Tag: Jalen Hurts

2025 NFL Stat Oddity: Wild Card Weekend

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

The story all season for the NFL in 2025 was new contenders. The Chiefs, Ravens, and Lions didn’t even make the playoffs. The Eagles didn’t win a playoff game, so we’ll have a new champion.

We only have three of the same final eight teams from 2024 (Bills, Rams, and Texans). The Broncos, Seahawks, Patriots, Bears, and 49ers are all new in that round. This should have led to a crazy, unpredictable postseason, and if wild card weekend is any indication, we’re getting one of the craziest postseasons in NFL history.

All six games had a comeback opportunity, and the first four all had a game-winning touchdown scored by a trailing team after the two-minute warning, a single-postseason record. There’s never been a postseason with more than five fourth-quarter comebacks, so we have a great shot of tying or exceeding that here.

We’ve also already had 12 fourth-quarter lead changes in six games, another single-postseason record with seven games left. There have been entire postseasons where there wasn’t a single fourth-quarter lead change like 2020 (COVID year with empty stadiums) or 2005 (No. 6 seed Pittsburgh won).

I predicted Eagles over Bills in Super Bowl 60 on Friday night, and that’s already halfway wrong after Philadelphia’s title defense ended in somewhat predictable fashion. The 49ers’ insane 22-year streak of either making the NFC Championship Game (7x) or missing the playoffs with a non-winning record (15x) is still alive and just has to get through Sam Darnold next week to continue for the 23rd year in a row.

But that’s next week. First, let’s recap the weekend, which I think you can argue is the best wild card weekend in NFL history. I don’t think any one game this weekend would make a top 5 list of NFL wild card playoff games, but the collective competitiveness of the weekend and the way these teams were just matching scores (for four games) in the fourth quarter was crazy to watch.

Something truly memorable from a weird season to this point.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Texans at Steelers: Same Old Steelers with Their Old Quarterback

The Steelers lost their seventh playoff game in a row as DeMeco Ryans has already matched Mike Tomlin’s last 15 seasons in playoff wins (3) in just three years on the job in Houston. What a job it’s been too. He just won a playoff game by 24 points on the road despite his quarterback, C.J. Stroud, turning the ball over three times with five fumbles (two lost).

But that 30-6 score is going to be one of the most misleading finals in postseason history. This was a 7-6 game at halftime and going into the fourth quarter. It was only 10-6 Houston when Pittsburgh foolishly called another run on 2nd-and-10 that lost 2 yards as they never got a ground game going all night.

Then on 3rd-and-12, Rodgers was buried in the backfield, coughed up the ball, and the Texans returned it for a touchdown. You could definitely argue there was a blow to the head that made his helmet move that could have been called for roughing the passer to negate the turnover and touchdown.

If this is Rodgers’ last playoff game (or game period), maybe it’s fitting it ends with a fumble-six after an uncalled penalty, shades of no facemask call on him in Arizona in the 2009 wild card loss. Actually, his last pass of the night here ended up being a fourth-down pick-six as the Texans have now scored six return touchdowns in just five playoff games in the Stroud-Ryans era. It’s possible his last pass is a playoff pick-six after his last pass as a Packer was a game-ending interception at home in a game with playoff implications against the Lions.

It usually never ends well. For the Steelers, nothing has ended well in the last decade, but I’ll say this one was a little different since you really can’t blame the defense. Sure, they had poor plays on third downs all night, but it was a 10-6 game with 13:00 left. Do something on offense. The Steelers got a Stroud fumble at the Houston 21 and moved the ball 4 yards before settling for a field goal.

They stuck to their guns, which means they have no identity on offense. They had some good plays early to D.K. Metcalf before he dropped a big pass and shut down the rest of the night. Pat Freiermuth’s usage all season was criminal, but that’s what happens when your QB is so WR-centric and your OC is in love with Jonnu Smith.

The Steelers even led 3-0 after the first quarter, a big departure from their usual 21-0 deficit in the playoffs. But the Texans still got to 30 points, extending their record streak to 7 playoff games allowing 28+ points. They also set a record with a fifth-straight playoff loss by double digits.

The Houston defense is great, but the Steelers had them on their heels early and just got worse by the drive. No touchdowns scored. It was actually better when the Steelers would lose a 45-42 playoff game at home. At least the offense could score after some mistakes. This was impotency.

This team was false hope all year. They’d look good for a half against a contender, then they’d get crushed after halftime against the Seahawks, Chargers, Packers, Bills, and now the Texans.

And the sad part is nothing really changes until they fire Tomlin and get lucky with a high draft pick on a quarterback. That’s the only way you’re going to get fundamental change in Pittsburgh.

I think 600 words will suffice, because what more could you say at this point? Same old Steelers.

Packers at Bears: Finally, This Rivalry Is Worth Watching in Prime Time

The 2025 Packers-Bears just gave us the best trilogy since, what, Nolan’s Batman? For years we had to endure this dated rivalry in an island game, but with the arrival of coach  Ben Johnson in Chicago, we got three great games late in the season with the Bears winning both meetings at Soldier Field in dramatic comeback fashion as they’ve done all year.

I’m not sure if Johnson’s vitriol for the Packers stems from his Lions days (jealousy?), or if it’s just manufactured bravado to endear himself with the Chicago community. But he may have ended Matt LaFleur’s time in Green Bay or at least limited it to one more season at best after a total collapse from the Packers, who lost their last four regular-season games before blowing a 21-3 lead on the road, and a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter (only the fourth time that’s happened in the playoffs after Roger Staubach’s comeback off the bench in 1972, the 2002 49ers vs. Giants, and Super Bowl 51).

The wild part is, much like John Harbaugh losing his Baltimore job on the swing of a kicker’s 44-yard field goal, it’s not like Johnson badly outcoached LaFleur in this game. In fact, some curious decisions by Johnson on fourth downs (Dan Campbell’s protégé) helped lead to the Bears trailing 21-3 at halftime. Green Bay kicker Brandon McManus also cost the team 7 points by missing three makeable kicks.

The Packers, who never won another game after Micah Parsons tore his ACL in Denver, wasted one of Jordan Love’s best games of the season. He didn’t turn the ball over, he distributed the ball very well to his wideouts with four of them catching a touchdown, including the first of the year for rookie Matthew Golden after they got him in space to show off his speed. Love did this with Josh Jacobs not producing a damn thing on the ground after halftime, which is part of why the Packers became ineffective and kept giving the ball back to the Bears to make this 18-point comeback.

Caleb Williams looked like a young quarterback going through first-playoff start jitters. He threw two interceptions on fourth downs, one of which shouldn’t have been caught as it cost the Packers 27 yards in field position.

But the Bears were hanging in there at 21-6 in the fourth quarter, then proceeded to catch quite a few breaks. Williams nearly lost a fumble on a 3rd-and-10 sack, but the Bears recovered the ball and were able to kick the 51-yard field goal to make it 21-9.

After Love was called for his second grounding penalty of the half, the Bears scored a touchdown to make it 21-16. The Packers overcame some mistakes and made it 28-16 on Golden’s great touchdown with 6:36 left. That should have been a dagger, but these 2025 Bears don’t know when to die.

But it’s funny how the key turning point of the game was the result of the Bears not being well prepared on offense, which should be Johnson’s expertise area, and getting bailed out for it to save the game. Chicago faced a 4th-and-3 at midfield with 5:37 left. Hurrying to get the snap off, the Bears snapped the ball over Williams’ head, which would have been a disastrous, likely game-ending turnover on downs.

But the Bears were penalized for a false start, setting up a 4th-and-8, and given a second chance, Williams made the throw of his career to find Rome Odunze for 27 yards. Game on from there.

It could have been curtains without the false start, so that’s how another Chicago mistake actually saved the game. The Bears turned that drive into 8 points and it was 27-24 with 4:18 left. But then it was LaFleur’s turn to ruin the game for his team with infuriating timeout usage. He burned one after an incomplete pass brought up 3rd-and-10, then the Packers immediately suffered a delay of game coming out of it anyway. Inexcusable.

That’s when McManus missed the 44-yard field goal with 2:51 left. Not the biggest miss of the game for him if you ask me. He missed the extra point after Golden’s touchdown that would have made it 28-16 with 6:36 left. That would have meant the Bears had to score two touchdowns instead of possibly settling for 8+3 or 3+8.

The Bears ended up scoring 2 touchdowns anyway, but look at the impact that point had. Instead of trailing 31-28 or 29-28 after Chicago’s last score, it was a 31-27 deficit, meaning Love had to get a touchdown with 1:36 and one timeout left instead of a field goal.

Green Bay’s usage of that final timeout was also questionable, then as fate would have it, an injury led to a 10-second runoff, making things even harder. Love almost had Golden for a touchdown on one play, but then he fumbled the final snap and had to fire a pass to the end zone that fell incomplete, and the Bears extended their record with a seventh win this season after trailing in the final 2:00.

Going into this game, I would have thought the rumors of LaFleur getting fired with a loss were BS. But after seeing the way it played out and thinking about all the big-game failures he’s had in seven years, the Packers might be wise for a change of leadership here.

It probably wasn’t going to be a Super Bowl season anyway for the Packers after losing Parsons, but that second half was coaching malpractice. It wouldn’t be so crazy for LaFleur to be moving on to another team for 2026 now.

As for the Bears, what more can you say? Caleb Williams is exactly the reason why a stat like EPA per play isn’t the end-all, be-all of stats for quarterbacks. Can you get the job done and score when you have to no matter how many downs or snaps it takes? He seems to be pretty good at that, and some of the throws are just incredible. Still misses his share of easy ones, but he can get better with that.

It should be quite the game with the Rams next week, another new matchup. The Rams have already allowed five game-winning drives, so Williams might have a shot at tying the single-season 4QC/GWD records with eight each.

Bills at Jaguars: The Trevor Lawrence Legacy Game Goes as Expected

The Buffalo pass defense. Like I’ve been saying for over a month, the Buffalo pass defense in a playoff field without Patrick Mahomes is why this team can get to the Super Bowl even without home games or a good run defense. They just have to stop some unproven quarterbacks in crunch time, and Lawrence was the first on their list, bringing the season totals to 8 saves and 0 blown leads for the Bills.

Oh, there were lead changes in the fourth quarter just as there were in all the early games this weekend. But when it came time for the final drive and Lawrence had a solid minute to get a kicker with incredible range into position, he immediately threw a pick to end the season.

But I think the game was lost well before that. The Jaguars should have had a run-heavy approach in this one. How does Tuten rip off runs of 20, 14, and 13 yards to end the first quarter and get one more carry the rest of the game? How?

They put their eggs in Lawrence’s basket, and while he settled down later in the game and made some nice throws, he killed them early with a pick that led to a 1-yard field goal drive for the Bills. He killed them when he ducked under a defender and his shin was down short on a 4th down in the red zone when the Jags had a chance to go up 14-3 after the Bills fumbled a kickoff.

It was evident early that Lawrence wasn’t on his A game, but the Jaguars didn’t do enough to test that run defense of the Bills. Also, the Jags were gifted a 54-yard field goal attempt before halftime that I’m not sure they deserved by beating the clock (did they really?), and Cam Little, after all the praise for his record-long kicks, missed it. That hurts in a 3-point loss.

But the Bills had a good offensive plan to throw those little short passes to Shakir to pace the offense on a day where James Cook was bottled up by the No. 1 run defense. Maybe a few too many Josh Allen designed runs when he’s banged up, but they made it work. And of course with the season on the line, he went to the Tush Push again, and this time he was pushed ahead for a 10-yard gain on 4th-and-1 with the season on the line.

That play was so weird to me. You obviously want to stop them since it’s fourth down. But once he got moving like that, do you just let them score? It was 24-20, so Buffalo absolutely needed a touchdown, but what if you stop them at the 5? You can still get a stop there to win the game. Once he got to the 1, why not just let him go the distance? Weird play.

Then Buffalo was stuck in no man’s land since you really don’t want to risk wasting a down with a bad play and getting a penalty or something stupid to push you back. Ideally, you’d run clock there and score on 2nd down with the sneak, leaving the Jaguars less than 20 seconds to work with. But they scored on first down, whether by design or not, and the Jaguars were going to get the ball back in a 27-24 game with 59 seconds left.

But you get a wild tipped ball that’s intercepted, and just like that, the season is over for the Jaguars. To evoke Dan Campbell, this may have been their best shot too in this AFC. But that’s one road win and one postseason game-winning drive in the books for Allen, who had neither of those things in his career before Sunday.

Next up is Denver as I predicted it’d be, and I think they have a very good shot of winning that one too because of their pass defense against Bo Nix. Again, someone has to be willing to run to take this team down, and someone better get Allen to the ground on defense. That’s why Houston is really the danger team for the Bills, but they may end up avoiding them here.

So far, so good.

Rams at Panthers: Stafford with MVP-Style Revenge Against Carolina

I kept saying the spread (Rams -10.5) was always too high for a team that’s been shaky in the last month like the Rams, who have already blown games as a huge favorite along with two huge leads in the second half against the Eagles and Seahawks. They already lost in Carolina in Week 13.

The Rams prevailed 34-31 this time, but it did show why they’re a shaky bet to go the distance. The short-yardage runs, the fourth-down decision making, the defensive play as of late, and some turnovers from Stafford and the offense are not leading to dominant play late in the season.

In this game, Stafford completed his first eight passes with Puka Nacua doing whatever he wants. But then Stafford hit his hand on a helmet and wasn’t the same. Nacua dropped a 46-yard touchdown going into halftime, and the Rams had a huge turnover on downs moment late in the second quarter. I get why McVay went for it; to control the rest of the clock and go into halftime up 13-17 points. But by not getting it, the Rams only led by 3.

Bryce Young was more than solid in his first playoff game. Certainly a few plays he’d like to have back, but the running game wasn’t there for him, and he made some clutch throws in big spots to finish with 264 passing yards.

Young did lead two go-ahead touchdown drives in the fourth quarter, but the defense was unable to hold up. They had a chance at a Stafford interception on a mix-up with Nacua with just under 12:00 left, but Puka made a play on the ball to force an incompletion on a drive that ended with a touchdown instead.

But when the Rams got the ball back with 2:34 left, it was all calmness and precision from Stafford on the 71-yard march to win the game. He reportedly told Davante Adams that it was time to go rip their hearts out, which he did. He threw a 19-yard touchdown to Colby Parkinson with 38 seconds left.

Young got the ball back in a 34-31 game with all three timeouts, so that gives you access to the entire playbook and you can use every square inch of the field with no concern for the clock. However, he unfortunately saved his worst drive for the last as the Panthers couldn’t gain a yard, and Young threw four straight incompletions to end the game on downs.

Horn had a chance at a low catch on fourth down, but by that point, you’re down to under 7 seconds and still not in field goal range, so the real failure of the drive came well before the final snap. Just not the execution we saw from Young in these moments in the regular season, and it cost them at the end here.

But it was still a great effort for an 8-9 team that was the biggest home underdog in NFL playoff history. Scary times for the Rams, but they prevailed and are moving onto Chicago.

49ers at Eagles: Repeating Is Hard

The 2025 Eagles were able to end a long drought and repeat as NFC East champions, but the only other repeat they’re going to end 2025 with is reminding us that this offense played half-assed football all season going back to opening night against Dallas when they only scored a field goal after a great first half.

The Eagles repeatedly did this all season, so it’s no surprise their season ended in this fashion. They scored two touchdowns on their first three drives, then never found the end zone on their last seven possessions. A.J. Brown bitched about targets all year and finished this game with 3 catches for 25 yards and some bad drops/incompletions. He might have played his last game with Philly.

Meanwhile, the 49ers hung in there and made it work without Ricky Pearsall, then they lost tight end George Kittle to a torn Achilles early in the game. Demarcus Robinson set the tone early with a 61-yard catch-and-run in stride on the opening drive, which he finished with a touchdown on his way to 111 yards.

Brock Purdy wasn’t perfect with a couple of interceptions, but he played well to get to 262 yards and 2 touchdowns without Kittle and Pearsall. They also couldn’t run the ball for much (16 carries for 51 yards). But on the first play of the fourth quarter, they brought back a trick play from Super Bowl 58 with Jauan Jennings throwing a 29-yard touchdown that required a great diving catch from Chrisitan McCaffrey to take a 17-16 lead. Both teams missed an extra point in the game (Eagles early, 49ers late).

The Eagles didn’t have Lane Johnson at tackle, which hurt as there were some big holding penalties that killed drives in the second half. They were able to turn Purdy’s second pick into a field goal drive that took a 19-17 lead with 8:00 left. But a defense that’s wilted in some fourth quarters blew a fifth lead this year. Purdy led a 66-yard march, finishing on third down with a 4-yard touchdown pass to CMC for a 23-19 lead with 2:54 left after the extra point was missed.

The 49ers probably should have gone for 2 there as 4 vs. 5 is little difference, and at least if you’re up 6 points, the other team might miss the extra point as we’ve seen Jake Elliott do this year.

Anyways, it was on Hurts to deliver a game-winning drive, which would have been his first in the postseason. It was nearly a four-and-out drive after a horrible drop by Brown on third down. But Dallas Goedert cleaned it up with 15 yards on fourth-and-5. However, once the drive reached the San Francisco 20, things stalled out. The poor pass rush for the 49ers got home for a 1-yard loss on a sack, then Hurts threw three straight incompletions to end the season for the Eagles.

On 4th-and-11, Hurts threw to Goedert with three defenders around him and it was closer to a pick than anything. I’m not sure he had any real other options on the play, but that’s season over there. The 49ers pulled it off.

I was going to reply to a tweet I saw before kickoff about the bad EPA rankings for the 49ers’ defense this year, and I keep hearing the sentiment that they’re a bottom-5 defense, which doesn’t jive with their ranking of 13th in points and 16th in points per drive allowed.

Again, this is an example of how EPA can miss some fundamental information. That’s a stat that can get juiced and heavily inflated by splash plays like sacks and turnovers. So, it’s not a surprise the 49ers don’t look good in EPA when they don’t get many splash plays. But they must be doing something right if they’re usually not getting destroyed on the scoreboard.

Throw in the struggles of the Eagles to play a 60-minute game on offense, and the 49ers always had a good shot of pulling this one out as a low-scoring game you win in the fourth quarter. That’s exactly what happened too.

They can do the same thing in Seattle, a team they’ve held to 13 points in both meetings this year. But we have all week to build up that one.

The Eagles are done. No repeat for them like I foolishly picked on Friday night. But I thought the defense would be better than this as I didn’t see getting killed by Robinson and a touchdown pass from Jennings leading to the end for this team.

