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The Jets stymie the Eagles

Week 6 was a clunky week of football. Here were the point totals of the 15 winning teams from Week 6:

14

17

19

19

19

20

20

20

20

21

24

24

26

37

42

This level of league-wide clunk was unprecedented; the last time at least ten winning teams in one week scored 21 points or fewer in the 18-week season era (since 2021) was…never. Considering how many appalling offenses have graced NFL fields over the past few seasons, I thought there’d be at least one week where a bunch of offenses were collectively bad. But alas, this week has taken the cake. 

Out of the many games that were gettin’ clunk on Sunday, the one in East Rutherford saw the previously undefeated Eagles look far from the dominant unit they were last season. 

On the surface, Philly was just doing fine offensively. They were top five in points per game and yards per game entering Sunday. However, they didn’t look as dominant as they had been, as the Jets defense was swarming all afternoon.  

What didn’t help were the turnovers; the Eagles turned the ball over four times on Sunday, while Gang Green’s offense didn’t turn it over once. According to Stathead, there’ve been 797 games with at least a 4-0 turnover differential, and the team with more turnovers is 34-760-3 (4.5%).

“Any time you’re minus-4 in the turnovers, you’re not going to win many games,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said.

Combined with a beaten up defense, the vibes in Philly have certainly taken a hit, especially because the Eagles take on the Dolphins next week, who are on pace to put themselves in the same company as some of the greatest offenses the game has ever seen. 

Elsewhere in Clunkland…

The Browns stifle the 49ers

As a defense, you know you’ve done an excellent job when you make a quarterback-proof offense look anything but. 

To be fair to San Francisco, it certainly didn’t help that Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel and Trent Williams were out for large portions of this game with injury. A lot of how the Niners dunk on opposing defenses comes from guys like McCaffrey and Samuel winning one-on-one matchups and Brock Purdy getting them the ball in relatively easy fashion. With that element severely diminished combined with rainy weather in Cleveland, Purdy did not have the good time he usually has on Sundays en route to San Francisco’s first loss of the season. 

Now, that’s not to discount what was yet another championship-level performance from the Browns. A large part of why Purdy completed just six of his final 18 passes was because it felt like there were 15 white jerseys on the field instead of 11. Every level of Cleveland’s defense was eating; the unit that looked like Swiss cheese up front last season has seemed to have closed up every itsy bitsy holes this season. Greg Newsome was feeling rightfully confident after. 

“We say it all the time. We’re the best in the world, as a defense and particularly as a secondary.” 

I’d push back a little bit on “best defense in the world”. Has he seen the United States military? Tylenol against headaches? In all seriousness, especially after the whole Noah Lyles-NBA beef, athletes need to define what “world” they’re talking about so we don’t get into any more foolish debates about nonsense. 

That being said, if we’re talking about the NFL world, yes, the Browns are the best. Cleveland has allowed the fewest total yards through six games (1,002) since the 1971 Baltimore Colts. A general rule I have is this: the more presidential administrations we have to cycle through until we find the last time a team or player did something good, the higher I think of that player or team. The Browns have a Super Bowl-caliber defense; if their offense can simply be average, a Super Bowl won’t be too far out of the question down the road. 

The Giants almost beat the Bills

Let’s hop into a time machine real quick. I want to show you all something. 

In 2020, the 4-7 Giants rolled into Seattle to take on the 8-3 Seahawks. Colt McCoy was in for an injured Daniel Jones, and Wayne Gallman was in for an injured Saquon Barkley. All signs pointed to a Seattle victory, especially considering that the Seahawks were averaging 11 more points per game than the Giants entering that Sunday. However, a slugfest would ensue. Although McCoy & Co. couldn’t do much of anything on offense, New York’s defense stifled Seattle’s high-flying offense. The halftime score of 5-0 in favor of Seattle really took me back to when the NFL was filled with powerhouses like the Pottsville Maroons and Frankford Yellow Jackets (yes, those were real teams). 

Then, the Giants found a pulse on offense. Gallman broke off a few huge runs, Alfred Morris found the end zone twice, and with the Giants defense coming up with huge stop after huge stop, Big Blue walked out of Lumen Field with a yucky 17-12 upset. 

Sunday’s game against the Bills felt eerily similar to that 2020 game against the Seahawks. It was a tough road contest with a backup QB that saw the Giants defense step up in the wake of a sputtering offense. The score was funky for most of the game, too. The only difference was that New York’s offense never found the end zone and lost because of it, even though they had the ball at the one-yard line twice. 

