2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Super Bowl LIX

February 10, 2025 ~ 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.

NFL Super Bowl LIX Preview

February 9, 2025 ~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

It’s been years since I’ve grinded away for hours on a Saturday to do a final big preview for the Super Bowl that I posted here. I get that done during the week at other sites now, but after sending in about 30 different pieces across four sites this week, I am wore out and ready for the game. I don’t know how much more I can say about Chiefs vs. Eagles.

I just want to see it already as I think it’s a fascinating matchup and obviously a ton of history/legacy at stake with the three-peat. It’s also historic with these teams meeting for the 4th year in a row, something that’s never been done in any AFC vs. NFC matchup.

Here are the key links to articles I’ve already done about Super Bowl LIX, so if you need to pass the time Sunday before kickoff, here you go:

NFL Super Bowl LIX Preview: Kansas City Three-Peat or Philly Special 2.0? – My near-6,000 word epic preview for the big game going over all the key matchups and what to watch for.
Scott’s Seven NFL Picks: Super Bowl 59 – My final betting picks of the season, including 2024’s best bet (with + odds) that’s hit 15 times in the 18 games Kansas City’s starters have played.
A Three-Peat in Super Bowl 59 Would Make the Kansas City Chiefs the NFL’s Best Dynasty – Simply put, a three-peat would give the Chiefs claim to the NFL’s best dynasty ever. A detailed look at how they stack up to past dynasties going back to the 1950s Browns.
Will Saquon Barkley End the 26-Year Super Bowl MVP Drought for Running Backs? – A look at Saquon’s historic season, the lack of quality running backs in recent Super Bowls, and how the Chiefs can slow him down.
NFL Fraud Alert Rating Explained and Why It Favors the Chiefs Over Eagles in Super Bowl 59 – I finally put together my write-up for my Fraud Alert Rating (FAR) metric, and it’s definitely leaning towards the Chiefs being the better pick in this game.
The Ultimate Guide to Super Bowl LIX (2025): Everything You Need to Know – General info on the big game, but I did write about each team’s journey to New Orleans this season.
Super Bowl LIX MVP Odds – Breaking down the best MVP picks (Mahomes, Hurts, and a +30000 defender).

Super Bowl LIX Final Prediction

It goes without saying I want the Chiefs to win this game. I only root for the Eagles when they played the Patriots. Going into these games, I usually find it very easy to doubt the Chiefs because they usually are playing a team that’s built better than they are, and I think that’s the case again.

In fact, I wanted to see if I could dig out something from my Super Bowl LIV preview (Chiefs vs. 49ers) from the first Super Bowl in the Patrick Mahomes era to see if anything applies here to Sunday night. Sure enough, there’s this:

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. Then again, Mahomes is 9-0 in his career when his passer rating is under 90.0 because he’s the best at doing what the coach who succeeded Reid and preceded Shanahan used to say: f***ing score points.

But in doing the research the last two weeks, I was legitimately concerned at how much seemed to favor the Chiefs over the Eagles. You want to talk about turnovers? The Chiefs still win games when they lose the turnover battle, and if anyone’s due for a bad turnover night, it should be the Eagles (no giveaways in 5 games combined with +10 this postseason and the fact the Chiefs have never gone 4 straight games without one). No SB winner has ever failed to force at least 3 takeaways in the playoffs, so what are the Chiefs doing here? Get some turnovers Sunday night.

Then the Chiefs haven’t allowed a 90-yard rusher in 18 playoff games under Spagnuolo. They’re still 10-3 the last 13 times they’ve allowed a 100-yard rusher, which is a fantastic record in that split.

Then you look it up and the Chiefs have actually outrushed the Eagles head-to-head in 3 straight years. Who would have guessed that? Mahomes is 8-0 against Vic Fangio, he’s never lost indoors in the NFL, he’s 45-2 when he gets the ball out in under 2.8 seconds (which he’s done so well for the last month), the Eagles don’t make quarterbacks hold it that long, the Chiefs are better on special teams, they’re the more battle tested team, etc.

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.

Because when you look at the Chiefs’ 20 playoff games under Mahomes, they’re 17-3 with two losses in overtime. That Tampa Bay rout sticks out like a sore thumb, and if the Eagles win this game, you feel better about it being a blowout than a close game.

So, as the week wore on, I did start to doubt the Chiefs more.

I could see Barkley hitting a homerun in the first quarter again, maybe even the first play. Like as inevitable as Devin Hester taking the opening kickoff for a touchdown in Super Bowl 41 against the Colts. He’s just had that kind of season. But I don’t think the Chiefs are giving up 150+ yards to him on the ground and they can survive the long play touchdown. You’d rather give that up than consistent gains all night, which the Eagles haven’t been doing in the playoffs as Barkley’s success rate has dropped 9 points from the reg. season.

Then you start thinking the Chiefs have this 17-game winning streak in one-score games. When does that stop? The Eagles love to punch the ball out. Does someone like Kelce fumble in scoring range late in the game to end the three-peat? I had that vision, or maybe I was just thinking of the red-zone fumble he had last year against Philly earlier in the fourth quarter of a game the Eagles came back to win.

But I think the No. 1 issue to watch for the Chiefs is the offensive line. Does moving Joe Thuney to tackle weaken them too much at guard when the strength of the Eagles’ front seven is the interior line? If I’m Vic Fangio, I am moving Jalen Carter over to face new left guard Mike Caliendo, who is struggling. Don’t just leave him on Trey Smith all game. Own the Carter-Caliendo matchup to the point where maybe Andy Reid has to slide Thuney back to LG and play D.J. Humphries at LT. Shuffling the OL like this in a Super Bowl might cause some PTSD for Mahomes and the Chiefs. That’s what I’d do if I was the Eagles. You have to change things up in the Super Bowl. Make use of that extra week of prep work.

But I will say the numbers just aren’t that flattering for this pass rush of the Eagles. It’s not like 2022. But if the Chiefs can handle them up front, I think they play well. Then it’s the chess match on the other side with Spags likely blitzing Hurts, and likely sending corner blitzes. I thought that was interesting that Trent McDuffie has 15 blitzes in his last two games against the Eagles. That’s way above average for him. We’ll see if they do that again.

I looked at my old previews and I picked the Eagles two years ago (27-20) because I think I legitimately felt worried about that pass rush going up against Mahomes on the high-ankle sprain, and of course the Eagles offense had the edge against a young, middling KC defense. But I picked the Chiefs outright (by 4 points each time) against the 49ers in 2019 and 2023, so I didn’t do a reverse jinx or anything.

I’m not going to do one here either, because I don’t have any strong negative feelings about the 2024 Eagles like I did for say Buffalo, the No. 1 team on my Fraud Alert Rating metric. Eagles fans haven’t even given me any shit this postseason, and I’ve said this game is pretty much a coin flip and they have a very fair shot to win it. They are the team more likely to win it by multiple scores if it’s not a one-score game.

But the numbers I trust say the Chiefs (-1.5) usually win these matchups. They’re 6-0 in playoff games with spreads this small. They just find a way to win, and to come this close to a three-peat, I think they find a way to do it one more time. But I don’t expect it to be as high scoring as two years ago because I think both defenses are better and the game won’t have a ton of possessions.

Final: Chiefs 24, Eagles 21 (MVP: Patrick Mahomes)

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 17

December 30, 2024 ~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

In picking NFL games weekly for over 20 years, I still long for the week where I go 16-0. I’ve been 15-1 before, and if the Lions take care of the 49ers Monday night, then Week 17 will be a 15-1 week too.

But those god damn Colts just had to screw it up with the upset of the week against the lowest-scoring team in the league. So, I’ll wait for another chance to go 16-0, and this would have been a great week as favorites absolutely killed it with a 14-1 record so far.

Most of the games weren’t even that competitive with only six games featuring a comeback opportunity, and we didn’t have a single fourth-quarter lead change in the NFL from the time Sam Darnold threw that touchdown to Justin Jefferson in Seattle last week up until the Falcons-Commanders game tonight.

It’s been a long week, and I’m not even going to bother covering Wednesday and Thursday’s games here. Let’s get to it.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Falcons at Commanders: Welcome to the Salary Cap Era, Washington

One of my favorite annual stats to cite is no longer true. When I had to write about the Washington franchise, I always pointed out how this is the only NFL team that hasn’t had an 11-win season in the salary cap era since 1994. Every other team’s had multiple 11-win seasons in that time.

Well, the Commanders represent a new era for the franchise, Daniel Snyder is no longer the owner, and rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels is their savior. Daniels was again historic as a dual-threat on the night in a comeback win against Atlanta, and the Commanders are 11-5 and heading to the playoffs behind the player I think is the MVP of the league this year.

It wasn’t a great start as the Falcons led 17-7, but the Commanders were hurting themselves with a lot of offensive holding penalties, a penalty these refs were calling very tight all night and sometimes on both teams.

