Tag: Eagles

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 12

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

We knew Week 12 didn’t look good on paper. But sometimes those games produce some of the best endings, and that happened in the NFL’s early Sunday afternoon slate with arguably the best witching hour of the season. The Bears, Commanders, and Panthers were all in the process of pulling off insane comebacks to tie the Vikings, Cowboys, and Chiefs, and somehow, they all still lost.

In fact, Sunday’s only fourth-quarter lead change was in the wild Texans-Titans game with the mayo-loving Will Levis, and that’s not a reference to his ejaculation video.

https://twitter.com/ScottKacsmar/status/1860940283791217014

We had our first double-digit favorite lose a game outright in 2024 with Washington (-10.5) falling in epic fashion to the Cooper Rush-led Cowboys. With Washington and Houston (-7.5) both losing Sunday, that makes 19 games this season where a team favored by at least 6 points lost. There were 23 games all last season, playoffs included, with 10 such upsets coming after Thanksgiving, so we should see that number exceeded this year. This ties 2020 (19) and is already more than 2022 (16), but it happened 31 times in 2021, so maybe it won’t be a record-setting season for upsets in that regard.

Still got the big one to come Monday night (Chargers-Ravens), and given we’re about to go two weeks without a team winning after trailing by double digits, that’d be a perfect game to end the drought. The question is which team do you trust more to blow the lead? The Chargers have history, but maybe things are different under this Harbaugh, and the Ravens have blown plenty of multi-score leads since 2022.

Looking forward to it, but so far, only 6-of-12 games have had a comeback opportunity this week.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Chiefs at Panthers: What Kind of Kansas City Team Are You?

Every Kansas City season in the Patrick Mahomes era has been a unique team that brought a different approach from the previous year. The offense was never more explosive than in 2018, and the defense was never stingier than it was in 2023. But the hope that the 2024 team would be the first truly balanced, elite Chiefs team on both sides of the ball looks to be a pipe dream at this point.

The offense keeps trending up, and the defense has just played its two worst games of the last two seasons in the last two weeks in Buffalo and Carolina. But it’s one thing to struggle with Josh Allen in your eighth matchup with him since 2020. Having to scrape out a 30-27 win against Bryce Young in another low-possession game where each team had eight drives is just painful and worrisome.

The good news is the Chiefs are 10-1 and have the best finisher in the league in Mahomes, who had no problem leading his fifth game-winning drive of 2024 (career high) with his legs again providing the pivotal play with a 33-yard scramble. He finished with 269 passing yards, 3 touchdowns, and 60 rushing yards as the offense looked as good as it has all year against a truly bad opponent.

The bad news is the Chiefs look like a team that is becoming fully dependent on its quarterback and skill players to lead the way to victory, and that style doesn’t win championships in the NFL.

You can’t trust the offensive line anymore. Never mind their gross share of the 10 penalties for 91 yards the Chiefs had, they also let one of the worst pass rushes in the league sack Mahomes 5 times, something he’s only had happen one other time in his career. His passing was sharp from start to finish, but those sacks prevented the Chiefs from ever leading by more than 14 points.

Then there’s the defense, which made Bryce Young look like a blossoming star with big throws down the field as he threw for 263 yards in the best game of his career. They only sacked him twice, and he was able to deliver a game-tying touchdown drive with 1:46 left. I think you have to be optimistic about Young for maybe the first time ever if you’re Carolina after this game.

Having said that, I do think the penalty on the Chiefs for the hard hit on the 2-point conversion was a bullshit call. He hit him too hard to knock the ball out. Why should that be a penalty? He didn’t lead with the head on it. Terrible call, which allowed the Panthers to run it in from the 1-yard line with Chuba Hubbard to tie the game at 27.

But that’s another game where the defense flat out choked with a chance to end the game or at least get the offense the ball back. It happened in Buffalo last week on the 4th-and-2 touchdown run, it happened in the last 6:00 against Denver where the 35-yard field goal would have lost the game for Kansas City, and it happened against Tampa Bay when they let Baker Mayfield tie the game late instead of shutting the door.

That’s a month of this defense not closing in crunch time, and now they’re allowing a lot of points and yards too. It’s not a good sign going forward. We can talk about injuries, but it’s not like the offense hasn’t had its share of those this season. They’re still improving with Noah Gray having another 2-touchdown game after having one in Buffalo too. Even Xavier Worthy didn’t do anything screwy this week as the Chiefs also had no turnovers in this game.

I think you can see after the 31-yard game-winning field goal by the new kicker that the Chiefs weren’t that thrilled about winning this game this way. Maybe that will become the identity of the 2024 Chiefs. Whether they’re playing the Bills or Panthers, you can count on the margin for error to be tiny, and they’re playing with fire on a weekly basis.

They may need to get burned a few more times before January to get it out of their system. But it looks like we can put the “elite defense” to rest in Kansas City. They had a good run since 2023, but it ended this month.

Cowboys at Commanders: Under Bettors in Absolute Shambles

What the hell was that? Cowboys-Commanders is the first game in NFL history where neither team scored more than 3 points by halftime and still ended with 60 combined points. The previous record was a 1979 game (Saints at Buccaneers) where a scoreless first half led to a 42-14 win for the Saints.

Needless scoring is a good way to describe a lot of this game, which was a defensive slugfest/offensive shitfest for over three quarters. I guess we can’t take a Kliff Kingsbury-coached offense seriously once November strikes and the tape roll gets that long, because I thought for sure the Commanders would look fresh and rejuvenated after their layoff following the loss to the Eagles. Also, Cowboys’ defense is another reason.

But this was an ugly game as it took Jayden Daniels taking off for a 17-yard touchdown run to get a touchdown on the board in the third quarter. But the Commanders missed an extra point, and while that particular point didn’t come back to haunt them since they converted a 2-point try later, it should have been a sign of things to come, and arguably a decision maker for coach Dan Quinn and Kingsbury.

The defense didn’t do the best job of stopping Cooper Rush from using CeeDee Lamb on short throws and putting together scores to take a 13-9 lead with 8:11 left. After the Commanders fumbled a completion, it was 20-9 on a short field touchdown with 5:08 left. That finally motivated Daniels to play with a no-huddle tempo and desperation, and he threw a touchdown to Zach Ertz with a 2-point conversion to make it 20-17 with 3:02 left.

But that’s when the game really took a turn as Turpin nearly lost the ball on the kickoff before regathering himself for a 99-yard return touchdown. Down 27-17 with 2:49 left, it looked like Daniels would do something miraculous after his kicker came through with a 51-yard field goal, the defense forced a three-and-out thanks to a timely sack, and he got his chance in a 27-20 game 33 seconds left.

He was 86 yards away from the end zone, but this isn’t unlike his Hail Mary drive against Chicago. The difference is this time he threw a good pass to Terry McLaurin that should have been a gain out to midfield, but McLaurin had the angle, the speed, and he kept it going all the way to the end zone for the touchdown with 21 seconds left. What a miracle score.

But now you have to ask should they go for 2? The Cowboys have a kicker (Brandon Aubrey) with huge range and they had one timeout left, but 21 seconds is pretty solid time to defend any drive there. I think there’s an argument they should have just gone for it, but they took the extra point for granted with a shaky kicker, and sure as shit, he failed them by missing it wide left.

I guess we can scratch off Daniels from the future LOAT list too. But then a short reprieve when the Cowboys got silly on the onside kick and returned it for a 43-yard touchdown instead of going down to end the game.

Why do you go down? To avoid what happened as Daniels completed a 6-yard pass to Ertz, then set himself up for a 2nd Hail Mary attempt this season. But this one was farther away from the end zone with 58 yards from the line of scrimmage, and Daniels didn’t step into it with quite as much room and power as he had against the Bears. The pass was shorter this time and it was ultimately intercepted to finally end this silly game at 34-26.

Pretty excruciating way to lose a historic game, but the Commanders are going to have to start games better, and I’m not sure what the fix is with the running game. Brian Robinson Jr. left early with an injury and Daniels ended up leading the team with 74 rushing yards. They need to find him a bit more help there.

Titans at Texans: Houston Really Does Have a Problem

How flawed is Houston right now? I’m using a clean f-word too for that sentence. Will Anderson Jr. was back in action and helped a pass rush to 8 sacks of Will Levis, who also threw a pick-six to fall behind late in the third quarter. The Titans even muffed a punt in the fourth quarter to gift the Texans 3 more points, Nico Collins had 95 yards and a touchdown, and the Texans still lost this game 32-27 at home.

I wish I could say this division game made no god damn sense, but the fact is it did. Painfully (Houston was my preseason pick to challenge Kansas City’s three-peat), it made sense.

Houston is the first team to blow 4 fourth-quarter leads this season. They have created a very unique defense where the pass rush is great at turning pressures into sacks, and sometimes they force a lot of incompletions too. Though, I’m starting to think playing Anthony Richardson twice and one major off-day from Josh Allen (9-for-30) heavily contributed to those completion rate numbers.

But if your quarterback can survive the pass rush of Houston, that secondary can’t hold up against wide receivers to save their lives. That’s how Will Levis was able to complete 18-of-24 passes for 278 yards and 2 touchdowns. Sure, he took 8 sacks and threw a pick-six to Jimmie Ward, but he still hung in there and made enough big plays, including a 70-yard touchdown pass that put the Titans ahead in the fourth quarter, 30-27.

Next, we have to believe that Tennessee may be a legitimately good defense that is hard to move the ball against as they were very stingy with yards this year. But their scoring numbers aren’t so hot because of the bad field position they’ve been done in by with turnovers (Levis!) and the special teams. That Detroit game especially killed their stats.

But in this game, they held Joe Mixon to 22 yards on 14 carries. Totally shut him down, and the Texans have been running it so well this year. That put more pressure on C.J. Stroud, and my preseason MVP pick has regressed in his sophomore season. He took 4 sacks, threw a couple of picks, and struggled with this defense.

