Man, Free Monday: A dire Cowboys season gets worse, the Lions handle the Packers, Richardson not Colts only problem

Cowboys 21 at Falcons 27

An extremely disappointing game from a viewership perspective. I thought that the Falcons — who entered this game with six sacks — would provide enough juice to get the Cowboys going on offense. And I thought the Cowboys defense was bad enough that we’d just get a pure shootout. Instead, neither outfit really threw the ball well for different reasons, and several good players were pushed out of the game due to injury.

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Dallas seemed completely uninterested in seeing what they could do with their offense. It was death by horizontal football, a strategy that minimized the fact that they had CeeDee Lamb. Before leaving, Dak Prescott had two passes over 10 air yards in his 24 attempts. Perhaps that is a statement about what Dallas felt about their offensive line with Zach Martin questionable, but either way it feels like a fairly extreme choice considering the pass rush the Falcons have utilized this year.

And yet! Prescott’s three sacks was half of Atlanta’s season total coming in, so it’s hard to even say that the Cowboys were wrong to be concerned. Prescott left with a hamstring injury and a bloody hand, the MRI and quick take-out proves that he’s not in great shape. Worse, even he knows this team fucking sucks. CeeDee Lamb left with a shoulder injury that he clearly struggled through the entire second half.

The Cowboys were able to get pressure with aplomb on the Falcons, to the point where Kyle Pitts spent a lot of the day as a (unsuccessful) blocker. Drake London had a cool back-shoulder touchdown catch that gave him a hip pointer. The rest of the plane was Bijan Robinson — not dominant but extremely smooth as long as they didn’t get too cute with him — and Darnell Mooney. Mooney’s wheel route touchdown came on Trevon Diggs, who got lost in the trash on fourth-and-3 and essentially left Mooney wide open. The Falcons only won by six, but never actually looked challenged.

You know where Atlanta is at: The comfortable division leader with obvious flaws. The Cowboys? I think they might just be dead at 3-5. They have almost no path to the NFC East. They’re behind 11 NFC teams for a wild card birth, and they’re about to fire Cooper Rush into the Eagles and hope it works out. I guess if you’re looking for silver linings, Rush looked solid against aggressive blitzing from the Falcons. But that’s about all I’ve got. I wouldn’t say the Cowboys need a hard reset where they get rid of Micah Parsons or anything like that. They do need a new coaching staff in a hurry, and they need to be much more aggressive in free agency this year, because the supporting talent around the core is just not there anymore.

Lions 24 at Packers 14

It’s not exactly that the Packers got destroyed here — they actually outgained the Lions 6.6 yards per play to 4.7. But they rode a rollercoaster of ill fortune into a game script they just never were going to get out of. They missed a field goal that would have cut the lead to one, then come back down seven and Jordan Love throws whatever this is while trying to protect himself while he’s playing hurt:

And at that point you’re down 14 points in a game that was played in a soggy wind bowl, with a hurt quarterback, and that was basically that. I don’t know that Christian Watson even saw half the targets that were intended for him, he sure didn’t act like he did.

You rarely see an NFL receiver look this lost tracking a ball.

The Lions are so much fun, but it’s also remarkably funny for them to be outgained in each of the last two games and still kinda just wind up winning without the game even being competitive. Sure wouldn’t want to be the next team on their schedule!

Colts 13 at Vikings 21

Indianapolis’ only trip to the end zone came on a strip-sack touchdown return where Sam Darnold was debatably ruled to have not been roughing the passer’d. The Colts remain two games back of the Texans with no tiebreaker despite Houston’s tough loss to the Jets. But on the bright side they finally found out that the problem with their offense wasn’t just Anthony Richardson. So, I guess that’s a win? (Michael Pittman probably needs to just go on IR if he’s going to be this ineffective, and it is past time to build more of the offense around Josh Downs and throw it short more often.)

Darnold looked a disaster in the first half of this game. One thing he did really well in Week 3, when I was entertaining his improvement, was play under pressure. His first interception was a laughably bad throw as he moved away from pressure:

The Vikings remain well-situated and it was obvious that Joe Flacco was not up to the heat test with his limited mobility. But this team has stagnated on offense as Darnold’s best plays have become glaring mistakes.

