It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t easy and it nearly got derailed by the inevitability of Joe Flacco, but the Jaguars may — and I emphasize may — have saved their season on Sunday with a 37-34 thriller of a game in Jacksonville. The Jaguars’ victory gave them their first win on the year, meaning there are no more winless teams in the NFL and also ensuring Doug Pederson will still be with this team when they travel to London next week.
Whether he’s with the team when they come back may still be up for grabs, but for now the Jaguars have life. And how it happened may be even more important than the actual result, because for the first time in what was getting dangerously close to a full calendar year, Trevor Lawrence actually looked like a high-level, franchise-caliber quarterback en route to throwing a career-high 371 yards. Quite a 25th birthday party!
Lawrence was aided by excellent protection and/or a bad Colts pass rush, rarely getting pressured on Sunday. Lawrence wasn’t sacked once, and when he did see pressure, he looked calm, poised and delivered the ball where it needed to be. Lawrence completed more than 80% of his passes, especially critical because the Jaguars offense actually possessed some verticality on Sunday.
Sunday was also a breakout for rookie Brian Thomas Jr., who had been bordering on an eruption game all season. The LSU product exploded for an 85-yard touchdown early in the game, showcasing his speed on the way to the end zone.
Per Next Gen Stats, Thomas hit 22.15 mph on his score, the fastest for a ball-carrier all season. This rookie wide receiver crop is truly ridiculous, with Marvin Harrison Jr. and Malik Nabers headlining things. Thomas has a chance to be just as good as anyone in this class. His speed is lethal and he’s already shrugging off any real concerns about being too raw a route runner and a one-trick pony.
The defense, on the other hand, did Lawrence absolutely zero favors. The fourth quarter in this game was completely drunk, but it shouldn’t go unnoticed that, following a Tank Bigsby 65-yard touchdown rumble, the Jags held a 34-20 lead with just over five minutes remaining. That should be ball game, especially against an offense featuring a backup quarterback in Flacco and missing starting running back Jonathan Taylor (shoutout Trey Sermon though, for real). Flacco shredded the Jags secondary, hitting Alec Pierce for a pair of long passes, one that required Sermon to punch the ball in from the 1 and another that tied the game up with 2:40 left to go. That’s unacceptable from the defense.
Lawrence would lead a drive that set up a game-winning field goal, saving the Jaguars from an all-time gag, but the defense could remain an issue moving forward. As long as Jacksonville gets this version of Lawrence, though, their season — and maybe Pederson’s job — could ultimately end up being saved.
Burrow’s best not good enough for Bengals
The Bengals nearly got a very similar result on Sunday, coughing up a career day from Joe Burrow in a really tough loss with a shot to save their season before things got too dark. Instead, Cincy fell to 1-4 after a 41-38 overtime loss to the Ravens that has to feel painful after Lamar Jackson — who also put on a ridiculous performance — coughed up the football in Ravens territory on Baltimore’s first possession of the extra period, begging the Bengals to steal the game with a field goal.
Instead, Zac Taylor got hyper conservative, running the football three straight times with Chase Brown and setting up a 53-yard Evan McPherson attempt, which never came close. The very next play, Derrick Henry ripped off a 51-yard heater on the left sideline, giving Justin Tucker a chip shot for the heart rip.
Football is a small-sample-size sport. “Game of inches” is a cliche but cliches exist for a reason. Burrow had been absolutely cooking all game long. He finished 30-for-39 for 392 yards and five touchdown passes. And with your season wobbling, you take the ball out of his hand with a chance to give a division rival a massive loss and really spark things for your franchise? If you’re not willing to let Joey Brrr sling it then, when are you? Taylor deserves to be grilled for that decision-making, regardless of how much you like your kicker and whether or not modern-day kickers are blasting 50-plus field goals with ease. He deserves all the vitriol and all the second-guessing.
The silver lining here, if there is one, was Burrow’s performance. It was easily his best outing of the year, and he was bombing the ball down the field to Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, with the duo combining for 19 catches, 276 yards and four scores. That’s the Cincy offense we’re used to seeing and if they can replicate it over the course of the season, they’ll probably find a way to get in the mix for the playoff hunt.
