CHICAGO

It’s a dislocated thumb for QB JUSTIN FIELDS.

Bears quarterback Justin Fields has a dislocated right thumb and is doubtful to play against the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 7, coach Matt Eberflus said Monday.

Fields suffered the injury in the third quarter of the Bears’ 19-13 loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. X-rays were negative, but he had an MRI on Monday.

“There’s no timetable right now,” Eberflus said. “It’s really going to come down to grip strength and the natural swelling that occurs with this injury, so we should know more at the end of this week.”

Eberflus said he did not get any feedback on what the MRI revealed and reiterated that Fields’ ability to grip the ball will be paramount in determining next steps.

Fields injured the thumb after landing awkwardly on his right arm while being sacked by Vikings defensive end Danielle Hunter on Chicago’s first drive of the third quarter. As Fields was falling to the ground, he tried to flip the ball in the direction of running back Darrynton Evans.

After a visit to the injury tent, Fields walked back to the locker room with a towel over his right hand. He was initially listed as questionable to return and ruled out shortly thereafter.

Rookie QB Tyson Bagent will play in place of Fields if he is officially ruled out for Sunday.

Eberflus said right guard Nate Davis suffered a high ankle sprain against the Vikings and will not play against the Raiders. Cornerback Terell Smith, who was downgraded to out last Friday with an illness, will be sidelined “three to four weeks” with mononucleosis, Eberflus said.

DETROIT

Peter King admires a block from a running back:

Let’s focus on Detroit. The win in Tampa was a perfect win for this edition of the Lions. Because it featured the perfect play. With 2:45 left in the first and the score tied at 3, Detroit had the ball at the Tampa 27-yard line. Jared Goff threw to Amon-Ra St. Brown over right end, and St. Brown turned upfield. It looked like cornerback Carlton Davis was fixing to drive St. Brown out of bounds in a pretty solid collision around the 18-yard line.

But here came running back Craig Reynolds from behind St. Brown.

“I just see Craig come out of nowhere,” St. Brown told me post-game, “and he hit Carlton Davis. Just blasted him. I saw it happen right in front of me. Craig made a huge block. Without Craig, that play’s a 10-yard gain at most. Without Craig, that play’s not happening.”

At about the 18-, Reynolds leveled Davis, knocking him off his feet completely. And St. Brown scooted in for the touchdown. I don’t remember a block from a running back as devastating as that one. To me, it said everything about the physicality and selflessness of the 2023 Lions, the team Dan Campbell has built to have both traits.

“It’s the way we play football,” St. Brown said. “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.

“We knew we were built for this. A game like this is just verification of it.”

Kudos to Adam Amin and the FOX coverage for identifying Reynolds as the blocker before St. Brown reached the end zone.

– – –

An interesting question and answer from Dan Graziano of ESPN.com:

This is the best Lions team of your lifetime — no matter how old you are

The Lions are 5-1, people. This is not a drill. After physically pummeling another first-place team Sunday in Tampa Bay, the Lions are 3-0 on the road, with the wins coming in Kansas City, Green Bay and Tampa Bay. They won 20-6 Sunday against a Buccaneers team that’s tough against the run without their top two running backs. Their defense was awesome, too.

With the win, the Lions have won four straight, all by 14 or more points. According to ESPN Stats & Information, the last time Detroit did that was a five-game streak from 1969 to ’70. And four wins by 14-plus points ties Detroit’s most in a season over the past 25 years, joining the 2014 and 2011 teams. It’s Week 6!

Honestly, there aren’t many — if any — teams that have looked better so far this season outside of San Francisco. And it’s pretty hard to find a team that can claim to be more physical than the Lions. They’re for real, and they’re going to be real contenders come December and January.

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

For the sake of argument, let’s say you’re 90 years old. You were born in 1933, the last year this franchise was the Portsmouth Spartans. Starting in 1934, you’ve seen only nine seasons in which the Lions won 10 or more games. You’ve seen eight first-place finishes and four NFL championships. And if you’re 65 years or younger, those numbers drop to three and zero, respectively.

The Lions haven’t won their division since 1993, when it was the NFC Central and included the Buccaneers. They haven’t won a playoff game since 1991, when Erik Kramer, Barry Sanders, Herman Moore and the gang walloped the Cowboys in the divisional round only to get smoked by Washington in the NFC Championship Game.

Not once since then has a Lions team looked the way this one does through six weeks. If you’re a Lions fan, you have earned the right to be inappropriately excited about this team. No matter how long you’ve been a Lions fan, and even if you’re 90.

DALLAS

With QB KELLEN MOORE on the other side of the field tonight, Todd Archer of ESPN.com looks at the current state of the offense of Mike McCarthy.

It always seemed a bit strange, the partnership between Mike McCarthy and Kellen Moore.

Back in 2015, while with the Green Bay Packers, McCarthy said he would never not call plays again as a head coach. Yet he accepted the Dallas Cowboys’ job in 2020 and kept Moore as the offensive coordinator and playcaller despite the pair having no background together.

