Tag: Seahawks

2025 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 15

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

In a way, I’m glad I don’t have to come up with a fancy title for this like I do the weekly predictions, because this has not been a weekend I’d like to remember. The shootings at Brown University and in Australia set a dark tone for Sunday, and it continued through the night with the reported murders of Rob Reiner and his wife.

I grew up watching Rob’s classic films that should stand the test of time, then I found out around middle school (or early high school) that he was an actor first on All in the Family, so I got to appreciate him as Meathead too. It’s an unthinkable tragedy and not the way you’d ever want to see someone’s story end.

In a sick way, I’m relieved to hear it may have been his son having a mental breakdown who committed the murders instead of some random nutter who did this over a difference of opinion on politics as Reiner was outspoken for years about liberal viewpoints and his disdain for Trump.

In many ways, his career was so admirable as someone who could take a joke, tell a joke, but still be serious when it came time for serious matters, and he had his convictions and beliefs and wasn’t afraid to express them. I think we’re losing a lot of that in today’s society where you have to be Team Blue or Team Red at all times and there’s no straying from the one right viewpoint on so many things.

We lost a genuine person, a creative who helped film some of the most iconic scenes and lines in film history at the peak of his powers:

“You can’t handle the truth!”

“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”

“I’ll have what she’s having.”

It’s all so inconceivable, much like this 2025 NFL season has been.

On Sunday, we saw the Patriots blow a 21-0 lead to Buffalo, the Chiefs’ playoff streak ended at 10 years in Week 15, we lost Patrick Mahomes and Micah Parsons to torn ACLs, we may have lost Davante Adams for the biggest NFC game this Thursday, and we watched Philip Rivers throw a game-ending interception right before a delayed start time for 60 Minutes in the year 2025 after he nearly pulled off one of the biggest upsets in NFL history.

We had nine games with a comeback opportunity, and six games with a double-digit comeback win ties the single-week NFL record.

Just one inconceivable thing after another, and I believe I do know what that word means.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Bills at Patriots: Game of the Day

While Patriots fans were busy claiming they have a 15-year Super Bowl window with Drake Maye, I recall his win at Buffalo earlier this season only saw him play well in the second half. There’s so much he has to prove in this league before we start putting him in those conversations, and on Sunday, he showed us he’s not ready to take the AFC East over from Buffalo.

It may still happen this year, but it didn’t on Sunday when the Patriots had their chance with a 21-0 lead and a 24-7 lead at halftime. They folded as Maye again only had one good half against Buffalo, and it wasn’t the half that you want it to be in winning time as he is now 0-7 at 4QC opportunities in the NFL.

Sure, the Patriots technically had a go-ahead touchdown drive in the fourth quarter in this game after TreVeyon Henderson hit his second long touchdown run of the game (65 yards) on the only play of the drive. Maye was getting excessive praise for his lead blocking on the score, but that play was largely Henderson’s speed after the line failed him and he got outside to score.

But the Bills answered back with their balanced attack after what was a slow start for Josh Allen in the passing game in the snowy, cold conditions. Keon Coleman’s lack of separation actually paid off on a big third-down DPI penalty that was a legit call, and that helped extend the Buffalo drive for an 11-yard touchdown run by Cook with 6:48 left. Buffalo led 35-31.

Maye had his opportunities to deliver his MVP moment with the first 4QC of his NFL career, something I heard analyst J.J. Watt elude to on the CBS broadcast. People know he doesn’t have one yet, and his only turnover in this game was an arm punt on an earlier 3rd-and-long, but in crunch time, he was just off on some throws to Hunter Henry and Henderson. A couple of ill-timed sacks happened too, and on 4th-and-5 at his own 22, Maye’s final pass was knocked down by Joey Bosa with 1:47 left. The Bills ran out the clock to complete the 21-point comeback.

There was no reverse psychology for me on this one. I liked Buffalo all week, because I think they’re the better team, the more battle-tested team, and they understand how to win big games like this one. The Patriots aren’t there yet, and while they hit some bigger runs than I expected with Henderson, I don’t think they can count on those again in a rematch while the Bills have a reliable running game with Cook behind that line. They also still have the better quarterback until proven otherwise.

Sunday is why I think the Bills should still get to the Super Bowl even if they don’t win the AFC East. They have this experience edge, and they almost have this 2006 Colts type of thing going on where they’re a horrible run defense (truly terrible), but you can kind of expect them to do well against the pass. You saw the 2006 Colts intercept Tom Brady 4 times on SNF in Foxboro. They held up against him in the AFC-CG too that year after getting through Scrambled Brains Trent Green, Old Steve McNair, then Rex Grossman in the Super Bowl.

Now look at the Bills in 2025. They made Aaron Rodgers look bloodied and ancient, and he probably contemplated retirement, and that could even end up being the 5-4 matchup on wild card weekend here. They held Patrick Mahomes under 50% completions for the first time ever, and unlike Houston doing it with drops last week, they did it legitimately.

The Bills just held Maye to 155 passing yards after he had 200+ in every game this season. Who’s going to run wild on them in the playoffs? Probably not Denver, Jacksonville, Chargers, or Houston. Baltimore with Derrick Henry? Sure, but they’d have to make the tournament first, and we’ve seen them fold enough times in the playoffs (especially to Buffalo) to not be too worried about that this January. We’ve watched the Bills destroy Denver in the playoffs last January.

Houston might be the No. 1 team Buffalo has to worry about since that defense has owned Allen the last two years, and C.J. Stroud’s actually had some playoff success.

But with the state of the AFC, this is still setting up very well for Buffalo even if the AFC East and No. 1 seed they were supposed to get this year are both unlikely to happen. But it’s also a huge win because it creates that mental block where the Patriots still are looking up to the Bills in the AFC East.

They had their chance to take over and blew it. We’ll see how they respond from here.

Meanwhile, the 2006 Colts were hardly the best Indy team in the Manning era. But it’s the one that had the right stuff against the right set of opponents in the postseason, and that could be what happens for the Bills in 2025. You’ll just have to spare me the Allen > Manning nonsense since Manning had an all-time great year in 2006, then became the first quarterback ever to beat the top three defenses in the same postseason, and he did get through his nemesis (Patriots) in the AFC-CG.

But this could still be Buffalo’s year. It almost has to be or it never will happen for this team as currently constructed.

Chargers at Chiefs: Life Is Pain, Highness

I’m not trying to write a full eulogy now for the 2025 Chiefs on a somber weekend even though their season is officially dead. They’re 6-8, Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL, and they’re eliminated from the playoffs after everyone they needed to lose won, and after they blew a 10-point lead to the Chargers at home.

You could point to many things that ended the Chiefs’ playoff streak at 10 years, and most of it are things they have no one but themselves to blame:

  • Rashee Rice getting a 6-game suspension and the front-loaded schedule he missed for it.
  • Travis Kelce and Xavier Worthy colliding on the first pass play of the season in Brazil, likely stunting the development and plan for Worthy in Year 2 while Rice was out.
  • Kelce’s butterfingers moments on dropped completions turned interceptions in clutch moments against the Eagles and Texans.
  • Letting Herbert run for a first down on 3rd-and-14 in Brazil.
  • The long list of mistakes in Jacksonville, the night that really started to turn things sour for the Chiefs this year.
  • How they never seemed to seize the moments before and after halftime in their losses.
  • Their typical no-show performance in Buffalo in Week 9 while the Bills treat it like their Super Bowl.
  • Mahomes and the offense not closing out more drives in Denver, their last stand for the AFC West reign in Week 11.
  • The absurd penalties in Dallas on Thanksgiving, and Rice’s drop on third-and-8.
  • All the drive-killing drops and Andy Reid’s 4th-down foolishness against Houston.

Even before you get to Sunday’s execution, this was a Dead Team Walking with 60% of the offensive line filled by backups, and they even lost a fourth tackle in this game, meaning it was double third-string tackles for Mahomes on a bad leg against another strong defensive front that sacked him 5 times.

If it wasn’t showing up in the pass protection, it showed up in the run blocking on Sunday as the Chiefs had 19 carries for 34 yards from the running backs. Mahomes had 15 yards, including a 12-yard scramble touchdown on the opening drive. But after building a 13-3 lead with 0:38 left before halftime, the next time Mahomes touched the ball, it was tied again.

From there, it was your typical Chiefs failure in 2025, another game with limited possessions as the defense couldn’t get off the field on third downs, the offense couldn’t sustain drives, and Rice took another big pop for a third-down drop. Oh, there was even a 5-play stretch where four different defenders were injured.

By the time you get to the fourth quarter, Mahomes threw probably his worst interception of the season on 3rd-and-12 in the red zone to a tightly covered Kareem Hunt, a play that shouldn’t even exist in the playbook for this offense. The play all the more inexplicable when Mahomes made his two best plays of the game right before it to convert twice in a row on third down to Tyquan Thornton with flags making him redo it.

Then on the fateful final drive of the season, of course it started with a holding penalty on the punt return that backed the ball up to the KC 8 with 5:20 left. Those special teams penalties have been automatic all year.

With the ball at the LAC 46 at the two-minute warning, you still thought Mahomes would at least set up the game-tying field goal for overtime, or even get the go-ahead touchdown as he’s done so many times before against the Chargers and other teams.

But that’s when the torn ACL happened on a throwaway outside of the pocket. Non-contact injury too. Gardner Minshew had to enter the game, made a few completions, but in field goal range, the drive again went to shit with a delay of game followed by a forced throw to Kelce that was picked to end the game. To end the season.

To end an era as that was probably the last meaningful target of Kelce’s career, and he was great on the drive too with four catches. But it’s all over after the Chiefs, the masters of situational football for year, threw two picks in game-tying field goal range in the fourth quarter. A befitting ending to a terribly disappointing season.

A season where the Chiefs somehow came up short in every single one-score game except for the Colts’ comeback, and then seemingly every other close game that didn’t even involve them went the right way for teams like the Broncos, Patriots, Bills, Jaguars, Texans, Chargers, etc. to create this early elimination.

