Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com points out the 10 teams that have just one win or, in the case of the Jets, less.

The NFL, as it should, likes to point out positive aspects of a season in progress, especially when it comes to the scoring of points and other things that make the game exciting. Here’s something the NFL won’t be issuing a press release about.

Nearly a third of the league stinks.

More specifically, 10 of 32 franchises currently have one win or fewer.

“Fewer” are the Jets, the lone remaining winless team, at 0-6. The league also has six teams with 1-5 records: Texans, Jaguars, Giants, Washington, Vikings, and Falcons. The Chargers are 1-4, and the Eagles and Bengals are 1-4-1 each.

That’s a combined record, for those 10 teams, of 9-48-2.

Already, two of those 10 teams have changed coaches. It’s hard not to wonder whether other teams will do the same, if for no reason others than to get a head start on the coming coaching carousel.

It doesn’t mean all of those teams are done. Indeed, with so many teams struggling, the odds are that one of them will find a way out of the weeds. Still, it’s glaring to have so many teams stuck in such a deep hole. For those that keeping fading, there definitely will be a concern that the players, coaches, and other personnel may become too complacent about complying with COVID-19 protocols, sparking potential outbreaks.

– – –

QB AARON RODGERS has long been the NFL leader in passer rating, but in recent years QB RUSSELL WILSON has been narrowing the gap.

In addition, two other QBs are closing in on the 1,500 pass attempt minimum that certifies eligibility for the record.

After his two INTs Sunday and otherwise non-descript game, here is how things stand.  Watson is three games away from crashing the party, Mahomes will hit 1,500 in five or six more contests.

Patrick Mahomes                     108.7                                     1,292

Aaron Rodgers                       102.6                                     6,235                                      

Russell Wilson                        102.4                                     3,946

Deshaun Watson                     101.9                                     1,404

Drew Brees                               98.4                                    10,337                                      

Dak Prescott                             97.3                                      2,293  

NFC NORTH

CHICAGO

QB NICK FOLES had some great things to say after beating Carolina.  Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com:

The Bears climbed to 5-1 with a road win over the Panthers on Sunday. They’ve yet to get the respect that a record like this should generate, in part because they’re not winning in dominant fashion or exhilarating highlights.

And that’s OK with quarterback Nick Foles.

“Would you rather lose pretty or win ugly?” a passionate and animated Foles said after Sunday’s win over the Panthers. “I think we’d rather win ugly. . . . Is this who we are offensively? We want to improve, we want to get better, we want to have rhythm. But ultimtately in the NFL it’s about winning games. It doesn’t matter how you do it, it just matters that you get it done. If you put up 50 points and you lose a game, those 50 points don’t mean anything.”

Foles, in his third start for the Bears, completed 23 of 39 passes for 198 yards, with one touchdown and one interception. His passer rating was a sluggish 70.2. But he’s got no problem with that.

“Right now, we’re winning games,” Foles said. “We’re playing together as a team. We can improve. I think that’s exciting. If we were winning these games and playing perfect and they were this tight and we’re playing perfect, where do you improve?”

They’ll need to improve quickly. Next Monday night, they have a date with the Rams in L.A. Then, the Bears host the Saints. Then, the Bears face the Titans in Tennessee. Regardless, Foles is undaunted and undeterred.

“I’m excited about our offense, I’m excited about the guys that are there,” Foles said. “I like the communication that’s happening on the sideline. I love the passion of the players. Most importantly, they care. And we’re bonding. We’re getting to know each other. That’s football. You don’t just go out there and play football. You’ve gotta care about the man next to you to make those plays. So I like where we’re at. I know we’re gonna improve. I believe in our staff, I believe in our players, and I’m really grateful to be a part of this organization.”

The organization is surely grateful to have Foles, a former Super Bowl MVP and the consummate teammate and leader. At 5-1 through six games, even a .500 record over the next ten translates to 10-6 and, with seven playoff spots per conference, a near-certain playoff berth.

Or maybe a division title. On Sunday night of Thanksgiving weekend, the Bears visit Lambeau Field. In Week 17, the Packers come to Chicago. Potentially, they could be meeting for a third time in January.

It’s even better if you listen to him say it with exceptional conviction and clarity.

DETROIT

The Lions could be back squarely in the playoff picture by Thanksgiving says Albert Breer:

The Lions might be feisty from here. At 2–3, they’re a game out of the NFC playoff picture and their schedule softens up over the next few weeks (at Atlanta, Indianapolis, at Minnesota, Washington and at Carolina between now and Thanksgiving). Don’t count them out yet.

Even if they go 3-2, they would be 5-5.

GREEN BAY

Not to pick on Colin Cowherd, the DB was thinking much the same thing after Green Bay took a 10-0 lead on Sunday.

@ColinCowherd

If anyone sees a weakness w the Packers — give me a heads up. I can’t spot one.

And:

@RobDemovsky

That’s just Rodgers’ third pick-6 of his career. His entire freaking career.

Two have happened at Raymond James Stadium.  The other in 2009.

MINNESOTA

QB KIRK COUSINS is a Goat of the Week, not a GOAT, for Peter King:

Kirk Cousins, quarterback, Minnesota. Threw three first-half interceptions, allowing an Atlanta team that came to Minnesota with an 0-5 record and a newly installed interim coach to rout the Vikings, 40-23 (and it wasn’t that close). This is not what the Vikings had in mind when they paid Cousins a gazillion dollars to lead them to the promised land.

Give Cousins, who has four more INTs in 6 games than he did in all of 2019, credit for candor.  Courtney Cronin of ESPN.com:

Mike Zimmer didn’t give much thought to whether he would pull Kirk Cousins amid a first half in which the Minnesota Vikings’ quarterback threw three interceptions that resulted in an eventual 40-23 loss to the Atlanta Falcons, replying with a simple “no” when asked if he considered making a change.

