Week 12 NFL Takeaways: Lions’ Defense Looks As Good As Their Offense

Just another reason Detroit is clearly the NFL’s best team. Plus, the Vikings keep winning, appreciating Tua Tagovailoa, Saquon Barkley redefining running back value, what will change (and what won’t) in Cleveland, and more.

Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn and linebacker Malcolm Rodriguez celebrate after Sunday’s win over the Colts / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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1.  Detroit Lions
2. Minnesota Vikings
3. Miami Dolphins
4. New York Giants
5. Philadelphia Eagles
6. Dallas Cowboys
7. Tennessee Titans
8. Cleveland Browns
9. Robert Kraft and the Hall of Fame
10. Quick-hitters
11. More NFL on Sports Illustrated

Our Week 12 takeaways are live with everything I’ve got off of this week’s games. As we’ve been doing all season, we’ll publish the takeaways Sunday and update them live through Monday morning. So come back again if not all 10 are here yet …

 Detroit Lions

Don’t look now, but the Detroit Lions’ defense looks as dominant as their offense. And it’s another reason why this once sad-sack franchise has emerged as the NFL’s very clear No. 1 team as we approach the team’s annual Thanksgiving game—with no complaining anymore that the Lions are sitting in that national television window.

Somehow, this is what the aftermath of losing Aidan Hutchinson looks like for Detroit. Out goes the Lions’ best defensive player and in comes the team’s defensive breakthrough.

After Sunday’s workmanlike 24–6 deconstruction of the Indianapolis Colts, the Lions will carry a streak of 10 quarters without allowing a touchdown into Thursday’s game against the NFC North rival Chicago Bears, who are six games behind Detroit in the standings. Over that time, Aaron Glenn’s defense has allowed just four field goals. And in the six games since losing Hutchinson, the defense has allowed 316.0 yards per game and 15.3 points per game, which is actually less than the unit allowed over the first five games (329.4 and 18.2, respectively).

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“We can’t replace Hutch,” veteran corner Amik Robertson told me postgame. “But we can continue playing together. We know Hutch causes havoc every time he’s out there, but the next guy has to step up. We got to play as a whole. The D-line helps the secondary and the secondary helps the D-line. We got to do it for him because we know if he was out there, he’d be playing 100%, so that’s what we do.”

It’s also happened because, as has seemed to be the case with virtually everything since Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes arrived in 2021, the Lions have had answers, post-Hutch.

On Sunday, two guys registered multiple hits/hurries on Anthony Richardson—D.J. Reader and Za’Darius Smith. The former is the havoc-wreaking defensive tackle that Detroit gambled on in March, signing Reader as a free agent while he was rehabbing a torn quad, knowing it’d take patience to get the most from him. A trade for the latter was the result of Holmes staying after the Cleveland Browns about a deal for weeks, leading up to the Nov. 5 deadline.

But those additions were just part of a much larger picture that’s come together over four years, after the Lions consciously decided in 2021 to address the offense first, since, at that point, it was closer to being competitive than the defense. It’s why, in large part, the Lions had the NFL’s 29th-ranked defense in ’21 and the league’s worst defense the year after that. Slowly, but surely, Glenn’s shared vision with Campbell for a versatile, deep unit with position flexibility all over the place came together.

In came pieces such as Hutchinson, Alim McNeill, Brian Branch, Jack Campbell and, this year, Terrion Arnold that fit that vision. And all along, Glenn kept the guys believing in the vision, even when it looked bleak, with the backing of the head coach, who never backed down from it, even as he made big changes on offense.

“It’s their will,” says Robertson, who jumped aboard the moving train this offseason, coming over from the Las Vegas Raiders. “We got some great coaches. Our leader, Coach Campbell, A.G., they know what it should look like. When you buy into it, you play for the guy next to you. You have no choice but to go out there and play Lions football.”

Robertson then added, on Glenn, “His passion—he cares. He cares about his players. When you got a guy that backs you up and cares about the players and what’s good for the players, you got no choice but to run through a wall for him. I’m glad I was able to come here and be able to get coached by a coach and individual like A.G.”

