W-L                 Conf

Kansas City       West             6-1                   4-0

Miami                 East              5-2                   3-1

Baltimore           North            5-2                  4-2

Jacksonville       South            5-2                   3-2

Pittsburgh          WC1             4-2                   3-1

Cleveland          WC2             4-2                  3-2

Buffalo               WC3             4-3                   2-3

Houston                                 3-3                   2-2

NY Jets                                  3-3                   2-2

Nearly mid-season and the Texans are a half-game behind the mighty Bills.

– – –

Those around the league think Roger Goodell is going to keep going and going.  Peter King:

Five observations about the three-year contract extension for commissioner Roger Goodell, through February 2027:

1. No surprise. Owners have known about it since May.

2. In Goodell’s last two extensions, it was widely speculated that each would be his last contract in the high-stress job. Not so this time. As one top club executive told me Saturday: “Everyone presumes this is not going to be his last contract.” I’m not positive about that, but the fact is, Goodell certainly appears to not be beaten down by the job, and he has full support of ownership without factions chipping away at him. That makes it more likely than not he’ll be in the chair more than three-and-a-third years longer. “We’ll see what the future holds. I don’t know,” is all Goodell would say about his future Wednesday, when the new deal was announced.

3. Re the no negative factions, Dallas owner Jerry Jones was the last owner who had questions about Goodell—and his mega-compensation—long-term. That’s disappeared. Jones knew he was on an island and so got on-board. Here’s Jones on Dallas’s 105.3 The Fan the other day, on the Goodell contract: “That’s a really outstanding thing for the league, for him. He’s got a wealth of intellectual knowledge about how it works, about the issues, whether it be television, labor, or certainly internal issues within the NFL. So I think it’s great that he’s going to be our commissioner for more years to come.”

4. As one club person told me, those who will be most influential in choosing a new commissioner may not be known right now. Arguably, the five most influential owners in the league will be between 72 and 85 at the end of this Goodell extension. Today, New England’s Robert Kraft is 82, Jerry Jones 81, Atlanta’s Arthur Blank 81, Pittsburgh’s Art Rooney II 71, and John Mara of the Giants 68. Jonathan Kraft and Stephen Jones, and perhaps 58-year-old Clark Hunt of Kansas City, seem the most likely heirs to lead picking the next commissioner, perhaps with rising influencer Greg Penner, the Walmart executive running the Broncos. For now, owners are likely to skate along comfortably with Goodell until he tells them otherwise.

5. Several prominent people in the league think Goodell could do this job for a long time. I agree, but I also think he hasn’t decided that yet. Some history here:

Pete Rozelle, heavy smoker and social drinker, lasted 29 years in the job but left in a surprise in 1989 at 63 years, 8 months old. He looked every bit his age at the end of his term, beaten down by the litigious Al Davis and the legal burdens of the job. He died at 70, seven years after leaving office, of brain cancer.

Paul Tagliabue, a high-powered attorney, lasted 16 years in office. Even after shepherding the league through the 9/11 crisis, he didn’t seem to be defeated by the job when he left at 65 years, 9 months old.

Goodell worked in NFL PR and climbed the executive ladder inside the league until taking the commissioner’s office in September 2006. Now in the chair for 17 years, he’s a year older today than Rozelle was when he left office. He looks a decade younger than Rozelle did at the end and seems far less stressed by the job. That’s probably in part due to his fitness regimen—he does hot yoga, Pilates, spin classes. Assuming he fulfills this contract, Goodell will have just turned 68. As one friend said: “There’s nothing else he wants to do. He’d be bored working at a hedge fund or doing something else to make a lot of money. He doesn’t want to sit around. This job fulfills him, and he likes almost everything about it.”

As for the assumption Goodell won’t be around to honcho another labor or media negotiation, I think it’s a bad assumption. He’s not sure, so how can anyone else be sure? The current labor deal expires in March 2030. Labor talks usually begin 18 months to two years out from expirations. So if Goodell signs another deal after this one—unless it’s a bridge deal for just a year to find a successor—he’d be involved in the talks for the next CBA. The TV/media deals run through the 2033 season but can be re-opened by the league after the 2029 season. Those high-stress negotiations are not altogether fun for Goodell, but to think he’d be too old, or too unwilling, at 70 to negotiate the next CBA seems off-base in today’s world. Look at Washington. The next presidential race could feature 78- and 81-year-old candidates on Election Day 2024.

Roger Goodell signs again, and maybe not for the last time. “Everyone presumes this is not going to be his last contract,” said one club wise guy.

– – –

Peter King phrases his reservations about Flag Football in the Olympics well:

I think it’s cool, I suppose, that men’s flag football and women’s flag football will be contested at the 2028 Olympics. Just seems odd to me. Not saying the International Olympic Committee put in a sport that is likely to result in two gold medals for Americans in an Olympics to be contested in America (Los Angeles), but two questions: If these Olympics were to be contested in Athens or Beijing, would flag football be in them? And how many countries will field truly competitive flag football teams?

CHICAGO

QB TYSON BAGENT says his time at the Super Bowl gave him the confidence he needed.  Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com spoke with him after his career record as a starter went to 1-0 with a 30-12 win over Brian Hoyer and the Raiders:

Rookie quarterback Tyson Bagent, undrafted from Division II Shepherd University in West Virginia, made the start on Sunday for the Bears. He led Chicago to its second win of the season.

After the game, I asked Bagent when he knew he could make it in the NFL.

“I don’t know if I ever really knew.” Bagent said by phone. “I just kind of knew that it’s what I wanted to do. So I just really worked really hard, knew what I had to be able to do physically in order to play at this level. And then just kind of took it from there and tried to put up the best numbers I could since I was at such a low-level school, just so I could get some eyes on me and then kind of just took it from there.”

Bagent got enough eyes on him to make it to the Senior Bowl. That’s where he realized he truly had a chance.

“I was around that level of competition for the first time with all dudes that I knew were going to go to the NFL,” Bagent said. “The success I had at the Senior Bowl really helped me out confidence-wise because I felt like I had a lot of the abilities that I needed. Just needed that confidence and just being sure of myself going forward and I feel like that helped me a lot and gave me the confidence I needed to really make this thing a reality.”

This thing is definitely a reality for Bagent, and for the Bears. If starter Justin Fields can’t play next week due to a thumb injury, we’ll see Bagent make his second career start in prime time on NBC.

But as good as Bagent may have been Sunday, this is still the team of injured QB JUSTIN FIELDS.  At the moment.  Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com:’

There’s no quarterback controversy in Chicago.

Although rookie backup quarterback Tyson Bagent played well in place of the injured Justin Fields today, Bears head coach Matt Eberflus said after the game that Fields will be the starter when his injured thumb heals.

“Justin is our starting quarterback. Tyson’s the backup, he came in and did a nice job,” Eberflus said. “We don’t know where Justin is, we’ll see where he is, if it’s a week-to-week thing, we’ll assess it more tomorrow.”

Bagent looked like a better fit in the Bears’ offense than Fields has looked for most of this season: Bagent completed 21 of 29 passes for 162 yards and a touchdown, he ran the ball three times for 24 yards, and he led two early touchdown drives that gave the Bears a 14-0 lead that they never looked back from in their 30-12 win over the Raiders.

But the Bears spent a first-round draft pick on Fields, and they continue to see developing him as the key to this season. They have a surprisingly effective undrafted rookie backup, but he’ll go back to being a backup once Fields can play.

NEW YORK GIANTS

RB SAQUON BARKLEY came back from an elbow injury to score one of two Giants TDs.  Jordan Raanan of ESPN.com:

Several days after the New York Giants articulated their intention to keep Saquon Barkley through the trade deadline, the star running back scored the winning touchdown after hyperextending his elbow earlier in the contest.

