In Week 4, the surprising Browns edged the Steelers on Thursday, and the Colts spanked Washington in London. The Pats handed the Bills their first loss in their new stadium, and the Rams beat the Eagles in Philly. Browns, Bears, Jags, Giants, and Ravens are all 3-1, while the Fins, Bucs, Titans, and Texans remain winless. Chiefs handed the Raiders their first loss to join the Vikes and Niners in the ranks of the undefeated, the Panthers beat the Lions on Sunday night, and the Falcons crushed the Saints on Monday night.
Here are this week’s lines. All spreads taken from DraftKings on Tuesday the 6th at 2:40 pm CT.
Thursday night:
Bucs @ Cowboys (-8.5)
Sunday early thirty:
Eagles v Jaguars (-7) Game played in London, 8:30 am CT kickoff
And for a second week in a row, we have 2 winless AFC South teams competing, so the winless list is guaranteed to be reduced by at least 1 by this time next week
I must admit that I was more than a bit surprised to see that the Jags are favored by 7 over the Eagles; the game will be played in London so it’s a neutral field.
Upon closer inspection, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. Jaguars are 3-1 and have outscored their opponents 104-53. Eagles are 2-2 and have been outscored 75-93.
I’m surprised that the Packers are only 3-point dogs to the Bears, given that Green Bay has a patchwork o-line, a patchwork d-line, journeyman running backs, and just lost their best linebacker (Edgerrin Cooper) to a season-ending Achilles tear. I’m guessing that it’s because Chicago is still starting a backup QB.
Probably, but the way each team has been playing, I suspect Washington with Kaliakmanis may have still been favored over the Giants. He looked like a rookie at times on Sunday but was better than I expected from a third stringer.
They may be 3-1 but wins over Tennessee and Arizona aren’t exactly impressive. Maybe if Jaxson Dart was playing, that’d be different. Not a knock against Jameis Winston, either (the backups on both teams have been doing good work, given the circumstances).
Lane Johnson, all-pro all-star left tackle has officially retired. He missed the last Eagles game for personal reasons.
The Eagles record: Johnson played 171 games for the Philadelphia Eagles from when they selected him fourth overall in the 2013 NFL Draft through last Monday’s game at Chicago. The Eagles won a whopping 65.8% of those games (112-58-1) with Johnson anchoring their vaunted line.
Track the 46 games across those 13-plus seasons that Johnson hasn’t played? The Eagles’ win percentage plummets to 39.1% (18-28).
The Eagles also traded away their all-pro center to the Ravens.
The Cardinals are holding WR Marvin Harrison Jr. out of tomorrow’s game against the Lions, as they finalize a deal to trade him. The trade partner isn’t yet known, though the Texans are rumored.
Well, earlier we were (or at least I was) opining that, with just a few seconds left, you should force the other team to field and run back the kickoff to run some clock.
Yeah, the announcers pointed out that with 8 seconds and no timeouts, if you kick it out of the endzone, the Jags would have 7 seconds to get 30 yards and out of bounds to set up a field goal.
Browns Jets game is ugly. Minkah Fitzpatrick out there still trying to kill Browns players, questionable reffing, Jets fans on reddit are a particularly contentious bunch, neither team is very good. Pretty standard Browns-Jets game, actually.
The runback was almost exactly 54 yards. People online seem to think that the clock runs during the time the kick is in the air, but nope it doesn’t. So, is expecting a 50 yard runback (which takes less than 8 seconds) any more or less reasonable, and will use more time, than a 20 yard pass completion from the 35? Do you chance it NOT flying out of the end zone so it will go to the 20 instead on the touchback, risking a return anyway? The only advantage booting it out of the end zone gives you is forcing them to get the pass completion out of bounds (and yes the pass also includes the time the QB spends in the pocket). I’ll also note that Little has the best leg in the league (2nd best if you put that guy in Dallas ahead of him) and his kick would have been good from 68 (I was at the game last season when he indeed kicked a 68 yarder, and yes I know his regular snapper is out and he and his holder had to deal with THREE high snaps earlier and this one was a bit high too).
The real issue is that the NFL took away the squib kick with the recent rules changes, where for decades they’d kick it to one of the blockers standing on the 30 and not to the deep men (yeah the blocker would then sometimes lateral it back to the returner anyway). They’d use 5 seconds to run it back to the 40-45, Hail Mary the only option then.
In any event it’s classic post hoc criticism, esp. as Dallas lost in a virtually identical situation 2 weeks ago when they indeed did boot it out, and even a 27 yard completion still had 1 second left to go.
I guess the difference is that on a runback, the clock stops wherever the returner is tackled. But if you kick it out of the endzone/out of bounds, they now have to run a play from the 30 or 40 into FG range and get out of bounds - with 8 seconds there’s zero possibility of getting 30 yards and spiking the ball. I won’t say one is definitively better than the other.