Things You Like to See
The Bengals show us they are for real. It was hard to know what to make of the Bengals earlier in the season. They got off to a 3–1 start, including an OT win against the Vikings, a loss to the Bears and a close win against Jacksonville. But since then, they’ve gone toe-to-toe with the Packers and handily beat the Ravens in Baltimore this week, 41-17, to earn their perch atop the AFC North. It was the team’s biggest win ever against Baltimore, and at the risk of putting too much import on a Week 7 game, also Cincinnati’s biggest win in a long while, especially in terms of where this young team is going with players like Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase.
Cardinals-Packers on the Week 8 schedule. The Cardinals are still undefeated after a Week 7 game against the Texans that we didn’t expect to be competitive. Arizona has already beaten the Rams; now, in four days, they’ll face off against another of the NFC’s top contenders.
NFL offenses go trick-or-treating. To kick off Week 7, Mac Jones tossed a swing pass to WR Kendrick Bourne, who tossed a (slightly wobbly!) pass to Nelson Agholor for a 25-yard TD. Shortly thereafter, Titans RB Derrick Henry took a direct snap and lofted a short TD pass to TE MyCole Pruitt. Later in the early window, Daniel Jones made a one-handed catch on a throw from receiver Dante Pettis, the third Giant to touch the football. How fun!
The beautiful partnership between Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams. In a random Week 7 game, it gives us moments like Rodgers’ fourth-and-3 pass when he rolled right and threw back across his body, as he was falling down, for a 17-yard TD to Adams. Or Adams’s drive-starting catch in which he was all tangled up with CB Kendall Fuller but somehow emerged with the catch. These two continue to be so good. How lucky we are to get to watch them work together.
Derrick Henry has an average rushing day by his standards, with 86 yards and no rushing TDs (but one TD pass!), and the Titans still dominate the Chiefs. The Titans defense stepped up in the 27-3 win, with three takeaways and four sacks, and Denico Autry, Bud Dupree and Harold Landry asserting their presence in the front seven.
Green Bay’s defense makes a red-zone stop. Four, in fact. This is newsworthy because of the remarkable statistic that, through the first six games of the season, Green Bay had red-zone stops. But in the 24-10 win against Washington, the Packers made stops on all four of the Football Team’s four red-zone possessions.
The Bengals and Falcons had good reasons for not going offensive line at the top of the draft. Because Ja’Marr Chase and Kyle Pitts simply couldn’t be passed up. Chase racked up a cool 201 receiving yards against the Ravens, including an 82-yard TD. Pitts amassed 163 receiving yards in Atlanta’s win in Miami, including a 28-yard catch while matched up man-to-man on top Miami corner Xavien Howard, which put his team in position for the game-winning field goal.
New England’s offensive plan is beginning to round into form. This was just the Jets, and there’s still a long way to go. But the 54-13 win against New York showed more of what the team had in mind in remaking itself with rookie QB Mac Jones and the team’s offseason spending spree. Here’s one example: Hunter Henry scored a TD in his fourth consecutive game, the first Pats TE to do that since Rob Gronkowski.
Kyle Dugger’s INT is a bit reminiscent of Julian Edelman’s gravity-defying catch in Super Bowl LI. Far lower stakes, of course, late in a blowout against the lowly Jets. But a remarkable effort nonetheless to keep the ball from skimming the turf.
A second win for Rich Bisaccia. Without Darren Waller, inactive with an ankle injury, and Josh Jacobs, who left early with a chest injury. And without Jon Gruden, who resigned two weeks ago after emails in which he used hate speech toward several groups of people were released publicly.
Dan Campbell, head coach of a winless team that rivals the Texans for the worst roster in the NFL, pulls out all the stops against the Rams. We’ve talked about how we like Campbell’s style, despite the results, and how he started this game against the Rams was yet another reason why. After opening the game with a 63-yard TD on a catch-and-run by D’Andre Swift, Campbell used an onside kick and a fake punt to score again right away and open a 10-0 lead. The best chance to beat Matthew Stafford and the Rams offense would be to minimize their opportunities. The Lions kept things interesting until Jared Goff threw a back-breaking goal-line INT to Jalen Ramsey while under pressure by Aaron Donald. You have to respect how Campbell opened the bag of tricks to give his team the best chance against a team they were mismatched with.
