Look Out NFC: Kyler Murray is Back

NFL Week 13 – Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins returned from injuries for the Arizona Cardinals in their 33-22 victory over the Chicago Bears. Murray and Nuk connected on a 20-yard first-quarter touchdown pass on fourth-and-2 that gave the Cardinals a lead they would never relinquish. Murray finished the game with two passing touchdowns and two rushing touchdowns.

But the returns of Murray and Hopkins are not precisely what this opening Walkthrough segment is about.

The Cardinals defense intercepted Andy Dalton four times on Sunday. Jalen Thompson hauled in a deflected pass on the third play from scrimmage. Budda Baker squashed an early Bears drive by intercepting a short pass over the middle and returning it 77 yards. When the Bears refused to surrender and a roughing-the-kicker foul on a punt gave them a fresh possession early in the fourth quarter, Byron Murphy’s interception crushed a potential rally. With the Bears still clinging to life on the next possession, lineman Zach Allen one-handed a floating screen pass and returned it to the 12-yard line, setting up Murray’s second touchdown run.

But the Cardinals defense is not precisely what this opening Walkthrough segment is about.

This segment is about complementary paths to victory. A Super Bowl contender should have several of them, and the Cardinals do: Murray/Hopkins heroics; sacks and turnovers; the YAC game they relied upon with Colt McCoy at quarterback for three weeks; and a balanced combination of all the above.

Murray was actually somewhat rusty on a rainy December afternoon in Chicago. He fumbled backwards when he cocked his arm on his very first throw, then bobbled a snap near the end zone on his next possession. Several drives stalled as the Cardinals went 5-of-11 on third downs (with penalties turning third-and-short into third-and-medium a few times) and struggled with the still-formidable Bears pass rush.

The Cardinals defense also allowed too many extended drives against a team with a hapless offense. The Bears were 4-for-4 on fourth downs, with most of the conversions coming while the game was still in range. The Bears rushed for 112 yards. The turnovers erased plenty of mistakes, but there were still too many mistakes.

So neither the Cardinals offense nor their defense had an outstanding game, but they played well enough to transform turnovers into points and a lead into more turnovers against a weak-but-not-pitiful opponent.

The great New England Patriots teams of the past always had multiple paths to victory: Tom Brady heroics, defensive turnovers, those mucky field position battles that Bill Belichick appears to really love, and so forth. The current Buccaneers (we’ll get to them in a bit) are the same in many ways. A team such as the Chiefs can rely on one simple path to victory like “score a million points with Patrick Mahomes,” but the Packers and Seahawks spent the latter part of the 2010s trying to win one-dimensionally, with little success. (The truly great Seahawks teams of the early 2010s were great at lots of things, of course

The Cardinals are now in pole position for the No. 1 seed in the NFC. Their late schedule features the Rams, Cowboys, and a Seahawks team it would be foolish to look past, so they shouldn’t pencil that first-round bye in just yet. But Murray and Hopkins are back, and the Cardinals just won a weather game on the road by 11 points. Imagine what they will be able to do when performing at peak capacity.

In a conference full of flawed powerhouses, the Cardinals cannot simply be written off as the new “happy to be there” playoff team, because they are trending in the right direction and can beat you in lots and lots of different ways.

Around the NFC

Like the Cardinals, many of the NFC’s top contenders faced relatively easy opponents in Week 13. Let’s see how they did.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 30, Falcons 17
The Buccaneers were like an older brother teasing their much younger sibling by dangling the football just out of reach. “Want an upset? Look, our defense is playing poorly! This is your chance. Yoink! Look, Tom Brady threw a pick-six to a defensive lineman before halftime. You are still in the game. Yoink! Oopsie, our drives keep stalling. Whatsamatter? Too small and weak to take a win from us?”

If you listened carefully, you could hear the Falcons crying to mom when Pierre Desir peanut-punched an apparent third-and-long conversion away from Russell Gage in the third quarter.

(Note; “Pierre” may be Mr. Peanut’s first name—dude looks like a Pierre—so maybe “Pierre punched” is more appropriate.)

(Note: Mr. Peanut’s full name is canonically Bartholomew Richard Fitzgerald-Smythe and I have never wanted so badly to punch a peanut in its smug aristocratic face.)