Barkley’s 32-yard catch-and-run touchdown in the second quarter turned out to be the winning score in an up-and-down 14-7 victory over the Washington Commanders. He also fumbled deep in Washington territory late in the fourth quarter to keep it a one-score game.

All this came after he hyperextended his elbow on the game’s second drive when he was tackled to the ground and into the kicking net by Washington linebacker Jamin Davis. Barkley went to the sideline and was attended to by trainers. He returned the following series with a sleeve on his left arm and elbow.

“I’ll be all right,” Barkley said with a meeting against the crosstown rival New York Jets on the horizon next Sunday.

The trade deadline is the following at 4 p.m. ET on Oct. 31.

It doesn’t look as if Barkley is going anywhere, even though he is playing on an adjusted franchise tag and set to become a free agent after the season. After Barkley was asked about the potential of being traded last week, the Giants’ brass pulled him aside to assure that they wanted him to remain a key piece to their puzzle.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a sigh of relief. … It didn’t cross my mind,” Barkley said. “I don’t even think about it. I know you guys are doing your job and asking the question.

“There was a conversation during the week from [coach Brian Daboll] and [general manager] Joe [Schoen]. They pulled me aside and talked to me. I can’t control that, if it doesn’t happen or it does happen. What I can control is how I come to work every single day and how I compete, my mindset and my work ethic. That’s what I’m going to continue to do.”

The Giants (2-5) won on Sunday for the first time since Week 2. They snapped a four-game skid. They also scored an offensive touchdown for the first time in over a month.

They’ll have some decisions to make by the deadline aside from Barkley, especially if they lose to the Jets. But trading their most explosive playmaker would be detrimental to the product on the field this season. That his future remains uncertain is a separate pressing issue.

Barkley, 26, made it clear that does not want to be anywhere else other than the place where he was drafted second overall in the 2018 NFL draft.

“Everyone knows I don’t want to be traded,” he said last week.

– – –

Jeff Kerr of CBSSports.com asks and answers the question – should QB TYROD TAYLOR still be QB1 after QB DANIEL JONES returns to health:

Tyrod Taylor should be starting over Daniel Jones 

Overreaction or reality: Reality

The Giants certainly looked better offensively with Taylor than they did with Jones on Sunday, even if they only scored 14 points. They actually had a first half offensive touchdown — their first of the season — and not one but two! Taylor led the Giants offense to 356 yards, their highest total in a game since Week 2.

In Taylor’s two starts, the Giants have averaged 336.5 yards per game. In Jones’ five starts, the Giants offense has only 255.8 yards per game. The Giants offense has averaged only 12.4 points in Jones’ starts and 11.5 in Taylor’s starts, yet the offense has moved more fluently with Taylor. The offensive line has only allowed six sacks in Taylor’s two starts!

New York isn’t a good football team, but they have a better chance to win with Taylor right now than Jones.

PHILADELPHIA

Peter King on how having an unstoppable play changes the equation of when to go for it on 4^th down:

First, the game of the weekend: 5-1 and explosive Miami at the defending NFC champs, 5-1 Philadelphia. Fourth quarter. Eagles ball, up 24-17. Fourth-and-one at the Philadelphia 26-yard line.

Of course the Eagles punt. Right? Only Brandon Staley goes for it here, up seven, minus territory, 10 minutes left. Philadelphia’s defense had stopped Miami three drives in a row. Punt the ball, Nick Sirianni.

Sirianni took the offense off the field. A low murmur, light booing, peppered the stadium as the punt team prepared to do its job. Booing the most logical call, punting from your 26 with a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter. Of course you punt! “This one’s above my pay grade,” center Jason Kelce said, pondering what Sirianni should do. “I don’t know what to do.” Timeout, Eagles.

“So I’m like, well, I’m confident in our defense. And I’m very confident in the play,” said Kelce.

The play? It’s the “Tush Push,” the “Brotherly Shove.” That changed the equation for Sirianni. When you’re 90-percent successful running this weirdo scrum play, with two tons of padded football player pushing and brawling and leveraging for every inch, you think things you’d never have thought you’d do when you took this job head-coaching a Super Bowl contender.

“Nick comes up to us on the sidelines,” Kelce told me an hour after the game, “and he’s like, ‘What am I thinking?! Get back out there. Let’s do this!’”

Jalen Hurts under center. Kelce and four linemates get low. The Dolphins line up three defensive linemen totaling 1,000 pounds, crammed very low within inches of the football. Snap. Hurts gets pushed by two mates from behind, and every Eagle churns legs till the whistle blows. Gain of two. First down. Crisis averted. WIP would have fricasseed Sirianni if the play didn’t work and the Dolphins capitalized on a short field and tied the game. But history is written by the winners. Which, in this case, the Eagles were—31-17 over Miami. And how cool: The two defending conference champs, Philadelphia and Kansas City, are tied for the game’s best record at 6-1.

It’s a crazy play. But if you’re good at it, and TruMedia has the Eagles converting 55 of 61 on the sneaks since the start of the 2022 season, you flow with it. No matter how painful the thing is.

“Nobody wants to defend that play, quite frankly,” Kelce said, “and for us, it’s not a play that you’re super fired up to run because of how exhausting it is. You’re fired up that—you’re confident in it, but you’re definitely like, ‘Man, this is gonna – ‘ “

Pause. He was going to say, “Man, this is gonna hurt.” But Jason Kelce’s a football player, a physical one who plays in the Physical Football Capital of the World. And so his voice switched, just then.

“All right! Let’s do it! Here we go!”

These numbers from Ian Rapoport:

@RapSheet

Per @NFLResearch , the #Eagles are 17 of 20 (85%) using the Brotherly Shove, including 6 of 6 in their own territory. Per my own research, other teams… aren’t as good.

– – –

The Eagles won the NFC Championship Game when the 49ers found themselves mid-game without a legitimate QB.  They may have been the better team, but we will never really know.

Then last night, Miami found itself unable to get a single penalty call from the Brad Allen Crew.  The Eagles might really have been better last night, but we will never really know.

At least that is the opinion of longtime NFL scribe Doug Farrar writing in USA TODAY:

With 2:39 left in the first half of Sunday night’s game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Miami Dolphins, Miami offensive tackle Austin Jackson and Eagles defensive lineman Jalen Carter got into a bit of a scuffle. Jackson got a whack to the face by Carter, and when Jackson countered, Carter put up a flop that would make Cristiano Ronaldo proud.

Carter got himself an offsetting unnecessary roughness call from Brad Allen’s hyperactive crew, so it did work in his favor. Not that we ever want to encourage this.

This was one of many curious calls Allen’s crew made, and things were absolutely in favor of the home Eagles. Which makes sense, given Allen’s history.

@SharpFootball

home teams win in 58% of tonight’s ref Brad Allen’s games & cover 56% ATS since 2016

NFL average is 55% win & 49% cover

Allen’s crews have called an above average rate of penalties on road teams in his career, per

@nflrefstats1.  tonight?

8 penalties (60 yds) on MIA

0 on PHI

In the end, the Eagles beat the Dolphins, 31-17, and while that wasn’t all on the officiating, like we said… it was curious. Philly had no penalties in the game, and Miami had 10 for 70 yards.

Allen’s crew missed an obvious face mask on cornerback James Bradberry…

…and a roughing the passer call on Dolphins defensive tackle Christian Wilkins was… erm… iffy at best.

Former NFL official and current NBC rules analyst Terry McAulay had a lot of cleaning up to do.

Was this roughing the passer penalty?. Terry McAulay wasn’t convinced.

“I say he hits him in one step. He actually pulls off with his hands, he doesn’t follow through and blow up the quarterback. This just isn’t enough for roughing the passer.”

We note that as Allen watched, the umpire threw the horrible roughing the passer flag to which Allen acquiesced.

