| We had a Scorigami Sunday – and it wasn’t 44-42. And it wasn’t 14-11. @NFL_ScorigamiScore Update:NYJ 26 – 32 MIAFinalThat’s Scorigami!! It’s the 1089th unique final score in NFL history.– – -Not that its anything but bookkeeping but the Jets (as usual), Browns and Titans will not be in the postseason. Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets are officially out of the playoff hunt. The Jets were eliminated from postseason contention on Sunday afternoon after their 32-26 overtime loss to the Miami Dolphins. That defeat, their fourth straight, dropped the Jets to 3-10 on the season. They’re now tied for last in the AFC East standings.The Jets have missed the playoffs for a 14th straight season. Their last postseason appearance came in the 2010 season. Their postseason drought is the longest active streak across the NFL, NBA, WNBA, NHL and MLB.The Jets were a long shot to make the playoffs entering Sunday’s game. They’ve won just once since a 24-3 victory over the Patriots in mid-September. Since then, they’ve fired both head coach Robert Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas. It’s unclear if the Jets will shut down Rodgers for the rest of the season, which is something that has been rumored in recent weeks amid his string of injuries, now that the playoffs are out of reach.Elsewhere in the league on Sunday, both the Tennessee Titans and Cleveland Browns were eliminated from the playoffs. The Jacksonville Jaguars put up 10 unanswered points to stun the Titans with a 10-6 win in Nashville. Both teams are just 3-10 on the season and are out of postseason contention. |
| NFC NORTH |
| MINNESOTAA note on WR JUSTIN JEFFERSON from Dante Koplowitz-Fleming:@DanteKopFlemJustin Jefferson is the first player in NFL history with 7,000+ receiving yards in his first five seasons– – -QB SAM DARNOLD won the battle against his predecessor as Vikings QB, KIRK COUSINS now of Atlanta. But as Frank Schwab of YahooSports.com points out, Darnold may still be one and done with Minnesota: Teams hold onto quarterbacks too long, even if they probably know it’s a bad idea. The fear of the unknown at quarterback leads to poor decisions. Too often franchises believe it’s better to have a proven mediocre QB than gamble on a new one and end up with utter incompetence. Bottoming out at QB gets head coaches and general managers fired.That’s why the Minnesota Vikings’ offseason was unusual. It was a reason everyone gave up on them. The Vikings moved on from Kirk Cousins, reportedly refusing to increase their offer to their QB of six seasons. The Atlanta Falcons came in with a better offer, leaving the Vikings without a quarterback at all.The 2024 Vikings’ story might not change how teams approach rapidly aging or average quarterbacks. But their path shows that a team doesn’t have to settle for a less-than-ideal option just because they’re worried about what might happen next. The Vikings saw firsthand in a 42-21 win over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday that they made the right decision.Cousins’ slump continued Sunday. He threw two interceptions, giving him no touchdowns and eight interceptions in his past four games as the Falcons’ hold on first place in the NFC South continues to slip away. Cousins looks like a shell of what he was, at age 36 coming off an Achilles injury. That’s not to say the Vikings are geniuses — they tried to get Cousins back, after all — but their refusal to overpay Cousins when they knew it would be a mistake should be commended. Not many teams would make that same decision. Most teams would give out the blank check and pray for better results.Meanwhile, Sam Darnold was signed on a one-year deal by the Vikings, and he has been a revelation. Darnold became the season-long starter when first-round draft pick J.J. McCarthy suffered a preseason knee injury, and he has been far better than Cousins this season. Darnold was fantastic on Sunday, throwing for 347 yards and a career-best five touchdowns. He completed 16 of 18 passes for 250 yards in the second half alone. Other than a brief midseason bout with turnovers, Darnold has had a phenomenal year and is a big reason the Vikings are a shocking 11-2.The Vikings trusted their coaching staff to get more out of their next quarterback than overpaying Cousins, and they were right. Now the Falcons are stuck with the Cousins bill, and it’s not cheap.The Vikings will have another decision to make next offseason. Darnold was on just a one-year deal. McCarthy should be healthy enough to step in as the starter. Whatever happens next offseason, the Vikings will do it on their terms. That worked out for this season. |
| NFC EAST |
| NEW YORK GIANTSWR MALIK NABERS denies complicity in message from an advertising plane. Bryan DeArdo of CBSSports.com: Arguably the biggest storyline from Sunday’s game between the Giants and Saints took place during pregame when a plane asking Giants owner John Mara to fix “this dumpster fire” flew over MetLife Stadium.Not surprisingly, Giants players were asked about the plane following Sunday’s 14-11 loss that dropped Big Blue to 2-11. While the question was expected, Giants rookie receiver Malik Nabers’ response certainly wasn’t.“I ain’t pay for the plane,” Nabers said.After a slow start, the Giants did provide some hope late in the game, as Tyrone Tracy Jr.’s short touchdown run made it a three-point game with 4:11 left. New York then had a chance to tie the score, but Graham Gano’s 35-yard field goal try was blocked, as the Giants continue to find different ways to lose.If there is a bright spot, it’s that the Giants are in position to possible secure the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. The Giants are currently in a two-team race with the Raiders, who also fell to 2-11 after losing to the Buccaneers on Sunday. |
