Yawn. Football Without the Packers Is Boring.

• Bargaining would be much easier if I could convince myself that Aaron Rodgers had a chance of returning this season. The 13 screws he had put into his collarbone, however, really make that possibility rather slim. Still, there’s a chance, right? Some chance? Any? There has to be!

• How does this bargaining work? I have a very large family, all of them with perfectly useless collarbones sitting in them. Maybe ….?

• Does Martavis Bryant have an agent, manager, friend -- anyone -- who can help him out as far as how to behave as a professional and how not to burn bridges? The promising wide receiver was suspended all of last season due to multiple failed and missed drug tests. Earlier this month, it was reported that Bryant had requested a trade from the Steelers, but Bryant denied the report. A week later, however, he was publicizing his frustration with his reduced role online, which included an exchange with a fan where Bryant said that rookie teammate JuJu Schuster-Smith is “no where near better than me,” and alluded to the fact that he had requested a trade. Then he called in “sick” to a meeting. The Steelers, obviously none too pleased with Bryant, demoted him to the practice squad, and the relationship appears to be over. When asked if he was confident Bryant could contribute to the team later in the season, head coach Mike Tomlin said, “I’m not.”

No more hugs for Martavis.

• By the way, JuJu Schuster-Smith is a) very good so far, and b) ONLY 20 YEARS OLD! And he’s a team player, as seen here taking the lowly role of the bench in Le'Veon Bell’s bench-pressing celebration.

• It was a very frustrating Sunday for me. Not only were the Green Bay Packers not playing, but there were a lot of games that got my hopes up, only to disappoint. The Seahawks-Texans, the Cowboys-Redskins, and the Patriots-Chargers games all started off well or stayed close, but the villains all won in the end. Just my luck.

• So Russell Wilson had a pretty good Sunday, I guess. Seattle squeaked out a 41-38 win over Houston, and Wilson accounted for all but three of Seattle’s 479 yards: 446 yards passing and 30 yards running. For rushing, the rest of his team managed three yards on 17 carries for a 0.18 yards-per-carry average, which translates to about six inches per carry.

• The California Chargers might want to fix that patch of the field that’s apparently covered in ice. It’s make the Chargers look like Curly, Larry, and Moe. (Those are their names, right? I've never watched the Three Stooges.)

• I can’t decide who is my favorite Houston Texans wide receiver. On the one hand, there’s DeAndre Hopkins, who’s a total stud, but on the other hand, there’s second-year man Will Fuller, who’s not only a Notre Dame boy (Go Irish!), but he missed the first three games of the season and is still leading the NFL in receiving touchdowns. 

• The subreddit for the 3-4 Arizona Cardinals has become a bird-watching thread. 

• Adding insult to injury: Chicago Bears tight end Zach Miller dislocated his knee on a touchdown which was then overturned on replay, even though it was clearly a completion in the endzone. I won’t show the video here because seeing Miller’s knee bending the opposite way than it’s supposed to is too gruesome, but trust me that it was a touchdown. Not only did Miller dislocate his knee, but he actually suffered arterial damage, as well, that required emergency surgery to try to “save” his leg! The surgery apparently went well, but that’s just awful. Here’s hoping for a swift and successful recovery.

• Things got just a little heated on Thursday night. Miami Dolphins linebacker Kiko Alonso leveled a helmet-to-helmet hit on Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco as he slid after a short run. Flacco suffered a concussion and there was, predictably, a skirmish after the hit, with some people calling for Alonso’s suspension. You can see the clip for yourself below. It’s a tough hit that deserved to be flagged -- and I would have been okay with an ejection -- but it’s very hard to correctly predict when and at what angle a quarterback is going to slide. I think the league rightly did not suspend Alonso. Baltimore, however, levied its own punishment, scoring the next 27 points and shutting out Miami 40-0.

• Also, guess what? Ndamukong Suh is still an animal.

• Jay Cutler was out for the Dolphins with broken ribs. Since he’s down, now seems like a perfect time to kick him. ESPN polled current players about QBs around the league. One of the questions was, “Who is the one QB you would NOT want as a teammate?” Jay beat out the runner-up by 36%.

Hope your ribs feel better for real, though, Jay.