Finally, I don’t think it’s hindsight to question why Nick Sirianni didn’t try to get that No. 2 seed last week by beating Washington. Wouldn’t you rather face a banged-up Green Bay team that’s lost four in a row? A team you already beat in a low-scoring game instead of a 49ers team that is well coached and still has some elite players, and they never seem to go one-and-done in the postseason. They can score too with Purdy, so yeah, I think that was a tactical error by Sirianni.

Not to mention getting home-field over Chicago if you’re the No. 2 seed. I didn’t like that decision to rest last week, and I really don’t like it now after what we saw from the Eagles on Sunday.

Chargers at Patriots: Roman, Lend Me Your Ears So I Can Whisper “You’re Fired”

The last NFL team to score 3 points in a playoff game before the Chargers on Sunday night was the Ravens in Buffalo during COVD. Who was the offensive coordinator? Greg Roman. I think we’ve seen enough of him here, and while it’s clearly not all his fault, he’s wasting Justin Herbert’s talent and hasn’t gotten any good results in the big games the last two years. I think they should make him the sacrificial lamb and fire him over this one after the Chargers scored 22 points in the final three games of the season.

Moving onto the quarterback, these Herbert playoff appearances keep getting worse. Now 0-3, I actually think he was better last year when he threw four interceptions (one dropped, one down 20) in Houston compared to this impotent performance with 3 points making the 2025 Patriots look like the 2003 Patriots. The weather wasn’t even an issue.

I also think that Houston game might be messing with him mentally, because how do you not pull the trigger to McConkey on this play early?

You can’t be too worried about throwing picks in a game like this. That’s how you end up scoring 3 points and just running or taking sacks all night because you’re scared of putting the ball 10 yards down the field. Terrible mindset to have in a playoff game.

The thing is the pass protection wasn’t really that bad until it was 16-3 in the fourth quarter. Then Herbert was swarmed and engulfed. But the damage had already been done earlier on the first seven drives.

As for Drake Maye in his first playoff game, he was bad. He was inaccurate against a zone defense. He turned into a sack merchant again, going down 5 times (lost over 6 yards per sack too this time so he wasn’t even mitigating the losses this week), and he should have had two lost fumbles, and the second one could have been an easy touchdown for the Chargers that would have made it an interesting 16-10 game with time. Most of his big plays were blown coverage or huge YAC on a checkdown to Stevenson.

Just not impressed, and objectively I don’t know how people can praise a 16-point performance like this from a quarterback. But it was his first playoff game, and he at least did better in the second half after a poor first half. Just interesting to note that in his second NFL win over a winning team, he had a 6-3 lead at halftime in both games (this and at Buffalo).

There’s also the fact that Vrabel and New England are used to these low-scoring playoff wins.

What’s next, two special teams touchdowns against Houston while Josh Dobbs has to come off the bench and direct a win? Then beating the Rams in the Super Bowl with 13 offensive points? Or is that only reserved for Brady?

Neither the Texans nor Patriots allowed a touchdown this week, so who knows what to expect from that one. But based on this game, I wouldn’t expect a ton of scoring from Maye in the passing game.

But the Chargers are in a tough spot as they need a new OC and they’ll probably lose their DC (Jesse Minter) to a head coaching Job. I’m not sure you can ever trust Herbert in one of these games until he proves he can get the job done. And they’re always on the road because they can seemingly never win this division. The Chiefs won’t be down for long, and the Broncos have a lot of good players and a coach on par with Harbaugh.

The 2025 Chargers had that built-in excuse with the offensive tackles going out, but I’m surprised at how little of a factor that was for three quarters on Sunday. Just played a lot of bad, passive football and that can be even worse than getting aggressive and throwing some picks.

At least they scored more points last year in Houston.

Next week: I always say the divisional round is the best weekend of the NFL year, but it’s got a high bar to clear after what we just saw. It’s also going to try to do it by introducing the top seeds, Seattle and Denver, into the mix. We’ll see if the Texans can sack the Patriots, and Rams vs. Bears could be the shootout of the postseason.

2025 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 8

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

After watching the NFL turn tricks all day Sunday, I want to know where my treat is. Where’s a good, competitive game? Is it really going to come from Commanders at Chiefs on Monday night with the 12-point spread? It might have to as this Week 8 has had just 3 games with a comeback opportunity.

That’d be the fewest in any week since I’ve started doing this weekly (2011). That’s 15 seasons.

Granted, there were six teams on a bye but 13 games should be enough to get better numbers than this as it’s been blowout city with 11-of-12 games decided by double digits, and many were by three scores or more.

You know things are fvcked when Justin Fields leads the biggest comeback of the day. At least it was finished by Breece Hall, so that checks out for the brand. But yeah, two fourth-quarter lead changes is it, and the Packers still won by 10, and their “comeback” was on the first play of the quarter in the red zone.

If Chiefs-Commanders does give us four games with a comeback opportunity for the week, that would tie Week 9 in 2014 and a couple of weeks in 2021 for the fewest since 2011.

I got a late start to writing this as I had some work to take care of, but I’m pretty sure I can run through this thing in record time. Many teams didn’t give much of a shit about their effort on Sunday, so why should I pour over what they did here? I’d like to sleep in today.

A lot of this can get more detail in my QB rankings later this week, and I’m also doing an awards update (MVP) for Thursday.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Packers at Steelers: Game of the Weak Week

After a day of blowouts, I was expecting a tight, 23-20 kind of game that the Steelers would pull out. Maybe even an overtime game. But what a stunning performance from Jordan Love to go out there on Aaron Rodgers’ big night and steal the headlines and the game back from Pittsburgh after trailing 16-7 at halftime.

You know, the kind of comeback the Packers almost never made during Rodgers’ time in Green Bay. But it should be pointed out that the Pittsburgh defense never really had any edge on the Green Bay defense in this game. Yes, the run was getting stopped early with Josh Jacobs, but that dam broke a little later with the backup in there running the ball at will in the second half. But Jordan Love had a receiver drop a late-down pass to kill one drive, and his kicker missed two kicks that Chris Boswell wouldn’t have missed for Pittsburgh.

So, that 16-7 was always a bit of a mirage at the half. But what a job by Love to complete 20 passes in a row at one point, something Rodgers never even did with the Packers. Love finished with 360 yards and 3 touchdowns. This is the scary version of Green Bay we watched in Weeks 1-2 and haven’t really seen since. They got good sacks on Rodgers, who had been getting the ball away better this year. But not so much tonight as Parsons and company ate well.

The Pittsburgh defense just continues to be horrible and one of the biggest disappointments in the league. Also, this game really exposed the lack of wideouts available to Rodgers in this offense. He’s trying to use backs and tight ends like WRs, and that’s usually not a good thing for most quarterbacks, let alone one of the most wide receiver-centric passers in NFL history.

I swear that’s how you end up with Kenneth Gainwell, a running back, fumbling in the open field the way he did late in the game. That’s just not a play he’s used to making. So, I think the Steelers will make some move for a wideout before the trade deadline, but that’s not going to stop you from playing in 34-31 games.

The seeds were there Week 1 that this defense was going to be a huge problem when they made Justin Fields look good. At some point, Tomlin has to be viewed as the main problem by the mainstream media, and I swear a losing record is the only thing that will get people to turn on him.

With the Steelers’ upcoming schedule, 8-9 isn’t out of the question again. That was my original pick all spring long until I started buying into the fool’s gold of surrounding Rodgers with all of these vets. Turns out you have to actually have good schemes and be able to coach them to execute.

Missing that badly in Pittsburgh these days.

Cowboys at Broncos: Two Altitudes

I did think about the 42-17 final in Mile High in the second game of Dak Prescott’s second season (2017) this week. Probably should have mirrored that for this pick, but I gave Dallas a shot to cover the spread as Denver’s been starting games really slow and coming  back late.

However, that Dallas defense is a gift to opponents this year. Bo Nix and the running game chewed them up, and Dak had a weird game where he never completed a pass to Jake Ferguson at tight end, and the numbers for CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens look better than you’d expect against that secondary, which lost Patrick Surtian II to an injury even.

But just too much poor execution from Dallas all day, and it didn’t look aggressive enough on the road against a team that was nearly on a 70-point pace in 60 minutes if you go back to last week’s 33-point explosion in the fourth quarter.

Yes, the Broncos (6-2) are scary when they look like this, but you have to put everything into perspective. It was just a few weeks ago when they had to sack Justin Fields 9 times to seal a 13-11 win over the Jets overseas.

But Denver did a great job on this Sunday.

Jets at Bengals: Mike White Redux

Even with leads of 15 and 14 in the fourth quarter, the Bengals couldn’t close it out. That gave me some PTSD from the 2021 game, the Mike White game where he threw for 400 yards in a comeback win that Joe Burrow couldn’t close out. I’ll never get over that one as I lost about $11,000 in winning bets from that moneyline.

The 2025 Bengals may not get past this one as losing at home to the 0-7 Jets in this fashion is absurd. Giving up a comeback like this to Justin Fields? Are you shitting me? The quarterback who was 0-26 when his team allowed more than 20 points? 2-21 at 4QC opportunities? Granted, Breece Hall was actually the one who threw the game-winning touchdown on a ballsy, double-clutched decision to throw there.

But then the Bengals could have handed Aaron Glenn and Fields another loss and blown lead in this situation had they not run the ball on a 2nd-and-obvious-pass situation. That put Flacco in 3rd-and-long and pressed for time, and let’s not forget his receiver not bringing in the ball on first down to start that little series. Flacco couldn’t find anyone on the last two throws, and that was enough. The Jets finally got a win at 39-38.

Now, the Bengals (3-5) might be cooked instead of .500 again. What a league.  You kinda had to see this coming after the Woody Johnson comments about Fields earlier in the week, then the tragic news about former Jets center Nick Mangold (RIP) passing from kidney disease this weekend. Everything was pointing to statement win for the Jets, and sure enough, the Bengals helped them to one.

But that 2nd-and-10 run for a yard when you’re trying to go set up a game-winning field goal is exactly why Taylor has to go. Never mind they made Lou Anarumo the scapegoat for why their defense is garbage.

Tear it all down in Cincinnati.

Titans at Colts: Indiana Jones and the Scoring Boom

Even with game tape from Week 3 (though probably not a competent Tennessee coaching staff that can interpret it), and even with back-to-back punts in the second quarter, the Colts still efficiently dropped 38 points on few drives before calling the dogs off in the latest sweep of Tennessee.

Daniel Jones played very well again as did Jonathan Taylor showing off his speed on another 3-touchdown day. Colts-Chiefs can’t come here soon enough.

49ers at Texans: Mentee Over Mentor

The mentee (DeMeco Ryans) took care of the mentor (Kyle Shanahan) in this one as C.J. Stroud shook off a horrible Monday night game and ripped the 49ers a new one by halftime here. Think I only saw one pick that was a glaring mistake for Stroud as he was sharp.

The 49ers just weren’t very effective and did little outside of a George Kittle touchdown as promised on National Tight End’s Day, which didn’t really explode that much around the league.

But good win for Houston without Nico Collins.

Bears at Ravens: Season Saved

Only one team (1970 Bengals) has ever made the playoffs after starting 1-6, so the Ravens were in a real must-win situation without Lamar Jackson. Even though the Bears hogged the ball early, the Ravens held them to field goals. Then after an early punt, Tyler Huntley moved the offense efficiently and effectively. The Ravens scored on 6-of-7 drives at one point. A lot of field goals but the rookie kicker was good.

Then after Chicago cut the 10-point deficit into a 16-13 game in the fourth quarter, you could see the Ravens choking away another double-digit lead late. But that’s when Nate Wiggins intercepted Caleb Williams’ pass, setting up a 9-yard touchdown drive to blow the game back open and save the day.

Maybe save the season if Lamar can return this week. Guess we’ll have to see if he practices, and then see what they say about how he practiced exactly…

Bills at Panthers: Red Rifle Backfires

Oh, I’ll get to Josh Allen later this week after one of the most misleading stat lines of the season. But this was your typical get-right game for the Bills. That means multiple takeaways, forced or just backup quarterback screw-ups; it doesn’t matter. They used those plays and some great runs by James Cook to dominate this game in 40-9.

I’m glad I came to my senses late in the week and didn’t back Carolina ATS. Andy Dalton was a mess and the running game for Buffalo was much better than the Carolina backfield.

Browns at Patriots: Myles Garrett’s Historic Day Results in 32-13 Loss

Myles Garrett had 5 sacks and yet the Browns still lost 32-13. It wasn’t all offensive mistakes putting the defense in a bind again either. The Patriots had two long touchdown drives in the 3rd quarter after Garrett’s sacks kept holding Drake Maye to field goals early.

But in the end, New England blew past the Browns, and Stefon Diggs is finally on the board for a touchdown in 2025. This is probably going to be the best defense the Patriots face all year, and Maye has taken 9 sacks the last two weeks, so that is something to keep an eye on.

But this game is a great example of how defense is largely valued by unit play instead of any one individual. Garrett is officially the 20th player since 1982 to reach 5.0 sacks in a game. Those players now have a team record of 16-4, and the other three players lost by a combined 6 points in their games.

That means Garrett is the first player since 1982 to get 5.0 sacks and still lose the game by more than 3 points. Only the fourth to get 4.0 sacks and lose by more than 16 points. But when you agree to stay in Cleveland…

Buccaneers at Saints: Another Wasted Defensive Gem

Similar to how the Browns wasted Garrett’s effort vs. New England, the Saints’ offense wasted the performance of the whole defense in keeping Tampa in check.

I guess that Baker Mayfield MVP campaign went the way of Howard Dean, right? The Tampa defense won this game with a pick-six, 5 sacks, and 4 turnovers in total as the offense was pretty mid for the Bucs without Mike Evans, Bucky Irving, and Chris Godwin.

At one point, the Saints stopped the Bucs on 8 straight plays from the 1-yard line over two drives. Yes, I’m including the offsides penalty on first down that started things. Pretty crazy to watch that play out twice, though the Bucs did eventually score on the 9th play.

But just another bad day for the Saints, who benched Spencer Rattler for rookie Tyler Shough, who didn’t fare any better. Will that move be permanent next game? Probably with the way the NFL works. Guys like Rattler just don’t get a long leash.

Giants at Eagles: Skattebo Lived His Life Like a Candle in the Wind

I dunno, I guess I always thought Cam Skattebo’s first major NFL injury would be something… funny? He’d go to do a backflip celebration and land on a cameraman, or he’d headbutt a concrete wall. But a dislocated ankle was just sad to watch and you can see the impact it had on Jaxson Dart, who knows he has to get through the rest of his rookie year without a good defense, his best receiver, and now his best running back.

He also got hosed by the refs in this one as the Eagles got away with a very clear fumble on the Tush Push for a “forward progress stopped” bullshit call.

Given all the times we’ve seen the refs let them get forward progress for long after they deserved it, this call was just pure bullshit. Maybe the game plays a little differently if the Eagles don’t go up 14-7 two plays later.

But the Eagles did well without A.J. Brown. Running game was huge with 276 yards. Defense had 5 sacks. Most complete effort yet for the Eagles, and kinda what I had in mind when I picked them to cover the spread for the sake of they were “due” to win a game in blowout fashion this year.

It happened. And I’d rather not think about this game again. It signals the end of some fun times with New York’s rookie duo in the backfield. I know Thelma & Louise probably had a longer shelf life together than these two would with the way they play so recklessly, but it was really an innocent play that took Skattebo out. A shame.

Dolphins at Falcons: WTF?

Seriously, between losing 30-0 to the Panthers and now 34-10 at home to the Dolphins, I’m not sure Atlanta doesn’t have the two worst losses of 2025. The weekly variance for this team is disgusting and hard to explain.

Sure, the offense wasn’t great in this one when you replace Michael Penix Jr. with dusty-ass Kirk Cousins and no Drake London. Darnell Mooney was only coming back from injury and didn’t seem ready for the quarterback change either. That part makes some sense, though it does give you some proof that Cousins is so washed in 2025, because in any other year, he’d at least find a way to throw for 250 yards and a few touchdowns against a defense this bad. And how does Bijan Robinson not get fed the ball? It feels like they started Cousins last second and had no real plan.

But how does the defense have its worst game of the season against the trainwreck that is Tua Tagovailoa? That part I don’t get. The Dolphins’ first 3 touchdown drives were 79+ yards too, so it’s not like Tua threw 4 touchdowns on short fields. This was legit.

The Falcons are not legit, and I can’t help but look at the coach if you’re having such random results like this.

Next week: Welcome to November. While I doubt it was intentional, the Week 9 schedule does reek of “here’s some shit games to keep you busy before Chiefs-Bills takes over your life at 4:25.” And I’m okay with that. Colts-Steelers at least has some potential for good QB play. But TNF is Ravens-Dolphins, and it’s not like you ever get excited to watch Miami play. Seattle-Washington has lost some luster for SNF with the Jayden Daniels injury. Cardinals-Cowboys on MNF sounds like an opportunity to get an early start on writing.

2025 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 2

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

The NFL has become such a week-to-week league where you never know what’s going to happen anymore. Sometimes it can be explained, then other times it just can’t.

How does Justin Fields go from maybe his best game ever against the Steelers to maybe his worst game ever against a Buffalo team that was giving up over 10 yards per play to Baltimore last week? Then the Ravens were struggling to score anything on the Browns without short fields, and Derrick Henry was in fact shut down for the full game after nearly rushing for 200 last week.

You can say “division games are different” but how do the Giants go from 6 points in an NFC East game against Washington to 37 points in another NFC East game in Dallas? How do the Giants and Cowboys trade score after score in the fourth quarter after the Cowboys played a 3-0 second half against Philadelphia last week?

There aren’t many teams I’d be willing to write a glowing review about today as everything just seems so temporary and misleading. Played well today? Great, you’re probably just one week away from your next disappointment.

Green Bay, my Super Bowl pick in the NFC, does look pretty good though when you consider how Detroit scored at will Sunday and how they made Jayden Daniels look as ineffective as he’s ever been in a game. That’s a team to watch.

But with a good Monday night doubleheader to go, we had 10-of-14 games with a comeback opportunity this week, which is another high number as I could easily see both Monday night games adding to that.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Eagles at Chiefs: Not Very Super

First, I predicted the Eagles would win 23-20, so close enough. But if this is what the Eagles vs. Chiefs matchup looks like in 2025, I’m oddly more confident in the Chiefs prevailing in a Super Bowl rematch if it came down to that. At least they’d have Rashee Rice for that one, and maybe Xavier Worthy if his season isn’t destroyed by injury.

