Week 10: The Cardinals are a swirling vortex of chaos (and that’s a good thing)
Plus, a casting call for Myles Jack and the Bills' side of the story on that Hopkins' catch
There’s a three-way tie atop the NFC West. There’s a reasonable chance the team that finished dead last in the division last year breaks through that deadlock to earn the division crown.
The Arizona Cardinals are the blooming petri dish of head coach Kliff Kingsbury’s Air Raid droplets, growing over time to the point where this offense can no longer be ignored. At 6-3, his team has already topped last year’s win total. FiveThirtyEight pegs their playoff chances at 71 percent. Their most likely 2020 outcome ends with double-digit wins for the first time since 2015.
You can’t talk about the Cardinals’ record without bringing up the ways they’ve been finishing games. After a relatively staid start to the season, things have gone crazy in the desert, beginning in Week 8. They came back to topple the Seahawks in overtime in a game where Seattle held a 99 percent win probability late in the fourth quarter. They lost to the Dolphins in a game where the lead changed hands or settled into a tie nine times.
On Sunday, they overcame a furious comeback from the Bills with the most remarkable Hail Mary of 2020 so far.
The headline of that game-winning catch was DeAndre Hopkins, traded earlier this season for A SECOND-ROUND PICK AND DAVID JOHNSON ARE YOU KIDDING ME (sorry sorry i’m trying to delete it) outleaping the Bills’ top three defensive backs to haul in a prayer. What’s also impressive was his quarterback’s ability to escape pressure, retreat to the sideline, and unleash a 50-yard rainbow while getting absolutely smoked by the Buffalo pass rush. Take any frame of that catch:
It looks equal parts completely unlikely and entirely amazing. What was Murray thinking on his last throw of the game? He summed it up shortly afterward from the locker room:
On Sunday, he finished with 306 total yards, three touchdowns (two rushing), and an interception that was only marginally his fault:
While Murray’s passing game remains a work in progress — his 7.6 yards per pass through nine weeks ranked 18th among starting quarterbacks — there’s plenty of reason to believe he’ll continue to improve. His average target depth is up nearly a full yard from his rookie season, and despite making more difficult throws he’s also upped his completion rate from 64 percent to 68 percent. You can credit Hopkins’ arrival for that, but he’s also found a way to work players like Christian Kirk and Andy Isabella into his gameplan in crucial moments. His on-target pass rate also suggests a stark improvement; it’s risen from 73.5 percent in 2019 to 79.6 through eight games in 2020.
He makes up for any aerial lapses with his ability to extend drives on the ground. He’s already set the Cardinals’ franchise record for rushing yards by a quarterback with 604, breaking his own record from 2019.
His 6.9 yards per carry are tops in the NFL. He’s spent the last three weeks making history, starting with Week 8’s win over Seattle (please ignore CBS’s futile attempts to seem cool by referencing a Netflix property in its graphic):
And continuing in last week’s loss to Miami, in which he became the first player in history to record 2,000 passing yards and 500 rushing yards in the first eight games of any NFL season. He’s been what we expected Lamar Jackson to be in the follow-up to his 2019 MVP campaign, albeit with less efficient passing (and a significantly better receiving corps. See DeAndre Hopkins above).
As a result, the Cardinals have fielded the NFL’s top offense in terms of total yards gained. Their 6.3 yards per play are fourth-best in the league. They’ve scored 30 points or more in each of their last five games (4-1)
It isn’t a one-unit show in Glendale. Murray is flanked by a capable defense headlined by a secondary which stars one of the league’s top cornerback-safety tandems in Patrick Peterson and Budda Baker. Former first-round pick Haason Reddick, a man without a position his first three seasons as a pro, is finally living up to his Day 1 pedigree as a do-it-all linebacker (five sacks, 10 tackles for loss, three passes defensed). That group, which came into Week 10 as Football Outsiders’ 10th-ranked overall defense, intercepted Josh Allen twice … but also failed to sack him even once. It also allowed him to lead what looked like a game-winning drive by slinging a touchdown pass to Stefon Diggs with 34 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
So, yes, there are still flaws in Arizona’s otherwise shiny veneer. The defense falls asleep for stretches. The running game behind Murray is inconsistent — though Kenyan Drake and Chase Edmonds combined for 156 yards on 24 carries in Week 10, that duo had just 51 combined yards in a September loss to an underwhelming Carolina defense. The team can’t find a way to beat the damn Detroit Lions.
But there are flaws across the rest of the NFC’s contenders as well. The Packers can’t tackle anyone. The Seahawks’ defense is a fraction of its Legion of Boom past and seemingly incapable of victory unless Russell Wilson plays like a superhero. The Saints are the physical embodiment of an “ov-er-rat-ed” chant and now may be without Drew Brees for a stretch (time will tell if this is a bad thing). The Buccaneers exist solely to toss their fans through a roller coaster of emotions. The NFC East will only produce a playoff team by default.
