Oct 28 2020
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Weeks 5 and 6 were incredibly unimpressive. They were rifled with blowouts and uninspiring matchups across the board. I genuinely fell asleep each of the past two weeks while watching the red-zone channel.

Week 7 was a revelation. Within mere seconds, the Bengals take the lead over the Browns and the Falcons overtake the Lions each with maybe a minute left in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, the Titans are nearing a gargantuan comeback against the Steelers to stay undefeated. Suddenly, the Browns regain the lead just before the final buzzer, the Lions do so with triple-zeroes on the clock and the Titans miss a game-tying field goal. Again, all of that happened within seconds, or at least it felt that way.

Sunday night, the Seahawks played in yet another non-normal football game against the Cardinals. Though I must admit that I missed pretty much all of this one. (World Series baseball >>> Week 7 football.)

What a fucking week. Let’s talk about it.

1. The Josh/Jaheim Scale

I’m not going to lie: I did not watch much of this week’s game. They played the damn Jets. Who wants to watch that? Every time Allen showed up on the red-zone channel, I screamed Get this man off my TV!

The good: I’ll take 300 yards any day of the week from Allen, regardless of the opponent.

The bad: They scored zero touchdowns. Allen also fumbled in the red zone.

The weird: Buffalo had nine drives. They fumbled once and kicked eight field goals (making six). They became the first team to win without scoring a touchdown or punting ever. (I do not count anything that happened in the 1940’s as the “NFL”.)

2. Kansas City Dominates Yet Again

The Chiefs walloped the Broncos, nothing special there. But this is now two weeks in a row in which they’ve rather handily won without Patrick Mahomes doing much of anything. It’s not like he’s been bad — they just didn’t need him. That’s terrifying for the rest of the league.

Opponents are inviting the Chiefs to run — which is better than letting Mahomes cook — but that strategy only works when your offense can score too. Denver and Buffalo failed to do so. In that case, you basically are just letting the Chiefs run the clock out from the opening kickoff. 

This team is unbelievable. Calling them the Super Bowl favorites doesn’t seem sufficient, and yet…

3. Is it crazy to call Tampa Bay the best team in the NFL?

The Chiefs are the Super Bowl favorites, but the Buccaneers look every bit like a team that can beat the Chiefs. They’ve got a defense that can funnel the run without hemorrhaging yards. They have the pass rush and secondary to simultaneously slow Mahomes down.

And on the other side of the ball, they’ve got Tom motherfucking Brady.

For basically the past 20 years, it’s been impossible to distinguish where to credit the Patriots success. Is Brady a system quarterback or is he the system? Well, it seems rather clear that the only reason New England has been competent the past few years has been Brady. We’re now seeing what happens when you give Brady bonafide weapons like Chris Godwin, Mike Evans, Scotty Miller, maybe-not-washed Rob Gronkowski and soon the probably-should-be-in-prison Antonio Brown.

The only teams to give Kansas City fits the past two years were the Patriots and 49ers. Tampa Bay has a defense nearly as good as those teams, paired with the best offense of the trio.

4. Pittsburgh can make the same case

The Steelers win over the Titans preserved the dream of an undefeated season. It also proved why Pittsburgh is probably Tampa Bay’s AFC counterpart as the most complete team. Their front seven continues to bring pressure on over 50% of dropbacks, an NFL-record pace. The Steelers also are legit four-deep at wide receiver, something not many teams can say these days.

That does not mean Pittsburgh is the AFC’s best team. That honor is reserved for Kansas City as long as Patrick Mahomes is upright.

The reason I give the Buccaneers more credit than the Steelers is simple. I trust Brady more than Roethlisberger. You can’t throw interceptions like Roethlisberger did against Tennessee and expect to beat Kansas City. As long as Dee Ford isn’t offsides, Brady won’t make those same mistakes.

