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Once again, a late rally by Aaron Rodgers made things seem better than they actually were on Sunday.
Last week they got back in the game late against the Carolina Panthers and Rodgers’ final numbers looked OK. If you only checked the box score of the Packers’ 18-16 loss on Sunday, you’d see that Rodgers threw for 333 yards and Green Bay lost when Mason Crosby’s last-second field goal knuckle-balled out of control and missed.
But it was a lot worse than that.
This isn’t time to R-E-L-A-X. The Packers look nothing like the team that started 6-0 and Rodgers in particular is not playing like the reigning MVP.
Rodgers needed 61 attempts to get those 333 yards. He completed only 35. On numerous passes he was way off the mark, which was very unusual to see from him. The Packers were stuck on 3 points until deep into the fourth quarter against a defense that is in the middle of the pack against the pass.
What if I had told you before the 6-0 Packers kicked off at the Denver Broncos a couple weeks ago that we’d be wondering if there would even be a playoff game at Lambeau this season? That’s on the table now. The Minnesota Vikings are in first place in the NFC North. The Packers face an interesting game at Minnesota next week, and they’re playing as bad as they have played in a while.
Maybe Green Bay’s first two losses could be explained away, as road losses to undefeated teams, but the Lions are an awful team. They were 1-7 coming into Sunday and the last time we saw them, they were getting blasted 45-10 in London by the Kansas City Chiefs. The Packers closed at about 10.5-point favorites, and they didn’t even win outright.
It’s not as easy as throwing it all at Rodgers’ feet. Davante Adams got 21 targets (my goodness) and turned those into just 10 catches and 78 yards. He didn’t do much to help out Rodgers. James Starks didn’t take any pressure off by rushing for 42 yards on 15 carries. Randall Cobb had another quiet day. Rodgers doesn’t have a ton of help in the offense.
But Rodgers also looks spooked in the pocket most of the time and was inaccurate for most of Sunday (NFL Films' Greg Cosell talked about Rodgers’ recent issues here, and they didn’t get any better on Sunday). Rodgers didn’t play well. Not even based on the incredibly high bar he has set for himself with his Hall of Fame level play through the years. He wasn’t good, period.
Maybe Rodgers does a 180 and the Packers end up fine, because he is Aaron Rodgers and that can’t be ruled out. But for three weeks, the Packers have looked pretty bad. The way we look at the NFC playoff picture has changed. Not only are the Packers not the best team in the NFC anymore, they’re not even the best in the NFC North anymore. It’s not often you see a team completely lose it like the Packers have.
Here are the rest of the winners and losers from Week 10 of the NFL:
Adrian Peterson and the first-place Vikings: While the Packers have taken a big step back, the Vikings* keep charging forward.
Since that stunning season-opening loss against the San Francisco 49ers, with the unusual late start, the Vikings have been rolling. Their only loss since then was by a field goal at the Denver Broncos. The Vikings went into play a pretty good Oakland Raiders team on Sunday, and beat them thoroughly, 30-14.
Peterson played a big role. He put the game away with a long touchdown late, and that put him at 203 yards. It was his sixth 200-yard game, tying an NFL record. For all the curiosity about how he would play after basically taking a season off following his indictment for injuring his young son, he has had five 100-yard games already this season, and leads the NFL with 961 yards for the season. He should go over 1,000 next week against the Packers.
While everyone was paying attention to the teams that were undefeated into November, we probably didn’t pay enough attention to the team in the NFC North that now looks like it might host a playoff game in January.
Jay Cutler and Adam Gase: After almost getting a head coaching job last offseason, you have to imagine Gase will seal it up in his next round of interviews.
Gase, the offensive coordinator of the Chicago Bears, has Cutler playing arguably the best football of his career. Cutler has a 95.3 rating. Amazingly, Cutler has never had a rating over 90 in his career over a full season.
Cutler was very good Sunday. He completed 19 of 24 passes for 258 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions against a St. Louis Rams defense that has a ton of talent. Cutler has thrown just five picks on 271 attempts. He never played this kind of efficient ball in his first nine seasons.
It’s easy to credit Gase, who was the offensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos the previous two seasons before coming to Chicago. In 2013, the Broncos set an NFL record for points scored. Peyton Manning gets most of the credit for what the Broncos offense has done, but Gase obviously played a role. And he’s doing wonders for Cutler after it looked like Cutler might never turn that corner. The only problem is Cutler will probably get Gase for only one season because Gase should turn this season into a head coaching job.
