Tag: Colts

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 1

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

My 2024 NFL season predictions featured “Making Offense Great Again” (MOGA) as the central theme to this season. Things got off to a solid start on Thursday and Friday night (bad field in Brazil withstanding), but Sunday was a kick in the nuts.

Most quarterbacks did not pass for over 200 yards, and we still might have Malik Willis to (not) look forward to with Green Bay next week after Jordan Love’s MCL injury.

I’m getting a late start on this, and I may do a story on it early this week, so I don’t want to get into all the details here. But the offensive revolution might be on hold again unless we let the Saints play the Panthers every week.

So far, 9-of-15 games featured a comeback opportunity, which is very normal. But it’s not so normal to only get one game with a true fourth-quarter lead change from an offense with time left in an entire week of games. It’s not like I expect another to come from Jets-49ers tomorrow night, but we’ll see.

Overall, I enjoyed Week 1 of the 2024 NFL season. The prime-time games (mostly) delivered, which can make up for a rough Sunday afternoon.

Rams at Lions: Game of the Day

Our first overtime game of 2024 was not a classic, but it was a solid playoff rematch from last year with Matthew Stafford falling to 0-2 against his former team in Detroit.

This game had a lot of injuries as Puka Nacua didn’t play the second half, and the offensive line was banged up badly for the Rams. Not much room for Kyren Williams, who never broke a run longer than 9 yards. Cooper Kupp ended up with 14 catches on 21 targets to make up for the loss of Nacua, and it almost was enough for the night.

Jameson Williams had his breakout game for the Lions with 121 yards and a touchdown. But I’m going to say it’s not ideal when Amon-Ra St. Brown only has 3 catches for 13 yards, one of the least productive games of his career. Jared Goff was up and down, and he got away with a dropped interception in the fourth quarter.

It was a rough game, but credit to the Rams for coming back from a double-digit deficit to taking a late 20-17 lead on a Kupp touchdown. But with a chance to run out the clock the way the Lions did to them in the playoffs, the Rams failed. Goff got his second chance, and he didn’t waste it. The Lions settled for overtime with a 32-yard field goal, but that was the right call as we know Dan Campbell loves a fourth down attempt.

After the way Super Bowl 58 ended, you kind of long for the strategy and system there to return, but we’re stuck with the old modified format. Sure enough, the Lions turned into the most dominant rushing team in the world all of a sudden and ran it right down the Rams’ throat despite little success earlier in the game. The Lions had 7 carries for 60 yards on the 70-yard drive in overtime, finishing things off with a 1-yard touchdown run by David Montgomery to win it 26-20, which means they even covered the spread (Lions -4.5).

Tough loss for an undermanned Rams team that was right there again. But with Jordan Love injured in Green Bay, the Lions look to be in good shape relative to the rest of the NFC North right now.

Patriots at Bengals: Upset of the Week

I should have known better that this game was trouble when it had the biggest spread (Bengals by 8+) of Week 1 as the Bengals simply shit the bed to start the season more often than not. Blame Zac Taylor, blame Joe Burrow, but they keep doing this.

At some point, you have to acknowledge the facts. I don’t want to hear that Tee Higgins was out, or that they lost Tyler Boyd and Joe Mixon in the offseason. What happened to “watch out for Iosivas” this season? I don’t even want to hear that Ja’Marr Chase had food poisoning this weekend. Chase played and he caught all 6 targets for 62 yards.

The real question should be why not more targets? We saw what Matthew Stafford, a real gamer, did on Sunday night with an absurdly injured offensive line, missing his tight end (Tyler Higbee), and Puka Nacua left with an injury suffered in the first half. He targeted Cooper Kupp 21 times and did what he could.

If Burrow is as good as people say he is, then he needs to overcome some of these shortcomings more often. This was another poor, lifeless Week 1 performance from the offense, which had 224 yards and 13 first downs.

Now there weren’t many possessions in this game, and Tanner Hudson blew points with a fumble inside the 3-yard line, which sounds like old-school New England defense to me.

The Patriots grinded things out on the ground with Rhamondre Stevenson rushing 25 times for 120 yards. Jacoby Brissett only passe for 121 yards, but he didn’t have turnovers and he only took a single sack. It was just enough

But even when the Bengals got the ball back in a 16-10 game with 3:04 left at their own 10, that was a great setup for a heroic Burrow drive. Instead, it was a three-and-out, and despite having four clock stoppages, the defense couldn’t get the ball back. The Patriots ran out the clock.

But you have to do better than a 3-and-out that deep in that spot. Just terrible, and now we’ll see if they can work their magic against the Chiefs next week to avoid starting 0-2.

Panthers at Saints: Rout of the Week

Statistically, the Saints were one of the most dominant teams on the scoreboard late in the 2023 season, and that’s a good trait for a team to make the playoffs the following year. I’m not taking any victory lap yet after they smashed the god damn Carolina Panthers, but on a Sunday where most NFL teams didn’t look great, the Saints’ utter dominance in every facet was impressive.

Remember, the Panthers were supposed to be improved this year with a new coach (Dave Canales), new weapons, and Bryce Young no longer being a rookie. But wow, Young may be heading down the path of all-time bust if this continues.

The Saints scored 17 points before Young even completed a pass. That’s hard to do. That also made it nearly impossible for him to succeed in this game, but he never settled in and the Saints continued blowing the Panthers out until it was 47-10.

Thankfully, we’ll see the Saints play in Dallas next week, so there’s a great chance to see where this team really is. As for Carolina, yikes, this is about the worst way to start after a 2-15 season where you never took a snap with a fourth-quarter lead.

Cowboys at Browns: The Only Way to Make Deshaun Watson Worse Is to Give Him Tom Brady’s Voice

Here’s what the Cowboys-Browns game featured:

  • Dak Prescott, the highest-paid quarterback in NFL history at $60 million per season after finally getting his extension Sunday morning despite never reaching the NFC Championship Game.
  • Deshaun Watson, who made the largest $230 million theft in NFL history when he fleeced the Browns in a 2022 trade for a fully-guaranteed contract despite more than two dozens accusations of sexual misconduct.
  • Tom Brady, the highest-paid broadcaster in NFL history at $37.5 million, more than double the next closest person despite zero experience in the broadcasting booth.

Is it any surprise the game turned out to be a piece of shit?

Prescott had one of his most forgettable games in the Mike McCarthy era. After a good start, his special teams basically put up the last 19 points with a punt return touchdown and four field goal drives that covered a whopping 42 yards between them.

And he was still easily the best quarterback on the field. The only way you could have made Watson worse was if you gave him Tom Brady’s voice. But I’m not going to get into why I think Brady has the completely wrong voice for this job that he stole from a more deserving Greg Olsen.

But Watson again looked terrible, and while you can respect a good Dallas front, the sack merchant was ever present with multiple turnovers and an inability to sustain offense. Even worse, Watson’s arm just looked shot. I don’t know how Kevin Stefanski doesn’t just bench him and go with Jameis Winston, but this continues to be the worst trade in NFL history and the biggest sunk cost you’ll ever see.

Ezekiel Elliott looked youthful and strong compared to washed-up Watson. It’s a miracle the Cowboys were ever a 2.5-point underdog in this one.

Jaguars at Dolphins: The One Where Tyreek Got Arrested First

You can’t make this stuff up. Tyreek Hill went from nearly going downtown with police officers, under arrest for a verbal altercation after a traffic violation, to catching the longest touchdown reception (80 yards) of his NFL career to spark a comeback win by Miami.

The Dolphins were very sluggish, down 14-0 to the Jaguars, before Hill took off for the end zone and even recreated the handcuffing incident he had in the morning. Watching that footage play out after watching the new Netflix movie Rebel Ridge (it’s great) the night before is crazy.

This is the third article tonight I’m writing about this incident, so I’m a little tongue-tied about it. But I really thought I was looking at AI images when I opened my phone Sunday morning and saw Hill handcuffed. Only the multiple videos and tweets from Adam Schefter clued me in this was real.

But what a major disappointment for the Jaguars, who went scoreless after halftime. They had a 17-7 lead and were 13 yards away from the end zone late in the third quarter. But Travis Etienne fumbled at the 3-yard line, one of the weekend’s biggest turnovers, and that completely changed the game. A play later, it was Tyreek for 80 yards.

The big plays won it for Miami, and kicker Jason Sanders redeemed himself for an earlier miss with a 52-yard field goal at the buzzer to win 20-17. Miami never led in the game before that final snap.

Curious to see where things go from here with the team’s biggest nemesis, Buffalo, coming into town Thursday night.

Titans at Bears: The Comeback Win I Sorta Predicted for Caleb Williams’ Debut

One of my favorite picks this week was Chicago getting a clutch, comeback win in Caleb Williams’ debut to start helping out Matt Eberflus’ league-worst record in such games.

Well, it happened. It didn’t happen in any way I imagined, but it was a classic throwback to the 2006 Bears and the way they came back to beat the Cardinals on Monday Night Football with multiple return touchdowns.

The Bears were awful offensively, trailed 17-0, and only finished with 148 yards of offense. The preseason is not the regular season, and Caleb was 14-of-29 for 93 yards. On the bright side, he only took two sacks and threw no picks. Jusitn Fields probably loses this game if given the chance.

But Williams was not doing much to help the comeback effort. The Bears blocked a punt for a touchdown. They also turned a strip-sack of Will Levis into a field goal drive that netted 1 yard.

But it ended up being one of the hardest games I’ve ever had to catalogue for 4QC/GWD purposes:

  • Chicago trailed 17-10 to start the fourth quarter and had a drive going with Williams.
  • The 44-yard drive ended with a 50-yard field goal to make it 17-13.
  • Levis coughed up the ball, setting up that 1-yard drive for a field goal to make it 17-16.
  • Technically, you just had two 4QC/GWD attempts, and the offense chipped in two field goals.
  • Four plays later, Will Levis forced a pick-six, and there goes the go-ahead score for Chicago at 22-17.
  • Williams completed a 2-point conversion pass to D’Andre Swift to make it 24-17, an important 7-point cushion.

It’s clearly a team fourth-quarter comeback. It’s clearly not a game-winning drive since the pick-six is not a drive. The 2PC was important though, and that makes me wonder if I should be counting it. But I’m not going to. At the same time, I’m giving Williams the 4QC win since without the two field goals from the offense, the pick-six doesn’t win the game for Chicago.

It’s a messy situation, and it’s all the fault of Levis. Why in the hell would you force this pass up on 3rd-and-6 with the lead? Just take the sack and live another drive.

That is seriously some 2001 or 2006 Bears bullshit. Also, of course Levis couldn’t make up for it on the final drive, getting picked again.

Williams did not impress, but Levis disappointed even more as he should be further along than this. I’m really not sure about that 2023 draft class outside of C.J. Stroud.

Texans at Colts: My MVP Gets It Done in Wild Week 1 Game

C.J. Stroud is my MVP pick this year, but how about those new additions in Houston? Stefon Diggs caught both of Stroud’s touchdowns, but it was running back Joe Mixon who had the huge game with 159 yards and a touchdown on the ground. The Colts had few answers for this offense, especially in must-stop situations.

But the player I thought was the biggest wild card this year is Anthony Richardson, and he did not disappoint with his “boom-or-bust” playing label. He was only 9-of-19 passing, but he had three different completions for over 50 yards, including a 60-yard touchdown pass to Alec Pierce that was one of the longest and most impressive touchdown throws I’ve ever seen in the NFL:

He even slid before throwing it, so he didn’t fully step into it. Incredible play. Too bad he misses some of the easy ones, so if he can correct that with experience, then the Colts should have something here.

At least offensively. The defense could not stop Houston in the fourth quarter despite the offense making it a 2-point game twice. The Texans responded with touchdowns twice, including a play I loved the decision for from coach DeMeco Ryans.

The Texans were up 22-20 and faced 4th-and-2 at the 2-yard line with 4:45 left. Why kick the field goal to go up 5 points and risk losing on a touchdown in the final minute? Go for the jugular, which they did, and Diggs caught his second touchdown to make it a 2-score game again.

But even after Indy scored to again make it 29-27, the four-minute offense went to work with a couple of first downs, including a 3rd-and-11 conversion for 12 yards from Stroud to Nico Collins, a Colts killer.

It’s only one game, but again, this is why I’m big on the Texans to be a new rival to the Chiefs. If you get Stroud playing like this, he’s someone who could outduel Mahomes in a fourth quarter and keep the ball away from him in a one-score game.

Green Bay, my Super Bowl pick, almost broke my heart Friday night with the sloppy performance and Love injury. But the Texans, who were my Green Bay equivalent in the AFC to possibly derail Kansas City’s three-peat, gave me some confidence with this performance.

But let’s keep it going and get even better.

Steelers at Falcons: The Six Field Goal Mike Tomlin Special

I ended up (regrettably) watching most of this game. Basically, it was the kind of Chicago Bears win you would have thought Justin Fields could have enjoyed there. Pretty lousy offense, Fields flirting with disaster on fumbled snaps to start the game, bad third-down sacks as the coaching staff didn’t trust him, and the defense and special teams were fantastic for the Steelers.

T.J. Watt and kicker Chris Boswell basically won the game for them. We know the last Mike Tomlin playoff win was 18-16 on six field goals against the 2016 Chiefs. He kind of did it again as Boswell made six field goals and most of them were very long.

Watt was a beast again, and Kirk Cousins looked very rusty and slow in a new offense after his Achilles tear. Not a good debut at all for him, and it’s as if Arthur Smith never left. Hell, he was in the building calling multiple runs on 3rd-and-long in this game.

But this is how the Steelers win. Keep it close and hope that a fumble happens when a receiver is running in motion for Atlanta. That really did happen, and of course, Watt was the one there to pounce on the ball in a big moment.

But Cousins had his chances to be the hero as Fields – no shocker – couldn’t put the game away. But he was picked with 2:34 left and then sacked by Watt on the final snap to mercifully end this one.

The Steelers have some compensation incentives to not keep playing Fields, and I think we’ll see Russell Wilson eventually. But this kind of offense isn’t going to beat that many teams in the NFL without superhuman efforts from Watt.

He might be up to the task though, especially if the idea that linemen playing closer to the line instead of leaning back is a point of emphasis to cut down on those illegal formations.

However, I’m still puzzled as to why they traded Diontae Johnson. This passing game is George Pickens or bust right now.

Cardinals at Bills: The Almost Upset of the Week

I said in my Week 1 predictions that I could easily see Arizona winning this as an upset and referendum on Buffalo getting rid of Stefon Diggs. But even when the Cardinals went up 10, I wasn’t that worried as I noticed the Cardinals had the ball for 13 of the first 15 minutes. Buffalo just needed the ball.

Josh Allen was facing a no-name defense, so he didn’t need big-name receivers. He had plenty enough around him, but I was surprised that Dalton Kincaid only had an 11-yard catch. But I was confident in rookie Keon Coleman (51 yards led team in receiving) having an impressive debut against this secondary to alleviate some concerns after the team let the Chiefs get Xavier Worthy at No. 28. That could still be a huge regret, but Coleman was always going to produce this week.

By game’s end, Buffalo even pulled ahead in time of possession, so no big deal. But the Cardinals still made this interesting thanks to a 96-yard kickoff return touchdown in the fourth quarter. I’m not a big fan of the dynamic kickoff so far, but it is producing better field position and already a touchdown like that.