But although the head coach dispelled any notion over the QB’s job security, Cousins is aware of the consequences that could come if his interception trend picks up following the Vikings’ bye week.

“The reality is if the pace I’m on in terms of the interceptions, if that were to continue, I won’t finish the season,” Cousins said. “I won’t — you know what I mean? There’s a little bit of, you got to improve. Whether it’s them telling me, ‘Hey, we gotta improve,’ or them pulling me; we got to get better. That’s what the rest of the season will be about for me, is trying to protect the football as best I can. Because when you turn the ball over, it really hurts your chances to win. I know that. I just need to improve as we look ahead to the rest of the season.”

The three interceptions Cousins threw before halftime Sunday were his most in a first half in his career, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Cousins was given a two-year, $66 million extension in March that keeps him under contract in Minnesota through the 2022 season. In six games, the 32-year-old quarterback leads the NFL with 10 interceptions; he tossed just six in 2019.

“I need to correct it,” Cousins said. “I need to finish the season with a different story, regarding the interceptions, so that’s something I need to improve with the remaining games we have. I don’t know that I’d limit it to the interceptions. I think it’s just the entire offensive performance. It’s just, I need to be better, we need to be better.”

Minnesota won the coin toss and started the game on offense. Cousins threw an interception on the first play of the game on a pass intended for rookie Justin Jefferson. Atlanta linebacker Deion Jones returned the ball to the Vikings’ 24-yard line, where the Falcons jumped out to a 7-0 lead after orchestrating a five-play drive that went 29 yards and ended with QB Matt Ryan hitting Julio Jones for a 20-yard touchdown.

From that point, the Vikings never were able to recover and truly test the previously winless Falcons.

“I thought the first one was the worst one, if you will,” Cousins said of his three interceptions. “First play of the game, and the coverage was not confusing. It was just a zone drop, and I simply forced the football into coverage, tried to do too much. That’s a mistake I may have made in Year 1, but I’m disappointed that I would do that now. The second one, third down, saw Cover 2, felt them squeeze Adam [Thielen], doubled Adam, and wanted to replace the squeeze with throwing it to Justin, and the cloud corner jumped it and made a good play. The third one, was just trying to work the bender to [Chad] Beebe. My arm got hit, and obviously it went up in the air and was intercepted.”

Cousins finished the game having completed 24 of 36 passes for 343 yards with three touchdowns and three interceptions. \

As the Vikings head into their Week 7 bye with a 1-5 record, the worst start in Minnesota since 2013, the opportunity for introspection and potential changes is on the minds of many within the franchise.

“I think that’s something we need to look at here starting tomorrow when we get back in and figure out where we’re at, where we plan on going and kind of go from there,” Zimmer said.

NFC EAST

PHILADELPHIA

The Eagles, gallant losers to mighty Baltimore, are sending signals that they will trade.  Jason LaCanfora of CBSSports.com:

The Eagles have had a slow start and been ravaged by injuries to certain position groups but remain very much alive in a brutal NFC East and are aggressively approaching the trade deadline, league sources said. General manager Howie Roseman is among the more proactive executives in the league and has already sent signals to multiple teams that he is interested in acquiring some of their talent if they are open to it.

Philadelphia’s roster has been shuffling constantly, with the offensive line and receiver groups decimated by repeated injuries and setbacks. The team’s linebackers have been under heavy criticism in recent weeks for repeated coverage breakdowns, and the Eagles could stand to improve on both sides of the ball outside of the defensive line, which has been dominant.

“Howie is on the prowl already,” one rival general manager said. “He’s looking for action. If there is a trade to be made he’ll do it. Bringing in a free agent from the outside is tougher now and more risky with COVID, and he loves to make trades anyway. I’ll bet you anything he gets something done before the deadline.”

This on the mood afterwards from Albert Breer:

At one point, the Eagles were down 24–6. At another, it was 30–14, and that deficit held into the final five minutes of the game. So that this game came down to a two-point conversion in the end wasn’t the goal—but realistically, it might be a start. And I was mildly surprised to hear Doug Pederson actually acknowledge that postgame: “As the head coach, I can stand here and say I’m proud of those guys in the locker room. And I know they’re going to get beat down this week, and that’s your job. But my job is to encourage them, and say, Hey, I get it, there are no moral victories in the NFL. There are no moral victories at all, and we’re all graded on wins and losses, but for this team to hang together on the sideline, to not point fingers, to battle, to be in this position with all the mistakes that were made in the first half, really offensively, and then we missed the kick, the field goal at the end of the half … I’m proud of the guys for the way they battled today.” The Eagles are 1–4–1. But if Dallas loses Monday night, they’ll remain tied for first in the loss column, and there’s a lot of season left. And finally something for Carson Wentz, a receiver named Travis Fulgham, and the rest of the guys to build on.

If the Eagles play like they did Sunday, they will be 5-4-1 or 4-5-1 in four weeks after two games with the Giants, at Cleveland and vs. Dallas.  The last six games are harder.

NFC SOUTH

ATLANTA

Albert Breer on Atlanta winning its first game with interim coach Raheem Morris:

It’s been 10 years, so Raheem Morris wasn’t blind to the opportunity in front of him.

But being named interim coach didn’t make it any easier for Morris to watch Dan Quinn—who he first met as a player at Hofstra, where Quinn was defensive line coach in the 1990s—go through what he did this week.

“It’s awful for the whole organization, because they lost such a great man in Dan Quinn,” Morris said. “And I lost like a great figure for me, in coaching and everything that I’ve been a part of, in his life and my life. You talk about a guy who coached me in college and did all the things necessary to go out and get wins, and show you how to do it, and absolutely take this team to the highest level. When he got fired, I felt as if I failed him.

“And I let him know that, and he said, ‘No way.’”

And even after the firing, Quinn actually helped Morris behind the scenes. When the team had a second positive COVID-19 test, the two talked through the procedures. As Morris’s first game drew closer, the two had an open dialogue.