• Man, Julius Peppers is coming up on 38 years of life, and he’s still out there causing havoc. On Sunday, he forced his 49th career fumble and moved into fourth place on the all-time sacks list.  

• What is it with former Packers players having great years?? Peppers is still playing well, and safety Micah Hyde, who signed with the Buffalo Bills in the offseason, is now leading the league in interceptions.  

• One thing that was promised on this blog and has been sorely lacking is the presence of cats. Thursday Night Football stepped up where O&E has failed.

• Shout-out to baltimoreravens.com for this fantastic dangling modifier. 

• Backup New England Patriots’ quarterback and handsome devil Jimmy Garoppolo was traded to the San Francisco 49ers for a second-round pick. People are already building him up as San Fran’s savoir. Now, I like Garoppolo and hopes he does well, but let’s remember how the Patriots made Matt Cassel, Ryan Mallett, and Brian Hoyer look like stars. All these trades seem to end with Bill Belichick & Co. evilly laughing in some darkened boardroom as they count their draft picks. 

• Ezekiel Elliott is back to being suspended (for now), as we all knew he would be. As I've said before, if players didn't want Roger Goodell to be judge, jury, and executioner, they shouldn't have signed the CBA.

• Kansas City beat Denver on Monday night, leaving them as the only team in their division with a winning record. I suppose that's impressive or something, but you all know how I feel about the Chiefs.

• Travis Benjamin’s decision-making skills are the headline here, but let’s give props to the refs for the perfectly synchronized signalling of the safety. Like a mirror image.

• Philip Rivers should be credited for this strip. 

Phillip Rivers bats the ball out of his own hand for a fumble pic.twitter.com/In5pMxvlAT

— 🎃Josh🇦🇶 (@Janderson___22) October 29, 2017

• Hey, you guys remember Samkon Gado? He was a running back for the Packers quite briefly. Since leaving the NFL, he’s applied to medical school and is currently in residency as an Ear, Nose, Throat doctor. He is planning on using his skills to return to his native Nigeria to open a medical clinic. Pretty neat career!

• I still totally, 100% have faith in Brett Hundley, but I have been watching this gif on a loop for the last hour.

• But I’m okay.

• Bring on the Lions and Monday Night Football!!

Slouching Toward .500

• The next stage brings us to anger. I can do that.

• I have no heart to be angry at Brett Hundley, so I shall make Mike McCarthy the focus of my rage. McCarthy himself took the blame, saying, “Pin it on the head coach.” I’m on board with that. The fact of the matter is that the Green Bay Packers are going to need some sort of X factor to win without Aaron Rodgers. One of McCarthy’s biggest weaknesses has always been his lack of creativity. When is the last time a defense playing the Packers saw something they didn’t expect? Something they hadn’t seen before? Give Hundley some help and throw some wrinkles in. 

• Personally, I’d be okay with turnovers if they came on some shots down the field. I’d rather take the risk and let Hundley loose a bit than give him a conservative vanilla game plan to work with. It may be that the Pack isn’t comfortable enough with Hundley to do so, but if that’s the case, what have you been doing with him the last three years?

• My ire toward McCarthy is mostly in his failure to adjust in the second half. The offensive line did a great job protecting Hundley in the first half of the game, but the New Orleans Saints adjusted and were getting a lot of pressure on poor Brett in the second half. McCarthy, I think, is way too slow to deviate from his plan long after it’s become clear that the plan isn’t working. 

• I’m trying to give Hundley the benefit of the doubt here, but he’ll need to step up, too. 87 passing yards is not going to cut it, especially when your opponent is throwing for 331. The Green Bay defense took the ball away twice in the first quarter and the offense failed to score any points on those turnovers. They can’t miss on opportunities like that. Such a waste of this purty extend-stretch interception by Davon House.

• The Saints were 8-of-15 on third downs, but it felt like more. The defense gave up a lot of big-yardage plays, especially in the second half.

• Damarious Randall had another pick, which is great, but I’m still not super confident in him.

I’ve never seen an NFL defensive player more afraid of contact than Damarious Randall. pic.twitter.com/89zxz78AFu

— Bryce Derouin (@B_DEROUIN) October 16, 2017

• Um, you guys, it's going to be really hard to win if all our defensive backs are afraid to make hits. HaHa Clinton-Dix's recurring unwillingness to make tackles have sparked rumors that he's been playing hurt all season. If so, you're not helping us out by playing like this, buddy.