With a mid-December ACL injury, now you just wonder if Mahomes’ 2026 is compromised in any way, even if it’s just September. That’s walking a thin line on the road to 100% recovery, and while some have done it in less time (Carson Palmer and Philip Rivers had their ACLs in the playoffs in January and were back by Week 1), Mahomes uses his legs more than they ever did.

Barring a miraculous offseason, the Chiefs may enter 2026 no better than third in the AFC West odds, let alone the whole AFC. If that doesn’t spark some major changes by the organization, then I don’t know what will.

They’ve had their runs. They did things a certain way in 2018-21, then that got stale and they adjusted by trading Tyreek Hill and pulling off a strong draft class. That deteriorated too, but they almost got a three-peat out of it, so they ran it back for 2025 with the hope of better health luck, more blocking for Mahomes, more speed at receiver, and more takeaways on defense.

But that offensive line continuity lasted about five games. There appears to never have been a solid plan for how to create an offense centered around Rice and Worthy, and Reid never really knew what to do with new players like Thornton and Brashard Smith this year. The takeaways dried up even worse as the pressure packages fell off for Spags, who didn’t even have McDuffie available this week and who knows who else is done for the year with injuries piling up now. Even kicker Harrison Butker was so much worse this year you’d think Kamala had taken office in January.

Again, it’s so many different things, and it changed game to game, and yet the quarterback is the one who will somehow take the biggest shots for this failure of a season.

I was always hesitant early in the year to boast that Mahomes had a better Year 9 than Tom Brady, which was his 2008 ACL season. But he did by default, and at the end of the day, his Year 9 also became a lost ACL season.

For Brady, Year 10 (2009) was his choking dog year where he blew every close game after the Buffalo comeback in Week 1, then turned the ball over three times in the first quarter of the wild card loss to the Ravens, a 33-14 blowout where Joe Flacco had 4 completions.

I hope Mahomes can beat that season in 2026 too, but the Chiefs are going to have to really reinvent themselves here, because asking Mahomes to be Superman and have these games where he led the team in rushing and had to make more plays than ever out of structure did a number on him in the end.

They better hope this is his only season-ending injury, something most notable quarterbacks only had to deal with once in their long careers.

If 2025 doesn’t go down as by far the most frustrating, disappointing season of Mahomes’ career, then the Chiefs will have really done him wrong down the road.

Colts at Seahawks: Hello, My Name is Philip Rivers Jr. You Killed My Father. Prepare to Die.

A lot is wrong in the world right now, but the image of Philip Rivers laboring from the pocket in a one-score game in the fourth quarter in the late Sunday afternoon window is a real throwback to the 2010s.

So is watching him throw a game-ending interception like clockwork, but you have to give the guy a lot of credit for even trying. He went from celebrating his 44th birthday and five years of retirement on Tuesday to suiting up as a 2-touchdown road underdog against an elite defense five days later.

The fact his only turnover came in the last seconds when he was forced to throw something deep out of desperation after his defense wasted his go-ahead field goal in the final 50 seconds is a testament to his knowledge of where to go with the ball and quickly. Rivers was only sacked once in the game too.

Sure, there were some embarrassing snaps like when he fell down and had to get up before going down again. He looked about as unathletic as an NFL quarterback ever has on that play. And it’s not like he was pushing the ball down the field with luck. The Colts’ two longest pass plays gained 17 and 16 yards.

But if you compare how someone like Minnesota rookie Max Brosmer played against this Seattle defense, then Rivers looked great by comparison. Still, it’s another loss after the Seahawks made their sixth field goal of the game after they nearly gave this one away, trailing 13-3 early.

Rivers is one of the only true football psychopaths who would even try playing after being this far gone from the game. I imagine he’ll try to finish the season, and he’ll have better starts than this.

But it does say a lot about where young quarterbacks are in this league if he’s truly their best option right now. Still, this game could have been an absolute disaster and instead it was nearly an all-time upset.

Packers at Broncos: These Broncos Go to 11

We already had one home underdog on a 10-game winning streak lose on Sunday (Patriots), so it wasn’t about to be two with Denver hosting Green Bay. I’m proud to say I got both games right this week, and I liked Denver because of the home-field advantage and the way the Packers don’t usually create takeaways despite the presence of Micah Parsons and his pressure.

Well, unfortunately Parsons tore his ACL in this one, so there probably goes my Super Bowl pick in the NFC with Green Bay. They already lost Tucker Kraft to a torn ACL, so now you lose your best defender that was supposed to put you over the top, and wideout Christian Watson also got hurt (again) in this one, so that’s more bad news.

The Packers played well early but the Denver defense got some picks from Jordan Love, who we know can be reckless with the ball. So can Bo Nix, but he played maybe his best NFL game yet on Sunday with 4 touchdowns, which is again why I think he has that ability to be the Joe Flacco or Eli Manning of his generation and go on a Super Bowl run with some improbable devil luck going his way. He’s just got that flat liner approach to his game where the moment doesn’t seem to get too big for him against all expectations.

Love had the ball four times in the fourth quarter of a one-possession game, but the best he could do was a field goal early. He couldn’t get the offense moving on any of the three drives down 34-26.

It’s a big win for Denver (12-2), the 11th in a row, as it looks to get the No. 1 seed this year.

Lions at Rams: Sean McVay Is Cooking

The Rams got off to a bit of a slow start in this one with Aidan Hutchinson getting a pick, and Detroit led 24-14 at one point. But the Rams have really cranked up their rushing attack since the bye, and they had 159 more yards in this one to go along with 368 passing yards by Matthew Stafford, who also threw two touchdowns.

Puka Nacua dominated with 181 receiving yards on a day where Davante Adams left with a hamstring injury that could be troubling going forward. But the Detroit defense still had few answers for such a balanced, explosive, and efficient attack from the Rams who piled up 41 points and controlled the second half.

Jared Goff played well early, but three straight three-and-out drives to start the second half is where the game got away from the Lions, who were always in catch-up mode after that. They didn’t register a true 4QC attempt until there were 13 seconds left in a 41-34 game, only enough time for a lateral attempt 80 yards away from the end zone, which obviously didn’t come close to working.

The Lions (8-6) are in a tough spot for the playoffs now while the Rams (11-3) have that huge game in Seattle this Thursday.

Ravens at Bengals: (Joe Burrow’s) Misery

Joe Burrow raised some alarms with his words on his 29th birthday this week that he might already be thinking about an early retirement a la Andrew Luck. Others saw it as a cryptic message to management to shape up or ship him out a la Carson Palmer in 2011.

On Sunday, Burrow by his own words said he wouldn’t have helped any team win a game with his play. He suffered the first shutout (24-0) of his NFL career as the Bengals came up empty on nine drives as Burrow threw two picks under pressure, including a pick-six in the fourth quarter to make it 24-0.

It was one of the roughest Burrow games ever, and you could see it early when he took a sack that knocked them out of field goal range on a cold day. He didn’t have Tee Higgins (concussion), but he didn’t have him on Thanksgiving either and did much better than this.

The Ravens didn’t need to do a ton offensively with the way this one played out. Let the Bengals hold the ball for almost 40 minutes before they self-destructed. In fact, the Bengals had the highest time of possession (39:19) for a team that was shutout in NFL history. The previous record belongs to the 2014 Raiders (Derek Carr’s rookie year) with 36:56 TOP in a 52-0 loss at the Rams.

Not the kind of records you want to be setting.

Panthers at Saints: Maybe Tyler Shough Should Have Started Week 1…

Early this season, the Saints were competitive with Spencer Rattler at quarterback but they weren’t winning. Maybe they should have started Tyler Shough earlier? He’s done a good job, and on Sunday against Carolina, he led the first fourth-quarter comeback and second game-winning drive of his career in a 20-17 win.

But coach Kellen Moore and Shough did get a bit lucky on the game-winning drive here. Out of timeouts, I really don’t think a QB draw with 12 seconds left was a good idea. Who do you think you are, the 2021 Cowboys in the playoffs against the 49ers? Oh wait, Moore was the OC for that team too. But I think right there you either risk the clock running out before the spike, or you set up a 62-yard field goal that might be too long.

Instead, Moore and Shough got lucky when a late hit was called on the slide, and the kicker only had to make from 47 yards, which he did to win the game. That’s the first 4QC for the Saints this year.

If Shough can keep ascending, they might even be the new favorites in the NFC South, a wasteland division, in 2026.

Vikings at Cowboys: Season Over After Facing NINE

Notice they really didn’t show Jerry Jones after the opening interception when a tipped ball got J.J. McCarthy. That’s because he did very well the rest of the night, shredding that defense when he targeted everyone not named Justin Jefferson, who dropped a touchdown and finished with 22 yards on 2-of-8 catches. Just a weird night, but McCarthy had 3 total touchdowns and threw for a career-high 250 yards with no sacks taken.

The Vikings can cook with this type of quarterback, but he won’t see many defenses as bad as Dallas. On the other side, the Cowboys had yet another game where they settled for way too many field goals, Brandon Aubrey missed two of them for a bad night for his high standards, and George Pickens (33 yards) was again very quiet.

Just like that, Dallas is 6-7-1 and needs a miracle to make the playoffs that isn’t going to happen now. They could have at least gave us one more week of keeping it interesting, because I do think it’s possible for Washington to beat the Eagles once. And we know the Bills can beat that team in Buffalo.

Alas, it’s all but over for the Cowboys, who punted on the season before it even started with the Micah Parsons trade and gave us a little fool’s gold in November before the harsh reality of another long offseason with no deep playoff run for America’s Team.

Giving up 34 points to a quarterback like McCarthy, who became a meme for the face of sucking ass this year, is a fitting way to end things for the 2025 Cowboys, a team that deserves to finish 8-8-1.

Cardinals at Texans: It’s the Arizona Blowout Week

This week was the blowout loss for Arizona (40-20), and Jacoby Brissett threw for 249 yards and 3 touchdowns anyway, coming up 1 yard short of his 8th game this year with 250 and multiple scoring tosses.

