NFL Week 8: Do you like scary movies?
What a nightmare day for the Bengals, Browns, Carson Wentz, and even Tom Brady.
I’m not the biggest fan of scariest movies. I’ve seen a number of classics, like The Shining, Psycho, Night of the Living Dead, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. If it was released between 1996-2002 — Scream 1-3, The Blair Witch Project, The Sixth Sense, The Ring — I probably watched it in the theater or on DVD. But nowadays, with the exception of a phenomenon like Get Out, when a new horror movie comes out, I usually just read its Wikipedia page (I have not been brave enough yet to do this for Hereditary, and FWIW, the only summary that has ever scarred me is the one for the 1988 version of The Vanishing).
Alas, I could not take the Wiki shortcut for this week’s games, as much as I might have wanted to. For the first time since 2010, Halloween fell on an NFL Sunday. It was only fitting, then, that it was full of horrors for some of the game’s biggest stars and best teams.
It all started Thursday, when the Cardinals suffered their first loss of the season after their former practice squad player Rasul Douglas picked off Kyler Murray in the end zone. Then on Sunday, one Super Bowl contender — the Bills — struggled against the worst team in their division. Another Super Bowl contender — the Bucs — couldn’t get out of their own way in a loss to the rival Saints. Tom Brady even had a chance to lead a game-winning drive … and instead, he threw his first pick-six in over a year.
The Patriots continued to haunt Justin Herbert’s dreams. Same for Ben Roethlisberger vs. the Browns. Same for Kirk Cousins vs. primetime.
If I could only pick one sentence that perfectly encapsulated Sunday’s shocking events, it would be this tweet:
But I’m going to go into a little different direction than that and single out which Week 8 developments I think were most like a scary movie.
The Bengals and Browns couldn’t escape their pasts
Both of Ohio’s pro football teams were in a similar boat this week … and suffered an all-too-familiar fate for two historically beleaguered franchises.
The Browns were coming off a gritty win in Week 7, when they were down their starting quarterback, top two running backs, and a couple receivers. Baker Mayfield, Nick Chubb, and Jack Conklin (for a bit) were back in the lineup for a pivotal AFC North matchup against the Steelers. Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham, despite being banged up, gave it a go as well.
Then, with a chance to gain some ground in the AFC North standings, the Browns saw the mangled corpse of Ben Roethlisberger, and let themselves be victimized by their old tormentor once again like everyone in the Halloween franchise. Just 10 months ago, the Browns beat the Steelers in back-to-back weeks, first to punch their ticket to the playoffs and then to win their first postseason game in more than two decades. That was supposed to propel them to even greater heights in the 2021 season.
BUT, they just looked like the same old Browns on Sunday, plagued by untimely turnovers, drops, bad throws, and unlucky breaks.
At the same time, the Bengals were letting another old foe get the best of them: themselves. The Bengals over the Jets should have been a slam-dunk pick this week. Not only did the Bengals just dominate the Ravens, but the Jets 1) were starting Mike “who?” White at quarterback and 2) are the Jets.
Cincinnati let the Jets stick around most of the afternoon, but the game should have been over when Joe Burrow’s touchdown to Tyler Boyd put the visiting team up 31-20 in the fourth quarter. However, the Bengals let White continue to do his best Joe Montana impression and the Jets closed the gap 31-26 with just over four minutes left. Then, just as he did in the Bengals’ inexplicable loss to the Bears earlier this season, Burrow threw a terrible interception, this time to Shaq Lawson, who tried to warn us pregame that he was ready to inflict damage:
The Jets grabbed the lead two plays later, and even their own Twitter account appeared stunned by this turn of events:
Although a truly atrocious penalty sealed the game (more on that later), the Bengals only have themselves to blame for this loss — and for creating hyperbolic headlines about Mike White in the process. Reminiscent of Us, they were their own worst enemy. Lapses on offense and a lackadaisical effort from the defense led to their reign atop the AFC North ending almost as soon as it began.
The Lions were a splatter film
You know the kind of movies that are excessively gory — heavily reliant on violence, blood, entrails, and shock factor? That was the Lions’ blowout loss to the Eagles.
The circumstances were ripe for the Lions’ first win of the season: They had given the Rams a scare last Sunday, and the Eagles were limping into this one after playing listless, mistake-ridden football the last few weeks. Instead, it quickly turned into the worst loss of the Dan Campbell era.
Once the Eagles took a 7-0 lead near the end of the first quarter, here’s how the Lions’ ensuing drives ended before they finally got on the board halfway through the fourth quarter:
-Jared Goff sack
-Jared Goff sack
-Jared Goff sack
-Jared Goff throwaway on fourth down (again!)
-former Lion Darius Slay with a fumble recovery TD
-Jared Goff incomplete pass
To no surprise, Goff was booed by Lions fans, and in a true sickos sign, they chanted for David Blough, who entered the game for Goff on the final drive.
Goff was far from the only problem. The team in general didn’t look ready to play. The Lions were flagged for several procedural penalties, the defense gave up 236 yards on the ground to one of the worst rushing teams in the league, and the offensive line let Goff get sacked five times.
Still, if you told me that Goff was trapped in a game — a la the Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode “The Tale of the Pinball Wizard” — doomed to try (and fail) to win as the Lions quarterback, I’d believe you.
