Week 11 Around the NFL: Drama, Surprises, and Standout Performances

Steelers 34 Bengals 12: The big news out of this game was the Aaron Rodgers injury on his left (non-throwing) wrist. MRIs later suggested that he avoided serious injury, and there’s even a chance he might play this week against the Bears. I’m sure he’s pushing to do so given his long history of dominance over the Bears spanning his entire career (he’s 24-5 against them lifetime).

Jaguars 35 Chargers 6: The Chargers got walloped by the Jaguars, and with a difficult schedule to finish off the season, I’m beginning to suspect that they could very well miss the playoffs. But to give them credit, injuries have completely destroyed them (especially on the offensive line), and they’re still sitting at 7-4. I was never a big believer in Justin Herbert after his first two years in the league, and while I won’t deny he has incredible talent, he has never proven that he could put it all together—especially down the stretch. He finished this game 10 of 18 for 81 yards and 1 interception before Jim Harbaugh pulled him for Trey Lance once the game was out of reach. The Chargers finished with just 135 total yards of offense.

Bills 44 Bucs 32: The final score in this game does not do justice to how entertaining it was. There were 9 (!) lead changes in the back-and-forth affair until the Bills pulled away late in the fourth quarter. I was glued to this game expecting it to be a high-scoring, fun game to watch, and it certainly did not disappoint. Josh Allen, although making 2 mistakes resulting in interceptions, was an absolute beast otherwise. He got into the end zone a whopping 6 times and finished 19-30 with 317 yards, averaging 16.6 yards per completion! He also rushed 6 times for 40. When he turns it on like that, there is no way to stop him, and his only real threat to his game is himself (or the Chiefs in the playoffs 😊).

Bears 19 Vikings 17: How about them Bears! I thought this would be a little bit more entertaining than it was, but the ending did not disappoint—which is becoming extremely common for the Bears. In the future, if you see the Bears in a one-score affair in the fourth quarter, it’s time to tune in. The comeback was not orchestrated by Caleb Williams this time; most of it came on the kickoff return from Devin Duvernay, who was looking more like Devin Hester on that return. From there, all Caleb had to do was hand the ball off to D’Andre Swift to make it a little more comfortable for Cairo Santos, who finished it off with a 48-yard field goal to end the game and give the Bears yet another last-second victory. The only problem with their game is that it’s not really sustainable. You can’t expect to miraculously come from behind every single game, especially when you’re playing against great defenses in the playoffs. But let’s see how far they can take this. It hasn’t looked pretty, but it’s been working. The Bears were a massive question mark coming into the season, but even those who were high on them did not have them sitting alone atop the NFC North after Week 11. Absolutely wild.

Panthers 30 Falcons 27 (OT): Speaking of unexpected, who expected the Panthers to be 6-5 and a half-game out of first place in the NFC South? Bryce Young continues to show improvement as he went 31 of 45 for 448 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. The only blemish is he took 5 sacks for 29 yards- although not all on him, obviously. Michael Penix Jr. left the game with an injury and it looks like he’s not coming back for the rest of the season. Absolute bummer for him.

Packers 27 Giants 20: What is it about the Packers and bad teams? They lost to the Browns, lost to the Panthers (who, to be fair, aren’t nearly as bad as everyone thought they were going to be), and nearly lost to the Cardinals before nearly coughing this one up to the ever-faithful Jameis Winston-led Giants. I’ve been very high on the Packers this year, but I’ve begun to change my tone. Given what I’ve seen these past few weeks, I’m not even sure they’re a top-5 team in the NFC anymore.

Rams 21 Seahawks 17: Sam Darnold threw 4 interceptions against the Rams and still somehow put his team in position to win the game… only to see Jason Myers miss a game-winning 61-yarder with 1 second remaining. They were even further from field-goal range with 5 seconds left with one timeout, and Darnold held the ball for what seemed to be way too long, but miraculously the Seahawks were still able to get a timeout with barely a second remaining. it was all for naught, though.

Ravens 23 Browns 16: Everyone who thought the Ravens were going to rout the Browns ended up feeling pretty stupid after this was all said-and-done. Shedeur Sanders made his long-awaited debut in the second half, and everyone was able to see fairly quickly why the Browns have been so hesitant to play him. We’re all beginning to see the reason why he dropped to the fifth round. It’s just half a game with no preparation and we obviously need to give him time, but he looked so lost out there on the field. He ended up completing 4 of 16 passing with one interception. Not a great way to silence the millions of doubters that he has. He’s getting the start next week against the Raiders, so we’ll see if a week of preparation can be of value to him.

Broncos 22 Chiefs 19: The Chiefs were seemingly always playing catch-up until they finally took the lead late, but Bo Nix pulled out his late fourth-quarter magic and drove his team down the field to set up Will Lutz for a game-winning 35-yard field goal. Hats off to the Broncos for out-Mahomes-ing Mahomes with the late-game stuff.

Eagles 16 Lions 9: Sunday Night Football had extremely high expectations but ended up being an absolute dud. Jared Goff played easily the worst game of his career, going a brutal 14 of 37 (38%) for 255 yards, 1 touchdown, and 1 INT. He was way off on all of his throws, and I was wondering how much his decision to wear a glove on his throwing hand may have factored into his poor play. It was cold and very windy in Philadelphia and that’s probably the reason why he did, but someone on the sidelines maybe should have said, “Jared, you look terrible right now. Take off the glove.” I said I was not seeing another 10-7 type of game we saw last Monday night happening again here, but I was proven wrong. This was a very uninspiring and unentertaining game. It wasn’t even like there was good defense; it was just terrible offense. Maybe Dan Campbell will give up his newly self-appointed offensive play-caller position sooner than we think.

Cowboys 33 Raiders 16: I don’t like to hate on teams, but the Las Vegas Raiders look so bad right now. I’m specifically referring to the offensive side of the ball. They look dead-in-the-water. Geno Smith is not playing NFL-caliber football and the offense just cannot make their way down the field. It’s really difficult to watch.