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These are excerpts from this article. To read the whole thing click the link below. We'll kick things off with Peter King's mentions of our beloved Rams.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Johnnie Hekker, punter, Los Angeles. For the punt of the year. The story: Rams 6, Jets 6 … 12 minutes left in the fourth quarter … Rams with a fourth-and-one at the L.A. 17 … Hekker lines up at the 2 and boots it. Punt lands at the Jets’ 5-yard line … Returned to the Jets’ 15 … Net punt of 68 with the game on the line.
For the game, Hekker punted seven times, put the Jets inside their own 20 four times, and had a net average of 50.3 yards. Amazing day for Hekker, a huge part of the offensively toothless Rams’ 9-6 win.
Stat of the Week
The Rams defense, and coordinator Gregg Williams, must have been thinking as they flew home from New Jersey last night: “Little help, fellas?” Meaning it’d be nice if the offense pitched in a bit.
In the past three games, the Rams have scored two touchdowns, with the vaunted running game led by Todd Gurley accounting for zero. But look what the defense has done.
Foe......... Yards Allowed... TDs Allowed...... Possessions...... Result
NY Giants.. 232.......................... 1............................... 13...................Loss, 17-10
Carolina..... 244.......................... 1............................... 11...................Loss, 13-10
NY Jets...... 296.......................... 1............................... 11...................Win, 9-6
Three games in a row of allowing less than 300 yards in this offensively explosive league. Three games in a row, with a total of three touchdown in 35 drives.
One win.
This is one horrible offensive team. I know Jeff Fisher is playing Case Keenum because he thinks he doesn’t want to throw a potentially mistake-prone rookie, Jared Goff, to the wolves and have him make a bunch of game-deciding errors. Honestly, though: How much worse will he be than Keenum?
View: https://twitter.com/MikeTanier/status/797806499330461696
Here's one that got away, Darian Stewart, whom the Rams signed as an undrafted free-agent in 2010.
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Darian Stewart, safety, Denver. Stewart is a no-doubter for one of the performances of the year. No player in four years had intercepted Drew Brees twice in one game; Stewart did in New Orleans on Sunday. Then, early in the fourth quarter with the Broncos down by seven, Stewart plucked a Saints’ fumble out of the air and returned it 13 yards to the New Orleans 27, setting up the tying touchdown drive. Stewart perfected the right-place-at-the-right-time art Sunday in the 25-23 win over New Orleans.
*******************************************************************************
http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/11/14/nfl-week-10-seahawks-cowboys-broncos-peter-king
Best Sunday of the Season
Poetic justice in New England. Insane ending in Pittsburgh. Miracle finish in New Orleans. Week 10 had everything the NFL needed and then some, including a Chiefs comeback, the Titans’ statement and so much more
By Peter King
Photo: Jim Rogash/Getty Images
Feb. 1, 2015, Seattle vs. New England, 26 seconds left:
At the New England 1, Russell Wilson, down four points, throws for Ricardo Lockette at the goal line; New England defensive back Malcolm Butler is there. Interception. One of the best Super Bowls ever is over. Patriots win 28-24.
Nov. 13, 2016, Seattle vs. New England, 14 second left:
At the Seattle 1, Tom Brady, down seven points, throws for Rob Gronkowski in the end zone; Seattle defensive back Kam Chancellor hand-fights him. Incompletion. One of the best games of the year is over. Seahawks win 31-24.
* * *
A 1 a.m. phone call is never good, unless it’s a scenario something like this: It comes after a great football game, and the guy on the other end just scored three touchdowns in the House That Kraft and Belichick and Brady Built.
“How poetic,” a reflective Seattle wide receiver Doug Baldwin said from the Seahawks’ bus as it motored to the airport from Foxboro 75 minutes after Seattle’s 31-24 victory. “Incredible, really. They had the opportunity to win at the one-yard line at the end of the game. I thought of that, looking back … It’s one of those special moments you won’t forget. Football’s special, so special. How poetic this is.”
Baldwin said “poetic” twice, and I think if I’d let him talk about it for a while longer, he’d have said it a couple more times. He seemed blown away by the coincidence and the drama and about exactly what Seattle had accomplished capping a great day of football. In a brutal scheduling quirk, the NFL had the Seahawks play Monday night at home, travel 2,687 air miles to New England on Friday, and play the best team in football on Sunday—and the Patriots were as well-rested as you can be, coming off a bye week.
The Seahawks’ defense had been worn down, having played 90, 72 and 82 snaps, respectively, in a three-game, 16-day span coming into Foxboro Sunday night. Seattle came back from deficits of 7-0, 14-12, 21-19 and 24-22 to win.