However, he didn’t screw up on the crucial drive of a 30-27 game. In fact, Collins should have had another touchdown to take the lead, but much like Monday night against Dallas, it was called back for an illegal shift. Then a holding penalty killed the drive, but kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn should have been able to tie the game with a 28-yard field goal with 1:56 left, right?

Wrong. He was wide left, much like how he missed a 27-yard field goal against the Jets when the Texans trailed 14-10 on Halloween. It’s one thing for Fairbairn to miss a 58-yard field goal against Detroit, but this was a 27-yard field goal and it wasn’t blocked. Make the damn kick. I’m not going to act like Fairbairn has always been a choker, and he did make a 54-yard field goal in this quarter, but I do have articles dating back to his 2017 season where I said he was unproven and not reliable.

The only good news is the Titans had a bad drive after the missed kick, so Stroud got it back with 1:29 and one timeout left. The bad news is he was at his own 8, but it was still doable. However, he took a sack back to the 1-yard line, then it was a safety after Harold Landry sacked him in the end zone on 3rd-and-17 as he tried to make a play. That made it 32-27 and effectively game over after the onside free kick wasn’t recovered by Houston.

Just a brutal loss for Houston, which had a shot to start stacking wins. This is already the third time in Stroud’s career that his kicker missed a clutch field goal in a loss, and again, that’s not counting the 27-yard miss in the Jets game since they were down 14-10 at the time. Just not in his future to beat the LOAT, I guess.

But he needs to pick up his play. So does this defense under DeMeco Ryans, because they are frighteningly easy to hit big plays against. It’s been a problem all season.

One of many problems in Houston right now. They’re just lucky they play in the AFC South, but we’ve seen bigger collapses before from this division.

49ers at Packers: Brock Purdy Probably Worth a Few More Points Than Credited For

You can do a pretty good job finding the dud of the week in the NFC by finding which game Tom Brady is calling for FOX. The NFL clearly had high hopes for this one as the centerpiece of the late-afternoon slate, but the injuries for the 49ers are just not complying as they played this game without their top quarterback (Brock Purdy), edge rusher (Nick Bosa), and offensive lineman (Trent Williams). That’s to say nothing of not having their best wideout (Brandon Aiyuk) and defensive tackle (Javon Hargrave; out since Week 3) either.

It’s just looking like 2020 all over again for the 49ers where injuries destroy them. They had some chances to make this a game, and it certainly wasn’t all backup Brandon Allen’s fault, but it’s not like they lost 38-10 because of some huge quarterback disparity. Jordan Love only threw for 163 yards in this game. Yes, Christian Watson dropped a wide-open touchdown again, but even with that, the 49ers were missing tackles left and right on Josh Jacobs, who had 106 yards and 3 touchdowns on the ground.

Meanwhile, Christian McCaffrey is allergic to the end zone this year and he finished with just 31 yards on 11 carries. What ever happened to building the offense around the run and CMC? Oh, right. I guess they’ll blame that on not having Williams.

It was just a really poor performance on both sides of the ball for the 49ers, and if they can’t get those three key players back for Buffalo next week, don’t be surprised if the scoreboard looks like déjà vu on Sunday Night Football.

Cardinals at Seahawks: Mike Macdonald’s Defense Is Good Again?

I liked a low-scoring game, but Christ, 16-6? We’re back to late September when the Seahawks were 3-0, first place in the NFC West, and the question was is Mike Macdonald a legitimate Coach of the Year if he’s fixed this defense into playoff form, or has it just been the offensive schedule? Well, the losses started piling up against better opponents (Giants withstanding), and we were turned off by this defense, which suffered some injuries.

But after holding down the 49ers in San Francisco last week and owning the Cardinals, who had a bye, to just 6 points in this pivotal game, you have to say the defense is shaping into form again.

But the defining feature of these NFC West games have been blowing double-digit leads in the fourth quarter, and I swear it was going to happen again when Geno Smith threw an abysmal interception with a chance to add to his 13-3 lead to start the fourth. Keep in mind it was a third down too, so it’s not like he had to force it with a short field goal in his back pocket.

The Seahawks were only up 13-3 because of a horrific pick-six thrown by Kyler Murray on a fourth down in the third quarter. Again, just a lot of bad picks in the late-afternoon slate Sunday.

In a 13-6 game, it looked like another inaccurate throw by Geno was going to immediately lead to another pick and good field position, but it thankfully hit the ground. He shook that off by delivering his best drive of the game where he converted twice on third down. It led to a 50-yard field goal to make it 16-6 with just 1:56 left as the drive consumed 8:12. The rest of the NFC West – here’s looking at you, McVay and Shanahan – could learn from a drive like that by a team with a one-score lead.

That put the Cardinals into scramble mode, but the best they could do was a 47-yard field goal attempt with 15 seconds left. It was missed, so that was the game at 16-6.

It’s still a hard division to figure out as it may simply not have a good team this year, and the winner is just going to struggle at home in a wild card game against an NFC North runner-up like Green Bay or Minnesota.

But for now, Seattle is back on top and it was the defense that led the way this day.

Vikings at Bears: The Unexpected Passing Duel and One of the Best Failed Rally Attempts in History

I think it’s the rare game where both teams should feel pretty good about how they did with it ending 30-27 in overtime. It’s only the third game this season where both starting quarterbacks passed for over 300 yards.

Sam Darnold showed he can get through a road game without turning the ball over once, and still leading the team to 30 points despite Justin Jefferson having 2 catches for 27 yards. It was a huge day for Jordan Addison (162 yards) and T.J. Hockenson (114 yards).

Caleb Williams showed a lot of the playmaking ability that led to him being the No. 1 pick in the draft. The ball bounced his way a few times late, but he still made the plays to get two quick scoring drives to force overtime, and kicker Cairo Santos redeemed himself for last week’s block with a 48-yard field goal to go to overtime.

That late-game scenario was wild. I wanted to tweet about it but I was enjoying an early dinner during these frantic moments with the 1:00 PM games ending. I was going to say you could definitely argue the Vikings should go for a 4th-and-1 at the Chicago 7 at the 2:00 warning in a 24-16 game. If you get it, the game is over as Chicago was out of timeouts, and it was just 1 yard. If you don’t get it, you’re still up 8, ultimate cushion, and you have a long field to defend. Pretty envious situation.

But I was also going to add that if you can’t make a 26-yard field goal and defend an 11-point lead in 1:56, then maybe you don’t deserve to win. Well, I was wrong on that part, because the Vikings did botch the situation and still won the game.

They made the field goal to make it 27-16, but a long kick return put Williams at the Minnesota 40, a huge boost. They took their time to get the touchdown, but I like that more than the teams rushing out the field goal unit as we’ve seen too many times this year. I’d rather go for the touchdown, recover the onside kick, then complete one big pass to set up a FG, and that’s exactly what Chicago pulled off here.

Keenan Allen caught the 1-yard touchdown, D.J. Moore caught the 2-point conversion, and the Bears managed the hardest part of recovering an onside kick with 21 seconds left. One completion to Moore for 27 yards, a spike, and there was Sanots tying the game up from 48 yards.

That’s 11 points manufactured in the last 1:56, an incredible feat that I believe only two other teams have pulled off in a win since 2001, including the Bears in a game against Cleveland in 2001. The other such win was Joe Flacco leading the Jets back against Cleveland in 2022.

https://twitter.com/ScottKacsmar/status/1726691828404195828

But as much as I want to say head coach Matt Eberflus did something incredibly stupid in overtime to lose another close game, this one was really on the rookie quarterback living (and in this case) dying by the sword. On the second play of overtime after taking the ball first, Williams scrambled for an eternity before taking an avoidable sack that lost 12 yards. Throw in a delay of game after that shock and it was 3rd-and-26, leading to a three-and-out. He has to be better than that, but at the same time, I get it. He was trying to make a play as he did several times in the game. But he really screwed that drive up.

While Darnold immediately took a sack on the other end to start his drive in a second-and-17 hole, he got the offense out of it with Hockenson and Addison gaining 20 yards on two completions. Jefferson made a 20-yard catch to avoid arguably the least effective game of his career, and then Hockenson delivered the kill shot with a 29-yard catch to the 9. Romo made the 29-yard field goal to win 30-27, and these days, you can’t take any kick for granted, so good on him for not Blair Walshing things.

Maybe it’s not the kind of win that will endear the Vikings (9-2) to skeptics, but I think it was a good, gut-check win on the road. The kind of game you hope that J.J McCarthy can handle in the future, because Williams is going to give the Vikings some problems and scares if this game is any sign of the future. He just has to work on getting better at knowing how to get rid of the ball and when to take his chances. But he’s a rookie and he should improve on that.

Eagles at Rams: Trench Warfare

These are two recent Super Bowl teams in the NFC who got there in large part because of the talent they built in the trenches on both sides of the ball. But the Eagles have restocked well in that regard while the Rams are still lacking on both sides, especially for protecting Matthew Stafford and replacing a legend like Aaron Donald on defense.

It was never more evident than on Sunday night when Stafford had little time to hold the ball and had to deliver in a hurry to Kupp and Nacua, who made plays but not nearly enough to keep up with the Eagles. Even without DeVonta Smith, the Eagles still have plenty of speed and weaponry to drop 37 points, and that starts with huge lanes through blocking for Saquon Barkley to speed through.

The first half was competitive with the Eagles only leading 13-7, but Barkley changed that in a hurry with a 70-yard touchdown run on the first play from scrimmage in the third quarter. He added a 72-yard run with 2:44 left when the game was already in hand at 30-14, but that helped push him to 255 rushing yards to go along with 47 receiving yards for a grand total of 302 scrimmage yards.

That will put him in the MVP conversation for sure, and it looks like his odds have already shot up from +6500 at FanDuel as of Friday to +650 now. Can have that conversation about whether he deserves it another time. The Eagles-Ravens game next week should be huge for awards this season.

Lions at Colts: Workman Like Win for the Lions

The Lions aren’t going to wow you with the numbers this week, but they got the job done in a 24-6 road win in Indy. Hard to argue with holding the ball for 37 minutes, going 9-of-15 on third down, no turnovers, and holding Anthony Richardson to 11-of-28 passing. Well, maybe he held himself to those numbers again as consistent offense has been an issue all season, but the Colts never strung together enough plays to put any of their nine drives in the end zone.