So by the time Morris got to Sunday, he wanted to win the game for Quinn.

He and the Falcons delivered, drilling the Vikings 40–23. In the process, Morris thinks it’s possible they all found a little something to build on.

During the week, Morris talked to the players about forcing their will on the opponent, and for the most part that worked out, with Atlanta building a 20–0 halftime lead. But there was something about how the first half ended that irked Morris—he thought he and his staff had coached for the field goal (they did get it) in the final minute more so than a touchdown that would’ve made it 24–0.

So when Matt Ryan, Julio Jones and other leaders brought it up, he actually apologized for not following his own guidelines to impose his will on the opponent.

“They wanted to be aggressive when we came out in the second half, and that’s absolutely what the offense did,” Morris said. “They played aggressive.”

Similarly, Morris coached aggressively in the third quarter to ensure the Falcons wouldn’t blow yet another big lead. And nowhere did that show up more than in the decision to go for it on fouth-and-3 from the Vikings’ 40, with 2:14 left in the third quarter and the Falcons up 23–7. Ryan took the snap, scrambled left, approached the line of scrimmage, then backed off before dumping the ball over the head of the defense to Jones, who did the rest, covering 40 yards to make the score 30–7.

By the time the Vikings sniffed the end zone again, it was over, and now the Morris Era is underway in Atlanta. With that comes a great opportunity for the 44-year-old to show how far he’s come since Tampa dumped him after the 2011 season.

He knows all that, of course. But he swore to me his focus isn’t going to go past what’s right in front of him. “I’m really trying to keep a short mindset, and I’m just setting it on each week.” And so maybe this leads to something bigger. Maybe it doesn’t. Either way, Morris wants to make the most out of right now.

“It’s really hard for me to be selfish at this moment because of how many people helped me get to this point, including Dan Quinn. Including Arthur Blank. Including all the coaching staff and all the people that’s involved,” Morris said. “So it’s really hard to think of things personally. But I know it felt so damn good to get a win, man. It’s just an awesome feeling in general.”

And one that’s been a long time coming in Atlanta.

TAMPA BAY

Through the first five weeks, the Buccaneers were not achieving their potential due to mistakes.  Then they had one of the cleanest games in NFL history Sunday against Green Bay.

Scott Smith

@ScottSBucs

In their win over GB on Sunday, the Buccaneers didn’t commit a penalty, didn’t allow a sack and didn’t commit a turnover. I searched for any other games like that and only found two since the 1970 merger: Indy vs. Cleveland on 12/26/99 and Minnesota vs. the Rams on 11/19/72.

In the previous game against Chicago,  the Buccaneers had 11 penalties and gave up 5 sacks and 1 turnover.

Even as the Buccaneers were beating Green Bay, they were trading for a Jet to shore up the defensive line.  Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times:

Needing help on the defensive line after the season-ending injury to Vita Vea, the Bucs have traded for Jets defensive tackle Steve McLendon.

McLendon, 34, played in the same 3-4 defensive scheme for Bucs defensive coordinator Todd Bowles when he was the Jets head coach and also played under Bucs defensive line coach Kacy Rodgers in New York.

The Bucs sent their sixth-round pick in 2022 to the Jets and received New York’s seventh-round selection in 2023 as part of the deal.

In his fifth season with the Jets, McLendon was their longest-tenured player. He played 44 percent of the team’s defensive snaps going into Sunday’s game and will become a free agent at the end of this season.

Rakeem Nunez-Roches assumed most of the snaps at nose tackle Sunday against the Packers.

NFC WEST

ARIZONA

QB KYLER MURRAY isn’t playing for the first time tonight at AT&T Stadium.  Gil Brandt:

When Kyler Murray visits AT&T Stadium next Monday night, he will be very familiar with his surroundings. Murray is 6-0 lifetime in the stadium — 5-0 at Allen High, including three Texas state championships, and 1-0 at Oklahoma when he won the Big 12 title in 2018.

– – –

Josh Weinfuss of ESPN.com has a long look at football savant Kliff Kingsbury.  Some excerpts:

Kingsburys’ reputation as an offensive savant has grown with each stop thanks, in part, to his willingness to be creative and adapt.

“There’s a lot of offensive coaches who spend an extreme amount of time figuring out what the defense does,” said Cardinals wide receivers coach David Raih, who also coached with Kingsbury at Texas Tech in 2013. “He’s more concerned about what we do, which is a very aggressive way to play offense.”

To Kingsbury, that was a natural way of approaching offensive football. “It always made sense to me that we’re the one with the snap count, we’re the one who controls the tempo, so make them react to us,” he said.

It has led to high praise.

Cardinals running back Kenyan Drake described him as a “mad genius.”

Cornerback Patrick Peterson said he’s a “mad scientist.”

Left tackle D.J. Humphries called him “the wizard.”

Texas Southern coach Clarence McKinney, who coached with Kingsbury for five years at Houston and Texas A&M, said: “It’s like the Rain Man.”

Brandon Jones, the Houston Cougars offensive line coach who held the same position with Kingsbury at Texas Tech in 2017 and 2018, said, “It’s like something I’ve never seen. It’s like ‘A Beautiful Mind.'”

– – –

The foundation of Kingsbury’s offensive philosophy was built during his high school and college years. He began running the Air Raid while playing quarterback at New Braunfels and continued it at Texas Tech as a quarterback under Mike Leach.

From there, Kingsbury’s offensive education took off. Kingsbury said he was “fortunate” to learn a “ton of offenses” from various college and pro leagues.

“It started with the Air Raid, Mike Leach,” Kingsbury said. “A lot of those base concepts really made sense to me, and I like the way we operated in that system. And then I bounced around, NFL, NFL Europe, CFL, wherever, just any concept that I saw that, ‘Hey, this makes sense to me, this is quarterback friendly, it’s a great read,’ I would carry that and install it at a different place.”