That leaves room for Kingsbury to sew chaos in the postseason. Stopping Murray through the air is manageable — the Panthers held him to 133 total passing yards in the aforementioned Week 4 win — but he can always pull the ball down and shred you on the ground.
That doesn’t mean he’s infallible, especially since AFC teams have figured out how to slow Jackson in the playoffs. It does, however, mean the extra focus the young quarterback pulls will create extra opportunities for established stars like Hopkins, Drake, and Larry Fitzgerald. Those are exactly the guys you *don’t* want to leave in one-on-one situations!
The NFC is wide open right now. The teams that looked like surefire favorites at the season’s quarter-mark look a lot more vulnerable now that we’re more than halfway done. This gives Arizona a chance to break into the postseason and be the exact team no one wants to face with their championship hopes hanging in the balance. The personnel has come together to help Kingsbury realize his high-variance, high-impact offense. The question now is whether anyone can derail his momentum as the league enters its deciding stretch.
But wait! The Bills deserve mention too!
Buffalo was a last-ditch Hail Mary away from improving to 8-2 by defeating a 5-3 team on the road. Josh Allen was his truest self, looking great in stretches while throwing a pair of regrettable interceptions. Stefon Diggs remains 1000% worth the effort of trading for him:
The Bills’ defense is an issue — they’re nowhere near the standard set in 2019 — but Buffalo still has the chops to make some noise in the AFC’s side of the bracket. As long as they can survive a challenge from the Dolphins for the East’s top spot, they’ll have plenty of opportunities to deliver the franchise’s first playoff win since January 1994. — CD
Week 10 results, in five words or fewer
Browns 10, Texans 7
Lions 30, Washington 27
Packers 24, Jaguars 20
Jags tried while Packers sleepwalked
Giants 27, Eagles 17
Buccaneers 46, Panthers 23
Dolphins 29, Chargers 21
Dolphins are hot, Chargers not
Raiders 37, Broncos 12
Saints 27, 49ers 13
Brees injured, Jameis holds serve
Steelers 36, Bengals 10
Bengals can’t stop the Steel(ers)
Cardinals 32, Bills 30
Rams 23, Seahawks 16
Patriots 23, Ravens 17
Casting call for Myles Jack
The NFL and Hollywood have long intersected. Jim Brown famously retired after Art Modell gave him an ultimatum, choosing The Dirty Dozen and his newfound acting career over the Browns. Fred Dryer, the only player to score two safeties in a single game, spent most of the 1980s starring as TV’s Hunter. Nnamdi Asomugha took a few acting gigs while in the NFL, and once he retired, he married Kerry Washington and turned to acting/producing full-time. Marshawn Lynch was one of few highlights on the most recent season of Westworld. J.J. Watt was pretty decent as the guest host of SNL and will almost certainly look for more roles when his playing days are over.
Soon, we might have to add Myles Jack to that list, because he’s already showing off his acting chops:
So what kind of parts would I want to see the Jaguars linebacker take? Here are three ideas, at least as a starting-off point to his thespian life:
1. All American cameo
Jack is only 25, and unless he pulls a Jim Brown, he probably isn’t ready to give up his NFL career to be an actor. That doesn’t give him any time to be a regular on a TV series, though he could easily make an appearance on one.
All American, based on the life of former NFL player Spencer Paysinger, is the most obvious fit for Jack’s acting debut. He could even guest star as himself, like Chip Kelly did last season. The show’s main character, Spencer James, lives in LA and his dream school is UCLA. Jack is a UCLA alum. Perhaps Jack could give Spencer the advice he needs to figure out how to get the Bruins to offer him a dang scholarship already!
2. Ted Lasso guest star
Because Jack has already perfected the flop, it only makes sense for him to guest star on a show about a soccer team. Ted Lasso is a Wichita State football coach turned English Premier League manager. Jack could be one of Ted’s former football players — either a fictional version of himself or a new character named Jack Myles — who visits him when the Jaguars are in London for their annual (except this year) UK game.
Then, in a very Ted Lasso move, he ends up recruiting Jack for a pivotal match. The scrappy underdog AFC Richmond needs a win, and their go-to plan of attack? Disruption. As Ted said in one episode, “Now, the idea behind every trick play is to have chaos rain down upon your opponents and stun them. Much like the lava did to those poor folks in Pompeii.”
What could create more confusion, and intimidation, on the pitch than sending out a 244-pound mammoth against players who are, on average, around 170 pounds (or 77 kilograms, metrically speaking)? The trick play, or “set piece” for the soccer snobs, would probably be called something like the “Union Jack.” I think it could even top the “Lasso Special,” as impossible as that may seem.