Lots of guys are, clearly. And based on the way this has been going, the best could still be ahead for the Lions’ defense.

That, by the way, could also include Hutchinson. Because the break in his leg was so clean—there was no artery, ligament or nerve damage—the team is optimistic that he’d be able to play in the Super Bowl on Feb. 9 in New Orleans, which is where Detroit plucked both Campbell and Glenn from.

Increasingly, it looks like the Lions will be there to give Hutchinson that chance. And this time, it certainly wouldn’t be in spite of the defense he’d be rejoining.

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Minnesota Vikings

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Vikings are keeping pace in the NFC North—and it’s not happening in spite of Sam Darnold, like some people figured it would by this point of the year. I’ve had the feeling for a while now, with the way narratives have been spun on Minnesota’s quarterback situation, that a lot of folks have been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It hasn’t yet. It probably won’t, either.

That’s not to say 2024 has come without turbulence for Darnold’s and Kevin O’Connell’s Vikings. There were the two losses in five days—to the Lions and Los Angeles Rams—followed by slugfest wins over the Colts and Jacksonville Jaguars, and those wondering whether O’Connell’s reclamation project had some sort of expiration date. This, I think, is closer to the truth: He’s a really good player now who, after going through a lot, was just going through a season’s ups and downs.

Sunday’s 30–27 overtime win over the Bears does tell the story for you. Darnold threw for 330 yards, two touchdowns and a 116.1 rating on 22-of-34 passing. He took Minnesota on a clock-killing drive in the fourth quarter that ran nearly six minutes, and ended with a field goal that staked his team to a 27–16 lead with two minutes to go. Then, when the Bears furiously stormed back with a touchdown, onside kick and field goal to force overtime, Darnold was nails in the extra period.

He took a sack on his first snap of the extra session, only to convert second-and-17 over the next two plays. Later in the drive, he brought the Vikings from behind the sticks, after penalties put them in first-and-15 and then first-and-20. He made chain-moving throws to Jordan Addison and Justin Jefferson, and two to T.J. Hockenson to put new kicker John Parker Romo in position to knock through a 29-yard chip shot to win it.

But there was one play in particular that stood out for the Vikings in the game’s aftermath.

Against the Colts three weeks ago, with Minnesota holding onto a 14–7 fourth-quarter lead, Darnold forced a ball over the middle to Jefferson, with Jefferson and Addison both lined up to his left and running over routes to his right. The ball was picked and, at least momentarily, positioned the Colts to flip momentum. The Vikings survived it, holding the Colts to a field goal after the turnover, and grinding out a 21–13 win.

But Darnold didn’t forget it. On the first play of the second half Sunday, O’Connell called the play again. Darnold took the lesson, hung in the pocket on the play waiting for his receivers to uncover, and threw it to Addison, away from the traffic in the middle of the field, rather than Jefferson. Addison caught it about 25 yards downfield and did the rest, racing for a 69-yard gain. The Vikings ended up kicking a field goal to extend their lead to 17–10.

It's a little detail from Sunday, but it’s a big one, too. Darnold—with all that experience from the New York Jets, Carolina Panthers and San Francisco 49ers under his belt—looks like a guy who is not just better for all he’s been through, but is getting better as he goes.

So now the Vikings are 9–2, and he’s a huge part of that. He’s a shining example, like Geno Smith is for the Seattle Seahawks, of how a guy can overcome a tough start to a career, given better circumstances in a better place. (He and Geno have something else in common, too. Hint: the team that drafted both of them.) Which is why all of you should be a little less skeptical of the guy.

Will he be the Vikings quarterback in 2025? I don’t know. J.J. McCarthy’s there and Minnesota really likes him, too. But I’d bet Darnold will be playing somewhere, and playing well, next year. The evidence that it’ll happen, at this point, is pretty overwhelming.

