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Saturday NFL Takeaways: Patriots’ Formula Enough (for Now), Niners End the Rams’ NFC Title Defense

Also, the Texans survive a wild one in Tampa. And previewing the Sunday action, including Mahomes vs. Trubisky, the end of Coughlin, Lions stay the course, and why the Cowboys should dispense of the Eagles. Plus, musical guest, Talking Heads!

Gary Gramling

Saturday NFL Takeaways: Patriots’ Formula Enough (for Now), Niners End the Rams’ NFC Title Defense
Saturday NFL Takeaways: Patriots’ Formula Enough (for Now), Niners End the Rams’ NFC Title Defense /
Julian Edelman in Patriots win over Bills
Eric Canha/CSM/Shutterstock

Note From the Author: Due to the annual December tradition of spitting in the face of the gods by staging NFL games on a Saturday, this week’s Football Things preview column is actually a crossover—like The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones, or my unpublished manuscript about the Transformers and the Go-Bots joining forces to battle internet piracy. Below are elements from my two weekly columns: the pre-game Football Things and the post-game Sunday FreakOut.

Ergo, before getting to the Sunday action, please enjoy this miniaturized Saturday FreakOut. Just keep in mind that Zeus is not pleased:

Reacting and overreacting to everything that happened on Saturday...

Things That Made Me Giddy

Julian Edelman Saves Christmas: He clearly wasn’t right physically—between plays Edelman was walking like Joe Pera approaching the diner’s spinning dessert carousel. (How Edelman was allowed to stay on the field for multiple plays after charging head-first into a defender on a failed pick play then lying on the field dazed for a few seconds is another story.) He continues to be the only part of the Patriots passing game that works without some kind of pick or misdirection fooling the defense, and his 30-yard catch-and-run sparked the game-winning TD drive. New England desperately needs him to be right if they’re going to have enough offense in January.

George Kittle Finds a Way: Bracketed in the red zone, he scored the go-ahead touchdown by staying alive as Jimmy Garoppolo scrambled.

49ers on Third-and-16: Apparently they had the Rams right where they wanted them, converting two third-and-16s on the game-winning drive, one on a fine offensive play and the second on a blown coverage.

Sean McVay’s Troubleshooting: Coaching is about problem-solving, and the Rams solved their problem (that their offensive line can’t block the 49ers pass rush) by slowing down that pass rush with tempo and non-stop misdirection. His Rams are going home, but Saturday night was a friendly reminder that McVay is a really good coach.

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Regrets

If This Isn’t Intentional Grounding, Abolish the Rule: At the moment Brady releases this ball, there is no receiver within 10 yards of where it will eventually land. And, since both receivers were running away from the quarterback, there’s no one within 12 yards when it does land 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

Robert Saleh Has to Adjust: Saturday night was probably a good learning experience for the 49ers defensive coordinator (and soon-to-be-head-coach). But Sean McVay owned Saleh in this one, as the Niners defense was playing catchup all night and never got a bead on what the Rams were going to do.

Sean McDermott Has to Challenge the Spot: Granted, it was one of a number of brutal missed spots—both ways—by the crew in Foxboro. On a fourth-and-1 in the second quarter with the Patriots in field goal range, Sony Michel’s knee hit a full yard behind the line to gain and he was otherwise upright at the time. While you couldn’t quite see the ball, it was humanly impossible that the ball was anything but a half-to-full yard short of the line to gain. But that’s not the only reason McDermott has to challenge it. We all know scoring plays, turnovers and final two minutes of each half are booth reviews only; thus, you rarely have a bigger play to challenge than what would become an opponent turnover in scoring range, in what was going to be a low-scoring game. A 60% chance of getting that overturn is worth the price of a first challenge and a first-half timeout. (And if McDermott was anticipating a mis-spot in the final seconds of the first half leading to a 10-second runoff, then he’s some kind of oracle with no excuse for his team allowing 11 fourth-quarter points.)