How did he get injured? Travis Kelce accidentally blew him up. Who made the biggest mistake Sunday for the Chiefs’ latest one-score loss? Kelce when he dropped a go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter and turned it into an interception, killing a marathon drive when it looked like the Chiefs were ready to take the lead.

It’s just been that kind of start to the season for the Chiefs. Even in a game they lose 20-17, their quarterback played well enough to score 27 points on nine drives, which would again be elite production despite the flaws around him. But when your kicker shanks an early field goal into the parking lot, and your trustworthy tight end is catching harder passes and letting the layup go to the other team, it’s that kind of day again.

It’s not like the Eagles showed much. Jalen Hurts only threw for 101 yards on 22 passes. He only rushed for 15 yards this week too with the Tush Push looking as pathetic as ever with the blatant false starts they’re getting away with on those plays. Something has to be done there.

Hurts is 2-0 at Arrowhead now and they’re two of the worst games he’s ever played in his career. Steve Spagnulo blitzes the hell out of him in these games, and he basically hits one lucky deep ball in the fourth quarter of both while willing Kelce to turn the ball over in the red zone in both games. I’m talking about the 2023 Monday night game, of course, and that one had the MVS dropped touchdown to boot.

But no such luck for the Chiefs this week. In fact, the ending was much like Week 1 in Brazil where the Chiefs cut a two-score deficit into a one-score deficit in the last 3:00, then the defense couldn’t get the stop it needed to get the ball back. So you lose a one-score game, and this is happening because it’s the defense on the field late whereas last year it was usually Mahomes on the field late with the ball in his hands where you want it.

Offensively, they’re close to making it work even with the missing receivers, but it’s just not sustainable as Mahomes again outrushed the rest of his teammates combined as the best plays they have in the playbook are not in the playbook. They’re just scrambles by Mahomes. You can’t last a season doing that. By the way, those scrambles are why he still had the third-highest QBR (79.3) this week before MNF.

Defensively, they were much better this week outside of letting Hurts hit that 28-yard pass to DeVonta Smith on 3rd-and-10 in the fourth quarter. Actually more of a “dagger” than “The Dagger” in the Super Bowl that was already decided as this one helped make it a two-score game.

But if you look around the league, it’s defenses forcing takeaways that are the cornerstone of success in today’s NFL. You get takeaways, you get extra possessions, and you usually get great field position for easy scores.

The Chiefs need that field position right now with the lack of weapons and offensive cohesion. Yet they’re not getting it as the Chiefs have just one takeaway in their last six games. That’s horrible.

The 2024 Chiefs won at unprecedented rates in close games and games without getting takeaways. That’s great, but it’s very hard to sustain that year over year. We’ve seen that play out twice already this season, and while losing to two Super Bowl contenders by one score is hardly the worst thing in the world, it gets serious if they lose to the Giants this week too with Baltimore and Detroit soon to come.

I don’t think the Chiefs got the Eagles’ best shot on Sunday, but I also don’t think the Eagles have much in the way of reinforcements who could make a difference in February if they did meet again in a third Super Bowl. What, is Dallas Goedert going to suddenly make Jalen Hurts throw the ball an average amount of yards that don’t’ look like someone’s GPA?

But the Chiefs are banking a lot on the returns of Worthy and Rice (and maybe rookie Jalen Royals, another injured wideout they’ve been missing). That’s fine, but there are serious issues with this team’s inability to create takeaways on defense, and the offense has to answer the question of how do you deal with Kelce’s legacy in what should be his final season when he’s sabotaged the offense in both games already?

But if we’re comparing Sunday to last February, these Chiefs can hang with these Eagles. I’m not sure the Eagles know who they really are right now offensively either. Neither team looked very Super Bowl-worthy in this game.

Giants at Cowboys: Barnburner in Jerry World

You mean to tell me all those times we wasted 3 f’n hours watching Giants-Cowboys in prime time, and the one time they throw them on at 1 PM it turns out to be the craziest game in the history of this rivalry?

This game was nuts as both teams scored at least 20 points with five lead changes and a game-tying 64-yard field goal in the fourth quarter alone. Russell Wilson threw for 450 yards (career high was 452 against Houston in 2017), showing he’s still got something in the tank and shouldn’t be benched yet. It also speaks back to the 345 passing yards per game the Giants averaged in the preseason. Malik Nabers looks the part of an All-Pro with 167 yards and two touchdowns, including a 48-yard bomb with 0:25 left that will be forgotten immediately because of all the other madness here.

George Pickens made his presence felt for Dallas with some key catches during the fireworks. Brandon Aubrey might be the new standard for kickers with his 64-yard kick to force overtime, and then his 46-yard winner in overtime also came with 0:00 left on the clock, and I read that’s the first time ever a kicker made a field goal with no time left in the fourth quarter and overtime of the same game. A little hard to believe.

But what a way for Dak Prescott to get his 14th-straight win against the Giants. We also saw the playoff overtime system used in the regular season for the first time. The Giants won the toss and elected to receive, putting the defense on the field first – something Kyle Shanahan didn’t do for the 49ers in Super bowl 58 against the Chiefs in the only other game we’ve seen this used for.

I think the Giants made the right decision there. Shockingly, it took five possessions in overtime before anyone scored, and the Dallas score came after Wilson’s big mistake of throwing up a pick on 2nd-and-14.

I’m still not sold Dallas is a contender this year, or that we won’t see Wilson get benched for the rookie. But sometimes you just have to enjoy two veteran quarterbacks, two of the oldest we have in this league, slinging it all over the field like that. Incredible stuff.

Broncos at Colts: Meaningful Football in Indy Again?

While the ratings for Eagles-Chiefs will likely be good and the NFL seemed to build the late-afternoon schedule in Week 2 to showcase that game, there was a good one going on in Indy between the Broncos and Colts, the Peyton Manning Bowl.

The lack of meaningful games played by the Colts since the 2014 AFC Championship Game has been a tough pill to swallow given how great the team was in the Manning early and those early Andrew Luck seasons. The Broncos probably feel the same way about their post-Manning era as they finally made the playoffs for the first time since winning Super Bowl 50 last year.

So, this was a rare big game for both of these franchises to get to 2-0. Bo Nix wanted to make up for a bad season opener, and he mostly did. Daniel Jones wanted to prove Week 1 was no fluke, and he did that too. The Colts haven’t punted yet this season, the type of offensive efficiency that’s usually only reserved for QBs having God Mode runs as this is only the fifth time it’s happened since World War II ended.

Jones is playing legitimately good football with another 316 passing yards. Jonathan Taylor was incredible too with 215 yards from scrimmage in the game. The Denver defense was a paper tiger last year and it’s looking similar this year.

But I must say for as much as Colts coach Shane Steichen looks to be vindicated in benching Anthony Richardson for Jones, he’s very lucky the Colts stole this game as he didn’t do a good job closing it out. Denver got sloppy late with Nix throwing a pick in scoring range, then Wil Lutz missed a big 42-yard field goal with 3:15 left.

Down 28-26, the Colts only needed a field goal. But after Jones completed a pass to pick up a first down and burn Denver’s final timeout with 1:44 left, Steichen went with a super conservative strategy of three more runs before settling for a 60-yard field goal with a so-so kicker (Shrader) at best.

That’s crazy. I don’t care how good some kickers have gotten at long-range kicks, you have to keep throwing there and get closer. Sure enough, Shrader was short on the 60-yard field goal, but the Colts got bailed out with a leverage penalty on the Broncos. You be the judge:

I see why they called it by the letter of the law. You can’t touch an opponent or teammate to propel yourself to try blocking a kick. But I’d like to see a call when it’s something more egregious as he barely gained any advantage here. That’s a tough 15 yards.

Given a second chance, Shrader was good from 45 yards and the Colts won 29-28 to move to 2-0. I would dock an ending like this for Steichen in a Coach of the Year race, but this is becoming quite the story with Jones playing like this.

Maybe MetLife Stadium is the curse and that’s why Geno Smith and Sam Darnold couldn’t wait to get away from there and do better. The Butt Fumble of 2012 (shout out Mark Sanchez) cursed all quarterbacks who start there, which is why Eli never won another playoff game for the Giants after it, and all the failed careers for these other Jets and Giants quarterbacks.

I guess I need some kind of supernatural explanation for how Indiana Jones is leading one of the most efficient offenses we’ve seen these last two weeks. Doesn’t feel real yet.

Seahawks at Steelers: Bonehead Play of the Year

It’s kind of incredible (and sad) how Aaron Rodgers joins a team and suddenly the defense is terrible, and the running game barely exists. But the Steelers had some issues on defense to end 2024. They weren’t supposed to carry over after they added some real veteran talent, but this thing is not working out for Mike Tomlin after 8 quarters.

But this was a very winnable game for the Steelers that broke Seattle’s way thanks to three huge plays:

  • In the third quarter, Rodgers’ 3rd-and-goal pass was deflected by a diving Calvin Austin into an interception in the end zone when the Steelers had a chance to take a 21-14 lead.
  • Rookie running back Kaleb Johnson made one of the dumbest plays in NFL history when he let the kickoff alone in the landing zone and the Seahawks were able to recover it for a touchdown to make it 24-14.
  • Even with the Seahawks running a give-up draw on 3rd-and-19, Kenneth Walker still hit them for a 19-yard touchdown run to make it 31-17 with 3:41 left.

Rodgers struggled in this game with some passes it’s hard to believe he threw because of how risk averse he usually is. But between that red-zone pick off the bad deflection and Johnson’s moronic move, the Steelers looked like toast here. It didn’t help that they made Cooper Kupp look like the 2021 version of Kupp, giving Sam Darnold another viable weapon outside of Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who is proving me wrong by looking like a legit WR1 with 8/103 this week.

The Seahawks are a little better than I was giving them credit for. Given the way Justin Fields couldn’t complete passes against a Buffalo defense that was bleeding yards last week, I only think the worst about where the Pittsburgh defense is headed this year. Rodgers with one good wideout is just not going to be able to lead many multi-score comebacks.

The Steelers are in the danger zone right now as I’m not really sure what they can hang their hat on. Rodgers can still make some gifted throws, but the consistency isn’t going to be there like the old days.

Jaguars at Bengals: Jake Browning to the Rescue Again

The early reports on Joe Burrow’s injury is turf toe and it could be serious, meaning three months out or even the rest of the season. Either way, we should expect to see more of backup Jake Browning, who again got the job done similar to a 2023 game in Jacksonville, which was the kind of high-scoring win in crunch time the Bengals almost never win with Burrow at quarterback.

Even with throwing 3 interceptions, Browning has shown he can bounce back and give his talented receivers chances to make plays. Even Tinsley caught a one-handed touchdown from Browning, so it’s not just Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, who also scored Sunday in the Bengals’ 31-27 comeback win.

But I also think it’s funny that a year ago, Bengals fans complained about a 4th-and-16 defensive pass interference penalty in Kansas City that cost them a game in Week 2. It was the right call, mind you, but they weren’t letting that one go all season.

This time, the Bengals got a very questionable DPI flag go their way on a 4th-and-5 with 1:54 left, basically the ballgame again, when Travis Hunter was flagged for what looked like pretty good defense. He was engaged with the receiver who also made contact to Hunter’s face, and Hunter did get his head turned around and swatted at the ball. I wouldn’t want a flag here on either side.

Hunter played 43 snaps on defense (42 on offense), so he had a much bigger role this week as a dual threat. However, it sucks that his first high-profile defensive snap is a shady penalty that arguably decided the game.

But you have to stop the backup quarterback, and the Jaguars couldn’t do it just as they couldn’t stop Browning in 2023 either. He scored on a sneak touchdown with 18 seconds left, not really leaving the offense enough time to answer it.

Trevor Lawrence had an uneven game and missed several opportunities to put more points on the board and to convert late on a 4th-and-5 at the Cincinnati 7 with 3:42 left. That decision shows how the NFL has made progress with aggressive coaching as Liam Coen wasn’t going to settle for a 6-point lead and be in the same position of giving up the go-ahead touchdown (that the Bengals absolutely knew they needed) in the final 20 seconds.

In fact, it’s better to be up 3 there late as opposed to 6 as the offense will hopefully stay conservative on fourth down and go for the tying field goal. But the Bengals ended up getting the winning touchdown anyway.

Tough loss for the Jaguars, and we’ll just have to see what the news is on Burrow. But I think people shouldn’t sell the drop-off to Browing short. If he can win the clutch games Burrow couldn’t, what’s the real issue? The defense remained opportunistic this week with the timely stops of Lawrence too, so they’ll need to keep that up.

This injury all but tanks any Burrow for MVP talk, but hopefully he gets better news and can return eventually this season. But I’d be lying if I wasn’t looking forward to getting more data points on how Browning does in this offense and in moments like this.

Falcons at Vikings: Not the Baby LOAT

When people say it’s so easy to play quarterback now, show them this game. That didn’t look like much fun for J.J. McCarthy and Michael Penix, two young quarterbacks the NFL apparently wanted to showcase in this prime-time slot instead of the Super Bowl rematch in Week 2.

These defenses had these quarterbacks in hell, especially the revamped pass rush for the Falcons that already had a solid debut in Week 1. Every chance I had to write about the Falcons this offseason, I kept mentioning those two first-round rushers and veteran Leonard Floyd, and all three of them were in on the 6 sacks McCarthy took in this 22-6 grind.

Similar to Monday night for McCarthy without the short fields helping him score late, I’m just not that impressed with his arm. The passes look weak to me as if he was coming off a shoulder or elbow injury instead of a meniscus. It’s weird.

But while it felt like another game he could steal in the fourth quarter thanks to his defense keeping him in it at 12-6, think again. Even after McCarthy got some great field position (own 48) to start his rally attempt, the Falcons closed that down immediately with a strip-sack that led to a 54-yard field goal for new kicker Parker Romo, who delivered big all night.

Down 15-6, McCarthy threw incomplete on a 3rd-and-1 to a wide-open receiver deep. Shockingly, Kevin O’Connell had his team punt with 9:52 left and the team still down two scores on a night it struggled to slow down the running game as Bijan Robinson had a huge game.

I think it’s the worst punt of this young season by any coach. Don’t call the deep shot on 3rd-and-1 if you’re just going to punt there. Then why wouldn’t you just go for it? If you can’t get a yard, how do you expect to score twice the rest of the game? If you don’t get it, you at least give up a short field that shouldn’t take much time off the clock.

But the worst-case scenario happened. The Vikings did their sissy punt, and the Falcons used up 6:17 of game clock to add a touchdown to make it 22-6 with 3:22 left. Game over, basically.

McCarthy’s rotten night ended so poorly that he threw up a pick expecting to get an offsides penalty but instead it was for an illegal shift on the Vikings, so the interception stood. Rough.

I’m feeling pretty good about Robinson and the Atlanta pass rush going forward. With the Vikings, I liked the under 8.5 wins all offseason for this team as I was not buying McCarthy until he proved he could play. His defense is going to keep him in games and he could end up playing well by season’s end, but for right now, he doesn’t know what he’s doing and the Vikings are going to continue to struggle.

He doesn’t look like he’s going to be the Baby LOAT from Michigan (new Tom Brady) after all.

Bears at Lions: They Just Needed Ben Johnson Back in the Building

Maybe not 52-21, but this more or less was the outcome I expected in this one. The Lions show all is well with the offense without Ben Johnson, they take advantage of the Bears coming off a Monday night stinker, and Caleb Williams throws too many inaccurate passes.

But Jared Goff must have been really pissed about that fake “0-19 without McVay/Johnson” stat as he went off for 334 yards and 5 touchdown passes in this one. As many touchdown passes as incompletions.

If you took a poll of how Bears fans felt around the third quarter of Monday night’s game and today, that would probably be a very dramatic swing. They are down bad in many areas.

But the Lions will need to show something in Baltimore next week after a no-show in Green Bay for Week 1 against elite competition.

Bills at Jets: The Real Justin Fields Returns

See, that’s why I didn’t want to overreact to Justin Fields in Week 1, because I know what he’s been in the NFL and that’s not good enough to be a franchise quarterback. In this game, he played into the fourth quarter before a concussion knocked him out, and he still finished 3-of-11 for 27 yards passing.

What the hell is that? Tyrod Taylor came in and immediately completed 3 passes. Mitch Trubisky had to come into the game after Josh Allen injured his nose, and he completed a 32-yard pass to finish with more passing yards than Fields. Just ridiculous stuff.

But it was a weird Josh Allen game as he had no touchdowns of any sort and had a few bail-out penalties on third downs to extend early drives for points. The Jets never stood much of a chance, and James Cook was the star with 132 rushing yards and 2 touchdowns in an easy 30-10 win.

And yes, the Bills won the turnover battle again, had no turnovers again, and Cook’s fumble was recovered by the Bills again. They seemingly can’t be stopped with these turnover numbers.

Browns at Ravens: Not the Happiest Return for Joe Flacco

Joe Flacco made his return to Baltimore for the first time since losing his job to Lamar Jackson in 2018. The Browns were a 12.5-point underdog by kickoff, which is a pretty huge line for a Week 2 division game.

But it was only a 10-3 lead at halftime for Baltimore after the Browns shut down Derrick Henry (11 carries for 23 yards in the entire game) and limited the big plays with nothing over 15 yards in the first two quarters. Myles Garrett (1.5 sacks) is having a huge start to his 2025 season, and his third-down sack of Lamar Jackson forced the Ravens to settle for a field goal and 13-3 lead early in the third quarter.

However, that’s when the game took a turn in Baltimore’s blowout favor as a Flacco pass was picked off by Nate Wiggins, who returned it to the Cleveland 5, setting up another short field for a Baltimore offense that already had a 24-yard touchdown drive thanks to a blocked punt in the first half. The Ravens finished that for a touchdown and 20-3 lead, then later added a Flacco fumble return for a touchdown and another short-field touchdown to blow things open at 41-10.

Rookie Dillon Gabriel relieved Flacco instead of Shedeur Sanders, so let the talk there begin. The Browns scored a garbage time touchdown and lost 41-17.

Cleveland just gave up way too many short fields to make things easier on the Ravens on a day they didn’t bring their A game one week after the Buffalo choke. Should be a much  better test next Monday night against a Detroit team that just scored 52 points.

Patriots at Dolphins: Jock (Mike Vrabel) Stuffs Nerdboy (Mike McDaniel) in Locker

What a week for Miami coach Mike McDaniel. Rex Ryan calls you “nerdboy” on TV, then you are left rambling in your post-game speech after the latest 33-27 loss to the Patriots at home to fall to 0-2.