But in a 31-28 game, the Bills nearly botched this badly. They had a chance to put the game away but Allen was stuffed on a 3rd-and-2 run. Instead of going for the 4th-and-3 at the Arizona 21 at the 2-minute warning, they kicked the short field goal and settled for a 34-28 lead with Arizona having all three timeouts to drive for the winning touchdown.

To make it worse, the Bills’ kickoff went out of bounds, so Murray only needed 60 yards. He’s done far harder before, including against Buffalo in 2020 (“Hail Murray”). When you have Allen, you should be going for that fourth down. The 6-point lead is one of the worst places to be. At least if it was still a 31-28 game, you can count on Arizona to probably kick a field goal instead of go for a fourth down.

But the Cardinals had their chances, and it’s my understanding rookie wideout Marvin Harrison Jr. was left wide open on the drive for a potential touchdown, but Kyler didn’t see it or didn’t think to throw to him. The drive ended with Murray throwing incomplete on 4th-and-7 at the Buffalo 29 with 26 seconds left.

Crisis adverted – barely. But the Bills will need to clean some things up in Miami this week, and Allen reportedly has a left hand injury that he suffered on one of his touchdown runs. Let that sink in.

Vikings at Giants: Wrong Improbable New York QB Breakout Year

I expected both of these teams to be terrible this year, and I still believe that’s highly possible. But one of my worst picks this week was the Giants as the upset special at home. I got a little too focused on what happened in 2022, ignoring 2023, and the fact that Daniel Jones is just not the answer. At least with Darnold, we haven’t seen him fail as many times, and he has some solid talent around him in a pass-friendly offense.

Darnold started this game on fire, then the team had little reason to score more as Jones wasn’t getting the job done. But this pick-6, while a very athletic play by the defender, is a good example of why this season needs to be Jones’ last in New York.

And what the hell were those jerseys? Alas, Andrew Van Ginkel is apparently the master of the fast interception.

Raiders at Chargers: Can Jim Harbaugh Go 5-1 in the AFC West?

Coach Jim Harbaugh made his NFL return with a win, 22-10 over the Raiders. He came here to make Justin Herbert’s life easier, and so far, it worked. The Chargers had just 11 first downs, the fewest in the Herbert era. They gave Herbert 170 rushing yards while he only threw for 144, another rarity.

The passing game is a work in progress with these young receivers, but how about J.K. Dobbins rushing for 135 yards in his team debut? He even ripped off a 61-yard play. Great to see after injuries robbed him in Baltimore from more success.

But mission successful in not blowing a two-score lead in the fourth quarter. However, the Chargers got some help from new Raiders coach Antonio Pierce, a hire I was not supportive for. In his first game without the interim tag, he made a big mistake in a 16-10 game with 7:15 left. The Raiders faced a 4th-and-1 at the Los Angeles 43 and decided to punt.

I can understand the old-school philosophy there as that’s what you used to do in those situations. But with under half a quarter left, you’re looking at maybe one more possession before you start relying on all your timeouts. You also have to remember that converting 4th-and-1 is in your favor (> 50%). I think punting was a big mistake, and you have to think it won’t be the last time we see this from Pierce, the big flaw in hiring a defensive-minded coach who only sees the old ways of the game he played.

To make it worse, the defense he relies on gave up a 92-yard touchdown drive thanks to the big Dobbins run. Gardner Minshew was picked to end it, but he’s probably still their best choice for a quarterback for the rest of the year despite only 10 points in Los Angeles.

But with the way the Raiders and Broncos look, who says Harbaugh can’t steal a game against the Chiefs and possibly go 5-1 in the division to fuel a playoff berth as a wild card? That was one of my main thoughts on the Chargers all along, but after Week 1, I feel even better about it.

Broncos at Seahawks: Sean Payton on His Week 1 Shit Again

The Seahawks are going to have some elite defensive stats in this one, the debut and first win for coach Mike Macdonald. But for the second year in a row, Sean Payton went into a Week 1 and watched his quarterback put on a dink-and-dunk performance that was literally for the record books.

Fewest Passing Yards by Number of Completions in NFL history (1950-2024)

After Russell Wilson had a record-low 177 passing yards on 27 completions against the Raiders last year, rookie Bo Nix did him one better and had just 138 yards on 26 completions. That’s the fewest passing yards in a game with more than 25 completions in NFL history.

This was rough, and Nix could have easily had more than the two picks he threw as Seattle dropped several. But it’s not like he had any real help out there other than his defense coming up with a pair of safeties, something you almost never see. But Nix ended up leading the Broncos with 35 rushing yards, including a late touchdown that made it mildly interesting at 26-20.

Geno Smith had some mistakes, but he also had a 34-yard touchdown run that he couldn’t possibly have done last year when he was playing hurt. When it came to icing the game with a late third-down pass to deny Nix getting a shot at a game-winning drive, Smith found Tyler Lockett for 9 yards to end things.

Enough to be encouraged about for Seattle, but we really need to see this defense play a quarterback who knows what they’re doing. Granted, there may not be a ton of those in the league right now. But even Jacoby Brissett will be a step up in competition in New England next week.

Started to get a sense of how Nix completed over 77% of his passes at Oregon last year to set an NCAA single-season record. He’ll take literally any short completion you will give him no matter how fruitless the gain is. But you can’t end his career after one game. He’s just a rookie, albeit an older one.

Commanders at Buccaneers: It’s Probably Not 2012 in Washington Again

I guess the hope all along with Washington repeating its 2012 season success with Robert Griffin III would be a surprisingly good season from Jayden Daniels. While he did make me very happy in his debut with a 2-touchdown performance on the ground (+2200 odds), it wasn’t the kind of passing performance you wanted to see. Terry McLaurin (17 yards) barely did a thing. More than half of Daniels’ 184 passing yards went to running backs.

But he ran the ball 16 times for 88 yards and will be viable at the goal line. He just better tighten that helmet as it came loose a couple of times and nearly cost him that second touchdown. I’d be quite bitter right now if that happened.

But Dan Quinn’s defense was no real improvement on last year when they were the worst in the league under Ron Rivera and Jack Del Rio. Baker Mayfield picked them apart with 24-of-30 for 289 yards and 4 touchdowns. Mike Evans caught two scores and still has WR1 skills.

Tampa had one of the most thorough and complete performances of any team this week. Not that it should be that surprising against a rebuilt Washington team with a long way to go. But it’s a very good start with Detroit up next.

Next week: Are we peaking early with Bills-Dolphins on Thursday night? Saints-Cowboys could be interesting, or it could be a blowout. Either way, we get to test the Saints right away against a non-Carolina opponent, so that’s great. Bengals-Chiefs loses some luster with the New England upset, but it’d be typical NFL for Cincinnati to win that one to avoid an 0-2 start. That Chicago offense isn’t ready for prime time, so good luck in Houston. Ditto with Kirk Cousins going to Philly on his least favorite day of the week.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 18

~ Scott ~ 4 Comments

Just like that, we have made it through all 272 regular-season games in the 2023 NFL season. In Game No. 272, the Buffalo Bills pulled off a stunning turnaround from 6-6 to 11-6 and the No. 2 seed, coming back to win the AFC East for the fourth year in a row on a day the Patriots officially hit rock bottom as we likely saw the last of Bill Belichick on the sideline there.

The Steelers and Packers are back in the playoffs. We have a division with only winning teams for the first time since 1935. The winner of the NFC South is (barely) above .500 this season.

And not one goddamn tie all season, a huge win in my book.

As for the Week 18 drama, there were only 9 games with a comeback opportunity, but they were focused in the right games with playoff implications like Steelers-Ravens, Texans-Colts, Jaguars-Titans, Bears-Packers, and Bills-Dolphins.

But before we recap the final 16 games of the regular season, this is my favorite time to review how my preseason predictions for final team records fared. I put in a ton of work on these over the summer as I ended up doing 3 articles per team, so there was a lot of research to come up with fresh angles even if I was ultimately arriving at the same conclusion for each team.

Despite some concerns, I am happy to say I was off by an average of 2.06 wins, my 2nd-most accurate predictions since 2013. I nailed 6 teams to their exact record, including both No. 1 seeds, and I was within 2 games for 21-of-32 teams. I could have had 8 teams with an exact record, which would have been my personal best, but that damn Drew Lock touchdown drive against the Eagles in Seattle did me in. Likewise, I never imagined Patrick Mahomes would give the Raiders 14 points in 7 seconds on turnovers at home on Christmas.

There were 4 teams that I was off by 5-to-6 games for, and you can probably guess one as I made them a huge part of my season story, only to see that go up in smoke after 4 snaps in Week 1:

Yep, I had Aaron Rodgers leading the Jets to a 12-5 record and the No. 5 seed, essentially swapping places with the Dolphins, who I had getting swept by the Jets and finishing 9-8 and out of the playoffs. So much for that when his Achilles tore in Week 1. I’m not sure the Jets would have been an elite team this year with that line and struggles to run the ball, but I think the playoffs were certainly doable with Rodgers.

The first-year success of the Colts and Texans definitely took me by surprise in the AFC South. Missed badly on both of those teams, but I don’t think I’m alone in that. C.J. Stroud was kind of the bland rookie quarterback in this class. Anthony Richardson had the “wow factor” with the ability to run (but apparently his durability slider was turned off). Bryce Young was supposed to be this Improv Short King, but he only got his coach fired after 11 games and Carolina had one of the worst seasons ever. Stroud just hit early and was so impressive in that Bobby Slowik, a Kyle Shanahan disciple, offense with receivers that took a huge leap forward like Nico Collins and rookie Tank Dell.

As for the Rams, my initial thought on them was they’d be a sneaky wild card team this year with Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp, and Aaron Donald coming back healthy. But once I started digging into the roster, I had no clue who most of these other 50 guys were. Puka Nacua? Never heard of him. Kyren Williams? Who cares? But it was Puka stepping up early, Kyren coming around later, and this offense looks strong, and the defense has been respectable despite the massive turnover. Great job by Sean McVay and company to get to this point.

Those were my biggest misses, but for a season that I billed as the year of uncertainty, I’m proud of these results overall. Roughly a quarter of the league had a season-ending injury to their primary quarterback. Only 9 teams started the same quarterback in every game (lowest since 1999). A couple of playoff teams (Steelers, Bills) fired their offensive coordinator more than halfway through the season. It was a challenging season filled with blowouts in big matchups and so many low-scoring games on Sunday and Monday nights.

But I am ready for the playoffs, and my playoff picks in the AFC are what I’m most proud of as I can’t imagine many people nailed the top 3 seeds going the way they did, especially with the Bengals favored in the AFC North and the Chiefs favored to repeat, and I also had the Steelers getting the No. 7 seed with a 10-7 record.

  • 1, Baltimore (13-4)
  • 2. Buffalo (12-5)
  • 3. Kansas City (12-5)
  • 4. Jacksonville (10-7)
  • 5. NY Jets (12-5)
  • 6. Cincinnati (11-5)
  • 7. Pittsburgh (10-7)

My NFC picks were far less stellar, only getting 4-of-7 teams right (all fairly obvious ones), and none in the right seed.

  • 1. Philadelphia (12-5)
  • 2. San Francisco (12-5)
  • 3. New Orleans (12-5)
  • 4. Detroit (9-8)
  • 5. Dallas (12-5)
  • 6. Atlanta (9-8)
  • 7. Minnesota (8-9)

The Saints and Falcons were the teams I was high on because of the schedule, but they blew that golden opportunity. Hats off to Tampa Bay for overcoming the fact that they had to play the Eagles, Bills, and 49ers (went 0-3 in those games too) and the other NFC South teams didn’t, and Tampa still won the division. I liked Baker Mayfield to have a better individual season than Tom Brady did in 2022, but I figured he wouldn’t catch the breaks in close games to have a better record. But Baker surprisingly kept the turnovers low and they got to 9-8.

Finally, I think the Vikings are a playoff team if Kirk Cousins doesn’t tear his Achilles, so chalk that up to an Achilles injury in each conference screwing me up here. Cousins was playing some of his best ball when that happened, so we had to experience some fever dreams with Joshua Dobbs and Nick Mullens. Too bad. At least the close-game regression was real as the Vikings played a league-high 14 close games but only finished 6-8 in them a year after they were 11-0.

But we’ll have other opportunities to review the season and where things stand. Let’s get through these 16 games before I get into playoff mode.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

AFC EAST

We had one game for the division title and the other for a 15-game winning streak to come crashing down as Bill Belichick just had to fvck me out of a $$$ parlay win one last time.

Bills at Dolphins: The Paper Tiger Disintegrates

From 6-6 and the No. 11 seed at the bye week to 11-6 and the No. 2 seed going into the playoffs, no one circled the wagons like the Buffalo Bills this season. The numbers were always there when they were 6-6 with a scoring differential of over 100 points. Just stop turning the ball over so much and stop blowing these fourth-quarter leads in egregious fashion like the Denver game where they had 12 men on the field for a field goal that was missed, or when they let Mac Jones lead the single clutch touchdown drive of his career.

But the Bills pulled off this AFC East title with some help from the Dolphins, who choked away a Week 14 game to the Titans that I would call the worst blown lead of 2023. Then the Dolphins were blown out 56-19 in Baltimore a week ago, continuing their pattern of underperforming on both sides of the ball in big games, especially on offense and on the road. They have also been injured with some key players (Jaylen Waddle, Raheem Mostert, Bradley Chubb, Xavien Howard, etc.) missing this game.

But the Bills have their own injuries to deal with, and even in this game, the Bills tried desperately to throw this game away with 3 more turnovers from Josh Allen, who also botched the end of the first half with a completion short of the goal line with the Bills out of timeouts. No points there to go along with the turnovers all happening deep in Miami territory.

The Buffalo defense had Allen’s back in this one. After Allen’s lost fumble killed another scoring chance in a 14-7 game to end the third quarter, the defense forced a quick punt from the Dolphins. Deonte Harty returned that punt 96 yards for a game-tying touchdown with 13:42 left.

Allen led a go-ahead touchdown drive with 7:16 left while the Dolphins had another quick 3-and-out drive. Allen looked like he could put the game away on his own terms instead of putting it in the defense’s shaky hands again. He had an incredible 15-yard scramble on a 3rd-and-13, then the Bills faced a critical 4th-and-1 at the Miami 37 at the 2:00 warning.

I’m not kicking a 55-yard field goal unless maybe I have Justin Tucker as my kicker. Tyler Bass hasn’t earned that kind of reputation for me. I also hate to trust a defense that has already blown 4 leads in the fourth quarter, and you know Miami is more likely to go for a game-winning 2-point conversion than your average team would. No, I’m going to trust my insane quarterback to run up the gut for that first down on the sneak.

Except the Bills tried that and Allen was stopped short by the slimmest of margins. Oh well, I liked the decision anyway. Now it was on the defense, and after a couple of shaky snaps, they almost came away with a pick. On the very next play, they got the pick as Tua threw an awful pass that was picked off by Taylor Rapp with 1:13 left to seal the division title.

The Bills were definitely looking shaky for the playoffs, let alone the AFC East when they were 6-6. But this 5-0 streak has been built on mostly close wins outside of the Dallas rout. This was the fourth time since Week 14 that Buffalo won a game by no more than 7 points. They had 2 such wins in their previous 13 games.

