Man, Free Monday: Richardson combusts as Texans seize AFC South
The Colts in the incompletion zone, the Raiders are the latest team to let the Chiefs get away with it, and small quotes and bits from every other game on the Week 8 Sunday slate.
Colts 20 at Texans 23
I’ve generally been fairly optimistic about Anthony Richardson’s chances of success, despite writing the chapter in Football Outsiders Almanac to note that hey, maybe we should pump the brakes on Anthony Richardson becoming a superstar. I don’t think the book is closed on him becoming a franchise quarterback. But there are some pretty ugly chapters being written.
I want to point to two interview clips from him at the podium after Indianapolis’ AFC South surrender against the Texans on Sunday. The first one is this:
Listen, I’m sorry, but franchise quarterbacks don’t get to say this. They just don’t. They don’t take plays off when they’re tired, and they especially don’t take plays off when they are in the red zone. Do you get some bad body language moments if you leave Richardson in? You might. Am I sympathetic to the idea that Richardson just ran around the entire stadium and got a piggyback ride on Folorunso Fatukasi? Sure.
But you don’t get to lead a group of men and be the kind of guy that your defensive players believe in when you — quit isn’t the right word — when you give up. When you tap out. If you think I’m too privileged to lodge that critique, actual former NFL players are telling you to just lie next time. Former NFL coaches are telling you that it would never happen on their watch. That toughness is what they respect about you. And when you can’t demonstrate it, well…
Of Richardson’s first five passes, only two of them weren’t touched by a defensive player. His long touchdown was not an impressive strike, as he had in Week 1, but a wide-open receiver downfield because Jalen Pitre fell down on a pick play.
And once a two-minute drill was reached, the Colts were abysmal. Richardson threw a ridiculous interception to finish the first half 2-of-15. They got the ball back in the second half with three minutes left, down three after an absolutely monster turnover. They went minus-13 yards. They got the ball back a second time because DeMeco Ryans ran the ball on third-and-8 to drain clock believing that Richardson would not punish them. Ryans was right. The Colts had two successful plays that drained so much clock with no timeouts left that they weren’t close to a field goal, likely because Richardson’s 26-yard scramble took 23 of 50 seconds off the clock to begin with. Then, instead of getting a Hail Mary off, Richardson got sacked.
Was there a “I’ve got to do better for my guys” moment here? “I’ve been playing QB pretty much my whole life. I’m just a different QB than everybody else. So, people gonna try to point out that I’m not as efficient.” I mean, yeah, listen, nobody is saying you’re “inefficient” if you’re 15-of-35 for 280 yards and three deep touchdowns in a win. Richardson has not reached 200 passing yards in a game since Week 1, and he’s not running enough to make the Indianapolis rushing offense explode. The negatives have not been worth the positives so far.
He can come a long way, and I’m not calling for him to be yanked out of the job. I think there’s space to grow. But the story of his development right now is mostly of a player who the head coach can’t trust to make open throws. It’s not early, and it’s not over, but it’s not looking like a book I want to keep reading just yet.
A brief bit about the actual Texans and the Stefon Diggs injury:
The Texans were more functional than they were against the Packers, but I think that’s mostly about more moving pockets. There were some extremely funny moments from the broadcast tape about the poor offensive line play, my favorite of which was this:
“Our quarterback coach went to our extremely toast lineman and challenged him,” said over a loop of said lineman immediately getting his ass kicked. No. 1: Where the hell is the offensive line coach? Is he just over this? No. 2: Hilarious that the Texans immediately launched a touchdown drive without Kenyon Green, then he had to come back in due to concussion and the offense went right back to being terrible. Never has the value of competent offensive guard play been so perfectly illustrated.
The Texans should be thrilled, sweeping the Colts effectively gives them a three-loss lead for the division. But the things that were, to quote one Texans head coach, about how “Everybody has a bad day” sure seemed fairly entrenched at this point. The poor offensive line play and inability to throw deep without C.J. Stroud getting deep into his bag are making this offense stodgy.