| PHILADELPHIAThe Eagles won over the Panthers, but they did not play at the high level they had in recent weeks particularly in the passing game. Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk.com: The Eagles won their ninth straight game on Sunday and they clinched a playoff berth for the fourth straight season, but it wasn’t all smiles in the locker room after the 22-16 win over the Panthers.Quarterback Jalen Hurts threw for 108 yards in the win and the team netted 83 yards in the passing game once the yards lost on four sacks were taken away from that total, which made it unsurprising to hear wide receiver A.J. Brown say that “passing” is something the team needs to improve on. Brown had four catches on four targets and told reporters in the locker room that it is “tough” to get in rhythm when the offense isn’t doing much through the air.Wide receiver DeVonta Smith also had four catches and shared what he thinks needs to happen for the Eagles to achieve better results.“Being on the same page,” Smith said, via audio from the team. “Thinking the same. Seeing the right signals. Just going out there and making it work.”Hurts said he would “just say no” when asked if there should be conversations about being on the same page at this point in the year and said that the desire of Brown, Smith and anyone else to be doing more is a natural one.“It isn’t about solving anything,” Hurts said, via the team. “Everybody has a reason to want more. It’s a fair desire of being in fullness to where we can be because we’ve done it before. Just got to build, got to progress. Have to find a way to come together and come and synch as a unit and play complimentary ball.”The good news for the Eagles is that their issues in the passing game haven’t stopped them from piling up wins, but it is something they’ll need to figure out in order to finish the job. |
| NFC SOUTH |
| ATLANTAJudy Battista of NFL.com is among the media circling over struggling QB KIRK COUSINS. There was no real acrimony when Kirk Cousins left Minnesota for Atlanta. Vikings fans booed Cousins’ arrival on the field Sunday, but it felt more obligatory than heated. Still, you couldn’t help but compare that moment to one that came a few hours later, when the big screen showed Sam Darnold, a huge grin on his face, waving a towel — those same fans standing and roaring for him.Cousins returned to Minnesota for the first time and, no, the reunion did not feel so good. Two more interceptions, no touchdown passes, a 42-21 loss for the Falcons, their fourth in a row, which sank them below .500 and out of first place in the NFC South.It was a raw display of why the Vikings were reluctant to make a longer-term commitment to Cousins, as he was coming off an Achilles tear, last offseason, why they were more comfortable going forward with a one-year flyer on a retread who was teetering dangerously close to journeyman territory. Darnold, with five touchdown passes and a 157.9 quarterback rating, led the Vikings to their sixth straight win, and in the process put on a display of all the things Cousins is not doing, maybe can no longer do, with consistency. On one dazzling touchdown that his agent should put on a loop for suitors this spring, Darnold scrambled to his left to escape pressure, then scrambled to his right to get away from even more. Then he spotted Justin Jefferson standing alone about five yards from the end zone. Darnold heaved the ball, leaving his feet. That a defender fell down is beside the point. Jefferson almost certainly would have scored anyway. Not many quarterbacks can make a throw for a 52-yard touchdown like that. The Vikings have one who can. The Falcons, alas, do not right now.Cousins was far from the only reason the Falcons lost. In fact, he might not even be first on the list. There were repeated coverage breakdowns, which allowed big play after big play. There were 12 penalties, including one on a Vikings field-goal attempt that allowed the Vikings to continue the drive, which ended with a touchdown. And there was a fumbled kickoff return early in the fourth quarter, which opened the floodgates to the rout.But it is also becoming clearer that the Falcons have a Kirk Cousins problem, and part of it is of their own making. As soon as they selected Michael Penix Jr. in the first round – a decision that shocked Cousins and just about everyone outside of the Falcons’ draft room — the questions began about what the Falcons would do if Cousins struggled, not an entirely unexpected possibility considering the severity of his 2023 injury. Well, he is struggling — during the four-game skid, he hasn’t thrown a single touchdown pass but has eight interceptions — and those questions are only getting more pointed and more insistent.On Sunday, the answer from head coach Raheem Morris was not yet.“Everything is always discussed when you go look at the tape,” he said. “Kirk Cousins is our quarterback. Kirk played significantly better than he did the week before. We’ll do whatever is best to win football games, and Kirk is definitely part of that.”That is almost certainly true. As long as the Falcons are in the playoff race, the bet that Cousins will get himself out of his personal slide is a safer one than the gamble that a rookie, who has never prepared as a starter, could perform consistently better than Cousins in the most high-pressure environment.Later, Morris said he did not think the Falcons did enough around Cousins to support him Sunday.That was certainly true, although the Falcons’ pass rush did get to Darnold four times and the defense played well enough to keep it close. It was a 21-21 game at one point although, as Cousins noted, by the time he saw the ball again, it was 35-21. And the Vikings, at 11-2, are one of the NFL’s best teams, keeping pressure on the Detroit Lions to keep winning to hold on to the NFC North. This was always going to be a difficult game for the Falcons, Cousins’ return aside.But Cousins was brought to Atlanta to elevate them, not to need the elevation himself. The question that will hang over the final month of the season is whether that can be reversed, whether he is still capable of that.Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell spoke to Cousins for a few moments after the game, the two of them expressing gratitude for the time they had together. Cousins, of course, said he was disappointed in the day, that he made mistakes on the two interceptions. Cousins is excitable and ebullient when his team is winning, but he is steady when he loses and even on such an emotionally charged day for him, he was analytical and gracious, never raising his voice, but also rarely raising his eyes. When told that Morris had said Cousins had played better than last week — that was a four-interception nightmare — Cousins smiled briefly.“Last week was a low bar,” he said. “I felt better today. Felt more like myself.”Later, he added, “I’d love to be playing with a lot more production. Disappointing not to have a touchdown pass.”Cousins demurred when asked what he was thinking watching Darnold play so well when he was not.“Sam has played great,” he said. “He did a great job today. I’m happy for him and the way he’s playing.” |
| CAROLINAFrank Schwab of YahooSports.com is among those noticing that rookie head coach Dave Canales seems to have made the Panthers better: Through Canales’ first eight games as an NFL head coach, his Carolina Panthers looked historically awful. Given Panthers owner David Tepper’s impatience, the team’s 1-7 start was not good news for the rookie head coach.Give Canales credit, because he and the Panthers look like a new team.The Panthers didn’t win Sunday, but their competitive 22-16 loss to a Philadelphia Eagles team that looks like a viable Super Bowl contender showed how far they’ve come. The Panthers battled hard, taking a lead into the fourth quarter before the Eagles rallied for a win. Carolina had a shot to take the lead late in the game, but rookie receiver Xavier Legette couldn’t haul in a deep pass in the final minute that would have been a touchdown. The Panthers came that close to getting a road win over of the best teams in the NFL.Bryce Young’s improvement after his benching looks good on Canales too. Young didn’t have a great game on Sunday against a good Eagles defense but he looks much better than he did early in the season. The Panthers are 2-3 in their past five games but the losses have been close ones to the Chiefs, Buccaneers and Eagles. Assuming the Panthers stay competitive the rest of the season, it’s a pretty good way for Canales to enter the offseason. The Panthers may have lost their last three games, but those losses are by a total of 12 points to three division leaders – Kansas City, Tampa Bay and Philadelphia. |
| NEW ORLEANSThe Saints still lurk after beating the Giants. Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk.com: Darren Rizzi was the Saints’ special teams coordinator before being named their interim head coach last month, so he had plenty of reason to smile at the end of Sunday’s game against the Giants.Saints defensive lineman Bryan Bresee blocked Graham Gano’s game-tying field goal attempt to hand the Saints a 14-11 win, but it wasn’t the only thing that Rizzi was celebrating after the game. The win moved the Saints to 5-8 and kept open a path to the playoffs with the Bucs two games ahead of them in the NFC South.“Huge. I know another one of the teams at the top of our division lost again today,” Rizzi said, via a transcript from the team. “So, it keeps us in the mix. Listen, we’re down here to the end of the year. It’s the middle of December already. When you’re playing games that still matter and still count and still have a chance to affect the final outcome, that’s a big deal. So here we are with four to go and as I just said to the guys, that’s why we practice with a purpose. We go through the week with a purpose because we’re still playing. We’re still in contention. Trying not to be a big-picture guy, but, it’s always nice to have that out there so you can focus on the now and not worry about that there’s still that opportunity for us.”The odds are very much against the Saints, but they are now 3-1 since Rizzi replaced Dennis Allen and that may lead to some thoughts about what might have been if the team had pulled the trigger on a move a bit earlier in the season. There’s no way to go back in time, so the Saints will just have to try to keep winning and hope that things fall their way. So what is the path? It would seem to involve New Orleans winning out. They are punching up in two of the next three games needed to get them to 8-8 and the finale with the Buccaneers: 15 Washington16 at Green Bay17 Las Vegas18 at Tampa Bay If the now 7-6 Buccaneers were 9-7 going into the finale – Tampa Bay still seems likely to have the advantage in a 9-8 tie. So the Saints would seem to need the Bucs to lose two of the next three – at Chargers, at Dallas, Carolina. |
| NFC WEST |
