Ten NFL Takes - Week Ten

Take number one: When your quarterback tosses five picks on the road against a team that won its division last year (and will probably win it again this year), you're down sixteen points at halftime, but come back to win because your kicker (who was in the equivalent of the pro football minor league last spring) burns the uprights not once but twice, it just might be your year. We need to get our heads around the idea one of the few teams never to have made a Super Bowl, much less win one, might change both of those things this year. Great win, Detroit.

Take number two: I have written about how Kansas City's secret sauce is its scouting and drafting. Consider that they have *three* future Hall of Famers on their roster who they drafted out of college (and traded away a fourth a few years ago for a haul of picks) on top of other key contributors like Creed Humphrey, Isaiah Pacheco, Trent McDuffie, George Karlaftis, and Rashee Rice (pre injury) and you understand why someone most of us have never heard of (Leo Chanel) steps up at the end of a game they should have lost, blocks a field goal and saves their undefeated season going into the game of the year at Buffalo next weekend.

Take number three: Maybe we should not have been surprised that the rap on a quarterback prospect coming out of college was that he was inaccurate and did not perform well if his offensive line was leaky would struggle with accuracy in the pros when his line could not protect him. People forget that in limited preseason action, Caleb Williams was a 50% passer. A couple of good games against bad teams led people to believe Williams had "figured things out" but he has regressed back to the hold-the-ball-too-long, is-not-reading-defenses rookie he was for the first few games earlier this season. Twenty three drives since losing to the Commanders have resulted in precisely zero touchdowns and since their bye, they have scored twenty-seven points in three games. In retrospect, the Bears should have traded up from the ninth pick and taken a bookend offensive lineman (of which three were available) instead of another wide receiver when their offense already had plenty of weapons. 

Take number four: When you live on the east coast and don't shell out money for the Red Zone, west coast teams sometimes slip below your radar. This year, the Chargers, Cardinals, and Broncos have all quietly put together solid seasons. I saw the Cardinals for the first time yesterday because local CBS forced me to watch the Jets play them and it was not even a contest. Great example of a *team* that does not have a lot of household names or big contracts, absolutely dog walking another "team" with plenty of big names but zero identity. The Cardinals are a bit of a knock off Ravens team on offense. They bully you in the trenches with a great run game and have a dual threat at quarterback who it is almost impossible to scheme for. Their defense is full of no names put get after the ball and have not given up a touchdown in the last three games. Not too shabby.

Take number five: Is it too soon to look at the off season coaching carousel? The Jets and Saints have already fired their head coaches and barring massive turnarounds, the Jaguars, Bears, Cowboys, and maybe the Browns, Raiders, and Giants will all be moving on from their head coaches too. These are not terrible rosters but to a team, the culture, the vibes, the whatever-you-want-to-call-it just is not there.

Take number six: In addition to the coaching carousel, if we're being real, most of the playoff intrigue is already gone, and it is only week ten. In the AFC, the Chiefs, Bills, Texans, Steelers, Ravens, and Chargers are somewhere between mortal locks and very good chances, leaving that seventh spot (currently occupied by the Broncos) open. In the NFC, the Eagles, Commanders, Vikings, Lions, Packers, Falcons, are in that same position, leaving the three teams in the NFC West probably needing to win the division to get in. 

Take number seven: Ten weeks in, you just know who the bad teams are. You do. Congratulations Carolina, you won two straight, but you're still awful. Ditto the Saints. You won one for your interim coach who was so nervous before the game he clogged the toilet in the coach's bathroom. Start your off season scouting at the top of the draft, G-Men, Cowboys, Raiders, and Browns.

Take number eight: Football can be a cruel sport. A guy like Baker Mayfield, who takes A JOURNEY from first overall pick to cast off *from Carolina* only to rehab himself in L.A. and then find his groove in Tampa, is leading a team playing without their two top wide receivers and they scrap and claw and fight only to lose three straight by one score to superior competition. You deserve a better fate, six.

Take number nine: Speaking of cruel, my hometown Commandos (again, HATE Commanders name) showed why it is a game of inches. A few inches short on a fourth down to keep a drive alive to win the game. A few inches too far when the Steelers go to a hard count that gets us penalized for offsides and a game the R-words should have won ends up as a loss with a quick turnaround up to Philly for a Thursday night game against maybe the hottest team in the league right now. Woke up Sunday 7-2, may wake up Friday 7-4 and no longer leading the division. Tough stuff.

Take number ten: I have nothing to say about the Cowboys play on the field. It's awful, but what I do have something to say is how stupid do you have to be to spend a billion dollars on a stadium and miss a glaring (pun intended) design flaw that results in blinding sunlight shining through the glass on one side of the stadium for an hour plus making it almost impossible to run your offense and why, for the love of god, did you not construct some sort of louver system that could block it out? 

Ten NFL Takes - Week Nine

Take number one: When the Ravens are clicking in all three phases, they are the best team in the league, full stop. A Denver team that had won five of six and has one of the best defenses in the league was embarrassed in Baltimore yesterday. Lamar threw for just shy of 300 yards on 16 completions (which is almost unheard of) and notched his record fourth perfect passer rating, Derrick Henry eclipsed 100 yards rushing, Zay Flowers had 100 plus yards receiving *in the first half* (for the second time this season!) and the defense and special teams both showed up. The Ravens hung 41 on the Broncos without it looking difficult. Their best is better than everyone else’s best but the question for this team is no longer about making the playoffs or even getting to the Super Bowl, it’s winning it all. Sports history is littered with teams that ran up impressive regular season records and contended for a title but never won. The Ravens are one more playoff flameout away from being labeled chokers.