On Monday, the Cowboys’ past and present collide at SoFi Stadium (8:15 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN) in a game where what Moore did for Dallas, and now does for the Chargers, will be compared to what McCarthy has done in 2023 as a playcaller.

McCarthy said the three seasons he and Moore spent together were “productive,” especially 2021 and 2022 when the Cowboys finished with a 12-5 record and made the playoffs. McCarthy’s first season, 2020, was impacted by the pandemic and the loss of quarterback Dak Prescott in the fifth game because of a dislocated and fractured right ankle.

In 2021, the Cowboys were ranked No. 1 in yards, ninth in rushing and second in passing. A year later, they finished 11th in yards but had the best red zone offense. The Cowboys scored 530 and 467 points, respectively, their best back-to-back production in franchise history.

“If you look at the pure football part of it, I think we were still working through how we wanted the offense to look [in 2020],” McCarthy said. “I thought he did a really nice job shifting gears and featuring the runners and doing some of the things that needed to be done.”

But this Jan. 29, the Cowboys and Moore parted ways. Within minutes, Moore became the Chargers’ offensive coordinator.

While McCarthy had been involved in the game-planning process, he wanted to get back to his playcalling roots. After Prescott tied for the NFL lead in interceptions (15) despite starting just 12 games last season, owner and general manager Jerry Jones allowed McCarthy to become the first Cowboys head coach to call plays since Jason Garrett in 2012.

“I would never say I wasn’t comfortable with it,” McCarthy said. “We just felt this was the direction we needed to go.”

For Prescott, Moore’s departure left him without his last confidante from his 2016 rookie season. Moore, a former quarterback himself, was first a teammate, then Prescott’s position coach and finally his coordinator. As a rookie, Prescott felt demoralized in listening to Moore discuss the offensive system because he couldn’t see the game or process information the way Moore did. As his coach, Moore helped Prescott set a team record with 37 touchdown passes in 2021.

“He’s more than a coach,” Prescott said. “Obviously, he was a teammate that turned into a coach, but he’s a friend. A friend for life. Talked to him earlier in the year, wished him luck, but obviously we’ve had our own things and our hands full. It will be great when I see him at some point come Monday.”

Judging McCarthy’s five games to Moore’s four seasons is not equitable, but it is inevitable this week and the timing could not be worse for McCarthy.

Cowboys: Moore Vs. McCarthy

STAT                                          MOORE*           MCCARTHY**

Air yards per attempt                     8.1                  6.5

Avg. time before pass                   2.73                2.51

Attempts 20+ yds downfield            11%              6%

Attempts at/behind LOS                  19%              25%

Snaps under center                        40%             45%

Snaps in shotgun                            60%             55%

Play-action                                      24%              31%

Using motion                                   47%              42%

Designed rush                                 40%             44%

Designed rush on 1st down             50%           55%

Yards from pass plays                     60%           56%

Yards from rush plays                     40%           44%

* 4 seasons; ** 5 games

The Cowboys are coming off a game in which they scored just 10 points against the San Francisco 49ers, turned the ball over four times and had eight first downs, their fewest since putting up seven in the 2007 season finale against Washington when they had home-field advantage already clinched.

“We just didn’t catch a groove,” wide receiver Michael Gallup said.

After five games, the Cowboys are 17th in yards per game (327.4) and eighth in points (26.8), although that is helped by three defensive scores and a special teams touchdown. The passing game is 20th (203) and the run game is 10th (124.4). The Cowboys have scored touchdowns on just seven of 19 red zone possessions, fifth worst in the league.

Rainy conditions in the opener against the New York Giants limited the passing attack, and blowouts in that game and against the New York Jets and New England Patriots meant the Cowboys didn’t need to push things offensively. McCarthy also turned the team’s focus to the defense.

“When we started this offensive approach back in mid-April, I just think it’s a matter of who you want to be and who you think you are,” McCarthy said. “I coached a team for a lot of years and I was offensive coordinator, but this team is about defense, let’s make no bones about it.

“That’s not a slight against the offense. We want to score as many points as everybody. [Not] playing not to lose. Let’s not mix the message here. We play to our defense. That’s the strength of our team in doing that time of possession, taking care of the football, those are two things [I’ve seen] improvement from past years [in] the first month.”

During the offseason program, Prescott dubbed the new-look offense the “Texas Coast offense,” as a combination of what they had done with Garrett as coordinator from back in 2007 through Moore’s time in 2022 mixed with McCarthy’s West Coast background.

McCarthy, Prescott, other players and coaches said there were not many changes to the offense, with the biggest alteration coming in pass protection, but Prescott’s production thus far is not what it had been under Moore.

With Moore, Prescott averaged 287 passing yards per game and 8 yards per attempt. Under McCarthy, he is averaging 212.2 yards per game and 6.13 yards per attempt. He is on pace to throw for 3,607 yards and 17 touchdowns, which would be the lowest he has had in his career when playing a full season.

