If you’re feeling like NFL special teams have been particularly inconsistent this season, you’d be absolutely right.
Still, as strange as the special teams team’s first 11 weeks of the season have been, nothing can compare to what happened Sunday. Missed kicks and turnovers are common, but there were far more of them on Sunday than usual.
The most famous of these was Austin Seibert of Washington Commander. The seven-year veteran had a strong performance in Sunday’s game and is 25-for-27 on extra point attempts this season.
Then Seibert had a complete disaster against the Dallas Cowboys, as the Commanders lost 34-26. With 48 seconds left in the first quarter, Seibert’s 51-yard shot missed. That’s not surprising, as his only two turnovers this season have come from 50 yards or more. Then, with 9:59 left in the third quarter, Jayden Daniels rushed 17 yards for a touchdown and Seibert missed his first extra-point attempt of the season. It doesn’t seem like a big deal: Washington still leads 9-3, and Dallas has struggled all season.
Seibert suffered another blow as he returned a kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown by KaVontae Turpin to give the Cowboys a 27-17 lead late in the fourth quarter. That’s bad news for the Commanders in playoff contention, but the touchdown had more to do with Turpin’s skills than Seibert’s flaws. Seibert even gave the Commanders a glimmer of hope by scoring a 51-yard field goal with 1:40 left in the game, cutting the deficit to seven points. There’s always hope against these Cowboys teams. First, Dallas recovered Seibert’s onside kick but was forced to punt. Then, with 33 seconds left, Daniels miraculously hit Terry McLaurin for an 86-yard touchdown and, as has become commonplace this season, Dallas forgot how to snap.
The score was 27-26, and all Seibert had to do was score one more point, almost certainly sending the game into overtime. You can guess how That Went.
But for Seibert, there was more pain. After he missed the ball, he attempted an onside kick on the next play, which Cowboys safety Juanyeh Thomas returned for a 34-yard touchdown to put the game completely out of reach. Seibert’s back-to-back games give his team a victory over a hated foe in a season that has begun to reverse their recent reputation as a hapless team. It also doomed the 7-5 Commanders to a three-game losing streak, while their NFC East rivals, the 9-2 Philadelphia Eagles, had won seven straight. It’s hard to imagine a more painful game for a single player in NFL history. Seibert’s worried expression tells the story in one image.
To Seibert’s credit – after so many losses, some players would rather have a weight on their feet than face the media – but he’s a man of integrity. He refused to blame the poor shot that missed the second extra point or the hip injury that kept him out of the Commander’s first two games.
In a season where special teams has been anything but that, Seibert will be the embodiment of misfortune for those struggling against one of the most painful games any kicker has ever experienced.
Most valuable player of the week
Saquon Barkley, running back, Philadelphia Eagles. As if things weren’t bad enough for the New York Giants, who are sitting at 2-9 (more on that later). On Sunday night, Barkley, a running back they considered expendable this offseason, rushed through the Los Angeles Rams’ very capable but very young defense for 255 yards and two touchdowns as the Eagles defeated the Rams 37-20. Sheep team. Before the results of Monday night’s game between the Baltimore Ravens and Los Angeles Chargers, Barkley passed Baltimore’s Derrick Henry for the NFL rushing yardage lead with 1,392 yards, ahead of Henry’s 1,185 yards. Barkley’s touchdown runs of 70 and 72 yards were the ninth-most rushing yards in a game by a player in NFL history.
Before Giants fans wonder where this Previously, we couldn’t imagine this version of Barkley appearing in New York — or most other places. He’s playing behind the best offensive line yet, and he has a quarterback in Jalen Hurts who amplifies Barkley’s rushing threat with his mobility. It was a classic example of a perfect player in a perfect situation and another personnel hit for Big Blue.
Video of the week
The Carolina Panthers’ game against the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs was closer than anyone expected. In fact, after Carolina’s two-pointer, the score was 27-27 with 1:49 left.
So, the Panthers gave the ball back to the Chiefs and hoped that Patrick Mahomes wouldn’t do something ridiculous. Of course, this hope was dashed. With 48 seconds left, Mahomes rushed 33 yards to the Carolina 22-yard line and set up Spencer Shrader’s game-winning field goal as the game ended.
If you think you’ve seen something like this before… well, you almost have. In last season’s Super Bowl, with the San Francisco 49ers leading 22-19 three plays later, Mahomes threw a game-winning 19-yard touchdown pass to Mecole Hardman. Hardman).
