Finally, a Win!

• Whew, thank goodness for the Green Bay Packers’ win over the Minnesota Vikings! Not only did the victory end a three-game slide for Green Bay, but also allowed them to regain the division lead from Minnesota.

• The Packers defense was excellent, allowing only 13 points, sacking Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater six times (after 39 consecutive drives without a sack!), and holding the best running back in the league to 45 yards on 13 carries! They also forced a Adrian Peterson fumble.

• The offense looked much better, as well. They were much closer to finding and maintaining a rhythm on several drives. Most importantly, they finally let Eddie Lacy out of the doghouse, and he found his legs to the tune of 100 yards. I’m soooooooooooooo glad! James Starks is very nice, I’m sure, but you all must know by now that I am not a believer in him as a starter.

Don't leave us again!

• Though the win was huge, the Packers’ offensive issues were still apparent. Aaron Rodgers completed only 47% of his passes (he seemed to overthrow several), Randall Cobb caught only two of his nine targets, and they only got into the redzone twice. Rodgers did, however, look downfield more, which is a good thing, even if it didn’t work out a lot this game. His low completion percentage might just be a tradeoff he and the team has to live with in order to get the defensive looks they want.

• The MVP of the game was Mason Crosby, who bounced back from whiffing the would-be winning kick last week to hit field goals of 42, 47, 40, 42, and 52 yards.

(His arms look photoshopped here.)

• Crosby was not only perfect on Sunday, but he also drew a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from Vikings returner Cordarrelle Patterson, who, for no reason at all, got in Crosby’s face after a kick return.

Hey, you leave Mason alone! He didn't do anything to you!
Also, fix your visor -- you look like an idiot.

• Coming into the game, center Corey Linsley was the only offensive lineman who was not listed on the injury report. So of course he injured his ankle in Sunday's game and did not return. Additionally, safety Micah Hyde re-injured his hip and was carted off the field. Receivers Jared Abbrederis and Ty Montgomery were already out for the game.

• I don't care what his official profiel says, Green Bay tight end Justin Perillo ain’t no 25 years old.

• James Jones had a big drop in the first half, but came back with two incredible catches on the second half touchdown drive. It was a great drive for Rodgers and Jones.

• First was this awesome, bobbling catch for 37 yards. Look at the effort to control the ball and establish possession before he hits the turf!

• Then Jones made sure to keep his feet inbounds on this touchdown.

• And then JJ was there when Aaron needed him on the two-point conversion.

• Jones also garnered a lot of attention for his hoodie which shockingly -- for a league that fines players for wearing the wrong color socks -- was legal.

Jordy was a fan.

• In other uniform news, I still love Minnesota's matte helmets. Very chic.

• But I still hate their pants and can’t understand why companies whose job it is to make football uniforms haven’t come up with a better white pants pattern.

You're telling me you can't make a pair of white
football pants that don't include a built-in diaper??

• Poor Joe Flacco! The Baltimore Ravens quarterback, who has never missed a game in his career before, tore his ACL and is out for the season. (Flacco crazily stayed in the game for the final 50 seconds after his injury.) The Ravens also lost their running back, Justin Forsett, for the season to a broken arm. I do feel bad for Baltimore, but I also hate the Ravens, so my empathy mostly insincere.

• The Ravens’ backup is --- AHHHH!! --- Matt Schaub!! Watching Schaub’s jaw-droppingly fast and brutal free fall a couple of years ago was stunning and sad. I’m kinda secretly excited he has a chance to play again and am really, really rooting for him not to be terrible.

In his last season with the Texans, Schaub threw 10 TDs and 14 INTs,
and set an NFL record by throwing pick-sixes in 4 consecutive games.

• I was about to feel bad for St. Louis Rams quarterback Nick Foles, who was demoted this week, but then I saw that he has six interceptions and five fumbles to seven touchdowns on the season, so that’s actually pretty fair.

• It’s absolutely unconscionable that the Rams left backup quarterback Case Keenum in the game when he was obviously suffering from a concussion. Teams are supposed to all have independent observers to look specifically for players who might have suffered a concussion and tell teams to pull those players out for an evaluation. In the case of Keenum, he is tackled, and his head slams violently against the turf. He immediately grabs his head in pain. His teammate tries to force his limp body up, but Keenum collapses right back to the turf. The Rams have to expect some kind of penalty from a league that is trying desperately to show they take concussions seriously.

• The Indianapolis Colts won! They came back to beat the Atlanta Falcons, who struggled mightily, turning the ball over four times. Indy quarterback Andrew Luck is out again due to injury, meaning 40-year-old backup Matt Hasselbeck was back leading the team. In case you haven’t noticed, I am so on the Matt Hasselbeck bandwagon.

He just seems so sweet and nice and hardworking and likable!

