Welcome back to another edition of Football Morning in Columbia, where KCOU’s Quentin Corpuel will be highlighting the week’s best, worst and everything in-between from the NFL.
Front Page Headlines
Cowboys 33, Eagles 13
Here’s what Dak Prescott had to say about his team’s 42-10 shellacking at the hands of the 49ers earlier in the season:
“What bothered me more than anything was the lack of fight that we showed as a team, honestly,” Prescott said. “Me and Mike talked about it. Pissed us off more than anything. After that game, I said if we lose another game, I promise you it won’t look like this. I promise you we won’t allow a team to bully us or knock us around.”
Against the Eagles on Sunday, it was Prescott & Co. who spearheaded the ass-kicking. This time, it was a 33-13 rout of not just their division rival, but a fellow Super Bowl contender in the Philadelphia Eagles. The second part is important; the ghost that’d been following Dallas around all season read “you haven’t beaten a good team yet”, which they hadn’t. Their two best wins heading into Sunday were against the Rams and Seahawks, both of whom currently sit at 6-7. That ghost was busted on Sunday with a dominant all-around performance from Dallas.
This obviously wasn’t Prescott’s first stellar performance of the season, but again, this time was different. It was on a national stage against another awesome team, the kind of game that makes good performances better and bad performances worse. Prescott was doing almost everything one could’ve asked for. He was confident, decisive and hitting receivers all over the field, especially deep. Prescott has also been destroying defenses out of structure, which has seemed to be hindered since he broke his ankle in 2020. It’s been anything but; he leads the NFL in yards per attempt, success rate and completion percentage over expectation on extended dropbacks (4+ seconds) this season according to Next Gen Stats. Sunday wasn’t much different.
As of now, Prescott is currently the MVP favorite across multiple betting sites, and he’s on track to fit the description of recent MVPs. The last 10 MVPs have been a quarterback of a one or two seed. Now, I’m not usually one to use this type of history as a clear determinant of a future outcome. For example, come March Madness season, I despise when people are like “well, one seeds almost always beat 16 seeds, so just pick all four of them to win”. That means nothing! Every season is different. Some seasons (like last with Fairleigh Dickinson upsetting Purdue), the 16 seeds are really strong, while others are weak. It’s all dependent on the year.
However, there’s a pretty solid chance Adrian Peterson will be the last non-QB to win MVP. Two seasons ago, when Cooper Kupp broke a handful of receiving records, he received one first-place vote. Even though Tyreek Hill is on pace to smash Kupp’s single-season receiving yards record amidst a down year for high-level quarterbacking, he has just the sixth and seventh-highest odds to win MVP according to FanDuel and DraftKings, respectively. Should the Cowboys win the NFC East, there’s a good chance Prescott takes home the award.
And then, there was Brandon Aubrey, Dallas’ unexpected gem of a kicker who extended his NFL record of consecutive made kicks to start a career with 30. The next closest? Former Browns kicker Travis Coons reached 18 back in 2015. Aubrey is in a stratosphere of his own. His kicks like Ken Griffey Jr. hit homers; the sound of the ball upon contact is so unbelievably satisfying. The ball goes so far, and it looks so…effortless. Usually, when kickers try kicks from that far away, the amount of visible physical exertion is high. Aubrey, on the other hand, looks like he’s kicking a 40-yarder from 60 yards that looks like he could make it from 70.
This is far from the toughest test Dallas will face this season. Next week, they travel to Buffalo, and the week after that, they head south to Miami. In the playoffs (which seems certain at this point), the 49ers-sized demon will likely re-appear. This time around, however, the Cowboys look as well-equipped as ever to exorcize it.
Bills 20, Chiefs 17
As a forewarning, this section will focus on everything outside of, you know, that play. You know what, let’s just focus on the Bills for now.
The Bills badly needed this. A loss would not have been a death knell, but it would have dropped them to 6-7 and even more behind a crowded AFC playoff picture (especially considering that they’d already lost to fellow Wild Card aspirants in Cincinnati, Denver and potentially Jacksonville if they keep losing).
