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https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/10/02/n...shaun-watson-patriots-defense-peter-king-mmqb
Rams Are Great, Patriots Are Not and More NFL Oddities ‘Nobody Saw Coming’ After Four Weeks
At the quarter mark of the season, the L.A. offense is humming, the New England defense is bleeding
By Peter King
MICHAEL AINSWORTH/AP
BALTIMORE — We’re almost 25 percent of the way through the 2017 season (28 of 32 teams have played four of their 16 games as of this morning), and this is what blows me away about the NFL through the first quarter:
• The Rams are the story of the year, with the coach of the first quarter in 31-year-old Sean McVay (nudging Andy Reid) bizarrely turning a moribund offense into the best in the NFL in the first month.
• If you had the Rams, Texans and Jags as three of the four highest-scoring offenses in the league after a quarter of the season, you’re officially very smart about football.
The 86th pick in the draft, Kareem Hunt, leads the NFL in rushing with 401 yards—and he’s the only back among the top 20 rushers to have played in just three games so far, not four.
• The Giants, one of the logical NFC Super Bowl picks in August, are 0-4. They’ve lost two straight games on walkoff field goals.
• Sunday: Buffalo (on the road) 23, Atlanta 17 … Rams (on the road) 35, Dallas 20 … Carolina (on the road) 33, New England 30. In the outlier game: Houston (at home) 57, Tennessee 14. Fifty-seven on a Dick LeBeau team, with a rookie quarterback doing the damage.
“Nobody saw a lot of these coming,” McVay said over the phone from Texas on Sunday afternoon. “But that’s the NFL every year, isn’t it?”
* * *
McVay is scary precocious. It showed in his post-game scrum with the team Sunday, after the Rams walked into Jerry World and beat the Cowboys 35-30. He sounded like a veteran head coach, not one who 11 years ago this week was walking across the Miami campus in Oxford, Ohio, scurrying to class as a senior.
“Love the way you guys continue to compete from first snap to last snap!” he barked, all eyes on him. “Great win! Three-and-one—we accomplished our goal of finishing the first quarter that way. Enjoy it! Love you guys. Love where we’re going.”
Then he handed out game balls to kicker Greg Zeurlein (seven of seven on field goal attempts) and defensive coordinator Wade Phillips (for beating the team he used to head-coach) … and told Phillips to break the team down, and then snuck out of the way so Phillips could be the center of attention for a few moments.
View: https://twitter.com/RamsNFL/status/914608887554281473?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.si.com%2Fnfl%2F2017%2F10%2F02%2Fnfl-week-4-rams-offense-deshaun-watson-patriots-defense-peter-king-mmqb
Not only did it look like McVay had been there before at the ripe old age of 31, but he let Phillips have the moment. Smart move. McVay’s made a lot of those. Like running some involved pass plays for Jared Goff on first downs, when foes are gearing for the run and again-brilliant back Todd Gurley, and when Goff can take advantage of play-action to get some route combinations when he knows he’ll have someone open.
“What I like about the offense is I know I’ll always have a receiver open,” Goff told me in training camp. What’s also helped: picking up Sammy Watkins in trade, Robert Woods in free agency and Cooper Kupp in the draft. Along with speedy but heretofore underachieving Tavon Austin, that’s a very good top-four receiver group. McVay’s route combinations create the kind of traffic that ensures Goff will keep seeing open receivers.
“What I’ve appreciated about Jared,” McVay said Sunday, “is that no pressure gets to him. No moment’s felt too big for him, not even today on a stage like this, in this stadium against the Dallas Cowboys. He’s very even-keel.”
Add two veteran linemen—left tackle Andrew Whitworth and center John Sullivan—and Gurley’s impact (596 total yards, seven touchdowns), and you’ve got the kind of difference-making on the ground that the 2016 Rams just didn’t have. Gurley couldn’t breathe last season.
“This guy is a hell of a versatile back,” McVay said. “Maybe he’s not [Darren] Sproles as a receiver out of the backfield, but I think he’s excellent in the open field, which is one of the reasons you really want him to catch balls in space.”
Also: GM Les Snead was on a cold streak at the end of last season, when he barely survived the ax that got Jeff Fisher. But Whitworth was a superior signing. Sullivan and Woods have become major additions. Snead’s architecture and McVay’s could have the Rams in contention in December, and who’d have thought that would happen with a coach who gets carded in L.A.
