NFL Week 9: Saturdays are for the Colts?
Last week was a fire drill but we are here for the ACTUAL halfway point of the NFL season. If you’re not doing well, this was your last chance to turn it around and get your act together!!!!! Just kidding 100% of the teams in this league make the playoffs so there will be plenty of chances for the shitty teams. It was a week of some upsets, but mostly a week of people actively trying to lose games (or at least that’s what it looks like to me!). Let’s get into it:
The Games We Didn’t Watch
Eagles 29 Texans 17: Philly had a tough week- not in thefootball world, but everywhere else, as it beame the first city to lose multiple national championships on the same day (Philadelhpia Union losing the MLS cup to LAFC in a Penalty shootout, the Phillies falling to the Astros in the World Series), but it wasn’t all bad. I mean, the Eagles are still undefeated, and still look very solid, and, perhaps MORE importantly, this man ate his 40th consecutive rotisserie chicken on Sunday.
Patriots 26 Colts 3: The Patriots have figured things out a little better on offense, the colts, apparently, have not. The big news there is that Frank Reich is out as head coach (RIP, he was hotter than he got credit for, and his good looks will be missed) and who’s in? Well it’s a white guy with 0 nfl coaching experience of course! Even worse, his name is Jeff Saturday…when he KNOWS that Saturdays are for the GIRLS. (i heard this name and thought it was a JOKE what is this a children’s book??) (Ok but he might be hotter is the update?)
Lions 15 Packers 9: The Lions were becoming a little notorious this season for not getting shit done in the red zone, but this week their defense made up for that by forcing 2 red zone interceptions and beatin Aaron Rodgers in a satisfying and important divisional W. We always rooting for the underdog and whoever can kick Aaron Rodgers’ ignorant ass!
Chargers 20 Falcons 17: Atlanta came out to an early lead in this game and for a moment, it was pretty embarrassing for LA. And then it got MORE embarassing, in a play where they fumbled, then ATL recovered the ball, then ATL fumbled, and LA recovered the ball. See here for some absolute shithousery:
And this is the highest level of play for this sport… America’s love for the NFL is not unlike how Wheel of Fortune calls itself America’s Game. It’s not exactly high brow.
Vikings 20 Commanders 17: apparently by watching this game our mother singlehandedly turned the tide around for minnesota, who were losing when she tuned in. The Vikings are now 7-1, and Kirk Cousins is out of control:
Bengals 42 Panthers 21: Joe Burrow got things back on track after last week’s blip, although the defense slipped a little later in the game. This is the only highlight you should care about:
Jaguars 27 Raiders 20: The Raiders were up 20 points to nothing in this game and they ended up losing. This is the third time they’ve had a lead like that and gave it all up for an L so far this season. Not sure what the answers are there.
Dolphins 35 Bears 32: BREAKING NEWS: The Chicago Bears just found out they have a QB who can run! the! ball! And they’ve decided to let him run the ball. And it WORKS???!?!?! Meanwhile Tua and his concussion had a pretty solid game (the announcers said the bears didn’t have answers for Tua and his fish but jokes on all of us, dolphins are mammals. I bet dolphins are smart enough to not say dumb shit like that on national television. Furthermore, if dolphins WERE fish then the bears WOULD have an answer for them because that’s like…notoriously their favorite food!!!).
Seahawks 31 Cardinals 21: I don’t know if the Seahawks even have an explanation for how they’re winning games but it just…keeps happening? They’re 6-3. The Cardinals, meanwhile, are 3-6. Yikes.
The Games We Did Watch
Bucs 16 - Rams 13
The divorce is finalized and Tom Brady is GETTING HIS PERSONALITY BACK. We saw some of that spark last week but the Bucs were unable to make anything happen, whereas this week he must have threatened to kiss everyone if they didn’t get it together because Tampa looked like a TEAM for the first time all season. Vita Vea made some key sacks in a game that really was all about the defense (if you can’t tell by the score lol). Tom got to like 100,000 passing yards or something crazy like that, and he did some classic Older QB Game Management in crunch time (read: yell at everyone that his name is Tom Brady AND HE DOES NOT LOSE) that led to the bucs sneaking down the field and winning the dang game. Sean McVay (coach of the rams, noted hottie, also noted workaholic) looked absolutely bamboozled by this loss, and tbh he should be, considering 9 months ago he was the coach of a super bowl winning team and today, he is the coach of the 3-5 Rams, facing the Cardinals in a must-win-for-both-teams match up in Week 10.
