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These are only excerpts from this article. To read the whole thing click the link below. Only one mention of the Rams. There's Rams relocation dribble around the middle of the article but since I hate that topic you'll have to find it for yourself.
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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2015/12/07/chip-kelly-philadelphia-eagles-new-england-patriots-nfl
The Upset of the Season
The Eagles stunned the Patriots on Sunday—in Foxboro, no less—and Philadelphia’s coach had some things to say about his future afterward. Plus a playoff glimpse, an impressive record and more from Week 13
by Peter King
I think this is what I didn’t like about Week 13:
T.J. McDonald spearing/knocking teammate Janoris Jenkins out cold early against the Cards. Clearly he’s not trying to nail Jenkins, but McDonald simply has to play smarter and less recklessly than that.
----------
The game of the weekend, on the football weekend of the season, didn’t change Chip Kelly’s mind about the pro game, or his place in it. If you can believe what this son of New England told me on Sunday night from Foxboro, after a ridiculously unlikely and raise-the-hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck win—Philadelphia 35, New England 28—over the team he respects more than any other in America, he’s entrenched.
“I made a commitment to this organization when they hired me,” Kelly told me, “and I will see it through.”
Kelly, a pragmatist, knows he’s not convincing anybody who’s convinced he’d leave for the next perfect college job, where there will be four or five JV games on the schedule and he can go recruit the next Mariota. Or three of them. “I don’t have to convince people I’m staying,” he said. “I can’t. Everyone says, ‘He’s a college guy.’ It’s going to take a while for people to look at the ticker across the bottom of the screen without my name on it for people to understand.”
To understand he’s staying, he meant. In fairness to Kelly, I’m the one who brought these things up to him. He came to the phone to talk about this game, one of the strangest of this or any season. Kelly knows that no matter how long he coaches, and wherever the coaching road takes him, this breezy 52-degree Sunday will be an indelible memory.
How often do you visit the toughest venue in the league, with your own squad severely wounded, and pull the upset of the year? Together, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have lost 15 regular-season games in Foxboro over 15 seasons. Together, Chip Kelly and the Eagles had embarrassed the franchise in the previous two games, giving up 45 points apiece to Tampa Bay and Detroit, the two worst losses of Kelly’s three seasons in Philly.
They did it by playing a complete game. In the span of 12 minutes mid-game, the Eagles scored 21 straight points, and it was how they scored that was stunning—on a 24-yard return of a blocked punt, on a 99-yard interception return of a tipped ball, and on a balletic 83-yard punt return. That made it 28-14. Then the quarterback Kelly committed to (overpaid for, all of the city would tell you), Sam Bradford, made the second-biggest throw of his shaky Philadelphia tenure: a 10-yard bullet, low and inside, to Jordan Matthews just out of the reach of Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler, a ball only Matthews could catch.
(Bradford's biggest throw: his overtime touchdown pass to Matthews to beat Dallas a month ago.) That made it 35-14, and within a few minutes, had Kelly looked up, he’d have seen more than a few Patriots fans walking to the exits, shocked at this impossible result.
“I’m just really proud of my players,” Kelly said. “I can’t say enough about them. Our guys were great this week. Really, when we came out of Detroit, I still thought we had a good team. When we got the players together this week, I said to them, ‘Sometimes you don’t see what we see.’ We saw a lot of good things, and those two games, I thought were uncharacteristic of the type of team we had.”
Photo: Steven Senne/AP
Chip Kelly’s Eagles got the better of Bill Belichick’s Patriots on Sunday.
Those two games were Mark Sanchez starts, after a concussion and left shoulder injury KO’d Bradford for two-and-a-half games. New England would be Bradford’s first game back. “When he went out,” Kelly said, “Sam was really getting better. We traded for him for a reason. At the time he got hurt against Miami, he had a 118 quarterback rating. That’s the kind of player we knew he was. Today, on the touchdown to Matthews, he showed it. And that conversion to Riley Cooper on third-and-11 [a 14-yard completion for a first down with less than three minutes to play] … that was big. That’s Sam.”
