We can argue about the quality of play across the league—it’s been less-than-great of late. But we did get plenty of drama in Week 14. So let’s dig through it …
It may not mean much to you, but the Jets really did have Zach Wilson’s back this week. That went for coaches and teammates, including one particular star who’s been relatively vocal in recent weeks about his overall frustration with the offense.
And Garrett Wilson didn’t waste any time, either, when The Athletic reported Monday that his quarterback would rather not regain the starting job.
“I reached out to him as soon as I saw the report, just letting him know that I have his back no matter what. And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one,” the star receiver told me after the game. “What I saw from him today is just going out there, just spinning it, just playing. That’s the thing, he just wanted to go out there and say, I got nothing to worry about. They’ve benched me before, all these things played into it, so let me just go out there and play my game, let it spin and then see where it puts me. He did a great job of that today.”
Or, in other words, I said to Garrett, playing like you don’t give a …
“You asked the question, I almost said, F— it,” Wilson says, laughing. “That’s the mindset I saw from Zach. That’s really what I saw. That’s the best way I could put it.”
Turns out, that actually was the rallying cry behind the 24-year-old quarterback Sunday, because the Jets’ top receiver wasn’t the only guy to use those specific words to describe what happened with Wilson as he led the Jets’ 30–6 stunner over the upstart Texans.
Wilson threw for 301 yards, two touchdowns and a 117.9 rating on 27-of-36 passing. He got more out of Garrett Wilson (9 catches, 108 yards) and Breece Hall (8 catches, 86 yards) than anyone has all year. And he did it with the rain coming down sideways at MetLife Stadium, and just three weeks having passed since Robert Saleh benched him, seemingly for good, after the Jets were routed in Buffalo.
“The words I’ve been using: F— it,” Saleh said later Sunday night. “Ice T, F— it. Just let it rip. I mean, giving 50-50 ops to Garrett, giving one to Conk [Tyler Conklin]. All scheduled, in rhythm, nothing forced. It was by far the best game of his career because he pieced it all together, even extending time in the pocket, scrambling, running. I know he fumbled the one. But he was awesome.”
And even better, he proved he could do it even when things didn’t start the way anyone would’ve planned.
Wilson took a sack that knocked the Jets out of field goal range on their first possession, then posted three three-and-outs on New York’s next four possessions. At the half, the Jets had 100 yards, five first downs, and were 1-for-7 on third down—but even then, as Garrett Wilson saw it, there was a different pace and feel to how the Jets were playing.
“We felt like we were close the whole first half as far as breaking that seal, and that’s kind of been the thing with us,” the receiver says. “We feel like once we score that first touchdown, who knows how it will play out from that point?”
Saleh mentioned Zach Wilson’s second-half fumble—it turns out that miscue would be the only thing that would stop the Jets from scoring the rest of the game. They opened the second half with 75- and 69-yard touchdown drives. Then came the fumble, and after that another 75-yard touchdown drive, and three possessions that ended in field goals.
That second half was a mix of the routine, and the spectacular (there was a third-and-12 on the first possession after the break on which Wilson scrambled free, ran left, then threw back across his body to Garrett Wilson for a 25-yard gain). And finally it melded together in the sort of way the Jets had envisioned it would when they took Wilson with the second pick out of BYU.
Saleh says he saw a fire in Wilson’s eyes when he approached the quarterback about what was in the report.
“What I know is that Zach was excited and wanted the ball,” Saleh says. “And I sensed he was going to play well with the way he approached it on Monday, before my press conference, before I even made a decision. I didn’t make a decision until later, but he said basically, I want the ball, and he was adamant about it. It was just the kickstart to an unbelievable week for him.”
And as for what’s next, the now 5–8 Jets will go to Miami, and then things will get considerably more manageable—with the Commanders, Browns and Patriots on the slate for the season’s final three weeks. So, yes, if New York can somehow beat the Dolphins on the road, then things would get pretty real—and that, surely, will bring a lot of intrigue, with the incentive then growing for Aaron Rodgers to find his way back to the field.
For now, though, the Jets swear that’s not where their heads are.