Said McVay: “We’re growing. We’re going in the right direction.” To put it mildly.
* * *
Think of Houston’s long streak of quarterback futility through two weeks this season: 21 straight games of never scoring 30 points, despite spending $72 million on Brock Osweiler last year, despite trading two first-round picks to acquire Watson this year. But then Watson dueled Tom Brady and put up 33 points in a loss to the Patriots last week, and this week put up a franchise-record 57 in front of a disbelieving home crowd Sunday.
The disbelieving crowd included a disbelieving owner.
“We’ve never had this kind of offense before,” said Bob McNair, who founded the team in 2002. “What was the final—57 points? We’ve never scored 57 points before. That’s sounding more like a basketball game.”
The expectation about Watson was probably unfair to begin. When he was drafted, he was transitioning from a wide-open spread scheme at Clemson to a fairly conservative, balanced Bill O’Brien offensive scheme. It was expected that Watson might play at some point this year, but not the majority of the year as long as Tom Savage stayed healthy.
But in the summer, during the time the Texans were off before training camp, O’Brien would throw Watson the occasional text with a quiz, to see how far along he was, and how much he’d studied in the spring and early summer. O’Brien marveled at never being able to stump Watson. Maybe we should have expected this. After all, there’s one quarterback in history who’s twice thrown for more than 400 yards against a Nick Saban-coached defense. Only one. Watson.
“He’s seeing a lot of different things—third-down blitzes for the first time, red-area things for the first time,” O’Brien said. “I think he’s made some really good decisions. That’s the kind of guy he is. He’s a very calm guy. He’s a very thoughtful guy.”
So far for Watson, he’s started against Cincinnati on a short-week Thursday (win), started against Tom Brady in a Foxboro duel (loss) and at home for the first time against rising Tennessee (43-point win). Next week: The last unbeaten team (at least until Monday night) in the NFL, Kansas City, is at Houston. Every week’s a test with Alabama-like pressure.
* * *
Kirk Cousins Doesn’t Feel the Pressure With Washington Set for Monday Night Test in K.C.
MARK TENALLY/AP
Watching Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins against Oakland last week was like watching a clinic of the position, and not just because he completed 25 of 30 passes for 365 yards with three touchdowns and no picks. What was notable was how fast Cousins worked, how fast he made his decisions, how fast he got the ball out—and how he had zero sacred cows.
In the first quarter, Cousins’ completions, in order, were thrown to tight end Vernon Davis, wideout Jamison Crowder, running back Chris Thompson, tight end Niles Paul, Crowder, wideout Ryan Grant and wideout Terrelle Pryor. Early in the second quarter, he added rookie running back Samaje Perrine.
Entering Monday night’s game against the unbeaten Chiefs, Cousins’ decision-making speed and his eye for every receiver on the field will be a challenge for a defense that likes to throw changeups as much as Andy Reid’s offense does. So we’ve got a great chess match on TV, 2-1 Redskins at the lone unbeaten team in the league, 3-0 Kansas City.
“Each week is its own entity,” Cousins said from Virginia the other day. “But we’ve definitely put some good performances together. Kansas City’s so good and so creative, and they’ve obviously got everything rolling now, and it’s Monday night, in a place that’s really hard for road teams to play.”
You’ve got to hand it to Cousins, who is playing his second straight year on the franchise tag because he hasn’t been able to work out a long-term deal with Washington. But to hear him talk about it, he’s pretty much okay with it.
“Look at it rationally,” he said, “and going year to year isn’t as risky as it might appear. Plus, if you’ve lived my life story, where nothing’s been guaranteed to me in college or the NFL, you might understand my approach a little bit better.
And I’ve always thought that if you sign a contract, and it’s announced at $100 million, that doesn’t put less pressure on you. It just puts more pressure, to live up to the money. So I just focus in on this year, and then we’ll see what happens next year.”
It’s easy to debate which approach is right. Some think Washington should have signed Cousins when it had the advantage and he didn’t have a long résumé—say, two years ago. But back then, team president Bruce Allen had no idea Cousins would consistently be a 4,000-yard-per-season passer. So if Allen paid him like a premier player and he fizzled, he’d be stuck with an Osweiler-like contract.
