Man, Free Monday: Texans survive Bills, Darnold Pumpkin Watch on versus Jets

Jets 17 at Vikings 23

Sam Darnold, You Are A Pumpkin

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As the foremost Sam Darnold backer for the past four weeks, someone who was willing to tell you that he was playing franchise-quarterback caliber football, I gotta tell you: This wasn’t that.

Darnold had 44 yards on the first drive before taking a sack to shoot a field goal. After that drive we’re talking about an entire ballgame of 130 yards, one where he was spraying open targets left and right, and one with an absolutely ghastly interception.

Just a ball that absolutely had no business being thrown, even on third-and-15. Check it down and come back another day.

Does it recalibrate my expectations on Darnold for the rest of the season that he was terrible in this game? The Jets are a legitimately good defense in my eyes. They harassed Darnold for pressures on a little over 40 percent of his dropbacks. But the biggest difference is that when Darnold was hurried, he crumpled. The confident Darnold I saw when he was pressured against the Texans? That guy didn’t exist in this game.

To me this wasn’t exactly a wake-up call that things are over for the Darnold Vikings or anything like that, because he demonstrated some talent that I didn’t think he had earlier in his career. But perhaps this talent is, well, come-and-go? Perhaps he’s somewhere between what we saw early in the season and what he looked like today. They’ve got a bye week to get back to the September standard. They’re going to need September Darnold if they want to continue to be a serious contender.

Aaron Rodgers Is Both Hurt And Not Having Much Fun

With a 17-0 lead, the Jets asked Aaron Rodgers to throw against Brian Flores’ defense 54 times. I’m not going to tell you that Rodgers sucked. He had some bad moments, of course, but he also made some nice throws. His touchdown toss to Allen Lazard was a tight-window pass.

What he did not do is enjoy any of it. He threw quick. As in, his 2.48 average time to throw was second-fastest of the season. He was hurt again, suffering an ankle sprain that he played through. He threw three picks in a game that was utterly winnable if we’re being honest with ourselves, especially because Sam Darnold wasn’t exactly doing anything to go win it.

And, well, he did the thing he’s done for the last five calendar years. He moped. He’s never on the same page as his receivers and it’s never his fault. I don’t say this to sound condescending so much as say: This is the sort of thing I thought about when I weighed in my mind just how good I thought the Jets would be. These are the moments I thought about that you get from actually watching the games. The offensive line isn’t as good as they thought it was, and Olu Fashanu was baptized by Jon Greenard with Morgan Moses out. The excuses are readymade.

But as someone who has dealt with burnout before, I know it when I see it. Rodgers has been doing the same thing for so long that if it’s not easy, he seems cynical and bored of it. Which is a problem when your entire offensive staff was ported over here to make Rodgers happy. It just feels like he needs a fresh perspective and he’s not in any way interested in finding one.

Bills 20 at Texans 23

A flashback

A disjointed running game is relied upon at the expense of a young quarterback who has shown a lot of promise. A defense built upon stopping the run makes just enough plays in the passing games to win close and tight games. The Texans reel off a run of close wins that leave you questioning if the team “has it” or if they’ve just been wildly lucky.

This is what is happening in 2024. But it’s also what happened in 2018. I know, I know, I hate that my brain went there too. I groaned at myself when I thought of it. But ever since I thought it, I can’t help but lament how similar to the Bill O’Brien times it feels.

The Texans are 4-1. By all means they have the talent to be more than they have been and “turn it on.” But they can’t run the ball with any consistency, they make coverage mistakes when they focus on stopping the run, and they get a severe case of lemon booty any time they have the ball and time is running out of a half. C.J. Stroud’s third-down throws are third-and-7 or longer a lot more than they need to be because of this marriage to the run and untimely penalties.

I don’t think Houston’s intentional grounding penalty was, well, a penalty that most officiating crews would call. But the Texans have the ball on the Buffalo 44 with 1:09 left and they immediately start trying to create short yards instead of attack, wanting to settle for the long field goal. (Some of this, yes, is because Blake Fisher has no prayer in his rookie season.) That hasn’t bit them yet. I don’t think Kai’mi Fairbairn is a bad kicker anymore — in 2018, to flashback again, he was a second-year player — but you don’t have to make his life as hard as it is.

I’ve been covering the NFL since 2009, I know what dominant teams look like and it isn’t this. Where the Texans are sitting right now? It might not matter. I’ll dig into the offensive line at some point this week, but the defense is more or less “good” and the quarterback is “good.” They’re 4-1 and the second-place team in their division is 2-3. As disjointed as things looked at times, the Bills are a rough pass defense and the Texans were on pace to route them before Nico Collins hurt his hamstring.

It’s good to be the Texans right now. But it’s good circumstances, not sustainably good play, that is making it good for the moment.

Stefon Diggs’ True Revenge: Leaving Josh Allen with this receiving corps

9-of-30 for 131 yards and one touchdown. That’s a sad Josh Allen line, and it’s one that belies a lot of what happened on the field. Allen was not terrific, and he did operate like a mad bomber trying to find guys open downfield. But he also just was throwing to Keon Coleman, Mack Hollins, and Dalton Kincaid. (And Marquez Valdes-Scantling, and Curtis Samuel.)

I don’t know what you want Josh Allen to do about this. Mack Hollins is wide open, the throw is very good, and it’s a drop.

I don’t know what you want Josh Allen to do about this.