| ARIZONAThree weeks ago, the Cardinals were the prospective Kings of the West. But that was three weeks ago – and Sunday was an especially bad day for Arizona as everyone else in the division won. Josh Weinfuss of ESPN.com: The Arizona Cardinals’ 38-10 loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday wasn’t just their third-straight since their bye — it completed a swift plummet from the top of the NFC West to the bottom in less than a month.On Nov. 10, after beating the New York Jets for their fourth-straight win, the Cardinals sat in first place in the NFC West, primed for playoff run. They have since lost all three games, falling into a tie with the San Francisco 49ers for last place at 6-7, likely ending their playoff hopes.After heading into Sunday’s game with a 36% chance of making the playoffs, ESPN Analytics now has the Cardinals with an 11% chance. The Cardinals now have a stockpile of questions about what has just happened.“I got to find some answers to get us going a little bit,” coach Jonathan Gannon said. “We haven’t played great here the last couple of weeks, so that falls on me.“So, got to go back to the drawing board tomorrow, get these things corrected, put them in better position and we got to win a game.”To get to those answers, Gannon said he and the Cardinals’ coaching staff will make sure they’re “thinking critically” about whether they’re putting players in the right positions. Part of Gannon’s corrections will be to “tweak some things.” Gannon didn’t expand on what specifically but added Arizona will stick with its process.The Cardinals locker room was melancholy after the game, in part from the loss and in part from the position they’ve put themselves in — which Gannon called “a little bit of a hole.” Linebacker Kyzir White said the Cardinals knew Sunday was a “big game” for their postseason aspirations but to “lose in the fashion we did, definitely a bad feeling.” Wide receiver Zach Pascal called it disappointing but said the current situation is a learning lesson.“These type of situations will let you know who you got on your team,” he said. “If you’ve got somebody that’s going, ‘Alright, well we done.’ I’m like we don’t even need you here. We’re going to keep swinging. J.G. preaches it all the time: Keep swinging, keep swinging, resiliency. I mean, s—, that’s what got us here.“So, we got to continue on that same path. We just got to get better outcomes.”However, among the tattered pieces of tape strewn about the locker room fall were a few answers as to why the Cardinals have lost three straight out of the bye and sit in the last place.“Just ain’t reaching our expectations, not playing to our expectations on all three phases,” White said. “I just feel like we ought to be more complete.”Added Pascal: “Penalties been killing us. I mean, they’ve been killing us.” The bad news for the Cardinals is that two of those three losses were to the Seahawks. At 8-5 with a sweep, Seattle is effectively three games ahead of 6-7 Arizona. Arizona has two winnable games next – New England and at Carolina, before two division games, at Rams, home to 49ers. |
| LOS ANGELES RAMSMichael Silver of The Athletic checks in on the Rams after their big win over the Bills: The fear was real.For Kam Curl, a smooth, battle-tested safety who signed a free-agent deal with the Los Angeles Rams in March, the promise of a fresh start with a bona fide contender was steadily replaced by a familiar foreboding.First, quarterback Matthew Stafford’s dissatisfaction with his contract clouded the team’s offseason. Then, after the injury-riddled Rams wheezed to a 1-4 start heading into their bye week, the organization’s highest-level decision-makers contemplated trading star receiver Cooper Kupp, which would have been viewed as a sign of surrender in 2024.Curl, who’d spent his first four seasons with the Washington Commanders, had seen this movie before, and he was not looking forward to a sequel.“I’ve been a part of something like that, so that was in the back of my head,” Curl told me after the Rams’ unruly but rewarding 44-42 victory over the Buffalo Bills on Sunday at SoFi Stadium. “Last year, when we traded (defensive ends) Chase (Young) and Montez (Sweat) at the deadline, was not the best experience.“So yeah, I was a little traumatized. You know what was running through my head. And I was really hoping that wasn’t happening (here).”The Rams resisted the urge to purge and, in retrospect, Curl isn’t the only one thrilled that they did. On Sunday, facing a virtually unstoppable opposing quarterback in Josh Allen — an “alien,” as L.A. coach Sean McVay called the MVP candidate — the Rams (7-6) nonetheless emerged with a victory that kept them in the thick of the playoff hunt.Only a game behind the NFC West-leading Seattle Seahawks (8-5), an opponent it defeated previously and will host on the final weekend of the regular season, McVay’s team gets no respite: The Rams will face another division rival, the San Francisco 49ers, in a crucial road game Thursday night.The math says they control their potential path to the postseason. The eye test says that when Stafford, Kupp and fellow elite receiver Puka Nacua are vibing the way they were against the Bills, the Rams are a hyper-dangerous team that could be peaking at a very opportune time.