NFL: Week 16 Mini Christmas Eve Recap

 I thought about not writing one at all today, it is Christmas Eve after all! But when I thought about it, there's a few things that happened this NFL week that I really just felt I needed to get out and so rather than locking myself into 5 things, I am just going to ramble until I run out of the things I wanted to say. Merry Christmas!

Fake Stumble

This has to be the most diabolical trick play that I've ever seen. If you'll remember last week (or was it 2 weeks ago? I can't remember) Lions QB Jarred Goff stumbled on a big snap in the 4th quarter, but managed to still get the handoff to Gibbs for the game clinching play. I can only imagine that this sparked an idea in Dan Campbell's mind. In the 3rd quarter this week with the Lions up 27-14 against the Bears, Goff takes the snap and appears to stumble on the handoff. Gibbs even falls to the ground. Goff regains his balance and launches a perfect deep ball to the TE Sam LaPorta. It turns out, the play design was to make it look like the play blew up, lull the defense to sleep, then launch the real play. This high risk but obviously high reward play that ended up becoming a TD was something literally only Dan Campbell would call, and I loved it. 

This play had more than 1 repercussion. Yes it resulted in a TD which is obviously a great outcome in the moment, but zoom out for a second and see the bigger picture. Now whenever Goff stumbles for real, or whenever there's a bad snap, or whenever the RB trips, defenses can't relax. You now always have to have in the back of your mind that the Lions might just be running a trick play that you never thought you'd ever see. The mind games from running this play on week 16 as they gear up for a playoff run are just brilliant. I will say as well, if the Lions hadn't sucked for my entire life, they'd be the most hateable team maybe of all time. Being at 14-2 and going into your bush league bag is just nasty work, but the Lions fans deserve it.

Spoilers!

The NFL is great, even when a team is mathematically eliminated you still can tune in and watch them playing hard. This week we got to see a couple of scrappy, but eliminated teams come in and play spoiler on teams with playoff aspirations, which is always fun if you're not a fan of the team being spoiled. 

The Arizona Cardinals came into this week at 7-7 and just a game back from the division. Not only this, but the Cardinals next week play the division leader Rams, a team they've already smoked 41-10 this season and would hold the tie breaker against if they were to win. The only thing standing in their way of controlling their own destiny was the 3-11 Carolina Panthers. Arizona was down 10 points with around 6 minutes to go when they furiously started a comeback push. They managed to get a TD, a defensive stop and a FG to tie the game and send it to overtime. In OT they couldn't manage to score before Chubba Hubbard sealed the deal for the Panthers with a 21 yard TD run, essentially cancelling any Cardinals playoff hopes. If you're a Panthers fan, you've had nothing but pain this season. I understand fans like tanking and draft picks and all that, but how can you not rejoice in a moment of crushing another fan base' dreams? This was the perfect spoiler game, sorry Cards. 

This wasn't all though! Earlier on Sunday the Cooper Rush lead Cowboys learned that they had been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, despite having a big Sunday Night game ahead of them. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were in a great position to control their own destiny needing only wins against the Cowboys without Dak, the Panthers and the Saints, all easy opponents on paper. First things first though, need to take care of business against the Cowboys. This game had one of the more exciting finishes of the year. Down 9 points with a little under 2 minutes to go, the Buccs had a brilliant TD drive to get the game within 2 before kicking it back to the Cowboys and trusting their defense. Their defense came through in a big way forcing a quick 3 and out giving Baker a chance to get his team into FG range to attempt a game winner. On the first play of the drive, the Cowboys blitz and wrap Baker up, it appears as though he's going to be sacked but he somehow manages to flip the ball to his RB Rashad White, seemingly turning something into nothing. White manages to fight for about 7 yards, but on the tackle the Cowboys defender rips the ball right out of his hands for a game securing fumble! This was an EPIC spoiler game, if you're a Buccs fan I can imagine your emotions throughout the game were "no, no, NO, NO, yes, YES, YES, NOOOOO!" The Buccaneers are not dead like the Cardinals, but they are now going to need some help to come away with the division with the now Michael Penix Jr lead Falcons holding the tie breaker. 

Division Battles to Watch

I think the NFL does such a great job with its schedule, there always seems to be a huge game in the last 2 weeks of the season that will practically decide the division and this year is no different. In the AFC North, the Steelers and Ravens both sit at 10-5 after the Ravens sadly smoked the Steelers on Saturday. The Ravens have the Texans on Christmas and the Browns on week 18 remaining while the Steelers have the Chiefs on Christmas and Bengals on week 18. Going to be an uphill battle for Pittsburgh to hold on to this one, but they do control their own destiny and Steelers fans won't be the only ones hoping for a win against KC on Christmas. The Rams and Seahawks are separated by just a game for the top spot in the NFC West, they play each other week 18 in a game that could line up to be a winner takes all. The Buccaneers and Falcons are tied at the top of the division, and it would appear that Tampa has the slight edge in chances to win going to face the Panthers and Saints next while the Falcons need to go into Washington next week. If games were played on paper, Tampa would win this division but as we saw this week, anything can happen! Finally the most exciting one of all, one of the Lions or Vikings are going to have to go on the road for a playoff game this year despite their amazing seasons. The Lions have the 49ers next and the Vikings have the Packers, both will not be easy games but if they both emerge victorious it sets up an amazing week 18 matchup between maybe the best 2 teams in football battling it out for divisional supremacy. The last 2 weeks are always nerve wracking in the NFL and this season we have multiple tight and awesome division battles to watch, I can't wait!

And that's that, 3 things today! I didn't watch a ton of football this week, it was spread out over too many days I couldn't keep up, but there were clearly some things that I found interesting and so I popped out an article anyway! I hope like hell the Steelers find a way to beat KC tomorrow to calm the fanbase down. Go Steelers!