Bill O’Brien Punting: [exaggerated audible sigh] Come on, guy. You’re a midfield fourth-and-inches conversion away from sealing a game you had no right winning (to that point, Houston had received four giveaways, Jameis Winston had missed multiple wide-open touchdowns, and the Texans blocked a field goal). You’re going to put the game in the hands of your defense? Have you seen your defense? It worked out, but that doesn’t make it the right call (or anything less than 100% the wrong call).

Taylor Rapp Is Learning Tough Lessons His Rookie Year: He has a chance to be a fine player, but it was a long season of misplays and mismatches. With the 49ers in their own territory and facing a third-and-16 in the final minute of a tie game, Rapp let Emmanuel Sanders run free on a post route, a blown coverage that led to a 46-yard layup of a completion, setting up the game-winning field goal.

Mohamed Sanu Giveth, Mohamed Sanu Taketh Away (But Mostly, Mohamed Sanu Taketh Away): He’s had a number of lowlights since the Patriots regrettably acquired him for a second-round pick. On Saturday, he was largely invisible save for a two-play sequence late in the first half when, on third-and-short he failed to muster even the slightest forward lean after the catch to get to the sticks. Then on fourth-and-short, the Patriots ran an end-around to Sanu’s side and Sanu first set his sights on a safety eight yards off the line of scrimmage before realizing too late he should probably block the cornerback on the line who was the only man capable of foiling the conversion.

Will Fuller as Mr. Glass’s Injury-Prone Nephew: On Saturday, it was a groin injury that took him out of the game. The Texans offense is far too limited without him.

Cameron Brate Stole Christmas: Not even all the Whos in Whoville holding hands and singing was going to make anyone feel better about a wide-open Brate’s brutal fourth-and-short drop on Tampa’s best late drive.

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Moments We’ll Tell Our Grandkids About

Brady Blocks: They’ve had trouble replacing fullback James Develin. Maybe go with a backfield with Stidham under center and Brady in front of Michel?

Fred Warner, Professional Athlete: And a terribly regrettable decision by Jared Goff.

Dion Dawkins for Six: Pretty good adjustment and hands catch for his second career TD.

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What We’ll Be Talking About This Week

Will This Be January in Foxboro?: A great and at times dominant performance for the defense, and an offense that mixes a solid power running game and a smoke-and-mirrors passing attack that does just enough. If they’re playing at home until the AFC title game, and then they get a second crack at Lamar Jackson in Baltimore, is this enough for them to get back?

Jameis and the Season of Giving: Which for him started just after Labor Day. The thumb injury was clearly an issue, as evidenced by the exaggerated wobble on the majority of his throws on Saturday, but two of his four interceptions (including the pick-six) were late throws on out-breaking routes, and another was when he (yet again) lost track of a free defender in the middle of the field. Winston is the first quarterback since Brett Favre in 2005 to throw 28 picks in a season. And, with one game left, he has a shot at the NFL’s first 30-INT season since the Reagan Administration (Tampa’s Vinny Testaverde in ’88).

The Great, the Good, and the Bad of Josh Allen: He made a couple of breath-taking plays in Buffalo, and once again played some of his best football in the fourth quarter. But that overthrow for Dawson Knox on the final series (his second such miss on Saturday) is the kind of play that leads to restless nights. Allen is streaky from an accuracy standpoint—if he wasn’t he’d be the best quarterback in football—and he’ll become a more refined quarterback as the years go on. But those red-zone situations, you just need to know that if a receiver is open, the ball is going to be delivered more often than not.

Can the Texans Win a Game in January?: The defense is flat-out bad on the back end, and with no Watt and no Clowney the pass rush can’t mask it. The offense loses a crucial big-play dimension every time Will Fuller gets hurt (on Saturday, it was a groin injury)—without Fuller, Houston is too reliant on Deshaun Watson doing some absolute Superman stuff. There’s a good chance the Wild-Card round matchup will be with Buffalo; it’s hard to picture the Texans winning a game against a quality opponent where they don’t get multiple game-changing turnovers.

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And now for your regularly scheduled column, already in progress . . .

