5 things I care about
The Bills have so many ways to win
It feels strange to write this on a night when the Bills won their fifth-straight AFC East title, but Week 13 provided a reminder of why this particular group feels more dynamic and versatile than many previous iterations.
The Bills’ Sunday Night Football win over the 49ers showed off just how many ways they can beat opponents.
The Bills have had a strong defense and one of the premier quarterbacks in football for the vast majority of the Sean McDermott era. We saw those at play on Sunday night, but it wasn’t anything new. The most significant development, which isn’t exclusive to Week 13 but is more unique to this year’s Bills overall, was the dominance on the ground. As the snow fell throughout the game, a Bills team that’s toed the line of spread-happy and finesse for some of Josh Allen’s All-Pro years put on their big-boy pants and ran all over San Francisco from the jump.
The Bills started to transition toward a gap-based rushing attack when Joe Brady took over last season as the play-caller. If they’ve doubled down on that identity in 2024 overall, Week 13 provided a chance to go all-in on it.
James Cook has been an explosive play machine as a rusher when the offensive line gives him lanes on gap scheme runs this season. He did a lot of the heavy lifting, adding yards on his own in Week 13. In the first half alone, Cook added 9.2 yards after contact per rush. Next Gen Stats notes that Cook accumulated 102 of his 107 yards on plays with jumbo personnel and he now leads the NFL in rushing yards and rush yards over expected on such carries. Some of the enthralling Bills teams of 2020 and 2021 leaning on teams with heavy personnel packages and running to win would be unthinkable.
Cook wasn’t the only back doing damage on Sunday night. Backup Ray Davis scored the opening Bills touchdown on a red-zone carry and averaged 6.3 yards per rush in the first half. He isn’t the combustive runner that Cook can be when he gets a lane but his powerful and tempo stylings are perfect for this rushing scheme. There should be 0.0 fantasy leagues where Davis is on waivers because he’d be an RB1 if Cook missed any time.
The Bills didn’t have to pass much to win this game with ease but when they did, Allen threw deep heaves over the middle to Dawson Knox and Khalil Shakir. The Bills have a more “at you” passing game than some of the outside-the-numbers vertical shot attacks that were the staple of the successful Allen and Stefon Diggs years.
In what was portrayed as a retooling year in many circles of the national media, the rich have only gotten richer in Buffalo. The Bills are the same dangerous aerial team that they’ve ever been and McDermott and Bobby Babich are at the controls of a still complex pass defense. Now, they have the type of devastating running game that can wear out physical opponents and dominate in cold weather. The Bills have an absurd number of paths to victory.
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I’m not saying the Eagles will definitely win the Super Bowl — which is the whole point of the sport, not leading the late-season power rankings. However, if you’re ranking teams at this moment, I just don’t know how you can have anyone above Philadelphia.
Cooper DeJean’s fourth-quarter, open-field tackle of Derrick Henry feels like a great play to identify how the Eagles have turned into this team.
The rookie defensive back is listed at six-foot and sub-200 pounds. Henry is … quite a bit bigger than that. How often have we seen Henry make a player with that size gap look foolish on plays just like this one? That difference didn’t matter because DeJean crashed on the play with great instincts and brought a physical edge to the tackle attempt.
This time last year, the Eagles were in the middle of an epic late-season slide primarily because their defense got old in a flash. This team handed over defensive play-calling duties to Matt Patricia almost 365 days ago; that’s how desperate the situation got for the 2023 Eagles. After 13 weeks of this season, I feel confident that they have the best defense in the league. Sunday’s performance was just another piece of evidence.
Situations and individual units can change quickly when you knock a draft class out of the park. When you hit two in a row, that’s even better. DeJean’s tackle of Henry in Week 13 reminded us that’s exactly what has happened for the Eagles. He’s not the only one who had statement performances, as Jalen Carter was a force yet again. He only left the field for one play, per Next Gen Stats, and it was the final play of the game for the Ravens offense. He was a monster on the interior defensive line against the run and NGS had him double-teamed on 23 of 43 pass rush snaps.
In fantasy circles, people know the Eagles because of their high-end offensive talents. That side of the ball is still as responsible as ever for their dominance. However, fantasy managers need to recognize this team for its ability to ruin an outing for the opponent’s offense. That’s the farthest cry possible from where this unit was just one year ago.
