Mmmm, frothy delights & the Raiders
Holiday drinks, Week 14 picks, and revisiting some predictions
I don’t know what the Raiders are
Las Vegas is capable of beating the Chiefs … and losing to the league’s worst teams
In 2018, the Raiders gave Jon Gruden a $100 million contract to leave broadcasting behind and reclaim his glory days as an NFL head coach. It’s been two-plus years since he began his systematic dismantling and rebuild of a once-proud franchise. I have no idea if it’s working.
In the span of three weeks, Las Vegas has gone from feisty playoff firebrand to possible postseason spectators. The Raiders were once 6-3 with wins over the potential top seeds in each conference — the Chiefs and Saints — bolstering their resume. In the three weeks since, they’ve lost to Kansas City in a close game (no shame there), got boat-raced by the Falcons (oh no), and were one inexplicable blitz from being the “1” in the Jets’ 1-11 record (ABSOLUTELY SHAMEFUL).
Vegas is now 7-5 and, for now, staring up at a postseason bid rather than sitting comfortably inside the wild card race. While the team’s December schedule provides some opportunities for easy wins (against the Chargers and Broncos) and proving-ground showdowns against other conference hopefuls (the Colts and Dolphins), it’s impossible to know how they’ll respond. Will the team that forced its way into the AFC West race by upsetting the defending Super Bowl champions show up? Or will the roster that lost its shit against Atlanta and New York prevail?
The case for a Raiders playoff bid
Vegas has a strong, efficient offense capable of keeping it afloat against most opponents (EVEN THE GODDAMN JETS AARRGGGHGH I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M JUST STRUGGLING WITH THAT ONE). Derek Carr, pressed into a competition for his starting role after Gruden and general manager Mike Mayock signed Marcus Mariota to a two-year, $17.6 million contract, responded with some of the best football of his career.
Carr is currently on pace to set career highs in most efficiency stats, including adjusted yards per catch and touchdown rate. He’s a top-eight quarterback in terms of both passer and QB rating. His four game-winning drives are tied for second in the NFL behind only Ryan Tannehill. He has a 14:3 touchdown-to-interception ratio in games against teams in position to make the playoffs this winter.
The Raiders’ offensive line hasn’t quite returned to 2016 form, but it’s kept Carr upright and been solid against the run, carving out nearly 2.5 yards before contact per carry this season — up from 2.2 in 2019 and 1.9 in Gruden’s re-debut. While the receiving corps remains iffy, Darren Waller is a beast and Henry Ruggs, who is averaging nearly 20 yards per catch, is absolute electricity in stretches.
The defense is, uh, better. Last year’s unit ranked 31st in defensive DVOA, but they’re up to 24th this season. That’s not ideal, but there’s some useful young talent in Maxx Crosby and Clelin Farrell, both of whom are capable of clutch play. If the offense is clicking, it can overcome these shortcomings and win in a shootout.
ESPN’s BPI rates Vegas’ postseason chances at only 49.7 percent. Here’s why.
The case for Jon Gruden watching the playoffs from what is surely a very nice mansion
Defense wins championships, which is a cliche but also a very bad omen for the Raiders. Only four teams in the league have given up more points in 2020 than Las Vegas. That 24th-ranked DVOA places them ahead of only one team currently in the playoff race in either conference (the Titans clock in at 28th). The Raiders lack the personnel to effectively blitz (they rank 30th of 32 teams in blitz rate), fail to generate pressure consistently, and are, for lack of a better term, very bad at tackling (105 missed tackles in 12 games, per Pro Football Reference). They’ve given up 28+ points in two-thirds of their contests this fall.
That puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the offense to play mistake-free football. This is an issue.
Carr, the patron saint of fumbling through the end zone and forcing a touchback, is still prone to abject disasters. He lost three fumbles and threw an interception in that Week 12 loss to the Falcons. As Bill Barnwell points out, Gruden’s Raiders are the only team in the league to go winless in games where they’ve lost more turnovers than they’ve gained (0-17), so this is absolutely CRUCIAL to their postseason aspirations.
