safety on the final lateral-filled play, which would have hit the over and covered the spread for Houston. Bummer. I’ll have to check the air yards update, but it did continue the trend of Lawrence losing another game after he completed under 60% of his passes (18-for-33 after a good start).

But having a quarterback like Stroud is a huge advantage for Houston over much of the AFC. Someone you can actually trust with the game on the line. At least we think so. This is his fourth game-winning drive already, and the team is 5-2 in game-winning drive opportunities under coach DeMeco Ryans.

Patriots at 49ers: Finally, a Blowout in an Expected Blowout

The 49ers (-10.5) were our first double-digit spread of the season, my No. 1 pick this week, and they delivered with a 30-13 win that still left you wanting a bit more from the offense. They leaned on a great Fred Warner pick-six, a dominant pass rush against that poor line, and George Kittle made an unbelievable touchdown catch in his return game.

But not great play inside the 25-yard line by the 49ers on offense. It’s nothing to be worried about, and at least they seemed to get through this one healthy. That’s the most important thing right now.

Next week: Bucs-Falcons on Thursday night isn’t bad. Not sure I will get up that early for Jets-Vikings after the shitshow the Jets put on this week. Sleep is more important to me. The first Ravens-Bengals game of the year is a big one. Buffalo at Houston in the same 1:00 p.m. slot is interesting as that’s stacked for the AFC. The Sunday late-afternoon slate looks absolutely brutal. Consider this a trigger warning. Cowboys at Steelers for SNF is interesting; can go a lot of ways. Saints-Chiefs on Monday night. Again, can the team that can’t lose a close 4Q game actually lose one to the team who can’t come back in the 4Q anymore? Sounds like a regression opportunity.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 13

~ Scott ~ 8 Comments

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

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

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

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

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chiefs at Packers: A Slightly Different Kind of KC Loss

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Colts at Titans: Amusing AFC South Battle

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

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

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

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

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

Lions at Saints: The Almost Comeback

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Broncos at Texans: Russ Wasn’t Cooking Today

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

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

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

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

Falcons at Jets: The Beat Goes On

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Panthers at Buccaneers: Same Old 4th Quarter Story

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

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

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

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

NFL 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 10

~ Scott ~ 11 Comments

Like I said on Saturday, if you ignore the island game mess, the NFL had a solid Week 10 lined up. Sunday proved to be one of the best days of the season so far with a few big upsets in the AFC North and a handful of games where teams kept exchanging scores before someone kicked a field goal with no time left.

The NFL may not have sent its best to Germany again, nor did it bother using the flex option on Sunday night so we didn’t have to see the Jets fail to reach the end zone again. But with the Chiefs, Eagles, and Dolphins all on a bye week, it is hard to argue with Week 10’s quality. Sometimes the bad weeks on paper tun out to be some of the best played weeks.

In all, we had 10 out of 13 games (MNF pending) with a comeback opportunity. While there were technically only two lead changes in the fourth quarter in Week 10, and one of those didn’t happen until the clock showed 0:00, it was a fantastic week for watching teams match scores in the fourth quarter.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Lions at Chargers: Game of the Week or Year?

Ladies and gentlemen, the Chargers are back. This was the Week 10 game I had circled, because I knew we were not going to see the Chargers cruise to an easy win like they had in prime time the last two weeks against the Bears and Jets. We were going to see the Chargers in their element: late afternoon, Justin Herbert trying to bail out Brandon Staley’s defense in a 7-point game in the fourth quarter with a wild finish.

But this was not your usual case of Chargering, because the Chargers actually never led in this game despite the 41-38 final and the Los Angeles offense scoring five straight touchdown drives of at least 68 yards to end the game.

Last season, we saw the Lions tie an NFL record by scoring 45 points in a wire-to-wire loss at home against Seattle in a 48-45 game. This time, the Lions won wire-to-wire despite allowing 38 points. It is only the 20th time that has happened in NFL history.

For the Chargers, I think it was the kind of game we’ve come to expect from them. Herbert played great, he only had one turnover, no sacks, and he threw for 323 yards and 4 touchdowns with a dominant Keenan Allen game (11 catches for 175 yards, 2 touchdowns).

For the Lions, I think it showed the great potential of this offense at full strength. David Montgomery returned and had a 75-yard rushing touchdown to go along with rookie Jahmyr Gibbs rushing for 77 yards and two touchdowns. Jared Goff was very good with 333 yards and no turnovers, and Amon-Ra St. Brown was dominant with 8 catches for 156 yards and a touchdown. Detroit had 533 yards of offense.

If you wanted to nitpick, the game does show some concern that the Lions may be a bit of a paper tiger (or paper lion) on defense. They won’t be able to pressure the top offenses and keep them down on the scoreboard like they’ll need to if they’re going to win a Super Bowl. The Chargers looked great for the most part on offense, and Detroit’s offense had to be spectacular to pull out the win.

Even on the game-winning drive, which started with 3:34 left, we saw the Lions bypass a 44-yard field goal on 4th-and-2 to make sure they could set up the field goal as the final snap. Hard to believe that happened in a tied game, but Dan Campbell has the reputation he does for a reason. Still, you think if he trust his defense he’d consider the field goal with 1:47 left to take the lead. But if you are that concerned about Herbert going for a touchdown, then I understand the call.

Goff delivered the 6-yard gain to Sam LaPorta, which I greatly appreciated, and the win was there. Glad to see our Chargers back on brand.

I would argue the Chargers have played the two most entertaining games of the 2023 season, and they were both home losses to the Dolphins and Lions. I’d probably give the Miami game the edge since it had multiple lead changes and the highlights were a bit stronger. It also ended on a defensive stop, a foreign concept to Staley.

Browns at Ravens: Vintage 2022 Baltimore Football

I just said a couple of weeks ago how no one can stay on top for long this season before getting knocked down a peg. The Ravens were getting a lot of hype, understandably, this week before they had their chance to sweep the Browns and put more of a chokehold on their AFC North lead.

But we have already watched this team beat itself against the Colts and Steelers, shades of what they did often in 2022 even before Lamar Jackson was lost to injury. Sure enough, despite leading at home 14-0, 17-3, 24-9, then 31-17 in the fourth quarter, the Ravens did it again in a shocking 33-31 loss to the Browns, who trailed for all but 40 seconds in the game. They literally threw a pick-six on the second play from scrimmage and trailed until the field goal went through with no time left for their only lead of the game. Hard to top that. The Ravens are just 1-3 in close games this year.

To be fair, there was some fool’s gold feeling about the leads in this game. The pick-6 was a fantastic defensive play, but it was still a tipped ball that bounced the right way. The Ravens also got a 39-yard touchdown run from their new toy Keaton Mitchell, but he somehow finished the game with 3 carries for 34 yards. None of Baltimore’s other 23 runs gained more than 9 yards, and Cleveland had the better ground game with 36 carries for 178 yards.

Baltimore was up 14-0 and Jackson was only 3-of-3 for 30 yards. If Deshaun Watson could just calm down from his horrible start, then they were going to have a chance as the running game was finding traction, and the Ravens have a recent history of melting down after blowing a handful of multi-score leads last year, including 21 points to Miami and 17 points to Buffalo.

The Browns were able to block a 55-yard field goal by Justin Tucker, which is no easy feat, and they intercepted Jackson late in the half, but didn’t get any points out of it after a curious decision to let backup P.J. Walker throw a Hail Mary instead of attempting a 60-yard field goal.

Odell Beckham Jr. showed vintage speed on a 40-yard touchdown catch to start the third quarter, but the Browns started to get in a groove and matched it with their own touchdown. But after Myles Garrett sacked Jackson on a 3rd-and-17, the Browns seemed to commit a fatal mistake with a muffed punt, giving the Ravens the ball back at the Cleveland 12. Despite being that close to the end zone, the Ravens used 3:17 on the clock to go those 12 yards for a touchdown and take a 31-17 lead with 11:34 left. It was a ghastly drive, but it was effective in taking off more time all thanks to penalties on both teams, including a Cleveland penalty that wiped out another Jackson pick.

You normally think the game should be over here, but the Browns drove for another 75-yard touchdown, then the bounce finally went their way as they got their own tipped Jackson pass at the line that was returned for a touchdown with 8:16 left. But instead of tying the game, kicker Dustin Hopkins missed the extra point wide left. Cleveland still trailed 31-30.

The offense burned a little clock, but with the group out of sync, no strong running game to rely on, and an inexcusable delay of game penalty, the Ravens soon punted it back with 4:55 left.

Cleveland’s drive was not pretty, and it had to recover a Watson strip-sack, but it was effective in getting the job done. Watson had a big 16-yard scramble into Baltimore territory, then Jerome Ford’s 12-yard run made a field goal likely. The Browns were able to set it up as the last play and Hopkins redeemed himself with a 40-yard field goal to win it 33-31 to send the Browns to 6-3 and right on the heels of the Ravens (7-3).

It has to be frustrating for Baltimore fans when it looked just like one of 2022’s losses. No lead feels truly safe with this team, and that was not the case in Baltimore for a solid two decades.

As for Cleveland, going into games like this with Watson at quarterback can’t feel good. He did enough to salvage this one, but that defense and running game are going to have to be on point for this to work in January.

But it is getting more likely that the Browns will be in that playoff mix. They could even win the division now that they secured a split with the Ravens, who lost another they should have won.

Texans at Bengals: Chapter 1 in a Future AFC Rivalry?

I think the 2019-22 seasons were largely about figuring out who would rival Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in the AFC in the 2020s. We needed new power dynamics in the conference like we used to have with teams like the Patriots, Colts, Steelers, Chargers, and some key appearances from the Ravens and Broncos.

Some contenders emerged like the Bills and Bengals, but we might be able to throw Houston into the mix soon if C.J. Stroud is going to be like this.

It was even a step back from his record-setting performance against Tampa Bay last week, but Stroud still managed to impress with another 356 passing yards in leading Houston to 30 points, and it could have been a lot more with that if the Texans protected the ball better. The Texans had 544 yards of offense, but between Stroud losing 2 fumbles early and throwing a shocking interception with a 10-point lead with 3:33 left, Houston had to sweat this one out after dominating for much of the game.

But even with all the turnovers, I want to point out that Stroud produced these big numbers as a 6.5-point road underdog against a defense that has been limiting great offenses the last few years. He also did it without No. 1 wide receiver Nico Collins, who was inactive, a story I didn’t even know about until the game was almost over. Yet, you heard all week how Tee Higgins was going to be out for this game for Cincinnati, and Ja’Marr Chase was questionable, even though he played and had 124 yards and a touchdown.

But the Texans didn’t sweat the Collins injury, and Stroud threw for 172 yards on 7-of-8 passing to Noah Brown, a forgotten receiver from Dallas who was best known for confusing viewers if CeeDee Lamb just added to his stats. Brown was going to be at best the No. 4 wideout in this offense behind Collins, rookie Tank Dell, veteran slot Robert Woods, and maybe even No. 5 behind John Metchie, a second-round pick in 2022. But Brown had 153 yards against Tampa Bay last week and 172 in this game with Stroud.

That’s why I’m saying if Stroud’s going to be legitimate like this, then we could have a new layer to this AFC. Imagine what things can look like if he gets a defense at some point soon under coach DeMeco Ryans.

There were some miscues in this game that he will hopefully learn from. After Joe Burrow threw a horrible interception in the end zone, his second in the fourth quarter, with 3:53 left, this looked like game over with Houston leading 27-17. But three plays later, Stroud threw his own horrible pick that was nearly returned for a touchdown in a spot where he could have ended the game. It was only his second interception of the season, but like I always say, this Cincinnati defense gets the timely ones like that.

Joe Mixon capped off a 4-yard touchdown drive and it was 27-24 with plenty of time. Houston even helped with another 3-and-out after Stroud was unable to put it away on a 3rd-and-3.

