What’s up with the Lions? Before yesterday, they looked for real-- 5-1, their only loss a close OT loss against a good team. Their wins looked good- no ‘ugly’ wins; multiple score wins where they looked solid on offense and defense.
I knew the Ravens were good, and were favored to win; I was prepared for the Lions to get their second loss while putting up a good fight. But good grief, what an absolute shellacking of the Lions on both sides of the ball. It looked like the Ravens were playing a Pop Warner team.
The Lions are still on a path to get into the playoffs, but now I’m wondering if their beating the Chiefs in the first game was a fluke. If and when they do get to the playoffs, will the Lions just get blown out? Yesterday looked worse than just a bad or off day. I know there are several key guys out with injuries, but criminey.
Shocking win for the Patriots, who have been nothing but dismal all year long and are decimated with injuries on the defensive side of the ball. I expected this game to be 40-9, Bills.
I doubt this signals anything good long term for the Pats, as they hav to turn around and play the Dolphins in Miami, but it was sure nice to get a 4th quarter comeback for only the 2nd time (I believe) since Brady left. It finally felt like the Patriots were at least getting the basics right, like winning the turnover battle and managing the clock well. I’ll happily take competent, competitive football at this point. Getting an actual division win was a big bonus.
I will say too, I had no skin in that game and didn’t care much who won, but I watched it anyway. It was a lot of fun and the Patriots were impressive. I think that’s the biggest takeaway… The Bills didn’t just go in and suck and give the game away to a bad team. The Patriots looked pretty good for at least one game.
The thing that impressed me the most was the final drive. After the turnover which set up the Bills for the go-ahead TD, the Pats quickly got down the field, did a masterful job of using the clock, and scored a touchdown with 12 seconds left to win the game.
Yes, that was masterfully done. The Patriots did a great job on that drive. It wasn’t a Bills collapse, the Patriots were just really good, and efficient both with time and the plays they ran (as well as execution). I don’t remember blown coverages or anything that made it easy on the Patriots either.
I forget which commentator said it by they were 100% right. The team shouldn’t be at the point where Josh Allen is supposed to do everything. They are still at that point.
I’ve heard that too. Allen is an amazing QB and deserves the praise he gets, but he can’t carry the whole team on his back.
Here’s an article from earlier this month:
Trying to do too much and force balls downfield was once again part of Allen’s downfall. He was 4-for-9 with all three interceptions on throws of 15 or more air yards downfield, and all three of the picks came against the Jets’ standard pass rush, tied for the most such interceptions in a game in his career.
I feel the pain. There were years when the Seahawks were like that, with Russell Wilson running for his life behind a leaky offensive line. Here is an article that evokes that time:
Out of the 5,286 total yards the Seahawks offense accumulated, Wilson accounted for 4,571 of them. Wilson was responsible for an astonishing 86 percent of Seattle’s total offensive output for the season, which is an NFL record. Against the Texans, Wilson managed more individual offensive yards (482) than the Seahawks had as a team (479) in their 41-38 victory. Yes, he was responsible for 101 percent of Seattle’s offense that day.
This was the clincher for me though:
Wilson also logged three out of the four total rushing touchdowns for Seattle, making him responsible for 37 of 38 offensive scores by the Seahawks in 2017.
The thing is, you can’t succeed that way. I don’t care how good someone is, you need the 10 other guys on your team too. It truly is a team sport, as much of a cliche that is. I do think the 2023 Bills are better than the 2017 Seahawks. Seattle didn’t even make it to the playoffs that year, and it was the first year since 2011 that they missed the postseason. If I were a betting man, I’d bet that the Bills will at least be a wild card team this year, but they have some real issues to fix.
We’ll find out next Monday when they host the Raiders. Anyone can have a bad week. Maybe they started believing their own hype so they coasted through prep. Maybe this loss humbled them and snapped them back to reality. If so, I would expect them to handle the Raiders fairly easily. Which I do.
If the Raiders beat them up, well, then it really does become a question of what’s wrong with the Lions. Until then, if I were a Lions fan I would just chalk yesterday up to Any Given Sunday.
I did not expect the Vikings of all teams to not only beat the 49ers, but never let them have the lead at any point. In fact, SF never got closer than 5 points behind after Minnesota scored the first time, and ended up losing by 5.
Though I did find an interesting piece of trivia… The 49ers last won in Minneapolis in 1990. It has been 33 years. So, maybe that has something to do with it?
Two weeks ago, Brock Purdy had never lost a regular-season game in the NFL. Now he’s suddenly lost two in a row, and he threw picks on the Niners’ last two drives last night. Probably not yet time to panic, but certainly a cause for concern.
That’s not quite what I was getting at. Any road wins against the Vikings before 1982 would have been in Bloomington; I didn’t count how many times that happened. The 49ers won in 1983, 1990, and 1992, and not since then. So, only three wins in Minneapolis proper.
The site of the old Metropolitan Stadium is now the Mall of America.
Get out of here! Next thing, you’ll tell me the Giants and Jets don’t play in New York or that the 49ers aren’t in San Francisco. Or that the Dallas Cowboys haven’t had their stadium in Dallas in 50 years
After watching sports for many years, certain places get mentioned and stick in our collective memory. I travelled to Auburn Hills, Michigan, a few years ago. I found out while I was there that my hotel was across the street from the site of the old Pontiac Silverdome. I heard of Foxborough years before I moved to the Boston area. The Seattle Pilots played at a site that (last I checked) is now a Home Depot; I heard there’s a small home plate painted on the floor in the appropriate spot. I expect there are baseball fans in New York who could still tell you where the Polo Grounds were.
Sports are great source of trivia; not all of it great significance. Arguably, none of it is.