Now the Bills get to host the Steelers, a favorable draw for the wild card round. Then perhaps they will host Kansas City for a change in the divisional round. This isn’t the best Buffalo team since 2020, but maybe it’s the year things fall in place for them. They are winning the close games, Allen is playing great when he’s not turning it over (he was 30-for-36 for 359 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 67 rushing yards outside of the turnover plays), and they are one of the best defensive teams.

The field also contains the weakest Kansas City team in the Patrick Mahomes era and a Baltimore team that has blown it in January before. Maybe this run propels the Bills all the way, or maybe they lose to Mason Rudolph next week.

Either way, it will be must-see TV. The Bills always belonged in this tournament and now we get to see if they can make it pay off.

Jets at Patriots: Hoods Up

Christ, you know it’s over when Belichick is losing a 17-3 snow game at home to the Jets. There goes the 15-game winning streak against the Jets. It was bound to end this year, but we thought that’d be at the hands of Aaron Rodgers, not a 70-yard passing performance from Trevor Siemian.

The conditions looked brutal, and I can’t imagine many players were enjoying themselves on that field. But it meant a little more to the Jets knowing about the 15-game losing streak and how this was expected to be Belichick’s last game as coach of the Patriots.

Bailey Zappe had 31 net passing yards on 37 pass plays thanks to the 7 sacks the Jets ripped through the line for. Just when you thought Belichick had one last fluke of a win in him after a Zappe interception was fumbled back to the Patriots with 2:44 left in a 9-3 game, Zappe made sure his next throw was intercepted too. Breece Hall hit the 50-yard “FU TD” and that was a wrap at 17-3. With a 4-13 record, Belichick finishes the worst season of his coaching career.

We’ve seen the Patriots without a quarterback. Now we’ll see how long they go without a quarterback and without a coach. That stay in the AFC East basement may be longer than this one season.

AFC SOUTH

We didn’t know for sure Saturday night, but that was the de facto division title game thanks to the Jaguars blowing it on Sunday in Tennessee. C.J. Stroud runs this division now until the Colts can keep Anthony Richardson healthy.

Jaguars at Titans: Full Collapse Revenge

Last year, it was the Titans collapsing with a 7-game losing streak to blow the AFC South after a Week 18 loss to the Jaguars. This year, the Jaguars were 8-3 before collapsing with a 1-5 finish, only beating the Panthers last week. That means Trevor Lawrence lost his final 5 starts of the year.

This game wasn’t all on him as the Titans put on a spirited home effort with Ryan Tannehill and Derrick Henry perhaps playing their final games for the Titans. Henry rushed for 153 yards and a touchdown.

The Jaguars trailed 28-13 going into the fourth quarter and needed a miracle. After a touchdown pass to Evan Engram, the Jags intercepted Tannehill and set up Lawrence 28 yards away from a tie. But all the inefficiencies in this Jacksonville offense from Lawrence’s inaccurate throws to bad runs to penalties led to a terrible drive that consumed 5 minutes off the clock and ultimately came up empty on fourth down at the 1-yard line. Lawrence tried one of the worst quarterback sneaks you’ll ever see as his initial lunge (a la Drew Brees) was well short, then his stretch didn’t get the job done either.

Lawrence got the ball back with 2:18 and 75 yards to go, and he couldn’t even get a first down. He missed a deep shot to an open Calvin Ridley, then threw wildly inaccurate again on a 4th-and-2 to Engram with 1:47 left. Season over. Jags (9-8) were finished.

Even at 8-3, I had a hard time trusting this Jacksonville team as a serious contender. Maybe they finish the job in the AFC South if Lawrence never gets hurt against the Bengals in Week 13, and he did have multiple injuries since to deal with. But even before that, his play wasn’t vastly improved from last year, and the Ridley connection wasn’t the greatest. Losing Christian Kirk hurt this offense more than gaining Ridley helped it.

Now with the way Houston has finished this season with C.J. Stroud, the Jaguars are going to enter 2024 as second-class citizens in the division they never really owned. They took advantage of Tennessee’s 2022 implosion, and the Titans made sure they got them back on Sunday by taking them out for 2023.

But if a certain quarterback in Indy stays healthy and pans out, both of these teams could be looking up to those other teams for years to come. I think 2024 is the year Lawrence will finally start getting held to a higher standard, and with the day soon coming when we start talking about a second contract, I think it’s in Jacksonville’s best interest to wait that one out.

Texans at Colts: Can’t Be Worse Off at Quarterback and Defense 

This was a game I immediately flipped on my spread and total picks for last Monday night. I’m talking straight up deleting what I was writing and going the opposite way before sending them in.

Changing to the under was a good move, but taking the team (Colts) that was worse at quarterback and defense in a big game during this time of year? What was I thinking? Week 2 when the Colts won 31-20 was eons ago. Hell, Anthony Richardson started that game. What did it matter now?

But this game was there for the taking for Indy on Saturday night. They just fell short, and they did it in a way that has me nervous about Shane Steichen in the big moments next time. But the game also reinforced the idea that he won’t be ready to compete for real in this division until he has a healthy Richardson who can go toe to toe with C.J. Stroud in a game like this. Gardner Minshew was not up for it.

Stroud came out throwing a haymaker with a 75-yard touchdown pass to Nico Collins on Houston’s first offensive snap. But despite that brilliant throw, the Houston offense was being contained, and the Colts got back into it by riding their best player, Jonathan Taylor. He finished with 188 rushing yards and a 49-yard touchdown run that helped tie the game at 14 in the third quarter.

But for all of Taylor’s dominance, it only did further damage to getting Minshew in any sort of rhythm where they could rely on him down the stretch. Note that right after Taylor’s long touchdown run, the Colts dialed up 5 straight runs, then asked Minshew to convert a 3rd-and-9. He couldn’t get a completion, and the Colts missed a 57-yard field goal off the upright. That short field for Houston led to the Texans taking a 17-14 lead on a 51-yard field goal.

After the Colts tied the game, Stroud went to work on a surgical drive in the final quarter. He threw for 82 yards on the drive, which was capped off by a 3-yard run from Devin Singletary. The Texans missed the extra point, leaving the door open for the Colts at 23-17 with 6:20 left.

But make note of the difference in strategy for these teams. While the Texans relied on Stroud, who only got any production out of Collins and tight end Dalton Shultz, the Colts could not rely on Minshew to drive them down the field. It was going to be the run game, which took a hit in efficiency with an injury along the offensive line to Braden Smith. Taylor also temporarily left the game injured and did not look as great down the stretch.

In the last 1.5 quarters, the Colts ran the ball 16 times for 27 yards with a 25% rushing success rate. Eleven of those 16 carries failed to gain more than 2 yards, and the longest run in that stretch was 6 yards.

Minshew was able to hit Josh Downs for a 28-yard gain to get the drive going, but the Colts continued to rely on the run, even choosing to run on 3rd-and-6 and 3rd-and-5 situations that almost every team calls passes for. One such run worked thanks to a penalty on Houston (automatic first down) and the other did convert at the 2-minute warning with the Colts looking to score the touchdown as late as they could.

But everything went to shit after the 2-minute warning hit. The Colts called 2 more Taylor runs, and he went out of bounds both times, burning a total of 12 seconds, saving timeouts for Houston, and setting up a 3rd-and-2. That is counter to the clock strategy if you’re so concerned about not leaving Stroud time to answer in an expected 24-23 game after the touchdown and extra point.

Taylor got the call again on 3rd-and-2 and came up a yard short, setting up a huge 4th-and-1 at the Houston 15. Instead of having a play to run quickly like another Taylor run or a quarterback sneak, the Colts let the clock go down to 1:06 and called a timeout.

What the hell? There’s burning the clock and then there’s taking so damn long that you just blew your shot of getting another possession in case you don’t get this. If you get stopped around 1:20 with 3 timeouts left, at least you can quickly create another possession. But by blowing that timeout, Steichen put the game on this 4th-and-1, and he was still 15 yards away from the end zone on what was not a good night for his offense.

Worse, Taylor came off the field for the pivotal play, and after calling 7 straight runs, now they decided to let Minshew throw to a backup running back in Tyler Goodson, a player with 6 career catches who had no touches on the night.

While the play was there, the throw wasn’t, and Minshew and Goodson failed to connect. The Texans ended up running it three times, taking an intentional safety, and the Colts tried to lateral around the free kick before the game ended. Season over for Indy and Texans in the playoffs.

I really don’t care if he thinks the running back was open and it was a good play. You can’t put your quarterback and cold running back in that spot after calling 7 straight runs. That’s the kind of throw a Drew Brees could make with a blindfold because he is so used to passing throughout the whole game. He’s in rhythm. He’s also much more accurate than Minshew, but the whole process there after the 2-minute warning was mind-blowingly bad.

You can try playing the clock game, but don’t play yourself. The Colts botched this badly and now another season is over short of the postseason. They better hope Richardson stays healthy and can do plays like the Tush Push a la Jalen Hurts, because that’s a sure conversion if Steichen had his Philadelphia guys on that one.

NFC NORTH

The Lions suffered a big injury (Sam LaPorta) on their way to another win over Minnesota that still left them with a No. 3 seed. The Packers closed this time at home in Week 18 to make the playoffs behind a stellar game from Jordan Love and the 3rd-down defense.

Bears at Packers: Matt LaFleur Moves to 10-0 vs. Chicago

I spent more time in the summer researching the Bears than any other team. I landed on a prediction of 7-10 and behind the Packers, who I had finishing 8-9 in Jordan Love’s first season as the starter.

Well, the Packers got to 9-8 thanks to sweeping the Bears in Weeks 1 and 18. It was good enough for the playoffs too just as it would have been last year when the team lost at home to Detroit in the final game of the Aaron Rodgers era.

But Matt LaFleur simply owns the Bears. He is now 10-0 against them and every win has been by at least 7 points. Jordan Love was fantastic in this game, completing 27-of-32 passes for 316 yards, 2 touchdowns, and no picks. He did lose a fumble on a scramble that left the game in some doubt, but the Bears remain one of the worst comeback teams in NFL history under Matt Eberflus and Justin Fields, and they were not able to erase the 8-point deficit in the final quarter.

That doesn’t mean the Packers made it easy in this quick-moving game (2 hours and 35 minutes). There were only 13 possessions in the entire game, and the Packers  wasted a pair in the first half when they missed a short field goal and failed to get one off to end the half, a mental error by the offense.

Fortunately, the Bears never got the ball in the end zone as the Green Bay defense stepped up with 3 sacks on third downs. Their fifth sack of Fields came on a 2nd-and-16 after the Bears reached Green Bay territory, stifling that drive as well. The Packers got the ball back with 6:08 left, and between good runs and smart throws by Love, they ran out the clock on Chicago to secure their playoff berth.

I don’t know if the Packers are a real threat to Dallas right now. But it makes sense that they were a team that improved in the second half of the season given not only Love’s inexperience but just how little experience the rest of the offense (minus running backs) had going into the season. We probably didn’t hammer that point home enough, and it’s not like this is about developing Christian Watson (disappointing year) and Romeo Doubs. It’s been Jayden Reed, a 2nd-round rookie, and Dontayvion Wicks who have been very productive this year. Reed had 112 yards in this game and Wicks caught both of Love’s touchdowns.

Even Bo Melton, a 7th-round pick from 2022 I never even heard of until a week ago, has come on just in time for Green Bay. He had 105 yards and a touchdown against the Vikings last week and another 5 catches for 62 yards in this game.

The Packers are making it work with Love, who finished second in the league with 32 touchdown passes this year. Tale as old as time, the Packers look better off than Chicago at the quarterback position, and that no doubt played a big difference in the latest Green Bay sweep. This could have been the Bears in the 9-8 wild card position if they had stepped up more against the Packers this year.

Now with the No. 1 pick (thanks, Carolina) and the No. 9 pick, we’ll see what the Bears do at the most important roles on the team.

Vikings at Lions: Offense Shines in Pyrrhic Victory

I can understand why the Lions went full pedal this week. They had a very outside shot of getting the No. 2 seed if the Cowboys and Eagles choked (one did). Still, you get nervous playing your studs in a game like this, and sure enough, the Lions lost tight end Sam LaPorta to a hyperextended knee. He’ll likely miss this playoff run unless it reaches the Super Bowl, and even then, we’ll see.

But it is cool to see Detroit win 12 games, something it only did in 1991, the last season the Lions won a playoff game. This game was a lot like the Week 16 win over Minnesota with Nick Mullens approaching another 400-yard day, but he also threw a couple of big picks again. Jared Goff and the offense shined with all the studs scoring touchdowns (LaPorta, Jahmyr Gibbs, David Montgomery, and Amon-Ra St. Brown).

But LaPorta is a dimension they’ll miss at tight end when they take on the Rams this Sunday night.

NFC EAST

The streak continues. There has not been a repeat winner in the NFC East since the Eagles in 2001-04. Their collapse this year was something to behold, but not necessarily that much of a shock if you paid attention to how they got to 10-1 and how the Cowboys were good at blowing bad teams out.

Cowboys at Commanders: About What You Expected

With a 38-10 win, the Cowboys won the NFC East, secured the No. 2 seed, and notched their 9th win of 20-plus points this year, tying the 1999 Rams for the second most in a season in NFL history. Only the 2007 Patriots (10) had more 20-point wins, and it might be worth noting that neither those Patriots nor Rams won any playoff games by more than 12 points. But they did at least get to the Super Bowl those years with the Rams winning it all.

Dak Prescott has owned Washington his whole career, Sam Howell was lousy down the stretch of 2023, and it’s no surprise the touchdown pass leader threw 4 more scores against the worst defense this year. Ron Rivera should be gone on Monday.

About the only thing that didn’t go well for Dallas was kicker Brandon Aubrey. After making his first 35 field goals this season, he had one blocked from 32 yards and another miss off the upright from 36 yards. Let’s hope that isn’t a sign of the things to come in the playoffs for him after an almost-perfect season.

The Cowboys have high expectations for this postseason now that the Eagles have faded to the wild card, and the only team that’s ahead of Dallas in the standings is San Francisco. We’ve already seen the Cowboys beat the Lions, controversial ending or not.

Time to turn all these fancy numbers into some playoff wins, Dallas.

Eagles at Giants: Viking-Ass Team

On the day the Eagles improved to 10-1 with an overtime win over Buffalo, I said they look more like the 2022 Vikings than they do the 2022 Eagles. The 2022 Vikings are the only team in NFL history to win more than 11 games with a negative scoring differential.

Several people (read: Eagles fans) didn’t like the tweet at the time, but I can only call them when I see them. The 2023 Eagles are my greatest case of fraud detection since the 2019 Patriots started 8-0. The Eagles limped to a 1-5 finish, getting blown out by the 49ers and Cowboys in big games, embarrassing themselves against Drew Lock (Seahawks) and the Cardinals, and now a 27-10 rout at the hands of the lowly Giants.

The Eagles just barely finished with a positive scoring differential (+5), but it is still the 5th lowest for a team with at least 11 wins in NFL history:

The latest loss is the result when your defense continues to get shredded as Tyrod Taylor threw for 297 yards, and the offense suffers too many injuries. DeVonta Smith and D’Andre Swift were already out to start the game. A.J. Brown soon joined them with an injury. Jalen Hurts injured his finger and eventually left the game early after the score grew to 24-0 and the Cowboys were up big on Washington, making the No. 5 seed a near certainty for the Eagles.