Basically, this Miami defense is trash, and Tua Tagovailoa’s decision making just seems impaired. Maybe it’s too many concussions but he’s just not seeing things well like on his big interception in a 30-27 game with 2:12 left.

There was a surreal moment where the Dolphins returned a punt 74 yards for a touchdown to take a 27-23 lead, then the Patriots immediately answered with Antonio Gibson returning the ensuing kickoff 90 yards for what is technically a game-winning non-offensive touchdown. Drake Maye, who played well, has his first win in a game he finished where the opponent scored more than 3 points, though it did happen on that Gibson return.

But would you have trusted Miami to stop them anyway? Just a bad football team right now and it’s a joke we have to watch them Thursday night against the team they almost never beat (Buffalo).

49ers at Saints: Return of the Mac

For a game with Mac Jones and Spencer Rattler at quarterback, they actually put on one of the best passing shows of the day with both throwing for over 200 yards and 3 touchdowns. That’s something we almost never see in the NFL anymore. Jones didn’t even have George Kittle or Brandon Aiyuk available to him.

But the good news is Jones didn’t have to win the game in the fourth quarter, something he’s horrific at. However, my prediction of a classic Kyle Shanahan blown lead and failed game-winning drive without his QB1 was so close to coming true. The 49ers were up 26-14, but there was Rattler with the ball in a 26-21 game with 2:40 and 94 yards to go for the lead.

The long field was unfortunate as the Saints must not have believed they could mix a run in there on 3rd or 4th-and-1 with the clock racing to the final minute. On 4th-and-1 at his own 42, Rattler was sacked by Bryce Huff and coughed up the ball, ending the threat.

It was another very respectable effort from Rattler against a superior opponent, but he’s gotta finish one of these drives eventually. Now 0-5 at game-winning drives.

Rams at Titans: Patience with Cam Ward

Well, two games in, and it doesn’t really look like Cam Ward is going to have that C.J. Stroud/Jayden Daniels type of rookie season. There were some flashes of brilliance on Sunday as he had another one-score game in the fourth quarter with an opponent favored to be a playoff team, but he’s going to have to work on his pocket presence and sacks after 5 more takedowns this week.

It was the two long sacks last week that knocked them out of field goal range against Denver that were killer. This week, he’s in a 20-16 game and gets a strip-sack by that talented front seven of the Rams, who turned that turnover into a 21-yard touchdown drive with Davante Adams scoring for his new team. Just like that it’s 27-16, and the Titans don’t have the firepower to handle that.

Panthers at Cardinals: The NFC West Stays Perfect (Barely)

The Cardinals, Rams, and 49ers are all 2-0. The Seahawks are 1-0 when they’re not playing one of their division rivals. The whole NFC West is still undefeated outside of the division going into Week 3, but the Cardinals have been playing it rather loosely, letting some bad teams hang around at the end.

I thought Bryce Young was on his way to getting benched again after giving up a fumble touchdown three snaps into the game and the Panthers were still trailing 27-9 with 10:32 left in the game.

But to his credit, Young mounted a comeback and got some big breaks along the way. After scoring a second touchdown in the quarter, the Panthers tried the onside kick with 1:58 left and actually recovered it – a play that’s dipped to a 5% success rate since last year with the new rules You lucky if you get one recovery in your career, so Young couldn’t waste it in a 27-22 game that was suddenly very winnable.

Then he even got another brutal sack that lost 29 yards on fourth down overturned by a defensive holding penalty, so there’s a second huge break after the 2:00 warning. A third break was the roughing the passer to negate a 2nd-and-17 incompletion. Was Arizona really going to blow an 18-point lead in basically half a quarter of work?

But then it all went south with a grounding penalty on Young, and suddenly it’s 2nd-and-20. Then it’s 4th-and-15, and there’s Calais Campbell for the game-clinching sack with 0:26 left. Crisis averted for Arizona after a close call with the Saints last week.

I’m not a believer yet in this team, but if they get to play Mac Jones next week instead of Brock Purdy, and with the Rams in Philly, the Cardinals could be 3-0 an in first place this time next week.

Next week: Just a horrible choice to put the Dolphins in prime time, and it will come with the fawning over Buffalo to boot. Good game to get some work done early that night.  Sunday has Rams-Eagles playoff rematch early on, then I think Broncos-Chargers is where my interest lies at 4:00. Chiefs-Giants on SNF is suddenly much more interesting with the teams trying to avoid 0-3 starts. Saved the best for last with Lions at Ravens on MNF.

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Super Bowl LIX

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

Fool me twice, shame on me.

While I undoubtedly picked the Kansas City Chiefs to win Super Bowl LIX, I said clear as day in my final preview “But I think the No. 1 issue to watch for the Chiefs is the offensive line.”

I also made this foreboding note:

But you never want to feel too confident about a Super Bowl, because I think the last time I did that, Tampa Bay beat the Chiefs 31-9. Sure, there was the LOAT factor, but I misjudged the OL shuffle the Chiefs did that night.

I won’t make that mistake a third time going forward. The Chiefs have lost the benefit of doubt again, because this was a pathetic performance in every way on a night where they could have made important history. They built the three-peat up for 52 weeks and it came crashing down in about 1.5 quarters. You could even just take what I tweeted after the first quarter ended and it summed up the rest of the game too:

https://twitter.com/ScottKacsmar/status/1888745031625851109

Couldn’t block them. Couldn’t get to Jalen Hurts without blitzing, and even then, the game’s MVP did what he wanted with his arm and legs as he improved to 10-0 this season when passing for over 200 yards.

But make no mistakes about it. The Chiefs lost this game in the trenches, and that area is the driving force behind these three Philadelphia Super Bowl teams since 2017. They’ve built great offensive lines, they replaced Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox without losing a step on either side of the ball, and they just outworked and outsmarted the Chiefs for four quarters (or 3.5 before some garbage time) in a way we haven’t seen any team do.

Blowouts in Super Bowls used to be common, then it became an outlier in the 21st century. But it’s not a good look that the Chiefs are on the losing end of two of the four Super Bowl blowouts in the last 24 years as this game was most comparable to the 2013 Broncos against the Seahawks.

Defense wins championships. Football games are decided in the trenches. Overhyped quarterback matchups tend to disappoint.

That all applies again as that’s the way I started my Super Bowl 55 recap after the Chiefs lost 31-9 to the Buccaneers. Same shit, different year. Who knew the 2024 Chiefs would become a carbon copy of the 2020 Chiefs?

https://twitter.com/ScottKacsmar/status/1888823897044210169

That’s eerie. Mahomes was 25-1 in his previous 26 starts going into Super Bowl LV with a chance to repeat. He was 22-1 in his last 23 starts going into Sunday night with a chance to three-peat. The Chiefs were playing offensive linemen out of position in both games and were blown out by 18-to-22 points with Mahomes running for his life.

You can’t say there wasn’t precedent for this happening to Kansas City. But it’s hard to believe the Chiefs played the 2024 Eagles far worse than the Deshaun Watson-led Browns, the Jaguars despite trailing 22-0, and the Bryce Young-led Panthers did. Hell, they played them worse than anybody, because even Cooper Rush was only down 7-6 and 14-7 after the two-minute warning for Dallas in two games.

Also, can we put the Chiefs’ referee conspiracy bullshit to bed? After the first call of the night went Kansas City’s way, almost everything else was pro-Eagles, so enough about the NFL rigging things for one team. The whole thing was an overreaction by the collective fanbases whining about the Chiefs winning close games that a ton of people watched. No one cares about officiating in blowouts or calls that go against the Chiefs when that doesn’t fit the narrative. Let’s hope that bullshit quiets down in 2025, but you know how people are.

Anyways, the nicest thing about a Super Bowl rout is I don’t need to stay up until 8 AM recapping it. There’s only so much you can say about one team kicking another team’s ass on the biggest stage.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

The First Quarter Tea Leaves

We’ll see how long I get through the game in sequential order before I start going off on tangents about how bad the Chiefs played. But you could see in the first quarter that this was shaping up to be a bad night for Kansas City.

Let’s start with the lone thing the Chiefs did well. On the first play from scrimmage, Saquon Barkley had a nice run where he looked hard to tackle, yet it only produced a 4-yard gain. That would be one consistent theme for the night. The Chiefs actually shut Barkley down cold as a runner, holding him to 57 yards on 25 carries (2.3 YPC) with a long of 10 yards.

According to Next Gen Stats, Barkley’s minus-48 rushing yards over expected was the lowest game of his career. Great. You sold out to stop the run, and what did that really get you? It reminds me of the Super Bowl 48 blowout where the Broncos only did one thing very well, and that was run defense. The Broncos held Seattle’s Marshawn Lynch to 39 yards on 15 carries. They just did everything else poorly and lost 43-8.

The Eagles ended up punting on their opening drive after a 4th-and-2 conversion to A.J. Brown for 32 yards was negated by an offensive pass interference penalty for Brown pushing off. I didn’t like the call for OPI, but he clearly did push the defender’s face before making the catch, so something was worth a flag there to negate that pay. But you already opened a can of worms with the officiating conspiracy on the first drive.

However, that would be short-lived. The Chiefs gained 11 yards on their first play with a quick pass to JuJu Smith-Schuster, but the Chiefs wouldn’t gain another first down until the first minute of the third quarter if you can believe that.

On a 2nd-and-9, Mahomes threw what looked to be a fine pass to Travis Kelce for a first-down gain, but the tight end dropped it. That brought up 3rd-and-9, and the pursuit of Mahomes was on in the first big test of the game, and he held the ball for a long time before nearly throwing a pick, a sign of things to come.

The officiating battle evened out quickly when the Eagles’ second drive was extended by a weak call for a late hit by Trent McDuffie on a high throw to Dallas Goedert, who didn’t even need to break 30 yards for the Eagles to have a big night. That could have led to a punt or maybe the Eagles go for it, but they ended up beating the blitz with a 27-yard throw to Jahan Dotson down to the 1 where Hurts carried it in for the Tush Push touchdown.

I think that was the only Tush Push of the night too, and he showed up Josh Allen how to run his play against the Chiefs. With the Eagles up 7-0, the Chiefs went three-and-out with edge pressure by Nolan Smith getting to Mahomes to affect a throw to Hollywood Brown, who came running back to the quarterback and may have even given up the first down had he caught the ball. I thought if Brown sat in the zone he’d be an easy target for a first, but the play didn’t work out and again it was quick edge pressure.

The Super Bowl 48 comp. intensifies.

The Chiefs added to their legacy of being the worst team at lining up properly on crucial downs as Charles Omenihu was lined up offsides (Dee Ford special) on a 3rd-and-4 play where they sacked Hurts out of field goal range. Alas, that play didn’t count, and the drive continued, ending a pretty bad first quarter for the Chiefs.

The Second Quarter Faceplant

The defense had its best moment of the night when Steve Spagnuolo’s blitz on 3rd-and-10 worked as Hurts made a poor decision on a deep ball that was intercepted, making sure the Chiefs wouldn’t go four games without a takeaway for the first time in franchise history. They also wouldn’t join those 2013 Broncos as the only Super Bowl participant to go an entire postseason without a takeaway.

But they had the 2013 Broncos’ back in other ways. The only thing bad about the pick of Hurts is it was caught at the Kansas City 2, so the offense was 98 yards away from the end zone, meaning the Eagles were still more likely to get the game’s next score.

Sure enough, the Chiefs went three-and-out after Mahomes’ pass on 3rd-and-3 was low and away from Kelce on a throw they usually connect with. I don’t call that a drop and that’s more on Mahomes. The Eagles ended up getting good field position (own 43) and did indeed get the game’s next score with a 48-yard field goal by Jake Elliott, who redeemed himself with a fine night.

The Chiefs were down 10-0 for the fifth Super Bowl in a row, but we’ve seen them crawl out of holes like this before. Things were looking poor, but to this point, it was only a few pressures on third downs and Mahomes trying to compensate with a quick throw on the third drive. They can get things moving, right?

Nope. The fourth possession moved this one into blowout territory.

On first down, I’m not sure what the Chiefs were trying to do with a play-action pass, but the Eagles blew it up immediately with Josh Sweat going right past Kelce (whiffed) and getting the first sack of the night. On 2nd-and-14, Mahomes has Xavier Worthy near the right sideline for a gain of 5-6 yards if he wants it, but he’d need to take it immediately. Instead, he tried to climb the pocket and was sacked again by a pair of Eagles despite the Chiefs having 7 blockers against 4 rushers.

https://twitter.com/ScottKacsmar/status/1888873409846616449

Then on 3rd-and-16, the gamebreaker, Mahomes threw his worst interception since…ever? At least since the play he accidentally injured Rashee Rice on in Week 4. I don’t know if he just never saw Cooper DeJean jumping the route, but the worst thing about this is it wasn’t even high reward enough. On 3rd-and-16, I’d much rather see him throw a 40-yard bomb and if it gets picked, then that’s the definition of an arm punt – not the fixed CBS version they use for Josh Allen.

https://twitter.com/LordSnowXRP/status/1888834469131608537

All the hype for Saquon Barkley’s birthday and not enough for Cooper DeJean turning 22 and turning in his first NFL interception for a huge 38-yard touchdown and 17-0 lead. It was the first time all year the Chiefs’ starters trailed by more than 11 points. It’s the first time Mahomes trailed by 17 points since a 2022 game against the Raiders that they came back to win 30-29 on a Monday night.

But this was going to be a daunting task. To this point, the Chiefs had 12 passes and 1 run (that gained 2 yards). Somewhere, Donovan McNabb is saying, “See, it’s not easy to win like that, is it?” in reference to Andy Reid’s career-long criticism of not running the ball in big games. Where were the screens and moving pockets to get away from that pressure?

The Chiefs then picked a curious time to call consecutive runs for the first time all night, down 17-0, and all it did was lead to 3rd-and-9. Mahomes tried to make something happen, but after running into the waiting arms of left guard Mike Caliendo (The Weakest Link), he took his third sack in his last four dropbacks.

https://twitter.com/ScottKacsmar/status/1888878242330775557

The left side of the line was the problematic side, and at that point, I would have made the switch. I tweeted this during the game at this time too. Put Joe Thuney back at left guard where he belongs, and bring in veteran left tackle D.J. Humphries, who was active, to play tackle like he knows how to do.

This Thuney-Caliendo thing was cute for the last month, but the Eagles are embarrassing you without even sending heat. But the change never came. On defense, the Eagles got lucky when they avoided a 3rd-and-26 situation after a horribly soft penalty call on the Chiefs for a late hit.

https://twitter.com/Rate_the_Refs/status/1888754342053978506

We can say that didn’t end up mattering since the Eagles punted 36 seconds later, but it did likely change field position. The Chiefs took over at their own 6 with 1:49 and two timeouts left. If they could get a field goal, they’d get the ball first in the third quarter, so getting back into a 17-10 game actually wasn’t out of the realm of possibility if they could get something going in a hurry-up situation.

But any shot at a competitive game ended when Josh Sweat pushed Thuney right into Mahomes as he was throwing the ball on the first play of the drive, and Zack Baun made this diving interception to set the Eagles up at the Kansas City 14. Two plays later, A.J. Brown walked into the end zone on a touchdown catch to make it 24-0. Game over.

https://twitter.com/ShaneHaffNFL/status/1888756766151749843
Mahomes’ second interception in the second quarter.

Now we absolutely had the Super Bowl 48 comparison. A quick edge pressure is sometimes all it takes, and this is why I think Sweat (2.5 sacks) had a real argument for Super Bowl MVP as he won’t get credit for a sack there, but that pressure of pushing Thuney into Mahomes created that big interception.

And again, the Chiefs deserve what they got for sticking with their best guard at tackle instead of trying to work in a real tackle with plenty of experience. In a span of 5 dropbacks in the second quarter, Mahomes took three sacks and threw two picks and there’s your ballgame.

Any shot for a score before halftime basically ended with a holding penalty on first down to negate a good scramble by Mahomes, something that he should have been doing earlier too. Actually, I take that back. They had the 3rd-and-11 on this last drive converted, but DeAndre Hopkins decided to do this with his big opportunity in a Super Bowl:

https://twitter.com/NFL_DF/status/1888758885403546070

The Chiefs had 23 yards of offense and 1 first down on 7 drives in the first half. They usually surpass those numbers by the first or second drive of a game.

The Second Half Just Delays the Inevitable

If you thought the Chiefs had any answers for a competitive second half, you’d be wrong. No offensive line changes. Even with trying to chip with a running back, the Chiefs continued giving up sacks to 4-man rushes. Back-to-back sacks led to a 3rd-and-17 for Mahomes where he was only able to scramble for half of it before the Chiefs punted.

Hurts made a few key scrambles, Barkley made his most impactful play on a bobbled 22-yard catch, but the Eagles were held to a field goal. Still, it was 27-0 and that drive consumed 6:42, which is exactly what you want if you’re the Eagles.

Like I said, Andy Reid had no answers before or during the game. After a Jawaan Taylor holding penalty (redundant) wiped out a first-down scramble by Mahomes, you knew the Chiefs were cooked when they’re trying to run for 1 yard with Kareem Hunt on 2nd-and-14. Mahomes ended up leading the team with 25 rushing yards as his backs had 7 carries for 24 yards.

Going for it on 4th-and-4, I thought Mahomes made his 2nd-biggest mistake of the night when he didn’t see Justin Watson open over the  middle and seemed to predetermined a throw to the right to Hopkins, which wasn’t close. The Chefs turned it over on downs, and the Eagles went for the kill shot immediately with a 46-yard touchdown strike to DeVonta Smith, which probably clinched the MVP for Hurts since you can’t give it to the whole defense.

Just like that, Mahomes was down 34-0 for the first time in his career. The team’s previous biggest deficit with him was 27-0 in a 27-3 loss in Tennessee in 2021.

At 34-0, we knew it was all over. Mahomes and Worthy (the only Kansas City player who showed up) connected a couple of times to quickly lead a 90-yard touchdown drive so there wouldn’t be a shutout. But the Eagles had another time-consuming field goal drive (5:43) to make it 37-6, then with just under 10:00 left, Mahomes was sacked for a career-high sixth time and fumbled. The officials didn’t even bother flagging the hit to Mahomes’ face on the play, and no one cared because it was a blowout and the missed call didn’t help the Chiefs.

https://twitter.com/TSN_Sports/status/1888781212736483455

By taking a sixth sack, that ends Mahomes’ streak of 132 games to start his career without taking more than 5 sacks in any game. Only Peyton Manning (293), Dan Marino (260), and Joe Flacco (180) had longer streaks to begin their careers.