This was a magnificent game. Did you watch it all the way through? I’m guessing not, seeing as NFL ratings entering Sunday were down an alarming 15 percent across the board. This was a magnificent TV day, in fact, for the beleaguered NFL. Sunday was one of those days you could have put in a DVR time capsule with the label: OPEN WHEN BORED.
In the early window, you’ll see the craziest win-turned-loss of the year, with the first ending of its kind in NFL history: Denver 25, New Orleans 23. You’ll see the Chiefs, at Carolina, with the Panthers’ season on the line, score the final 17 points of the game in the fourth quarter to win 20-17. In the late-afternoon window, you’ll see rookie running back Ezekiel Elliott force himself into the lead of the MVP race in a game with seven lead changes; Dallas 35, Pittsburgh 30.
And at night, you’ll see another MVP candidate, Russell Wilson, outduel Tom Brady in Foxboro in a breathtaking game of great plays.
When Sunday was over, these were the three things I think I thought right away:
• Seattle-New England is the best rivalry in football, and it’s not close; what do you mean they won’t play again except in a Super Bowl till 2020?
• A Seattle-New England Super Bowl is a distinct possibility.
• Russell Wilson is as dangerous a quarterback as any in the NFL, with the softest touch, and the perfect risk-reward combination a quarterback can have.
Wilson and Brady dropped so many beautiful throws into the hands of receivers throughout the game. Just before the half, with New England up 14-12, Wilson and Baldwin drew up a thing of beauty. This is the risk-reward thing I’m talking about. No timeouts left for Seattle. Seahawks’ ball at the Patriots’ 18, with 13 seconds remaining. Clearly, Wilson has one play left and then a field goal try if the Seahawks don’t score. But he can’t take a sack, and he can’t leave the ball in the field of play.
“What happened,” Baldwin said, “is so against Football 101.”
Wilson took the shotgun snap and looked, looked, pirouetted out of trouble to the left … :11 … :10 … “Better be careful,” Cris Collinsworth sing-songed on NBC.
As he faded left, against the grain, Wilson looked. And there was Baldwin, going away from Wilson, fading toward the right pylon at the goal line. “That’s against every rule of football,” said Baldwin. “In a scramble drill like we were in, you move with the quarterback. You don’t want to go away from him, so he’ll be under pressure and have to throw across his body farther to you.”
Why’d Baldwin do it? Simple. All the Patriots’ defenders, amoeba-like, were forming around Wilson, and Baldwin knew Wilson would see him with no one behind him and enough of a cushion without coverage in front of him. With nine seconds left, Wilson calmly launched a rainbow all the way across the field to the goal line, and with six seconds left, it nestled into Baldwin’s hands. Touchdown. “That’s a great illustration of Russell’s ability to see the field and use great judgment,” Baldwin said.
Five times, by my count (including the final points of the night, a 15-yard strike floated into Baldwin’s hands for a touchdown), Wilson dropped a perfecto into the hands of his receivers at least 15 yards downfield. The man’s got a gift, and I don’t care if he was the 75th pick in the draft four years ago, or that he’s 5'11". Russell Wilson’s in the conversation for best quarterback in football. Today. This game he played, against the rested best team in the NFL, bordered on a mensa level.
Wilson and Brady have played three times now. Seattle, 24-23, in 2012, with Brady running out of time and downs in the final minute. New England, 28-24, in the Super Bowl, decided in the final minute. And now Seattle, 31-24, decided in the final minute, in a game that left those who stayed up to watch begging for a February rematch.
Unless …
* * *
Photo: Justin K. Eller/Getty Images
The Cowboys are ridiculously fun to watch
Before we can have Seattle-New England in February, Dak Prescott’s Dallas Cowboys, and Ezekiel Elliott’s Dallas Cowboys, will have something to say about that.
As we sit here this morning, imagine Seattle at Dallas for the NFC Championship Game, on Jan. 22. The two NFC powers don’t meet this year. Elliott versus Kam Chancellor? Prescott/Dez Bryant against Richard Sherman? Not bad.
Dallas-Pittsburgh was a fitting prelim to Seattle-New England. It was every bit as good, with more you-gotta-be-kidding-me plays, in a setting great players aspire to play.
“Old school football,” Dallas tight end Jason Witten said afterward. “What NFL football is all about. Beautiful November day, great for football, kind of breezy, great football city, great stadium, great environment, crowd so into it. Smashmouth football. Sunday evening in the Steel City. One of the games I’ll remember a long time.”
The ending, insane. Elliott (21 carries, 114 yards; two catches, 95 yards; three touchdowns), on his 20th carry of the day at the two-minute warning, burst through the line behind right tackle Doug Free for a 14-yard touchdown. Dallas led 29-24. Pittsburgh sprinted downfield (that’s how it seemed anyway) and, in one of the coolest plays in football, Ben Roethlisberger fake-spiked the ball at the line, lifted up and threw a strike to Antonio Brown midway through the end zone. Pittsburgh, 30-29, after a missed two-point conversion.