Punting four straight times out of the half had to sting, because despite the decent numbers I just posted for Detroit, you have to accept that as a solid day by your defense against an offense this potent. They did sack Jared Goff three times, they didn’t give up a run longer than 17 yards or a pass longer than 27 yards. You have to manage more than two field goals at home. Simple as that.

Patriots at Dolphins: Tua’s Whipping Boys

It still bugs me that Tua Tagovailoa is the quarterback who gets to start his career 7-0 against the Patriots, because he would have struggled like hell to do this against New England in their heyday. But he had a huge game here with over 300 yards and 4 touchdown passes as Jerod Mayo’s defense just can’t cover receivers well this year.

It was 31-0 before the Patriots finally scored a touchdown on a 4th-and-15 miracle from Drake Maye. Throw in a defensive touchdown after a backup running back fumbled, and it was only mildly interesting as a 31-15 game with 10:10 left. But Maye was intercepted the next time he had the ball, leading to a 34-15 final.

The Dolphins (5-6) are playing better than a lot of teams right now, but we’ll see if they can steal one in Green Bay this Thursday night to maybe give themselves a legitimate shot at running the table and getting in the tournament. That has to be their toughest test yet with the way the 49ers and Texans have fallen off.

Broncos at Raiders: The Sweep Is Complete

The Broncos went from an 8-game losing streak to the Raiders in the 2020s to a sweep this season after taking care of business on the road in a 29-19 win to improve to 7-5. The turning point was a horrible interception by Gardner Minshew in the third quarter while the Raiders led 13-9. That set up an 18-yard field for Bo Nix to exploit, and the Broncos never trailed the rest of the way.

Minshew broke his collarbone, a season-ending injury, and he was replaced by Desmond Ridder, who coughed up the ball deep in his own end with 2:21 left, setting up the Broncos for another short-field score on a field goal to make it 29-19. They even saved the cover (Broncos -5.5) by sacking Ridder from the 1-yard line on the final snap.

I’d say I don’t understand why the Raiders didn’t immediately call their last timeout and kick a short field goal on a 4th-and-1 before trying the onside kick, but this is Antonio Pierce’s team. Why would you expect competency?

Buccaneers at Giants: Can We Send the Giants and Jets to the UFL?

MetLife Stadium is where competitive, interesting football goes to die. I’m over the Jets and Giants – their existence, I mean. Daniel Jones is gone, and in the first game without him, the Giants fell behind 30-0 and were embarrassed by Baker Mayfield and company.

Tommy DeVito played worse than he did as a rookie, but at this point, why even try to win a game? Just tank, get a top pick, and fire the head coach while you’re at it. Nothing about this is working. Might as well find the next coach and quarterback who might be able to get a single target to Malik Nabers before halftime.

Next week: It’s Thanksgiving and the Dolphins-Packers game looks a lot better than it did a month ago, but you should know I’m backing the home team with a winning record, Mike McDaniel’s kryptonite. The Chiefs haven’t lost a home game since Christmas against the Raiders, so they better be ready for Desmond Ridder, Daniel Jones, or whatever the hell the Raiders start at quarterback on Black Friday. As for Sunday, got some interesting ones with Chargers-Falcons, Steelers-Bengals, and Eagles-Ravens at 4:25. The 49ers desperately need Brock Purdy to start SNF in Buffalo or that’s going to be a dud. Browns-Broncos is semi-interesting on MNF, concluding one long week of football.

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 8

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Bears at Commanders: Game of the Week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cowboys at 49ers: Almost Kyle Shanahan’s Masterpiece

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ravens at Browns: Jameis Eats a W

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jets at Patriots: Just End the Season

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chiefs at Raiders: All the Streaks Intact for KC

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

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

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

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

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

But as long as the wins keep coming…

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

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

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

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

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

Eagles at Bengals: The Close Game That Wasn’t

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Titans at Lions: The Worst Special Teams Game Ever?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Falcons at Buccaneers: Kirk Cousins’ Favorite Defense

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saints at Chargers: The Ladd McConkey Game

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

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

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

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

Panthers at Broncos: Run It Up

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

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

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

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

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

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 3

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

I don’t think I’m going to like this season very much. You know there are some shenanigans going on when the first 3-0 teams were the Steelers, Vikings, and Seahawks. None of those teams were favored to even make the playoffs this year.

The Chiefs got there too on Sunday night, but after winning their eighth one-score game during this 9-game winning streak, it doesn’t look like this will be anywhere close to the strongest Kansas City team yet. Might even be the complete opposite.

There are six teams who were in the playoffs last year, including both No. 1 seeds, that are sitting at 1-2: Dolphins, Ravens, Browns, Cowboys, Rams, and 49ers.

Big favorites continue to go down at alarming rates. On Sunday, the four teams who were favored by 6.5 points were 0-4 SU (Buccaneers, Browns, 49ers, and Raiders). There were 18 such losses all of last season and 14 in 2022. We’re already up to seven this season.

Things are just crazy right now, injuries are piling up for many teams, and it’s not like blown leads/comebacks are largely responsible for these results. There were only six games with a comeback opportunity in Week 3, and only two games had a fourth-quarter lead change.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

49ers at Rams: Game of the Week

I thought the Eagles had the worst blown lead in the fourth quarter by a team this season after what they did in each phase against the Falcons on Monday night. But the 49ers may have found a way to outdo it here.

First, Brock Purdy was fantastic in this game. He finished 22-of-30 for 292 yards and 3 touchdowns (all to Jauan Jennings), but that doesn’t account for 6 drops. Ronnie Bell should take a permanent seat on the bench with his Limas Sweed ass hands. Purdy even ran 10 times and looked as mobile as ever as he tried to get the job done for his offense in a game without Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, and Deebo Samuel. His only real mistake was a strip-sack before halftime, but that was right after Trent Williams momentarily left the game with an injury, and it didn’t lead to any points for the Rams.

The short-yardage running game hurt them in the fourth quarter when Jordan Mason couldn’t convert a 3rd-and-short, causing the 49ers to settle for a field goal and 24-14 lead. Later, a holding penalty ruined a drive, but Jake Moody could have made a 55-yard field goal with 2:43 to effectively ice it as a 10-point game, but he missed it. I thought he gained some confidence last year with some big kicks in the playoffs, but this was a big miss in a season where everyone seems to be crushing it from deep.

Then the defense had its letdowns with Matthew Stafford, who didn’t have Cooper Kupp or Puka Nacua, using Tutu Atwell for deep balls to quickly get in scoring range. A 50-yard pass to Atwell set up a Kyren Williams touchdown and it was 24-24 with 1:51 left.

Purdy again did his job on the next drive, but Bell had a horrible drop down the field that set up 3rd-and-10. The Rams forced a punt, and the special teams further contributed to the downfall with a 38-yard punt return by the Rams with 42 seconds left.

The 49ers somehow had three defensive penalties on one snap with the pass interference moving the ball halfway to the 25. You can basically run the clock down there, which the Rams did, and they kicked a 37-yard field goal with 0:02 seconds left to take a 27-24 lead. A shocking comeback and total failure by the 49ers in so many ways, and yet somehow still appropriate for what we’ve come to expect from a Kyle Shanahan team.

I must say the 49ers looked like they had something cooking on their lateral play to end things. Definitely one of the better attempts you’ll see at trying to go 70 yards in one play.

A loss would have buried the season for the Rams (1-2). This loss doesn’t bury the 49ers (1-2), but it could haunt them for seeding. Seattle getting off to a 3-0 start isn’t ideal either, but the teams will meet in Seattle on a Thursday night in Week 6 after the 49ers have some winnable home games with the Patriots and Cardinals.

But the 49ers absolutely wasted one of the best games Purdy will give them this year. The loss will cause others to ignore how well he did with all the injuries they had too. Just a rough day all around if you’re a 49ers fan.

Chiefs at Falcons: Old Hat

I think from 2018-22, the Kansas City Chiefs were the main attraction in the NFL. They played the most entertaining style of offense, and they were involved in the biggest and best games of this era. They were a spectacle to watch.

But the 2023-24 Chiefs? I can see why so many people have turned to hating them, and it’s not just sour grapes over losing big games to them. They’ve become annoying to watch in a Spygate-era Patriots way in that it seems like every game is close, they leave a lot of doubt on the field, and they seem like they still find a way to win these games.

It happened again Sunday night in Atlanta, and while the Chiefs (-3) still covered with the 22-17 win, it was the kind of game that will only fuel the doubters who want to see someone else win the Super Bowl this year.

For the third week in a row, Patrick Mahomes threw a braindead interception. This time it was in the end zone on a 17-play opening drive, so the over bettors were already pissed. The only explanation is Justin Simmons just has that Mahomes voodoo that Ty Law once had for Peyton Manning, because he did it to Mahomes again despite changing teams from Denver to Atlanta.

Fortunately, that was the only turnover the Chiefs had in this game as they couldn’t afford another. They even avoided the obligatory fumble for a change, and Mahomes did not take any sacks. I’m not sure what the snap counts were yet, but the Chiefs did start Wanya Morris at left tackle over rookie Kingsley Suamataia, who was benched in the fourth quarter last week.

However, Travis Kelce really is starting to look washed up as he had just 30 yards on 4 catches, and he hurt the team with a third-down drop in the fourth quarter when they tried to add to the small lead. Kelce is seeing more action in his commercials and new FX series than he does on the field these days.

You combine Kelce possibly falling off a cliff with the injuries to Hollywood Brown and running back Isiah Pacheco, and the Chiefs aren’t offering a whole lot on offense outside of Rashee Rice, who continues to look fantastic as the new No. 1 option. He had 12 catches for 110 yards and a touchdown, accounting for half of Mahomes’ 217 yards and the only gain longer than 17 yards for the offense on the night.