Plenty of days to cover the Eagles-Bucs game, so no need to start writing the same narratives I’ll be leaning on this week here. But let’s just say things are trending terribly for this team and it would be a real shock if this led to another deep playoff run from Philly.

NFC SOUTH

The Saints took too long to heat up on offense this year, and their playoff bid came up a game short as Tampa Bay was able to take care of business in Carolina, which completed one of the worst seasons in NFL history.

Buccaneers at Panthers: Back-to-Back Shutouts for Carolina

It was ugly but the Buccaneers leaned on their defense and the fact they were playing one of the worst teams in the Super Bowl era to pull out a 9-0 win and the NFC South title for the third year in a row.

Baker Mayfield was hurting throughout the game but at least he still threw for over 100 yards, unlike Bryce Young who finished with 94 yards, and nearly half of that came on a 42-yard pass to D.J. Chark that was fumbled through the end zone, a game-saving and possibly season-saving play for the Bucs in this one.

Carolina’s kicker situation wasn’t great this year, and after missing a 52-yard field goal to end the third quarter, the Buccaneers turned that good field position into a 39-yard field goal and a 9-0 lead with 10:18 left.

If you’ve been following the Panthers this year or really the last 5 years, you know that’s basically an insurmountable lead for this team. The Bucs forced a strip sack and the offense ran out the final 6:19 to clinch the division with a 9-8 record, which is better than 8-9 the last I checked. At least one Florida team wasn’t going to blow the division title this Sunday.

The Panthers finish the season with 2 wins and 0 snaps with a fourth-quarter lead. Both wins came on walk-off field goals.

  • Even the 1976 Buccaneers (0-14) blew 1 4th-quarter lead.
  • Even the 2008 Lions (0-16) blew 4 4th-quarter leads.
  • Even the 2017 Browns (0-16) blew 1 4th-quarter lead.

The Panthers are the first team since the 2008 Browns to get shutout in consecutive games. Carolina, you were truly awful this year.

Falcons at Saints: Hit the Road, Art

This game was my favorite over (42.5) of the week as both teams moved the ball very well when they met earlier this season. I just didn’t think the Saints (48 points) would cover the over themselves after a little “fvck you touchdown” to end it that set off Arthur Smith at midfield:

https://twitter.com/NFLonCBS/status/1744103230500422103

After another 7-10 season with baffling usage of his offensive players and failing to take advantage of a weak schedule, this is the end of the road for Smith in Atlanta. The team barely waited until midnight to announce his firing.

What a way to go out, a 31-point loss to your main rival and that little tantrum. Do I think he had a point about the Saints rubbing it in with barely a minute left in a 41-17 game? Yeah, I think that was weak. But he could have expressed it better than this.

Derek Carr threw 4 touchdowns and finished the season strong, but it was just too late after a slow start for the offense. The 9-8 record wasn’t good enough for the playoffs, and you can look a that 1-point loss in Green Bay as the decisive one since that’s what got the Packers ahead of New Orleans. The Saints missed a late field goal in that one as Blake Grupe showed some serious choker DNA. Basically, if they kept Wil Lutz as their kicker this year, they’d probably be in the playoffs.

But both teams should be ashamed of not taking advantage of their schedules. They lived up to the expectations of not having many Super Bowl contenders. Hell, even the Jaguars didn’t get to 10 wins and that was supposed to be one of their hardest games alongside Detroit.

AFC NORTH

The Steelers started Week 18 needing a win in rainy Baltimore, and no one really cared about anything in Browns-Bengals except for the outfit worn by Jake Browning’s girlfriend. That backup is winning in life.

Steelers at Ravens: Sweep the Top Seed but Lose to the Pats and Cardinals (Obviously)

When the Steelers nearly turned the ball over 3 times on the opening drive, you could tell the rain was going to be a significant factor. In the end, each team lost 2 fumbles, but the Steelers had an extra 4 fumbles that they did not lose.

Mason Rudolph still managed to complete 18-of-20 passes in the rain, but 71 of his 152 yards came on a short throw to Diontae Johnson that was mostly YAC for the game-winning touchdown to break a 7-7 tie to start the fourth quarter. Is that the kind of play that happens if the Ravens had Marlon Humphrey and Kyle Hamilton playing in the secondary? Hard to say, but it gives Rudolph 3 touchdown passes of 60-plus yards this year, which is behind only Tua Tagovailoa (4) for the 2023 lead. That’s an absurd but true stat. I’m not convinced that means Rudolph is the long-term answer at quarterback, but some of it does speak to his willingness to give these receivers chances that I think Kenny Pickett lacks in his game right now. That’s why I’d start Rudolph in the playoffs.

And yes, there will be playoffs after the Jaguars blew it in Tennessee and punched Pittsburgh’s ticket early on Sunday. Unfortunately, the Steelers are unlikely to have T.J. Watt after friendly fire took him down with an MCL injury in this game. It’s considered a multiple week injury, but you know he’ll at least lobby to play. Just can’t see that being a smart move or ultimately allowed by the team.

It deserves an asterisk for the rested starters (not to mention the dropped passes in Week 5) but the Steelers did sweep the top-seeded Ravens and were the only team to beat them by more than 3 points this year. If Pittsburgh somehow did pull out a win next week and went to Baltimore for the divisional round, that could be amusing as Lamar Jackson has been I the league since 2018 and has literally never had a good game against the Steelers. He rarely plays them too, but Pittsburgh has been getting the upper hand in this rivalry. But good luck getting past the wild card round.

Browns at Bengals: Still the Coach of the Year

Why exactly did the Browns start Jeff Driskel at quarterback? Felt like Kevin Stefanski, who should still win Coach of the Year, wanted to show off and win a game with a 5th different quarterback this year. But Driskel was dreadful, the Bengals led 31-0, and only in garbage time did Driskel deliver a couple of touchdown throws. But hey, Browns over 13.5 points still hit.

The game did make some history though as the 2023 AFC North is the first division since the 1935 West to have nothing but teams with a winning record. The Bengals finished 9-8 and the other teams all won at least 10 games and made the playoffs.

NFC WEST

Not as many stakes here as the 49ers and Rams rested key starters, but both games had a fourth-quarter comeback with the winning team converting a 2-point conversion in a 21-20 final.

Rams at 49ers: The Rare Carson Wentz Comeback

It’s kind of fitting that a Carson Wentz-led comeback of 13 points in the second half against a No. 1 seed would only happen in a game where both teams were not all that interested in winning. If the Rams truly cared about making sure they won and got the No. 6 seed, they would have started Matthew Stafford, Kyren Williams, Aaron Donald, and maybe Cooper Kupp.

They did play Puka Nacua, who stayed in long enough to set the rookie records for yards and catches in a season. He also caught a helpful touchdown from Wentz, who ended up running 17 times for 56 yards and a touchdown. I guess Sean McVay didn’t really care since this could be one of the last auditions that Wentz gets as a starter in the NFL.

But the 49ers didn’t score on their 4 second-half possessions, the Rams took the lead on a touchdown drive that got jumpstarted with a 48-yard flag for defensive pass interference, and Sam Darnold was unable to set up a field goal for the 49ers, who will be content with the bye week.

But it is a bit concerning that the 49ers are 1-4 in close games and 0-4 at 4QC/GWD opportunities. This will come up during the month in playoff previews, but you’re just not likely to get through a whole Super Bowl run, even if it’s 3 games long, without beating someone good in a close game. This team will have to show it can do that and it’s not like we don’t have years of evidence in San Francisco of Shanahan-coached teams not stepping up in these moments. This loss didn’t matter, but the next time the season will be on the line.

But good for the Rams getting to 10 wins as I really wanted to pick them as a dark horse for the wild card this summer, then I got scared away after not recognizing their roster outside of Stafford, Kupp, and Donald. Really good effort from McVay and company here. And we get to see the perfect wild card matchup in Detroit next Sunday night.

Seahawks at Cardinals: Matt Prater’s Lousy Day

Congrats to James Conner for clinching his first 1,000-yard rushing season in the NFL. He was my favorite prop pick in Week 18, and he delivered in a big way with 150 yards on the ground and 54 more through the air.

It’s just too bad the Cardinals let it go to waste as well as a sweet trick play on a field goal for a touchdown pass from Kyler Murray to Trey McBride to take a 20-13 lead in the fourth quarter.

Matt Prater could have basically iced the game with 3:00 left on a 43-yard field goal that would have made it 23-13 after the Seahawks used their final timeout, but the normally reliable kicker missed. The Cardinals folded like a cheap suit on defense, and in just 4 plays, the Seahawks were in the end zone on a 34-yard touchdown from Geno Smith to Tyler Lockett, who also caught the 2-point conversion to go up 21-20 with 1:54 left.

At this point, it was already clear from Green Bay that the Packers were winning the game and going to the playoffs, keeping Seattle out. That probably influenced the 2-point call too.

The Cardinals still had plenty of time to answer, but after a Conner run to the 30, they botched the end game. Not quite as bad as Steichen and the Colts on Saturday night, but still pretty bad with Murray running out of bounds on a play that took time and went down as a 2-yard sack. Then a Conner run lost a yard.

Prater can blast kicks from 50-plus yards, but he was already shaky on the previous kick and again failed to deliver on the 51-yard game-winning field goal as time expired. The Cardinals finish 4-13 and will have some decisions to make. The Seahawks, who will finish with a league-high 6 game-winning drives, are 9-8 again, but this time they didn’t get the help from Green Bay losing at home to get in a tournament they were unlikely going to advance in past next week.

AFC WEST

Stakes? No, nothing to see here.

Broncos at Raiders: Nope, We Don’t Care

The Raiders won 27-14 as both teams finished 8-9. Next.

Chiefs at Chargers: Easton Stuck in Goal to Go

The Chiefs set milestones aside and rested Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce (among others) with the No. 3 seed a lock. Easton Stick somehow dropped back 63 times, including 13 runs for 77 yards, in a weird game for the Chargers, but they blew it inside the 5-yard line early and late. A Stick fumble was scooped up for a 97-yard touchdown return, then the Chargers couldn’t get it in late and settled for a field goal to take a 12-10 lead. Backup starter Blaine Gabbert had enough legs for a couple of scrambles to set up a game-winning field goal (13-12), and the Chargers of course had no answer in the final minute.

The 2023 Chargers finish 1-10 at 4QC/GWD opportunities and lead the league with 5 blown leads in the fourth quarter. The Chargering brand is still strong.

Next week: It’s the playoffs. I’ll have links to in-depth previews and betting picks (props, upset pick, computer picks, etc.) for every game. The real fun might not start until the divisional round, but there are still plenty of stories from these games. With the way this season has gone, who knows, the Super Bowl teams may be in action on wild card weekend.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 12

~ Scott ~ 8 Comments

The holiday games left a lot to be desired for this NFL season, but Week 12 managed to follow it with a game of the year candidate between the Bills and Eagles. It was the only game all week with a fourth-quarter lead change, and there were multiple lead changes at that.

The only other game-winning drive in Week 12 went to the Giants after another low point for Bill Belichick’s 2-win Patriots. Week 12 has 8 games with a comeback opportunity so far, which is a low number given 15 games have been played. We are almost at the point where the bye weeks are over and everyone’s played an equal number of games.

I’m only going to cover Sunday’s 11 games below as I think Thanksgiving was straightforward. The only surprise was that Detroit is suddenly looking vulnerable and Green Bay might be figuring things out with Jordan Love. The Lions have rarely looked good on defense since the blowout loss to the Ravens, and the offense is in a turnover funk right now with Jared Goff (3 picks, 3 fumbles lost over the last two games). We’ll see if Minnesota can sweep Chicago on Monday night to keep the pressure on the Lions for the NFC North since they still have to meet twice this year.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Bills at Eagles: Game of the Year Edition

Finally, a game that lived up to and exceeded the hype. If you want to see points and drama in an NFL game this year, you have to focus on the big matchups in the afternoon as the island games have been awful all year. We can only be so lucky that 49ers-Eagles turns out this good next Sunday afternoon.

But an easy way to trigger all the PTSD in a Buffalo fan is to tell them their season is going to end on the wrong side of a clutch field goal kick, a go-ahead Gabe Davis TD called by Nantz and Romo that doesn’t hold up after the 2-minute warning, and an overtime game where Josh Allen doesn’t have the ball last. I think we covered about everything except the Music City Miracle, but maybe the Eagles are saving their kickoff return dark voodoo for next week.

This is going to fall on deaf ears for Buffalo fans who are tired of hearing this in the Sean McDermott era, which may not have many games left to it, but the Bills should have won this game.

Since 1991, teams with at least 29 points and 12 third-down conversions were 53-0. Make that 53-1 now.

Buffalo had 505 yards and was 13-of-22 on third down. Since 1991, teams with 13 conversions on third down are 29-4, and this Buffalo team has half the losses. They somehow lost 42-16 to the Titans in 2020 in a game where they were 13-of-17 on third down.

Just like the Chiefs on Monday night, the Bills led Philly 17-7 at halftime, but it should have been more than that. While Josh Allen looked outstanding in the rain, his kicker did not. Jalen Carter blocked Tyler Bass’ 34-yard field goal with 1:24 left in the half, and then he was wide right on a 48-yard field goal in the third quarter.

While Allen had over 200 yards at halftime despite the rain and his linemen’s penalties, Jalen Hurts was not handling the elements well. He was 4-of-11 for 33 yards, an interception, and a lost fumble at halftime.

But you know the Eagles can come back, and you know the Bills are either a blowout win or close loss team. It did not look like they would blow the Eagles out, though the yardage margins were so out of whack (276-99 at halftime) that they probably should have.

Even after Allen scrambled for a 16-yard touchdown, his second of the day on the ground, to take a 24-14 lead into the fourth quarter, it still didn’t feel safe for Buffalo. After the Eagles had their best drive for a touchdown, Allen was intercepted again, giving the Eagles the ball 24 yards away from the lead. Quick, someone fire Ken Dorsey again.

But after moving backwards on two plays, the Eagles faced a 3rd-and-15. McDermott’s defense could have stepped up and made a play, but instead they looked like Auburn’s defense against Alabama on Saturday as Zaccheaus caught a 29-yard touchdown in the end zone to give the Eagles a 28-24 lead.

In a game where he dropped back 60 times, Allen took his only sack on third down on the next drive, but the Eagles went three-and-out. Allen did not waste his second opportunity, and he threw a 7-yard touchdown to Gabe Davis with 1:52 left.

The Eagles drove to the Buffalo 34 before things got dicey. Jason Kelce had a pair of false starts, which you don’t expect. A designed run by Hurts only gained 3 yards when it looked like the hole was there. Then Hurts threw an incompletion on 3rd-and-17.

Jake Elliott was going to have to make a 59-yard field goal in rainy conditions to save this game for overtime. Things looked bleak, but I actually thought Buffalo screwed up by not letting A.J. Brown catch the short pass Jordan Poyer knocked away from him on 3rd & 17. It was only going to gain a few yards. Make them rush the field goal unit out there (no timeouts) for a hurried kick from 55+ yards. Instead, they had time to prepare, and McDermott even iced the kicker with a timeout. I didn’t like that move by Buffalo.