Other games

Dolphins 27 at Bills 30 — A dramatic 61-yard field goal by Tyler Bass with five seconds left on the clock gave us the final margin of a topsy turvy game. The Bills pressed the hell out of the Dolphins wideouts (per NFL Pro, 41.0% of the time) and so Miami’s wideouts disappeared. I hope you weren’t relying on Jaylen Waddle in fantasy.

Miami has been able to run the ball with aplomb since Tua Tagovailoa came back. And given how good Buffalo’s defense has been, this is actually a fairly good result for them on the scoreboard. But that defense has lost so many key parts this year — Jaelan Phillips, Jevon Holland, Kader Kohou, Andrew Van Ginkel in free agency, never getting Bradley Chubb back — that it is easy pickings. And, for Josh Allen, difficult pickings as always:

Good to see a vintage Allen play.

Raiders 24 at Bengals 41 — The Raiders fired OC Luke Getsy, QB coach Rich Scangarello, and OL coach James Cregg after this loss. To be fair to them, it isn’t fully their fault this team can’t field an offense. They are replacement-level talent up-and-down the board outside of Brock Bowers, Jakobi Meyers, and maybe an offensive line part or two. That won’t stand with Gardner Minshew at quarterback no matter how good the playcalling is. But Getsy also wasn’t a very good playcaller, and he’s now been fired twice in the same calendar year. Get ready to learn Matt LaFleur quarterbacks coach, buddy.

I don’t know why the Raiders expected any differently, but at least they seem devoted to changing things up so often that it is always a surprise who the quarterback is. Two weeks ago they were on Aidan O’Connell, now they’re on Desmond Ridder, by Week 15 it’ll somehow be Alex Tanney.

The Bengals? Their major story out of this game was that Joe Burrow is not here for moral victories when you’re 4-5. (“I’m going to have my standard of play. I’m going to have my idea of the standard of what we should live up to as an offense and coaching staff and myself and everybody. When I feel like we live up to it, I’m going to let us know. When I feel like we don’t live up to it, I am going to let us know, too. Good and bad today. Not any time to sit and dwell on the good we had today,” Burrow said.) He threw five touchdown passes, but somehow the Raiders defensive coordinator avoided being fired. There was also that weird bit about the Bengals planning a major Jermaine Burton section of the game plan but him being a scratch after he reportedly missed Saturday’s walkthrough.

Cincinnati has a must-win against the Ravens on Thursday night.

Chargers 27 at Browns 10 — Myles Garrett went off, sacking Justin Herbert three times as the Browns racked up six as a team. But the Browns also did stuff like this:

Denzel Ward took the blame, saying “Just gotta be better. I’ll be better to avoid just leaving people wide open and able to make a play.” which I find is always an admirable quality in my cornerback. The not leaving people open part, not the honesty.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles’ defense easily strangled Jameis Winston, holding the Browns to three points until true garbage time struck and picking off Winston thrice while getting six sacks of their own. The Browns are about to sell off the rest of the team, and the Chargers look like an annoying defense-focused Wild Card team for the rest of the AFC. Which, no matter how much you hate watching Greg Roman’s offense, is a win for where this team was at this time last year.

Patriots 17 at Titans 20 (OT) — In a game watched by dozens, the main takeaway was “Drake Maye did a cool scramble to tie the game and send it to overtime.” Maye actually rushed for 95 yards and dropped a “If they're dropping out guys and there are some rush lanes up front, I'm going to make them pay. That's my mindset," quote. Great fantasy football mindset, Drake!

Tony Pollard rushed for 167 yards and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine has been dubbed “The hood Honda Accord.” Meanwhile, Titans.com quotes Brian Callahan as “fighting back tears on several occasions.” I have nothing else to add for you if you’re a Titans fan. You know where this season is going. Fun defense.

Commanders 27 at Giants 22 — One thing I have enjoyed is listening to Malik Nabers sound like the most sensible person who works for the Giants. Here’s what he said after this game: “I don’t call the plays, so I mean, I don’t know. When you run the clock out in the first half, you’re scratching in the second half to try to score points, as many as possible. As an offense, you’ve got to be versatile. You’ve got to be able to run. You’ve got to be able to pass. You can’t pick between half and half what you want to do. But like I said, I’m not the play caller.” Maybe someone should let him call the plays.

