The moment will mark the first time in more than 30 days that someone other than the Eagles have been alone atop the division. In recognition of that achievement ending, let’s take a look back at some highlights from Philadelphia’s reign at the top:
** Oct. 22: The Eagles beat the New Jersey Giants in a Thursday Night football game, 22-21. The victory lifts their record to 2-4-1, good enough for first place.
** Nov. 1: The Eagles beat a depleted Cowboys team for the first two-game winning streak of the season, raising their record to 3-4-1, tantalizingly close to .500, a mark they have not reached at any point this year.
** Nov. 8: The Eagles enjoy a week 9 bye and do not lose a game. QB Carson Wentz has no turnovers for the first time all season.
And that’s it. There were two more losses and no more highlights. If they beat the Seahawks next Monday, the Eagles will have gone 29 days between wins, their longest drought of the season. If they lose, they will have won no more than a single game each of their first three months of play. They now sit 3.5 games below .500, and must go 5-1 in their final six games just to have a winning record this year.
Despite that, as of Thanksgiving morning, the Eagles will have been in first place for exactly half of the season since NFC East play began (37 of 74 days).
2020, ladies and gentlemen.
WR: Adam Thielen, 24.20 pts — started by Ant
RB: Dalvin Cook, 21.00 pts — started by Mom D
TE: Travis Kelce, 18.63 pts — started by Jeff
K: Rodrigo Blankenship, 15.00 pts — started by Jo
DEF: Cleveland, 25.00 pts — started by Mom D
D: Olivier Vernon, 14.50 pts — on the wire
Vernon, a defensive end for the Browns, collected three sacks and a safety in his team’s dominant win over those hapless Eagles. He got top honors this week by barely beating out teammate LB Sione Takitaki, who took a Wentz INT in for a touchdown in the second quarter of the game. The Browns defense had scored a combined 15 fantasy pts over the previous four weeks, but the Eagles offense will always help turn that around.
Also worth noting that two Vikings — Thielen and Cook — are on this list, despite their team losing to a pathetic Cowboys squad, all but ending Minnesota’s chance at a late playoff run. But, they got fantasy points, at least.
“Total flops” edition3rd place: Kansas City, -1.00 pts — on Dad’s bench
2nd place: Jake Luton, -1.96 pts — on the wire
1st place: Las Vegas, -4.00 pts — on the waiver wire
If you thought the defenses failed to show up during Sunday night’s NFL game, you were correct: Both the Raiders and Chiefs ended up with less than zero defensive fantasy points. If not for a last-minute interception from Kansas City, they would have finished with -3.00, coming in second-worst this week instead of third.
Luton, in his third start for the vaunted Jacksonville Jaguars offense, tossed 16 completions for 151 yds to his own team and four interceptions for 48 yds to the visiting Steelers. His 15.5 QB rating on the day was less than half of yours (1 attempt, zero yds equals a 39.6 QB rating) and leaves him with six turnovers in just three games played this year. That’s an even worse rate than Wentz (18 turnovers through 10 games) but of course it takes true dedication and skill to keep that effort up over an entire season, as the Eagles QB has done.
** Headline of the week: “New Orleans QB Drew Brees progressing, says more rib fractures found.”That’s getting worse, not progressing. Progressing would be “fewer rib fractures found” or “more new ribs found.” It’s not “more broken bones found.”
** At the start of the Dolphins/Broncos game, the CBS announcing crew put up their “keys of the game” for each team. Under the list of advice for Denver, the lead item was ‘don’t help the Dolphins.”
I know it seems counter intuitive, but if you’re trying to beat another football team, it does not help to help them. Instead, you should try to stop their efforts to succeed. It’s a sophisticated strategy point, but it helps.
** The NFL Network has a morning show called “Good Morning Football” but instead of abbreviating it with an F they go with FB and in their promotional ads this week they’ve been encouraging me to “wake up with GMFB” and I feel like if that happens you should see a doctor immediately.