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Miami Dolphins

Everyone should have a better appreciation for Tua Tagovailoa now. I know I do. And that was only reinforced in a conversation I had with Calais Campbell after the Miami Dolphins’ 34–15 rout of the New England Patriots—one that pushed the quarterback’s career mark to 7–0 against Miami’s AFC East rival.

Of course, I didn’t really have to have that conversation to feel that way.

Tagovailoa was 29-of-40 for 317 yards, four touchdowns and a 128.9 rating Sunday. It was the third time in five games since returning from his Week 2 concussions that his rating has exceeded 120. It was the fifth consecutive game his completion percentage topped 70. It was Miami’s third straight win, after consecutive losses in which the offense scored 27 against the Arizona Cardinals and Buffalo Bills.

There’s a lot to like about Tagovailoa right now. That stuff about Mike McDaniel perfectly tailoring the offense to leverage the 26-year-old’s timing, anticipation and accuracy has proven true, both in how bad things looked without him and how quickly everything fell back into place when he got back in there.

All that said, the situation that unfolded on Sept. 12, and I was in the stadium for it, didn’t go away. Teammates were clearly shaken that night. Coaches, too.

So how did they overcome it? Tagovailoa actually helped them. Just listen to Campbell, a 17-year veteran, who’s now on his fifth team, and has, naturally, played with countless quarterbacks, having experiences both good and bad with them.

“He’s just stayed present and tried to be authentic to himself and be the best version of himself,” Campbell tells me. “Nobody ever wants to go through any kind of injury, especially head injuries. It’s very scary. You go through the process and meet with the specialist and realize that, as long as you’re healthy, you can go out there and play the game you love. And now, he’s very in the moment and enjoying the game as a kid would.

“He has a greater appreciation for playing good football. He’s been really big in the locker room, just for having fun and enjoying the ride. He brings a great energy to work every day, making sure that we have fun every time we’re out there on the football field, through practice, through studying."

In other words, if Tagovailoa doesn’t feel sorry for himself, maybe … others won’t either?

“He definitely has that happy charm,” Campbell says, agreeing. “Being around him is infectious. You can’t help to be happy. He’s got a great energy.”

Now, this isn’t in any way to minimize what happened that night—it was, and is, a very serious thing that affects so many players, many for long after they’re done playing.

But I can appreciate Tagovailoa’s passion here, and how it’s spilling over to his team.

Like him, the Dolphins are playing fast, smart football and, at 5–6, are right back in the AFC playoff race, just two games out of the final spot. That sets up a big game Thursday night in Green Bay. The projected temperature at kickoff is 26, which will give Tagovailoa a shot to bust some more preconceived notions, and shine in the sort of big game that, four weeks ago, at 2–6, very few folks expected the Dolphins to be playing in.

And Tagovailoa, after all that’s happened, still gives them the best shot to do just that.

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Daboll and the Giants fell to 2–9 after getting crushed by the Buccaneers on Sunday / Chris Pedota, NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

New York Giants

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are still alive in the NFC South after an impressive beatdown of the New York Giants in the Meadowlands, but that’s not my takeaway from that game. It’s that the loser of this one needs to look better the rest of the way, with lessons of 2021 still there.

First, we’ll give you the nuts and bolts of the rout. The Giants trailed 23–0 at the half, were outgained 290–45 in scrimmage yards and gave up 17 first downs to that point. Time of possession was nearly two-to-one. The numbers leveled off a little bit in the second half, with the Buccaneers essentially spending those 30 minutes getting the change out of their pockets to clear TSA for the flight back to Florida.

Of course, the lipstick on the statistical pig won’t do much for anyone in the long run.

Now, as for those lessons of 2021? As that season circled the drain, the Giants were prepared to give Joe Judge a third year. Owner John Mara really didn’t want to have a third consecutive two-and-out coach—after firing both Ben McAdoo and Pat Shurmur after only two seasons—and genuinely liked Judge. Then came an embarrassing loss on Jan. 2 in Chicago, and the infamous Judge press conference after it. After that, it was a listless effort in every possible way the next week against Washington, and Mara cleaned house.

