After spending last week asking “is it over now?” it looks like Patrick Mahomes may well be out of (the woods) his year-long regular season slump. The best player I’ve ever watched and his unbeaten two-time reigning champs will have to wait for a minute though, because there’s an absolute banger of a matchup taking top billing this week in the NFC.
This is, as far as I’m concerned, the most exciting matchup of the NFL season so far: an ancient rivalry game with genuine stakes between what look like two of the three or four NFC teams most likely to be in the Super Bowl.
The winner will head into the second half of the season in sole possession of the NFC North lead. If it’s the Lions, they’ll have head-to-head wins in their back pocket over both the Vikings and Packers.
The teams won’t have to wait all that long for their rematch in Detroit, which is currently scheduled for Thursday December 5 (there’s still some time for the league to flex that game out of TNF if it so desires).
This will be the 190th meeting all-time between the Lions and Packers including the playoffs. Only the Packers and Bears have played more (208) times in NFL history. Green Bay has won 106 of the 190 games and will tie itself (107 against the Bears) for the second-most wins against one opponent in NFL history if it comes out on top (the Giants will look to extend their NFL record to 109 wins over the Commanders earlier Sunday).
The Lions have won five straight games since losing at home to the Bucs in Week 2, most recently dropping 52 points on the Titans to extend a hot streak nearly without precedent in franchise history.
The 52 points last week gave the Lions 130 over their last three games, the second-most in any three-game span in franchise history behind only a 134-point output over three games in 1952.
The first two games of this three-game set and the game immediately prior form a four-game stretch in which the Lions have scored 172 points, tying the 1952 NFL Champions for the most points in a four-game span in franchise history.
Lions QB Jared Goff has thrown 10 touchdowns without an interception during Detroit’s record-tying last four games and 12 touchdowns with just one interception during the Lions win streak.
He’s the first player in the NFL this season with 10 touchdowns and no picks in a four-game span and it’s just the second such stretch in Lions history in a single season — he had the first one during the 2022 season.
If Goff finishes without an interception this week, he’ll join himself three times during the 2022 season and Dave Krieg in 1994 as the only Lions with at least 10 touchdowns and no picks in a five-game stretch. If he has at least three passing touchdowns he’ll have the most touchdowns without a pick in a five-game stretch in Lions history.
Green Bay’s won four straight since losing to the Vikings to fall to 2-2 on the season. Three of the four wins during the streak have come by a combined 10 points while the other came by 21.
The Packers allowed Jacksonville to score 10 points in the final six minutes last week to tie a game they’d led 27-17, but drove for a walkoff 24-yard field goal in the final 1:48. The last two games are the third time in the last four seasons that Green Bay has won consecutive games by a margin of a field goal or less — something that’s happened only 12 times in franchise history overall. They’ve only had three-game streaks of wins by three or fewer twice, in 1970 and 1972 (each streak was exactly three games).
No team has had three straight wins by three or fewer points since the 2020 Chargers. The NFL record is four straight, three times, most recently the 2005 Commanders (note to old heads: if you bend over backwards to say the slur because “they weren’t the Commanders then,” I’m just gonna assume you wanna say the slur).
Packers backup QB Malik Willis had the team’s only passing touchdown in the win over Jacksonville last week and also led the game-winning field goal drive after starter Jordan Love left with a groin injury. Love didn’t practice Wednesday, but said he thinks it’s “realistic” he’ll play against the Lions even if he doesn’t practice at all.
Willis has been a pleasant surprise after joining the Packers in a trade from Tennessee late in the summer and being pressed into action. He’s got love beat in completion percentage, passing yards per attempt and QB rating this season (granted in about one fifth as many attempts) and hasn’t thrown an interception while Love has thrown a league-leading nine despite missing two games.
The Chiefs are looking to start 8-0 for the third time in franchise history and the first time since 2013.