Sure enough, Elliott snuck the field goal through to tie the game at 31. It may only be a regular-season game, but that should go down as one of the best kicks in NFL history. Not going to top what Adam Vinatieri did in the Tuck Rule game and the snow to save a title run in the playoffs, but as far as regular-season kick goes, you’d have a hard time finding something better.

Buffalo had 20 seconds and 1 timeout left. This team more than anyone should know about what you can do in 20 (or 13) seconds. Why not let Allen throw a pass and try to get a drive going? Did they not trust the kicker that much, or did they not trust Allen to throw a pick? Either way, I hated the kneeldown too.

In overtime, the Bills took the ball first, which is understandable in a game like this. But you have to make that drive count, and Allen came up short again when his third-down pass was a miscommunication in the end zone with Davis. That could have been the winner. Buffalo settled for the field goal and Bass at least hit from 40 yards this time.

We got to see that rare bit of football where you have 4 downs and virtually no hurry with 5:52 to move down the field. Brown almost fumbled the game away, but I thought the officials got it right with a bang-bang play. Incomplete pass but that’s just another example of how thin the margins are for the Eagles all year.

After DeVonta Smith made a third-down conversion, the Bills were in trouble. Swift had a 16-yard run against a tired defense, and then a bad play call by McDermott left the middle of the field wide open for Hurts to race 12 yards into the end zone to end it. Eagles win 37-34.

Allen falls to 0-6 in overtime games in his career, and Buffalo can’t say there weren’t multiple chances to put this one away. The Bills go into their bye thinking they had a season-saving win, and instead it’s a heartbreaking loss to fall to 6-6. They still have to go to Kansas City next and host Dallas. The playoffs are looking like a longshot, and that’s now a league-high fourth blown lead in the fourth quarter for the Bills this year, who are 2-5 in close games.

On the other side of the coin, the 2023 Eagles are 9-1 in close games, the best record in the league. That’s literally every game of their season except for the 25-11 win in Tampa Bay. I don’t see how this is sustainable. The Vikings are the only other team to play 10 close games this year and they are 5-5 (11-0 last year and we know how that ended). Which teams have played the fewest close games? Cowboys (3), Lions (4), and 49ers (4), the other top teams in the conference this year.

Next week should be very interesting when the 49ers come to town. They are similar to Buffalo in the “win big, lose close” category, but they’re also a much better team.

Ravens at Chargers: Is Brandon Staley Finished?

It feels like the last few times I wrote about a coach being fired by the time I wake up on Monday, it’s happened. Frank Reich in Indy and Matt Rhule in Carolina come to mind. Sunday night might have been the final nail in the coffin for Brandon Staley.

The Chargers are 4-7 and the No. 13 seed in a competitive AFC despite having Justin Herbert at quarterback. But the Chargers are now 1-7 at game-winning drive opportunities this year, the most losses in the league.

This was another mistake-filled performance, and the reason I say Staley is going soon is this time it was the offense that failed the Chargers the most. The defense actually held a red-hot Baltimore team that had scored 31 points in 5 straight games to 13 points for 58 minutes. Lamar Jackson was only 18-of-32 for 177 yards against the No. 32 pass defense. The Ravens tried a lot of WR screens and just weren’t that impressive on offense.

But the Chargers turned the ball over 4 times, and it was their best players that let them down. Keenan Allen and Austin Ekeler both lost fumbles in the second quarter. Herbert’s only interception was a Hail Mary that didn’t matter to end the half, but he was stripped in the red zone by Jadeveon Clowney in the fourth quarter when it was 13-3.

The Chargers are known for blowing leads, but Baltimore has been quite bad in this area the last few years. It looked like things were turning the Chargers’ way too as a touchdown to Gerald Everett made it 13-10, then Justin Tucker shocked everyone by missing a 44-yard field goal with 2:57 left. I fully thought Tucker would make it to give Baltimore a 16-10 lead, Herbert would answer with a touchdown, and Tucker would win it 19-17 on another field goal. But nope.

The Chargers had a real chance in a 13-10 game at their own 34. But Herbert was disappointing on a drive where Baltimore stepped up and played great defense. It is so hard to keep a team out of field goal range when it’s in this pass-heavy, 4-down mode, but they did it to Herbert here. A well-timed DB blitz on 4th-and-6 got to Herbert and he was flagged for intentional grounding.

Zay Flowers put it away with his second touchdown of the night – this time on a 37-yard touchdown run where he could have just slid down any time after the first down and the game would have ended. But that made it 20-10, and Herbert was unable to move more than 12 yards before another drive turned it over on downs.

The Baltimore defense was very impressive. The offense left something to be desired but you know that unit can be tough to play against with their uniquely skilled quarterback.

But it was a game there for the taking, and the Chargers did not step up again. I’m not sure how many more weeks they let this happen before a change is made.

Jaguars at Texans: Houston Stumbles in Biggest Game in Four Seasons

The Texans were my upset pick this week, but in the back of my mind I knew it was a risky pick. The Texans are the “too much too soon” team in this matchup with their rookie coach and quarterback. They gave Carolina their only win of the season, then followed it with a 3-game winning streak where they outscored the Bucs, Bengals, and Cardinals by a combined 10 points despite huge production from rookie C.J. Stroud.

The Jaguars are the “experienced team” even though they were just 3-7 going into their Baltimore game that turned things around one year ago to the date. But they have a Super Bowl-winning coach and more playoff experience on the roster.

But this game didn’t prove to be too big for the Texans at all. In fact, it was there for the taking, but they just kept coming up short:

  • The offense started with 3 straight punts thanks to a holding penalty and a ticky-tack illegal shift on Tank Dell that wiped out his 62-yard completion on a great throw from Stroud.
  • Backup kicker Matt Ammendola is a huge problem as he missed a 50-yard field goal with 20 seconds before halftime. The Jaguars then hit a 57-yard bomb to Christian Kirk at the 1-yard line with 1 second left, 1-of-4 completions the Jaguars hit for 42+ yards, then tried to run it in with Travis Etienne, but the Texans snuffed it out. Houston still trailed 13-7 at the half.
  • Despite Jacksonville’s numbers on takeaways, the only turnover in the game was an interception by Trevor Lawrence in the third quarter.
  • Leading 14-13, Houston corner Tavierre Thomas was flagged twice for defensive pass interference on third downs to help Jacksonville score a touchdown and 2-point conversion pass, which both went to Calvin Ridley. Jacksonville led the rest of the game.

In the end, it wasn’t turnovers or the moment being too big for this Houston team. It was a bad backup kicker and an ass kicking up front as Josh Allen got the best of Laremy Tunsil.

It looked like Stroud had another game-winning drive in the works in a 24-21 game, but a sack from Allen at the Jacksonville 37 set up a 2nd-and-19. After a short completion, Stroud faced 3rd-and-12. He extended the play for a very long time but eventually threw incomplete with 34 seconds left. That was a bummer as he might have considered scrambling to at least gain some yards for the kicker.

The Texans still felt a 58-yard field goal was a better choice than 4th-and-12, and maybe they were right about that. It’s a tough call. Ammendola kicked it straight this time, but it was too short, and it hit the crossbar before bouncing the wrong way for Houston. Game over. That’s why those few yards Stroud could have gained on a run would have been important.

Ammendola was with the Chiefs for a couple of games last year when Harrison Butker was injured, and if they had to stick with him the rest of the season, I’m not sure the Chiefs win the Super Bowl. He’s just not a good kicker and is an emergency backup for a reason. I’m not sure what the Texans can do there, but he’s going to be a problem if any other games come down to his leg.

For Jacksonville (8-3), a No. 1 seed is still possible with this big win that makes the division title likely. They won in the trenches and Lawrence made some big throws with Ridley delivering the way they envisioned when they made that move. I’m still not sold it’s a team you can count on in January, but this was a good win after the way things usually go when the Jags play Houston.

Chiefs at Raiders: The Second Half Slump Ends

I don’t know if the Chiefs are “back” on offense but trailing 14-0 and winning 31-17 is a very Kansas City thing. The start of this game was shocking as the Raiders moved the ball up and down the field on this top-ranked defense to take a 14-0 lead. It would have been 17-0 if Daniel Carlson didn’t pull a 30-yard field goal.

The Raiders had 221 yards of offense on 3 drives and rookie Aidan O’Connell was carving them up. Josh Jacobs, who has struggled all year behind this line, hit a 63-yard touchdown run.

But the Chiefs adjusted, and the Raiders finished with a field goal and 137 yards on their final 7 drives – an impressive turnaround for the defense.

Once Kansas City’s offense settled down, they scored 4 touchdowns and a field goal on their final 7 drives. With players like Jerick McKinnon and Kadarius Toney out, it felt like the Chiefs did a better job of getting the ball to their best players instead of trying to share the ball with anyone, including the bad targets. MVS only had one target on a catch that lost a yard. Justin Watson, who had 11 targets against the Eagles, only had one catch and it was a broken play touchdown after Robert Spillane dumped him on his ass in the end zone and no one bothered to pick him up.

Meanwhile, Rashee Rice had 8 catches for 107 yards and a touchdown in his best game of the season (despite 2 more drops). Travis Kelce was very good again with 6 catches for 91 yards. Isiah Pacheco handled some of the receiving with McKinnon out as he caught all 5 targets for 34 yards and scored 2 touchdowns. Mahomes efficiently passed for 298 yards on 27-of-34 passing.

But most importantly, the Chiefs ended their 3-game drought of not scoring after halftime. They scored a season-high 17 points after halftime in this game. It was only the second time all year where the Chiefs scored more than 10 points after halftime.

With the offense thriving and the Raiders struggling after their hot start, the Chiefs barely had to sweat the final quarter this week, winning comfortably for a change.

We’ll see the Chiefs next Sunday night in Green Bay in what could be a better challenge if Jordan Love is showing real improvement. But the Chiefs accomplished some good things in this game in showing they can still come back from 14-point deficits by getting hot on offense, and they can score after halftime too.

Steelers at Bengals: Shove It Up Your Arse, Matt Canada

What a fitting outcome. Immediately after firing offensive coordinator Matt Canada, the Steelers finally had their first 400-yard game on offense since the 2020 regular season. They had one in the playoffs that year against the Browns, but this ended a 45-game drought under Canada, and a 58-game streak that was the second longest regular-season drought without 400 yards by any offense in the last 30 years.

The very first play of the game was like one big “fuck you” to Matt Canada. The Steelers went play-action and Kenny Pickett threw deep down the middle of the field to tight end Pat Freiermuth for a 24-yard gain. Exactly the kind of things the Steelers never wanted to do under Canada despite how much sense it makes to do. Freiermuth would finish with 9 catches for 120 yards. Pickett passed for 278 yards, the 2nd-highest game of his career and easily his most in a win.

But to make it fitting for the brand, the Steelers only scored 16 points and had to sweat out the final quarter of a one-score game with Jake Browning in his first career start for the Bengals. This happened in a game where the Steelers outgained the Bengals 421-222 in yards, the first time all year Pittsburgh outgained its opponent. That’s the reminder that the offense still has some flaws that even Canada’s absence won’t fix.

While Pickett was dealing early, his accuracy was an issue later. But that may not have mattered if Diontae Johnson didn’t have one of the worst first quarters I’ve ever seen from a player. First he caught a screen, broke a tackle, but somehow ran backwards to lose 5 yards to kill the opening drive. Then he dropped a 15-yard touchdown that Mike Tomlin should have challenged as Johnson’s third foot was down and the play should have been a score. By not challenging, Tomlin watched Jaylen Warren cough up a fumble on a play where Johnson showed no effort at all:

Just a brutal start that cost the Steelers points, which is why they trailed 7-3 at halftime. Meanwhile, Browning finished his first start with 227 yards, 4 sacks, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception. I’ve seen a lot of backup quarterbacks play over the years. Some were absolutely terrible, including Caleb Hanie, Craig Krenzel, Ryan Lindley, Curtis Painter, and Keith Null. Browning did not look that bad to me. He could even be serviceable if he gets some experience, because some of his mistakes like holding the ball too long are simply not having the reps under his belt. He did get lucky on a couple of tipped balls that still found their way to Ja’Marr Chase (4 catches for 81 yards), but all in all, Browning wasn’t a disaster.

But the Bengals’ season is over without Joe Burrow. It’s easy to see that much. Browning had his shot in a 13-7 game with just over 6:00 left, but T.J. Watt sacked him on third down for a three-and-out. The Steelers added a field goal, the Bengals matched it, but Pittsburgh recovered the onside kick and wisely ran with the ball for 4 seconds to get it to the two-minute warning. With the Bengals already out of timeouts, the game ended there.

As someone who lost several parlays with Steelers Over 19.5 points failing, the 16 points was definitely the most disappointing part of this game for Pittsburgh. But at least the offense made things happen, they used the tight end the way they should have been doing since 2021, and Pickett started the game really sharp.

But I’ll hold my breath that 400-yard games will become a frequent occurrence with this group going forward. Remember, Pickett’s only game in his career with 30 points scored was against the Bengals last year. Two of his 3 games with over 260 passing yards are against the Bengals now. This could be a Cincinnati thing, and the Bengals have been giving up a lot of passing volume for the last month and a half.

But with the upcoming schedule for the Steelers (7-4), they aren’t going to need 400 yards or even 21 points to win a lot of these games. Barring disaster, this team should be in the playoffs. But to be any sort of threat there, Pickett is going to have to continue to grow and play like he did to start this game.

And Diontae Johnson needs to pull his head out of his ass.

Buccaneers at Colts: Indy Continues to Score at Impressive Rate

If the Colts (6-5) make the playoffs, I could be convinced to vote Shane Steichen for Coach of the Year. He has achieved scoring consistency in a season where so few offenses are capable of doing so, and he’s doing it with Gardner Minshew as QB1.

He’s also making some brash calls that have paid off. Up 20-17 in the fourth quarter with 9:11 left, Steichen went for it on a 4th-and-1 at the Tampa 49. It was an aggressive deep pass on a play-fake too, and it was good for 30 yards. Three plays later, Jonathan Taylor was in the end zone for his second touchdown and the Colts used that drive to provide the winning margin.

Tampa Bay lost Baker Mayfield to an early injury on a quarterback sneak, which almost never happens, but he did return. He threw a pair of touchdowns to Mike Evans, but a couple of 3rd-down sacks killed Tampa Bay on its final drives. Mayfield was stripped near midfield with 1:29 left to end the game at 27-20.

The Buccaneers (4-7) are fading to No. 11 in the NFC with the loss. The Colts are the No. 7 seed and would be taking a trip to Kansas City in a wild card game if the playoffs were this weekend. Imagine if they can repeat their Mahomes magic (19-13 and 20-17) in a game like that in the playoffs. But with the way the AFC is, expect many different teams to occupy the No. 7 and No. 2 seeds over the next few weeks. Hell, the No. 1 seed changed hands 5 times since Monday night.

But good for the Colts staying relevant in what could have easily been a lost season. We know they weren’t drafting a quarterback in 2024 anyway.

Saints at Falcons: The NFC South Battle You Expected

In the post-Drew Brees and Matt Ryan era of this rivalry, you have to admit this was a fitting game for first place in the NFC South. A game where both teams had multiple turnovers and looked like they were trying to give the game away.