Carolina Panthers: It says something about the Panthers that they can improve to 9-0 with a 17-point road win and nobody pays too much attention.
Quietly, the Panthers rolled over another opponent and have won 13 regular-season games in a row dating back to last season. Carolina’s defense was good again, shutting out the Tennessee Titans in the second half. Cam Newton played pretty well again too, and rightfully pointed out that if you don’t want him to dance in the end zone, then keep him out of the end zone. Not many teams can.*
Carolina has just one remaining opponent with a winning record, with two games against the suddenly struggling Atlanta Falcons. They have one against a .500 team, the New York Giants. That’s not too scary. With a two-game lead over the rest of the NFC, the conference championship looks like it will be going through Charlotte.
Pittsburgh Steelers’ receivers: We can argue endlessly if Ben Roethlisberger makes the Steelers’ receivers great or it’s the other way around, but let’s agree that they’re both a lot better off with each other. Antonio Brown and Martavis Bryant probably weren’t happy to see Landry Jones leave the game with an ankle injury Sunday … but they probably didn’t mind seeing Roethlisberger back on the field either.*
Bryant had 178 yards and a touchdown on six catches. Brown had 139 yards and two touchdowns on 10 catches, and he has a good argument for being the best non-quarterback in the NFL this season. Brown already has 1,141 yards and that’s with some wasted weeks when Michael Vick couldn’t get him the ball. He also had an awesome front flip celebration on one of his touchdowns. Roethlisberger had 379 yards off the bench, and that’s an NFL record for a quarterback who didn’t start the game according to NFL.com’s Gil Brandt.*
The Steelers won to improve to 6-4 in a game they needed to win. They won’t have All-Pro running back Le’Veon Bell for the rest of the season, and that probably limits what they can accomplish this season, but the passing game won’t be fun for any opponent to draw in the playoffs.
LOSERS
NFC East: While the AFC South gets a lot of attention when it comes to the possibility of a division champion with a losing record, the NFC East might have been overlooked in that race to futility.*
Another mostly bad day for the division ended without any of its teams over .500.
The New York Giants can’t be blamed too much for losing a last-second game to the New England Patriots, but it still leaves them 5-5. The Philadelphia Eagles blew a game against the Miami Dolphins on a Mark Sanchez interception following a Sam Bradford injury, and that sentence shouldn’t shock on any level. The Dallas Cowboys somehow blew another game without Tony Romo that it should have won, and 2-7 will be about impossible to come back from. The Washington Redskins won, saving the division from a shutout. Washington is now 4-5, and do you think they’re all that good?
The division-wide issues mean that it’s a growing possibility that two of the four games on the opening weekend of the NFL playoffs will feature losing teams hosting a game. What fun.
St. Louis Rams: 37-13? Really?
It’s fine to lose a game, even at home, and even to a mediocre team like the Chicago Bears. But to be blown out underscores how disappointing this team has been in the Jeff Fisher era. Don’t begin to believe in them because you’ll be disappointed. They lead the NFL in baffling losses the past few years, and second place is far behind.
The defense got torched, which shouldn’t happen with all the players they have on that side of the ball, even with their injuries. The offense did very little, and the passing game looks stuck in 1971 at times. It’s not hard to figure out that the Rams’ offense is just Todd Gurley and if you can stop him (admittedly easier said than done) there’s really no counterpunch coming.
The Rams are 4-5. Maybe there’s a big second half and a playoff berth coming, but you can pencil them in for another weird loss or two the rest of the way. That’s just the way things have been for them the last few years.
Damien Williams’ kickoff return: There was a lot wrong with the Miami Dolphins’ running back’s kickoff return at Philadelphia.
Williams muffed the kickoff deep in the end zone, and scrambled to recover. His lead blocker motioned for him to stay in. But Williams started to run through the stop sign, changed his mind at about the 1-yard line, and slipped down when he put on the brakes. He injured his ankle, was down at the 1-yard line, and the Dolphins took a safety on the ensuing possession.
That one probably isn’t going on his highlight reel.
New Orleans Saints defense: it shouldn’t be possible in the modern NFL for a unit to be as bad as the Saints’ defense.
Against Washington, who nobody will mistake for the 1999 Rams, the Saints gave up a perfect passer rating to Kirk Cousins. Washington had 394 yards in the first half, which was its most in a half since Doug Williams beat John Elway and the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII. The Saints look incompetent on defense week after week. Head coach Sean Payton wouldn’t comment on potential changes to the coaching staff during the bye week.
The surprise wouldn’t be if Rob Ryan is fired during the bye week. It’ll be that he wasn’t fired long before then.