Believe it or not in Week 10, but this was the first time all season the Bengals had a 4QC/GWD opportunity on offense. It only took two plays for the Bengals to be deep in the red zone after Tyler Boyd took a short pass and ran 64 yards with it. But Burrow was sacked, then Boyd dropped a go-ahead score on third-and-goal. Not the most egregious drop, and not a definite game winner, but it definitely hurt, and it was a play he usually makes.

The Bengals had to settle for a 31-yard game-tying field goal and hope for overtime. But it was a bad day for defenses on the field late. Stroud was able to shake off his mistakes and found two more 20-yard plays on the day to set up his new backup kicker, Matt Ammendola, for a 38-yard field goal to win the game with no time left.

Stroud just posted back-to-back games with 350 passing yards and a game-winning drive. That’s as many such games as Tony Romo and Russell Wilson have in their careers, and it’s more than the one career game for Burrow, Josh Allen, Deshaun Watson, and Lamar Jackson – the other AFC contenders who have been floated as Mahomes’ rival in the last 5 years. If you’re curious, Mahomes’ number for this is 4 games.

Granted, this 350-yard game with a game-winning drive for Stroud could have been a 300-yard game with a 10-point win or 27-24 win had the rookie converted either of his first two 3rd-down opportunities. But the Bengals have fooled better quarterbacks into bigger mistakes before, and Stroud overcame all of that for a huge win as Houston (5-4) secures a key tiebreaker over the Bengals (5-4), who are in trouble again with a trip to Baltimore on a short week coming up this Thursday night.

Now granted, it was only a couple of weeks ago when Houston lost 15-13 to Carolina, the only win for the Panthers this season. It was also only in 2017 when I said Deshaun Watson was on pace for the greatest rookie quarterback season ever, and we know how that eventually turned out.

But after closing one of the darkest chapters in Texans history, the fans must be thrilled about this first chapter for Stroud.

49ers at Jaguars: Super Dud

My only comfortable read on this game was to take the under 45, because I wasn’t feeling very confident in the offenses going up against these defenses. In the end, it was one of the most lopsided games of the year as the 49ers rolled them 34-3. They even tried to get Christian McCaffrey a late touchdown to try extending his streak to 18 games, but it ended on a day where basically everyone else scored, including Deebo Samuel in his return game.

The 49ers were struggling with turnovers and the Jacksonville defense was tied for the league lead in takeaways. But the 49ers won the turnover battle 4-0, and that had a lot to do with the blowout score. Trevor Lawrence was picked twice and coughed up a fumble, and Christian Kirk had a bad fumble inside the 10 in the third quarter that sucked all the life out of this one at 20-3. The 49ers drove 81 yards the other way to make it 27-3 with Samuel’s 23-yard touchdown run and it was a wrap.

The bye week served the 49ers (6-3) well as this is still the most talented team in the league. The Jaguars (6-3) were outclassed, and I think there are legitimate concerns for why this offense isn’t producing more. The situational stats are lousy on the season, Calvin Ridley has not had a big impact, and Lawrence is not taking the next step forward. They look like they have a hard ceiling on where they can go right now.

Saints at Vikings: Dobbs Delivers in Starting Debut

The Vikings have gone from 1-4 to the longest active winning streak at 5 games after another one-possession win over the Saints in the first start for Joshua Dobbs. He has picked up the offense quickly and was excellent in this game with 268 yards, no interceptions, and he ran for 44 yards and another touchdown, showing off his mobility that has been foreign to this Minnesota offense for a long time.

But the Vikings did almost collapse from a 27-3 lead in the second half. An ineffective Derek Carr was injured and replaced by Jameis Winston, who led a pair of touchdown drives to make it 27-19. With a couple of 2-point conversion runs by Alvin Kamara, we almost were witnesses to the fabled 8+8+8 comeback from a 24-point deficit.

But the skillset of Winston that makes him dangerous to face is the same that makes him dangerous to his own team’s wellbeing. He likes to be aggressive with the ball and throw deep, and that burned him with a pair of interceptions late in the game that he really didn’t need to force because of the ample time left.

Winston had over 3 minutes left at midfield on the first one, and almost a full 2 minutes left in Minnesota territory on the last one, which came on a first down too. By the time the Vikings got the ball back, there was only time for a Hail Mary, which fell incomplete to end the game.

The Saints (5-5) continue to struggle while the Vikings are thriving even without Justin Jefferson for the last month and now without Kirk Cousins for the last two games. But Kevin O’Connell is getting to show that he knows how to coach offense, T.J. Hockenson and Jordan Addison have stepped up, and Dobbs is doing very well.

This can still be a playoff team. Hell, they could win the division if they were to sweep Detroit, but one game at a time.

Commanders at Seahawks: Receiving Backs on the Loose

The closer we got to Sunday, the more I liked this to be a shootout with the No. 1 wide receivers dominating these secondaries. D.K. Metcalf finished with 98 yards, but it was improbably long touchdowns on short throws to running backs that put the only touchdowns on the board early in what was a field goal fest into the fourth quarter. Washington’s Brian Robinson had a 51-yard touchdown catch to start the game and Kenneth Walker created a 64-yard scoring play in the third quarter.

Eventually, the game got to where I imagined with both quarterbacks throwing for over 300 yards and multiple touchdowns. Like some other games on Sunday, it was back-and-forth scoring drives until the end with the teams combining to score on the final 5 drives.

Sam Howell led Washington on two game-tying touchdown drives. The last came with 52 seconds left, and I think that left Seattle a little too much time (with 2 timeouts left) to drive for a game-winning field goal had the Commanders gone for a 2-point conversion to try to take a lead. As we saw anyway in a tied game, Seattle was able to set up Jason Myers for a 43-yard field goal at the buzzer after two big catches by Metcalf for 44 yards.

In the end, it was about the game you’d expect between these teams. The Seahawks are 6-3 despite still being outscored by 1 point on the season. The Commanders (4-6) throw the ball more than anyone and basically have the record they deserve with an ugly loss to the Giants cancelling out an unlikely 18-point comeback win in Denver.

Falcons at Cardinals: Return of the Jedi (The One as Tall as Yoda)

On the 11-month anniversary of his torn ACL, Kyler Murray made his return to the field. Without seeing him in so long, you forget how little he is and how unique his running looks when he’s scooting around the field.

Murray’s return was a success as he led the Cardinals to a 25-23 win over a spiraling Atlanta team that has now lost to three straight quarterbacks making their season debut for their team (rookie Will Levis in Tennessee, Joshua Dobbs in Minnesota, and now Murray).

Meanwhile, the Falcons were getting nothing out of Taylor Heinicke in this game, who had 15 pass attempts and 55 passing yards in the fourth quarter before he was knocked out with an injury and replaced by Desmond Ridder. But if you are going to throw so little, why even bench Ridder in the first place?

Ridder sparked the offense in his return. After he was stopped on a 4th-down run earlier in the quarter, Ridder finished his second drive with a 9-yard touchdown run to give the Falcons a 23-22 lead with 2:33 left. But the Falcons missed the crucial 2-point conversion as Ridder was incomplete for Drake London, who bailed out Ridder with an incredible catch earlier in the drive.

Murray keyed his team’s game-winning drive with a 13-yard scramble on a 3rd-and-10, then hit his tight end Trey McBride for a 33-yard gain, the longest in the game. In fact, this game had 4 plays that gained 19+ yards and McBride had 3 of them.

That was enough for the Cardinals to set up a 23-yard field goal as the final snap for Matt Prater, who nailed it for a 25-23 win. Muray was 19-of-32 for 249 yards, a pick, and he rushed for 33 yards and a touchdown.

I think the Falcons (4-6) are a bit screwed as they head into their bye. I’d go back to Ridder for the next game but not sure it’ll matter at this point. As for the Cardinals (2-8), they are in a weird position. The return of Murray probably means they are not going to get the No. 1 pick, but do they still settle for a different rookie quarterback in 2024, or do they try to make this work with Murray?

I guess it depends on how well he plays the rest of the year. After some of the recent draft duds with these college quarterbacks, sometimes newer isn’t any better.

Packers at Steelers: Mostly on Brand

When this game started with three straight touchdown drives, I felt bamboozled again. These are two of the worst offenses in the league, especially in the first half of games. But apparently, Matt Canada calling the game from the field at least produces a good start.

It’s the rest of the game where the offense doesn’t do much as Kenny Pickett only passed for 126 yards in this one. I was not impressed (again). Pickett’s 24.3 QBR was the lowest of any quarterback to win in Week 10. He got away with an awful pick on the second touchdown drive after the defender just failed to get his feet in bounds at the sideline.

The good news is this was one of the best run blocking performances by the Steelers in the last 5 years. They had 205 yards on the ground. Keeping veteran Dan Moore at his usual left tackle spot and putting first-round rookie Broderick Jones at right tackle has helped improve the line.

But the Steelers had to grind for this one again as Jordan Love was gambling and getting away with it for three quarters. The Packers even started the fourth quarter with a trick play that looked like it would have worked, but the receiver dropped the ball in a 20-19 game. Actually, they ruled it a fumble that the Packers recovered, which is what the team would have wanted ruled earlier when it sure looked like the Steelers had a lateral that Green Bay recovered. But it was ruled an incomplete pass.

Down 23-19, Love was picked in the end zone after Patrick Peterson tipped a ball to Keanu Neal that was intended for Christian Watson. Almost like the Seattle play at the end of the 2013 NFC Championship Game against San Francisco. Love had some success in this game, but he was 2/7 for 23 yards and 2 interceptions when targeting Watson, who I want to start calling Cheesehead Claypool after this disappearing act following a good rookie year. Similar to what Chase Claypool did in Pittsburgh in 2020-21.

But Love had a chance with 59 seconds left to drive 81 yards for the win. He got 46 of them right away with a big play to Jayden Reed, the second-round rookie who continues to improve. It looked like the Steelers might blow this one, but just like last week when they stopped the Titans with a game-ending pick in a 4-point win as a 3-point home favorite, they did the exact same thing here with a game-ending pick in the red zone off Love.

The Packers have now gone 7 straight games without scoring 21 points, their longest streak since a 10-game streak in 1990-91.

The Steelers have been outgained in every game this season and are still 6-3, which has never been done before. In fact, the Steelers are the 107th team since 1940 to be outgained in at least 9 straight games at any time of year, and they have the best record (6-3) among those teams. The only other team out of the 107 to have a winning record was the 1985-86 Browns, who were 5-4. You could say Mike Tomlin is doing some Marty Schottenheimer (Martyball) things with this team.

But it’s really just turnover differential and timely plays. I don’t know how long they can sustain this, but the schedule still looks favorable for 9-10 wins doing exactly this style of play.

Giants at Cowboys: Monster Dallas Win Against Division II Team

The Cowboys did not disappoint with the biggest point spread of the season (-17.5) in a 49-17 thrashing of the Giants. Dak Prescott passed for 404 yards and 4 touchdowns. CeeDee Lamb had 11 catches for 151 yards and scored a rushing touchdown. He is the first player ever to stack three straight games with 10 catches and 150 receiving yards.

But I believe games like this only fuel why people don’t trust the Cowboys. They basically operate in three modes:

  • Blowing out scrubs like the Tommy DeVito-led Giants.
  • Playing down to scrubs like their upset loss in Arizona this year or nearly blowing it as a 17-point home favorite against the 2022 Texans last December.
  • Looking dumb and losing to elite teams like the Eagles and 49ers.

When the Cowboys bring their A game, they look like the best team in the league. But just like how no one trusts the Dolphins this year against the good teams, we have been right to treat Dallas the same way for years.

Also, the Giants have to be the worst team in the NFL, right? Save for a half in Arizona where the Cardinals may have literally tanked, this team has been garbage on offense all year and now the defense is starting to give up huge numbers too.

The Giants are 4-15-1 under Brian Daboll ever since his 6-1 start.