Jacob Camenker of The Sporting News on the rarity of no penalties in a game:

Still, seeing a team have zero accepted penalties is a rare feat at the NFL level. It was just the sixth time that has happened since the start of the 2020 season and 17th time it has happened over the last 10 seasons, per StatMuse.

Date                   Team               Opponent

Oct. 4, 2020      Seahawks         Dolphins

Oct. 18, 2020    Buccaneers       Packers

Dec. 27, 2020    Packers            Titans

Jan. 1, 2022      Packers            Lions

Nov. 13, 2022    Chiefs               Jaguars

Oct. 22, 2023    Eagles              Dolphins

Thus, it’s no surprise that many NFL fans took notice of it on social media after it occurred in such a prominent game.

ATLANTA

More on why RB BIJAN ROBINSON had one measly touch in the win at Tampa Bay.  Victoria Hernandez of USA TODAY:

Football fans might be scratching their heads as to why Atlanta Falcons rookie running back Bijan Robinson didn’t play much in the team’s Week 7 matchup on Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It turns out Robinson was the one with an actual headache.

The former Texas standout only participated in six plays and had zero carries and zero receptions before the half of the road game at Raymond James Stadium.

In the closing minute of the fourth quarter, however, Robinson received his first and only touch of the day: a 3-yard carry. Atlanta went on to defeat Tampa Bay 16-13 and take first place in the NFC South.

Tyler Allgeier and Cordarrelle Patterson filled in for the rookie and combined for 115 rushing yards. Allgeier added three receptions for 53 yards.

Robinson told reporters after the game that his head started hurting Saturday night and when he woke up Sunday, it wasn’t better. He said head coach Arthur Smith ultimately made the decision to have him rest.

“It was more last night, it was like feeling weird and then (I) woke up just completely out of it. … I was just trying to see how I was gonna feel on the field and I was just going down,” he said. “So I talked with Coach Smith, and he was like, ‘I don’t wanna risk anything.’ We have Tyler, CP, and they did really well today. Those are my brothers. But yeah, it was really tough this morning.”

Robinson said that he did his best to be ready for the game, but couldn’t get there.

“I was trying to get like some medicine, take medicine and everything so I can be good for the game,” he continued. “But, yeah, my head was hurting bad. I don’t know what was going on, I tried to go pregame, but then Coach Smith was just, ‘We’ll be all right, get you right for next week.’”

When addressing reporters after the game, Smith fielded a question as to why Robinson saw limited playing time.

“Just as we got through warm-ups and early on, just wasn’t feeling like himself. So he played, but we weren’t going to overdo it,” Smith said. “Just being cautious and we’re not gonna ever, when you have other guys that can go, we’re a team. We’ll just have to continue to see, monitor it tonight, tomorrow. I’ll have a better answer for you tomorrow.”

DENVER

The Broncos won despite S KAREEM JACKSON being sent off the field early for the second time this year.  Jeff Legwold of ESPN.com:

Kareem Jackson was ejected from a game for the second time this season in the Denver Broncos’ victory against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, with coach Sean Payton saying that the safety’s “priors” might have influenced the call.

Jackson was ejected with 13 minutes, 49 seconds left in the 19-17 victory for his sideline hit on Packers tight end Luke Musgrave.

He has been fined four times this season for unnecessary roughness — for a total of $89,670 — and likely will face another fine and potentially a suspension given his status as a repeat offender.

“I think it’s difficult to make these calls sometimes,” Payton said. “… I think what’s difficult for Kareem is he’s got some priors. You get pulled over and you’ve had four or five speeding violations, you’re going to spend a little bit more time on the side of the road than if you didn’t have any. I wasn’t real surprised [at the penalty and the ejection].”

Musgrave caught an 18-yard pass from Jordan Love and, as linebacker Alex Singleton closed in, Jackson arrived and knocked Musgrave to the turf. Two flags were immediately thrown. After a brief discussion among the officials, referee Alex Kemp announced that Jackson had been ejected in addition to the 15-yard penalty.

Some Broncos players said they believed Jackson had led with his shoulder and hit Musgrave slightly below the head and neck area. Green Bay players on the sideline near the hit shouted at Jackson after the play as Packers coaches quickly got between Jackson and the group.

Jackson was also ejected from a Week 2 loss to the Washington Commanders after a hit on tight end Logan Thomas.

“I haven’t seen a real clean shot of it,” Payton said. “We’ve just got to keep finding ways to keep the head out of the main part of the hit. And he’s smart; he’s someone who wants to do the right thing.”

Said Broncos cornerback Patrick Surtain II: “It’s tough. … From what I heard, it was a bang-bang play. Football is a physical game whether you like it or not. It’s just unfortunate. Kareem is a tremendous player. He doesn’t do things intentionally. … It would be a big blow, obviously, to lose a guy like Kareem.”

The Broncos host the Kansas City Chiefs next Sunday, then have a bye week before a Nov. 13 game at the Buffalo Bills.

P.J. Locke, who had missed the first five games of the season with a lower leg injury, filled in for Jackson during Sunday’s game and would likely be his replacement if Jackson were to be suspended.

Locke, who has played 49 games for the Broncos over the past four seasons, intercepted Love with 1:40 left in the game to end Green Bay’s potential game-winning drive.

“He made a heck of a play not a lot of guys could make,” teammate Justin Simmons said of Locke. “… Our depth in the secondary is really strong. We tell guys all the time there can be no drop-off.”

KANSAS CITY

An Adam Schefter factoid:

@AdamSchefter

Travis Kelce had 12 catches for 179 yards and one TD during the Chiefs’ 31-17 win over the Chargers. Kelce now has five career games with at least 150 receiving yards, joining Shannon Sharpe as the only TEs in NFL history with at least five games of at least 150 receiving yards.

BALTIMORE

At least on Sunday, against the Lions, QB LAMAR JACKSON was a very accurate deep passer:

@SharpFootball

Lamar Jackson on passes 10+ yards downfield today:

8-of-10

17.3 YPA

+1.44 EPA/att

inducing 3-of-3 on 3rd down & 1 TD

And this from Peter King:

Lamar Jackson, quarterback, Baltimore. Sunday was classic Lamar, MVP Lamar, sprinting out of the gates against a very good team with four long touchdown drives on the first four Baltimore series. Accurate (21 of 27), mistake-free and productive (four total TDs, no picks, 357 passing yards), playing from ahead (built a 35-0 lead). The big contract seems well worth it this morning.

And:

Lamar Jackson has a fan, a big one, in LeBron James, who social mediaed during Baltimore’s rout: “Man, Lamar is so damn good!!! Wow!!” That’s sort of what I was thinking as Jackson built a 35-0 lead in thrashing the Lions.

So after Sunday, this seems like a “duh” from Dan Graziano of ESPN.com:

The Ravens have a better chance of reaching the Super Bowl than the Bills

Nobody looked better on Sunday than the Ravens, and that’s true in all facets of the game. Quarterback Lamar Jackson played like an MVP, in complete control of Todd Monken’s offense as a passer and a runner. A brilliant player who has already won that award once, Jackson might have actually played his best all-around game as a pro Sunday. And Baltimore defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald absolutely ran circles around Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson in a matchup of buzzy young coordinators whose names you’re likely to hear when head-coach interviews start in January.

The Ravens built a 28-0 halftime lead and destroyed the Lions 38-6, stamping themselves as a dominant team that’s the healthiest it has been all season and might be working its way out of its growing pains in a first-year offense.

Meanwhile, the Bills went up to Foxborough, Massachusetts, and continued to languish in what is now a three-week malaise. They lost to the Jaguars in London in Week 5, barely hung on to win an ugly one against the Giants in Week 6 and then fell 29-25 on Sunday to a moribund Patriots team that had scored a total of 20 points in October. Buffalo is now 4-3 overall — just 1-2 in division games — and it feels like it has been a very long time since that massive Week 4 victory over the Dolphins.