In regards to the end-of-half fiasco that cost the Giants valuable points…I still don’t get it. Combined with my beloved Miami Hurricanes literally fumbling away a game a couple of weeks ago, I’m starting to get a little tired of the teams I support pulling off incredibly dumbfounding feats of game mismanagement. If the answer to “would a fourth-grader who’d been playing Madden for a year have known to do the opposite thing this team did and been right” is yes, then something must have gone seriously wrong, and that’s exactly what happened here. 

While it was clear that Tyrod Taylor catalyzed the screw-up – he appeared to audible to a run and, after it ran out the clock, patted his chest in sorrow, there are two things that will forever confuse me. One is that, with 14 seconds left in the half and no timeouts, why is running the ball even an option? I understand that the Giants probably thought they could get another snap off, but the downside of calling a run in that situation (getting stopped in-bounds) is just about the worst thing that could’ve happened, so why risk that result? Also, Taylor has been in the league for over a decade and, by all accounts, seems like a very smart guy. For him to risk a disaster like that is a tad mind-boggling. 

Of course, the cherry on top was that the lost points ended up costing the Giants a far easier shot at victory. The end-of-game pass interference controversy involving Darren Waller wouldn’t have had to happen if New York was within two of Buffalo instead of five. Graham Gano has been Mr. Automatic for years, and he was 3/3 on the night. 

If there are any silver linings to Sunday’s loss, it’s the defense giving the Giants a chance at the end in the first place. Bobby Okereke played so well that he got compared to Fred Warner by Cris Collinsworth on the NBC broadcast. Micah McFadden continued his complete 180 from a tough rookie season by coming away with two turnovers. Deonte Banks continued to look like a quality cornerback. 

Also, the Giants have also played arguably the three best offenses in football (Buffalo, Miami, San Francisco), and even in their losses to the Dolphins and Niners, they made both offenses look mortal for large chunks of the game. 

However, there’s something I’ve noticed in my years of watching sports about bad teams. A big reason why they can’t beat other teams is because they’re usually too busy beating themselves. Even if the Giants defense continues to play well, it won’t matter if they continue to get in their own way. 

Quick(ish) hitters

Kyle Pitts finally caught a touchdown 

To conclude this bit on disappointing Kyle Pitts stats, here’s a list of players that caught a touchdown pass before Kyle Pitts did this season:

• Jimmy Graham, who hadn’t caught a touchdown with the Saints since 2014
• Pharaoh Brown, who hadn’t caught a touchdown since 2020
• Lil’Jordan Humphrey, Denver’s WR5 who hadn’t caught a touchdown since 2021
• Drew Ogletree, a second-year sophomore tight end from Youngstown State that plays for the Colts who I’d never heard of until yesterday 
• Deven Thompkins, a second-year return specialist for Tampa Bay that caught five passes last season

It sure was fun while it lasted. I say that fully knowing that this might easily be the only touchdown Pitts scores all year. 

The Dolphins are very fast and good (again)

There always seems to be one kind in class who finishes a test way before anyone else and gets a really high score every time. The Dolphins are that kid, except watching them be fast and amazing at the same time is actually pretty fun. 

Actual quick hitters

• Anthony Richardson might be out for the season and I am very sad.
• Justin Tucker is still the coolest kicker in football. He went 6/6 in Baltimore’s 24-16 win over Tennessee in London, and after the game, called himself a mere exclamation point while referring to the rest of his team as the paragraphs to a winning story. I know the Ravens are named after a famous poem from Edgar Allen Poe, but I was unaware that his spirit still carried on inside of Baltimore’s locker room. 
• I know that the Patriots would probably crush Iowa football in a hypothetical game, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Iowa won 3-2. 
• Kyren Williams rushed for 158 yards against the Cardinals, his most in a single-game since he ran for 199 against North Carolina in 2021. 
• The Texans are one of the most sneakily complete teams I think I’ve ever watched. 

Awards and superlatives 

Brian Dawkins Hit Stick of the Week: Jabrill Peppers and Craig Reynolds 

I’m not usually a big fan of co-winners (except that one time when two Olympic high jumpers that happened to be great friends shared a gold medal. That was heartwarming). Awards were meant to be won by a singular entity. However, there were a pair of hits on Sunday that were both so (word) that I couldn’t pick just one. 

In unexpected fashion, Sunday proved that Davante Adams and I actually share one thing in common: we’ve both felt the heat of peppers recently. While my negative experience with peppers had more to do with an embarrassingly low spice tolerance rather than being an All-Pro receiver, Adams and I are still similar. I am Davante Adams. Davante Adams is me. 

