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Richard Sherman was going crazy on the sideline.
The Seattle Seahawks’ All-Pro cornerback was yelling at everyone including defensive coordinator Kris Richard after the defense allowed a long touchdown to an uncovered Julio Jones. Teammates tried to either restrain Sherman, calm him down or both. When the Seahawks circled him and started to bounce up and down in a cheer to rally the defense, Sherman didn’t join in. It was awkward. He was mad about what he said later was a missed pre-snap adjustment to the coverage.
It was the kind of moment that would have broken the Internet had it come from Odell Beckham. But this is the Seahawks.
“That was mild,” Seahawks receiver Doug Baldwin said of Sherman’s sideline rant, via Matt Calkins of the Seattle Times.
Only in Seattle.
This is how the Seahawks are. This is also how they succeed. They express themselves without fear of retribution. They have a lot of players who are confident, smart and seem to enjoy football. The Seahawks are unlike any other NFL team. Imagine the reaction of any other NFL coach had his kickoff team had an impromptu celebration after a touchback, in which the players pretended to mob the mascot?
Only in Seattle.
The Seahawks seem to thrive off of all the chaos. So when they’re in a pressure situation, like trailing late to the Atlanta Falcons after blowing a 17-3 lead, it’s not that big of a deal. The Seahawks rebounded from giving up 21 unanswered points*— and from a blocked extra point that would have tied the game*— to get a key interception and a game-winning field goal. A missed pass interference call on Sherman at the end didn’t hurt.
The Seahawks are 4-1 and one of the best teams in football. They’ve been one of the best teams in football since quarterback Russell Wilson was drafted in 2012 (though he was only one reason the Seahawks became great). They do it in a way that no other team in the NFL would dare try to replicate.
They’re the kind of team that can have a meltdown on the sideline and shrug about it afterward. That’s the culture Pete Carroll has built. It’s working.
“Pete Carroll’s not like — ‘You gotta tuck in your shirt,'” defensive end Michael Bennett said in a classic ESPN feature on him and his brother Martellus this summer. “Do you know how much easier it is to work for somebody when you can be yourself? Why do you think Google, Apple and Facebook are so successful? When people can be who they really are, they do so much better.”
The Seahawks are going to be in the Super Bowl mix all season. They struggled in the second half against the Falcons, but that probably says more about the legitimacy of the Falcons than any weakness on the Seahawks. The defense is great, as usual, and the offense could explode when some key pieces are truly healthy.
The Seahawks are as good as ever (to go with being infinitely entertaining), which makes them a Super Bowl contender again. And they’ll proceed on their own unique path the rest of the season, as usual.
Here are the rest of the winners and losers from Sunday’s NFL Week 6 action:
WINNERS
LeSean McCoy: For a few moments on Sunday, it seemed like McCoy’s season was over. He went down clutching his knee and went to the sideline to get some tests.
Not too long after he was running for an 18-yard touchdown, his third of the day.
McCoy has been the key to the Buffalo Bills’ resurgence this season. The Bills have won four in a row and in three of those wins McCoy has had 110, 150 and 140 yards. This kind of season wasn’t guaranteed for McCoy, at 28 with almost 2,000 touches coming into the season and a history of injuries. But he has been fantastic, and dominated the San Francisco 49ers in an easy 45-16 win on Sunday. The Bills needed McCoy to carry the offense with Sammy Watkins on injured reserve, and he has.
As for who might compete with the New England Patriots Patriots atop the AFC this season (more on the Pats in a moment), maybe the Bills are the best bet to challenge them. And they have a win at New England in their pocket, thanks to the good fortune of catching the Patriots when they had to start injured rookie Jacoby Brissett at quarterback in Week 4. You can make an argument the Bills are the AFC’s second-best team, especially over the past four weeks. Give McCoy a lot of the credit for that.
The great Drew Brees: Brees seems like one of those players we’ll appreciate more once he’s gone.
Brees makes it look easy, and his brilliance is practically expected by now. On Sunday he had his 16th 400-yard game, breaking the NFL record. He had been tied with Peyton Manning. Brees also became the sixth quarterback in history to throw for 50,000 yards with one team, joining Brett Favre (Packers), Manning (Colts), Dan Marino (Dolphins), John Elway (Broncos) and Tom Brady (Patriots). If you wanted to make a list of the best quarterbacks of all time, those six would be a fine place to start.
More important on Sunday, Brees’ team won. The New Orleans Saints won a game in which they allowed 38 points. Brees had 465 yards and four touchdowns. He’s on pace for 5,549 yards and 45 touchdowns this season. Brees has to overcome a bad defense to win every week, but he is one of the few quarterbacks who can do it. It’ll be*appreciated more once Brees has retired.