Colts vs. Patriots: We Haven’t Sent Our Best to Germany Since WWII Ended

I woke up at noon and saw it was 10-6 Colts with just under 5:00 left, and all I could do was laugh. Of course, we send the Colts to Germany for their first island game of the season and immediately their streak of scoring 20 points in every game under Shane Steichen ends. That was my only good prediction for this game.

But I started checking the box score and it didn’t seem like a 10-6 game. Each team had a respectable third-down conversion rate (respectable for who these QBs are), there was only one turnover (Gardner Minshew INT) to that point, there were no failed fourth-down plays, and each team missed a field goal.

Looking into it later, what you had was abysmal red zone play by the Patriots, a bunch of third-down sacks taken by Mac Jones, and an 8-minute drive that bled into the fourth quarter before Bill Belichick still settled for a 24-yard field goal instead of going for a 4th-and-goal at the 5. It was 7-3 and your little kick made it 7-6. Why not take advantage of the field position and go for it? Your defense was playing great.

Of course, the Patriots wasted this defensive effort when Jones threw an atrocious interception in the red zone with 4:16 left.

That could have been the end of the Jones era in New England, because he was benched for the final drive when the Patriots got the ball back with 1:52 left. Bailey Zappe took over, and the move might have been permanent if he led this team on a 95-yard game-winning touchdown drive. Things were moving to midfield too before maybe the worst fake spike of all time:

I can’t seem to find the Madden view of this one, because that makes it look even worse. So much for the Zappe era, and so much for the Belichick era ending on a high note. He should have just walked away after 2018, because now he’s going to have to find a new team for 2024 if he’s going to coach long enough to break the all-time wins record.

By the way, this is the first time the Patriots lost a game after only allowing 10 points since September 23, 2001 against the Jets. That was the fateful game where Drew Bledsoe was injured by a Mo Lewis hit and Tom Brady replaced him in a 10-3 loss.

If Belichick was hoping a quarterback change would save his bacon this day, he was sorely mistaken.

Titans at Buccaneers: Can’t Find a Pulse

Admit it, you didn’t care one iota about this game. The Titans have played 6 games away from Nashville this season and have yet to top 16 points in any of them. They are also 0-6 when not home where they are 3-0 and average 27.5 points per game. Fun.

As it turns out, the low success rate Will Levis had in his 4 touchdown debut against Atlanta that was filled with 50-yard bombs has not led to more success for the rookie. This was his worst outing yet as he completed 19-of-39 passes for 199 yards and took 4 sacks in the 20-6 loss. Even the running game was shut down (16 carries for 42 yards) as the Buccaneers looked completely different from the defense that was shredded by C.J. Stroud and the Texans last week.

Mike Evans had a huge game with 143 yards and a touchdown, and he even dropped another score. He had 4 catches of 20-plus yards. The Titans didn’t have a play gain more than 15 yards until they trailed 20-6 with half a quarter to play.

Not much more to say about this one. The Titans’ offense simply hasn’t traveled all year long.

Jets at Raiders: J-E-T-S Just Embargo Touchdown Scoring

Since Monday night, we have watched the Jets play 8 quarters in prime time without the team scoring a single touchdown. The Jets have 8 offensive touchdowns in 9 games this season, so I guess it’s not that big of a surprise. But when you can’t break through against the defenses of the Chargers and Raiders, you have some pretty big flaws.

The Jets weren’t doing bad in this field goal fest, and I guess a 16-12 final with only 22 total possessions was better than the toilet bowl this game could have been. But once the Raiders finally broke the 9-9 tie by finding the end zone thanks to a 40-yard run by Josh Jacobs, you felt like the Jets had little hope without a massive turnover and easy field position for Zach Wilson and the offense.

Aidan O’Connell wasn’t great for the Raiders, but he only turned it over once, and he threw a game-winning touchdown pass to rookie tight end Michael Mayer. After the Jets caught their break when the defense forced a Jacobs fumble with 6:06 left, Wilson saved his worst decision of the night on an interception from the Raiders 20 by Robert Spillane with 1:14 left.

The Raiders went 3-and-out and saved the Jets a timeout by throwing incomplete on 3rd-and-5, which I would have called a run to Jacobs for. Wilson had 53 seconds left to go 80 yards, an even bigger miracle than the game-tying drive against the Giants this year. Tight end Tyler Conklin did make some nice plays, including a 27-yard grab, to give the Jets a chance, but they wasted a solid 7 seconds by not getting their final timeout in after Conklin was down. Jets coach Robert Saleh alleged he was trying to get the timeout at 20 seconds, but no one acknowledged him. I’m not sure what happened there but it left the Jets only with 13 seconds left and 44 more yards to go. That’s 2 plays.

I have to say Wilson did a very good job of escaping pressure on the final snap and giving his guys a shot at the Hail Mary in the end zone. But it was not caught, and the Jets lost 16-12 to fall to 4-5, which will be no better than 13th in the AFC.

The Raiders are suddenly 5-5 and celebrating wins under interim coach Antonio Pierce like they won the Super Bowl, but these New York teams are not anyone’s Super Bowl this year. The schedule will get much tougher and I’ll be surprised if the Raiders don’t max out at 7-10, which is the record I had for them before the season started.

The Jets gambled on a quarterback staying hot after his 40th birthday, and they made his backup the kid who thinks hotness begins at 40. They are losing for it now.

Because unlike the past boring editions of teams who just try to hide the quarterback by playing great defense and running the ball, the Jets don’t do enough running. The backs had 17 carries for 54 yards in Vegas, and these are no scrubs with Breece Hall and Dalvin Cook. But Wilson himself had 4 runs for 54 yards as a scrambler.

But hey, as long as they keep starting him, we get to see records. Wilson is the first quarterback since the 1970 merger to pass for 260 yards in back-to-back games without leading his team to a single touchdown in either game.

Just put an embargo on touchdown scoring and the Jets might be playoff ready.

Next week: The last time I was this ready for a MNF game, it was cancelled halfway through the first quarter. But Eagles-Chiefs is a big one, and since it’s prime time where offense dies this season, I fully expect the Chiefs to win 16-13. But Bengals-Ravens on TNF is another big one, Steelers-Browns should be a bloodbath at 1:00, and we’ll just ignore the absolute mess they lined up for the late afternoon and SNF (Vikings-Broncos). But I might have a special preview on Chiefs-Eagles or at least something related this week.

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 7

~ Scott ~ 14 Comments

Save for a Monday night game with Kirk Cousins facing a Super Bowl contender, Week 7 is in the books. While everyone has at least 10 more games to play before the playoffs, we may have reached that point where a Super Bowl rematch from last year looks more probable than any other scenario. Remember, it has only happened one time ever with the Cowboys and Bills in 1992-93.

The Chiefs and Eagles were the favorites before the season started, but we watched Kansas City lose by a point on opening night to Detroit, we questioned if the offense was still as potent with the wide receivers, and we saw the Eagles win some one-score games where they weren’t as impressive as they were a season ago when they had so much balance and avoided turnovers on offense. We were briefly entertaining how good Miami’s scoring was, how it could be Buffalo or Dallas’ year for a change, and of course the 49ers looked like the best overall team in the league until they stumbled in Cleveland last week.

But the roads to the Super Bowl may still very well go through Kansas City and Philadelphia after they both won 31-17 games at home in a Week 7 that featured 10-of-12 games with a comeback opportunity. It comes down to trust, and right now, do you really trust teams like Buffalo, Dallas, and Miami to get the job done in January? Do you even trust the 49ers over the Eagles, who are practically automatic in short-yardage situations and are getting an all-time stretch from A.J. Brown? Patrick Mahomes (+260 at FanDuel) is also back as the MVP favorite after throwing for 424 yards and 4 touchdowns.

Of course, another Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl would be nightmare fuel for conspiracy theorists who want to say the league is fixing things for Taylor Swift, and that would be her ideal matchup for sure. But if you look around the league in Week 7, officiating is quite shitty in most games these days. That’s part of the product now.

One thing I expected to see in Week 7 was more overs hitting after the under was 12-2-1 in Week 6. But after a solid start to the week, overs are still just 5-7 (or 6-6 if you got Chiefs-Chargers at 47.5) going into Monday night. There were only 3 games this week where both teams scored more than 17 points, and one of them was Thursday night when the Saints lost 31-24 to the Jaguars.

Another thing we have yet to see this week was a team win after trailing by 10+ points. There have only been 2 weeks in the regular season since 2020 where this did not happen once, and it was in Weeks 10-11 (back-to-back) of the 2021 season. If the Vikings go up 10-0 early on Monday night, hammer the 49ers’ ML.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Dolphins at Eagles: Brother, Can You Spare a Yard?

Is it asking too much to have a Sunday Night Football game this season where both teams score at least 3 touchdowns? It would be if the game was Cowboys-Giants (Week 1’s 40-0 rout), but Dolphins-Eagles should have been a solid shootout with two of the best offenses in the league.

Instead, we saw the home team control play, never trail, and that historic Miami offense was held to 10 points, 12 first downs, and 244 total yards (all season lows). Miami’s first score was a 1-yard field goal drive set up by a turnover, and its last score was a pick-six after a deflected pass at the line went right to the defender. You could argue this Miami offense only had one legitimate scoring drive, a 72-yard march before halftime that ended with Tua Tagovailoa’s best throw of the night on a 27-yard touchdown to Tyreek Hill, who was held to 11 catches for 88 yards. With 15 targets for Hill, you’ll take that as a defense against him.

It did not help Miami that it only had 8 offensive possessions and squandered the last three with two failed 4th downs and a bad interception in the fourth quarter when the Dolphins trailed 24-17.

Both offensive lines looked outmatched early, but the Eagles eventually got the better of the physical play up front and got to their game in short yardage. The Eagles were 4-for-4 on fourth down, including a pair of 4th-and-1 conversions inside their own 40 on a drive that ended with a short touchdown run to take a commanding 31-17 lead with 4:46 left. What can you say about the Brotherly Shove other than this team has perfected it?

A.J. Brown had both of the game’s plays that gained over 30 yards, continuing his record-tying streak of five consecutive games with at least 125 receiving yards:

For the Eagles, I had that record going back to last year’s Super Bowl where this team was 0-7 in the Jalen Hurts era in games against teams with 10 wins and a quarterback ranked in the top 15 in QBR. This could end up being the first win in that split, assuming Tagovailoa finishes the season well and the Dolphins double their win total.

But there was some concern coming into this game that Miami was a paper tiger with a 48-20 beatdown loss in Buffalo and all the team’s wins against teams who were a combined 5-24 going into the week. A performance like this in Philadelphia will only strengthen people to not believe in this team, but they were a bit shorthanded at corner with Xavien Howard and Jalen Ramsey not available. Jaylen Waddle also momentarily left the game with a bad back but did return to finish, and we are missing a chance to see rookie running back De’Von Achane after injury sidelined him for weeks to come.

But for as much as I can talk about the Eagles not beating the good teams/QBs, the Dolphins don’t have a quality win in that department since Week 3 last year against Buffalo, the beginning of Tua’s concussion problems. Miami still has a lot to prove, and a game like this puts a real dent in the chances this offense breaks records by season’s end.

Chargers at Chiefs: The Most Boring Second Half in a Herbert-Mahomes Game Yet

Kansas City with a defense is a scary proposition for the rest of the NFL. There were few better ways to test this than a game with the Chargers, who always play the Chiefs well. In fact, Justin Herbert led at halftime and in the fourth quarter in each of his first 6 games against Kansas City, including all 5 matchups against Patrick Mahomes.

But those streaks are dead, and I guess my jinxing power is still strong. I had the stat this week where Chargers +3.5 in the first half was a hit in the last 16 games for the Chargers. It hit in 33 of the first 40 games for coach Brandon Staley as this team struggles in the second half but not so much in the first.