A running game led by 2019’s shoulda-been offensive rookie of the year Josh Jacobs could mitigate that risk, but he’s fought injury and hasn’t been the same runner as he was the year prior. While his yards-before-contact number is the same as it was last season at 1.9, his yards-after-contact have dropped by a full yard and his yards-per-catch have fallen from 8.3 to 6.5. Devontae Booker has been useful in fill-in duty, but history suggests anything more than a part-time role will negatively affect his impact.
The Raiders exist at the fulcrum of a football seesaw. If Carr and company can avoid turnovers and the defense can produce even an average effort, they’re capable of tilting momentum in their favor for big upset victories. But once they start swinging in the other direction, there’s little hope for reversing course.
Gruden needs to figure out how to get that momentum on his side. Otherwise Vegas’ streak of seasons without a playoff win will continue for an 18th year. — CD
Let’s check in once more on our preseason predictions
It’s been a month and a half since we last revisited our preseason predictions. Many of them were way off the mark then, including our guesses that the Cowboys would finally live up to the hype (lol) and Chandler Jones would finish the year as the NFL’s sack leader (his season ended after Week 5). But there were a few others we were in “wait and see” mode about, so now is as good a time as any to check in again to find out if we were even a little accurate.
Pretty wrong: The team that will start 1-4 and make the playoffs (our pick: Chargers)
We were right that the Chargers started 1-4, in very Chargers fashion (all were one-score games). We got our hopes up that they turned a corner the following week with a double-digit win over the Jaguars. Since then, however, they’ve gone just 1-5, with their lone victory coming against the winless Jets. Their most recent loss was an embarrassing 45-0 blowout to the Patriots and officially eliminated the Chargers from playoff contention. We wanted to believe!
Wrong, but not too bad: How many points will the Jaguars average per game? (our pick: 17.5)
There are now five teams that average fewer points than the Jaguars (Bears, Bengals, Giants, Broncos, and the dead-last Jets). Despite a rotating cast at quarterback, Jacksonville is putting up 21 points — not exactly impressive, but it is at least respectable all things considered. For that number to dip to 17.5 points by season’s end, the Jaguars would need to score 29 points or fewer the rest of the way, which comes out to 7.25 points per game. They have only scored in single digits once this season, a 27-3 loss to the Steelers in Week 11, so it’s unlikely to happen. One prediction that remains in play: the Jaguars still have a shot at the No. 1 pick.
Maybe wrong, maybe right: The team that won’t meet expectations (our pick: Cardinals)
The Cardinals were 4-2 the first time we looked back at our earlier predictions. They’re now 6-6 and their only wins in that span came in overtime and on a last-second miracle. The offense is to blame for most of Arizona’s current woes. Since Kyler Murray injured his shoulder, he’s been less productive and the playcalling has been stale. A month ago, the playoffs seemed like a good bet, but while they’re in the midst of a three-game losing streak, the Cardinals’ postseason chances have fallen to 35 percent, per FiveThirtyEight. It’ll be disappointing if the Cardinals can’t rediscover their early-season success, but we always thought they were a year away from contending anyway. — SH
Rams vs. Patriots, in five words or fewer
Week 14 picks
The main theme of this week’s slate of games? REVENGE. Quite a few players and coaches will go head-to-head with their former team (and this tweet even left off Alex Smith vs. the 49ers):
Revenge was also on the mind of one team on Thursday night. The Rams finally got to pay the Patriots back for Super Bowl 53, an outcome our entire panel saw coming. That includes our guest picker, Rams fan and former Turf Show Times managing editor Joe McAtee. You can find Joe on Twitter, where he is currently basking in the glow of that 24-3 win and singing the praises of Troy Hill.