But the Steelers are off to a hot start, Baltimore’s rattled off three straight now and the Bengals are way behind the eight ball when it comes to the AFC North, even with Cleveland (more on them in a second) floundering badly. And Cincy’s defense just doesn’t look like it’s going to get turned around. I don’t blame Lou Anarumo for the issues, so much as I do the roster attrition and injuries.
Burrow was borderline perfect Sunday and it still wasn’t enough. Life isn’t going to get easier for the Bengals anytime soon.
Browns at a loss with Watson
Speaking of questionable defenses, we were pretty sure the Commanders were a below-average unit. I still think that might be the case — and, again, I don’t blame Dan Quinn here, he’s got to build up the roster first — but you wouldn’t know by the way the Browns played offense Sunday. In a blowout 34-13 loss, Cleveland totaled 212 yards while going 1-for-11 on third down. Seventy-five of those yards came in utter garbage time, with the Browns stumbling into their only touchdown on their next-to-last drive. The Browns picked up five of their 12 first downs on those two drives, the latter of which came under the direction of backup Jameis Winston.
Winston should be the starter moving forward. He won’t be, according to coach Kevin Stefanski, who reiterated to the media his team is “not changing quarterbacks” in the aftermath of Cleveland’s latest humiliation.
How bad has Watson been? He’s averaging -0.30 EPA (expected points added) per dropback through the first five weeks of the season, which is the worst mark for ANY BROWNS QUARTERBACK over the same stretch since 2000. Do you know how many terrible quarterbacks the Browns have had over the last 24 years???? There’s a famous jersey with a huge list of them. Making matters worse is Watson also holds the second-worst mark for Browns quarterbacks from last year.
The nadir for this season may have come early in the third quarter on Sunday, with the Browns trailing Washington 24-3 and staring down a fourth and goal. Stefanski clearly wanted to go for it (as he should have with that score) but Watson just … walked off the field.
via NFL
Greg Olsen correctly pointed out Stefanski must have been “sick” at seeing Watson stroll to the sideline. And you can see Amari Cooper visibly frustrated putting his arms out as if to say “what the hell” or something less appropriate. The Browns took a delay of game and kicked the field goal, slicing a three-score lead down to a three-score lead. Watson took his helmet off and just waltzed to the bench.
It’s inexplicable the Browns wouldn’t make a move to Winston full time at this point. Watson doesn’t have the ability to play quarterback at a high level right now. Or even a low level, honestly. This was an 11-win team last year with Joe Freaking Flacco under center for much of the year.
The only possibility here is ownership knows it’s paying out the nose for Watson on his ridiculous, fully guaranteed deal and simply isn’t willing to concede the Browns orchestrated the worst trade in the history of the NFL, setting back their franchise half a decade in the process by allowing Watson to become an albatross and simultaneously coughing up a slew of extremely valuable draft picks.
Caleb heating up
For the second straight week, the level of competition was fairly minimal, but for the second straight week Caleb Williams really started to flourish for the Bears offense. And when the No. 1 overall pick is dealing for a franchise that’s truly never had a superstar quarterback, no one is going to care who he’s tossing dimes against.
Make no mistake, the Panthers are AWFUL on defense. But the DJ Moore Revenge Game hit like a ton of bricks, with the former Panthers first-round pick catching five passes for 105 yards and two scores to lead all receivers in a 36-10 curb stomping of Carolina. Moore was awesome, but Williams was outstanding, going 20-for-29 for 304 yards and the pair of touchdown passes. The second one was an absolute DIME too.
If the Panthers put up any fight at all — things got so bad Bryce Young got some snaps — Williams could have had a monster day under center.
Williams became the first Bears rookie in the modern era to have multiple 300-yard games in his first season, and we’re just five games in.
Jayden Daniels kept it rolling against Cleveland this week, becoming the first quarterback in NFL history with 1,000 passing yards and 250 rushing yards in the first five games of his career. He looks like a special player for the Commanders.
But the notion the Bears should be panicking about going with Williams — who struggled at times during his first few weeks at the helm of this offense — was always pretty absurd. Williams has shown exactly why over the last two weeks and now has Chicago sitting pretty with a winning record and potentially eying a surprise playoff trip if he keeps it up.
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