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4. With their first head-to-head meeting Sunday night, we will get to settle the age-old debate of who is the better third-year quarterback: Patrick Mahomes or Mitchell Trubisky. And later this week, we will also get to settle the age-old debate of which is the tastier Christmas treat: peppermint bark or shards of broken glass fished out of the dumpster behind Blimpie’s.

The Chiefs are peaking at the right time, in large part because they’re getting healthy at the right time. Early in the season they lost a couple of offensive linemen and Tyreek Hill, then Mahomes played on one leg for a couple games before dislocating his kneecap.

Left tackle Eric Fisher and right guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif returned in Week 11 to make the offensive line whole. When the O-line, Mahomes and Hill have been in the lineup at the same time this season, the Chiefs are 5-0 with a point differential of +15.8 per game.

A primetime visit to Soldier Field presents some unique challenges though. It’s an infamously slow track (though the snow at Arrowhead didn’t slow the Chiefs much last week). And injuries aside, it’s still been an up-and-down year for the offensive line, which is a big reason for Mahomes’s relatively muted performance at times (though it will be nice to see the Mitchell Schwartz vs. Khalil Mack rivalry reborn). The Bears are also intimately familiar with the Chiefs offense, since (as Jenny Vrentas once told you) Matt Nagy basically took Andy Reid’s playbook with him to Chicago.

Through an optimistic lens, the Chiefs have an offense that is healthy and ready to approach last year’s levels, and a defense that is far improved from the group they ran out last January. They’re two weeks removed from a December road win in Foxboro. A decisive win in Chicago would further prove that, no matter where they have to go in the postseason, they can play with any AFC contender.

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5a. Maybe you don’t like the fact that the old-school Tom Coughlin is out in Jacksonville. After all, he has more Super Bowl rings than Jalen Ramsey has postseason appearances (which, by the way, came the season Coughlin took control of the franchise). But to put the Coughlin problem in the simplest terms: You can’t sell the disciplinarian thing if the players don’t see it working.

From a legal standpoint, you also can’t hand out millions of dollars in questionable-at-best fines and keep your team. But mostly, you can’t go tough on your players, lose 10-plus games in back-to-back seasons, and keep your team.

5b. The old-school thing also doesn’t work if you don’t have an alpha on the roster who will buy into it. Bill Belichick has Tom Brady, an alpha who allows his coach to lay into him. If you’re a member of the Patriots, and you hear the coach telling the greatest player in NFL history, Hey Brady, that pass was about as good as my poop smells, and my poop smells like Funyuns and stomach acid, that sets the standard. Throw in all the wins and rings, and you can manage players however you want. But you can’t sell that if you’re not winning games.

5c. Very related: Matt Patricia is in a similar situation in Detroit, where there are whispers the locker room isn’t great.

It’s fair to say that, if you’re going to hire someone as your coach, you should be prepared to give them more than two years to build their program. But two things complicate the decision to keep Patricia: First, his side of the ball, the defense, is now the worst unit on either side of the ball in professional football; they’re bad enough that they might still hold that mantle after the XFL season wraps up. Second, he’s linked to the general manager, Bob Quinn, who has been as bad as any roster architect in football since taking over in Detroit.

The Lions already have an MVP-caliber quarterback in place—that’s the hard part. The task when Quinn took over was to upgrade the players around Matthew Stafford. There was no need for a teardown and rebuild—though over four years Quinn has only done the first start. His biggest effort was to build up the run game, and he did so by investing multiple first-round picks and multiple big-money free-agent contracts on the offensive line, and trading up in the second round to get a lead running back. The Lions rank 21st in rushing yards per game and 21st in yards per carry this year; they ranked 23rd and 28th last year. That is a failure. The defense has gone from middling to the league-worst—trading Quandre Diggs for a late-round pick swap (or, to put it bluntly, next to nothing) made them objectively worse. Stafford is what is keeping this team not only in playoff contention, but afloat.

I remember a retired coach telling the story of passing through Colts camp in the summer of 2011, the season Peyton Manning missed with a neck injury. He left thinking, This roster is so bad that, if Manning doesn’t play they might not win a game (he was wrong, the Colts did go 1-15). Isn’t that what the Lions are? Football’s worst defense and a run game that goes nowhere has been exposed now that the superhero quarterback is out.