“I honestly don’t [think about Rodgers’ return], as far as this year goes,” Garrett Wilson says. “Having him around and being able to chop it up with him is super valuable. But like I said, I got to be in the moment, I got to be on top of my details, on top of my things, and if that does happen, I’ll be ready, because I know how I thought about things in the meantime.”
“For us, it’s just one game at a time,” Saleh adds. “Just play, just have fun. Don’t think about anything except for the moment.”
On Sunday, Zach Wilson unquestionably did that. And, hey, it sure did work for him.
Joe Flacco’s a great fit for the Browns—in part because that roster doesn’t need saving, and in part simply because of who he is. And that second part of the equation became clear to a few of his new teammates almost right away.
It was, to be exact, seven days after he signed. The team had set up shop for the week at UCLA, between road games against the Broncos and Rams, and on Nov. 27 the linemen and quarterbacks had a group dinner at Mastro’s in Beverly Hills. Over steaks and cocktails, the 38-year-old fresh off the couch blended easily with a group of players laced with longtime Browns, one of whom, Joel Bitonio, happened to be the roster’s longest-tenured player.
“You have a quarterback, he’s a Super Bowl champion, Super Bowl MVP, unfortunately beat up on the Browns when he was in Baltimore,” Bitonio said, driving home Sunday. “It was just like, I’m one of the guys. I remember the first thing I talked to him about was if he felt old being around the young guys. He’s like, Honestly, I’m 38, but I feel like I’m 25 around the guys. Everyone makes me feel young. … And since then, he’s taken his time to be part of the group.”
Blending in off the field was one thing. Doing it on the field was another. And that part, somehow, is coming along just as seamlessly.
Flacco threw for 311 yards and three touchdowns in Sunday’s 31–27 win over the Jaguars. Eight different guys had receptions, five had multiple catches, and Flacco led touchdown drives to open the first, second and third quarters. And his ability to do it comes right back to the first part of the aforementioned equation.
Flacco knows he’s not there to pull the Browns from a ditch. It’s actually sort of the opposite. Cleveland’s good enough now that what it really needs is a guy to keep his hands at 10 and 2. Which, for the most part, is just what Flacco gave them Sunday.
Yes, there were moments where Flacco did more than that (namely, throwing across his body to David Bell for a catch-and-run, 41-yard touchdown on a fourth-quarter fourth-and-3). For the most part, though, what the Browns needed, as a team that had already won games with Deshaun Watson, PJ Walker and Dorian Thompson-Robinson under center, was just for someone to come in and keep the train on the tracks.
“It’s underratedly impressive,” Bitonio says, laughing. “I’ve been on some bad teams that have gone through three or four starting quarterbacks. Those teams don’t win games. You go 1–15 and 0–16 in those seasons. For [GM] Andrew Berry and coach [Kevin] Stefanski to have us just playing resilient football, it’s the most cliché thing ever, but it’s going 1–0 every week. You don’t know who’s going to be the quarterback or what situation you’re going to be in, but the focus on the week is like, Hey, we’re going 1–0 this week no matter what. …
“Our top three tackles have been out. Our center got hurt today. Our DBs are getting banged up. It’s not just the quarterback position. It’s been a lot of players. It shows the group’s resilience.”
Bitonio says it also shows their depth.
“We’ve had Myles [Garrett] for years. We’ve had Joe Thomas in the past, a guy like Nick Chubb,” he says. “But I think [now] if you look at every position group, you’re like, All right, that’s one of the better players in the league playing in that position group, helping lead. And when you keep the same system, you keep coach Stefanski, you keep Andrew Berry, you keep the same system for four years now, you learn the situations, and you learn how to win.”
As the Browns have, of course, it’s been as they’ve taken swings at quarterback, with Baker Mayfield and, more recently, Watson. But along the way, they kept building and building and, eventually, had something that didn’t require the quarterback to dress in a phone booth for the team to have a chance to win.
Which, evidently, has made for a pretty comfortable situation for a 38-year-old to walk into.
The Browns aren’t the only team in Ohio without its quarterback—and with playoff dark-horse potential. And the way Jake Browning is playing should serve as a warning to the other AFC heavyweights that Zac Taylor’s Bengals haven’t given up on a season that seemed sunk when Joe Burrow heard that pop in his throwing wrist on Nov. 16.