• The offensive line injuries extend even to their coach, James Campen, who suffered a knee injury on the sidelines last week at Minnesota.

• Despite the horrible numbers -- 12/25, 87 yards, 0 touchdowns, and 1 interception -- I still like Hundley and still have faith in him. He had a fairly good pocket presence, made plays with his feet, and above all, I love his steady and confident demeanor. 

• Brett did have a rushing touchdown (and his first real Lambeau Leap). Jordy helped out with a nice block.

• Does Hundley not wear a mouthguard? What is he thinking??

• Aaron Jones had another 100-yard rushing day. So there’s that. Kinda resent this long TD run on the first drive, though, as it got my hopes for the game up.

• I’m avoiding confronting my conflicted feelings of cheering for a Green Bay quarterback named Brett. Not yet ready to talk about that.

• ♫ One is the loneliest number... ♫

Solo spin for @JordyRNelson 🏈🌪#NOvsGB #GoPackGo pic.twitter.com/eZ5uSmC8Vs

— Green Bay Packers (@packers) October 22, 2017

• Man, I feel like the Atlanta Falcons' psyche is broken. They look as if they have as little faith in themselves as I have in them.

• My favorite part (and the only interesting part) of the New England-Atlanta game was the ambiance set by the fog. I kept expected Sam Spade to walk out in a trench coat. 

• All of the Chicago Bears touchdowns were scored by rookie cornerback Eddie Jackson. He returned a Carolina Panthers fumble 75 yards for a score and then returned an interception 76 yards for a score. So, to summarize, the Chicago offense had 153 yards and Eddie Jackson had 151 yards.

• Considering he turned the ball over three times, I guess Cam Newton had good reason to attend his post-game presser incognito.

• Carolina and Chicago were two of seven -- seven!! -- teams that failed to score an offensive touchdown this week. The Browns (obvs), Titans, Cardinals, Colts, and Broncos joined them in this stat of shame. 

• You can understand how the Indianapolis Colts failed to score when you see that the Jacksonville Jaguars sacked quarterback Jacoby Brisset 10 times. Daaaaaang. It must be hard to score when you spend the entire game in the dirt.

Ow.

• Please note: that is not the Jaguars’ first 10-sack game this season. They did the same thing against the Texans Week 1. 

• It doesn’t appear relief is on the horizon for the 2-5 Colts. Quarterback Andrew Luck, who had shoulder surgery back in January, had only recently started throwing again when Indianapolis had to shut him down due to soreness in his shoulder.

• It wouldn’t be an NFL Sunday without Vontaze Burfict doing something dirty. Seriously, when will they just say “enough,” and kick him out of the league?? Here he is (#55, on the ground) kicking an opponent in the face.

Two plays in and Vontaze Burfict kicks Rosie Nix after a play. Then points at Nix for some reason. #Steelers #Bengals pic.twitter.com/lioNLDDMvX

— Josh Rowntree (@JRown32) October 22, 2017

• UGH things just are not going my way! It’s bad enough that I don’t get to watch Aaron Rodgers, but now Jay Cutler’s out with broken ribs, so he’ll be missing some time.

• The California/Whatever Chargers had 69-yard punt that was downed at the one-inch line. 

• On the subject of punts, look at this beautifully executed fake punt by the Pittsburgh Steelers. From the poker-faced pre-snap to the perfect snap by the long snapper to the pitch and catch to Mike Tomlin’s self-satisfaction, it’s exemplary all the way through.

• Noooooooooo! There are very few things that every NFL can agree on, and one of them is Joe Thomas. The Cleveland Browns left tackle missed his first-ever plays in his 11-year career. That’s right, after 10,363 consecutive snaps, Thomas suffered torn tricep that ended his season. Hopefully he can bounce back quickly. 

• The Dallas Cowboys’ kicker extraordinaire Dan Bailey suffered a pulled groin that sidelined him, forcing safety Jeff Heath to take over kicking duties. I love it when this happens (not injuries, but a random player having to take kicks) because I love the sportsmanship of “Yeah, I’ve never really done this before and it could go really wrong, but sure, I’ll try.” Here’s Heath’s impressive kickoff.