5. The Rookie Quarterbacks are BALLING

Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert continue to impress week after week. Burrow completed nearly 75% of his passes for over 400 yards with three touchdowns and one pick, while adding 34 yards and a score on the ground. He gave the Bengals the lead on a three-yard touchdown pass on 4th-and-goal with just over one minute left in the game. It’s not his fault his defense sucks. (Of course, he still covered like a fucking pro.)

Herbert looks like a mediocre college basketball player who thrives in the wide-open NBA. In fact, his offensive coordinator at Oregon is now the head coach at UNLV, who had ZERO yards passing at halftime last week. Meanwhile Herbert threw for nearly 350 and three touchdowns with 66 rushing yards and a touchdown.

I find the social media/talk show debates between Burrow and Herbert at this point in time to be rather pointless. Nobody knew Herbert could be this good, this fast period. Even those who thought believed in him were not advocating for taking him number one overall. This isn’t a Winston-Mariota, Goff-Wentz, or even Mayfield-Darnold-Allen debate. So what are we doing?

6. Baker Mayfield Comes Alive

The first quarter against Cincinnati could not have gone any worse for Mayfield. He went 0-5 with an interception and that interception caused his star receiver, Odell Beckham Jr. to tear his ACL while attempting to make a tackle. It’s completely unfair to blame that on Mayfield, yet we all kinda wanted to in the moment.

Without his top target, Mayfield absolutely dominated the rest of the game. He was nearly perfect. After that 0-5 start, he finished 22-23 for 297 yards and five touchdowns, including this dime for the game-winner.

I said on last week’s Picks and Questions that Mayfield needed to prove something because his job was at stake. While the Bengals defense is underwhelming and Mayfield rarely looked past his first read on those 22 completions, he still made the throws.

The Browns are now 5-2 for the first time ever — I don’t know if that’s true, but it feels right — and in pretty damn good position to chase a Wild Card spot. Browns fans should be optimistic. However, I won’t talk the pessimists off the proverbial ledge. I share their pain.

7. Shanahan Dunks On Belichick

We haven’t seen Kyle Shanahan’s offense versus Bill Belichick’s defense since Super Bowl XXXIII a few years ago. Sunday’s game played out like the first half of that Super Bowl as the Niners stomped the Patriots 33-6. San Francisco nearly doubled New England’s in terms of passing yards and rushing yards.

Part of that was because Cam Newton looked awful. The Patriots inability to find any skill position talent has plagued them for years. Brady was able to mask those flaws with perfect recall of the playbook. Newton could never replicate such mastery, so the Patriots needed Newton’s physical gifts to compensate. It’s impossible to say if his deficiencies are caused by lingering effects of COVID-19, a reaggravated shoulder injury, or if he’s simply not very good anymore. Regardless, the Patriots are 2-4 with playoffs hopes dwindling for the first time since 2008.

As a pessimistic Bills fan, I still hesitate to rule the Pats out. One win against Allen next week — who Belichick has owned — and the Patriots are a mere one game back of the AFC East lead with two games against the Jets left on the schedule. Don’t start writing the Patriots’ obituaries just yet.

8. State of the NFC East

When last we spoke, the NFC East stunk. Nothing has changed.

The Eagles currently lead the division at 2-4-1 after a comeback win over the Giants last Thursday. As I said last week, Carson Wentz is playing like Carson Wentz again. Going forward, Philadelphia just needs competency and consistency from him and they’ll win the division.

The Giants had a chance to make something happen the past two weeks, but by blowing both games against Dallas and Philadelphia they effectively neutered their chances of winning this division. Daniel Jones falling down while running in the open field for a surefire touchdown is emblematic of how the Giants season has gone.

Washington is bad, but even with Kyle Allen under center, I can’t quite rule them out for some reason.

I feel like I’m forgetting a team… Hmmm. Nope, let’s move on.