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

We aren’t just seeing Jackson start to master his new offense; we’re seeing him actually develop and make strides as a quarterback in this new offense. For example, Jackson had 246 passing yards when under duress Sunday. That is the most yards under duress by any quarterback in any game since 2009, when ESPN began tracking QB pressures. The previous high was 205 by Patrick Mahomes in 2018. In the first six games, Jackson had 235 such yards total. If Jackson is actually going to become a better player while the group around him gets healthier (hello, Odell Beckham Jr.!), the sky’s the limit for Baltimore.

Buffalo? I don’t know, man. Like, we’ve seen what the Bills can be when they’re at their best, and that’s a legit Super Bowl contender. But it has been a while since we’ve seen them at their best. After losing to the Jets in their season opener, they looked dominant in Weeks 2 through 4. But the first two of those three wins came against the Raiders and Commanders, neither of which looks like a good team, and the one against the Dolphins appears to have taken a lot out of them.

Quarterback Josh Allen doesn’t look comfortable. After going 2-for-10 with an interception Sunday on throws traveling 15 or more yards downfield, his completion percentage for the season on such throws has dropped to 46%. He has seven interceptions on such throws this year, which already matches his second most in any season (seven in 2021, nine in 2018). Of course, he has also thrown six touchdowns on such passes, so he’s not likely to stop trying it any time soon.

Maybe the Bills need another receiver. Maybe they just still haven’t really recovered as an offense from losing then-offensive coordinator Brian Daboll to the Giants last year. But especially on a day when their defense couldn’t stop a quarterback in Jones whom everyone has been stopping, the struggles of the Buffalo offense stood out as an extremely worrisome trend.

CLEVELAND

Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com identifies seven teams that are candidates to be the NFL’s Best Defense.  Based on the location of this article, you can guess he picked the one that gave up 38 points to QB GARDNER MINSHEW and the Colts on Sunday,  The other six are heavily edited:

We saw several great defenses stake their claim Sunday to be considered as the NFL’s best in a number of different ways. The Ravens got ahead of the Lions early and delivered one of the most comprehensive victories of the season. The Chiefs shut out the Chargers after halftime to win their sixth straight game and put a stranglehold on the AFC West. And while the Browns allowed 38 points to the Colts, a defense that was on a historic pace through five games came up with multiple key plays to help swing another close victory for one of the league’s most surprising teams.

After seven weeks, which of those teams has the best defense? Is it one of those three winners from Sunday? Could it be a team that spent the week on bye or one that suited up Thursday? Should we be talking about the 49ers, who line up against the Vikings on “Monday Night Football”? They’ve held five of their first six opponents under 20 points.

Let’s sort through the data and what I’ve seen this season to choose the best defense in football through seven weeks. There are seven plausible candidates, with a gap between the top three and the other four. I’ll list those as honorable mentions before ranking the top three. The NFL’s best defense is an easy pick to me, but that team is stuck in the most impossible situation of the bunch in terms of translating its defense into competing for a Super Bowl.

I’ll start with the runners-up before hitting the top three. Let’s begin with a team whose defense helped them pull out a stunning upset when we saw them last:

Honorable mentions

New York Jets (3-3)

There’s no denying that the Jets made it through the most brutal part of their schedule by winning games with their defense. Robert Saleh’s group forced four turnovers in the dramatic Week 1 victory over the Bills and four more in last Sunday’s comeback win over the Eagles. A New York team that forced 16 turnovers across the entirety of the 2022 season has 13 through six games, and it has needed those takeaways to stay afloat with Zach Wilson at quarterback.

Even with those turnovers, this defense isn’t playing as well as its reputation would suggest. The Jets have a good defense, but this isn’t the dominant group we saw from a year ago, at least on a play-by-play basis.

New Orleans Saints (3-4)

Thursday night wasn’t this unit’s best performance, as the Jaguars scored 24 points on 11 drives in what would eventually go down as a 31-24 victory. (Foyesade Oluokun also scored a defensive touchdown for Jacksonville.) Amid a wildly frustrating beginning to Derek Carr’s career in New Orleans, though, this defense has been keeping the Saints in games. It seems telling that their three wins are also the three games in which they’ve allowed the fewest points. Coach Dennis Allen needs his defense to carry the team to victories.

– – –

Given the dismal play of the offense, the lack of depth and the age on the league’s second-oldest defense, the Saints have no margin for error.

San Francisco 49ers (5-1)

Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers have a solid case for ranking No. 1, as they’ve allowed a league-low 87 points, though that’s partly a product of playing one fewer game than the Ravens. Being second in scoring defense is also no shame, but the 49ers have faced just 64 drives on defense and inherited the league’s best average starting field position by more than a yard, which adds up over the course of a season. Through six games, the difference between what they have faced in average starting field position and even an average team amounts to a difference of more than two touchdowns worth of yardage.

After adjusting for their situation, the 49ers are out of contention by virtue of lacking a truly great pass rush, at least based on their performance this season. They rank 21st in sack rate (5.8%) and pressure rate (28.1%). They’ve thrived, like the Jets, by forcing takeaways; the team that led the league with 20 interceptions last season already has a league-high 10 through six games, and it would be a surprise if it didn’t add another to their total against Kirk Cousins on Monday night.

Dallas Cowboys (4-2)

The last of the runners-up certainly doesn’t have any concern about its pass rush. The Cowboys lead the league in pressure rate at 42.6%; the Browns are the only other team topping 35% so far. Dallas is only 12th in sack rate, which hints toward a bit of bad luck, as it has turned only 18.4% of its pressures into sacks, which ranks 22nd. Given that they Cowboys are posting a 15.7 QBR when opposing passers are pressured, the play’s basically a wrap once the pass rush gets home, regardless of whether it results in a sack.

– – –

That inconsistency sinks them, at least so far. It’s too easy to tie their dominant games to performances against overmatched, dismal offenses. They were blown out by the 49ers, manhandled by the Cardinals and needed Justin Herbert to airmail a pair of long completions to Keenan Allen to escape from Los Angeles with a win over the Chargers. Nobody doubts what the Cowboys can do on defense, but let’s see them do it in their upcoming home-and-home with the Eagles or crucial games down the stretch against the Bills and Dolphins.

The challengers

3. Baltimore Ravens (5-2)

If you were going to write down a list of what would have needed to happen for the Ravens to be great on defense before the season began, you would be pessimistic about their chances after seven weeks. Young edge rushers David Ojabo and Odafe Oweh have both been injured and combined for one sack. Marcus Williams injured his left pectoral in the opener, returned and suffered an ankle injury that kept him out of the Lions game. Marlon Humphrey only played a full complement of snaps for the first time in Week 7, and free agent addition Rock Ya-Sin has all but fallen out of the cornerback rotation.

And yet, somehow, the Ravens are thriving. They manhandled the high-flying Lions on Sunday. Lamar Jackson rightfully drew plenty of attention for what he did to the Detroit defense, but don’t sleep on the performance by Roquan Smith & Co. They forced three three-and-outs on the Lions’ first three drives, then held them on downs during the next series. By the time Detroit got the ball for its fifth drive, it was down 28-0 and the game was all but over.

– – –

Coordinator Mike Macdonald’s pressure packages are quickly becoming appointment viewing during the week. Baltimore’s top pass rusher on paper is Jadeveon Clowney, who is coming off a two-sack season in Cleveland. Owing in part to a banged-up secondary, the Ravens blitz on just 21.5% of dropbacks, which is the eighth-lowest rate. This should not be a great recipe for creating pass pressure.