But the Chiefs keep trying to spread the wealth, get other people involved, and their short-yardage offense hasn’t been too impressive. For all the hype about their interior line, you’d think they would do a better job of just pounding it in there.

But the back-to-back three-and-out drives in the fourth quarter do look like an offense that just isn’t what it used to be. Kelce would have held onto that ball in the past. On a late 3rd-and-2, Mahomes looked like he had multiple options on crossing routes, but he chose Xavier Worthy, and the rookie just stopped running on the play to cause an ugly incompletion with 2:26 left. I don’t think JuJu would have done that two years ago, and I know Sammy Watkins wouldn’t have back in the day.

The offense kept giving Atlanta chances to answer with a touchdown the way Kirk Cousins delivered Monday night in Philadelphia. But despite getting three chances in the fourth quarter, Cousins couldn’t get the job done as the Falcons dealt with more pressure from Steve Spagnuolo’s defense, and some injured offensive linemen made it tougher as does Cousins’ lack of mobility. There was a 3rd-and-2 “scramble” in the game where any young, mobile quarterback would have picked it up, but that’s just not happening for Cousins at this stage of his career. But that play was a good example of why the stationary pocket passer is such a dying breed in the NFL.

The referees didn’t help Atlanta much either. Yep, the officials were back in the spotlight at the end of a Kansas City game, and it was more appropriate this time compared to last week against the Bengals. Down 22-17 with just over 4:00 left, Cousins tried to find tight end Kyle Pitts in the end zone, and the Chiefs got away with some obvious pass interference. No flag.

He arrived early, he hugged Pitts, and he didn’t try to play the ball. That should have been an easy call to make. Then on fourth down, I don’t think that one was interference, but some of course will say that because it’s the Chiefs and this is the weekly thing we do now. But again, that comes back to never blowing teams out and leaving this type of doubt.

Then when the Falcons got the ball back with 2:26 left, you saw the make-up calls in full effect from the refs. The Falcons got a phantom DPI flag on Trent McDuffie for 11 yards. Then there was a horse collar tackle penalty, which looked legitimate enough, and that was another 15 yards. So, the calls most certainly don’t always go to Kansas City’s benefit.

But that horse collar was the last time the Falcons moved the chains. I think they got caught up playing the clock with Mahomes on the other side, they wanted to score late as possible, and they forgot to call good plays that make use of Cousins’ abilities. They brought in Tyler Allgeier for a big 3rd-and-1 run, and the Chiefs stopped him for no gain. Neither team wanting to run the QB sneak is a problem in this situation.

The Falcons then tried another 4th-and-1 run with Bijan Robinson, but he was stuffed for a 3-yard loss with 51 seconds left. Ballgame. That’s four plays in a row where the Falcons didn’t bother to let Cousins throw anything more than a horizontal pass.

Mahomes then did a smart move on the first down by waiting several seconds before he finally took a knee. The other knees were much quicker, and he nearly injured himself on one, but he timed it just right to where the Chiefs didn’t have to punt the ball back.

The Chiefs have now won 9 straight games by a combined 54 points, an average margin of victory of 6.0 points per game. That’s the tiniest margin of victory among the 119 teams in NFL history who had a winning streak of at least 9 games.

It’s not like this is uncharted territory for the Chiefs. In 2020, they tied the NFL record with 7 straight wins by 1-to-8 points. They also won 10 games in a row that year by an average of just 8.9 points per game. Only the 1999 Colts with Peyton Manning (8.7) had a lower margin of victory for a double-digit game winning streak.

The Chiefs can take that record next if they beat the Chargers next week by a slim margin. That’s usually what they do to that team.

It’s usually what they do to everyone these days. But that run in 2020 with the close wins was answered with some playoff blowouts, including their 31-9 loss in Super Bowl 55. It also led to a 3-4 start in 2021 during some of the worst losses of the Mahomes era like 38-20 to Buffalo and 27-3 in Tennessee.

So, you do wonder if this team will hit some regression to the mean and start losing these close games or losing by bigger margins during this three-peat attempt. We have always talked about the Chiefs in the context of an elite offense, or in last year’s case, it was an elite defense. Through three games this year, they don’t particularly look elite on either side of the ball. In fact, they look a bit ordinary.

Still 3-0, but not the same spectacle as 2018-22. No longer must-see TV unless you’re into watching reruns of mediocre episodes of your favorite shows. Alas, with the way the rest of the league is playing to start this season, it still might be enough to make history in the end.

Ravens at Cowboys: Almost a Collapse

Is this what every big game in Jerry World is going to look like for Dallas now? The opponent piles up big plays and touchdowns, forcing Dak Prescott to just keep throwing for a ton of volume with no real shot at winning the game. It’s the third time in a row at home with the Packers in the playoffs, the Saints last week, and now the Ravens in this 28-25 final that was somehow a bigger blowout than that suggests, and still really close of a collapse for the Ravens.

Oh yes, I don’t think a win here absolves Baltimore that much for an 0-2 start. This game still reinforced some issues they have with holding leads as they lead the NFL in blown leads of multiple possessions since 2021. The Cowboys cut a 28-6 deficit into 28-25 and were just unfortunate that the defense couldn’t get them the ball back one more time.

The Ravens were explosive with big plays on the ground with Derrick Henry and through the air with Lamar Jackson completing 12 passes for 182 yards. But salting the game away was poorly done, Justin Tucker missed another easy field goal on a day where his new GOAT competition Brandon Aubrey nailed a 65-yard field goal, and you still question if the Ravens would ever dare use this strategy in January with 15 passes to 45 runs.

They absolutely should as I argued this offseason. But they have this obsession with turning Jackson into the passer he’s not and throwing the ball much more in those games when he’s clearly at his most comfortable in a game like this where he threw 15 passes and ran 14 times.

Jackson is now 21-1 against NFC opponents, because they just don’t know him the way his AFC foes (Chiefs, Steelers, Bills, etc.) do. It’s a unique challenge, and I’m not surprised the Cowboys failed it.

But it did get a little too close for comfort at the end there, and I’m not sure how Baltimore keeps letting this happen under John Harbaugh.

Chargers at Steelers: Felt More Like Ravens vs. Steelers

In 2011, Mike Tomlin’s Steelers faced Jim Harbaugh’s 49ers with Ben Roethlisberger struggling through a high-ankle sprain. Pittsburgh was a 3-point underdog, and Ben struggled with 3 interceptions in a 20-3 loss.

Fast forward to 2024, the second career meeting between Tomlin and Harbaugh, and the tables were turned. This time it was Justin Herbert coming in as a 3-point underdog on a high-ankle sprain against an elite defense. He ended up losing 20-10 and didn’t even finish the game.

It’s not a good formula for success, but incredibly, these quarterbacks started a combined 19-for-19 in this game, the best in any game since 1991. It was a ton of short stuff with Fields being safe and Herbert keeping that leg safe for as long as he could. Neither running game was getting it done against these tough defenses.

But in a 10-10 game in the third quarter, the floodgates opened up on the Chargers. Herbert tried to capitalize on Fields’ first turnover of the year after Bud Dupree came down with an interception that was tipped around several players. But Herbert was sacked, and he hurt himself on that one and couldn’t return to the game.

Keep in mind the Chargers already lost edge rusher Joey Bosa in this game. They’d later lose both offensive tackles (Rashawn Slater and rookie Joe Alt) as well. T.J. Watt was getting shut out by Alt, but once those floodgates opened in the third, the Chargers couldn’t stop it. Taylor Heinicke tried to finish the game for Herbert, but he took 3 sacks on 5 dropbacks (!) as the Steelers allowed minus-5 yards of offense in the entire second half.

Fields technically gets credit for a game-winning drive in this one to break the 10-10 tie early with Chris Boswell’s 38-yard field goal, but the Chargers sure did help that along with three penalties for 34 yards on third downs alone to extend the drive.

My hopes of seeing how Fields would perform in a game where a quarterback like Herbert could force him to score in the fourth quarter to win it were dashed when Herbert couldn’t go anymore. Frankly, they probably made a huge mistake in playing him at all this week since this was always a high possibility, and they have the Chiefs up next, a much more important divisional game with the Chiefs looking vulnerable too.

But Fields also put the game away with a 55-yard touchdown pass over the middle to Calvin Ausitn, who showed off his speed. It was the best game Fields played this year by far, and one of the best wins of his career with ease.

I’m still on board with thinking Russell Wilson should get a chance to start in this offense too, but the Steelers are seeing more of Fields each week and he is getting better. The points still aren’t really there, but it hasn’t mattered when you’re giving up 28 points in 3 games.

Eagles at Saints: Let Them Off the Hook

The dumbest team to win this week was definitely Philadelphia. It was evident early on that this was not going to be a high-scoring week for the Saints like the last few have been. Even after starting the game with a field goal, the Saints didn’t have a drive that gained more than 13 yards until the fourth quarter.

Incredibly, this game was still a 3-0 Saints lead going into the fourth quarter despite a total near 50. This is also because the Eagles kept passing up makeable field goals and failing on fourth down. Jalen Hurts had a frustrating game as he completed most of his passes for 311 yards, but he also had multiple turnovers, 4th-down failures, and took 4 sacks.

But it was a game without A.J. Brown that soon became a game without DeVonta Smith too after a dirty-looking hit, and Lane Johnson was also knocked out at right tackle.

But the Eagles did have Saquon Barkley, who rushed for 147 yards and two touchdowns. They also had tight end Dallas Goedert, who had a monster game with 10 catches for 170 yards. Goedert made the critical play on a 3rd-and-16 on the game-winning drive when he got free for 61 yards.

You had three Saints defenders run into each other on the play. A natural pick by the Eagles neutralized the first one, but then veteran corner Marshon Lattimore (No. 23) ran right into his teammate and that’s why Goedert was so wide open. It was like watching the early and mid-2010s Saints on defense.

The Saints are the only NFL team not to win a game after trailing in the fourth quarter since 2023. That was supposed to be a strength of bringing Derek Carr to New Orleans. He had a go-ahead touchdown pass to Chris Olave in this one with 2:03 left, but the Saints missed the crucial 2-point conversion that would have made it 15-7. Instead, the Eagles got the 8 points with Barkley scoring both with 1:01 left.