There’s not much to be learned from watching Tom Brady use the Falcons as his lint brush for the umpteenth time except that the Buccaneers are unlikely to trip over any of their creampuff opponents down the stretch. Even if we pencil in a Bills win, the Buccaneers will finish 13-4 at worst. The other NFC heavyweights, including the Cardinals, have zero margin for error.

Los Angeles Rams 37, Jacksonville Jaguars 7
This was a fan service game for weary Rams supporters. Matthew Stafford hooked up with Cooper Kupp for eight catches and 129 yards, though it could have been 18 catches for 329 yards the way the Jaguars defense played. Odell Beckham got involved with an early 21-yard catch and a garbage-time touchdown, demonstrating the kind of value he can add as a supplemental receiver. Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey collaborated on an early game piledriver strip-sack and recovery. In short, the Rams played their greatest hits, and while they did everything they could to silence their skeptics, there’s only so much a team can do against the Jaguars to silence skeptics.

The good news on the upcoming schedule for the Rams is that the Vikings and Ravens aren’t playing all that well right now, while the Seahawks and 49ers battled to a virtual draw. Also, the top wild-card berth essentially belongs to them. The bad news is that this is a Super Bowl-or-bust year for the Rams, so getting slotted as a No. 5 seed that may have to travel to places such as Dallas, Green Bay, or the House of Brady isn’t what they were hoping for. A blowout’s a blowout, but the Rams still have many questions to answer.

Dallas Cowboys 27, New Orleans Saints 17 (Thursday Night)
The Cowboys have appeared in prime time four times this season and in national late-afternoon spotlight broadcasts at least four other times, including Thanksgiving. Lots of national exposure can magnify a team’s strengths and weaknesses, particularly its weaknesses: the Cowboys’ losses to the Buccaneers and Raiders were among the most-watched telecasts of the year. What we perceive as an inconsistent/unreliable Cowboys team may really be a team that lost a pair of games due to injuries/penalties/bad bounces and a pair of games to the defending conference champions.

The Cowboys shouldn’t be tested again until Week 17 against the Cardinals. Like the Buccaneers, they must concentrate on not tripping over beatable opponents. Really, really concentrate, in their case.

As for the Saints, they get the Jets, Dolphins, Falcons, and Panthers down the stretch (plus the Buccaneers). They should also get Alvin Kamara and 20% to 60% of their offensive line back soon. If they can beat the Jets, Falcons, and Panthers, they can reach 8-9 and still tumblesault into the final wild-card berth. The No. 2 seed in the NFC is going to be very appealing if that’s the case

Green Bay Packers: Bye
The Packers “lost” the bye in the sense that the Cardinals, Buccaneers, and Cowboys all won, preventing them from moving up in the playoff seedings. But the Packers did secure almost complete control of the NFC North title, thanks to…

Detroit Lions 29, Minnesota Vikings 27
Once you reach middle age, you notice that your peers don’t flame out the way they used to. In your 20s and 30s, it’s common to see friends damage themselves spectacularly with bad life decisions, bottom out quickly, then (ideally, hopefully) pull themselves together. As dramatic and tumultuous as the personal crashes could be, they could also be the catalysts for major life changes. But at 50, your peers start hanging on in Pink Floyd’s quiet desperation: the drinking gets a little worse, the marriage more distressed, the bills pile up, but everyone keeps up appearances for years without, say, getting into a switchblade duel behind a nightclub or some other undeniable plea for help.

The Vikings are your quietly miserable middle-aged friends, still clinging to the habits which are slowly destroying them. Sunday’s loss was the closest thing we’re going to hear to a plea for help. Let’s hope it provides them a little clarity.

Seattle Seahawks 30, San Francisco 49ers 23
The 49ers remain better than the Vikings and Saints but not as good as folks talked themselves into believing they could be during their winning streak. They still rely too heavily on Jimmy Garoppolo and long drives built out of immaculately executed 7-yard misdirection plays. The 49ers spent most of the second half of Sunday’s loss pinned near their own goal line thanks to punts and Seahawks turnovers. The results? A safety, an interception, and a game-ending 115-yard drive (with -20 penalty yards) for zero points that sounds like an exaggerated gag but is not.