• Do you know what would be really awkward? Having to dispute reports that your defensive coordinator was fired when everyone knows he’s just about to be fired, as New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton had to do last Monday. Doubly awkward when said defensive coordinator follows up his firing with a Hurricane Katrina joke. Oh, that Rob Ryan. Such a charmer.

• Now, I’m not saying that the New England Patriots aren’t good; I’m just saying that only one of the 10 teams they’ve beat thus far currently has a winning record. And I’m not saying that they deserve to go 16-0; I’m just saying that if you exclude the Denver Broncos (who now have a question mark at quarterback), the combined record of the rest of the teams they’ll face this season is 20-30.

• The same actually holds true for the league’s other undefeated team, the Carolina Panthers -- the Packers are the only team they’ve beaten who currently have a winning record. They face a tougher schedule than the Patriots, since their remaining slate features the 6-4 Atlanta Falcons twice. Even with the Falcons, their remaining opponents have a combined record of 29-31.

• Sunday night’s game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Cincinnati Bengals featured a pretty exciting second half. Cincinnati came back from down 14 to kick a game-tying field goal with 1:03 left. Arizona got the ball back, and have three huge completions to get into field goal range. Arizona lined up for a 46-yard field goal, but jumped offsides! Not only is that a five-yard penalty, but it also comes with a 10-second runoff when in the final two minutes of a game. That meant the clock ran out before the Cardinals could kick, sending the game into overtime. Well, that’s what it would have meant if the Bengals hadn’t been called for unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for simulating the snap count. That moved the Cardinals up, and they kicked an easy 32-yard field goal for the win.

Bengals WR AJ Green's reaction as Arizona kicked the winning field goal.

• I had never heard that penalty called before. Why is it unsportsmanlike for the defensive to dummycall but not the offense? In both cases, aren’t you trying to trick the opponent?

• Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo returned from a broken collarbone injury to lead his team to victory over the Miami Dolphins. The Cowboys went 0-7 in Romo’s absence, and will need to win out (or at least close to it, considering how terrible their division is) to make the playoffs. I, for one, was very happy to see Romo back and the Cowboys win. I really, really enjoy watching Dallas fans get their hopes up.

This will be me.
In December.
Laughing at Cowboys fans.

• Jerry Jones spoke with the media about the recent meeting he had with defensive end Greg Hardy’s conduct, and, as always, some wonderful Jerry quotes were the result.
• “He is aware that everything he does -- his personality, his style, his enthusiasm -- it's all going to be interpreted negatively. If he's not aware of that, then he's hurting a lot of people.” So he’s definitely aware, but he might not be aware.
• “I think he really gets that. We certainly feel that way. He understands it, and he has agreed to really work on it." Good for Greg for agreeing to work on not hitting women and not being flippant about his punishment for hitting women.
• Jones said he’ll use his own experience with criticism to help Hardy: “If anyone knows how to hunker down, it's me." Not really relevant or comparable, but okay.
• “I will say this: over the last three or four weeks, I would hate to see anybody who had more pressure on him than Hardy." Putting aside the terrible sentence structure, Jones fishing for sympathy for Hardy is not going to be very effective.
• “But there is no second chance in regards to the issue of domestic violence. None.” Presumably Jerry means after the second chance they gave Hardy in signing him.

• Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch missed Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers due to an abdomen injury. (There’s some concern he could miss the rest of the season.) Backup Thomas Rawls played in Lynch’s stead and ran for 209 yards and scored two touchdowns! Lynch approved of Rawls’ play:

• The Carolina Panthers are 10-0. The Dallas Cowboys are 3-7. And yet, the Cowboys are favored in the Thanksgiving matchup??

• Denver now-starting quarterback Brock Osweiler is 6’8”!!!

• It’s a short week for the Packers, who will play Thursday night, but luckily, they’ll face Jay Cutler and the Chicago Bears, so we’ll have a lot of this to look forward to:

• And this:

• And hopefully some of this:

• It must kill Jordy to miss a game against the Bears. You can usually just pencil him in for a couple of 60+ yard touchdowns when he’s facing Chicago.

By the Bye

• It’s a good time for a bye for the Green Bay Packers -- ESPN rated them as the #1 most “banged-up” team.

Actually, don't read that link; it's a little depressing.

• The Dallas Cowboys were down seven to the New York Giants with1:30 left when Cowboys’ return man Cole Beasley muffed a punt and New York’s Myles White (former Packer! Woo hoo! Good job!) was there to recover the lucky bounce.

• I felt bad for Cole Beasley -- it’s tough to be the scapegoat. Also, he’s really short, he has a silly name, and silly hair too.

• Beasley apologized to fans on Twitter after the game, taking a calm approach to the Twitter Mafia:

• His wife took a different approach:

• The muffed punt certainly wasn’t the only thing keeping Dallas from the win. They were playing with Matt Cassel at quarterback, for heaven’s sake. While I still maintain that Cassel is an upgrade over Brandon Weeden (albeit very slight), he sure was terrible, throwing three interceptions to just one touchdown.

