Five talking points from Week 13

The number 13 has long been associated with bad luck or misfortune and several teams and players have fallen victim to it this week.

Miami looked to make a statement and plant themselves atop the AFC, but they hit something of a bump in the road against the 49ers. But Miami’s misfortune was nothing compared to their opponents’ whilst the Baltimore Ravens narrowly defeated the Broncos, but it came at the same high price.

There are also those that have fallen victim without even having played this week. Carolina quarterback Baker Mayfield was cut from the team and almost immediately picked up by the Rams. Interesting, although his situation has hardly improved if we’re being honest. 

After Philadelphia’s win over Tennessee, former Titans and current Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown gave an interview and spoke about how he didn’t want to leave his former team when he was traded during the offseason. The Titans and Brown couldn’t agree to a deal and so he was allowed to leave with Tennessee believing they could draft the same calibre replacement.

In short, they didn’t and this fact coupled with the timing of this interview is what was likely the final nail in the proverbial coffin of Titans General Manager Jon Robinson.

Onto a new week and lets hope for better things for all involved. Here are my five talking points for week thirteen:

Do Dallas need OBJ?

Despite stacking wins and looking like a team finally ready to make a strong challenge for Super Bowl glory once again, the most talked about player associated with the Dallas Cowboys right now is one who is not even on their roster.

A dominant display in the fourth quarter against the hapless Indianapolis Colts, showed everyone just why the Dallas Cowboys are a dangerous outfit already and adding a player such a Beckham would simply be a luxury.

The 33 unanswered fourth-quarter points became the second-most ever in NFL history, per ESPN Stats & Info. It’s also Dallas’ sixth game with four or more takeaways since Dan Quinn took over as defensive coordinator, which is the most by any unit since the start of the 2021 campaign.

Tony Pollard and Ezekiel Elliott are a dynamic backfield duo whilst CeeDee Lamb has firmly established himself as the number one wide receiver on the team, on Sunday he had five catches for 71 yards and a touchdown. Michael Gallup caught another two TDs at the weekend and tight end Dalton Schultz is second only to wide receiver CeeDee Lamb in receiving targets and catches so far in 2022.

There is a chance that adding a player such as Beckham, who will bring with him an enormous spotlight that shines brightly on both himself and his team, could upset the balance of a team that is already rolling at 9-3. That being said, when healthy OBJ could be a huge benefit in finally getting this team back to the big game, just as he did for the Rams.

Mr. Irrelevant about to become very relevant

With the loss of Jimmy Garoppolo for the season to a broken foot, the NFL Draft’s last pick in 2022 – otherwise known as Mister Irrelevant – is about to become QB1 for an 8-4 San Francisco team that many had tipped for a deep playoff run.

Being forced to play a rookie drafted as low as the seventh round usually ends a team’s chances of winning that game, let alone leading a team into relevant January football. In fact, the only team to win a game after being forced to turn to a seventh-round rookie for meaningful snaps was the 2005 St. Louis Rams, who won one game with Ryan Fitzpatrick.

Brock Purdy, rather than leave his teams offence in a state of irrelevance, was able to lead his team with a performance that will give Kyle Shanahan confidence that there will be little drop off in the weeks to come.

Purdy went 25-for-37 for 210 yards with two touchdowns and an interception and his two scoring drives came from nine and 11 play drives respectively. Shanahan must have had a strategy ready for a third-stringer to put up solid numbers against a team with a winning record.

Before Sunday, a Mr. Irrelevant had never thrown a touchdown pass in an NFL game, now though Purdy will be looking to capitalise on a chance that at the beginning of the season, having been listed at number four on the QB depth chart, he could never have dreamed of becoming a reality.

Burrow buries Chiefs for third straight time

Once again, Kansas City had a touchdown lead entering the fourth quarter, but Burrow and the Bengals scored last to inflict a thyroid straight defeat on Patrick Mahomes’ Chiefs.

This game proved to be another frustrating for KC QB Mahomes, as he recorded his lowest passing yards this season with 223 and as such, in the fourth quarter the Bengals were able to score 10 unanswered points to win 27-24. The same score as last year’s AFC Championship game.

There was an early warning for Cincinnati as their mis-cue in the red-zone allowed the Chiefs to capitalise and take an early lead. After that however, the Bengals got the bit between their teeth and just seemed to want this game more than their opponents did, with Samaje Perine leading out from the trenches and churning his way to 106 yards from 21 carries. 