Kansas City’s previous 8-0 starts haven’t necessarily led to the results you’d hope. The 2003 Chiefs started 9-0 and finished 13-3 and won the AFC West but lost their first Playoff game at home against Peyton Manning and the Colts. A decade later the Chiefs started 9-0 again before losing the next three and five of their final seven in the regular season and then falling to the Colts again in their first Playoff game, this time led by Andrew Luck in Indianapolis in the Wild Card round.
The Chiefs would be the third team to start 8-0 this decade, joining the 2020 Steelers and 2022 Eagles. None of the 11 teams to start 8-0 since the start of last decade ended up winning the Super Bowl — the Chiefs would look to be the first to do that since both the Colts and Saints started 8-0 in 2009 en route to meeting in the Super Bowl (won by the Saints).
I’ve promised for the last couple weeks to drop my Patrick Mahomes slump angle if he posts a 100+ QB rating in a game. He didn’t quite get there last week, but he was close enough that I’m definitely willing to view it as the start of a hot streak if he keeps moving in the right direction.
Mahomes’ 96.6 QB rating last week was his best in a game since the season opener against the Ravens and snapped a career-worst five-game streak with ratings below 90 which was capped off by a career-low 44.4 in the previous win over San Francisco.
One thing that would help Mahomes get over the hump of a 100+ rating would be if he could go without an interception — he’s thrown one in every game this season and has thrown them at a significantly higher rate over the last two regular seasons (2.7% of dropbacks) than he did over his 80 previous regular season starts (1.6%).
If Mahomes throws a pick this week, he’ll be the first QB to throw an interception in each of their first eight games of a season since Case Keenum for the 2018 Broncos. It would also match the longest such streak in Chiefs history to start a season (Matt Cassel in his first eight games in 2012).
My Eagles were pretty damn impressive last week in their first-ever win in Cincinnati, and as such I’m willing to take them seriously for at least as long as A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith stay healthy. That means treating this game like the walkover it should be given the state of the Jags, even though a large part of me expects the Eagles to play down to their lowly competition.
The Eagles win last week leaves Baltimore as the only NFL city the Eagles have never won in, something they’ll get a chance to rectify in a few weeks.
They’ve allowed 17 or fewer points in each of their three straight wins since a 2-2 start and early bye. They had a four-game streak allowing 17 or fewer during their run to the NFC title two years ago, but doing it this week would match that team and the 2019 Eagles for the team’s longest streak since 2009 (five in a row).
What makes this game more interesting than most this week isn’t really my Eagles, but that it represents the second return of Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson to the city whose only Super Bowl he won seven years ago — in what could be his last stand as Jaguars head coach.
Pederson lost his first return to Philadelphia during the 2022 season, but is looking to become the second straight coach to beat a team he won a Super Bowl with after Sean Payton’s Broncos beat the Saints a couple weeks back. Before that, no coach had beaten the team he won it all with as a head coach since 2006 when both Bill Parcells (with Cowboys vs Giants) and Mike Holmgren (with Seahawks vs Packers) did it a week apart.
Coaches in Pederson’s position had lost seven straight games (including Playoffs) before Sean Payton’s win — Holmgren’s Seahawks subsequently lost twice to the Packers after his 2006 win, Mike Shanahan lost to the Broncos with Washington in 2013, Jon Gruden’s Raiders lost against the Bucs in 2020 and Mike McCarthy’s Cowboys lost to the Packers both in 2022 and in last year’s Playoffs along with Pederson’s loss to the Eagles in 2022.
Pederson fell to 20-22 as Jags head coach with last week’s loss and 3-11 since last December. The schedule is his biggest enemy at the moment as his Jags sit at 2-6 and their next four opponents are a combined 22-7 entering Week 9 (the Eagles, Vikings, Lions and Texans). Doug could do a great job the next four games and still be 2-10 this season and 3-15 over the course of a calendar year.