So now the Eagles have life. How much life will be determined beginning tonight, with Dallas at division-leading Washington. The Eagles, 5-7, are tied with the Giants a half-game back of 5-6 Washington; Philadelphia has the next three games at home, starting with the grudge match of LeSean McCoy returning with 7-5 Buffalo on Sunday.
Whether the Eagles can scratch out a playoff spot in a bad division, I’m sure there are many—most, maybe—in Philadelphia who have a love-hate relationship with Kelly. He came in as an offensive guru, a quarterback whisperer, and since Nick Foles had the season of his life in 2013, the Eagles have struggled at the position. Mightily. They may have to look for a quarterback again this offseason, when potential free agent Bradford could sign elsewhere. But the biggest mistake of all would be to lose Kelly. He’s had some skirmishes with his players. That’s because what he’s done early hasn’t resulted in a big winner or a solution at quarterback.
He’s made some poor decisions—the biggest of which was paying pedestrian corner Byron Maxwell like a star, continuing a long Eagles tradition of screwing up the secondary badly—and needs an improved player personnel staff to take some of that heat off him. But he’s the same smart guy Jeffrey Lurie waited for 35 months ago. He’s 25-20. Not great, but not a debacle. For once, Philadelphians need to match the owner’s patience. Remember how Lurie gave Andy Reid 14 years? He’s certainly not going to look to move on from Kelly after three. Nor does Kelly have wanderlust. I still feel this strongly: Kelly’s an imaginative coach with good ideas, and there’s a good chance he’s going to win big in Philadelphia. Sunday showed that with this guy, miracles are possible.
* * *
A Playoff Glimpse
What a day. The weekend that began with the longest successful Hail Mary in NFL history was punctuated Sunday night with the Steelers absolutely beating the stuffing out of the Colts, who haven’t looked this bad since the Deflategate game.
The Sunday game raised an interesting situation: If the playoffs started today, one of the best teams in the league wouldn’t be in them. Let’s look at the matchups, complete with the TV schedule that I’m guessing at:
SATURDAY, JAN. 9
Late afternoon: No. 5 Minnesota (8-4) at No. 4 Washington (5-6), NFC
Night: No. 6 New York Jets (7-5) at No. 3 New England (10-2), AFC
SUNDAY, JAN 10
Early afternoon: No. 5 Kansas City (7-5) at No. 4 Indianapolis (6-6), AFC
Late afternoon: No. 6 Seattle (7-5) at No. 3 Green Bay (8-4), NFC
Jets-Patriots, TV gold. Seahawks-Packers, TV platinum.
But what is wrong with this picture? No Steelers. After watching Pittsburgh lay waste to the last month of its schedule—the only scar was a 39-30 shootout with the Seahawks eight days ago in Seattle—the Steelers are certainly one of the best 12 teams in the league. They’re certainly one of the eight best. Maybe five. So let’s see how they match up the rest of the way with their competitors for the two AFC wild-card spots:
Kansas City (7-5): San Diego, at Baltimore, Cleveland, Oakland.
New York Jets (7-5): Tennessee, at Dallas, New England, at Buffalo.
Pittsburgh (7-5): at Cincinnati, Denver, at Baltimore, at Cleveland.
I’m giving one of the spots to Kansas City. The Chiefs might go 4-0 against that schedule. Amazing that Kansas City could start this season 1-5 and finish 10-0. Could. To ensure a good shot at the second wild card (and with a three-game deficit in the AFC North, catching the Bengals seems impossible for Pittsburgh), the Steelers will probably have to go 3-1. Which means they’ll have to win at Cincinnati or beat the Fighting Osweilers at home.
If they stay hot, the Chiefs and Steelers in the playoffs would be the best 5-6 seeds in the AFC since the Ravens and Jets made it with 12 and 11 wins, respectively, in 2010. And they would give a strong No. 3 seed—like New England—a very tough wild-card game, unlike most 6 versus 3 games.