Carson Wentz tried to play hero and it cost him
In Alien, Tom Skerritt played the captain of the Nostromo, and after the title creature had already murdered two crew members, Skerritt’s character decided to try to track it through the air ducts and kill it. The captain was dead almost immediately after that fateful decision.
Playing hero didn’t work out for Captain Dallas, and it didn’t work out for Carson Wentz on Sunday. The Colts and Titans were locked in a tight one all day, in a game with huge AFC South implications. With 90 seconds left to go and the score tied at 24, the Titans punted the ball in an attempt to win the field position battle and, potentially, set up a game-winning field goal. Carson Wentz thought he’d try to be the hero with one boneheaded decision:
And then, in overtime, another:
The Titans now have a three-game lead in a division in which they’ve already beaten the No. 2 team twice while the other two teams are the Texans and Jaguars. Congrats on that AFC South title, Tennessee. Maybe send Wentz a gift basket for his efforts.
Jameis Winston’s revenge game turned bittersweet
Revenge in movies is usually meant to feel cathartic. Sometimes it happens in real life, too. Just ask Aaron Rodgers, who dressed up as John Wick for Halloween — an entirely appropriate costume for someone whose entire career is built on payback for any slights, perceived or otherwise.
But sometimes, getting revenge can lead not just to your enemy’s demise, but yours as well. It happened to Carrie White, and in a much different, less pig bloody way, it happened to Jameis Winston this weekend.
Six years ago, the Bucs drafted Winston to be their franchise quarterback. Due to his erratic play and their bad coaching pre-Bruce Arians, that never quite worked out as intended. So when Winston first became a free agent last year, he ended up taking a backup job with the Saints after the Bucs landed Tom Brady and eventually, a Super Bowl title.
Now the Saints’ QB1, Winston got his first start against his former team — and a chance to deliver a blow to their NFC South championship hopes. Winston was dealing early, and his beauty of a TD pass tied it up late in the first quarter:
But the next time Winston touched the ball, he was injured on a horse collar tackle and did not return. Rather than dole out the punishment himself, Winston had to watch backup Trevor Siemian (and the New Orleans defense) take up the mantle for him.
Not only did the Saints win, but they forced Brady to turn the ball over three times ... almost like he was channeling the Bucs’ version of Winston with his performance.
While Winston may have earned the W as the starter of record, it came at a hefty price: His season is likely over. That didn’t stop him from dancing in the locker room — on crutches — after the win:
(Carrie got to dance at her prom, too.) — SH
Christian’s shit list
Hey guys! I have a very nice neighborhood where parents get to hang out together and use Halloween as a thinly veiled excuse to socialize and drink together. DO YOU REALIZE WHAT A BOON THAT IS FOR ME, THE FAILED ARCHITECT FROM CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY? AWKWARDNESS IS MY ONLY CURRENCY.
Anyway, here is what I did not like about Sunday.
1. Ben Roethlisberger, building momentum because Baker Mayfield can’t complete a pass in the clutch
Mayfield had multiple opportunities to clinch Week 8’s showdown with the archrival Steelers. Some of these chances were erased by drops. Many more were undone by bad throws that were either off-target or slightly too late. This, for instance, could have been a game-winning touchdown with less than three minutes to play or led to one. Instead it resulted in zero points:
Cleveland should have won this game; instead, it sank to the bottom of the AFC North.
2. The Vikings, running screaming from opportunity
Minnesota was supposed to beat Dallas when Dak Prescott sat due to a calf injury. But a middling rush defense held the Vikings’ running backs, including Dalvin Cook, to under four yards per carry as their postseason hopes were dealt a potentially devastating blow by Cooper by-god Rush. The Vikes are currently 3.5 games out of first place in the NFC North, which yeah, feels about right. Kirk Cousins could have fixed this. But he threw for 184 yards on 35 attempts because he sucks.
3. Carson Wentz
SO BAD AT FOOTBALL. EXPLAIN YOURSELF, TERRIBLE ANALYST.
Wentz averaged 4.5 yards per pass attempt Sunday. Brock Osweiler averaged 5.8 in his worst season as a starting quarterback in the NFL.
4. Bit O’Honey
God what fucking year is this, did my daughter go trick-or-treating in the plains? ANSWER FOR YOURSELF, TERRIBLE CANDY
5. The Bengals-Jets officials, who by-the-book’ed themselves into the worst survivor pool bad beat of the year
This is what kept Joe Burrow from a two-minute drill to beat the then-1-6 Jets:
What is Mike Hilton supposed to do there? His head is at Ty Johnson’s waist. Johnson has no prayer of converting this into a first down. The tailback lowers his head into contact.
AND YET
This results in a 15-yard penalty. Automatic first down. Any and all Cincinnati leverage is vacated. Yes, the Bengals should never have let New York into this situation in the first place, but one awful call allowed this game to end on a handful of Mike White kneeldowns instead of deep balls to Ja’Marr Chase. That’s the worst possible outcome, even if you’re a Jets fan. — CD
Week 8 results, in five words or fewer
Rams 38, Texans 22
Panthers 19, Falcons 13
Bills 26, Dolphins 11
49ers 33, Bears 22
Steelers 15, Browns 10
Eagles 44, Lions 6
Jets 34, Bengals 31
Titans 34, Colts 31 (OT)
Seahawks 31, Jaguars 7
Patriots 27, Chargers 24
Belichick feasts on Herbert again
Broncos 17, Washington 10
Saints 36, Bucs 27
Cowboys 20, Vikings 16