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I never had much doubt that the Titans were going to win Sunday—even when they were down 10–0—and I’m not sure whether that says more about where Denver is or who Tennessee is. The optimist would say it’s a positive for the Titans. And doing what they did, and what they’ve done this year in general, is impressive.
We’ve tread over some of this ground the past few weeks, and you probably know the deal by now. LT Taylor Lewan and DE Harold Landry are gone for the year. WR A.J. Brown was traded to the Eagles. And the past couple of weeks, Tennessee had to scratch by without Ryan Tannehill, who was out with an ankle injury.
Despite all of it, the Titans had won five straight after starting 0–2, and nearly made it six going toe-to-toe with (and eventually losing to) the Chiefs eight days ago at Arrowhead.
George Walker IV/Tennessean.com/USA TODAY Network
Well, Tannehill returned Sunday, with his ankle having progressed through the week (he says he had a good idea he’d play after practice on Thursday and Friday), and Tennessee found yet another way to win after getting him back—throwing the ball over a tough Denver defensive front geared up to stop Derrick Henry to get the 17–10 win.
“I’ve definitely felt better, but the win makes everything hurt a little bit less,” Tannehill told me postgame. “I felt like things were getting to a point throughout the week where I was able to move around a little bit and went out today and warmed up and felt pretty good.”
And the Titans needed him to be close to 100% to beat the Broncos.
Behind 10–0, they got the ball with 2:23 left in the first half and went on a methodical 13-play drive. Tannehill picked up a first down with his legs, four with his arm, and then pulled the Titans to within three with a tight-window throw to Nick Westbrook-Ikhine with 12 seconds left for the nine-yard touchdown.
“I wasn’t good enough early; I wasn’t accurate enough early, had guys with opportunities and was off by a foot a couple times,” he said. “So I had to knock the rust off and get dialed in a little bit, and then we got that two-minute drive going, and I was able to settle in a little bit, find some completions, find some open guys and felt good after that. … And then on that touchdown, they were bringing some pressure there, bringing zero, and I was able to make an adjustment at the line of scrimmage. Nick did a good job of getting an edge on that guy.”
It’d be easier the next time, around a quarter later—when the Titans got the Broncos on a flea-flicker, which turned into an easy 63-yard touchdown.
“We handed it to Derrick there and got them to bite up on the run, and Nick did a good job of selling it and accelerating,” Tannehill said. “I think the corner actually fell down after the toss back to me. So he was pretty open.”
The Broncos would cross midfield only once more, and that was at the end of the game. And so Tennessee improved to 6–3 and kept its division lead at two games.
For their part, the Titans have now won without their left tackle and best pass rusher, and their quarterback, too. On Sunday, they beat Denver without their best defensive player, Jeffery Simmons. And it’s not that it doesn’t matter when those guys go down—it does. More so, this is about how the Titans have managed all this over Mike Vrabel’s five years in charge.
“Yeah, it’s not been ideal,” Tannehill said. “But we battled through a lot last year. You look at what we went through last year; I think we set the record for most guys who’ve suited up for us and played in a game, so it’s not new territory, unfortunately. It’s not the position you want to be in, but we’re a resilient group and a no–excuses group. We try to find a way to win each and every week no matter who’s in, who’s out, what’s going on.
“[Vrabel] sets the tone; he lets us know that there’s no excuses, so we’re going to roll with whoever’s available and ready to help the team. That’s said from Day 1. And then it really gets put to the test, and we see it work.”
They sure have.
As for the Broncos’ part of that equation, it’s now at the point when the offense holding the defense back is being brought up by coaches publicly. Here’s how first-year head coach Nathaniel Hackett saw it Sunday: “It’s another close game, another one-score game. We feel like the defense stepped up to the challenge with Derrick Henry. I mean, the offense has to find a way.”
First of all, he’s right. Denver held Henry to a paltry 53 yards on 19 carries. Tannehill barely completed half his passes (19-of-36). The Broncos forced four three-and-outs in the first half and two more in the second half, so Ejiro Evero’s unit did its part.