After a 60-yard pass to Josh Palmer and a 49-yard touchdown run by Josh Kelley in the second quarter, it looked like the Chargers were having their usual Kansas City game where Herbert plays great and goes score for score with Mahomes. So much for this “great defense” when the Chargers were tied 17-17 and driving at midfield. But after a Herbert sack led to a punt, the Chiefs made another one of those dagger drives before halftime, going 96 yards in the final minutes before finishing with a touchdown to Travis Kelce, who bullied his way in with the help of his line from the 1-yard line.

The touchdown likely never happens, and Chargers +3.5 1H probably survives another game, if not for a defensive pass interference on the Chargers to wipe out a 3rd-and-23 situation for Kansas City. Just my luck some Chargering would end this streak and blow the bet.

But down 24-17, the Chargers were in this one even though Mahomes passed for 321 yards, 3 touchdowns, and 1 interception (arm punt on 3rd-and-12) in the first half alone as the Chiefs were all about the pass (6 runs for 12 yards at halftime). It looked like we would get another fantastic finish, especially after Blake Bell provided the obligatory Chiefs fumble in the red zone to start the second half.

But a strange thing happened in the second half: 10 drives, 7 points total between the teams. A 24-17 half ended 31-17, which is very unusual in NFL history.

Out of 433 games since 1970 where both teams scored at least 17 points in the first half, this is only the 27th game (6.2%) that finished under 48.5 total points. It is only the 6th game to end under 48.5 after a half where one team scored at least 24 points and the other scored at least 17.

The turnovers were obviously costly. The Chargers took the Bell fumble, drove to the Kansas City 8, then Herbert’s pass was deflected at the line and wound up as an interception.

Despite that pick, the Chargers had the ball in the fourth quarter, down 24-17, on three different drives and failed to do anything with it. That’s not what we’d see from Kansas City defenses in past years.

If you give Herbert 3 drives to do something, he usually can get a score on one, but not on Sunday. If you give Mahomes 3 drives to put the game away, you can all but guarantee he’s going to do it eventually. The first two likely only failed because they started at the Kansas City 3 and 8 (backed up). But after Mecole Hardman made his return felt with a 50-yard punt return, it was smooth sailing for the Chiefs with 6:16 to go. Mahomes converted a 3rd-and-6 to Hardman, then threw his 4th touchdown of the game to Isiah Pacheco with 3:30 left to take a 31-17 lead.

In no man’s land on 2nd-and-24 at midfield, Herbert threw another desperation interception to end the game. Herbert had the first game of his career where he threw multiple interceptions and took at least 4 sacks (he had 2 INTs and 5 sacks).

The Chiefs are the only team in the league to not allow more than 21 points in any game this season. Mahomes’ 6th game with 400 yards and 4 touchdowns ties him for third place in NFL history.

When every non-playoff rest game between these teams had been decided by 1-6 points since 2020 when Herbert became the starter, this one ending 31-17 is another sign that we should respect this defense. I don’t know if they can keep it up for a whole season as the last teams to start like this eventually faded, but if the offense is going to have halves like it did on Sunday to start this game, it may not matter.

Bills at Patriots: The Mac Jones Era Will Survive Another Week

This was the upset of the week. Buffalo (-7.5) has been flirting with extremes from a 48-20 win over the Dolphins to losing 25-20 in London to Jacksonville, then coming up a yard short of losing to the Giants in a 14-9 game last week.

I thought they would take last week’s scare and go the opposite direction with a commanding win over a New England team they have owned since 2020, and possibly put an end to the Mac Jones era.

But this wasn’t some 4-D chess by the Bills to make the Patriots keep Jones as the starter. This was just a bad performance on both sides of the ball and it’s inexcusable at this point. The offense may have some flaws, but it is more than talented enough to have more than 10 points on the board before the fourth quarter. The defense has injuries as we all know, but the New England offense has been so bad that there’s no excuse for allowing the Patriots to pile up 29 points and 364 yards.

What were some of Buffalo’s problems? The usual case of relying a bit too much on Josh Allen, who can be a wild card with his decision making. He had a pick and lost a fumble in this game. But the offensive line also struggled to protect him, and that’s surprising when the Patriots didn’t even have their best pass rusher (Matt Judon) or corner (Christian Gonzalez). Stefon Diggs usually has his way with the Patriots, but he only had 58 yards on 12 targets this time. Gabriel Davis is a flawed No. 2 as he only had a 6-yard catch on 5 targets.

But to let Jones complete 25-of-30 passes for 272 yards and 2 touchdowns? Come on, Buffalo. This was looking to be a big New England win after the Patriots took a 22-10 lead with half a quarter to play, but the Bills staged an impressive team comeback. Diggs broke free on an athletic 25-yard touchdown, then the defense forced Kendrick Bourne to fumble on a completion, putting the Bills 29 yards away from the go-ahead touchdown with 4:56 left.

This is exactly the kind of back-breaking fumble that has been killing the Patriots in close games like this since 2020. The kind of play that has nothing to do with the quarterback or head coach, but it’s the type of mistake we’re not used to seeing the Patriots make. Sure enough, the Bills turned that short field into a touchdown on an Allen sneak, then the 2-point conversion was also successful to make it 25-22.

Plenty of time (1:58) for the Patriots to answer, but it was a windy day for kickers, and Jones had the worst record among active quarterbacks in comeback opportunities at 1-11. Almost immediately the Bills were in bad shape as the Patriots called a little pass to running back Rhamondre Stevenson, who took it 34 yards and got this thing rolling. A pass interference penalty put the ball at the 1, and Jones threw a game-winning touchdown pass to tight end Mike Gesicki with 12 seconds left for easily the best game-winning drive we’ve seen from the Patriots since the 2018 season.

The Bills only had time to fumble on a lateral attempt. Buffalo is only 4-3, and while we put a lot of stock in that 48-20 thrashing of the Dolphins, we have to question the Bills’ wins the same way we do Miami’s since they are against similar teams (Raiders, Commanders, and Giants).

The good news is Miami lost too Sunday night, but the whole AFC East is looking a bit fraudulent right now. With a chance to knock the Patriots out, the Bills folded on defense to Mac Jones in the clutch. That’s pretty low.

Lions at Ravens: Rout of the Week

If Bills-Patriots was the upset of the week, this was the unexpected rout of the week. I was really confident in this being a great 23-20 type of game that went down to the wire. Even when the Ravens went up 21-0, you could picture them blowing it with the way they have played since 2021. Too many blown leads and close games.

But this was an ass kicking the likes of which we have rarely seen this year. We definitely do not see Dan Campbell-coached teams get dragged like this for 60 minutes. The Lions are 28-13 ATS (68.3%) since 2021, the best record in the league in that time, and we have seen this team rally back to one-score losses against elite teams the last few years like the 2021 49ers (41-33), 2022 Eagles (38-35), and 2022 Bills (28-25).

With Detroit trying to go to 6-1, Lamar Jackson came prepared with arguably the best game of his career: 21-of-27 for 357 yards, 3 touchdown passes, 36 rushing yards, 1 rushing touchdown, and 4 straight long touchdown drives to begin the game. It may have been 5 touchdowns in a row if Jackson had not had an aborted snap, the only blemish to an otherwise perfect half.

Baltimore even started the second half with a 94-yard touchdown drive, showing this was not a day where the team would make things too close for comfort. The Lions only got on the board when it was 35-0 in the fourth quarter when rookie Jahmyr Gibbs scored his first NFL touchdown, but the Lions lost 38-6 as Jared Goff took 5 sacks and threw 53 passes in an effort to try to keep up.

But the Ravens dominated this one start to finish, which is not the type of performance we’ve seen from this team that often. I’m not sure if it was just one of those anomaly days for both teams, but this was a strong statement as people were giving me pushback earlier this month for suggesting the Ravens were a legit contender and a team like Detroit was merely window dressing for the Super Bowl competition.

Browns at Colts: The Unexpected Quasi-Shootout

From Saturday’s predictions: “Wouldn’t it be such a #RandomNFL thing for the Browns to beat the 49ers with P.J. Walker but lose to the Colts with Deshaun Watson back? I almost picked it outright, but we’ll go with an Indy cover.”

Since 1950, NFL teams were 0-631 when allowing 38 points, throwing 2 interceptions, and getting outgained by at least 110 yards. Welcome to history because the Browns won doing all those things in Indy on Sunday.

Something always felt off about this game, and I’m still surprised picking Indy +3.5 and the Browns to win proved to be my best game prediction in Week 7. But the Browns were getting so much credit for the defense, and the Colts are now the only team in the league to score at least 20 points in every game.

But I don’t think anyone in the world could have predicted a 39-38 final from this one. What makes it even crazier is P.J. Walker outplayed Deshaun Watson, who left injured very early after he slammed his head on the ground, and while the Cleveland defense technically did some great things to get this win, it was at the expense of holding the Colts to 38 points instead of closer to 50 like they had potential for. Is that great defense these days? Meh.

I don’t know what this game will do for Cleveland going forward, but Gardner Minshew throwing for 305 yards and running in 2 touchdowns has to knock some shine off the idea of this being a historic defense.

And yet, it was a monster performance from Myles Garrett that helped turn things around for Cleveland. He forced a strip-sack of Minshew, which led to a short field and game-tying touchdown at 14-14. He blocked a 60-yard field goal in impressive fashion, though you could argue the Colts should have punted there early in the second quarter. Garrett then forced another strip-sack of Minshew that his teammate picked up for a Cleveland touchdown on a fumble recovery in the end zone.

The teams kept exchanging scores in the fourth quarter, though the Colts failed on some chances to put the game away. They even got a go-ahead 75-yard touchdown to Michael Pittman Jr., the second time this year he got a big YAC play for a touchdown.

But the Colts punted back to Cleveland and Walker with 2:35 left, and the defense failed to put the game away. There was a strip-sack that would have done the trick, but an illegal contact penalty wiped that out in the red zone. But the next play is the scrutinized one as defensive pass interference was called on what clearly looked like an uncatchable ball in the back of the end zone:

I think that’s a really bad call against the Colts. On the other hand, a no-call would have made it 2nd-and-goal from the 8 with 33 seconds left. Not exactly a game over situation. But still, it made things easier from the 1-yard line, and it looked like Cleveland was going to botch it by throwing 3 times in a row instead of running. I know they didn’t have timeouts but play the percentages. The run is more likely going to work than Walker throwing.

On 4th-and-goal, the Browns finally ran and Kareem Hunt barely broke the plane with 15 seconds left. The Browns failed on the 2-point conversion, but it didn’t matter much at that point. Minshew was strip-sacked a third time, but the only surprise is it wasn’t Garrett again. Minshew finished with 4 turnovers for the second game in a row, though he was much better this week than last week in Jacksonville.

We’ll see where these teams finish and if this quarter proves decisive for playoff seeding. But what a wild game, and a complicated one in trying to figure out how well Minshew is playing, and how great the Cleveland defense is this year.

Also, the Browns have a huge Watson problem, but that’s a story for another day. It just amuses me that Kevin Stefanski can maximize every quarterback in his offense except the one who is supposed to be the best. Maybe that’s just karma.

Packers at Broncos: From Favre-Elway to Rodgers-Manning to THIS

Boy, if this is what it takes for Denver to win a home game under Sean Payton, then enjoy it, because there aren’t going to be many more of these wins. Green Bay flopped off its bye week with a scoreless first half, but it took Denver 2.5 quarters to find the end zone too.

Green Bay was much stronger in the second half, not unlike the 17-0 comeback against the Saints this year, and the Packers scored on three straight drives to take a 17-16 lead with 8:31 left. You had to start thinking this wasn’t Denver’s year when touchdowns like this on 4th-and-2 are happening to them:

It starts to make sense why Denver has lost 10 games in a row after having the lead at halftime. But this would not be No. 11. In fact, by coming back with a field goal drive to win the game, Denver made sure Green Bay was the first team to blow 3 fourth-quarter leads this season.