9. A few words on DK Metcalf

Metcalf only pulled in two catches for 23 yards on Sunday Night, mostly because Tyler Lockett played like he was paying Russell Wilson by the reception. But he managed to steal the show anyway:

Obviously, this play lit social media ablaze. There was everything from outlandish comparisons to Usain Bolt, to cross-sport parallels to LeBron blocking Andre Iguodala to god knows what Cable Thanos created. (Here’s what he did.)

I think people kinda missed the bigger picture here. Metcalf showcased two unique traits: unworldly athleticism and a relentless desire to win at all costs. That’s the makeup of a Hall of Fame caliber player. That probably seems premature and maybe it is; after all, it was just a tackle in a Week 7 game.

Here’s my thing: normal people can’t do make that play and the vast majority of professional athletes don’t make that play. Metcalf did. He immediately recognized exactly where he needed to be over 100 yards away and calculated when he needed to be there. That’s not coachable — that’s in his DNA. Something about that seems truly special.

10. Monday Night Takeaways (or lack thereof)

The Rams beat the Bears rather handily 24-10, but I feel like I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know.

We know the Bears’ offense stinks, especially against capable defenses. Matt Nagy doesn’t get his playmakers the ball in space. He dials up plays for Cordarrelle Patterson and Jimmy Graham instead of Allen Robinson Anthony Miller. The 5-2 Bears are not very good, but are not many wins away from making the playoffs.

The Rams are also 5-2 and I still don’t know if they are any good. They’ve beaten the NFC East and the Bears. I guess I’m moderately impressed by their win over Dallas, holding Dak Prescott to 17 points? Then there’s the whole 28-3 thing against Buffalo. Should I be impressed they came back from such a deficit or discouraged by the fact they ever fell behind that much in the first place? Is Jared Goff any good?

I. Don’t. Know.

11. The Falcons and Lions Delivered

I just want to thank the Falcons and Lions for creating the ridiculous end-of-game scenario of which “my mind cannot even conceive“. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the Falcons losing because they accidentally scored a touchdown. Only the Falcons, man. Even in fantasy football, this game was batshit crazy. I was facing Todd Gurley, but had T.J. Hockenson on my team.

What a stupid game. I loved it.

12. Old QB Check-in

Brady is absolutely dealing right now. He’s firmly in the MVP conversation. I don’t know if any athlete has played this well at 43 years old. It’ll be interesting if his age starts to show as the season progresses.

Roethlisberger led the Steelers to another win, but threw three interceptions. That seems about on par with expectations.

Drew Brees is quietly playing extremely well. He is PFF’s highest graded quarterback since Week 4. He faces a new challenge next week as New Orleans plays their first game of the year outdoors in Chicago.

Rivers had a bye. Any chance Chris Ballard is making calls about Jameis Winston? No? Well, I tried.

13. Sooooo When’s the Draft?

It might only be Week 8, but several teams’ seasons are effectively over.

#Tanking4Trevor: New York Jets, Jacksonville Jaguars

How did we get here?: Atlanta Falcons, Minnesota Vikings, Houston Texans

Developmental year: Cincinnati Bengals

Mathematically can’t be ruled out: entire NFC East

14. Ranking the Top Five-ish Teams

  1. Kansas City Chiefs
  2. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
  3. Seattle Seahawks
  4. Pittsburgh Steelers
  5. Tennessee Titans
  6. Green Bay Packers
  7. Baltimore Ravens

15. MVP Tracker

  1. Russell Wilson
  2. Patrick Mahomes
  3. Tom Brady
  4. Aaron Rodgers
  5. Ryan Tannehill

Posted inFootball NFL
Tagsatlanta falcons baker mayfield ben roethlistberger buffalo bills chicago bears cincinnati bengals cleveland browns detroit lions DK Metcalf joe burrow josh allen justin herbert kansas los angeles chargers los angeles rams new england patriots patric Philadelphia Eagles pittsburgh steelers san francisco 49ers tampa bay buccaneers tom brady

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