Now you square that with what certainly looked like a long-term Stefon Diggs injury and all the sudden the Texans kind of have no choice but to discover Tank Dell exists for Thursday night? This give me a lot of Jets-Texans 2023 vibes. Except this time the Texans might actually have a running game.
Chiefs 27 at Raiders 20
The Raiders had two red zone possessions in the third quarter that were dead before they even started.
First-and-goal from the Kansas City 4. Raiders went big. Ran up the middle for minus-four yards.
Tre Tucker just gets absolutely kiboshed by Drue Tranquil, but even if he hadn’t, there were enough other Raiders on the ground to make sure this play wasn’t going anywhere.
Second down: pass to well-covered back in the flat, zero yards after Justin Reid buries him. Third down? Sack with an illegal formation tacked on. Look at the running back and tight end try to block George Karlaftis. You’d swear they were Texans:
Kick a field goal. Then they get a miracle interception from Mahomes after the ball is tipped at the line, take over again inside the 10.
First-and-goal from the Kansas City 3: Two yard run, run for no gain. Two extra offensive linemen come on for third down. Minus-2 yard run.
Trying to solo Derrick Nnadi (91), eh? Andre James wasn’t up to the task. Mattison had nowhere to go.
Sack on fourth down where Gardner Minshew tried to dictate coverage and then run for it. He didn’t make it out of his backfield.
And that was when I knew this game was over. The Raiders tried to be bullies, but they aren’t that team. “As a team overall, we’ve got to get better,” Raiders coach Antonio Pierce said of potentially stripping OC Luke Getsy of his play-calling duties. “I’m not going to get into play calling or anything of that nature.” If you’re not good enough and you’re not smart enough, you’re an NFL punching bag. And that’s what the Raiders are right now.
The rundown
Jets 22 at Patriots 25 — When I laid out the reasons I thought the Jets would not be much better than they were last year, I did not imagine that I’d have Aaron Rodgers saying “I’ve been in the darkness. You’ve gotta go in there and make peace with it” in Week 8. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying it.
Drake Maye was concussed and threw only six passes, which means the Jets lost to a Patriots team led by Jacoby Brissett. The Jets outgained the Patriots 5.9 yards per play to 3.9. There were no turnovers by either side. There were no special teams touchdowns, though the Jets did miss a field goal.
I am genuinely impressed at how weird this loss is for the Jets.
Eagles 37 at Bengals 17 — Philadelphia’s defense turned the Bengals over twice, three times if you count a fourth-down stop, leaving Eagles linebacker Nakobe Dean to say “We had to open the floodgates. We had some beavers building in our fucking river of takeaways. We finally cleared the dam out a little bit.” I hate when those beavers are building in my takeaway river!
It turns out the Bengals defense was not, in fact, fixed, and they just played the Browns and Giants. They regret the error. And even despite how good the offense is on paper — sure looks better when Tee Higgins actually plays — they’re now 1.5 back of the seventh seed with nine to play. That’s not quite at “panic button” for me, but it’s definitely testing the limits of the panic button. That panic button, if it had a glass case, the case would be opened right now.
Packers 30 at Jaguars 27 — Jordan Love’s groin locked up to the point where they weren’t comfortable playing him — the direct quote from Matt LaFleur was “I think everybody could see him struggling to move around. It got to a point where we didn’t feel like, and he didn’t feel like he could protect himself.” The Packers put together a 27-17 lead as the fourth quarter started, blew that lead entirely, but rallied for a field goal drive with Malik Willis spiking a 51-yarder to Jayden Reed where Reed got lost in the trash on play-action and wound up isolated on a linebacker, meaning he was effectively wide-open.