• Cowboys’ defensive end/wild animal Greg Hardy was very angry at the Cowboys’ special teams unit after they gave up a touchdown. Hardy was screaming and getting in his teammates’ faces, and even slapped a clipboard out of the special teams’ coach’s hands, before injured receiver Dez Bryant and others tried to separate him. When Bryant is the one calming you down, you might have a problem.

• Don’t worry, though, it’s all good! Everything’s totally fine! Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says that Hardy was just “firing up” the special teams guys! When asked if he had a problem with Hardy’s behavior, Jones doubled-down, saying, “As a matter of fact, I would encourage it.”

I wish somebody would publish a Jerry Jones quotes coffeetable book already.

• The Buffalo Bills nearly made a furious comeback after being down 27-3 to the Jacksonville Jaguars, but ended up losing 34-31 in yet another installment of the London series. A good show by Buffalo to make it interesting, but you can’t really blame England for not getting on board with the NFL when we keep sending them terrible teams -- Buffalo was 3-3 going into Sunday’s game, Jacksonville 1-5. Here’s a look at the games we’ve made the Brits sit through in the past two seasons, along with the teams’ records going into the game:
• Miami Dolphins (1-2) vs. Oakland Raiders (0-3)
• Detroit Lions (5-2) vs. Atlanta Falcons (2-5)
• Dallas Cowboys (6-3) vs. Jacksonville Jaguars (1-8)
• Buffalo Bills (2-4) vs. Jacksonville Jaguars (1-5)
• New York Jets (3-1) vs. Miami Dolphins (1-3)
• In the past six games the NFL has exported, there have been three teams (out of a possible 12 for those of you who can’t multiply two and six) with winning records featured. You know why? Because good teams that habitually win games have too much sway in the league and would (rightly) pitch fits if they had to travel across the Atlantic for a game. But let’s keep pretending that a London franchise is feasible!

• I didn’t watch the Bills-Jags from London because the hell I’ll livestream the game on Yahoo. 1) Do you know how much I pay for Sunday Ticket so I can supposedly have “every game” every week? 2) Yahoo is the worst website in the world. We shouldn’t encourage them.

• Scrambling to avoid a sack, Cleveland Browns quarterback Josh McCown ran out of bounds … and kept running … very slowly … until he ran softly into a wall … and fell down. I don’t really understand -- why didn’t he just stop running?

• The Miami Dolphins were up on the Houston Texans 41-0 at halftime. Can’t we just put the Texans out of of their misery? It seems cruel to make them have to keep going out every Sunday and play NFL teams.

• The Texans’ main problem is that they don’t have a starting quarterback, just two backup quarterbacks competing for the starting job. I don’t know much about playing quarterback, but I do have a little advice for Ryan Mallett on what not to do when you’re trying to win back the starting position: don’t miss the team flight for an away game.

Also, try not to look like this in pictures. It makes
everyone instinctively hate you.

• The Texans having JJ Watt always makes me think that they have a good defense, but they don’t. They’re actually one of the worst defenses in the league by almost any measure. (So maybe not having a quarterback is only one of their main problems.) Miami quarterback Ryan Tannehill sure must have appreciated the stat boost that comes with playing the Texans. Tannehill was 18-for-19 (he started 18-for-18) for 282 yards*, four touchdowns, and no interceptions. (*To be fair, his receivers did most of the work for these yards, as at least half of them came after the catch.)

(Gratuitous JJ pic.)

• Houston Texans running back Arian Foster tore his Achilles tendon and is out for the season. Foster had returned from a groin injury just three weeks earlier. So, uh, I guess things aren’t going to be getting better for Houston anytime soon.

• After the first quarter, the New Orleans Saints had more points (20) than the Indianapolis Colts had yards (16).. By halftime, Indianapolis had managed 131 yards, two interceptions, a fumble, and 0 points. Indy made an effort in the second half and ended up losing by only six, but they’re another team that might need to be put down for the season. Things aren’t looking good for embattled head coach (and my secret old man crush) Chuck Pagano. The Colts are 3-4, their GM and head coach hate each other, and are facing three of the league’s toughest teams in a row: the undefeated Panthers, the undefeated (FOR NOW!) Broncos, a bye, and an Atlanta team that’s only lost one game so far. It will be interesting to see if Pagano survives the bye week.

See, he's handsome, right? It's not just me?

• The Saints aren’t exactly good either. Check out this gruesome stretch that started the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game.