Crowd in full throat now. “Back and forth,” Witten said. “All the lead changes, you felt it. What a game.”
In the huddle, before the last drive, Prescott talked to the other 10 players like he’d been there 10 years, not 10 starts. “We’ve been here before,” Prescott said. “One first down at a time.”
The 1,063rd catch of Witten’s NFL life, moving him past Andre Johnson for ninth all-time, was a 13-yarder from Prescott to the Dallas 48, and Witten was hogtied down. The 1,064th was the key to this game; it was just a five-yard gain, with another Pittsburgh hog-tying in the open field, only this time rookie safety Sean Davis grabbed Witten’s facemask. Now Dallas was at the Steelers 32, in field-goal range for the strong-legged Dan Bailey with 23 seconds left.
One more play. Maybe two. Dallas had one timeout left. Whoooooosh! Center Travis Frederick and right guard Ronald Leary opened a hole for Elliott on his 21st and final carry of the day, and he was gone, 32 yards for the win.
We’ve never seen two rookies do what they’re doing, this fast, in Dallas. Elliott, the fourth pick in last spring’s draft, and Prescott, the 135th, are 1-2 in the Offensive Rookie of the Year race right now. I’d have Elliott as the 10-week MVP right now. That last run put him over 1,000 yards for the year (198 carries, 1,005 yards).
Prescott’s the fourth-rated quarterback in football (106.2). Nothing fazes him. Dallas has its longest winning streak, eight games, since 1977, and only the president of the Tony Romo Fan Club would suggest that one of the most beloved players in recent Cowboys history should get his job back.
“It’s re-energized me,” Witten, 34, said. “They’re good football players, obviously, but what makes them different is how much they love football. They are special. My goodness, we have all these big wins, and they come back to work Monday to work, and they just work on football, because they know how hard it is to stay on top in this game. They embrace situations like today, on the road, against a tough team.”
With a manageable schedule ahead, the 8-1 Cowboys are cruising. What great theater.
* * *
The thrill of victory; the agony …
Photo: Eric Baake/AP
It looked like the Broncos were going to get Breesed on Sunday, and go home with a soul-crushing 24-23 loss after Drew Brees threw a perfect 32-yard strike that dissected defenders T.J. Ward and Bradley Roby and fell into Saints wideout Brandin Cooks’ hands in the end zone. Now the extra point would get kicked with 90 seconds left, and the shaky Denver offense would have one last chance to win.
“Leaper,” special-teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis said to his extra-point defense team.
“I heard that,” said rookie Denver safety Justin Simmons, “and my heart started beating out of my chest.”
“You watch the highlights, and you see so many crazy plays every week,” said rookie Denver safety Will Parks. “I heard ‘leaper, leaper, leaper,’ and I just thought, ‘Scoop and score. Scoop and score.’ That’s my job on the play.”
On Sunday, Simmons and Parks were the Broncos’ seventh and eighth active defensive backs. In other words, the bottom two. Bill Parcells used to tell his teams that the bottom guys on the roster would win or lose games for the team during the course of the year. Never were those words so prescient as on this day. In one of the first days they spent as Broncos, Simmons and Parks remember DeCamillis saying in the special-teams room last spring, “If you want to make this team, you make this team in this room.”
Simmons, a third-round pick from Boston College. Parks, a sixth-rounder from Arizona. They roomed together in training camp. The visitors’ locker room at the Superdome was so cramped, Simmons and Parks had to share a locker, their nameplates doubled-up above the single locker stall.
All day, Simmons, who was “leaper,” the man who would try to jump over the center and block Will Lutz’s PAT, watched long-snapper Justin Drescher. He tried to figure when he’d make his move to leap over him, if DeCamillis decided to ever call “leaper.” Said Simmons: “I had to clear the center without touching him, then get my hands up as soon as I hit the ground.”
It happened just like that. Simmons timed the snap perfectly, then high-hurdled over Drescher, and the ball thumped against him. “Hands down my biggest moment in football,” said Simmons. “That’s a win-or-lose situation in an NFL game.”
Of course the ball bounced right to Parks, waiting on the flank to scoop and try to score. Last season the NFL added a rule to increase the excitement in PATs; now defensive players could return blocked extra-point tries to the end zone and be awarded two points. So now Parks had the ball and needed to run three-quarters of the field. “I just look for that orange cone, that orange pylon in the end zone ahead of me, and I knew I had to get there,” Parks said.
I spoke to Parks maybe 45 minutes after the game, and it sounded like he was hyperventilating still. “I dreamed about this since I knew one day I might have the chance to get one of these,” he said. As he sprinted down the left, he tiptoed along the sideline, trying to avoid the white stripe.