Cousins can compartmentalize the contract pretty well. He knows the $43.9 million he’ll have made by the end of this year in 2016 and 2017 alone sets up him and his family (he and wife Julie had their first child, Cooper, Friday night) for life, so he doesn’t fret about the money—just the job. He knows he’ll be in demand by Washington and a couple of other teams if he hits the open market next March. So what’s there’s to worry about?
Well, playing in Kansas City, for one. “I’ve never played there, and I’ve wanted to,” he said. “Kansas City’s got an iconic stadium. I’d like to play at all of them—but it’s hard, because they keep building new stadiums.”
* * *
Awards
OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Cam Newton, quarterback, Carolina. He’ll look back at his career one day and think he had better games than this one. But what makes Carolina 33, New England 30 special for Newton is that it came against Tom Brady, and it came with him adjusting to a newness in the Panther offense, and it came with him still getting in peak game shape after off-season shoulder surgery. Newton completed 22 of 29 with three passing touchdowns and one rushing TD.
Deshaun Watson, quarterback, Houston. The kid is amazing. In camp the Texans knew he’d likely take the QB reins at some point this year, but his performance in the past two games—47 of 67, six touchdown passes, with the Texans producing 90 points—is stunning.
Le’Veon Bell, running back, Pittsburgh. “I did?” That’s what Bell said when I told him had 35 carries (for 144 yards) in a 2016 Bell-like performance as the Steelers handled the Ravens 26-9. He’s on pace for 348 carries this year, and if you want to hear if he thinks he can handle that, listen to “The MMQB Podcast With Peter King” this week. I recorded Bell in the Steelers locker room Sunday afternoon.
Andy Dalton, quarterback, Cincinnati. I thought he permanently had “embattled” as a mandatory adjective in front of his name, or maybe had his name changed legally to Embattled Andy Dalton. He did something about that Sunday in the Bengals’ 31-7 rout of the Browns, completing 17 of his first 18 passes, for three touchdowns and 215 yards. He finished with 286 yards and four touchdowns and, for now, calmed the Dump Dalton movement in Cincinnati.
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Andre Hal, safety, Houston. Hal’s first interception of Marcus Mariota led to Houston taking a 7-0 lead early in the half, and his second short-circuited a Titans drive with Tennessee down 30-14 late in the second quarter. Hal has led an opportunistic Houston defense that’s made more plays in the back end than most people expected, and that keyed the shocking 57-14 demolition of the Titans in Houston on Sunday.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Stephen Hauschka, kicker, Buffalo. He’s tried seven field goals in the past two games—from 49, 55, 53, 27, 24, 56 and 55 yards—and made them all. The last three came in the upset of the Falcons on Sunday.
Greg Zuerlein, kicker, Los Angeles Rams. He kicked seven field goals (from 49, 44, 44, 30, 28, 43 and 33 yards) and finished with 23 of the Rams’ 35 points in a dramatic win at Dallas. “Mr Automatic!” coach Sean McVay called him. In a big win, Zuerlein was the only player to get a game ball from McVay.
COACH OF THE WEEK
Dennis Allen, defensive coordinator, New Orleans. It’s been a tough slog for the Saints, one of the most generous defenses in the league in the past few years—and the major reason why the Saints have gone 7-9 three years in a row. But in London on Sunday, Allen’s group pitched a 20-0 shutout.
Only once all day did the Dolphins have a drive longer than 22 yards. On the day, the Saints had four sacks and two forced fumbles. With a bye and then three of four at home, and with the defense growing, there may be hope yet for this perennially 7-9 group.
* * *
STAT OF THE WEEK
New Orleans running back Adrian Peterson, healthy, is on pace for a 324-yard rushing season. He’s averaging 6.8 carries per game.