Over the past seven days, in wins Monday of Week 13 over the Jaguars and Sunday over the Colts, the former practice squad quarterback has completed 50-of-61 throws for 629 yards, three touchdowns and a pick as the Bengals have racked up 68 points. Without calling Browning a facsimile of Burrow, it’s hard to imagine No. 9, or anyone else, doing a whole lot better than the former Washington star has.
Which, as Browning himself sees it, is a testament to the infrastructure around him.
“The standard in the locker room has always been there,” he said as he made his way back through the bowels of Paycor Stadium. “We go to every game expecting to win. And Joe was a big part of establishing that in this locker room for going on three years now. And I’ve always felt that. And a lot of the noise came from the outside. But I think a lot of people in the locker room watched me work for a couple years, watched me on the scout team and preseason and training camp and they kind of knew that I could play.
“And so there’s always a little bit of unknown, but I think there’s more unknown outside of the building than inside of it. … I kind of feel like there was a lot of confidence in my ability.”
That support was, of course, from the other guys in an outrageously talented offensive huddle—and the one whose spot Browning was taking, too.
Burrow gave Browning’s family his suite at the stadium on this cold Cincinnati day, and that was six days after he made the trip with the team to Jacksonville for the Jaguars game, mostly for his backup’s benefit. “I was surprised he did that,” Browning says. “It was nice having him on the sideline.”
The ultra-competitive Burrow actually, according to Browning, has been a calming voice on the sideline for him—quick to affirm that he saw something the same way Browning did, or add to the way a situation or play unfolded. That way, Browning continues, even as Taylor and OC Brian Callahan have adjusted the offense for him (more in the keeper game, fewer empty sets, more seven-man protections), it’d be easier for the backup to run the offense like the starter did, which makes things easier on the other 10 guys in the huddle.
And that allowed for guys such as Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase (three catches apiece) to play their games, the same way Chase Brown and Tanner Hudson (who scored touchdowns) could play theirs. It also allowed for a level Browning to overcome a pick-six with that touchdown throw to Hudson—who was the intended target on the interception.
“That was good to come back to him,” Browning says.
In the end, there was a lot of good all the way around for the Bengals on Sunday. On defense, Trey Hendrickson had another monster day with two sacks, and the pressure that created B.J. Hill’s acrobatic (for a defensive tackle, at least) interception to seal the game. On offense, the line didn’t allow a sack, and Brown emerged, scoring from 54 yards out on a screen, in Cincinnati’s galaxy of skill-position stars.
As for the quarterback, he’s, admittedly, not Burrow. But if the last week is any indication, he’s a lot better than most people expected. Which might be enough, in a weakened AFC, for the Bengals to make a little noise in January.
That weakened AFC may be setting up for this iteration of the Bills—the one with Sean McDermott under fire, Joe Brady getting his feet wet as OC, and a defense without Tre’Davious White and Matt Milano—to make a serious January run. So, looking at the playoff picture, the Bills beat the Chiefs on Sunday. They beat the brakes off the Dolphins earlier in the season. The Ravens are there. But after that, you’ve got the Colts, Browns and Bengals all with backup QBs; the Texans with a rookie QB; a suddenly-reeling Jaguars team; the Broncos; and you get the picture.
Sunday, to me, was an indication that the Bills might have a little something here. And my reasoning would be that it was the defense that found a way in the end (if with a little help from the officials) against Patrick Mahomes at Arrowhead.
“It was a great total team effort,” middle linebacker Terrel Bernard told me, from the Bills’ locker room postgame. “The offense did what they needed to do, and scored points when we needed it, and controlled the clock, controlled the ball. Special teams did a great job. [Tyler] Bass knocking that kick in at the end to give us the lead. And us going out there on the last drive and being able to put it together in the game as a total team, we did what we needed to do to win the game.”
All right, so we can start (and we’ll circle back on this) with the spectacular, negated 49-yard touchdown the Chiefs scored with 1:12 left—Mahomes hit Travis Kelce on a deep over, and Kelce, after turning back against the grain and while between three defenders 25 yards downfield, fired a lateral across the field to Kadarius Toney, who covered the final 24 yards.