Each stop added another layer to Kingsbury’s offensive encyclopedia. But one of the most important lessons came as a player on injured reserve during the 2003 season with the New England Patriots, coached by Bill Belichick.

“With Bill it was his ability to adapt to his personnel year in, year out,” Kingsbury said. “Whoever he signed or drafted, it didn’t matter, they were going to find a way to utilize those guys in different ways and maximize who they were with their personnel group, and you saw that year after year.”

– – –

Pete Robertson, a former Cardinals linebacker who played for Kingsbury at Texas Tech, walked into Kingsbury’s office in Lubbock, Texas, one day and found two white boards full of plays.

Those plays on those boards were the “greatest hits,” Kingsbury said. Throughout the offseason, anytime he saw a play he liked, Kingsbury put it on the board. Then he’d go through all of them, pairing them with different teams. It was a tedious process that’d often leave him trying to remember why he liked a play or what team he wanted to use it against — if he couldn’t recall either answer, he’d erase them.

Now that he’s using note pads, it has become a weekly ritual for Kingsbury to throw out or scratch out a play, leaving him with a list. Kingsbury likes to insert new plays every week, said wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, who said they usually include some sort of new design or way to get the Cardinals’ playmakers involved. And every play also comes with a corresponding hand signal so Kingsbury has to find a new one for each addition.

“I love the fact that you come in here on a Wednesday morning, you got to have your nose in the book because there’s going to be some things that are thrown at you that you haven’t seen before,” Fitzgerald said.

Fitting the offense to the QB

In his one season coaching with Kingsbury at Texas A&M in 2012, former Aggies wide receivers coach David Beaty learned an important lesson watching Kingsbury.

“That dude builds the confidence of quarterbacks,” said Beaty, who would go on to become the head coach at Kansas. “Those guys know that’s their team, and he does such a good job of teaching them to be accountable for their team. … When a guy feels like he has some say-so in it, when there’s some ownership there, that quarterback is the king of the castle.”

Kingsbury wants to fit his system to his players, not the other way around. At Texas Tech, when quarterbacks Davis Webb and Patrick Mahomes brought a play to him that they liked, he’d always be receptive.

“He’s very easy to talk to input wise, as long as you have a good reason,” Webb said. “He allows the quarterback to have not total free rein but more than anybody I’ve ever been around, where they can check at the line of scrimmage and kind of be the coordinator behind the scenes and get us into the right play as long as you have a good reason and he trusts you’re able to do that.

“That’s something that’s pretty unique, especially for a guy that is so smart and has such a good system.”

Kingsbury showed his flexibility in 2012, his only season as Texas A&M’s offensive coordinator.

He inherited an undersized, little-known quarterback named Johnny Manziel and prepared to install the same Air Raid-style offense Kingsbury orchestrated at Houston — the same one that helped Case Keenum, who coaches said ran the scheme to perfection, throw for an NCAA-record 19,217 yards during his career. Except Manziel wasn’t the traditional drop-back passer; he was a shifty, crafty, mobile quarterback.

“With Johnny, it looked nothing like what it was supposed to look like, and our offensive staff was like, ‘What the hell man? We look like s—,'” McKinney said. “But Kliff’s like, ‘All he do is move the chains.’ Which made sense. It don’t matter how you do it. You just keep getting first downs, eventually you’re going to get some touchdowns.”

Kingsbury kept the offense simple for Manziel, which allowed him to master it. Texas A&M went from 7-6 to 11-2, from seventh in yards per game to third, and from 27th in yards per play to first. On his way to a Heisman Trophy, Manziel and the Aggies led the SEC in rushing.

“I thought that showed that he was very versatile as a coach,” McKinney said. “He adjusts to his talent. I thought that showed that he could coach anybody.”

SAN FRANCISCO

Peter King on what the 49ers did Sunday night:

I think the 49ers still aren’t fixed—they’re averaging 20.3 points a game in the three games since returning from the two-game JV trip to the Meadowlands—but that was a quality win and strong performance Sunday night, holding off the Rams. Four encouraging points:

• Three TD passes and no turnovers by Jimmy Garoppolo.

• No sacks allowed. When you’re facing Aaron Donald (two tackles, one significant QB pressure), and you shut him out, that’s a big win.

• Bill Parcells used to say the running game is not about rushing yards or yards per carry, but rather about number of rushes. The Niners ran it 37 times, chewing up clock, and had a 38-to-22-minute time-of-possession edge.

• Kyle Shanahan knows what ails his team, and knows how to game plan when he has some disadvantages. Great coaches knows there’s a way to win every game, despite the zits your own team might have due to injuries or whatever. Shanahan and his staff coached a smart game.

– – –

Grant Gordon of NFL.com sings the praises of TE GEORGE KITTLE:

Nifty numbers and a pro-wrestling revelry aren’t the only reasons George Kittle is a star in this league. It’s because he’s just as happy and just as phenomenal blocking as he is hauling in a pass. He showed that when he led the way for Deebo Samuel’s opening score. It’s also because he’s never going to go down easy, seemingly on the hunt for would-be tacklers every time he’s got the ball. Kittle’s complete outstandingness shined in another prime-time showing for all the NFL world to smile and ponder just how dang good the best tight end in the game is. The 49ers (3-3) needed this win in a big way and, thusly, their past player, Kittle (seven receptions for 109 yards and a highlight-reel 44-yard TD), showed up in a big way.

LOS ANGELES RAMS

Scott Kachsmar points out that the Rams are 4-0 against the NFC East, 0-2 when playing someone else.

@ScottKacsmar

We’ll see if the Rams rally, but this could be a case of a team that’s built 80% of its good stats and 100% of the wins against the NFC East.