But the offense had minus-7 yards by the time it was 17-0 in the first quarter as Houston jumped all over them early with a big touchdown pass to Nico Collins, then the Cardinals botched some special teams play to dig the hole early.

Houston (9-5) might just run the table playing like this in this AFC.

Raiders at Broncos: Kenny Pickett Is Not the Answer

JFC, I thought Kenny “OneDrive” Pickett could at least give me one touchdown drive. But the 2025 Raiders are the ultimate get-right game as they lost 31-0, almost as badly as when they lost 31-0 to the Chiefs, which was obviously an outlier for that team this year.

But Pickett, starting for the first time this year for an injured Geno Smith, was 15-of-25 for 64 yards with 4 sacks for 35 yards. So, he really didn’t contribute anything to the offense, which was held scoreless on eight drives (no first downs on 5 of them).

The Eagles made it look pretty easy. Dallas Goedert caught 2 short touchdowns and it should have been 3.

Jets at Jaguars: Have a Day, Trevor Lawrence

I never bought into the Aaron Glenn hiring since he had even worse of a defensive coordinator than Robert Saleh when he took the job for the Jets. At least Saleh could point to 2019 with the 49ers. Glenn’s resume is basically “I had Dan Campbell’s offense lighting it up and I wasn’t the worst defense in the league with a ton of guys on injured reserve last year.”

Because the Jets are terrible on defense under Glenn, and it’s hard to say they were any better before Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams were traded than they are without them.

But Sunday was certainly a low point in a 48-20 loss to the Jaguars where they let Trevor Lawrence become the first quarterback ever to throw for 300 yards, rush for 50, and throw 5 touchdowns with 1 rushing score too.

Browns at Bears: Caleb Williams Is Fearless

Maybe I should have stuck to my narrative that the 2025 Browns are overrated on defense, because the Bears had few problems dropping 31 points on them in a blowout win. The defense came up with plenty of splash plays against rookie Shedeur Sanders (with an assist from Jerry Jeudy on a pick in the end zone), but Caleb Williams made some great throws and had one of his better games too this year.

Titans at 49ers: Third-and-Purdy

There used to be a ‘Third-and-Jimmy’ thing when Jimmy Garoppolo was the 49ers’ quarterback. He was unusually good at converting third downs in obvious passing situations, and maybe we should just give Kyle Shanahan some credit for those play calls and his scheme. Because apparently Brock Purdy has done some similar things, or at least he was cooking on third down on Sunday against maybe the worst team in the NFL in the Titans.

The 49ers were 9/15 on third down and the game had more points (37-24) than expected, though the spread (49ers -12.5) was on point. It seems like the Titans do better at scoring against NFC West teams than anyone else this year.

Commanders at Giants: No Late Darts

The Commanders (4-10) finally won their first game since Week 5, but they didn’t make it easy, losing two fumbles in the final 5:50 to give the Giants (3-11) a shot at a 15-point comeback late.

Chalk it up as another good data point for kicking the extra point first, because by making it a 29-21 game with 3:43 left, the Giants got a lucky break with a McNichols fumble, and Jaxson Dart was at midfield with 2:38 left in an 8-point game. There’s your chance to tie it. Unfortunately, he came up empty on 4th-and-8 at the Washington 38 to end the rally attempt.

Almost just as bad, Dart reportedly made his fifth trip to the blue tent for a concussion check this season before returning to finish the game. These Giants better invest in one hell of a good backup quarterback.

Next week: Week 16 could peak right away with Rams-Seahawks on Thursday night. Can Sam Darnold really keep losing to this team? Can Stafford lock up MVP with a big night in a huge game? Then we get two Saturday island games but at least the night one (Packers vs. Bears) could be good for the NFC North.

Sunday is probably the worst 1:00 PM slate of the year just because of the reality of these teams in Week 16. I guess Chargers-Cowboys is the standout. At 4:00, the Jags are in Denver and the Steelers are in Detroit. The SNF Patriots-Ravens game was flexed. Then I suppose we’ll see Rivers get another shot against the 49ers on Monday night to end it and maybe all but end the Colts’ playoff odds this year.

NFL 2025 Week 15 Predictions: The Return of Philip Rivers Edition

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

This 2025 NFL season has been crazy enough as is, but to bring back a 44-year-old Philip Rivers after five years away from the game? He’s literally a semifinalist for the 2026 HOF class at the moment. Then to call him up on a short week against an elite defense like Seattle? Good luck with that, but I’m not sure I’ve ever had more of a morbid curiosity in seeing how a game plays out than that one.

But beyond Rivers’ return, it is a fascinating week when you have multiple home underdogs who are on 10-game winning streaks in the Patriots and Broncos. Not only that, but they’re playing teams in the Bills and Packers who have some really bad losses as big favorites against the spread this season. Not to mention the Patriots already beat Buffalo in Buffalo.

Throw in the 6-7 Chiefs still being a 5.5-point favorite despite losing two in a row and losing to the 9-4 Chargers in Week 1, and I’m not sure if it’s the oddsmakers accurately assessing these new contenders in 2025, or if people are just betting with their hearts from last year and not adjusting to what’s going on this year.

Who’s right? Who’s actually a good team in 2025? It’s hard to say because it really does feel like a season where anyone can beat anybody, and these teams have four weeks to figure things out before the playoffs.

This Week’s Articles

2025 NFL Award Races: Final Quarter Look at Stafford vs. Maye for MVP, Coach of the Year, and the Myles Garrett vs. Micah Parsons Debate
2025 NFL Quarterback Rankings Week 15: The Texans May Have Ended the Postseason Streak for Patrick Mahomes After Chiefs Drop the Ball
https://www.365scores.com/news/scotts-seven-nfl-picks-week-15-2025

In looking at the NFL awards going into the final quarter, I see a vision for how the MVP can be decided in Week 16, Myles Garrett vs. Micah Parsons for DPOY, and 6 coaches who can have a case for Coach of the Year. But if Philip Rivers plays well, he’s a lock for Comeback Player of the Year, something I didn’t even have time to consider when I wrote that Monday night.

As for the QB rankings, Patrick Mahomes undoubtedly was let down by drops more on Sunday night than any other game in his career.

For Week 15 picks, I have parlays for Bills-Patriots, Chargers-Chiefs, Dolphins-Steelers, and yes, a Philip Rivers-themed SGP.

NFL Week 15 Predictions

I had the Falcons covering on TNF, but what a crazy 14-point comeback that was. Tampa really blew multiple opportunities for game-ending fumble recoveries, and Baker Mayfield missed that game-sealing throw on 2nd-and-14. Just another brutal loss for the Bucs (7-7), another common division winner having a down year.

NYJ-JAX: Don’t love the Jags with such a huge spread but Brady Cook isn’t any good, right?

ARI-HOU: There’s a decent chance Jacoby Brissett puts up a better stat line against Houston than Allen and Mahomes did. But I don’t think Houston scores enough to cover the spread, but the Texans will win.

BUF-NE: I’m taking the Bills to remind NE who’s run this division since 2020. A lot of bad turnovers for the Bills in the first matchup but the defense played fine for a half. Stefon Diggs carried the passing game for NE. I think Buffalo clamps down and gets the split even if the Patriots are still winning the AFC East this year.

LAC-KC: I can’t trust the Chiefs to cover right now, especially not 5.5. Both QBs don’t have their starting OTs, but the Chiefs better find a way to get a pass rush going against the Chargers’ joke of a line. This is basically their last stand for this season mattering.

LV-PHI: Give me Kenny Pickett to cover the spread in a low-scoring game. But it sure would be hilarious if he led a GWD in Philly.

BAL-CIN: I prefer the over more than the spread here. But I think the Ravens protect the ball far better than on Thanksgiving and put up their share of points on the Bengals, who just can’t stop anyone again.

WAS-NYG: Division games are always weird but I think Jaxson Dart can win by 3 against a poor defense that J.J. McCarthy beat 31-0.

CLE-CHI: Just feels like a sloppy game where Caleb Williams might need to lead a GWD to get the win by 1-7.

TEN-SF: Don’t believe the Titans after last week’s win. I think the 49ers win by 14+

DET-LAR: Rams will play well at home while the Lions won’t be able to keep up with that offense. Not enough DBs to handle Puka and Davante.

CAR-NO: Saints could certainly pull off another upset, but I think Carolina makes the most of another Tampa loss and gets the win here. close game though.

GB-DEN: Going to trust the Broncos at home to get it done. Big shock that these defenses have 22 turnovers between them, but I think the Broncos pull it out in the 4Q.

IND-SEA: As long as Darnold doesn’t throw a pick parade, I think Seattle wins big. Rivers should play the whole game though. They have no one else. That’s why they’re desperate enough to start grandpa.

MIN-DAL: I like a Jefferson TD but Cowboys win by 7.

MIA-PIT: No T.J. Watt but still shouldn’t be an issue. Steelers have won 22 straight at home on MNF and it’s going to be under 20 degrees. Dolphins will turtle up on the road again.

2025 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 11

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

I kept calling it the best Sunday of the 2025 NFL regular season. Did it live up to that hype? There were nine games with a comeback opportunity and eight game-winning drives, so that’s pretty good. I’m not sure I’d call any of the games classics or even in the game of the year competition, but it certainly was an eventful day and probably one that should reshape expectations for the rest of the season.

After predictions on Saturday night, I decided to look up how home teams have fared in the big games this season between teams who currently have a winning record. It hasn’t been as strong in recent years, and this year, the home team was 13-16 in such matchups.

Well, the home teams were 5-0 on Sunday, a clean sweep. I like to say the NFL is a league that’s about who you play and when you play them, but it looks like where you play still matters too. We’ll see if that holds up for the playoffs, which your guess is as good as mine if teams like the Chiefs, Lions, and Packers will still be in that tournament at this rate.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Chiefs at Broncos: Game of the Week

It’s 5:35 AM as I ask myself do I feel like ranting about the Chiefs for a long time, or just hurry up and get into a warm bed? I’m thinking the bed sounds better, because there’s nothing that happened here that we haven’t been seeing all year with the Chiefs, who are 5-5 and in danger of missing the playoffs. Forget the AFC West reign likely ending now; they could miss the playoffs altogether because of the way the teams ahead of them keep winning and the future schedules for each.

