IIt’s official: Joe Burrow of the Cincinnati Bengals is one of the unluckiest quarterbacks we’ve ever seen. Cincinnati fell to 1-4 on the season after the Tigers lost 41-38 in overtime to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday. It’s certainly not Burrow’s fault – through the first five games of the season, Burrow has completed 125 of 173 passes (72.3% completion rate) for 1,370 yards (7.9 yards per attempt), 12 touchdowns, 2 interceptions and 1 pass.
But it wasn’t enough to keep the Bengals from the playoffs — “We’re not a championship-caliber team right now,” was Burrow’s brutal conclusion after Sunday’s loss. Most of Cincinnati’s issues center on the defense, which is especially bad against the run, forcing Burrow to make as many big plays as possible just to keep his team in the game – something he’s certainly capable of doing a little.
On Sunday, Burrow completed 30 of 39 passes for 392 yards, five touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 137.0. It was one of the best quarterback performances of the season, helping the Bengals lead 24-14 in the third quarter and 38-28 in the fourth quarter. But the Bengals defense once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, allowing Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry to do their collective job late in regulation and overtime.
The Bengals offense is averaging 0.94 EPA per drive and 2.94 points per drive (AP??); both numbers are the team’s best from Weeks 1-5 since at least 2000.
The Bengals defense allowed 2.73 points per drive, the team’s worst number from Weeks 1-5…
— Austin Gayle (@austingayle_) October 7, 2024
To make matters worse, when Jackson handed the ball to the Bengals with 6:37 left in overtime, the team decided to run the ball three times for a total of three yards, resulting in a 53-yard fumble. Evan McPherson attempted a shot but had poor control. One play later, the Ravens put their boots on (we’ll get to that in a moment), and Burrow’s stellar performance was once again rendered meaningless. He became the 10th quarterback in NFL history to pass for more than 390 yards, at least 5 touchdown passes, and a completion rate above 75%, but it all meant nothing.
Burrow wasn’t perfect – he made a killer interception with 3:05 left in the fourth quarter to help the Ravens tie the game. But the Bengals’ four losses have come by a combined 15 points. All is not lost here, but it’s hard to tell anyone on the team that.
“It just won us a lot of one-on-one coverage,” Bengals receiver Ty Higgins said after the loss. “We knew it was huge for this game. We knew that was our mentality, which was to come in and win those one-on-ones. It wasn’t enough.
How rare is Burrow’s bad luck? If you extrapolate that over a full season, it’s almost impossible to have things go against you so dramatically when you’re playing so well. Only one quarterback in pro football history has started at least 10 games with a passer rating of at least 100.0 and been involved in four or fewer wins: Deshaun Watson of the Houston Texans in 2020 ( Deshaun Watson). Believe it or not, Watson was playing at an MVP level on a 4-12 Texans team that fired head coach Bill O’Brien after an 0-4 start. and remained mediocre under interim head coach Romeo Crennel.
of course we do no For all the obvious possible reasons, things would fall apart with Burrow like they did with Watson subsequently.
Most valuable player of the week
Derrick Henry, running back, Baltimore Ravens. It was a remarkable day for Mr. Henry, who reached 10,000 career rushing yards and 100 touchdowns from scrimmage in the Ravens’ victory. As for how Henry kicked the ball, it happened in a game after the Bengals failed to rush the ball three times and missed a field goal in overtime. Henry caught the ball at the Baltimore 43-yard line and rumbled 51 yards to the Cincinnati 6-yard line. That set the stage for Justin Tucker’s game-winning goal.
When will we see another running back top 10,000 yards and 100 rushing touchdowns? It may take quite some time. Most teams won’t rely on running backs like they did when Henry was with the Tennessee Titans from 2016 to 2023, or like the Ravens do now.
Video of the week
The actions of referee Clay Martin in the first quarter of Sunday’s game between the Houston Texans and Buffalo Bills left many shaking their heads. Martin tried to clarify a non-drop, but his movement became confused for a moment.
To be fair, Martin is already quite accomplished as a basketball player. From his Wikipedia:
In addition to his NFL duties, Martin serves as a high school basketball coach at Jenks High School in Jenks, Oklahoma. He also attended Oklahoma Baptist University, where he played basketball for the Bisons. Not only was he inducted into the OBU Hall of Fame for his basketball achievements, but he was also inducted into the Tulsa Public Schools Hall of Fame for the same reason.
Statistics for the week
Three minutes and 26 seconds. That’s as far as the 5-0 Minnesota Vikings have trailed throughout the 2024 season. This happened in the first quarter of their first game. Their opponent, the New York Jets, certainly made the game interesting when they fought back from a 17-0 second quarter deficit on Sunday — the second time in two games that Minnesota has allowed a second-half score — but the Vikings still ended up winning 23-17.