You know what happened next. The officials flagged Toney for having lined up in the neutral zone. The ball came back to the Chiefs’ 46, and Kansas City was in second-and-15.
Still, from there, the Bills had to get a stop. We’ve seen the Chiefs come through time and again in that sort of position. But they didn’t this time.
“Those guys up front did a great job all game, especially the last series, they [Von Miller, Ed Oliver, Leonard Floyd] got pressure,” Bernard says. “We didn’t really blitz them toward the end there. They were able to get pressure and really help close out the game.”
They also showed what this team could—and I’ll use the word could for now—be capable of.
Josh Allen made some absolute hero throws, and one (a series after an impossible dime, falling out of bounds, went for 21 yards to Latavius Murray) basically gave Buffalo its lead on the Bills’ final full offensive possession, that one being a 25-yard throw downfield to his right, as he moved left, to Deonte Harty. But the quarterback also had his bumps in this one. Stefon Diggs was held to 24 yards. The offensive line was a little scattershot, too.
And the defense, again, without Milano and White, was able to gather what it needed to put Kansas City away in Arrowhead. Which will only be more valuable a month or so from now, if the offense rounds into shape with young weapons such as James Cook and Dalton Kincaid on the upswing, and Brady getting more comfortable.
Would I bet on the Bills to win the AFC? Probably not at this point.
Could I see it happening? No question.
I have two other trends to come out of the Bills-Chiefs game to address before we move on.
The first is simple: Allen and Mahomes got the ever-living crap knocked out of them Sunday, and I think you can tie the beating they took to a lot of the other quarterback injuries in the league. The NFL, quite simply, has an offensive line problem. And it’s a result of the CBAs of 2011 and ’20.
Back in 2011, as the owners looked to tip the financial scales further back in their favor, after feeling like they’d lost ground in ’06, the league looked for capital to horsetrade with the players. Working conditions, and specifically hours, came up. For the owners, the response to that idea was, more or less, “You mean I can shut the lights off for another five weeks in the spring, and earlier every night?” For the union, with vets in leading positions, the cutbacks meant less wear-and-tear on their bodies—and less opportunity for younger players to replace them.
So everyone signed up for that. A third of the offseason program went away, as did summer two-a-days, and practice contact was cut way back. Nine years later, the league agreed to go even further to secure more favorable economic terms. But there was always going to be a cost.
Around 2013, I asked someone at the league office where he thought that cost would come. He responded that he thought offensive line depth would become impossible to develop, because losing contact in practice, reps in camp, and anything live in-season in practice would be devastating in that area. The reason? Backup offensive linemen generally don’t play, and they rarely rotate in like defensive lineman, so guys would be going weeks in-season without really hitting anyone—which would make them ill-prepared when they did get in games.
That problem, very clearly, has come home to roost. It was there at Arrowhead Sunday, and across the NFL with all those backups playing. It’s a problem, I don’t think it’s magically going to get better and I’m hoping to dive into the issue in the coming weeks.
And that brings us to the second thing from Sunday’s game: the officiating. Very clearly, the referees have been too big a part of the NFL’s story in 2023, and I totally understand the issue that Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes had with the call on Toney being one of consistency. That said, I coached my son’s third-grade team this fall and we taught our receivers to check with the official to make sure they were lined up properly. It’s a practice that happens at every level of football with guys lining up on the outside. It’s also something that referees have been watching this year, and flagging more often, meaning the Chiefs should’ve had their players more aware of it.
Also, in this case, the culprit is relevant. Toney’s track record for discipline has never been great, so the fact that this is the guy who was flagged has to sting for the Chiefs, because a lot of people would say that’s what you signed up for when you acquired him.
So I don’t have a ton of sympathy for Kansas City in this case.
That said, the play itself, and in particular the throw from Kelce to Toney, was absolutely incredible. What an amazing display of athleticism and instincts from No. 87.
While we’re finding silver linings, there is one in the Vikings’ 3–0 win over the Raiders. Yes, it was just the second game in 75 years to make it to the two-minute warning (of the game, not the half) scoreless. And, no, having to bench Joshua Dobbs for Nick Mullens wasn’t ideal.