At one point his left shoe, a white shoe fortunately (for the Broncos) either landed on the edge of the stripe or came very close. “I know I didn’t step on the sideline,” Parks said. But in the mayhem of the moment, that would be pretty impossible to be certain of. “I took ballet in fifth grade, so I’m good on my toes.”
He made it to the end for the two-point … what is that thing called? “Defensive two-point conversion” is how it was listed on the NFL stat book after the game. Good enough for me.
“Welcome to the NFL,” cornerback Aqib Talib told Parks.
“I don’t know what just happened,’’ Parks said, and he sounded overwhelmed. Would you be, if you were the 219th pick in the draft, and your NFL well-being was hanging by a special-teams thread? Welcome to the NFL, son. You can stay another week.
* * *
Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my quick notes of analysis from Week 10:
a. The Browns will win two games between now and New Year’s Day. I just don’t know which two, though I would guess the Giants and Chargers, both at home.
b. This has nothing to do with his performance Thursday night, but for all the “Joe Flacco is elite” folks—PFT Commenter, I include you—it’s pretty tough for a quarterback with an 81.5 rating (in this era of grossly inflated ratings) and 69-55 TD-to-interception ratio in the past four years to be considered elite.
c. See if that fits in MMBM, PFT Commenter.
d. This is the kind of year—two years, actually—it’s been for Green Bay: The Packers get outplayed by the Titans, and we’re not all that surprised.
e. The decline of Darrelle Revis has turned into the free-fall of Darrelle Revis.
f. Jay Cutler has run out of time. After seeing him fumble due to a startling lack of pocket awareness at Tampa Bay (the last straw on a bad day Sunday) I wouldn’t employ him as anything more than a backup in 2017.
g. You cannot make a better thrown than Ryan Tannehill’s 39-yard touchdown pass to Kenny Stills at San Diego. Tannehill took a big hit and threw an absolutely perfect strike from 49 yards away.
h. Unless, of course, it’s the dime Drew Brees dropped in between two Denver defensive backs with the game and the Saints’ season on the line, 32 yards to Brandin Cooks with 90 seconds left at New Orleans.
i. Man, is Doug Baldwin tough.
j. Philip Rivers threw four interceptions in the fourth quarter in San Diego’s home loss to Miami, which, in the week the stadium initiative failed miserably in San Diego, seems appropriate.
2. I think when you watch Kansas City win the way it wins—victorious in 18 of its past 21, including Sunday when the Chiefs scored the last 20 points of a 20-17 conquest of NFC champion Carolina—it says much about the physical and mental ability of its players. The K.C. players simply think they’re better than anyone they play, and even when they’re losing big to a hot team at home. There’s something to be said for flatline coach Andy Reid and a flatline quarterback, Alex Smith. They just don’t get too worked up when the sky’s falling.
3. I think the AFC West could be one of the all-time great races. Just look at it:
• Kansas City, 7-2, has left two games with Denver and one with Oakland.
• Oakland, 7-2, has a short-week Thursday game at Kansas City in three weeks, and the final stretch could be brutal: In the last four weeks, the Raiders have all three away division games: at Chiefs (Week 14), at Chargers (Week 15), at Broncos (Week 17).
• Denver, 7-3, has its bye this week, and is hopeful Trevor Siemian and Aqib Talib come out of it healthy. The Broncos have the toughest final three games of any team in the league, playing a trio of teams currently 7-2: Patriots home, Chiefs road, Raiders home.
4. I think a good league person told me over the weekend that the league office desperately wants to do something to prevent what looks like a near-fait accompli—the Raiders moving to Vegas and the Chargers moving to be the second team in Los Angeles. The Chargers in L.A. is just not smart. It’ll be Clippers II.
But I think the league is equally concerned about the Raiders leaving northern California, for a couple of reasons: They’ll never come close to duplicating the fervor of Oakland in transient Vegas, and the league knows how valuable the turf is in the corridor encompassing San Jose, Santa Clara, San Francisco and Oakland. They really want to keep a second team there, but probably can’t without Mark Davis taking on a partner, which he has shown no signs of wanting to do.
5. I think, for as much as the league worked on the Oakland/St. Louis/San Diego solution—I mean, for years—it’s going to end about as poorly as anyone could imagine if a second franchise floods a market with a team L.A. doesn’t want nor will support, and if the Raiders end up in Nevada, dependent on the tourist economy. What a potential disaster.