The Eagles won the turnover battle 3-1 and finished the postseason +12 in turnover margin, including an absurd +7 in fumbles.

They added a field goal after the Mahomes fumble to get to 40 points, and then Mahomes threw two touchdowns to Hopkins and Worthy down the stretch to get some garbage-time stats for the 40-22 final with Kenny Pickett (oh, for fuck’s sake) kneeling it out for the Philadelphia win.

With the way people are reacting to those late touchdowns, it just proves I was right that Mahomes would get killed for “garbage-time stat padding” in Super Bowl 55 had he thrown a late touchdown to make it 31-16 and get a touchdown on the board instead of throwing his second interception in a 31-9 game that was long decided. Can’t win either way with the cult out there.

The Chiefs gained 11 yards on their first play of the night and didn’t have a longer gain until 2:33 remained in the third quarter with Worthy making a pair of 50-yard catches in this game.

For the reputation Andy Reid has as a great coach following bye weeks, he is 1-2 after a bye against Nick Sirianni, who I struggle to give credit to as it feels like he goes as his coordinators go.

Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio won his first Super Bowl and his first game against Mahomes, who he was 0-8 against. But Fangio had the right idea all night. He didn’t blitz once and still generated 16 pressures and 6 sacks. Reportedly that’s just the fourth time since 2018 that a defense didn’t blitz in a game, and I believe one of those games was Buffalo in 2020 against the Chiefs.

The Eagles played Cover 4 at the third-highest rate (59.5%) of any game since 2018.

https://twitter.com/NextGenStats/status/1888791032118030640

I don’t think that becomes the new “blueprint” to beat the Chiefs, because not everyone can get pressure like this just by rushing four. Compare how the Eagles looked and how the Bills looked two weeks ago, and it’s like night and day.

But Kansas City’s offense has had major struggles in what I would say is four of their five Super Bowls against these NFC teams. They found a way to come back and finish strong in three of those games for rings, but they’re always playing an elite unit, and they just never seem to struggle this much in big games when they play those AFC rivals like the Ravens and Bills.

It’s definitely an interesting dynamic, but it’s why you can’t give this team the benefit of the doubt anymore. Nineteen of the last 21 Super Bowls had been within one score in the fourth quarter, but this is now the second time the Chiefs lost by three scores, and this one wasn’t even that close if we’re just keeping it real.

The Chiefs got their asses kicked, something only a handful of teams can say they’ve done to them over the last seven seasons. Hats off to the Eagles for coming back strong after last year’s collapse and getting their revenge for Super Bowl 57.

I know which game I enjoyed more of the two, but sometimes you need a good ass kicking to get your priorities right. I still have to write two articles tomorrow about where the Chiefs and Eagles go from here, so I’m not going to get into that here.

But it’s pretty clear the Chiefs need to find a real left tackle who can stick around for the next decade with Mahomes. Starting five Super Bowls with five different left tackles is a cool footnote but not ideal at all. It reminds me of Peyton Manning going to four Super Bowls with four different head coaches.

They’re the only two quarterbacks who can do these things, but it’s not likely going to lead to great results when you’re going up against more complete teams.

Conclusion: The GOAT Case Is Closed

Many are using this game to say the GOAT case is closed, and I have to say I agree with that. Obviously, I was never on board with it anyway.

I mean, Andy Reid is simply not the greatest coach of his era, let alone all time. Now his 3-3 Super Bowl record with his team getting dominated twice largely because he didn’t have a real plan for the offensive line is an eyesore.

Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered if they started D.J. Humphries or gave Donovan Smith a call in December – the Eagles played that well. But I can’t see someone like Bill Belichick ever watch his team get crushed in all phases like this with so much on the line.

Sure, the 2007 Patriots blew the perfect season to the Giants, but it was a 17-14 game they led late in. This was another rout for Reid, and that’s very disappointing. Almost like the Chiefs don’t do well in the role of a favorite and villain. Just showing up as the defending champs doesn’t mean you’re supposed to win. The Eagles kicked their ass.

But yeah, people are going to use this game against Mahomes, and I get it. He’ll need some big Super Bowl moments in the future to offset the sting of these losses. It would be a really tough look if he never made it back as Brady is the only quarterback to start more than five Super Bowls. But I’d also be utterly shocked if Mahomes doesn’t get back.

And I still believe his best and most complete rosters can be in his future. The success he’s already created after starting for seven seasons is historically unmatched.

How quickly people forget Brady was 3-2 in Super Bowls, and a yard away from going 3-3 in Year 15 before Malcolm Butler happened. I don’t expect Mahomes to do what Brady did in his 40s, and I think this was his only good shot at the three-peat, and it hurts to not make that happen.

But no one knows where things go from here. Mahomes is only going into Year 9 and he’s already 3-2 in Super Bowls. He has time on his side, and the dynasty isn’t over until someone actually dethrones them with their own 3+ ring run. But they are going to have to play better when they get this far again. This was unacceptable, and it’s not about any one person.

The Chiefs will take a breather and start the process all over again for the 2025 season. I’ll do the same, and I have to admit I’ve been looking forward to the offseason and a little more down time as this has been a year from hell. The three-peat was actually a great source of escapism for me and something to follow along with throughout this season.

Going back to last April:

  • I’ve lost one of my oldest friends to suicide after an online mob used cancel culture against him much like one tried to do to me, so that made it hit even harder.
  • My neighbor was murdered (along with her friend) in her house by her own son after weeks of shooting incidents and threats from him that the police knew and did nothing about.
  • I lost my only uncle to cancer in December.
  • Just this week, my mom’s best friend and someone I always imagined would be there for me was found dead in her apartment from a very sudden illness.
  • I don’t expect my two oldest cats to see 2026 (maybe not even the spring) as they’re both struggling with their health.

There’s something else I never got closure from that happened in 2023, but I’ve probably overshared enough as is.

I just feel like I’m stuck in a Charlie Kaufman screenplay, and my world keeps getting smaller, darker, and has been surrounded by death for the last year. Throw in Trump and President Elon trying to destroy the country right in front of our eyes on a daily basis, and I don’t see much reason for optimism or hope about the future.

But I got a 15th season in me, and who knows, maybe there’s a Malcolm Butler out there who will save it in the end. I’ll have some offseason projects, basketball coverage, and will be catching up on movies.

This might even be the week for me to watch Emilia Perez, because it’d only be the second-shittiest thing I’ve watched this week after last night’s game.

Until next time, enjoy your loved ones while you still can.

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Conference Championship Games

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

I said Sunday was going to be a history-making day in the NFL and it absolutely was. We’re already seeing history in the Super Bowl as Chiefs vs. Eagles will be the first ever AFC vs. NFC matchup to happen in four consecutive seasons (2021-24) thanks to two Super Bowl matchups.

But how about the other history we were tracking?

  • The Chiefs are the first team to reach the Super Bowl after repeating, replacing the 1990 49ers as the closest to ever complete a Super Bowl three-peat.
  • After an early fumble, the Chiefs’ record streak of games without a turnover was snapped at eight.
  • The Chiefs have won 17 straight one-score games now (NFL record).
  • Even though the Bills started the game with two near interceptions and fumbled the ball four times, they finished with no giveaways, meaning they had just 8 turnovers in a 20-game season (NFL record for any season and any 20-game span).
  • The Bills now hold the NFL record for 22 straight games without losing the turnover battle. They were previously tied with the 1950s Rams at 21 games.
  • The Five-Year Rule lives on as Sean McDermott and Josh Allen will not be winning a Super Bowl in Year 7 together, and now Allen will have to try matching Peyton Manning as the only Super Bowl-winning quarterback who needed more than five postseasons to reach a Super Bowl.
  • Jayden Daniels did not become the first rookie quarterback to reach the Super Bowl, but the 2024 Commanders are the only team to ever score at least 18 points in 20 consecutive games in one season.

I would have loved a Daniels vs. Mahomes Super Bowl, but all things considered, Chiefs vs. Eagles is the best possible matchup this season could have produced in Super Bowl LIX. You get the three-peat against the team the title reign started against two years ago in Super Bowl LVII. These have been the best teams in their respective conference over the last three years, and there’s the added twist of Saquon Barkley, who will have his 28th birthday on Super Bowl Sunday.

I’m pleased with the outcome, but I sure as hell wanted a better game early in Philly. At least we got a classic in Kansas City again.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Bills at Chiefs: Four Falls of Buffalo Gets a Sequel

It has to be frustrating to have a great team and still come up short because there’s always someone that is a little better. This happened to the Buffalo Bills when they lost four straight Super Bowls in 1990-93 with the NFC teams easily getting the best of them in the last three games before the salary cap was implemented in 1994.

They did a documentary on those losses called Four Falls of Buffalo for 30 for 30. But we might actually need a sequel as Buffalo’s 0-4 mark in the playoffs against the Kansas City Chiefs is arguably more infuriating since the games were usually closer than those Super Bowl losses. Sure, they haven’t been Super Bowls, but Buffalo damn well may have gone the distance in 2020, 2021, 2023, and 2024 had it not been for Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.

How do you top a team that’s won 17 straight one-score games? How do you overcome a quarterback who is 17-3 in the playoffs and always seems to shred your defense no matter how well you do in the regular season? Remember, the Bills have won four years in a row in the regular season against the Chiefs, including multiple games in Arrowhead.

Yet, here we are again with the Bills coming up short in a 32-29 classic that again went down to the wire. I think I’ll jump around some different storylines instead of doing a sequential recap.

Chiefs Save Their Best for the Playoffs Again

The Chiefs hadn’t scored 21 points in any half all season, and yet they did it in this game. The Chiefs hadn’t scored more than 30 points in any of their last 28 games. They hadn’t topped 31 points in their last 36 games, and yet they scored 32 in this game on just nine drives, and they ran out the clock on that final possession.

It just seems like no matter what the Chiefs do against Buffalo in the regular season, they’re able to turn it on in the playoffs against Sean McDermott’s defense.

The versatility of this team is key. In Week 11 in Buffalo, Mahomes never ran the ball once. In this game, his mobility was apparent from the opening drive, and the Chiefs had great success with RPOs – save for one fumbled exchange between Mahomes and Pacheco that broke the team’s record streak without a giveaway – as Mahomes read the field well the whole game with quick decisions.

But his legs were key again with over 40 rushing yards, two touchdowns scored, and he made it look effortless. Kansas City was all in on Travis Kelce against Houston, but he only had 2 catches for 19 yards in this game, shades of what the Bills did to him in Week 11. Instead, Mahomes found JuJu for 60  yards on the offense’s two longest plays that were both quick decisions over the middle. Even Samaje Perine had the game’s fifth-longest gain (17 yards) to put the game away on third-and-long in the 4-minute offense.

The Chiefs just do whatever is necessary to win the style of game they find themselves in. The people who said this team couldn’t win a shootout with Buffalo this year were wrong again. The Chiefs tend to dictate how these games go. Not Buffalo.

Can’t Ever Have Enough Good Corners

Injuries will probably come up as an excuse again for why McDermott’s defense failed and made the Chiefs look greater than usual. They were without safety Taylor Rapp, but I don’t remember when he turned into Ed Reed incarnate.

Then there’s the case of corner Christian Benford. He was carted off with a concussion in last week’s game. You know what the NFL is like in the post-2022 Tua Tagovailoa concussion protocol era. If you see a player that bad off after a concussion on a Sunday, he shouldn’t be playing the next Sunday.

But the Bills somehow got him on the field for this game, and they may have jeopardized his chances to get back on one any time soon. He took a hit to the head (friendly fire) early in the game and had to be carted off again, even strapped down with the seatbelt in the cart. It was a scary sight and something that should get a third-party investigation into the handling of clearing him.

With Benford out early, the Bills were stuck playing Kaiir Elam for more snaps, and the Chiefs attacked him frequently as teams often do when this happens to a secondary.

But I’m not going to feel bad for Buffalo here, because it’s a lesson that you can never have enough good corners. Elam is not a street free agent they signed a week ago for depth either. They used a 2022 first-round pick on this guy just two picks after the Chiefs drafted Trent McDuffie. Advantage Chiefs. Elam hasn’t been good and he didn’t help this game when they needed him to come up big.

Xavier Worthy: My Bad

Speaking of Kansas City draft wins over Buffalo, I have to eat some crow on Xavier Worthy. While I still believe Ladd McConkey would have been more unstoppable in this offense, Worthy has developed into a solid player who is more than just a gimmicky speed and gadget player. He attacks the ball down the field now, and he showed his skills on a 26-yard grab in the second quarter to prevent an interception and he also scored a touchdown on a very fine night where the veterans (Kelce, Hopkins, Hollywood) didn’t do much.

Of course, people called the 26-yard catch a controversial call for the Chiefs. First, there was a holding penalty on the Bills, so it would have been a first down anyway. Second, I think they got the call right with the rule change years ago that the ball is allowed to touch the ground as long as you maintain control. I don’t see where Worthy ever lost control of it as he gained possession from the DB, and in that situation, the offense gets the catch. Legit call.

But let’s say they called it incomplete. Then the Chiefs still have a first down at the Buffalo 24 with under 3:00 left in the half. Who’s to say they still don’t score a touchdown on that drive with the way they were going up and down the field all night? They may have even scored it with less than 1:55 left like they did, and that would leave less time for the touchdown that the Bills got to make it 21-16 going into halftime.

That sequence was also amusing as the Bills took the extra point off the board to go for a 2-point conversion from the 1-yard line. I don’t mind the decision to go after the penalty. But the Chiefs plugged the gap on the left where they knew Allen was going to run, and they stopped the play.

Erratic Allen Not So Automatic on the Sneak

I don’t think the game does much of anything to change the legacy for Josh Allen. He came in winless against the Chiefs in the playoffs with some close calls, and he went out winless with another close call in a game he briefly had a fourth-quarter lead in.

There were enough good plays to say he battled and gave them a chance, and he didn’t make a huge mistake with the game on the line. But it was far from his best game against the Chiefs, and he started it poorly with two throws that could have been intercepted on the opening drive alone.

Allen also fumbled 3 times on the night, but somehow the Bills recovered all 5 fumbles in this game (4 of their own, one unforced error by the Chiefs on the RPO). They’ll finish the season +17 in fumbles, an absurd number that has to regress next year.

But I did get the sense early that Allen was nervous in the biggest game of his career. There was a three-and-out in the second quarter before the big Worthy catch where Allen threw a poor 2nd-and-10 pass to Curis Samuel, which was dropped as he had to reach down to get it. He should have caught it, but if Allen threw it in stride, that’s a huge gain. Big miss there.

But Allen’s bread and butter on the short-yardage run was gone in this game. In fact, he was stuffed 3 times on crucial sneak plays, the most in any game since 2016.

Remember, the Ravens stuffed him last week on a big third down when he considered pitching the ball back on the play. Buffalo fans assured me Allen was automatic in these spots, but this postseason paints a different story. Incredible job by the Chiefs on defense on those plays.

The big one came on 4th-and-1 at the Kansas City 41 with the Bills up 22-21 with 13:01 left to play. Allen tried to go left on the Tush Push, but the Chiefs stood him up and it was ruled short on the field. The ruling on the field stood after video review with a turnover on downs.

I think what happened here is the Chiefs were saved by Chris Jones obstructing the view of the ball by standing right down the camera line from the key angle. You might be able to reasonably conclude that Allen probably had the ball to the 40, but there’s no visual evidence that he had the ball break that line. You see Allen but not the ball on the most shared shot of this.

Tough break for the Bills, but they were terrible on those short-yardage runs all night. I’m also not sure if James Cook was injured or what, but he deserved more than 13 carries after looking good in the second half.

The Chiefs Are Closers

After taking over on the 4th-and-1 stop, the Chiefs were surgical on another touchdown drive to regain a 29-22 lead after converting their first 2-point conversion of the season if I heard correctly.

But the Chiefs had some defensive lapses in this one despite playing well at times. They let Mack Hollins beat them deep a few times, and that led to another touchdown on a 4th-down play where Samuel was left wide open in the end zone to tie the game at 29.

The Chiefs were marching right into a first-and-goal, and just when you thought we’d see a flurry of a finish like the 13 Second Game, the Bills sacked Mahomes immediately on a first-and-goal, causing a failure on that revamped left side of the line.

Was that finally going to catch up to the Chiefs? Then with Harrison Butker coming out for a 35-yard field goal with 3:37 left, I jokingly predicted the other day he’d miss a 35-yard field goal. That was in my head for sure at the time as I could see him missing and the Bills making on the other end with 0:00 left to win 32-29.

But Butker was perfect on the kick, right down the middle. While this would have been a great time for the Chiefs to force the first non-QB fumble of the season for Buffalo (or any turnover), they instead cranked up the heat on 4th-and-5. Spagnuolo brought a blitz and Allen did his best to throw up a pass for Dalton Kincaid. He absolutely had a shot at a diving catch that could have lived in playoff lore, but instead he couldn’t make this play:

There was still 1:54 left, and Pacheco ran out of bounds to stop the clock on a nice 2nd-down pass from the Chiefs for a first down. But it got to 3rd-and-9 at the Buffalo 35, which is no man’s land in this situation with 1:35 left. Do you risk an incompletion to stop the clock? Risk a sack to lose the FG opportunity? Do you even want to kick the FG and go up 6 with that much time left?

Tough call, but the Chiefs made the right call, and Mahomes found Samaje Perine for a 17-yard gain out in the flat to send the Chiefs right back to the Super Bowl for an unprecedented three-peat opportunity.

That whole drive I was waiting for a running back to fumble to recreate the 1990 Roger Craig fumble moment in San Francisco that led to New York’s upset win. With the way Buffalo’s fumble luck was in 2024, you never know. But the Chiefs didn’t stumble, and they again put a team away in a one-score game for the 17th time in a row.

Unbelievable stuff from a historic team that is one win away from the ultimate history. Season on the line, there’s no quarterback you want more than Mahomes.

Final Thoughts

We’ve reached the end of our show where I guess I’m supposed to jump into my Bill Maher-style monologue (less smarmy about it) where I pat myself on the back for being right about Buffalo still not having what it takes to get over the Kansas City hump in the AFC.

And you’re probably wondering how I could say that when I picked the Bills to win 27-24 the night before. Yeah, but if you look closely, I also spelled out “THREEPEAT” with the first letter of each paragraph.

