NFL Week 11 Takeaways.
The Atmosphere Of Week 10 In NFL Exuded The Liveliness. The Playoffs, Are upon us.
“I’m Back!” Cam Newton Proclaimed As Cameras Descended Upon The Endzone And Clustered Around Him For The Former MVP’s Frist Touchdown after Three Days with the Team. Newton Returns To Carolina Blue May Narrowly Save The Panthers Once Promising Season. But week 10 Is Just Midway Now. If Week 10 Was About anything, it was the Cardinal Ineffectiveness on offense Without Kyler Murray Than Panther’s Exceptionalism. With 18 Weeks of play. We Are Approaching The Zenith of The Slope, No longer Descending. There Is Much Still Football Afoot.
Cam, He’s Was Not Alone. His Return To Some Effect Overshadowed The More Impactful Reintroduction Of Christian McCaffrey To The Carolina Offense. Who Knows With The Saints' Tenuous Quarterback Situation( Someone mash The class, Hit The QB Emergency Button) how That Affects The South. Week 10 was The Most Cam And McCaffrey have Played In Carolina Since CMC’s Rookie Season. But All Of This Could be Seeds by the Wayside If The Panther’s Defense Continues to Play Near Otherworldly Levels.
At This Point, Last Year’s Prime Time Calendar Contenders Were Extrusive. They Are Often Extrusive—the Teams With The best Quarterbacks and The Fewest Holes on A Leaky Defense.
This Model Define Both Of the Past Two Superbowl Winners. Some Were Rally Late Signings, Trade Deadline Moves, Overcoming Poor Mid-Season Performances And Injury Torn Rosters; Not Much Has Changed. Projected Contenders, The Cardinal Struggling With Injury Concerns, Began To Wither Away. The Bucs Lost 3 Of their Last 4 Before Running off Seven In route To A Superbowl. Don’t look Now.
The Fuzzy, Blurred Lined, Entrenching the Rounded Edges of The Seven Team Playoff Format Were Becoming Clearer. This Season, The 17th Game Is Adding Another Layer Of Intrigue. As the Seasons shifts To The Chilled Veneer Could Put Some Vaunted Of These Vaunted Passing Attacks in And Foes Become More Dr. Hyde And Less Curious Jackal.
“The Shroud Of The Dark Side Has Fallen. Begun, The Clone War Has!”
There is A Ton Divisional Parity late In The Season. The Likes Of Which I Have Never Seen Before. In the Best Of Circumstances, Divisions have Two Teams Battling For The Title Heading Into week ten unless It’s the AFC East that has always been a one-person division. Except The Pats And Bills Are Wrestling For Control of the Division The title this season And Perhaps Thee fate Of The AFC For Another decade. “Once Again the Sith Will Rule The Galaxy.” This Season’s AFC east Is The AFC South, Where The Titans Are still Unmatched, and They Expected To Usher In the Return of Derrick Henry Late in the Season. Otherwise, Every other Division is still open. It Seems To me nobody Wants To Be The Clear Cut Favorite To win The Superbowl. The Packers Titans were The number 1 Seeds in Each Conference. Their offenses Rank 14th And 17th, In division With Records of 16-24 And 17-21. I Would Put A Hold thee On Playoff Projections Given this Mountain of Circumstantial Evidence
In The Coming weeks, We Will See What That 17th Offensive Game Is Worth Its Weight In Gold.
Seven Playoff Spots In Each Conference. Seventeen Games. Equals Quantum Shenanigans.
The possibilities. Four Teams From One Division Could Finish With Four Playoff Contenders. Unlikely, But If It Were to Happen, the NFC South Or AFC West, Both Division Have four (4) Teams Still Alive And Hunting In On the Playoff Picture.
The South Appear To be The Likeliest Culprits. Atlanta’s Playoff Pulse Is Faint And Fading Fast. The Buccaneers Are Surrendering the Division Lead, And Worse of All ball Security is Becoming A Concern. Out West. The Raiders Are falling Apart A The Seams for Reasons Well beyond Football. The Chiefs Are Suddenly A Contender Again Albeit An uninspiring one. The Chargers Have Fallen Four Spots in Two weeks, And the Once juggernaut Broncos Are Seeking would-be tacklers.
We met The Juncture When Remaining Schedules Matter More Than Stats. Health, Availability, and vitality More Than Player Ratings. Cohesion More than early Record.
After Appearing Near To invincible, Both The Cardinals And Rams Head Into week 11, Two Straight Losses Tugging On Their Momentum, So too Are The Bucs. The Trio Still hold the Best Odds To Make The Superbowl In The NFC Despite The Packers Being trendy Pick
Football needs Math for Explanation; Math Needs Football For existence.