Ryan Tannehill, Adam Gase and (of course) Jay Ajayi: For the first time, the hiring of Gase by the Miami Dolphins made sense.
The Dolphins looked like a legitimate NFL team on Sunday in beating the Steelers 30-15. There’s plenty that can be said about the Steelers and their annoying habit of disappearing for games here and there, but the Dolphins looked good. Finally.
Tannehill was 24-of-32 for 252 yards. It wasn’t the greatest day for a quarterback, but it’s a lot better than he has performed this season. And of course Ajayi stole the show, with 204 yards on 25 carries. Ajayi had 304 yards in 13 career games before Sunday.
For one day, the Dolphins had something to feel positive about.
Andy Reid’s bye week mastery: Be prepared to see this stat again next season: Reid’s career record after a bye is 16-2. It’s one of the odder trends in the NFL.
Reid added to it on Sunday. The Chiefs looked very good in a rain-soaked 26-10 win at the Oakland Raiders. It might turn out to be a huge turning point for the Chiefs.
Kansas City came into the game at 2-2, and Oakland was 4-1. A 2-3 record and a two-and-a-half game deficit to the Raiders was what the Chiefs faced if they lost. It looks a lot better after they won. They have two losses, just like the Raiders and the Broncos, who are in a slump. The Chiefs didn’t start great this season, but they’re back now and are right in the heart of the AFC West race.
Case Keenum: You can’t put Sunday’s Los Angeles Rams loss on Keenum. If anything, he probably has eliminated any thought the Rams’ staff might have had of trying out rookie backup Jared Goff anytime soon.
Keenum was 27-of-32 for 321 yards, three touchdowns and an interception. In the Rams’ last three games Keenum has 858 yards and has completed 71 percent of his passes.
If Keenum can play this well the rest of the season, he will be an interesting player next offseason. Keenum is in the final year of his contract. This is the same NFL that gave Brock Osweiler $18 million per season after seven solid starts. Keenum won’t get anything near that, but he’s putting himself in position to have a nice payday. He’s also keeping Goff on the bench, which nobody planned on.
LOSERS
Anyone outside of Massachusetts who wanted the AFC’s No. 1 seed:*Who is going to compete with the Patriots this season?
The Denver Broncos have lost two straight, including one at home. The Pittsburgh Steelers have been dominated twice, by the suddenly suspect Philadelphia Eagles team and a bad Miami Dolphins team. And now it seems like they’ll play the Patriots next week without Ben Roethlisberger (though I never believe Roethlisberger is out until the inactive sheet is turned in). The Oakland Raiders aren’t quite ready yet. If you had any thought that the Cincinnati Bengals could compete, well, a 35-17 loss to the Patriots on Sunday should put an end to that.
The best hopes to take the top seed from the Patriots were the Steelers and Broncos. The Steelers have too many inexplicably bad games throughout a season to get that done. The Broncos are suddenly looking like a team that will drop a few more games than it should because of its quarterback situation. Maybe the Bills can keep this hot streak going and win the AFC East, though I wouldn’t bet on it. Anyone else would need to practically run the table to overtake the Patriots.
Unless the Patriots hit some major injuries, expect them to be the AFC’s best team until further notice. Nobody else is on their level.
Officials and their pass-interference penalty calls: If you looked at two plays from Sunday, you’d know one was pass interference and one wasn’t. You’d just be wrong on which play drew a flag.
In the New York Giants’ win over the Baltimore Ravens, Giants cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie was called for defensive pass interference late in the fourth quarter. It set up a go-ahead touchdown for the Ravens.
He was called because … well, I have no idea. He seemed to have great coverage on receiver Breshad Perriman. I can’t find any reason Rodgers-Cromartie was flagged, other than that it seems some officials start any deep pass play expecting to throw a flag and work backward from there. If it wasn’t for Odell Beckham’s great game-winning touchdown, we’d be talking a lot more about how the phantom pass interference call cost the Giants the game.
If you want to see the absolute opposite, check out how the Seattle Seahawks beat the Atlanta Falcons. On fourth-and-10 in the final two minutes, Matt Ryan threw one up to Julio Jones. Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman grabbed Jones’ arm. Sherman said officials were letting both teams play, and some offensive fouls weren’t called through the game, so he didn’t feel he got away with one (h/t to Curtis Crabtree of KJR Sports Radio).
But when a defender*grabs a receiver’s arm, spins him and makes it so the offensive player can put up only one hand to make a catch, that’s interference.
