Front page headlines:
The unkillable Eagles conquer the self-killing Bills
Over the past 24 hours, I’ve seen a handful of Eagles-Rocky Balboa comparisons that I couldn’t agree with more. Nick Sirianni’s crew keeps getting battled valiantly by formidable opponents, only for Philly to emerge victorious in the end.
In Philly’s 11 games thus far, 10 of them have seen the game within one possession in the fourth quarter. Not including their Week 18 game against the Giants (the Eagles played their backups the whole way, as they’d already clinched the NFC’s top seed), they played in 11 of those games all of last season.
This season, the Eagles are proving a common saying true: it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. At halftime, Hurts registered another rushing touchdown, but was 4-for-11 with two turnovers. In the second half and OT, Hurts was 14-for-20 with three passing touchdowns and the game-winning rushing touchdown.
Both teams also capitalized off each other’s mistakes; the Bills turned two turnovers into touchdowns, and the Eagles turned a missed field goal and an interception into a pair of touchdowns as well. However, the Bills did that in the first half; the Eagles did it in the second half. It helped Philly outscore Buffalo 23-10 in the fourth quarter and OT.
And then, there was Jake Elliott. The Legend from La Grange. The Memphis Marksman. Most importantly, the Pulverizer of Pressure. He’s 4/4 from 58+ yards and 8/8 with under two minutes left in regulation/overtime to tie or give Philly a lead. Those include two long game-winners – a 61-yarder against the Giants in 2019 and a 54-yarder against the Commanders last season. Plus, he’s a perfect 15/15 in the playoffs.
However, Sunday night might’ve been his best work. Amidst heavy rain and wind, the Eagles needed Elliott to make a 59-yard field goal to force overtime. The conditions in Philly as Elliot kickedmade 59 yards feel like 69 yards. Most kickers likely would’ve folded in that situation.
Not Elliott.
The ball’s flight looked like a sinker in baseball, but Elliott got more than enough to sneak the pigskin through the uprights to force the extra period.
His teammates were rightfully complimentary of Elliott. When his kick went through, Jalen Hurts shook his head in seeming disbelief. After the game, Darius Slay said he calls Elliott “Jake the G.O.A.T.”. Nick Sirianni said he wouldn’t have anyone else in the world attempting that kick. Pat McAfee called him a dawg with five g’s. DeVonta Smith had arguably the best soundbite of them all regarding the nerves of watching a big-time kick.
“If you don’t watch, it’s because you’re scared of what may happen. I know it’s money, so imma watch it,” Smith said.
For the Bills, they find themselves in an extremely unique situation. They’re currently the 10th seed in the AFC at 6-6, behind the likes of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Houston and Denver, all of whom Buffalo would likely be favored over in a neutral-field game.
The Bills have proven the same thing the Eagles have, only negatively. They remain at the top of the league in several EPA statistics; however, EPA is merely predictive. Buffalo consistently does a swell job of putting themselves in position to score, but have literally given away so many of those good opportunities. That along with colossal late-game goofs against the Jets, Patriots and Broncos are a big reason why their record sits at 6-6 instead of something like 9-3.
Their next two games are against the Chiefs and Cowboys, with the former being a road trip to Arrowhead. Even worse for Buffalo, here’s that same list of teams ahead of them in the standings and their remaining strength of schedule according to Tankathon:
Steelers: 26th
Browns: 21st
Colts: 20th
Texans: 23rd
Broncos: 27th
The Bills have had two stretches of greatness in the Super Bowl era: their first lasted from the late 1980’s into the early 1990’s, and their second started in2020 through the present day. Both stretches can be defined by two words: so close. Right now, they’re so close to this era ending in a similar fashion as the first one did (to a less extreme extent).
Saturday was the last day of college football as we know it
I guess college football has become a regular part of this column now! However, this appearance comes on a slightly more somber note, because Saturday saw the end of an era.
There will still be The Game, where five yards feel like ten and one touchdown feels like two. The Iron Bowl, where Alabama and Auburn continue to trade off who wins in the most improbable way possible, will persist.
But the massive change on the horizon is quickly approaching, as there are a boatload of big-name programs jettisoning for other conferences after this season. The Pac-12, whose unique identity has become beloved after dark, will be going dark…forever. The Big Ten West, a division whose foundation is filled with entertaining befuddlement, will be no more. Finally, the four-team College Football Playoff will become 12 next season.
At the end of the day, college football will prosper in many ways because of these moves. The number of big-time regular games will skyrocket. More teams will have a shot at the national championship with the expanded playoff.