AFC NORTH

BALTIMORE

Kevin Patra on Baltimore’s shaky win:

The Ravens moved to 5-1, but John Harbaugh probably doesn’t feel great about the way his team played. Baltimore was called for 12 penalties accounting for 132 yards, many of them keeping the Eagles’ comeback bid alive. More concerning was an offense that struggled to consistently move the ball for the second straight week. Outside of capitalizing on short fields early, Lamar Jackson and the offense were stuck in the Philly mud. Jackson missed too many throws, completing just 59.3% of his passes for 186 yards and one early passing TD. With Mark Ingram banged up, the run game, outside of a few big Jackson rushes, was stymied. The inability to take advantage of good field position late gave Philadelphia life in the comeback. The passing game lacks explosive plays, and the run game can’t find consistent traction. When Jackson isn’t able to concoct his own enchantments, like his long TD scamper, the Ravens offense hasn’t been the prettiest. Great teams, however, find a way to win even in ugly circumstances.

CLEVELAND

The DB saw commentators wonder why QB AARON RODGERS was still in the game down 28 and being chased all over Tampa.

The Browns did protect QB BAKER MAYFIELD in a lost cause.  Albert Breer:

Baker Mayfield’s situation bears watching. The Browns’ quarterback didn’t want to point to his sore ribs as a reason for his lackluster play after Sunday’s shellacking in Pittsburgh, and that’s to his credit. When he was asked how health played into a horrid stat line (10-of-18, 119 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs), Mayfield quickly said, “It didn’t.” But coach Kevin Stefanski was equally blunt in saying it was the only reason Mayfield got pulled from (not benched in) the blowout. “I didn’t want to see him get hit one more time,” Stefanski said. “I know he wants to fight, but it’s a long season, we’ve got a game next week, and I didn’t feel like it was the right thing to put him back there.” Case Keenum played the last 52 seconds of the third quarter and the entire fourth quarter of the 38–7 loss. Now, do I think the plug is in the process of getting pulled on Mayfield? I do not. Not yet, anyway. One of the new staff’s main focuses with Mayfield over the last six months has been getting him to play a calmer, less frantic game—and they figured Bill Callahan’s run game would be huge in helping to establish that. And it has been. Sunday, conversely, presented a different challenge, in that it forced Mayfield to play from behind. To be sure, he didn’t handle that great. But he’ll learn. Or he won’t. Either way, the Browns have to get answers on him over the next three months, because going into his fourth year, they’ll have to make decisions on his fifth-year option (for 2022) and whether to start negotiating a long-term deal with him. And I’m not sure they’d feel like they have enough information yet to make either of those decisions.

PITTSBURGH

Dan Graziano on where the Steelers should sit in the NFL’s current hierarchy:

The Steelers are the NFL’s best team

In a year in which it feels like no team outside of Chicago and Tampa Bay are playing defense, the Steelers are allowing just 18.8 points per game while scoring 31.2. This is a group that managed to go 8-8 last season with Ben Roethlisberger hurt and a pair of replacement quarterbacks who seemed to do more harm than good.

With Roethlisberger back, the Steelers rolled into this season with the highest of hopes and expectations, and it is fair to say that so far they’ve looked as good as anyone. The Ravens and Chiefs each have losses. The Titans — I still don’t know how they didn’t lose Sunday, but more on that in a bit. The Seahawks are unbeaten but struggle on defense. The Packers had a claim before Sunday, but after what happened to them in Tampa, they’re no longer as spotless as the Steelers. Some team has to be the best.

The verdict: OVERREACTION. Because it’s almost certainly still the Chiefs, their weird loss to the Raiders notwithstanding. And because as impressive as Pittsburgh has been, we can absolutely pin the “Yeah, but who have they played?” tag on it. The Cleveland win is a good one, given the way the Browns have played so far, but the other four teams the Steelers have beaten have a combined record of 5-17-1.

I’ll say this, though: We’re going to get the chance to find out how good the Steelers are. Pittsburgh’s next two games are in Tennessee and Baltimore, and it has a trip to Buffalo still left on the schedule. The Devin Bush injury could be a tough one for the Steelers’ great defense to overcome, but they are going to have chances to prove this isn’t an overreaction. Check back in a couple of weeks.

Crushing the Browns came with a price for the Steelers.  Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com:

Steelers inside linebacker Devin Bush suffered a torn ACL in the second quarter of Sunday’s 38-7 win against the Cleveland Browns and will need season-ending surgery, a source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Bush, who came racing across the field late in the second quarter, dived to make a tackle on running back D’Ernest Johnson. Bush missed Johnson and moved awkwardly on his left knee, grabbing it as he fell and rolled out of bounds.

He needed help getting off the sideline, walking off gingerly with his arms around head athletic trainer John Norwig and another team official.

Bush, the team’s 2019 first-round pick, played every single defensive snap until his injury, and he was the team’s defensive playcaller.

While Bush was in the injury tent, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger walked over to Norwig, who was standing just outside. The two talked for a moment before Roethlisberger walked back to the sideline. Bush emerged a few seconds later and walked to the locker room under his own power with less than two minutes to play in the half.

“I just want to send my thoughts and prayers to Devin and his family and everything he’s going through right now,” Roethlisberger said after the game. “It makes you sick when a young player like that gets hurt, and I need to send my thoughts and prayers to him.”

Bush’s injury is especially worrisome for a team that lacks depth at inside linebacker. Veteran Vince Williams has had a stellar season alongside Bush, playing 74% of defensive snaps. Backup Robert Spillane played eight defensive snaps before coming on for Bush in the final minutes of the half, while other true inside linebacker Ulysees Gilbert III was inactive Sunday, as he’s been for every game this season. The Steelers also have the option of playing Marcus Allen, traditionally a safety, at the position. He took reps with both the safeties and the inside linebackers during training camp.