Wins over the Falcons, Texans, and either the Titans or Bengals will get the 49ers to nine wins before they deal with the Rams in the season finale. But they need to watch their six: Washington and the Eagles play twice in the next month, are both have somehow climbed to the back of the chase group.

Speaking of the Eagles, on to the next segment!

Phony MinshewMania Won’t Bite the Dust

Gardner Minshew played undeniably well in the Eagles’ 33-18 win over the Jets: 20-of-25 passing, 242 yards, two touchdowns. That said, he also filled out the entire Contrived Quarterback Controversy Checklist:

• Win by a backup quarterback with buzz? Gardner Minshew is a backup quarterback who always looks like he’s buzzed. Check.
• With the starting quarterback on shaky ground? Jalen Hurts remains a scrambling enigma. Check.
• With predictable/unfortunate/implicit racial semiotics in play? Folks, quarterback controversies with predictable/unfortunate/implicit racial semiotics have driven the Philly sports-talk radio industry for about 35 years. We pioneered the genre! Check.
• Did the backup get lots of mileage out of screens? Yes, particularly on early drives. Check.
• And get gobs of support from his running game? 185 rushing yards. Check.
• Plus some penalty help? An underthrown-ball pass interference penalty and a facemask call on a sack to extend a scoring drive. Check.
• Against a terrible opponent? The Jets were fiercely competitive in the first half, especially on offense and in their return and coverage game. But Eagles receivers were wide open all afternoon. Check.

Minshew won a game that Hurts would have won and Trevor Siemian could have won. Rest assured that won’t matter when it’s time to select talk show topics.

The Eagles fans at my local taproom were chuckling “oh boy, here comes the controversy” early in the game. But by the third quarter, they switched unironically to: “You see, that’s a throw Jalen Hurts doesn’t read the defense well enough to make.” The human brain is a fascinating organ: we can know instinctively that we are getting bamboozled yet still allow ourselves to be bamboozled, especially when recency bias, confirmation bias, and other fallacies get to work.

Stay tuned for further developments in MinshewMania II: Nick Foles With a Mullet as the unpredictable and inexperienced Nick Sirianni tries to guess his way through the weeks to come. Walkthrough remains pessimistic that Hurts is the long-term Eagles answer at quarterback because he underthrows far too many deep passes. But we’re 100% certain that Minshew is not any team’s long-term answer at quarterback, no matter how groovy his stats and wardrobe were on Sunday.

Epic Rivalry Spotlight: Pittsburgh Steelers 20, Baltimore Ravens 19

What Happened: The Zombie Steelers refuse to die, while the Ravens keep playing the same miserable game over and over again and losing far too many of them.

The Ravens offense glitched out for the fourth consecutive game: an early Lamar Jackson interception, too many sacks and penalties, lots of stalled drives. Their defense blew just enough tackles and coverages to spot the Steelers a 20-13 lead with 1:48 to play. Jackson received his fourth-quarter wakeup call and marched the Ravens to a touchdown, but with injuries mounting on defense, John Harbaugh opted for a two-point conversion to try to win the game instead of forcing overtime with an extra point. Jackson’s play-action pass into the flat was just off Mark Andrews’ fingertips.

What it Means: The Ravens are allowing far too much pass pressure, especially against marquee edge rushers such as T.J. Watt and Khalil Mack. They get little from their running backs and not much from their option game. Jackson lapses into bad habits when hurrying his reads and throws. The Ravens defense has benefited from playing some weak opponents lately but misses too many tackles and gives up too many easy yards. Not only couldn’t the Ravens get a stop while nursing a one-point lead midway through the fourth quarter, but the Steelers kept gouging them for 5- and 10-yard runs between the tackles. And with injuries to cornerback Marlon Humphrey and right tackle Patrick Mekari on Sunday, things could end up getting worse for the Ravens

Yet the Ravens may still be the fourth-best team in the AFC right now, behind the Patriots, Bills, and Chiefs. Who do you like better? The Titans? C’mon. The Chargers? We’ll get to them in a minute. The Colts? Simmer down, please. We’ll take the Ravens playing their worst football of the last three years over a bunch of teams playing their best football in several years, especially since we have seen Harbaugh’s Ravens manage injury catastrophes in the past.

That said, there’s no “Fourth Place in the Conference in a Weird Year” trophy, so the Ravens have to figure a lot of things out, starting with Jackson’s increasingly frequent blooper balls.

