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Rodgers Gets a Record, Baker Melts Down, Wentz Delivers, Cards’ Collapse Continues

All the takeaways from the NFL’s Christmas Day slate, plus a peak at the big one coming up on Sunday.

Gary Gramling

Rodgers Gets a Record, Baker Melts Down, Wentz Delivers, Cards’ Collapse Continues
Rodgers Gets a Record, Baker Melts Down, Wentz Delivers, Cards’ Collapse Continues /

In the spirit of the holiday season, and because Saturday’s games are going to count in the standings, we once again combine my Sunday FreakOut weekly review column and Football Things weekly preview column…

1. Your Sunday FreakOut: Saturday Edition, for the Browns-Packers tilt…

Baker Mayfield Is Playing for His Job the Next Two Weeks: The Browns are going to check in on the big-name quarterbacks this offseason, and probably the second-tier names too (certainly, this season, Jimmy Garoppolo has outplayed Mayfield significantly). And if Mayfield plays like he did on Saturday, it’s not even a difficult decision. You could actually take issue with three of the four interceptions—two were blatant penalties (while it was an unwise and late decision on the deep ball for Donovan People-Jones in the second quarter, it’s not markedly different than this play) and one his receiver fell down. But Mayfield was late, with the wrong ball location and velocity on that throw intended for Landry, he was similarly late and too light on his touch on a crosser to Austin Hooper that should have been picked, and throughout the game his ball location just wasn’t there. At this point, the Browns need Sunday and Week 17 to go chalk (Bengals over Ravens and Chiefs over Steelers in Week 16, then Rams over Ravens and Chiefs over Bengals in Week 17), and Cleveland will have to win in Pittsburgh and then beat the Bengals at home to get to the postseason. That’s the only way it becomes a better than 50/50 chance that Mayfield is back in 2022.

An Atrocious Showing from Alex Kemp’s Crew in Green Bay: Which has become something of an evergreen statement, but the bottoming out of a couple other crews in 2021 has generally made Kemp’s group tolerable, in a “bad but not disastrous” way. There are missed calls every game (and there many in this game), and often missed calls are away from the ball, or don’t really affect the play one way or another. But rarely do you see a missed call on a blatant penalty committed on an intended receiver. Almost never do you see a crew miss two of them in one game. If we’re suspending disbelief, the game-ending pick was—maybe—subtle enough to evade detection, especially with Donovan People-Jones initiating some contact. But this one, in the second quarter, is simply mind-blowing. Rasul Douglas knows he’s been beat, and follows his false step by just giving the penalty.

This Packers D Is Having Some Rocky Moments: Last week, in failing to adjust to a fairly straightforward offense operated by Tyler Huntley, was a bit of a red flag. On Saturday, it took a very hands-off officiating crew, a shaky quarterback and a substitute kicker for Green Bay to escape, and they had two red-zone coverage busts—one was the rookie Eric Stokes getting lost after staring into the backfield, the second was because they didn’t get lined up correctly and Rasul Douglas was caught in no-man’s land—and were completely unable to stop the Browns’ ground game (albeit, a very good ground game). This defense collapsed under Mike Pettine’s guidance each of the past two NFC title games. Joe Barry has done a solid job this year, especially with so many replacement parts in the lineup, but the last two performances have been concerning.

This Red-Zone Zero Blitz: My best guess is that both players weren’t supposed to go here—and judging by the reaction of Richard LeCounte, he felt the same way, because if that was the plan, then the plan was to leave the rookie safety singled up on Davante Adams in the red zone.

Browns Resort to the Blitz: When this team was rolling early in the season, it was the defensive front four making it work, allowing a back-seven that’s a work in progress to have the extra body. On Sunday they had to resort to blitzing Aaron Rodgers a few too many times, which is a bad sign when it comes to how they feel about Myles Garrett’s health, Jadeveon Clowney’s absence, and the ability of the rest of that pass rush.

Aaron Rodgers’s Mangled Left Pinky Toe: Can’t feel too good after getting stepped on twice, by very large men, on Saturday. He’s obviously effective regardless, but it would be nice to get him moving better, and threatening some of those second-reaction plays, by the time the postseason rolls around.

A Crushing Five Days, Even by Cleveland Standards: They would have won the Tuesday game if they had anywhere near a full complement of players. They might have won on Saturday if not for a shaky kicker, a few missed opportunities by the quarterback and a few missed calls by the officials. And, as a result, the Browns need to win out (at Pittsburgh and vs. Cincinnati) and get help to win the AFC North.