In the NFC, there’s less drama, because Seattle and the second-place team in the North don’t have much competition for the wild-cards. But watch Tampa Bay. The Bucs (6-6) have won three out of four, have swept Atlanta, and play sub-.500 teams the next three weeks.
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“There is a perception now that officiating is not very good. But the reality is that the officiating is very good. Our officials are averaging 4.3 mistakes per game. [The league averages about 160 plays per game.] When you think about those numbers ... the number of decisions our officials have to make before each play, during each play, after each play … We are talking about a very small number of mistakes.
We’re talking about a handful of plays that have happened in high-profile situations. Now those have been mistakes. We own them. We have to make the corrections to ensure they don’t happen again. But we are talking about a handful of plays … They see it once, in real time, in full speed. And then we all get to evaluate them from multiple different angles, with high definition, slow-motion replay. So we understand where the standard is, and we are going to work to meet that standard. But our officials are very, very good at what they do.”
—NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino, responding Friday to the torrent of criticism of NFL officiating this season.
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The Award Section
OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
So many candidates. So many great performances over the weekend. I have two regrets: 1) Leaving out Sam Bradford; he was terrific when it mattered; 2) Jameis Winston was awfully good too. I thought five offensive days were better.
Antonio Brown, wide receiver/punt-returner, Pittsburgh. With apologies to Ben Roethlisberger, who was spectacular Sunday night in the rout of the Colts, I’m giving Brown the edge here, for his diverse night in the 45-10 win over the severely outmanned Colts. Brown caught eight balls for 118 yards and two touchdowns, and he relieved the fumbly Jacoby Jones as punt returner and cavorted through the Colts for a 71-yard nightcap of a return touchdown. Lots of great receivers in football. Brown might be the most dangerous.
Brandon Marshall, wide receiver, New York Jets. Players prefer to set records in the course of playing great—and being important in a big victory. That was Marshall in the 23-20 overtime thriller over the Giants in their once-every-four-years game. Marshall became the first player in NFL history to have 1,000-yard receiving seasons with four different teams with his 12-catch (on 13 targets), 131-yard effort. His nine-yard touchdown grab from Ryan Fitzpatrick late in the fourth quarter sent the game into overtime.
Marcus Mariota, quarterback, Tennessee. Mariota continued to show he’s the Titans’ long-term solution at the most important position. His 87-yard touchdown run, the longest run in the NFL this season, gave Tennessee a 35-32 lead midway through the fourth quarter, and he supplemented his 112-yard rushing game with a 20-of-29, three-touchdown game in the Titans’ first win at home since midway in 2014. Mariota’s the genuine item, if you didn’t see it yet.
Cam Newton, quarterback, Carolina. The Panthers’ 41-38 win at New Orleans kept them unbeaten (12-0), and, in my opinion, catapulted Newton into the lead for the MVP award. Trailing 16-13 at the half, Newton ended 79-, 60-, 80- and 75-yard second-half drives with touchdown passes in a game that was extremely tough to finish. The Saints were the classic Drew Brees Saints; Newton had to be up for the duel, and he was: 28 of 41, 331 yards, five touchdowns, one pick, for a rating of 122.1. For the second time in 15 days, Newton threw for five touchdowns—and Carolina needed every one of them this time.
Russell Wilson, quarterback, Seattle. Wilson has played a lot of good games in his four-year NFL career. Sunday in Minnesota, I thought Wilson was a virtuoso. The numbers were good, sure—21 of 27, 274 yards, three touchdowns, no picks, 146.0 rating, 51 yards rushing—but it was one of those games you had to watch to really see Wilson’s impact. Late in the third quarter, for instance, Wilson weaved and sprinted 53 yards for a touchdown that appeared to ice the victory. But Luke Willson was called for holding, and so the Seahawks had to come back and try again. Next snap: Wilson threw down the deep middle for Doug Baldwin, who had a step on the Vikings secondary. Beautiful throw. Wilson was in total command in a 38-7 win.
DEFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Malcolm Jenkins, safety, Philadelphia. To call the Eagles’ secondary “embattled” entering this game would be an understatement. It’s been a debacle all season. Not Sunday. In a 14-14 tie midway through the second quarter, Tom Brady threw into traffic at the goal line, and Jenkins pulled a popup out of the air and started running the other way. He kept going, and going, and going … 99 yards for the touchdown. The Eagles were up 21-14 and never trailed thereafter. Jenkins added seven tackles, two behind the line.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Stephone Anthony, linebacker, New Orleans. Anthony became the first player in NFL history to score two points on the return of a missed extra point. This is the first season the defense has been permitted to score on a missed conversion attempt after touchdown. Think about it: This was a three-point swing in the game—the one point Carolina didn’t score as the PAT, and the two points New Orleans did. Instead of Carolina tying the game at 14 late in the second quarter, Anthony’s long return gave the Saints a 16-13 lead going into halftime. And give an assist to veteran defensive tackle Kevin Williams for blocking the Graham Gano kick, making the two-point play possible. Anthony scored another touchdown on a first-quarter fumble return and added 10 tackles in a breakout game for the rookie.
Chris Maragos, safety, Philadelphia. He was a part of two huge plays that were vital in the Eagles’ stunner at New England. Maragos burst through the New England line to block a Ryan Allen punt late in the first half, setting up a touchdown return to tie it at the half. And late in the third quarter, Maragos made a smart obstruction that led to Darren Sproles finishing off an 83-yard punt return touchdown.
Dwayne Harris, returner/wide receiver, New York Giants. Smart alignment by Giants special teams coach Tom Quinn, putting Harrison and Odell Beckham Jr., a magnet for attention, back in punt-return formation near the Giants’ 20, split apart about hashmark-wide. Harris got the punt, and three Jets pursuit players ran toward Beckham. Harris never handed it off nor made a serious move to fake it. He ran up the seam, and then the left sideline, and then the seam again, juking punter Ryan Quigley to the ground. Touchdown, for 80 yards.
COACH OF THE WEEK
Gary Kubiak, Denver. This is not just a one-week award. It’s for how Kubiak has handled the Peyton Manning shortcomings and injury (deftly), how he has trusted Brock Osweiler with a fairly full game plan in his three weeks at the helm, and how he has gotten the running game to come alive post-Peyton (170, 179 and 134 yards in the Broncos’ 3-0 run post-Manning). Kubiak’s steady hand has been just right for Denver, which finds itself ahead of New England in the AFC playoff race this morning. Surprisingly.
GOAT OF THE WEEK
Matt Ryan, quarterback, Atlanta. The Falcons have a problem. It’s in-the-clutch Matt Ryan. The situation: Fourth quarter, 1:39 left, Tampa has just scored to go up 23-19. Falcons need an 80-yard drive. One timeout left. On first down, Ryan throws over the middle for Julio Jones—and Tampa Bay linebacker Lavonte David picks it off. Ballgame. The Falcons have lost five in a row to fall almost all the way out of the playoff race, and they’ve lost those five games by 3, 1, 3, 10 and 4 points. Ryan, with seven picks in those five losses, has to play better late for the Falcons to have a chance to salvage the nightmare.
Derek Carr, quarterback, Oakland. The Raiders led the hated Chiefs in the Black Hole 20-14 with 13 minutes left in the fourth quarter Sunday, and Carr was driving Oakland to a bigger lead. Over the next nine minutes, however, Carr handed the Chiefs a resounding win in what could be the last Raiders-Chiefs game in Oakland. His first interception, by Josh Mauga, led to a two-yard touchdown drive. He second interception, by Marcus Peters, led to a 13-yard yard Chiefs touchdown drive. And Carr's third was returned for a touchdown by former Raider Tyvon Branch. Carr will have some great days for this franchise, and some great quarters. This fourth quarter will go down as one of his worst.