His downfield attempts (20 yards or more) have gone from 11% under Moore to 6% under McCarthy. His attempts at or behind the line of scrimmage are up to 25% under McCarthy, compared with 19% under Moore.

Prescott is getting the ball out of his hand quicker (remember McCarthy’s West Coast philosophy) at 2.51 seconds, compared with 2.73 seconds under Moore.

Prescott is under center more with McCarthy (45%), while 60% of his snaps were in shotgun under Moore. As a result, the play-action percentage is higher (31% to 24%). Neither McCarthy nor Moore use motion a lot, but it’s down to 42% under McCarthy, who has varied the personnel groupings more, compared with 47% under Moore.

Despite the growing pains in finding their offensive identity, Prescott is remaining patient and confident, preferring to view the San Francisco loss as a one-off, not a trend.

“What we’ve put together, the plan, everything that we worked on back in the spring, I’d be crazy to lose confidence in that understanding [with] all the work that we put into this,” Prescott said. “S— is hard and it got hard Sunday. The last thing we’re going to do is give up and quit or say, ‘Hell, let’s start from scratch and start over.’ Absolutely not.

Later he added, “We’re going to get it right, and there’s no doubt in my mind.”

NEW YORK GIANTS

OptaStats was on fire with the Giants last night:

@OptaSTATS

The Giants are the only NFL team in the last 30 years to run the final scrimmage play of each half from inside their opponents’ 10-yard line (let alone from the 1) but not score a point on either drive.

If you didn’t see these two incidents, here is Peter King’s take on them:

At the end of the first half, with 14 seconds left, the Giants did an all-time dumb thing. First and goal at the one-yard line, Giants up 6-0, and there’s a run by Saquon Barkley. He got stoned. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Instead of having urgency and getting to the line immediately, the Giants dawdled. Tyrod Taylor dawdled. And the clock ran out. Just awful. That cannot happen. And Brian Daboll aired out Taylor walking off the field. If Taylor audibled to the run, as was indicated post-game, he’s got to be sure if the run is short of the end zone, he can spike it so the Giants get a field goal. And that didn’t happen. Inexcusable.

Now to the end of the game. Tyrod Taylor to Darren Waller on an untimed down, after Waller got interfered with over the middle in the end zone as time expired. So here came one last down, from the one-yard line. Bills corner Taron Johnson grabbed Waller’s jersey and got away with it. Not the most egregious non-call for DPI that I’ve seen, but it was interference, and it was not called.

Mike Florio on the non-call:

With Sunday night’s game on the line, an official called the Bills for defensive pass interference. That same official wasn’t willing to do it twice in a row.

In both situations, interference happened. The first time, back judge Brad Freeman threw the flag. The second time, he did not.

Frankly, it’s hard to expect an official to throw that flag once. For whatever reason, the laundry lies a little deeper in the pocket when the game is on the line. We’ve seen it time and again. It takes an extra amount of courage — especially when potentially penalizing the home team — to throw that flag.

That’s not a defense of the decision. Pass interference absolutely should have been called. And the Bills absolutely should have kept interfering with the opportunity of any Giants pass catcher to catch the ball, since giving the Giants another untimed down is always better than giving up a touchdown. If the officials simply fail to call blatant interference only one time, it’s game over.

And, no, this isn’t the same as my recent argument that a player pulled down by the back of his collar on the way to the end zone should be awarded a touchdown. That’s a safety issue. Repeatedly grabbing a receiver’s jersey or arms otherwise preventing him from catching the ball is not something that introduces a significant risk of injury.

So, yes, the Bills should have kept interfering, as long as the Giants kept throwing. Eventually, Freeman wasn’t going to throw the flag.

Consider this angle. What do you think Freeman was hearing from the fans seated behind him in the end zone after he threw the first flag, the one that gave the Giants an untimed down at first and goal from the one? It only would have gotten worse if he had done it again.

Fans don’t care about the process; they care about the outcome. They’ll complain loudly about any flag thrown against their favorite team, regardless of whether the flag was deserved.

Then, this from OptaStats:

@OptaSTATS

The Giants are the only NFL team in the Super Bowl era to have more rushing yards, more passing yards, fewer INT thrown, fewer fumbles lost & fewer missed FG than their opponent but still lose.

Teams had been 134-0 in the Super Bowl era when doing all that in a game (reg+post).

We guess that the “fewer missed FG” part of the sort was the key one.

PHILADELPHIA

An Eagles injury of note from Ian Rapoport:

@RapSheet

#Eagles Pro Bowl OT Lane Johnson is believed to have suffered a lateral ankle sprain on Sunday, sources say after the MRI. While his status is in doubt, no one would rule him out (ever). But not believed to be a long-term injury, either way.

ATLANTA

Two thoughts about the Falcons from Peter King:

Hey, Calais Campbell: 233 NFL games, 100 sacks. Now that’s a cool milestone for a former Man of the Year and a teammate hundreds of NFL players admire. “Cool to be part of an elite club,” Campbell said of the 100-sack fraternity.