But the sentimental part of me is proving tough to ignore. Many of us will miss rivalry games meaning a little more than they will in the future. Many of us will miss the hilarious nature of Pac-12 After Dark and the Big Ten West. We yearn for anything we associate with positive memories; this era will certainly fit the bill.
Quick(ish) hitters
Jordan Love
Love played his best game on Thursday. He looked Rodgers-ian with sidearm throws amidst a clean pocket that ended up being complete.
DaRon Bland
This has officially gotten ridiculous. Bland, a defensive back, has five pick-sixes this season, the most in NFL history. He has more touchdowns than the following:
Davante Adams
DeAndre Hopkins
Michael Pittman. Jr
Jaylen Waddle
DK Metcalf
Terry McLaurin
Amari Cooper
Every other defense in the NFL
Doinks
Doink. Bonk. Boink. Oink. Any onomatopoeia with some version of “o” followed by “nk” seems to be inherently funny, and it’s especially funny when it happens in sports.
This past weekend, we got two doinks. The first happened on Saturday during the Battle Line Rivalry between Missouri and Arkansas. Already down 34-0, the Razorbacks were straight up not having a good time, and it was about to get worse.
Following a Missouri touchdown, UA kick returner Isaiah Sategna miscalculated the ball’s descent on the ensuing kickoff, and BONK! The ball ricocheted right off his facemask; even worse, he tried to pick the ball up with his hands instead of falling on top of it. Like a claw machine at an arcade, he couldn’t grab the ball. Sategna then got annihilated, a dogpile formed, the Tigers recovered and proceeded to score a touchdown on the next play. Woo, pig!
The other doink came less than 24 hours later at the end of Jaguars-Texans. Outside of Matt Ammendola’s buzzer-beater against Cincinnati a few weeks ago, Houston has had pretty terrible luck on game-winning field goal attempts; two of their five defeats have been punctuated by the opposition splitting the uprights at the buzzer.
On Sunday, Ammendola had a chance to hit another clutch kick. Down three, the Texans needed him to convert from 58 yards out to force overtime. He hadn’t hit a field goal from that far out in an organized football game since high school, but the flight of the ball looked like it could get there. After all, it was kicked almost right down the middle.
“I thought he made it,” Jacksonville quarterback Trevor Lawrence said after the game.
Did it ever doink! This was, however, a more permissible doink then if it’d hit one the uprights; hitting one of those implies a lack of accuracy, which is usually worse than a lack of distance.
With all doinks, however, they almost personify the goalposts. When a doink happens, it’s like the tall yellow poles say in unison “ha! You buffoon, you MISSED!” Sometimes, they’re actually pretty nice, and the ball goes through the uprights despite a doink (or two, in rare cases).
Bijan!
Good to see him flourish. Surpassed the 20 PPR point mark for the first time since Week 2. Crazy what happens when your crazy-talented running back gets more than 15 touches in a game!
Awards and superlatives
Team that could actually blame Canada: The Pittsburgh Steelers
Here’s a stat that seems emblematic of Matt Canada’s tenure as Steelers offensive coordinator:
In their last game without Canada (the 2021 Wild Card game against Cleveland), Pittsburgh surpassed 400 total yards of offense. In the ensuing 45 games with Canada as offensive coordinator, the Steelers didn’t crack 400 yards of offense once. In Pittsburgh’s first game since Canada was fired last week, they surpassed 400.
As the kids say nowadays, lol.
The new era of Steelers offense commenced on the first play. On a play-action, Kenny Pickett unleashed a laser over the deep middle of the field to Pat Freirmuth for a chunk gain.
I’m sorry
But the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now
Why? Oh, ’cause she’s dead!
– Taylor Swift, “Look What You Made Me Do”, 2017
For the past couple of seasons, Pickett’s passing chart lacked not just green dots over the deep middle of the field, but any dots at all. He threw outside the numbers more than any QB in the league heading into this week. It’s like the middle of the field was blocked off for construction.
Now, Pittsburgh’s porous offense over the past couple of seasons wasn’t all Canada’s fault, but he certainly didn’t help. Some of his play calls were mind-bogglingly bad, like he made them up on the spot.
Sunday saw something new. Again, it wasn’t world-beating – the Steelers scored just 16 points. But if Pittsburgh wanted to see better days, they had to get rid of the guy who made things worse, even if it meant deviating from precedent (the Steelers hadn’t fired a coach mid-season since 1941).