“We already knew it was just a matter of time, as a team, that we could put it all together,” said Kupp, who caught five passes for 92 yards and a touchdown.Last year, the Rams were 3-6 before rallying to win seven of their last eight games and make the playoffs, losing a tight first-round game to the Detroit Lions, Stafford’s former team, amid an onslaught of spicy storylines.The drama continued over the offseason as the 36-year-old Stafford sought a contract adjustment commensurate to his status as a Super Bowl LVI champion and likely future Hall of Famer. As The Athletic’s Dianna Russini reported Saturday, the Minnesota Vikings were among the teams monitoring the situation, with an eye on potentially trading for him if things degenerated.If the Rams were actually tempted to move forward with a younger quarterback, Sunday’s aerial onslaught should be preserved as a repentance reel. Stafford (23 for 30, 320 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions) showcased his still-exceptional arm talent throughout the afternoon, finding Nacua 12 times for 162 yards and a score and converting 10 of his first 11 third downs, and 11 of 15 overall.McVay, with help from second-year offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur, was clearly in his bag, as the kids say.The wilding-out wideouts were augmented by a strong rushing attack (L.A. gained 137 rushing yards and scored three TDs on the ground, one of them by Nacua) and a game-changing special-teams play: A second-quarter blocked punt by Jacob Hummel that teammate Hunter Long gathered and converted into a 22-yard scoring return.The Rams seemed to have the game in hand when Stafford, on third-and-3, threaded a gorgeous, 17-yard pass that a leaping Kupp somehow managed to corral as he fell into the end zone while blanketed by two defenders. The extra point gave L.A. a 38-21 lead with 18 seconds left in the third quarter.In some contexts, that would be a wrap.In this one, Allen (22 of 37, 342 yards, three touchdowns; 10 carries, 82 yards, three TDs) responded like Eminem rapping in his prime.“Wild one,” Stafford said as he dressed at his locker, acknowledging the reality that he and his teammates felt a need to reach the end zone on every single possession as the tension mounted.“Every time,” he said. “This was big for us. We know what we’re capable of.”Now, lest there were any remaining doubters, everyone knows. As helpless as the Rams were to stop Allen and the Bills, they looked potent enough on offense to be a problem come playoff time — if, of course, they can qualify.“We’ve got Coop, we’ve got Stafford and we’ve got Puka — those were the guys who kept us alive today,” Curl said. “We’re definitely heading in the right direction as a team.”Less than two months ago, Kupp, 31, thought he might be headed elsewhere. That he ended up staying may have been partially his own doing: After suffering a high ankle sprain in Week 2, Kupp returned for a Thursday night game against the Vikings in late October and immediately made a difference, catching five passes for 51 yards and a touchdown in a 30-20 upset victory. The next Sunday — two days before the trade deadline — Kupp had 14 receptions for 104 yards in an overtime win over the Seahawks.At that point, he wasn’t going anywhere.The process wasn’t as seamless as it may have seemed. As the trade chatter grew, the Super Bowl LVI MVP did his best to put his head down and play through it, but it clearly caused him stress.“This year has been very trying,” he told me after Sunday’s game, before declining to elaborate.Sporting a bushy beard he has been growing since the start of the team’s offseason program, Kupp added that he was heartened by Sunday’s performance, “but the key is consistency. We have to show that we can keep putting games together.”It’s unclear what the future will hold for Kupp, whose contract runs through 2026. In the meantime, he’s doing his best to keep the 2024 Rams relevant and burnishing his connection with a prolific quarterback who proved Sunday he can still sling it at the highest level.“That was one of the best ‘quarterback games’ I’ve seen in a long time — real talk,” said Rams backup QB Jimmy Garoppolo, praising both Stafford and Allen. “We’re coming together as a team and maturing as a team. We’ve put in a lot of work, and it’s starting to show up.”Stafford and Kupp are showing out — and, largely because of their efforts, the show goes on. That wasn’t always a given, but here we are. And Kam Curl isn’t the only one giving thanks. |
| SAN FRANCISCOEarlier this week, Mike Florio stirred things up with this, reported here by Ryan Glasspiegel of the New York Post: ProFootballTalk founder Mike Florio has an intriguing idea for a change of scenery for Kyle Shanahan.Appearing on “The Rich Eisen Show” on Tuesday, Florio mentioned how the Raiders sent Jon Gruden to the Buccaneers in 2002 and wondered why coaching trades don’t happen more often.“I feel like Shanahan and the 49ers are getting close to the point where they would benefit mutually from a fresh start,” Florio said, naming the Bears as a potential destination for the head coach.“If you can get Shanahan and join him at the hip with Caleb Williams, are you kidding me?”After reaching the Super Bowl last season but losing to the Chiefs, the 49ers are 5-7 this year.Eisen asked Florio what gave him the impression that this would be something to which the 49ers and Shanahan would agree.“There’s nothing specific, but you just look at the situation. It’s been since 2017 they’ve been kind of banging their head against the door trying to knock it down,” Florio said.“This year just feels like it’s coming to an end from a standpoint of the nucleus of players that they have there. And you never know what’s happening behind the scenes. I mention the 49ers because it’s been 10 years or so since they had Jim Harbaugh going into what was the fourth year of his tenure there. The first three years had been very successful … We reported at the time that the 49ers were close to trading Harbaugh to the Cleveland Browns.” Florio covers the reaction in Shanahan’s postgame presser after his current employer routed those Bears: Someone (hand raising nervously) lit the fuse this week on the conversation about a potential trade of 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan to the Bears. After Sunday’s 38-13 thrashing of the Bears, Shanahan was asked about his commitment to his current employer.“I know I don’t want to be any place in the world more than here,” Shanahan told reporters, via Cam Inman of the Bay Area News Group. “My family feels just as strong if not stronger.”On Friday, 49ers G.M. John Lynch dismissed the topic as “rather comical.” The one person who can slam the door permanently on a potential end to the relationship now or in the future, owner Jed York, hasn’t said anything, yet.None of this means the 49ers would or wouldn’t entertain a possible trade. The point was and is that the Bears should turn over every stone in search of a new coach.And they should identify all teams where maybe one or both sides is looking to make a change — and make a call. |