Hear me out: the Texans win this game, sending the Jets to 2-7 and all but eliminated from Playoff contention. The Jets enter fire sale mode ahead of next week’s deadline and send either Garrett Wilson or Davante Adams to…the Texans, who need a receiver after losing Stefon Diggs for the season to a torn ACL!
Losing Diggs (7th in NFL with 47 catches, leads team with three receiving touchdowns) essentially leaves the Texans where they were a year ago at this time, with Nico Collins (eligible to return from injured reserve with a hamstring injury next week) and Tank Dell as the top two targets for C.J. Stroud.
Dell could go a long way to easing Houston’s receiver concerns with a big game this week as the clear top option. He hasn’t had more than 62 yards in a game this season while averaging just 9.5 yards per catch, but he thrived last year as the main complement to Collins averaging 64.5 yards a game and 15.1 yards per catch.
The Jets already face extraordinarily long odds if they’re going to get to the Playoffs. ESPN’s model currently gives them a 12% chance to make the Playoffs (aka 1 in 8) while history tells us only two of 136 teams (1.5%) which started 2-6 since Playoff expansion in 1990 went to the postseason.
Both teams which went from 2-6 to the Playoffs did it recently and by winning their division: the 2020 Commanders won the NFC East at 7-9 and the 2022 Jaguars won the AFC South at 9-8. None of the 136 teams went 8-0 or 8-1 after their 2-6 start to finish with 10 wins.
A loss this week would essentially leave a complete Bills collapse as the Jets only path to the Playoffs, and even that would exist more as a hypothetical possibility than a realistic one. The aforementioned 2020 Commanders are the only team team in NFL history to start 2-7 and make the Playoffs, and again, they did it while finishing 7-9. The Bills can win their seventh game this week and also have two games left against the hapless Patriots after a tough upcoming stretch.
Speaking of the Bills, Buffalo will look to win its seventh game potentially before any of its AFC East rivals wins their third (pending the Jets results on TNF). Given how little resistance the Dolphins have posed for Josh Allen, the Bills’ most formidable opponent this week is probably complacency.
Allen’s 11-2 as starter against the Dolphins in his career with a 110.0 QB rating, his best against any team he’s faced at least three times in his career. He’s thrown 34 touchdowns against just seven interceptions against Miami — two more touchdowns than he’s thrown against his other AFC East rivals combined (18 TD vs Patriots, 14 TD vs Jets) while he has a QB rating of 85.2 or worse against the other two division rivals.
Allen had one of his less active games against the Dolphins in Week 2 as Miami turned the ball over three times and eventually lost Tua Tagovailoa to a concussion. Allen finished that win 13-for-19 for 139 yards and a TD, good enough for a 107.1 QB rating and his 10th rating of 100+ in his last 13 games against the Dolphins.
The other East division leader also looks to finish off a sweep of a two-win rival as the Commanders visit the Giants.
It seemed so innocuous at the time, the Commanders going without a punt or turnover in their 21-18 Week 2 win over the Giants — perhaps because their points came on seven field goals, which seemed a harbinger more of an offense that couldn’t finish that of one that could move the ball at will. Six weeks later, Washington is off to its best start since 2008 — when it followed up a 6-2 start with a 2-6 finish.
A win this week would give the Commanders seven wins in their first nine games for the first time since 1996, when they also faded down the stretch and missed the Playoffs at 9-7. They’ve bizarrely missed the Playoffs each of the last three times they started 6-3 or better and were under .500 through seven games each of the last three times they made the Playoffs. Washington hasn’t started 6-3 or better and gone on to make the Playoffs since 1992.
The records are the same, but the spread (Baltimore -8.5) is tied for the largest favorite in the NFL this week as of Thursday afternoon (Chiefs are also -8.5 against the Bucs). The fact that the records are the same at all is somewhat surprising, but perhaps it shouldn’t be as the Ravens defense increasingly looks like a fatal flaw.