I believe the Giants’ owner wants to keep Brian Daboll and GM Joe Schoen moving forward to 2025. I think the foundation is actually pretty solid, with building blocks such as Malik Nabers, Andrew Thomas, Dexter Lawrence, Brian Burns and Kayvon Thibodeaux, and I think Daboll’s a really good coach.

But after this Sunday, I think it’s hard to speak in absolutes on the team’s future.

Burns was asked by reporters about coming off a bye, and then trailing by 30 at home. “It’s ass,” he responded. Said Nabers, “I started getting the ball when it was 30–0. What do you want me to do?” Lawrence called his team “soft,” and tackle Jermaine Eluemunor added, “I personally don’t think everyone is giving 100%.”

These are incredibly damning comments, and for the crowd that thinks this is about the release of Daniel Jones, I can say there was quite a bit of frustration with Jones from players and coaches before his release, with how hesitant he was to pull the trigger and for all the throws he missed. So while Tommy DeVito’s deficiencies might’ve made things worse for some guys, as Nabers himself said, “It ain’t the quarterback. … Same outcome when we had D.J.”

The larger issue has to get fixed. Daboll and Schoen won’t save this season. But it’s important, I’d surmise, that Sunday’s flat-line showing doesn’t trend. The Giants are on national television Thursday in Dallas. They have consecutive home games against the New Orleans Saints and Baltimore Ravens after that. I don’t think they have to win all three.

But I’d say, for everyone to be safe, it’ll have to look a lot better than it did Sunday to avoid the kind of spiral that cost a lot of folks their jobs three years ago.

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Philadelphia Eagles

Speaking of the Giants, Saquon Barkley seemed to single-handedly redefine running back value again Sunday night, in his 11th game with the Philadelphia Eagles. Remember the debate over what he was worth paying during the offseason, a legitimate one because, well, he was a running back with an injury history heading into his seventh year?

He’s making everyone forget about all that—emphatically.

Sunday’s 302-yard effort (255 yards rushing, 47 yards receiving) brought Barkley to 500 (!!!!!) yards from scrimmage over the past two weeks, to within 860 yards of the all-time single-season record for yards from scrimmage, and to a career-high 1,392 yards rushing with six games left on the schedule. The signing, to me, is a triumph of a front-office that’s flexible and ever-changing in its philosophy.

There was a time when the Eagles spent on backs such as Shady McCoy and DeMarco Murray, but more recently Philly has shied away from putting big money into a position that’s increasingly become seen as interchangeable in scouting circles. And then, with time passing, the Eagles came to realize that running back value had become depressed to the point where the very best at the position were actually undervalued.

Enter Barkley, the 2024 free agent.

Their internal reasoning for signing him was getting a guy who’d touch the ball 300 times, and affect every area of the offense, for what it cost the Atlanta Falcons to land Darnell Mooney. Anyone wondering whether Barkley is worth what a second or third receiver gets on the open market anymore?

Now, there were the aforementioned injury concerns, and Philly wasn’t ignoring those. But based on their research, and their character assessment, and what they knew about his training regimen, they felt like Barkley would do anything and everything he could to stay on the field. At the same time, they took into account how they made him feel as an opponent—the fear he struck into him—and the effect he very clearly had on his Giants teammates.

Of course, all that was on display in how he tore through a really good Los Angeles Rams front Sunday night, all the way through to his postgame interview with NBC.

“It goes up front, those guys up front did an excellent job,” Barkley said, when asked by Melissa Stark how this came together. “Just continuing to trust in the scheme, trust in those guys, I’m having a lot of fun out there.”

And yes, the line is a big part of it, as is always the case in Philly.

But it’s pretty clear Jalen Hurts and that offense are finding another level with Barkley joining an absolutely loaded group. And remember, most of the guys out there with him were in a Super Bowl just two Februarys ago, which should tell you where this whole thing has the potential to go.

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The Cowboys finally snapped a five-game losing streak with a win in Washington / Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

Dallas Cowboys

Mike McCarthy’s Dallas Cowboys haven’t quit—and there’s something to be said for that. And the wildest game of this Sunday certainly did prove it, if nothing else for Dallas.