The Saints got Derek Carr so they’d have an edge in games like this, but they must have forgot that he’s never won a playoff game in his career. Sure enough, in this one he was late on a throw that became a 92-yard pick-six for Atlanta, then he had a hilarious fumble while running in the open field that the Saints were lucky to recover.

The Falcons got Bijan Robinson to take the pressure off Desmond Ridder in this offense. It hasn’t worked as great as expected this year, but it did deliver on Sunday in the most important game so far for Atlanta. While Ridder did his best to make no one believe in him after 2 interceptions to Tyrann Mathieu, he made the throw of the game under pressure for a 26-yard touchdown to Robinson to expand on Atlanta’s 14-12 lead in the fourth quarter:

But of all the turnovers in the game, the biggest one may have been the one that preceded that second Robinson touchdown. The Saints were at midfield after Mathieu’s second pick, and they got into the red zone quickly. It was a struggle there all day as the offense kept settling for field goals, but Taysom Hill took off on a run that would have made it first-and-goal. He fumbled, and the Falcons recovered, setting up that 95-yard drive that ended with the Ridder to Robinson connection.

All the Saints could do from there was settle for another 39-yard field goal, which the Falcons matched to make it 24-15 with 1:47 left. Even in quasi-garbage time, Carr couldn’t get his offense in the end zone. Blake Grupe, one of the most anti-clutch kickers around right now, missed a 54-yard field goal with 30 seconds left to end this one. Also, how do you come up short on a 54-yard field goal indoors?

The Falcons (5-6) take a slight lead over the Saints (5-6) for the NFC South. But we could see another year where a team wins this division with a losing record. However, the schedule is still easy for both. This division is the sacrificial lamb to the NFC East runner-up on wild card weekend.

Browns at Broncos: Another Key Tiebreaker for Denver

Sean Payton’s rope-a-dope following a 1-5 start continues after another win over an AFC wild card contender that will give Denver a key tiebreaker for the playoffs. The Broncos (6-5) already have such a win over Buffalo that could mean a lot come January.

I was sure to not call it impressive, because I’m still not that impressed with this Denver team. Russell Wilson didn’t do anything to distance himself from the Taysom Hill comparisons after he threw for 134 yards, got an amazing touchdown catch from Adam Trautman, and he was in love with the run on this day as he carried the ball 11 times for 34 yards and a touchdown.

The Browns were stuck with rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who left the game spitting out blood after a tough hit. That put P.J. Walker in the game, though I’m a bit surprised Walker wasn’t the starter since he is more experienced and a veteran. You kind of wish Cleveland trusted him more, because the first play of the fourth quarter with Cleveland trailing 17-12 was a disaster. The Browns tried a little trickery with Elijah Moore doing a reverse to Pierre Strong, and it resulted in a huge fumble.

The Broncos had another short field (20 yards) and that was when Trautman made his incredible touchdown grab to make it 24-12. The Browns are not built to come back from deficits like that, so it was just a matter of more turnovers and a sack in the end zone for a safety to get to the 29-12 final.

The Browns lost 3 fumbles and that does not include the drive-ending safety, so Denver’s defense is continuing this takeaway rampage to fuel the offense. They can add another huge tiebreaker win next week if they win in Houston.

Cleveland (7-4) could start to unravel after a loss like this, but the Browns still have games against Chicago, Jets, and Bengals, so 10 wins is possible. Is it enough this year? We’ll see. The AFC is super tight right now, so these little head-to-head losses add up.

The wins are just adding up for Denver right now but don’t start making playoff plans just yet.

Patriots at Giants: Even the Kicker Sucks Ass for New England These Days

The 2023 Patriots are the first team since the 2000 Steelers to play in back-to-back games where they neither scored nor allowed more than 10 points. A 10-6 loss to the Colts in Germany was followed Sunday by a 10-7 road loss to the Giants. The last team to go 0-2 in back-to-back games when not allowing or scoring more than 10 points is the 1993 Patriots, coached by Bill Belichick’s mentor Bill Parcells. How nice.

This latest loss was comedy for the Patriots, who are now 2-9. Tommy DeVito had a 7.4 QBR for the Giants after taking another 6 sacks, but he still won the game and led his first game-winning field goal drive to break a 7-7 tie that seemed like it may not be broken by either offense.

How do you lose to a 7.4 QBR, the worst of any winning quarterback this year? Well, Mac Jones had a 7.2 QBR after another pair of interceptions, so he was benched at halftime for Bailey Zappe.

While Zappe immediately led a 60-yard touchdown drive to start the third quarter, it was the final score for New England. He didn’t throw a fake spike pick this time, but Zappe was intercepted in the fourth quarter, and that led to an 8-yard game-winning field goal drive for DeVito. Yes, 8 yards.

Zappe had a chance from the 50 with 3:15 left in a 10-7 game, a dream scenario for a quarterback. The Patriots played for overtime, but rookie kicker Chad Ryland was shockingly wide left from 35 yards away with 3 seconds left. Game over. The Patriots spent a 4th-round pick on this kicker and he still sucks.

Belichick has only lost 6 games in his career with a missed clutch field goal. But this was the first time on a drive with Bailey Zappe, which matches the one time it’s happened with Mac Jones (2021 Buccaneers), which matches the one time it happened in two decades with Tom Brady (2012 Cardinals).

Everything has gotten worse in New England.

Rams at Cardinals: McVay’s Whipping Boys

The Rams completed another sweep of the Cardinals with a 37-14 win. I really did not expect to see Matthew Stafford throw 4 touchdown passes to Kyren Williams and Tyler Higbee (he had none going in), but that happened. It was also another quiet game for Cooper Kupp (3 catches for 18 yards) as he continues to deal with injury.

I don’t think Kyler Murray is making it that difficult on management to move on with a different quarterback in 2024. It’s just that Chicago may have the firepower in the draft to make sure they get the top prize, which I presume is still Caleb Williams.

Panthers at Titans: Turkey Coma Is Preferable

Once you get past Thanksgiving, the interest in games like this really drops. You had two rookie quarterbacks struggle to move the ball all day. Tennessee got a key 15-yard touchdown drive before halftime after a strip-sack of Bryce Young. After that it was just the Titans in survival mode with a 17-10 lead.

Carolina had four chances to tie it and never came close. Your typical Carolina issues with Young taking sacks and Miles Sanders somehow losing several yards on multiple runs. Just a bad line and the Titans took advantage. On 4th-and-6, the Panthers really thought a WR screen was going to save the day, but D.J. Chark, who isn’t even the best option for that play, gained no yards with 1:55 left and it was game over.

Next week: It’s really all about 49ers-Eagles in Week 13. You knew before the season this was the NFC Game of the Year, and hopefully it will live up to the hype. That means no quarterback injury on the first drive this time. And hopefully it doesn’t get decided by the kickers because we know the 49ers are screwed there.

NFL Week 10 Predictions: Island Game Slop Edition

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

The NFL’s Week 10 schedule is not the worst I’ve ever seen, but the sequencing of the games with the choices for the four island games might be the worst this century. Would the week sound so bad if Thursday night started with Seattle hosting Washington, the Germany game was Lions-Chargers, Sunday night was 49ers-Jaguars, and Monday night was I guess the same Broncos-Bills matchup assuming Denver plays better?

The masses had no business seeing Panthers-Bears, Colts-Patriots, and Jets-Raiders, and that was true back in April. Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams in the same stadium? Who gives a shit? Enjoy the season-low ratings for Zach Wilson vs. Aidan O’Connell since you chose not to flex and spare us, NBC.

But Colts-Patriots is laughably bad for a 9:30 a.m. start. After the disappointment last week with Chiefs-Dolphins, I will not be getting up for this one. In fact, I might get up normal time (12:05), take a shit, take a shower, and maybe I’ll catch the tail end to see if the Colts kept their 20-points streak alive. To think a Colts-Patriots game used to be the biggest thing in the NFL. How the mighty have fallen.

This Week’s Articles

NFL Week 10 Predictions

No one won on Bears-Panthers on TNF with a push. I really didn’t win thanks to 2 f’n yards that Chuba Hubbard couldn’t get.

I want to start by saying favorites were 12-2 SU last week (good spread record too, I believe), so maybe this is a bounce-back week for underdogs, but I didn’t see a lot of enticing ones on the schedule. Just ended up taking the Vikings over Saints, then I also changed my pick from Tampa to Tennessee. Might be letting the Will Levis game vs. Atlanta screw me over twice here as I just think he can hit some big plays against the Bucs, and Kyler Murray might be the next QB to make his season debut for his team and upset the path to doom Falcons.

Honestly, I have no real feel for Colts-Patriots. It might be the biggest gap the Colts have over the Patriots roster-wise since 2005 or even longer ago. But when my brain has gone to “island game = shit offense” and I see the way the Colts didn’t even get 200 yards in Carolina and won thanks to 2 pick-sixes last week, I’m just going to go with the Pats to end the 20-points streak and sneak out an ugly win.

I also think 49ers-Jaguars is a hard game to read since the Jaguars are not statistically strong but win, and the 49ers are super talented but have lost 3 in a row. It’s also an early body clock game across the country. My favorite pick in this game is the under 45.5.

I don’t believe in Cleveland, so I took Baltimore to win by a full touchdown. We’ll see what happens as division games are weird. Same reason I ultimately decided to take the Giants to cover 17.5 points in Dallas. I know it looks bleak, but the Cowboys almost lost straight up to Houston as a 17-point favorite last year. They already lost as a 13-point favorite to Arizona this year. I hate big spreads like this.

Packers are a perfect opponent for Pittsburgh at home. Shit offense (first half under looks great) and not a scary offense. I’m sure it’ll be a nail-biter and maybe even go to overtime.

Texans-Bengals could be interesting but I think C.J. Stroud comes back to Earth a bit from last week. But would be something if Tee Higgins (out) and Ja’Marr Chase (questionable) both missed the game. Huge opportunity for Houston to get a H2H tie-breaker and move ahead of the Bengals in the AFC.

Lions-Chargers is our saving grace of the late afternoon. Should be back to a normal Chargers game, which means Justin Herbert with the ball in a one-score game in the 4th quarter. I also think Seahawks-Commanders has potential to be a tight finish with decent offensive numbers.

I already have to write 2 articles on the prime-time games early in the week, so by Friday night, I’m ready to just get them over with. But I think the Jets use their superior defense to win that stinker, and the Bills should bounce back and win against Denver, which I still think is an underwhelming team.

At least I’ll probably be done early on Sunday night with this slate.

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 Stat Oddity: Week 6

~ Scott ~ 15 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Giants at Bills: WTF?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lions at Buccaneers: Better Team Won

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

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

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

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

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

Colts at Jaguars: The Streak Continues

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seahawks at Bengals: Looked Like a Cincinnati Playoff Game

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ravens vs. Titans: London Snoozer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Commanders at Falcons: Ridder the Enigma

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

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

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

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

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

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

Patriots at Raiders: Belichick Really Can’t Beat McDaniels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vikings at Bears: Hoodwinked, Bamboozled, Led Astray

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cardinals at Rams: Cooper Kupp Still Top Dog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 5

~ Scott ~ 16 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ravens at Steelers: Respect the Rivalry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chiefs at Vikings: Repeating Is Hard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bengals at Cardinals: Ja’Marr Chase to the Rescue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Titans at Colts: AFC South Dark Horse?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jets at Broncos: Hackett Gets the Last Laugh

Oh, did we learn some things in this one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Giants at Dolphins: Run Those Bums Off the Field

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Texans at Falcons: Promising Day for Desmond Ridder

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Panthers at Lions: By Air and Ground

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

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

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

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

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

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 17

~ Scott ~ 5 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

This season in Stat Oddity:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Panthers at Buccaneers: The Inevitable NFC South Outcome

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saints at Eagles: Agents of Chaos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vikings at Packers: The Worst 12-Win Team Ever

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Broncos at Chiefs: Too Close for Comfort Again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conventional wisdom is dead.

Dolphins at Patriots: Oh, Teddy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Browns at Commanders: Does He Know?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bears at Lions: Detroit Stays Alive with Rout of Chicago

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

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

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

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

Jaguars at Texans: Meaningless Game Is Houston’s Worst of the Year

Welp, my worst pick of the week was thinking the Texans had some secret sauce against Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars after nine straight wins, including 3-0 in the Lawrence era.

As it turns out, Lawrence just needed a 62-yard Travis Etienne touchdown run (only play of drive) and a fumble return touchdown to score more than enough points to beat the lowly Texans.

Houston’s 31-3 loss is by far its worst of the season, surpassing the 18-point loss to the Raiders that happened after Houston blew a fourth-quarter lead.

But it did not matter what Jacksonville did in this one. It’s all about Week 18 against Tennessee for the AFC South title.

Cardinals at Falcons: Another One for Kliff to Thank the Players for Losing Close

Good luck to the Hard Knocks crew in trying to hype up the David Blough vs. Desmond Ridder battle in Week 17. It was actually not that poorly played of an NFL game with both offenses hitting 20 first downs, only one turnover on an aborted snap, and it was played in a tight, one-score window for 60 minutes with three lead changes in the last 10 minutes.

It’s just hard getting people to care about such a game at this point of the season given the low stakes. After the Cardinals took the lead on a 57-yard field goal from Matt Prater, rookie quarterback Desmond Ridder was able to lead the first game-winning drive of his career. Drake London didn’t fumble away a Ridder completion for a change, and the Falcons did a textbook job of milking the clock and getting as deep as possible for Younghoe Koo’s 21-yard field goal to win the game 20-19 with no time left.

It was like one of those close 2021 Atlanta wins when Ryan would use up the game clock for a field goal, denying the defense the chance to blow the lead again. The best way to do it, of course.

Next Week

  • Next week’s season finale? Let me just take in Bills-Bengals first.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 15

~ Scott ~ 8 Comments

When your weekend starts with the biggest comeback in NFL history, you know things are going to be wilder than usual. The NFL’s Week 15 can lay claim to being the wildest week of the 2022 season with a record 33-point comeback, two more 17-point comebacks, three overtime games won on touchdowns, two non-offensive game-winning touchdowns, a snowy fourth quarter classic in Buffalo, and we still have to see what Baker Mayfield can do in Green Bay on Monday night.

After a lack of drama and lead changes in Week 14, the week I called the worst of the year, every single game but one was within one score at some point in the fourth quarter. It took the greatest kicker of all time having a 50-yard field goal blocked in his face to not have it happen in 100% of the games this week.

That does not mean we had 15 games with a comeback opportunity. We had 11 for the first time since Week 5 now that the bye weeks are over. But what a week it was with plenty to recap.

This season in Stat Oddity:

Colts at Vikings: The Biggest Comeback/Collapse in NFL History

For a special recap of this historic game, check out my feature, The 2022 Vikings Are Young, Dumb, and Full of Comebacks

Giants at Commanders: Fumbles and Bad Refs

We finally had a winner in Giants-Commanders this year despite how close this was to going to overtime with the score 20-20 again. But Taylor Heinicke and Washington had a brutal night at the ends of each field. The Giants got back on track with a win thanks to the familiar formula of pressure defense and grinding out the fourth quarter.