Hey, Desmond Ridder: There’s action in the bullpen, the manager’s on the top step of the dugout, and you’re on your last batter. If you’re lucky.

More from King on why Ridder has to be on thin ice:

With the Falcons down eight and in the red zone with five minutes to play, Ridder had the kind of nightmarish sequence that could cost a quarterback his job. The three deadly plays:

*Second-and-goal, Washington 2-yard line: Ridder rolled right, tight end MyCole Pruitt had half a step on his man in the end zone, and Ridder threw it over his head.

*Third-and-goal, Washington 2-yard line: Delay of game.

*Third-and-goal, Washington 7-yard line: Could have been delay of game again; the whole operation was slow. Ridder threw an ill-advised poorly aimed pass to Drake London in the end zone, picked off by Washington’s Benjamin St-Juste. Watch the replay. Threw off his back foot, way short for his man, and right into St-Juste’s hands. How can a player with legitimate college experience like Ridder play like this?

Amazingly, Ridder had two more chances. He went four-and-out with three minutes left, then threw another pick, intended for Bijan Robinson, with 31 seconds left. Hard to imagine Arthur Smith, who set an NFL record for pained sideline closeups, isn’t thinking about going to Taylor Heinicke next week at Tampa Bay.

CAROLINA

Coach Frank Reich is down-sizing his responsibilities for the NFL’s only winless team.  Myles Simmons of ProFootballTalk.com:

When the Panthers return from their Week 7 bye, they’ll have a new a significant change among their coaching staff.

Head coach Frank Reich has decided to give over offensive play-calling to coordinator Thomas Brown, according to a report from NFL Media.

Carolina, currently the league’s only winless team, is No. 23 in points scored and total offense. The team has yet to score 30 points in any of its games this season.

Rookie quarterback Bryce Young has completed 63.2 percent of his passes for 967 yards with six touchdowns and four interceptions. He’s averaging just 5.3 yards per attempt and has a passer rating of 78.7. He’s been sacked 16 times in his five starts.

Reich has talked about handing over play-calling duties to Brown at some point, but six games into the staff’s tenure feels a little earlier than expected. Brown, 37, was last on the Rams’ staff from 2020-2022.

Carolina will take on Houston in Week 8 for a matchup between this year’s No. 1 and No. 2 overall picks.

DENVER

WR JERRY JEUDY has been getting critiqued by both former WR Steve Smith and Mark Schlereth of FOX.  Here’s Schlereth:

“You’re not a professional. And you don’t know what effort is. Your quarterback is under duress, you’re locked up — somebody locks you up in man coverage on an underneath route—and to call it trotting would be an insult to trotting. You just quit … Mike Shanahan would cut him tomorrow. I wouldn’t have him on my team. You can have him. And that’s the reason that the Broncos stink.”

–Former NFL player Mark Schlereth, on underachieving wide receiver Jerry Jeudy, on his “Schlereth and Evans Show” on 104.3 The Fan radio in Denver.

KANSAS CITY

Peter King on the divisional dominance of the Chiefs:

In the wake of the 19-8 victory over Denver Thursday, here’s why the Broncos, Raiders and Chargers must feel absolutely hopeless about winning the AFC West in the next 10 years against 28-year-old Patrick Mahomes:

Mahomes vs. AFC West: 28-3.

Average margin of victory in the 28 wins: 15.0 points.

Mahomes TD/INT margin in 31 AFC West games: 67-17.

I mean, Mahomes had a totally meh game Thursday night and Kansas City won by double-digits. How depressing for the other three teams in the division.

LAS VEGAS

It’s a back injury for QB JIMMY GAROPPOLO.  Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com:

Raiders quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo exited Sunday’s win over the Patriots with a back injury. He quickly went from being doubtful to return to out to on the way to a hospital in an ambulance.

He could now miss time due to whatever specific injury he sustained.

Via Ian Rapoport of NFL Media, Garoppolo could miss time as a result of the situation. The Raiders visit the Bears on Sunday.

Tests were run, apparently to rule out possible internal injuries. Although it’s believed that he avoided anything serious, he could be unable to play in Week 7.

The Raiders have not said much about Garoppolo’s condition, beyond the fact that he was taken to the hospital, that he has a back injury, and that tests were being run.

Even though veteran Brian Hoyer replaced Garoppolo on Sunday, Rapoport notes that rookie Aidan O’Connell could start in Garoppolo’s absence. O’Connell started in Week 4, when the Raiders lost to the Chargers, 24-17. Garoppolo missed the game with a concussion.