• Even better is Heath’s extra point attempt and his teammates’ excitement. (Listen with sound for both the kick hitting the upright and for the announcer's villainous laugh at the end.)

• Things are going great for the Browns. They started rookie DeShone Kizer at quarterback and went 0-5. Then they benched Kizer (‘cause it’s his fault his perennially bad team is still bad), played a man named Kevin Hogan for a game. Kevin wasn’t great, so now they’re back to Kizer. Sunday, Kizer kept throwing interceptions, so they benched him again, this time for the third-string quarterback, Cody Kessler. 

• When Kansas City Chief Marcus Peters took a cheap shot on Oakland Raider QB Derek Carr (who has a fracture in his back, but is still playing) Oakland running back/professional Crazy Man Marshawn Lynch came sprinting off the sideline to jumped into the ensuing scrum. When an official tried to break up the melee, Lynch shoved the official and was obviously ejected from the game. A one-game suspension was handed down. BUT WAIT! The latest hot take is that Lynch shouldn’t be suspended because he was trying to break things up between his teammates and his bestie Peters!!! That’s great; he still shoved an official.

• Lynch and Peters are still all good, as evidenced by the fact that they rode public transportation home together after the game and that Peters will be testifying on Lynch’s behalf when Lynch appeals his suspension. (Still don’t care. Push a ref = suspension.)

• There is no better ending to a game than winning on an untimed down, as the Raiders did on Thursday night, but that doesn’t capture how crazy it really was. With 23 seconds left in the game, Carr throws a 35-yard pass to Jared Cook that is called a touchdown. Replay shows that Cook was down just before the goal line though, so Oakland has the ball at the one-foot line with 0:07 left. Carr throws to Michael Crabtree for the touchdown!! …. but the touchdown is negated by Crabtree’s offensive pass interference. (I thought it was a good and obvious call.) So now we’re down to 0:03, 11 yards to go. Carr throws to Cook, goes off his hands, incomplete … but Kansas City is called for holding. The clock’s run out at this point, but the penalty means an untimed down from the 5-yard line. Carr hits Cordarrelle Patterson in the back of the endzone, but Patterson comes down out of bounds ...  but another defensive hold! Another untimed down! This time Carr hits Crabtree in the front corner of the endzone for a touchdown, no penalties. Raiders win 31-30! Wow.

• I’m quite pleased with each and every Ezekiel Elliott suspension injunction because they’re just going to keep delaying it and delaying it and by the time the suspension inevitably goes into effect, it’ll be the playoffs. Fantastic!

• Mitchell Trubisky is the heir-apparent to the Manning Face. We won’t have Mannings in the league forever, so it’s reassuring to see a young guy in line to take on that mantle. 

• Didn’t Jimmy Graham used to be the most fearsome pass-catcher in the NFL? No more.

• The Packers have a bye next week, so we can all hope that they get healthy and figure out some things before they host the Detroit Lions on Monday night.

• I’m not holding out hope the Aaron Rodgers can return this season -- I’d rather the Packers err on the far, far side of caution with him -- but at least he’s on the road to recovery.

Get well, Aaron!

It’s Not the End of the World!

• It’s okay. It’s okay! Really, it’s okay! We’re going to be okay. I’m totally okay. Things are going to be alright.

• Now, granted, when the Green Bay Packers finished the game against the Minnesota Vikings, they barely had enough players to field a team. That’s not good, certainly, but that doesn’t mean the season is over or that everything has been for naught or that we’re losing one more year in the career of the greatest quarterback to play the game. No, no, this season can be saved! 

• I have faith in Brett Hundley. He had a rough time of it in Sunday’s loss, though. He was thrown into the fire against a very good Minnesota defense all while his offensive line was disintegrating right before him. A man named Ulrick John was Hundley’s right tackle by the end of the game, for heaven’s sake! So I’m not going to despair over Hundley because he had difficulty on Sunday. I think Brett seems really sweet and nice and I want him to do well. I beeeeelieeeeeve!

• Did you even know that the Packers had a player named Ulrick John? Of course you didn’t. Just like you didn’t know they had a player named Lenzy Pipkins, who also played for them Sunday. Ol’ Lenzy is a defensive back who had to play after everyone else got injured. Before he, of course, got injured himself. 