But the Commanders controlled the clock in the second half, and Daniels was almost perfect down the stretch. He led a long go-ahead touchdown drive to start the fourth quarter, he had a touchdown pass to put them up 11 negated by another holding penalty, and then after Michael Penix Jr. led a clutch game-tying touchdown drive by converting on multiple 4th-and-longs, Daniels again threw a strike on 3rd-and-10 deep to a streaking receiver.

But the pass was dropped, and the Commanders went three-and-out in the final minute of a tied game. That looked like it might cost them, but the Falcons badly mismanaged their two timeouts by wasting time and not getting closer for their new kicker, Riley Patterson. After getting a DPI penalty, they tried a 56-yard field goal that was straight enough but short, so we went to overtime.

The Commanders won the toss and Daniels in his first overtime game did not give Atlanta the ball back. He controlled the drive with his arm and legs on a night where he ran it 16 times for 127 yards before throwing his third touchdown pass to Zach Ertz, who made a nice catch in the end zone to put an end to this one at 30-24.

The Falcons (8-8) are back to being in trouble for the playoffs, because they picked the worst time to blow their first fourth-quarter lead in the Raheem Morris era. But they really blew the clock management in each half of this one. I’m not sure why teams are getting so bad at not calling timeouts or spiking the ball or getting the next play in quicker. Someone like Peyton Manning has to be watching these games in disgust with the poor jobs we’re seeing around the league.

But Daniels looks like the next big thing in the NFL. We’ll get to see what he can do in the playoffs where he can enhance his legacy after one of the greatest rookie quarterback seasons ever.

Arguably the greatest when you consider his efficiency, his dual-threat ability, the way he makes up for the defense to win games with clutch moments, and he’s doing it for a franchise that hasn’t known success like this in decades.

Broncos at Bengals: Sean Payton Choke Meme

Some coincidence that our only two game-winning drives in Week 17 came courtesy of rookie quarterbacks forcing overtime on the road in 30-24 games that didn’t feel like they were ever going to end with some piss-poor game management from each team.

This was the better game of the two with the higher stakes, and watching the Denver defense hold Cincinnati to just a touchdown in the first half. It really felt like another Cincinnati playoff game where the offense looked tight, underwhelming, and the defense was stepping up in a 10-10 game to start the fourth quarter.

But the floodgates really opened in the fourth quarter with the teams exchanging touchdowns before they exchanged turnovers with a Tee Higgins fumble and a bad Bo Nix interception. That pick and a big pass to Ja’Marr Chase gave the Bengals a 1st-and-10 at the Denver 21 at the 2-minute warning with the Broncos down to two timeouts.

Now this is a situation where you would love to manage the clock so that if you take a couple of plays to get a first down, you could time this up to win 20-17 on a field goal on the final snap, the best way to end a game like this. But the Bengals, a team with minimal success in these situations over the years, botched it big time. They completed a pass to Chase Bronw that led the back out of bounds, then Burrow threw an incomplete pass, so that’s two snaps that took 9 seconds and saved both timeouts for Denver. Horrible job.

After converting a third down, the Bengals tried to run with Brown, who made an understandable decision to not score. But he must not be a baseball player as his slide technique was bad and he injured his ankle on the play, which cost his team a timeout. Not good. If he goes down properly, they could just take 2 knees and kick a field goal in the last 10 seconds to win this one.

That changed things, but it was still weird to see Burrow just sneak it in for a touchdown that Denver probably didn’t mind given the circumstances. The Broncos were going to get the ball back with 1:29 and a timeout. That’s pretty good, and the other reason you fear being up a touchdown instead of a field goal in that situation is that the team could always go for two and the win should they score. If it’s a field goal game, they’re just going to get the field goal most likely.

Sure enough, the Cincinnati defense let down after an encouraging game to that point. I’m not sure it was the greatest game management once the Broncos got inside the 35, but on a 4th-and-1, Nix showed some stones when he threw deep for Marvin Mims for a 25-yard touchdown with 8 seconds left.

Originally, it looked like the Broncos were going to go for two, but they changed their minds after a review confirmed the touchdown. This has been the big second-guessing moment after the game if they should have just gone for the 2-point conversion there to win the game.

But this was an unusual circumstance, because an overtime tie for Denver is just as good as a win in getting them into the playoffs. With that knowledge, I can totally buy going for the extra point and overtime. There’s also the fact that I think Joe Burrow has one of the weakest killer instincts in the NFL and I wouldn’t fear going to overtime with him one bit.

Sure enough, the Bengals got the ball first in overtime, and as soon as the drive reached midfield with the Bengals in position to go win the game, Burrow took back-to-back sacks and the team had to punt. Tale as old as time.

But the Broncos also went three-and-out, so that was bad. Their playcalling down the stretch was brutal, including a very ill-timed screen pass in the fourth quarter that almost lost the game earlier for them.

The Bengals took their second overtime drive and wasted it with a 33-yard field goal that hit the upright on third down. Why kick it a down early when you have time to get even closer? That kick isn’t hitting the upright if the kick was a few yards closer. Typical Zac Taylor in these spots.

With 2:43 left, a competent team would make Cincy pay for this, but the Broncos have not looked smart these last few weeks. I’m far more annoyed by Payton’s approach to this drive than any decision to kick an extra point at the end of regulation. First, he saved the Bengals time by calling multiple timeouts on defense on the previous drive. Would have been more beneficial to let that tick down if they were just going to choke anyway. Remember, the tie is cool for Denver and season ending for Cincinnati.

But then to not see the opportunity with 2:43 left that a first down or two ends the game and gets you in the playoffs? Awful. The Broncos ran three bad plays, punted, and only used up 23 seconds.

Burrow found Higgins for 31 yards on their best connection of the day down the sideline, then instead of relying on a backup kicker, they just threw a touchdown from 3 yards out to win it 30-24 and keep hope alive.

But I can’t help but point out how bad the game management was for both teams. If you’re the Bengals, you want to win that 20-17 in regulation and avoid this mess. That’s what the Chiefs would do in that spot, and yet people would have the nerve to bash them for winning a low-scoring 20-17 game. Meanwhile, that’s just smart football. 30-24 with all these extra possessions is just dumb.

However, that’s why these teams are fighting with Miami to be the last ones in the tournament and go to Buffalo. They’re not good teams this year. But they did make for an entertaining game and finish on Saturday.

Packers at Vikings: Sam Darnold Takeover

Remember in 2019 when Dan Orlovsky would make that ridiculous point about Carson Wentz “taking over” games for the Eagles? I’m not sure what made me think of that from this game, but I saw the way Sam Darnold was just completely outplaying Jordan Love, who struggled to get to 100 passing yards, and it made me think of the way Darnold just took this game over with 377 passing yards on 43 attempts despite the Vikings never trailing after it was 3-0 early.

Darnold had a fantastic game again. Sure, he threw the one pick when they were up big and it led to a little comeback attempt from the Packers that made this one scary at 27-25 with 2:18 left after the Packers wisely went for two. Someone explain to Tom Brady why they did that, please. Greg Olsen knows.

But with Aaron Jones injured, the Vikings needed to salt this one away with the passing game, and Darnold delivered on his last few attempts in the four-minute offense to make sure the Packers never touched the ball again.

You like a safer ending than that, but you’ll gladly take the big win for the Vikings, who swept the Packers with a pair of 2-point wins where Green Bay never had the ball in the fourth quarter while trailing by one score. That’s hard to pull off against an 11-win team, but they did it twice this year, and now they are going to be in Detroit next Sunday night for the No. 1 seed. Incredible stuff.

As for the Packers, my preseason Super Bowl pick, it’s very alarming the way they’ve lost to the Lions twice, the Vikings twice, and also in Brazil against the Eagles in Week 1. They made it look close enough at the end of these games, but you have to beat these teams in the playoffs to get to the Super Bowl, and that’s not looking strong right now.

But maybe they have a revenge tour in mind. We’ll just have to see as this division has been fantastic, and it’s getting the proper send-off with one of the best regular-season games in NFL history as it could be a pair of 14-2 teams if Detroit wins Monday night.

Jets at Bills: The New Three Stooges

And to think this game looked like it might decide the AFC East back in May when the schedule came out. But at least the Jets didn’t have to worry about blowing a fourth-quarter lead this time. They were down 40-0 before getting some points with Tyrod Taylor replacing Aaron Rodgers in the fourth quarter. That’s the first time in Rodgers’ career he trailed by 40 points in a game.

Anyone touting this as an MVP performance for Josh Allen just had their mind made up before the game even started. This shouldn’t move the needle as he finished with 199 total yards and 3 touchdowns, including a 1-yard sneak on 1st-and-goal to start the game. But the Bills only had 10 points on offense in the first half. The short fields they kept getting from the defense blew this one open after the Bills scored touchdowns of 38, 37, and 15 yards.

Rodgers had a rough day with 4 sacks, 2 picks, and he even picked up a 15-yard flag for a little shove out of bounds on a defender after his pick.

This is Buffalo’s division and could be for a long time like it was for New England.