The Broncos played well, played with a better focus and flexibility, and Spags hasn’t shown any answers for Bo Nix in three games yet. Remember, they win that game in Arrowhead last year if the special teams of the Chiefs didn’t block a 35-yard field goal. Nix had all day on a huge 3rd-and-15 before the two-minute warning, and he threw a perfect deep ball to Franklin to set up the winning field goal late. He did all of that with almost no running game with J.K. Dobbins out.

Meanwhile, the Chiefs threw wildly deep in moments they didn’t have to, forgot to run the ball, and put the game on Mahomes while forgetting to actually get those speedy wideouts involved (Rice and Worthy) against a secondary that didn’t have Patrick Surtain II. It’s getting scary that a 36-year-old tight end (Kelce) remains the most (only?) reliable target in the passing game. They need to find more snaps for Tyquan Thornton, who again made an impact with a 61-yard bomb on a big 3rd-and-7 in the third quarter when the Chiefs pretended to have something figured out in this one.

That’s after a bunch of bad penalties early that kept tripping them up from scoring more points, then even after a great effort by Kelce on the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter, Butker’s extra point was blocked when it should have been a 20-16 game. Maybe the defense can actually force a fourth-down stop had the Broncos needed to go for one late instead of kicking a game-tying field goal.

Then the Chiefs went three-and-out twice after the Kelce score, and they called 12 straight passes to end this game on offense. Lots of mistakes in there with the false start to begin a drive, a low snap on a third down, and another third-down sack. What happened to the scrambling Mahomes was doing in September? They needed that these last two games and he’s just not doing it for some reason.

Can’t keep “saving it for the playoffs” when it doesn’t look like there will be a playoffs if you keep losing these games. Again, the Chiefs gave up a 3rd-and-15 on the game-winning drive. That’s the fourth time this year the defense gave up a 3rd-and-10 conversion in the fourth quarter of a one-score game. They never did it more than three times in any season in 2018-24 (none in 2024).

It’s the first time the Chiefs have lost five-straight one-score games in the Mahomes era. There was always going to be some regression there after a record 17-0 streak before this year, but god damn, someone step up and make a play whether it’s on offense, defense, or special teams. It just seems like no one on this team wants to do it this year and that’s why they keep losing these games to teams who simply want it more and outplay them.

I don’t know how you fix this or if you can at this point. Might just be a lost year.

Seahawks at Rams: Played Again, Sam

No player disappointed more on Sunday than Seattle’s Sam Darnold, who was having such a great year. He was No. 1 in QBR, the Seahawks were killing teams, and he was almost perfect in the first half of these last few games. But man are the Rams his kryptonite, and if you’re a Seattle fan, you’re just worried if anything dressed as a “big game” is a signal for him to shit the bed.

He already coughed up a fumble to lose to the 49ers in Week 1, then marred his epic shootout performance against Baker and the Bucs with a late pick on a deflected pass. In this game, he was facing the pass rush that got him 9 times in January’s playoff loss with Minnesota.

But this time around, it was on Darnold. He threw 4 picks, two of which basically set up the Rams on short fields for touchdowns on a day where Matthew Stafford was nothing special at all. Seattle’s defense played hard, and it wasn’t like Darnold was under a heavy siege by the blitz all day, or if he had to keep trading touchdowns with Stafford. It just wasn’t that kind of game at all.

Even with all the mistakes, the Seahawks got the ball back late in a 21-19 game with a chance to go win it from the 1-yard line. Darnold did not mange the clock well, and if he was a little better, he should have been able to get a field goal attempt shorter than 61 yards. The kick by Jason Myers was nowhere close, and that’s ultimately how Seattle lost this first matchup with the Rams.

The Rams lead the NFC West now and have over 70% chance to win it. Darnold lost the QBR lead too, dropping to fourth. It’s a tough day when you feel like it’s been proven he’s just not a quarterback you can trust in these big games.

This win will give the Rams a lot of hype and praise this week as the team to beat, but we saw how good that did for the Packers at beating Pittsburgh or the Bills after beating the Chiefs. Have to keep stacking wins, and the Rams could have very well lost this game if Darnold wasn’t so brutal.

Lions at Eagles: Suddenly the Defense Is Unstoppable

I felt like I was watching the 10-7 game from Monday night again with the way the Eagles and Lions played this game. I thought Detroit would embrace the opportunity on the road against a contender like it did in Baltimore earlier this year, but I guess Jared Goff isn’t beating the allegations about being an indoor merchant. He was horrible in this game, posting the worst completion percentage of his career.

Guess calling plays against the Eagles is a lot tougher than Washington for Dan Campbell, who saw his offense turn it over on downs five times in a 6-drive span in the middle of the game.

That had to be disappointing for a shorthanded defense that did pretty well in keeping the Eagles down offensively again. But with the defense playing so elite again for the Eagles, it might not matter in the NFC. They can still win it all if they get the No. 1 seed. Much like Seattle, it’s a sobering loss for the Lions with Goff as they are in Year 5 of the Goff-Campbell experiment and running out of time to turn it into a Super Bowl.

If the playoffs started today, the Lions (6-4) would be out as the No. 8 seed.

Buccaneers at Bills: Josh Allen’s Wild Day

I think Josh Allen can dial back the awful two picks he had early in this game, but this is more or less what I think they need from him the rest of the season to get back on track. The Chiefs are struggling, might not even make the playoffs, and the Bills are looking at a wild card at best despite this beautiful schedule that gifted them another home game against a contender like the Bucs.

But the Bills stepped up after a lot of lead changes in this game and put away the Bucs in the fourth quarter. A facemask penalty on a Shakir tackle on third down was huge, leading to Allen’s sixth touchdown of the day.

But I think this is what the Bills need from Allen. Turnovers be damned, just go back to running the offense through him and let him sling it and run around. It helped that the matchup really dictated it as the Bucs are hard for James Cook to run against, but this was  a promising type of win for the Bills.

With the Rams up next, Tampa is spiraling a bit here without its full weapons and shaky secondary.

Bengals at Steelers: Unc Bowl II Ends on a Sad Note

The Unc Bowl II started strong with Joe Flacco and Aaron Rodgers throwing touchdowns, but it quickly devolved into a defensive slugfest with a Mason Rudolph second half after Rodgers injured his wrist. It could be pretty serious too.

Pittsburgh’s defense again made the big splash plays with Kyle Dugger taking back a Flacco pass for a huge pick-six, then a Noah Fant catch led to a fumble return touchdown as the Steelers blew this one wide open in an easy win.

But all eyes on Rodgers’ wrist and the news there. This game was also a sobering experience as it’s likely the last time I ever get to watch a live NFL game where both starting quarterbacks are older than I am.

Chargers at Jaguars: Pure Domination

I learned my lesson the hard way again. You just can’t trust the Chargers against the Jaguars as that’s a third embarrassing loss in the Justin Herbert vs. Trevor Lawrence era. Lawrence was nothing special here, but at least he was part of the game. Herbert threw for 81 yards and left in the fourth quarter with the score out of hand.

Very lifeless game by the Chargers, who are lucky the Chiefs lost again.

Panthers at Falcons: The Bryce Young Show

Now where has this Bryce Young been? He has one game all year with 200 passing yards, then he throws for 448 yards in maybe the best game of his NFL career against an Atlanta pass defense that has been getting a lot of praise for its sacks and keeping the yardage down this year. Make it make sense as Young even did this after getting injured early in the game.

He still led a 14-point comeback while Michael Penix Jr. (DOOM) left the game injured after a great start. Kirk Cousins at least got a game-tying field goal drive to force overtime, but he couldn’t move the offense once he got there. The Panthers were able to get the game-winning field goal and are 6-5 and very much alive for the NFC South with Tampa’s slide.

Falconing at a high degree here.

Ravens at Browns: That’s Why Sander Was a 5th-Round Pick and QB3

It’s funny how you can look at a list of inactives and think Justice Hill being out isn’t a huge deal for Baltimore. But it really was. Hill is a good receiving back, and his presence was missed when backup Keaton Mitchell had a pass go off his hands and into the Browns for a pick-six. Lamar Jackson also had another pass tipped at the line that was picked, he didn’t throw a touchdown to end his 30-game streak, and he took 4 sacks by Myles Garrett alone as Cleveland pushed for an upset bid.

But the Browns didn’t get it because Dillon Gabriel was knocked out for a concussion, and rookie Shedeur Sanders showed he’s not ready and why he slid in the draft with a pretty horrible performance, going 4-of-16 and getting sacked a few times with a bad pick.

But the Ravens still needed a very cool Mark Andrews trick play on the Tush Push to score a 35-yard touchdown run to get the game-winning drive in the books before Sanders’ failed answer drive.

I don’t think Sanders is the solution to Cleveland’s many woes.

49ers at Cardinals: Jacoby’s Record-Setting Day in Defeat

What the fvck are the Cardinals even doing these days? They went from losing very close games on the final play every week to getting blown out before halftime but not before Jacoby Brissett piles up huge passing numbers in a multi-score loss.

The 49ers feasted on short fields and big plays in Brock Purdy’s return game, but the weird story was Brissett tying the NFL record with 47 pass completions on 57 attempts for 452 yards. He also managed to not take a single sack. You’ll see people say he broke the record for completions in a game, which is true for the regular season. But Ben Roethlisberger completed 47 passes in a 2020 playoff loss to the Browns, so he actually tied the record that’s been done before.

It’s amusing that this is done without Kyler Murray or Marvin Harrison Jr. active because of injuries, but it’s not like it’s helping Arizona win anything.

Bears at Vikings: Ben Johnson and Kevin O’Connell Split Close Series

If I looked at the best coaching records among actives in 4QC/GWD opportunities, Ben Johnson (5-2) and Kevin O’Connell (17-16) are near the top. KOC’s Vikings got the best of Johnson’s Bears in his debut in Week 1, and it looked like it might happen again after J.J. McCarthy shook off a pretty horrible 57 minutes before leading a nice go-ahead touchdown drive.