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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2015/12/07/chip-kelly-philadelphia-eagles-new-england-patriots-nfl
The Upset of the Season
The Eagles stunned the Patriots on Sunday—in Foxboro, no less—and Philadelphia’s coach had some things to say about his future afterward. Plus a playoff glimpse, an impressive record and more from Week 13
by Peter King
I think this is what I didn’t like about Week 13:
T.J. McDonald spearing/knocking teammate Janoris Jenkins out cold early against the Cards. Clearly he’s not trying to nail Jenkins, but McDonald simply has to play smarter and less recklessly than that.
----------
The game of the weekend, on the football weekend of the season, didn’t change Chip Kelly’s mind about the pro game, or his place in it. If you can believe what this son of New England told me on Sunday night from Foxboro, after a ridiculously unlikely and raise-the-hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck win—Philadelphia 35, New England 28—over the team he respects more than any other in America, he’s entrenched.
“I made a commitment to this organization when they hired me,” Kelly told me, “and I will see it through.”
Kelly, a pragmatist, knows he’s not convincing anybody who’s convinced he’d leave for the next perfect college job, where there will be four or five JV games on the schedule and he can go recruit the next Mariota. Or three of them. “I don’t have to convince people I’m staying,” he said. “I can’t. Everyone says, ‘He’s a college guy.’ It’s going to take a while for people to look at the ticker across the bottom of the screen without my name on it for people to understand.”
To understand he’s staying, he meant. In fairness to Kelly, I’m the one who brought these things up to him. He came to the phone to talk about this game, one of the strangest of this or any season. Kelly knows that no matter how long he coaches, and wherever the coaching road takes him, this breezy 52-degree Sunday will be an indelible memory.
How often do you visit the toughest venue in the league, with your own squad severely wounded, and pull the upset of the year? Together, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have lost 15 regular-season games in Foxboro over 15 seasons. Together, Chip Kelly and the Eagles had embarrassed the franchise in the previous two games, giving up 45 points apiece to Tampa Bay and Detroit, the two worst losses of Kelly’s three seasons in Philly.
They did it by playing a complete game. In the span of 12 minutes mid-game, the Eagles scored 21 straight points, and it was how they scored that was stunning—on a 24-yard return of a blocked punt, on a 99-yard interception return of a tipped ball, and on a balletic 83-yard punt return. That made it 28-14. Then the quarterback Kelly committed to (overpaid for, all of the city would tell you), Sam Bradford, made the second-biggest throw of his shaky Philadelphia tenure: a 10-yard bullet, low and inside, to Jordan Matthews just out of the reach of Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler, a ball only Matthews could catch.
(Bradford's biggest throw: his overtime touchdown pass to Matthews to beat Dallas a month ago.) That made it 35-14, and within a few minutes, had Kelly looked up, he’d have seen more than a few Patriots fans walking to the exits, shocked at this impossible result.
“I’m just really proud of my players,” Kelly said. “I can’t say enough about them. Our guys were great this week. Really, when we came out of Detroit, I still thought we had a good team. When we got the players together this week, I said to them, ‘Sometimes you don’t see what we see.’ We saw a lot of good things, and those two games, I thought were uncharacteristic of the type of team we had.”
Photo: Steven Senne/AP
Chip Kelly’s Eagles got the better of Bill Belichick’s Patriots on Sunday.
Those two games were Mark Sanchez starts, after a concussion and left shoulder injury KO’d Bradford for two-and-a-half games. New England would be Bradford’s first game back. “When he went out,” Kelly said, “Sam was really getting better. We traded for him for a reason. At the time he got hurt against Miami, he had a 118 quarterback rating. That’s the kind of player we knew he was. Today, on the touchdown to Matthews, he showed it. And that conversion to Riley Cooper on third-and-11 [a 14-yard completion for a first down with less than three minutes to play] … that was big. That’s Sam.”