I did a reverse jinx on Buffalo, something I’ve been doing for 18 years (ever since it worked for the 2006 AFC Championship Game) because I grew tired of picking the team I wanted to win and seeing them lose the game. So, I get to either enjoy a correct prediction or enjoy the actual outcome to games like this.

I also said this was a coin-flip game, and it basically was – tied  at 29 with 6:15 left. As usual, the Chiefs closed, and the Bills didn’t make the plays to win the game or force overtime.

Buffalo had a very good year, but I trust my eyes, and I trust my numbers. Earlier this week, I introduced some numbers on my Fraud Alert metric, which I’ll be sharing more of before the Super Bowl. It had the Bills as by far the No. 1 misleading team this year based on turnover margin, field position, and strength of schedule. The Chiefs were only 17th, producing one of the biggest mismatches in my Fraud Alert Rating (FAR) system since 2002.

Well, I can tell you now that the teams with the higher FAR in the 11 biggest mismatches since 2002 are now 2-9 in the playoff meetings. Even better, I can tell you that in the 21 playoff games since 2002 with a spread of 0-to-2 points, the team with the higher FAR is now 6-15 (.286). That’s right. The team with the higher fraud alert won just 28.6% of the playoff games with the tiniest spreads, and you better believe this applies to Super Bowl LIX too.

When Bills fans tried to pump up Josh Allen by telling me that Mack Hollins is his WR1 (he wasn’t but he was better than Amari Cooper and Keon Coleman on Sunday)), I laughed it off, thinking maybe that’s a bad thing if you’re relying on Mack Hollins to be a big producer in your offense. Maybe it’s a bad thing that Dalton Kincaid’s numbers regressed so badly in his second year, or that Cooper hasn’t really done much since the trade.

Maybe “beating both No. 1 seeds” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when you’re only 2-3 against playoff teams in the regular season.

Maybe “scoring 30 in regulation” as they liked to bring up as a shot at the Chiefs doesn’t mean much if you can’t keep most good teams under 30 points. Maybe it doesn’t mean much if you’re scoring 30+ against the likes of the Titans, Jaguars, Jets, Colts, and Dolphins.

Maybe it’s not a good thing if your team doesn’t have a single fourth-quarter comeback win this season, nor is it a bad thing that the Chiefs now have six of them as Mahomes tied the single-season record with his eighth game-winning drive Sunday. Still think they’re the 2022 Vikings?

Your quarterback didn’t win MVP, your team didn’t get the top seed, and you didn’t beat the Chiefs again in the playoffs. Close but no cigar. Only Brady and Burrow have smoked that one for getting past the Chiefs in the playoffs.

I’ve said it would be statistically improbable for the likes of Allen and Lamar to never at least reach a Super Bowl. I stand by that. But at the same time, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say Allen and McDermott blew their best shot in 2021 because of 13 Seconds, and that should have been their Super Bowl year.

Instead, it’s set the AFC on this butterfly effect where we pretend the Bengals are the team to beat only to see them be irrelevant unless Lamar gets hurt, the Ravens always choke in the playoffs, and the Chiefs traded Tyreek Hill, built up the defense, and keep winning one-score playoff games because Mahomes gets big moments out of JuJu, MVS, and some rookies.

Allen had his moment in 13 Seconds by finding Gabe Davis again, but the Bills still found a way to lose, and they frankly haven’t topped that moment in the playoffs ever since.

But that’s why Mahomes and the Chiefs are in their own tier, and the Bills are just the best-looking, ringless bridesmaid in the AFC.

Commanders at Eagles: Double Nickel Boys Run Wild on Washington

I’ll start by saying it’s almost impossible to beat these Eagles if the good version of Jalen Hurts shows up. I saw the knee bend against the Rams last week, and I thought that’d actually be problematic this week. Silly me. Hurts looked mobile and was as good as he’s been in any game this season.

Then when you throw in his receivers getting early production, Saquon Barkley hitting another 60-yard homerun on the first snap, and the Commanders fumbling it three times again just like they did in Week 16 to screw over their rookie quarterback, you end up with a 55-23 smackdown, the most points ever scored in a Conference Championship Game by one team.

I thought Jayden Daniels could be the one rookie who would get to a Super Bowl by producing a different outcome. In a way, he did stand out as he played better than any other rookie has in a conference championship game where rookies are now 0-6 since 1970. I hope he has more deep playoff runs in his future, because it would be insane if the closest he ever came was this year in a game where his defense allowed 7 rushing touchdowns and his skill guys put the ball on the ground three times early.

Daniels didn’t turn it over until he was down 25 points with 5:00 left. But the other Washington turnovers were very costly. Dyami Brown coughed up a fumble trying to get centimeters more YAC, leading to a short field and 14-3 lead for the Eagles. The Commanders could have scored before halftime to make it 20-20 or at least 20-15, but a fumbled kickoff led to another touchdown and 27-15 deficit at the half.

The real killer was the final minute of the third quarter. Washington was down 34-23 and driving at midfield with a first down. Austin Ekeler became the third skill player to put the ball on the ground for Washington as the Eagles are really good at forcing those fumbles. That led to the absurd sequence to start the fourth quarter of six straight attempts to do the Tush Push from the 1-yard line finally resulted in a touchdown run for Hurts, who scored three times just like Barkley on the day.

But it was the announcement that the refs could award a touchdown to Philadelphia if the Commanders kept jumping over the line before the snap in their effort to go all Troy Polamalu and stop the Tush Push.

I mean, that’s probably not a bad rule to have in case of emergency, but the whole thing looked ridiculous and I have really come to despite the Tush Push. Just get rid of it already and go back to normal quarterback sneaks. Washington should have called the refs’ bluff too —  go figure, it was Ed Hochuli’s son – and made them award the Eagles a touchdown. I’d love to see that in the stat sheet and how that dynamic works.

But yeah, it was a rough outing for the Commanders in a 55-23 loss. I think the only way they win the game is if they were +4 in turnovers (or just +3 in fumbles lost). Even without the turnovers, they still never showed a real answer to stopping Philadelphia’s offense. Even Will Shipley came in for Saquon and ripped off a 57-yard run before scoring a touchdown.

The Eagles had 11 drives, scored 8 touchdowns, missed one early field goal, and punted twice in the third quarter. Yeah, it wasn’t just about the turnovers even if that definitely made things worse for Washington’s chances.

So, that one was a dud but still an incredible turnaround season for the Commanders. I’m sure Daniels will be a trendy MVP pick for 2025, and I may even drink some of the Kool-Aid if they make some free-agent splash signings to give him stronger weapons and build up that defense.

But the Eagles are still the class of the NFC East, and they really have been the best NFC team over the last three years despite having a caricature of a head coach. We’ll see if they can solve the Chiefs in two weeks.

Next two weeks: Two weeks of hyping up the final game of the season. I’ll have plenty of Super Bowl articles next week. This week, I’m continuing with Part 5 of my LOAT series, looking at the playoff luck for Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes. I’m also going to do a bigger presentation on my Fraud Alert Rating metric. The Chiefs just have to win one more game for that to look as solid as possible.

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 16

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

The NFL delivered such a frontloaded Week 16 schedule that six of the likely AFC playoff teams already played on Thursday and Saturday. All that Sunday had left was Buffalo slumming it with the Patriots.

But the games were competitive, and 12 of the 15 games so far this week had a comeback opportunity with six game-winning drives already in the books. We saw a concussion knock Jalen Hurts out of the big game in Washington, an iconic performance for Jayden Daniels in the comeback win, and the Cowboys even decided to play hard Sunday night to upset the Buccaneers and bring some chaos to the NFC South.

A week ago, people were flocking towards an Eagles-Bills Super Bowl. Now, that doesn’t look so hot with the reality that neither is likely to be a No. 1 seed, and teams like the Chiefs, Lions, Vikings, Packers, and Ravens are still very much relevant in this race.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Eagles at Commanders: Kenny Pickett? (Read It in the “Scut Farkas?” Narration Voice)

Sunday’s best game on paper turned out to be the best game for reasons no one expected. Jalen Hurts was ruled out early after a concussion on a long run where he just looked a hair off after getting up. That was enough to take him out and replace him with Kenny Pickett of all people.

Oh, it was quite the Pickett experience too as he took 3 sacks with his oblivious nature to the pass rush, he threw a pick, he locked onto basically 2 receivers (A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith had 23 of the team’s 28 pass targets), the Eagles were 3-for-16 on third down, and he still made a couple of clutch throws that probably should have won the game.

But it didn’t work out this time as Philadelphia’s winning streak was snapped at 10 games. The Eagles got a 68-yard touchdown run out of Saquon Barkley, but his other 28 carries only gained 82 yards as the Commanders kept stuffing runs to stay in the game after the offense had 5 turnovers on a sloppy day where they even started the game with a turnover on downs after Brian Robinson Jr. was stuffed on a 4th-and-1 run.

The ability to withstand 5 giveaways and still come back to beat a top defense like the Eagles 36-33 is really impressive for Jayden Daniels, the rookie sensation who absolutely locked up the Offensive Rookie of the Year award here. Even with his skill players fumbling 3 times and giving him 32 rushing yards, Daniels was a dual-threat machine in this game with 258 passing yards and 81 rushing yards. The only other quarterback in NFL history to even have one game with 5 touchdown passes, 220 passing yards, and 70 rushing yards was Cam Newton in 2015 against the Giants, a game that locked up his MVP award that year.

Would things have turned out differently if Hurts wasn’t concussed? Perhaps. But it’s not like the Eagles didn’t score 33 points, didn’t lead 14-0/21-7/27-14, or didn’t rack up takeaways. They just couldn’t finish the job.

Barkley had a big drop on his only pass target in the fourth quarter. Later, Daniels made his biggest mistake with an interception with 2:53 left in a 30-28 game. But instead of icing the game, the Eagles couldn’t convert a 3rd-and-5 when Pickett’s pass was dropped by a wide-open Smith, a shockingly bad drop that’s even worse than the one Barkley had in Week 2 against Atlanta, another improbable loss for the Eagles this year and why their shot at the No. 1 seed is all but toast.

That gave Daniels another shot in a 33-28 game with 1:52 left, and he delivered another clutch drive for a 9-yard touchdown to Jamison Crowder with 6 seconds left to go up 36-33 after a 2-point conversion run.

The Commanders are still going to likely fall short of winning the NFC East, but can you imagine if the wild card match is No. 7 Washington at No. 2 Philadelphia? That just got a lot more likely and interesting after this game.

Texans at Chiefs: Stroud-Mahomes I Not Quite as Planned

When the NFL schedule came out in May, I was hyping up Texans-Chiefs as a huge game for the MVP race and No. 1 seed. I thought C.J. Stroud would be the next challenger to Patrick Mahomes in the AFC, and this game would be his chance on a national stage to show how far he and this team has come against the defending champs.

Well, the season hasn’t quite turned out that way, but both teams still came in as division winners and the Chiefs are chasing the No. 1 seed. I also think Stroud held his own and did a decent job on the road after losing Tank Dell to a gruesome knee injury. He’s already lost Stefon Diggs, so it’s basically Nico Collins and some guys, and one of those guys (tight end Dalton Schultz) had a pretty egregious drop in the second half.

But Stroud also threw two picks, and you can’t do that in Kansas City. The Chiefs are getting that turnover regression in full force now with 8 takeaways in the last two games after 10 takeaways through 13 games. The offense also hasn’t turned it over in 5 straight games, the longest streak in the Mahomes era. So, everything I was saying about turnovers for this team earlier this season is coming true now with the defense starting to get them and the offense avoiding them well.

But it was still another one-score win despite the Chiefs only spending about 5-6 minutes trailing in a game they mostly controlled. Hollywood Brown made his season debut and looked solid given he’s never played a real game before with this offense. Definitely should be a plus going forward. Even Xaiver Worthy played well and scored another touchdown. Still not getting much from the running game, but I like that the Chiefs made a real effort to get the ball out fast against an elite pass rush.

Mahomes played very well, and go figure, he showed on the opening drive that the ankle was no big deal with two huge scrambles, including a 15-yard touchdown run. The Chiefs finished with 27 points on 9 drives, and that includes Kareem Hunt sliding down at the end when he could have scored if he wanted to.

But the Chiefs are more than content with their 27-19 type of victory as they are 14-1 and march towards another No. 1 seed. They get two cracks at winning one game to clinch it.

Steelers at Ravens: Pittsburgh Might Lose Out Now

Why does this game feel so long ago when Saturday was just one day before Sunday? But I wanted to quickly touch on three things with this one.

First, Russell Wilson undoubtedly screwed things up here in a game that was more high scoring than expected and there for the taking. He got greedy on the scramble that turned into a fumble when he should have been satisfied with a 1st-and-goal. Then the pick-six after Minkah Fitzpatrick delivered an incredible pick was just a back breaker and game ender to make it 31-17 in the fourth quarter. Can’t afford those kind of mistakes on the road against a playoff opponent.

As for Mike Tomlin, I think he let the Philadelphia punt beat him twice. Tomlin was rightfully criticized for punting last week in Philadelphia before the Eagles went on to run out the final 10-plus minutes on the clock. But instead of learning the right lesson that the punt was bad because of the 27-13 score and the struggles to get Philly off the field, Tomin ignored the game situation Saturday and made another bad call when he went for a 4th-and-6 at the Baltimore 45 with a whole quarter left. Wilson threw deep to Calvin Austin for an incompletion.

Maybe it’s a moot point since two plays later, Lamar Jackson wasted Derrick Henry’s 44-yard run by throwing a pick, but I still would like to see Tomlin learn when to punt and when to go for it with better skill and reasoning instead of what feels like randomness. He got aggressive in a spot that really didn’t call for it. I also think he was frustrated the Ravens recovered all 3 of those early fumbles that could have really turned this game around. It just wasn’t Pittsburgh’s day as fumble recoveries on those plays is key to how they’ve been beating Baltimore so routinely.

But I wouldn’t say it was exactly Lamar Jackson’s day either. Sure, he threw 3 touchdowns and got his cleanest win yet against the Steelers. But he only hit one 20-yard completion in the game against a secondary that was already missing a corner (Donte Jackson) and lost another (Joey Porter Jr.) to injury. T.J. Watt wasn’t 100% after a fourth-quarter injury last week and wasn’t a factor here. The Ravens recovered Jackson’s early strip-sack fumble. He only had 25 rushing yards on 6 carries, so they kept him contained again. Then he threw a horrible pick in the red zone when the Ravens had their shot to go up two scores.

But Henry rushed for 162 yards and the Steelers left some key receivers open throughout the game. I don’t think they’d have any fear of a rematch even if it was played in Baltimore in the playoffs. George Pickens, Jackson, and Porter Jr. should be back for that one and a healthier Watt (hopefully).

We might end up seeing that too, because it wouldn’t be surprising if the Steelers lost out here with the Chiefs and Bengals up next. I guess it depends on how badly both teams need that Week 18 game.

But the Ravens needed this one to avoid losing the AFC North, and they came through. We’ll see what they do in Houston next while the Steelers have to deal with the Chiefs.

Patriots at Bills: Running Backs Matter?

As new AFC East rivals, you’re going to hear a lot of comparisons between Drake Maye and Josh Allen in the next few years, or at least for as long enough as Maye gives us a reason to.

Here’s one such comparison: Maye’s 2024 rookie season is better than Josh Allen’s 2018 rookie season. If the Patriots invest wisely this offseason, I’d expect Maye’s second season to also be better than Allen’s second season. Anything beyond that might be a stretch.

But that’s the future. As for Sunday, it’s no stretch at all to say Maye outplayed Allen in their first matchup but didn’t get the win because of the difference in how their running backs played. It was 14 degrees at kickoff, but Maye did well throwing the ball in Buffalo, making some excellent plays down the field and in tight windows on shorter throws.

The Patriots led 14-0 early, but they couldn’t build on that lead. Buffalo also quickly cut into half of it with a 46-yard touchdown run by James Cook, his fourth burst from over 40 yards for a score this year. He later added another touchdown catch on another drive where he broke a 25-yard run.

It covered up a poor game from Allen, who threw for 154 yards on 16-of-29 passing. He only had one touchdown pass and threw an ugly looking interception in the end zone that the Patriots were caught trying to return instead of taking the touchback. Allen only rushed for 30 yards too, so it just wasn’t a very effective game for him at all. His 28.7 QBR was the third lowest this week while Maye’s was 67.3.

But this game turned in the third quarter when Rhamondre Stevenson lost a fumble, setting up the Bills for a 50-yard go-ahead field goal on a drive that was just 10 yards long. The Bills led 17-14 and never trailed again from that point. I can’t help but point out all the big fumbles the skill players for the Patriots have had since 2020 after Tom Brady left the team. This didn’t use to happen to them, but it has now and Stevenson is a repeat offender with some huge fumbles in his career.

This game is another glaring example, but the stat sheet is going to show that Maye fumbled on a lateral pass to Stevenson in the fourth quarter that was returned for an easy Buffalo touchdown to make it 24-14.

https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1870980329097539969

Was the pass too hard? Hell no. That’s a pretty soft lob that hit Stevenson right in the hands well before any contact. The problem was he shouldn’t have thrown it as the defender was bearing down and it was going to be a huge loss even if caught. Throwing it backwards to make it a live ball instead of forward to be a swing pass that might go incomplete just made it worse.

But that play really ruined the game for New England, and I swear Stevenson is a double agent at times for this team. Don’t forget the time he choked against the Bengals in 2022 on 1st-and-goal from inside the 5.

Eventually, the Patriots scored a touchdown with 1:13 left, but they wasted almost a full minute after having 1st-and-goal at the 1 with 2:14 left. Antonio Gibson, the other back, was stuffed for a 3-yard loss, leading to an extended series of plays, including a bad dropped fumble by Maye that he recovered, that took a minute off the clock and left the Patriots with little hope of getting the ball back despite keeping all three timeouts.

Maybe Drake Maye should embrace his “the new Josh Allen” and should have did the Tush Push on that 1st-and-goal play at 2:14. Get this thing in before the 2-minute warning and the Patriots could have had 4 clock stoppages in a 24-21 game on a day where Allen wasn’t good.

But this is why the Patriots are 3-12.

Buccaneers at Cowboys: Where Was This Dallas Team Earlier?

The Cowboys (7-8) may have been eliminated from the playoffs Sunday, but they’re possibly a botched punt against Cincinnati away from a 5-game winning streak after taking down the Buccaneers in a wild 26-24 game Sunday night.