But damn that new kickoff rule. The Bears pulled off a 56-yard kick return, and just like that in a 17-16 game, they were at the Minnesota 40. Three fairly conservative runs later, the Bears were able to kick a 48-yard field goal to win the game, which Cairo Santos did for them to get to 7-3.

Tough way to lose for the Vikings. I guess McCarthy missed that LOAT course at Michigan on how to will your opponent to miss the clutch field goal. Or they just don’t offer that in 2025 like they used to.

Packers at Giants: Winston Special

I had to wait until the final 40 seconds before the J&J Pick Parade (J.J. McCarthy and Jameis Winston to both throw interceptions) hit this Sunday. Winston almost had another upset in his first start for the Giants as the Packers have just struggled all year despite large spreads. Jordan Love was out of the lineup momentarily in this one for an injury but returned and did some positive things, including a game-winning drive without Josh Jacobs.

Then the defense finally put it away with a pick of Winston with 36 seconds left. Since the Giants, in their first game with interim coach Mike Kafka, had all three timeouts, they actually generated another drive with just 10 seconds left. That too ended with a Winston turnover on a Micah Parsons strip-sack, fittingly.

Big save by the Packers, who lost to Tommy DeVito and the Giants two years ago. Not happening to Jameis this year.

Texans at Titans: Some Modest Improvement

Maybe my best pick this week was for the Titans (+5.5) to cover and still lose to Houston. It was a 6-0 game going into the fourth quarter the last time they met before short fields helped Houston blow it open 26-0. Throw in a short week, interim coach, and you’d hope Tennessee would clean some things up and play better.

That happened, and props to Cam Ward for leading a 95-yard game-tying touchdown drive late. But he learned the hard way about the help you get from the new kickoff rules (starting at your 35 from a touchback) and being let down by your defense, which let Davis Mills convert a 3rd-and-16 to Nico Collins to eventually get a 35-yard field goal with no time left in a 16-13 final.

Commanders vs. Dolphins: Thank You, Mike McDaniel

The NFL went to Madrid, Spain and gave the audience three goal-line stands, and I especially liked the one where the Commanders ran the ball with three different backs on three plays in a row and none could score before Marcus Mariota missed the fourth-down throw.

But I want to thank Mike McDaniel for I believe becoming the first coach in this new overtime system to win the coin toss and elect to go on defense first. I think that’s the ideal strategy, and it’s even stronger in a 13-13 game where you’re facing Marcus Mariota. You’re not afraid of him leading a long touchdown drive.

Sure enough, he was picked on the first play and that set up the Dolphins for an easy game-winning drive that was just 3 handoffs for 22 yards before a 29-yard field goal to win in 16-13.

Next week: Thursday night isn’t bad (Bills-Texans) if we get C.J. Stroud (concussion) back for it. On Sunday, the Colts’ No. 1 offense and Lou Anarumo-led offense can drop the Chiefs to 5-6 and possibly a deathblow to their playoff chances this year in a big one. Doesn’t sound promising for Aaron Rodgers to face the Bears one more time in Chicago in a game both teams need. Bucs at Rams isn’t bad for SNF but McVay usually does well against that team. Monday night is Carolina at 49ers, a game that is surprisingly not a joke on paper but not overly exciting either.

NFL 2025 Week 11 Predictions: Best Sunday Edition

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Every few years you get one NFL Sunday schedule that clearly stands out as the best of the regular season. I may not have circled Week 11 back in May when the schedule came out, but it has played out that way with the Seahawks and Rams looking like the best teams in the NFC (maybe NFL) right now as they meet for the first time. And if they’re actually frauds, then the Lions and Eagles are going at it Sunday night as the other two best teams in the NFC.

We also get an important Bills vs. Bucs game as those teams try to stay within reach of a division title after some struggles and a loss last week. The Steelers vs. Bengals rematch is bigger than usual as the Steelers need all the wins they can get to hold off Baltimore, which is heavily favored to win the AFC North again.

Then we have a game in Denver that is quite arguably the biggest regular-season game for the Broncos in 10 years, and the biggest of Patrick Mahomes’ career (again, regular season only) if we’re talking about the Chiefs staying on top of the AFC West. They can’t drop to 5-5 while the Broncos get to 9-2.

It’s big, it will shake up the Super Bowl odds, and while some of these games will no doubt turn into duds, at least one should be great and a contender for game of the year.

And no, I won’t be getting up early for Dolphins-Commanders in Spain. Hard to believe Dan Quinn’s job may be in bigger trouble than Mike McDaniel’s, but as always, it’s a good reminder that success is fleeting in the NFL for most.

This Week’s Articles

2025 NFL Quarterback Rankings Week 11: Preparing for the Epic Sam Darnold vs. Matthew Stafford Showdown
Scott’s Seven NFL Picks: Week 11

I previewed the Rams vs. Seahawks game by pointing out the double standard for Matthew Stafford getting MVP love for a season that the likes of Daniel Jones, Sam Darnold, Jared Goff, Brock Purdy, etc. would never get MVP credit for if they were in the same situation. I also had picks for parlays for Lions-Eagles, Rams-Seahawks, and a more detailed pick for Chiefs vs. Broncos.

NFL Week 11 Predictions

I had the Patriots winning 24-10 on Thursday night over the Jets, so 24-10, 27-14, close enough.

WAS-MIA: I think the Dolphins pull it out against a bad defense and Mariota.

CHI-MIN: Vikings came back in Week 1 to get them but I think Ben Johnson’s team is playing better now and they force McCarthy into enough mistakes to pull out the road upset win.

GB-NYG: New QB (Jameis) and an interim coach situation for a team that is 0-5 ATS when the spread is this big this season. Tricky game to bet but I like the idea of a Jameis pick and GB win.

CAR-ATL: It was 30-0 last time, so who the hell knows with these teams? Atlanta needs a win badly.

LAC-JAX: I am supporting Harbaugh to take it to a flawed Jacksonville team.

CIN-PIT: Steelers usually struggle at home with the Bengals but I think Rodgers makes up for last week with a great game and they get the home win. Flacco won’t be as good as Week 7.

TB-BUF: Too many weapons out for the Bucs again and I think the Bills lean on Josh Allen, turnovers be damned, and get a 7+ point win.

TEN-HOU: It was 26-0 last time but something tells me not to go all in on Davis Mills covering a 5.5-point spread against a team coming off a bye. But the Texans should win against the worst team in the NFL.

SEA-LAR: It’s a hedge for me. I think the Rams win by 1-3 points on a Stafford GWD. But I also think Seattle has a fair shot to win outright. I just weigh Darnold getting crushed by that pass rush last year a lot right now. Need to see this matchup on a new team.

SF-ARI: Purdy is back, I think. Could be a good one but I’m going 49ers.

KC-DEN: If Josh Simmons and Jawaan Taylor were out, I’d say go Denver ML cause of that pass rush against backup tackles. But it sounds like Mahomes will have his tackles coming off a bye and the Chiefs desperately need to win this one. They also need to step up and make Bo Nix look bad as many defenses have done this year. They didn’t do it last year, and he feasted on backups in Week 18 but also should have won the game in Arrowhead if not for the blocked FG. Steve Spagnuolo, do your job in this one. Make it hard on him.

BAL-CLE: Ravens feasted on short fields in the last meeting but the Browns just can’t keep up with this offense.

DET-PHI: Sam LaPorta is a big loss but I still believe the Lions have the weapons and balance to score on Philly and will hold up against the offense for a big road win.

DAL-LV: Play hard, play together, and win one for Marshawn Kneeland. Simple as that for Dallas.

2025 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 10

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Week 10 in the NFL started with one of the worst games you’ll ever see in this league between the Broncos and Raiders. Sunday night ended with one of the worst games I’ve ever seen Aaron Rodgers play. Who knows what Monday night holds, but hopefully it’ll be better than a Sunday where the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump were both referenced during live NFL broadcasts. How fitting.

In all, we had eight games with a comeback opportunity, which is the most in the last four weeks but still not the 9+ we had every week in Weeks 1-6. Maybe Monday gets us there though I’m still going with the Eagles to win that one.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Colts vs. Falcons: Game of the Week

This might be the shortest edition of Stat Oddity I’ve ever written for a regular-season slate (2,800 words), but that’s because I didn’t sleep well Saturday night as I actually set my alarm to get up and watch this entire game. It’s the only international game I’ll be doing that for this year, and it was 100% worth it.

I thought both offenses were great early on, then once Daniel Jones threw that pick before halftime and both teams mismanaged the shit out of that clock, the game took a real turn. The pass pressure was dialed up on Jones, he’s making mistakes more akin to how we knew him with the Giants. But the Colts still have those great weapons like Alec Pierce and Tyler Warren, and of course Jonathan Taylor was a badass on Sunday. The 83-yard touchdown run was crazy, bad tackling, speed, the whole 9 yards.

But the Falcons certainly had their shot to win after taking a 25-22 lead on a great drive where their run game looked dominant. They had Jones in a 3rd-and-21 but still managed to let him scramble for 19 yards. With the Colts out of timeouts at 1:26, that snap needed to be the one that set up the Falcons to win. Instead, it led to 4th-and-2, and Warren came down with the risky throw to convert. The Colts eventually settled for a field goal and overtime after another grounding penalty on Penix.

In overtime, I feel like you want to go second now with these new rules. Know exactly what you need and get to play with all four downs to get it. Hopefully some decent time too so you don’t need to rush much. I think it’s also better to go second if you’re not the better offense as you might need that extra down.

Alas, the Falcons won the toss and wanted the ball first. After being gifted one first down on a poor holding penalty on the defense, they didn’t get another and punted. Ho-hum. The Colts didn’t have far to go for the winning field goal, but with that kicker, you’re much better off just going for the touchdown. Taylor provided that from 8 yards out and the game was over with him hitting 286 yards from scrimmage and 3 more touchdowns.

