Week 6 of the NFL season was loaded with some baffling errors from players around the league.
The week started with a performance filled with blunders from the New York Giants on Thursday, and it continued right on into Sunday.
Quarterbacks like Mitchell Trubisky, Jameis Winston, and Nathan Peterman just couldn’t get out of their own way. The exact opposite can be said about both Jalen Ramsey and the entire Tennessee Titans offensive line. They didn’t seem all that eager to get in anyone’s way.
In a week with plenty of mistakes to choose from, these were the most embarrassing blunders from Week 6 of the NFL season.
Giants fail to do anything around Saquon Barkley
Football fans everywhere were treated to a special performance from Barkley on Thursday night. Unfortunately, the rest of the Giants would have been better off just not showing up against the Philadelphia Eagles.
While Pat Shurmur may not realize it, it’s become abundantly clear that Eli Manning is done. We saw that early and often on Thursday.
As talented as he is, Odell Beckham Jr.’s antics are getting harder to defend. He may be unfairly criticized at times. But leaving the field with time on the clock in the first half? We know that Shurmur said that Beckham needed an IV. And earlier in the quarter we might buy that. But we’re talking about literally one play. Beckham needed to be on the field.
And if anything, Manning and Beckham took the heat away from the rest of the team. The offensive line is abysmal. The defense is below average. Other than Barkley, finding a positive performance from Thursday’s effort isn’t quite like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s more like trying to find a specific needle in a stack of needles.
One mistake from Mitchell Trubisky does Bears in
Tarik Cohen appeared to score a touchdown that would have all but put Sunday’s game against the Miami Dolphins away. Unfortunately for the Chicago Bears, that score was nullified by a penalty. That was the bad news. The good news is that Chicago was still up eight points in the fourth quarter and had a first-and-goal from the 13. Even a field goal would have given the Bears an 11-point lead. But one play later, Trubisky was intercepted by T.J. McDonald in the end zone. While it was a good play from McDonald, it was a completely unnecessary pass into double-coverage.
Eventually, the Bears lost in overtime in a game that never should have gotten there. Trubisky was generally very good on Sunday, going 22-for-31 with 316 yards and three touchdowns. But his one mistake was a killer.
Blooper reel pick-six gets Colts off on the wrong foot
Generally, the screen is regarded as a relatively safe play. But as the Indianapolis Colts have taught us in recent years, nothing can be taken for granted. We learned that lesson again on Sunday.
Marlon Mack not only mishandled a screen pass from Andrew Luck, but mishandled it in the worst possible way. He dropped the ball right into the arms of Jamal Adams. It seemed he’d get away with it when Adams couldn’t handle the ball. But he batted it straight in the air, allowing Morris Claiborne to catch and cruise in for the pick-six (watch here). It was just an awful way to start what ended up being an awful performance from the Colts.
D.J. Moore’s fumbles doom Panthers
Moore’s day got off to a bad start when he fumbled a punt early in the first quarter. It set the Washington Redskins up with a short field and one play later, they were in the end zone. Things didn’t go much better as a receiver. In the second quarter, Moore caught a pass that would have set the Carolina Panthers up in Washington territory. But he fumbled again. The Redskins recovered it and ended up with a field goal.
The first fumble was a seven-point swing. The second one not only cost Carolina a chance at a field goal (or maybe a touchdown), but also set the Redskins up with a relatively short field to get into a field goal range. That’s another potential six-point swing. Given that the Panthers lost by only six points, those mistakes loom rather large.
Nathan Peterman throws game away
With less than two minutes left, the Buffalo Bills got the ball back needing only a field goal to beat the Houston Texans on Sunday. It worked out quite a bit differently. Peterman threw a horrendous interception, which Johnathan Joseph hauled in and cruised in for the 28-yard pick-six (watch here). Peterman couldn’t have led Joseph any better if he was the intended receiver.
The worst-case scenario for Buffalo in that situation should have been simply punting the ball away and likely going to overtime. Backup quarterbacks generally aren’t going to win games for their teams. But the good ones can at least avoid losing them. Peterman did the exact opposite on Sunday.
Bears turn Brock Osweiler and Albert Wilson into fantasy stars
The fourth quarter of Sunday’s game looked like a mid-80s reunion of Dan Marino and the Marks Brothers. The Chicago defense was absolutely helpless against the duo of Brock Osweiler and Albert Wilson. Osweiler and Wilson connected on not one, but two long touchdown passes in the fourth quarter. And while Wilson deserves credit for making those plays happen, the Chicago defenders didn’t exactly make like difficult for him.
Trubisky’s interception didn’t help matters. Without it, the Bears likely would have won. But in truth, they should have won anyway. The defense, which is supposed to be the strength of the team, absolutely fell apart.
Titans offensive line no-shows against Ravens
The Tennessee offensive line Titans was absolutely punked on Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens. There’s just no other way to put it. Marcus Mariota completed only 10 passes and was sacked 11 times. Yes, Baltimore has a good pass rush. But the line has to be better — a whole lot better — than that.
Beating the Ravens was always going to be a tough task. But with that kind of effort from the offensive line, the Titans would have been better off simply not showing up to the game. The line had better look at this game as a learning experience. If not, this team is in a lot of trouble going forward.
Bad turnovers continue to doom Jameis Winston
Winston did throw for 395 yards and four touchdowns against the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday. But he also threw two picks. The first came from just across midfield. Winston threw a bomb that was intercepted by Damontae Kazee at the five-yard line. While his Tampa Bay Buccaneers weren’t in field goal range, they weren’t far from it, either. The second was a real crusher. With Tampa on Atlanta’s seven-yard line, Winston threw a pick in the end zone. The first mistake might have cost the Buccaneers at least three points. The second certainly did.
Tampa nearly overcame these mistakes anyway. But trailing 34-29, a last-minute drive fell just short. If the Bucs had converted just one of Winston’s mistakes into a field goal, they would have been down by two in that situation, needing only a field goal to win. And they were well in range. We don’t know if everything else would have played out the same. But we do know that saying Winston’s mistakes cost his team only three points is a quite conservative estimation. These were brutal mistakes from a quarterback who still makes way too many of them.
Jalen Ramsey and the Jaguars get crushed in Big D
The Dallas Cowboys had struggled offensively for much of the season. It was hard to imagine them doing anything against the Jacksonville Jaguars. But Dallas possessed the ball for 38:50, picked up 23 first downs, gained 378 yards, and romped Jacksonville 40-7.
Granted, anyone can have a bad day. But it’s hard to chalk up Jalen Ramsey’s complete lack of effort on Cole Beasley’s second quarter touchdown to simply having a bad day. This didn’t come late in a blowout. The score was only 10-0 at the time. If Ramsey could have tackled Beasley, the Jaguars at least could have held the Cowboys to a field goal to keep the deficit at 13-0. Early in the second quarter, that kind of lead can be overcome.
Then, in his postgame interviews, the normally chatty Ramsey had very little to say. Overall, it was just an embarrassing day for Ramsey and really anyone associated with the Jacksonville organization.