Tyrone Tracy was doing yeoman’s work between the tackles, but the Giants defense had no answer for Jayden Daniels and per NFL Pro, generated just five pressures despite blitzing on 60% of Washington’s passing downs. That’s what I would call “not ideal.” The Commanders remain in control of their own destiny.

Saints 22 at Panthers 23 — Listen I can’t help but tell you that it is funny that the Saints lost this game. It is funny because they kicked the Panthers around in Week 1, and it’s funny because they outgained the Panthers by 150 yards and lost in circumstances in which teams were 275-0. It is an incredible amount of playing down to the competition to lose to this Panthers team, and the Saints managed it. But where I was really blown away was this:

What a dynasty, folks! I won’t even talk crap about Derek Carr today because Michael Thomas did that better than I could.

As I was writing this morning, the Saints finally fired Dennis Allen. Michael Thomas talked about that better than I could too. Alvin Kamara did as well.

Broncos 10 at Ravens 41 — Denver’s defense was welcomed to the Lamar Jackson zone, as he finished with a perfect passer rating and shockingly ran the ball just three times. Jackson, who was on the injury report with knee and back listings all week, instead simply completed 16-of-19 passes for three touchdowns and let Derrick Henry handle the rest. Baltimore’s offense averaged 7.3 yards per play and scored on every possession from their first to the middle of the fourth quarter against Denver’s fifth-ranked (coming into the game) defensive DVOA.

For Denver, it was a harsh dose of reality — you can’t play like this against teams that are actually good, but it does work against the NFC South. Denver’s run game had nothing and Bo Nix could not punish the Ravens downfield as has been a common key in their defense’s most disappointing games. At least he managed a cool touchdown catch. Kudos to Courtland Sutton for his interpretation on the classic ifs phrase: “We had a lot of opportunities that could have went another way, but one of my boys always says, ‘If “if” was a fifth, we’d all be drunk.’”

Jaguars 23 at Eagles 26 — Saquon Barkley was involved in the only two plays of this game that mattered, one where he back-hurdled over a Jaguars defender:

I’m sorry Jarrian Jones, but the rule is that you must retire on the spot.

The other was a Barkley rush where he was somehow ruled not down on a play referees decided was a fumble, where Travon Walker returned it for a touchdown to make this game closer then it appeared. The Eagles lost A.J. Brown to a knee injury but early signs are optimistic it won’t be a long one. They roll on with a chance to informally eliminate the Cowboys next week.

The Jaguars? Well they couldn’t throw to Brian Thomas Jr. because of “cloud coverage.” Trevor Lawrence had 23 passing yards at halftime. Coach, have you considered it’s your job to find a way for the quarterback to get the ball to playmakers?

Bears 9 at Cardinals 29 — If I were a defensive-minded head coach, I would find a way to not give up a 53-yard touchdown run with 12 seconds left in the half. Might make me look stupid.

Can I level with you guys from a place of honesty? The Cardinals are probably the hardest team in the NFL to cover correctly. They don’t have a beat guy I’m super familiar with now that Darren Urban is in-house, or at the very least not one who I think is providing big insights. Their coach makes it a point to never say anything interesting. But hey, they beat the crap out of the Bears offensive line and ran all over the defense, essentially taste-of-their-own-medicining Chicago with exactly how Matt Eberflus would probably like to play.

Kyler Murray was disappointed in his play, but he sure didn’t have to do much in this one as Caleb Williams was swarmed from the jump. (“Not too many times have I been able to play in a game like that, play the way I feel like I played — not up to my standard — and be able to win the way we did,” Murray said. “It was a helluva effort by the whole team.”) The Cardinals are now NFC West leaders.

Rams 26 at Seahawks 20 (OT) — The Seahawks lost this game because of Geno Smith’s enormous 106-yard pick-six, at least in his own eyes. But where they really lost it was on the lines. They couldn’t pick up a half-yard in two plays in overtime, Smith was pressured on 59.1% of his dropbacks and sacked seven times. When I say the Texans haven’t had a good offensive line in a decade, there are few other teams that come to mind as not having one in the same way. But the Seahawks? They are right up there.

Demarcus Robinson’s walkoff touchdown catch was sublime, particularly the way he one-handed it.

A diabolical throw in that situation, I loved it. The Rams are back in the thick of the NFC West race despite Puka Nacua’s early ejection.

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