Elsewhere in the league
In most cases, athletes are in better shape than ever, allowing them to continue playing into their 30s and beyond. So when the Green Bay Packers traded Aaron Rodgers to the Jets in April 2023, even though he was 39 years old, few gave it a second thought. Rodgers in his prime was probably the best pure thrower in football history, and he was still great in his final season with the Green Bay Packers, so why wouldn’t the Jets try to end their decades-long quarterback drought? ?
It seems we now know why not. Rodgers had three picks and a passer rating of 54.9 on Sunday, the fifth-worst passer rating of his career in a game in which he attempted at least 20 passes. Since the 2022 season, Rodgers has had one game with three touchdown passes and two games with three interceptions.
It’s not all Rodgers’ fault. The Jets have a lot going for them almost everywhere, from their offensive coaches to their offensive line to their skill position players, but quarterbacks in the NFL have the ability to rise above those negatives, and Rodgers is one of them.
Tom Brady is the only quarterback who can truly rival Father Time, throwing more touchdown passes in his 40s (193) than he did in his 20s had more touchdown passes (147). There are plenty of people besides Brady who should have gotten into broadcasting or philanthropy earlier than they did. Rodgers may be one of them.
Of course, if you’re Joe Flacco, you march towards Father Time with a mischievous grin on your face. He was outstanding in Sunday’s 37-34 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, completing 33 of 44 passes for 359 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. Leading in passer rating with 115.6. Not bad for a guy who signed as Anthony Richardson’s backup in Indianapolis. That came in handy since the injury-prone Richardson has missed the past two games.
Flacco is also the oldest player in NFL history to record at least 300 passing yards and two touchdown passes in five consecutive starts. Well, who knows? Maybe Flacco will be the next to break the age curse, isn’t that unexpected?
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Heading into Week 5, Trevor Lawrence and Caleb Williams are off to a rough start. Lawrence, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 draft, posted a passer rating of 78.9 (eighth worst in the league) and an EPA per pass drop of -0.19 (seventh worst in the league). Williams, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 draft, has a passer rating of 72.0 (fourth worst in the NFL) and a -0.28 passer EPA per drop (tied for fourth worst in the NFL).
But on Sunday, both men’s troubles were eased. In the Jaguars’ win over the Colts, Lawrence completed 28 of 34 passes for 374 yards, two touchdowns, one interception and a passer rating of 119.5. Lawrence’s throwing mechanics have been terrible this season, but he looks more calm and controlled here.
In a 36-10 win over the Carolina Panthers, Williams completed 20 of 29 passes for 304 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions and a passer rating of 126.2. Williams dominated the passing game and wasn’t nearly as frenetic in the pocket as he was behind Chicago’s porous offensive line.
The Bears’ game was so out of control for Chicago that Panthers backup quarterback Bryce Young, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 draft, actually got some garbage time to work on those losses. He was backing up Andy Dalton for three weeks ahead of the issue.
It’s been a pretty good week for the No. 1 pick, save for Burrow.
Coaching is a tough job, and even the most unqualified coach knows more about football than the average analyst (including this one). As a result, we generally don’t question (or outright slam) decisions unless they are particularly egregious and cost a team the game.
Which brings us to what Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott did late in the game against the Houston Texans. With the score tied at 20-20, the Texans punted at the Buffalo three-yard line. Houston had three timeouts remaining, and the correct approach was to run the ball three times, force the Texans to use those timeouts, and then kick the ball away. Especially when there are 32 seconds left.
Instead, the Bills caught three passes from Josh Allen, who had an unusually bad game and appeared to suffer a head injury early in the fourth quarter. Allen completed only 9 of 30 passes in this game and failed 3 consecutive passes. With 16 seconds left in the game, the Bills kicked the ball away and the Texans had time to run a play — C.J. Stroud’s pass to running back Dare Ogunbowale, which was completed by Ka’imi Fairbairn The game-winning 59-yard field goal…of course, he did.
When you only have 16 seconds of possession of the ball and you put your opponent in trouble when time is running out, you are committing coaching misconduct.
Scott Hanson, the preeminent host of the NFL’s indispensable Red Zone Channel, speaks for most of us.
The Bills’ clock management on their final offensive possession gave Scott Hansen a headache.
This is understandable.
A thread.
Part 1/4 pic.twitter.com/F46hadSryp
– Awful Announcement (@awfulannouncing) October 6, 2024
“It’s up to me how the game ends offensively,” McDermott said. “They called three timeouts and they had a good… kick. We need to run the clock and move the chains and that’s my responsibility. We didn’t do that there and that’s my fault.”
No argument here, coach.
Finally, we saw pro football history on Sunday when two different defensive players, each wearing No. 2, had 100 yards or more touchdown catches on the same day. This has never happened before.
Seattle safety Rayshawn Jenkins recovered and caught the ball for a 102-yard touchdown (the Seahawks later corrected the tweet about the yardage)…
…Denver Broncos cornerback Patrick Surtain II returned a pass from Las Vegas player Gardner Minshew 100 yards in the other direction.
There were a lot of two games on the day and two very important games.