Carr still had time and a timeout to force overtime with a field goal, but similar to Hurts against Atlanta last week, he took a risk quickly and was intercepted to end the game at 15-12. After leading 15 straight scoring drives to begin 2024, Carr couldn’t even get the team to 15 points in this one.

It was Week 3 last year in Green Bay when the Saints blew a 17-0 lead and missed a clutch field goal that really destroyed their playoff hopes in the end. Let’s hope this game doesn’t set them on a similar path as this was a huge outcome in the NFC to get the Eagles to 2-1 while those teams like Dallas and San Francisco keep losing.

Texans at Vikings: Wiped the Flores with My MVP’s Offense

I guess all that’s left is for the Vikings to start 4-0 by beating up my Super Bowl pick (Packers) next week too. They already won three games in a row against teams I thought would beat them, especially the 49ers and Texans, and they’re only getting stronger after taking down Houston 34-7.

C.J. Stroud is usually very hard to intercept, but he had a pair in this game, he only led one touchdown drive, and he also lost 42 yards on 4 sacks. Defensive coordinator Brian Flores had them flustered, and I don’t think it would have made any difference if running back Joe Mixon was active.

Sam Darnold didn’t have all the big plays this week, but he was smart with the ball, effective, and he threw 4 touchdowns out of it. He’s holding the ball and still making good decisions. We’ll just have to see if he continues it into October or if he starts seeing ghosts again.

But between the schedule looking legit and the team controlling these games on their way to 3-0, I’m dumbfounded by this start. Just never seemed logical that a team that lost Kirk Cousins and Danielle Hunter would get better on both sides of the ball. Not to mention WR2 Jordan Addison has been out with an injury, and tight end T.J. Hockenson has yet to even play in 2024.

They could theoretically get better. But I’m still not ready to crown the Vikings as the new flash in the pan in the NFC. Probably should get on that Kevin O’Connell for Coach of the Year campaign though.

Broncos at Buccaneers: Not “Bo Picks” This Week

This felt like a trap game to me, so the only bet I had on it was for Bo Nix to throw a pick. He’s had multiple picks in both games, and you had to figure the Bucs would send some heat and get him to mess up in a game where he should have needed to score a fair amount to win.

But man, that was way off. The 0-2 Broncos went across country to pants the 2-0 Buccaneers in their building in a 26-7 final. Nix was in control early, he avoided the turnovers and sacks, and he may have led the Broncos in rushing once again if not for a backup (Badie) breaking a 43-yard run.

That’s an encouraging start. As for the Buccaneers, so much for the Baker Mayfield hype. After Aidan Hutchinson had 4.5 sacks of Mayfield for Detroit last week, Mayfield went down 7 times in this one as the Bucs are struggling up front. Mayfield completed 25 passes but for only 163 yards, which ties Joe Montana for the fewest yards ever in a game with exactly 25 completions. A little weird it came in a game against Denver as we just saw Denver set that record for the fewest yards in games with 26 completions (Nix in Week 1) and 27 completions (Russell Wilson in Week 1, 2023).

Maybe it’s just a Denver thing and it goes both ways. But definitely an upset I wasn’t ready for as the Bucs were just never a threat the whole game.

Bears at Colts: Comically Inept

I know Caleb Williams (2) and Anthony Richardson (6) came into this game with 8 starts between them as the youngest quarterbacks in the NFL. But I still found myself during the third quarter thinking of how this would have been Jay Cutler vs. Andrew Luck a decade ago, and that was just more interesting to me. Maybe these two are the future, but right now, they are raw as hell and I question how much help they’re getting from their play callers.

Both had multiple completions of 40-plus yards for the highlight tapes, but both missed easy throws and had multiple interceptions too. It’s a good thing for Richardson that Jonathan Taylor rushed for 110 yards and two scores to really put the game away. Williams ended up throwing the ball 52 times and gained 363 yards, but some of those yards were hollow like his Hail Mary completion to D.J. Moore before halftime that gained 44 yards but was stopped at the 1-yard line.

But the Bears again barely averaged 2.0 yards per carry, proving that the offensive line is dog shit. The Colts couldn’t stop the run at all in Weeks 1-2, but they had few problems in this one. Chicago’s play-calling in the red zone was also horrible, including a ridiculous sequence in the first half where they came away with no points.

Good on Williams to survive a game with this many throws and keep the sacks down to 4, but he’ll still have to do better than that. Still, I’m not sure Richardson is even capable of a game like this in the NFL. He’s throwing for 40 yards or giving you nothing with his arm right now.

Good on the Colts to see Laiatu Latu come up with a strip-sack in a big moment in the fourth quarter when Williams had the ball in a 14-9 game.

That’s why you draft someone like Latu the way Indy did in this offensive-driven class.

Lions at Cardinals: The Shootout That Wasn’t

I was really hoping for a shootout in this one, and it looked promising when both offenses marched right down the field for touchdowns. But there was very little after that as Kyler Murray struggled to throw for 100 yards until late in the second half when the Cardinals were still desperately down 20-10.

It could have been closer as the refs had a costly mistake at the 2-minute warning in the first half when it sure looked like the Cardinals produced a defensive return touchdown. But they tried to say the 2:00 warning hit, but it appeared the ball was snapped at 2:01. Huge turnaround there as the Lions turned that drive into a touchdown on a nifty designed lateral play from Amon-Ra St. Brown to Jahmyr Gibbs.

The Lions never scored the rest of the way, and it was just a matter of holding on as the Cardinals couldn’t run with James Conner, Trey McBride suffered a concussion, and Murray was floating a lot of bad passes to Marvin Harrison Jr. Just not an efficient offensive performance at all after the first two weeks were so good.

The Detroit defense looks improved this year, but it was still up to the offense to run out the clock in a 20-13 game. Goff found St. Brown on a third-and-12, then he iced the game with an 8-yard scramble.

But not many offensive fireworks to see here – keeping up the 2024 brand for the league.

Packers at Titans: Malik Willis Is Better Than Will Levis?

The revenge game is usually a tired narrative, but this time it really worked out. Not that Malik Willis should feel like the Titans did him dirty. He really struggled when he was with them, but in playing for Green Bay these last two weeks, he has done an incredible job of managing the game.

This week was even better than last as Willis passed for a career-high 202 yards on just 19 throws, and he ran for 73 yards and a touchdown. A true dual-threat performance. He also did it this week with much less help from his running backs on the ground unlike last week against the Colts.

To make things sweeter for Willis, he thrived while Will Levis continues to show that his version of “Big Dick Energy” is to play like there’s zero consequences for your actions just because you’re packing a hammer. Levis took 8 sacks and had 3 more turnovers as the Packers are getting splash plays galore to start this season under their new defensive coordinator.

With the hope that Jordan Love is close to returning, my Super Bowl pick of Green Bay is still looking decent. They know they have a viable backup option in a pinch with Willis, and we’ll see a return to more passing when Love gets back. The defense in the meantime just needs to keep this up as they’ve been very impressive in creating negative plays.

Giants at Browns: Please, Call More Plays Where Deshaun Watson Gets Sacked

Okay, the spread never should have been Browns -6.5, because this team is just not that good with the albatross that is Deshaun Watson at quarterback. He’s actually worse than Daniel Jones right now, and he was certainly worse in this game as he took a whopping 8 sacks.

The Giants fumbled the opening kickoff and gave up a short field touchdown to the Browns, but that Cleveland offense did almost nothing the entire rest of the game. Those fumbles were also the only thing keeping this from being a New York blowout as Danny Dimes did actually deliver on his end. He threw two touchdowns to rookie Malik Nabers, who looks very much like the real deal, and he cut down on sacks and turnovers in a big way this week.

I actually feel bad for Cleveland coach Kevin Stefanski as he knows he is likely stuck for Watson for a couple more years. That’s assuming it doesn’t cost him his job. I wouldn’t blame him if he purposely called plays with minimal protection and exposed Watson to more hits in the hopes that he gets injured, and they can keep him off the field that way. The guy was literally just accused of rape once again in a new lawsuit. He doesn’t get any benefit of the doubt, and I don’t know how this team will get through a season if they have to keep playing him when Jameis Winston would obviously outperform him.

Dolphins at Seahawks: Not the Most Unlikely 3-0 Start

Sure, most people probably didn’t see the Seahawks starting 3-0 this year. But with the schedule of quarterbacks, it was very reasonable. They’ve drawn Bo Nix in his rookie debut, a New England passing game that doesn’t want to exist with Jacoby Brissett, and then a break this week with Skylar Thompson starting for an injured Tua Tagovailoa (concussion).

We know Geno Smith and his weapons are good enough to go 9-8. Mike Macdonald just had to improve the defense, and who knows. But we won’t really start to see the defense tested until Week 4 against Detroit.

But this game, it was a 24-3 laugher as the Dolphins were literally showing their ass on the field.

Boy, that stunk. Miami was 1-of-12 on third down, and Thompson took 5 sacks before leaving the game with an injury. It could be Tim Boyle time in Miami next week, or maybe Tyler Huntley who just signed. At what point do we ask if Mike McDaniel and his staff are doing something wrong with their quarterbacks if they’re this brittle that you have to start three in three games? I thought that was a historic outlier when they did it in 2022, but it might happen again here.

All the speed in the world doesn’t mean a damn thing with the wrong player at quarterback.

Panthers at Raiders: Bryce Young Was the Problem After All

Guess I should have bet the house on Andy Dalton after all. He was my No. 1 prop pick this week, I picked the Panthers (+6.5) to win outright, but even then I never expected this 36-22 outcome that completely disproves the idea that Bryce Young had no protection or weapons in Carolina.

The problem was the shortcomings of the quarterback. Similar to last year when Dalton started a game in place of Young for the Panthers, he threw for over 300 yards. But this time he did it much more efficiently, and before you say it was just the Raiders, check again how Maxx Crosby and company fared against Justin Herbert and Lamar Jackson to start this season.