6. I think Tom Brady-Russell Wilson should be a game played every year until about 2026, when Brady retires.
7. I think every week you see an undrafted free agent rising and wonder, “How in the world was this man not drafted?” This week’s awardee: Tampa Bay tight end Cameron Brate, who has the hands of a wide receiver and the route-running ability of a Martellus Bennett and the toughness of a blocking tight end and okay (4.77 seconds in the 40) speed. Good pickup by the Bucs.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Johnnie Hekker, punter, Los Angeles. For the punt of the year. The story: Rams 6, Jets 6 … 12 minutes left in the fourth quarter … Rams with a fourth-and-one at the L.A. 17 … Hekker lines up at the 2 and boots it. Punt lands at the Jets’ 5-yard line … Returned to the Jets’ 15 … Net punt of 68 with the game on the line.
For the game, Hekker punted seven times, put the Jets inside their own 20 four times, and had a net average of 50.3 yards. Amazing day for Hekker, a huge part of the offensively toothless Rams’ 9-6 win.
Stat of the Week
The Rams defense, and coordinator Gregg Williams, must have been thinking as they flew home from New Jersey last night: “Little help, fellas?” Meaning it’d be nice if the offense pitched in a bit.
In the past three games, the Rams have scored two touchdowns, with the vaunted running game led by Todd Gurley accounting for zero. But look what the defense has done.
Foe......... Yards Allowed... TDs Allowed...... Possessions...... Result
NY Giants.. 232.......................... 1............................... 13...................Loss, 17-10
Carolina..... 244.......................... 1............................... 11...................Loss, 13-10
NY Jets...... 296.......................... 1............................... 11...................Win, 9-6
Three games in a row of allowing less than 300 yards in this offensively explosive league. Three games in a row, with a total of three touchdown in 35 drives.
One win.
This is one horrible offensive team. I know Jeff Fisher is playing Case Keenum because he thinks he doesn’t want to throw a potentially mistake-prone rookie, Jared Goff, to the wolves and have him make a bunch of game-deciding errors. Honestly, though: How much worse will he be than Keenum?
View: https://twitter.com/MikeTanier/status/797806499330461696
Here's one that got away, Darian Stewart, whom the Rams signed as an undrafted free-agent in 2010.
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Darian Stewart, safety, Denver. Stewart is a no-doubter for one of the performances of the year. No player in four years had intercepted Drew Brees twice in one game; Stewart did in New Orleans on Sunday. Then, early in the fourth quarter with the Broncos down by seven, Stewart plucked a Saints’ fumble out of the air and returned it 13 yards to the New Orleans 27, setting up the tying touchdown drive. Stewart perfected the right-place-at-the-right-time art Sunday in the 25-23 win over New Orleans.
*******************************************************************************
http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/11/14/nfl-week-10-seahawks-cowboys-broncos-peter-king
Best Sunday of the Season
Poetic justice in New England. Insane ending in Pittsburgh. Miracle finish in New Orleans. Week 10 had everything the NFL needed and then some, including a Chiefs comeback, the Titans’ statement and so much more
By Peter King
Photo: Jim Rogash/Getty Images
Feb. 1, 2015, Seattle vs. New England, 26 seconds left:
At the New England 1, Russell Wilson, down four points, throws for Ricardo Lockette at the goal line; New England defensive back Malcolm Butler is there. Interception. One of the best Super Bowls ever is over. Patriots win 28-24.
Nov. 13, 2016, Seattle vs. New England, 14 second left:
At the Seattle 1, Tom Brady, down seven points, throws for Rob Gronkowski in the end zone; Seattle defensive back Kam Chancellor hand-fights him. Incompletion. One of the best games of the year is over. Seahawks win 31-24.
* * *
A 1 a.m. phone call is never good, unless it’s a scenario something like this: It comes after a great football game, and the guy on the other end just scored three touchdowns in the House That Kraft and Belichick and Brady Built.
“How poetic,” a reflective Seattle wide receiver Doug Baldwin said from the Seahawks’ bus as it motored to the airport from Foxboro 75 minutes after Seattle’s 31-24 victory. “Incredible, really. They had the opportunity to win at the one-yard line at the end of the game. I thought of that, looking back … It’s one of those special moments you won’t forget. Football’s special, so special. How poetic this is.”
Baldwin said “poetic” twice, and I think if I’d let him talk about it for a while longer, he’d have said it a couple more times. He seemed blown away by the coincidence and the drama and about exactly what Seattle had accomplished capping a great day of football. In a brutal scheduling quirk, the NFL had the Seahawks play Monday night at home, travel 2,687 air miles to New England on Friday, and play the best team in football on Sunday—and the Patriots were as well-rested as you can be, coming off a bye week.
The Seahawks’ defense had been worn down, having played 90, 72 and 82 snaps, respectively, in a three-game, 16-day span coming into Foxboro Sunday night. Seattle came back from deficits of 7-0, 14-12, 21-19 and 24-22 to win.
This was a magnificent game. Did you watch it all the way through? I’m guessing not, seeing as NFL ratings entering Sunday were down an alarming 15 percent across the board. This was a magnificent TV day, in fact, for the beleaguered NFL. Sunday was one of those days you could have put in a DVR time capsule with the label: OPEN WHEN BORED.