Jabrill Peppers has been an enforcer for a long time. In the shadow of the elite Swiss Army knife-ness that defined him as an NFL prospect coming out of Michigan was a hard-hitting maniac whose goal was to light up opposing ball-carriers. However, he rarely had hits like that – the only other smashing hit from Peppers came from, funny enough, the aforementioned Giants-Seahawks game in 2020, when he leveled Tyler Lockett. 

And now, Craig Reynolds. In 2022, Reynolds was one of the last players to make Detroit’s roster. During an episode of “Hard Knocks”, the film crew showed Dan Campbell and a handful of assistant coaches debating whether to cut Reynolds or not. Offensive assistant John Morton voiced a reason for keeping him.

“He’s everything we represent,” he said. 

The Lions ended up keeping Reynolds in large part because he was, in fact, everything the Lions represented. Reynolds went to Division II Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, which was also the only university that gave him a football offer out of high school. Before arriving in Detroit, he’d gotten cut by Washington, Atlanta and Jacksonville. Even with the Lions, he sat behind David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs, two running backs Detroit had invested a lot of capital in, on the depth chart. 

Like Alexander Hamilton, this guy was young, scrappy and hungry, and it showed when he finally got an opportunity to shine. Montgomery went down with an injury, and Gibbs was already out, so Reynolds became the RB1 and didn’t waste much time making his presence felt. If you listen closely enough, you can hear DMX start playing as Reynolds blasts Carlton Davis into next week en route to an Amon-Ra St. Brown touchdown. 

Just like Morton had probably hoped, this was a moment that represented who the Lions are. 

“It’s the way we play football,” St. Brown said after the game. “We block hard. We run after the catch. We’re selfless teammates. We want what’s best for everyone on this team. We’re a tight group, especially on offense. We love each other. That’s just a testament to the chemistry that we built, the coaching our coaches have instilled in us since the spring. We’ve got to keep it going.”

The Lions are the kind of team that’s the protagonist in the movie. They’re a bunch of guys who were overlooked, learned lessons from losing and pride themselves on doing the little things like blocking for each other. 

Since November 6 of last year, Detroit is 13-3, which is the second best record behind Kansas City (14-1) and San Francisco (13-2). I’m still not ready to put them in the tier with legitimate Super Bowl contenders, but the revving coming from Motor City is hard to ignore. 

Anti-identity Award: Jake Moody

When you get a nickname as a kicker, you’re probably really good at your job. That was the case with Jake Moody, who earned the nickname “Money” for being exactly that in college at Michigan.

During his time with the Wolverines, Moody established himself as one of the most reliable kickers in college football. Out of the 23 kickers that attempted at least 25 field goals in 2021, only Jonah Dalmas of Boise State converted a higher percentage of kicks (92.9%) than Moody (92%). Although Moody only converted 82.9% of his field goal attempts in 2022, he made the most field goals in the nation (29). He ended his college career going 65/74 (87.8%) from inside of 50 yards, and he never missed an extra point. Moody was also money on a handful of clutch kicks, including game-winners against Illinois last year and Nebraska the year before. 

In fact, Moody was so good in college that the Niners took him in the third round of this past year’s draft, something that’s rarely been done since the turn of the century. From 2000-2022, only four other kickers had been taken in the first three rounds of the draft. 

“…we think he [Moody] has the makings of a cornerstone, foundational-type player for years to come, and we’re proud to have him,” San Francisco GM John Lynch said after the draft.  

Heading into Sunday’s game against the Browns, Moody’s reliability had seemed to carry over from college to the pros. He was a perfect 9/9 on field goals and 20/20 on extra points. Even though he missed his first field goal of the season against Cleveland, Moody still had a shot to win San Francisco the game if he just connected on a 41-yard kick. After all, it was just two yards longer than the game-winner he drilled against Nebraska two years ago. 

Welp. 

Sure, that’s a kick that Moody should make. However, it didn’t help that the wind pushed what would’ve been a made field goal wide right. It also didn’t help that, instead of moving the ball closer for the rookie, Kyle Shanahan killed almost 40 seconds off the clock because he believed in Moody enough to not feel the need to gain more yards. The confidence from Shanahan is nice, but making a game-winning kick as easy as possible for your rookie kicker would’ve been even nicer, especially considering the elements.