Dalton is now the only quarterback this season to throw for over 300 yards and 3 touchdowns in a game. Crazy, right? He got a career game out of Diontae Johnson with 122 yards and a touchdown. Even the running game showed up as Chuba Hubbard rushed for 114 yards.

The Panthers finally ended their 20-game streak of never taking a snap with a fourth-quarter lead. I don’t think Dalton can go too far with this team, but for one game against the Raiders, he was electric. About time we watch a veteran with more than a decade of experience just sling it on these defenses.

There’s almost none of that in the NFL right now, so I fully support Dalton starting more games while Young “sits and learns” from it all. But this game probably did nuke his trade value even more.

Next week: Cowboys-Giants on TNF? Oh, it’s really over for Dallas if they’re going to lose to Danny Dimes next. Saints-Falcons has some importance in the NFC South, Andy Dalton can stack wins against the Bengals, the Steelers can harass Anthony Richardson to start 4-0, the Vikings-Packers game could somehow be the Game of the Week if Jordan Love returns, and let’s just hope Justin Herbert can return for the Kansas City game. Bills-Ravens a big one on Sunday night I get to preview later this week. Another Monday night doubleheader (not a fan) too, and Seahawks-Lions definitely more interesting than Titans-Dolphins (no one cares).

NFL Stat Oddity: 2023 Wild Card Weekend

~ Scott ~ 3 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dolphins at Chiefs: Still Wish It Was Colder?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Steelers at Bills: The Standard in Postseason Scoring

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The NFC truly does love a flash in the pan.

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

NFL 2023 Wild Card Predictions

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

This Week’s Articles

NFL Wild Card Predictions

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

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

Browns 24, Texans 20

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

Chiefs 20, Dolphins 14

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

Bills 21, Steelers 16

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

Cowboys 31, Packers 23

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

Lions 30, Rams 27

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

Bucs 20, Eagles 16

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 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 17

~ Scott ~ 4 Comments

Admittedly, I had higher expectations for Sunday after the way Week 17 started with Joe Flacco practically throwing for 300 yards in a half against the Jets (without Amari Cooper), then the game not even producing a touchdown after a 51-point half (an NFL first).

Then we watched the Lions and Cowboys on Saturday night in a game that I would describe as ideal for a big matchup this year. Not a shootout with horrible defense and receivers running wide open everywhere, but talented players (CeeDee Lamb, Brandin Cooks, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Sam LaPorta, etc.) stepping up to make plays, defenses making it tough on both offenses, and a lot of strategic decisions you can second guess like Dan Campbell sticking to his guns with 4th downs and 2-point conversions.

In the end, there was another officiating controversy I’m in no mood on New Year’s night to write about. Officials suck, period, but it was at least an illegal formation, no? They threw two flags. But I think the 2-point decision by Detroit was defensible with 23 seconds left. I just don’t agree with going for it from the 7-yard line after the penalty. But that game also showed why both teams are good but still a little hard to trust.

But Sunday didn’t produce too many thrills. There were 8 games with a comeback opportunity. The only lead changes saw Patrick Mahomes lead the 20th game-winning drive of his career, a game where the Chiefs scored six field goals after falling behind by 10 points, and an epic comeback/choke in Philadelphia that can really rewrite the season script for January.

Because we are into January now, and we know that brings out the worst in NFL fans. So, let’s try to keep a levelheaded view of where things are with one week to go.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Dolphins at Ravens: Game of the Ye-Yeah, We REALLY Need to Stop Hyping These

I want to give Mike McDaniel credit for picking the Dallas week to deliver his cute little “respectfully, f off” speech to the media when asked about Miami’s record against winning teams during his tenure. If you’ve been following Miami (and Dallas), then you know playing a contender on the road is the much bigger issue for this team as seen in the losses this year to the Bills, Eagles, and Chiefs (Germany).

Practically every team is going to struggle in road games against contenders, but Miami’s track record is not one that makes me think this team is anything more than a paper tiger. A team built on speed, not enough depth as McDaniel thinks he has, and an offense that seems to fail against the contenders that have strong defenses.

But in a way, I almost felt bad for them going down 56-19 in Baltimore, because they are better than that, and this was the first time in one of these big matchups this year where they had a valid excuse to underperform. They didn’t have Jaylen Waddle and Raheem Mostert on offense, and when you are an offense built around speed, then not having half of your main weapons you rely so heavily on is a big blow.

But in a game that likely locked up an MVP for Lamar Jackson, it also showed why someone like Tyreek Hill can almost never be MVP in this league. On a day where Waddle is out, you have to expect Hill to do more. But when the game was very much competitive, Hill had a huge blunder that cost his team 4 points when he bobbled a wide-open catch in the end zone and couldn’t secure it in time with both feet down. The Dolphins had to settle for a field goal and 10-7 lead instead of 14-7 after this started out like the Buffalo loss in Week 4 where it looked like a shootout before it quickly turned into a bloodbath.

Hill finished with 6 catches on 12 targets for 76 yards, a below-average game for his high standards this year. The dream of 2,000 yards is over now unless he has one of the greatest games in NFL history against those Bills next week.

The Hill drop stung, but the Dolphins largely blew this game late in the second quarter to early in the third quarter, not unlike the Packers in the 2020 NFC Championship Game against Tampa Bay.

After settling for another field goal to make Baltimore’s lead 14-13, Zay Flowers got behind the defense for a 75-yard touchdown, avoiding two tackles on a 1-play drive to make it 21-13.

Miami loves to play fast in every way, but sometimes that rush to get another play off before the 2-minute warning is completely unnecessary as it was here with the Dolphins already in Baltimore territory. But Tua rushed the play, and he was picked. It looked like the defense might force a 4-and-out after the Ravens decided to go for a 4th-and-7 in no man’s land, but Jackson’s pass was pulled in with one hand by tight end Isaiah Likely, who raced the rest of the way for a 35-yard touchdown to blow it open at 28-13.

The Dolphins also botched their hurry-up offense on the final drive of the half, ending without any points again. To start the second half, Baltimore returned the kickoff 78 yards to help the offense start a drive in the red zone as I’ve mentioned this week the Ravens have the best starting field position in the league. Three plays later, Jackson found a wide open Likely for another touchdown.

In under 5 minutes of action, the Ravens went from a 14-13 lead to a 35-13 lead, and just like that the game was basically over.

The Dolphins were famously down 21 points in the fourth quarter last year in Baltimore and won 42-38, the only big road win of McDaniel’s career to this day. But while they were down 22 in this quarter and got a touchdown to make it 35-19, the Ravens made sure history would not be repeated. They quickly drove for 75 yards as Jackson threw his fifth touchdown pass, then the Dolphins went 4-and-out with Tua scrambling unsuccessfully on a 4th-and-long, setting up yet another short-field touchdown for the Ravens. Tyler Huntley even came in after the Dolphins fumbled a snap and threw a sixth touchdown pass for Baltimore to make it 56-19 one play after Bradley Chubb was injured for Miami, another potentially big loss for the defense.

Would Waddle and Mostert have made a difference? They unfortunately can’t play defense. But maybe a fuller offense could have made it 21-16 or tied it up at 21 going into halftime instead of that disastrous finish. But, I’m not sure I’d like Miami’s chances to even cover the spread in a rematch in Baltimore because that’s where the game would be with the Ravens locking up the No. 1 seed.

Tale as old as time in the NFL. The “finesse” offense (the track team) gets punched in the mouth by the No. 1 defense, and the less heralded offense on the other side is the one that’s finding all the big plays and making it look easy.

Seriously, Jackson threw 5 touchdown passes in this game and 4 of them went to wide-open receivers, and 2 of them were one-handed catches. If that wasn’t happening, there was almost no pressure on him with a massive pocket to work from, and they even made big YAC plays in this game. It was a total shredding of the Miami defense.

But it’s also historic in that this was not the first time this season Miami allowed a quarterback to throw for 300 yards with a perfect passer rating (158.3). They already did that in Buffalo against Josh Allen in Week 4 when he was 21-of-25 for 320 yards and 4 touchdowns. He also rushed for a touchdown in that 48-20 win.

This makes the 2023 Dolphins the first defense in NFL history to allow multiple quarterbacks to throw for 300 yards with a perfect passer rating.

In fact, this stat is very much a Miami thing as it’s not even the first time Jackson has done it against them. He did it against the 2019 Dolphins, the “Tank for Tua” year, which started his first MVP campaign in Week 1. Of the last 18 times a defense has allowed a game like this since 2007, 6 of them were against the Dolphins. It’s only happened 34 times ever.

With the top seed locked up, the Ravens can choose to rest starters, though that’s a lot of rest before the divisional round. The Dolphins have a division title game on Sunday night against Buffalo, but at least it’s at home.

On the road, you fade these Dolphins every time. As for the Ravens, it might take another one of those Playoff Joe Flacco miracles (and one from Myles Garrett) to put an end to this run they are on. Cleveland is the only team to beat the Ravens in their last 11 games.

Cause you can’t count on Miami to do it in Baltimore. You want to trust Kansas City with that offense right now? That sounds like a couple of Mahomes incompletions on 4th-and-25 waiting to happen. Buffalo? Not even a lock to make the tournament.

But if you’re going to start putting all your adulation on this Baltimore team, then the expectations better be the highest as well. It’s their Super Bowl to lose now.

Bengals at Chiefs: Another Cincinnati Season Ends in Arrowhead

Usually when you talk about the Chiefs and “six field goals” you are talking about Mike Tomlin’s last playoff win. But this peculiar game, which goes down as the 20th game-winning drive for Patrick Mahomes, is another case of the Bizarro 2023 Chiefs doing things we are not used to seeing them do.

Jake Browning looked game early, and the Bengals were up 17-7 while limiting Mahomes’ possessions and shrinking the game, still an excellent gameplan against the Chiefs as they are so mistake prone these days.