The Commanders could have taken control early like they did two weeks ago when these teams met, but a third-down sack of Heinicke knocked them out of field goal range on the opening drive, then rookie Kayvon Thibodeaux had perhaps his play of the season with a strip-sack returned for a touchdown in the second quarter.

Washington trailed 17-9 to start the fourth quarter but struggled to hold onto the ball and put it in the end zone. Antonio Gibson narrowly avoided another lost fumble on a drive that ended with a 51-yard field goal two plays later to make it 17-12. Just like two weeks ago, the Giants couldn’t put things away on offense despite driving into Washington territory.

But after Heinicke hit a deep ball to Jahan Dotson for 61 yards, that drive would also stall after he was strip-sacked for the second time on third-and-goal with 6:06 left. The Giants added another 50-yard field goal to make it 20-12, but we were in almost the exact same situation as two weeks ago with Heinicke having the ball with a chance to tie. The clock was less favorable, and they would need a two this time, but it was very close to the same thing.

The Giants also looked like they were going to blow it again on a night that showed the Commanders have a really nice trio of wide receivers in Terry McLaurin, Curtis Samuel, and rookie Dotson. But do you know who apparently are not fans of this receiving trio? The refs. After a Heinicke scramble set up third-and-goal from the 1, Brian Robinson’s touchdown plunge was nullified by an illegal formation penalty on McLaurin.

This is the kind of thing you could struggle to notice at the snap, and according to former official Terry McAuley via NBC broadcast, this was a weak call that did not need to be made. McLaurin says the ref told him he was lined up fine, so make of that what you will.

But the big stink came on fourth-and-6. Heinicke threw a pass out of desperation to Samuel in the end zone, and corner Darnay Holmes was there early, interfered with Samuel, but no flag was thrown for defensive pass interference. Game over, Giants win.

Now in that video, Holmes is perfectly fine at the beginning. Samuel even uses his right hand to push Holmes away at the 7-second mark. But after that push creates some separation, you can see Holmes panic and start to ride Samuel’s back at 9-10 seconds. By 12 seconds, he decides to grab onto the receiver’s chest with both hands and leap on his back again to help knock the ball away.

What more do you need for DPI? Oh yeah, I guess it would help if Samuel was Mike Evans and Heinicke was Tom Brady, because we know that is getting flagged 100% of the time if they were involved. It would also have gone the way of Davante Adams no matter if Aaron Rodgers or Derek Carr threw him the ball, and the same is true for Mahomes and Kelce, or any other star players you want to throw into the mix.

Officials call the game differently at the very end of the game even though a foul is a foul is a foul. Call it preferential treatment or giving the benefit of the doubt, but some players tend to get calls others wouldn’t from refs too. That’s just an unfortunate part of the game.

What can be done to change that? I’m not sure. I just know it is a very bad look for the league when NBC’s rules expert (McAuley), a former official himself, can quickly look at these plays and call the illegal formation unnecessary and the missed DPI blatant.

I am not saying we need a game where every play in the final 2:00 is highly scrutinized and reviewed for every possible little penalty. But maybe some kind of “eye in the sky” in New York with all the best angles and replays can quickly be the third-party ruler in these cases and come up with the best calls for game-deciding plays like this one.

But they know we’re still going to watch the next game no matter how bad the last call (or no call) was.

Patriots at Raiders: Belichick Is Going to Bury Jakobi Meyers with Joe Pesci in the Desert

Bill Belichick is now 11-12 against his former New England assistants, including an 0-2 record against Josh McDaniels. But in none of those games did his team ever look as stupid and undisciplined as they did in Vegas.

Forget that play. We’ll get to that. Before the final minute, you had the Patriots completely botch a goal-to-go sequence, blow a coverage on a second-and-20 resulting in a Darren Waller touchdown, have a punt blocked, and Mac Jones struggled to throw for 100 yards.

But the nice thing was they were playing the 2022 Raiders. Despite leading 17-3, you know this team forgets there are two halves to each game. Once again, the Raiders blew a two-touchdown lead after some big plays by the Patriots quickly put together a go-ahead touchdown drive with 3:43 left. New England went from trailing 17-3 to leading 24-17.

Derek Carr adopted the Brady approach of “suck fast and hope for DPI” after throwing three incomplete passes, the last being a deep ball on third down that almost connected with Mack Hollins. But since the drive was so bad and only consumed 27 seconds (punt included), Carr was going to get another shot, because you knew the Patriots would be conservative with Jones and the lead.

In fact, Carr had 2:11 left to tie it. The game could have been over with a four-and-out, but the New England defense lost Hollins on the sideline for a 12-yard gain to keep the game alive. On a play that should quiet the Raiders fans who think the refs are always out to get them, the Raiders were ruled to have scored a touchdown when Keelan Cole hauled one in the back of the end zone from 30 yards out with 32 seconds left.

There was a video of what looked like his one foot may have been on the white and out of bounds. But this was one of those plays where it stood just because you had to stay with the call on the field, which was a touchdown. Had they ruled it incomplete on the field, it likely would have stayed incomplete and brought up third down.

Tough one for Patriots fans, but they have a long way to go to make up for all the crap that went their way the last two decades. The game was only tied and likely headed for overtime, except the Patriots did one of the dumbest things in NFL history:

We have seen fumbles returned for touchdowns on the final play of the game before. It happened when Washington upset the Eagles this year. It happened to the Raiders in overtime in Arizona when Hunter Renfrow coughed up the ball.

But those were different situations. You don’t see a team try to lateral in a tied game with overtime in their back pocket, because that would be stupid for the exact reason we saw. I just said the other day that Chandler Jones was having the worst season of his career, but hey, at least he has a highlight play for the rest of his life to enjoy.

I don’t actually mind the initial lateral from Rhamondre Stevenson. It was risky and it wasn’t planned that way, but he made a decent play. But if you are Meyers, who says he knew it was tied and not meant to be a lateral, then how in the world do you make that lateral that far back into the field of play because you thought Mac Jones was open?

Him?

If he can’t throw a Hail Mary from his 45, he wasn’t going to do anything here. Just an incredibly bad decision by Meyers and maybe even a worse throw as that ball was right to Chandler Jones and nowhere close to Mac Jones. If Kendrick Bourne or Nelson Agholor made the play Meyers did, they probably get cut Monday.

With games coming up against the Bengals, Dolphins, and Bills, the Patriots (7-7) are likely toast for the playoffs. When you look at the roster, it makes sense. But you never expect the Patriots to do something so incredibly stupid like they did on Sunday.

That’s what you expect the Raiders to do.

Dolphins at Bills: Buffalo Powder Is Different Than Miami Powder

Unlike Sunday night, this was just a great, dramatic game between two quality division rivals in Buffalo on Saturday night. I could watch these teams play a best-of-seven if things are going to be as good and interesting as the first two games this year.

I had been waiting since Week 3 to see this rematch, because I thought the Bills shot themselves in the foot that game and blew it way more than Miami found a way to win it. I was ultimately wrong about the Bills blowing them out here in the cold, but it was a great game with neither team able to lead by more than one possession.

The much-hyped snow did not arrive until the fourth quarter, but when it did, that made every snap an adventure down the stretch. But the game was filled with intrigue as a better version of Tua Tagovailoa showed up than the last two weeks. But the biggest surprise was Raheem Mostert (136 yards) giving the Dolphins a dominant run attack they haven’t had this year.

That’s what made the fourth quarter so questionable when the Dolphins took to the air on six of their final seven plays after the snow started. How do you not feed Mostert on a third-and-1? Instead, Tua threw a quick pass that lost 2 yards and the Dolphins settled for a 47-yard field goal.

Allen made up for his strip-sack on the previous drive with an excellent 44-yard run and a great touchdown throw to Dawson Knox for a 5-yard score. Allen dove for the end zone on the game-tying two-point conversion, and despite NFL Network cutting to a commercial break long enough for analyst Mark Sanchez to scarf down two hot dogs, the play was good and not a fumble as it appeared.

Miami’s pass-happy drive in a tied game with the snow coming down just did not make sense to me. The Bills had the ball back with 5:56 left in a 29-29 game. Allen led a drive as good as any in his career with pinpoint accuracy and sharp decision making. When any little slip or bad bounce of the ball in the increasingly slick conditions could end the game, this was impressive stuff in a very important game. I would say he’s put himself back in the MVP race if the losses to the Jets and Vikings weren’t so damaging.

Devin Singletary pulled up short of a go-ahead touchdown with 34 seconds left, which was probably the smartest thing to do in that spot. The field was cleaned off by Buffalo players well enough to give kicker Tyler Bass a very fair shot at a 25-yard field goal. He nailed it and the Bills won 32-29 and should be the AFC East champs when it’s all said and done.

I still think Miami is a playoff team this year, but with its second three-game losing streak of the year, you can see how the inexperience with success is hurting Mike McDaniel and Tua.

After zero game-winning drives in the 2021 season, the Bills are already up to four engineered by Allen this year (at Ravens, at Chiefs, at Lions, and vs. Dolphins). When you take away someone like Von Miller, on top of a loss like safety Micah Hyde, it is going to be more of a grind for this team. There is no easy path to the Super Bowl in this AFC.

More and more, the AFC is looking like a three-team race that will be a repeat of last year: two coin-flip games between the trio of Buffalo, Kansas City, and Cincinnati. Fortunately, we get to see the Bills and Bengals in prime time in Week 17, the first matchup between Allen and Joe Burrow in their NFL careers.

Eagles at Bears: Just Some Hiccups

How did Jalen Hurts fare in his first game as the odds-on MVP favorite this year? He probably played his worst game of the season with two early picks, but he still finished with 376 total yards (315 passing) and scored three rushing touchdowns in a 25-20 win.

The Bears did their usual thing: plenty of rushing yards, some good highlights from Justin Fields, but not good on third down, not enough passing, and no fourth-quarter comeback despite the Eagles letting them hang around in a 17-13 game after a doinked field goal attempt.

A.J. Brown got open for a 68-yard catch that set up Hurts’ third touchdown to basically wrap it up at 25-13 with 4:20 left. The Eagles had some blown coverage on a 35-yard touchdown to Byron Pringle with 2:42 left, but Philadelphia was able to convert one more third down to Brown to move the chains and end the game with a 25-20 win to move to 13-1.

A better team could have made the Eagles pay in that first half, but Fields had some really bad plays on third-and-1 early, and too many sacks (six for 61 yards) on the day.

The Eagles will not go into their big game with Dallas next week at their sharpest like the last three weeks, but after the way Dallas has played against Houston and Jacksonville, does it matter? Even a Dallas win is unlikely to cost the Eagles the No. 1 seed. Still, I am surprised to see the Cowboys are a 1.5-point home favorite next Saturday.

Cowboys at Jaguars: The Return of McCarthyism

If Houston was supposed to be the wake-up call for this Dallas team to get its shit together before the showdown with the Eagles, then the message was initially received. Then in the third quarter, (Mike) McCarthyism crept in and this team fell apart, blowing a 27-10 lead and losing 40-34 in overtime.

I do not know if the Jaguars are legitimately turning it around after a 2-6 start, or if they’re just the lucky beneficiaries of playing two of the worst teams ever to hold leads (Raiders and Ravens), a Tennessee team during its worst losing streak in years, and now this Dallas team that should have lost to Houston a week ago.

I do know turnovers have played a crucial part in Jacksonville’s recent wins against Baltimore, Tennessee, and now Dallas. A Dak Prescott interception late in the third quarter set the Jaguars up 39 yards away from another touchdown to quickly make this very interesting after it was 27-10 not even three minutes before that.

Like last week against Houston, Prescott would atone for his mistake with a 75-yard touchdown drive, finding Noah Brown for another 13-yard score to take a 34-31 lead. The great Dallas defense we keep hearing about? It mostly did its job the rest of the way. Trevor Lawrence put a nasty spin move on the defense, but he got a bit greedy on the play and fumbled in Dallas territory with 1:28 left.

It wasn’t a dagger with the Jaguars having all three timeouts left, but the Cowboys botched this drive. Two runs for net 0 yards by each back, then Dak tried to throw a deep one to Brown that fell incomplete. The Cowboys burned 27 seconds and even saved the Jaguars a timeout, which they desperately needed.

With CeeDee Lamb catching all seven targets on the day – he had five of the offense’s seven longest gains – I think you have to be aggressive and work an early-down pass in there, maybe off play-action. If the end result is just going to be giving them the ball back anyway with time to do something, then I am giving my best players a chance to end things on offense.

Lawrence had 1:01 to get a field goal and he needed just about every second of it. Zay Jones was the big target on the day with three touchdowns, and his 19-yard catch to the Dallas 30 was a game saver. The game is over there if the Jaguars didn’t have that last timeout. Silly Cowboys.

The Jaguars were good from 48 yards out on the field goal to send it to overtime. The Dallas defense again did a great job to force a three-and-out. But after a few Tony Pollard runs, Dak’s first dropback in overtime was a disaster with a tipped ball going to Rayshawn Jenkins for a 52-yard game-winning pick-six.

You just can’t trust these teams this year. It would be such a McCarthy thing to restore false hope and beat the Eagles next week. But guess what? The Eagles are unlikely to be caught for the No. 1 seed, let alone the division at this point.

We would really be looking at the NFC’s Game of the Year next week in Dallas if this team didn’t blow a 14-point fourth-quarter lead in Green Bay and a 17-point third-quarter lead in Jacksonville.

13-1 at 12-2 on Christmas Eve? Hell yeah, that would have been a spectacle. But if you’re talking about the NFC Game of the Year this season, the answer has never been more obvious what that should be.

It’s the 49ers at Eagles in the NFC Championship Game. It sure isn’t a game involving this Dallas team.

Bengals at Buccaneers: Joe Burrow Pulls the Remaining Horseshoe Out of Tom Brady’s Ass

If I told you a team in this game blew a 17-0 lead by doing a stupid fake punt, turning the ball over four times in a row, which set up three touchdowns inside the opponent’s 40-yard line, then wasted a huge fourth-down sack with a tacky 5-yard penalty, you’d bet everything you owned on the team who blew it being Cincinnati, right?

Well, this was some role reversal. This game went from nauseating (blame Tony Romo’s hard-on for Tom Brady) to hilarious in record time. The Bengals trailed 17-0 late in the first half and got into the locker room with 83 yards, the worst first half for any Joe Burrow start in his career. Meanwhile, the Buccaneers actually looked like a competent, balanced team like they were in 2020-21.

But before I could even start joking that Brady at age 45 plays tighter defense on Burrow’s receivers than Mahomes or Allen could ever dream of, this one took a sharp turn in the third quarter. The Buccaneers tried a fake punt from their own 26, and the direct snap to Gio Bernard seemed to catch him by surprise, and the play failed. The Bengals only got a field goal out of it, but better than nothing.

Then Brady threw a pick as he tried to make one of those very low throws to a diving receiver, but he got the defender instead. Still, his defense looked like it was going to force a four-and-out after Burrow took a 23-yard sack on fourth-and-3, or one of the worst plays you’ll ever see a quarterback make. However, he was bailed out by a defensive holding penalty on Lavonte David.

If Kevin O’Connell stole part of Brady’s lucky horseshoe back in January with the Rams, then Burrow must have snuck in there at halftime to extract the other piece lodged up Brady’s ass. This turnaround was absurd.