And … I don’t know what you want Josh Allen to do about this.

The stat line looked grotesque, but it really comes down to the Texans trusting that they’d win against these wideouts one-on-one and sending heat. Allen was blitzed on 31.4% of his dropbacks, and the Texans did get burned (Coleman touchdown, great Allen scrambles), but they also didn’t get burned that much.

The Bills may have given up on Stefon Diggs at the right time — I certainly can’t fault their decision-making process given how he’s been fairly ordinary as a Texan — but that doesn’t mean they replaced him perfectly either.

That also happened:

Ravens 41 at Bengals 38 — We found the game of the week where they banned the dreaded two-high safeties. This was a barnburner where the Bengals came up with the very best punch they could, over and over again. Ja’Marr Chase detonated for two touchdowns, Tee Higgins caught two touchdown. Trey Hendrickson came up with plenty of pressures. (Seven in 20 against Ronnie Stanley per NFL Pro.) Joe Burrow was dealing.

Lamar Jackson did whatever this is:

But the Bengals were picked off on a slant in Baltimore territory with 3 minutes to play and a three-point lead. The Ravens took it to overtime. The Bengals had a chance at a game-winning field goal in overtime and missed after a botched hold.

And that was all she wrote. That’s potentially a franchise-sinking loss at 1-4 and with no contracts for Higgins or Chase. The defense is just not good enough. They couldn’t win free agency contracts forever. I don’t know that Zac Taylor is getting fired or anything (the players certainly seemed to hate playing for a field goal in overtime), but this is the end of a window unless more money is willing to be ponied up than previously was available.

Colts 34 at Jaguars 37 — Reports of Trevor Lawrence’s demise from last week turned out to be premature. Gus Bradley and Ryan Nielsen engaged in another Mensa match as Lawrence and Joe Flacco (?!?) combined for 730 passing yards. This was a huge game for the Texans as the 2-3 Colts have dug a hole for themselves in the division.

Flacco embarrassing Deshaun Watson was funny, but now that he’s come for Anthony Richardson I gotta ask the question: Where has this Flacco been hiding his whole career? Flacco has 40 career 300-yard games in 186 regular season starts. Did you know that Joe Flacco — in an era where nobody can throw — is an automatic 300 yards now? He’s done it in five straight starts. Richardson looking over his shoulder is premature because the Colts simply cannot give up on his development this early. But if you want to argue that Flacco is the better quarterback, I have to honor that as legitimate right now.

Chris Ballard said he liked their young cornerbacks in April. How does he like them now?

Panthers 10 at Bears 36 — Chicago’s defense smothered Andy Dalton to the point where Bryce Young actually got to build some value ahead of the trading deadline, and other than a long Chuba Hubbard touchdown run, the Panthers did absolutely nothing. “Andy Dalton completed just 3 of his 9 passes over 10 air yards for 80 yards and an interception” is both something I could have asked ChatGPT to write about this Panthers offense and something that actually happened here.

Dolphins 15 at Patriots 10 — I don’t think anybody needed to watch this, but somehow the Patriots had the more underwhelming offense in a duel between Tyler Huntley and Jacoby Brissett. That was mostly because the Dolphins were able to cobble together a sustainable run offense between Raheem Mostert and Jaylen Wright with a concussion sidelining Devon Achane. These were Alec Ingold hours with the Dolphins running big formations and running over the Patriots front. Really sad to type that sentence about a Patriots front. Bill Belichick is rolling over in his Underdog commercial.

Browns 13 at Commanders 34 — Deshaun Watson was finally benched on a day where everybody asked “What does it take for Deshaun Watson to get benched?” and Kevin Stefanski immediately clarified that there’s no change to be made at quarterback. Okay then. Glad we checked. This wasn’t Jayden Daniels’ best game but it simply did not take much to beat the Browns at this stage of Watson’s devolvement. He was sacked seven times. Seven! By the Commanders defense!

There’s a viral clip going around of Watson “quitting” by walking to the sideline. The thing is that there’s 12 men on the field, right? But the other thing is … the body language is still real bad.

Raiders 18 at Broncos 34 — Aidan O’Connell replaced Gardner Minshew as the two of them combined for three interceptions — one of them a full-field pick-six — and three sacks in a game where “having a competent passing attack” would have gone a long way. Bo Nix notably fought with Sean Payton on the sideline and Payton said after the game that Nix has a “little bit of Ferris Bueller in that player,” which he seemed to be saying was a bad thing. I’d kill to have a little bit of Ferris Bueller in me.

Cardinals 24 at 49ers 23 — For the second straight week, both the Cardinals and their opponent ran the ball with ease — 6.5 YPC for Arizona, 5.9 for the 49ers. Losing the turnover battle 3-1 put the 49ers into a 2-3 hole.

Packers 24 at Rams 19 — Would the Rams trade Matthew Stafford? Sure seems like there’d be a market. Tucker Kraft scored two touchdowns in the absence of Romeo Doubs and vaulted up to fantasy TE1 in the process.

Giants 29 at Seahawks 20 — Weird game. 102-yard fumble return touchdown for the Seahawks. Blocked field goal touchdown for the Giants to make the final scoreline look more respectable for them.

Cowboys 20 at Steelers 17 — I didn’t watch this game all the way through yet because of the rain delay. Sure seemed like a hilarious Dallas loss was bailed out.

Man, Free: A Football Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.