| SEATTLEKevin Patra of NFL.com on the big game from RB ZACH CHARBONNET: Facing an Arizona Cardinals defense that shut down their run game two weeks ago and not having Kenneth Walker III available didn’t suggest a big day for the Seattle Seahawks’ ground attack. Zach Charbonnet had other ideas.The second-year back spurred Seattle’s offense, rushing for a career-high 134 yards with two touchdowns as the Seahawks secured a 30-18 win over the Cardinals.“Ken is obviously a dynamite back and we would’ve loved to have him,” head coach Mike Macdonald said, via the team’s official website. “But so is Zach, and Kenny McIntosh has proved that he can run the ball effectively as well. We didn’t feel like we needed to make any adjustments.”The Seahawks turned two early Kyler Murray interceptions into touchdowns, providing a double-digit cushion they’d hold most of the contest. Charbonnet did the rest. He added 59 receiving yards on seven catches, providing an outlet for Geno Smith and keeping the clock churning with bulldozing runs.Charbonnet is the third player in Seahawks history with 100-plus rush yards, two-plus rush TDs and 50-plus receiving yards in a game, joining Shaun Alexander (2002) and Ricky Watters (1999).The second-round pick out of UCLA credited the offensive line for opening up holes.“They just made it easy for me,” Charbonnet said. “All I had to do was make a dude miss and it was able to work like that. I give all the credit to those guys up front.”The second-year back is the first Seahawks player with 100-plus rush yards in a game since Walker in Week 1. With a bulldozing style, Charbonnet generated +41 rushing yards over expected on Sunday, the most by any Seattle runner in a game over the past two seasons.“It’s tough to tackle that guy in the open field,” Macdonald said. “He’s got speed and power.”The Charbonnet-led win marked the fourth consecutive for the Seahawks since their Week 10 bye. It’s the first four-game win streak for Seattle since Weeks 6-9, 2022. Moving to 8-5 keeps Macdonald’s club atop the NFC West by one game with four to play. The simple version of the NFC West is that the 8-5 Seahawks and 7-6 Rams are heading to a Week 18 showdown at SoFi. LA has the win in the first game between the teams so as long as they are within one game or tied with Seattle (and SF doesn’t do something silly), Week 18 is for all the marbles. |
| AFC WEST |
| KANSAS CITYThe 12-1 Chiefs are division champs for the 9th straight year. Half the wins have been walkoffs as detailed by Adam Teicher of ESPN.com: The Kansas City Chiefs clinched their ninth straight AFC West championship Sunday night, but none of the first eight were quite like this one.The 12-1 Chiefs had yet another game come down to the finish, and, as always so far in this most unusual of seasons, they made the play to win it. Third-string kicker Matthew Wright, a replacement for two injured players, made a 31-yard field goal as time ran out to allow the Chiefs to beat the Los Angeles Chargers 19-17.Afterward, the Chiefs wore their AFC West championship hats and T-shirts, as they always do after clinching the division. Other than that, nothing about it felt familiar. The Chiefs might well see the Chargers or another division rival, the Denver Broncos, in the playoffs this time around.“Our first goal every single year to win the AFC West, and it’s a great division,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes said. “We’re in a lot of rivalries where everybody’s played each other tough and three teams are going to probably make the playoffs. That speaks to the division that we play in.“It was an important game for us. We found a way to get a win, but now we got to keep building if we want to get to our ultimate goal.”The Chiefs’ next goal is to claim the AFC’s No. 1 playoff seed, which comes with a first-round playoff bye and home-field advantage in all of their postseason games before Super Bowl LIX, which will be played in New Orleans.The Chiefs lead the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers, both 10-3, by two games.Chiefs coach Andy Reid called the ninth straight division title “a great achievement.” The streak is the second longest in NFL history behind the 11 AFC East championships won by the New England Patriots from 2009 through 2019.“It’s early in the year here, so we’ve still got [four] games left,” Reid said. “So when I say this, we’re not just putting the tent up right here and calling it a day. We’ve got to keep playing and playing aggressively.“We’re playing some real good football teams that are trying to get themselves into the playoffs, so they’re going to be hungry and attacking and so we’ve got to make sure we keep doing it.”The win over the Chargers was the sixth for the Chiefs this season to be decided on the last play. Reid said that gave this year’s division championship a different feeling.