Joe Burrow was aided by the return of Ja’Mar Chase from a hip injury and he picked up where he left off, catching seven targets for 97 yards. Burrow himself had another impressive day completing 25-of-31 pass attempts for 286 yards and two touchdowns.

The Chiefs are a league-best 59-18 since Mahomes took over as starting QB in 2018; there is only one team that they have lost to three times in that same period and have led all three games by at least a touchdown in the third quarter: the Bengals.

Can Raiders mount late playoff push?

With three wins in a row the Las Vegas Raiders now sit on a 5-7 record in an AFC that is loaded with talented teams. But, with a seemingly favourable schedule coming up, could the silver and black make an unlikely playoff push to reach the postseason for the second straight year?

Several weeks ago it looked as though the Raiders were determined to do everything possible to get in their own way, losing closely contested games with a combination of nervous play calling, weakness on defence and by not utilising their best players. Fast forward three weeks and all of that has turned around and the situation now looks much less dire than it did at 2-7.

The Raiders took a strange approach to the opening of Sunday’s game, opting not to target their best wide receiver in the first 18-plus minutes. Those four drives unsurprisingly ended in a punt, fumble, interception, punt. But as soon as the coaches realised the error of their ways the game flipped and Vegas was able to turn a 10-0 deficit into a 27-20 victory.

Devante Adams caught eight passes for 177 yards and two TDs whilst last week’s game winner, Josh Jacobs, was given another big workload with 26 carries which he was able to turn into 144 yards a TD. The Raiders are going to need to lean heavily on their star players if they’re going to have any chance of getting back to .500.

With a defence that had been somewhat absent apart for Maxx Crosby for the first half of the season, things appear to have turned a corner in recent weeks. Against the Chargers on Sunday they were able to apply pressure, getting home for five sacks, forcing a turnover and then converting that takeaway into points.

With a remaining schedule that runs; at Rams, host New England, at Pittsburgh and ends with home games against the 49ers and Chiefs, the Raiders likely need to win four of these games (and get a little help elsewhere) to have any hopes of making the postseason this time around.

Rams footing the bill for Super Bowl glory

If the Rams finish with more than ten losses this season, they will join the ’99 Broncos as the only defending champions to have so many defeats.

At 3-9, their season has been over for several weeks now and there can be very little to be made in the way of excuses. Sure, injuries have played a significant part of the story but so have the personnel mistakes last offseason. General Manager Les Snead will now have questions to answer and important decisions to make in order to turn this team around next season.

The acquisition of free agent Allen Robinson was supposed to be one of the best pieces of business that any team made in the summer, however he is proving to be one of the biggest busts in 2022. Defensively, Andrew Whitworth’s retirement and the decision to allow guard Austin Corbett leave left the team with holes to fill which they failed to do so.

The absence of Von Miller after his signing with the Buffalo Bills has left the pass rush short handed and as such the team has only been able to register 21 sacks all year, less than half of the 42 they recorded during the regular season in 2021.

Despite Super Bowl glory, there were questions in the offseason about the way that the franchise had pieced together their team. There were also reports that head coach Sean McVay was being touted for a job in a broadcast booth whilst Aaron Donald was contemplating retirement. Instead of losing both, the Rams went all out to keep their core together, signing McVay, Stafford and Kupp to contract extensions, as well as reworking Donald’s contract to make him the highest-paid defensive player in NFL history.

After those deals, the Rams’ core of four players – Stafford, Donald, Kupp and cornerback Jalen Ramsey – account for 47% of Los Angeles’ team cap, according to the Roster Management System. That is the second highest in the NFL among the top four players on a team behind the Chiefs.

Los Angeles has used a different starting offensive line in all nine games this season. According to Elias, the Rams are the first team in the Super Bowl era (since 1966) to use a different starting five on the offensive line in each of their first nine games. The inconsistency on the offensive line has shown on the field. Los Angeles, which finished the 2021 season leading the NFL in pass block win rate, ranks 24th in that metric this season.

At this point, the front office might be looking forward to the 2023 draft. The Rams would have been in line for a top-10 draft pick, but their 2023 first-round pick will go to Detroit as part of the trade that brought Stafford to Los Angeles. The team currently has six draft picks in 2023, although four are in the sixth or seventh rounds. F them pick hey!