Oct 22 2020
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Listen, we can’t all be Russell Wilson grinding 363 days a year. Us washed up athletes need a break every now and then, so I joined Aaron Rodgers on a bye in Week 5. The difference is that I came out of it refreshed and energized with TWO columns this week. Rodgers almost threw two pick-sixes.

1. The Josh/Jaheim Scale

Alright you know what’s coming here. 14/27 for 122 yards. 2 touchdowns and 1 pick in 26-17 loss to the Chiefs. That’s got Jaheim written all over it.

I don’t love the Bill Simmons theory of judging the strength of a team/player based on how scared you are of them (i.e. you know Russell Wilson is very good because if Seattle has the ball with 90 seconds left down 3 points, you know he’s going to score). However, as a Bills fan, I never for a second felt Buffalo had any chance to win that game in the second half, even when the game was within a single possession.

Allen was, and is, bad. He looked much more like the 2019 version of himself than the first four weeks of 2020 version. He missed several throws that you just have to make to beat teams like the Chiefs. And if Buffalo has championship aspirations, you have to beat the Chiefs.

My deep dark fears of the Bills becoming something like DeMar DeRozan’s Raptors or Russell Westbrook’s Thunder are manifesting. When it’s good — and by “it”, I mean Allen of course — it looks promising. Maybe this is the year they can beat LeBron. For four weeks, Buffalo looked like a championship contender. But the reality is that it is, and always has been, fools gold. Allen’s first four games were a mirage.

2. Buffalo’s Interesting Defensive Game Plan

Believe it or not, the Bills defense arguably had a better performance than the offense. Buffalo dared Kansas City to run the ball. KC happily obliged; in fact, Kansas City had their highest early-down rush rate in the Mahomes-era. Edwards-Helaire may have ran for 6.2 yards per carry on 26 attempts, but that’s better than the alternative of Mahomes throwing the ball an extra ten to fifteen times.

The idea behind this strategy is to encourage Andy Reid to run the ball — effectively daring him to slow down Mahomes himself — because Buffalo knows they can’t. Nobody can for 60 minutes.

The Chargers and Patriots have played Mahomes better than any other teams. The problem is that their game plans are not replicable. The Chargers boast two truly elite pass rushers in Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram, as well as an elite secondary. New England also has an elite secondary and the greatest coach of all-time.

Buffalo’s defense is good — well, it used to be anyways — but they don’t have a Bosa or a Stephon Gilmore or a Belichick. Thus, this is the best way for them to beat the Chiefs. If Allen hadn’t sucked, it might’ve worked.

3. Mike Vrabel: Coaching Genius?

Vrabel executed yet another brilliant clock management trick on Sunday, which essentially won the game for Tennessee. He’s proving to be quite the situational football connoisseur.

Additionally, Vrabel has the Titans looking like one of the AFC’s top contenders despite a recent COVID-19 outbreak. The Patriots had a more contained outbreak, and they look like a team that hadn’t practiced in two weeks. The Titans have looked dominant the past two weeks, at least offensively.

Vrabel clearly gained his situational football degree from the Belichickian school of thought, but his greatest lesson might’ve been the ability to, shall we say, “bend” the NFL rules and regulations to his team’s benefit.

I’m not saying the Titans cheated, but I’m not not saying it either.

4. The Jets Owe Todd Bowles an Apology

I severely underrated Tampa Bay’s defense before the season. I thought their pass rushers had a fluky good year in 2019 and the secondary was a significant weakness. However, Bowles can dial up pressure whenever — he’s that good as a defensive coordinator. Tampa Bay has drafted and developed extremely well in the secondary as well.

In the modern NFL, very few defenses matter. By that, I mean that very few defenses are capable of significantly affecting the outcome of the game on their own. The outcome of a game is often driven by how the quarterback performs on his own, not necessarily how the defense impacts the quarterback’s play.

Those sound like the same thing, but they aren’t. Allen’s performance against Kansas City is a good example. Allen sucked, but was that because the Chiefs played excellent defense or because Allen just sucked?

The point is: Tampa Bay’s defense matters and Todd Bowles is a huge reason why.

5. Don’t Overreact to the Packers Loss

The lopsided final score in Green Bay’s 38-10 loss to Tampa Bay makes us want to write the Packers off as frauds after they dominated the league through four games. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Their first four games came against teams with terrible defenses, which allowed Rodgers and the offense to thrive. This was their first true challenge of the season and they hit a wall. It’s the NFL. Shit happens.