Baltimore allowed 29 points in last week’s loss to the Browns, the seventh time it’s allowed at least 23 points in the season’s first eight games. The Ravens are seventh-worst in the NFL allowing 26.1 points per game and are currently the only team with a winning record that’s outside the top 20 scoring defenses in the NFL (Falcons are tied for 20th at 24.4 points allowed per game, next-most among teams above .500).
Baltimore’s allowing 20 more passing yards per game (291.4) than the next-highest mark in the NFL this season (Jaguars at 271.1).
The Ravens are thus far getting away with their leaky defense because their offense is one of two in the NFL averaging at least 30 points a game (30.3, trails only Lions at 33.4) and leads the league averaging both 452.1 total yards and 200.0 rushing yards per game.
Derrick Henry leads the NFL with 946 rushing yards (180 more than Saquon Barkley in second) and 9 rushing touchdowns while Lamar Jackson leads quarterbacks with 501 rushing yards and makes Baltimore the only team with two 500-yard rushers so far (aka two players in the league’s top 15 in rushing).
The other reason it’s surprising the teams have the same record is because absolutely no one, not even my Bojeweled ass, expected the Broncos to be 5-3. This probably isn’t gonna be Bo Nix’s week, though.
Denver’s won five of six after starting 0-2, most recently beating the lowly Panthers 28-14. The Broncos have allowed fewer than 20 points in all five of their wins, but lost both times they allowed an opponent to crack 20 (26-20 at Seahawks in Week 1 and 23-16 vs Chargers in Week 6).
The young Duck under center has thrown only one interception during Denver’s 5-1 stretch, in the lone loss, and the Broncos are 5-0 this season when he’s interception-free. He’s coming off the best game of his young career, albeit against the Panthers, setting highs in just about every QB category.
As the Jets season seemingly rests on Aaron Rodgers’ ability to win eight out of nine games in his forties, two former Jets quarterbacks and potential season-saviors square off as the Colts turn to Joe Flacco over Anthony Richardson to face Sam Darnold and the Vikings.
The Colts have admitted what everyone else could plainly see when Anthony Richardson was hurt: Flacco makes their offense better. Specifically, he makes budding star Josh Downs a much bigger part of the offense: Downs has caught 23 passes for 206 yards and a pair of touchdowns in two-and-three-quarters games with Flacco at QB this season compared to 8 catches for 145 yards and a score with Richardson at QB.
Nearly half of Downs’ yards with Richardson at QB came on a 69-yard TD in the 1st quarter last week — Richardson was 3-for-8 for 40 yards with an interception targeting Downs the rest of the game.
Minnesota’s coming off a mini-bye following its second straight loss last Thursday night. The Vikings will hope turning the calendar helps get them back to their winning ways and puts Sam Darnold back on a possible MVP trajectory after slowing down in October. Not allowing 30 points for a third straight week might help!
Darnold had a couple touchdowns without an interception last week, only the second time he’s gone without a pick this season. He appeared to be turning back into a pumpkin just in time for Halloween after throwing just one touchdown and two picks over his previous two games. October certainly wasn’t September for Darnold, but last week’s 128.7 QB rating was a season-best, so perhaps he’s not quite ready to be turned into Thanksgiving pie filling just yet.
Much like last week’s final storyline, I have no real interest in these teams. I also don’t hate them like the Cowboys and 49ers, so there’s sadly no schadenfreude to be savored. There is, however, a Heisman streak that I’ve been yapping about for weeks and I felt like I was obligated to acknowledge it. Plus, who doesn’t love an excuse to link/listen to “It’s Raining Men?”
If you’ve somehow read all the way to the end of this and don’t know what I’m talking about, this matchup of Heisman QBs Caleb Williams and Kyler Murray makes it seven straight weeks that there’s been a matchup of Heisman-winning QBs in the NFL. Assuming no one gets hurt or benched (both of which have jeopardized the streak already!), there’ll eventually be nine straight weeks of Heismen showing down (one of the upcoming games is a QB-WR matchup).
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