In case you missed the bleepshow—though I’m guessing you didn’t—the Cowboys kicked things off Sunday by getting one field goal blocked and then missing another off an upright. That kept Dallas scoreless until the second-to-last play of the first half, a 46-yard Brandon Aubrey field goal to tie the game at 3. Which only set the stage for the fun to come.

With three minutes left, the Dallas special teams atoned with a 99-yard kickoff return from KaVontae Turpin, which put the Cowboys up 27–17 and, seemingly, put the game away. Jayden Daniels then answered with a field goal drive. After forcing a three-and-out, Washington got the ball back with 33 seconds to go and, somehow, that’s where the fireworks really started.

The same team that won on a Hail Mary less than a month ago dialed up a wheel route to Terry McLaurin, who weaved through the defense for 86 yards—but Austin Seibert missed the game-tying PAT. Ahead 27–26, Dallas recovered the onside kick, but Juanyeh Thomas inexplicably ran it back for a touchdown, which gave the Commanders another possession and, yup, another look at a Hail Mary, down 34–26.

The Hail Mary fell short, which seemed to be the only normal thing that happened in this one, which ranked up there for weirdness for all the guys involved.

“That was probably one of the wildest ones,” eighth-year Cowboy Jourdan Lewis said over the phone, when asked whether he’d seen anything like it. “I’ve been in some crazy games.”

Lewis did, when pressed, recall a game earlier in his career against San Francisco that resembled this one (I looked it up, and that one was in 2020). But this, for the Cowboys, was about more than what they had to go through to get the win.

As Lewis and his teammates saw it, it was about who they are.

And that’s what the week leading up to this game was about for Dallas. The Cowboys came into this one riding a five-game losing streak. Three of those five losses weren’t competitive, including last Monday’s 34–10 home defeat to Houston—a rout that the Texans somehow pulled off without even looking very good. As a result, some tough conversations were had between coaches and players in the short week leading up to the trip to Washington.

“What we talk about—what type of man do we want to be individually?” Lewis says. “At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. Football is a recreation of true life. We understand that we want to be amazing men. In order to do that, we gotta go out there and fight no matter the circumstances. I feel like we’ve been doing that these last few weeks.”

That was reinforced, in turn, with what the coaches kept saying.

“Coach McCarthy just said, Keep chipping away. We’re doing some good things,” Lewis says. “Coach Zim [DC Mike Zimmer] came into the defensive meetings and showed us some good things we were doing, he just told us, keep chipping away, that the ball is going to roll our way.”

Finally, Sunday, in the weirdest way, it did.

With Dak Prescott down, and the team 4–7, it’s probably too late to rescue the season.

But McCarthy’s team, and McCarthy himself, showed in D.C. that they’re not going to let what they’ve built the past five years slip away so easily. And we’ll see now whether they can do it again Thursday, with the wounded Giants coming to town.

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Tennessee Titans

I like Will Levis’s fight, and I really like that the Tennessee Titans are seeing things through with him. Everyone in Nashville knows these Titans—coach Brian Callahan, GM Ran Carthon and president of football ops Chad Brinker—have a long way to go. No one knows for sure who the quarterback will be in, say, 2026. But what we can tell now is that Callahan’s team is growing, and he has a pretty good handle on how to develop a quarterback.

Levis looked terrible at points early in the year. But Callahan stuck with him, after genuinely committing to him for 2024 in the offseason, something he deeply believes in doing with his quarterbacks, to try to give them the best shot to succeed (we did a story on it in May). And now, the Titans are seeing real progress and, as a result, are getting a clear-eyed view of who Levis is and where he could wind up going, for better and for worse.

The Titans’ 32–27 upset of the Texans in Houston, and Levis’s 278 yards, 75% completion rate and 123.3 passer rating only added to it, and showed Callahan knows what he’s doing.

