Vincent Frank
Week 9 represented the unofficial midway point of the NFL season. In many ways, it was a continuation of what we saw in the first half of the season. The Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles are actually pretty good. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers aren’t good. Brock Osweiler shouldn’t be on a pro football field.
Will the New York Giants really bench Eli Manning in favor of rookie Davis Webb after another humiliating performance from the team in Week 9? The Atlanta Falcons’ Super Bowl hangover is real after yet another loss to inferior competition. Meanwhile, the New Orleans Saints proved themselves to be real with a sixth consecutive win. The backdrop from Sunday’s game also being multiple major fights that broke out.
These are among the top takeaways from Sunday’s slate of NFL action.
Falcons’ sinking ship
The defending NFC champion Atlanta Falcons found themselves up 10-0 after the first quarter on Sunday. They were taking on a struggling Carolina Panthers squad that just traded its best wide receiver. For all intents and purposes, it looked like Atlanta was on the verge of blowing this thing wide open.
Then, the 2017 version of the dirty birds showed up, and it wasn’t pretty. In the second quarter alone, Atlanta turned the ball over twice. Both led directly to Panthers touchdowns. The first one came on downs when Devonta Freeman was stopped short on fourth and long. Then, on the next possession, reigning NFL MVP Matt Ryan threw a horrible interception. That was followed by a 31-yard touchdown drive for Cam Newton and the Panthers.
It didn’t get much better offensively in the second half. Outside of a seven-play, 92-yard drive in the two-score game, Atlanta mustered all of 46 yards after halftime. It was absolutely brutal for a team coming off a bye. And it has the Falcons at 4-4 on the season following a 20-17 loss.
Giants can no longer call themselves an NFL team
That was embarrassing. Downright embarrassing. And every single member of the New York Giants shares in the blame here. How in the world do you let another team convert on third-and-33? How do you then allow it to turn into a long touchdown? But that wasn’t even the extent of it for the Giants against a suddenly well-oiled Los Angeles Rams team at home on Sunday.
Rams quarterback Jared Goff torched a previously solid Giants defense to the tune of 311 yards passing with four touchdowns in a blowout 51-17 win. Todd Gurley ran through this defense to the tune of two touchdowns, including one that it appeared he broke about 20 tackles. And on offense, New York turned the ball over three times in another disastrous showing. Now at 1-7 on the season, head coach Ben McAdoo is talking openly about the possibility of benching Eli Manning. It’s something we covered as a possibility heading into Week 9. But if that were to happen, it would be the latest example of what has been a dramatic fall from grace in New Jersey.
Jacoby Brissett might actually be good
We applaud the Indianapolis Colts for shutting Andrew Luck down for the season. It was the right move. Indy is going nowhere fast this season, and there was no reason to rush the franchise quarterback back on the field. In a slightly related manner, this also gives the Colts an opportunity to showcase Brissett for a potential trade during the spring.
Brissett, acquired from New England prior to the season, has been up-and-down this season. Though, most of his struggles can be attributed to a lack of a run game and some pretty disastrous offensive line play.
In Sunday’s 20-14 win over Houston, everything seemed to come together. Brissett completed 20-of-30 passes for 308 yards and two scores, including this beautiful strike to T.Y. Hilton. Running backs Frank Gore and Marlon Mack combined for 80 yards on 26 attempts.
It was a well-rounded effort against a good Texans defense. And it has us wondering whether Brissett might actually be a starter-caliber quarterback in the NFL. For the Colts’ sake and the possibility of acquiring something nice in return in a potential trade, let’s hope the final eight weeks of the season paints Brissett in the positive light we saw Sunday.
Jaguars won’t let up
Even with rookie running back Leonard Fournette inactive after he violated team rules, the Jacksonville Jaguars continued their strong season again on Sunday. This time, it came against a struggling Cincinnati Bengals squad and Andy Dalton. The final score of 23-7 won’t tell the entire story here. It was utter domination for the Jaguars in every possible way.
Blake Bortles started out strong, completing 14-of-19 to open the game and give Jacksonville an early 10-0 lead. From there, the Jags pretty much rolled. Bortles would ultimately complete 24-of-38 passes with zero interceptions. Jacksonville’s defense held the aforementioned Dalton to just 136 yards without a score. Meanwhile, A.J. Green caught a grand total of one pass prior to being ejected before halftime. Now at 5-3 on the season, it’s readily apparent that Jacksonville is the odds-on favorites in the AFC South.
Cowboys make a major statement
It had to be a major boon for the Dallas Cowboys when they found out Friday that Ezekiel Elliott would in fact play in Week 9. They continued that momentum into Sunday’s game with the Kansas City Chiefs, winning by the score of 28-17 in front of their home crowd.
Sure there were some issues with the fundamentals of actually tackling on defense, but the Cowboys’ offense was well-balanced and pretty darn good following a slow start to the game. Dak Prescott completed 21-of-33 passes for 249 yards with two touchdowns to Cole Beasley (remember him?) Meanwhile, Elliott gained 93 yards and a score on the ground.