We all head into the weekend at 1-0, but we disagree on enough games that our final records should differ once Week 14 is in the books:
Those final three games of the week divided us most, though RVB and I are believers in the sneakiest revenge matchup of them all: the Browns getting one over on the ghost of Art Modell. If the Browns beat the Ravens, they’re guaranteed a winning record — and could end up costing Baltimore a spot in the playoffs.
Or they could completely Browns it up and lose in an extremely stupid way, just like the last time they played the Ravens on Monday Night Football. — SH
The “don’t you wish you had a do-over” game: Texans vs. Bears
Mitchell Trubisky will always be unfavorably compared to Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes, because the Bears traded up to draft Trubisky while Watson and Mahomes were just sitting there, waiting to hear their name called. Mahomes wasn’t a sure-thing superstar three years ago, but Watson absolutely was and it made no sense for the Bears to draft one-year UNC starter Trubisky over Watson, who was coming off one of the best college careers we’ve seen in recent memory (and perhaps the greatest national championship performance ever).
It’s no surprise Watson is an elite NFL quarterback. Unfortunately for the Bears, it’s also no surprise that Trubisky is not. On Sunday, for the first time since both quarterbacks entered the league, they’ll face off on the field and the Bears can see firsthand the quarterback they should’ve drafted in 2017. I think Watson will make it his mission to remind the Bears what they could’ve had. — SH
The “why god why” game: Falcons vs. Chargers
Well, at least we’ll finally get an answer as to who the biggest chokers really are. — SH
The “why the hell are you picking an NFC East team” game: Cardinals vs. Giants
The Giants are running on momentum right now, and I know that’s a debatable concept, but I’m at a loss to explain just how else this [waves arms wildly] team has now won four straight. In their last seven games, the Giants defense has only allowed two opponents to score more than 20 points—both scoring barely over that mark—which also happened to be the only games they’ve lost during that stretch. Those two losses were both within three points too, and they also happened to coincide with the last time since Week 5 that Daniel Jones has turned the ball over more than once in a game. Sure, he was out last week, and that helps, but Jones left his turnover troubles behind for three of the Giants’ last four wins.
While the Giants are getting hot just in time to sneak into the playoffs and spoil someone’s fun, the Cardinals are definitely going in the wrong direction. They’ve lost four out of their last five, and their one win was a two-point difference.
If the Giants are smart, and that’s really the big question here, they’ll give Wayne Gallman the ball until the game is almost intolerable to watch. Arizona has given up five rushing touchdowns to running backs in their last three games, and opposing backs are averaging nearly four and a third yards per carry this season. The less you have to ask a quarterback like Daniel Jones to do, the better off you’ll be. They seem to have taken that lesson to heart; I mean, they beat the Seahawks with dink and dunk dreamboat Colt McCoy. Hell, I almost forgot that Jason Garrett was their OC, and oh no, I just realized we’re asking him to do the right thing offensively for the fifth game in a row… —RVB
The frothy delight of holiday drinks
December is home to many seasons. Christmas/Hanukkah/etc season. Fantasy playoff season. Cursing the fact you live in Wisconsin season.
None of these are more important or impactful than eggnog season.
Eggnog is the dive bar of drinks. Once in a while you partake, enjoy yourself, and get out before any real damage occurs to either your body or psyche. It’s only when you find yourself coming back to it every day that you realize you have a problem. And so the government keeps it from our shelves 10 months of the year, leaving us with nothing but memories and internal debates over whether to buy a treadmill this winter.
These thick cups of sweetened cholesterol can typically only be found in the brief window where grocery stores play Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You” every 15 minutes. There, a small chunk of the dairy aisle is excavated to store the half gallons — selling a full gallon would make them complicit in a very boring crime — of the fate-blessed marriage between egg, cream, sugar, and nutmeg.