* * *
Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my brief truths of Week 4:
a. Two games for Danny Trevathan is the least he should have gotten suspended for the ugly hit on Davante Adams. I don’t believe Trevathan was trying to hit him helmet-to-helmet. But in this case, it doesn’t matter. It happened.
b. And I like Trevathan—the way he plays, the man he is. Hits like that simply must get a major sanction, to ensure the players and the public know that helmet-to-helmet car crashes simply won’t be tolerated, no matter whether they’re intentional.
c. If Dalvin Cook has a torn ACL, as is suspected, the most electric rookie runner in the NFC will be lost till next season. With the quarterback injuries the Vikes have suffered, it’s hard to imagine them making a playoff run now.
d. Backup backs on bad teams are usually ignored. Bilal Powell should not be. Jets are lucky to have him.
e. Cam Heyward makes three or four impact plays every game. His best one Sunday was when he snuffed out a Baltimore drive in the second quarter with a brute-force-rush sack.
f. Bill Parcells Memorial Clock-Eating Scoring Drive of the Season: The Bills drove 82 yards in 19 plays, using 11 minutes 20 seconds of game clock, and kicked a field goal in Atlanta.
g. Great video by the NBC crew, showing Jimmy Graham flying to work in Seattle in his seaplane, landing on Lake Washington next to the Seahawks’ facility.
h. Great info nugget by Michele Tafoya just before halftime, talking about how in pre-game warmups Seattle kicker Blair Walsh was having trouble kicking into the end zone where Seattle was about to attempt a field goal on the last play of the half. Sure enough, Walsh pushed a 37-yarder wide right.
i. Not throwing a pity party for the Giants at 0-4, but losing two straight games on field goals on the last play of the game … kind of a brutal way to live.
j. I don’t know how many more big catches Larry Fitzgerald will make in his career. But he is still a huge threat, and even when the Niners knew Carson Palmer would look for him consistently as the final seconds ticked off the clock in overtime Sunday, he won another game with another big touchdown catch. What a special player.
2. I think I have this message for Jimmy and Dee Haslam, as they wake up from a restless night: First, you never make good decisions when you’re angry, or you’re tired. Second, you’re going to go backwards by firing anyone now, or after the season, barring some unforeseen development. Stay the course, stay off social media, and don’t listen to the radio.
3. I think the Raiders, a bit, were victims of their off-season excitement and early success. I still remember Jack Del Rio pumping the brakes with me at training camp on the Super Bowl express, pointing out the Chiefs had won 11 in a row in the division while the Raiders were 3-3 in AFC West games last year.
Now, the Chiefs are on a 12-game AFC West winning streak, and the Raiders are 3-4 in their last seven games in the division. Now that Derek Carr has a back issue, it’s a legit question whether Oakland will even make it to January, especially with rising teams like Buffalo coming out of nowhere. We’ll see.
4. I think Indy GM Chris Ballard made one heck of a trade for Jacoby Brissett (acquiring him a month ago for wideout Phillip Dorsett), and that’s even if Brissett settles into a backup role when Andrew Luck is healthy enough to play.
Brissett is self-assured, has a great arm and possesses the ability to throw into tight windows downfield—if his early play in Indy is true to him. Plus, as NBC cameras caught Sunday night, Brissett is never afraid to show his passion—a trait he might have picked up from Tom Brady—and light into teammates on the sidelines when necessary.
5. I think one of the benefits of actually going to games rather than sitting and monitoring them and then talking to players and coaches post-game is you get to see and hear the real stuff on site.
In the bowels of M&T Bank Stadium, with the Steelers coming off the field after dominating Baltimore, Mike Tomlin said loudly to the players within earshot: “Hey! We got a hot J-ville [Jacksonville] team coming to town next week! Whacked these guys [Baltimore] worse than we did. Let’s get ready to work!” Setting the stage already.
6. I think, not to make a big deal of it in a game in which the whole team stunk, but Joe Flacco looked awful Sunday. “I sucked,” he said. He knew. To have a passer rating of 65.0 is awful—and to have one 26.7 rating points lower than Blake Bortles this morning is even worse.
7. I think Jimmy Graham’s just not the same player now that he was in New Orleans.
8. I think—no, I know—that, if I were Giants GM Jerry Reese, I would not offer the unrepentant Odell Beckham Jr., a long-term contract till I see whether he can keep his distracting emotions and behavior in check. If that means they risk losing him, so be it.
Beckham’s blasé and unapologetic reaction three days after he faux urinated on the field to celebratea touchdown in Philadelphia also tells me there’s no one in the organization who can talk sense into Beckham, which is also worrisome.