Which brings things back to Russell Wilson and the offense. The quarterback’s passer rating has been under 90 in six of his eight starts. His TD-INT ratio through his past four starts is 3–4, and he’s not running the ball much at all—his seven carries Sunday (for eight yards) were a season high. Meanwhile, Geno Smith has ignited the offense Wilson left behind in Seattle.
Over the coming weeks, if Denver doesn’t start winning, you’ll hear rumblings about Hackett’s job security, for sure, and particularly if they can’t get past the Raiders and Panthers over the next two weeks. It’s possible Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn gets linked to the job again (perhaps with fellow Cowboys assistant and former Seahawks lieutenant Brian Schottenheimer as OC), given his relationship with GM George Paton and experience with Wilson.
But by the looks of it, if the Broncos ever get Wilson back on track, a big part of making it has to be taking a realistic look at who the quarterback is as a player right now. He always wanted to be a Brady-Manning field-general-type, and as it stands right now, it’s not working out.
Could it be in time? Maybe, but the guy is 34 years old.
So as I see it—before we’re talking about getting rid of anyone—the first thing the Broncos should do is make a cold assessment on how to get the most out of Wilson as a player and then get him to buy in on that vision, whatever it is. Because, logistically, after giving him the contract they did last summer, he’s the one piece to that puzzle that can’t be moved.
Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports
The Buccaneers have woken up. I’m not saying they’re going to the Super Bowl, but I think it’s fair to say that Tom Brady and the offense carried over the momentum from their Week 9 win against the Rams, and look a lot less stuck in the mud than they had the first two months of the season.
Brady was an efficient (and clutch) 22-of-29 for 258 yards, two touchdowns and a pick in Sunday’s 21–16 win over Seattle. Chris Godwin, Mike Evans and Julio Jones showed up big time. Rachaad White and Cade Otton continue to emerge as young weapons. The line deserves the credit Brady gave them after the game, too. And then, there’s the defensive effort keyed by an emotional afternoon for Devin White, who lost his dad just before boarding to fly to Germany and registered a sack and forced fumble in the game.
The Bucs are back to .500 now (5–5) heading into their bye. Coming out of it, they’ll get the Browns and Saints, which means 7–5 in December is in sight. And now a game up in the NFC South, it’s easy to see where they’re likely to be hosting a playoff game again in January and may do it as a real threat to make a deep playoff run.
Not bad for a group that looked, well, kinda old a few weeks ago.
“I just think our guys hung together and came out of our gunk by keeping their heads down and working hard,” coach Todd Bowles texted postgame from overseas. “We got a good group of leaders.”
A potentially dangerous one, too.
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The Bills’ sloppiness isn’t isolated. They had four turnovers, and the overall looseness of the afternoon was reminiscent of their second half against the Packers two weeks ago and the loss to the Jets last week. Josh Allen, believe it or not, now leads the NFL in interceptions (10), including four in the red zone the past two weeks. And rest assured, the Bills are cognizant of what’s happening.
“Losing sucks, sucks this way even worse,” Allen said after the 33–30 loss to the Vikings in overtime. “Horrendous second half. I’ve got to be better. … It’s on me.”
Now, the good news—Buffalo’s been here before. In 2020, the Hail Murray in Arizona capped a 3–3 stretch as the Bills had a mid-November bye. After that, they reeled off eight consecutive wins, a streak that took them all the way to the AFC title game. And last year, they lost that weird, windy game to the Patriots, and fell behind 27–3 at Tampa Bay. They stormed back to challenge the Buccaneers, lost that game (their fourth loss in six weeks), then came back to reel off five straight, taking them to the AFC divisional epic in Kansas City.
So I think they’ll be O.K. like they were the past two years. But there’s plenty of work for them to do.
The Cardinals deserve some credit for being resourceful this week. Hard Knocks In Season premiered the other day, and during the show was coach Kliff Kingsbury pointing to a three-game stretch this month as pivotal in a season slipping away—Arizona had Seattle, the Rams and 49ers back-to-back-to-back and entered that stretch at 3–5. The Cardinals opened it last week with a 31–21 loss to the Seahawks and, worse, saw a litany of guys, Kyler Murray included, go down in the process, and had to go to L.A. this week to face the champs.