Defensively, it was pretty darn solid for the Cowboys. Heck, with the team up 11 in the fourth quarter, they forced Alex Smith into his first interception on the season. They also got to the Chiefs’ starter for two sacks while holding Kareem Hunt to 37 yards on the ground. This win enabled Dallas to stay in the NFC East race with the red-hot Eagles. That’s definitely a major statement.
Sean McVay is already Coach of the Year
We don’t need to watch the final nine weeks of the season to draw this conclusion. What McVay has done in his first season as an NFL head coach with the Los Angeles Rams is nothing short of extraordinary. This team went into New Jersey coming off its bye and absolutely walloped a hapless Giants team by the score of 51-17. And it could have been a lot worst for New York.
Putting his naysayers to sleep in the most brutal of ways, sophomore quarterback Jared Goff threw four touchdowns on just 14 completions. He now has 13 touchdowns and just four picks on the season. Backfield mate Todd Gurley went for two scores on his own, completely embarrassing the Giants’ defense in the process.
This game was 48-10 before both teams pretty much shut it down offensively at the end of the third quarter. Los Angeles could have easily dropped 60. Now at 6-2 on the season, it’s time to take the Rams seriously. This leads us to believe McVay is already Coach of the Year. It also has us wondering aloud that the heck former Rams head coach Jeff Fisher was doing to collect a check from the organization last season.
Raiders save season … for now
Losers of four of their past five games, the Oakland Raiders desperately needed a win on the road against the Miami Dolphins Sunday night. And that’s exactly what we saw. It might have been an uneven performance full of some pretty wacky plays, but Oakland came out on top by the score of 27-24.
Oakland’s defense allowed Jay Cutler to complete all but 10 of his 42 pass attempts with three scores and zero picks. Though, it was the offense that came through big time here. Derek Carr completed 21-of-30 passes for 300 yards. Marshawn Lynch turned back the clock big time, adding two scores on the ground. And in yet another tremendous performance for his new team, tight end Jared Cook led all pass catchers with eight receptions for 126 yards.
Now at 4-5 on the season, Oakland heads into its Week 10 bye on a good note. It might not be easy coming out of said bye against the Patriots in Mexico City, but a loss here would have likely ended the Raiders’ playoff aspirations.
Brock Osweiler is not a good footballer
This was already known prior to his start Sunday against the Eagles in Philadelphia. But whatever questions we had pertaining to Brock Osweiler actually being an NFL-level quarterback were answered (and then some). It started with this interception, which had the social media world abuzz. It then continued with another pick in what ultimately became a 51-23 blowout loss for a suddenly fledgling Broncos team.
But the details are not in the stats here. Sure Osweiler completed just 19-of-38 passes for 208 yards with two turnovers and a fumble. Sadly, he was worse than the statistics themselves suggest. It was proven time and again on Sunday that Osweiler couldn’t hit the broadside of Kim Kardashian’s back end.
In any event, Denver fell to 3-5 with its fourth consecutive loss on Sunday. There are no simple answers to the quarterback situation in Denver (outside of one). Maybe Paxton Lynch will be seen as the savior soon enough. Even if that’s not likely, at the very least Cleveland footed the bill for Brock’s dismal Week 9 performance.
Snakebitten in Seattle
Facing an injury-plagued and struggling Washington Redskins team at home on Sunday, most figured the Seahawks would be able to dominate in front of the 12s for a fifth consecutive victory. That most definitely didn’t happen.
A combination of bad penalties, costly mistakes from Russell Wilson and one defensive breakdown cost the Seahawks big time here. In the end, they fell by the score of 17-14 after this long pass from Kirk Cousins to Josh Doctson set up the game winner for Washington.
It’s a game that should never really have been close. Seattle put up nearly 200 more total yards of offense. It was taking on a Redskins team that was without three of its starting offensive linemen. Cousins was sacked six times by a swarming Seahawks defense.
But Wilson’s two interceptions and a whopping 16 penalties for 138 yards played a major role here. Now at 5-3 on the season, Seattle finds itself one game behind the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC West. Whew.
Saints continue to steamroll opponents
It was somewhat of a change of roles between the Buccaneers and Saints in New Orleans on Sunday. Tampa Bay entered the season with division title aspirations after a strong showing in 2016. Meanwhile, the Saints were coming off yet another seven-win campaign. One team seemed to be on the upswing, while the other was seemingly on the downtick.
For many different reasons, none of this has come to fruition. And following the Saints’ 30-10 home win on Sunday, they’ve now come out victorious in six consecutive outings. Sunday’s win was no different than what we’ve seen over the past several weeks.
Drew Brees completed 22-of-27 passes with two scores and zero picks. His offensive line held up in pass protection and also helped rookie running back Alvin Kamara go for 152 total yards. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay’s defense battered an injured and ineffective Jameis Winston, forcing him from the game with a shoulder injury. It was complete and utter domination from a Saints team that has now won six consecutive by a combined 92 points. Talk about being legit.