Colts at Giants: No Banners, Just Misery

The 2024 Colts had issues with their quarterback position, including a disastrous benching of Anthony Richardson for Joe Flacco, and of course the way Richardson has struggled with accuracy and staying healthy. But let’s not blame their downfall at the end on Richardson’s latest injury that put Flacco back in action in a must-win game in New York.

It was the defense who ultimately delivered the final embarrassing blow for this team after allowing Drew Lock, who had one of the worst games by any quarterback this season against Atlanta last week, to lead the lowest-scoring team in the NFL to 45 points.

Lock damn near had a perfect passer rating (155.3) with 309 yards and 4 touchdowns, but I don’t want to give him too much credit. The inability to tackle Malik Nabers (171 yards and 2 TD) had a lot to do with those numbers. This is right up there with the Tavon Austin (2013), Jonas Gray (2014), Brock Osweiler (2016), and 2021 Jacksonville games for the Colts. If you know the Colts, you know what I mean.

The offense was far from perfect, but they put up 33 points and Flacco had a couple of late turnovers after the game looked out of reach. It was just a disastrous day for the defense as they couldn’t even tackle Lock on an obvious scramble for another touchdown with 2:57 left that made it 42-33.

Embarrassing stuff, and I think heads have to roll in Indy after this. The defensive coordinator at the very least must go. At least with the team in past seasons after Andrew Luck retired, they had some moments I joked about with banners, mocking their “2014 AFC Finalist” banner. But this team under Steichen? No such achievements. Just enough teasing that they’re a bad wild-card caliber team that will get bounced in the 7-2 matchup, then they can’t even get into the tournament anyway.

The Colts have become irrelevant, and that’s sad to see.

Panthers at Buccaneers: More Domination

The Panthers and Buccaneers were in overtime in Week 13 with Baker Mayfield having a sloppy game. That wasn’t the case Sunday as he had as many incomplete passes (5) as he had touchdown passes. The Bucs were absolutely dominant in a 48-14 win to get back on track after that upset loss in Dallas.

Thanks to the Commanders taking care of Atlanta, the Bucs are back in position to win the NFC South again. They’ll just have to beat the Saints at home or hope the Falcons lose to the Panthers.

Cardinals at Rams: Another Low-Scoring Win

Ever since the Rams beat Buffalo 44-42, they are 3-0 in games that ended 44-24 cumulatively. It’s been a wild run for a team with Matthew Stafford at quarterback, who again didn’t get much going in the passing game outside of throwing to Puka Nacua.

The Rams are the first team since the 2006 Broncos to win at least three straight games where they didn’t score 20 points and didn’t allow 10 points. Those Broncos did it in five straight games. But the Rams are 10-6 after a 1-4 start, 9-2 since the bye, and they needed their defense to deliver with a goal line stand against the Cardinals.

Kyler Murray finally threw a touchdown to Trey McBride on a screen pass, but when he later went for him with the game on the line, he hit him right in the head with the ball and it was caught on the deflection for an incredible interception to secure the 13-9 win.

With Washington’s win, the Rams clinched the NFC West. They could play the Commanders or Packers in the playoffs, and it likely will be tough on them. But another great turnaround job by McVay after a poor start.

Cowboys at Eagles: Kenny Pickett Doing Kenny Pickett Things

A year ago, I wouldn’t have believed Kenny Pickett would be starting a game for the Eagles to clinch the division title, but here we are. One thing that doesn’t surprise me is it was Pickett vs. Cooper Rush as Dak Prescott and Jalen Hurts have met just three times since Hurts was drafted in 2020. They’re the Ravens-Steelers of the NFC as far as their quarterbacks missing the rivalry games go.

But before leaving yet another game with an injury, Pickett had some hilarious highlights like this play here:

This is an all-time WTF pic.twitter.com/bBzObptcIo
— lindsey ok (@lindseyyok) December 29, 2024

He also should have had two touchdown passes in a half for the first time in his career, but penalties and a receiver going down at the 1 before he snuck it in on the Tush Push prevented that. But you have to laugh that the third quarterback, Tanner McKee, came in for Pickett and threw 2 touchdowns on 4 pass attempts in his NFL debut.

With CeeDee Lamb out, the Cowboys had little to show for on offense, turned it over four times, and made this a fairly easy 41-7 win for Philly. Saquon Barkley rushed for 167 yards, becoming the 9th player to hit 2,000 yards in a season. I’m glad he did it in 16 games. I’m not sure him breaking Dickerson’s record – he needs 101 yards – in a 17th game where he probably doesn’t even need to play a snap with the Eagles the No. 2 seed – would be a legitimate way to break the record. Just let it be and get ready for the playoffs.

Chargers at Patriots: What Exactly Does New England Do Well?

I’m used to the Chargers choking against the Patriots, and even in winning there last year, they still had two field goals in a 6-0 dud. But between Drake Maye checking out early with a possible concussion (he later returned) and the way the score got out of hand so quickly, I found myself changing the cats’ litter boxes by the third quarter after Ladd McConkey (my guy) punked them for a second touchdown.

Nice to see the Chargers get a comfortable win and punch their postseason ticket with a 10-6 record. I’m just not sure what the Patriots do well at this point as the defense has gotten worse with Jerod Mayo, and they still don’t have any weapons for Drake Maye.

But hey, they might have the No. 1 pick now and we know they won’t need to draft a quarterback. Travis Hunter time?

Raiders at Saints: I Actually Missed Derek Carr Sunday

This was supposed to be Derek Carr’s chance to make history by losing starts to all 32 NFL teams. But he was out with an injury, so we got treated to another Spencer Rattler start. At least they scored some points this week after getting shutout in Green Bay, but it was still a decisive 25-10 win for the Raiders, who are suddenly on a winning streak.

Given the way the offense moved the ball with a rare appearance by the running game (156 yards), I think the Raiders would have defeated Carr in New Orleans in this one. A pity we didn’t get the chance to see it.

Dolphins at Browns: Good Job, Miami

I rarely have anything good to say about Miami, because I don’t think any franchise does more to have irrelevant 7-to-9 win seasons that don’t produce a postseason win. But I have to say it was a good job by Mike McDaniel’s team to win on the road in Cleveland with Tyler Huntley at quarterback after a surprise inactive for Tua Tagovailoa in a must-win game.

Huntley was very good at managing the game while the Browns saw “DTR” complete 24-of-47 passes for 170 yards in a 20-3 final. For the people who don’t believe quarterbacks change everything, just think how differently this game looks if it was Tua vs. Jameis.

But the Dolphins (8-8) stay alive and just need the Broncos to lose to the Chiefs to make the playoffs next week if they beat the Jets to finish 9-8. But a 9-8 finish that doesn’t even result in a postseason berth would be 100% on brand for Miami.

Titans at Jaguars: It’s Raining, It’s Boring

Well, the Titans (3-13) are abysmal after a couple of low-scoring losses at the hands of the Jaguars this month. They had a late shot to win this one with a touchdown and 2-point conversion, but Mason Rudolph’s rally came up 26 yards short.

We’ll see if the Jaguars make a coaching change for 2025, but you have to say the Jaguars are closer to competing than the Titans as the way things stand. At least Trevor Lawrence can come back and throw to a young stud in Brian Thomas Jr. next season.

Next week: The end is nigh. On Saturday, it looks like they’re giving Lamar Jackson one last MVP showcase with the biggest spread (18.5) of the season against the Browns. Then it’s Bengals-Steelers, which feels like an attempt to get Cincy in since the Steelers might want to rest players if the Ravens have the division locked up. Sunday, we’ll see if the Broncos can beat Kansas City’s backups (Carson Wentz beat the 49ers’ backups last year with the Rams) or if Sean Payton will join the 2004 Bills as chokers in that situation. But the big one is the last one with Vikings at Lions, possibly a matchup of 14-2 teams for the No. 1 seed. Brilliant.

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 13

December 2, 2024 ~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

Week 13 started with a lot of close NFL finishes on the holidays, but it carried over to Sunday too. A whopping 12 of the 15 games this week have been decided by 1-to-7 points with MNF pending. A few were artificially close, but there were 9 games with a comeback opportunity and we saw six game-winning drives this week.

This has felt like the week where people started picturing a Championship Sunday with Eagles-Lions and Bills-Chiefs. Maybe it ends up that way, but the one thing I’m sure of is we’ll get a new NFC champion as the 49ers are more cooked than your turkey was.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Eagles at Ravens: Best Philadelphia Win in Two Years

I have to give the Eagles (10-2) credit for what I’d call their best win in the last two seasons. They may be playing defense better than anybody since Week 6, they got this one done in Baltimore against a quarterback who was 23-1 against the NFC, and they didn’t have Darius Slay, DeVonta Smith, and they lost some defensive backs during the game too and still were up 24-12 late.

Oh, they also spotted the Ravens a 9-0 lead, which usually leads to an avalanche. But the Eagles shook off the bad start and hung in there.