I’d say this game that proved the Bucs belong in the NFC’s top tier more than anything about the Packers.

6. Baker Struggles… again

Mayfield didn’t have much of a chance against the insane Steelers front seven. He was already dealing with a significant rib injury and many of the Browns top offensive weapons joined on the injury report all week. He’s gone through a turnstile of incompetent coaches in his career. While Kevin Stefanski seems to be a good hire, it’s only been six weeks into a new regime (in a COVID-19 offseason no less).

With that said, I’m getting tired of making excuses for the former number one overall selection. If you are the guy, you should prove it regardless of the circumstances. Look what Deshaun Watson has done in Houston or what Andrew Luck did in Indianapolis. Mayfield isn’t in an apocalyptic situation like Josh Rosen in Arizona or Sam Darnold in New York.

The Browns organization and roster are ready to start winning. Mayfield either needs to be a reason why the Browns turn things around, or he’ll be searching for a new team sooner rather than later.

7. The Patriots are Mortal

The Patriots lost to a severely compromised Broncos team with Drew Lock returning from injury. Wait, what? Bill Belichick does not lose to young quarterbacks, or at least not ones who aren’t really that good. (I guess New England did lose to Brock Osweiler that one time…) We can probably chalk this one up to the lack of practice time time over the past couple weeks, but there are cracks in the Patriot Way foundation.

This offense is dying from a lack of talented receivers. Despite the fact that there were literally over a dozen of them in this year’s draft alone, they Patriots didn’t draft one. In 2019, they inexplicably decided that N’Keal Harry was worth a first round selection over *takes deep breath* Deebo Samuel, AJ Brown, Mecole Hardman, Parris Campbell, DK Metcalf, Dionte Johnson, and Terry McLaurin — all Day 2 selections. Whew boy.

8. CODE RED in Dallas (Pun not intended)

I picked Freddie Kitchens to win Coach of the Year before the 2019 season. I thought I fucked up again and picked Mike McCarthy this year, so I went back and checked my preseason predictions. Luckily, I picked Mike Tomlin (Not lookin’ too bad!)

Regardless, I was definitely high on McCarthy’s ability to turn Dallas into a playoff force. I did pick the Cowboys to reach the NFC title game. Through six weeks, Dallas does lead the NFC Least (not a typo), but they are falling apart at the seams. Anonymous Cowboys players blasted McCarthy in the media after their embarrassing 38-10 loss to Arizona.

Some smart football analyst — I think PFF‘s Eric Eager? — thought Dallas could be 2020’s version of the 2019 Browns, and that prediction appears to be rather accurate. The only difference is that Dallas still might fall ass-backwards into a home playoff game.

9. The Rest of the East

Let’s figure out how in the fuck the Cowboys are wining the NFC East. The Football Team has no quarterback, offensive line or really any talent outside of McLaurin and Antonio Gibson. The Giants are coached by Joe Judge and Jason Garrett — nobody knows how to blow a winnable NFC East like Garrett — and have Daniel Jones at quarterback. But those teams should stink.

The Eagles should not be this bad. That’s what happens when you are on their second or third string positions at nearly every single offensive position except quarterback; though they might’ve been better off with a backup quarterback the first couple games.

The Eagles appeared to be flapping their wings as Travis Fulgram emerged as a legit receiver. As soon as there is hope, naturally Miles Sanders and Zach Ertz immediately get hurt. The great news for the Eagles is that Carson Wentz is starting to look like Carson Wentz again. With Dak Prescott out for the season, Wentz is absolutely the best quarterback in the division. That’s a huge point in Philadelphia’s favor.

10. The Rookie Wide Receivers are AWESOME

Everyone knew the 2020 wide receiver class was special, but holy shit. Nobody knew they would be this good, this fast.

Justin Jefferson and CeeDee Lamb rank fifth and seventh in receiving yards in the entire NFL. The Steelers found another gem in Chase Claypool, who already has six touchdowns. It took Tee Higgins all of five minutes to become Joe Burrow’s favorite target and send A.J. Green to the retirement home.

Henry Ruggs, Jerry Jeudy and Brandon Aiyuk have all flashed the talent that made them first round picks and it’s only a matter of time before the numbers follow. Even later round picks like Darnell Mooney, Gabriel Davis and Tyler Johnson are already becoming fixtures in their team’s offenses.

