Tom Brady Does it Again and Again and Again

NFL Week 14 – Good news: The Buffalo Bills rediscovered the dignity that the New England Patriots stole from them in Monday night’s atomic wedgie.

Bad news: The Bills still lost to Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and dignity alone may not be enough to save them.

Game of the Week: Tampa Bay Buccaneers 33, Buffalo Bills 26 (OT)

What Happened: The Bills played the first half like they wanted to curl into a little ball and cry the rest of 2021 away. They’re run defense and tackling were pathetic. They went 0-for-5 on third-down conversions. The Buccaneers took a 21-3 lead, and they appeared poised to romp away with the game when they got the ball near midfield after a silly Bills fake punt early in the third quarter.

Then the Bills remembered that this was supposed to be a potential Super Bowl preview as recently as a month ago. They shut down the Buccaneers running game and (finally) opened up their own. Josh Allen made brilliant plays with his arm and his legs to get the ball to the Buccaneers’ 7-yard line in the waning seconds, but the Bills were forced to settle for a field goal to force overtime.

That set up the inevitable Brady magic. The Bucs defense forced a stop. Leonard Fournette barely converted on third-and-short to extend a drive. (Ball-spotting necromancy is one component of Brady magic). Three plays later, Brady connected with Breshad Perriman on a crossing route, and The Once and Future Buccaneer outraced the Bills secondary for a game-winning touchdown.

What it Means: First of all, phew, what a game! The next segment in today’s Walkthrough is all about the fact that the 2021 season feels like it’s dragging on. But from midway through the third quarter on, this was NFL football at its finest. Even this unrepentant old Brady-basher felt the tingle during that Perriman touchdown.

The Bills are now trapped in the 7-6 wild-card pool, two games behind the Patriots for the AFC East crown. It’s hard to imagine the Bills surviving a postseason road gauntlet when they nearly gave up the ghost before halftime on Sunday. But at least they once again appear capable of reaching the playoffs. And perhaps they discovered a new formula for success against the Buccaneers: commit a little more fervently to the run and to Josh Allen designed runs, stop playing like a bunch of weenies on defense.

That’s not exactly a precise formula, but the sheer physicality they have lacked in several of their losses but regained in the second half could get them past some tough opponents. Including their next one.

It’s a waste of time nitpicking all the little ways the Buccaneers manage get in their own way, because they have all but locked up the NFC South, and Brady Brady Brady Brady Brady.

What’s Next: The rematch to end all rematches! Bills-Patriots II: Stress Trigger Immersion Therapy.

The Buccaneers are also seeking revenge against a team that beat them earlier in the season. Get ready for Saints-Buccaneers II: The Humiliation of Taysom Hill XVIII.

The Endless Season: A Gritty, Lengthy, Streaming-Service Original

Remember when streaming services began broadcasting original prestige dramas, and every one of them was a somber 12-part saga with hour-and-fifteen-minute-long episodes? At first, everyone loved those “long movies.” But viewers soon grew bored of the sluggish pacing and endless rehashing of plot points and character beats. What’s tight and thrilling at eight 52-minute episodes becomes a self-indulgent chore to watch if it drags on for too long.

That’s what the 17-game, 18-week 2021 NFL season is starting to feel like.

Yes, the Bills-Bucs game (eventually) turned into gripping, high-quality football with meaningful stakes. But much of Week 14 felt like a warmed-over summary of things we have seen over and over again for months. There are still just over four solid weeks to go, but Walkthrough is ready to fast-forward to the end, because all of the drama has been sapped from all of the following storylines and character arcs:

Baltimore Ravens as The Walking Dead
Nothing says “this season is at least one week too long” like Lamar Jackson suffering a significant-looking ankle injury for a Ravens team already without both starting cornerbacks, both starting offensive tackles, and every running back that ever set foot inside the I-695 beltway.

Jackson was a viable MVP candidate two months ago, but watching the Ravens offense lately has been like watching three-and-a-half hours of reconstructive dental surgery. And if understudy Tyler Huntley is forced to start games down the stretch, there’s nothing left to do while watching the Ravens slowly sink from contention but remember how much fun they used to be.