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https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/10/02/n...shaun-watson-patriots-defense-peter-king-mmqb
Rams Are Great, Patriots Are Not and More NFL Oddities ‘Nobody Saw Coming’ After Four Weeks
At the quarter mark of the season, the L.A. offense is humming, the New England defense is bleeding
By Peter King
MICHAEL AINSWORTH/AP
BALTIMORE — We’re almost 25 percent of the way through the 2017 season (28 of 32 teams have played four of their 16 games as of this morning), and this is what blows me away about the NFL through the first quarter:
• The Rams are the story of the year, with the coach of the first quarter in 31-year-old Sean McVay (nudging Andy Reid) bizarrely turning a moribund offense into the best in the NFL in the first month.
• If you had the Rams, Texans and Jags as three of the four highest-scoring offenses in the league after a quarter of the season, you’re officially very smart about football.
The 86th pick in the draft, Kareem Hunt, leads the NFL in rushing with 401 yards—and he’s the only back among the top 20 rushers to have played in just three games so far, not four.
• The Giants, one of the logical NFC Super Bowl picks in August, are 0-4. They’ve lost two straight games on walkoff field goals.
• Sunday: Buffalo (on the road) 23, Atlanta 17 … Rams (on the road) 35, Dallas 20 … Carolina (on the road) 33, New England 30. In the outlier game: Houston (at home) 57, Tennessee 14. Fifty-seven on a Dick LeBeau team, with a rookie quarterback doing the damage.
“Nobody saw a lot of these coming,” McVay said over the phone from Texas on Sunday afternoon. “But that’s the NFL every year, isn’t it?”
* * *
McVay is scary precocious. It showed in his post-game scrum with the team Sunday, after the Rams walked into Jerry World and beat the Cowboys 35-30. He sounded like a veteran head coach, not one who 11 years ago this week was walking across the Miami campus in Oxford, Ohio, scurrying to class as a senior.
“Love the way you guys continue to compete from first snap to last snap!” he barked, all eyes on him. “Great win! Three-and-one—we accomplished our goal of finishing the first quarter that way. Enjoy it! Love you guys. Love where we’re going.”
Then he handed out game balls to kicker Greg Zeurlein (seven of seven on field goal attempts) and defensive coordinator Wade Phillips (for beating the team he used to head-coach) … and told Phillips to break the team down, and then snuck out of the way so Phillips could be the center of attention for a few moments.
View: https://twitter.com/RamsNFL/status/914608887554281473?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.si.com%2Fnfl%2F2017%2F10%2F02%2Fnfl-week-4-rams-offense-deshaun-watson-patriots-defense-peter-king-mmqb
Not only did it look like McVay had been there before at the ripe old age of 31, but he let Phillips have the moment. Smart move. McVay’s made a lot of those. Like running some involved pass plays for Jared Goff on first downs, when foes are gearing for the run and again-brilliant back Todd Gurley, and when Goff can take advantage of play-action to get some route combinations when he knows he’ll have someone open.
“What I like about the offense is I know I’ll always have a receiver open,” Goff told me in training camp. What’s also helped: picking up Sammy Watkins in trade, Robert Woods in free agency and Cooper Kupp in the draft. Along with speedy but heretofore underachieving Tavon Austin, that’s a very good top-four receiver group. McVay’s route combinations create the kind of traffic that ensures Goff will keep seeing open receivers.
“What I’ve appreciated about Jared,” McVay said Sunday, “is that no pressure gets to him. No moment’s felt too big for him, not even today on a stage like this, in this stadium against the Dallas Cowboys. He’s very even-keel.”
Add two veteran linemen—left tackle Andrew Whitworth and center John Sullivan—and Gurley’s impact (596 total yards, seven touchdowns), and you’ve got the kind of difference-making on the ground that the 2016 Rams just didn’t have. Gurley couldn’t breathe last season.
“This guy is a hell of a versatile back,” McVay said. “Maybe he’s not [Darren] Sproles as a receiver out of the backfield, but I think he’s excellent in the open field, which is one of the reasons you really want him to catch balls in space.”