Like most of the Chiefs’ 10 wins this season, it wasn’t pretty… but a win is a win.
Newsletter Promotion Post
Statistics for the week
In addition to Seibert, there were several instances of kicking misconduct on Sunday, as has been the case all season (as well as some heroics). But before you think this is going to happen at an unusually fast pace in 2024, let’s not let recency bias take things in the wrong direction. Through the first 11 weeks of the 2024 season, the kicker is shooting 84.9 percent from the field and 96.5 percent from extra points. Over the past decade, field goal percentage has declined each season from 2014 to 2020, with the success rate just 1 percentage point lower than last season’s 85.9%. This season’s extra point rate is also the highest since the Kickers kicked an astonishing 99.3% in 2014.
Data from Pro Football Reference tells us that field goal attempts are up 50 yards or more this season, which could explain some of the turnovers, but it’s not a huge change over the past decade. Kickball has always been an inconsistent and unpredictable art.
Elsewhere in the league
— Late in the third quarter of Minnesota’s 30-27 win over the Chicago Bears, Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold appeared to hit Jordan Addison for a 69-yard gain ( Jordan Addison).
The question is whether Addison stepped out of bounds before completing his long trek after the catch. From replays, it appeared he did – but after officials reviewed the play, the original ruling was upheld.
Normally, most people would blame this on officials blowing the phone again, but this and other retrial rulings have a subversive and incomprehensible context. As former NFL VP of officiating Mike Pereira explained, the league does not allow the use of sideline cameras during replays because not all stadiums are equipped with sideline cameras. Allowing such replays would throw parity out of the window.
In 2023, the NFL’s total revenue will exceed $13 billion. Even the most technically impressive cameras offered by the NFL tend to cost less than $10,000: We’re guessing NFL teams could easily pool the funds together to cover the cost of installing them in every stadium. Cost is not an issue. Income is not an issue. Why the NFL hasn’t standardized its technology on this is ridiculous.
— No quarterback wants to be benched, but it makes sense to sit a young signal-caller so he can spend time dealing with the complexities of NFL plays and the speed of NFL defenses. Bryce Young looked like one of the league’s worst first-round draft picks both during his rookie season in 2023 and this season, but three games into the Panthers’ season he found himself on the bench on the mat, while Andy Dalton was replaced by Andy Dalton. He didn’t regain the starting job until Week 8.
But after coming off the bench, Young started to feel more comfortable in his role, and he definitely did that in Carolina’s loss to the Chiefs. Young completed 21 of 35 passes for 263 yards and a touchdown with no interceptions and a passer rating of 92.9. Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo repeatedly blitzed Young, who then smacked those blitzes right back into Spags’ face. Young’s dropback percentage reached a season-high 40.0%, and he completed 11 of 14 passes for 123 yards and a touchdown on multiple interference attempts. The tape matched the metrics; Young looks like a different quarterback now.
— Of course, backup quarterbacks don’t always work. If you thought things couldn’t get worse for the New York Giants after benching and releasing Daniel Jones…well, think again. Backup Tommy DeVito completed 21 of 31 passes for 189 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions in Big Blue’s embarrassing 30-7 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday. The ball rating is 83.9. DeVito completed just 3 of 5 passes for 31 yards in the first half before things got out of hand and the Buccaneers played an easier defense.
2024 first-round receiver Malik Nabors wasn’t targeted until the third quarter, and he wasn’t happy about it at all.
“This has nothing to do with the quarterback,” Nabors said after the game. “Being a DJ [Jones] It’s the quarterback. In the first and second quarters, don’t get the ball and then aim at the end. You can’t do that. When the score is 30-0, start taking the ball. What do you want me to do?
Nabors says media should ‘talk to DAB’ [head coach Brian Daboll] About that. Nabors also called the performance “weak,” and he wasn’t the only one. Global defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence said the Giants “played softly and [the Buccaneers] Beat us today.
The Giants are 2-9 this season with all of their previous performance gone, and Daboll is 17-27-1 in his Giants career. The numbers are bad enough, but when your best players openly question coaching and effort, it looks like Daboll will be the next Giant to look for a new job.
Oh… Besides Barkley’s effort on Sunday, it was a very good day for other former Giants. The Seattle Seahawks defeated the Arizona Cardinals 16-6 as defensive lineman Leonard Williams had 2.5 sacks and safety Xavier McKinney held the Green Bay Packers 38-3. 10 in a win over the San Francisco 49ers, picking up his seventh interception of the season. If this isn’t the worst day in Giants history, it’s certainly on the short list.