For the other four kickers that were taken in the first three rounds of the draft this century, their career paths were a mixed bag. On one hand, Nate Kaeding and Sebastian Janikowski were Pro Bowlers, and Mike Nugent had a lovely 16-year career. On the other hand, Roberto Aguayo, who was a fantastic kicker at Florida State, made only 71% of his field goals in his rookie season with Tampa Bay and never played in a regular season game again. For Moody’s sake, I hope he can shake this one off and re-discover the Money Mentality that made him so great at Michigan so he doesn’t fall into the same boat as Aguayo. 

Funniest Face: Arthur Smith and Kellen Moore

Lots of times, professionals are professional. Even amidst emotional in-game moments, many players and coaches are able to remain stoic (at least on the outside). 

To Arthur Smith and Kellen Moore, stoicism temporarily went out the window for them during their respective games. 

Their reactions were understandable. Desmond Ridder threw an inexcusable late-game red zone interception (a triple-whammy of bad), and the Chargers failed to convert a late-game fourth down attempt. I think members of Congress should do this more when their proposed bills get rejected. The watchability of C-SPAN would skyrocket past about a quarter of NFL teams if this were the case. 

Statistic of the Week

14. That’s the amount of times I felt sad on Thursday night watching the Broncos offense. While that number is merely a rough estimate and is probably incorrect (also, I’m not sure how the heck you’re supposed to quantify emotion), my point is that there might forever be a cloud over Russell Wilson as long as he’s in a Broncos uniform, even though he’s playing a lot better than he did last year. 

Quote of the Week: “We were ready to go. No matter how much gas you think you have in the tank, you’ve got enough to win the game. You always find that extra bit. That’s why we’ve got such a great d-line. Such a great defense. Nobody was going to tap out if we had to play three more series or whatever it was,”  – Bengals defensive end Sam Hubbard on Cincinnati’s late-game stand against Seattle

As we’ve documented in previous weeks, the Bengals have garnered a reputation under Zac Taylor of taking a little bit of time to fully coalesce. In those most recent years, however, the Bengals have been the large steaks of the NFL; they take a while to cook, but once they’re done, they’re quite good.

That’s more pertained to Cincinnati’s offense, which, despite them still looking a little rough around the edges, has gotten marginally better since the start of the season. However, the Bengals defense looks more than playoff-caliber. 

After losing Jessie Bates III and Vonn Bell over the offseason, a larger onus was placed on a handful of young defensive backs to step up, and that’s exactly what they did against the Seahawks. Cam Taylor-Britt has inherited the spirit of Mike Hilton, with a layout interception being the highlight of his day. Dax Hill needed to provide positional versatility with Bates and Bell gone, and he’s done just that. While DJ Turner and Jordan Battle have played limited snaps, they’ve looked like quality professionals, too. 

However, Cincinnati continued to make its money up front. Geno Smith was under siege all afternoon, with the main deterrent being Hubbard, who registered five of the Bengals’ 13 QB hits on the afternoon. 

The play that Hubbard is referring to in the quote is the one that clinched the game for the Bengals. With the Seahawks facing a fourth-and-eight at Cincinnati’s nine-yard line. Here’s an excerpt from bengals.com senior writer Geoff Hobson’s game recap on what transpired on the last play:

How Hill approached Hubbard as the Seahawks huddled and called a ‘T,” stunt. Hubbard said, ‘No.’ He had owned right tackle Jake Curhan all day, hitting Smith four times, including that sack with 2:03 left on the previous fourth down from the Bengals 6.

Why stop now with the money on the table?

But when Hill told Hubbard, “Trust me, I’m going to get there,” he had his man.

“So we ran the stunt we’ve been running together for years,” said Hubbard, still sitting at his locker fully dressed 30 minutes after it was over. “I sold it. He made it through and we both got the hit. He got the ball out. We won the game.”

A few lockers down, after teasing Hubbard for not showering yet, Hill explained why he believed.

“If you look at it, we’ve had quite a bit of sacks and hits from it the last three years. We already knew what we can do. We’ve done it multiple times,” Hill said. “We already knew before they came out of the huddle what we were going to do. He just let me get high vertical and he’s going to just read off me. That’s all it was.”

This is a lesson in the value of continuity. That play wouldn’t have happened had Hubbard and Hill not been teammates for several years and known each other’s strengths. Hill’s belief in Hubbard came from years of playing together. The same can be said about Trey Hendrickson, DJ Reader, Germaine Pratt, Cam Sample, Chidobe Awuzie and Hilton, all of whom have been in Cincinnati since at least 2021. For as cheesy as this might sound, the power of friendship can really propel teams forward, and the Bengals clearly have it.