CINCINNATI

Peter King on the team-first attitude of QB JOE BURROW:

I know why Joe Burrow, aside from his passing proficiency, is so well-liked and -respected by his teammates. We saw it Sunday in Cincinnati’s game against Seattle. Burrow threw a three-yard TD pass to rookie sixth-round pick Andrei Iosivas from Princeton in the second quarter, giving the Bengals a 14-7 lead; it turned out to be the winning touchdown in a 17-13 victory. In the excitement after the catch, Iosivas, a level-headed young guy on his 24th birthday, didn’t hang onto the ball, thinking there was a penalty on the play. There was not. In the midst of the celebration, Burrow ignored the excitement, went to the ballboy on the sideline, asked where the touchdown ball was, and fetched it from the end zone. With a wide grin, Burrow ran to Iosivas and handed it to him.

“Great play bro,” Burrow said to Mr. Princeton.

“Wow!” Iosivas said to Burrow. “Thanks for getting me the ball!”

“No problem.”

Imagine you’re Iosivas. You’re an Ivy League receiver, happy to be picked anywhere in the NFL draft, and you go to a place with three star wideouts and the highest-paid player in NFL history, Burrow, throwing to them. You make the team and in game six you catch your first TD pass—and the quarterback, one of the biggest stars in the game, goes foraging for the ball to make sure you get it. Now that’s cool.

“I saw it,” said Jimmy Burrow, the QB’s dad, who was at the game. “I was proud of Joe. It’s crazy he would think of that in a critical moment of the game. But he likes that kid and I’m sure he thought, ‘The kid should have the ball.’”

I asked the dad where that ultimate team thing came from.

“Good question,” Jimmy Burrow said. “He cares so much about his teammates. When there’s an opportunity to celebrate, with a rookie especially, he thinks it’s a priority, I guess. He understands it’s part of the culture of the Bengals, and part of his responsibility as a leader, to do things like that. I do think it’s a big deal.

“Something else happened today like that. We’ve got a new punter [rookie Brad Robbins], and his family came up to introduce themselves to me. They told me Joe came up to him in the locker room when he got there and asked, ‘What’s your name? Where are you from?’ The kid told him, and Joe said, ‘Good to meet you. I’m Joe.’

“That’s just Joe.”

As Iosivas said, “He’s a great teammate. He knows what it means to be the new guy, the late-round draft pick. He’s super-constructive, never toxic. When you mess up, he comes over and just tells you what to do, how to fix it. It’s incredible having him as my quarterback.”

CLEVELAND

A Michigan man for the 49ers made a bunch of Ohio State fans happy in Cleveland Sunday.

Browns WR AMARI COOPER saw the hand of God in the miss by 49ers PK JAKE MOODY:

With the then-undefeated 49ers about to attempt a potential game-winning field goal Sunday, the Cleveland Browns needed a miracle.

And they got it. Jake Moody’s 41-yard kick sailed wide right of the uprights — the rookie kicker’s second miss of the day — and Cleveland walked away with a 19-17 victory that shattered San Francisco’s perfect record.

After the game, Browns wide receiver Amari Cooper said the win reinforced his faith after his sideline prayers were answered.

“That was on God, 100 percent,” Cooper told reporters at Cleveland Browns Stadium after the game (h/t News 5 Cleveland’s Camryn Justice). “I talked to a couple of guys after the game because I for sure was praying that he missed it. I don’t generally do that, but we needed that one, man. I had to do what I had to do, and I talked to a couple guys … they all said the same thing, so that definitely strengthened my faith if I’m being 100 percent honest.”

Peter King:

Browns 19, Niners 17. If you saw it, you know Cleveland got a huge break when rookie kicker Jake Moody of the 49ers booted what would have been the winning 41-yard field goal 10 inches wide right with six seconds left. Such is life with a rookie kicker. But even if San Francisco won this game with that field goal, those players would have gotten on their four-hour charter flight back to the West Coast knowing, Holy crap. That is one great defense we just faced.

Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz changed up quite a bit on the Niners. He called a season-high 71-percent man coverage snaps, per Next Gen Stats, which turned out to be hugely significant because Cleveland, a zone team most often under Schwartz, got good pressure and an excellent game from its best cover corner. Denzel Ward loves playing man. In this game, per NextGen, he allowed just two receptions for 12 yards, continuing his trend as the stingiest cover corner in the NFL. NextGen has Ward, in 2023, surrendering just 101 yards on 30 targets. A corner giving up 3.4 yards per target? Outstanding. And the Browns reveled in his coverage, and in their pressure, Sunday.

The Browns’ front didn’t let Brock Purdy breathe. Once Christian McCaffrey (oblique) and Deebo Samuel (shoulder) were lost for the game (Samuel was gone late in the first quarter, and McCaffrey played one snap in the second half), the element of physicality near the line of scrimmage was gone.

Almost forgotten was that a third-string quarterback, P.J. Walker, led Cleveland to the win. He wasn’t great, but he didn’t throw the game away, he wasn’t intimidated, and he was light years better than the starter in Cleveland’s last game against Baltimore, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who was awful in losing to Baltimore two weeks ago.