But in this year of resetting the cap and the roster, and continuing to build on the foundation that Kevin O’Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah set last year, it’s worth considering how the Vikings have had to win games very differently this year than they did last year with Kirk Cousins and Justin Jefferson healthy, and a fully stocked offense, with guys such as Adam Thielen and Dalvin Cook around them. And with that challenge, O’Connell thinks, there’s been growth.
“It’s one of those things where I would love to go out, score 30 points every time we go out there,” the coach said, from the tarmac in Las Vegas. “But the fact of the matter is, we’ve tried to find ways to win games without Kirk. I believe this was the third one, and I do have a lot of confidence in our defense. They’re continuing to get better and better every week, and giving us opportunities to win it. … And so it has required me to maybe not always be over there [with the offense] and use all the different tools. We have tempos, and just try to play a smarter game and try to make sure we’re minimizing risk, but still giving our guys chances to have success.
“We’re not going to expose ourselves for a multiple-turnover game. We try to play the field position and be aggressive to go for it on some fourth downs in plus territory, give [kicker] Greg Joseph some chances to get some points on the board, and then ultimately try to capitalize if and when we can force those turnovers on defense, which our guys did.”
In other words, this team has to win on the margins much more than last year’s team did. On Sunday, that meant pinning the Raiders inside their own 15 twice. It meant rookie linebacker Ivan Pace Jr. picking off Aidan O’Connell in the final moments. And, just before that, O’Connell having the stomach to bench Dobbs and go to Mullens.
The truth is, the Vikings’ second-year coach mulled doing it during the bye week. But Dobbs has been benched a bunch in the past, and made folks look foolish, so the staff wanted to give it some more time to see whether the quarterback would turn it around. That didn’t happen—Dobbs struggled throughout, then missed on his four throws of the fourth quarter. The final two led to a three-and-out that prompted the change.
“We just needed to move the football, probably convert three or four first downs, and just try to get the ball into at least field goal range, and maybe we could finish that drive with a touchdown,” Kevin O’Connell says. “But the way the game had gone, I wanted to make sure we ensured our three points and allowed our defense to go back out there.”
And that’s just what happened. Mullens moved the sticks three times over a 56-yard drive that set up Joseph’s 36-yard game-winner. From there, Brian Flores’s defense—which has become a mirror image of O’Connell’s “illusion of complexity” style of offense—took over, with Pace’s pick sealing the shutout.
Which is kind of how it’s gone all year and which, as the Vikings see it, bodes really well for a future in which O’Connell’s offense will certainly bounce back.
Judging by the seasons the Cowboys and Chargers are having, Mike McCarthy deserves a lot more credit than he’s getting. Going into 2023, there were a lot of (fair) questions about Dallas’s direction. McCarthy had let OC Kellen Moore go in the offseason, and seized back play-calling, and even some quarterback coaching, as he promoted Brian Schottenheimer to take Moore’s place.
Then, Dak Prescott threw a bunch of interceptions in camp, folks in the Metroplex wore out the panic button, and there was enough there to think the quarterback was missing his old OC.
Four months later … forget all that.
Prescott is a legitimate MVP candidate, on pace for a career-high quarterback rating of 107.5, 4,583 yards (would be his second-highest total), 37 touchdowns (would tie a career high), and just eight interceptions (would tie his second-lowest in a full season). All those picks in camp? McCarthy told me back then they were a product of Prescott’s working on getting better off-schedule. His improvement in that area, his coaches say, have made him a better player this year.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, before Justin Herbert got hurt Sunday, he’d gone through a very up-and-down fourth NFL season. To be fair, he has lost Mike Williams and Joshua Palmer. Still, his numbers, before he fractured a finger on his throwing hand, were the worst of his career, and were raising bigger-picture questions about the direction of his career.
Now, I’m not crowning Prescott, or saying Herbert can’t bounce back. But I do think it’s instructive to look at this example and consider how perception can cloud reality. The reality, here, is that McCarthy’s doing a damn good job with Prescott. And his hand in the Cowboys’s 33–13 beatdown of the Eagles on Sunday night is proof of it.
I’ll say what NFL teams can’t—There are a handful of them that would be better off losing games than winning them over the next few weeks. For proof, we have to go all the way back in pro football history, to December 2020 and January ’21, to look at the fallout of two different approaches to the end of an NFL season.