Aaron Rodgers Surpasses Brett Favre: In career touchdown passes as a Packer. But Urban Meyer fans have to wait another week for Matt LaFleur to surpass him in career losses as an NFL head coach (including postseason), as the two remain tied at 11.

2. And your Sunday FreakOut: Saturday Edition, for the Colts-Cardinals late game:

The Cardinals Need a Holder: With punter Andy Lee out the Colts started the game with Colt McCoy. After a missed 51-yarder and missed PAT for Matt Prater, they turned it over to Ryan Winslow only to have Prater doink the top of the right upright on a potential go-ahead kick from 41.

Carson Wentz Needs to Build Off This Fourth Quarter: For the bulk of the game (and for a second straight Saturday night), Frank Reich was managing around his quarterback. Wentz, for the most part, did what was asked of him in the first half, but he was scattershot in the third quarter. It was fair to wonder just how much they could trust him, especially on a week when they were down four offensive linemen and lost Jack Doyle, a key piece in the run game, early on. But Wentz delivered the game-clinching touchdown, and on the kind of second-reaction play that must have had Reich’s heart in his throat. Wentz doesn’t have to be a superhero, but steady game management, plus an occasional play made, is enough to put the Colts in the Super Bowl discussion.

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Jonathan Taylor’s Yeoman Duty: It wasn’t just 80% of the offensive line missing, but Indy also lost Jack Doyle, who’s been a key piece to their run designs, in the first quarter. His numbers weren’t eye-popping, and two long runs do a lot of heavy stat-line lifting, but that was tough sledding over 27 carries.

A Neat Punt Return!:

What Quality Team Would the Cardinals Beat Right Now?: It was pretty clear the 7–0 start was a mirage even as it was unfolding; the Cardinals were putting up mind-blowing numbers in fourth-down and red-zone efficiency on both sides of the ball, fumble-recovery rate, Kyler Murray had gone from subpar downfield passer (statistically) his first two seasons to on pace to shatter the single-season mark for downfield completion percentage, and opposing kickers were leaving more points on the board against them than against any other team. Now, they’re 3–5 over their last eight, including losses to: Lions, Panthers, Packers’ practice squad, COVID-stricken Rams, and now a Colts team that was without Darius Leonard, four starting offensive linemen and the tight end who helps fuel their run game. DeAndre Hopkins is out, Kliff Kingsbury is still searching for answers, and it’s tough to

Normally, this is the spot where we pick up with our regularly scheduled programming, the weekly Football Things preview column. However, there’s not a whole lot to say about this week’s games; with all the COVID/reserve list players, it’s exceedingly difficult to figure out what to expect. That, and it’s Christmas night and I already had to write Power Rankings this week, so refer to that for most of my takes. This week’s we’re doing a truncated Things…

3. Yes, it will be fascinating to see how Sean McDermott (an exceedingly salty Sean McDermott, last time we saw him in a Bills-Patriots setting) and his defense reacts in a game where, not only will they have to deal with the Patriots run game again, but the Patriots might also utilize the forward pass.

But more interesting will be how the Patriots approach Josh Allen for the first time in a neutral weather game since he metaphorically burned Foxboro to the ground last December. Allen has some issues coming into this one—his left foot sprain suffered in Tampa two weeks ago was clearly an issues last week against the Panthers, and he’ll be without Cole Beasley and Gabriel Davis on Sunday.

Teams have had success against Allen with a mush-rush/soft zone combination this season, but Allen ripped New England’s zone-heavy defense to pieces last year. The meeting earlier this season didn’t tell us anything; it will be interesting to see what Bill Belichick has in the works this time.

4. I was going to lead this week’s column with Bruce Arians and the words of a sad, small man. Arians made the decision to give yet another chance to the guy who did all this and this and a lot of other stuff and never showed even the slightest bit of contrition before Arians organization acquired him, and then acquired a fake vaccination card (not exactly a heat-of-the-moment mistake) and, as recently as three weeks ago, was trying to paint himself as a victim on his teammate’s dopey podcast, and Arians is trying to claim that, despite all evidence to the contrary and despite the a cartoonish level of enablement from Arians and the rest of his organization (which is stunting any growth—or even desire for growth—Brown might be capable of making as a human being), Brown is “working hard at it.”

But it’s the holiday season. Next week we’ll dissect Arians’s parting with what little dignity he had left. For now, Merry Christmas everyone!

5. Ladies and gentlemen . . . Vince Guaraldi Trio!

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Gary Gramling
GARY GRAMLING

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