Jets 20 - Bills 17
The? Jets? Beat? The? Bills?!?!?!?! What’s going ON in the house of commons!!!!!! Honestly the Jets defense figured something out in the second half because they stopped the bills from scoring any points, all awhile Zach Wilson made the Bills defense look like dang fools!!! Downside (well, besides the downside of actually losing but I firmly believe that all good teams need to lose to a shittier team in their journey to the tourney) is Josh Allen is being treated for some kinda elbow sprain (They’re calling it a UCL but don’t they know the Champion’s league is ON BREAK RIGHT NOW??!!?). I wish I had more to say about this Big New York Upset, but to be completely transparent it was Marathon Sunday in NYC and I was off being inspired by some ACTUAL athletic feats. I mean I did watch, but then I took a nap so.
Chiefs 20 - Titans 17
Patrick Mahomes is….not real. Him and Travis Kelce might be the most dynamic duo in all of the NFL, they’re so in sync they might actually be dating. I only watched about half this game (for the usual reasons: I am god’s sleepiest warrior, taking on his snooziest battles), and wouldn’t have stayed up for OT anyway, but the Mahomes magic is the main takeaway. Juju Smith-Schuster (who I have always liked for his tiktoks) also had a good night for the Chiefs, tying Kelce for 10 receptions. The actual scoring in this match up was low considering what an exciting offense KC is, but for the titans it’s a little less suprising since their lead QB Tannehillhas been nursing an injury and they were playing with backup Malik Willis. Who…did his best! Anyways, after coming out to a pretty good start, Tennessee made the mistake of letting KC stay in the game, and Mahomes made them pay for it. I (katrina) went into this game being like, I know I have Clyde Edwards Hilare on the Chiefs for fantasy but I think i might also have some dude on the titans? and end the game going OH HELL YEAH DERICK HENRY IS MY FAVORITE PLAYER I have NEVER NOT LOVED Derick Henry and definitely always knew who he was.
Ravens 26 - Saints 13
I’m starting to think that Jameis Winston was…not the only problem for the Saints? Andy Dalton could not make it happen as our QB this week: We punted the ball away on our FIRST FOUR POSSESIONS, and 3 of those were 3 & outs. Now, granted, the Ravens have a pretty good defense (although they don’t blitz as much as they did last year due to some restructuring of their squad), and we have some key players out (Mark Ingram II, Michael Thomas is out for the season with a foot thing, Jarvis Landry, and Adam Trautman is in but limited with an ankle issue), but there just was very little happening on offense. Also, they’re playing the ravens, who, you might recall, have been cursed with the worst injury luck in the league for three life sentences, so it’s not as if Lamar Jackson had a full toolbelt either. The Saints downfall in this game was third downs- our defense just kept letting Jackson sneak through for a 3rd down completion after doing solid work on downs 1 & 2. The Stats: the ravens were 9/15 on 3rd downs, the saints were 3/11. Lamar Jackson continues to break records with his rushing and completed his 100th pass of his career on the night, which is good for Katrina’s fantasy (I’m 6-3 baby!!!) but was bad for my reality.
Looking Ahead
BYE WEEK : Ravens, Bengals, Jets, Patriots (shit who am i gonna have for my QB then!!)
Exciting Match Ups: The aforementioned Cardinals-Rams game feels like it will have important ramifications for the structure of those teams, the Cowboys play the Packers in a game with No Heroes to root for, and the Bills will try to bounce back after their loss against the 7-1 Vikings.
Until then, we’re hoping Jeff Saturday can come up with some kind of explanation as to why he would blatantly appropriate our branding…he WILL be hearing from our lawyers. Cheers!