Somehow, victory was achieved despite poor clock management, which you’d think the Bills would’ve figured out after the AFC Championship fiasco from two seasons ago. Wrong! With 2:12 left from Kansas City’s 25-yard line, the Bills threw two consecutive incompletions, called timeout, then completed a pass for one yard. When the Chiefs regained possession after a Tyler Bass field goal, only 15 seconds had been taken off the clock, and the Chiefs didn’t have to use a single one of their two timeouts.
It is now where I quote Abby Lee Miller, the…well-known instructor from the popular Lifetime TV show Dance Moms.
“Jojo?! Have you learned NOTHING?!”
That’s the first thing that popped in my head when the above sequence had ended. Mahomes had proven time and time again that, as long as the Chiefs are only down one possession with time on the clock, he can make magic happen. It was especially flabbergasting to watch because Mahomes’ best work (arguably) came against the Bills on that same field. Thankfully for Buffalo, Mahomes’s magic wore off, and they hung on to win.
Ravens 37, Rams 31 (OT)
In a season filled with largely underwhelming quarterbacking, we got a refreshing battle of titans between Matthew Stafford and Lamar Jackson on Sunday.
Jackson was brilliant once again, accounting for nearly 400 total yards of offense and leading all quarterbacks in total EPA on the day. The cherry on top was Baltimore’s last offensive drive in regulation that gave them the lead with 1:16 left. All drive long, Jackson was cool, calm and, most importantly, able to create positive yardage amidst tight defense. He went 7/10 for 73 yards, including a tight-window rifle to Zay Flowers on third-and-17 for a touchdown. As if that wasn’t enough, on the ensuing two-point conversion, Jackson rolled to his right, eluded a rusher, left his feet, got clobbered as he threw and still hit Flowers right in the hands for two points. Perfectly normal stuff.
On the other side, Stafford looked like the old guy in the pickup basketball game who’s still got it. A prominent trait you see in those old guys is anticipation; since their athletic primes are usually well behind them, they have to make up for it with their brain. Stafford is the same way. It’s not like he was ever Michael Vick or Josh Allen, but injuries have certainly depleted his athletic abilities. His kooky arm angles and mental strength, however, haven’t deteriorated one bit. The anticipation he displayed on Sunday was preposterous.
On his first touchdown of the day to Cooper Kupp, Stafford releases the ball (fading away off his backfoot) before Kupp breaks his route, and Kupp doesn’t even have to break stride to haul in the pass. Then, late in the fourth quarter, Stafford lofted a perfectly-placed rainbow to a sprawling Puka Nacua for a huge gain. (Side note: No gloves diving catches are infinitely cooler than with gloves.) His 294 passing yards, three touchdowns and no turnovers nearly propelled the Rams to victory, except Tylan Wallace had other ideas (more on that in a bit).
Despite Jackson and Stafford being different types of quarterbacks, their ability to consistently pulverize peril is a big part of what makes them so fun to watch (the same goes with several other of the league’s top signal-callers). Jackson’s MVP candidacy got a boost, while Stafford re-established himself as one of the league’s ten best quarterbacks for a team that looks sneaky dangerous in a relatively weak NFC.
Quick(ish) hitters
A couple of incredible punts
A little over a month ago, Yahoo Sports’ Nate Tice detailed an under-discussed golden age: punting. Punters have never kicked footballs further and with more precision than right now.
On Sunday, there were a couple more examples of booming punts. Here’s Raiders punter AJ Cole booting the pigskin about 95 yards (including the roll), and here’s Browns punter Corey Bojorquez registering a 75-yarder (all in the air) from his own goal-line. I don’t think it’ll be long until we see the hundred-yard punt.
Joe Flacco
Flacco playing solid ball for the Browns is like if Shane Battier was canning threes for the Magic. Would he be the main reason for Orlando’s 15-7 start? Probably not. But he’d still be making an impact, and Flacco is in the same boat. Cleveland’s defense has been doing the heavy lifting, but the Flacco-led offense looks…solid! It’s also cool to see a 2013 playoff hero for a championship team play well in 2023. Makes me feel young again.