Last week they got back in the game late against the Carolina Panthers and Rodgers’ final numbers looked OK. If you only checked the box score of the Packers’ 18-16 loss on Sunday, you’d see that Rodgers threw for 333 yards and Green Bay lost when Mason Crosby’s last-second field goal knuckle-balled out of control and missed.
But it was a lot worse than that.
This isn’t time to R-E-L-A-X. The Packers look nothing like the team that started 6-0 and Rodgers in particular is not playing like the reigning MVP.
Rodgers needed 61 attempts to get those 333 yards. He completed only 35. On numerous passes he was way off the mark, which was very unusual to see from him. The Packers were stuck on 3 points until deep into the fourth quarter against a defense that is in the middle of the pack against the pass.
What if I had told you before the 6-0 Packers kicked off at the Denver Broncos a couple weeks ago that we’d be wondering if there would even be a playoff game at Lambeau this season? That’s on the table now. The Minnesota Vikings are in first place in the NFC North. The Packers face an interesting game at Minnesota next week, and they’re playing as bad as they have played in a while.
Maybe Green Bay’s first two losses could be explained away, as road losses to undefeated teams, but the Lions are an awful team. They were 1-7 coming into Sunday and the last time we saw them, they were getting blasted 45-10 in London by the Kansas City Chiefs. The Packers closed at about 10.5-point favorites, and they didn’t even win outright.
It’s not as easy as throwing it all at Rodgers’ feet. Davante Adams got 21 targets (my goodness) and turned those into just 10 catches and 78 yards. He didn’t do much to help out Rodgers. James Starks didn’t take any pressure off by rushing for 42 yards on 15 carries. Randall Cobb had another quiet day. Rodgers doesn’t have a ton of help in the offense.
But Rodgers also looks spooked in the pocket most of the time and was inaccurate for most of Sunday (NFL Films' Greg Cosell talked about Rodgers’ recent issues here, and they didn’t get any better on Sunday). Rodgers didn’t play well. Not even based on the incredibly high bar he has set for himself with his Hall of Fame level play through the years. He wasn’t good, period.
Maybe Rodgers does a 180 and the Packers end up fine, because he is Aaron Rodgers and that can’t be ruled out. But for three weeks, the Packers have looked pretty bad. The way we look at the NFC playoff picture has changed. Not only are the Packers not the best team in the NFC anymore, they’re not even the best in the NFC North anymore. It’s not often you see a team completely lose it like the Packers have.
Here are the rest of the winners and losers from Week 10 of the NFL:
Adrian Peterson and the first-place Vikings: While the Packers have taken a big step back, the Vikings* keep charging forward.
Since that stunning season-opening loss against the San Francisco 49ers, with the unusual late start, the Vikings have been rolling. Their only loss since then was by a field goal at the Denver Broncos. The Vikings went into play a pretty good Oakland Raiders team on Sunday, and beat them thoroughly, 30-14.
Peterson played a big role. He put the game away with a long touchdown late, and that put him at 203 yards. It was his sixth 200-yard game, tying an NFL record. For all the curiosity about how he would play after basically taking a season off following his indictment for injuring his young son, he has had five 100-yard games already this season, and leads the NFL with 961 yards for the season. He should go over 1,000 next week against the Packers.
While everyone was paying attention to the teams that were undefeated into November, we probably didn’t pay enough attention to the team in the NFC North that now looks like it might host a playoff game in January.
Jay Cutler and Adam Gase: After almost getting a head coaching job last offseason, you have to imagine Gase will seal it up in his next round of interviews.
Gase, the offensive coordinator of the Chicago Bears, has Cutler playing arguably the best football of his career. Cutler has a 95.3 rating. Amazingly, Cutler has never had a rating over 90 in his career over a full season.
Cutler was very good Sunday. He completed 19 of 24 passes for 258 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions against a St. Louis Rams defense that has a ton of talent. Cutler has thrown just five picks on 271 attempts. He never played this kind of efficient ball in his first nine seasons.
It’s easy to credit Gase, who was the offensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos the previous two seasons before coming to Chicago. In 2013, the Broncos set an NFL record for points scored. Peyton Manning gets most of the credit for what the Broncos offense has done, but Gase obviously played a role. And he’s doing wonders for Cutler after it looked like Cutler might never turn that corner. The only problem is Cutler will probably get Gase for only one season because Gase should turn this season into a head coaching job.
Carolina Panthers: It says something about the Panthers that they can improve to 9-0 with a 17-point road win and nobody pays too much attention.