Russell Wilson did not have a great game, but he got the offense close enough for Wil Lutz to bang in his fourth field goal from 52 yards away to take a 19-17 lead with 3:50 left. That was plenty of time for Jordan Love to answer, but I think conservative calls once the Packers reached Denver territory combined with a holding penalty short-circuited the drive.

Love’s accuracy issues showed up on a 2nd-and-20 incompletion to Christian Watson, which saw the receiver go down with an apparent knee injury. On 3rd-and-2, Love just threw one up and it was intercepted to essentially end the game. The Broncos ran out every second of the clock and escaped with the 19-17 win.

Green Bay has lost back-to-back games in which it did not allow 20 points, which has not happened to the Packers since 2005 when Aaron Rodgers was a rookie on the bench. If only there was a quarterback of that caliber waiting in the wings on this Green Bay bench.

Steelers at Rams: When Coming Up Short Is Enough to Win the Game

Yes, the Steelers started the game with a 3-and-out, they had only one field goal at halftime, and T.J. Watt bailed them out with a great interception to start the third quarter, setting up a 7-yard touchdown drive.

All those things made it look like Matt Canada was perfectly representing his brand in LA after a bye week. But for the rest of the game, the Steelers actually looked like a competent offense that could get the ball to its best receivers about as well as Matthew Stafford got the ball to Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua.

While Nacua (154 yards) had a monster day, Kupp did not, catching 2-of-7 targets for 29 yards with a couple of early drops that seemed to set him up for a bad day – if it wasn’t my bets that did him in since I am a proven jinx of the highest order. Kupp’s only real contribution was on a 2-point conversion to put the Rams up 17-10.

You have to go back to Week 6 of the 2020 season to find the last time a defense held Kupp under 30 yards in a game he did not leave injured. That was against the 49ers, and he had 11 yards on 3 catches and 9 targets. This was shocking for a Pittsburgh defense that has been awful against top receivers. But Stafford and Kupp did not bring their A game for this one.

Neither did kicker Brett Maher, who missed a pair of field goals from 51 and 53 yards away in this game. Again, as someone who led a picks article off this week with Rams over 1.5 made field goals, I can’t help but feel like a total f’n jinx.

And it’s not like I did these things to root for the Steelers to win. I barely wanted to watch this game and was flipping between the Chiefs-Chargers on CBS and the RedZone channel, because I’ve grown to hate watching Canada’s offense that much.

But in Diontae Johnson’s return game from injury, he made the crucial play on a 3rd-and-8 to start the fourth quarter. He turned a short throw into a 39-yard gain. He may never score a touchdown again with Kenny Pickett as his quarterback, but he is good for a play like that from time to time. Pickett also started looking sharper on his throws to George Pickens in the second half.

The Johnson play set up Jaylen Warren for a 13-yard touchdown run to tie the game. Pickens and Johnson had big catches to set up Najee Harris for a 3-yard go-ahead touchdown run with 7:20 left.

Pittsburgh’s defense held after Stafford threw 3 straight incompletions from his 43. The Steelers had 5:28 to burn and they shockingly did it. Pickens had a 31-yard gain on a 3rd-and-3. A taunting penalty on the Steelers, something they had a few of in this game on the receivers, negated what would have been a terrible defensive pass interference penalty on the Rams on 3rd-and-8. Replaying the down, the Steelers came up 1 yard short.

Mike Tomlin had to go for the 4th-and-1 at the Los Angeles 39 with a chance to win the game. The Rams were out of timeouts and only 2:24 remained. The Steelers ran their own version of the Tush Push, and Pickett looked like he was short. The chains were brought out, and shockingly, he was just over the marker for the game-clinching first down.

The Rams were hosed.

If you watch any good replay, you can see Pickett slipped and his knee was down very quickly after getting the ball. He was short of the marker, but the refs blew the spot. Since it was outside of the 2-minute warning and the Rams were out of timeouts, Sean McVay could not challenge the play. It is not 100% certain they would have reserved the call on the field even if he did have a challenge, but he would have had a decent case of getting the ball back with a solid 2:00 to play.

It’s not even the most egregious late-game officiating blunder in a game involving Sean McVay (ask Saints fans). Remember, the Steelers were up 24-17 and Stafford would have needed to drive 60 yards for a touchdown to tie or a 2-point conversion to take the lead. But it was still a pretty bad spot and cheap ending to a game that turned out more decent than expected.

The Steelers are 4-2, and if not for coming up short to win a game, this might be viewed as their most legitimate win this season. But here they are, continuing to win games without playing their best. It shouldn’t be sustainable but given the schedule and if the health of players like Watt and Pickens allow for it, this team is going to win 9-10 games and be in the playoff mix with the rest of the AFC North.

Falcons at Buccaneers: NFC South of Heaven

The Falcons (4-3) are back in first place in the NFC South after a 16-13 win in Tampa Bay, but the game served as a solid reminder of why this is still a bad division and the NFC East runner-up is likely to notch a playoff win against the eventual winner here.

I was on Atlanta to win because I trust the offense’s ability to move the ball more than I do Tampa Bay’s right now. I may not trust the Falcons to put many drives in the end zone, but what can you say about a Tampa Bay team that has now lost 25-11 (Eagles), 20-6 (Lions), and 16-13 at home this season?

I don’t even know if I feel like commenting on the Bijan Robinson shenanigans, but it sure does look suspicious when a player who was not on the injury report has a surprise illness, then sits out most of the game until they decide to give him a carry for 3 yards with 33 seconds left in the game. What the hell was that?

But both teams made the kind of mistakes in crunch time that make them hard to trust come January. Desmond Ridder had an efficient passing stat line, but with a chance to put the game away with a touchdown run to go up 20-10, he got a little soft at the end of the run and fumbled through the end zone with 6:30 left to keep it a 13-10 game. Huge mistake.

But Baker Mayfield made a bigger mistake in field goal range with 3:46 left:

It’s plays like that that made trusting him in Tampa Bay hard this year. But did he do the Tom Brady thing and take advantage of another opportunity after his defense forced the 3-and-out? Yes, the Buccaneers drove right down the field again into kicking range. But they weren’t able to get the touchdown after a 3rd-down sack of Mayfield inside the 10, and it did not help that he threw two incompletions before that to save clock for Atlanta in a tied game.

Ridder had 2 timeouts and 45 seconds, which we know is plenty of time in this league for these kickers. After almost hooking up with Kyle Pitts for a big play, the two did it again for a bigger one at 39 yards, and that basically set up the kick. After a couple of runs, Younghoe Koo came out and drilled the field goal from 51 yards out to give Atlanta a 16-13 win.

Neither of these teams will be feared in January but remember this quarter when it comes to figuring out which one gets to host the playoff game for the NFC South.

Cardinals at Seahawks: If a Bear Shits in the Woods…

Did anyone really care that this game was going on, or that the Seahawks were in a dogfight for most of the day as an 8.5-point favorite before covering late? I think we’re over the Joshua Dobbs experimental part of the season and would prefer to see Kyler Murray return even if he is likely not in the future plans for this franchise.

Kenneth Walker failing to score twice from the 1-yard line was more of my success as a jinx against myself. The Seahawks ended up settling for a field goal and 17-10 lead, and the game stayed that way for roughly 20 minutes. Matt Prater was wide left on a 34-yard field goal for the Cardinals with 11:06 left. Later, a fake punt doomed the Cardinals, only gaining 4 yards on 4th-and-9 with 4:58 left.

Seattle, which played without D.K. Metcalf (ribs), finally put it away from there with a 48-yard field goal with 2:17 left to make it 20-10. Dobbs was sacked on a 4th-and-11 at midfield to end the game.

I know the Seahawks (4-2) are currently the No. 5 seed in the NFC, but I just can’t muster up much interest in games with Arizona right now.

Raiders at Bears: Just Put McDaniels Out of His Misery

Once again, we must figure out which is the most embarrassing loss for Josh McDaniels with the Raiders:

  • Was it when he blew a 16-point lead in the fourth quarter to Arizona after Kyler Murray needed 20 seconds of scrambling to convert a 2-point conversion?
  • Was it losing to Jeff Saturday in his first game as interim coach of the Colts when he had no previous coaching experience in the NFL or college football? Saturday never won another game.
  • Was it when he blew a 16-3 lead in the fourth quarter to Baker Mayfield, who signed with the Rams 48 hours before the game?

Or is it when McDaniels lost 30-12 and wire-to-wire to a 1-5 Chicago team that was an underdog with an undrafted rookie quarterback nicknamed T-Bag?

No matter which one you choose, the fact that there are this many contenders just 24 games into McDaniels’ tenure should tell us that he should be fired as this is not working out.

Another sign it’s not working out: Raiders have not scored 20 points on offense in any game this season. They only reached 21 points against the Patriots last week on a safety. This is the longest streak to start a season since the 2009 Redskins made it 8 games without 20 offensive points.

I’m not even sure pointing out Brian Hoyer started for an injured Jimmy Garoppolo is that noteworthy. Did I mention the Bears started Tyson Bagent? Hoyer is McDaniels’ guy going back to the Patriots. He knows his offense. He just didn’t execute it well against one of the worst defenses in the league. Meanwhile, the Bears kept things easy for Bagent with short throws, and he managed the game well while D’Onta Foreman scored 3 touchdowns.

The NFL can do better than giving second head coaching jobs to people like Dennis Allen (Saints) and McDaniels when it was so bad on the first try. It was not a fluke that it did not work out the first time, and coaching under Sean Payton and Bill Belichick is not a proven path to coaching well on your own.

Commanders at Giants: You Can’t Spell “Sack Machine” Without S-A-M

Both offenses are lousy at blocking, but I picked the Giants because I figured Tyrod Taylor would manage the pressure better than Sam Howell, and this Jack Del Rio-coached defense is worse than what the Giants have.

There were 10 sacks in the game, but Washington (6) took more, and Taylor did help his team to a 14-0 lead where they just had to hang on for the second half. But this game was FUGLY. There were more possessions (27) than points (21).

The Commanders may have been scoreless if the Giants didn’t muff a punt and set up a 21-yard field for Washington’s only touchdown. But that was it for the scoring. The Giants blocked a 27-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter, Saquon Barkley lost a fumble inside the 10 yard line on the next drive, and Jahan Dotson dropped a 4th-and-5 pass that he had a shot at catching inside the 5-yard line with under a minute left. The Giants took knees to end it from there.

For as bad as the offenses were, at least the final quarter was interesting. But I don’t know how much longer Washington can go before Howell is injured or replaced. He is on pace for 97 sacks this season.

Next week: A trio of prime-time games with Bucs-Bills, Bears-Chargers, and Lions-Raiders? This season really hates the viewers. The closest we get to “good” games this week involve the AFC North with Steelers-Jaguars, Bengals-49ers, and Browns-Seahawks, and chances are at least one will be a total rout.

NFL Week 7 Predictions: Take the Over Edition

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

It’s not that the NFL’s Week 7 schedule is filled with great games, but I like it because each time slot has something that could be really good on Sunday. Lions-Ravens highlights 1 p.m., Chargers-Chiefs is my favorite division rivalry to watch this decade in the 4:25 slot, and the Sunday night game might finally be a great one with the Dolphins taking on the Eagles. If that game doesn’t go over 50 points, I’ll be surprised (and disappointed).

That’s my other talking point this week in that I expect it to be a good week for overs. Why? Last week was incredible for unders with a 12-2-1 record. This was similar to Week 1 when the under was 12-4. What happened in Week 2? The over was 13-3. It’s an up-and-down league, especially this year.

We already saw a taste of this Thursday night when the Jaguars beat the Saints 31-24, the first over to hit in New Orleans’ last 13 games. You still have to play the matchups, but when in doubt, think over this week.

This Week’s Articles:

Patrick Mahomes Through 100 Starts: The Best Quarterback Ever? – A deep dive into Mahomes after 100 starts, where he stacks up historically, and if he’ll be adding any more hardware this season.