The Steelers are still in the playoff race and that’s an absolute travesty, because they are basically T.J. Watt, one or two 50-50 bombs per game, and a reputation at this point.

What’s Next: Ravens-Browns again, because last Sunday night wasn’t awkwardly hilarious enough.

The Vikings host the Steelers on Thursday night, then the Steelers visit what’s left of the Titans, and … oh brother, they are going to make a ridiculous little run, aren’t they?

Variance Bowl Spotlight: Los Angeles Chargers 41, Cincinnati Bengals 22

What Happened: The Bad Bengals opened the game with turnovers on their first two possessions, including a ball that bounced out of the hands of Ja’Marr Chase and into the arms of defender Michael Davis, allowing the Chargers to take a 24-0 lead.

Then the Good Bengals showed up midway through the second quarter and forced turnovers on three consecutive Chargers possessions, converting all three into touchdowns. Joe Burrow hurt his finger so badly during this stretch that he was spotted on the sideline before halftime yelping in pain like he had just stuck his hand in a murder hornet hive while throwing a warm-up pass. He remained in the game.

The Bad Bengals returned when Christian Covington forced a Joe Mixon fumble in the backfield just as Cincinnati appeared poised to take the lead. Tevaughn Campbell returned the fumble for a touchdown that sucked the life out of the Bengals.

The Chargers also attended this game and did Chargers stuff: awesome Justin Herbert highlights, red zone miscues, missed extra points, general almost-impressiveness.

What it Means: The Chargers are the true wild-card contenders and the Bengals are pretenders? Maybe? Who knows?

Either or both of these teams could earn wild-card berths and snipe any AFC home favorite on their best days or lose by 40 at their worst. Walkthrough knows less about these teams than we did before the game. By the time we’re done watching teams such as the Ravens, Chargers, and Bengals all season, we may forget how to spell foobtall.

Oh no, the brain cells are already decaying.

At least the Raiders lost. Oh, but the Dolphins are back in the race. Maybe we can just turn the AFC into a 16-team single-elimination tournament. Please?

What’s Next: The Chargers host the Giants next week, the Bengals host the 49ers.

After that, dear Lord, it’s almost nothing but fellow AFC wild-card goofballs for both teams the rest of the way. So get ready for more kiddie-coaster games such as this one, with lots of gentle oohs and ahhs as everyone goes around and around in a circle.

Week 13 Awards

You get an award! And you get an award! And…

Defensive Player of the Week
T.J. Watt took over the Steelers victory against the Ravens with 3.5 sacks, one forced fumble, and about a trillion pressures. And yes, that’s an unblocked Watt forcing Lamar Jackson to step up and rush his throw during the fateful game-deciding two-point conversion:

The two-point attempt is NO GOOD. #BALvsPIT pic.twitter.com/tl74jaHz9x

— NFL (@NFL) December 6, 2021

Offensive Line of the Week
The Indianapolis Colts offensive line made a few mistakes in pass protection. And they weren’t facing the toughest foe in the league. But Jonathan Taylor racked up 143 more yards and two more touchdowns, so Walkthrough is giving another trophy to Erik Fisher, Quenton Nelson, fill-in center Danny Pinter (Ryan Kelly is on the COVID list), Mark Glowinski, and Kaden Smith for spearheading a 31-0 rout of the Houston Texans.

Special Teamer of the Week
Jake Elliott’s four field goals allowed the Eagles to pull away from the Jets, even though their drives kept stalling from the middle of the second quarter onward.

Seahawks punter Michael Dickson gets honorable mention for pinning the 49ers at their own 8-yard line twice in the fourth quarter while the Seahawks nursed their 30-23 lead.

Best Supporting Actor in Someone Else’s Highlight
Let’s celebrate Adrian Peterson tying Jim Brown for 10th on the all-time list with 126 career touchdowns by giving this award to fullback Nick Bellore, who plowed Josh Norman (that most physical of defenders) 5 yards into the end zone on a lead block, then joined AP in a chest-bump celebration.

126th career TD for @AdrianPeterson!

He ties @JimBrownNFL32 for the 10th all-time in TDs.

