NFL: Five Week 13 Thoughts

Thanksgiving week in the NFL feels almost exhausting. This year there were 4 games on Thursday, a game on Friday, the usual slate of games on Sunday and a game on Monday. The NFL is supposed to be a wonderful sport that's isolated to mostly 1 day, stretching out over an entire weekend is too much! Why am I complaining? I loved it all, and I have some thoughts: 

Wtf Bears

I hadn't seen a loss that so perfectly encapsulates the Bears season until Thursday. US Thanksgiving is a fun one for me. I typically get invited to broker events with open bars and football on in the middle of the afternoon on a workday. I would've watched Panthers Jets if it was on, so a good Lions Bears game was just the cherry on top! I said before this one that it would be a close game despite the two team's records and early on that did not look like the case. the Lions got off to a hot start taking a 16-0 lead into halftime and dominating on both sides of the ball. The Bears came out of the half with a touchdown drive and made the first and less obvious mistake in my opinion. Down 16 against the best defense in football, the Bears opted to kick the extra point rather than going for 2 to make it a 1 possession game. I understand they were early in the 3rd quarter, but scoring against the Lions is hard and a 10 point game requires the same scoring combination to get back into it as a 9 point game, but an 8 point game can be tied up with just 1 touchdown. Either way, the Bears chose to take the 1 point to make the game 16-7. The Lions immediately responded with a touchdown of their own to make it 23-7. Going into the 4th, the Bears scored a TD early and this time did try for 2 like they should have earlier, they failed the attempt to make it a 10 point game. After getting another stop, the Bears managed to score again, kicking the extra point to bring them within 3. After a quick stop to get the ball back with the clock winding, the Bears looked like they were in business needing only a field goal to tie. The Bears get the ball to the Lions 20 yard line after a great pass from Caleb Williams, all signs are pointing to the Bears tying the game up. They take a 10 yard penalty to push them back to the 30 yard line and set up a second and 20 with 40 seconds left. On the ensuing play, Caleb Williams gets sacked back at the 40, just outside of FG range making it 3rd and about 28. The Bears, with a timeout remaining, slowly get back to the line as the clock winds, they just manage to get a snap off with 5 seconds remaining and after Caleb Williams airs out a pass, there is no time left on the clock and the game is over. 

Probably the worst clock management I have ever seen. What's the point in saving your last timeout if you are going to run the entire clock before you ever get a chance to use it? After the game, Bears head coach Matt Eberflus was fired in a move that shocked nobody. Once again, the Lions don't win in a normal way and once again the Bears find an agonizing way to lose a football game. Chicago is better than their record suggests, this one is going to hurt immensely as it pretty much shuts the door on any playoff hopes they might have had. How this came to be will baffle me until the end of the season. 

Josh Allen is a Superhero 

This one came in a game where unfortunately both the 49ers and my fantasy football team's seasons fell apart on the same day. Christian McCaffrey suffered a season ending injury and the 49ers got whooped by what's looking like a very scary Bills team. That's not what we're here for though, we're here to talk about the coolest play I've seen all season. Halfway through the 3rd quarter in Buffalo, where an active blizzard is happening causing conditions to be less than ideal, the Bills are set up around the 5 yard line on first and goal. Josh Allen drops back and throws a pass slightly behind Amari Cooper. Cooper juggles the pass for a second before securing it and immediately being wrapped up by 3 49ers defenders behind the line of scrimmage. In a heads up play, Cooper laterals the ball back to Josh Allen to then finds the edge and leaps with his arm barely stretching over the pylon for the TD. Like I said, in the snow, the athleticism, the nonono YES nature of it, that was a cool ass play. After the play there's great footage of Allen talking to his teammates on the bench trying to figure out what the TD counts as. They go back and fourth on whether it's a passing TD, a receiving TD or a rushing TD for Allen. It ultimately gets ruled a receiving TD to which Josh Allen responds "I love football." I do too Josh, I do too. 