Baker Mayfield as The “Other Guy” in a Romantic Comedy
You know the guy: handsome and bland, superficially successful but unlikely to get the pulse racing, like Paul Henreid’s Victor Laszlo in Casablanca. Seriously: what did that slice of milk toast ever do for anyone, except save untold hundreds of lives from the Nazis off camera? (Also, Casablanca isn’t a comedy. Walkthrough hasn’t watched a romcom since Meg Ryan was a leading lady. Just roll with it).

Mayfield had a chance for a “statement” win but instead threw an interception soon after Jackson was carted off the field and failed to move the Browns offense as the Ravens nearly came back in what turned into a 24-22 nailbiter. Mayfield finished 22-of-32 for 190 yards, two touchdowns, and an interception. Did we mention that that the Ravens were without both starting cornerbacks and Mayfield could have put the game away at any time with one more big play?

Mayfield left college as a charming, troublesome rogue: the type the woman in most romcoms falls head-over-heels for. Maybe Mayfield should try being that guy again to spice things up in the final month, for Browns fans and the rest of us.

Various NFL Frontrunners as End-of-Season Big Bads With Nothing to Do:
Walkthrough is thinking here about Kingpin Wilson Fisk, a seminal comic book villain portrayed by the incomparable Vincent D’Onofrio in the old Netflix Daredevil series. He was a thrill to watch in his first few episodes of the series. Then we kept checking in on him over and over again. Kingpin is eating a meal! He’s staring at a painting! He’s slowwwwwwwly pulling strings of some inscrutable scheme behind the scenes! He’s eating another meal! Can we please get to the part where he fights the hero or turns Karen Page into a druggie or something? Pretty please?

We touched on the Buccaneers already and will discuss the Cowboys in more detail in a moment, but it’s getting hard to care about the week-to-week ups, downs, and hiccups of the NFC divisional leaders. The Titans, coming off a 20-0 shutout and destined to get laughed out of the postseason, fall into the same category.

Wake us up when these teams are facing each other, not Washington or the Jaguars.

The Kansas City Chiefs as Hawkeye
Walkthrough is enjoying Disney Marvel’s Hawkeye, the tale of a superhero who no longer wants to be a superhero, portrayed by an actor who no longer wants to play a superhero. But Hawkeye is standard “underdog hero’s redemption arc” storytelling: our pal Clint Barton has gotten a little older and is trying to overcome past mistakes and tragedies, so things don’t quite come so easily anymore, but he’ll save the day in the end with the help of some plucky new friends! It’s fun because it’s a tight six episodes of car chases and quips, not 14 hours of somber mumbling.

Patrick Mahomes is also overcoming the odds and waiting to take on the big bads. The Hawkeye TV series is scheduled to wrap up while the Chiefs spin their wheels against the Chargers, Steelers, and others down the stretch.

Hawkeye viewers know that this analogy makes the Raiders the Tracksuit Mafia. After Sunday’s 48-9 beating, that suit definitely fits.

Urban Meyer as David Brent
Welcome to the multi-car pileup you saw coming the moment Meyer got behind the wheel of the Jaguars last January. The only folks who weren’t certain that Meyer’s NFL tenure would be brief and end in some sort of embarrassment were Shad Khan; whichever talking heads lost the coin flip on midday debate shows; and hypothetical Tebow-era Florida Gators fans/alums who were mulling a Jaguars season ticket purchase. (That last group understandably swayed Khan’s opinion.)

The only question left as of a month ago was how Meyer would somehow make things worse in Duval. Suddenly flitting off to UCLA? Ordering the Jaguars NFLPA rep to hang Spirit Week streamers in the locker room? Tim Tebow as Taysom Hill? Skipping team obligations to once again check out the nightlife at Tipsy MacFondle’s Tavern? Would you believe: enraging Marvin Jones (the George Harrison of NFL wide receivers) until he nearly quit the team and ordering assistant coaches to humiliate themselves to soothe his bruised ego? Walkthrough assumed, erroneously, that Meyer was far too checked out for that sort of thing. Yet here we are.

The Jaguars need to fire Meyer before you read this in the name of Trevor Lawrence preservation and basic organizational dignity.

Matt Rhule as Bill Lumburgh
Rhule is Urban Meyer, except with shlubby stubble-bearded charm.

