The San Francisco 49ers received confirmation that they have a perennial MVP candidate at quarterback after Brock Purdy had a sensational performance in Sunday’s win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Some will laugh at that notion because he gets knocked for having too much help in San Francisco. But Purdy already proved the doubters wrong after keeping the 49ers afloat amid injuries in the first half of the season.
Perhaps Purdy should have an Instagram post with a few jabs in the form of hashtags aimed at the critics. He can always go with #toomuchhelp with a shrugging man emoji and a cool picture of him chest bumping George Kittle.
But no one will top the hashtags new Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Mike Williams had to shade the New York Jets and Aaron Rodgers. Williams had an emoji of a snake with #Redline and a picture of his game-winning touchdown catch in his Steelers debut against the Washington Commanders. A few weeks back, Rodgers called out Williams for not running along the “red line” on a route during a Week 6 loss to the Buffalo Bills.
Purdy and Williams were two of our winners in Week 10 of the NFL season.
WINNERS
Brock Purdy and his bank account
Purdy once again bailed out the 49ers when he delivered one of the better quarterback performances of the season, guiding his team to a come-from-behind 23–20 victory against the Buccaneers.
The team was probably already going to pay him many millions of dollars in the offseason because of how he kept the team afloat when several star players were in and out of the lineup due to injuries in the first two months of the season. The 49ers (5–4) know Purdy can make it work with a short-handed roster, but they again received confirmation that he’s capable of playing like an MVP candidate with a strong supporting cast.
The third-year signal-caller had precise timing with Jauan Jennings on third downs to keep the team within striking distance of the Buccaneers, who refused to go away and held a four-point lead in the fourth quarter. When it was time for clutch plays, Purdy unleashed a high-arching 30-yard pass to Christian McCaffrey before throwing an 11-yard dart in the corner of the end zone for a Kittle touchdown that gave San Francisco a 20–17 lead with 7:14 left. After Baker Mayfield gave the Buccaneers new life to tie the game, Purdy responded with a six-play, game-winning drive in the final 41 seconds to set up Jake Moody’s 44-yard field goal as time expired.
Purdy is well on his way to becoming the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL. And for those who find it hard to believe that the last pick in the 2022 NFL draft can make more than $60 million per season, just take a look at the quarterbacks who got paid in the offseason. Purdy has done more in his young career than Jared Goff, Trevor Lawrence, Tua Tagovailoa and Jordan Love. And even more than Dak Prescott, the current highest-paid QB in the league. Prescott has had loaded rosters and hasn’t advanced to an NFC championship game.
Purdy went toe-to-toe with Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl and produced come-from-behind postseason victories against the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions to get there. Purdy followed that memorable postseason run by carrying his depleted team in the first eight weeks. He has earned a massive contract extension, and he can maximize his earnings by helping his team end its 30-year drought without a Lombardi Trophy.
Steelers WR Mike Williams
Mike Williams seems to love playing with quarterbacks who don’t take themselves so seriously. Sometimes it’s O.K. to play backyard football, because nabbing go-balls is what Williams does best. He showed that with Chargers quarterbacks Philip Rivers and Justin Herbert.
For seven years, Williams constantly kept the Chargers in games because of his acrobatic plays on downfield throws. He’s a 50/50 ball specialist who can deliver clutch performances, but Rodgers and the Jets saw no use for him. Rodgers could have utilized Williams’s sizable catch radius when the Jets were shut out from the end zone and held to 207 yards in Sunday’s ugly 31–6 loss against the Arizona Cardinals.
Hours earlier, Williams caught the game-winning 32-yard touchdown pass in his Steelers debut because his new quarterback Russell Wilson gave him a shot to make a play when it mattered most. Turns out, Williams can still play, even after the Jets threw him under the bus.
Rodgers called out Williams for not running routes the way he wanted him to. Instead of playing freely to save their season, Rodgers stubbornly wanted to recreate Packers East by helping execute a trade for Davante Adams and surrounded himself with wideouts who adjusted to him. And why not keep Williams to be the third wide receiver to Adams and Garrett Wilson? But Williams probably doesn't care to know the answer to that question now that he’s playing for a first-place team that actually knows how to use his skill set.
Saints interim coach Darren Rizzi
New Orleans Saints interim coach Darren Rizzi should have gotten more attention Sunday for the intense facial expressions he delivered on the sideline during an upset victory against the Atlanta Falcons to snap the Saints’ seven-game losing streak.
But then Rizzi told reporters in his postgame interview that he clogged the coaches’ bathroom toilet before the game. (Sorry, I just laughed out loud because sometimes I’m immature.)
I thought talking about clogging the toilet was limited to telling only your significant other, or your friends in the group chat—not in front of TV cameras for everyone to hear. But we can all relate. Not much is scarier than seeing the toilet water rise in a bathroom that isn’t at your home.
"I'm a pretty open guy... I go to the bathroom, this is how my day started. I clogged a toilet. I'm like, this is gonna be a crappy day. Pun intended." - Saints interim coach Darren Rizzi 😂pic.twitter.com/YZ5kCgwSdB
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 10, 2024
But I’ll stop talking about clogged bathrooms. You gotta admire Rizzi for being himself and enjoying the crap out of this victory. (I couldn’t help myself.)
Oftentimes, interim coaches get put in the worst situations—on and off the field—only to be forgotten when it’s time to fill the permanent positions for head-coaching vacancies. Credit to Rizzi for making the most of his opportunity. And it’s obvious his players appreciate his authenticity and passion by the way they played for him in his coaching debut last week.