However, I don’t want to give the offense too much credit since it managed just 252 yards, 4-of-12 on third down, and they didn’t even have any takeaways or long returns to produce some hidden yards in those numbers. It was a bit bland on that side of the ball, but Saquon Barkley was dominant down the stretch, and if any award was decided in this game, I’d say Barkley is inching closer to lock territory for Offensive Player of the Year. Derrick Henry may have blown his shot with no touchdowns in consecutive games and Barkley getting the push in this head-to-head matchup that wasn’t a grand offensive display by any means.

But let’s also just be honest. The Eagles sat back and watched the Ravens do what they do best this year: Beat themselves. They kept the penalties to a minimum this time, but the deterioration of Justin Tucker is getting so bad that you honestly have to consider if it’s time to say goodbye. He’s missed a career-high 10 kicks this season (with 5 games to go) and that includes 3 more in this game. They weren’t Herculean tasks either from 47 and 53 yards, and he started downhill by missing an extra point in the first quarter.

Somehow, this game had 5 fumbles and all were recovered by the team who fumbled, so no turnovers. Lamar Jackson played like someone dying to turn it over with a fumble on an unforced error that killed a drive, then he could have easily been picked on a fourth-down throw in the fourth quarter that fell incomplete (probably better for Philly’s field position). But he wasn’t impressive like he was a year ago against a Vic Fangio defense from Miami.

But Jackson’s success rate in the fourth quarter was 1-for-7 on drives where it was a 14-12 and 21-12 game, so that’s not going to help his MVP case for the team’s fifth loss this year. He also took a huge sack on the play before Tucker missed his 47-yard field goal, and had three straight failed dropbacks before the next missed field goal in the third quarter.

But if you wanted to show one play that sums up this game, just look at the way rookie corner Cooper DeJean tackled Derrick Henry for a 3-yard gain on a 3rd-and-11 in a 21-12 game:

https://twitter.com/_MLFootball/status/1863374958258270292/history

Henry’s OPOY case may have died on that snap. The Ravens got the ball back with 63 seconds left in a 24-12 game and were able to get a touchdown with just 3 seconds left. It had a bit of a garbage time feel to it, especially with Jackson running for 39 yards against a defense that thought maybe a flag was thrown. But that put 19 points on the board. Just keeping it at 12 would have given them a better shot of not setting their season low in the playoffs for the fifth-straight time under Jackson.

But the fact is the Ravens are now 8-5 and facing a stronger likelihood of taking the wild card route in January. They could also end up inevitably facing Pittsburgh in the wild card, and at this point, I’m not sure if it matters all that much if the game is played in Pittsburgh or Baltimore. It’s still going to be Ravens-Steelers, and lately, that’s not good for Baltimore winning.

But it’s a very good win for the Eagles as the defense should feel some real confidence if it has to play a team like Detroit or Buffalo in a big playoff game this year.

It was still a “yikes” day from Tucker though…

Steelers at Bengals: Shootout of the Year (with a Predictable Winner)

The Bengals insisted all September that they were still the team to beat in the AFC, and yet here we are with the team at 4-8, likely not going to the playoffs for the second year in a row, and it’s another loss to Pittsburgh that could effectively be the final nail. Doing it in Cincinnati is just the cherry on top as the Steelers travel there so well like they did in the playoffs in 2005 and 2015 when they ended those dream seasons for the Bengals.

But they’ve done it to the Bengals in the regular season for a couple of decades too. I said the offense has always perked up against Lou Anarumo’s defense even in the Matt Canada era, and they were really special on Sunday with the first game for Arthur Smith and Russell Wilson.

It got off to a terrible start with George Pickens getting dragged down by the helmet, and it leading to a pick-six for the Bengals. It wasn’t DPI since the ball wasn’t in the air yet. It wasn’t illegal contact since it was within 5 yards. I guess they could have called illegal hands to the face, but I still put that more on Pickens for being soft on the play, and then he of course didn’t even try to make a tackle, choosing to complain to the ref for a flag.

But I didn’t imagine Russell Wilson would have the best game by a Pittsburgh quarterback since vintage Ben Roethlisberger after that start. It’s the most encouraged I’ve felt about a Pittsburgh offensive game in years, because they showed things that were different this week. They saw the complaints and flaws in Cleveland that the offense relies on too many deep shots, Wilson is getting too much heat, and they need to find a more consistent offense that can hit layups too.

Well, they did that Sunday. They attacked the Bengals repeatedly over the middle on short, quick throws to the running backs. Najee Harris got so many catches on one drive that he had to get oxygen in the first quarter. Better get used to it, because the Steelers may actually be using the middle of the field a little more going forward. But they definitely liked what they saw on tape against the Bengals, and Wilson was very accurate and decisive with the ball. He only took 2 sacks, and he finished 29-of-38 for 414 yards and 3 touchdowns, his second-highest passing yardage total in his career.

Wilson got to over 250 yards by halftime when Joe Burrow had just 100 yards. That doesn’t mean the defense was playing great, because they gave up way too many penalties on Joey Porter Jr., and they relied on a couple of splash plays to get 3 takeaways from Burrow, including two strip-sacks. The big one came in the fourth quarter when it was returned for a touchdown to take a 41-24 lead with 11:06 left.

But the Steelers played abysmal defense the rest of the way, and again, Porter Jr. was a main culprit as he is too grabby with receivers and got flagged for DPI in the end zone. On the last drive, he dropped a pick in the end zone that would have sealed the win, but Burrow instead got another touchdown pass. Keep in mind, that drive happened so fast because of a 49-yard pass to a wide-open Ja’Marr Chase with a blocker in front of him.

It really looked like the Steelers might blow a 17-point lead to one of the worst comeback teams in the league. Even the offense was blowing the situation as a holding penalty on a 2nd-down run stopped the clock with 1:54 left. That means if the Bengals could stop a 3rd-and-4, Burrow would get over a minute to score a touchdown unless Chris Boswell could nail a very long field goal (58 yards or so).

The Steelers put Justin Fields into the game for the first time, and you had to expect a run from him. Everyone should have saw that coming, and yet, he did exactly that and it still converted for a 7-yard gain. He even did the slide properly this time instead of coming up short to extend the game. But that’s a wrap in a 44-38 game, the highest-scoring game this season, no one expected.

At the same time, I feel much better about Pittsburgh’s chances to keep up in January if they have to outscore the likes of the Bills or Chiefs. But I also feel even worse that the defense is going to get destroyed like it has in every single playoff game since the 2017 season. Even with some of their best front seven players creating 4 sacks and 2 fumbles, this defense still allowed 31 points. That’s poor.

But after the first loss with Wilson to Cleveland last week, I can’t imagine anyone will still question the move from Fields to him after this game. Wilson was in vintage form in this one.

49ers at Bills: San Francisco Melts in the Snow

This is exactly why you shouldn’t trust a warm-weather team playing in the snowy elements of Buffalo in a game like this. Yes, the 49ers didn’t have Trent Williams and Nick Bosa, but Brock Purdy returned, and there are still a lot of really talented players on both sides of the ball with a coach who is supposed to be a genius.

Yet the 49ers turned in a lifeless, mistake-heavy performance in another 35-10 rout that has dropped them to 5-7, and they may not recover from this one. They also lost Christian McCaffrey again, and with the way he pulled up on his own, we may not see him again until 2025.

But even without Williams, there were running lanes to be found as both defenses struggled to get traction on the field that was quickly covered with snow that started just before kickoff. That also slows down the pass rush, so even Bosa might not have been that huge in a game like this against a quarterback as hard to sack like Allen.

But the fact is Allen took a backseat on this night where he only had to throw 17 passes. The running backs picked up just a hair under 200 yards as James Cook even broke a 65-yard touchdown on a 1-play drive. The Bills opened this game up in the third quarter when the 49ers blew their shot to make this competitive at 21-3 when Kyle Juszczyk fumbled at the goal line as the team struggled with ball security all night and just looked generally unprepared.

Meanwhile, the Bills have a player like Mack Hollins walking to the stadium barefoot, and he caught a touchdown in this game. But the final nail in the coffin was when Allen threw an off-target pass to Amari Cooper, who fought with the defense before pitching a lateral to Allen, who dove for the score, essentially completing a touchdown pass to himself (but no reception credit). That made it 28-3 and that was a wrap as Purdy couldn’t even throw for 100 yards to his more talented receivers. Purdy even fumbled on an unforced error to set up a short field for Buffalo’s last touchdown.

It looks like the 49ers are going out sad, and while Kyle Shanahan may deserve an injury excuse for missing the playoffs this year, you can’t tell me 38-10 and 35-10 in consecutive weeks with these types of performances is not worth criticizing given the star power still on the field.

Texans at Jaguars: Houston’s Not Beating the Allegations

Why is it even when the Texans win there still feels like a loser quality to it? This game was marred by the cheap hit by Azeez Al-Shaair that gave Trevor Lawrence a concussion, which led to him posturing on the field in a scary scene.

I hope they drop a monster suspension on Aziz Al-Shaair … legit tried to knock the head off Trevor Lawrence. As dirty as they come. pic.twitter.com/idoKxh3XNt
— Megs (@Rad_Megss) December 1, 2024

I say suspend his ass, because that looked very intentional, and apparently he’s got a history of being a dirty player.