Eggnog is an intimately unhealthy thing, and thus as Americans it is our duty to mix it with another intimately unhealthy thing: alcohol. Dave Attell once described this phenomenon thusly: “I want to get a little drunk, but I also want some pancakes.” (the rest of this bit, as most things Attell-related, is not safe for work)
But what should we be mixing with eggnog to cut down its density while upping its party content? There aren’t any wrong answers (except gin. Gin is the wrong answer), but here are my typical holiday go-tos when I mix up a batch of booze batter. Consider a pinch of nutmeg and some cinnamon mandatory with each of these. And while I won’t begrudge you for making your own eggnog, that’s entirely too much effort for something you can buy premade for $2.19.
3. Spiced rum
The standby. The vanilla-ish spice of the rum adds a little extra sweet to the eggnog while the rum itself cuts down on the paint-like consistency that otherwise coats your mouth. The flavors blend together well enough that you can add a liberal amount of alcohol to your drink. This is a win, because you probably aren’t going to get through more than two cups of nog without feeling like you just left a Vegas buffet after dropping an entire college fund at the Pai Gow tables.
2. Southern Comfort
I am a simple man. I like Southern Comfort because there isn’t a damn thing in the world it *doesn’t* mix with. And, as such, I still occasionally throw it back to 2005 and pound 32-ounce Chick-fil-A cups loaded with SoCo and Coke Zero (often while listening to Muse or Queens of the Stone Age. 2005!).
Southern Comfort and eggnog is a war of sweetness and spices where the two sides took a deep look at each other, declared “we’re not so different, you and I,” and laid down their weapons to begrudgingly shake hands. It’s not complex, or balanced, or even all that interesting. It just tastes good, which is better than all those things.
1. Rye whiskey
The good news about nog is you can combine all three of these boozes together and they’ll disappear into the swampy muck and play nice inside their cream-colored bog. Tweak your drink however you’d like, because eggnog is a forgiving canvas. George Washington made his booze-nog with rum, brandy, and rye, so really if you’re not mixing eggs and alcohol you’re anti-American.
The Washington recipe is solid, but as a whiskey guy I like to slice it down to its finest ingredient. A good rye has just the right amount of dryness to balance out the thick, sweet eggnog. It won’t go down as smoothly as dark rum or SoCo, but the spirit comes across with a crispness you won’t get from any other drink on this list. It’s an undercurrent of warmth that really makes all the wintery feelings of sipping eggnog pop off.
Bulleit rye is a solid, mid-level bottle that does the trick here and in a rocks glass for later. Lately I’ve been settling in with Wisconsin’s own Limousin rye, which is a little rough around the edges but great when balanced off with a little sugary, spicy goodness. You’ve probably got a local spot that’s making their own version somewhere in your home state; run with them! Local breweries/distilleries need all the help they can get with their tap rooms closed. If the bottle’s mediocre, well, INTO THE NOG IT GOES.
Bonus: hot chocolate with Rumple Minze
You want a warm winter drink, but the idea of heated nog gives you the same gastrointestinal reaction as the concept of gas station sushi. Understandable! An Irish coffee is always a solid idea if you’re in need of some caffeine and/or a horrible bowel movement 45 minutes from now, but my go-to has become hot chocolate with a little bit of the lord’s peppermint schnapps mixed in.
I’ve been using this as a go-to for my annual trip to whichever D3 football playoff game is being held in Wisconsin in early December (typically UW-Whitewater or Oshkosh, but maybe one day La Crosse or even Platteville). I’ll get a cup of whatever Swiss Miss knockoff they’re selling, dump a mini-bottle of Minze in there, and enjoy the mint chocolate while it battles the 4 degree weather by lining my stomach with liquid goose down.
At home, I’ve upgraded the level of hot chocolate, adding milk and cinnamon to the mix for a creamier, spicier drink. You could even roll with Fireball to give the whole experience more of a Mexican Hot Chocolate feel. Again, no wrong answers. Drink what *you* like, baby.
A lot of tossup games this week.
tossup u mean wheel of fortune!