So now the Eagles have life. How much life will be determined beginning tonight, with Dallas at division-leading Washington. The Eagles, 5-7, are tied with the Giants a half-game back of 5-6 Washington; Philadelphia has the next three games at home, starting with the grudge match of LeSean McCoy returning with 7-5 Buffalo on Sunday.
Whether the Eagles can scratch out a playoff spot in a bad division, I’m sure there are many—most, maybe—in Philadelphia who have a love-hate relationship with Kelly. He came in as an offensive guru, a quarterback whisperer, and since Nick Foles had the season of his life in 2013, the Eagles have struggled at the position. Mightily. They may have to look for a quarterback again this offseason, when potential free agent Bradford could sign elsewhere. But the biggest mistake of all would be to lose Kelly. He’s had some skirmishes with his players. That’s because what he’s done early hasn’t resulted in a big winner or a solution at quarterback.
He’s made some poor decisions—the biggest of which was paying pedestrian corner Byron Maxwell like a star, continuing a long Eagles tradition of screwing up the secondary badly—and needs an improved player personnel staff to take some of that heat off him. But he’s the same smart guy Jeffrey Lurie waited for 35 months ago. He’s 25-20. Not great, but not a debacle. For once, Philadelphians need to match the owner’s patience. Remember how Lurie gave Andy Reid 14 years? He’s certainly not going to look to move on from Kelly after three. Nor does Kelly have wanderlust. I still feel this strongly: Kelly’s an imaginative coach with good ideas, and there’s a good chance he’s going to win big in Philadelphia. Sunday showed that with this guy, miracles are possible.
* * *
A Playoff Glimpse
What a day. The weekend that began with the longest successful Hail Mary in NFL history was punctuated Sunday night with the Steelers absolutely beating the stuffing out of the Colts, who haven’t looked this bad since the Deflategate game.
The Sunday game raised an interesting situation: If the playoffs started today, one of the best teams in the league wouldn’t be in them. Let’s look at the matchups, complete with the TV schedule that I’m guessing at:
SATURDAY, JAN. 9
Late afternoon: No. 5 Minnesota (8-4) at No. 4 Washington (5-6), NFC
Night: No. 6 New York Jets (7-5) at No. 3 New England (10-2), AFC
SUNDAY, JAN 10
Early afternoon: No. 5 Kansas City (7-5) at No. 4 Indianapolis (6-6), AFC
Late afternoon: No. 6 Seattle (7-5) at No. 3 Green Bay (8-4), NFC
Jets-Patriots, TV gold. Seahawks-Packers, TV platinum.
But what is wrong with this picture? No Steelers. After watching Pittsburgh lay waste to the last month of its schedule—the only scar was a 39-30 shootout with the Seahawks eight days ago in Seattle—the Steelers are certainly one of the best 12 teams in the league. They’re certainly one of the eight best. Maybe five. So let’s see how they match up the rest of the way with their competitors for the two AFC wild-card spots:
Kansas City (7-5): San Diego, at Baltimore, Cleveland, Oakland.
New York Jets (7-5): Tennessee, at Dallas, New England, at Buffalo.
Pittsburgh (7-5): at Cincinnati, Denver, at Baltimore, at Cleveland.
I’m giving one of the spots to Kansas City. The Chiefs might go 4-0 against that schedule. Amazing that Kansas City could start this season 1-5 and finish 10-0. Could. To ensure a good shot at the second wild card (and with a three-game deficit in the AFC North, catching the Bengals seems impossible for Pittsburgh), the Steelers will probably have to go 3-1. Which means they’ll have to win at Cincinnati or beat the Fighting Osweilers at home.
If they stay hot, the Chiefs and Steelers in the playoffs would be the best 5-6 seeds in the AFC since the Ravens and Jets made it with 12 and 11 wins, respectively, in 2010. And they would give a strong No. 3 seed—like New England—a very tough wild-card game, unlike most 6 versus 3 games.
