Picking up from yesterday, the football gods must have enjoyed creating the havoc they did in college football last weekend because they turned around and gave us an extra helping of strangeness in the NFL action as well. The Goddess of Special Teams must have royally pissed off the Big Boss Football God because it was a weekend of failure for special teams around the league. Nowhere was that more in evidence than in the Cowboys upset of the Commanders. Here is what happened:
- Commanders missed 2 PATs in the same game.
- Commanders missed a FG in the game
- Commanders allowed 2 kickoffs to be returned for TDs
- Cowboys missed a FG in the game.
- Cowboys had a FG blocked AND a punt blocked in the game.
That is a season’s worth of FAIL all in one game…
The Cowboys and Commanders combined to produce 263 yards in the return game. By comparison:
- Pats/Dolphins combined for 53 return yards
- Ravens/Chargers combined for 65 return yards
- Colts/Lions combined for 74 return yards
- Chiefs/Panthers combined for 138 return yards.
You get the idea; special teams tackling was not a hallmark of the Commanders and Cowboys last Sunday.
What else went wrong with Special Teams last weekend? Well, the Texans lost to the Titans last week when kicker Ka’imi Fairburn missed a 28-yard field goal try in the final two minutes that would have tied the game.
The Vikes led the Bears by 11 points with less than 2 minutes left in the game after making a field goal. After that:
- Bears return the kickoff to Vikes’ territory. Then the Bears score a TD and convert a 2-point try.
- Bears recover the onside kick. Then the Bears get a field goal to send the game to OT.
- There is no fairytale ending here; the Vikes won the game in OT by a score of 30-27.
- But the Goddess of Special Teams was embarrassed again.
The Seahawks beat the Cards to force a tie atop the NFC West. And the Seahawks missed a PAT in the game in keeping with the Special Teams strangeness theme for the weekend.
The Rams missed a perfectly makeable field goal against the Eagles on Sunday night. It had no bearing on the game outcome because the Rams lost by 17 points.
On a positive note for the Goddess of Special Teams, the Raiders/Broncos game saw nine field goal attempts – – and all nine were good including three tries from 50+ yards out.
Moving on from special teams’ oddities, the other place where the football gods shone their “Light of Goofiness” was on the NY Giants. The team has not merely benched Daniel Jones; they released him and started Tommy DeVito at QB. The Giants were pushed around by the Bucs and lost the game 30-7 in a rout. The Giants produced only 245 yards on offense and did not score until the 4th quarter of the game. Here is DeVito’s plain vanilla stat line for the game:
- 21 of 31 for 189 yards with 0 TDs and 0 INTs
The Giants have now lost 6 games in a row and their record stands at 2-9-0 with a home field record of 0-6-0. Only the Raiders have a longer losing streak today (Raiders have lost 7 in a row) and only the Cowboys join the Giants on a list of teams that have not won a home game to date in 2024.
The Giant’s decision to release Daniel Jones – – making him an instant free agent – – gives him an interesting choice to make. He is going to be paid his guaranteed money by the Giants; he is under the most minimal economic pressure imaginable because according to Spotrac.com, he will have earned $108.1M in salary from the Giants over his time with the team. So, there should be three avenues open to him now:
- First Avenue: Sit back, relax, hit the gym to stay in shape, get healthy.
- Second Avenue: Seek to sign with a bottom-dweller team and get some more time on the field in 2024 with the idea of putting some solid performances on film for teams to evaluate in the upcoming free agency period.
- Third Avenue: Offer his services to teams that are playoff-bound in 2024 as a way for the teams to upgrade their backup QB position. This option probably would not allow Jones to add much of anything to whatever performances he has already put on film prior to next season’s free agency period.
My guess is that he will choose “First Avenue”. It is the possibility of “Third Avenue” that I find intriguing not because I think Daniel Jones is high quality QB but because I really think he would be a significant upgrade for at least nine potential playoff teams at backup QB. For example:
- Bills: Currently have Mitchel Trubisky as backup
- Broncos: Currently have Jarrett Stidham and Zach Wilson as backups
- Cards: Currently have Clayton Tune as backup
- Chargers: Currently have Taylor Heinicke and Easton Stick as backups
- Eagles: Currently have Kenny Pickett and Tanner McKee as backups
- Lions: Currently have Herndon Hooker as backup
- Niners: Currentlly have Brandon Allen and Joshua Dobbs as backups
- Texans: Currently have Davis Mills as backup
- Vikes: Currently have Nick Mullens and Brett Rypien as backups
Finally, tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, and I will be taking the day off to relax with an old friend from out of town who has agreed to spend the holiday with me and my long-suffering wife. Food, wine and football are at the top of the agenda for the next several days. So let me close here by wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and a gentle start to the Holiday Season ahead.
Stay safe and stay well, everyone …