GEORGE: 20 NFL Takeaways From Week 9
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Some random takeaways from Week 9:
1) Someone recently made this comment: “We are not that far away from a 70-yard field goal!”
At the end of Week 9, we have an answer: “Two yards.”
Cam Little of Jacksonville extended the NFL’s longest field goal record on Sunday. The previous record of 66 was held by Justin Tucker of Baltimore. He hit the 68-yarder just before halftime, which is when a lot of mega-kicks are attempted.
2) I’m old enough to remember 1970, when Tom Dempsey of New Orleans kicked the first ever field goal to break 60 yards. In the frantic closing seconds of a tight game with Detroit, Dempsey lined up and boomed a 63-yard field goal that almost caused CBS’ Don Criqui to have a coronary. Dempsey was born with half a right foot, so he had to use a special shoe that was approved by the league. He kicked straight on, as this kick happened when soccer-style kicking was just coming into being.
3) Back to the present. If you watched Little’s kick, you can tell that it would have been good from 70. It was kicked indoors, in Las Vegas. It was not affected by the wind, and it was not in Denver, so it was also not affected by altitude (kicks travel farther in thin air). Little nailed an absolute monster kick. I think we can all agree that a 70-yard field goal is closer to reality than we may have previously thought.
4) While we are on the subject of kickers, Parker Romo came back to Foxborough and yanked an extra point wide right. This proved the difference in the game as the Falcons lost by that one point.
Meanwhile, Andy Borregales hasn’t missed since Week 2 in Miami. How many of you made like Bob Lobel (“Why can’t we get kickers like that?”) after Week 2 ended?
Moral of the story: Never, ever jump to conclusions.
5) Geek of the week: When rookie tight end Colston Loveland (another Michigan man) caught the game-winning touchdown pass for Chicago against Cincinnati, some defender bumped Loveland as he caught the ball instead of trying to actually tackle him. The Bengals have suffered enough these last two weeks, so I ask all of you to go and watch the video to find out who the GOTW is. Let’s leave his name out of this space.
6) Cincinnati became the first team in NFL history to score 38 or more points in two consecutive games and lose both games. Bad times continue to roll in the Queen City.
7) It would be great to pick the brains of other head coaches in the league when the subject of “Drake Maye played like total crap today, and STILL won!” comes up. “Total crap” are the other teams’ choice of words, not Maye’s team.
8) Mike Vrabel gets “quote of the week”, which is not a weekly (dis)honor. When asked about the turnovers committed by the Patriots (actually Maye), he said this: “We’re going to learn from winning, so that we don’t have to learn from losing.” A new perspective on how to make a team better and still be a playoff contender.
9) It was Green Bay’s turn to wear disgusting uniforms. Some time ago, I ranked all 32 teams on their uniforms, and I put the Packers at number one. 1933 was a nice year as one of my parents was born that year. The Packers need to come up with some other way to honor that year.
10) As of right now, the Colts, Broncos, and Patriots are all 7-2, best in the AFC. If the playoffs began today, the Colts are the one seed, the Broncos are the two seed, and the Patriots are the three seed.
11) Indy gets the top seed on conference record, so they are eliminated, and it’s now Denver and New England. Denver beats the Patriots in a category that all of us are going to have to know/come to grips with: strength of victory.
12) This is where the Patriots will pay for their easy schedule. They perhaps will win most of the rest of their games, but if they tie with anyone they didn’t play head-to-head, expect them to lose the tiebreaker. The three seed still gets a home playoff game, but those of you who remember the glory days know how nice a bye week is in January.
13) Back to school: Several people have spoken to me and mentioned how crummy the Big Ten conference is with 18 teams, and four of them are in the Pacific time zone. Personally, I would love to go back to the original ten teams. I’m still not used to Maryland, Nebraska, Rutgers and Penn State in the conference. College Football is following the lead of the NFL and turning this branch of athletics into a major cash cow. I’m glad we finally have playoffs, but seeing some of these teams travel 2,000 miles for road conference games doesn’t sit well.
14) One nice thing about the Patriots heading back to humid Florida this weekend: Back in September, when Florida weather is worse than the altitude in Denver, the Patriots won. Granted, the Dolphins are horrid this year, but the Patriots usually play even more horrid in that stadium. Now that November is here, the weather should not cause the Patriots to wilt.
15) When you see Jaylen Daniels go down with that arm injury, every football fan has a lump in his throat. The league needs him, Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, and all other faces of the league to stay healthy and always be there to give their team the best chance to win. The NFL suffers as a league when guys of this magnitude stand on the sidelines and watch helplessly as they are too hurt to play.
16) To all Vikings fans: Shut up about wanting Sam Darnold back. J.J. McCarthy is your quarterback for the future. Nice road win the other day. Where was that win at?
17) So, we finally saw Buffalo beat Kansas City. My wife (a Bills fan) started squawking at me about how the Bills can’t beat the Chiefs in the playoffs. If that’s the general mindset in Erie County, New York, then I don’t see Bills Nation ever being truly happy until Wide Right is expunged from everyone’s memory up that way.
18) The Saints need to have the first pick. Tennessee got their quarterback last year. This year, it’s New Orleans’ turn.
19) Remember him: John McKay was a legend at USC. He had a 127-40-8 record as Trojan head coach. He won four National Championships and coached in eight Rose Bowl games (winning them all). Despite this glittering record, he was persuaded to become the founding head coach of the expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1976. His first team went 0-14. The next year, in 1977, the Bucs went 0-12 before they finally won their first NFL game, a 33-14 win over New Orleans. The Buccaneers would miraculously play in the 1979 NFC Championship game, but were shut down by the Los Angeles Rams in a defensive struggle, 9-0. His record as Buccaneer head coach was 44-88-1. Despite prosperity in the early 1980s, McKay is not remembered well in the Tampa area. He is, however, remembered for his sense of humour; he was once asked if he would comment on the execution of his offense, and he said “I’m in favor of it!”
20) On Monday night, my wife and I settled in to watch Arizona take on Dallas on Monday Night Football on ESPN.
We have YouTube TV, because they somehow took NFL Sunday Ticket away from DirecTV. Anyway, at least the rest of the family is happy (I still miss NBC Sports Boston and NESN) with the lower price. So we sat down and expected to see a good game.
Except…
ESPN is owned by Disney. At present, Disney and YouTube TV are at odds with each other over contract re-negotiations. So, guess what? ESPN (and its sister stations) are not listed on YouTube TV. Also missing are all Disney channels, as well as our local ABC affiliate. Instead of a football game, I was forced to watch a British cooking show on Netflix. I let wifey pick the channel, so…
I once thought Fox pulled off the impossible when it snitched the NFC games from CBS in 1994. This little whoop-dee-doo that YouTube TV pulled off is a hundred times more incredible. Things were going just fine with the NFL games on DirecTV, albeit more expensive. But when it came out that Sunday Ticket was moving to YouTube TV, I stood there with my mouth hanging open. It’s year three now, I still pine for Andrew Siciliano on Red Zone, and I wish we could go back to the way things were. Yes, DirecTV had negotiation issues at times (NBC, among others), but they were the overall better carrier and offered more for out of town sports nuts like Yours Truly.
So folks, if you saw Monday night’s game, kindly drop me a line and let me know how it went. Thanks in advance.
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You can buy a cheap antenna for about 20 bucks. Plug it into your tv and you can get ABC over the airwaves for nada. You can buy the new ESPN app if you can’t live without it. Myself, as YouTube TV subscriber I hope they don’t cave. Enjoy your column Bob.