Azeez Al-Shaair punches Roschon Johnson who wasn't even in the game pic.twitter.com/s7rM7qzHJv
— Dave (@dave_bfr) September 16, 2024

But dumbass @DRyans59 assured us that todays incident (no, not when he punched a player earlier in the season)

Had NOTHING to do with Al-Shaair’s character or who he is as a person.

Just a guy making illegal, career altering hits, grabbing throats, and punching people. https://t.co/jdMbv2S3k6
— Bad Benny (@HereREGOagain) December 2, 2024

But guess what? Even though the Texans were up 23-6 with 12:00 left and Mac Jones, one of the worst comeback quarterbacks in NFL history, was in the game, the Jaguars still made Houston sweat for the win. Jones led back-to-back touchdown drives to make it 23-20 with 3:31 left, a bad trend that’s happened multiple times to the Texans this year.

Fortunately, they kept the ball on the ground with Joe Mixon, who was able to hit the big runs to get the last few first downs to put the game away. But I want to see what the league does to Al-Shaair. All these little penalties and fines that are supposed to protect the quarterbacks but don’t actually stop the hits from still happening. Let’s see some real punishment like docking him his last 5 game checks this year.

Chargers at Falcons: Kirk Cousins Is a Tampa Bay Defense Merchant This Year

Man, Kirk Cousins played the Tampa Bay defense twice this year as if his family’s lives depended on him being great. He threw 8 touchdowns to one pick in those games, he had the 500-yard game, and his 276 yards in the rematch was also his third-highest yardage game with the Falcons.

I don’t want to act like those are his only big games this year as he shredded the weak Cowboys’ defense, and he had that good comeback moment in Philadelphia. But the Tampa Bay games are definitely building up his season stats, especially after he threw 4 picks in a rough 17-13 loss at home to the Chargers here.

Cousins was picked on 3-of-4 drives to end this game, which was always within reach. One of Cousins’ picks was returned for a touchdown in the third quarter, which is how the Chargers took the lead for good.

I thought Justin Herbert would have a big passing game with J.K. Dobbins out, but he threw for just 147 yards on 23 attempts, and Ladd McConkey had 117 of those yards in a huge game for the rookie. But it’s not like the running game stepped up for Herbert. It produced 12 carries for 55 yards for him.

The defense led the way here as the offense only had 187 yards. Meanwhile, the Falcons had 350 yards, but they were 3/14 on third down and the four picks. Definitely a winnable game that was thrown away by the Falcons.

Cardinals at Vikings: The 10-Win Team No One Is Talking About

The Vikings are now 10-2, winners of five straight, and it feels like no one talks about them because of the allure of the Lions and Packers in the same division. But they’ll get a rematch with those teams at the end of the season, they already won in Green Bay, and this division is far from decided.

Minnesota broke expectations again by being able to overcome a 19-6 deficit in the second half behind quarterback Sam Darnold, who continues to play well. He was sacked 5 times in this game, matched his leading rushers with 22 yards on the ground, but still drove 70 yards twice for critical touchdowns in a 23-22 comeback win.

Aaron Jones made up for another fumble by catching an open touchdown for the lead with 1:13 left. The Cardinals weren’t able to get a first down as it was not a great game for Kyler Murray, who was picked twice in the quarter, including a desperation play on 4th-and-10 to end it at 23-22. They only needed a field goal, but now Arizona (6-6) is second in the NFC West.

The Vikings could have what it takes to shake up what people are starting to bill as an inevitable championship game between the Lions and Eagles.

Seahawks at Jets: 41 and Done

Aaron Rodgers turns 41 today (Monday), and he looked every bit that age and more in Sunday’s latest loss to the Seahawks. Apparently, the Jets are the first team to be favored in 9-of-12 games and have a record as bad as 3-9 SU. They found a way to blow their fourth lead in the fourth quarter this season, but this game had a few critical turning points that largely went against the Jets.

Up 21-7 in the second quarter after a kickoff return for a touchdown, the Jets had a chance to really put the dagger through the Seahawks, who fumbled on the ensuing kickoff. But after Rodgers missed Garrett Wilson on a pass, the refs missed a delay of game, and Rodgers’ pass was intercepted by Leonard Williams, who rumbled his way for a 92-yard touchdown, reportedly the longest ever for a 300-pound player. That made it 21-13 in a situation where it looked like the Jets would go up 28-7.

The Jets never scored again. Breece Hall wasted a goal-line stand by fumbling, which led to a Seattle field goal to make it 21-19 in the fourth quarter. The Seahawks were later stuffed on a 4th-and-1 run that was negated by a horse collar penalty. They finished that drive with the go-ahead touchdown instead with 5:31 left, giving Rodgers plenty of time to get a touchdown in a 26-21 deficit.

But the drive was painfully slow, and things quickly went haywire after the 2-minute warning. Rodgers took a sack and faced a 4th-and-15. Naturally, his pass fell harmlessly incomplete to end the game. Rodgers finished 21-of-39 for 185 yards, which will drop his career-low YPA (6.4) this season even lower.

Big win for the Seahawks, who are 7-5 and in first place in the NFC West.

Colts at Patriots: Marathon Drive Produces Rare Win in New England

The Colts had not won in New England since 2006, a memory of better and far more relevant times for this team. For both teams, obviously. But the Colts had lost their last 7 trips to Gillette Stadium, so it is a welcome sign that Shane Steichen is now 2-0 against the Patriots after also beating them in Germany in 2023.

This game had more scoring, though it sure didn’t look like Anthony Richardson was going to surpass 100 passing yards for the longest time, and those fears about him only doing well on scripted drives came up again as he was having a mess of a game on drives that didn’t begin each half.

It looked like things were going New England’s way again once Drake Maye led a go-ahead drive for a touchdown to take a 24-17 lead, then corner Christian Gonzalez picked off Richardson with 7:59 left. That was lights out in the old days for the Patriots, but not anymore.

The Colts forced a three-and-out, and Richardson took over with 5:34 left and 80 yards to go. Old-school football. But it was mostly passing from Richardson until the Colts moved their 19-play march into the red zone, then he started getting more designed runs. After calling five straight runs, the Colts put the ballgame on 4th-and-3 on Richardson to make a throw on time, and he delivered with the touchdown to Alec Pierce with 12 seconds left.

That’s a solid situation to go for two, which the Colts also converted with Richardson powering his way in for the 25-24 lead. But we also have to reconsider this strategy with the way teams are setting up field goals anymore. Getting to start at the 30 is a huge bonus, and the Patriots still had timeouts. Even with a rookie quarterback and some low-level weapons, the Patriots managed to run 3 snaps in 11 seconds (hometown clock operator?) to move the ball 20 yards to midfield and at least give kicker Joey Slye a shot at a 68-yard field goal, which would be the longest in NFL history.

This is the same kicker who shanked a 67-yard field goal against the Chiefs in 2020 when he was with Carolina. He’s also a kicker who blew a 25-yard field goal earlier in this game, but from 68, he was straight down the middle. It just came up a yard or two short.

Joey Slye came THIS CLOSE to hitting a game-winning 68-yard field goal on the final play against the Colts. Wowzers. Would have topped the NFL record for longest kick by two yards. #Patriots pic.twitter.com/6hyPBUBHYx
— John Breech (@johnbreech) December 1, 2024

That would have been an amazing kick, and it does make you want to think twice about 12 seconds being long enough to avoid a finish like this when you go for two. But I guess if you don’t think you can win in overtime, this is what you do.

I’m still not convinced Richardson is the real deal for the Colts, who are hanging in the playoff hunt at 6-7, but at least this drive and the one against the Jets are encouraging.

Buccaneers at Panthers: Bryce Young Did His Job Again

One of the more encouraging stories in the last month has been Bryce Young playing like an actual NFL quarterback. Has it been great? Not quite, but getting production out of him, getting him to score 20 points in four straight games, and seeing him deliver a few clutch drives is absolutely huge given he’s spent most of his career as someone who might not sniff 20 points in 3 weeks combined.

Frankly, he should have had this game won against Tampa Bay as a 5.5-point underdog, but they gave it away again. Young stepped up with a great 25-yard touchdown throw to Adam Thielen with 30 seconds left to take a 23-20 lead. But in today’s NFL with the kickoff putting teams at the 30 and so many kickers capable of hitting from long distance, it’s really hard to defend that kind of lead. It’s not like the old days.

Sure enough, Baker Mayfield shrugged off a pretty poor game where he was hit hard multiple times, and he got his offense into field goal range with three productive completions and a scramble. See kids, you can fire off five scrimmage plays (plus the field goal) in 30 seconds if you have three timeouts.

Chase McLaughlin was good from 51 yards out to send the game to overtime. But he wasn’t good from 55 yards on the first drive of overtime, and I have to question the decision to kick that long attempt. First, it doesn’t win the game. It only gives you a lead and puts the opponent in that rare air of four-down football without a real time constraint.