Gradings, Projections, Model per Usual Suspects. ProfootballFocus, And Espn Unless otherwise Stated.
Week 11 Takeaways.
Pats Vs. Falcons
Before Signing And. Eventually Exploding with Atlanta Ahead of The 2021-22 Season Cordarrelle Patterson Made A Quick Stop In New England In 2018. A Former First Round Pick With Promising Ability Coming Out Of Tennessee In A Few Season Became A Underwhelming Receiver Prospects. Patterson was famed for His Physical Attributes, 6’2, 227, incredible Speed if Only He had “hands.” Patterson Drop Rate Want Especially egregious, 4.1% For his Career, But there Were Limitations in His Usage. He Was Exclusively A Out wide Receiver. Predictable And Struggled To create Consistent Separation. His Athletic Qualities Were Just to Undeniable. Team Began Scheme ways to Put the Ball In His Hands.
For A while there, It Seemed He Become a Special teams Return Specialist when Patterson Arrived in New England. Coach bill Belichick Detailed Patterson “football” Talents. “We're going to make You Into What You Were supposed to be.” Belichick And Co. Failed To transform Patterson As A Receiver; He Had A pedestrian 224 Yards. It was that The Pats Did try; Patteson is Just Not A Good Receiver. What the Past Did was Exploit His Ability As A runner And A gadget Guy. That’s a season; Patterson Had 81 Plays of More Than 15 Yards Per Run. Patterson As Been A revelation for A Underwhelming Falcons offense that Sorely missed His Presence Versus the Pats Thursday. “We haven’t thrown the ball well enough. We haven’t run the ball well enough. I have to be more accurate.” The falcons Finished With 165 total yards. In Total, Matt Ryan finished 19-for-28 for 153 yards. A criminal Underrated Patriots Defense Took Away All of the Options Left From A Depleted Falcons Rosters.
Kyle Pitts, Atlanta’s Newly Crowned top option, Struggle To create open Windows For Would-be Passers. He finished With 3 Catches For 29 yards.
The Pats Have Never been A Premiere Development Team. They Make The Most of Other Team’s Cast-Offs. Matt Judon, Edge Rusher Who That Pats Signed Away From Baltimore Is Having A career Year—heralded As the Best Free Agents Acquisition Of The Off-season. Judon’s Recorded Ten And A Half Zacks Rank 3rd In the League. The Falcons Average 3.2 Yards Per Play. They Have Scored three Points The Past two Weeks. The Patriots Are 7-4 on A Five Game Win Streak. One Of Only Two teams with A top-five Defense And top Five Offense. The Pats Are Entering The Playoff Stretch. They’ll Have A Test Against the Titans, Buffalo, and the Colts Before facing the Bills Once More. The Divisions And The Conference May Run Through New England in A Few weeks.
I Know; sometimes Its Seems I Write As though Im Maddening Obsessed With Vikings. Kirk Cousins, Justin Jefferson Put Together A Offense Gameplan That Finally Put The Second Highest Rated Passing Attack and Its exceptional Weaponry In The Best Position To Make The Plays On The Outside And Win Late. The Schematical Agenda Be Aggressive and Attack Deep. The Game Ran Late Into The Waning Hours of The Fourth Quarter(9 Of The Vikings 10 Games Have Come To One Score) And Punctuate The Possibly Defining Moment Of The Season Against Aaron Rodgers And the Packers No Less. Sundays 34-31 Put the Vikes Back into the Playoff Picture With Seven Games Remaining. The Packers Came Into the Game, The Winner Of Their Last 2 of 3, 8 of 9 Dating Back To Week 1, The Sixth Best Passing Defense A, Sixth In Takeaways, 3rd In Net Yardage, And One of The Least heralded units In the League. This Game was One Of The The First Must Win Mid Season Battles On Course to the Playoffs. A Loss Would Put The Vikings Out of Contention And Mike Zimmer Most Likely Out of The Job. With The Season On The Line, The Vikings Unleashed, Puncturing the Packers Deep Consistently. Even Without Jaire Alexander On the Outside And Zandarius Smith On the Edge, the Packers Passing Defense Has been The Most Remarkable Aspect Of This Now 8-3 Packers team. Kirk Cousins was Not Impressed. The Former Michigan State Finished 24/35 For 341 Yards And two Touchdowns. A Third of Those completions, A Joint effort Between him And All-Pro Wideout Justin Jefferson. The Second year Wideout Had The best Game of His Second Season With 167 yards And Several Acrobatic Snags.
Cousins Aggression Downfield in Week 11 Made the Differences. Curtesy NFL Next Gen.