“Process” has become a largely meaningless buzzword that struggling front offices use because it for whatever reason coats them in Teflon. Maybe Stafford comes back next year, picks up where he left off, and puts the Lions on his back for a 10-win season. That won’t mean that some kind of master plan coming to fruition in Detroit—it will just mean they wasted four seasons of a great quarterback’s prime.

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6. A week ago, I wrote that the Cowboys would beat the Rams handily as long as they didn’t actively opt out of tackling like they did on that Thursday night in Chicago. The same goes for Sunday’s NFC East title game in Philadelphia. As good as Carson Wentz can be (and make no mistake, considering the supporting cast he has toggled between pretty good and very good in 2019), there is absolutely no way Dallas should give up 20 points to an Eagles offense running out football’s worst receiving corps since the 2017 Bills.

That means an average performance from the offense should get it done. Philly has been solid against the run this year, though don’t get carried away with the per-game numbers (90.4 rushing yards allowed), which are skewed by the fact that teams don’t try to run on the Eagles often on account of throwing on them is so easy. Where you can torch them, and where the Cowboys can put this game out of reach early, is attacking the outside. Is Dak Prescott’s shoulder and hand and mind and soul healthy enough to do so?

And will Amari Cooper break his bizarre tendency to disappear in road games? Since joining the Cowboys, he has 90 catches for 1,434 yards over 13 home games, and 47 catches for 535 yards over 12 road games. He went 6 catches for 75 yards in Philly last year, and then 10-for-217 and 5-for-106 in two home matchups for the Eagles since.

Something would have to go very wrong for the Cowboys to lose this game. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned about the 2019 Cowboys . . .

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7. Similarly, the Vikings really should be able to handle a Packers team that has morphed into a very good defensive team and a very ordinary offensive team. Aaron Rodgers has never won at U.S. Bank Stadium. At least not a professional football game. He might have won a Pokemon Go battle or two while he was there. (I heard he has a Tyranitar.) Throwing out the 2017 matchup when he separated his shoulder early, over two visits to U.S. Bank Rodgers has thrown for 6.42 yards/attempt and taken nine sacks as the Packers put up 14 and 17 points.

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8. Now that it’s abundantly clear that Kyle Allen, while he’ll have a lengthy career as a backup, is not going to be Carolina’s starter in 2020 (which some of us told you two months ago . . . I’m talking about me, to be clear), sure, the Panthers might as well kick the tires on Will Grier. Temper your expectations though. While Grier got some misguided first-round projections last draft season, he looked nowhere near ready for NFL action this preseason (the only thing preseason games are good for is exposing which young players are definitively not ready).

The Panthers are also in no way committed to him. In the dark days of the rookie-wage-scale era, there have been 12 quarterbacks drafted in the third round (13 if you count Terrelle Pryor as a third-round supplemental draft pick). Only Russell Wilson became a franchise quarterback for the team that drafted him. Nick Foles has flirted with that status. Jacoby Brissett remains on the verge of becoming a franchise quarterback, but not for the team that drafted him. Four of those QBs (Davis Webb for the Giants, Garrett Grayson for the Saints, Sean Mannion for the Rams, Ryan Mallett for the Patriots) never started a meaningful game for the team that drafted them. Mason Rudolph stepped in due to injury and lost his starting job to an undrafted rookie from Samford, C.J. Beathard was surpassed by an undrafted rookie from Southern Miss.

In short, there’s an excellent chance a healthy-ish Cam Newton—on what’s not a back-breaking salary for a veteran starting quarterback—remains the best option for the Panthers in 2020.

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9. A quick programming note: I’m resting up during Week 17 to ensure I’ll be healthy for the playoffs, so no Football Things for Week 17. (They’ll get a replacement for the FreakOut but probably not this column, so maybe just talk to loved ones Sunday morning.)

Ladies and gentlemen, by special request from a special person on a special day, and for (at least) the third time this season . . . Talking Heads!

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Gary Gramling
GARY GRAMLING

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