Walker told me post-game that Deshaun Watson—who missed his second game with a rotator cuff contusion—was an extra coach on the field during the game. “He walked me through what he saw on the mistake I made on that interception [by Deommodore Lenoir, intended for Amari Cooper].” That pick, in the fourth quarter, led to San Francisco’s go-ahead touchdown, and he said Watson encouraged him to make he sure he throws a pass in that situation “to give our guy a chance.” Walker’s throw was significantly off-target.

Beating the best team in football—hard to argue any team other than San Francisco deserved that title after five weeks—was clearly the highlight of Walker’s eight-start NFL career. “This means a lot,” he said. “Just to go out there and just to know that the guys in this locker room got my back, and they’re ready to go to battle with me, it means the world. I just want them to know I got their back as well.”

Dan Graziano of ESPN.com is gaga over what Jim Schwartz has meant to the Browns defense:

Jim Schwartz was the best acquisition any team made all offseason

The Browns brought in Schwartz as their new defensive coordinator this season, and so far, they appear to have the league’s best, meanest and toughest defense. They held the previously unbeaten 49ers — who had scored at least 30 points in each of their first five games — to 17 on Sunday.

Sure, the Niners had a rash of major injuries during the game, and the Browns still needed a 41-yard Jake Moody field goal attempt to sail wide at the final whistle in order to hold on to win. But defensive end Myles Garrett and the defense stifled an offense that no one else has been able to even slow down. And as a result, the Browns are 3-2 and squarely in the AFC North hunt even though they don’t have quarterback Deshaun Watson. And the Niners went home with their first loss of the season.

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

The numbers speak for themselves, folks. Entering Sunday, the Browns ranked first in defensive efficiency, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index. They ranked 30th in offense. They’ve allowed a total of 1,002 yards so far this season. Only two teams since the 1970 merger allowed fewer yards in their first five games — the 1971 Colts and 1970 Vikings. These are practically prehistoric numbers the Browns are putting up on defense.

If Watson can make it back from his right shoulder injury soon, and if the offense can get itself on track, Cleveland is going to be a major problem. Clearly, the Browns had the players, but Schwartz has brought it all together in a big way. Next week, they get the Colts, who turned it over four times Sunday in Jacksonville. Viewer discretion is advised.

JACKSONVILLE

The injury to QB TREVOR LAWRENCE won’t keep him out a long time – but what about Thursday against the Saints?  Michael DiRocco of ESPN.com:

Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson said Trevor Lawrence is day-to-day with a left knee injury but wouldn’t elaborate on the specifics of the injury or whether his starting quarterback could play in Thursday night’s game at the Saints.

Pederson said Lawrence’s knee is sore but feeling better Monday and that he could split first-team practice reps with backup quarterback C.J. Beathard this week, depending on how the knee responds.

Lawrence had an MRI on Monday, but Pederson said he didn’t know the specifics of what it showed or whether Lawrence had suffered any strained ligaments.

“You’d have to talk Ferg [vice president of player health and performance Jeff Ferguson],” Pederson said. “That’s out of my jurisdiction.”

A league source described Lawrence’s knee injury as a “sprain” that “is not a significant thing” to ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Monday.

Lawrence was hurt on a third-and-7 play from the Indianapolis 16-yard line with 3:10 remaining in the Jaguars’ 37-20 victory over the Colts at EverBank Stadium on Sunday. He faked a pitch to the right to Travis Etienne Jr. and rolled left and was chased down by Colts defensive end Samson Ebukam at the 33-yard line.

Lawrence immediately grabbed his left knee and stayed down for a moment. He walked off the field and went to the bench, where team physician Kevin Kaplan examined his knee. Lawrence got up and walked around after several minutes and remained on the sideline for the rest of the game, participated in postgame handshakes, and attended his postgame news conference without a wrap or brace on the knee. He appeared to have one on his left leg when he left the stadium Sunday evening, however.

The Jaguars (4-2) will have a walk-through Monday and will practice Tuesday and Wednesday before leaving for New Orleans. It’s possible that Beathard will get some first-team snaps, Pederson said.

“If Trevor’s sore,” Pederson said. “We’ve done this before. We did last year [when Lawrence suffered a toe injury against Detroit]. C.J. took the Wednesday reps and then Trevor took the rest of the week and was ready to play in the game.”

MIAMI

This from OptaStats:

@OptaSTATS

Tyreek Hill has 2524 receiving yards in his 23 games with the

@MiamiDolphins. That’s the fewest games any player has taken to reach 2500 receiving yards with a single team in NFL history.

NEW ENGLAND

Peter King:

Bill Belichick coached his 500th NFL game Sunday in Las Vegas. Another loss, 21-17. You’d be impressed to know he’s got a 330-170 career record, the second-most wins ever … but the shine comes off it a bit when you realize the Patriots are 3-10 since last Thanksgiving.

Since Thanksgiving, the Patriots are 3-10.  On Thanksgiving, the Lions lost by 3 to the Bills.  Since then Detroit is 10-2.  Times do change.