AFC SOUTH

HOUSTON

Romeo Crennel made two aggressive calls late in Sunday’s game, one worked.  Chase Goodbread of NFL.com:

There’s no better place to turn for coaching decisions that go against “the book” than with an interim coach. Enter Texans interim coach Romeo Crennel, who made back-to-back gutsy calls near the end of the game, one working and one failing. On a fourth-down call near the Titans goal line with under two minutes to play, leading 30-29, Crennel opted to go for the touchdown rather than kick a chip-shot field goal that would’ve put his team up by four. It paid off as Deshaun Watson hit Brandin Cooks for a TD to put Houston (1-5) up, 36-29. However, needing only an extra point for an eight-point lead, the next call was for a two-point try that failed. As a result, when Tennessee marched for the game-tying score, it was able to force overtime with a PAT instead of a two-pointer of its own.

TENNESSEE

The Titans had an amazing day on offense.  Mike Moraitis of USA TODAY:

The Tennessee Titans’ offense set multiple franchise records during their 42-36 Week 6 win over the Houston Texans at Nissan Stadium on Sunday.

Not only did the Titans set a franchise record with 601 yards of total offense in a single game (the previous record was 583, set back in 1991), but it was also the first time in Titans/Oilers franchise history that the team had a 300-yard passer, 200-yard rusher and 100-yard pass-catcher in a single game, according to Paul Kuharsky.

Ryan Tannehill finished with 364 passing yards, Derrick Henry posted 212 rushing yards, and Anthony Firkser broke the century mark with eight grabs for 113 yards.

But that wasn’t the only bit of history from this game. Henry became just the fourth player in NFL history to have three career games with at least 200 yards and two rushing scores, joining the likes of Hall of Famers Jim Brown, Barry Sanders and LaDainian Tomlinson, per ESPN’s Turron Davenport.

And this:

NFL Research

The Titans are the first team in NFL history with a 350+ yard passer (Ryan Tannehill, 364) AND a 200+ yard rusher (Derrick Henry, 212) in the same game

But it was a costly win for the Titans.  Erik Bacharach of The Tennessean:

The Titans fear left tackle Taylor Lewan tore an ACL in Sunday’s 42-36 win over the Texans, Fox Sports’ Jay Glazer reported Sunday night.

Glazer said Lewan will have an MRI on Monday to assess the severity of the knee injury.

Lewan went down after a play in the third quarter of Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans at Nissan Stadium, clutching his knee. He walked very slowly to the sideline before heading to the blue medical tent. The 29-year-old then went to the locker room, again moving gingerly.

Hours after Sunday’s game, left guard Rodger Saffold reacted to Lewan’s injury.

“I want everyone to know I love my brother @TaylorLewan77,” Saffold tweeted. “It’s like both of us are doing rehab. I won’t let my brother do this alone! It’s all love on this side! The best side! #RUNLEFT”

Lewan, a three-time Pro Bowler, was the Titans’ first-round pick in 2014. In July 2018, he signed a five-year, $80 million contract extension, making him the highest-paid offensive lineman in league history.

Ty Sambrailo, signed this past offseason to a one-year deal via free agency, filled in for Lewan at left tackle.

Isaiah Wilson, the team’s first-round pick and another potential replacement for Lewan, recently returned to practice after a long stint on the COVID-19/reserve list. He’s yet to be active for a game this season but was seen getting in some pregame work ahead of Sunday’s game.

– – –

Peter King demands that we raise our ranking of QB RYAN TANNEHILL:

Once we form an opinion about a quarterback, we don’t like to change it. It is time to change the narrative about Ryan Tannehill. He is not an injury-prone quarterback of middling ability who you keep around while you search for the franchise guy. Tannehill’s a top 10 quarterback in the NFL, period. After his 15th start in Tennessee on Sunday against Houston, he’s 12-3 as the Titans starter and has proven he’s not just a chains-moving, play-action-crutch game manager. He’s one of the best quarterbacks in football, an excellent downfield thrower, a strong leader, a player who hangs in against the strongest rushes and still makes plays.

Comparing Tannehill to all quarterbacks since opening day 2019 (minimum 10 starts) proves his efficiency and his downfield production.

Highest-rated quarterbacks since opening day 2019: Tannehill 116.0, Russell Wilson 112.1, Drew Brees 112.0, Lamar Jackson 109.3, Patrick Mahomes 105.9.

Highest yards per attempt since opening day 2019: Tannehill 8.95, Dak Prescott 8.26, Jimmy Garoppolo 8.20, Wilson 8.19, Jameis Winston 8.16.

Who knew? Tannehill, since taking over as Titans quarterback one year ago this week, is the missing piece for a team that can grind it out and be explosive in the passing game too. There are many amazing things to his story, but this one might pop the most: To acquire Tannehill, the price was the 135th pick in the 2020 draft, a fourth-round pick. Such is the craziness of quarterback-mining in the NFL. Tennessee spent the second pick in 2015 to pick what the franchise thought was its franchise quarterback, Marcus Mariota. But a year ago tomorrow, coach Mike Vrabel benched Mariota and started a guy he Titans paid peanuts for. That changed the course of current Titans history and gave the best teams of the AFC an unexpected major rival.

Sunday was a perfect example of why Tennessee is so dangerous. On the surface, we think of Tennessee as a classic power-running team with the best big back in football, Derrick Henry. He had one of the best games of his life Sunday, with 264 yards from scrimmage—a personal best—and two incredible plays, a 94-yard touchdown run and 53-yard reception. Well, there was a third, which we’ll get to. Vrabel made the call that changed his franchise, Mariota to Tannehill. Arthur Smith is the daring choreographer who never met a calculated risk he didn’t like, the kind of ethos that will have him high on the list of head-coaching candidates come January. Henry is the 2019 rushing champ who might be on the way to two straight. And that’s all supplemented by the egoless Tannehill, who only cares about the stats I just mentioned because they mean the offense is really good, not that he is really good.

AFC EAST

NEW ENGLAND

On Sunday against the Broncos, the Patriots did not allow a TD for the 40^th time in Bill Belichick’s career.  This time, they lost.  Trevor Hass of Boston.com:

Entering Sunday’s matchup with the Denver Broncos, the Patriots were 39-0 – including the postseason – under head coach Bill Belichick when not allowing a touchdown.