Where was this team earlier in the season when it was getting destroyed by 20-point deficits at home every week? Cooper Rush had a successful night against the Tampa Bay defense, and the Buccaneers had some really poor plays with drops and getting outmuscled for the ball by Dallas’ defense who just looked like they wanted it more all night. The interception in the fourth quarter in the end zone was a great example of that.

But what about the ending? It looked like Tampa Bay was going to pull off an improbable 9-point comeback in the last 5:00 by scoring twice. They got the ball back with 1:40 and only needed a field goal. But one of the craziest endings you’ll ever see took place. On the first snap, Baker Mayfield kept fighting to avoid a sack, flipped the ball out to receiving back Rachaad White, who carried it like a loaf of bread before securing it and gaining some YAC.

https://twitter.com/brgridiron/status/1871052626302804198

But even though he got both hands on the ball again, the Cowboys still ripped the ball away from him for a game-deciding fumble. Madness.

Tampa Bay (8-7) is going to need Atlanta to lose a game if it wants to win the NFC South again. This was a bad performance in Dallas for them.

Vikings at Seahawks: Another Close Win for Kevin O’Connell and Sam Darnold

Remember when the Vikings were 5-0 and people started writing them off after a little 2-game losing streak? Well, they’re 8-0 since their last loss, and the latest test they passed was another gut-check win on the road in Seattle against a team playing for a division title chase.

I continue to be impressed with Sam Darnold, who shook off another 3-sack game by still throwing 3 touchdowns, including the game winner from 39 yards out to Justin Jefferson with 3:51 left. Darnold has led 5 game-winning drives this season, doubling his career total he had coming into 2024.

Geno Smith played well on that knee injury for most of the game, but when push came to shove, he took a sack and a fantastic tackle on a 3rd-and-16 checkdown to the running back led to a 60-yard field goal, which was missed with 1:55 left. After Smith got the ball back with 55 seconds left and still in need of a field goal for overtime, he immediately threw a bad pick to end the game.

I’m heavily rooting for the Vikings to beat Green Bay next week so that we can get the last game of the regular season to be Vikings-Lions in Detroit for the No. 1 seed. I’m also not ruling out 2024 being Sam Darnold’s Eli/Flacco/Foles moment as we feel overdue for that kind of postseason.

Lions at Bears: On the Bright Side, No Clock Mismanagement This Time…

The Bears almost beat the Lions on Thanksgiving, but there was no such close finish this time as the score stayed 34-17 the entire final quarter. It didn’t help that the Bears had another slow start, falling behind 20-0, but you have to blame Rome Odunze for a couple of early fumble plays for that this time.

But the Lions were excellent on offense with a big game from Jared Goff and Jahmyr Gibbs in a starring role without David Montgomery (MCL). I believe the theory that offensive coordinator Ben Johnson was “showing off” to impress the Bears’ front office if he is to be their next head coach. Calling that intentional “stumble” play with Goff throwing a touchdown was an excellent example of him pulling out all the tricks even when the Lions probably didn’t need them to beat Chicago again.

But Johnson should want to coach a team like Chicago. First, you stay out of the AFC where most of the elite quarterbacks are, and you have a chance to build up the Bears with Caleb Williams, who again had a game where I think it showed his potential more than it did problems. He threw for 334 yards, no picks again, and he only took 2 sacks this week. He was also his team’s leading rusher again with 34 yards.

Johnson is a hot commodity in the coaching ranks, so we’ll see where he lands next month. But this very well may have been part of his interview with the Bears.

Rams at Jets: Almost a Historic Game

The Rams just can’t play a “normal” game this month. They go from a 44-42 wire-to-wire win over the Bills to a 12-6 comeback win in rainy San Francisco, and now it’s a 19-9 win in New York that looks low scoring as hell, but this game actually came close to being historic.

Each team only had the ball three times in the first half as long drives ruled the day. In the third quarter, the Jets had a drive that lasted nearly 10 minutes and ended with a turnover on downs, a killer and probably a bad decision to go for a 4th-and-4 instead of a short field goal to go up 12-6.

But the Rams’ next drive bled into the fourth quarter, a game-tying field goal drive, so we had a game with just 8 total possessions with 12:44 to play. This could have set the record for the fastest 60-minute NFL game ever played and the one with the fewest possessions between two teams (think 11 would do the trick, maybe 12), but we didn’t get there in the end.

Aaron Rodgers went from some strong drive engineering as his protection held up to giving up the ball on a strip-sack as he got a little too comfortable in holding onto it. That put the Rams on a short field for a go-ahead touchdown drive as Matthew Stafford found a healthy Tyler Higbee for 11 yards. Rodgers couldn’t answer on the ensuing 4th-and-4, and the Rams added a field goal to make it 19-9.

The Jets’ last real hope was a 49-yard field goal with 2:02 left, but as has been the case all season, the kicking team blew it. Even when they tried to get one last possession back, they muffed the punt, so the special teams have been just abysmal for the 2024 Jets.

And that’s how you end up blowing your sixth 4th-quarter lead of the year to lead all teams, the most since Josh McDaniels’ Raiders in 2022. Just going to leave this here, and keep in mind it’s 15 starts that Rodgers started and finished this year as that 16 number includes last year’s Buffalo opener when he tore his Achilles.

https://twitter.com/ScottKacsmar/status/1871091880181870770

Cardinals at Panthers: Adios, Arizona

The Cardinals (7-8) have been eliminated from the playoffs after a bad loss in Carolina. They forced overtime after trailing 20-3 early and 30-20 in the fourth quarter. But losing James Conner, who was having a huge game, didn’t help, and in overtime, the Cardianls couldn’t get a drive going. They were even so desperate to move the chains they went for a 4th-and-2 at their own 18, which would have set the Panthers up for a game-winning chipshot if they didn’t get it.

They converted, but the reason that’s a big gamble is you’re still not guaranteed to move the ball any deeper and might end up punting it back anyway. That’s exactly what happened too. Between a delay of game penalty and sack of Kyler Murray on third down, the Cardinals ended up punting from their own 4 after another penalty on top of that. By the time the Panthers got the ball for the second time in overtime, they were at midfield and it only took one Chuba Hubbard run for 28 yards to get in field goal range, then he just ended it with a 21-yard touchdown run to win 36-30.

I don’t know if Bryce Young will ever be good, but I do know that Kyler Murray just missed the playoffs for the fifth time in six years in Arizona, and no one seems to care about that. He’s reaching that Sam Bradford level of “no one cares” for a No. 1 overall pick.

Browns at Bengals: Should Have Been Jameis All Along

As it turns out, Jameis Winston had some type of injury that kept him out of action this week. It’s a shame because I think the Browns could have won this game with him taking on that defense instead of a minimal passing game from Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who took 5 sacks and threw 2 picks while leading the offense to 6 points on 10 drives. That will help the stats for the Cincinnati defense this year.

You could tell early that it wouldn’t be Cleveland’s day when D’Onta Foreman fumbled at the 1-yard line to start the game instead of taking a 7-0 lead. The Bengals were stuck on 17 points for a while, and Joe Burrow even fumbled on a strip-sack from the Cleveland 1 late in the fourth quarter when he was trying to extend his streak of games with 3 touchdown passes.

That’s why I criticize Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts for taking the easy option on the Tush Push instead of being asked to make a throw down there in a confined space. You never know what might happen, but Burrow didn’t even get a pass off here. I’m not saying the sneak isn’t the percentage play, but it’s not something we should be giving excessive credit to for the quarterback.

But Burrow got the ball back and extended his streak anyway after Myles Garrett jumped offside and Burrow went hunting for that streak on a deep throw to Ja’Marr Chase, who came down with the touchdown to make it 24-6.

But it’s all for naught if the Broncos come into Cincinnati next week and win in a de-facto playoff game. That’s going to be the biggest Cincinnati game of the last two seasons.

49ers at Dolphins: From Losing to the Chiefs in the Playoffs to 6-8 Starts

The 49ers were eliminated from the playoffs before this one kicked off in the late window. While I was watching it on RedZone and the 49ers were trailing 19-10, it hit me seeing these teams with 6-8 records after they were both in the playoffs as two of the teams the Chiefs beat that had better than +100 point differentials in 2023. What a difference a year makes for these motion merchants.

I also find myself again scoffing at the injury excuses for the 49ers, who lost again here , when you still see a roster with Brock Purdy, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Jauan Jennings, Leonard Floyd, Nick Bosa, Dre Greenlaw, Fred Warner, etc. You really need more than that to not lose by 12 points to the paper tiger Dolphins?

But I digress. Jake Moody being a terrible kicker is one major roster flaw as he missed a 41-yard kick in this game that wasted a third quarter drive. But late in a 22-17 game, it was pressure on Purdy that led to a bad interception and the Dolphins put it away with a long Achane touchdown run they didn’t necessarily need as the game is over if he goes down at any point inside the 40.

But hey, run it up and celebrate something as the Dolphins (7-8) are technically not eliminated yet. It’s the 49ers who are toast.

Titans at Colts: The Almost Epic Comeback of the Year  

It was only two years ago when the Colts blew a 33-0 lead to the Vikings. This time, they were up 38-7 on the Titans with 6:50 to go in the third quarter thanks to some huge touchdown runs by Jonathan Taylor, who secured the ball this week. But the Titans marched on three straight touchdown drives behind Mason Rudolph, and this was suddenly a game again at 38-30 with 2:53 left. The Titans converted a pair of 2-point conversions.

The Colts only threw 10 passes at this point, but Anthony Richardson did at least deliver an accurate throw on his 11th attempt to convert a 3rd-and-8 at the 2-minute warning, or else we might have seen a real attempt at this 31-point comeback, a true rarity in NFL history.

But by the time the Titans got the ball back, there were just 3 seconds left and they were 89 yards away from the end zone while still needing another conversion just to force overtime. Rudolph threw one of the most charitable interceptions you’ll ever see to finally end it. But what a weird finish and game overall.

The Colts (7-8) are still kicking and have a real shot at finishing 9-8 again while still missing the playoffs.

Giants at Falcons: Penix Will Always Remember His First

I hope someone pulled rookie quarterback Michael Penix Jr. aside after his first NFL start and win and reminded him they won’t all be this easy. You can’t count on your defense intercepting two passes for touchdowns from a quarterback like Drew Lock every week. Those returns were even longer than any offensive play the Falcons had as their longest gain was 22 yards.

But it was a 34-7 blowout, Penix didn’t take any sacks, his first interception was 100% on Kyle Pitts, and you can’t really argue with the results. But we’ll see how he does against Jayden Daniels next Sunday night as the Falcons now control their own destiny for the NFC South again.

Jaguars at Raiders: Vegas Wins (Sorta?)

The Raiders ended their 10-game losing streak with a rare comeback win against exactly the caliber of team you’d expect them to finally beat in the Jaguars. It was watching a coach (Antonio Pierce) with a 1-10 record at 4QC attempts against a quarterback (Mac Jones) with a 3-15 record in such games, so something had to give.

In the end, it was the Raiders getting the win, but is it really a win when you give the Giants (2-13) a clear path to the No. 1 pick in the draft now? Not that there’s a huge quarterback prize waiting for them in April if the draft experts are to be trusted, but the Raiders probably aren’t going to control the top of the draft now.

Next week: Five game days from Wednesday-Monday. I think we’re peaking early again on Christmas, and I also think it’s going to be the Chiefs and Ravens winning again like Saturday. Seahawks-Bears is Thursday night, so we’ll see if the Bears can ever end this losing streak before 2025. The Saturday triple-header truly looks like a bad waste of my time on the couch, but I guess Broncos-Bengals is the highlight in the middle. That doesn’t leave much for Sunday, but Packers-Vikings is a good one, and SNF is Falcons-Commanders, which takes on new intrigue of course. Lions will try to destroy the 49ers on MNF to end the week in an NFC Championship Game rematch.

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 13

~ Scott ~ 8 Comments

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

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

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

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

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chiefs at Packers: A Slightly Different Kind of KC Loss

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Colts at Titans: Amusing AFC South Battle

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

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

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

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

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

Lions at Saints: The Almost Comeback

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Broncos at Texans: Russ Wasn’t Cooking Today

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

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

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

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

Falcons at Jets: The Beat Goes On

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Panthers at Buccaneers: Same Old 4th Quarter Story

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

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

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

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

NFL Stat Oddity: Week 6

~ Scott ~ 15 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Giants at Bills: WTF?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lions at Buccaneers: Better Team Won

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

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

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

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

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

Colts at Jaguars: The Streak Continues

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seahawks at Bengals: Looked Like a Cincinnati Playoff Game

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ravens vs. Titans: London Snoozer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Commanders at Falcons: Ridder the Enigma

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

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

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

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

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

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

Patriots at Raiders: Belichick Really Can’t Beat McDaniels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vikings at Bears: Hoodwinked, Bamboozled, Led Astray

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cardinals at Rams: Cooper Kupp Still Top Dog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NFL Stat Oddity: Super Bowl LVII

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

After a season filled with low-scoring island games, the 2022 NFL season finished with a very good 38-35 Super Bowl that may have been one fewer flag away from an instant top five classic. Either way, Super Bowl LVII made history as the first Super Bowl where both teams scored at least 35 points.

It also rewrote the standard again for what kind of teams we can expect to win a Super Bowl, and no surprise that is thanks to Patrick Mahomes, who went home with MVP honors after throwing three touchdowns and making very few mistakes.

  • It took 57 years, but Mahomes is the first quarterback to lead the league in passing yards and win the Super Bowl in the same season.
  • Mahomes is the first quarterback since Kurt Warner (1999 Rams) to win MVP, first-team All Pro, and Super Bowl MVP in the same season. MVPs were on an 0-9 Super Bowl run and first-team All-Pro quarterbacks were 0-8 before Mahomes’ win.
  • The Chiefs join the 2006 Colts and 2011 Giants as the only teams since 1989 (and likely ever) to win a Super Bowl with a defense ranked lower than 15th in points per drive allowed. The Chiefs were No. 21 this year and won this game despite allowing 35 points on 10 drives.
  • Mahomes won this Super Bowl with a cap hit of 17% this season – the previous high for a Super Bowl-winning quarterback was Steve Young (13.1%) on the 1994 49ers, the beginning of the cap era.
  • The 2022 Chiefs are just one of seven Super Bowl winners to have a minus-3 or worse turnover differential in the regular season. But they were plus-4 in the playoffs.
  • The 2022 Chiefs are the first defense to win a Super Bowl after allowing 30 touchdown passes in the regular season. They allowed 33, four more than any other defense this year.

But in winning 38-35, the Chiefs did it their way. Jalen Hurts is now 15-2 when he leads the Eagles to at least 27 points, and both losses are to Mahomes, a f’n unicorn who just solidified himself this weekend as a first-ballot Hall of Famer with two Super Bowl MVPs and two MVP awards in his first six seasons. The only other two quarterbacks to do that needed 11 (Tom Brady) or 12 (Joe Montana) seasons to achieve it.

For the fourth time in the last nine Super Bowls, we had a team come back to win after trailing by double digits in the second half. That happened zero times in the first 48 Super Bowls.

I’d call it your classic Chiefs comeback against the front-running Eagles, akin to Super Bowl LIV against the 49ers, but this game was actually quite different. But by and large, this was a Kansas City script with a couple plot twists along the way.

This season in Stat Oddity:

The Least Valuable Player: The Turf

Before we get into the recap, the worst part of the game was the field surface in Arizona. If they really spent so much time and money growing this grass, then it was a waste as players were slipping all night. It did not really affect the outcome, and ultimately the game still had 73 points, but it sure would have been nice to see a better playing surface for the biggest game of the year.

This stadium has hosted some great big games, and god knows the Cardinals aren’t using it much in January and February, so when they bring the Super Bowl back to Arizona, hopefully the field will be better than this.

The First Quarter: Early Fireworks

Right from the start this was looking like an explosive Super Bowl with both offenses scoring a touchdown with their go-to players getting it done with Jalen Hurts on the QB sneak and Travis Kelce on a well-designed 18-yard route.

But you did also see some big hits, which became common in this game too. There was a lot of quality play all around, but an offensive pass interference penalty short-circuited the Eagles’ second possession for the first punt of the night.

So much for Mahomes and Kelce not being healthy, because the duo hooked up for a quick 60 yards on two drives to start the game. Kelce had just 23 yards against the Eagles last year, but you could throw that result out the window in this one as he still found ways to get wide open early.

But the Eagles would do a better job after those first three catches, and they also did a good job of holding down most of the other receivers on the night. Just enough pressure on Mahomes nearly forced an interception on a third down, but the Chiefs settled for a 42-yard field goal instead of going for a fourth-and-3.

This was probably Andy Reid’s biggest mistake of the night as the Eagles have been the more aggressive team and probably would have gone for that fourth down. Harrison Butker hit the left upright with his kick as he can often do on lower-pressure plays, and there went a golden opportunity for Kansas City’s first lead as the game went into the second quarter tied 7-7.

The Second Quarter: Eagles Do Their Thing

Over four months ago I was pointing out how historic the 2022 Eagles were in the second quarter. But even when the team was 6-0, I thought it was odd how they dominated that one quarter so much while not being special in the other three.

At 8-0, the Eagles had scored 133 points in the second quarter, the most points any team has had in any quarter through eight games in NFL history. This is why the Eagles were the third team since the 1970 merger to not trail in its first eight games. But this was clearly not going to sustainable. Would it be fatal down the stretch in a tight game and when the Eagles faced a legitimate quarterback for a change?

By season’s end, the Eagles were +116 in the second quarter and just +17 in the other three quarters combined. I did not think that was a good formula for the Chiefs, who we know can come back with the best of them.

But the second quarter was both as good as it got for the Eagles and a costly one as one huge mistake would haunt them.

The Eagles started their favorite quarter with Hurts taking a chance deep to A.J. Brown, and what looked like it may lead to defensive pass interference actually just laid in perfectly to the receiver for a 45-yard touchdown bomb.

The Chiefs went three-and-out after JuJu Smith-Schuster was clearly interfered with on third-and-8, but there was no penalty for some reason. More on that later.

After Hurts converted a third-and-8 with a brilliant scramble move, he really looked like the ultimate dual threat who was having a great game in his first Super Bowl. But then came the moment where the Eagles may have blown this one. One thing the team really struggled with all night was running the ball with the trio of backs, who combined for just 17 carries for 45 yards. If you thought Miles Sanders sucked against the Chiefs last year with 7 carries for 13 yards, he only had 7 carries for 16 yards in this one.