NFL Week 7 Predictions

Honestly, I don’t know why I backed the Saints on Thursday night. I had Jaguars +3 early in the week if you click on my prime-time picks above, so I don’t know what made me change it. Drew Brees wasn’t walking out that tunnel on Thursday night. It was Derek Carr with more interest in throwing to Alvin Kamara and Taysom Hill than his trio of wide receivers.

Did I pick 7/13 underdogs to cover and 5 to win outright? That’s what happens when so many teams look evenly matched and few teams stand out above the pack.

Wouldn’t it be such a #RandomNFL thing for the Browns to beat the 49ers with P.J. Walker but lose to the Colts with Deshaun Watson back? I almost picked it outright, but we’ll go with an Indy cover. The Colts join the Dolphins and Lions as the only teams to score 20 points in every game this season. Cleveland’s defense is awesome but it’s not the 1985 Bears or 2000 Ravens.

I like the Giants to blitz and sack Sam Howell a lot to push him closer to 100 sacks this year.

I think there’s real value in picking Mac Jones to go way under his passing yards in this game or the next as the Patriots are probably going to be 1-7 after playing Buffalo and Miami, and he is getting benched for Malik Cunningham any quarter now.

I’m staying far away from that CHI-LV game. Check that, I’ll bet on Tyson Bagent to score a TD (+700), but that’s about it.

I think Lions can nip the Ravens in the 4Q in a 3-point game in Baltimore. Looking forward to that one. I have Jahmyr Gibbs scoring his first NFL TD.

I have Cooper Kupp dominating the Steelers with over 100 yards and a TD.

After all the criticism over Geno Smith this past week, I think he has a big game and Seahawks win easily.

I have a lot of KC-LAC research in the links above. I expect another very good game between these two. I have Rashee Rice going over with a TD. Kelce has to score a TD on National Tight Ends Day, right? He had 3 in his last game against the Chargers. Gerald Everett might even redeem himself after last year’s pick-6 disaster when he was winded in KC.

I picked the Broncos to intercept Jordan Love and finally get a home win under Sean Payton (0-3).

Already wrote my Miami upset pick in the above link, and I think the 49ers bounce back with a comfortable win over Kirk Cousins on a Monday night without Justin Jefferson.

NFL Week 6 Predictions: Bishop Sycamore QBs Edition

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

It’s a bit early in the NFL season for teams to be turning to P.J. Walker and Tyrod Taylor as huge underdogs, but here we are. We’re one quarterback injury in Cleveland away from a Bishop Sycamore high school QB getting the call next, assuming Deshaun Watson doesn’t feel like playing contact football anymore.

Speaking of Bishop Sycamore, what the hell kind of fraudulent performance was that on Thursday by Sean Payton, Russell Wilson, and the Denver Broncos? Wilson didn’t even break 100 passing yards in the 19-8 loss, a pathetic score all around in one of the worst games I’ve seen this season.

But where are the good games in this 2023 season? I look at the Week 6 schedule and see a serious lack of greatness. You know things are rough when we’re trying to hype up Gardner Minshew going back to Jacksonville with the Colts for a big AFC South game, or that the Buccaneers and Lions have 1 loss each. I’d put my money on Cowboys-Chargers being the best game to close the week, but Monday night is where offense goes to die this year. Don’t fail me now, Brandon Staley.

Someone asked me this week if comebacks and close games are down, and compared to last year, they definitely are through Week 5:

  • 2023: 43 of 78 games were close (55.1%), 24 decided by 4Q/OT score
  • 2022: 55 of 80 games (68.8%), 36 decided by 4Q/OT score
  • 2021: 40 of 80 games (50.0%), 28 decided by 4Q/OT score
  • 2020: 44 of 77 games were close (57.1%), 28 decided by 4Q/OT score

The numbers weren’t as poor as I thought they’d be compared to recent years, but they do pale in comparison to what happened in 2022. I think the perception being strong here is the way 2022 played out, and that 2020 season was also the highest scoring ever during the pandemic without crowds.

Bad prime-time games this year are another factor. It just seems like we’ve sat around and watched a lot of ugly, one-sided football when it comes to those island games. And go figure, the New York Giants are back in action this Sunday night as a 15.5-point underdog.

This week’s articles

NFL Week 6 Predictions

Not only did the Broncos fail to cover on Thursday night, but it was also a terrible game to watch as the Chiefs seemed to be toying with them, calling weird trick plays and things that just didn’t work well. Despite that, the Broncos still couldn’t capitalize in the 16th loss in a row to the Chiefs. The fifth win in a row for the Chiefs means Andy Reid has had a 5-game winning streak in all 11 seasons with the Chiefs, which is by far the best streak in the Super Bowl era.

Yeah, I can’t see myself getting up early for Ravens-Titans.

For a lot of these games, I like margin bets better than spread bets (ATL by 1-13, CHI by 1-13, JAX by 1-13, HOU by 1-13, and BUF by 14+).

Two games I’m largely avoiding are SEA-CIN and LV-NE. I just can’t figure out what the Bengals are doing week to week, and that is a early start after a long trip for the Seahawks. Watching Belichick fall to 0-3 against Josh McDaniels would be hilarious and very much a possibility unless Jimmy Garoppolo’s horrible interception rate continues. The Patriots haven’t had a takeaway since Week 2 so you know they’re due.

With the Bucs having that lousy performance against the Eagles and a bye week, I feel like we’ve seen less of them than necessary to make any sound judgment of where they’re at this year. I’ll trust the Lions in that one.

Something to keep an eye on in LAR-ARI is to see if Jonathan Gannon’s defense can shut down Cooper Kupp the way Arizona did in the Kingsbury era. Kupp has had 79+ receiving yards in 27 of his last 31 games. The only 4 games he was under that mark were all against the Cardinals.

Finally, I am looking forward to Monday night. I think it sets up well to be a game where the Chargers look great early with Kellen Moore taking it to his old team, then the collapse begins. Dak Prescott redeems himself with a big night to CeeDee Lamb, and the Cowboys win by 1-4 points in their first true close game of the season.

This is where they draw some of us back in, but you know how it’ll end in January.

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 3

~ Scott ~ 17 Comments

Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a pattern.

The NFL’s 2023 season hit a pivotal Week 3 that should start to separate the fakes from the competitors after a couple of interesting weeks. By Sunday’s end, a few things are emerging as clear:

  • The Chiefs and Bills are still contenders, but Miami has the best speed in the league and one of the only coaches with a brain.
  • The 49ers are still a cut above Dallas in the NFC, and we’ll see how the Eagles look Monday night in a game with Tampa Bay (!) that should produce just the 3rd team to start 3-0 this year, joining the Dolphins and 49ers.
  • The 2021 quarterback draft class is a major mess with Zach Wilson and Mac Jones dueling to a 15-10 finish, Justin Fields didn’t throw for 100 yards in a 41-10 loss in Kansas City, and even Trevor Lawrence is just 1-2 this year after the Jaguars looked bad in another loss to the Texans.

After Week 2 was so high scoring and close (12 games had a comeback opportunity), you had to expect some regression with more blowouts and lower scores, especially with an underwhelming schedule that had half the games with a team favored by a touchdown or better.

But three teams lost as a favorite of at least 7.5 points: Jaguars vs. Texans (+7.5), Ravens vs. Colts (+8.5), and Cowboys vs. Cardinals (+12.5). That hasn’t happened in one week since Week 10 of the 2021 season. There were only 7 such upsets all of last season.

There were also just 6 games with a comeback opportunity (MNF pending) and 3 games with a fourth-quarter lead change, but at least Chargers-Vikings lived up to expectations.

But we have to start with the game that presents something that hasn’t been done in nearly 60 years.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Broncos at Dolphins: Speed Kills Denver

It was always reasonable to expect Denver to regress on defense and improve on offense under Sean Payton this year, but Sweet Christ, 70-20?

Unless they were putting a jetpack on Justin Simmons and Frank Clark, who missed the game, and everyone else on the Denver defense, they weren’t catching these Miami speedsters on Sunday. The Broncos even caught a break with Jaylen Waddle out with a concussion.

We knew the Dolphins had the best offensive performance in Week 1 against the Chargers, but the hype train at least should have slowed down a bit after a closer to average game in New England with 24 points.

But on Sunday, the Dolphins made history in their home opener with 10 touchdowns on their 14 possessions. These were the only teams to score 70 points in NFL history before Sunday:

  • 1940 Bears at Redskins in NFL Championship Game (W 73-0): 7 rushing TDs, 3 interception return TDs, 1 passing TD
  • 1950 Rams vs. Colts (W 70-27): 5 passing TDs, 4 rushing TDs, 1 kick return TD
  • 1966 Redskins vs. Giants (W 72-41): 4 rushing TDs, 3 passing TDs, 1 fumble return TD, 1 punt return TD, 1 interception return TD, 1 FG
  • 2023 Dolphins vs. Broncos (W 70-20): 5 passing TDs, 5 rushing TDs

If you’re thinking what I’m thinking from this breakdown, then we have history here. The Dolphins just set the record for most offensive points in an NFL game with 70.

The 1940 Bears didn’t get to 73 without the defense scoring 3 TDs. The 1950 Rams had a kick return early in the game to help them get to 70. The 1966 Redskins also had 3 return TDs, and they decided to kick their field goal at the end while already leading 69-41.

The Dolphins were all offensive scores, and they got to 70 with 8:01 left to play. They even had a chance to tie the official record of 73 points with a late field goal but passed. While there were 2 drives that started inside the Denver 8, there was no shortage of yards in this performance either.

Miami’s 726 yards only trail the 1951 Rams, who had 735 yards against the New York Yanks in that infamous Friday game where Norm Van Brocklin passed for 554 yards. Third place is a Pittsburgh team that gained 683 yards (what Matt Canada calls September) against the Cardinals in 1958, so these are the only two 700-yard games in NFL history.

It was an incredible display of speed as Miami had 350 rushing yards and 376 net passing yards. Even backup quarterback Mike White threw a 68-yard touchdown pass in the game. Tua Tagovailoa was 23-of-26 for 309 yards and 4 touchdowns.

But the biggest surprises were the running backs. One thing that was lacking about Mike McDaniel’s offense last year was the running game, which you thought might be strong as he brought over the Shanahan system to Miami. But it rarely delivered, and it also was nothing special in LA in Week 1.

But this game unleashed Raheem Mostert and rookie Devon Achane. It was actually Achane who finished with 203 rushing yards in this one, but both backs scored 4 touchdowns, an incredible feat. Achane had 233 yards from scrimmage and 4 touchdowns. Mostert had 142 yards from scrimmage and 3 touchdowns. That is a combined 375 yards and 8 touchdowns from the two running backs.

If you can name a better running back performance from a team in NFL history, I’d love to hear it. I used to think the gold standard was when Priest Holmes and Derrick Blaylock combined for 316 yards and 8 touchdowns for the 2004 Chiefs against Atlanta.

Was this the best offensive performance in NFL history? I think for purely scoring points, it would be hard to argue against the only offense to put in 70 points. Miami’s 10.22 yards per play is also the 3rd-best mark on record, only trailing the 1972 Jets (10.61) against the Colts in that classic Joe Namath-Johnny Unitas shootout, and the 2017 Chiefs (10.30) managed to do it in a losing effort against the Jets.

The only game I could really put above it is what the 2021 Bills did in the wild card round against the Patriots. They scored 47 points (2 XP failed) by scoring 7 touchdowns on their 7 drives. The 8th possession was just a kneeldown drive with the game decided. Given they did that in a playoff game where it was single-digit temperatures, and against a Belichick defense (the guy who held Miami with Waddle to 24 last week), I’d have to give 7-for-7 an edge. We cannot pretend Miami did not get stopped on a 4-and-out in their own territory in the 2nd quarter, and the offense went 3-and-out in the first possession after Tua exited. It wasn’t as perfect as what Buffalo did.