Cam Newton started the 29-21 Panthers loss to the Falcons with a competent touchdown drive consisting of some screen passes and a rugged designed touchdown run. But Newton threw an ugly pick-six in the second quarter. Rhule, who fired offensive coordinator Joe Brady and promoted his bestie Jeff Nixon early in the week, benched Newton for P.J. Walker one full series later. Walker promptly barfed out an even uglier interception.

Newton returned in the second half and led another semi-competent drive. Then things like this started happening:

Grady recovers the FUMBLE from Cam!@GradyJarrett | #ProBowlVote

📺: FOX pic.twitter.com/AvMcVZ1MsS

— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) December 12, 2021

Golly, if we didn’t know better, we might suggest Pop Warner-caliber execution errors like that one are the result of changing coordinators halfway through a bye week and yanking quarterbacks (one of whom joined the team in midseason) in and out of the game. Rhule’s solution? Bench Newton for Walker again.

And then, when Walker led the late-game touchdown drive that the Falcons spot to every opponent they face, Rhule reinserted Newton for the two-point conversion! Is going for two while trailing by nine the right call late in the fourth quarter? That’s debatable. Did a Panthers false start force the Panthers to kick an extra point anyway? You betcha.

The 2021 Panthers saga is starting to get a little too grimdark: Ozark, but with some slapstick moments. At least the Panthers are essentially eliminated from playoff contention, making it easy to look away.

Ben Roethlisberger as King Lear
Roethlisberger is crumbling like a vampire at sunrise before our eyes, yet he can still deliver a few accurate floaters per game. The Steelers organization and a vocal contingent of their fanbase exist in a time bubble where it’s permanently 1977, so they’ll desperately cling to any sign that Big Ben is Clint Eastwood and can defeat opponents with a glare, a grunt, and one well-placed right hook.

The Steelers are 1-3-1 in their last four games and got the stuffing punched out of them by the Vikings for three quarters, but you better believe folks are rationalizing about that fourth-quarter near-comeback against a sub-.500 opponent, blaming Chase Claypool for everything, and still eyeing up that final wild-card berth. Like the Panthers saga, Big Ben’s Last Stand is getting sad and desperate, and it could get even worse if a late run convinces everyone to break out the IcyHot and drag this saga out for another year.

The Wild-Card Weaklings as the Colorful Residents of Twin Peaks
When the original Twin Peaks introduced the concept of a whole town full of oddballs with one or two entertaining personality traits, it was fresh and engaging. The Simpsons expanded the idea to hilarious effect in the show’s first dozen seasons or so. But now, for every Parks and Recreation that uses its townsfolk to great effect, there are lots of other comedies and dramas begging us to fall in love with their far-too-deep roster of “unforgettable” one-note side characters.

We have covered the geezer-pleaser Steelers and the Cleveland Beige, but there are plenty of other teams whose shtick has worn thin. The Denver Broncos hang around and beat bad opponents! So do the freakin’ Falcons! And the Saints with goofy neighbor Taysom Hill! The Chargers are brilliant, but gosh they do the darndest things on special teams and in the red zone! The Bengals either stink or are awesome, and sometimes they are both in the same game! The 49ers go to hilarious lengths to hide their quarterback! Can’t you wait for four more episodes of their hijinks?

The 49ers-Bengals game illustrates the problem with the 17-game season/14-team playoff combo. It had everything a fan could ask for: two wild-card hopefuls, contrasting offensive styles, a fourth-quarter Bengals comeback, Ja’Marr Chase heroics, a back-and-forth overtime period, a wild finish. If only it felt like it meant something. But the Bengals and 49ers are just going to play another month of similar games. The 49ers will then tumble into the playoffs because there aren’t enough decent NFC teams, while the Bengals are headed for the same multiteam 8-8 AFC tiebreaker clusterhump entering Week 18 that they have been aiming for since they lost to the Browns.

You get the idea. We have known for weeks there are five strong teams in the NFC. The AFC playoffs are likely coming down to the Chiefs and Patriots. Nearly everything else is a manufactured, recycled B-story.

Of course, Walkthrough will continue to watch every moment of it and breathlessly report on each twist and turn. And the NFL may still pull a few surprises and delights (MinshewMania! Some Patriots upsets! Joe Judge’s head exploding during a press conference! A MATT RYAN CONTRACT EXTENSION!) out of its hat.

But if the NFL expands to 18 games, we’re really gonna learn what too much of a good thing looks like.