And yet, it has worked. The Ravens get pressure at the league’s 10th-highest rate, and it’s game over when they get after the opposing quarterback.

I would be lying if I said that I didn’t have concerns about the secondary. 

2. Kansas City Chiefs (6-1)

Uh-oh. Quietly, we let general manager Brett Veach and the Chiefs build a great defense around Patrick Mahomes. If you want even worse news as an AFC West fan, that defense is just getting started. The average age of their defenders on a snap-weighted basis is 25.4 years old, which makes them the youngest defense in football, too. While Sunday was the reigning MVP’s best game of the season, Kansas City is winning games as much with its defense as it is with its offense this season, a scary thought for teams hoping to dethrone the champs.

The script for the Chiefs in the Mahomes era has been simple and successful: Dominate on offense and hope a handful of stars and coordinator Steve Spagnuolo can create enough havoc on defense to force a few sacks and takeaways. They have posted solid raw numbers, but advanced metrics have typically rated them as a middling-or-worse defense, with 2019 as an exception.

The best sign of how dramatically the Chiefs have improved might be looking at how they perform when they don’t get pressure. No team is good on defense when it doesn’t get home, but Kansas City has been particularly brutal without that pass pressure in previous seasons. It ranked last in QBR without pressure as recently as last season, and the only time it ranked higher than 22nd in that metric was 2019, when it was the sixth-best in football.

The 2023 Chiefs rank second in QBR allowed without pressure, which is a testament to how much work they’ve done developing young players at linebacker and in the secondary.

Suddenly, the Chiefs are a complete football team. A defense that has ranked an average of 17th in win probability added on defense since Mahomes took over in 2018 is seventh this season. Harrison Butker hasn’t missed a kick all season. Sunday was a reminder that Mahomes and Travis Kelce can still take over games at their best, but this season tells us the Chiefs can do just fine without A-games from their stars, too.

1. Cleveland Browns (4-2)

Even in light of a day in which they allowed 38 points to the Colts and had to be bailed out for the second week by some late penalty calls, the Browns have to be first on this list. It was comfortably their worst performance of the season, but they are lapping the league in a number of defensive categories. They have played at the level of a Super Bowl-winning defense through seven weeks, and I don’t mean anything like the 2022 Chiefs or the 2021 Rams. They’re playing defense the way teams that won Super Bowls almost exclusively because of their defense did during their best seasons.

There are a number of outlandish statistics I could throw out there about this Cleveland team, but I’ll pick three favorites:

The Browns are allowing 18.1 yards per possession this season. Eighteen! No team is within 6 yards, and the second-place Saints are closer to 19th than they are to first. Just three teams since 2000 have kept opposing offenses below 20 yards per drive in a full season, and two of them won Super Bowls: the 2002 Buccaneers did it with Brad Johnson at quarterback, while the 2008 Steelers managed it with Ben Roethlisberger. The other team is the 2003 Ravens, who forced 41 takeaways and sent five starters to the Pro Bowl.

The Browns are preventing teams from getting a first down on 57.5% of their drives this season. No other defense since the start of 2000 is within seven points of them. If you think that’s a small-sample exercise and that Cleveland is simply an outlier as a product of a short season, consider what each team accomplished through the first seven weeks of each of their respective seasons. One team (the 2011 Bengals) narrowly gets within seven points of what the Browns have accomplished, but we’re talking about an incredible outlier.

ESPN has a stat called down set conversion rate, which measures how often an offense starts a series with a first down and turns it into a new set of downs or a touchdown. The league-average success rate on defense here is 69%. The Browns are just under 53%, which is the second-best mark we’ve seen over the past 25 years besides the 2019 Patriots. Among 2023 defenses, the second-best down set conversion rate belongs to the Saints, who are nearly 10 points behind Cleveland. Even after a rough week, the Saints are closer to Vikings in 25th than they are to first place.

The Browns rank second in points per possession allowed behind the Ravens, but they also have some conditions making their situation more difficult. Thanks to a dismal offense, Cleveland has faced an average of 13.3 drives per game on defense, the most of any team. It also has inherited the league’s ninth-worst average starting field position. Few teams have had it harder, but they’ve thrived under pressure.

Just about everybody on this defense is playing better than they did a year ago. Safety Grant Delpit, who struggled with inconsistent play during his first few seasons, has taken a leap forward and suddenly looks more than capable of both filling against the run and holding his own in coverage against the pass. Denzel Ward had already established himself as an exciting young cornerback before struggling in coverage a year ago; he looks like a true No. 1 corner right now.

The additions up front have taken some of the pressure off Myles Garrett, who has responded by looking more dangerous than ever. Dalvin Tomlinson has given the Browns a much-needed defensive tackle to hold up against the run, while Ogbo Okoronkwo has helped Garrett rush the passer. New defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz has given Garrett the freedom to line up where he wants in passing situations and does an excellent job of getting his defenses one-on-one matchups in pass protection.

Sunday’s performance didn’t give teams that vaunted blueprint, but I don’t believe the Colts were a great stylistic match for the Browns. Indy used RPOs and throws into the flat to try to get the ball out quickly, eliminate the pass rush and take advantage of Cleveland’s one notable weakness: yards after the catch. The Browns ranked 31st in average yards after catch before the game and dropped to 32nd after the Colts picked up several big plays. Some of that is facing a high percentage of short passes, but Indianapolis was clearly willing to put the ball in their playmakers’ hands.

Indy used lots of misdirection, and there was some bad tackling from the Browns, who have been much better tacklers this season than they were a year ago, most notably on Michael Pittman Jr.’s long touchdown. They also benefited from free plays after offside penalties, leading to a long Josh Downs touchdown early in the game on what was a blown coverage when no player carried his vertical route.

And yet, at the same time, the Browns won this game because of their defense, right? Garrett & Co. forced four turnovers, including one fumble recovery for a touchdown and a second that ended the game in the fourth quarter. Garrett blocked a 60-yard field goal attempt, and Cleveland turned the short field from the block into a field goal. It allowed too many points, but the defense helped keep this afloat long enough for the offense to get on track and win in a shootout.

I mentioned the 2002 Buccaneers, who won a Super Bowl with a journeyman at quarterback in Johnson. The 2000 Ravens won with Trent Dilfer. The 2015 Broncos benched Peyton Manning for Brock Osweiler, reinstalled Manning in Week 17 and then rode Manning to one final Super Bowl before the legendary passer retired. Those teams proved a team could win a title with a great defense and average-to-below-average quarterback play.

The Browns don’t have average-to-below-average quarterback play. They’ve gotten inconsistent (at best) work out of veteran PJ Walker, little out of rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson and just one solid start from Deshaun Watson, who was supposed to be back to his normal self as the team began its first full season with its $230 million man under center. That hasn’t worked out; the Browns rank last in DVOA with a 33.9 team QBR.

Watson returned to the lineup on Sunday after missing time with a shoulder injury. It went disastrously. He threw one ugly interception and was only bailed out on a second by a drop from Kenny Moore. He was injured on that play and checked out for a concussion, but after he made it through the protocol, coach Kevin Stefanski chose to leave him on the sidelines and go the rest of the way with Walker as the quarterback. Stefanski claimed afterward that he wanted to “protect our franchise quarterback. I’m sure there’s some truth to the notion, but the reality is the Browns were better off with Walker under center given how awful Watson looked before the injury.

Benching Watson isn’t feasible. He’s in the middle of a $230 million fully guaranteed contract. Sitting him in the final year of that deal would be one thing, but he’s in Year 2. He still has more upside than Walker and Thompson-Robinson, and he did have his best start as a Cleveland player in his last game before suffering the shoulder injury in a blowout win over the Titans. The only way out is by winning in the long-term with Watson, not without him.