The 49ers are downright horrible
If a team stinks it up and there’s no one in the stadium to watch it, did the team really stink? That’s the million dollar question facing the now 0-9 49ers following a 20-10 loss to Arizona on Sunday.
For some reason, first-year 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan thought it made sense to have rookie quarterback C.J. Beathard drop back 56 times in a game that was within one score for the vast majority of the afternoon. The end result with San Francisco’s 23rd loss in its past 25 games.
And there’s not a lot of positives to take from this one. Maybe, the newly acquired Jimmy Garoppolo looked good on the sidelines. They could have been serving up decent food for the tens of people that were at Levi’s on Sunday. In any event, the 49ers are now just a notch above Cleveland as NFL’s laughingstock. A lack of any type of progression from the team on the field also has to be concerning for this new regime.
It’s really time for Cincinnati to move on from Marvin
We’ve repeated this over and over again. It’s been a continuing theme over the course of the past several seasons. When is the Bengals’ brass going to finally understand that the Marvin Lewis marriage needs to end in divorce? Already coaching out the 2017 campaign as a lame duck, Lewis has his Bengals playing uninspired football.
That was taken to a whole new level Sunday on the road against Jacksonville. Never really in this game, Cincinnati saw itself fall by the score of 23-7. It’s a game that was headlined by A.J. Green’s erratic on-field behavior and ensuing ejection. This is just the latest example of Lewis not having control over his players.
And from a football perspective, it was even worse. Look at it this way. Cincinnati’s offense ran a grand total of 37 plays. It racked up 145 total yards of offense. Comparatively, a previously stout defense allowed Blake Bortles to play mistake-free football en route to Jacksonville running 78 plays and putting up 400-plus yards of offense. Enough is enough. Lewis should not be allowed to coach another game for this suddenly downtrodden franchise.
Gutsy win for the Redskins
Offensive linemen Spencer Long, Trent Williams and Shawn Lauvao were all inactive due to injury heading into Sunday’s game against the Seahawks in Seattle. Starting tight end Jordan Reed and wide receiver Jamison Crowder were also both sidelined. And during the game itself, Washington lost multiple starters on both sides of the ball. It would have been easy for this team to lay down in such a hostile environment.
That did not happen. Say what you want about his ability to actually coach, Jay Gruden had his team up for this one. Thanks to three missed field goals from Blair Walsh, Washington’s defense held Seattle’s offense scoreless through the first three quarters. And when Seattle finally broke through on that side of the ball, it was Kirk Cousins who stepped up with a beautiful pass to Josh Doctson to set the Redskins up for the game winner late in the fourth quarter.
There was nothing heading into Sunday’s game that suggested Washington could hang tough here. Outside of the devastating injuries, the Skins had lost three of their past four games. They were also facing a Seahawks squad that had won four in a row. Whether it was grit, luck or a combination of the two, Gruden had his team ready. And in reality, it was a season-saving win for Washington.
Eagles are the class of the NFL
Philadelphia boasted a 7-1 record heading into Week 9’s game with the struggling Broncos. It responded to the league-best record and the surrounding hype by absolutely dominating Denver to the tune of 51-23. It’s a game that was never really in question after Philly opened up a 17-3 first quarter lead.
Continuing with his MVP-caliber play, sophomore quarterback Carson Wentz threw four more touchdowns. The recently acquired Jay Ajayi broke out big time with a 46-yard touchdown run. And taking advantage of Denver’s futility under center, the Eagles’ defense forced two turnovers while sacking Brock Osweiler three times.
If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, maybe it’s a soaring Eagle pretty much putting the NFL on notice. That’s what we saw from Doug Pederson’s team in a big way at home Sunday against Denver. This team is good. The best in the league. Period.
The fines will be hefty
Two different games saw major fights break out during the early slate. First, it was Bengals wide receiver A.J. Green getting into it with Jacksonville cornerback Jalen Ramsey.
To say that this was one of the biggest fights in recent NFL history would be an understatement. Here, you will see Green put Ramsey in a chokehold while throwing multiple punches in the process. It led to both players being ejected, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see each of them also suspended.
And in New Orleans, a frustrated Buccaneers team showed itself in a big way. Saints rookie cornerback Marshon Lattimore got into it with then-injured Bucs quarterback Jameis Winston. That’s when Tampa Bay receiver Mike Evans laid a cheap shot (watch here) on Lattimore.
Why Winston decided it made sense to fight after being forced from the game to injured remains to be seen. But it shows a lack of maturity on the quarterback’s part. While no one was ejected in this fight, we can expect some major fines to be doled out.
We’re not sure why multiple NFL players decided to act out in frustration during Sunday’s games. It really wasn’t a good look for the NFL, and we’re sure the league will take note.