Sayonara, Chargers
Justin Herbert might be done for the season. Brandon Staley might be done as a head coach. The Chargers’ season might be done done, as they currently sit at 5-8 with the Bills and Chiefs still on the schedule. At least Quentin Johnston looked decent.
Brandon Aiyuk and teach tape
Beneath the glitz and glamor of the 49ers high-powered offense is the fact that they do the little things almost perfectly. One of those little things is blocking, especially on the perimeter. The old adage is “no block, no rock”, and the Niners have appeared to take that to heart under Kyle Shanahan.
Brandon Aiyuk has already thrown some impressive blocks during his time in San Francisco, and he added to his collection with a key block on a huge run by Christian McCaffrey…60+ yards downfield. It wasn’t nasty play calling that caused this block; just pure heart and hustle, real farm-to-table football.
Awards and superlatives
The Greatest Play the Didn’t Count: The Red Kingdom Relay
I couldn’t believe it. Travis Kelce and Kadarius Toney brought backyard football to life…in the middle of a play. Usually, when offensive play calls get silly and goofy, the hijinks happen behind the line of scrimmage. Once the ball gets past the line of scrimmage, it’s like throwing a fish back into the water; you can’t control what happens after the blue line is crossed like you can before you cross it.
This was a player achieving self-awareness in the middle of chaos, a rare feat to accomplish. The lateral wasn’t out of desperation like most other long laterals; this was a lateral out of elite mental wherewithal.
And of course, it had to be the two Chiefs skill players who are known for breaking boundaries that defied the aforementioned normalcy. You have Kelce, literal breaker of records, doer of laterals and boyfriend of the most famous celebrity in the world. Then, you have Toney, the positionless, enigmatic ankle demon who models his game after a flash of lightning; infrequent, but stunning when it strikes.
It was an all-time play…all undone by a penalty.
Let’s visit the station to look at both trains of thought regarding Kadarius Toney being offsides:
Train A: (Peter Griffin voice) Who. The hell. Cares?! Toney being less than a foot over the line doesn’t give him that much of an advantage. He was also lined up offsides multiple times throughout the game, and the only one that was called was the one that took away the go-ahead touchdown. Officials almost always tell receivers when they need to fix their alignment, which didn’t happen at all in this game. And on the day we lost the great Frank Wycheck, one of the heroes of the Music City Miracle, you nullify a potential game-winning lateral?!
Train B: Whether you think the rule is silly or not, it’s a rule players must adhere to, and Toney was still blatantly breaking it. His head was clearly in front of the line of scrimmage, something that 99% of receivers don’t do 99% of the time. Worst of all, he never once checked with the line judge to make sure he was onsides. The referees aren’t required to make sure Toney knows the rules of football, and just because a play is awesome doesn’t mean that any rule infractions automatically get blown off.
While I understand the points made on Train A, I find myself aboard Train B. Yes, it is common courtesy for referees to tell offensive players to move closer to the line of scrimmage if they’re too far off. However, it’s not a requirement. Toney’s head was also in front of the ball; it was an elementary mistake. And yes, the infraction has gone uncalled many times this season, including with Toney; however, it’s being called four times as much as last season. An emphasis has clearly been put on calling offensive offsides.
Patrick Mahomes was visibly and audibly upset after the game. The argument he made was essentially that the play was too cool to not count.
Unfortunately, that’s not how sports work. Just ask several basketball players who’ve gotten poster dunks called off because the defender they sent to the floor successfully took a charge. Although, maybe Mahomes is a closeted college basketball fanatic and recalled the only modern instance of an offensive player committing a foul that should have taken away a score, yet was able to keep it because of…I actually don’t know.
Back in 2013, Minnesota and Illinois were playing each other in basketball. Less than four minutes into the game, Illinois’ Brandon Paul viciously postered Minnesota’s Trevor Mbakwe. Mbakwe tumbled to the ground, the crowd went crazy, and Paul…was called for an offensive foul. Despite getting dunked on, Mbakwe had successfully drawn a charge which, according to the rules, nullifies the basket. This time, however, the basket still counted. No explanation was ever provided for this; Paul picked up the foul, but was still awarded two points. Maybe Mahomes was thinking that the penalty could just be enforced on the kickoff?