Quietly, the Panthers rolled over another opponent and have won 13 regular-season games in a row dating back to last season. Carolina’s defense was good again, shutting out the Tennessee Titans in the second half. Cam Newton played pretty well again too, and rightfully pointed out that if you don’t want him to dance in the end zone, then keep him out of the end zone. Not many teams can.*
Carolina has just one remaining opponent with a winning record, with two games against the suddenly struggling Atlanta Falcons. They have one against a .500 team, the New York Giants. That’s not too scary. With a two-game lead over the rest of the NFC, the conference championship looks like it will be going through Charlotte.
Pittsburgh Steelers’ receivers: We can argue endlessly if Ben Roethlisberger makes the Steelers’ receivers great or it’s the other way around, but let’s agree that they’re both a lot better off with each other. Antonio Brown and Martavis Bryant probably weren’t happy to see Landry Jones leave the game with an ankle injury Sunday … but they probably didn’t mind seeing Roethlisberger back on the field either.*
Bryant had 178 yards and a touchdown on six catches. Brown had 139 yards and two touchdowns on 10 catches, and he has a good argument for being the best non-quarterback in the NFL this season. Brown already has 1,141 yards and that’s with some wasted weeks when Michael Vick couldn’t get him the ball. He also had an awesome front flip celebration on one of his touchdowns. Roethlisberger had 379 yards off the bench, and that’s an NFL record for a quarterback who didn’t start the game according to NFL.com’s Gil Brandt.*
The Steelers won to improve to 6-4 in a game they needed to win. They won’t have All-Pro running back Le’Veon Bell for the rest of the season, and that probably limits what they can accomplish this season, but the passing game won’t be fun for any opponent to draw in the playoffs.
LOSERS
NFC East: While the AFC South gets a lot of attention when it comes to the possibility of a division champion with a losing record, the NFC East might have been overlooked in that race to futility.*
Another mostly bad day for the division ended without any of its teams over .500.
The New York Giants can’t be blamed too much for losing a last-second game to the New England Patriots, but it still leaves them 5-5. The Philadelphia Eagles blew a game against the Miami Dolphins on a Mark Sanchez interception following a Sam Bradford injury, and that sentence shouldn’t shock on any level. The Dallas Cowboys somehow blew another game without Tony Romo that it should have won, and 2-7 will be about impossible to come back from. The Washington Redskins won, saving the division from a shutout. Washington is now 4-5, and do you think they’re all that good?
The division-wide issues mean that it’s a growing possibility that two of the four games on the opening weekend of the NFL playoffs will feature losing teams hosting a game. What fun.
St. Louis Rams: 37-13? Really?
It’s fine to lose a game, even at home, and even to a mediocre team like the Chicago Bears. But to be blown out underscores how disappointing this team has been in the Jeff Fisher era. Don’t begin to believe in them because you’ll be disappointed. They lead the NFL in baffling losses the past few years, and second place is far behind.
The defense got torched, which shouldn’t happen with all the players they have on that side of the ball, even with their injuries. The offense did very little, and the passing game looks stuck in 1971 at times. It’s not hard to figure out that the Rams’ offense is just Todd Gurley and if you can stop him (admittedly easier said than done) there’s really no counterpunch coming.
The Rams are 4-5. Maybe there’s a big second half and a playoff berth coming, but you can pencil them in for another weird loss or two the rest of the way. That’s just the way things have been for them the last few years.
Damien Williams’ kickoff return: There was a lot wrong with the Miami Dolphins’ running back’s kickoff return at Philadelphia.
Williams muffed the kickoff deep in the end zone, and scrambled to recover. His lead blocker motioned for him to stay in. But Williams started to run through the stop sign, changed his mind at about the 1-yard line, and slipped down when he put on the brakes. He injured his ankle, was down at the 1-yard line, and the Dolphins took a safety on the ensuing possession.
That one probably isn’t going on his highlight reel.
New Orleans Saints defense: it shouldn’t be possible in the modern NFL for a unit to be as bad as the Saints’ defense.
Against Washington, who nobody will mistake for the 1999 Rams, the Saints gave up a perfect passer rating to Kirk Cousins. Washington had 394 yards in the first half, which was its most in a half since Doug Williams beat John Elway and the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII. The Saints look incompetent on defense week after week. Head coach Sean Payton wouldn’t comment on potential changes to the coaching staff during the bye week.
The surprise wouldn’t be if Rob Ryan is fired during the bye week. It’ll be that he wasn’t fired long before then.
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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