Game Spotlight: Dallas Cowboys 27, Washington Football Team 20

What Happened: The Cowboys brought their own warming benches to the sideline because the warming benches at FedEx Field reportedly cannot be counted upon to, you know, warm. The Team That Still Has No Name then played most of the afternoon like the product of a franchise so mismanaged that they cannot even get basics like furniture (or choosing a name) right.

Along the way, Washington lost starting quarterback Taylor Heinicke and top wide receiver Terry McLaurin to injuries. If either misses significant time, Washington’s slim playoff hopes are dashed.

Also, Walkthrough walked the doggo in a hoodie here on the East Coast this morning, so the warming benches weren’t all that necessary. But you know how folks from Texas are about chilly weather, and we approve of anything that further shames the Washington organization.

What it Means: The Cowboys were sloppy on both sides of the ball for long stretches, settling for punts and field goals and allowing Washington to get back into a game that the Cowboys dominated for most of three quarters. But as mentioned earlier, it’s nearly impossible to get emotionally invested with the weekly adventures of the NFC frontrunners. The Cowboys will spend the next month jockeying for playoff seedings, which is all they have done for most of the year anyway.

Heinicke threw exactly one great pass (the touchdown to Cam Sims) during an otherwise pitiful afternoon of overthrows, underthrows, sacks, interceptions, and near-interceptions floated into middle-of-the-field zone coverage. The Fire High Heinicke phenomenon is over, and that’s a good thing for Washington moving forward.

What’s Next: The Cowboys should bring working headsets with them as they drive up I-95 to face the Giants. Washington should bring a little bit of the soil from Dan Snyder’s Transylvanian homeland with them as they also drive up I-95 to face an Eagles team whose playoff hopes are still alive.

Week 14 Awards

Walkthrough has plenty of hardware to dish out this week.

Defender of the Week
Micah Parsons recorded two sacks and forced the fumble which Dorance Armstrong returned for a second-quarter touchdown to give the Cowboys an 18-0 lead. Parsons now has 8.5 sacks and three forced fumbles in his last six games.

Offensive Line of the Week
The Saints offensive line has battled injuries all season long, but the makeshift combination of Terron Armstead, Calvin Throckmorton, Eric McCoy, Cesar Ruiz, and James Hurst helped Alvin Kamara rush for 120 yards and one touchdown and Taysom Hill look like a semi-capable quarterback in a 30-9 victory over the Jets. Of course, this will only further feed Sean Payton’s Taysom delusion, but the offensive line can only do what it’s paid to do.

Special Teamer of the Week
Jakeem Grant. 97-yard punt return touchdown for the Bears in the late game. ‘Nuff said.

Texans kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn earns honorable mention for a 61-yard field goal just before halftime in a 33-13 Seahawks win which was close for a while.

How long do you think the Texans 2021 highlight reel will be? And how much of it do you think will be special teams plays? The Texans have a habit of featuring punts downed inside the 5-yard line among their biggest plays of the week, because there’s not much else for them to celebrate.

Walkthrough is setting the over-under at 30.5 minutes of highlights (20 of them Jack Easterby Laff Along With the Disciples sermons) and 4.5 special teams plays.

Best Supporting Actor in Someone Else’s Highlight
Justin Tucker executed the onside kick. Chuck Clark recovered it. But Andy Janovich earns this week’s honors with some intense ricochet-off-the-facemask goodness:

CHUCK GETS IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TUNE IN ON CBS!!!!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/Qlk9QpXUjS

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) December 12, 2021

Eh, it feels a little mean-spirited to single Janovich out when the Browns won. So let’s give Honorable Mention to Jadeveon Clowney for his work as the middleman on Myles Garrett’s strip-six:

Myles Garrett strips, scoops and scores! #Browns @Flash_Garrett

📺: #BALvsCLE on CBS
📱: NFL app pic.twitter.com/yR3s2NLwqu

— NFL (@NFL) December 12, 2021

Clowney also picked up a crucial sack after that onside kick to help the Browns scratch out a win. But his work on Garrett’s touchdown, like a forward taking the entry pass on a give-and-go or a second baseman on a 3-4-3 double play, is the sort of doesn’t-show-up-on-the-stat-sheet contribution we have come to expect from Clowney. (Just kidding! The ball just bounced all over him. But he did have a fine game.)