– – –

Who is closer to replacement – QB MAC JONES of the Patriots or QB DESMOND RIDDER of the Falcons?  Peter King was listening to Tony Romo:

“He is open, Hunter Henry. This is just a horrendous throw by Mac Jones. He’s had a couple this year he wants back, but this one’s gonna be right up there.”

–Tony Romo on CBS, watching New England quarterback Mac Jones continue his brutal season with a second-quarter pick at Las Vegas.

– – –

Hmmm, another argument against GM Bill Belichick.  We wonder if Peter King spotted this on his own, or did he get a whisper from someone inside Patriots headquarters?

Nick Folk, since the start of the 2019 season, is 70-for-70 on field-goal attempts inside the 40-yard line.

Curious: Folk made 90.4 percent of his field-goal attempts for New England in the last three years. Entering his age-39 season, Folk was not re-signed by the Patriots, and he signed with Tennessee. New England picked Maryland kicker Chad Ryland in the fourth round of the ’23 draft, three years after picking Marshall kicker Justin Rohrwasser in the fifth round. Rohrwasser never played in an NFL game. Ryland is four-for-eight early in his NFL career. What, exactly, is wrong with Folk, and why did Bill Belichick spend so much draft capital and scouting energy trying to replace him?

In 2023, Folk leads the NFL with 16 field goals in 16 attempts. Classic case of, It was not broke, but Belichick tried to fix it.

NEW YORK JETS

This:

@lindseyyok

So far the Jets have played: Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Mac Jones, Patrick Mahomes, Dak Prescott and Russell Wilson.

HC Robert Saleh says they’ve “embarrassed” all of them. (🎥: @snyjets)

The full quote – “Through these first six weeks we’ve played a gauntlet of quarterbacks.  I know we haven’t got all wins, but we’ve embarrassed all of them.  I’m just really, really proud of the defense and its resolve.”

More from Peter King:

Truest words of the week spoken by Jets coach Robert Saleh Sunday night just after 9 as he drove home from one of the franchise’s most exhilarating wins.

“It’s a league of equality.”

Zero unbeatens after six weeks. One winless team. Two-thirds of the teams (21 of 32) have two, three or four wins.

This league, right now, is about games like Sunday’s in the Meadowlands, with the unbeaten Eagles, 12-0 all-time against the Jets, comfy favorites to make it 13. And all weekend it was, well, just a strange scene.

On Thursday, it looked like the Jets would have both starting corners available to play against one of the league’s best quarterbacks, Jalen Hurts. Then, on Friday, D.J. Reed didn’t pass the final stages of concussion protocol, and Sauce Gardner was sent home with what was believed to be illness. When he came into work Saturday, he too was found to be concussed. Both out.

“We’re missing our top three corners, our two best offensive linemen and our Hall of Fame quarterback,” Saleh mused. “Playing a 5-0 team that our franchise has never beaten. It was like hell on wheels, trying to put a gameplan together with what we were missing that put the train back on the track.”

Speaking of the Hall of Fame quarterback, one month after surgery to repair a torn Achilles suffered on the fourth play of the season, Aaron Rodgers was on the field at MetLife Stadium before the game. Walking with no crutches. Throwing perfect spirals. What on God’s green earth.

“Aaron was in our facility on Saturday,” Saleh said. “I was talking to him. I was like, ‘So what’s the deal? You gonna go up to the box tomorrow? Watch from the box?’ He goes, ‘No, I want be on the field.’ I was like, ‘What about your ankle?’ He goes, ‘I’m fine.’ I was like, ‘K, whatever you want, buddy.’ He is on a mission. I don’t put anything past him. I’ve heard he’s absolutely dominating rehab and he really wants to get back this year. That’s why getting wins like this and staying in it and staying in the hunt, giving him that opportunity to fulfill his mission, is so vital.”

All day, Hurts had to run from the Jets’ omnipresent rush. Despite the understudies running around the secondary, Hurts got picked three times. The last one, by a totally unknown safety named Tony Adams (more about him in a sec).

I told Saleh he had to find the TV copy of the game to watch. I told him Hurts is one of the most resilient quarterbacks I’ve ever seen, one of the great fighters at the position I’ve watched in 40 years covering the game. But something odd happened after the pick by Adams, and after the Jets ran for the go-ahead touchdown on the next play. Hurts just stared into space on the bench. He looked … like he’d had it. And when he got the ball back for one last shot, Hurts went incomplete, incomplete, two-yard completion, incomplete. Ballgame.

Just weird. The whole thing. It’s like the Jets, by the end of the game, just beat this very good team down.

“I want to give a lot of credit to [defensive coordinator] Jeff Ulbrich and the staff,” Saleh said. “They did a really, really nice job with the game plan, and from a coverage standpoint, did a really, really good job mixing things up to create a little confusion and just enough indecision to walk him into some of those mistakes. Same things that I feel like we’ve been able to do against all the better quarterbacks.”