It’s not like Jones didn’t help earn the win, but this was probably the day where Taylor overtook him for the Colts’ MVP candidate. That was big time overseas and the Falcons are not a bad defense.

The Colts had a bye week before their showdown in Kansas City in Week 12, and they need it to fix up some things with their pass pro as Jones’ great sack rate is in the toilet after these last two games.

Meanwhile, I’d say it’s hard to believe the Falcons are 3-6 and haven’t won since the Buffalo win. But is it that hard to believe? These are the Falcons. They have their own brand of choking that only the Chargers can beat. They were 0-8 on 3rd down and 3-29 on their last three games. That’s inexcusable with these skill players.

But that’s Falconing. Still, the Colts outgained them 519-290 in yards, so the right team won in the end. Great game to watch from start to finish.

Bills at Dolphins: Super Bowl Hangover in Week 10?

I’m so used to Buffalo beating Miami that it’s still hard to believe this one happened the way it did. Sure, the Bills had another turnover regression moment with 3 giveaways, all in Miami territory, but it’s not like Tua Tagovailoa didn’t throw 2 picks too. He just didn’t have any sacks and the run game (197 yards) shredded Buffalo.

This is why you don’t give too much credit to Buffalo for beating Kansas City in the regular season. You have to do it in the playoffs, and the Bills sure looked like a team who was hearing everyone kiss their ass all week and they never had any intensity to step up for this game too. The Dolphins led 16-0 early and Buffalo never really threatened save for that first touchdown drive. But then they failed on the 2-point conversion (0/4 this year), so it was still a 10-point game before Miami added onto the lead.

I’ve been saying since September the Bills just don’t look right this year despite the No. 1 seed talk because of such a favorable schedule. Well, losing at home to the Patriots and losing on the road to Atlanta (hasn’t won since) and now Miami (poor team) was part of that easy schedule, and they’re 0-3 in those games. They may have even lost to Miami at home if not for that roughing the punter penalty in the 4th quarter of a tied game.

The Bills have a lot of issues, and I’ve been up too long this day to write about them all and how they relate to Josh Allen and his share of blame. That can wait for Wednesday’s QB rankings.

But the Bills are definitely struggling right now, and they’ll get a somewhat competent Tampa team next week to try to sort this out against.

Steelers at Chargers: Little Fight

You know it’s a rough night for the Steelers when Mike Tomlin’s defense had a more respectable outing than his offense and even his special teams. Chris Boswell missed a 45-yard field goal and they had another embarrassing muffed return that was fumbled to the Chargers.

But this was Aaron Rodgers’ first really bad game with the Steelers. In fact, it was one of the worst games of his career as only a garbage time touchdown drive saved some of the numbers from being in the bottom 3 of his long career for one game. Just never looked comfortable all night, missed some open receivers on big plays, ran backwards into the end zone for a safety early, and just looked pretty off. It happens, but that’s the first time he really shit the bed in a Steeler uniform.

But the defense did a respectable job against Justin Herbert and his receivers. Would have been even better if they could catch the interceptions thrown to them.

The Ravens are right on the Steelers’ heels now, so it’s only going to get tougher and the stakes higher. I don’t think the Steelers are a good team right now since they’re pretty incapable of playing complementary football. If they can ever show up on both sides of the ball for the same game, then they may have something in a goofy AFC this year where the Patriots, Colts, and Broncos are all 8-2.

But this team is flawed, and the lack of a good wide receiver besides D.K. Metcalf, who hasn’t even been that great, is a huge misunderstanding of what Rodgers is as a quarterback. That was always the concern, and that’s why this offense still has no real identity after 9 games.

Rams at 49ers: NFC West Juggernaut No. 1

The NFC West teams were all in battle against each other in the same window, and both games ended up being bloodbaths. The Rams jumped out 21-0 on the 49ers, which is usually not how Sean McVay vs. Kyle Shanahan goes. It’s also unheard of for the 49ers to mount a huge comeback win in these spots, so I’m surprised they even got it to 28-20 at one point early in the fourth quarter.

But the defense, missing studs like Nick Bosa and Fred Warner, never had an answer for Matthew Stafford, who remains red hot with his third-straight game of 4 touchdown passes and no picks.

Mac Jones quietly had a solid game too, but it never really mattered because of the way the Rams got off to that fast start.

Cardinals at Seahawks: NFC West Juggernaut No. 2

The other NFC West battle was over even earlier. The Seahawks were up 28-0 not even a full minute into the second quarter with DeMarcus Lawrence returning two fumbles from Jacoby Brissett for touchdowns. The Arizona offense was sitting on negative net points before finishing the game with net 8 points in garbage time.

Apparently, the 2025 Seahawks turned into the 2007 Patriots (Games 1-10 Version) during their bye week. I’m sure playing the Commanders and Cardinals has a lot to do with it, but Seattle looks pretty legit to me. Those games with the Rams, starting next week, should be special.

Lions at Commanders: Dan Campbell Takes Over

Well, I think playing a defeated Washington team that didn’t have Jayden Daniels and a team the Lions were looking for some playoff revenge for played huge factors in this 44-22 rout that helped Dan Campbell move to 13 straight wins and covers following a loss since 2022.

But who knew the best person to replace offensive coordinator Ben Johnson might be offensive coordinator Dan Campbell? He took over play-calling duties for this one and the Lions responded with 44 points on 8 drives (no punts) before running out the clock. Close to perfect with 546 yards to back it up.

Again, I think the state of the opponent mattered a lot. But Detroit could be peaking going into Philadelphia next week, a huge NFC showdown we never got to see last season.

Patriots at Buccaneers: TreVeyon and the Hendersons

The Patriots may have had about three good rushes all game long in Tampa, but two of them basically powered their only points of the second half after rookie TreVeyon Henderson scored on touchdown runs of 55 and 69 yards in a 28-23 win.

It took a Rhamondre Stevenson injury to finally see the speed we saw a taste of in the preseason from Henderson, but this wasn’t the only rookie who had a breakout game. Kyle Williams scored on a 72-yard touchdown catch that was mostly YAC to showcase his speed, so the Patriots are discovering weapons as the season goes on.

When I look at the Buccaneers, I can acknowledge that Emeka Egbuka is one of the most polished rookie wideouts ever. A gifted player with natural ability and real WR1 potential for years to come. But I also think the offense is quite obviously not the same when you don’t have Bucky Irving, Mike Evans, and Chris Godwin out there.

Baker Mayfield has also all but given up on scrambling since the 3rd-and-14 run against the 49ers, so I’m not sure what that’s all about. Hiding an injury? The fact is the Bucs were held to 16 points on 10 drives at home before their last touchdown had a strong odor of garbage time following Henderson’s huge run, which he didn’t have to necessarily score given the clock situation. But I can’t fault him for that one.

Henderson scored as many 55-yard touchdown runs in one half as the Patriots had (2) in every Tom Brady start in 2001-19 combined. That’s how special those plays are, and they certainly helped on a day where Drake Maye wasn’t his best, completing 16/31 passes with a red-zone pick that he forced in a spot where he actually would have been better off taking a sack (that’s ironic) in a 21-16 game late.

That gave Baker a chance to take the lead, something he’s done so well this year. But the pressure got to him on 4th down and the Bucs turned it over on downs before Henderson’s last big run.

Ravens at Vikings: McCarthyism May Not Be Sweeping the League in 2025

Yeah, we’ll keep saying J.J. McCarthy is young and needs a lot of developing. He certainly showed it in this game as he got worse the longer it went on. Meanwhile, the Ravens had a shaky start with a lot of field goals before finally finding the end zone after the Vikings barely coughed up a fumble on a kick return.

It took a lot for Lamar Jackson to keep his streak alive of 30 games with a touchdown pass, but he got there. Then the Vikings made it a one-score game anyway before the defense stopped McCarthy late.

Three straight wins for the Ravens (4-5) and they’re building confidence.

Jaguars at Texans: Game Over, Man

Yeah, I’m out on the Jaguars (5-4) as a playoff team this year. Blowing a 19-point lead in the fourth quarter to Davis Mills is exactly the kind of game that could trigger a losing streak and implosion to a season.

It’s not like the Jaguars were ever that far better than Houston in this game. They just feasted on field position early, then the defense took care of Trevor Lawrence late, including an unbelievable pick six to even cover the spread in the end.

Good to see a great defensive unit earn a win here as the Texans have been playing hard for DeMeco Ryans on that side of the ball. Just didn’t expect Mr. Long Neck to be the one to lead one of the greatest comebacks in franchise history while C.J. Stroud nursed a concussion.

Saints at Panthers: Attaboy for Tyler Shough

I knew you couldn’t trust the Panthers (-5.5) with a big spread but I didn’t think they’d lose this convincingly. The Saints took the lead with 9:21 left in the second quarter and never looked back in a 17-7 win. They shut down Rico Dowdle (18 carries for 53 yards), and as expected, Bryce Young wasn’t able to build a passing game.

Meanwhile, rookie Tyler Shough shined in his first NFL win with 282 yards and 2 touchdowns. Funny how he was more impressive in this one game than Cam Ward’s been all year as the No. 1 pick. I know, Ward will get the “bad coaching” pass for 2025, which is valid to a point. But with the way Shough and Dart have played this year without the greatest of situations around them, it makes you wonder about that draft class, especially with the Shedeur Sanders slide too.

Giants at Bears: Winning the Games Eberflus Didn’t

Despite the 6-3 record, I don’t think the Bears are a serious contender and still wouldn’t trust them to make the playoffs. But this year is about Caleb Williams getting better and Ben Johnson winning the games Matt Eberflus almost always lost.

On that front, this year has been a success after the Bears rallied from 10 down in the fourth quarter with a 24-20 win after Williams was excellent on two quick touchdown drives. Poor Russell Wilson took another failed comeback on his record after coming off the bench for a concussed Jaxson Dart, which was always the concern with his playing style. Dart is a special player when he’s healthy but who knows how long that will last.