Then it’s not like McLaughlin is a stud kicker. If he misses, you’re giving Carolina the ball at their 45, and a field goal wins the game for them. It’s 4th-and-7 at the Carolina 37, so you probably don’t want to go for it that far. I might just punt or try the hard count and punt there. Make Young drive a long field while being constrained to 3-down football.

The Bucs’ defense bailed out the rest of the team, because the Panthers looked like they were going to get a game-winning field goal after another brilliant catch from Theilen to the 34. But on the very next play, Chuba Hubbard was stripped on a great forced fumble by Nelson.

Bucky Irving had the huge day, but it was Rachaad White who put it away with a 38-yard run. McLaughlin was good from 30 yards away and the Bucs escaped with the 26-23 win to stay tied in the NFC South with Atlanta at 6-6 (tie-breaker still favors Atlanta).

A very close call that would have me worried the Bucs aren’t going to be good enough to run through this softer spot of the schedule after all to win the division. But it might not matter if the Falcons are going to keep playing the way they have against non-Tampa opponents.

Rams at Saints: The Drought Continues

One record streak ended and another streak continued in the Rams’ 21-14 road win over the Saints. First, I had no idea the Rams had an NFL-record 129 game streak of scoring in the first half. That ended with this one as they trailed 6-0 at the half, so that record is now within the sights of the Ravens, who are up to 124 games.

If you include playoff games, the Ravens just broke the record with a 102-game streak, surpassing the Rams (101 games). To the surprise of no one reading this, the Rams were shut out in the first half of Super Bowl 53 against the Patriots, so this technically wasn’t the first time a Sean McVay team did this. Just never in the regular season before Sunday.

At least they made up for it this time with three touchdown drives in the second half. But that left the door open for Derek Carr to finally lead the first fourth-quarter comeback win of his Saints’ career. He threw a perfect pass for a 28-yard touchdown to MVS, the savior of this receiving corps right now, and Dante Pettis (he’s still around?) caught the game-tying 2-point conversion to tie the game at 14.

But Stafford got on a hot streak and threw a touchdown to Puka Nacua to regain a 21-14 lead with 8:54 left. The Saints were putting together a drive that got very run heavy, and after losing Taysom Hill to an injury, they went to Alvin Kamara on three straight runs that brought up a 4th-and-3 at the LA 9 with just over a minute left as this drive was fixing to take up almost the last 9 minutes.

You can already sense the doom to come, and sure enough, Carr held the ball long enough for Jared Verse to get to him and force a game-sealing incompletion (nearly a strip-sack). I’m not sure anyone was open but Carr’s limited mobility hurts there as he had no chance to escape from Verse, who should be the DROY front-runner.

Guess the Saints will just have to wait another week to pull off a 4QC win.

Titans at Commanders: Early Knockout

Go figure. The Commanders struggled for the last three games on offense, and the Titans came into this game with the No. 1 defense in yards per drive allowed. Before you could blink it was 28-0 with the Commanders scoring four straight touchdowns to start the game. A couple were set up on short fields after the Titans fumbled twice, a problem for them this year.

But this was a nice bounce-back game for Jayden Daniels, who had 4 total touchdowns and worked on the short passing game to protect those ribs in a 42-19 win. The bye week comes at a great time to get healthy for the stretch run into the playoffs for this team. It’s still possible they could have that first 11-win season in the salary cap era.

Next week: It’s the last of the byes, so with six teams off, we’re peaking early with Packers-Lions on TNF. Should be a good one. I’ll be watching to see if the Steelers take the Browns more seriously this time in a game they really need to win if they want this division title with much tougher games to follow. Seattle-Arizona rematch is also in close timing with the first game, and that could go a long way in determining the NFC West winner. Chargers-Chiefs on SNF is bound to be interesting for obvious reasons. Monday night is just seeing if Cooper Rush can improve to 2-0 against Joe Burrow for two of the most disappointing teams in the league this year.

NFL 2024 Week 13 Predictions: Running Back Showdown Edition

November 30, 2024 ~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

This has already been an eventful Week 13 in the NFL with four games over Thanksgiving and Black Friday that led to the firing of head coach Matt Eberflus, a move you just had to make after one of the worst cases of clock management in NFL history.

But Antonio Pierce is also one of the worst coaches in close games, and he showed us why against the Chiefs on Friday when his team had a chance to pull off its own shocking upset. Of course, the people who know nothing about the rule book are going to complain about illegal shift being a dead-ball foul (it’s not), pretend a whistle was blown before the KC player recovered the ball (it wasn’t), and harp on a ref signaling false start as if we’ve never seen a line judge get something wrong, a conference corrects it, and they ultimately got the right call. Maybe just don’t snap the ball early and choke next time? Hell of a time for the Chiefs to finally get a takeaway though. I might need to fire up Part 2 of the Manning vs. Brady LOAT series after that one.

But that’s why we love the NFL. On paper, the Lions and Chiefs had easy games to get to 11-1, and yet both needed the worst coaches in close games to fumble badly (or literally) with the game on the line just to get the wins. Meanwhile, Dolphins-Packers was supposed to be the best game on paper, but it had the lowest drama and was easily won by the Packers. Of course, it’s an easy call that a Mike McDaniel team will come up small on the road in a big game like that. He’s now lost 12 or 13 straight road games to playoff teams (13 if Seattle qualifies this year; 12 if only Buffalo and Green Bay do).

That’s their thing. As for Sunday, we still have the big one in the late afternoon with the Eagles and Ravens, a game that will matter a lot for the MVP and OPOY races as well as division races and seeding.

This Week’s Articles

Super Bowl LIX Odds: Who Stops the Kansas City Three-Peat? – A detailed look at the current SB LIX odds for all 32 teams and the best bets right now
2024 NFL Quarterback Rankings Week 13: Enough Near Comebacks to Make Joe Burrow Blush on His Bye
Scott’s Seven NFL Picks: Week 13 – Multiple picks for PHI-BAL included
49ers vs. Bills Sunday Night Football Pick: Are the 49ers Cooked?

NFL Week 13 Predictions

I guess trusting the Chiefs to win a game by 13 points is insanity or else I could have been off to a perfect 4-0 ATS start to the week. At least the Chiefs held a 13-point lead in the third quarter. They just blew it in a matter of minutes to Aidan O’Connell. Christ, where is this season heading? At least we know swapping in a different left tackle could fix that problem, but what do they do about the defense? They’re getting shredded by some of the worst quarterbacks in the league on throws outside the numbers and down the field.

Anyways…

LAC-ATL: Justin Herbert has a pair of 20-17 wins over the Falcons in his career, and that sounds about right for what the Chargers are in 2024. Atlanta has been tough to figure out too, but I think this game will inevitably be close. But with the Chargers losing to the Ravens and having the Chiefs next week, I just don’t see them losing three in a row under Harbaugh here.

IND-NE: I was going to say it feels like eons ago since the Colts beat the Patriots, but of course there was the Bailey Zappe fake spike INT in Germany last year in a 10-6 game. While I still don’t trust the Colts with Anthony Richardson, that NE defense is bad enough that he could have a good game here and I’m going to trust the defense to keep the score down enough.

HOU-JAX: I wouldn’t advise betting real money on the Texans right now. Just something off with that team in many ways right now, and they already struggled to get the first win over this Jacksonville team, which is getting Trevor Lawrence back. But if they can hold him under 60% completions again, that’s his formula for losing.

SEA-NYJ: Does anyone realize the Seahawks haven’t scored 21 points in any of their last four games? I think the Jets can get Geno to make some mistakes and pull this one off coming out of the bye week. As much as we want to pretend Aaron Rodgers is playing terrible football this year, he’s serviceable enough to still get a win in a 20-17 type of game. Just don’t count on his kicker to make the last field goal.

PIT-CIN: This is where Mike Tomlin prefers to be: Counted out as a road underdog while people still hype the 4-7 Bengals going on a run. Sure, it could happen, but I’m going to trust the Steelers to bounce back in better weather, the Bengals are the one defense they actually moved the ball on when Matt Canada was the OC, and I’ll always trust Russell Wilson over Joe Burrow in a tight game. T.J. Watt also has to make up for a no-show in Cleveland.

TEN-WAS: I’m hedging with Titans covering and Commanders winning (maybe). Will Levis has been hitting some deep balls and this is a defense you can do that against. Still, I’m not betting on Calvin Ridley, who is on the banned list.

ARI-MIN: Gut says the Vikings can hit big plays against Arizona’s underwhelming defense, and you never know what to expect from Kyler Murray. Avoid a Sam Darnold pick parade and the Vikings should have this one, something you can say about most of their games this year.

TB-CAR: Panthers are playing better and you hate to trust any spread this big for the road team in a divisional game these days. But I think Mike Evans returns to the end zone and Bucky Irving has a good game. They won’t make Bryce Young look as good as the Chiefs did last week.

LAR-NO: Again, I’m going to keep taking the Saints in small spreads like this at home where they’re an underdog to a team that just got destroyed by Saquon Barkley. Imagine if Taysom Hill gashes them next. Plus, I’m still waiting for that first 4QC win for Carr in New Orleans. We have to get at least one in two seasons, right?