The Bengals turned that first turnover into a touchdown. Three plays later, Brady was strip-sacked and the Bengals were 13 yards away from the lead, which they took quickly at 20-17.

How about three in a row? Brady was just trying to hand off on a running play, and I’ve never seen the ball just pop right out of a quarterback’s hand when he was about to do so. The ball never got to the back and that goes down as another turnover for Brady.

The Bengals turned that into a touchdown too on a drive from 39 yards out with Ja’Marr Chase getting in on the action. Burrow even got away with a dropped interception or two this half. Everything was clicking for our young LOAT.

But Brady could come back, right? Cue the DPI throw to Mike Evans, and this was still a ballgame at 27-17. But nope. Under pressure, Brady’s pass fluttered from the contact and the Bengals came up with a diving interception and great defensive effort for the fourth straight turnover. That one only led to a quick three-and-out, but it changed field position, and Tampa responded with a three-and-out back. Perhaps a curious decision to punt on fourth-and-1 from your own 11 with 9:26 left after the game this team was having.

This time, Burrow put together a more legitimate drive on a longer field (62 yards) and he put away the Bucs with his fourth touchdown pass to a fourth different receiver. He even drew the Bucs offsides on a fourth down during the drive.

Brady added a 75-yard touchdown drive in garbage time to get the Bucs to 23 points for just the second time in 2022, but the Bengals recovered the onside kick to end it at 34-23.

I should be enjoying this Tampa Bay season a lot more than I am, and I know I would had the Rams and Saints not blown those two games against them. This team should be 4-10 right now, last place in the worst division. But ever since Week 1, I felt it was inevitable they were going to win the division and get rewarded with a home playoff game. Even as they continue to lose, I still think the odds of them beating Dallas in the wild card round in Tampa are incredibly high.

But this was still stunning because they went from looking the most competent they have all season to just a pure disaster all around.

Are the Bucs the first team in NFL history to give up at least a 34-0 scoring run in back-to-back weeks? They were down 35-0 to the 49ers last week. The quick answer is no. The 1961 Raiders were shut out 55-0 and 44-0 to start their season 0-2 if you can believe that. The 1978 Colts also did really bad with 38-0 and 42-0 losses to begin their season.

But for Brady, eight days ago he had only experienced a team scoring more than 31 straight points on him once (2020 Saints led 38-0 and won 38-3). Now it’s happened the last two games.

I just hope this doesn’t somehow end up as the Super Bowl matchup, because there is no way the Bengals are repeating this.

Chiefs at Texans: Just Needed the Rosencopter

The comparison of Peyton Manning to Patrick Mahomes wouldn’t be complete without a hard-fought win in Houston against the Texans when you least expect it. But the Chiefs are now 4-9-1 ATS, second-worst record in the league, after failing to cover a 14.5-point spread that was, frankly, ridiculous for a road team. Not to mention what happened with these teams a week ago.

This would have been a brutal loss for the Chiefs as they had nearly 300 more yards (502-219) than the Texans. But once again it was the turnovers that kept it close, and it was a turnover that made sure the Chiefs would still win.

This week it was not one but two obligatory fumbles by the Chiefs, including one from Isiah Pacheco and one from JuJu Smith-Schuster. JuJu’s led to the Texans taking a 21-16 lead into the fourth quarter.

But Patrick Mahomes used his legs again on a 5-yard scramble for a touchdown run. He completed the two-point conversion pass and the Chiefs led 24-21. But like I said in Week 11 after the Chargers game, we got to see what is becoming the signature Mahomes comeback. He leads them from behind with a go-ahead touchdown, the defense gives it up, then he still gets the win with a touchdown anyway.

But this one had no business going to overtime like that. After the Texans used a long drive to kick a game-tying field goal, Mahomes had the Chiefs right back in scoring range thanks to a 14-yard scramble on another third down. But instead of trying to get a little closer for a kicker who had missed another extra point, Andy Reid seemed content with staying conservative and settling for a long field goal. A designed run by Mahomes for 2 yards and a RB screen that lost a yard prove that.

Butker has been solid from long range, but from 51 yards out with 12 seconds left, he was wide right and the Chiefs were going to overtime. The Chiefs won another coin toss, but Mahomes made one of his few mistakes in the game by taking a sack on third down that knocked the offense out of field goal range.

But Davis Mills immediately returned the favor on a scramble when Frank Clark knocked the ball out and the Chiefs recovered. All that was missing was Mills spinning through the air a la the Rosencopter.

Unable to trust Butker, the Chiefs couldn’t just take a knee from the 26. With Pacheco fumbling earlier, the Chiefs turned to Jerick McKinnon, who has been money for them as of late. He immediately ripped off a 26-yard touchdown run against a run defense I crap on every single week in previews, prop picks, and recaps. That was the right call for sure, and while Mahomes gets a cheap game-winning TD drive, he should have had the game won on a field goal in regulation. Mahomes had the highest QBR (92.3) in Week 15.

Still, it turns out to be the fifth time that Mahomes has led a fourth-quarter comeback win with two go-ahead touchdown drives. That’s already more than the total Aaron Rodgers (two), Peyton Manning (one), and Tom Brady (one) have in their careers combined.

Mahomes finished 36-of-41 passing, setting an NFL record for highest completion percentage (87.8%) in a game with at least 40 pass attempts. He hit his last 20 passes, starting with a great touchdown grab by Marquez Valdes-Scantling to end the first half. He also had the two-point conversion pass in there, so it’s arguably 21 in a row.

Mahomes didn’t hit anything deep in this game as the Chiefs dinked and dunked and picked the Texans apart in the 0-15 yard range. They used short passes as an extension of the run game against the worst run defense, so it was a smart plan. Mahomes’ success rate was 30/49 (61.2%), which is very high for a game. If they can ever figure out how to hang onto the ball better, they wouldn’t need overtime and late-game heroics to beat teams like this.

Titans at Chargers: Herbert Gets Help

Justin Herbert is back to .500 (23-23) in his career after getting more help than usual in a 17-14 win over the Titans. Sure, he still had to throw for over 300 yards, including an absolute dime for 35 yards to Mike Williams on the game-winning drive, but he got some decent contributions from his running game and defense in this one.

Herbert was able to win his first game when throwing multiple interceptions. He was previously 0-6 when that happened. Hell, before Sunday, Herbert was 6-20 when throwing an interception.

The Titans had a team record four straight games without a takeaway before playing some volleyball in the end zone before halftime to end that streak with a Herbert pick. Incredible play. It was that kind of stuff that kept this a 7-7 game for so long. It didn’t help that Ryan Tannehill and Austin Ekeler were knocked out early, but both returned to finish the game. Ekeler showed his strength on a touchdown run and finished with 12 carries for 58 yards. That may not sound like much, but when you can get Herbert 22 carries for 82 yards from the running back position, that’s better than a lot of Chargers games.

After Ekeler’s touchdown gave the Chargers a 14-7 lead in the fourth quarter, both offenses struggled. Eventually, the Titans got the ball back with 2:57 left. Derrick Henry was able to get over 100 yards rushing, and the Titans needed it with Tannehill looking limited on his ankle injury. The drive was starting to flounder before back-to-back throws by Tannehill picked up 45 yards. The Chargers were wise to use timeouts after each red-zone snap, because Mike Vrabel is definitely a coach who will wind the clock down and go for two to win after the touchdown.

Tannehill snuck in the touchdown himself with 48 seconds left. The extra point was the right decision. Overtime and a possible tie would still be advantageous to the Titans in their division race with Jacksonville.

But even without a timeout and 44 seconds left at his own 23, Herbert is good enough to get the job done. He picked up 22 yards in 12 seconds with receivers getting out of bounds, hit the great throw to Williams for 35, then got the spike down. A delay of game penalty wasn’t great, but it wouldn’t be a Chargers game without some drama.

Dicker the Kicker was true from 43 yards with 4 seconds left. The Titans were stopped on the kick return to end the game at 17-4. Tennessee (7-7) has lost four in a row while the Chargers (8-6) are up to the No. 6 seed thanks to the head-to-head win over Miami last week and the losses by the Patriots and Jets.

We are getting closer to Herbert in the postseason after he’s led five game-winning drives in consecutive seasons. Herbert’s 13 game-winning drives are tied with Matt Ryan for the third most in a quarterback’s first three seasons. Only Russell Wilson (15) and Dak Prescott (15) had more.

Lions at Jets: Greg Not Enough Leg Helps Detroit Continue Playoff Push

Bit of an unexpected passing duel outdoors in December between Jared Goff (252 yards) and Zach Wilson (317 yards on 18 completions) with only one turnover in the game.

But most of the game was about defense. You figure the Lions would be at a disadvantage with the No. 31 defense in points and No. 32 in yards while the Jets have been one of the best, but it took one play to swing things. After the Jets took a 17-13 lead, the Lions faced a fourth-and-1 at midfield at the two-minute warning. The Lions rolled the dice with a pass, and backup tight end Brock Wright leaked out uncovered and caught an easy one that he was able to turn into a 51-yard touchdown. It was Detroit’s only 20-yard offensive play in the game.

Only needing a field goal, Wilson took some annoying sacks, but he also did a good job with some miraculous throws and catches by rookie Garrett Wilson. An even greater fourth-and-18 conversion went for 20 yards to Elijah Moore, and the Jets were able to use their final timeout with a second left after that play.

Overtime or a Detroit win would come down to the leg of Greg Zuerlein on a 58-yard field goal. The kick wasn’t even close, and the Lions escaped with the 20-17 win. Both teams are .500 now with 7-7 records. Huge win for Detroit with a more than doable remaining schedule of Panthers, Bears, and Packers.

Ravens at Browns: Not Baltimore’s Day

Hard to believe this was the only game in Week 15 where one team led by 10+ points for the entire 15 minutes of the fourth quarter. It was a lousy kicking day with both kickers missing twice, though Justin Tucker being one of those kickers is the shocking part. He had a 50-yard field goal blocked in the first minute of the fourth quarter to keep it a 13-3 game.

Beyond the uncharacteristic, awful kicking day, the Ravens just didn’t seem to recognize the situation. Cleveland’s offense sucks with Deshaun Watson, who has managed two touchdown drives in three games, and you were playing this game without Lamar Jackson again. Take easy points when they come, so that means not going for it on fourth-and-1 at the Cleveland 7 on your long opening drive by giving the ball to the fullback Patrick Ricard, who was stuffed.

There went three points. Tucker missed a 48-yard field goal before halftime despite making from 53 earlier, so that’s six points. To start the third quarter, Huntley forced an awful pass on third down in the red zone that would have been short of the sticks even if it was caught, and that was intercepted. There’s nine points. The Tucker blocked field goal could have been 12. DeMarcus Robinson also lost a fumble near midfield on a completion in the third quarter.

Just a poor game all around by the passing game and kicking unit. Defense and run game (nearly 200 yards again) were just fine.

It’s the first of Huntley’s eight major appearances that wasn’t decided by 1-to-3 points. The Ravens (9-5) are now in second place in the AFC North and things may very well stay that way the rest of the season.

Falcons at Saints: Bad Start to the Ridder Era

Atlanta rookie quarterback Desmond Ridder made his first start, getting a quick taste of the Saints rivalry. It did not go well. Ridder finished 13-of-26 for 97 yards, took four sacks, and ran six times for 38 yards. The Falcons gave him nearly 200 yards of rushing support to help keep the game close, but he definitely showed some inaccuracy and a lack of experience as you would expect from a third-round rookie in his first start.

Ridder joins a weird list of five other quarterbacks to throw for fewer than 100 yards on more than 25 pass attempts in their first NFL start since 1950:

  • Don Meredith (1960 Cowboys; turned out to be a good player for Dallas)
  • Will Cureton (1975 Browns; only game in his career)
  • Heath Shuler (1994 Redskins; first-round bust for Washington)
  • Jonathan Quinn (1998 Jaguars; forgettable career backup who was a third-round pick in 1998)
  • Doug Pederson (1999 Eagles; much better career as head coach)

We’ll see where Ridder ends up. Rookie wide receiver Drake London had 70 of Ridder’s 97 passing yards, but he also had the big blunder of the game that prevented Ridder from becoming a legend in his first start against the hated Saints. Down 21-18, Ridder looked to convert a fourth-and-5 to London at midfield, but he was stripped of the ball and the Saints recovered with 2:06 left.

The Saints kind of botched the clock situation from there, so Ridder got the ball back with 9 seconds left. After a short completion, he took off for an 18-yard run and dipped out of bounds even though the clock had already expired.

Take note, New England. That’s the moment where you are supposed to throw a lateral back into the field of play.

Ridder will learn. Maybe.


Steelers at Panthers: Pittsburgh Sweeps NFC South

I should have known better with that shit division. The Steelers completed their 4-0 sweep of the NFC South with a 24-16 win in Carolina that wasn’t even that close. The Steelers converted 12-of-16 third downs, used the first 11:43 of the third quarter to go on a 21-play, 91-yard touchdown drive, and completely shut down Carolina’s running game (16 carries for 21 yards).

Earlier this week, I researched what happens the next game after Mike Tomlin’s run defense gives up 180 yards like it did last week against Baltimore, and they still usually allow an average of 107 yards the next game. There’s rarely a huge improvement. But this was a complete shutdown of D’Onta Foreman and Chuba Hubbard.

The Steelers would be right in that 8-6 or 9-5 wild card mix if they played this complete of a game a few more times this year against those weaker opponents like the Jets, Patriots, Browns, and even the Dolphins.

Surprisingly, the AFC is only 34-34 vs. NFC this season. However, the NFC South is 3-15 against AFC teams. Of course.

Cardinals at Broncos: Playing Out the String

Week 15 is a little early for a game to be irrelevant, but this matchup had it in spades with the 4-9 Cardinals against the 3-10 Broncos with backup quarterbacks for both sides. Even Colt McCoy didn’t finish the game for the Cardinals due to a concussion. Backup Trace McSorley had to replace him, and McSorley was intercepted in the fourth quarter while trailing 17-9, giving safety Justin Simmons a pick off each Arizona quarterback.

That led to a 5-yard touchdown drive, which all but put the game away at 24-9 in case you were wondering how Denver managed 24 points. Keep in mind the Cardinals entered the week allowing the most points in the league this season, so giving up 24 to Brett Rypien and the Broncos is on brand.

Both teams are 4-10 now and their recaps will only get shorter from here on out. Happy holidays.

Next Week

  • Jags-Jets is the NFL’s classic “if you want to get some late Christmas shopping done Thursday night, go for it” matchup. But this year it’s better than usual with both teams in the playoff hunt and must-win mode.
  • Saturday’s early slate is a bit meh when NYG-MIN is the highlight, but we’ll see how the Vikings follow that 33-point comeback.
  • The Game of the Year in the NFC is probably going to be a 49ers-Eagles NFC Championship Game that we deserve, but I guess Eagles at Cowboys in the 4:25 slot will have to suffice for the regular season. Dallas’ loss in Jacksonville takes some more luster off this one.
  • Watching Derek Carr against the Steelers or a Christmas movie at night? Tough call.
  • Boy, the NFL got hosed on Christmas day. Hard to blame them for thinking GB-MIA, DEN-LAR, and TB-ARI would be hits, but they ended up scheduling five of the most disappointing teams in the league this year.
  • Chargers-Colts should be up for some shenanigans on Monday night.