Let’s take at what’s gone on around the league in the last week.
The Carolina Panthers actually garnered a fair bit of national attention over the weekend after taking the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs down to the wire. Bryce Young went toe to toe with Patrick Mahomes and had the best game of his young career. While that was happening, some of the rest of the NFL completely lost their minds. Let’s get into it.
NFC South
The Bucs were the only other NFC South team in action, and they embarrassed the Giants
The Panthers beating the Giants in Munich precipitated the benching and subsequent release of Daniel Jones. The Tommy DeVito experience wasn’t any better. He led a Giants passing attack to 10 air yards in the first half as they fell behind 23-0 before intermission. The Bucs ended up with a 30-7 win, and they did so with Mike Evans back in the lineup. This may be the start of getting their mojo back.
The rest of the NFL
John Mara and the Giants must be sick
The Giants elected to let Saquon Barkley walk last offseason after prioritizing Daniel Jones’s extension the year prior. Eight months after Barkley left in the offseason and signed with division rival Eagles, Jones has been released from the Giants while Barkley is a legitimate MVP candidate. He ran for 255 yards on Sunday night and is currently on pace to break Eric Dickerson’s longstanding single season rushing record. It’s hard to see that decision playing out any more poorly than it has so far.
The Cowboys and Commanders game went off the rails
If you follow the NFL at all, you surely saw how this game ended. If not, I’ll summarize. The score was 13-9 with six minutes left. The final score ended up being 34-26. The Cowboys scored after a Commanders fumble deep in their own territory to build a two score lead. With that lead, they naturally abandoned their defensive gameplan to allow the Commanders to pick up an easy touchdown after dinking and dunking their way down the field. That was followed by a muffed kickoff that turned into one of the most ridiculous touchdown returns you’ll ever see. That should’ve sealed the win for the Cowboys, but they somehow managed to let the Commanders score an 84 yard touchdown on the first play of the ensuing drive. That would have tied the game, but the Commanders missed the extra point. They were forced to onside kick, which the Cowboys ran back for another touchdown. That gave the Commanders a chance for a Hail Mary, but this one was intercepted. Just watch it if you missed it. Bonus because Greg Olsen was on the call.
Thomas Brown might be a good offensive coordinator after all
Brown was the OC in Carolina last year but was seemingly a victim of the dysfunction that dismantled the team. He didn’t call plays at the start of the season, but was given play calling duty a few weeks into the season before having it stripped away from him in what seemed like a play for Frank Reich’s self preservation. He’s in another less-than-desirable situation as an interim OC for the Bears after they fired first year coordinator Shane Waldron, but he’s turned the Bears offense around immediately. They just played a Vikings defense that has given many teams all sorts of problems, but Caleb Williams picked them apart for 340 yards and two touchdowns. He’s been one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL in the two weeks with Brown as his coordinator after looking like one of the NFL’s worst quarterbacks under Waldron. It’s wild what a situation can do.
While we’re talking about quarterbacks, CJ Stroud…
One of the primary stories of last season, especially among Panthers fans, was the discrepancy in performances between #1 overall pick Bryce Young and #2 overall pick CJ Stroud. It’s an irrelevantly small sample size, but while Young has trended up in recent weeks, Stroud has had the worst stretch of his career. Stroud has thrown three touchdowns against five interceptions in the last four weeks, and the Texans have lost three of those four games. Maybe they just can’t both be good at the same time.