In the early window, you’ll see the craziest win-turned-loss of the year, with the first ending of its kind in NFL history: Denver 25, New Orleans 23. You’ll see the Chiefs, at Carolina, with the Panthers’ season on the line, score the final 17 points of the game in the fourth quarter to win 20-17. In the late-afternoon window, you’ll see rookie running back Ezekiel Elliott force himself into the lead of the MVP race in a game with seven lead changes; Dallas 35, Pittsburgh 30.
And at night, you’ll see another MVP candidate, Russell Wilson, outduel Tom Brady in Foxboro in a breathtaking game of great plays.
When Sunday was over, these were the three things I think I thought right away:
• Seattle-New England is the best rivalry in football, and it’s not close; what do you mean they won’t play again except in a Super Bowl till 2020?
• A Seattle-New England Super Bowl is a distinct possibility.
• Russell Wilson is as dangerous a quarterback as any in the NFL, with the softest touch, and the perfect risk-reward combination a quarterback can have.
Wilson and Brady dropped so many beautiful throws into the hands of receivers throughout the game. Just before the half, with New England up 14-12, Wilson and Baldwin drew up a thing of beauty. This is the risk-reward thing I’m talking about. No timeouts left for Seattle. Seahawks’ ball at the Patriots’ 18, with 13 seconds remaining. Clearly, Wilson has one play left and then a field goal try if the Seahawks don’t score. But he can’t take a sack, and he can’t leave the ball in the field of play.
“What happened,” Baldwin said, “is so against Football 101.”
Wilson took the shotgun snap and looked, looked, pirouetted out of trouble to the left … :11 … :10 … “Better be careful,” Cris Collinsworth sing-songed on NBC.
As he faded left, against the grain, Wilson looked. And there was Baldwin, going away from Wilson, fading toward the right pylon at the goal line. “That’s against every rule of football,” said Baldwin. “In a scramble drill like we were in, you move with the quarterback. You don’t want to go away from him, so he’ll be under pressure and have to throw across his body farther to you.”
Why’d Baldwin do it? Simple. All the Patriots’ defenders, amoeba-like, were forming around Wilson, and Baldwin knew Wilson would see him with no one behind him and enough of a cushion without coverage in front of him. With nine seconds left, Wilson calmly launched a rainbow all the way across the field to the goal line, and with six seconds left, it nestled into Baldwin’s hands. Touchdown. “That’s a great illustration of Russell’s ability to see the field and use great judgment,” Baldwin said.
Five times, by my count (including the final points of the night, a 15-yard strike floated into Baldwin’s hands for a touchdown), Wilson dropped a perfecto into the hands of his receivers at least 15 yards downfield. The man’s got a gift, and I don’t care if he was the 75th pick in the draft four years ago, or that he’s 5'11". Russell Wilson’s in the conversation for best quarterback in football. Today. This game he played, against the rested best team in the NFL, bordered on a mensa level.
Wilson and Brady have played three times now. Seattle, 24-23, in 2012, with Brady running out of time and downs in the final minute. New England, 28-24, in the Super Bowl, decided in the final minute. And now Seattle, 31-24, decided in the final minute, in a game that left those who stayed up to watch begging for a February rematch.
Unless …
* * *
Photo: Justin K. Eller/Getty Images
The Cowboys are ridiculously fun to watch
Before we can have Seattle-New England in February, Dak Prescott’s Dallas Cowboys, and Ezekiel Elliott’s Dallas Cowboys, will have something to say about that.
As we sit here this morning, imagine Seattle at Dallas for the NFC Championship Game, on Jan. 22. The two NFC powers don’t meet this year. Elliott versus Kam Chancellor? Prescott/Dez Bryant against Richard Sherman? Not bad.
Dallas-Pittsburgh was a fitting prelim to Seattle-New England. It was every bit as good, with more you-gotta-be-kidding-me plays, in a setting great players aspire to play.
“Old school football,” Dallas tight end Jason Witten said afterward. “What NFL football is all about. Beautiful November day, great for football, kind of breezy, great football city, great stadium, great environment, crowd so into it. Smashmouth football. Sunday evening in the Steel City. One of the games I’ll remember a long time.”
The ending, insane. Elliott (21 carries, 114 yards; two catches, 95 yards; three touchdowns), on his 20th carry of the day at the two-minute warning, burst through the line behind right tackle Doug Free for a 14-yard touchdown. Dallas led 29-24. Pittsburgh sprinted downfield (that’s how it seemed anyway) and, in one of the coolest plays in football, Ben Roethlisberger fake-spiked the ball at the line, lifted up and threw a strike to Antonio Brown midway through the end zone. Pittsburgh, 30-29, after a missed two-point conversion.