Whatever your take is on the issue, the fact of the matter is that this shouldn’t be an excuse for Kansas City’s offense dragging down the defense once again. Steve Spagnuolo’s unit has allowed more than 21 points just twice all season, with the two totals being 24 (Week 8 vs. Denver) and 27 (Week 13 against Green Bay). Sure, they didn’t play a perfect game – Buffalo exploited them a handful of times – but they gave their struggling offense a shot to win late, and they couldn’t come through. Drops remained an issue. Skill players outside of Isiah Pacheco and sometimes Rashee Rice haven’t been able to do much good, and Toney has now been a huge part of two defeats this season.
Instead of playing the blame game, Mahomes & Co. need to fix themselves internally, or else they’re going to let their third Super Bowl title in five seasons slip away.
DeSean Jackson Moment of Special Teams Elation Award: Tylan Wallace
After Marcus Jones’s game-winning punt return touchdown against the Jets last season, I wrote about the unique electricity of the punt return. I also wrote about how Jones’ rare exceptionalism in returning both kicks and punts made him the perfect candidate for a game-winning run back.
Baltimore’s Tylan Wallace is almost the polar opposite of Jones when it comes to returning punts. Sunday saw Wallace return just his fifth punt since the start of his college career in 2017, and he hadn’t returned a punt in a game since 2018. He was only in the game because of Baltimore’s first-string punt returner, Devin Duvernay, suffering an injury.
We already got the pleasure of witnessing one game-winning punt return touchdown, when Jets rookie Xavier Gipson stunned the Bills in Week 1, and Wallace made it two (with a celebratory side flip, too).
Wallace and Gipson’s returns were both similar and different. It wasn’t apparent that Gipson was going to score until he actually crossed the goal-line, so there wasn’t this in-between period of “holy (expletive), he’s gonna score” before he actually scored. With Wallace (and Jones’ last season), the home crowd got to experience a sort of pre-elation that, in my opinion, rocks!
The one similarity is that both Wallace and Gipson’s punt returns were symbolic of their career paths and life in general. Both faced obstacles on their journeys to their respective punt returns – both were almost cut before the season started, but they were kept on the roster because of how well they performed during training camp. Here’s a snippet from Peter King’s Football Morning in America from this week about the importance of the “53rd man”.
Bill Parcells used to spend a ton of time in training camp and during the season on end-of-the-roster players. He’d say once or twice every year, the last man or two on the roster would win or lose a game for every team in the league. Prescient words on Sunday.
Prescient words indeed. And even though it looked like both would go down at some point during their returns, they were able to persist, and they achieved nirvana as a result. What’s also funny is that Wallace was a kinesiology major at Oklahoma State, which is the study of movement. Perhaps that knowledge aided him breaking two tackles on the return.
Whether it helped or not, Wallace’s efforts pushed the Ravens to 10-3, which was especially helpful considering that they still have to play the Jaguars, 49ers and Dolphins to close the season. Should the race for the top seed in the AFC become hot, Baltimore can thank Wallace’s ice-cold return.
Sad Trumpet Award: Vikings-Raiders
Here’s a list of first names:
Alf
Birdie
Bunny
Candy
Dinger
Fanny
Giff
Hoot
Inky
Jab
Jug
Moxie
Ox
Peaches
Stud
Two-Bits
And here’s a list of teams:
Akron Pros
Buffalo All-Americans
Canton Bulldogs
Chicago Staleys
Dayton Triangles
Duluth Kelleys
Frankford Yellow Jackets
Hammond Pros
Milwaukee Badgers
Orange Tornadoes
Pottsville Maroons
Providence Steam Roller
Rock Island Independents
Now, what could these names and teams possibly mean? You guessed it, those are some of the players and teams that have all won a football game 3-0 in NFL history. Sure, there have been a handful of 3-0 games in the post-funny name era, but only eight of the 60 instances have happened post-WWII. I think it’s hilarious when teams do something that’s mostly been done by guys named Bunny, Peaches and Two-Bits.