It’s amazing one call was made. It’s amazing the other wasn’t. Officiating in the NFL is hard, and they’ll miss some. But it’s hard to tell the Falcons that. The NFL is lucky the Giants came back to win and aren’t feeling the same way.
Marvin Lewis: The Cincinnati Bengals are 2-4 after a 35-17 loss to New England that was close for a while, before the Patriots remembered they’re the Patriots and pulled away. The Bengals’ season isn’t over and the schedule gets a lot easier. It’s not time to write their obituary.
But you have to wonder what will happen to Lewis if the Bengals don’t rebound.
The Bengals probably aren’t going to do better than Lewis. He has won 114 games for the Bengals and made the playoffs seven times. Of course, we know why I’m writing this blurb. He’s 0-7 in the playoffs. It’s hard to fire a coach after a playoff berth, unless you’re the dysfunctional Chargers and want to can Marty Schottenheimer after going 14-2 (still, it’s crazy that happened). But a year without a playoff berth would give the Bengals their window to fire Lewis, if that’s what they want to do.
The Bengals have stuck it out with Lewis through worse. But it has been 14 years for Lewis in Cincinnati, and nobody lasts that long in the NFL anymore. Lewis might want to go on a long winning streak, just to make sure he’s safe for another year.
The Wentz-wagon: We all knew Carson Wentz was going to hit a slump. Maybe it’s coming earlier than expected.
Wentz and the Philadelphia Eagles lost their second straight. The Washington Redskins had some success blitzing Wentz and while he had a few wonderful throws, he didn’t play well. Wentz had 179 yards and completed just 11 of 22 passes. It wasn’t an awful game, but it’s not like Dak Prescott is impressed.
The Eagles’ schedule is tough the rest of the way. Last week’s game at Detroit and the matchup at Washington were two of the easier remaining games. Not all momentum is gone from Wentz’s great start and the three-game winning streak Philadelphia had to start the season, but the Eagles and their rookie quarterback aren’t the talk of the NFL anymore either.
The NFL’s dumb celebration rules: Can someone with common sense revamp the celebration rules? I ask this a lot and I’ll ask again: Was anyone in the world offended when Washington Redskins tight end Vernon Davis scored, and shot a jump shot with the ball over the goal post? Of course not. But it cost the Redskins a 15-yard penalty, for Davis using the ball as a prop. Ugh.
Just stop it. This is ridiculous, NFL.
Follow @YahooSchwab
The Seattle Seahawks’ All-Pro cornerback was yelling at everyone including defensive coordinator Kris Richard after the defense allowed a long touchdown to an uncovered Julio Jones. Teammates tried to either restrain Sherman, calm him down or both. When the Seahawks circled him and started to bounce up and down in a cheer to rally the defense, Sherman didn’t join in. It was awkward. He was mad about what he said later was a missed pre-snap adjustment to the coverage.
It was the kind of moment that would have broken the Internet had it come from Odell Beckham. But this is the Seahawks.
“That was mild,” Seahawks receiver Doug Baldwin said of Sherman’s sideline rant, via Matt Calkins of the Seattle Times.
Only in Seattle.
This is how the Seahawks are. This is also how they succeed. They express themselves without fear of retribution. They have a lot of players who are confident, smart and seem to enjoy football. The Seahawks are unlike any other NFL team. Imagine the reaction of any other NFL coach had his kickoff team had an impromptu celebration after a touchback, in which the players pretended to mob the mascot?
Only in Seattle.
The Seahawks seem to thrive off of all the chaos. So when they’re in a pressure situation, like trailing late to the Atlanta Falcons after blowing a 17-3 lead, it’s not that big of a deal. The Seahawks rebounded from giving up 21 unanswered points*— and from a blocked extra point that would have tied the game*— to get a key interception and a game-winning field goal. A missed pass interference call on Sherman at the end didn’t hurt.
The Seahawks are 4-1 and one of the best teams in football. They’ve been one of the best teams in football since quarterback Russell Wilson was drafted in 2012 (though he was only one reason the Seahawks became great). They do it in a way that no other team in the NFL would dare try to replicate.
They’re the kind of team that can have a meltdown on the sideline and shrug about it afterward. That’s the culture Pete Carroll has built. It’s working.
“Pete Carroll’s not like — ‘You gotta tuck in your shirt,'” defensive end Michael Bennett said in a classic ESPN feature on him and his brother Martellus this summer. “Do you know how much easier it is to work for somebody when you can be yourself? Why do you think Google, Apple and Facebook are so successful? When people can be who they really are, they do so much better.”
The Seahawks are going to be in the Super Bowl mix all season. They struggled in the second half against the Falcons, but that probably says more about the legitimacy of the Falcons than any weakness on the Seahawks. The defense is great, as usual, and the offense could explode when some key pieces are truly healthy.