The first team in question would be the Jets. They got to 0–13, and Adam Gase was walking the coaching green mile. Then somehow, he pulled a rabbit out of his hat—and beat the playoff-bound Rams and Browns in consecutive weeks. Gase, of course, didn’t care much about the Jets’ draft position. He knew he was on the way out and wouldn’t get to use the pick. But it did wind up costing Woody Johnson’s franchise the chance to pick Trevor Lawrence, and you’d imagine that whole operation would look a little different had Lawrence landed in New York.
The second team to bring up here is the Eagles. That year, they famously threw the final game of the season behind the thinly veiled guise of getting Nate Sudfeld some reps. Their Week 17 loss to the then Washington Football Team (to the Giants’ chagrin) sent Washington to the playoffs, and moved Philadelphia from the ninth pick to the sixth pick. The Eagles then traded down from No. 6 to No. 12, picking up a 2022 first-rounder in the exchange, before moving back up to No. 10 to take DeVonta Smith, whom they would’ve otherwise had to use the ninth pick on. That ’22 first-rounder, by the way, became Jordan Davis, and gave Philly flexibility to deal its own first-rounder for A.J. Brown.
So, to summarize, not tanking cost the Jets Lawrence, and tanking brought the Eagles Davis, pretty much out of thin air.
Now, there are examples, including the Texans last year, where not tanking works out. (The Texans probably would’ve taken Bryce Young with the first pick had Lovie Smith not engineered a dramatic Week 18 win, and then missed out on C.J. Stroud.) But more often than not, you want the higher draft position, and to be able to make those choices on your own.
Coaches, of course, generally don’t tank. Players, most of whom don’t know who’ll be signing their paychecks the next year, certainly don’t either. But, in the end, that does not mean tanking isn’t what’s best for your favorite team.
The NFL needs to be more transparent about concussions. Frank Wycheck died at 52 Saturday. According to his family, it appears he “fell inside his Chattanooga, Tenn., home and hit his head on Saturday morning. He was found unresponsive that afternoon.”
It’s a terrible story, by any measure. In 2017, Wycheck told then ESPN reporter Paul Kuharsky that he thought he had CTE.
“I’m scared about the time, if I actually get to that point where these guys [who have died by suicide] have snapped,” he said. “What has made them snap? And that is what I am scared of, that there is something that is going to come over me that is going to make me snap. I don’t think I am going to do it, but those guys you would never think in a million years would. And that’s the scary part about it. There is no one that can tell you really anything. It’s just, the damage is done.”
Now, to be clear, the root cause of Wycheck’s death has not been determined. But his wishes were for his family to work with experts on traumatic brain injury and CTE research, wishes that the family pledged, in its statement, to honor.
This also comes a few days after the situation involving Steelers edge rushers T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith unfolded. The former took a shot to the head early in Thursday’s loss to the Patriots, then returned to the game after taking smelling salts and being given a tinted visor—only on Friday was Watt diagnosed with a concussion, after reporting symptoms to the team. As for the latter, Amazon reporter Kaylee Hartung reported in-game that Highsmith had a neck injury, and also that he was meeting with the independent neurologist. He was later declared out with the neck injury, with the concussion diagnosis only coming up the next day.
Honestly, I don’t get this at all. On one hand, the NFL tells everyone who’ll listen how serious the league is on this subject, and keeps putting rules in to combat the concussion issue. And then, Sunday comes, and you see Gardner Minshew drive his head into a defender, stumble trying to gather his feet and never come out of the game.
These are reasons for the public, and even players, not to trust the league or teams on this stuff.
And, no, it’s not 1995 again. Guys know what they’re signing up for playing football. But it’s still on the NFL to be vigilant and protect players from themselves in these situations.
I love football, and I want the sport to be around forever. I also know the way to do that is not to whistle by the graveyard, pretend there’s not a problem and ignore teams skirting the protocol because there’s competitive motivation to do so. The sport will make it through this if the league and its teams prioritize this stuff, and are transparent about it, and don’t launch into damage control any time there’s a whiff of legal liability in the air.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing that can save Wycheck now. So maybe—if you look at what my old buddy, former Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson, wrote here—we can all learn from his struggles and try to do the right thing, which also happens to be what’s best for the sport.