Now they’re 39-1.

The Broncos came close, but they never quite reached the end zone. Even so, they still managed to escape with an 18-12 win in Foxborough. Brandon McManus pieced together one of the best fantasy performances for a kicker of all-time, drilling 45, 44, 27, 52, 20, and 54-yard field goals and accounting for all of Denver’s points.

– – –

Albert Breer on the Patriots problem with draft picks:

The Patriots’ draft issues are catching up with them. The Patriots currently have four homegrown first-round picks on their roster—three drafted within the last 30 months (WR N’Keal Harry, OL Isaiah Wynn and RB Sony Michel) and one a decade ago (S Devin McCourty). And of the 22 guys who started for them Sunday, just 10 were drafted by the team (four of those were on the offensive line). And that’s part of what bit the Patriots in their 18–12 loss to Denver on Sunday. In fact, I think, to a degree, it played into the litany of miscues we saw.

• A snap over Cam Newton’s head short-circuited a second-quarter drive that ended in a field goal. First-and-10 at the 19 became third-and-13 from the 22. A field goal followed.

• The Broncos converted third-and-21 on a shot from Drew Lock to Tim Patrick, good for 35 yards when all was said and done.

• A Ryan Izzo fumble negated a third-down conversion in the third quarter after Denver went up 15–3, and set up an easy field goal to widen the gap to 18–3.

• Newton was picked off by Bryce Callahan on the first play of the next possession, when Harry stumbled with the ball on its way.

Now it’s not like this stuff never happens to the Patriots. What’s alarming more so is seeing it all hit at once. And I couldn’t help but wonder if this is, in any way, New England players trying to do a little too much, in recognizing that the situation was particularly bad on Sunday (with the aforementioned guys on the COVID-19 list). More evidence: Patriots coach Bill Belichick saying his team needed more practice, which seemed like an allusion to how all the COVID shutdowns of the last few weeks have limited his team’s work. It’s rare, to be sure, to see Belichick trying to explain away a loss, and you wonder if the honesty here was a way of sticking up for a roster that’s just plain outmanned at this point.

NEW YORK JETS

A succinct tweet from Jerraud Powers after watching the Buccaneers shut down the Packers:

@JPowers25

Jets fired Bowles for Gase

Albert Breer on the calculations involving the fate of Adam Gase:

I don’t think the Jets should move because Atlanta and Houston did, nor do I think all that Gase has done in the NFL before the last two years is invalidated. It’s not even just about going 0–6. It’s how dead the team has looked in getting there—the closest of those six losses was six points, and four of the last five were by 18 points or more. So at this point, the question isn’t so much about whether or not it’s possible to climb out of that hole (it’s not) or signaling to candidates that the process is starting (there’s really not a big difference between doing it three or four weeks early and 10 weeks early). It’s about the development of Joe Douglas’s first draft class, as well as getting a clean read on Sam Darnold in a critical season for the quarterback, and I can’t imagine all of this is helping. So it’s incumbent now on Johnson to get the right read on his building. I’m not saying he should dump Gase tomorrow. I am saying this is the sort of juncture at which an owner needs to have the right feel for what’s happening behind closed doors.

David Perhum of ESPN.com on the calculations being made by gamblers, who are betting against the Jets in massive numbers on a weekly basis, even as some bet on them to win the Super Bowl:

Money on the New York Jets to win the Super Bowl showed up last week at Las Vegas sportsbooks.

Petite in size, the sincerity behind these bets is questionable. They seem more like tricks than treats, and don’t have the hallmarks of a well-thought-out investment.

Plus the winless Jets just aren’t very good.

Still, last Tuesday at the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas, a customer parted ways with $40 for a ticket on the Jets to win the Super Bowl at 5,000-1 odds. Around the same time, across town, a pair of single-figure Super Bowl bets on the Jets were placed with MGM books — one for $5 and the other for $2, each at 1,000-1 odds.

Not every bet on the Jets this year has been tiny, though. Prior to the season, the SuperBook took a $500 bet on the Jets to win the Super Bowl at 200-1, and MGM counts three $100 bets on the Jets in its Super Bowl portfolio.

Despite last week’s support, the Jets remain at the bottom of the betting market. They have attracted the fewest bets and the least amount of money in MGM’s odds to win the Super Bowl, and they’re putting bookmakers in an unenviable position every week.

At DraftKings the Jets attracted barely 10% of the money bet on the point spread before their 24-0 loss to the Dolphins on Sunday.

“Every week, it’s the same thing,” Jeff Stoneback, director of race and sport for MGM in Nevada, said. “Unfortunately, we’re rooting for the Jets.”

The Jets are 0-6, and have yet to even cover the spread in a game. Furthermore, they’ve failed to cover the spread by an average of 11.3 points per game, by far the worst mark in the league.

Expectations of an 0-16 campaign are building. After a Thursday night loss to the Broncos in Week 4, bookmaker William Hill U.S. posted a proposition on “Will the Jets go 0-16?” The “Yes” opened at +1,500. The price was down to +600 ahead of Sunday’s game against the Dolphins. The action on the prop has been minimal, but 98% of the bets and 98% of the money is on “Yes.”

The Jets will host the Bills this coming week, before traveling to face the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs on Nov. 1.

While we look forward to that showdown, here is this week’s edition of Notable Bets, our look at the betting action around the U.S.:

– – –

Peter King on the 2019 expenditures that have made the Jets the worst team in football:

The sugar-high of NFL free agency rarely lasts. That’s why you see smart teams like New England and Seattle rarely burst out of the gate to make big-ticket purchases. The stars seldom are worth the money. Which brings us to the 2019 New York Jets crop of free agents. The abject failure of this group—exception: wide receiver Jamison Crowder—is one reason why the GM who engineered the signings, Mike Maccagnan, is gone, and the coach who coached them, Adam Gase, is soon to follow.