“Every year is a little bit different on how we’ve gotten there, but I’m proud of our guys who are just hanging in there,” Reid said. “We have so many tight games, more so than some of these other years. The guys keep hanging in there and feeling like good things are going to happen and they keep battling.”Wright is the third Chiefs kicker to make a walk-off field goal this season, joining Harrison Butker and Spencer Shrader. This kick was, like the game itself, not decided until the end.Wright’s kick didn’t go down the middle but instead banged off the left upright before going through. Reid joked that he told Wright to keep his next kick more to the right, but then got serious and acknowledged how important Wright has been in his two games with the Chiefs.He made four field goals in last week’s two-point win over the Las Vegas Raiders and another four against the Chargers.“My hat goes off to him for the field goals that he made and in tough situations,” Reid said. “That one at the end was great.” Of the 12 wins, the biggest margin is 13 points. Another is by 10. That leaves 10 one-score wins. After 16 game-winning drives in his first seven seasons, QB PATRICK MAHOMES has seven this year. He has four games to get two more and set the NFL season record currently shared at 8 in a season by Kirk Cousins in 2022 for the Vikings and Matthew Stafford in 2016 for the Lions. |
| LAS VEGASWatching it in real time, the hit by DT CALIJAH KANCEY on Raiders QB AIDAN O’CONNELL that ended his season certainly seemed late and gratuitous. The “hit” was a shove in the back, well after the ball was thrown, that caused O’Connell to fall awkwardly while running and twist his knee. Paul Guitierrez on the Raiders protest and having to turn to QB DESMOND RIDDER: Raiders quarterback Aidan O’Connell was carted off the field late in the third quarter of Las Vegas’ 28-13 loss at Tampa Bay on Sunday with a knee injury.O’Connell had his left leg placed in an air cast after coming down awkwardly following a seemingly late hit from behind by Buccaneers defensive tackle Calijah Kancey.“It does not look good,” Raiders coach Antonio Pierce said when asked for an update on O’Connell.Pierce did say Kancey’s push from behind appeared late, after watching the replay, and requested clarification in real time from the officials, to no avail.“We asked, per usual,” Pierce said. “We’ll make a report, see what comes back on Monday or Tuesday.”Desmond Ridder, signed off the Arizona Cardinals’ practice squad on Oct. 22, replaced O’Connell. He finished the game 12-of-18 for 101 yards.The only other quarterback under contract with the Raiders is undrafted rookie Carter Bradley, who is on the practice squad.O’Connell completed 11 of 19 passes for 104 yards with an interception against the Buccaneers.The lone bright spot for the Raiders on Sunday was Brock Bowers, who set a single-season record for most catches by a rookie tight end. Bowers’ reception with 27 seconds left was his 87th catch of the season, surpassing the 86 catches Sam LaPorta had for the Detroit Lions in 2023.“He’s having a great individual year,” Pierce said. “Wish it could lead to more success with our team.”The Raiders fell to 2-11 with their ninth straight loss, marking their longest losing streak since they opened the 2014 season 0-10. Las Vegas next hosts the Atlanta Falcons (6-7) on “Monday Night Football” on Dec. 16.Ridder said he was “excited” about the potential of starting next week against the Falcons, who drafted him in the third round in 2022 but released him this past August. |
| LOS ANGELES CHARGERSQB JUSTIN HERBERT gave his all Sunday night. Michael David Smith ofProFootballTalk.com: Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert had to leave the game for medical attention after taking a hard hit to his left leg in the second quarter on Sunday night, but he didn’t let that stop him.Herbert missed only one play and played very well through the injury in the second half, giving the Chargers a lead before the Chiefs’ last-second field goal won it. Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh praised his quarterback afterward.“Contusion — leg contusion,” Harbaugh said when asked what the diagnosis was.Harbaugh then added: “Tough as they come. A warrior.”Herbert completed 21 of 30 passes for 213 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions and had most of his production after suffering the injury. It was a big performance from Herbert, even as the Chiefs clinched their division and the Chargers have to accept that if they’re going to play in the playoffs, it’s going to be on the road. |
| AFC EAST |
| BUFFALOA fun fact from Dante Koplowitz-Fleming: @DanteKopFlemEntering today, teams with at least six touchdowns and zero giveaways in a game were 245-0 in the Super Bowl era (including playoffs)The Bills are the first to do so in a loss The Bills lost, but QB JOSH ALLEN’s Fantasy owners are smiling this Monday. Ryan Young of YahooSports.com: Josh Allen did just about everything possible to lift the Buffalo Bills to a win on Sunday afternoon.While it wasn’t enough to lead them past the Los Angeles Rams, Allen set multiple NFL records in the process.Allen accounted for six total touchdowns in the Bills’ wild 44-42 loss to the Rams at SoFi Stadium. He threw three touchdown passes in the loss and ran in three touchdowns himself. He’s now the first player in NFL history to rack up three passing and three rushing touchdowns in a single game.Allen finished throwing 22-of-37 for 342 yards in the loss for the Bills. He had 82 rushing yards on 10 carries to lead the team on the ground, too. The game was the highest-scoring of the season across the league, and it was the first time in NFL history that both teams scored 40 points or more without committing a turnover. The Bills’ 42 points were the most they’ve ever scored in a loss, which is something that’s happened just 21 other times in NFL history.In total, Allen finished the day with a ridiculous 51.88 fantasy football points. That’s an all-time record for a quarterback in a single game in Yahoo Fantasy history.Allen scored his sixth and final touchdown of the day on a 1-yard run with just 60 seconds left in the game, which brought the Bills back within two points. But their onside kick failed, which ended their rally from 17 points down in the fourth quarter and gave the Rams the two-point win. It marked the first win for the Rams over the Bills since 2012, and their first at home since 1983. |