Famous Jameis

I can't take my eyes away from the screen when Jameis Winston is playing. I am going to be honest, I wasn't going to watch this one last night. Broncos vs Browns just didn't get me going and I thought sleeping early would be nice for my work day ahead. Then I opened Reddit and saw in the third quarter Bo Nix throwing an absolute bomb to Marvin Mims Jr for a 93 yard TD to make the game 28-17. I scroll on and literally a minute later I see Jameis Winston hit Jerry Jeudy with an absolute bomb of his own for a 70 yard TD on the first play after they got the ball back. After that, I was hooked. The fun part about Jameis Winston is he's either going to make one of the most incredible plays you've ever seen or one of the worst plays you've ever seen, you never know what you're going to get. Winston was finding Jerry Jeudy all game. The WR finished with 9 receptions and 235 yards against his former team in one of the best "revenge games" of all time. Winston was finding pretty much everyone all night, he finished the game with 497 yards and 4 TDs on 34/58 passes. Side note before I get to the bad, 58 passes has to be a lot for a QB right? Winston wasn't just lobbing screens all game, he airs that thing out. We see pitchers in baseball get 100 pitches these days, is 58 passes not doing something bad to a QBs elbow? Anywhom, to the bad stuff: 

As amazing as some of the Jameis Winston passes were, he also had some of the most untimely and avoidable turnovers you'll ever see. He threw a 71 yard pick 6 in the first half after the Broncos had just taken a 4 point lead with a touchdown on the previous drive. Getting your team into scoring range then dramatically ending it all with a pick 6 is pretty much the entire Jameis Winston experience, but we got even more! The Browns salvaged the half with a brilliant 2 minute drill drive to score a TD making it 21-17 Broncos at halftime. In the second half after a thrilling back and fourth scoring from both teams, the Browns got the ball with about 3 minutes to go down 2 points. After the 2 minute warning, Winston makes a terrible decision and throws a pass right to the defense for yet another pick 6, nearly ending the game right there. But it's not over yet. The Browns get the ball back and make quick work getting all the way down the field and back into the redzone. It began looking like a miracle might take place until Winston threw a pass into double coverage in the end zone for his third pick of the day and nearly another pick 6. In case you've lost track, that's 497 yards, 4 TDs, 3 interceptions including 2 that were returned for touchdowns. If that isn't Jameis Winston in a nutshell, I don't know what is. 

Justin Tucker is Washed

I know as a Steelers fan it might seem like I am taking great pleasure in this, but it is actually sad. Justin Tucker is arguably the greatest kicker in NFL history. Since 2012 if the Ravens got the ball to the 40 yard line, you could practically guarantee they were coming away from the possession with at least 3 points. Tucker simply did not miss, ever. This season has been an absolute disaster for the legendary kicker who on a whole is the third least accurate kicker in the NFL this year hitting just a little over 70% of his attempts. In this one against a strong opponent in the Eagles, Justin Tucker lost them the game almost single handedly. Tucker missed 2 FGs in the second half on back to back drives. They were relatively deep at 47 and 53 yards respectively, but as I said you used to be able to lock those in as makes every single time. Tucker completed his terrible night by missing an extra point as well for a total of 7 points left on the table. The Ravens fell to the Eagles 24-19. If you look at the box score, the Ravens out gained the Eagles, they were better on 3rd down, had more passing yards and rushing yards, dominated the time of possession, had fewer penalties, fewer punts and zero turnovers. The Ravens outplayed the Eagles in practically every aspect of the game and if their kicker was more accurate, they would have won this one. Always sad to see legends in a steep decline, but this loss falls squarely on Justin Tucker and now the Ravens have to ask themselves if they can trust him going down the stretch this season. 

The Worst 11-1 Team of All Time? 

Steelers fans will remember when they started 2020 11-0 and all anyone could say was that they're the worst 11-0 team of all time. The Steelers went on to prove them right, finishing the season at 12-4 and losing in the first round of the playoffs, damn it. Now the worst 11-1 team of all time mantra is being thrown around for another, far less disappointing team, the Kansas City Chiefs. The back to back Superbowl champs have been just barely skating by in practically every game they've played this year. This one against the Raiders was no different. With the clock winding and KC holding on to a 2 point lead, the Raiders got the ball and were rolling on their final drive. They got the ball to the KC 32 yard line with 15 seconds left and quickly spiked the ball to run another play, likely just to get slightly more favorable FG position. Of course, the Raiders fumble the snap on the next play, recovered by KC who then escaped with the victory once again. 

I get it that it's Patrick Mahomes, and you won't see me betting against him in a playoff game that's for sure, but KC has been a remarkably lucky team this season and this game was a perfect depiction of that. With a point differential of +54, KC is quite literally the worst 11-1 team in NFL history. What's even funnier is they have the third best point differential within their own division with the 8-4 Chargers at +72 and the 8-5 Broncos at +71. Regardless of how it's gotten done, the Chiefs clinched the playoffs with this victory and I don't think anyone is going to treat them as frauds when the lights get bright. 

That's week 13! Ravens lose, Bengals lose, Browns lose and Steelers win, that's a good week to me! The Steelers have a big rematch against the Browns on Sunday, hopefully they can get it done and move one step closer to clinching the division. As always, go Steelers!