Crowd in full throat now. “Back and forth,” Witten said. “All the lead changes, you felt it. What a game.”
In the huddle, before the last drive, Prescott talked to the other 10 players like he’d been there 10 years, not 10 starts. “We’ve been here before,” Prescott said. “One first down at a time.”
The 1,063rd catch of Witten’s NFL life, moving him past Andre Johnson for ninth all-time, was a 13-yarder from Prescott to the Dallas 48, and Witten was hogtied down. The 1,064th was the key to this game; it was just a five-yard gain, with another Pittsburgh hog-tying in the open field, only this time rookie safety Sean Davis grabbed Witten’s facemask. Now Dallas was at the Steelers 32, in field-goal range for the strong-legged Dan Bailey with 23 seconds left.
One more play. Maybe two. Dallas had one timeout left. Whoooooosh! Center Travis Frederick and right guard Ronald Leary opened a hole for Elliott on his 21st and final carry of the day, and he was gone, 32 yards for the win.
We’ve never seen two rookies do what they’re doing, this fast, in Dallas. Elliott, the fourth pick in last spring’s draft, and Prescott, the 135th, are 1-2 in the Offensive Rookie of the Year race right now. I’d have Elliott as the 10-week MVP right now. That last run put him over 1,000 yards for the year (198 carries, 1,005 yards).
Prescott’s the fourth-rated quarterback in football (106.2). Nothing fazes him. Dallas has its longest winning streak, eight games, since 1977, and only the president of the Tony Romo Fan Club would suggest that one of the most beloved players in recent Cowboys history should get his job back.
“It’s re-energized me,” Witten, 34, said. “They’re good football players, obviously, but what makes them different is how much they love football. They are special. My goodness, we have all these big wins, and they come back to work Monday to work, and they just work on football, because they know how hard it is to stay on top in this game. They embrace situations like today, on the road, against a tough team.”
With a manageable schedule ahead, the 8-1 Cowboys are cruising. What great theater.
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The thrill of victory; the agony …
Photo: Eric Baake/AP
It looked like the Broncos were going to get Breesed on Sunday, and go home with a soul-crushing 24-23 loss after Drew Brees threw a perfect 32-yard strike that dissected defenders T.J. Ward and Bradley Roby and fell into Saints wideout Brandin Cooks’ hands in the end zone. Now the extra point would get kicked with 90 seconds left, and the shaky Denver offense would have one last chance to win.
“Leaper,” special-teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis said to his extra-point defense team.
“I heard that,” said rookie Denver safety Justin Simmons, “and my heart started beating out of my chest.”
“You watch the highlights, and you see so many crazy plays every week,” said rookie Denver safety Will Parks. “I heard ‘leaper, leaper, leaper,’ and I just thought, ‘Scoop and score. Scoop and score.’ That’s my job on the play.”
On Sunday, Simmons and Parks were the Broncos’ seventh and eighth active defensive backs. In other words, the bottom two. Bill Parcells used to tell his teams that the bottom guys on the roster would win or lose games for the team during the course of the year. Never were those words so prescient as on this day. In one of the first days they spent as Broncos, Simmons and Parks remember DeCamillis saying in the special-teams room last spring, “If you want to make this team, you make this team in this room.”
Simmons, a third-round pick from Boston College. Parks, a sixth-rounder from Arizona. They roomed together in training camp. The visitors’ locker room at the Superdome was so cramped, Simmons and Parks had to share a locker, their nameplates doubled-up above the single locker stall.
All day, Simmons, who was “leaper,” the man who would try to jump over the center and block Will Lutz’s PAT, watched long-snapper Justin Drescher. He tried to figure when he’d make his move to leap over him, if DeCamillis decided to ever call “leaper.” Said Simmons: “I had to clear the center without touching him, then get my hands up as soon as I hit the ground.”
It happened just like that. Simmons timed the snap perfectly, then high-hurdled over Drescher, and the ball thumped against him. “Hands down my biggest moment in football,” said Simmons. “That’s a win-or-lose situation in an NFL game.”
Of course the ball bounced right to Parks, waiting on the flank to scoop and try to score. Last season the NFL added a rule to increase the excitement in PATs; now defensive players could return blocked extra-point tries to the end zone and be awarded two points. So now Parks had the ball and needed to run three-quarters of the field. “I just look for that orange cone, that orange pylon in the end zone ahead of me, and I knew I had to get there,” Parks said.
I spoke to Parks maybe 45 minutes after the game, and it sounded like he was hyperventilating still. “I dreamed about this since I knew one day I might have the chance to get one of these,” he said. As he sprinted down the left, he tiptoed along the sideline, trying to avoid the white stripe.