The NFL announced last week that in lieu of the traditional Pro Bowl game this year, they’ll be conducting a week of events focused on the Madden 21 video game, to include competitions between players and coaches. Here’s a few proposals to make the idea really work:
** Full contact gaming — Allow real-world tackling and blocking while playing the game. Each gamer gets a controller and one lineman, let’s see who can make it to the end of the play.
** Prove you’re that good — Make stars prove how good they are by fielding teams just made up of them. I’ll believe Patrick Mahomes is worth a 99 rating when I see him breaking up a pass downfield as a safety. And who doesn’t want to see DE Aaron Donald playing RB and hitting people on offense?
** Salary cap mode — Before any game starts, players have to adjust their own pay to make it fit the team. Will they take a digital pay cut to win? Answer, no.
** Penalties off — They don’t call penalties in the Pro Bowl anyway. Why call them in the virtual Pro Bowl? Just let linebackers set up wherever and watch the QBs get lit up at the snap.
** Super Tecmo Bowl — Forget Madden. Let’s make these millennial players step up to the big time and play the greatest football of all time. Bonus points if they can win without Bo Jackson.
The hardest part of these anagram insults is not finding words and phrases. That’s easy. Take, for example Cowboys rookie running back Rico Dowdle. You can spell almost anything with his name: RB Rico Dowdle
** Older cowbird
** Lower cord bid
** Broiled crowd
** Odd blow crier
But does that really tell you anything about him as a player? As a teammate? As a man? No, of course not. That’s where you have to dig deep, study the letters and let them spell out the true character of the man:
RB Rico Dowdle
** Lewd crib odor
Yeah, that gives you everything you need to know about him.
** I went 3 for 4 against Dad in our weekly picks, pushing my lead to plus-10 with just six weeks of season left. All of Dad’s recent losses have been brutally close: The four-point KC comeback win on Sunday night, seven-point wins by the Texans and Seahawks, and the last-second Hail Mary pass in the Cardinals game the week before. Here’s hoping he picks against the Eagles next week, so they can get a miracle finish. ** In one of my favorite stats of the year so far, Indiana had 491 yds of total offense in their loss to the Buckeyes on Saturday. That’s 491 yds passing and -1 rushing. It’s not easy to be that dominant in one area of the offense and that terrible in the other.
** Bye weeks are done, folks. That means all roster mistakes from here on our are your fault, and you can’t blame the NFL schedulers.
Week 11 standings 1 — Blue Collar Killers (Jeff), 1418.28 pts
2 — Bird Immunity (Mike), 1401.91 pts
3 — 5th Grade Math (Jo), 1376.48 pts
4 — The XL Garbage Bags (Capt. Awesome), 1344.50 pts
5 — Pre-Recorded Boos (Bob), 1322.70 pts
6 — Kneel Armstrong (Sam), 1312.12 pts
7 — The Mom Football Tm (Mom D), 1282.93 pts
8 — The Slaymakers (Ant), 1229.17 pts
9 — Lataja Orly Lataja (Dad), 1160.95 pts
10 — Soccer Orphans (Paul), 1076.47 pts
11 — Patriots Secret Cam (Joel), 870.60 pts
Another weekly win for Joanna has her climbing ever closer to the top spot, but it might take a misstep by Mike and Jeff for her to get ahead. For now, the 1-2-3-4 teams in the standings finished 2-3-1-4 on the week to put some distance between them and the rest of the pack.
Bob, Sam and Mom remain within striking distance of a medal podium finish, but with only six weeks left, the question is whether there is enough time to get there. Meanwhile, Joel’s team is in distinct danger of getting doubled up by week 13 if he can’t muster some stronger performances.
Remember to check out your rosters early this week — three games are set for Thanksgiving day, including that stomach-churning battle for first place between Dallas and the Maryland Nameless team. Maybe carve up the turkey first before tuning into that.
No comments:
Post a Comment