Quite frankly, this should never happen in today’s game where, for one, throwing the ball forward is perfectly acceptable. Secondly, consider the circumstances present in Las Vegas on Sunday. The weather was perfectly fine; in fact, the weather didn’t matter at all because they were playing in a dome. The last 3-0 NFL game (Dolphins-Steelers in 2007) actually had an excuse to be low-scoring, as the field was so muddy that the game was aptly dubbed “The Mud Bowl”.
There was no mud in Las Vegas on Sunday. Rather, there was metaphorical mud that neither team could get themselves unstuck from. Josh Dobbs, the Passtronaut, crashed hard onto Earth’s surface, and Aidan O’Connell wasn’t much better. I would like this kind of game to never grace my television screen ever again; I think it’s best kept in the past with Bunny, Peaches and Two-Bits.
Best Celebration: The Vikings (again)
The other victory Minnesota took home on Sunday was once again remaining the class of team celebrations in the NFL. Over the past few seasons, they’ve had a Thanksgiving dinner, limbo competition, a game of Duck, Duck, Goose, a dance rhombus and this conglomerate of happiness that featured multiple griddy’s (griddies?), a grass angel and CPR.
On Sunday, they added to their celebration highlight reel with a perfectly executed keg stand formation. Many times, people attempting keg stands can’t get the calisthenics right; it’s a tough formation to pull off, and most of the time, alcohol is involved. But of course, the Vikings got it right. I expect a full rendition of “Revolting Children” from Matilda the Musical the next time they score a touchdown or register a takeaway.
Play call of the week (tie): The Seahawks give the 49ers a taste of their own medicine/The Broncos dupe the Chargers
I’m not a fan of ties, but I’m also indecisive, and the latter has won out yet again.
Play call number one was awesome not only because it worked, but it was against a team that did the same thing to them last season. During one of their three meetings in 2022, the Niners ran a double fake screen pass that left George Kittle wide open for a touchdown. On Sunday, the Seahawks ran essentially the exact same play, and it resulted in the same outcome. All of the linebackers fell for the fake, and the middle of the field parted like the Red Sea. Well done!
Speaking of fakes, the Broncos iced their win over the Chargers with a PLAY-ACTION WISHBONE. The throwback formation is what the Jaguars used to seal their comeback playoff win over the Chargers last season, so they were likely hyper-fixated on stopping the run…and the Broncos probably knew that. 11 blue jerseys fell for the run fake, leaving Adam Trautman wide open for a touchdown. Chef’s kisses all around.
Quote of the Week
“Go out and rip that son of a b****.” – New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll on his advice to quarterback Tommy DeVito following their 24-22 win over the Packers on Monday night.
Certain things, among others
Shohei Ohtani
10 years, $700 million with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Not only that, $680 million is set to be deferred until after the 10 years is up; Ohtani is set to make $68 million a year from 2034-2043. On the surface, it’s financial wonkiness is giving Wolf of Wall Street, but believe it or not, this is actually legal. According to the current collective-bargaining agreement, there’s no limit on how much money a team can defer into the future.
This is going to be Bobby Bonilla times…a lot. As of now, $68 million is just over half of the league average payroll for an entire team. With Ohtani’s low salary combined with the stars LA already has, the Dodgers have essentially given themselves a 10-year window to win as many titles as possible before the financial reckoning strikes. Maniacal short-term spending has already worked for both the Lakers and Rams; only time will tell if the Dodgers can achieve the same or more success.
The Heisman Trophy
Congratulations to LSU’s Jayden Daniels on winning the 86th Heisman Trophy! It was certainly well-deserved, as Bo Nix’s underwhelming performance in the Pac-12 title game clinched the award for Daniels, who’s had a heckuva career turnaround since he unceremoniously left Arizona State a couple of years ago. I can now say I watched a Heisman winner in-person (he torched Mizzou back in October).
On a more critical note, can we make Heisman Trophy votes transparent? Every player in the top 10 of Heisman voting got at least one first-place vote. I love Ollie Gordon and Cody Schrader as much as the next guy, but them receiving first-place votes is a little preposterous in my opinion.