At one point his left shoe, a white shoe fortunately (for the Broncos) either landed on the edge of the stripe or came very close. “I know I didn’t step on the sideline,” Parks said. But in the mayhem of the moment, that would be pretty impossible to be certain of. “I took ballet in fifth grade, so I’m good on my toes.”
He made it to the end for the two-point … what is that thing called? “Defensive two-point conversion” is how it was listed on the NFL stat book after the game. Good enough for me.
“Welcome to the NFL,” cornerback Aqib Talib told Parks.
“I don’t know what just happened,’’ Parks said, and he sounded overwhelmed. Would you be, if you were the 219th pick in the draft, and your NFL well-being was hanging by a special-teams thread? Welcome to the NFL, son. You can stay another week.
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Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my quick notes of analysis from Week 10:
a. The Browns will win two games between now and New Year’s Day. I just don’t know which two, though I would guess the Giants and Chargers, both at home.
b. This has nothing to do with his performance Thursday night, but for all the “Joe Flacco is elite” folks—PFT Commenter, I include you—it’s pretty tough for a quarterback with an 81.5 rating (in this era of grossly inflated ratings) and 69-55 TD-to-interception ratio in the past four years to be considered elite.
c. See if that fits in MMBM, PFT Commenter.
d. This is the kind of year—two years, actually—it’s been for Green Bay: The Packers get outplayed by the Titans, and we’re not all that surprised.
e. The decline of Darrelle Revis has turned into the free-fall of Darrelle Revis.
f. Jay Cutler has run out of time. After seeing him fumble due to a startling lack of pocket awareness at Tampa Bay (the last straw on a bad day Sunday) I wouldn’t employ him as anything more than a backup in 2017.
g. You cannot make a better thrown than Ryan Tannehill’s 39-yard touchdown pass to Kenny Stills at San Diego. Tannehill took a big hit and threw an absolutely perfect strike from 49 yards away.
h. Unless, of course, it’s the dime Drew Brees dropped in between two Denver defensive backs with the game and the Saints’ season on the line, 32 yards to Brandin Cooks with 90 seconds left at New Orleans.
i. Man, is Doug Baldwin tough.
j. Philip Rivers threw four interceptions in the fourth quarter in San Diego’s home loss to Miami, which, in the week the stadium initiative failed miserably in San Diego, seems appropriate.
2. I think when you watch Kansas City win the way it wins—victorious in 18 of its past 21, including Sunday when the Chiefs scored the last 20 points of a 20-17 conquest of NFC champion Carolina—it says much about the physical and mental ability of its players. The K.C. players simply think they’re better than anyone they play, and even when they’re losing big to a hot team at home. There’s something to be said for flatline coach Andy Reid and a flatline quarterback, Alex Smith. They just don’t get too worked up when the sky’s falling.
3. I think the AFC West could be one of the all-time great races. Just look at it:
• Kansas City, 7-2, has left two games with Denver and one with Oakland.
• Oakland, 7-2, has a short-week Thursday game at Kansas City in three weeks, and the final stretch could be brutal: In the last four weeks, the Raiders have all three away division games: at Chiefs (Week 14), at Chargers (Week 15), at Broncos (Week 17).
• Denver, 7-3, has its bye this week, and is hopeful Trevor Siemian and Aqib Talib come out of it healthy. The Broncos have the toughest final three games of any team in the league, playing a trio of teams currently 7-2: Patriots home, Chiefs road, Raiders home.
4. I think a good league person told me over the weekend that the league office desperately wants to do something to prevent what looks like a near-fait accompli—the Raiders moving to Vegas and the Chargers moving to be the second team in Los Angeles. The Chargers in L.A. is just not smart. It’ll be Clippers II.
But I think the league is equally concerned about the Raiders leaving northern California, for a couple of reasons: They’ll never come close to duplicating the fervor of Oakland in transient Vegas, and the league knows how valuable the turf is in the corridor encompassing San Jose, Santa Clara, San Francisco and Oakland. They really want to keep a second team there, but probably can’t without Mark Davis taking on a partner, which he has shown no signs of wanting to do.
5. I think, for as much as the league worked on the Oakland/St. Louis/San Diego solution—I mean, for years—it’s going to end about as poorly as anyone could imagine if a second franchise floods a market with a team L.A. doesn’t want nor will support, and if the Raiders end up in Nevada, dependent on the tourist economy. What a potential disaster.
6. I think Tom Brady-Russell Wilson should be a game played every year until about 2026, when Brady retires.
7. I think every week you see an undrafted free agent rising and wonder, “How in the world was this man not drafted?” This week’s awardee: Tampa Bay tight end Cameron Brate, who has the hands of a wide receiver and the route-running ability of a Martellus Bennett and the toughness of a blocking tight end and okay (4.77 seconds in the 40) speed. Good pickup by the Bucs.