Also: GM Les Snead was on a cold streak at the end of last season, when he barely survived the ax that got Jeff Fisher. But Whitworth was a superior signing. Sullivan and Woods have become major additions. Snead’s architecture and McVay’s could have the Rams in contention in December, and who’d have thought that would happen with a coach who gets carded in L.A.
Said McVay: “We’re growing. We’re going in the right direction.” To put it mildly.
* * *
Think of Houston’s long streak of quarterback futility through two weeks this season: 21 straight games of never scoring 30 points, despite spending $72 million on Brock Osweiler last year, despite trading two first-round picks to acquire Watson this year. But then Watson dueled Tom Brady and put up 33 points in a loss to the Patriots last week, and this week put up a franchise-record 57 in front of a disbelieving home crowd Sunday.
The disbelieving crowd included a disbelieving owner.
“We’ve never had this kind of offense before,” said Bob McNair, who founded the team in 2002. “What was the final—57 points? We’ve never scored 57 points before. That’s sounding more like a basketball game.”
The expectation about Watson was probably unfair to begin. When he was drafted, he was transitioning from a wide-open spread scheme at Clemson to a fairly conservative, balanced Bill O’Brien offensive scheme. It was expected that Watson might play at some point this year, but not the majority of the year as long as Tom Savage stayed healthy.
But in the summer, during the time the Texans were off before training camp, O’Brien would throw Watson the occasional text with a quiz, to see how far along he was, and how much he’d studied in the spring and early summer. O’Brien marveled at never being able to stump Watson. Maybe we should have expected this. After all, there’s one quarterback in history who’s twice thrown for more than 400 yards against a Nick Saban-coached defense. Only one. Watson.
“He’s seeing a lot of different things—third-down blitzes for the first time, red-area things for the first time,” O’Brien said. “I think he’s made some really good decisions. That’s the kind of guy he is. He’s a very calm guy. He’s a very thoughtful guy.”
So far for Watson, he’s started against Cincinnati on a short-week Thursday (win), started against Tom Brady in a Foxboro duel (loss) and at home for the first time against rising Tennessee (43-point win). Next week: The last unbeaten team (at least until Monday night) in the NFL, Kansas City, is at Houston. Every week’s a test with Alabama-like pressure.
* * *
Kirk Cousins Doesn’t Feel the Pressure With Washington Set for Monday Night Test in K.C.
MARK TENALLY/AP
Watching Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins against Oakland last week was like watching a clinic of the position, and not just because he completed 25 of 30 passes for 365 yards with three touchdowns and no picks. What was notable was how fast Cousins worked, how fast he made his decisions, how fast he got the ball out—and how he had zero sacred cows.
In the first quarter, Cousins’ completions, in order, were thrown to tight end Vernon Davis, wideout Jamison Crowder, running back Chris Thompson, tight end Niles Paul, Crowder, wideout Ryan Grant and wideout Terrelle Pryor. Early in the second quarter, he added rookie running back Samaje Perrine.
Entering Monday night’s game against the unbeaten Chiefs, Cousins’ decision-making speed and his eye for every receiver on the field will be a challenge for a defense that likes to throw changeups as much as Andy Reid’s offense does. So we’ve got a great chess match on TV, 2-1 Redskins at the lone unbeaten team in the league, 3-0 Kansas City.
“Each week is its own entity,” Cousins said from Virginia the other day. “But we’ve definitely put some good performances together. Kansas City’s so good and so creative, and they’ve obviously got everything rolling now, and it’s Monday night, in a place that’s really hard for road teams to play.”
You’ve got to hand it to Cousins, who is playing his second straight year on the franchise tag because he hasn’t been able to work out a long-term deal with Washington. But to hear him talk about it, he’s pretty much okay with it.
“Look at it rationally,” he said, “and going year to year isn’t as risky as it might appear. Plus, if you’ve lived my life story, where nothing’s been guaranteed to me in college or the NFL, you might understand my approach a little bit better.
And I’ve always thought that if you sign a contract, and it’s announced at $100 million, that doesn’t put less pressure on you. It just puts more pressure, to live up to the money. So I just focus in on this year, and then we’ll see what happens next year.”
It’s easy to debate which approach is right. Some think Washington should have signed Cousins when it had the advantage and he didn’t have a long résumé—say, two years ago. But back then, team president Bruce Allen had no idea Cousins would consistently be a 4,000-yard-per-season passer. So if Allen paid him like a premier player and he fizzled, he’d be stuck with an Osweiler-like contract.