Here's Lenzy signing his official Packers contract. This could
have been two days ago or two years ago. How would I know?
I didn't even learn of his existence until Sunday.

• So the Pack came in down Morgan Burnett, Kevin King, and Davon House, all in the secondary. The good news was that their starting left and right tackles were playing in their first game together. Huzzah! Didn’t last long, of course. Bakhtiari went down. Bulaga went down. Taylor went down. Ty Montgomery was injured (wait, you mean playing a running back two weeks after he broke multiple ribs might not have been a good idea??). Quinten Rollins went out (for the season). Linebacker Blake Martinez, who’s been having a great season, went out, but returned. And Lenzy, too, of course. It was just a bloodbath out there.  

The Packers training room on Sunday.

• Hmm one thing the Packers might want to consider is firing their entire strength and conditioning staff and trainers and anyone at all related to ensuring the health of their players because they cannot be very good at their job. Injuries are typically bad luck, but when it happens eight years in a row, maybe something needs to change. 

• Thanks, JMike. Super helpful. This is why no one likes you.

• So, it turns out that Aaron Rodgers will be having surgery on his collarbone, meaning he won’t be coming back this season. But it’s still okay!

• Martellus Bennett is bad at catching. 

• The Packers promoted QB Joe Callahan from the practice squad to backup my boy Hundley.

This picture does not give me a lot of confidence that Joe knows
how to hold, much less throw, a football.

• Um, I totally disagree with this headline from Packers.com. Everyone feels sorry for them! The loss of Rodgers alone elicits universal sympathy, but when people find out that they don’t have any offensive linemen or defensive backs? They definitely feel pity because we are pitiful. At the moment, at least. (I’m still positive! It’s still going to be OKAY!!!)

• Aww Aaron Jones just keeps getting cuter and cuter! He has a twin brother he’s besties with.

• I think Anthony Barr should have been called for a late hit on Aaron Rodgers, but it wasn’t egregious enough that it was a terrible no-call. Player-to-player, though, Barr had plenty of time to pull up and not doing so was low class. But that’s how Barr rolls. Here he is (#55), after the play, headbutting a player who was in the hospital a couple of weeks ago with a head/neck injury. Barr later left the game with a concussion, which I believe came from God smiting him for being a jerk.

• Green Bay had so many penalties! They lost 92 yards on eight penalties. They just need to clean those up and that’ll go a long way in improving everything, right? Right?

• Wow! Check out this crazy Pierre Garcon catch! The defender tips it, Garcon manages somehow to catch it and get his knee down in-bounds.

• Man, can you imagine how little confidence the Atlanta Falcons must have in themselves? If you’re a Falcons fan, how big a lead do you need to feel comfortable? 40 points? 50 points? We know 25 points is not the answer, and on Sunday, we learned that 17 is not the answer either. Atlanta was up 17-0 over the Miami Dolphins at halftime. In the second half, the Jay Cutler-led Dolphins scored 20 points to Atlanta’s zero. The game effectively ended with Matt Ryan's sixth interception of the season. The reigning MVP had seven interceptions all of last year.

Watch out! You never know what could happen if Jay Culter starts to care!
(No, seriously, none of knows what would happen in that situation.)

• So I was railing against the Detroit Lions for not pulling a hobbled Matthew Stafford from the game when they were down 45-10 to the New Orleans Saints halfway through the third quarter. Being the Lions, however, they actually came back and got within seven points! Then Stafford threw a pick-six, and the Saints won 52-38. Must suck to waste all that comeback.

• It was a wild game. The Saints defense had an unusually good day against the Lions. (Well, before allowing them to come back from five touchdowns down, I mean.) They had 12 batted passes and forced five turnovers. New Orleans had SIX non-offensive touchdowns. Six!

• The oddest stat, however, might be that three of the Saints’ defensive touchdowns had a grand total of two return yards: a forced fumble recovered in the endzone, a pick-six at the two-yard line, and a pick-six in the endzone that dashed Detroit’s hopes of victory. If that's not weird enough, here's another one of the Lions' turnovers -- I've never seen this happen before:

• There were a lot of weird games this week. Thirty seconds into the Jacksonville Jaguars-Los Angeles Rams game, the score was 7-7. After combining for 31 points in the first quarter, the two teams scored only six points the entire second half. Here's how the game started:

• Then there was the Chicago Bears-Baltimore Ravens game, in which Bears QB Mitchell Trubisky attempted just 16 passes, while Joe Flacco attempted 41. Trubisky was only involved in one of Chicago’s three touchdowns in their 27-24 overtime win: one touchdown was a pick-six and the other was thrown by running back Tarik Cohen.