Bryce Young’s development
The Panthers ultimately lost the game after some heroic plays by the Bucs’ passing offense and an uncharacteristic mistake by Chuba Hubbard on an overtime fumble. However, Week 13 was yet another data point in the development of Bryce Young, who has consistently gotten better in each game after his return to the starting lineup.
Young made three to four plays in the first few drives of this game that he simply never offered on film as a rookie. The way he’s responding to pressure and muddy pockets the last month or so is night-and-day different from how he played last season, and the first two games of 2024. The confidence exudes from every bit of his game.
Young isn’t a Kyler Murray-type of athlete on the movezzzzzzzz but he has more than enough functional athleticism. That, combined with tremendous instincts, made him such a great off-script operator in college. We are finally seeing that player in the NFL. On his go-ahead touchdown to Adam Thielen in the fourth quarter, the pocket got distributed up the middle. Young confidently readjusted, kept his eyes downfield and threw a dart to his veteran receiver on a big-boy out-breaker. You can’t find plays like that on his 2023 film. Young has also added a ton of value on his scrambles the last few weeks, a new dimension for this offense.
We’re still in discovery mode when it comes to Young’s ceiling. He may not play like a guy worthy of being taken first overall, much less someone you trade the farm for, as the Panthers did less than two years ago. However, if you can’t see the incredible positive development all over his game right now, you’ve entirely missed the memo. He looks like a promising starting passer for the Panthers, which is a massive outcome given the projected state of the 2025 quarterback NFL Draft class.
Kirk Cousins’ nightmare game
If Kirk Cousins was even average in Week 13, the Falcons probably cruise to a win over a Chargers offense they generally handled. Instead, Cousins was well south of average.
All four of Cousins’ interceptions came when throwing to the slot, per Next Gen Stats. That quietly makes a lot of sense. Cousins was late on so many throws throughout the course of the day. Players would get open crossing over the middle of the field or breaking toward the sideline but Cousins would get to it late and have so little mustard on the throws that Chargers defenders would have plenty of time to close the holes in the zone. It was an issue throughout the course of the afternoon — and this is not a new development.
Touchdown-to-interception ratio isn’t everything. In fact, it can be a bad stat. That said, Cousins has six picks to zero scores over the last three games, all of which were losses for the Falcons. The passing game is well-structured under Zac Robinson, but Cousins has played a beat late for weeks. As we saw on Sunday, he doesn’t have the arm strength to make up for ill-timed plays as a thrower.
The Falcons played well enough on defense to win this game, as we’ll go over in the next section. Bijan Robinson had some heroic moments, as he always does. Drake London made some miracle receptions that turned Cousins ducks into positive plays. They just didn’t get the play they needed out of Cousins. With a top-10 rookie quarterback on the bench and the possibility of losing the NFC South to a Bucs team they’ve beaten twice looming, there are going to be some uncomfortable conversations going on in the Falcons building.
The Chargers’ pass protection
In the stoppable force vs. movable object matchup of the day, the Falcons’ pass rush had the edge on the Chargers’ interior pass protection. Despite the Chargers winning the game, that’s a troubling reality to walk out of Week 13.
The Falcons have not had a threatening pass rush for most of the time I’ve spent analyzing the league professionally and, frankly, for the vast majority of my life on planet Earth. Somehow, the 2024 version of their pass rush has been a low mark in a long history of weaker units. Atlanta entered Week 13 with just 10 sacks, the fewest in the NFL, and a mere 73 pressures. Quarterbacks have had enough time to cook a meal in the pocket against Atlanta, but not Justin Herbert in Week 13.
Herbert was sacked five times against Atlanta and watched pockets crumble all afternoon. Interior pass protection has quietly been a problem for the Chargers all season but Herbert typically does a good job mitigating pressure. The fact that pressure was once again the theme of the Chargers passing game against a defense like the Falcons is beyond problematic.
Making matters even worse, the Chargers have just one player who can consistently separate. Sometimes, the box score doesn’t tell the story regarding pass-catcher quality, but his week’s Chargers one is an exception. Ladd McConkey accounted for 117 of Justin Herbert’s 147 passing yards and nine of his 16 completions. When McConkey isn’t the first read in the concept, the other guys’ inability to separate compounds the protection problems.