Take number two: It is weird to live in a world where the Detroit Lions are the best team by far in the NFC, but here we are. They thumped Green Bay at Green Bay on a wet field in lousy conditions without their top defensive end and (for most of the game) their do-it-all safety and yet the game was never really in doubt. They can win on the ground, they can win in the air, they can win with special teams, and their defense is solid (although I still think they need to make a trade to bolster their pass rush). The Lions have just one outdoor game left on their schedule where weather will probably play a factor (a December game at Chicago) with every other game in a dome aside from an end-of-the-year road game in San Francisco. They’re going to get the number one seed in the NFC and have to be considered the odds on favorite to represent the conference in the Super Bowl.

Take number three: There is some bad football being played this year. Back in the day, we would get toward the end of the season and some quirk in the schedule would result in what was derisively called “The Toilet Bowl” between two of the league’s worst teams. There were two Toilet Bowl games yesterday – Panthers/Saints and Titans/Patriots, both of which were borderline unwatchable. A quarter of the teams in the entire league have two wins and are going nowhere fast. The Saints fired their head coach and the Raiders dumped a bunch of their position coaches this morning. Expect more to come.

Take number four: I saw a wild statistic on NBC’s Sunday Night pre-game show. It was something to the effect of there have been the same number of field goals made from 60 yards or more this year (four) as were made in the league’s first 80 years. We are living in a golden age of field goal kickers and it is just … weird. When I was growing up, anything beyond 50 yards was rarely made and PATs were chip shots from the two yard line. Now, PATs are the equivalent of 40 yard field goals (and made routinely) and coaches have no qualms about rolling out a kicker at 60 yards or more. They are still low percentage attempts (about which we’ll discuss later) but it is no longer shocking when a ball sails through the uprights at that distance, just ask the Bills and Dolphins.

Take number five: The Jets refuse to leave us alone. Like some football version of WWE’s Undertaker, just when you are ready to bury them, the Jets pop up off the mat. Yes, their win over the Texans at home was decent (although they did nothing in the first half), no, I do not think it will make one bit of difference in the end. That loss to the Patriots doomed their season, the math just is not there for them to make the playoffs.

Take number six: I am a week late to the Anthony Richardson discourse, but First Things First had a graphic I thought was useful. They compared Richardson’s first 10 games in the pros to Josh Allen’s first 10 games in the pros. In almost every category – completion percentage, touchdown-to-interception ratio, quarterback ranking – they were almost identical. The point is not that Richardson will become Josh Allen, just that 10 games is a too-small sample size to draw career-level conclusions about a player. It may be that Richardson simply needs more time to develop better practice and study habits, needs to pay more attention to his conditioning, or just, well, grow up, after all the kid is still only 21 years old, but maybe giving him some time without the pressure of being the starting quarterback will end up working. If not, the Colts are two years away from needing a new signal caller.

Take number seven: If the Bears knock down that Commanders Hail Mary last week, the various sins committed – the goal line hand off to the back up center, the out route the Bears conceded on the penultimate play of the game that got Washington to midfield, the linebacker spying Daniels on the last play, and Tyrique Stevenson jawing with the crowd – all get forgotten in the narrative of a spirited comeback. Instead, Bears fans marinated in that loss for a week and then watched the team lay an egg in Arizona yesterday. Why do I bring that up? Consider the Eagles. They were cruising against a bad Jaguars team, let that bad team back in the game, and then, up five late in the fourth quarter, instead of punting on fourth down and pinning the Jags deep in their own territory, the Eagles try a 58-yard field goal to try and go up by eight. The kick misses, Jacksonville gets great field position, is marching down for a touchdown that will put them ahead, and the Eagles get bailed out because Trevor Lawrence is, as I mentioned last week, a rich man’s Daniel Jones. If the Jags score instead of turning it over, Philly talk radio is Three Mile Island level radioactive this morning and the narrative is much different. Instead, the Eagles are a half-game out of first place, riding a nice winning streak and everyone is going nuts over Saquon’s reverse hurdle.

Take number eight: Jameis Winston went into yesterday’s game against the Chargers with 99 career starts and 99 career interceptions and in true Jameis fashion, he made sure that his one interception per game average remained intact by throwing not one, not two, but three picks. As I said last week, it’s feast or famine with this guy. What makes no sense to me is that this is a team that clearly needs to rebuild and has contracts they could unload in order to mitigate the dead cap hit they are going to take (it’s just a question of how much) when they inevitably cut ties with Deshaun Watson but they are stubbornly refusing to do so even though their season is over.

Take number nine: Dunking on the Cowboys never gets old. In recent years, it was reserved for their playoff failings, but this year, the fun is beginning much earlier. In retrospect, we should have seen this coming. The team’s failure to lock in Lamb and Prescott handicapped their ability to sign free agents, the offense is one dimensional, the head coach was not extended, and they brought in a new defensive coordinator whose recent track record was lousy. While the team has been a bit unlucky with injuries, that is not the only reason Dallas is sitting at 3-5. Jerry can talk all he wants about making moves at the trade deadline, the reality is that the season was lost before it ever began.

Take number ten: That the Giants and Panthers are playing in Munich this Sunday goes to show that we are still punishing the Germans for starting those two world wars. You would be hard pressed to find a worse match up, perhaps the first foreign Toilet Bowl game.