Extremely rough game for the Jaguars, not only do they lose Christian Kirk for the season to a broken collarbone, but they also lose the opportunity to trade him at the deadline. Brandon Scherff was hurt in this game but came back. That might lower whatever perceived trade value he has as well.
Titans 14 at Lions 52 — Speaking of rough games for AFC South teams, let’s check in with Calvin Ridley: “We came here, and tried to turn the season around, and get better," Ridley said. "This, this is not good." It truly was not, Calvin, even if you did go over 100 yards. It was not good that Tennessee’s defense got dunked by Ben Johnson to the point that Jared Goff barely even had to throw. They won in a 1950s Bears way, right down to averaging like 35 yards a punt return.
Mason Rudolph’s rushing touchdown led to some good DFS wins, but otherwise there’s not much to talk about for the Titans. At least they unloaded their trade candidates before the Jaguars did?
Falcons 31 at Buccaneers 26 — In the week’s other Huge South Game, the Falcons were able to hold off the Buccaneers without Chris Godwin and Mike Evans by nursing a 31-17 lead after three quarters to the finish. They now essentially hold a two-game lead over the Bucs in the standings by virtue of the tiebreaker.
Earnestly, I was impressed that this game was as close as it was without Godwin and Evans. My preseason prior of Liam Coen not being good enough to keep the Bucs afloat was one of my worst takes of the year to this point. The Falcons, meanwhile, lit up a banged-up Bucs defense. Kirk Cousins threw for four touchdowns — he now has eight touchdowns and 785 passing yards in two games against Tampa this year — and Raheem Morris compared him to Patrick Mahomes. Don’t be silly, Raheem, it would take Mahomes a solid month to throw for four touchdowns in the Matt Nagy offense.
Cardinals 28 at Dolphins 27 — Two big turns here. The Dolphins get Tua Tagovailoa back and … they’re merely kind of okay? They actually only punted twice, but an aborted snap fumble deep in their own territory led to a Cardinals safety. If anything it seemed like the Dolphins lost this game by not running enough — they averaged six yards a tote and that is weighted down by some Raheem Mostert red zone touches.
The Cardinals, meanwhile, simply let Marvin Harrison Jr. actually run some routes that weren’t clear-outs.
Wild how that works. Arizona is now tied for the NFC West lead and (looking down at notes which say that they deserve some credit) … nope, can’t read what that says.
Ravens 24 at Browns 29 — The Ravens turned the ball over on downs twice and missed a field goal in a situation where if two of those three turnovers are made field goals or one of them is a touchdown, the Ravens win this game. But, well, Baltimore’s defense is not in a normal place right now. They’ve allowed 23 or more points in all but one game this season. Marlon Humphrey was down for this one. Roquan Smith has not been the great coverage linebacker he was earlier in his career. The switch from Mike Macdonald to Zach Orr has been bumpy, to say the least.
The Browns are on nu-nu-nu-nu-Moneyball, which is what happens when you recreate what Deshaun Watson was supposed to be in the aggregate with a solid veteran, good playcalling, and an injury to Deshaun Watson. And you still pay Deshaun Watson all the guaranteed money in his contract because you have no choice. Jameis Winston opened up the deep passing game and nearly committed several disastrous picks, which is something I could write about any Jameis Winston start. It’s good to have his chaos quarterbacking back in our lives.
Saints 8 at Chargers 26 — A metaphor for the Saints season:
It all looked like it was going to be fun and cool after two games, but then Bradley Bozeman saw what was happening and said “no, no more of this.” The Saints have lost six in a row and desperately need Derek Carr back from his oblique injury.
For the Chargers, Ladd McConkey had his first 100-yard game of his career, adding two touchdowns, as the New Orleans’ defense continued to look like a beat-up fighting game character waiting for you to input a fatality. Saints players are going to call a players-only meeting, one presumably where they will meet up and understand that they play for the Saints, there are no superstars here anymore, and they should all campaign for Mickey Loomis to send them elsewhere if possible. (No, not really.)