The Chargers are way ahead of schedule under a new staff sitting at 8-4 with a playoff berth likely 13 games into the season. Based on their roster talent, they’ve already overachieved. However, some of these crippling issues, especially on offense, will creep back up in big games. If Week 13 is any indication, their lack of interior pass protection is right at the top of that list.
5 things I don’t care about
What the 49ers were
Every week feels like some kind of funeral for the San Francisco 49ers or our ideas for the team heading into the season. There were moments on Sunday night when it appeared that things would go differently — and it all had to do with Christian McCaffrey.
The Bills offense was ready from the jump to get into the exact kind of power-run affair needed in this snow game. The All-Pro back for the 49ers looked ready to give his team a chance to hang around, at the very least. He handled seven carries in the first- to early-second quarter in a close 7-3 game and averaged 7.6 yards per rush. For the first time since his return to the lineup, he looked explosive and ready to provide the big-play element this team had lacked in the run game all season.
That was until his fateful final carry of the evening and what may be the last play of his 2024 campaign.
Once McCaffrey left the game, the floodgates opened and the Bills stormed over the 49ers with little resistance. McCaffrey’s presence alone might not have been enough to get the team a win but as soon as he left, they returned to the zombie operation they’ve been on balance this season.
That is the version we should expect them to remain for the rest of the way until 2024 mercifully comes to a close.
The insane cries from certain sections of the football universe calling to move on from Kyle Shanahan will not be met with any serious consideration. San Francisco won’t have a prayer of getting back into the mix without him at the helm. The 2024 season was a campaign from hell as injuries and unthinkably bad twists of fate haunted them well before the first kickoff.
With enough remaining talent and some young guys getting on-the-job experience as this zombie season rolls on, you can tell yourself a story about how this offense rebounds next year. That is a next year discussion. For the rest of 2024, we are well past the point of letting go of what this team should be. The last gasp of that fantasy came and went when McCaffrey slid into the snow with 11 minutes left in the second quarter.
Cardinals vs. Vikings offensive disappointment
I don’t come away from the Vikings one-point win over the Cardinals feeling great about either offense.
Sam Darnold looked like he was competing with Kirk Cousins to see who could get away with more late throws in Week 13 — spoiler alert, the guy with a starter-caliber arm and Justin Jefferson got away with it — and volatility continues to haunt Kyler Murray in the Cardinals passing game. The main takeaway from this game is that these are two of the more complex defenses to face in the NFC.
Most would group the Vikings there without a second thought. They just continue to pass their résumé. Minnesota broke tendency by playing man coverage on 51% of dropbacks, their second-highest rate in a game under defensive coordinator Brian Flores, per Next Gen Stats. They also threw out blitzes on over 50% of the Cardinals’ dropbacks. Both wrinkles threw the Cardinals’ already chaotic passing game for a loop all afternoon.
However, casual viewers might not be aware Arizona is playing that well on defense. While its defense may not be to Minnesota’s level, they aren’t the same pushover they were to start this year.
Much like the Vikings defense, Arizona throws a ton of different coverage looks on the backend. Now, their funky three-safety looks have turned into impactful plays. They put Darnold into chaos mode multiple times in this outing. Per Next Gen Stats, the Cardinals generated a season-high 53.8% pressure rate and three of their five sacks were unblocked. The Vikings offense is one of the most well-designed attacks out there, so Darnold was able to get to enough answers. However, lesser teams will find this stop unit a pain to play against.
There are so many big-name fantasy players on both offenses in this game and very few reached their possible ceilings. For that reason, there’s going to be plenty of inquiries as to why these offenses disappointed. Don’t forget that the defense gets paid too. And these are two of the more tricky defensive puzzles to solve at the moment.
The Texans win
I don’t care about the Texans’ overall record for the rest of the season, as they’re set to moonwalk to an AFC South title and a playoff berth. Instead, I’m looking for any signs or signals that the Texans can channel anything close to the upside many hoped they’d have heading into the season. We’re looking for quality wins. A 23-20 victory over a broken Jacksonville team with Mac Jones taking most of the snaps at quarterback certainly doesn’t qualify.
I don’t know if I’m ready to say the Texans are a poorly coached operation midway through Year 2 of the DeMeco Ryans era, but they do many things we typically assign to poorly coached teams. Houston is one of the most penalized teams in the league and consistently makes back-breaking mistakes in pass protection.
