Man, Free Monday: Houston's fatal flaw exploited, Pats freefall continues, The end of Deshaun Watson
Plus: The Chiefs and 49ers play an offensively-challenged classic
Patriots 16 “at” Jaguars 32
Let me give you the totality of what I have learned about the New England Patriots over the last two weeks. It took the team five weeks to determine that Drake Maye was ready to play even though it seems like pretty much everyone on the ground agrees he looked better than Jacoby Brissett in camp. Maye has played the last two games, and taken six sacks over those two games while throwing for 519 yards and five touchdowns. The game hasn’t looked too big for him even though he had some turnovers against the Texans. He’s made some big throws, made some reads late into the progressions, and he has overcome an offensive line that has continued to be dinged up.
The most common bit about keeping Maye on the bench I’ve read is that the offensive line is bad. But what I have learned is that everything else around Maye on this team is holding him back too. The receiving corps keeps trying to make Ja’Lynn Polk a thing even though he might be the worst receiver in the NFL right now. He has 20 targets over the last four games and has caught five balls. They cannot run the ball to save their lives without the Brissett RPO. Their running backs had 12 carries for 20 yards against the Jaguars, after 21 carries for 44 yards against the Texans. Jerod Mayo’s defense is completely lost. 29th in defensive DVOA before this implosion spot against the Jaguars. And he thinks…
Well, whose fault is that, Mr. Mayo?
Right now it’s hard to see the Patriots as anything more than Maye in search of a supporting cast. They spent so much time emphasizing the idea that they wanted things to be as good as they could before they handed him the ball. And to some extent — offensive line injuries, Christian Barmore missing the season — it’s not really their fault. But there were opportunities along the way to acquire better receiving help, and the defense simply has to be better than this.
I’ve written enough about the Jaguars in the last month. This is to some extent about having back-to-back London island games, and to another just about how the NFL schedules island games in small blocks. (Nobody needs back-to-back-to-back national Steelers or Jets games.) Trevor Lawrence has played better since the Week 4 debacle. I don’t think you can quite count the Jaguars out of the playoffs on account of how rough the AFC as a whole is. But that defense needs to get better in a hurry. (And Doug Pederson needs to admit this is a Tank Bigsby show.)
Texans 22 at Packers 24
Wrote about this Texans offensive line last week and Packers DC Jeff Hafley was apparently reading. The Packers absolutely dominated this game. The only reason it was as close as the final score looked was turnovers — 3-0 in favor of the Texans — and because Houston’s running game gave them enough on some short fields to create points. Joe Mixon was an absolute dynamo in this game.
It’s simply hard to win a game when you throw for 55 net yards. The Packers dominated this game with sim pressures and stunts. The Texans offensive line was picked apart, often to the point of big dropbacks winding up with C.J. Stroud both under pressure AND throwing into a seven-man coverage. a classic have your cake and eat it too scenario.
Seven on the line of scrimmage, and the Packers drop three of them on this third down. Six blockers, four rushers. One of the rushers is completely untouched. Stroud is dead in the pocket before he can even finish his drop.
Seven on the line of scrimmage. Packers rush four, with a stunt targeting Kenyon Green and Juice Scruggs. There are six blockers. Not only is Scruggs too slow to get to the looper, but Green was alarmingly out-physicaled. The Packers basically get two rushers free up the middle. Sack. Punt.
I don’t think Stroud had a great game either. He was (for the first time I can remember) rattled by the pressure. He threw a helmet on the sideline at one point. On the rare occasions where the pass pro actually worked, he wasn’t throwing many darts. He also took 14 pressures in 24 dropbacks.
I don’t really think this is a Stroud thing — there’s not a quarterback alive outside of maybe Lamar Jackson who could deal with this level of pressure, escape it, and make plays happen. This was like Mahomes versus the Buccaneers in the Super Bowl. Nobody had made the entire plane out of this against the Texans before. Now they have. This has been a nagging issue all season, and now Houston has no choice but to figure out a way to cover it up, right? Bench Kenyon Green, or spend a huge part of practice making it clear that he has no margin for error and the team has to pick these up, right?
Right?
Other games:
Bengals 21 at Browns 14 — Deshaun Watson suffered a torn Achilles that will likely end his season and is probably a career-threatening injury. I may have been a little catty about it On Main but I don’t really take much glee in the injury. I am probably too sentimental about the good Texans times that we have all agreed never happened even though they are still in my brain.
Watson has not endeared himself to the Browns fans enough to get booed when he was carted off, and that struck the ire of Browns players. I don’t think the reaction the fans or players had was out of line. Fans have seen this trade torpedo their franchise. (And to be fair, they booed Watson when lineups were announced too.) Players are forced to block out so much outside noise to do their jobs that they have to just kind of accept Watson for who he is in front of them rather than his wider reputation. And when you “attack” them on the field when they’re hurt after giving their all, it’s a broad crossing of the social norms we’ve drawn.
I don’t think anybody will miss Watson now that he’s gone. In fact, the Browns probably get better without him. What this does is cloud the future of the franchise further, because there’s probably no way they can kick the can down the road on his contract again. There’s also probably not a way where you can bring him back trying to rehab this next offseason and pretend he’s your locked in starter. And then, you know, will the head coach and general manager still be here? There’s a lot left to be answered for.