There might not be much winning over the next two months in New Orleans, but at least the Saints know they are in good hands to ride out the bumps of the lost season that no longer has to be miserable.
Chargers’ cupcake schedule
Many haven’t been quick to praise the Los Angeles Chargers because of their “soft schedule,” but all you can do is play the teams in front of you.
I’m sure many teams would love to play the Las Vegas Raiders, Carolina Panthers, Cleveland Browns, Saints and Tennessee Titans in the first nine games of the season. The Chargers did beat one winning team to build a 6–3 record, but that was against the Denver Broncos, a team many view as playoff pretenders.
The Chargers should get credit for at least taking care of business and not playing down to the level of their competition. They lost by one score against the Kansas City Chiefs and Arizona Cardinals. The only game they weren’t truly competitive in was a 10-point loss against the Steelers.
We’ll learn soon enough if the cupcake-filled Chargers have been consuming empty calories when they face the Cincinnati Bengals, Baltimore Ravens, Atlanta Falcons and Chiefs in the next month.
LOSERS
Lethargic Colts
The Buffalo Bills tried their best to be in a competitive game with the handful of mistakes they made against the Indianapolis Colts.
But instead of this being one of the many games that came down to the wire in Week 10, the Colts said no thanks and didn’t capitalize on the Bills’ miscues, including two interceptions from Josh Allen.
Colts cornerback Kenny Moore II provided answers as to why the Bills scored 20 unanswered points after trailing 13–10 midway through the second quarter. Moore questioned his teammates’ effort and went as far as saying the Colts have made not working as hard as possible a yearly trend.
Moore might need to clarify his words to teammates, but maybe he won’t have to because the Colts really have played in many sloppy games this season. Benching Anthony Richardson and turning to Joe Flacco hasn’t sparked the team. It’s clear Flacco won’t be having a Cleveland-like run in Indianapolis after throwing three killer interceptions against the Bills.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to go back to Richardson, who might have learned from his mistakes watching from the sideline the past two games. That won’t happen this week, though, after coach Shane Steichen announced Flacco as the starter against the Jets. The Houston Texans should be happy for the Colts’ lethargic mistakes because they still lead the AFC South by two games despite a two-game losing streak.
Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle certainly appreciated the Colts’ flat performance because he described the raucous crowd during the Pacers’ win on Sunday against the New York Knicks as as “pissed off Colts fans.”
Texans’ uninspiring offense
Many are highlighting the Detroit Lions’ grit for why they executed a 16-point rally in the second half against the Texans.
Sure, some grit was required for the Lions to score 19 unanswered points, but this was more about the Texans giving the game away thanks to their poor offense. Houston’s defense picked off Jared Goff five times and it still wasn’t enough for the offense to put away Detroit after establishing a 23–7 halftime lead.
C.J. Stroud has had a rough second season and offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik hasn’t done him any favors with uninspiring play calls. The Texans leaned on running back Joe Mixon to build a 6–2 record despite the lackluster passing attack this season. But even that didn’t work against the Lions, with Mixon recording 46 of the team’s 56 rushing yards.
Mixon knew that settling for three field goals in the first half was eventually going to doom them in the end. That’s why the veteran running back tossed a tablet in the second quarter. Not many are paying attention to the Texans’ offensive struggles because they’ll likely win the AFC South, especially with upcoming games against the Dallas Cowboys, Tennessee Titans and Jacksonville Jaguars.
But this team will likely get exposed come the postseason if they don’t improve their passing attack in the next two months. And don’t expect Nico Collins’s return to fix all the problems because his presence won’t improve the offensive line. Stroud was sacked four times against the Lions to bring the sacks allowed total to 35, third worst in the league.
Drama-filled Cowboys
I probably should go back and count the amount of times the Cowboys have been listed in this weekly column as “losers” this season. But that requires more effort than the Cowboys gave against the Philadelphia Eagles last week.
The Cowboys lost their starting quarterback (Prescott) for possibly the rest of the season and were shut out of the end zone against a divisional rival at home. But all everyone wants to talk about in Dallas is who to blame for the sun shining through AT&T Stadium that caused CeeDee Lamb to drop a touchdown. I guess reality TV-like drama is better than facing the realities of a lost season.
With a 3–6 record, maybe it’s time to ignore them for this column. The Carolina Panthers probably should be listed under “losers” most weeks, but we expect them to lose on a weekly basis. (Well, maybe not anymore thanks to their two-game winning streak.)
The Panthers and Cowboys have the same amount of wins this season. Perhaps if we forget about the Cowboys and don’t give them the spotlight, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones will become serious about fixing the absent rushing attack, sluggish defense and aging offensive line.
Bears QB Caleb Williams
Coach Matt Eberflus has gotten the bulk of the blame for the Chicago Bears’ free fall since the Hail Mary loss against the Commanders. But Caleb Williams shouldn’t get a pass for eight consecutive quarters without a touchdown just because the coaching has been a problem on both sides.
Williams has enough talent on the field to at least generate a touchdown against the Arizona Cardinals and New England Patriots. Both have feisty defenses, but these weren’t the defenses of the Chiefs or Steelers.
Many raved about Williams in the lead up to the draft for his ability to extend plays and make something out of nothing, but that has rarely happened in his rookie season. Williams will probably turn it around in the coming weeks, but he’s too talented to be shut out from the end zone for eight consecutive quarters.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as NFL Week 10 Winners and Losers: Brock Purdy May Soon Be the NFL’s Highest-Paid QB.