Bills 31 at Seahawks 10 — The Bills continued their beat-em-up tour to take out their Ravens and Texans losses on the rest of the league by bringing their entire fanbase to Seattle and laughing as the Seahawks combined for 16 rushing yards on 12 running back carries. On the other side, Seattle’s defense did not get fixed overnight by the Ernest Jones trade and James Cook and Ray Davis combined for 140 rushing yards on 23 attempts.
Geno Smith told reporters that it "kind of felt like we were on the road at times." 12s, where you at? You can’t all pretend that you got called into service on Seattle’s offensive line, though apparently several of you did.
Bears 15 at Commanders 18 — Did you know that a legacy NFC East franchise won on a Hail Mary? If you didn’t, I’m sure you’ll find out sooner or later.
The story behind the Hail Mary? Tyrique Stevenson jawing with fans instead of playing his coverage. Tyrique Stevenson apologizing on X, The Everything App. If I were a defense-first head coach, I would simply try not to let my opponent successfully Hail Mary me. Makes me look pretty stupid!
Even without the Hail Mary, Jayden Daniels handily beat Caleb Williams in their first head-to-head matchup. The Commies defense surprisingly got quite a bit of pressure on Williams, registering pressures on over half their dropbacks per Next Gen Stats. (The Commies defense was 23rd in defensive DVOA, is missing Jon Allen now, and is as “scrappy” as scrappy defenses get. Though it is worth noting that Bears LT Braxton Jones left early.)
Panthers 14 at Broncos 28 — Bryce Young went 5-for-6 on an opening touchdown drive. Let’s forget anything else happened if you’re a Panthers fan. Just listen to some soothing music. Do anything but keep reading this paragraph. After the game, Sean Payton said “I said this, it’s not a good offense we played. It’s just the truth. So we expected that, and we’re going to see a lot better teams.”
Honestly, kind of embarrassing that the Broncos gave up 14 points to this Panthers outfit. Well, anyway, Dave Canales unprompted said: “We looked like a good offense on the first drive. And then, we just go, I don’t know what it was, seven or eight possessions before we get our next first down. Trying to find a rhythm. Trying to find a run game against a really good defense. And so just trying to iron some of those things. A lot of communication stuff that we gotta iron out in terms of me getting the play call in earlier for Bryce, Bryce handling the information, getting it to our guys so we can get lined up and assess what the defense is doing, so something we gotta do.” Just a few of those things, not getting a first down in seven or eight possessions in a row. Normal stuff.
It’s been eight weeks and I still don’t feel like I know a thing about how good or bad the Broncos are yet.
Cowboys 24 at 49ers 30 — Disjointed little game that gives way to three major takeaways for me:
1 — The Cowboys crowed about fixing their running game all week and then averaged 2.9 yards per attempt on the ground, with 16 carries for 46 yards for Ezekiel Elliott and Dalvin Cook, against a 49ers defense that hasn’t been that good this year. Disastrous. Impossible to work with given the other conditions of this offense.
2 — Dak Prescott absolutely drops this ball on a line in to Kevontae Turpin. It should have kept the game alive, but Turpin dropped it:
Non-CeeDee Lamb wide receivers for the Cowboys caught four balls. Lamb’s two touchdown receptions were wide-open coverage busts by the 49ers defense. Without those, this offense can’t even get to “this is still a game” mode. I understand that 17 of the 37 targets went to Lamb, but this offense is essentially all Lamb right now. Nothing else works! And when defenses actually do something about that, like the Lions did a couple weeks ago, Dallas goes nowhere.
3 — Talk about deez nuts, because they have as much bearing on the playoff race as the Cowboys do right now.
“ The Saints have lost six in a row and desperately need Derek Carr back from his oblique injury.”
I doubt this is something you would have forecasted yourself writing before the season.
Did the refs miss an offensive pass interference call for picking Pitre downfield on Richardson's long TD pass to Downs?