At this point, I don’t see any value in bringing Brian Daboll back next year. He loses way too many games like this with the defense blowing the lead and the offense unable to recover.

Browns at Jets: Special Special Teams

If you had to script how Justin Fields can win a 27-20 game against a stingy defense, this would certainly do the trick:

  • Jets had two special teams touchdowns in the first quarter
  • Fields had 54 passing yards with 42 coming on a game-winning screen pass touchdown to Breece Hall, who showed off after a week the team traded its two best defenders and easily could have dealt him too
  • Dillon Gabriel was sacked 6 times

Leave it to the Browns to lose a game to a team like this in a game script like that.

Next week: Some of these games will be flat out duds, but with this much great stuff on the schedule, it has to be the best Sunday of the season.

  • Bucs at Bills
  • Chargers at Jags
  • Bengals at Steelers (Unc Bowl II)
  • Seahawks at Rams (NFC Game of the Year?)
  • Chiefs at Broncos (AFC West Game of the Year?)
  • Lions at Eagles (SNF)

2025 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 5

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

It only took until Week 5, but we’ve reached that point in the NFL season where “no team is great” and everyone has a loss. Everyone has a win too, except for the Jets. As Artie Lange once said, there are times where girls won’t fvck you, but the Jets will always fvck you.

But I knew Sunday would be a crazy day when so many games had a small spread, and some of those games actually were among the biggest blowouts. This was one of the worst weeks I’ve ever had at picking winners as I’m 4-9 heading into MNF with the Chiefs left.

Definitely the kind of day that should make you reevaluate everything from the MVP to John Harbaugh’s job status in Baltimore to who might win the AFC East. The remaining members of the 1972 Dolphins could pop the champagne tonight, and the 1976 Buccaneers, 2008 Lions, and 2017 Browns are warming up the Faygo bottles for the 2025 Jets.

We’ve had eight games with a comeback opportunity this week, but it’s very interesting to note that Sunday had five double-digit comeback wins after zero in Week 4 and five in Weeks 1-3 combined.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Patriots at Bills: AFC East Game of the Year Decade?

The good news is we still have an AFC East race in 2025 between the Patriots and Bills. The bad news is the Bills may have just given the Patriots and their fanbase the relevance they’ve been seeking again for the past few years.

In the first half, both teams looked like they have been taking advantage of weak schedules and weren’t ready for primetime. Lots of penalties by Buffalo, and the Bills even coughed up two fumbles, including the first one by a non-quarterback (Keon Coleman) since the 2024 season started.

That contributed to the Bills losing the turnover battle 3-1, ending their record 26-game streak of not losing the turnover battle. But even those two early fumbles only led to a New England field goal as the Patriots gave one right back with Rhamondre Stevenson, who is known for that. At least he redeemed himself with two touchdowns.

Yes, the second half was like night and day as the offenses actually strung together scoring drives. Josh Allen had a bad pick in the red zone late in the third quarter on a night where James Cook was held in check. That led to a touchdown and 20-10 lead in the fourth quarter for New England.

In his first prime-time game, Drake Maye was nothing special in the first half. But he came of age in the second half with some brilliant throws that do look like a younger Josh Allen when he was breaking out in 2020. Except there was a hostile crowd in the background this time as Maye led the Patriots on scoring marches of 74, 90, and 37 yards in the second half.

Even after Buffalo tied the game at 20, Maye didn’t blink despite being 0-6 on previous game-winning drive attempts in his career. I thought his broken tackle to get a pass away to an incredible game from Stefon Diggs on the drive’s opening play was the best play of them all as a sack here could have blew things up in regulation.

Then he followed that up with a perfect 19-yard throw down the sideline. I wasn’t sure if New England’s rookie kicker was going to deliver, but maybe sixth-round pick Andres Borregales is about to start his own legacy after he was perfect on a 52-yard kick with 15 seconds left. Adam Vinatieri would be proud of that one, and I don’t think Stephen Gostkowski ever had one that significant in his long career.

The Bills didn’t have enough time to answer and took the loss to ensure we wouldn’t see any team start 5-0 this year. The Bills were only able to score 20 points on 10 drives as it’s a lot harder to score efficiently when you lose some fumbles and have poor average field position at your own 23 on the night.

The penalty yardage also cracked 90 for both teams, so it was a sloppy performance all around for both that I’m sure they’d like to improve on. But it wasn’t a fluky upset by any means like when the 2021 Patriots won by completing 2 passes on a windy night in Buffalo. The Bills haven’t been that sharp these last few games, and the Patriots made them pay for it.

I will say it’s not a great sign if the Bills need a double-digit comeback in the fourth quarter at home when they face a team that’s even remotely competent like Baltimore (Week 1 version) and now New England. The schedule is of course their crutch, but the Patriots get a very similarly easy schedule, and they don’t have to play the Chiefs, Texans, or Eagles. They get the Raiders, Giants, and Titans.

Granted, the Patriots already lost to the Raiders in Week 1, but this win should really boost their confidence. What they can’t do is let this be the peak of their season as the game was obviously personal (his word, not mine) for Stefon Diggs, who played a fantastic game in his return to Buffalo.

There’s a lot of season left, and the AFC East isn’t out of reach now that you got this win in Buffalo. But the great teams, the Patriots of old, they would build on this win and get a streak going. The Patriots have the Saints, Titans, and Browns next. Let’s see if they can get to 6-2 or not.

Maybe the oddsmakers weren’t crazy when they had this team favored in 11 games in May when the earliest lines came out. But as this game and many of the other games in Week 5 around the league showed, no one is great enough to just run the table anymore. It’s a week-to-week league, and this week the Patriots were a little better than Buffalo.

Remember, both of these teams almost lost to the Dolphins. No super teams in 2025. Game on.

Broncos at Eagles: Where Did That Come From?

We’re getting some solid evidence that Nick Sirianni is only as good as his coordinators he relies on so much. Vic Fangio stayed after the Super Bowl win, and his defense was awesome for three quarters on Sunday, forcing seven punts on eight drives while only giving up a field goal.

But in the fourth quarter, the Broncos flipped the script with three scoring drives for 18 points, including a curious decision to go for two by Sean Payton when it was a 17-16 game instead of earlier when the Broncos were down 14 as most teams like to do it. It all ended up working out, but I’m not sure the process was the best there.

Speaking of bad process, what the hell is the Philadelphia offense this year? The offensive coordinator (Kevin Patullo) is clearly in over his head as he can’t seem to strike any balance at all. The Eagles either throw the ball short the whole game, or like in this game, they neglect the run altogether.

How does Saquon Barkley get 6 carries for 30 yards to 46 plays for Jalen Hurts in a game you led 17-3 in the fourth quarter? How? Sure, the wideouts bitched about their targets last week, and that star duo got 18 targets this week. Technically, more like 19 as A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith were caught fighting over the incomplete Hail Mary to end the game in the most fitting fashion ever.

But all the passing this week didn’t help the Eagles score any points on their last five drives after that great big pass play to Barkley for a touchdown that made it 17-3. Denver finally clamped down and got multiple sacks on Hurts.

Before Denver’s final field goal, I think the late hit penalty on Zack Baun was iffy since the runner was still trying to churn forward for the yard he needed, so I understand why Baun did the hit. I also don’t think this type of late hit gets called that often.

Having said that, in hindsight, it may have helped the Eagles get a chance to win the game. Had there been no flag, the Broncos would face 4th-and-inches there. I have to think Sean Payton goes for it to end the game as 1 yard would run out the clock with the Eagles down to their last timeout. Either they call it right away or right after the 2-minute warning, but either way, if the Broncos convert 4th-and-1 with a running clock, the game is over right there.

So, that’s one way to think about the Baun call not deciding the game as I don’t think it did. What the Eagles really needed was another one of those blocked kicks but no such luck this week.

The winning streak is over, and the Eagles are going to have to play much better than this. They’ve gotten away with things for four weeks, but the Broncos had enough tricks up their sleeve to get past this team in Philly.

More will do it to them too if they don’t sort this offense out. 18 points shouldn’t be enough to beat this team, but on Sunday, it was good enough.

Texans at Ravens: Ruh-Roh

When you put Baltimore’s injuries this way, maybe I was foolish to pick them to beat a Houston team that also didn’t want to start 1-4 and can play strong defense.

But 44-10? What a walloping from a Houston team that was stuck in a 6-0 slugfest with the Titans to start the fourth quarter a week ago. I just hope people don’t act like this is all Lamar Jackson being out as the Ravens clearly are missing top players in the trenches, the secondary, linebacker Roquan Smith, and Derrick Henry (15 carries for 33 yards) just hasn’t been the same guy since the Buffalo fumble on opening night.

The final stat line for Cooper Rush is going to look bad with 3 interceptions, but he had 2 incompletions at a time when the Texans had already scored three touchdowns. The picks came later as the Texans scored on their first eight drives before calling the dogs off.

With the Rams coming up next and some of these injuries lingering, I’m not sure coach John Harbaugh can make it to next season at this rate. They might just say you’ve had enough cracks at it, we’re going in a different direction. Though, I’m not sure how many coaches would do well with a team missing this many highly-paid players.

The non-quarterback skill positions are where the Ravens are at their healthiest, but those players usually aren’t worth a lick if you don’t have a good quarterback or tackle to get them the ball.

Houston clearly viewed this as a get-right game and C.J. Stroud and company were excellent. He knew to get the ball out fast after past struggles to score any touchdowns in three games against this defense.

But that defense on Sunday? That’s not the Baltimore defense I know. I feel like the plane lady. “Those motherfvckers are not real.”

But the 1-4 record? Very real right now.

Buccaneers at Seahawks: Passing Clinic from the 2018 Class

Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold have been playing well this year and last season, but Sunday’s 38-35 shootout took things to another level. You can say it was one of the most efficient passing shootouts we’ve ever seen with the ball rarely hitting the ground.

The kind of game where the last one with the ball wins, but that’s the kind of game you don’t want to get into this year with the Buccaneers, who have now won four games by 1-3 points in five weeks. They turned things around late after trailing by 7 too, and when it looked like Darnold would be the one to drive for the field goal, he hit his lineman in the head with a ball that was then deflected for a crushing interception.