PHI-BAL: Here’s the big one with Lamar Jackson/Derrick Henry vs. Jalen Hurts/Saquon Barkley. I think you have to go with the Ravens at home as Lamar is 23-1 against the NFC, and Nick Sirianni hasn’t faced him yet. He played a Fangio defense last year (MIA) and threw 5 touchdowns. Threw for over 300 yards against Fangio’s Broncos too. Henry will be up for this one with the Barkley MVP hype that he hasn’t personally received this year. Also a bad week for Eagles to not have Darius Slay (concussion) and may not have DeVonta Smith either. We can say the Eagles are playing better defense than Baltimore this year, and I might trust Hurts more than Lamar at closing the game, but I don’t think you can bet against the Ravens at home in this one. Eagles have been beating up on non-playoff teams during this win streak.

SF-BUF: The SNF game that could have been epic, but we’ll see with these SF injuries. It does sound like Brock Purdy might play, so that’s a good thing. But the Bills are not a team that likes to win close, and they already have a 9-point win over the Chiefs this year. I think they can win by a touchdown here and drop the 49ers to 5-7. But hopefully the 49ers play with some real urgency in this one. Their playoff hopes are slipping every week and their blown leads have arguably more to do with that than the injuries, which have been terrible as well.

CLE-DEN: Not a great game to close the week. But I think Jameis can make enough throws to keep it close or get the backdoor cover.

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 12

November 25, 2024 ~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cowboys at Commanders: Under Bettors in Absolute Shambles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Titans at Texans: Houston Really Does Have a Problem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eagles at Rams: Trench Warfare

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

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

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

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

Lions at Colts: Workman Like Win for the Lions

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

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

Patriots at Dolphins: Tua’s Whipping Boys

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

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

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

Broncos at Raiders: The Sweep Is Complete

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 9

November 4, 2024 ~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

When I tweeted that the NFL’s Week 9 Sunday action was the weakest this season, I was ignoring a few individual highlight plays I’ll link below in the recaps. But a great play does not make for a great game. I think in the end, it was the weakest for these reasons:

As I expected between Jordan Love’s groin and the rain, Lions-Packers did not live up to the Game of the Week hype it deserved under normal circumstances.
Favorites are 13-1 SU this week (10-4 ATS) with the 9.5-point favored Chiefs still to host Tampa Bay on Monday night.
Only the Saints (-7.5) lost to the Panthers, and is it ever really a big upset if Derek Carr is on the losing end? He also was getting roasted by Michael Thomas on Twitter during the game, so he was losing either way today.
Not only was Saints-Panthers the only upset, it was the only game Sunday with a fourth-quarter lead change, so that game stood out from the pack and it wasn’t anything special.
Sure, 7-of-14 games had a comeback opportunity and there were a pair of overtime games, but neither actually had a lead change, and the teams who came back late to tie it with a great touchdown drive still ended up losing in overtime.
The only other fourth-quarter comeback in Week 9 was the Jets on Thursday night against Houston, a game script that the Vikings largely followed in their 21-13 (same score) win over the Colts on Sunday night.

Not a very original week even if there were some cool plays.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Dolphins at Bills: Unexpected Game of the Week

I am so used to Miami bombing in these road games against contenders that I didn’t think much of this 5.5-point spread in Buffalo. But the Dolphins did play them tough there in both games in the 2022 season, and they had Tua Tagovailoa back at quarterback. He actually had one of the best games of his career in a loss as he completed 25-of-28 passes for 231 yards.

But the long drives by both teams magnified every mistake. So when Miami only gets 7 real possessions in the game, Raheem Mostert giving one away with a fumble at midfield is a bigger deal.

The Bills also felt that sting when Keon Coleman turned a catch into an interception by Jalen Ramsey in the second quarter. Maybe the turnover luck is starting to go south for Buffalo, but it still prevailed in this one after getting some key penalties on third down in the fourth quarter. The last one was just an incredibly stupid gift by Jordan Poyer, who hit a defenseless receiver on a pass that was going to be incomplete. That’s a season-ending type of stupid play given the AFC East records.

But when the Bills were stalled at the Miami 43, I was a little surprised to see Tyler Bass come out for a 61-yard field goal. He’s been struggling this season, he missed an extra point in this game, but they trusted him for the win. He absolutely drilled the kick too to give the Bills a 30-27 lead, which stood up after Jaylen Waddle had one of the worst lateral attempts you’ll ever see, which also cost Tua his passing over prop.

https://twitter.com/PropGeekZeke/status/1853189433006125547

Lions at Packers: Old School Football Wins

Again, I wasn’t expecting much from this game because of the wet field and Jordan Love’s groin injury. But I don’t want to act like the Lions beat up on an immobile starter who should have sat out this week. Love didn’t take any sacks in this game, he threw for 273 yards, but it was this killer pick-six before halftime that changed everything and made a 10-3 game a 17-3 game:

https://twitter.com/wingoz/status/1853206283093934350

I’ve watched that several times and I’m still not sure what the plan was for 2nd-and-1. Were they trying to set up a slow-developing screen for the RB? Should he just hit the tight end leaking out into the flat for the first down with under 40 seconds left? Every other receiver went flying down the field and out of reach, but this just looked bad and Love never should have thrown that one.

Then the Lions came out of the break with their last touchdown drive, and just like that they doubled scored on them to make it 24-3. Goodnight. Did Tom Brady sign a contract clause that every FOX game he calls has to be a boring rout?

The best Green Bay could do was make it 24-14 with 3:49 left. But Goff and the offense was able to run out the clock for another win, their third season in a row winning at Lambeau. Hopefully the Packers can return the favor in the rematch, but the Lions looked better prepared to handle the elements. They didn’t turn it over once against the No. 1 defense for takeaways. Meanwhile, Love had 3 fumbles (none lost) to go along with that pick-six as the slick ball was problematic for the Packers.

Broncos at Ravens: Denver’s Not Ready for This

Sunday was a litmus test for the Broncos, and it sure did not go well in a 41-10 rout. It’s one thing to beat teams like the Panthers, Raiders, and Saints, but the Broncos needed to show something here, and it ended up being a miserable day on both sides of the ball. They gave up a perfect passer rating to Lamar Jackson, who only had to throw 19 passes since his receivers were so open and ready for big plays, and Derrick Henry carved them up for another multi-touchdown day and 133 total yards.

But I wouldn’t say rookie Bo Nix was a disaster against this defense. He moved the ball, he even caught his first touchdown on a trick play, but the Broncos were 1-for-5 on fourth down, and that hurt. The first failure came early when Javonte Williams for some reason didn’t stretch the ball out on a fourth-down run, so he was ruled short on a challenge. That set up the Ravens on a short field and the rout was on.

Denver had 6 drives inside Baltimore territory (4 in the red zone) and only came away with 10 points. That’s just not good enough. Some defenses have done a decent job of slowing down the Ravens this year, but the Broncos were one of the worst against them. Guess it’s just not the same as playing Bryce Young, Spencer Rattler, the 2-headed monster in Vegas, or getting Aaron Rodgers in the rain.

The Broncos (5-4) may exceed expectations this year, but this team is still far from ready to seriously compete in the AFC playoffs. That’s what Sunday showed.

Chargers at Browns: They Really Did Give Justin Herbert a Defense

What does it take to get a game with the Chargers to 40 points this season? Even the 27-10 final in this one is misleading as the Browns scored a touchdown in garbage time. But if you thought Jameis Winston was going to get into a shootout with Justin Herbert like I did, we were dead wrong. Winston threw three picks as the Chargers repeatedly turned him away.

Meanwhile, what a game for Herbert. He threw for 250 yards and took 6 sacks in the first half alone, hitting on several big plays to his unheralded receivers. He barely had to do anything in the second half, but that’s the nice thing about having a defense and a running game you can rely on to close games.

The Chargers (5-3) are showing they can throw the ball when they have to, and the defense still hasn’t let anyone score more than 20 points this season. It’s an intriguing team for January.

Rams at Seahawks: NFC West Is a Mess

This game had me slipping in and out of a nap as I’d he awakened by the next killer Geno Smith interception, including a 103-yard return for a touchdown in the fourth quarter that gave the Rams a 20-13 lead.

https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1853226818276626684

Are you kidding me, Geno? He also took 7 sacks. But the Rams could not put this one away in a game where they had 13 possessions. I’d be curious about Sean McVay’s success rate in the 4-minute offense because it sure feels like he always plays it so conservatively and puts the game on his defense. Well, it almost cost them here as the Rams gave up the game-tying touchdown with 51 seconds left as Smith temporarily redeemed himself.

I thought the Seahawks might go for 2, but I guess they thought there was too much time left. So, they played overtime. I don’t disagree with the decision by the Seahawks to go for a 4th-and-1 at the Rams 16 in overtime with 7:19 left. They didn’t get it, but we saw the problem in that spot when the defense gave up another touchdown to Demarcus Robinson, so they would have lost the game anyway if they were up 23-20.