Chiefs 28 at 49ers 18 — Rough 49ers runout. Brandon Aiyuk down with what looks like a torn ACL — great job holding out into camp by him to secure the bag — Deebo Samuel essentially inactive with an illness, and Jauan Jennings leaves with a hip injury. Brock Purdy has one of his roughest games as a pro, with a goal-line pick among three interceptions. The Chiefs continue to not have to do anything but exist and win games with ball-control offense and defense.
Lions 31 at Vikings 29 — What a barnburner. The Vikings land the first punch with three scoreless drives, the Lions counter with three touchdowns, ultimately the game goes back and forth before the Vikings take a 29-28 lead by fumble-sixing a playing-through-injury-how David Montgomery. The Lions kick a go-ahead field goal with 15 seconds left. The Vikings are not going away, folks. I know we’re going to have fight the people who meme too literally about Sam Darnold’s MVP credentials when it’s a scheme and player thing, but that defense is damn good and they aren’t going to need to score 30 points to win most games.
Someone should show this play to the Texans.
Seahawks 34 at Falcons 14 — Down 24-14 and driving in Seattle territory, Kirk Cousins got fumble-sixed. Then he got picked off twice more on the ensuing two drives to put the game out of reach. DK Metcalf got carted off in the third quarter and I guess I’d characterize the updates as more optimistic sounding than not, but that’s never great. Seattle gets a huge win to put them at 4-2 in the NFC Wild Card chase — unlike the AFC, this is actually a tough nut to crack. Michael Penix made his debut in the loss in garbage time and completed exactly one pass while “Jase McClellan” ran the clock out. These guys do know that they could actually let Penix build some confidence, right?
Titans 10 at Bills 34 — Mason Rudolph started for Will Levis, who is suffering from “weakened” arm strength in his throwing shoulder. Rudolph is a different kind of bad than Levis — a lawful neutral quarterback to Levis’ chaotic evil. Against a team that was running up against issues itself, Rudolph and a tangible run game could have kept things close. The Bills cosplayed as that team for a quarter, but ultimately scored 27 points in the second half to conclusively route the Titans.
Eagles 28 at Giants 3 — When I said that Stroud had a Daniel Jones line, I meant that literally. Jones went 14-of-21 for 99 yards and took seven sacks in a performance that had Bryan Knowles of FTN frantically updating us about the record for sacks in a game for most of the first half. Saquon Barkley ran for 176 yards on 17 carries in his revenge game. The revenge was served cold.
Dolphins 10 at Colts 16 — It’s been a long time since Anthony Richardson’s opening hail storm against the Texans and what we’ve mostly learned since then is that Richardson is every bit the hit-or-miss player we thought he was. He completed just 10-of-24 passes for 129 yards, though he at least ran for 56 yards as well. The Colts are now 4-3 with uninspiring one-score wins over the Dolphins, Titans, Steelers, and Bears. If they can uninspiringly beat the Texans next week, they’ll be tied for the division lead. God bless the terrible AFC, because nothing we’ve seen from the Colts this year has been remotely inspiring.
Raiders 15 at Rams 20 — Gardner Minshew turned the ball over four times, one a fumble-six, which he called “unacceptable” and “not fair to his team” after taking over for Aidan O’Connell mid-game. O’Connell reportedly suffered a broken thumb. He’s right — it is unfair that this Rams outfit without Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp was allowed to win a football game just because Gardner Minshew is bad. Jared Verse, who ate up the middle of the Raiders offensive line, deserves some real credit.
Panthers 7 at Commanders 40 — A bleak timeline is one in which you start Andy Dalton because he’s your most credible quarterback, you lose by 33 points in a game in which the other team’s franchise-altering quarterback gets hurt, and then you have to defend your commitment to Andy Dalton. If I were Dave Canales I’d be handsome, but troubled.
Jets 15 at Steelers 37 — I watched the Mets game. It did not end well for yours truly. The Dodgers did a pretty devastating diss against me when they saw my grandma drive me up.
If I were the Mets I’d simply find 10 pitchers who can throw strikes and with good enough stuff to not get yacked around by Tommy Edman and Kike Hernandez. That’d be my offseason goal.
If I were the Jets I’d simply not give up 37 points to the Pittsburgh Steelers. When was the last time the Steelers scored 37 or more points? Great question. The answer: Sunday Night Football, Week 11, 2021 against the Chargers. Brandon Staley’s defense came to play for late-career Ben Roethlisberger.
I am definitely not a Patriots fan, but you may be too harsh. Maybe it took five weeks for Maye to be ready to play. Maybe the Patriots looked at the teams they were playing the first five weeks and decided it would be better to avoid having Maye go up against those defenses. Maybe they decided it would take five weeks to work through the dumpster fire of an O-line to find a combination that would be least likely to get Maye killed. Maybe they decided a full 17 game schedule with that offense would irreparably damage Maye’s psyche and turn him into David Carr. Indianapolis has taken the opposite approach with their guy, and I haven’t read you lauding them to the heavens for doing so, and maybe with Flacco they would have a better record.