Now, sure, it did help that the Rams were starting John Wolford, and not Matthew Stafford.
Still, at this point, the Cardinals are going to take what they can get to stay in the race. Colt McCoy, for his part, knew that was the assignment, and knew, with four starting linemen out, he was going to have to play fast and play smart to have any shot at a win, as he prepared for the chance that Murray couldn’t go.
So Cardinals 27, Rams 17 is good enough for him.
“It was a pretty wild week, to be honest,” McCoy told me postgame. “Toward the end of the week, like Friday, I had kind of a gut feeling that I would play. Didn’t know exactly, but I’m just thankful to step in and fill in for us. Our backs are against the wall, and we got a huge win on the road in the division.”
To get it, McCoy leaned on DeAndre Hopkins (10 catches, 98 yards) and Rondale Moore (eight catches, 94 yards) and let the defense do the rest.
The Cardinals make the trip to Mexico City next to face the 49ers with a chance to pull closer to the division lead, and with the hope Murray and maybe a couple of linemen will make it back for that one.
Speaking of trouble, Las Vegas is past that. The Raiders are 2–7, and it’s soon going to be time to start talking about next year. And one story line, of course, will be where Vegas is at quarterback going into 2023—which is why Derek Carr was asked Sunday if there’s a disconnect between him and Josh McDaniels.
“I don’t think so," Carr said. “I love Josh. I love our coaches. They’ve had nothing but success. Way more success than I’ve ever had. And I’m sorry … sorry for being emotional. I’m just pissed off about some of the things that a lot of us try and do just to practice. What we put our bodies through just to sleep at night. And for that to be the result of all that effort pisses me off. Pisses a lot of guys off. It’s hard, knowing what some guys are doing … just to practice. What they’re putting in their body just to sleep at night, just so we can be there for each other.
“And I wish everybody in that room felt the same way about this place. And as a leader, that pisses me off, if I’m being honest.”
The Raiders got shut out two weeks ago, blew their third 17-point lead of the season last week, and this week lost to Jeff Saturday’s Colts. The schedule isn’t horrible the rest of the way. And so with the playoffs a pipe dream at this point, it’s fair to say a lot of things are going to be evaluated ahead of McDaniels’s second year (I believe he will get a second year, to be clear).
And part of that will be figuring out what to do at quarterback, shocking as it is that we’re already at the point with Carr. The new deal he signed last offseason isn’t guaranteed past this year, and Jimmy Garoppolo and Tom Brady (both obviously familiar with Josh McDaniels) will be free agents in March. Which would indicate there will be some decisions to be made.
I wish I had a better handle on what’s gone wrong this year. What I would say is, if things keep going this way, the status quo won’t be good enough going into next year.
The 49ers still have a few more levels in them. And seeing what Kyle Shanahan said after Sunday night’s 22–16 win over the Chargers makes me feel like they’ll get there: “I was proud of our team today. I want to play better. I want to blow people out. I want to score every time we go.”
San Francisco hasn’t put it all together. But even on nights such as Sunday, when it just looks a little off in general, you can still get a feel for what Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle will be capable of together once they get a little more time on task. And I don’t think, knowing what I know, Shanahan would be talking that way if he didn’t see that, too.
It’s over for Dan Snyder in D.C. When the news broke two weeks ago that the Commanders’ owner had hired Bank of America to handle the sale of part or all of the franchise, a couple of people involved told me that the organization’s getting word out there was almost certainly to get ahead of something. On Thursday, we found out what that something was, when D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine announced his office was filing a consumer protection lawsuit against Snyder, the Commanders, the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell.
The suit, Racine said, alleges that the league, team, Snyder and Goodell were “colluding to deceive residents of the District of Columbia on their investigation into a toxic workplace culture that impacted employees, especially women.” Racine added, “All of that deception was done to protect their profits, and their image.”
This adds to the league’s Mary Jo White–led investigation, and the Congressional Oversight Committee’s investigation, and, notably, this time the league is implicated, too, which means that, yes, the walls are closing in on Snyder, and the clock is ticking on his time owning the team that he grew up rooting for, and that he purchased as a 34-year-old for $800 million with a fortune he made in telecommunications.