At the same time, an organization that is desperate to make a deep playoff run has to recognize something’s wrong here. The Browns went all-in to land Watson because of his upside, but his lack of a floor might cost them a shot at fielding a legitimate Super Bowl contender. I’m not convinced Watson can be like Dilfer or even a rapidly declining Manning, and that could cost Cleveland dearly if it has captured lightning in a bottle on defense.

Is there a short-term solution? Could the Browns put Watson on injured reserve to rest his shoulder? And if they make that move, would they call the Commanders and ask them if they’re willing to trade Jacoby Brissett back to Cleveland? The Commanders might want Brissett to prop up their own offense if Sam Howell continues to take sacks at astronomical rates, but they’ve shown little interest toward inserting Brissett into their lineup. He already knows this offense and would be a major upgrade on Walker.

Brissett can’t be Watson at his best, but he can be Dilfer. And given how good this defense is playing through seven weeks, the Browns might have a special season coming if they can just find someone who won’t throw the game away.

PITTSBURGH

Bryan DeArdo of CBSSports.com gives the Steelers an “A” for their play against the Rams:

A   Steelers

Pittsburgh played complementary football while also capitalizing on Rams mistakes. T.J. Watt’s pick at the start of the second half was huge, but so was Kenny Pickett’s 39-yard completion to Diontae Johnson three plays after Brett Maher’s missed field goal attempt late in the third quarter. The completion to Johnson set up Jaylen Warren’s game-tying touchdown run. The Steelers offense then capitalized on the defense forcing the Rams into their only three-and-out of the day on L.A.’s ensuring drive. Pittsburgh’s offense got the ball back and took control of the game by moving 80 yards on 10 plays. Pickett had four key completions and one third-down conversion with his legs on the drive that was punctuated by Najee Harris’ first touchdown run of the season.

INDIANAPOLIS

The Colts scored 38 points against the defense that stymied the 49ers – but lost when the defense was deemed guilty of two late penalties.  Stephen Holder of ESPN.com:

A pair of controversial officiating calls in the final minute of Sunday’s Browns-Colts matchup helped set up Cleveland’s dramatic 39-38 victory and left Indianapolis wondering aloud whether they’d been wronged.

Cornerback Darrell Baker Jr. was on the unfortunate end of an illegal-contact penalty and, shortly after, a defensive pass-interference call that put the ball at the 1-yard line and set up the winning touchdown. The illegal-contact call negated a would-be sack-fumble by Colts linebacker E.J. Speed that was recovered by Indianapolis defensive tackle DeForest Buckner. The play would have, effectively, ended the game.

The interference call came in the end zone on a pass that was high and, arguably, uncatchable. The penalties were drawn by receivers Amari Cooper and Donovan Peoples-Jones, respectively.

“I don’t agree with the penalties at all,” Baker said. “When those balls are uncatchable, they usually throw those flags out. Especially when they’re initiating the contact with the cornerback. You can put hands on him as long as you’re looking for the ball. I’m not impeding their [progress]. I don’t know what else I could do better on that.”

On the interference call, which occurred along the back line of the end zone, Baker added, “I know [People-Jones] initiated contact with me. And then I saw the ball in the air so if we’re both hand fighting, that’s all right. And we’re both looking for the ball. So, I definitely don’t see a reason why it’s pass interference.”

Baker was only in the game because starter JuJu Brents went down with a quad injury. Baker started in Week 1 but was benched the following week.

The interference call resulted in the ball being placed at the 1-yard line with 33 seconds remaining. The Colts successfully defended on the next three Cleveland plays before running back Kareem Hunt scored on a tough run on fourth-and-goal from 1 yard out with 19 seconds left.

Ultimately, there were other culprits for the Colts (3-4) to point to beyond the pivotal pair of penalties. Quarterback Gardner Minshew threw for 305 yards but committed four turnovers. That makes eight giveaways for Minshew in his past two starts since starter Anthony Richardson suffered a season-ending right shoulder injury earlier this month.

Browns defensive end Myles Garrett produced two fumbles on sacks of Minshew, including one in the end zone that resulted in a Cleveland touchdown.

“It all comes down to winning the turnover battle,” coach Shane Steichen said. “We’re 3-0 when we win the turnover battle. When we don’t, obviously, we’ve lost four. We’ve got to be better taking care of the football.”

Running back Jonathan Taylor, who had 120 all-purpose yards for his best performance of the season, took a similar view.

“[The penalties were] a dagger because you’ve seen how the defense has played and you’ve seen the fight and all that they’ve given,” he said. “The best thing you can do is to not let the refs get involved in the game.”

– – –

Despite he season-ending injury owner Jim Irsay is enthralled with QB ANTHONY RICHARDSON.  Peter King:

“Like Jon Landau said about Bruce Springsteen back in (1974): ‘I’ve seen the future of rock ‘n roll and his name is Bruce Springsteen.’ Well, I’ve seen the future of the NFL and his name is Anthony Richardson. And I believe it”

–Colts owner Jim Irsay, to Jori Epstein of Yahoo! Sports.

Well, perhaps. But a big part of Springsteen’s greatness has been durability and standing the test of time. Irsay spoke on the day Anthony Richardson chose to have season-ending shoulder surgery. Richardson, thus, will have played four games in his 17-game rookie season.

JACKSONVILLE

Peter King:

Foyesade Oluokun, linebacker, Jacksonville. First, learn how to pronounce the name of one of the league’s best, and most unheralded, players: foy-yay-SAH-day oh-LOO-ah-kun. Since opening day 2021, Oluokun has the most combined tackles (solos plus assisted tackles) in the league—and not by a few. The top three, with games played in parentheses: Oluokun (41) 457 tackles … Roquan Smith, Baltimore (41) 403 … Jordyn Brooks, Seattle (39) 402. In New Orleans Thursday night, the 28-year-old Yale product had the first pick-six of his career, a 24-yard tipped interception in the third quarter and led all tacklers with 14 stops. That included a goal-line stoning of Alvin Kamara.

Does his hard to say name hurt his acclaim?  Learning to say oh-LOO-ah-kun is a key to mentioning him in a conversation.

MIAMI

Peter King is among those noticing that there seems to be a clear dividing line between Dolphins excellence and Dolphins mediocrity:

Miami’s a good team—we all know that. But there is this reality for the 5-2 Dolphins: They’re 5-0 against teams with a combined 8-25 record, and 0-2 against the 10-4 Bills and Eagles. Buffalo and Philadelphia, combined, have beaten Miami by 42 points. Is Miami a nice Wild Card playoff loser, making progress with miles to go before they sleep? It’s time for the real Dolphins to stand up. They play Kansas City in Germany in 13 days.

NEW ENGLAND

Congratulations to Bill Belichick on #300 – this from Adam Schefter:

With today’s win over Buffalo, Patriots’ HC Bill Belichick became the third head coach in NFL history with 300 career regular-season wins, joining Pro Football Hall of Famers Don Shula (328 regular-season wins) and George Halas (318).

QB MAC JONES is one of Peter King’s Players of the Week!

Mac Jones, quarterback, New England. The Patriots had lost four straight—by 17 points per game—in the series against Buffalo that they’d dominated for so long. On this day, Michael McCorkle Jones played one of the best games of his young, pressure-packed career, completing 83 percent of his throws with his best passer rating (126.7) in almost two years. Not bad for a guy everyone in six states has been screaming to bench.

– – –

If Robert Kraft was thinking of firing Coach and GM Belichick after New England’s lousy start, only he and a few others knew how much it would actually cost him.  Jeremy Bergman of NFL.com:

Bill Belichick, the most successful NFL head coach in recent memory, is having a season to forget.

His New England Patriots, once perennial title-game participants, are 1-5, the franchise’s worst mark through six games since 1995, well before Belichick took over as HC of NE. Making matters worse, the Pats are in the middle of a three-game losing streak during which they’ve scored just 20 points and are four games behind the AFC East-leading Miami Dolphins.