Hell (but funny): Patriots-Giants
I didn’t really know what I was expecting to happen in this game.
Heading into Sunday, there’d been 1,941 games in NFL history where a team scored ten points in a game. Only 292 of those games (15%) saw the team that scored 10 points emerge victorious.
The Giants made it 293.
This matchup has largely been defined by competence; out of the 14 games the Giants and Patriots have played (including two Super Bowls), the only other time both teams met with losing records was in 1970, when the Patriots were still the “Boston Patriots” and also the laughingstock of the NFL.
We are so back.
The Giants aren’t much better, but everything surrounding New England’s offense either needs a major makeover or needs to go altogether. There should be a reality show like Bar Rescue where some angry yet qualified man goes into a football team’s facility and roasts them for their incompetence.
Switching to the Giants, as a fan, I don’t know how to feel. On one hand, the Giants have won two straight games, are just two games out of a Wild Card spot and have seen DeVito Delusion sweep the New York/New Jersey area. On the other hand, the Giants currently have the sixth pick in the draft, and a likely short playoff appearance would knock them down a handful of draft slots. They also aren’t very fun to watch on offense.
The Giants have the second-hardest remaining schedule; they still play the Eagles twice, along with the Packers, Rams and Saints. If they somehow sneak into a Wild Card, great! That meant they played their tails off and pulled off some miracles. Brian Daboll’s seat would cool down a lot, as would Wink Martindale’s. Besides, winning is fun! If they falter, a top-ten draft pick will be in their future.
As of now, this seems like a win-win. I’ll check back in a couple of weeks when the Giants find a way to make this scenario anything but a win-win.
Hell (but less funny): The New York Jets
Our good friends over at Secret Base made a YouTube video back in 2017 called “The history of every NFL team”. In it, they ranked all 32 NFL teams based on how volatile (variant) their year-to-year win totals were since 1990. Within a chart detailing the volatility, they had a few blurbs about each franchise.
Coming in at number three were the Jets. One blurb stood out in particular.
“The Jets do not play football. Football just sort of happens to them”.
Bullseye.
Over the years, it feels like those who played for the Jets have been a part of something like The Hunger Games. It feels like they’ve gotten thrown into this arena under a cursed higher power, like they’re competing against their own will.
In a season that has once again been filled with lowlights, arguably the lowest light (other than Aaron Rodgers’ Achilles tear four snaps into the season) happened on a dark, black Friday.
In Catholicism, the idea of a Hail Mary is one surrendering control of a certain situation and calling upon God, his mother Mary or any saint to figure things out. The term’s entrance into the football world came in 1975, when Roger Staubach found Drew Pearson on a prayer from 50 yards away to send the Cowboys to the NFC Championship. Mary answered the prayer for him and many others to follow.
Friday might’ve been the first time Mary not only rejected the prayer, but enacted the prayer onto the opponent in a fashion unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
The only time I can remember something like this happening was back in 2018, when then-Titans DB Malcolm Butler took a last-gasp heave from then-Washington QB Josh Johnson to the house. Even then, Butler picked off Johnson at his own 45-yard line, and the Titans were already winning.
Boyle’s Hail Mary pick-six was, on the other hand, a merciless gut punch.
Why Tim Boyle is still in the NFL is anyone’s guess; he played three years at UConn, put up a TD/INT ratio of 1:13, transferred to Eastern Kentucky and didn’t do much better. In his few relief appearances in the NFL, Boyle has mostly stunk. It wasn’t even a bad throw by Boyle; perhaps the negative energy stemming from his past performances caused this. This might’ve been the latest spiritual punishment enacted upon the Jets for not finding a better quarterback.
It’s especially infuriating because of two main reasons: one is how good everything else has been for Gang Green, especially the defense. A league-average quarterback would likely have them in the playoffs.
Second is that quality backup quarterbacks have kept multiple teams afloat over the past couple of seasons (Josh Dobbs, Tommy DeVito, Gardner Minshew, Will Levis, Brock Purdy and Jacoby Brissett in 2022); the Jets haven’t prioritized that at all. Should they have predicted Rodgers would go down for the season before he threw two pass attempts? No! But they should’ve at least tried to find someone more suitable than Boyle or Zach Wilson to replace him. Heck, they experienced this last season with Mike White!
This is all reminiscent of a moment from another cursed New York sports franchise, the Mets. On April 30, 1990, the Mets were playing the Braves. Atlanta’s Mark Lemke hit a routine ground ball right to New York second baseman Gregg Jeffries. With first baseman Mike Marshall pulled off the bag because of a shift, pitcher David Cone covered for him at first and seemingly made an easy out…only for first base umpire Charlie Williams to call Lemke safe.
