NFL

Herbert is good, but he isn’t exactly winning the big games. This has been the main criticism for Kirk Cousins in that he can’t win the big game, but Herbert doesn’t seem to be able to do this either. This seems especially true after losing in terrible fashion in the playoffs last year. Unless he leaves for another team, it seems he will also rarely make the playoffs (Cousins has made the playoffs 4 times) or win the division (Cousins has no division titles). Kirk Cousins had Rodgers blocking division titles, and Herbert has Mahomes blocking him from division titles too.

Please don’t bring up coaching or not having a defense because Cousins could use those same excuses.

Is it fair to say Herbert is destined to be the NFL’s new Kirk Cousins in being a fantasy football star and produce great stats, but not ever really being able to win the important games consistently? I’m aware he’s only 24, but he seems destined to have the career arc of Cousins. This isn’t saying he’s a bad QB, but just won’t ever be on the same level as Lamar/Mahomes/Hurts/Allen just as Cousins wasn’t on the same level as Brady/Rodgers/Wilson/Brees.

I don't understand how QBR works. In Raiders/Chiefs game yesterday, O'Connell had a better QBR than Mahomes even though he wasn't better than Mahomes in a single quarterback related stat. What's up with that? Is it Mahomes' rushing stats that dragged his QBR down? No fumbles for either of them, so I'm totally confused.

Hurts has 8 straight victories when trailing by double digits at any point in the game. NO other QB has more than 4.

Hurts has won 15 straight regular season games against teams with a winning record. He passed Peyton Manning / Vinny Testaverde (both them had 13)

Also, when the Eagles are TIED or LOSING Hurts has completed 71% of his passes for 1,710 yards with 14 TD’s 1 INT. 114.4 rating

When trailing in the second half this season Hurts had a completion rate of 67.6 for 686 yards 10 TD’s 0 INT. 136.6 passer rating

Hurts has also had 11 rushing TD’s this season. Making NFL history as the first qb to have 10+ Rushing TD’s in 2 consecutive seasons (Hurts has 3 seasons)

Do what you will with this information.

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“The trade for Bryce Young was a Tepper call. Paying Matt Rhule…was a Tepper call…they’re screwed if Bryce Young doesn’t figure it out…there is no fix for a meddlesome owner.”

@MichaelRyanRuiz, @Stugotz790, and the crew react to the firing of Frank Reich.

For a few game minutes in the first half, the In stadium (and thus the tv clock) was not working. The officials asked several times and then asked for them to be turned off. It was pretty cool to see an official giving updates to coaches and players on the game clock in real time including “this is the 2 minute warning” out of nowhere. Eventually there was a funny moment where the head referee, exasperated, asked the game clock operator to “please turn off all the clocks until they are fixed.”

It was a kind of funny and interesting thing to see happen in real….time.

Reich now has a 41-43 record throughout his coaching career.

Do you think it would help the situation if say, the referee, umpire, and back judge had to face media questions for 10-15 minutes post game? Or would it just be a lot of non-answers and make people even more upset?

Why do NFL teams in tight games still try to ice the kicker. I'm specifically looking at you McDermott. It feels like it rarely works,and seems like more of a tradition at this point,than a legitimate strategy. I feel like an analytics person needs to take a look at this,it seems wildly ineffective,and inefficient.

Like if you have a high powered offense,why wouldn't you want the ball back with 20ish seconds on the clock,and 2 timeouts. Philly's defense was looking gassed too.

Since the AFC was done after Sunday I fired up the BBC Micro to try to figure some stuff out. Apologies to the purists for my use of odd three-letter abbreviations for some teams. Usual caveats with the numbers and I don't factor in tie-games as a possibility in the calculations as they make everything unreadable for such a rare event.

• BAL, CLE, PIT, MIA, KCC, and JAC could all lose out and still have a chance to make the playoffs.
• The BBCM says BUF, NEP, LVR, LAC, TEN, and IND need to reach 7 wins to have any mathematical chance. It says CIN, NYJ, DEN, and HOU would need 8 wins.
• Getting to 12 wins should assure a playoff spot.
• By the powers of public school math, the teams that can't reach 12 wins aka CIN, BUF, NEP, NYJ, LVR, LAC, TEN do not currently control their own destiny.
• The computer thingy spit out a realistically likely win number for a playoff spot (i.e. wildcard) being barely under 10 for the first time this season. Call it 10 to likely be good enough without tiebreakers coming into play, 9 is risky but looking certainly reasonable now.
• Semi-reasonable projections for wins likely to take the divisions (i.e. roughly 2nd place + 1W or winning tiebreaker) are: AFC East 9-10 wins, North 11-12 wins, South 10-11 wins, West 10-11 wins.
• Looks like the Patriots will be eliminated with a loss and basically there being football on Sunday, computer says a win by PIT, TEN, HOU, CLE, or CIN does it, I didn't take the time to triple-manually-check that intel though.
• My subjective analysis has BAL being "realistically in" as they could drunken stupor to another win or two to be safe, NEP, TEN, LAC, NYJ and LVR being "realistically out" as they would need divine intervention to get to a win total that has a reasonable chance. Obviously this is subject to change if any of them start on an actual winning streak journey.
• For the teams in the middle of the fight, as in not on either of my nice or naughty lists above, there are four intra-conference games (LAC v NEP, IND v TEN, CIN v JAC, DEN v HOU), and the BBCM says the non-combatant contenders are better off with the following outcomes: Everyone better off with NEP, TEN, and JAC wins (slamming the door on LAC and CIN while bringing IND back down to earth in the wildcard race); For the DEN/HOU game, computer says BUF, MIA, and JAC are better off with a DEN win, CIN, CLE, PIT, KCC, IND are better off with a HOU win.

400+ yard games with Matt Canada: 0 (out of 44)

400+ yard games with Eddie Faulkner: 1 (out of 1)

I know I’m beating a dead horse, but Matt Canada was the worst

How hard is it to put all the games into the weekly highlights playlist? Please get your stuff together

Russell Wilson reached 20 passing touchdowns on the season against the Browns, becoming the first Broncos QB to do so since Peyton Manning. The Broncos passing touchdowns leader each year since 2014:

2014: Peyton Manning (39)

2015: Brock Osweiler (10)

2016: Trevor Siemian (18)

2017: Trevor Siemian (12)

2018: Case Keenum (18)

2019: Drew Lock (7)

2020: Drew Lock (16)

2021: Teddy Bridgewater (18)

2022: Russell Wilson (16)

2023: Russell Wilson (20)

I am utterly heartbroken and don’t know what to do. Go Bills 😞 sad kazoo sounds

Next week the eagles will officially clinch the playoffs if the following 5 things happen

1. PHI beats SF

2. ATL loses to NYJ

3. NO loses to DET

4. LAR loses to CLE

5. GB loses to KC

Despite all the turnovers, they were still in the game until the end.

Source: SNF on NBC broadcast.

Because they've played 1 more game than the other teams with the same amount of losses.