The lowlight moment for the Texans in this Week 13 win also fits into this category. Azeez Al-Shaair hit Trevor Lawrence high and late as the Jaguars quarterback was deep into a slide in the first half that caused the game to erupt into an all-out brawl. The only thing worse than the universally panned hit by Al-Shaair, a Texans captain, was how he responded. The linebacker hung around the field well after he was obviously ejected from the game, continuing to instigate fights with Jaguars players and fans.
Ryans’ answer to what was a defining moment of the Week 13 early window fell flat, given how Al-Shaair’s season has played out.
Look, this is one moment in a long season. I don’t want to extrapolate too much from a low moment from this team and one of its captains. However, it feels indicative of, or at the bare minimum, adjacent to, some of the overall issues that have haunted Houston. The Texans are an undisciplined and mistake-prone team that feels destined to underachieve their preseason expectations.
Anthony Richardson’s benching
So many scenarios and possible timelines existed that would cause us to point back to Anthony Richardson’s ill-fated benching as the moment the 2024 season slipped away from the Colts. It doesn’t appear like we’re living in one of those timelines.
The Colts dropped both games with Joe Flacco under center following Richardson’s benching but have won two of three since he returned to the starting lineup. This Week 13 win over the Patriots may have been the most important of the three.
Richardson wasn’t perfect and several of his supporting players in a banged-up pass-catcher corps and on the offensive line left him dry. However, the Colts quarterback delivered when it mattered most on the game-winning drive.
Richardson led the team down the field on a 19-play, 80-yard drive with 5:22 left in the game. He tossed a pin-point out-breaker for Alec Pierce with 17 seconds left and then punctuated it with a 2-point conversion on a designed rush attempt to win the game.
That 2-point conversion game-winner was a perfect example of how the picture has changed around Richardson.
Shane Steichen handled the benching poorly, especially when it came to messaging the reasoning or future plan to the public. There seemed to be similar confusion on Richardson’s end and throughout the locker room. That’s a significant flub but not an unforgivable miss by the head coach — as long as you salvage Richardson. We have a long way to go in determining if Richardson will be a successful franchise quarterback but the last three weeks have been encouraging and the team is setting him up to get back on track.
The Colts are leaning into the designed quarterback runs more than ever. Obviously there’s the game-winning 2-pointer, but it goes beyond that. Six of Richardson’s nine carries came on designed quarterback runs in Week 13. He had 16 designed runs the previous two weeks and averaged 5.5 yards per carry. Leaning into the most difference-making portion of his skill set has been a boost to the entire offense. You can feel the confidence growing from Richardson as he moves the offense. The coaching staff is responding with confidence in kind by putting the ball in his hands to win the game this week.
The Anthony Richardson benching is a thing of the past. He’s taken it as a challenge and is moving forward with what appears to be a renewed level of play. It will not go down as the thing that ruined him and instead is just a chapter in his still-evolving story as an NFL starter.
The rest of the Jets season
Jeff Ulbrich shooting down questions about a possible quarterback change in the post-game presser following yet another miserable loss highlighted the fruitless nature of the remaining schedule for New York.
There’s really no point in the Jets switching to a 35-year-old Tyrod Taylor as the starting quarterback. Then again, what’s the point of Aaron Rodgers playing out the string for a team that won’t welcome him back in 2025? No change under center will move the needle; nothing that happens the rest of the way even matters.
The only reason you’d consider taking Rodgers out of the lineup is if his presence and personality in the locker room have become a drain on the young players you’re hoping are a part of your future.
For starters, there’s no way we’d know that from the outside, but that doesn’t necessarily appear true.
Either way, the deal with the devil the Jets made by trading for Rodgers and building their entire team in his image couldn’t have possibly played out any worse than it did. That’s been apparent for months but this loss made it perfectly clear.
The Jets locked in yet another losing season by blowing their Week 13 lead to Seattle. It was a fitting way for the 2024 Jets to join a long history of failed operations. What started with so much intrigue and promise, primarily brought on by Rodgers connecting with Davante Adams in their trademark fashion, ultimately ended in meaningless misery. A brief respite of highlights only served to distract from the Jets careening toward a top-to-bottom remake in the offseason.
It’s a familiar refrain to anyone attached to this franchise.