Of the Vikings Next 7 Games, two Are Matchups With the team currently Projected To be In The Playoffs. A Presumable shootout with the Rams And A Rematch with The Packers at Lambeau
What Qualities Of The Charger’s Near Unchallenged, Quickly crumbling, Recomposing Win Over The Pittsburgh Steeler Strikes As Most Impressive? Herbert And Anthony Lynn nearly Bleed Their fourth Quarter Lead By Nursing A Most Docile Offense into The fourth Quarter. Down 3, Herbert Turned To the Canon. Linking Up With Wideout Mike Willams. Justin Herbert Looked Keenan Allen’s Direction To Keep Drives Alive Into The Third Quarter, With Charger Up Three Score. Austin Ekeler appears “Un-tackle-able,” Which, Despite 100 years Of Football, isn’t A Word Yet. . Eckler Was Breaking Tackle And Converting Short Yardage Throw Into Explosive Gains. After Pittsburgh Took A Late Fourth Quarter Lead And The Chargers Appeared on the Brink Of Another Collapse That Would Marched Them Out of The Playoff Picture. With the Game On The Line Approaching The Final Minutes of Regulation, Inexplicably trailing by 4, Herbert Trained His Gazed To His Other Receiver, Mike Williams. Chargers Tight Ends Jared Cook, And Darnold Parham Finished The Game With Unrecognizable Sums During Mostly Unreliable Outing On Their Part. The Two Tight Ends combined for three of LA’s four drops on the night. With His Tight Ends Decommissioned, And. Keenan Allen Enguldfing the Primary Focus Of The Defense, Justin Herbert Turned To Old Reliable. Herbert And Williams had Shared A blossoming Chemistry, which had Slowed In The Coming Weeks. With The Game Tittering Towards A Historic Collapse, Williams, “Big Mike,” All 6’4 220 Lbs, Charged Down The Sideline On A Connection From Herbert That Gave The Chargers The Go-Ahead Touchdown. The Drive Wasn’t So Much The Methodical, Play-by-Play-Discretion Style Game-winning drive, More of An Exclamation Point. The Steelers Failed To Produce Another Score. The Chargers Are now In Control Of Their Destiny’s In The AFC West. The Leagues 22nd Most Difficult Or 8th Easiest Schedule To Go. Five (5) Of Their final Seven (7) Include Matchups featuring AFC Hopefuls, Including This Week Against the Broncos And Two Weeks Later Against The Resurgent Chiefs.
In This week’s entry Of “Intrigue in Ineptitude,” Some Giant Revelation Could Mean A dour Overcast will Shroud Big Blue For Some Time. During The Lead Up To Their Monday Night Matchup with The Bucs, I Discovered That The Giants Haven’t Won A Playoff Game Since their Last Superbowl Win Nearly A Decade Ago. The Giants Haven’t Made Way To payoffs Since 2016, with Eli Manning At Quarterback, Now Broadcasting Games. With A Little math, That’s Two Playoff Appearances In La little Over A Decade Or So, Since Their 2008 Superbowl Win. This Brings A New Meaning To The Phrase “Superbowl or Bust.” Speaking Of, This team May Be A Longways Away from Contention. Daniel Jones’s March On Promising Performances Came To Definite Crawl After Finishing with Just 167 Yards, One(1) Touchdown And Two(2) Picks. First Round Tackle Andrew Thomas Lined As the Focal Point of The Giants Sole Touchdown Play.
A goal Line, Tackle Is Eligible for a Receiver Call. That’s Not Bad. Thomas was Also One Of Three Giant Offensive Lineman To Give Up A Sack And A Hurry To Go Along With It. He’s An Offensive Lineman.
Their counterparts, The Tom Brady Lead Bucs, Looked To get Back on track After Two Straight Losses. The Bucs won 30-10. The Return Of Gronk Catapulted Brady over 300 yards After 3 of 4 Weeks Wallowing In The Basement of 200-yard Performances. Gronk Is The Bucs Second Highest Graded Target In EPA(expected Points Averaged), Behind Only Antonio Brown.
ESPN Noted On Monday Night, The Bucs Face the Second Highest Amount of Two High Safety Coverage Shell In The League. Teams Are Committed To Eliminating The Big Play Propensity Of Tampa bay. Underneath Routes And Over the Middle Seams Have been Tampa Remedy To that, And That Is Where Both Gronk And AB Thrive. It's No stretch To Assert That the Absence of Both has put A Dent In Brady’s Play And Tampa’s Prospects. We tend To Talk A lot about How Tampa Has A Fortune Inoffensive weaponry, And Rightfully so. But It's clear Brady Favors The Skillset of Some more Than Others.