In the NFC, there’s less drama, because Seattle and the second-place team in the North don’t have much competition for the wild-cards. But watch Tampa Bay. The Bucs (6-6) have won three out of four, have swept Atlanta, and play sub-.500 teams the next three weeks.
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“There is a perception now that officiating is not very good. But the reality is that the officiating is very good. Our officials are averaging 4.3 mistakes per game. [The league averages about 160 plays per game.] When you think about those numbers ... the number of decisions our officials have to make before each play, during each play, after each play … We are talking about a very small number of mistakes.
We’re talking about a handful of plays that have happened in high-profile situations. Now those have been mistakes. We own them. We have to make the corrections to ensure they don’t happen again. But we are talking about a handful of plays … They see it once, in real time, in full speed. And then we all get to evaluate them from multiple different angles, with high definition, slow-motion replay. So we understand where the standard is, and we are going to work to meet that standard. But our officials are very, very good at what they do.”
—NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino, responding Friday to the torrent of criticism of NFL officiating this season.
--------
The Award Section
OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
So many candidates. So many great performances over the weekend. I have two regrets: 1) Leaving out Sam Bradford; he was terrific when it mattered; 2) Jameis Winston was awfully good too. I thought five offensive days were better.
Antonio Brown, wide receiver/punt-returner, Pittsburgh. With apologies to Ben Roethlisberger, who was spectacular Sunday night in the rout of the Colts, I’m giving Brown the edge here, for his diverse night in the 45-10 win over the severely outmanned Colts. Brown caught eight balls for 118 yards and two touchdowns, and he relieved the fumbly Jacoby Jones as punt returner and cavorted through the Colts for a 71-yard nightcap of a return touchdown. Lots of great receivers in football. Brown might be the most dangerous.
Brandon Marshall, wide receiver, New York Jets. Players prefer to set records in the course of playing great—and being important in a big victory. That was Marshall in the 23-20 overtime thriller over the Giants in their once-every-four-years game. Marshall became the first player in NFL history to have 1,000-yard receiving seasons with four different teams with his 12-catch (on 13 targets), 131-yard effort. His nine-yard touchdown grab from Ryan Fitzpatrick late in the fourth quarter sent the game into overtime.
Marcus Mariota, quarterback, Tennessee. Mariota continued to show he’s the Titans’ long-term solution at the most important position. His 87-yard touchdown run, the longest run in the NFL this season, gave Tennessee a 35-32 lead midway through the fourth quarter, and he supplemented his 112-yard rushing game with a 20-of-29, three-touchdown game in the Titans’ first win at home since midway in 2014. Mariota’s the genuine item, if you didn’t see it yet.
Cam Newton, quarterback, Carolina. The Panthers’ 41-38 win at New Orleans kept them unbeaten (12-0), and, in my opinion, catapulted Newton into the lead for the MVP award. Trailing 16-13 at the half, Newton ended 79-, 60-, 80- and 75-yard second-half drives with touchdown passes in a game that was extremely tough to finish. The Saints were the classic Drew Brees Saints; Newton had to be up for the duel, and he was: 28 of 41, 331 yards, five touchdowns, one pick, for a rating of 122.1. For the second time in 15 days, Newton threw for five touchdowns—and Carolina needed every one of them this time.
Russell Wilson, quarterback, Seattle. Wilson has played a lot of good games in his four-year NFL career. Sunday in Minnesota, I thought Wilson was a virtuoso. The numbers were good, sure—21 of 27, 274 yards, three touchdowns, no picks, 146.0 rating, 51 yards rushing—but it was one of those games you had to watch to really see Wilson’s impact. Late in the third quarter, for instance, Wilson weaved and sprinted 53 yards for a touchdown that appeared to ice the victory. But Luke Willson was called for holding, and so the Seahawks had to come back and try again. Next snap: Wilson threw down the deep middle for Doug Baldwin, who had a step on the Vikings secondary. Beautiful throw. Wilson was in total command in a 38-7 win.
DEFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Malcolm Jenkins, safety, Philadelphia. To call the Eagles’ secondary “embattled” entering this game would be an understatement. It’s been a debacle all season. Not Sunday. In a 14-14 tie midway through the second quarter, Tom Brady threw into traffic at the goal line, and Jenkins pulled a popup out of the air and started running the other way. He kept going, and going, and going … 99 yards for the touchdown. The Eagles were up 21-14 and never trailed thereafter. Jenkins added seven tackles, two behind the line.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Stephone Anthony, linebacker, New Orleans. Anthony became the first player in NFL history to score two points on the return of a missed extra point. This is the first season the defense has been permitted to score on a missed conversion attempt after touchdown. Think about it: This was a three-point swing in the game—the one point Carolina didn’t score as the PAT, and the two points New Orleans did. Instead of Carolina tying the game at 14 late in the second quarter, Anthony’s long return gave the Saints a 16-13 lead going into halftime. And give an assist to veteran defensive tackle Kevin Williams for blocking the Graham Gano kick, making the two-point play possible. Anthony scored another touchdown on a first-quarter fumble return and added 10 tackles in a breakout game for the rookie.
Chris Maragos, safety, Philadelphia. He was a part of two huge plays that were vital in the Eagles’ stunner at New England. Maragos burst through the New England line to block a Ryan Allen punt late in the first half, setting up a touchdown return to tie it at the half. And late in the third quarter, Maragos made a smart obstruction that led to Darren Sproles finishing off an 83-yard punt return touchdown.
Dwayne Harris, returner/wide receiver, New York Giants. Smart alignment by Giants special teams coach Tom Quinn, putting Harrison and Odell Beckham Jr., a magnet for attention, back in punt-return formation near the Giants’ 20, split apart about hashmark-wide. Harris got the punt, and three Jets pursuit players ran toward Beckham. Harris never handed it off nor made a serious move to fake it. He ran up the seam, and then the left sideline, and then the seam again, juking punter Ryan Quigley to the ground. Touchdown, for 80 yards.
COACH OF THE WEEK
Gary Kubiak, Denver. This is not just a one-week award. It’s for how Kubiak has handled the Peyton Manning shortcomings and injury (deftly), how he has trusted Brock Osweiler with a fairly full game plan in his three weeks at the helm, and how he has gotten the running game to come alive post-Peyton (170, 179 and 134 yards in the Broncos’ 3-0 run post-Manning). Kubiak’s steady hand has been just right for Denver, which finds itself ahead of New England in the AFC playoff race this morning. Surprisingly.
GOAT OF THE WEEK
Matt Ryan, quarterback, Atlanta. The Falcons have a problem. It’s in-the-clutch Matt Ryan. The situation: Fourth quarter, 1:39 left, Tampa has just scored to go up 23-19. Falcons need an 80-yard drive. One timeout left. On first down, Ryan throws over the middle for Julio Jones—and Tampa Bay linebacker Lavonte David picks it off. Ballgame. The Falcons have lost five in a row to fall almost all the way out of the playoff race, and they’ve lost those five games by 3, 1, 3, 10 and 4 points. Ryan, with seven picks in those five losses, has to play better late for the Falcons to have a chance to salvage the nightmare.
Derek Carr, quarterback, Oakland. The Raiders led the hated Chiefs in the Black Hole 20-14 with 13 minutes left in the fourth quarter Sunday, and Carr was driving Oakland to a bigger lead. Over the next nine minutes, however, Carr handed the Chiefs a resounding win in what could be the last Raiders-Chiefs game in Oakland. His first interception, by Josh Mauga, led to a two-yard touchdown drive. He second interception, by Marcus Peters, led to a 13-yard yard Chiefs touchdown drive. And Carr's third was returned for a touchdown by former Raider Tyvon Branch. Carr will have some great days for this franchise, and some great quarters. This fourth quarter will go down as one of his worst.