2023 is shaping up to be the worst of Belichick’s 24 seasons in New England, but will it be his last? If a surprising Patriots offseason decision is any indication, the chances of his imminent departure are slim.

Belichick quietly signed a lucrative, multiyear contract extension with the Patriots during the offseason, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported Sunday on NFL GameDay Morning.

“His contract [is] one of the most closely held secrets in New England. That said, I think it’s fair to say there was some, at least, uncertainty or intrigue surrounding him,” Rapoport explained. “Now, contractually, he is locked up long-term.”

It’s unclear when Belichick’s prior contract was set to expire and how long this new one will last. But one thing is clear: Owner Robert Kraft and the Patriots organization envision Belichick, 71, in their immediate and long-term future and are not inclined to move on from him this season.

The decision to extend Belichick, who is both New England’s head coach and general manager, may come as a surprise amid the Patriots’ awful start to the 2023 season, but consider that the six-time Super Bowl champion HC and living legend is nearing history in several respects.

Belichick currently has the third-most regular-season wins (299) in NFL history, stuck there since a Week 3 victory over the New York Jets. A win Sunday over the visiting Buffalo Bills (4-2) would give him the elusive 300th victory. He is also currently 30 wins from passing Hall of Fame coach Don Shula (328) for most all-time.

There are few mountains left for Belichick to conquer as a head coach in the NFL, but if the Patriots skipper is set on breaking Shula’s mark — or at least passing George Halas (318) — then he needs to stick around for a few more seasons. (At New England’s current pace, more than a few more.)

With potential successors Bill O’Brien and Jerod Mayo currently on New England’s coaching staff, how patient will Kraft and Co. be with arguably the best NFL coach of all time, as the Patriots, built and led by Belichick, potentially limp to their first consecutive losing seasons since 1989-1993? The coach’s extension suggests quite patient.

Peter King, whose thinking may be informed, says Kraft wouldn’t blink if firing Belichick meant a huge payout:

I think, re Ian Rapoport’s report that Bill Belichick signed a contract extension earlier this year in New England: I doubt sincerely, and I mean sincerely, that this will matter if the Patriots finish last in the division and do it in a desultory fashion. Paying off a contract won’t stand in the way of Robert Kraft doing what he thinks is best for the organization … and I, in no way, mean this is a done deal—at all. I just mean Kraft’s going to do what he thinks is best for the franchise after the season, whether it’s keeping Belichick or moving on.

THIS AND THAT

GOOD COACHING, BAD COACHING

Thoughts on who is getting it done and who isn’t from Mike Sando of The Athletic:

Six coaching jobs I like, six I’m less excited about

Six coaching jobs I really like so far:

Steve Spagnuolo: The Chiefs’ defensive coordinator has been known for fielding defenses that improve over the course of a season. This year, the Chiefs have been among the best from the start, buying time for an evolving offense.

The Chiefs, despite spending less 2023 cash on defense than all but the Rams and Cardinals, per Spotrac, are allowing 13.7 points per game on defense, by far their best average through seven games in five seasons with Spagnuolo in charge. If the offense takes off, the Chiefs could field one of their best teams by season’s end.

DeMeco Ryans and Bobby Slowik: Houston is 11.4 EPA per game better from last season, the largest year-over-year improvement in the league, with most of the gains on offense. Ryans’ leadership as head coach while calling defensive plays stands out. So does the offense with a first-time coordinator in Slowik and a rookie quarterback in C.J. Stroud. The Texans have the look of competence for the first time in a while.

Mike Macdonald: The Ravens’ defense ranks second to Cleveland in EPA per play, a leading reason Baltimore won while its offense worked through injury and execution issues early. Baltimore has allowed six touchdowns to opposing offenses, one fewer than the famed 2000 Ravens defense allowed through seven games.

Shane Steichen: The Colts lack dynamic playmakers on the perimeter. They started the season without running back Jonathan Taylor. They have switched between quarterbacks with disparate skill sets. But with Steichen as head coach and offensive caller, Indy ranks sixth in offensive points per game, one spot behind Steichen’s former team, the Eagles. Turnovers have cost the Colts 36.4 EPA over the past two games, but the offense is much better than the version that averaged a league-low 15.8 points per game last season.

Jim Schwartz: It might surprise some to learn Cleveland ranked third in defensive EPA per play over its final seven games last season (the Browns were 30th before that). Schwartz’s work as coordinator still deserved mention. The Browns rank first this year and are the only team whose defense has won the EPA battle in every game.

Raheem Morris: Aaron Donald is the only Rams defender drafted in the first two rounds. Donald is the only one earning more than $2 million per year. Ahkello Witherspoon, signed in late June, is their only notable addition in free agency. A Rams defense that was supposed to be terrible has instead been respectable, ranking fifth in passer rating allowed, 16th in points allowed and 22nd in EPA per play.

Further, this defense costs less in 2023 cash than any defense in the league, per Spotrac. Also per Spotrac, the gap in cash spending between the Rams’ defense and the offenses Los Angeles has faced averages nearly $60 million per week, by far the largest (the disparity for Kansas City ranks second).

Six coaching jobs inviting scrutiny so far:

Brandon Staley: Joey Bosa, Khalil Mack, Derwin James, Michael Davis, Sebastian Joseph-Day and Austin Johnson are all well-compensated defenders on a unit that ranks 31st in EPA per play.

Josh McDaniels: The Raiders’ head coach built his reputation on offense, but Las Vegas is the only team that has not exceeded 21 points in a game. Is there any evidence McDaniels is adding value from an offensive standpoint, after falling 30-12 to a Bears team with a first-time undrafted rookie starter in Tyson Bagent?

Matt LaFleur: The Packers have trailed on 86 percent of offensive snaps over the past four games, failing to exceed 20 points in any of them. Even those who appreciated what Aaron Rodgers brought to the team might have underestimated just how much the Packers fed off him in all phases, mostly for better, occasionally for worse.

Sean Payton: The Broncos have been worse from an operational standpoint, including game management, than anyone expected with such an experienced, accomplished head coach. Payton has at times seemed to barely tolerate the team he inherited instead of pushing to maximize its potential during a 2-5 start. Asked about the Broncos having blown 10 consecutive halftime leads before holding on to beat Green Bay on Sunday, Payton entered into a testy word-parsing battle with his questioner, noting over and over that the streak belonged to the team, not to him.

Frank Reich: It’s been surprising to see Reich start 0-6 and relinquish play-calling duties after entering the season with a quarterback drafted first overall and some big names on the offensive staff, including Jim Caldwell.

AMAZON INTELLIGENCE

Peter King on a new Amazon system that can read the minds of defensive coordinators – or at least it did on one play:

One of the reasons the NFL was so eager to get a new and aggressive streaming partner in 2022 was on display in the Jacksonville-New Orleans game on Amazon Prime Video Thursday. Let me tell you what I saw on one of Amazon’s three streaming options for its games, Prime Vision with Next Gen Stats. On the Prime Vision feed, Amazon shows the all-22 camera angle, able to see the whole field; the tradeoff, of course, is that you don’t see the quarterback, large, in the center of the TV. You see everything, with no one bigger than anyone else—while hearing Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit call the game the same as on the regular streaming ‘cast.

With 5:26 left in the first quarter, the Saints had a third-and-seven at the Jaguars’ 32-yard line. Jacksonville cornerback Tre Herndon jogged to a spot two yards across from the left slot, in coverage on receiver Michael Thomas. On the all-22 view, Herndon leaned forward as quarterback Derek Carr began his cadence. Just then, a red circle was superimposed around Herndon—and on the other side of the formation, red also encircled linebacker Devin Lloyd—with black circles superimposed around the four Saints wide receivers plus running back Alvin Kamara.