Frank was one of the lost ones…he was having problems with changes in personality a long time ago when I talked to him. Nobody knows what to do with players like him, who suffer in silence from head trauma. https://t.co/Lgnd5b32cf
— Ted Johnson (@Teddyjradio) December 10, 2023
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We’re at the finish line now—and that means time to start firing off my quick-hitters. Here they come …
• Congrats to Saints GM Mickey Loomis on his 200th win, a pretty amazing achievement—and one that puts him way up there among his peers. The number matches former Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome’s mark, and Loomis made it to the milestone in 17 fewer games. And along the way, Loomis won seven division titles, went to three NFC title games and won a Super Bowl. Which is all even more impressive when you consider where the Saints had been before this run.
• Baker Mayfield was tremendous down the stretch—right down to the dime he hit Cade Otton with for the game-winning points in Atlanta. The win moved the Buccaneers into a tie with the Falcons and Saints atop the NFC South at 6–7, with the winner getting the honor of hosting the NFC East runner-up on the second weekend of January.
• My NFL editor (and angry Vikings fan) John Pluym asked that I include his take here: “Now you know why Joshua Dobbs has been on five different teams.” It’s actually up to seven now, John (and I, for the record, really like Dobbs personally, and love his story).
• I believe Tylan Wallace’s last punt return in a real game, before Sunday’s game-winner, came during his freshman year of 2017 at Oklahoma State. The only reason he was in there for the Ravens on Sunday was because of Devin Duvernay’s injury. Pretty wild (though he has done some return work in the preseason).
• Having Wallace ready to roll, and do that, is a good example of a well-rounded Ravens operation that cross-trains its players to do a lot of different things. And it’s obviously not a coincidence that a team coached by John Harbaugh would be really good in that area (special teams coach Chris Horton can take a bow for it too).
• I loved the interaction between Lee Corso and Bill Belichick on Saturday. ICYMI …
Lee Corso was so happy to see Bill Belichick. pic.twitter.com/cHkbk2m41r
— Mike Kadlick (@mikekadlick) December 10, 2023
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Bill Belichick walks down memory lane with Lee Corso on the 1967 Army-Navy game-winning play, scouting, his father, and more. pic.twitter.com/gyiHAeUNAA
— Boston Dirt Dogs (@BostonDirtDogs) December 9, 2023
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Bill Belichick took a page out of Coach’s book and brought his own headgear 😂#CollegeGameDay pic.twitter.com/ttcth1EAP5
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) December 9, 2023
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• While we’re there, Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s Army-Navy GameDay appearance was a tad different—especially at the end when Pat McAfee said to Kraft, “I don’t envy your position, what’s about to happen. We all know, we don’t have to ask.” McAfee then offered a handshake to a less-than-comfortable Kraft. It’ll be interesting to see whether Kraft talks this week in Dallas, where NFL owners are convening for their winter meeting.
• Bryce Young didn’t look much better Sunday, going 13-of-36 for 137 yards and a 48.0 passer rating. But the Panthers are trying to do more to get him going. With QBs coach Josh McCown gone, Jim Caldwell is now in the quarterback room every day, and interim coach Chris Tabor has pushed, in colorful language, for a tougher approach with the quarterback. The good news is that, as I’ve heard it, OC Thomas Brown was already an advocate for pushing more accountability with the team’s No. 1 pick.
• Christian McCaffrey casually chewed through another 145 yards on 16 carries, and no one seemed to notice. The 49ers’ back, to me, is one of the five or 10 best players in football. But he may be a tougher sell as MVP because of the galaxy of stars around him—a galaxy that might get him a much cooler trophy a couple months from now. San Francisco, by the way, is now 10–3 after beating the Seahawks, and would be the top seed in the NFC bracket as it stands through Week 14.
• Sean Payton has the Broncos at 7–6 in his first year, and with a quarterback throwing for barely 200 yards per game (Russell Wilson is at 200.69). So, yes, the guy can still coach. Denver, by the way, is just a game back of the Chiefs in the AFC West.