5 of those are three-and-outs! The game also
started with 4 consecutive punts. *Shudder*

• Letroy Guion is a Green Bay defensive lineman who has a history of run-ins with the law. When Guion was arrested this offseason for marijuana possession (among other things), his dad went down to the police station and asked what was going on. When he was told what his son was being charged with, "Guion Sr. laughed and, according to an arrest report, said: 'Well, I'll be honest, every time he comes down he always brings the best weed you ever smoked in your life.'"

"Thanks, Dad!"

• Adrian Peterson threw up before Sunday’s game against the Detroit Lions. It was originally reported that he had gotten sick from accidentally swallowing chewing tobacco (ew), but Peterson denied the report, saying he was sick from eating shrimp, which is he is allergic to. Peterson says he loves shrimp so much that sometimes he eats it and just makes sure he has his EpiPen on him. I’m not sure if that’s the best plan, buddy. You might have to just stop eating shrimp.

• The highlight of the  4-2 (!) Minnesota Vikings’ victory over the Lions (another team that should be put down) was this incredible Stefon Diggs touchdown.

.@stefon_diggs turns "overthrown pass" into "Catch of the Year Contender". So so so soooooo sick. #MINvsDET https://t.co/7L9TZ9SpHR

— NFL (@NFL) October 25, 2015

• While Matthew Stafford probably isn't having too much fun with the Lions at 1-6, it still must be pretty nice to be able to blindly chuck the ball into the air and know that Calvin Johnson will come down with it. For those of you that don't feel like clicking that link, here's what happens in the video:

• While we’re keeping track of teams to euthanize, the San Francisco 49ers should be on the list as well. They’re now 2-5 after losing 20-3 to the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday night.

No, I don't know why Colin Kaepernick is trying
to open a pineapple by unscrewing the top.
Seems as fruitless (hah!) as the Niners' season.

• When the Oakland Raiders and the San Diego Chargers play and the halftime score is 30-6, I certainly don’t expect the Raiders to be on the sunny side of it, but that was the case on Sunday. Oakland scored on its first seven possessions, one of which was this beauty by rookie wide receiver Amari Cooper -- check out the move he puts on that last defender!

• A week after throwing 65 passes, Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers threw 58 on Sunday! A couple of observations: 1) His arm must be very tired. 2) Rivers has a very good chance of breaking the single-season passing attempts record. If you exclude the game against the Cincinnati Bengals in which Rivers threw “only” 27 times, he’s averaging 47 throws per game! That puts him on pace to break the current record currently of 727 (Matthew Stafford. Second place is 691 attempts, btw.).

• When the Washington Redskins were losing 24-0 to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I have to say I wrote them off. Coming into the game, Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins had six touchdowns and eight interceptions in six games, so I think my lack of faith was warranted. Little did I know that a completely different Kirk Cousins would show up. On Sunday, Cousins completed 83% of his passes for 317 yards, three passing touchdowns, one rushing touchdown, and no interceptions.  

• I should probably mention Atlanta Falcons running back Devonta Freeman at some point since he leads the league in rushing, but the Falcons beat the Tennessee Titans, who were without starting quarterback Marcus Mariota, in a 10-7 game which sounds too boring for me to even read a recap of, so all I can do is literally mention Freeman.

• Oh no, Brandon Marshall! He went from hero to goat in a matter of 17 seconds! The New York Jets were playing their archnemesis, the New England Patriots, in Foxborough. It was a close game throughout. The Jets got the ball down 30-20 with 1 minute, 13 seconds left. They try for a 50-yard field goal with 23 seconds remaining, but there’s a false start penalty on the Jets, so they move back and try a 55-yard field goal with 18 second left -- it’s good! But the bad news is they used all three of their timeouts on that drive. So with 18 seconds left they try an onside kick…. and Brandon Marshall recovers!!

• The Jets take over about midfield, down seven points, and throw a 12-yard completion with 14 seconds left. With no timeouts left, they have to race to lineup after the play so they can spike the ball, which they do with just one second left on the clock. Buuuuut, unfortunately, Brandon Marshall, the hero of yestersecond, did not get set before the snap, which is a false start penalty, which, when it occurs under the two-minute mark, brings with it a 10-second runoff, which means game over. New England 30, New York 23. Ouch.

• I still can’t decide if we should be impressed by the 6-0 Carolina Panthers or not. After Week 7, the six teams they’ve defeated (Jaguars, Texans, Saints, Bucs, Seahawks, Eagles) have a combined record of 15-26. I guess I’ll wait to see how the Packers play against them in two weeks. If Green Bay wins handily, I’ll deride the Panthers as frauds. If Carolina wins, I’ll say, well, they’re a really tough team -- just look at their record!

• I’m super excited for the Packers' Sunday night showdown with the Denver Broncos! Hopefully the Pack will get some of their players back (Davante Adams, Morgan Burnett, a healthier Eddie Lacy) -- they’ll need all the help they can get against Denver’s defense! Go Pack Go!

I know you'll be there on the field in spirit.