Agh! Sudden peril has befallen upon the Mets! Despite the obvious missed call, the best thing for Cone to do in this situation was to stick with the play, as the Braves had runners heading to second and third. Keeping them there would be optimal.
Instead of sticking with the play, Cone argued with Williams while the ball was still live. Seeing that Cone wasn’t paying attention, the runner who was on second scored. As Cone continued bickering, the runner who was on first scored as well. The Braves ended up winning 7-4.
The Jets have treated the quarterback position like Cone treated that play. Instead of actually doing something about their suddenly dire situation, they let life pass them by and got burned as a result. Just like the Mets, the New York team has four (wins), and their opponent(s) have seven (losses). Time seems to be running out for the Jets to solve a problem they should’ve solved weeks ago.
Hell (but also less funny): The Carolina Panthers
There are many things that have made the 2023 season a terrible one for the Panthers. However, there’s two aspects I want to focus on,
One is the on-field success, or rather, the lack of it. Carolina has had several porous seasons in their nearly 30 years of existence. However, few have been as bad as it’s on pace to be.
For a visual, Carolina’s inaugural season was in 1995. Since then, 11 franchises have won fewer than half of their regular season games. Here are the number of times each of those teams have won four or fewer games in a season (<25%, which I would consider a truly terrible season).
Jets: 8
Bengals: 8
Bears: 5
Rams: 5
Panthers: 3
Buccaneers: 5
Giants: 4
Falcons: 5
Chargers: 4
Bills: 2
Dolphins: 2
Interesting, eh? The Panthers have had a handful of mediocre seasons, but few that have truly stunk. 2023 is set to be added to that short list.
The other is everything surrounding the on-field disappointment. If we include FC Charlotte (the Major League Soccer team David Tepper owns along with the Panthers), Frank Reich marked the fourth head coach Tepper has fired since he took ownership of both teams. Reich was far from a big help, but the situation he was handed would be incredibly difficult for any coach to work with.
Then, there’s the future, one that looks devoid of hope. The trade that Tepper made for Bryce Young (who’s been greatly outplayed by his 2023 draft counterpart CJ Stroud) might go down as one of the worst in NFL history in terms of what was given up for one player. The 2024 first rounder that was dealt to Chicago is on track to be the top overall pick which, in a draft with two potential franchise quarterbacks (Caleb Williams and Drake Maye) is especially valuable. Tepper’s patience has been short, and it’s going to cost his team for a long time.
Since Dan Snyder and Michael Bidwill departed, the title of worst owner in the NFL has been up for grabs. Over the past calendar year and change, Tepper seems to have taken a pretty strong hold of it.
Best celebrator: Zay Flowers
Amidst his torching of the Chargers on Sunday night, Flowers celebrated his two touchdowns with a wedding bouquet toss and a soccer penalty kick. His quarterback, Lamar Jackson, didn’t seem too fond of either celebration.
“Yeah, that was a**,” he said after the game.
I’ve thought similarly about stuff like movies, TV shows, food, even other touchdown celebrations. I remember when former Giants linebacker Michael Boley drilled an intern in the face for some reason. Here’s current Western Carolina head coach Kerwin Bell spiking the ball off his lower extremities, getting shoved to the ground and table-topping an opponent all in a few seconds when he was in the CFL. Several players have even hurt themselves.
But Flowers’ celebrations? I thought those were quite creative! I just hope Flowers doesn’t listen to the haters (or hater in this scenario); after all, flowers are supposed to be fun and colorful.
Quote of the Week
“F**k!” – Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper outside of Carolina’s locker room after his team fell to 1-10.
Stat of the Week
60 seconds (approximately): That’s the amount of time NFL RedZone host Scott Hanson stayed on the air despite him needing to evacuate RedZone’s studio in Southern California. Despite the alarm inside of the studio blaring, Hanson continued talking through Bills-Eagles. No hiccups, no stutters, no indications of even the slightest bit of fear.
As sports shows the world time and time again, pressure’s permeability depends on the person. In that studio on Sunday, pressure met prime Hakeem Olajuwon at the rim. Hanson not only forged on amidst chaos, but offered us a life lesson centered around persistence as well.
“I am reminded of an old Chinese proverb which says, ‘May you live to see interesting times,’” Hanson said. “I’ve never had this happen before, I’m pretty sure all of our professionals haven’t either, but we soldier on.”