And if you want to know when this turned, go back to the fall meetings a few weeks back, and after which Snyder released a searing statement to reiterate that he wouldn’t even consider selling the team. At that point, Snyder had already lost the support of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, and some in league circles openly wondered whether it’d take Jones’s going directly to Snyder to tell him, simply, it’s time to sell.
I don’t know whether Jones himself wound up doing that. But word is other owners did. Put that together with the knowledge that bad news was coming from the D.C. attorney general, and it’d be hard for Snyder not to see the writing on the wall, and easy to see where he might, finally, get himself to the realization that getting out now would be the best path forward.
I know a lot of people who follow that team are excited for it to happen.
The NFL’s playing-surface argument will continue to rage, with noncontact injuries on turf taking on an increasingly high profile. This week, the league released data that it and the NFLPA contracted IQVIA, a third-party health-care analytics company that it worked with through the pandemic, to gather research on injuries and playing surfaces. The NFL says those results showed negligible differences in noncontact injuries from grass to artificial surfaces. Meanwhile, the union’s eyebrows were raised by the data that the study produced on a specific type of turf.
As it is now, in 2022, there are three different synthetic surfaces—monofilament, slit film and a hybrid of the two (the difference is in the infill and how the fake grass is woven). There are six NFL stadiums (MetLife Stadium in Jersey, Ford Field in Detroit, U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati, Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis and the Superdome in New Orleans) that have slit film. Tottenham in North London, where two NFL games are held per year, and where the league helped finance the football-specific turf surface, has slit film, too.
The IQVIA study showed that there are between two and three additional noncontact ankle injuries per year per field. So that’s been flagged, and I’m told the NFL and NFLPA are going to look further into it—with recent anecdotal evidence (Sterling Shepard’s torn ACL in Jersey, Jameson Williams’s torn ACL in Indy, Rashan Gary’s torn ACL in Detroit) raising more concern.
So if players feel more comfortable on grass, and there’s evidence that it’s even a little bit safer, why wouldn’t the NFL mandate it? It’s what you think. Cost, and a chance to maximize profits. The price point for teams and stadiums has gotten to the point where owners aren’t satisfied with 10 home dates for these venues. And maintaining grass is much more difficult when you’re loading the calendar up with concerts, basketball games, boxing matches and swim meets (yes, there have been those) in these stadiums.
There are solutions out there. One is the hybrid natural surface in Green Bay—which is expensive and takes a lot to maintain but is also used routinely in international soccer. It’s probably not a coincidence that the one team that doesn’t have an owner to pocket the difference is the one investing that way. Another solution is what Real Madrid did with its grass surface in which the Spanish club’s new venue goes underground when it’s not in use and is grown through lamps. Likewise, this is a very expensive fix. And it’s one soccer clubs would be motivated to seek since they’re competing with other leagues for players.
For now, even with NFLPA president J.C. Tretter calling for immediate change, it feels like it’ll be status quo until we get to the offseason. After that, the more high-profile players that speak out—such as Nick Bosa—the better the chance there is for fundamental change. And to me, the Real Madrid example is a good one to show that, with the right investment, there is a way to get to the right conclusion. It’ll be on the owners to make that investment.
Jay Biggerstaff/USA TODAY Sports
Week 10’s wrapping up. And we have 10 quick-hitters to finish it off for you …
• Patrick Mahomes’s brilliance is such that he can throw for 331 yards and four touchdowns, and it really isn’t a big deal in any way, shape or form.
• What might be a big deal for Kansas City is the emergence of Kadarius Toney as a gadget weapon for Mahomes. He had six touches for 90 yards on Sunday—that’s 15 yards per—and a touchdown.
• It was good to see Mike McCarthy get a warm welcome back to Green Bay. That place really did fit him like a glove. And it was also nice to see that things have thawed between the old Packers coach and Aaron Rodgers.