We haven’t even seen much from Jalen Reagor, Bryan Edwards, Michael Pittman Jr. or KJ Hamler because of injuries. This class is special and there’s another one on the way in 2021. Don’t count on New England finding one, though.

11. It’s Tua Time

I wrote a full length piece about the Dolphins decision to promote Tua Tagovailoa to the starting job yesterday, but I wanted to add a bit more context here.

The Miami Dolphins Can’t Lose by Starting Tua Tagovailoa

I focused a bit too heavily on the downside of Tagovailoa in 2020. What happens if Tua sucks? I failed to devote enough attention to the immense upside of Tagovailoa. He is among the greatest statistical quarterbacks in college football history, after all.

I wasn’t in love with Tagovailoa as a prospect because I thought he benefited tremendously from an offensive line and receiving core full of NFL stars; his top four receivers in 2019 will likely all be first round picks when it’s all said and done.

However, I’ve been wrong about quarterbacks before… BUT NOT ABOUT WHO YOU WANT ME TO SAY. Rodger Sherman wrote an excellent piece for The Ringer from the positive point of view on Tagovailoa. This was his thesis:

The Dolphins aren’t choosing between making the playoffs with Fitz (who, by the way, has never made the postseason in 15 NFL seasons) and letting their fledgling quarterback test his wings. They’re choosing to make the playoffs—with Tua Tagovailoa.

Rodger Sherman, The Ringer

That is the point I should have emphasized more. Sherman also mentioned the 2017 Chiefs, who sat Mahomes for the entire season because they thought they could win a Super Bowl with Alex Smith. What if they blew a real chance at the Super Bowl by doing that?

The Dolphins aren’t Super Bowl contenders, but what if Tagovailoa is just better than Fitzpatrick? It’s really not that hard to believe. Miami’s absolute ceiling under Fitzpatrick is what? A fluky one-and-done playoff appearance? With Tagovailoa, they still have that ceiling, but with the potential of Tagovailoa stealing a win in the playoffs and launching Miami into 2021 Super Bowl contention.

12. Old QB Check-in

A banner week for the 38-and-ups! Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger led their teams to massive wins. Well, technically their defenses did… but I digress. Phillip Rivers led the Colts to a comeback win! Granted, it was against the Bengals. And in a dome. But there were signs of life on P. River! Best of all, Drew Brees got to rest up the ol’ righty as Saints were on a bye. Lots of exclamation points for the soon-to-be broadcasters!

13. Fraud Rankings

  1. Chicago Bears
  2. Buffalo Bills
  3. Los Angeles Rams
  4. Indianapolis Colts
  5. Tennessee Titans

For the purposes of this exercise, I will define a fraud by a team that is drastically outperforming its expected wins. The thing about frauds after Week 6 or so is that many will still make the playoffs. That’s the benefit of stacking wins early in the season. But that doesn’t mean the 5-1 Bears are on par with the 5-1 Chiefs. 

An easy way to spot a fraud is by their point differential. Of the teams with one loss or less, the aforementioned Bears have the lowest point differential at just +12, followed by Green Bay at +23. The Bills and Browns have by far the lowest point differential of the two-loss teams, at -12 and -24, respectively.

You guys all know how I feel about the Rivers-led Colts; I don’t need any numbers for them — the eye test reeks. The Rams are 4-0 versus the NFC East and 0-2 against everyone else (so far, the Bills and 49ers). They may lead the NFC East by two games, but unfortunately they play in the NFC West.

Aggregators, brace yourselves: I’m sorry, but something isn’t adding up with the Titans for me. They barely beat the Broncos in Week 1, though granted that was the kicker’s fault. They needed last minute comebacks to beat the 1-5 Jaguars and 1-5 Vikings. They finally earned a statement win over Buffalo, but they are frauds themselves. Last week, they needed another last second touchdown and to win the OT coin flip just to beat the 1-5 Texans.

I know, I know: a win is a win. But even the Titans diehards — I know you’re out there Scott and Lauren — have to admit something feels weird here, right? Or maybe I just hate your team.

14. Ranking the Top Five Teams

  1. Kansas City Chiefs
  2. Seattle Seahawks
  3. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
  4. Baltimore Ravens
  5. Pittsburgh Steelers
  6. Tennessee Titans (included for anti-aggregation purposes)

15. MVP Tracker

I’m not doing ten MVP candidates anymore. The last two weeks have weeded out the fake candidates, specifically REDACTED. 

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