But Steve Spagnuolo’s defense again rose to the occasion, stopped the early bleeding, and the Bengals failed to score on their final 7 drives. After an opening-drive touchdown was followed by a Mahomes strip-sack, the Chiefs embarked on an odyssey of drives that saw them settle for 6 field goals over the next 7 drives.

They were still decent-length drives except the last one, but they always stalled out for some reason. MVS had another bad 3rd-down drop to end one drive, then Mahomes made a few too many checkdowns on other 3rd downs that were short of the line to gain. To Andy Reid’s credit, I can’t really argue with the decision to kick on any of them. They were all 4th-and-3 or longer except the last one, and they were all outside of the 5-yard line. The Chiefs just kept chipping away while the Bengals continuously stalled after that hot start.

The game-winning drive was early in the quarter, and the play that defined it was actually late third quarter when Mahomes floated one deep down the right sideline for Rashee Rice, who took it 67 yards to the red zone. Rice (127 yards) and Isiah Pacheco (165 scrimmage yards) were fantastic in a game where Travis Kelce had just 3 catches on 4 targets for 16 yards against what is statistically the worst defense against tight ends this year. Even Noah Gray had 17 yards in this one, so that connection with Kelce is really not clicking going into the playoffs.

But it didn’t matter in this one. The Chiefs had Rice and Pacheco, and they had a defense that sacked Browning 5 times in the last 5:29 of the game. Is that an homage to Joe Burrow? But it was relentless defense at the end, and this time it was Browning instead of Mahomes who was throwing incomplete on 4th-and-27 with the game hanging in the balance with just over a minute left.

This time it was the Chiefs coming out on the winning end of six field goals. Locked into the No. 3 seed and possibly in rest mode next week, I’m not sure if this was the performance they needed to get ready for what expects to be their most challenging postseason run of the Mahomes era.

But it was another Cincinnati season ending at Arrowhead as the Bengals (8-8) were eliminated Sunday. It is another AFC West title for the Chiefs, who stand alone in second place for the longest streak in NFL history with 8 straight division titles.

Cardinals at Eagles: Is It Matt Patricia?

No point in wasting all the narrative talk on a Week 17 recap on New Year’s, but let’s just say the 2023 Eagles could be a good case study in not overlooking a team that loses both coordinators.

I loved Arizona ATS (got up to +12) this week, because I’ve been saying for many weeks how the Eagles aren’t playing like a team with their record should be. I think many of us didn’t know until recently that Matt Patricia was hired to consult the defense this year, and let’s just say he isn’t Jonathan Gannon for them with recent reports of the Eagles’ players wanting to self-scout more on defense. That’s only led to giving up a game-winning touchdown drive to Drew Lock in Seattle, having to fight off a high-scoring comeback attempt from Tyrod Taylor and the Giants on Christmas, and now this pathetic 35-31 loss to Arizona that should go down as the worst loss in the Nick Sirianni-Jalen Hurts era so far.

The Eagles led 21-6 at halftime too, but that was mostly thanks to an incredible 99-yard pick-6 by rookie Sydney Brown. The Cardinals moved the ball extremely well in this game but stalled out on their first-half drives. They wouldn’t be stopped after halftime, going on touchdown drives of 75, 77, 77, and 70 yards. In fact, the only drive in the game by Arizona (8 drives) that didn’t gain at least 43 yards was the 9-yard drive before halftime, and that’s only because it started with 16 seconds left. This was an absolute shredding and one of the best performances by any offense this season, pick-6 withstanding.

That’s also why the Cardinals held the ball for nearly 40 minutes and doubling up the Eagles on that front. James Conner led a great ground attack (221 team yards rushing) and even caught a one-handed touchdown from Kyler Murray, who was 25-of-31 for 232 yards.

The Cardinals tied the game at 28 with 5:26 left, then did a surprise onside that failed with a penalty for lining up offsides. I’m still not convinced that needed to be done. The Philly offense is inevitable with 1 yard to go, but a long field is a different story.

The Cardinals caught some breaks along the way after that like an injury stopping the clock at 5:08. Then after a holding penalty on the Eagles made it 1st-and-20, Philly went incredibly conservative with back-to-back designed runs with Hurts that only gained 1 net yard to make it 3rd-and-19. At that point you’re basically settling for a short play and field goal, which is what they did. It was 31-28 with 2:33 left, and the Cardinals still had 2 timeouts as the Eagles did a terrible job of killing clock.

Arizona faced little resistance on the ensuing drive, and Conner finished it off with a 2-yard touchdown run with 32 seconds left to make it 35-31. Going 75 yards in 32 seconds without a timeout is asking for a miracle from any offense, and the game ended with Hurts’ Hail Mary from the 49 getting intercepted in the end zone.

With the Cowboys winning on Saturday night and expected to beat Washington next week, that means the NFC East is expected to go to Dallas. The Eagles were 10-1 with a win in hand over the 8-3 Cowboys just over a month ago.

What a disastrous slide this is turning out to be, but it wasn’t all that unpredictable to see. Sure, blowing it to Drew Lock with Hurts having a quasi-flu game was rough and unexpected, and Arizona definitely didn’t look like an offense ready to drop 35 points on 8 drives in this one.

But before you think I’m going to bring up the breaks the Eagles needed to beat Dallas, Kansas City and Buffalo in consecutive weeks, keep in mind the Eagles were the team that needed to rally twice against Washington and made Sam Howell look like Steve Young in his prime. Again, that happened twice this year.

Repeating is hard. Sure, the Chiefs just won the AFC West for the 8th year in a row, but good luck on the conference. But in the NFC East, there has not been a repeat division champion since the Eagles did it in 2001-04.

That’s looking like it will continue, and the Eagles have no one to blame but themselves. Seriously, Matt Patricia? Silent Bob with a pencil he stole from Belichick’s office?

Steelers at Seahawks: The Streak Continues

By improving to 9-7, Mike Tomlin has helped the Steelers extend their streak of non-losing seasons to 20 with a surprisingly high-scoring 30-23 win in Seattle. This was more like the performance I thought the Steelers would have in Indianapolis a few weeks ago (but with fewer points), but now they can only hope that Indy loss doesn’t doom them for the playoffs.

It just sums up the annoying thing about Tomlin’s team in that he can beat the Bengals as a home underdog last week, he can win this game as a 4.5-point road underdog when Seattle needed it badly too, but it comes after blowing home games to the 2-win Patriots and Cardinals in the same week. It comes after getting picked apart by Gardner Minshew and backup runners in Indy.

Now it sets up a match where they might lose to Baltimore’s backups, which is going to look bad, or they can beat them, which is taking advantage of a gift that still may not be enough for them to get in the tournament.

But that’s next week. As for this game, well, it presents another conundrum/annoyance as Mason Rudolph has now led the Steelers to back-to-back games with 30 points, something Kenny Pickett hasn’t done twice in his career period. Rudolph played fairly mistake-free football, handled some bad snaps from center well, and gave his receivers, namely George Pickens, chances to make plays. He was 18-of-24 for 274 yards, very good numbers by a Pittsburgh quarterback for the second week in a row.

The Steelers also piled up 468 yards of offense, their most since the 2020 season. I was skeptical of last week because of the big YAC plays from Pickens and the recent ownership of that Cincinnati defense, but this was an NFC opponent and it wasn’t a fluke.

The Steelers also got there because of a strong running game with Najee Harris providing one of his best games ever with 122 yards on the ground, and he could have scored 3 touchdowns if he wanted before going down to end the game.

The offense was legit in this one. The defense did enough to keep Geno Smith and company out of the end zone after halftime. In a 24-17 game in the fourth quarter, the Steelers held the Seahawks to another field goal, which the Steelers matched. Smith played well, but sometimes all it takes is one quick edge pressure to change a season, and this time it wasn’t T.J. Watt who provided it for Pittsburgh. Rookie Nick Herbig made his play of the season with a strip-sack of Smith, and that led to a field goal and essentially set up a less dramatic ending after Pete Carroll called one of the worst challenges ever to waste one of his precious timeouts with 5:49 left.

That mattered because the Seahawks took just too long to score another field goal, making it at 2:01 left, and then not recovering the onside kick at 2:00 to lose out on another clock stoppage. The Steelers came out aggressive with a 24-yard throw to Pickens, then Harris ended it on the ground and did not take the bait to score a touchdown he didn’t need.

Crushing loss for the Seahawks, who may only finish with the same record as last year (9-8) and that’s not always good enough for the tournament. Can a Pittsburgh team playing like this pull off an upset in Buffalo or Miami if they were the No. 7 seed? Yeah, I actually think it’s possible now. But they have to continue with Rudolph at quarterback as he gives them a more aggressive style that brings out more in the wide receivers.

Lose next week with Rudolph and that makes it rather simple to go back to Pickett next year. But if they actually pull this off and get in behind Rudolph? Good luck sorting this mess out for next year (besides shipping Mitch Trubisky out the door). I guess everyone is just waiting for the other shoe to drop with this Rudolph run, but I have to say he looks better than he did in the past.

He looks better than Pickett ever has.

Patriots at Bills: Zapped in Buffalo

Again, let’s get Bill Belichick the hell out of New England and with a team that has a solid quarterback, because he can still coach defense. Josh Allen and the Bills, in a very important game, really struggled to move the ball in this rematch. They basically had one good drive for a touchdown to start the second half, but before that, the Bills were sitting on 20 points thanks to a series of short fields and a pick-six. The 13 offensive points covered a total of just 42 yards.

How does that happen? The generous New England offense had 4 turnovers, including a trio of interceptions thrown by Bailey Zappe. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s possible this was a game Mac Jones would have won. He already had his best game of the year against Buffalo in a 29-25 win, the 29 points being a season-high in scoring for New England.

Zappe did have a nice 18-yard touchdown run, but he dug a big hole early despite getting the gift of a kickoff return touchdown to begin the game. Down 27-21 in the fourth quarter, all New England could do was go 3-and-out from deep in its own end with 5:02 left.

The Bills weren’t about to let a repeat of last time happened, and they finally put together their other good offensive drive of the day by running out the clock by picking up 3 more first downs.