“As a quarterback, you have to know that everyone’s got trust in you, and that gives you the ability to go out and play free and with confidence,” Levis told me after the win. “That trust never wavered. Callie’s been by my side since preseason. We’ve developed alongside each other. I’m proud of him with how he’s handled the last few weeks with me, and how we’ve gone out and executed.”

And a lot of it goes back to the month Levis missed with an injury to his throwing shoulder. It gave him a chance to reset, as a second-year guy, his mind and body. It also gave him a shot to look at the first month of the season, and critically examine where he was good and what he didn’t do as well.

It led him to a specific place.

“I thought I did a good job of staying on schedule and playing the game, taking completions when they were there,” Levis says. “But I think I changed my mindset a little bit, trying to understand when the bigger throws are, and premier looks that we’re really hunting up.”

Those big plays showed up in a very big way Sunday. There was a 38-yard shot for a score to Nick Westbrook-Ikhine in the first quarter to give Tennessee a 10–7 lead. There was a 63-yard bomb to Calvin Ridley at the start of the second quarter that led to another touchdown, to make it 17–7. And in the second half, after a pick-six, and just to show he was still gunning, there was a 70-yard catch-and-run under pressure, off an RPO, to tight end Chig Okonkwo that gave the Titans the lead for good, 30–27, with less than 10 minutes left.

“That was credit to the coaching staff,” Levis says. “Those were all dialed up and executed.”

And those plays, and this game, has to make Titans fans feel pretty decently about the quarterback whisperer who was hired last January to get the position right. Callahan’s worked with Peyton Manning, Matthew Stafford, Derek Carr and Joe Burrow, all at different stages of their careers, and all those guys raved about him. Now, Levis is getting to see why and we’re getting to see what Levis’s potential really is.

Bottom line, that Callahan is getting the Titans there with Levis this soon, whether Levis is the long-term answer or not, is great news for the franchise—and for whoever is the long-term answer, whether it’s Levis or someone else.

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Cleveland Browns

The Cleveland Browns’ show of life Thursday was a great illustration of why the Haslams plan to (mostly) stay the course in 2025. In a way, the 24–19 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers had a lot of the markings of ’24. They won without Deshaun Watson, and without their top two left tackles, and their star linebacker on defense. They showed resilience, and balance, in how they were able to pull different levers through the night. And pride, despite being a two-win team, in outlasting a rival that came back from a 12-point deficit in the fourth quarter.

That it was all closed out in a lake-effect whiteout only added emphasis to the victory.

It added up to a program win for coach Kevin Stefanski and GM Andrew Berry. And good reason, again, for Cleveland to feel good about where its football team is, even with its 3–8 record.

With that in mind, here’s some of what I was able to dig up on the direction of the franchise, and its owners, before the team scored that win …

• Just to reiterate, and this was true before the game, the Browns are planning to go forward with Berry and Stefanski, barring something cataclysmic unfolding over the next six weeks. In particular, the Haslams like the job that Stefanski has done keeping the team together. They’re going to evaluate anything and everything after the season, but Stefanski and Berry have given them the sustainable model they chased for the eight years before both of those guys arrived in Northeast Ohio.

And a really bad year won’t flip that on its head.

• Just as big a question, of course, is where the Browns stand on Watson. Part of the Browns’ thinking on Berry and Stefanski is an acknowledgment that everyone has to shoulder their part of the blame for the trade and everything that’s happened since acquiring the quarterback from the Houston Texans. Watson has 19 touchdown passes against 12 picks, an 80.7 passer rating, and a 9–10 record in 19 starts as a Brown. Watson’s rehabbing his torn Achilles, splitting time between Florida and Ohio.

And the plan, going forward, isn’t the same as it has been. Until now, the Browns have built a quarterback room to support Watson. This year, they’ll look, through the draft and/or the veteran market, to add competition to the room. So while the likelihood—because of the injury and the contract—is Watson will be back, the Browns are going to look to do more than just stop-gap the backup spot.