The red circle was Amazon’s way of foreshadowing what AI told them from whipping through hundreds of factors—including anticipatory tics that could be gleaned from the two movement trackers in Herndon’s left and right shoulder pad—in split seconds: Prime Vision was predicting Herndon and Lloyd would blitz. Quite a leap of faith in the Herndon forecast. In the first six games of the season, Herndon, per Next Gen Stats, had blitzed only 12 times.

Carr took his time on the cadence. The red circle was around Herndon for two, three, four, five, six seconds, and the six-year vet corner showed nothing. Carr certainly could get no clue from the possible blitzer on his left. Finally, 8.31 seconds after the encircling of Herndon appeared on the all-22, Carr snapped the ball. Herndon streaked at Carr. Lloyd came, too, but was caught in traffic. No one touched the blitzing Herndon. Just as Carr was releasing the ball, Herndon, unseen, slammed into Carr and the football bounded harmlessly away. Incomplete.

Here’s the really amazing part of this: A soybean farmer in Iowa, were he a football nerd once his day job was done, could have been watching this Prime Vision view of the game just like me. And the soybean farmer would know more about the likelihood of Tre Herndon blitzing than Saints coach Dennis Allen or his offensive play-designer, Pete Carmichael, standing 20 yards away from him. Because the live feed you and I can see is banned on the sidelines and coaches’ box upstairs (more about the pitfalls of that later), people from the Everglades to the Cascades can see a blitz coming better than the teams on the field can.

It’s sort of revolutionary. Viewers should love this. The NFL must love the fun of it today. But Artificial Intelligence strikes fear into those who think it might go too far. The competitive guardrails on this, for the NFL, had better be sturdy.

—

Amazon had the idea when it got the NFL contract in 2021 of an alternate telecast heavy on analytics. Some of the elements, like tagging skill players pre-snap, started last year. But the biggest element, predicting blitzing, debuted 11 days ago in the Denver-Kansas City game. I heard about it in a smart story in The Athletic by Ted Nguyen. The brainchild behind the idea, Sam Schwartzstein, told me he began working on it in “late April or May” with Amazon AI experts, a machine-learning team based in Tel Aviv.

Keep in mind Amazon’s not CBS or ESPN, with virtually all the idea people solely based in the U.S. Amazon’s based in Seattle, but has campuses in more than 50 countries, including Israel. Schwartzstein has been a leader at Amazon in getting some people unfamiliar with American football, very familiar in a short time. Just who is Schwartzstein? He started 13 games at center for Stanford in Andrew Luck’s last season, 2011, and they became fast friends and smart forecasters of defensive tendencies. There is so much that’s ironic about Schwartzstein’s role in introducing new technology to the Thursday night games, but how about this nugget: He has assembled a crew of smart former players as advisers to Amazon’s Prime Vision with Next Gen Stats—including Luck. Schwartzstein meets with him on Monday nights to talk Amazon football business.

“We are in a unique spot as a sports broadcaster that is a tech company first,” Schwartzstein told me Friday night. We spoke for 30 minutes; the conversation will air in The Peter King Podcast dropping late Tuesday.

“So,” Schwartzstein said, “we looked at all these different ideas of what we could do. The first one came to mind is how do we identify the players who are going to blitz … take you into the mindset of what I used to do when I played center in college … There weren’t a lot of things that we could do to help people to watch defense in a unique way. But then talking with our science team, they said, I think we can do this with machine learning and AI. We went through the process to be able to identify using machine learning where we don’t have a readout of the rules or the specific reasons why someone’s being highlighted as a potential blitzer. But we know that’s it’s being ingested from thousands of plays that are then creating that identification tag of ‘this player is likely going to blitz.’ You can never be 100 percent right; we’re just giving you an idea of looking at the defense the same way the quarterback is.”

Two Amazon coordinating producers for the Thursday games, Alex Strand and Betsy Riley, went to Tel Aviv last spring to meet with the AI team, and to begin explaining football to the non-fans there. They ended up building the software and the model that ID’s which players on every play were likely to blitz, using pieces of physical, statistic and analytical information. Schwartzstein lives in the Bay Area. Tel Aviv is 10 hours ahead. So if he’d wake up at 7 a.m. in California, on some days he’d be tutoring the Tel Aviv team in the late afternoon and evening on Football 101.

“We probably had 15 different ideas,” Schwartzstein said. “I can’t give you the exact number that have gone to production, but a lot have gone to the wayside that we’ve tried to accomplish and pushed off for later times. We have the ability to continue ideating with them and talking with them about different ways we can help expose new things to our fan bases. What I really like is we’re not afraid of the big hairy audacious goals. We are looking to try and do things that people said that you can’t do.”

The goal this year was predictive blitzing. Amazon trusted the red-circling so much that Schwartzstein and the game producers of Prime Vision just let it go when the game starts. “I can’t turn it on and off,” he said.

The factors. That’s what I wonder about. Think of the scores of known football factors as a quarterback comes to the line, and then add the minutiae of what Next Gen Stats knows, and then add what can be read from the movement trackers in every shoulder pad. The amount of information that can be processed and interpreted by AI in seconds is, of course, mind-boggling. “It knows the alignment of every player on the field, offense and defense,” Schwartzstein said. “And then there’s expectations of all the plays where players have blitzed from. It’s taking that bevy of information to make a prediction. I can tell you … that it’s seen so many different plays and so many different scenarios that it’s intelligently highlighting unique players.”

Like Herndon, with 5:26 left in the first quarter Thursday night. AI figured he was blitzing. The Saints either didn’t or blew an assignment, and let him rush, and it cost them a third-down conversion in opposing territory in a game they lost by a touchdown. Sort of a big deal.

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“This is the tip of the iceberg,” said Schwartzstein, and he’s right. What I saw Thursday night will make me come back for more, to see the game in a different way than I ever have. The potential for more cool innovations for home viewers is there. It’s fun. It’s smart. It’s great.

But the potential for mayhem is too, because AI may know more than an offensive coordinator about what a defender like Tre Herndon is likely to do on a given play.

We can all think of the dangers for this totally new tool. When I asked Amazon about the delay from live game to being able to see the Prime Vision feed, a spokesperson emailed: “The vast majority of Prime Video’s TNF streams travel from the stadium to the screen in 10 seconds or less. This delay matches and is often less than what viewers receive from live games on broadcast and cable. Prime Vision’s technology adds a minimal amount on top of that, usually three seconds or less.”

The exact time of delay depends whether you’re watching the stream on home internet, Xbox, Apple TV, your phone, or other devices. Understand two things here. Encircling a defender in red isn’t a guarantee that he will blitz; it’s simple saying the AI program suggests he’s likely to blitz. But in this case, Herndon was circled for 8.31 seconds, which is an eternity before the ball is snapped. (To be fair, most red circles are evident for less time.) My concern is, Amazon’s delay has to be enough time so that some person in some stadium won’t be able somehow to alert a team with information that could be an advantage competitively. It appears to be long enough, but that must be policed.

“No one’s using it for nefarious reasons,” Schwartzstein said.

The NFL’s got to be sure it has multiple layers in place to ensure no one does.

Soybeans in Iowa?  Not corn?  Yes sir, Peter King nailed it.

What is Iowa ranked in soybean production?

Iowa soybean farmers produced nearly 587 million bushels in 2022, or about 14% of the U.S. total. Iowa farmers rank second nationally in soybean production.

What are the top 5 crops grown in Iowa?

Iowa’s main agricultural products are corn (maize), soybeans, hogs, and cattle, and Iowa ranks among the leading states in the production of the first three commodities. Viticulture is of growing importance to the state, which has hundreds of commercial vineyards.