The nine players who comprised the 2019 Jets class will cost the franchise $112.2 million through the 2020 season, and the impact, well, suffice to say that only Crowder (15 starts as a Jet, 100 receptions) is a top 20 player at his position in 2020. The breakdown, with the money earned from the Jets in 2019 and ‘20:

LB C.J. Mosley: $29.3 million. Started two games last year, got hurt, opted out due to COVID concerns in 2020. Hard to know what the Jets have, but the leadership the Jets thought they bought with the former Raven hasn’t materialized, nor, obviously, has production.

RB Le’Veon Bell: $28.7 million. A disaster of the highest order. Rushed for 863 yards in his 17 New York starts, a 3.3-yards-per-carry average, before tweeting his way out of town and into the camp of the Super Bowl champs last week. The disrespect he consistently showed Gase speaks ill of Bell, but also of Gase. What kind of hold does a coach have on his team when the biggest star jabs at him on social media? Moral of the Story II: If you pay running backs rich second contracts, you’d better have the line to block for them. The Jets never did.

WR Jamison Crowder: $18 million. Starter. Hard worker, solid producer. The kind of guy, at 27, the Jets should make a cornerstone of the rebuild. I don’t know why he’d want to stay after his three-year deal expires in 15 months, though.

DL Henry Anderson: $17.5 million. Starter. After a good pass-rush season in 2018, Anderson has one sack over the past year-and-a-third.

CB Brian Poole: $8.5 million. Sometime starter. PFF’s 95th-rated cornerback through five weeks of 2020.

DT Steve McLendon: $5.25 million. Starter. Good year last year, but PFF’s 71st-rated interior defensive lineman in 2020.

WR Josh Bellamy: $2.75 million. Had all of two catches for the Jets in 2019, then was cut in September, after being arrested and charged for his role in a scheme to file fraudulent loan applications to obtain $24 million in the government’s coronavirus loan programs.

QB Trevor Siemian: $1.8 million. Started one game in 2019, got hurt, got released.

K Chandler Catanzaro: $500,000. Fitting. Cost the Jets half a mill, and “retired” in August 2019 in the midst of a rough camp.

And that, folks, is how you burn through $112.2 million and come out the other side the worst team in football.

THIS AND THAT

SID HARTMAN

It hasn’t been a good year for the Twin Cities, and it got worse on Sunday with the passing of the legendary Sid Hartman at the age of 100.  Peter King:

This was some bad news in a year of it, learning Sunday afternoon that Hartman, after 76 years a desk man, sportswriter and columnist at Minneapolis newspapers—mostly the Minneapolis Star Tribune—died peacefully at his Minnesota home Sunday. As if that career wasn’t enough, he hosted shows on WCCO radio in Minneapolis for 65 years.

I think it’s not right, though, to cry over Hartman’s death. He should be celebrated. His ethos, his drive, was singular in this business. Aided by two home health assistants (he was slowed by a broken hip and hearing loss in recent years) and his assistant of the last 15 years, Star Tribune copy editor Jeff Day, Hartman finished his last column, with an interview of Vikings receiver Adam Thielen, late Thursday night, and it ran on page two of the sports section Sunday, hours before his death.

It was his 199th column of the year.

“What a life,” Kirk Cousins, one of Sid’s recent go-to guys. “What a legacy he left.”

The legacy was work. As his best friend Bud Grant, the former Vikings coach, told me last March on the occasion of Hartman’s 100th birthday: “How many people do you know who write three days a week and do a radio show—at 100! He has stuff in those columns from every team in town! He knows everybody!”

Recent columns became a collaboration between Hartman and Day, who began working with him inside the Star Tribune’s newsroom 15 years ago. Day became his confidant, and when Hartman’s hearing largely failed in recent months, Day would work with Hartman on what questions he’d want to ask that day’s subject—Thielen, for instance, was interviewed on Thursday for the final Sunday column—and then Day would ask them and record and transcribe the interview. He and Hartman would then collaborate on the copy. His last column was finished Thursday night around 9.

The column often read like a church bulletin, full of nuggets from the pros and colleges and high schools around the state. It was cheery, most often, and mostly supportive of the locals. This note from his last column, for instance: “Coach P.J. Fleck and the Gophers will have a huge challenge opening the season with Michigan at TCF Bank Stadium next week, but Las Vegas oddsmakers have the Gophers as 2½-point favorites.” Minnesotans loved his writing; his columns consistently got the most traffic at the paper.

“Sid had this drive that is hard to describe,” Day told me Sunday evening. “He would write a column, a great column, and walk away and say, ‘I just can’t do this!’ He had such great respect for the business—he wanted every column to be great.”

Hartman knew he wasn’t a wordsmith. Reporting was his thing. For years he carried around an old cassette tape recorder with microphone and would invade anyone’s space, respectfully, and just start firing away. Randy Moss disliked many of the locals, but he loved Hartman—who, in turn, loved Moss for his great talent and giving him scoops. In the last couple of years, he learned to record with an iPhone, but in the age of COVID, he couldn’t go out to do interviews anymore. Everything was done by phone. He had a good relationship with Fleck, the Gophers’ football coach, and last May, Fleck met Hartman and talked to him through a door, just to be safe.

Hartman told me last spring there was nothing else he wanted to do in life than be a reporter and write and talk sports. Once, he got a winter place in Fort Lauderdale, but he tired of just watching sports on TV. He wanted to be in the middle of things, back in his home. So he stayed in the Twin Cities full time. He wasn’t a drinker or carouser. “I live a healthy life,” he said last March. “I don’t break any rules.” Hartman thought if he quit what he loved, he’d die. And good for him—he died doing what he loved.

“He really was wonderful to me,” Day said. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I thought he was choking up a bit over the phone. “We were exchanging video messages by phone during the Vikings game in Seattle [last Sunday]. His last one said, ‘I love you. I hope I can see you tomorrow.’ “