• Cleveland’s optimistic on a crew of younger players emerging from the rubble of this year. Second-year left tackle Dawand Jones showed better focus and a ton of potential at left tackle before getting hurt, giving the team a real option if it lets Jedrick Wills Jr. go. Cedric Tillman has taken advantage of opportunity the Amari Cooper trade afforded him. And Mahamoud Diabete’s been a revelation at linebacker with Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah out.

If there’s a silver lining in the year Cleveland is going through, it’s right there. The Browns have a chance to be deeper, and more balanced, in 2025.

Throw in the extensions Stefanski and Berry signed earlier this year, and there’s plenty of reason for the Browns to stay the course next year, with pressure on everyone to perform when they get there. And Thursday showed why staying that course is a sensible call.

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Kraft fell short for another year in his highly publicized hopes to land in the Hall of Fame / Peter van den Berg-Imagn Images

Robert Kraft and the Hall of Fame

Robert Kraft’s omission this year as a Pro Football Hall of Fame contributor-category finalist is particularly glaring. All credit to you if you knew who Ralph Hay was before Thursday. I didn’t, first learning of his existence in Don Van Natta’s ESPN story on Kraft’s mission to make it to Canton failing once again.

This has, unfortunately, become way more complicated than it needs to be. And this is coming from a guy who wouldn’t have voted for him in 2023, when former Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan was in the same category as Kraft and, to me, was the clear, logical and easy selection. Shanahan, for the record, wasn’t picked, either; both he and Kraft were passed over for former Lions coach Buddy Parker.

This year was different. The Hall separated coaches and contributors which, on paper, seemed to clear a path for Kraft to make it to Canton next summer.

Instead, Hay, credited for being a co-founder of the NFL, was the pick. He was credited as a co-founder, by the way, because he called the meeting at his Canton car dealership that led to the formation of the league. The problem, from there, is his reasoning for wanting the league was to control what owners of teams were paying players, and he wound up bailing from ownership for that reason in 1922, after four years running the Canton Bulldogs.

So with that as the backdrop here are a few things I’ve been able to ascertain, in talking to a few voters over the past few days (I don’t have a vote) …

• The powers that be at the Hall are not pleased that Van Natta’s story preempted their announcement on the contributor selection. Whether that should be a factor going forward, it certainly won’t help Kraft with voters tired of being worked on this.

• The Spygate and Deflategate scandals are, for sure, a problem for Kraft, and a problem in this specific way—if he’s going to take credit for the six Super Bowls via the hiring of Bill Belichick and drafting of Tom Brady, the thinking goes, then he has to wear their warts, too.

• The change in process has an effect, too. Starting this year, there are separate seniors, coach and contributor categories. Nine-man subcommittees vote on those, with a max of three seniors, plus one coach and one contributor going to the general vote each year. From there, a max of three of those five can be voted through, with an 80% vote required. That gives the smaller subcommittees a lot of power.

• There’s a feeling the contributor committee was worn out years ago by the back-room politicking for Kraft. More recently, the public narratives that they’re idiotic for not putting Kraft in have probably hurt Kraft’s case, because this committee doesn’t want to be told what to do, or that they don’t know what they’re doing. And Kraft endlessly showing up on TV, and having game broadcasts tooting his horn, doesn’t help to quell those feelings, either.

• For those reasons, some believe they actively look for other candidates to put in over Kraft, and the selection of Hay certainly has that “we know more than you” air to it, with an older group of selectors, some of whom don’t cover the league anymore.

One final point from me: Legendary NFL journalists such as Will McDonough, Dave Anderson and Edwin Pope had opportunity after opportunity to put Hay in—as guys who were closer to being contemporaries of Hay—and said no every time, and said no through a time when a lot of “contributors” were going in (10 were inducted in the 1960s alone). That, of course, shouldn’t be a disqualifier. But it certainly does make you wonder if the exhibit Hay already has in Canton is enough of a way to honor him, given his contributions.

Meanwhile, Kraft’s wait continues, and the way the news of that was digested this week won’t help in putting an end to it anytime soon.