– – –

We certainly are impressed with how QB AARON RODGERS is all in with the 2023 Jets (was he always this way in GB and we just didn’t see it?).  Jeff Kerr of CBSSports.com:

Aaron Rodgers was back in MetLife Stadium on Sunday, throwing in warmups as he looks to come back from a ruptured Achilles suffered four plays into the Jets season. Low and behold, Rodgers was reportedly doing a bit more than that in Sunday’s win over the Philadelphia Eagles.

Per The Athletic, Rodgers wore a headset and offered suggestions to Jets coaches during the game. The Jets didn’t score an offensive touchdown until the final two minutes of their 20-14 win (and even that was one the Eagles let them score after a turnover so they could get the ball back in hopes of having the ball last), but the locker room was easily influenced by their superstar quarterback’s presence.

Rodgers was on the field about two hours before kickoff throwing, with no crutches or braces. The Jets may have some hope he can return this year, but the veteran is doing whatever he can to help out the team in his absence.

“He wanted to be on the sidelines,” said Jets head coach Robert Saleh after the win. “It’s unbelievable. A lot of people that I have talked to – I won’t name names but who have also had it – that everyone is in awe that he is even walking. For him to be on the sideline standing the entire time, he’s a freakazoid.”

Jets quarterback Zach Wilson finished 19 of 33 for 186 yards and no turnovers, despite being sacked five times. He knew Rodgers was around the team, but admitted he himself wasn’t talking to Rodgers during the game.

“I think he was mostly in there talking to the coaches,” Wilson said. “Obviously, my headset is just with Hack (Nathaniel Hackett), but it’s always good having him around.”

Making play suggestions isn’t new for Rodgers. Wilson had given Rodgers credit for calling his touchdown pass to Malik Taylor in the Hall of Fame Game.

Expect Rodgers to be around the Jets moving forward as he is still rehabbing from his ankle injury. This won’t be the last time the Jets offense sees him.

CBSSports.com has a medical expert who dares whisper Week 15:

It was the clearest sign yet that the quarterback is on an unprecedented timeline in his recovery from an Achilles tear, according to CBS Sports HQ injury expert Marty Jaramillo, who believes Rodgers is “absolutely” on pace to return this season.

“He’s moving almost three times as fast as traditional protocols,” Jaramillo told CBSSports.comMonday. “No boot, no crutches, minimal limp. It’s quite exponential. There is no precedent for this type of recovery following an Achilles tear. He is beating back Father Time.”

Specifically, Jaramillo estimates Rodgers could be fully ready to play 12-14 weeks after surgery, which would mean a return to the lineup as early as Week 15, when the Jets visit the Dolphins on Dec. 17. Crazy? Jaramillo has his own doubts, but he’s “happy to be wrong,” as Rodgers’ current rehab suggests he’ll be: “By Month 4 or even 3 at this pace — or shall we say at a Rodgers pace — he would be at the equivalent of Month 9 or 10 of traditional healing.”

The longtime Packers star suffered his torn Achilles four snaps into his highly anticipated Jets debut on Sept. 11, then had surgery two days later. Even a four-month recovery timeline — still unprecedented — would set the return for mid-January, during the first round of the 2023 playoffs, though that would depend on the Jets (3-3) advancing to the postseason.

How, exactly, is Rodgers moving so quickly? Jaramillo points primarily to the “speed bridge” technique used to accelerate recovery, which allows for early weight-bearing. It’s a fairly new procedure that few surgeons are trained to perform, he said, and Rodgers’ surgeon, Dr. Neil ElAttrache, a close colleague of Jaramillo’s, is “quite the pioneer in sports medicine.” He notably repaired Tom Brady’s torn ACL in 2008, and the former Patriots QB “only got better,” appearing in five more Super Bowls before retiring at 45.

The DB was in an establishment watching the Jets and these words popped out: “The Jets are going to go 7-7, then Rodgers will come back and win the last three and they will go on to win the Super Bowl.”

A lady at a nearby table said – “What did you just say?”

Not sure we believe it, but that’s what popped out.  The Jets have a defense, they have some skilled offensive players, they play hard and Zach Wilson is just almost good enough to have a chance.

THIS AND THAT

ERIE NOTE

Well, Detroit and Buffalo aren’t exactly on Lake Erie, but they are close.  Peter King:

Big day for the traditional northern tier teams.

Cleveland (3-2) shocked the unbeaten 49ers at home, as a frenetic crowd in the old city on Lake Erie starts to think this could be a legit playoff season.

Buffalo (4-2) shook off a lousy night on offense and survived the Giants at home.

And Detroit (5-1), flexed to a national TV doubleheader game for the first time in forever, had probably 25,000 Honolulu-blue-clad fans in the house in Florida and beat the Bucs 20-6.

How crazy is this: If the season ended today, all three would be in the playoffs. And that has never happened before. This is the 64th season that all three franchises have been playing pro football, and Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo have never made the playoffs in the same season.

Not sure that Cleveland looks any “older” than the other two.  Why was it singled out?