But on a second-and-1, it was Kenneth Gainwell who was stopped short to bring up third-and-1. No worries, the team who has turned the quarterback sneak into an even bigger cheat code would pick it up with ease. But that doesn’t happen when you get penalized for a false start as the timing was off for the Eagles. Huge mistake. On third-and-medium, Hurts tried a quarterback draw, but he just lost the ball on an unforced error, and Nick Bolton was there for the 36-yard scoop and score to tie the game.

It is so hard to win a Super Bowl when your offense coughs up a turnover for a touchdown, and that is the third time this season the Eagles did that in a game they went on to lose. The other time they just had four turnovers against Dallas, but this ended up being the only turnover in the whole game.

I was curious to see how Hurts responded to that blunder, but he did a great job and used his legs well to convert a ballsy fourth-and-5 with a 28-yard run by slipping a tackle. He also got another fourth-down conversion by drawing the Chiefs offsides in the red zone. The drive fittingly ended with Hurts running in his second touchdown on a successful draw to take a 21-14 lead with 2:20 left.

This was the part of the game in Super Bowl LV where the Chiefs really blew it against Tampa Bay. They had to answer here but it was another bad drive with Mahomes scrambling on a third down and apparently aggravating his ankle injury. He looked to be grimacing in pain much worse than he did when he initially had the injury against Jacksonville, and it was much worse than the third quarter against the Bengals when he tweaked it.

Chad Henne was apparently warming up, and this just felt like the Eagles catching another break with an injured quarterback. The Chiefs had the ball for just 8:06 in the first half as the Eagles dominated with long drives while Kansas City really did not show a lot after that hot opening drive. That makes 16 points for the offense in the last six quarters of Super Bowl action.

Things were looking poor for the Chiefs after getting outscored 17-7 in the quarter, and it could have been much worse without Hurts’ unforced error. It also would be nice if DeVonta Smith can make a cleaner catch down the sideline after his 35-yard grab was overturned to incomplete after a lengthy review. I can understand why they overturned it, but I was still surprised that they thought the evidence was conclusive enough to overturn the call on the field of a 35-yard catch.

That was a big reversal as it led to only a field goal and 24-14 lead for the Eagles at halftime. Still, this was looking like a Philadelphia script with an injured Mahomes even if the pass rush in this game was minimized.

Rihanna > Beyonce, forever and always, but moving onto the second half.

The Third Quarter: Here Come the Chiefs

With a half-hour halftime and Mr. White in the house to inject Mahomes with some Crystal Blue Persuasion, the MVP was able to return to the game and still looked good. The run game was also looking good for the Chiefs again, and Mahomes even took a play himself 14 yards after it looked like the Eagles were surprised he could still move like that.

Two plays later, Isiah Pacheco was in the end zone for a touchdown, and we had a game again at 24-21.

On the ensuing drive, Bolton thought he had another fumble touchdown, but the refs got the call right of a bang-bang play and no catch, no fumble for Sanders and the Eagles. What ensued was another painfully long drive with some incredible completions from Hurts to Dallas Goedert, including a third-and-14 conversion that took forever to review, but they got the call right as it was a catch this time.

The quarterback sneak worked for another fourth-and-1 for the Eagles, and this 7:45 drive was threatening to put the Eagles back up 10, but the pass defense stepped up and made a stop. The Eagles had a couple fourth downs already converted, and I was surprised that Nick Sirianni did not go for a fourth-and-6 at the Kansas City 15, understanding how much more valuable a 10-point lead is instead of 6 vs. 3.

But the Eagles settled for the 33-yard field goal and a 27-21 lead despite taking half the quarter with that drive. You can say Sirianni coached a pretty good Super Bowl when his biggest mistake in three quarters was not going for a fourth-and-6.

But with the Chiefs driving towards midfield, you could see where this one was heading.

The Fourth Quarter: Chiefs Do It Again

This postseason has sucked ass for drama, but maybe we would get something good here as it was the 18th Super Bowl in the last 20 years to be within one score in the fourth quarter. This postseason’s only fourth-quarter lead change was Jaguars vs. Chargers, and that was on the final play of the game. We needed something more dramatic here, and we absolutely got it.

JuJu, who I loved back in Pittsburgh his first two years and not so much after, was huge on this drive as he had three straight catches to put the ball at the 9-yard line. Incredibly, Marquez Valdes-Scantling had one target and no catches in the game after being so good against the Bengals. Kadarius Toney also had no touches on offense, so the Chiefs were getting almost everything out of Kelce, JuJu, and the running game.

But on a third-and-3, the Eagles completely blew a coverage and Toney was left wide open, not unlike his first NFL touchdown with the Chiefs against Jacksonville earlier this season. Andy Reid did it again. The Chiefs made the extra point to go up 28-27 and – STOP THE COUNT – they had their first lead and a lead for the 101st time in the last 102 games.

It also meant the 2022 Chiefs are the first team to have a fourth-quarter lead in 20 games in one season. But would they hang onto it to join the 1984 49ers and 2013 Seahawks as the only teams to do it in at least 19 games and win the Super Bowl? That is exclusive company for sure.

With the Eagles unable to run, it was going to be on Hurts’ shoulders, and he does not have the track record yet in these situations. Sure enough, the Eagles went three-and-out and this thing was going all Kansas City’s way. Toney returned the ensuing punt, after a little mix-up at the beginning, for 65 yards, nearly housing it, which likely would have earned him the MVP honors for this game. But his impact was felt as it was the longest punt return in Super Bowl history.

Not bad for a Kansas City team that had its longest punt return of the season against the Bengals (by Skyy Moore) to set up their game-winning drive last game out. Now they more than doubled that with this one by Toney. Speaking of Moore, he finished off this drive with yet another blown coverage by the Eagles as he was left all alone for a 4-yard touchdown. Way too easy.

Should the Chiefs have gone for two at 9:22 left? I think it was a little early to get the full benefit of that one, but I fully understand the argument by doing it. Still, it was 35-27 and this is out of the Eagles’ comfort zone.

However, when the QB sneak has been unstoppable all night, and the slants to Brown are open all night, the Eagles quickly moved the ball. Smith got wide open for a 45-yard bomb that if thrown a little better, he would have walked in for a touchdown. But on the next play, Hurts set a Super Bowl record with his third rushing touchdown at the quarterback position, giving him a record 18 for the season. He even finished the drive off with the game-tying two-point conversion as the league may have to interfere with the rule book to stop the Eagles’ dominance in short yardage. No more push sneaks in the near future? We’ll see.

But we were all tied up at 35 with 5:15 left. With the leaked script (read: a funny meme that some take too seriously) calling for a 37-34 win by the Eagles, you may have had it in the back of your mind that maybe the Chiefs screw this up after three straight touchdowns and the Eagles do win this one on a last-second field goal for a 38-35 win. The internet would go ape shit over that.

But no, Mahomes really is just different. He found Kelce for another catch that allowed him to hit his over (81 yards) by two yards, which cost me $700 in parlay wins, but no sour grapes here. Kelce now has nine straight games in the playoffs with over 75 receiving yards, three more than anybody else. Pacheco was able to convert the ensuing third-and-1 for a 10-yard gain.

Then came a definitive play. Mahomes scrambled right down the middle of the field for a 26-yard gain, looking pretty spry in the process and putting the Chiefs in field goal range. The rest of this drive was going to be very interesting strategy as the Eagles had three clock stoppages left, and the Chiefs could not afford to give them the ball back in a 38-35 game with nearly two full minutes left. Not after how easy the Eagles scored on the last drive.

The Chiefs even screwed this up with conservative play. A screen to JuJu gained nothing and brought up third-and-8. Mahomes just kind of lobbed one towards the end zone for JuJu on third down, which would have saved the Eagles’ last timeout, but there came the flag. Defensive holding on James Bradberry. Automatic first down.

I get why they called it, but I have to agree with FOX’s Greg Olsen. That is a very soft call on a night where the refs were swallowing the whistle. Bradberry tugged on the jersey, but the throw was also way off from the receiver, and I don’t think it was restrictive enough to say it drastically altered the play for the Chiefs. They got bailed out of a bad sequence with that call, and now the game was going to have a shit ending because the Chiefs were just going to set up the field goal.

For all the talk about referee Carl Cheffers screwing the Chiefs over in the past, his crew called just 3 penalties for 14 yards on the Chiefs in this game. He had gone 12 straight games calling at least 92 yards worth of penalties on both teams in Kansas City games, and 12 straight where the Chiefs had over 47.5 penalty yards.

So this was a surprise, and worse, there were just three penalties in the game on post-snap action, and they were all on the Eagles. The other six penalties were all your pre-snap things like false start, delay of game, neutral zone infraction, and offsides.

The refs tried to stay out of the story this week, but they had a huge impact on how this game would end. The part that pisses me off the most is how can they justify not calling the DPI on the Eagles on a JuJu coverage play on third down in the second quarter, but then they call this ticky tack crap? This inconsistency is what drives people nuts.

The Eagles did the right thing by offering the touchdown to the Chiefs, but Jerick McKinnon was wise to go down in bounds short of the end zone. Mahomes ended up taking two knees for minus-7 yards, meaning the Chiefs had 165 rushing yards before that happened. That is another big running day against the Eagles, who had their biggest statistical weakness at stopping the run this year (24th in yards per carry allowed), and last year the Chiefs ran for 200 yards on them for just the second time in the Mahomes era. This was another outstanding running day when you consider the Chiefs only had eight drives to score their 31 points. The Chiefs only had the ball for 24:13 and still scored 38 points. The only other time that has happened in the playoffs was when Andrew Luck led a 38-10 comeback against Reid’s 2013 Chiefs in a 45-44 win despite having the ball for 22:27.

For the anticlimactic finish, Butker just had to not go Blair Walsh and make a 27-yard field goal. He did it, and the Chiefs led 38-35 with 8 seconds left.

The Eagles returned the squib kick 11 yards before Gainwell gave himself up. Six seconds were eventually put back on the clock after it went down to 4 seconds, but either the Eagles didn’t seem to realize that, or they just blew the situation. There was no way Hurts could throw a Hail Mary over 65 yards with his shoulder injury, so the call should have been a quick pass to the sideline to get closer, or you do the laterals. Instead, Hurts held the ball and just threw a duck well short of the end zone and to no one in particular to end the game.

Conclusion

The Chiefs did it. Lesser defense filled with rookies, QB taking up 17% of the cap, injured skill players – none of it mattered. They also won this as a team as Mahomes’ 182 passing yards are tied for his fifth fewest in a game. He got the big run support, he got the fumble return touchdown, and he got the longest punt return in Super Bowl history. Mahomes was the right call to win Super Bowl MVP for making very few mistakes all night and still leading the offense to 31 points on eight drives with a missed field goal, but he still won this with the kind of team support we usually don’t see behind an MVP in a big game like this.

For the Eagles, it is a letdown for sure. I can say Hurts has still never beat a good quarterback on a good team in the NFL, but this game raised my respect for him. The fumble was an unfortunate blunder, but those happen. Mahomes just did it against the Bengals two weeks ago. Hurts was leading the MVP race most of the night as his run game and defense severely let him down as the 70-sack defense proved to be a paper tiger in the end. They were rarely tested this year, and when they faced the Chiefs, they folded with no sacks, very little pressure, and those blown coverages in the red zone are inexcusable.

Incredibly, the Eagles (70) and Chiefs (55) led the NFL in sacks this year with 125 between them, yet the only two in this game were on scramble plays where Hurts twice ran out of bounds for a small loss. Not even legitimate sacks in my view.

Mahomes got the ball off in 2.69 seconds on average according to Next Gen Stats. He is now 47-4 when he gets the ball out in under 2.9 seconds, so this game was above average for his release time even if it wasn’t quite the 2.32 seconds from last year’s meeting.

To close a week where we celebrated LeBron James breaking the NBA’s all-time scoring record that lasted almost 40 years, we just witnessed another great achievement for Mahomes in winning a Super Bowl with this team. It is not quite up to the level of LeBron knocking off the 73-9 Warriors, but to overcome all the negative perceptions of this team being too inexperienced, too pass happy, too imbalanced, and too injured, this is a big deal. I agree with Mahomes that this win means even more than 2019 did for him.

There is a long offseason ahead to be talking about their chances at ending the repeat drought, and Philadelphia’s chances at getting right back to this game as the NFC is not the toughest path right now.

But I am going to let this one marinate, go up to bed in a good mood as it’s always an easier offseason when the Super Bowl goes the way you wanted it to, and this is the end of my 12th season covering the NFL. I would say I look forward to the break from football, but I am scheduled for multiple XFL and NBA pieces this week, so it looks like I will be keeping busy for the next six months until we do it all over again for the 2023 NFL season.

Unless the aliens get past our space lasers.

NFL Super Bowl LVII Preview: Chiefs vs. Eagles

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

I guess I got one more Super Bowl preview left in me. This is the only place where I post my final score prediction, but it has been a long two weeks to get to this point. I don’t know how many times I wrote about the oddities of 42-30 from last year’s meeting, or why I love Jalen Hurts as a touchdown scorer who might even do it on The Philly Special II, or why the referees (Carl Cheffers) are worth betting on for a flag fest.

Seriously, play those penalty props wherever you can find them (over in total yards, over in Kansas City penalty yards):

But unlike the last round where I ended up changing both my picks from Sunday to Saturday to the Chiefs and Eagles winning, I have not moved on this game.

The Eagles should win Super Bowl LVII, but the Chiefs certainly can pull it off.

This is already the third Super Bowl for Patrick Mahomes, the two-time MVP, and once again he goes up against the best pass defense he could from the NFC. Argue all you want about the 49ers being a better overall defense than the Eagles, but Mahomes already shredded that unit in Week 7.

I feel like I’m just going to keep recycling my old Mahomes Super Bowl content for these matchups.

Teams like the Eagles usually beat teams like the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, but what if Mahomes is just different? I wrote that from scratch, but after checking, yep, I pretty much wrote this already about Super Bowl LIV against the 49ers:

There are a lot of areas that favor the 49ers, and I think historically the 49ers are the type of team more likely to win this game than a team like the Chiefs. There are just more ways for the 49ers to win while practically every positive outcome for Kansas City involves Mahomes playing really well. 

Defense wins championships. Football teams are built in the trenches. Hyped QB matchups usually disappoint in the Super Bowl. That’s what I’d write about Chiefs vs. Eagles, and that’s also probably what I wrote about Chiefs vs. Buccaneers two years ago in Super Bowl LV. Oh look, I did.

Defense wins championships. Football games are decided in the trenches. Overhyped quarterback matchups tend to disappoint.

This is why I really do see Super Bowl LVII as a game that will either be like Chiefs-49ers where Mahomes and the offense figure it out in the 4Q to win or at least make it a 3-4 point game/tight finish, or it is going to be another blowout like Chiefs-Buccaneers where the pass rush is all over the QB on the injured ankle and the secondary is all over the injured receivers and shut downs Travis Kelce again.

Tale as old as time, right?

I’ve said this year that the Eagles are a team that’s dying to blow a 14 or 17-point lead in the playoffs after a dominant first half. Maybe the offense goes into turtle mode. Maybe the famed QB push sneak they’ve perfected gets stopped on a key fourth-and-1 to give the Chiefs new life. Maybe Jalen Hurts just has another off game against a young defense has has showed some improvement down the stretch.

The problem I have in this game is that it really takes Philadelphia uncharacteristically screwing up (like a turnover party) for the Chiefs to probably win. Otherwise, it is going to have to be a Mahomes masterclass, and I’m just not sure the offense is healthy or talented enough for him to do that in this matchup. The Eagles holding Kelce to 23 yards and holding everyone not named Tyreek Hill (186 yards) under 25 yards last year bugs me, because they’ve only gotten better in the pass rush and secondary with the additions of Haason Reddick and James Bradberry. Not to mention AJ. Brown on offense, who crushed the Chiefs in the last time the Chiefs were blown out (27-3 against the Titans last year).

In fact, there is so much history on the line in this game, and that’s why I want to get to my links because I wrote about it all (multiple times) the last two weeks. I’ll obviously recap what did and did not happen in the final Stat Oddity of the season tomorrow night, but let’s get to all the Super Bowl links I feel like sharing.

My Super Bowl Content:

Final Super Bowl LVII Prediction

I would love nothing more than a high-scoring, close Super Bowl that is an instant classic. Maybe it’s a 27-24 game (or 37-34 if you saw the leaked script, wink wink nudge nudge). Hopefully we get an 18th Super Bowl in the last 20 that is within one score in the fourth quarter.

But a lot of times these Super Bowls disappoint. Just look at two of the last four years when we had 13-3 and 31-9, two games where a team didn’t even score a touchdown. This 2022 NFL season has been filled with disappointing and low-scoring island games. The playoffs have been very disappointing as the only game with a fourth-quarter lead change was Chargers-Jaguars, and even that happened on the final snap so we couldn’t see how the Chargers would answer.

We really need something great to end this season on a high note, and I just don’t see it here. I think the Eagles revert to the team they were during the 8-0 start, meaning a dominant second quarter before they settle in the range of 21-to-29 points, and I’ll give the Chiefs just enough points to look respectable after last time’s embarrassment of scoring 9. But even in that game they dropped two touchdown opportunities.

I just keep coming back to the difference in the trenches, the difference in health at the skill players, the depth of the Eagles, and the way they aren’t afraid to go for fourth downs. I can’t even trust the Chiefs to convert a third-and-1 this year, and I sure don’t expect them to QB sneak it on fourth-and-1. Throw in the Carl Cheffers, Chiefs nemesis, angle at referee, and the Chiefs might be getting the short end of the stick there too.

I think it will look closer to Chiefs-49ers than Chiefs-Buccaneers, because Hurts doesn’t have that LOAT edge like Tom Brady. But if Chad Henne plays a significant role in this game, I’ll immediately change my mind on that. But I think it’s closer to Chiefs-49ers, and maybe this time Mahomes just doesn’t have Hill to convert a third-and-15 to. The roster weakness they covered up so well all year ultimately comes back to bite them in the Super Bowl against the No. 1 pass defense after too many injuries sustained in the last two playoff games. That’d be a damn shame, but it’s what I see happening in this one.

Forgive me if I rushed through this preview and it’s not as neatly organized and in depth like they used to be for the Super Bowl, but when you’re writing for four sites for 13 days about this one game, you just want to get to kickoff tomorrow at 6:30. I’m wiped out.

I cannot promise a good game tomorrow night, but I can promise a worthy recap to put it in its rightful place in history. But let’s hope I’m wrong I’m on this one.

Final: Eagles 27, Chiefs 20 (Super Bowl MVP: Haason Reddick)