The Seahawks are as good as ever (to go with being infinitely entertaining), which makes them a Super Bowl contender again. And they’ll proceed on their own unique path the rest of the season, as usual.
Here are the rest of the winners and losers from Sunday’s NFL Week 6 action:
WINNERS
LeSean McCoy: For a few moments on Sunday, it seemed like McCoy’s season was over. He went down clutching his knee and went to the sideline to get some tests.
Not too long after he was running for an 18-yard touchdown, his third of the day.
McCoy has been the key to the Buffalo Bills’ resurgence this season. The Bills have won four in a row and in three of those wins McCoy has had 110, 150 and 140 yards. This kind of season wasn’t guaranteed for McCoy, at 28 with almost 2,000 touches coming into the season and a history of injuries. But he has been fantastic, and dominated the San Francisco 49ers in an easy 45-16 win on Sunday. The Bills needed McCoy to carry the offense with Sammy Watkins on injured reserve, and he has.
As for who might compete with the New England Patriots Patriots atop the AFC this season (more on the Pats in a moment), maybe the Bills are the best bet to challenge them. And they have a win at New England in their pocket, thanks to the good fortune of catching the Patriots when they had to start injured rookie Jacoby Brissett at quarterback in Week 4. You can make an argument the Bills are the AFC’s second-best team, especially over the past four weeks. Give McCoy a lot of the credit for that.
The great Drew Brees: Brees seems like one of those players we’ll appreciate more once he’s gone.
Brees makes it look easy, and his brilliance is practically expected by now. On Sunday he had his 16th 400-yard game, breaking the NFL record. He had been tied with Peyton Manning. Brees also became the sixth quarterback in history to throw for 50,000 yards with one team, joining Brett Favre (Packers), Manning (Colts), Dan Marino (Dolphins), John Elway (Broncos) and Tom Brady (Patriots). If you wanted to make a list of the best quarterbacks of all time, those six would be a fine place to start.
More important on Sunday, Brees’ team won. The New Orleans Saints won a game in which they allowed 38 points. Brees had 465 yards and four touchdowns. He’s on pace for 5,549 yards and 45 touchdowns this season. Brees has to overcome a bad defense to win every week, but he is one of the few quarterbacks who can do it. It’ll be*appreciated more once Brees has retired.
Ryan Tannehill, Adam Gase and (of course) Jay Ajayi: For the first time, the hiring of Gase by the Miami Dolphins made sense.
The Dolphins looked like a legitimate NFL team on Sunday in beating the Steelers 30-15. There’s plenty that can be said about the Steelers and their annoying habit of disappearing for games here and there, but the Dolphins looked good. Finally.
Tannehill was 24-of-32 for 252 yards. It wasn’t the greatest day for a quarterback, but it’s a lot better than he has performed this season. And of course Ajayi stole the show, with 204 yards on 25 carries. Ajayi had 304 yards in 13 career games before Sunday.
For one day, the Dolphins had something to feel positive about.
Andy Reid’s bye week mastery: Be prepared to see this stat again next season: Reid’s career record after a bye is 16-2. It’s one of the odder trends in the NFL.
Reid added to it on Sunday. The Chiefs looked very good in a rain-soaked 26-10 win at the Oakland Raiders. It might turn out to be a huge turning point for the Chiefs.
Kansas City came into the game at 2-2, and Oakland was 4-1. A 2-3 record and a two-and-a-half game deficit to the Raiders was what the Chiefs faced if they lost. It looks a lot better after they won. They have two losses, just like the Raiders and the Broncos, who are in a slump. The Chiefs didn’t start great this season, but they’re back now and are right in the heart of the AFC West race.
Case Keenum: You can’t put Sunday’s Los Angeles Rams loss on Keenum. If anything, he probably has eliminated any thought the Rams’ staff might have had of trying out rookie backup Jared Goff anytime soon.
Keenum was 27-of-32 for 321 yards, three touchdowns and an interception. In the Rams’ last three games Keenum has 858 yards and has completed 71 percent of his passes.
If Keenum can play this well the rest of the season, he will be an interesting player next offseason. Keenum is in the final year of his contract. This is the same NFL that gave Brock Osweiler $18 million per season after seven solid starts. Keenum won’t get anything near that, but he’s putting himself in position to have a nice payday. He’s also keeping Goff on the bench, which nobody planned on.
LOSERS
Anyone outside of Massachusetts who wanted the AFC’s No. 1 seed:*Who is going to compete with the Patriots this season?