But that 103-yard pick-six was a killer and let’s not forget the Seahawks blew a 13-3 lead before that too. Just a missed opportunity to get to 5-4 in this mess of a division that is already filled with weird comeback wins like this game.

Colts at Vikings: What’s the Plan, Indy?

The Colts have not been a serious organization for several years now. I don’t get how you make a big stink about benching Anthony Richardson for Joe Flacco, then come out and look this uninterested in getting Flacco comfortable in the game. He had 10 pass attempts at halftime and 3-of-10 were to running back Jonathan Taylor, who never established the run with 48 yards on 13 carries for the night.

Flacco is a rhythm passer. He needs to get going early and he needs volume. They didn’t do that, so it’s no wonder they only scored two field goals. Their only touchdown was a bogus one on defense on a play that should have been flagged for hitting Sam Darnold in the face, but apparently he doesn’t get those whistles this year (see missed facemask vs. Rams last week).

Richardson could have scored 6 points and taken the loss too. But while I know the Colts use a lot of play-action with both quarterbacks, is that really a good idea for the older, slower Flacco to turn his back to this deceptive Minnesota defense he’s trying to figure out? I would have spread them out early with Flacco in the gun and take my chances with his receivers. But they just never got around to that until they had to, and the pass rush teed off on him.

On the other side, I think you see why the ceiling for this team with Darnold is probably a close divisional round loss. That’s still a hell of a lot better than the expectations for the 2024 Vikings, but he had 3 turnovers and 4 sacks in this game even if the fumble return was bullshit. That’s too many negative plays, and that’s going to cost you in January against a functional opponent (i.e. not the Colts).

Flacco infamously made it through his 2012 Super Bowl run without those big mistakes (thanks for that, Rahim Moore). I’m not sure Darnold can do it, but maybe getting Jordan Addison a nice touchdown and getting tight end T.J. Hockenson back in the mix will elevate this offense going forward.

Jaguars at Eagles: I Was Hoping This Would Be the Only Pennsylvania Choke This Week…

I’m not going to get on board with “fire Nick Sirianni” yet as I see that going around social media today. But I get it, in a way. The Eagles were up 22-0 and almost blew this game with a weird fumble touchdown on a play involving Saquon Barkley where he might have been down by contact but not really. The only blemish to this incredible day for Barkley with this unforgettable highlight:

https://x.com/CoachDanCasey/status/1853191583174107478

Then Jake Elliott couldn’t hit a 57-yard field goal late for the cover and insurance score, so Trevor Lawrence really had a chance in this one even though he led the offense to 1 first down and 16 net passing yards at halftime.

Fortunately, the defense put an end to this mess with an interception in the end zone as the Jags dropped another close game, 28-23. But this one really should not have been this close, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens going forward when the Eagles start playing those division teams like Dallas and Washington.

But hey, a win is a win, which is what I’ll say this week when Orange Caligula goes down too in Pennsylvania and many other places.

Raiders at Bengals: Clueless Team Cleans House

Leave it up to the Raiders to give up 5 touchdown passes (none were to Ja’Marr Chase) and make firing the offensive coaching staff, including coordinator Luke Getsy, the headline after a 41-24 loss.

Any blame for Antonio Pierce’s clueless defense that couldn’t contain Mike Gesicki? But the offense wasn’t good either as the 24 points were a mirage that included a pick-six and a garbage-time score to Brock Bowers.

But how does your offense ever build something when Pierce tries to bench Gardner Minshew every week? They’re onto Desmond Ridder now. Good luck with that. This is what happens when you start a season with the most embarrassing quarterback room in the league.

Bears at Cardinals: The Bears Are Who We Thought They Were

Tale as old as time: The Chicago Bears are struggling in the passing game with rookie Caleb Williams, who took 6 sacks and couldn’t move the chains on third downs.

But a new twist is allowing a 50-plus yards touchdown at the end of a half. The Hail Mary was one thing last week, but this time to end the first half, the Bears somehow gave up a 53-yard run right down the middle of the field to Arizona’s backup runner. How does that happen with 4 seconds left in the half? Does this team not have safeties to drop back as the last line of defense?

It could have been a 14-9 game at halftime with Chicago regrouping, but that just blew it open at 21-9, and the Bears never found the end zone. Oh, they gave up a safety in their own end with a penalty in the end zone later.

But I’m not sure what to make of Arizona yet. The Cardinals are 5-4, the only winning record in the NFC West. But it’s a volatile team in a volatile division this year.

Cowboys at Falcons: Deceivingly Close

I think “Deceivingly Close” would be a good title for a book about the 1996-2024 Dallas Cowboys and their attempt to get back to an NFC Championship Game. It sure doesn’t look like it’s happening this season as the playoffs are in doubt at 3-5.

Dak Prescott left the 27-21 loss with a hamstring injury that could linger, but the game didn’t even feel that close. The Falcons lost Drake London early in the game but not before he caught a touchdown. The Falcons held CeeDee Lamb to 47 yards on 8 catches.

Dallas only scored its last touchdown with 1:28 left to make it a one-score game, but it was over after the Cowboys didn’t recover the onside kick, something Atlanta needed to do against this team in that 2020 fiasco.

But the Falcons continue to look like the best team in the NFC South while the Cowboys are third best in the NFC East at best these days.

Commanders at Giants: Touchdowns at MetLife (But Not Enough)

If your quarterback hasn’t thrown a touchdown pass at home in 672 days, he probably shouldn’t have been your quarterback that long. That’s the case of Daniel Jones, who finally ended his streak on Sunday, but it still wasn’t enough in a 27-22 loss to the Commanders, who are now 7-2 behind the runaway leader for Offensive Rookie of the Year, Jayden Daniels.

It was another very efficient day for Daniels. While they actually made him punt this time, the Giants couldn’t stop Daniels on some key third downs, and that’s how the Commanders stayed a step ahead for the win even though the Giants were finally scoring for a change.

Saints at Panthers: Carr’s Masterpiece Afternoon

What a legacy-defining afternoon for Derek Carr:

Threw a couple of hospital balls that knocked Chris Olave and Juwan Johnson out of the game.
Got ripped to shreds by former teammate Michael Thomas on Twitter after the Olave play.
Wasted a 155-rushing yards day by Alvin Kamara as the offense struggled in the red zone and on third down (5-of-15).
Took a fourth-quarter lead, but flubbed the crucial 2-point conversion, which is why the game wasn’t tied late.
Only needing a field goal with 2:18 left, Carr couldn’t get past his own 46, turning it over on downs to one of the worst teams in the NFL.
The Saints are the first team to ever start 2-0 with 40-point games and go on a 7-game losing streak.
Carr is the first quarterback in NFL history to lose a start to 31 different teams.
The Saints are the only team without a fourth-quarter comeback win since the 2023 season started (0-4 in those one-score opportunities this year).
Chris Olave’s brother backed Thomas’ sentiment that Carr needs his ass whooped, and he said it’s not worth his brother’s health playing in New Orleans.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I woke up to see that Carr got coach Dennis Allen fired for a second time in his NFL career. What a mess in New Orleans.

Patriots at Titans: Drake Maye Has Some Josh Allen in Him

Thanks to Josh Allen, if a quarterback sucks in his first two seasons, we’re going to hear how he could be the next Allen and have a breakout season in Year 3. I’m generally going to be opposed to this, because Allen is an outlier, and his athletic profile makes him an even bigger outlier. People are also going to mischaracterize where he was in Year 2 as we’ve already seen with the 2024 Anthony Richardson comparisons.

But a player I might be willing to give a Year 3 grace period to is Drake Maye, especially when you consider how bare Bill Belichick the GM left the cupboards in New England. If you give this guy a competent team and a good coach, you never know what you might get as he gives off some Allen vibes with his athleticism.

In Tennessee, he played in his first full start that was close at the end, and while he didn’t pass the ball effectively, he ran 8 times for 95 yards, showing that dual-threat ability. But it was with the game on the line on the final play of regulation that Maye pulled off this stunner and clinic on how to extend the play and make it work for a clutch touchdown:

https://twitter.com/Patriots/status/1853180878353990084

Not bad for holding the ball for about 12 seconds. Unfortunately, the Titans held the ball a long time in overtime, kicked a field goal, and when Maye tried to answer that, he forced a deep ball on first down that he probably didn’t need to and that was easily picked off to end the game at 20-17.

So, he’ll never be the LOAT, he may never reach Josh Allen’s highs, but I see some potential here at least.

Next week: The regular season is already halfway over. Week 10 looks better and starts with an important game in Bengals-Ravens. Giants-Panthers in Germany is maybe the least serious pushing of the NFL product in decades. Broncos in Kansas City loses some luster after that performance Sunday, but never discount a division game’s chances for fvckery. Steelers-Commanders is absolutely a better game this year than Eagles-Cowboys will be. SNF is Lions-Texans, a game that could have been good with Nico Collins and Stefon Diggs, but I don’t think Houston stands much of a chance without those guys. Dolphins-Rams on MNF will hopefully come with some touchdowns.