• The Rams have six losses, which is tied for second-most of the Sean McVay era, and they still have eight games left. I’d maintain that Andrew Whitworth was a bigger loss than they figured he’d be—and the injuries up front they’ve had all year have only highlighted that.
• Loved this line from Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel on Tua Tagovailoa in the postgame locker room: “By the way, he won’t tell you, but this dude is playing lights the f--- out.”
• McDaniel deserved more Coach of the Year mention than he got in our execs midseason award poll last week. He might be my pick right now—he’s not only won, and maximized Tagovailoa, he navigated the team through a thorny situation after his concussion, which couldn’t haven’t been easy for a first-year head coach.
• The Texans game could’ve been a trap for the Giants. Instead, New York’s now 7–2. And I don’t know where Houston’s going at this point—1-7-1 and with as many questions about the coaching staff as there were a year ago. Will GM Nick Caserio have another decision to make?
• Trevor Lawrence is on his way. Now it’s on the Jaguars to do more around him.
• Justin Fields, too. Just a spectacular athlete, tough as hell, a good leader, and a naturally accurate passer who’ll get better with reps.
• Cole Kmet’s pretty damn good, too.
THREE FOR MONDAY
- Commanders quarterback Carson Wentz is eligible to return Tuesday—his injury will prevent him from making his first start at Philadelphia since the Eagles traded him—and that makes how Taylor Heinicke plays against 8–0 Philly pivotal. A win on the road, and Washington will keep pace in the NFC wild-card race (fair to say the division is likely out of reach), and Heinicke would make his case to keep the job. Remember, the guaranteed money in Wentz’s contract is up after this year, and the Commanders would actually benefit draft-pick-wise, leaving him on the bench (they’d send Indy a third-rounder in April rather than a second-rounder, if Wentz finishes having played less than 70% of the team’s offensive snaps). So all of it is worth watching.
- One Eagle that I know the coaches feel like isn’t getting enough credit—that you should watch on Monday night—is Miles Sanders. If he hadn’t already, he’s living up to his draft position now. He came into the week seventh in the NFL in rushing yards (656) in just eight games, is averaging 5.0 yards per carry and still seems to have plenty left in the chamber since he has just 11 catches to this point (he had 50 as a rookie). The Monday night stage should be a good one for him to show everyone how far he’s come, with free agency looming in March for Saquon Barkley’s old understudy at Penn State.
- The Commanders will have to wait another week to get Chase Young back, and that means it’ll be over a year between game reps for him. The 23-year-old won Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2020, but struggled a bit early last year before blowing out his knee, and Washington’s been very careful in bringing him back. And the good news here is it does seem to follow a trend in which teams are being more cautious in bringing guys back from ACL injuries, with Buffalo’s Tre’Davious White and Detroit’s Jameson Williams other good examples.
ONE THING YOU NEED TO KNOW
Odell Beckham Jr. is approaching nine months post-op, and so his market will heat up soon. And it’s important to know how the ex-Giant, Brown and Ram got here.
Beckham initially tore the ACL in his left knee in October of 2020, had surgery, and returned to the field for Week 3 in ’21 as a Brown. Which gave the impression he was O.K., and that Cleveland had given him plenty of time to rehab (11 months) when the situation was more complicated than that.
Regardless of where the blame is placed, Beckham’s 2020 ACL surgery wasn’t successful. By the time he pushed his way out of Cleveland last November, that much was clear. In fact, during his physical with the Rams, there was plenty of trepidation about signing him, with the status of the knee murky enough that the team might’ve balked at signing him if it were for the full season. After talking it through with Beckham, the team and player figured they could get him through the season, managing the knee, and hoped for the best.
They almost made it, with Beckham tearing an ACL that was hanging by a thread at the end in the Super Bowl. And the prognosis coming off the second surgery, performed by Rams team doctor Neal ElAttrache (one of the nation’s best knee surgeons, and one whom Tom Brady trusted with his knee 14 years ago), has been better.
Still, it will remain a point of interest to the teams looking into Beckham (49ers, Bills, Chiefs, Cowboys, Giants, Rams) in the coming days. Which should make his physical pretty relevant, same as it was a year ago in Los Angeles.