The Denver Broncos have lost two straight, including one at home. The Pittsburgh Steelers have been dominated twice, by the suddenly suspect Philadelphia Eagles team and a bad Miami Dolphins team. And now it seems like they’ll play the Patriots next week without Ben Roethlisberger (though I never believe Roethlisberger is out until the inactive sheet is turned in). The Oakland Raiders aren’t quite ready yet. If you had any thought that the Cincinnati Bengals could compete, well, a 35-17 loss to the Patriots on Sunday should put an end to that.
The best hopes to take the top seed from the Patriots were the Steelers and Broncos. The Steelers have too many inexplicably bad games throughout a season to get that done. The Broncos are suddenly looking like a team that will drop a few more games than it should because of its quarterback situation. Maybe the Bills can keep this hot streak going and win the AFC East, though I wouldn’t bet on it. Anyone else would need to practically run the table to overtake the Patriots.
Unless the Patriots hit some major injuries, expect them to be the AFC’s best team until further notice. Nobody else is on their level.
Officials and their pass-interference penalty calls: If you looked at two plays from Sunday, you’d know one was pass interference and one wasn’t. You’d just be wrong on which play drew a flag.
In the New York Giants’ win over the Baltimore Ravens, Giants cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie was called for defensive pass interference late in the fourth quarter. It set up a go-ahead touchdown for the Ravens.
He was called because … well, I have no idea. He seemed to have great coverage on receiver Breshad Perriman. I can’t find any reason Rodgers-Cromartie was flagged, other than that it seems some officials start any deep pass play expecting to throw a flag and work backward from there. If it wasn’t for Odell Beckham’s great game-winning touchdown, we’d be talking a lot more about how the phantom pass interference call cost the Giants the game.
If you want to see the absolute opposite, check out how the Seattle Seahawks beat the Atlanta Falcons. On fourth-and-10 in the final two minutes, Matt Ryan threw one up to Julio Jones. Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman grabbed Jones’ arm. Sherman said officials were letting both teams play, and some offensive fouls weren’t called through the game, so he didn’t feel he got away with one (h/t to Curtis Crabtree of KJR Sports Radio).
But when a defender*grabs a receiver’s arm, spins him and makes it so the offensive player can put up only one hand to make a catch, that’s interference.
It’s amazing one call was made. It’s amazing the other wasn’t. Officiating in the NFL is hard, and they’ll miss some. But it’s hard to tell the Falcons that. The NFL is lucky the Giants came back to win and aren’t feeling the same way.
Marvin Lewis: The Cincinnati Bengals are 2-4 after a 35-17 loss to New England that was close for a while, before the Patriots remembered they’re the Patriots and pulled away. The Bengals’ season isn’t over and the schedule gets a lot easier. It’s not time to write their obituary.
But you have to wonder what will happen to Lewis if the Bengals don’t rebound.
The Bengals probably aren’t going to do better than Lewis. He has won 114 games for the Bengals and made the playoffs seven times. Of course, we know why I’m writing this blurb. He’s 0-7 in the playoffs. It’s hard to fire a coach after a playoff berth, unless you’re the dysfunctional Chargers and want to can Marty Schottenheimer after going 14-2 (still, it’s crazy that happened). But a year without a playoff berth would give the Bengals their window to fire Lewis, if that’s what they want to do.
The Bengals have stuck it out with Lewis through worse. But it has been 14 years for Lewis in Cincinnati, and nobody lasts that long in the NFL anymore. Lewis might want to go on a long winning streak, just to make sure he’s safe for another year.
The Wentz-wagon: We all knew Carson Wentz was going to hit a slump. Maybe it’s coming earlier than expected.
Wentz and the Philadelphia Eagles lost their second straight. The Washington Redskins had some success blitzing Wentz and while he had a few wonderful throws, he didn’t play well. Wentz had 179 yards and completed just 11 of 22 passes. It wasn’t an awful game, but it’s not like Dak Prescott is impressed.
The Eagles’ schedule is tough the rest of the way. Last week’s game at Detroit and the matchup at Washington were two of the easier remaining games. Not all momentum is gone from Wentz’s great start and the three-game winning streak Philadelphia had to start the season, but the Eagles and their rookie quarterback aren’t the talk of the NFL anymore either.
The NFL’s dumb celebration rules: Can someone with common sense revamp the celebration rules? I ask this a lot and I’ll ask again: Was anyone in the world offended when Washington Redskins tight end Vernon Davis scored, and shot a jump shot with the ball over the goal post? Of course not. But it cost the Redskins a 15-yard penalty, for Davis using the ball as a prop. Ugh.
Just stop it. This is ridiculous, NFL.
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!Follow @YahooSchwab