11 Thoughts from Sunday's Week 7 Games
We were waiting for that from Lamar Jackson and the Ravens offense, weren’t we? The first 6 weeks showed signs of improvement, but Baltimore really hadn’t been able to put everything together. On Sunday against a good Lions defense, they exploded for 38 points. Lamar Jackson was nearly perfect, completing 21 of 27 passes for 357 yards and 3 touchdowns. He also added another TD on the ground.
The Chiefs beat the Chargers 31-17 on Sunday, which wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was that L.A. had no ability to handle Travis Kelce, who has burned them seemingly every time these two teams play. 12 receptions on 13 targets for 179 yards and a touchdown. Simply not good enough for a team that has all that talent on the defensive side of the ball as well as a defensive-minded head coach.
The Eagles beat the Dolphins 31-17 via a combination of keeping Miami’s offense off the field and winning in the trenches. They possessed the ball for nearly 37 minutes, were able to get to Tua for 3 sacks, and limited the Dolphins to just 3.8 yards per rush. The Dolphins can’t control their schedule, but right now we’ve yet to see them beat a good team. Their 5 wins have come against the Chargers (2-4), Patriots (2-5), Broncos (2-5), Giants (2-5), and Panthers (0-6). Their two losses have come against the Bills (4-3) and now the Eagles (6-1). It’s a small sample size, and they should be commended for taking care of business against lesser competition. But we need to see them beat a contender before we call them the class of the AFC again this year.
The Browns defense got shredded in a way it hadn’t this season. The Gardner-Minshew led Colts scored 38 points and racked up 456 yards on 67 plays (good for 6.8 yards per play). But the Browns had game-wrecker Myles Garrett, who finished with 2 sacks, 2 forced fumbles (1 that resulted in a TD), and a blocked FG. The Browns are now 4-2 despite massive questions at the quarterback position.
The Patriots offense finally looked like a competent group, and Mac Jones did something he hadn’t done before in his NFL career: lead a game-winning come-from-behind touchdown drive in the final 2 minutes of the 4th quarter. Bill Belichick also got his 300th career regular season win against a far superior team. I guess he does still know how to coach, huh? For the Bills, this is a bad loss to say the least. Their inconsistency on both sides of the ball is alarming.
The Giants beat the Commanders 14-7 and did so on the strength of their defense, sacking Sam Howell 6 times. That’s now two straight weeks where Wink Martindale’s D has looked like the unit we thought they’d be after 5 straight terrible performances to start the season. Note to Giants fans and media: please stop with the calls to make Tyrod Taylor the starter over Daniel Jones. The offense has scored 23 points in 2 games. Just relax.
The Packers have lost three winnable games now. They’re young, beat up, and making just enough mistakes to be 2-4 instead of 5-1. Jordan Love is going through some growing pains, and for the second straight game threw an unnecessary 3rd-down YOLO interception on the final drive. In both instances, the better play would have been to pick up some yards underneath to either create a more manageable 4th down or (this week) kick a field goal.
Atlanta ended up pulling out a hard fought victory over the Buccaneers that wasn’t as close as the final score indicated. Desmond Ridder’s 3 fumbles took anywhere from 10-17 points off the board. He did make a great throw to Kyle Pitts on the final drive to set up the game-winning field goal and atone for his mistakes, however. The Falcons now sit at the top of the NFC South with a 4-3 record.
Winning doesn’t get much uglier than the way the Steelers are doing it this season. And that seems to be just the way Mike Tomlin likes it. The Rams out-gained Pittsburgh 354-300, but it didn’t matter. The Steelers are now 4-2…somehow.
The Seahawks offense isn’t humming quite the same way it did in 2022. The defense is much improved, however. Seattle is 4-2 and winning ugly, similar to the Steelers.
The Tyson Bagent era in Chicago began with a blow-out win over the Raiders at Soldier Field. 20 years from now, we’re going to be talking about the Eberflus-Bagent combination as being the best in the history of the NFL…Just getting that on record in case it happens so I can say “I told you so.”