Cousins can compartmentalize the contract pretty well. He knows the $43.9 million he’ll have made by the end of this year in 2016 and 2017 alone sets up him and his family (he and wife Julie had their first child, Cooper, Friday night) for life, so he doesn’t fret about the money—just the job. He knows he’ll be in demand by Washington and a couple of other teams if he hits the open market next March. So what’s there’s to worry about?
Well, playing in Kansas City, for one. “I’ve never played there, and I’ve wanted to,” he said. “Kansas City’s got an iconic stadium. I’d like to play at all of them—but it’s hard, because they keep building new stadiums.”
* * *
Awards
OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Cam Newton, quarterback, Carolina. He’ll look back at his career one day and think he had better games than this one. But what makes Carolina 33, New England 30 special for Newton is that it came against Tom Brady, and it came with him adjusting to a newness in the Panther offense, and it came with him still getting in peak game shape after off-season shoulder surgery. Newton completed 22 of 29 with three passing touchdowns and one rushing TD.
Deshaun Watson, quarterback, Houston. The kid is amazing. In camp the Texans knew he’d likely take the QB reins at some point this year, but his performance in the past two games—47 of 67, six touchdown passes, with the Texans producing 90 points—is stunning.
Le’Veon Bell, running back, Pittsburgh. “I did?” That’s what Bell said when I told him had 35 carries (for 144 yards) in a 2016 Bell-like performance as the Steelers handled the Ravens 26-9. He’s on pace for 348 carries this year, and if you want to hear if he thinks he can handle that, listen to “The MMQB Podcast With Peter King” this week. I recorded Bell in the Steelers locker room Sunday afternoon.
Andy Dalton, quarterback, Cincinnati. I thought he permanently had “embattled” as a mandatory adjective in front of his name, or maybe had his name changed legally to Embattled Andy Dalton. He did something about that Sunday in the Bengals’ 31-7 rout of the Browns, completing 17 of his first 18 passes, for three touchdowns and 215 yards. He finished with 286 yards and four touchdowns and, for now, calmed the Dump Dalton movement in Cincinnati.
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Andre Hal, safety, Houston. Hal’s first interception of Marcus Mariota led to Houston taking a 7-0 lead early in the half, and his second short-circuited a Titans drive with Tennessee down 30-14 late in the second quarter. Hal has led an opportunistic Houston defense that’s made more plays in the back end than most people expected, and that keyed the shocking 57-14 demolition of the Titans in Houston on Sunday.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Stephen Hauschka, kicker, Buffalo. He’s tried seven field goals in the past two games—from 49, 55, 53, 27, 24, 56 and 55 yards—and made them all. The last three came in the upset of the Falcons on Sunday.
Greg Zuerlein, kicker, Los Angeles Rams. He kicked seven field goals (from 49, 44, 44, 30, 28, 43 and 33 yards) and finished with 23 of the Rams’ 35 points in a dramatic win at Dallas. “Mr Automatic!” coach Sean McVay called him. In a big win, Zuerlein was the only player to get a game ball from McVay.
COACH OF THE WEEK
Dennis Allen, defensive coordinator, New Orleans. It’s been a tough slog for the Saints, one of the most generous defenses in the league in the past few years—and the major reason why the Saints have gone 7-9 three years in a row. But in London on Sunday, Allen’s group pitched a 20-0 shutout.
Only once all day did the Dolphins have a drive longer than 22 yards. On the day, the Saints had four sacks and two forced fumbles. With a bye and then three of four at home, and with the defense growing, there may be hope yet for this perennially 7-9 group.
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STAT OF THE WEEK
New Orleans running back Adrian Peterson, healthy, is on pace for a 324-yard rushing season. He’s averaging 6.8 carries per game.