📺: #SFvsSEA on CBS
📱: NFL app pic.twitter.com/qVaJGHsnWk

— NFL (@NFL) December 5, 2021

Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith, LaDainian Tomlinson, Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, Marcus Allen, Marshall Faulk, Cris Carter, and Marvin Harrison are now ahead of Peterson on the touchdown list. Peterson needs 30 more touchdowns to catch Owens and climb into fifth place. Maybe if the NFL expands to 40 teams, he’ll be able to do it at his current two-rosters-per-season pace.

Honorable mention goes to poor 49ers right tackle Tom Compton (66) for his near-death experience on Carlos Dunlap’s safety.

Why run around when you can run right through? 🤷‍♂️#ProBowlVote @Carlos_Dunlap

📺 #SFvsSEA on CBS pic.twitter.com/LX4VEj1g3d

— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) December 5, 2021

Burn This Game Plan!
In the New York Giants’ 20-9 loss to the Miami Dolphins, Joe Judge…

• punted on fourth-and-3 from the Dolphins 47-yard line early in the game;
• punted on fourth-and-4 from the Dolphins 48-yard line late in the second quarter;
• punted on fourth-and-2 from the Dolphins 46-yard line while trailing by four points in the third quarter; and
• settled for a 51-yard field goal to cut the score to 17-9 with 5:04 to play.

Judge also ordered a 56-yard field goal attempt in the final seconds because … toughness? Accountability? Guttering incompetence? Yeah, that last one.

Yes, Mike Glennon was the Giants’ starting quarterback on Sunday, and he lofted so many passes out of bounds that they may have been scripted into the game plan. Whatever: everyone from the Eagles to the Jets have won games with their backup quarterbacks this season. Judge’s conservative thought process was the sign of a coach who made up his mind long before kickoff to blame a loss on Glennon instead of figuring out a way to win with Glennon. And with third-stringer Jake Fromm slated to start next week due to Glennon’s late-game concussion, Judge might just start punting on second down like the Staten Island Stapletons.

Judge shouldn’t even be allowed in the Giants facility on Monday after the way he coached on Sunday. But he’ll probably be welcomed into the owner’s office and invited to offer his general managerial and coordinator suggestions for 2022 because he’s keeping the Giants competitive despite so many setbacks. The Giants have been gaslighting themselves since late in the Tom Coughlin era and aren’t likely to stop anytime soon.

Around the League

News and notes, mostly from off the field.

Antonio Brown…
F**k that poopweasel.

Taysom Hill is suffering from Mallet Finger.
Mallet Finger contributed to Russell Wilson’s transformation into an ordinary-at-best quarterback for a month. It could turn Taysom Hill into a rutabaga.

Mac Jones seeks trademark protection for the phrase “MJ10.”
Nah, the Already Proven He’s The Next Brady meme isn’t going to go to his head. Everything’s just fine. (Before you rip me in the comments, Patriots fans: imagine how you would perceive this if it was happening anywhere else in the league.)

Ben Roethlisberger privately tells teammates this is his last season with the Pittsburgh Steelers, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Carolina Panthers, here he comes!

Salary cap for 2022 tentatively set at $208 million.
Sean Payton begins driving extra DoorDash shifts to make ends meet.

Seahawks owner Jody Allen is “very involved” and “not happy” with her team’s performance, per NFL.com’s Mike Garofalo.

When Jody comes home
So good
She’s the pride of the neighborhood
She’s the raw flame
The live wire
She prays like a Roman
With her eyes on fire!

(Yes, it’s “Josie.” You smiled at the reference if you got it. Though you probably didn’t.)

Monday Night Sportsbook: New England Patriots (+3) at Buffalo Bills

The forecast as of Sunday afternoon called for temperatures around freezing and winds gusting up to 40 miles per hour, though precipitation could end before kickoff. Rain or no rain, that’s perfect weather for a running-and-screens team and terrible weather for a bombs-away team (whispers) with an erratic quarterback.

The over-under plunged to 41.5 thanks to the weather forecast. That’s safely within points-off-turnovers territory for a rookie quarterback and a great defense facing (whispers) an erratic quarterback, even if a lake effect bomb cyclone detonates.

Walkthrough jumped on the Patriots +2.5 (for parlay purposes) and Over at a whopping +300 before early game Sunday kickoffs. Go, Mac Jones Narrative, Go!