3. Tiffany Haddish’s love interest in Girls Trip 2
Tiffany Haddish was the breakout star of the 2017 hit comedy Girls Trip. A sequel hasn’t been greenlit yet, but earlier this year, she said everyone was on board and they were working on making it happen.
Haddish’s character, Dina, was the wild one who was there to party. In the sequel, I can see her getting a love interest. Not that she needs one, because the heart of the movie and its potential follow-up is the relationship between these four girlfriends. But just as a secondary storyline, let Dina find someone she connects with, like say an athletic younger man who also happens to be a huge klutz.
Judging by Jack’s reaction to David Bakhtiari, like he had been mortally wounded by the tackle’s harmless shove, he can handle a little physical comedy. It might be hard for anyone who’s not a comedian to try to keep up with Haddish, but slapstick can be a good equalizer. Just have him fall down a bunch on screen and let her riff about it. — SH
The Week 10 Pain Index
There were several rivalry games across the NFL Sunday, leaving the losers with the kind of gnawing ache that comes with falling to a most hated adversary. The Bengals, who earned their best win of the season right before their bye week, came back to Earth in Pittsburgh with a lackluster performance. They lost their 11th straight matchup to the Steelers, while the Steelers became the first team since the 2015 Panthers to start a season 9-0.
Across the country, the Seahawks were once again foiled by Sean McVay and the Rams. Russell Wilson’s MVP candidacy has nosedived in recent weeks as Seattle’s problems have started to mount. Now the NFC West is up for grabs.
And the Broncos join a long list of people who want nothing more than to forget what they did in Vegas over a weekend.
All of those are hard losses to swallow, for sure, but not enough to rank in our latest pain index. That undesirable distinction belongs solely to teams in the East this week.
3. Eagles
We often joke that the Eagles have an insurmountable lead in the NFC East, when the truth is no team is really out of the NFL’s sorriest race. However, the reigning division champs have the experience and talent that made them the immediate favorites as soon as Dak Prescott was carted off the field last month.
A few weeks ago, they retook the NFC East lead when they came back to edge the Giants in Philadelphia. That was the start of the Eagles’, and the division’s, longest winning streak: a whole two games. After a bye, they had a chance to extend that to three games with a rematch against the Giants. Instead, they looked flat, letting the Giants match their winning streak (again, two games) and giving Daniel Jones a rare win over a team that’s not Washington.
On offense, the Eagles went 0-for-9 on third down, the first time in 16 years they haven’t converted a third-down attempt. On defense, they allowed Jones to throw for a season-high (by a lot!) 8.7 yards per attempt and run for a 34-yard touchdown without tripping over a ghost.
It was a disappointing showing for the Eagles, who actually might have taken an insurmountable lead in the NFC East with a victory Sunday. They’re still standing atop the division, though, and FiveThirtyEight gives them a 53 percent chance of being crowned champs (and hosting a playoff game). But if they don’t ultimately win the NFC East, then they might look back at this game as the reason they didn’t. — SH
2. Washington
Every day is a gift for the Washington Football Team. They do, technically, have something to play for, since the NFC East is just four terrible teams battling it out for the right to suffer an ugly loss and facilitate hours of televised debate about why the NFL gives such a prized playoff seed to a sub-.500 team.
But still, watching Alex Smith play his little heart out yesterday only to lose on a 59-yard field goal … I really feel for Smith and his teammates. But not Dan Snyder, who is a garbage person.
Smith was making his first start since 2018. I don’t think anyone expected much, and frankly, I’m surprised he was able to come back from his injury at all. And I don’t know what kind of future he has in the league, but on Sunday he gave us one of the great moments in game management, and dammit if he didn’t make it exciting. — RVB
1. Bills
MANY PEOPLE ARE SAYING, that DeAndre Hopkins’ brilliant, impossible last-second, game-winning touchdown catch was amazing. And it was! A man in a Kurt Warner Cardinals jersey — a big guy, hasn’t cried since he was a baby — went up to Hopkins after the game and told him … ah well, you get the picture. (Related, ever notice the similar tone between Trump’s sir/crying man stories and Peter King’s tweets?) But what about the Bills, who at one point had a 23-9 lead in this game and the chance to put a little more distance between themselves and the Dolphins (?!?) for the AFC East lead?
Buffalo has a bye next week, which is probably for the best. Then again, this is probably the stuff of nightmares when you’re in lockdown for two weeks. But at least their bodies will be rested for when they host the Chargers on Thanksgiving weekend. Meanwhile, the Dolphins play the Broncos next week and get the Jets the week after that. So, yeah, this loss means the Bills now have to battle the Dolphins for the division lead, and that is not something I ever imagined saying at any point in almost 20 years. — RVB