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Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my brief truths of Week 4:
a. Two games for Danny Trevathan is the least he should have gotten suspended for the ugly hit on Davante Adams. I don’t believe Trevathan was trying to hit him helmet-to-helmet. But in this case, it doesn’t matter. It happened.
b. And I like Trevathan—the way he plays, the man he is. Hits like that simply must get a major sanction, to ensure the players and the public know that helmet-to-helmet car crashes simply won’t be tolerated, no matter whether they’re intentional.
c. If Dalvin Cook has a torn ACL, as is suspected, the most electric rookie runner in the NFC will be lost till next season. With the quarterback injuries the Vikes have suffered, it’s hard to imagine them making a playoff run now.
d. Backup backs on bad teams are usually ignored. Bilal Powell should not be. Jets are lucky to have him.
e. Cam Heyward makes three or four impact plays every game. His best one Sunday was when he snuffed out a Baltimore drive in the second quarter with a brute-force-rush sack.
f. Bill Parcells Memorial Clock-Eating Scoring Drive of the Season: The Bills drove 82 yards in 19 plays, using 11 minutes 20 seconds of game clock, and kicked a field goal in Atlanta.
g. Great video by the NBC crew, showing Jimmy Graham flying to work in Seattle in his seaplane, landing on Lake Washington next to the Seahawks’ facility.
h. Great info nugget by Michele Tafoya just before halftime, talking about how in pre-game warmups Seattle kicker Blair Walsh was having trouble kicking into the end zone where Seattle was about to attempt a field goal on the last play of the half. Sure enough, Walsh pushed a 37-yarder wide right.
i. Not throwing a pity party for the Giants at 0-4, but losing two straight games on field goals on the last play of the game … kind of a brutal way to live.
j. I don’t know how many more big catches Larry Fitzgerald will make in his career. But he is still a huge threat, and even when the Niners knew Carson Palmer would look for him consistently as the final seconds ticked off the clock in overtime Sunday, he won another game with another big touchdown catch. What a special player.
2. I think I have this message for Jimmy and Dee Haslam, as they wake up from a restless night: First, you never make good decisions when you’re angry, or you’re tired. Second, you’re going to go backwards by firing anyone now, or after the season, barring some unforeseen development. Stay the course, stay off social media, and don’t listen to the radio.
3. I think the Raiders, a bit, were victims of their off-season excitement and early success. I still remember Jack Del Rio pumping the brakes with me at training camp on the Super Bowl express, pointing out the Chiefs had won 11 in a row in the division while the Raiders were 3-3 in AFC West games last year.
Now, the Chiefs are on a 12-game AFC West winning streak, and the Raiders are 3-4 in their last seven games in the division. Now that Derek Carr has a back issue, it’s a legit question whether Oakland will even make it to January, especially with rising teams like Buffalo coming out of nowhere. We’ll see.
4. I think Indy GM Chris Ballard made one heck of a trade for Jacoby Brissett (acquiring him a month ago for wideout Phillip Dorsett), and that’s even if Brissett settles into a backup role when Andrew Luck is healthy enough to play.
Brissett is self-assured, has a great arm and possesses the ability to throw into tight windows downfield—if his early play in Indy is true to him. Plus, as NBC cameras caught Sunday night, Brissett is never afraid to show his passion—a trait he might have picked up from Tom Brady—and light into teammates on the sidelines when necessary.
5. I think one of the benefits of actually going to games rather than sitting and monitoring them and then talking to players and coaches post-game is you get to see and hear the real stuff on site.
In the bowels of M&T Bank Stadium, with the Steelers coming off the field after dominating Baltimore, Mike Tomlin said loudly to the players within earshot: “Hey! We got a hot J-ville [Jacksonville] team coming to town next week! Whacked these guys [Baltimore] worse than we did. Let’s get ready to work!” Setting the stage already.
6. I think, not to make a big deal of it in a game in which the whole team stunk, but Joe Flacco looked awful Sunday. “I sucked,” he said. He knew. To have a passer rating of 65.0 is awful—and to have one 26.7 rating points lower than Blake Bortles this morning is even worse.
7. I think Jimmy Graham’s just not the same player now that he was in New Orleans.
8. I think—no, I know—that, if I were Giants GM Jerry Reese, I would not offer the unrepentant Odell Beckham Jr., a long-term contract till I see whether he can keep his distracting emotions and behavior in check. If that means they risk losing him, so be it.
Beckham’s blasé and unapologetic reaction three days after he faux urinated on the field to celebratea touchdown in Philadelphia also tells me there’s no one in the organization who can talk sense into Beckham, which is also worrisome.