• We’ll put this in the No One Saw It Coming file: the previously 0-5 New York Giants beat the 3-1 Denver Broncos. Denver is not the team against which I would have guessed the Giants would break their losing streak.

• Giants’ defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul notched a sack against the Broncos and celebrated with a dance that a kid with cancer had taught him.

JPP did the dance Hayden taught him Friday!!! @gardenofdreams @MSGNetworks @nyknicks @Giants @UDWJPP pic.twitter.com/KIDPpuxtb6

— Jill Martin (@JillMartin) October 16, 2017

• 62.5% of Texans’ wideout Will Fuller’s receptions this year have been touchdowns. He missed the first few games due to injury, and in the three he has played in, he has eight receptions and five touchdowns.

• Hey, look -- Tramon! Long-time readers of O&E will know how much I loved Tramon Williams when he was on the Packers. Glad to see him doing well.

• Welcome back, Adrian Peterson! After a stymied stint in New Orleans, Peterson was traded to the Arizona Cardinals. Here he is on his very first drive with the Cardinals.

• Deshaun Watson is pretty awesome and seems cool and sweet, so I guess we’re just letting the mustache pass without comment? Okay.

• Ahh, some things just feel so familiar, like an old shoe or the refs cheating to help the Patriots win. In the fourth quarter, the New York Jets scored a touchdown (see below). The officials reviewed the score and found that the Jets player had briefly lost control of the ball (true), regained possession (true), and now has to do the whole “complete the process of the catch thing” (okay, fine). The ref then had the nerve to say the player bobbled the ball again (uh, says you, Mr. Ref! Where??) and never recovered before going out of bounds. Fumbling the ball out of bounds means that the team just gets the ball where the fumble occurred … except when it happens in the endzone. In that case, it’s a touchback and the other team gets it at the 20-yard line. So not only did the Jets have that score taken away, they also had the ball taken away from them! Keep in mind that the play was already ruled a touchdown, so you need obvious evidence to overturn it. The no-shame-having official said after the game: “It was a pretty quick determination. It was pretty obvious.”

• The Patriots should be 1-5. It sucks that there is no justice in the world and they are 4-2, but the small solace is that, deep in their hearts, New England fans all know that they are a 1-5 team right now.

• I understand the defender carrying Taylor Gabriel for the first three or four yards. Why he continues to fireman-carry him for another 10, I do not know, but Gabriel didn’t seem to mind. 

• Here’s a weirdly interesting article on how much it takes to feed a football team each week. The 56 pounds of strawberries per day was the most surprising.

• I dearly love Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly. I plan on marrying him someday, but he really needs to retire. On Thursday night, Kuechly suffered his third concussion in the last three years. The first concussion in 2015 was serious enough to sideline him for three games. Last season, he missed six games with a scary concussion that ended his season. Please, please retire, Luke! I want him to be able to remember our children’s names in 20 years!

Protect your beautiful brain!

• I kinda feel that if you have a back fracture, you should probably miss more than just one game, but the Oakland Raiders apparently feel differently about their starting quarterback because Derek Carr played in the Oakland’s loss to the San Diego Los Angeles Chargers.

• Antonio Brown. He’s good. 

• Some Negative Nellies out there have suggested that the Packers won't do well without Rodgers just because they don’t have a run game or a good defense to support their passing game which will now be lucky to be a hollow shell of what it was, but I’m optimistic! They can do this! Let’s go, Brett!

• Green Bay will need players to step up.

We need manly men like Jordy to be leaders.

• I’m not at all worried about my Packers, but just out of sheer idle curiosity, I wonder how well Aaron Rodgers can throw left-handed. I bet he’s still pretty good.

• As I said, it’s going to be okay. It’s going to be better than okay! Brett Hundley can step up, the line can get healthy, Rodgers might be able to recover from surgery miraculously quickly and come back before the end of the season like last time -- these things could happen! And it’s all going to be okay.