Go figure, that sets up a nice argument for Bills-Dolphins in Week 4.

But the speed and inability of Denver to keep up with those players was a sight to behold. We barely even acknowledged Denver, which got one of the best halves out of Russell Wilson, and they still trailed 35-13 for it. Brutal game for Denver to fall to 0-3 and basically become an afterthought at this point.

Hard to imagine this won’t be the peak of the season for Miami’s offense, but with so many big games left to come, they are going to be a big factor this year. I thought it’d be the Jets stepping up in the AFC East, but instead, it’s looking like Miami putting speed to the scheme of one of the only coaches with a working brain can deliver devastating, historic results like this.

Cowboys at Cardinals: Choke for Caleb Over?

You know, Mike McCarthy was fired in Green Bay after losing as a 13.5-point favorite against Arizona in 2018. I’m not saying it will happen again in Dallas, but man, this was a bad loss for a team that looked so good in the first two weeks.

You can’t blame Trevon Diggs going down in practice with a season-ending ACL injury for allowing 222 rushing yards, or Dak Prescott only leading one touchdown drive and having multiple 5-minute field goal drives.

This was just a bad performance by Dallas, and it fuels why people do not trust this team for the Super Bowl. On the other hand, it was a genuinely good performance by the Cardinals, who do not look like the worst team in football as many of us expected. The fact that they had a 4th-quarter lead in every game against the NFC East this year and look fairly competent on both sides of the ball is blowing my mind right now.

Joshua Dobbs actually had a good game here. He was 17-of-21 for 189 yards and a touchdown pass. He only took 2 sacks against that pass rush while rushing for 55 yards himself, including a 44-yard run.

We’ve seen several games this year already where a team failed in the 4-minute offense and had to give the ball back. The Cardinals did not blink when Dallas cut the lead to 21-16. They hit their biggest play of the game on the next snap from scrimmage for 69 yards, and Dobbs threw a touchdown to make it 28-16 with 7:22. The only complaint about that drive is it only took 2:11 off the clock.

That was an interesting part of this game. Arizona never had a drive that lasted longer than 4:17. Dallas had 6 drives that took at least 4:20 off the clock, and they came away with just 16 points on those drives. When you only have 8 possessions in the game and you waste so much of that time to get 16 points, it’s no wonder this ended up being a loss. Prescott’s interception with 3:00 left was the final nail in the coffin.

I have no idea how many games Arizona will win the rest of the year, but this team is nowhere near as bad as most expected. They even have a chance to get better as Dobbs gains experience.

Colts at Ravens: Gay Outshines Tucker

When these teams met in 2021, the Ravens came back from a 25-9 deficit in the fourth quarter to win in overtime in a game where Carson Wentz and Lamar Jackson both passed for over 400 yards. But the Colts would have won in regulation if Rodrigo Blankenship didn’t miss a 47-yard field goal, a miss that arguably cost the Colts (9-8) a playoff berth that year.

Consider this some payback. Colts kicker Matt Gay made NFL history by becoming the first kicker to make four field goals of 50-plus yards in a game (54, 53, 53, 53).

He upstaged the GOAT, Justin Tucker, in his own building. Tucker had a chance to add to his legacy with a 61-yard field goal to win the game at the buzzer, but while his kick was straight as usual, he was a little short this time.

The game went to overtime, but there were a lot of mistakes by both teams before and after that point. The Ravens were missing almost half their starters and they wasted a solid Lamar Jackson performance as he passed for 202 yards, and rushed for 101 yards and two scores.

The Colts were without Anthony Richardson (concussion), but Gardner Minshew was game with a ton of scrambling around. However, his Orlovsky moment in a 17-16 game seemed like it would doom the Colts when Minshew stepped on the back boundary line for a safety to give the Ravens a 19-16 lead with 2:03 left.

Those 3 seconds helped buy the Colts a key clock stoppage. While the Ravens put away Cincinnati in the 4-minute offense last week, they did not do it this time, going 3-and-out and giving Minshew a shot at redemption. Gay’s 53-yard field goal tied it at 19 with 57 seconds left.

Jackson gave Tucker a shot from 61, but there was a 10-yard sack during the drive that put the Ravens in a bind and made the attempt that long.

In overtime, first downs were hard to come by for both offenses. On a 4th-and-3 at the Indy 47, Jackson was unable to connect with Zay Flowers, turning the ball over at midfield with 3:21 left. Baltimore’s run defense showed some cracks, and Zack Moss got the call on the next 4 plays as Shane Steichen was content with setting up Gay for another long kick.

But from 53 yards out once again, Gay was good and delivered a surprising 22-19 win for the Colts, who technically jump ahead of Baltimore in the AFC standings for now with this win at 2-1.

Not sure anyone in Baltimore is going to panic after a loss like this with so many starters out, but the Colts should feel optimistic after this one. This is not the kind of game they win last year with Jeff Saturday.

Texans at Jaguars: The AFC South Circus Continues

The Titans tend to own the Texans. The Texans tend to own the Jaguars. The Jaguars own the Colts outside of Indy. This is the kind of circus that goes on in the AFC South, arguably the most unclear division race at this point.

I was nervous about Jacksonville going into the season, but I thought holding the Chiefs to 17 last week was at least a sign the defense would be okay and would lead an effort to get back on track by beating Houston.

Whoops. The Texans were up 17-0 in the first half, then even when the Jaguars looked to get back into it, they let a fullback return a pop-up kickoff 85 yards for a touchdown. Between that and the fumble return touchdown in Indy in Week 1, the Jaguars have allowed two of the weirdest, ugliest, least aware touchdowns of the 2023 season.

But whether this was just another embarrassing loss to Houston or something worse, the Jaguars should be worried. Like last week, Trevor Lawrence again struggled with his new connection to Calvin Ridley. The defense let C.J. Stroud complete 20-of-30 passes for 280 yards and 2 touchdowns while failing to sack him despite the Texans not having four offensive line starters again.

Maybe Stroud is going to be a good one, but the Jaguars have some questions to answer as they sit in last place of the division they were expected to win with relative ease.

Chargers at Vikings: Staying on Brand

It took some time to get there, but Chargers-Vikings was the back-and-forth shootout with multiple lead changes (and head-scratching decisions) that you would have expected from these teams.

You knew both teams would do their best to try losing the game, and they did not disappoint there. In the end, Minnesota’s close-game regression was too strong for Chargering.

But before we get there, let’s first go over how new offensive coordinator Kellen Moore is not afraid to try different things with the Chargers. In Week 1, he had one of the most run-heavy attacks in the Justin Herbert era. They obviously dialed that back in Week 2 without Austin Ekeler, and because playing the Titans means more passing and less running.

But in this game, you thought the Chargers would get back to running and using Josh Kelley more like they did in Week 1 against Miami and attack a Minnesota team that was destroyed by D’Andre Swift and the Eagles.

It didn’t happen at all. Kelley had 11 carries for 12 yards and the Chargers had 15 runs for 30 yards. Instead, Herbert had the first 400-yard passing game of his career (405), and he was 40-of-47 passing, the highest completion percentage (85.1%) in a 40-completion game in NFL history. Ben Roethlisberger’s 2014 game against the Colts (40-for-49) is the only other 40-completion game where the quarterback had under 50 attempts.

These numbers don’t even include a trick play where Keenan Allen threw a 49-yard touchdown to Mike Williams. Allen had himself a day, catching 18-of-20 targets for 215 yards.

But after Allen’s touchdown pass gave the Chargers a 21-10 lead in the third quarter, the game got into that expected phase of each team trying to blow it.

The Chargers were up first. They stopped the Vikings but decided to decline a holding penalty that would have set up 3rd-and-16 out of field goal range. Why would Brandon Staley decline that? The Vikings went for 4th-and-6 at the LA 36, and sure enough Kirk Cousins found K.J. Osborn for a 36-yard touchdown.

Throw in an obligatory Mike Williams injury, a near strip-sack of Herbert, and there were the Vikings driving to regain the lead at 24-21 with 11:20 left after Justin Jefferson had his first touchdown of the season.

We’ve seen this movie before. Herbert is still quite good at getting the lead, and he did so after finding Allen on a 3rd-and-17 for 20 yards. But on the very next play, Herbert caught a break when his pass went through a defender’s hands to Josh Palmer for a 30-yard touchdown that proved to be the game winner with 8:05 left.

That is not a typo. In a game between the Vikings and Chargers, there were no points scored in the final 8:05. This is the kind of game Minnesota wins last year but not in 2023. The Vikings had a 1st-and-goal at the 3 and blew it. Cousins tried to throw to Jefferson on 4th-and-goal, but he was short of the end zone and it was an illegal shift anyway. There was a lot of contact too, so it could have been off-setting penalties and replay the down, but no flag on the Chargers.

The Vikings forced a stop that brought up 4th-and-1 at the LA 24 with 1:51 left. One yard wins the game but going for it there in a 4-point game would be quite ballsy when a touchdown can beat you. This is shades of the Patriots on 4th-and-2 against the Colts in 2009. At least this was a yard closer, but the Chargers were stuffed and turned it over on downs.

What ensued is why I tend to trust my defense at stopping Cousins with the game on the line and a long field. I don’t know if the Chargers took the short field for granted, or they were terrified of leaving time for Herbert, but they really acted like they had all the time in the world.

It took the Chargers 52 seconds to move the ball 4 yards. Then watching Jefferson crumble to the ground on a non-contact play was devastating. Fortunately, it looks to only be cramps, but boy did they come at the worst time for the offense. With 149 yards, Jefferson is the only player in NFL history to start a season with 3 straight games of 140-plus receiving yards.

After Cousins converted a fourth down to T.J. Hockenson with over 30 seconds left, he took forever to call the next play. A veteran should have that ready to go fast to maximize the opportunities left. Instead, the Vikings ran their next play with 12 seconds left, and it proved to be their final play.

Cousins’ pass for Hockenson was tipped and deflected to a Charger for a game-ending interception in the end zone. The Chargers finally made some legitimate stops even if it did come with the help of atrocious game management by the Vikings and an untimely cramp for the best receiver around.

But I guess not even Chargering can overcome regression from a historic season of close wins like the Vikings had last year.

Bears at Chiefs: Taylor Swift Could Lead a Team Better Than Matt Eberflus

I’m glad sanity won out, because the Bears should have been destroyed in this game, and that’s exactly what happened. It completes one of the worst weeks in Chicago franchise history after Justin Fields slammed the coaching for his robotic play, he tried to walk it back, the defensive coordinator resigned under suspicious circumstances, and the team facility was robbed of $100,000 in equipment.

Why would the team that lost 12 in a row (now 13) put up a good fight against the Chiefs at home with Travis Kelce trying to ball out with the most popular woman in the world cheering him on from the press box next to his mom?

And yet, it somehow was still shockingly awful for Chicago, which trailed 41-0 going into the fourth quarter and were fortunate that Patrick Mahomes and starters were pulled early. Andy Reid never had a 34-0 halftime lead before this game.

The Chiefs finally protected the ball in a game this year, and I’m not even considering Blaine Gabbert coming in and throwing 2 picks to steal a paycheck as proof of that. Mahomes was 24-of-33 for 272 yards and 3 touchdowns. He had his ankle rolled into before halftime but thankfully seemed to avoid anything serious.

The only thing the Chiefs need to work on is getting right tackle Jawaan Taylor lined up right. He is a target now for the refs.

But Fields finished this game with 99 passing yards, 47 rushing yards, and he took 3 sacks with a pick and a touchdown pass in garbage time of the 41-10 loss. I thought he would do a lot more rushing if he was going to play by his “instincts” this week.

This is the kind of loss that gets someone fired, but the defensive coordinator already checked out before it. The Bears somehow have gotten worse from last year, and they are an underdog at home next week to a Denver team that just lost by 50 points.

I think I already have my answer on how much can a team improve that was the worst in the league at passing and allowing points. The Bears may be in the Caleb Williams sweepstakes after all.