Children of pro athletes from the 2000’s and 2010’s
This week, I discovered the existence of Anquan Boldin Jr. (son of former NFL wideout Anquan Boldin) and Asjia O’Neal (daughter of former NBA star Jermaine O’Neal). Boldin Jr. currently plays for Buffalo men’s basketball, while O’Neal is starring for Texas volleyball and was recently the first overall pick in the Pro Volleyball Federation Draft. Jermaine’s peak was before my time, but Anquan Boldin? I remember him balling out on the Cardinals, Niners and Ravens.
The time is coming where it’s not just the kinds of pro athletes I grew up watching playing high-level sports; some pro athletes are as old or even younger than I am. This past NBA Draft was the first where almost all of the prospects were the same age or younger than me, and I wasn’t a fan! I think it’s kind of weird that a guy like Cam Whitmore, who’s a 6’7”, 230-pound wrecking ball of a basketball player, was born over four months after me.
Over time, I’ve felt like I’m slowly becoming more like my parents (hi mom and dad!); for example, I’ve spent more time on Zillow in the past year than I had in all of my years on Earth combined. I feel closer to them with more and more children of athletes I watched as a kid becoming high-level athletes as well.
Sports Illustrated and artificial intelligence
With me not writing a column last week because of #collegefinals, I didn’t get a chance to write about a major story that rocked the sports journalism industry.
To summarize, it was uncovered by Maggie Harrison of Futurism about two weeks ago that Sports Illustrated had been using AI-generated writers to write stories for its website. “Authors” such as Drew Ortiz and Sora Tanaka were found to have been fake people. A few days ago, two SI executives got canned as a result of this catastrophe.
There’s a lot to unpack, and a lot of it’s already been unpacked. When I first read about this, I was both surprised and unsurprised. In a world full of flourishing journalism butterflies, Sports Illustrated hasn’t yet developed its wings. For so long, it was a brilliant caterpillar that all the other caterpillars looked up to. Its magazine was the pinnacle of sports journalism, a holy text of sorts that contained writing that was in a class of its own. I remember getting the magazine in the mail and feeling excited. I felt like I had unrivaled access to my favorite teams and players.
Then, when the industry began to modernize (a.k.a transitioning from print to online), everyone else quickly entered a cocoon to become butterflies. Sports Illustrated, on the other hand, wasn’t so quick to do so.
Now, Sports Illustrated looks different. Its website, like many others, is chock-full of content. There’s still a lot of really great stuff from really great journalists, but the current state of the industry has had its effects on SI. Nowadays, there’s an incredibly high demand for stuff. The landscape is so saturated with stuff that quality (the foundation of SI) has been sacrificed for quantity. And naturally, when there’s a high enough demand for something, some will turn to unethical measures (i.e. publishing articles from fake people) in order to meet that demand.
The main feeling I’ve felt throughout all of this is disappointment. Combined with the news of NFL sideline reporter Charissa Thompson admitting to making up reports a few weeks ago, it feels like sports journalism is losing what’s made it great for decades. The bluffing, the cutting corners…it undermines what journalism should be about. Back then, readers were served beautiful home cooked meals; the quality of the content was of the utmost importance. Now, it feels like there’s more fast food and hastily prepared dishes than ever before. There’s still heart and passion, but not nearly as much as there was before. Again, considering the current state of the industry, prioritizing quantity is understandable and also necessary. The major downside is that it can lead to something like this.
With these columns, for example, quality is the number one thing I shoot for. I make sure I’m not just relaying to you all what happened, because a lot of you probably already know what happened by the time you read this. Rather, I aim to tell stories. I use numbers to prove points. I weave in non-football topics because it gives these bland letters and words some flavor. I want you all to feel like there’s an actual person with thoughts and feelings behind this tsunami of text.
Looking ahead to the future, I don’t know what the state of sports journalism is going to look like, which isn’t a very reassuring thing to say as an aspiring sports journalist. However, one thing we do know is that the ethics of journalism will always stand. Integrity should never be compromised, and when it is, the offenders will face consequences.