Light work for Mayfield already in field goal range, so the Bucs had an easy one to finish it off for the big win. Seattle’s defense has played so well but had no real answers for the Tampa passing game even without Mike Evans.

Emeka Egbuka continues to be one of the most impressive rookie wideouts you’ll ever see too. Caught all 7 targets for 163 yards and another touchdown. He just plays like he’s a 5-year vet in his absolute prime.

Tough way for the Seahawks to lose some ground in the NFC at home.

Commanders at Chargers: I’m Disappointed

I really thought this game had the potential to be Sunday’s best with the Chargers coming off a loss and Jayden Daniels returning for the Commanders. Daniels did his part, but the Chargers were very disappointing with 10 points scored. Justin Herbert learning exactly how hard it is when your right tackle is wasting big gains with penalties, your left tackle (Joe Alt) is out, and you’re getting a pass deflected at the line (again) for a pick.

It looked like Herbert threw his red-zone pick right to the defender but it was a deflection. That was the killer as the score was 20-10 at the time in the fourth quarter.

Then the Commanders drove 99 yards for a touchdown they didn’t necessarily need on 4th-and-goal, but I’ll sure take it since the Deebo Samuel score hit a parlay for me. I like to think that’s good karma for me singing the praises of Daniels since early last season.

But yeah, I think Herbert has really damaged his MVP chances these last two games, and the Chargers are looking like a team that’s not ready after all to overtake the Chiefs in the AFC West. Long way to go but funny how big a difference two weeks can make in this league.

Raiders at Colts: Geno Smith Spending His Nights in the Casinos?

“Diminishing returns” was probably the phrase I used the most this offseason about Geno Smith’s tenure in Seattle. But he was better than this in 2024. He’s just throwing anything he feels like with the Raiders, and he couldn’t even get the ball in the end zone once in this 40-6 loss.

Meanwhile, Daniel Jones was sharp again. No sacks, no turnovers. The Colts scored six straight touchdowns at one point. Granted, turnovers and a blocked punt meant three of them covered 58 yards, but they had drives of 83, 88, and 68 yards too.

A good sign that this offense and defense can just roll an inferior team like this.

Browns vs. Vikings: London Calling, And You Are Not the LOAT

I missed most of this game (sleeping), but it seems like Dillon Gabrield handled himself pretty well. No turnovers. Led a couple of touchdown drives (one of respectable length/effort) against a defense that’s supposed to be so hard to figure out.

But probably not going to be the next LOAT if your defense is giving up a clutch drive to Carson Wentz in London.

I thought Cleveland stayed pretty conservative on offense late and didn’t put this one away. You give Wentz five drives with those weapons to get a go-ahead touchdown, and chances are he’ll do it eventually. He was good on the last drive as was Jordan Addison on the game winner.

Lions at Bengals: Jake Browning Is Blowing It

I know some of the numbers look gaudy like those for Jared Goff, but the Detroit offense was not that special in Cincinnati. The running game only averaged 3.6 yards per carry. Detroit had 14 points on six first-half drives, but that included a 17-yard drive after a Jake Browning interception.

I think this game is the opposite of Ravens-Texans in the way the backup quarterback was the one throwing the game away early here before the defense did so late. Browning’s three picks were largely brutal and in his own end of the field, making it too easy on Detroit’s offense.

The nicest thing I can say is Browning did well enough after it was 28-3 that he’ll probably keep his job for the next game. But this was just so poor early that the Bengals never stood much of a chance.

Titans at Cardinals: What. The. Fvck?

You want to see one of the worst blown leads in NFL history? Bookmark this game. The Cardinals led 21-3, so Cam Ward gets his first win and first game-winning drive with an 18-point comeback, but I can’t really give him much credit outside of the last drive was nice to set up the field goal.

But it should never have come to that. Arizona’s inability to add to the 21-6 lead in the second half is all-time bad stuff from an NFL team.

First, Kyler Murray has a fumbled snap play at the Tennessee 20 where he looks woozy and has to temporarily leave the game; just a weird looking play they described as a foot issue.

In the fourth quarter, third-year back Emari Demercado breaks off what should be a 72-yard touchdown run to make it 28-6. But when he started slowing down despite L’Jarius Snead’s pursuit, I knew he was in trouble. This was going to be a Leon Lett situation all over again. But then he dropped the ball early to celebrate and it became the 2008 DeSean Jackson play, which is about the dumbest thing you can do in a game. Adonai Mitchell (Colts) just did this shit last week to cost the Colts a game.

I would cut his ass tomorrow. He’s a UDFA who just fumbled the biggest run of his career. He’s expendable. Make a point to the rest of the league that if you do this, you get cut.

From there, good deep throw by Ward to Calvin Ridley for 47 yards to set up a touchdown, though the Cardinals missed an extra point some would argue they shouldn’t have been kicking anyway. So, it was still a 2-score game at 21-12. Then with just under 5:00 left, Ward gets picked on a tipped ball that is somehow fumbled, recovered by the Titans and good for a touchdown to make it 21-19. Just one of the craziest bounces you’ll ever see.

Let’s not close the book on Ward’s LOAT case yet. My goodness. Then of course, lackadaisical Murray and his offense couldn’t close the deal on their end with some conservative runs by the coordinator. That put it on the defense in the last two minutes, and for the third week in a row, the Cardinals watched a team win on a field goal with no time left on the clock, a first in NFL history.

This was some serious 2006 Rex Grossman shit by Tennessee winning the game that way. I wouldn’t be surprised if Arizona (2-3) craters from here a la Chicago last year after the Hail Mary in Washington.

Giants at Saints: Dropping the Dart on Your Foot

I picked the Saints to get their first win for coach Kellen Moore and quarterback Spencer Rattler as they just have more weapons to lean on than the Giants do with Malik Nabers out. That certainly proved true, but it’s not like the Giants didn’t literally fumble this game away after an early 14-3 lead before the Saints scored the final 23 points.

Jaxson Dart, they show his mom more in one game than all of Taylor Swift’s screentime in 2024. But Dart had a really bad fumble in the second half where he just dropped the ball on a scramble. Then Cam Skattebo, the other Great White Hope here had a bigger fumble that was returned for a touchdown one play into the fourth quarter when the Giants were down 19-14. That was a dagger.

Should the Saints have drafted Dart? Maybe. But this game certainly didn’t make them feel regret.

Dolphins at Panthers: One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Super Bowl to Call

I know Mark Sanchez has a different role (analyst) for FOX than Eric Collins (play-by-play), but it’s amusing to view this weekend as the one where FOX likely lost one and gained the other. We’ll see what the facts say about the Sanchez fight/stabbing case, but it doesn’t sound promising for his innocence and future employment.

Meanwhile, Collins may have just supplanted Gus Johnson as the guy who can bring energy to NFL games you really don’t want to watch. This guy got a 17-0 stinker between the Dolphins and Panthers where Miami forgot how to score and the Panthers kept making big play after big play behind Rico Dowdle (206 rushing yards) and company.

It ended up going back and forth, and you would have thought from the way Collins, the voice of the Charlotte Hornets, called the game that you were watching a Super Bowl or something important.

When I heard Collins say, “the Dolphins are hanging on like a cat on a screen door” I knew something great was going to come out of this guy’s mouth after that gem, and he took the internet by storm with his enthusiastic calls:

From now on, I want Eric Collins calling D-crew games. Screw hearing the likes of Spero Dedes or Jonathan Vilma doing games involving the Cardinals, Titans, Panthers, and Saints. Give me Mr. Collins from now on. Please and thank you.

But yeah, the Dolphins (1-4) are pure trash to blow a 17-point lead to a team as bad as Carolina.

Cowboys at Jets: Just End the Season…

Any idea that the Cowboys were a road fraud on offense this year was shut down by the poor defense the Jets play on a weekly basis for Aaron Glenn. The Cowboys were balanced with four touchdown passes from Dak and 180 rushing yards. I never even heard of Ryan Flournoy (2024 sixth-round pick), but the Cowboys got 114 receiving yards out of him with CeeDee Lamb still out.

Dallas led 30-3 late in the third quarter before some points in garbage time for Justin Fields and the offense. That’s two weeks in a row I picked the Jets and got burned badly. I just don’t think you can pick them to win right now. They’re poor on both sides of the ball.

Next week: Eagles-Giants on TNF isn’t the best way to start a week, but maybe some divisional drama can emerge. No chance in hell I’m getting up for Broncos-Jets in London or Germany or whatever they’re doing this week. We’ll see if the Rams can drop the Ravens to 1-5, and at this point, why shouldn’t they? Sunday afternoon is pretty bad (Bucs-49ers the best?) but it gives way to a hell of a game at night with Lions-Chiefs. Then it’s another one of those silly MNF overlapped doubleheaders (Bills-Falcons and Bears-Commanders). Much better games than last week’s, at least.

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 16

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Steelers at Ravens: Pittsburgh Might Lose Out Now

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Patriots at Bills: Running Backs Matter?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But this is why the Patriots are 3-12.

Buccaneers at Cowboys: Where Was This Dallas Team Earlier?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rams at Jets: Almost a Historic Game

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cardinals at Panthers: Adios, Arizona

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

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

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

Browns at Bengals: Should Have Been Jameis All Along

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Titans at Colts: The Almost Epic Comeback of the Year  

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

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

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

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

Giants at Falcons: Penix Will Always Remember His First

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

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

Jaguars at Raiders: Vegas Wins (Sorta?)

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

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

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

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 13

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

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.

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.  

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 12

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cowboys at Commanders: Under Bettors in Absolute Shambles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Titans at Texans: Houston Really Does Have a Problem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eagles at Rams: Trench Warfare

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

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

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

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

Lions at Colts: Workman Like Win for the Lions

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

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

Patriots at Dolphins: Tua’s Whipping Boys

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

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

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

Broncos at Raiders: The Sweep Is Complete

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 9

~ 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.