Bills at Commanders: What the Howell Was That?

Every time they showed a highlight from this game it was Stefon Diggs left wide open or Sam Howell taking a sack or throwing a pick. No wonder Buffalo won 37-3. Diggs had 111 yards, Josh Allen only had one inconsequential turnover on a 3rd-and-20 (glorified punt), and the defense continues to be fantastic for Buffalo.

Only a pitiful field goal from 51 yards away with 46 seconds left avoided the shut out for Washington and Eric Bieniemy’s offense. Howell’s game was absurd with 4 interceptions and 9 sacks. That’s only the 5th such game on record with those totals:

  • Dan Darragh, 1969 Bills vs. Chiefs: 4 INT, 9 sacks (L 29-7)
  • Ron Jaworski, 1983 Eagles vs. Cardinals: 4 INT, 11 sacks (L31-7)
  • Paul McDonald, 1984 Browns vs. Chiefs: 4 INT, 11 sacks (L 10-6)
  • Warren Moon, 1985 Oilers vs. Cowboys: 4 INT, 12 sacks (L 17-10)
  • Sam Howell, 2023 Commanders vs. Bills: 4 INT, 9 sacks (L 37-3)

Just one of those days. But my main takeaway is that Buffalo is still one of the most balanced, best teams in the league. They’ll get to prove their AFC East superiority when they host the Dolphins next week after that 70-point stunner.

Saints at Packers: Another Epic Green Bay Comeback Not Starring Favre or Rodgers

Brett Favre never led a 17-point comeback win in his NFL career.

Aaron Rodgers started out 0-26 when trailing by multiple scores in the second half of a game before getting his first win on a Hail Mary in Detroit in 2015.

In Jordan Love’s first home start, he led a 17-point comeback in the fourth quarter against an elite defense in a game where he was missing his best running back (Aaron Jones), wide receiver (Christian Watson), and offensive lineman (David Bakhtiari).

It was just as impressive as it was avoidable for New Orleans, which punted on four straight drives after Derek Carr left with a shoulder injury in the third quarter. But it’s not like Carr was lighting up the Packers. The Saints got a 76-yard punt return touchdown from Rashid Shaheed to help build a 17-0 lead. They also got an interception from Love, his first of the season.

But the Packers kept coming with opportunities in the fourth quarter. Even after they blew a 4th-and-2 at the New Orleans 13 to start the final quarter, they got the ball right back after Jameis Winston was unable to move the offense. The Packers kicked a short field goal on the next drive, then drove 80 yards for a touchdown and 2-point conversion on the next one to make it 17-11 with 6:58 left.

The Saints went 3-and-out, then Love drove 80 yards again with big plays (24-yard scramble and 30-yard pass to backup receiver) for another touchdown, an 8-yard pass to Romeo Doubs with 2:56 left. Green Bay led 18-17.

Chris Olave seemed like he was going to personally put an end to this with a couple of catches for 38 yards. But once the Saints got to the Green Bay 32 at the 2-minute warning, they went very conservative, setting up a long field goal for an unproven kicker (Blake Grupe).

I have to believe this is a game the Saints win or at least take a late lead if they still had Wil Lutz at kicker. But Grupe was wide right on a 46-yard field goal with 1:05 left, and that was the ball game.

The Saints match the 2013-14 Seahawks with an 11th-straight game of not allowing more than 20 points, the longest streak to start in the salary cap era (1994). It is the longest streak in the NFL since the 1993-94 Browns (13 games). But it was still enough to lose this one. After Love failed to get a first down in a game-winning drive situation in Atlanta last week, he led scoring drives of 46, 80, and 80 yards in this quarter.

But again, I have to say either the presence of Carr at the end of the game or a better kicker like Lutz would have been enough for the Saints to win this game. Tough loss for the Saints when they had a shot at 3-0 on a day Atlanta lost.

But an exciting win for Green Bay. We have yet to see this offense in its full form this year, so better days should be on the way too.

Steelers at Raiders: It’s Gruesome That Someone So Handsome Should Throw That Pick

While no one would accuse the Steelers of looking great on offense Sunday night, it was great compared to Weeks 1-2. Kenny Pickett finally had a game with 2 touchdown passes. It only took him 15 starts to do it, but he ended that streak and even hit a deep ball to Calvin Austin for 72 yards that looked good. The Steelers finished with 333 yards, so the 400-yard streak is still intact for Matt Canada, but 23 points and no turnovers will help the Steelers win a lot of games this year as long as the defense plays like this.

T.J. Watt notched another 2 sacks and the secondary picked off Jimmy Garoppolo 3 times, including a few poor decisions and throws. The Raiders scored first before the Steelers ripped off the next 23 points, which was also surprising with the way Davante Adams (172 yards, 2 TDs) and Jakobi Meyers (85 yards) were open for most of the night.

The game might have even ended 23-7 if the refs didn’t interfere with an absurd roughing the passer call on Minkah Fitzpatrick to negate a sack that would have made it 3rd-and-16 halfway through the fourth quarter. The Raiders turned that into a touchdown, then got a 1-yard 2-point conversion after another penalty.

But down 23-15, the Raiders got into some trouble with a false start bringing up a 4th-and-6 at the Pittsburgh 30 with 3:15 left. Josh McDaniels wanted to kick the field goal and I have to agree there. Teams down 8 put so much emphasis on just the tie instead of the win, and I did not trust the offense to get a touchdown from there. Kick the field goal and use your 4 clock stoppages to get the ball back and drive for a winning touchdown.

They did that, but the Steelers were called for a leverage penalty, which is another random call that felt made up. But after facing a 4th-and-4 at the Pittsburgh 8 with 2:25 left, McDaniels opted for the 26-yard field goal. I don’t agree with that one, because he only needed 4 yards, he was much closer to a touchdown, and he was nearly a full minute shorter on time now.

The margin for error was so slim, because one first down by Pittsburgh and the Raiders would be practically screwed. Granted, you don’t trust the Pittsburgh offense to get a first down in that situation, but the chances aren’t bad when you blitz Pickett from the right and leave a wide-open receiver to his left on a 3rd-and-2 for a big 6 yards.

By the time the Raiders got the ball back, they needed to go 85 yards in 12 seconds. Garoppolo left no doubt as Levi Wallace came away with his 2nd pick of the night to end this one at 23-18.

The Steelers, who would be the No. 2 seed if the playoffs started today, get a game in Houston next, so there is a chance for a 3-1 start despite how ugly it’s been at times. The Raiders are basically in a season-ender game next with the Chargers with both teams at 1-2.

Last year, the Raiders seemed to forget there were two halves to games. This year, they seem to be playing with half an offense as the running game just isn’t there with Jacobs, and sometimes Garoppolo loses his mind and throws it to the other team no matter how well or poorly the protection held up.

Falcons at Lions: Meh Bowl

This 20-6 finish between NFC teams hoping to make the postseason was really disappointing. In the days of Matt Ryan and Matthew Stafford, you counted on this matchup to be very close in the fourth quarter, and both teams could put up 20 points at least.

But the Falcons failed their first road test of the year by never finding the end zone. Bijan Robinson only rushed for 33 yards as the run game was shut down (20 carries for 44 yards). Desmond Ridder took 7 sacks as the Falcons had 183 total yards in the game.

The Lions were 4-for-14 on third down just like the Falcons, but at least rookie back Jahmyr Gibbs had 80 yards on the ground in his first big game replacing the injured David Montgomery.

But the fun battle between the top rookie backs did not materialize, and now you have to wonder if Miami rookie back Devon Achane will steal their thunder after his incredible game against Denver.

Panthers at Seahawks: Sensing a Pattern

If any team is sticking hard to its 2022 identity in 2023, it would be Seattle. This team is going to succeed as Geno Smith goes in his attempt to make up for a weak defense. Matthew Stafford, Jared Goff, and now Andy Dalton have all passed for over 300 yards and put up at least 27 points against the Seattle defense this year.

However, Dalton had 58 attempts in this one as Carolina’s running game was shut down and the Panthers had to play catch-up mode offense, never taking over possession with a lead smaller than 9 in the 4th quarter. Still, it is the 53rd loss in a row for the team when trailing in the 4th quarter.

The Seahawks kept settling for field goals (4 in the first half) before finally finding the end zone multiple times in the second half behind a good day for Kenneth Walker and Smith.

Frank Reich did get better play out of his offense with Dalton’s experience over rookie Bryce Young, but the Panthers are still 0-3 and might be looking at a 1-5 start at best in a few weeks.

Seattle’s identity is still probably good enough to stay within a game of .500 at best, but on Sunday, the Seahawks were better than Carolina and the Panthers did not help themselves with 13 penalties (many coming pre-snap).

Patriots at Jets: Same Old Story

For the 15th time in a row, the Patriots beat the Jets. It is the No. 1 thing you can still count on the Patriots to do right, and this time it was aided by the Aaron Rodgers injury. While Zach Wilson did not throw any interceptions in this one, he played almost too safe to avoid that, since we know a pick parade is one of the quickest ways to lose his starting job.

Play it safe long enough, lose a close game, and that will buy some time. But frankly, the Jets are not even looking like a team that may have been great anyway if Rodgers did not get injured. The running game is simply not there. The Jets had 22 runs for 38 yards in this game. The defense is also not overwhelmingly great. The Patriots missed a pair of field goals and did not have any turnovers.

Wilson was able to put together one late touchdown drive to make it interesting at 13-10, but then he was sacked in the end zone for a safety by Matt Judon to make it 15-10. On his next drive, he checked down on 4th-and-10 for a whopping 2-yard gain. But the Patriots failed to run out the clock again, so there was a Hail Mary attempt, and there was a shot at the game-winning score at the buzzer after a ball was deflected near a New York receiver before it hit the ground to end the game.

With the Chiefs up next, the Jets have 1-3 with a fluke win over Buffalo written all over them. But regardless of this outcome, I still think picking the Patriots to finish last in the AFC East was a good bet this year. How would I know Rodgers would tear his Achilles after 4 plays? But that injury and the way the Patriots beat the Jets so consistently should be Belichick’s saving grace from sinking to the bottom of the division he used to rule.

Titans at Browns: This Incredible Defense

Even on a day where Deshaun Watson played his best game yet for the Browns, he still managed to sneak in this homage to Aaron Brooks and the backwards pass:

But the headline we need to talk about is this Cleveland defense under new coordinator Jim Schwartz. This unit led by Myles Garrett is up there with the most impressive in the league through Week 3.

The Browns held the Titans to 15 carries for 26 yards on the ground. Ryan Tannehill barley hit 100 yards passing and took 5 sacks, including a horrible one before halftime without a timeout, killing the team’s chance for a field goal.

The Titans never turned the ball over but were still held to 3 points on 10 drives. The Titans had 6 first downs after the Browns allowed just 6 first downs to the Bengals and 9 to the Steelers. The 21 first downs allowed by the Browns through 3 games is tied with the 1999 Buccaneers for the second fewest since 1966. The only defense to do better was the 1970 Lions (19).

You can definitely question the offenses the Browns have played so far, but if this defense can be this nasty against an injured Baltimore team next week, first place in the AFC North going into the early bye (Week 5) at 3-1 is possible for this team.

It’s just too bad they won’t have Nick Chubb the rest of the year because you could see the impact of that loss as the running game only had 31 carries for 78 yards. Jerome Ford had 10 carries for 18 yards despite another touchdown. Some of that is the way Tennessee defends, but some of the passing success Watson finally had is also a result of the unique Titans.

But if this defense keeps things up, then the Browns might fill the role we thought the Jets with Aaron Rodgers would have this year in the AFC. They’d just be doing it with a quarterback who has an even lower approval rating from fans in general.

Next week: If you can look away from the last 5 games in Week 4 looking like trash on paper, the early afternoon should be great with an early Game of the Year candidate in Dolphins-Bills. No better time for that one with Miami coming off a historic performance.