Burn This Play!
We begin with that delightful Bills misdirection fake punt:

Buffalo Bills fake punt fail pic.twitter.com/Xntv1Inz1d

— EJ (@BourbonAndBeer) December 12, 2021

The second-biggest problem with that fake is that it’s over-engineered silliness that the Buccaneers special teams clearly sees coming. If your fake punt requires a quirky formation which telegraphs that trickery is coming, it’s less a “fake” than an offensive play, except with your dual-threat Pro Bowl quarterback replaced by a punter.

The biggest problem with the fake is that it demonstrated that the Bills had zero faith in Josh Allen and their offense to pick up 2 tough yards. Starting with the next series, they were able to run all over the Buccaneers. So Sean McDermott outsmarted himself, which is starting to become a habit.

Honorable mention to Washington for going for it on fourth-and-3 early in their loss to the Cowboys. That’s fine. They emptied the backfield, which is not so fine, because it robbed them of a potential pass-protector or any threat of a run or a swing pass. Taylor Heinicke then drifted backward indecisively, which is not at all fine: an interception is usually better than a sack on fourth down, and a strip-sack that results in a touchdown is, of course, inexcusable.

Watch the right side of the screen for the Burn This Play coup de grace: Curtis Samuel and Ricky Seals-Jones colliding with each other on what are supposed to be rub routes:

🗣 LET’S GO!!!#DALvsWAS | 📺 : @NFLonFOX pic.twitter.com/3wNV8Rz9Ss

— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) December 12, 2021

Another honorable mention goes to wherever the hell this was:

Relentless pursuit @DerickJRoberson

📺: Watch #JAXvsTEN on @NFLonCBS pic.twitter.com/nCp0CzYTav

— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) December 12, 2021

That’s what it looks like when a top quarterback prospect gets ruined because his team quit on their belligerently incompetent head coach.

Anchors Aweigh Burn This Play!
Congratulations to Navy, who beat Army 17-13 thanks in large part to this gutsy run on a fake punt by star linebacker Diego Fagot:

THE FAKE!
A big gamble pays off for Navy. pic.twitter.com/JRZMuNm4nM

— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) December 11, 2021

Except that Navy’s coaches did not call a fake punt. The long snapper just whizzed the football to Fagot!

Way to improvise, adapt, and overcome, Cadet Fagot! As for the long snapper who either took matters into his own hands or misunderstood his instructions, well … that young man could be pushing buttons on a nuclear submarine in a few years. Perhaps he should leave the creative problem-solving to the top brass?

Eh, Captain Picard got stabbed through the heart after he picked a fight with a Nausicaan when he was at the academy, and he turned out alright. Perhaps the moment of youthful exuberance that led to his appearance in Burn This Play! will just be part of that young snapper’s rich life tapestry.

Monday Night Sportsbook: Los Angeles Rams +2.5 at Arizona Cardinals

The Cardinals are 17-25 as home favorites since the start of the Bruce Arians era way back in 2013. They are 4-10 since 2018. While neither the Carson Palmer nor Josh Rosen Cardinals inform this team in any meaningful way, those splits are a reminder that the Cardinals organization doesn’t have an impressive big-game portfolio. The Rams, by contrast, are 8-4 as road dogs since Sean McVay took over in 2017.

Walkthrough is more swayed by the Cardinals’ 37-20 Week 4 victory than the splits, but we are wary of this game and are therefore more likely to play some props than lay points against the Rams. (For once, the same-game over-under parlay isn’t beckoning us toward the rocky shoals).

The Deandre Hopkins number is 58.5. Nuk gained 65 yards in Week 4, and the Rams defense ranks 26th against No. 1 receivers because Jalen Ramsey plays a hybrid/slot role, so we’re going over at -115. We may hedge that bet with Zach Ertz over 40.5 at -120 against the third-worst defense in the league over the short middle of the field.

And finally, since this doesn’t fit anywhere else, we should acknowledge that Andrew Whitworth will become the first 40-year old to start an NFL game at tackle when he takes the field for the Rams on Monday night. Happy birthday, Andrew! Monday night may be the capstone to your Hall of Fame portfolio: it’s hard to argue against a player’s career value when he’s having a Pro Bowl-caliber season for a playoff team at an unprecedented age.