| MIAMICan the Dolphins make the playoffs? Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald breaks it down: The Dolphins’ playoff hopes remain very much alive, but they will need to run the ball and defend far better than they did in narrowly escaping Sunday. And they will need help, particularly from Denver Broncos opponents.If Miami (6-7) can somehow win out (at Houston, San Francisco, at Cleveland, at Jets), they have a puncher’s chance at the postseason because of the difficulty of Denver’s remaining schedule and because Miami would win a tiebreaker with the Broncos.Denver (8-5), which has a bye this weekend, closes against the Colts, at the Chargers, at Cincinnati and home against Kansas City. So if the Dolphins win out, and the Broncos lose, hypothetically, at the Chargers and either at Cincinnati or home against Kansas City, Miami would make the playoffs ahead of Denver — provided Indianapolis loses one of its final four games and doesn’t overtake Houston (8-5) to win the AFC South. (Even if Indianapolis overtakes the Texans, Miami would still need to jump Baltimore, the Chargers or Broncos.)The Colts, like the Dolphins, also have seven losses and own the tiebreaker with Miami by virtue of their victory against the Dolphins. Indianapolis has a relatively easy schedule to close the season: at Denver, home to Tennessee, at the Giants, and home to Jacksonville.But expecting the Colts to win out seems improbable. If the Chargers (8-4) lose to Kansas City on Sunday night, they would still need to lose two more and the Dolphins would need to win out for Miami to hop Los Angeles. Miami would win a tiebreaker against the Chargers, whose final four games (after K.C.) are home to Tampa Bay, home to Denver, at New England and then at Las Vegas. |
| THIS AND THAT |
| CFP FALLOUTThere was a massive amount of information and disinformation to listen to and read over the weekend from advocates of the 12 teams that made the College Football Playoffs over seeding and from those that didn’t make it (particularly Alabama). Some made sense and some didn’t. We put this from Alabama AD Greg Byrne in the latter category. But he also added that nonconference scheduling is an area that would have to be evaluated.“We have said that we would need to see how strength of schedule would be evaluated by the CFP,” Byrne wrote. “With this outcome, we will need to assess how many P4 nonconference games make sense in the future to put us in the best position to participate in the CFP. That is not good for college football.”Alabama played only one Power 4 nonconference game this year — a 42-10 win at Wisconsin. But next year, the Crimson Tide have two Power 4 nonconference games — at Florida State to open the season Aug. 30, and a return home game against Wisconsin on Sept. 13.“Strength of schedule matters,” Byrne posted to X late Saturday night, before the CFP field was announced. “Not all schedules and conferences are created equal. Six of our eight wins are against bowl eligible teams and have come against some of the top teams in the sec, including sec champion Georgia.” His statement makes no sense for Alabama’s 2024 “outcome”. Maybe 8-4 Texas A&M wasn’t getting enough credit for its scheduled non-conference loss to Notre Dame. Remember, the SEC refuses to up their conference schedule to nine games. So they have four games they can schedule on their own. The SEC does require one game against a P4 school, one, be among the other four Texas 7-1 11-2 at MichiganGeorgia 6-2 11-2 Clemson ATL, Georgia TechTennessee 6-2 10-2 NC StateAlabama 5-3 9-3 WisconsinS Carolina 5-3 9-3 at ClemsonTexas A&M 5-3 8-4 Notre DameLSU 5-3 8-4 USC, UCLAOle Miss 5-3 9-3 Wake ForestMissouri 5-3 9-3 Boston CollegeFlorida 4-4 7-5 Miami, at Florida State, UCFArkansas 3-5 6-6 at Oklahoma StateVanderbilt 3-5 6-6 Virginia TechOklahoma 2-6 6-6 HoustonAuburn 2-6 5-7 CalKentucky 1-7 4-8 LouisvilleMiss. State 0-8 2-10 Arizona State (Toledo) So out of 48 non-conference games, the brave SEC schools scheduled 20 P4/ND games (some like UF-FSU and S.Car-Clemson mandated by tradition). The SEC was 13-7 in these contests. Kudos to Florida for playing three P4 games (not sure UCF was P4 when scheduled). Four of the 20 P4 games were against teams that made the CFP (2 vs Clemson, 2-2 record). Miami (Florida loss) and Louisville (Kentucky loss) were also CFP contenders. It should be noted that Oklahoma State was 0-9 against Big 12 foes (yes, the Big 12 plays 9 conference games), but 1-0 against the SEC. The SEC scheduled 28 games against lesser conferences and not often the AAC or Mountain West. You find a lot of UMass and Maine on the list. They were 27-1 in those scheduled wins, the only loss by Mississippi State against Toledo. So we are not sure what Byrne is whining about here, other than that Alabama does have two P4 games scheduled in future years (having nothing to do with this “outcome” as it pertains to anyone but perhaps Texas A&M or LSU in 2024). The Tide have a home and home with Ohio State in 2027 and 2028 (while also playing West Virginia in ’27 and Oklahoma State in ’28). Alabama has Notre Dame in 2029 and 2030 (while also having Georgia Tech and Oklahoma State). |