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Quick-hitters

We’re two-thirds of the way (minus one game) through the regular season, and now it’s time to offer up our quick-hitting takeaways to wrap up Week 12 …

• Caleb Williams was really good again, and that overtime loss (obviously) doesn’t fall at his feet. This throw defied physics and showed why he was the first pick, and this one basically forced overtime on its own. It looks, now, like getting the ball out faster and giving Williams the green light to run around a little bit more is making a real difference. So new OC Thomas Brown can take a bow for that.

• We have enough of a sample size at this point to say C.J. Stroud doesn’t look the same as he did as a rookie. And with some of the associated frustrations, I do wonder whether that’ll lead to some changes to the offensive staff in Houston, if things don’t resolve themselves by the end of the year (and they could, since the Texans still happen to be in first place).

• Credit to Patrick Mahomes for taking things into his own hands, with a key 33-yard run to set up a game-winning field goal for the now 10–1 Kansas City Chiefs. It was both a sign of what he’s always been capable of athletically and also where the Chiefs are lacking right now, in the need they had for him to do it. Here’s the thing, though—the Chiefs are in a spot where they’re going to be in the playoffs, as a high seed, and still have six weeks to figure it out offensively (and I’ll give the defense a deserved mulligan for this one).

• While we’re there, Dave Canales should be shouted out too. The Panthers were dead in the water at 1–7, seemingly lifeless and having suffered five consecutive losses by double-digit margins. And the coach, who many thought was in over his head, has pulled them out of the ditch, losing by just three points to the world champs after beating the Saints and Giants ahead of their bye.

• Canales also seemed to push the right buttons with 2023 No. 1 pick Bryce Young. His benching earlier in the year sent a strong message that players have to be accountable for their play, and with his proverbial scholarship revoked, Young has responded. Against the Chiefs, he was a respectable 21-of-35 for 263 yards and a touchdown, and led two fourth-quarter scoring drives to erase an 11-point deficit, playing well enough for Canales to say afterward that it went without saying that Young would stay his starter.

• I love the job Mike Macdonald has done the past couple of weeks. After a weird few days during which starting linebacker Tyrel Dodson was cut, and center Connor Williams retired, Seattle has posted consecutive wins to pull even with the Cardinals at 6–5 atop the NFC West (with the Rams and Niners chasing, as everyone expected). Geno Smith is playing great, and the defense stood tall.

• The Bucs get full points for suffocating the Giants on Sunday, because of the spot their four-game losing streak put them in. Now, they’re just a game back of the first-place Falcons in the NFC South with this schedule remaining: at Panthers, Raiders, at Chargers, at Cowboys, Panthers, Saints. Since the Falcons swept them, they do need Atlanta to stumble, but a fourth-straight division title wouldn’t be hard to envision if you were on that flight home from Jersey Sunday night.

• This is just me talking, but Jayden Daniels still looks like his ribs are bothering him. He’s showing plenty of toughness sticking it out—and I do hope we get to see the pre-injury version of him again soon.

• While we’re there, Bo Nix is making a very real run at Daniels for Offensive Rookie of the Year. And we’ll have a lot more on that on the site Monday morning.

• Finally, I do hope everyone appreciates how wild it is that two kids who shared a bedroom growing up are coaching against each other on Monday Night Football, the same way it was mind-blowing when John and Jim Harbaugh faced off in the Super Bowl 12 years ago. And to get you ready for the game, I’ll reprise this quote from a story I did with Jim and John before that Super Bowl. 

“If anyone compares us to the 49ers, that’d be a compliment,” John said to me back then. “On tape there were so many times, going back to last year when we played them, where we’d look at that team and say that’s what we want to be, that’s what we want to look like. It’s about what players they have, and how they tailor it to what they do well. And I’d like to think if the two staffs flipped teams, they would look the same, within close parameters. We’d look the same. They’d look the same.”

I’d say the same thing holds true, all these years later, with the Chargers and Ravens, and even with Jim having just gotten to Los Angeles, which only underscores the job that he’s done. And, of course, the job John’s done maintaining the identity and standard the Ravens have.

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