The job’s not finished but the Bills escaped this one, which would have been an embarrassing sweep on the resume for Sean McDermott.

Saints at Buccaneers: Baker and Bowles’ Pumpkin Bowl

Not all is lost for Tampa as a road win against the lowly Panthers (2-14) is all it will take next week to win the NFC South. But you really don’t want to leave it to that, especially when the sting of blowing that game will be even worse and possibly cost Todd Bowles his job, and make the team reconsider if Baker Mayfield is really “the guy” beyond this year.

This team was playing well but laid a total egg at home in this one. When Taysom Hill is catching 22-yard touchdown passes and you’re still sitting on 0 points nearly halfway through the fourth quarter, something went terribly wrong.

Not only did Mayfield get picked twice, but the skill players coughed up a pair of fumbles, including an inexplicable one by Trey Palmer to erase a 54-yard play with 3:36 left. But down 23-7, the game was already in hopeless territory. The Bucs did end up getting it back and scoring quickly but did not recover the onside kick. Also botched the 2-point conversion, so it was still 23-13.

I will say props to Derek Carr for playing a clean game on the road in a must-win situation far as the division title goes. But we’ll just have to see if it’s too late for the Saints as the Bucs get the easier matchup next week with Carolina.

49ers at Commanders: A Little Close for a 17-Point Win

This game was definitely not what I was planning to see. I wanted to see Jacoby Brissett start for Sam Howell, who was abysmal in recent weeks, but Brissett was injured and unable to go. Howell only threw for 169 yards and had a couple of picks in the second half.

But I also thought the Commanders would be getting destroyed by play-action bombs to wide-open guys like they’ve done against other teams all year. Instead, Brock Purdy had an efficient game but was only able to throw 2 touchdown passes, including a nice extended play to Brandon Aiyuk, who finished with 114 yards.

That score made it 27-10 in the fourth quarter and gave the 49ers (-14) the cover, but it was a little uncomfortable there with Chrisitan McCaffrey on the sideline with an injury. The 49ers ran the ball a lot (39 times for 184 yards) and it was successful, but no touchdown for McCarthy this week and he didn’t finish the game, so that’s not great news.

But the 49ers did wrap up the top seed after the Eagles choked.

Rams at Giants: Mason Crosby’s Arthritis Picked a Bad Time to Flare Up

The Rams keep winning and have this nice new collection of skill players that they are thriving with, but they sure do not make it easy in putting games away the last few weeks. After taking a 20-10 lead in the third quarter, they gave up big plays to Tyrod Taylor and the Giants, Matthew Stafford threw a pick, the Rams missed a key extra point after Kyren Williams’ third touchdown run, and the special teams struck again when they gave up a 94-yard punt return touchdown with 3:27 left.

I get why the Giants would go for it after a penalty put the ball at the 1, but Taylor and Saquon Barkley were just not in sync on what should have been an easy pitch and catch for the go-ahead score.

But the conservative Sean McVay played right into another team’s hands in a 26-25 game with two runs and a sack for a quick three-and-out. Taylor is 4-22-1 at comeback opportunities in his career, and this could have been a rare win for him after driving into field goal range.

But after Taylor’s 31-yard scramble, the Giants messed up by playing for the long kick instead of being more aggressive to get closer. They settled for a 54-yard field goal, and 39-year-old kicker Mason Crosby, who only was playing his second game this season with the team, had to come on for that long attempt in the cold air. He’s used to the elements of course from Green Bay, but he was jobless until this month for a reason. That old leg never stood a chance, and he was wide left with 30 seconds left. Game over.

The Rams survived another one and are in the playoffs. Let’s hope they get to go to Detroit for that wild card game, but I don’t believe it’s set in stone yet.

Raiders at Colts: Guess Kansas City was the Vegas Super Bowl

Aidan O’Connell was able to complete some passes after the first quarter this week, including two touchdowns to Davante Adams, who looked like a vintage version of himself with an incredible grab on 4th down with 43 seconds left to make it 23-20.

But that was too little too late as the Raiders were not able to recover the onside kick. The Raiders had their chances in this one and did have 26 first downs on offense (10 more than the Colts). But Gardner Minshew hit a couple of 50-yard passes that were enough to put touchdowns on the board for Indy, who now just has to beat Houston at home for the playoffs this Saturday night.

Titans at Texans: DeMeco Ryans’ Defense Dominates Again

C.J. Stroud returned to the Texans, but the defense stole the show this time. The defense already played very well against the Titans in Week 15’s 19-16 win in overtime where a pick-6 was included in the scoring for Tennessee.

This time the defense was even better, holding the Titans to 3 points and returning a fumble from Will Levis for a touchdown. They knocked Levis out of the game and kept pounding Ryan Tannehill with 5 sacks. It was an all-around strong 26-3 win for the Texans, who will be in Indy for a huge game this Saturday night.

Falcons at Bears: Dome Team in Flurries

Maybe the closest thing to a snow game this regular season, the Falcons froze up in Chicago after a poor start. They trailed 14-0, Younghoe Koo botched two field goals he’d usually make, and it didn’t get much better from there with the Bears dropping 37 points on this defense thanks to some short fields in the second half.

The quarterback situation is officially toast in Atlanta after Tayor Heinicke completed 10-of-29 passes with 3 picks. Desmond Ridder relieved him and also threw a pick. Just an all-around mess that leaves Atlanta with the third-best odds to win the division, and this might soon be the end for Arthur Smith.

Panthers at Jaguars: No Lawrence, No Problem

Trevor Lawrence’s long list of injuries finally led to him missing the first game of his NFL career. But if you thought (like me) that the Panthers would build on last week’s offensive success and maybe steal one against a struggling Jacksonville team, you were way off.

The Panthers were absolutely abysmal on offense in the 26-0 loss as Bryce Young passed for just 112 yards and lost 45 more on sacks. C.J. Beathard was solid enough in Lawrence’s place, and Travis Etienne broke off a 62-yard touchdown run early in the third quarter to make it 16-0 and basically wrap things up there.

The Jaguars are 9-7 just like the Colts and Texans but still have the inside track to win the AFC South.

Packers at Vikings: Sunday Night Blowout

I think Kevin O’Connell screwed up in benching Nate Mullens in favor of rookie Jaren Hall. This was a must-win game to stay alive for the playoffs, and while Mullens is ridiculous with the interceptions, he moves the ball at a good rate. He could have done some damage against a struggling defense like Green Bay’s and on a night where the Vikings really needed the offense.

But Hall had a lousy first half, and by the time O’Connell benched him for Mullens, it was already 23-3, too big a hole to dig out of. Jordan Love had a big night with 4 total touchdowns as the offense basically did whatever it wanted against Minnesota’s defense, making up for that season-low 10 points in Week 8’s loss to the Vikings.

Green Bay (8-8) makes the playoffs with a win over the Bears next week, which is surprisingly a game we won’t see in prime time.

Chargers at Broncos: And No One Cared

It’s hard to take much interest in what the Broncos (now eliminated) are doing after this ridiculous Russell Wilson story came out this week and the team benched him for Jarrett Stidham.

But it’s good to know that Chargering has no limitations. In this one alone, the Chargers fumbled in a 13-6 game to start the fourth quarter (Austin Ekeler this time), had a 50-yard field goal blocked, and couldn’t recover an onside kick that Denver bobbled for a brief moment to end it 16-9. Ho-hum, both teams are literally onto 2024 with the other AFC outcomes eliminating Denver.

Next week: Lots of playoff scenarios, but some of the main ones are can the Packers close at home in Week 18 this year to make the playoffs, can the Steelers beat Baltimore’s backups (?) on Saturday, how does C.J. Stroud handle a quasi-playoff game on the road in prime time, does Dallas have a road choke in Washington for the second year in a row, could the Eagles even make it pay off against the Giants if Dallas did, and why is there more pressure on Buffalo than Miami to win this game to end this regular season from hell?

And next Sunday night is when I go back and review my preseason predictions, which may not be good (thanks for 4 snaps, Aaron Rodgers), but I did pick Baltimore to win the No. 1 seed and Super Bowl.

NFL Week 15 Predictions: Saturday Dogs Edition

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

Just enough time for a very quick NFL Week 15 preview as I am still dealing with sinus and segmented sleep issues. A tripleheader on a Saturday isn’t helping matters but I do like the underdogs in 2-of-3 games.

This Week’s Articles

NFL 2023 Award Races – Looking at the Purdy vs. Prescott MVP race and a very open Coach of the Year race, among other awards

NFL Week 15 Predictions

I liked the Raiders to cover but god damn, they got Brandon Staley out of there with a 63-21 win.

A lot of underdogs won last week and I am on a few this week, including the Steelers and Broncos on Saturday. I also am going with Tommy DeVito and the Giants in New Orleans (link above).

The big one is Bills and Cowboys, and I’ve compared those teams several times in recent years as they are two of the NFL’s only teams that have been elite on both sides of the ball since 2021. They are doing it again this year, but Buffalo needs the game more with a 7-6 record and the playoffs still in doubt. But I ended up going with the home team as I really did just factor that into the equation. Dallas hasn’t been as great on the road, and home teams are winning over 55.5% of games this year, so that appears to be back to a normal advantage from recent years where it dipped under 50%. The Bills are in playoff mode already and I think they pull that one out, though it will be interesting since both teams love to win by double digits and aren’t used to winning the tight ones.

Not overly confident in the Ravens to not blow a lead on SNF, but I just think they are a better team than the Jaguars and should have won that game last year on the road.

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

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

This Week’s Articles

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

NFL Week 14 Predictions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 13

~ Scott ~ 8 Comments

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

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

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

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

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chiefs at Packers: A Slightly Different Kind of KC Loss

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Colts at Titans: Amusing AFC South Battle

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

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

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

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

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

Lions at Saints: The Almost Comeback

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Broncos at Texans: Russ Wasn’t Cooking Today

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

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

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

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

Falcons at Jets: The Beat Goes On

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Panthers at Buccaneers: Same Old 4th Quarter Story

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

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

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

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