TRENDS NOT COINCIDENCES
It happened again, so it will probably happen again
1. If you’re a Kansas City Chiefs fan and aren’t seriously worried, you ought to be. KC’s offence, which was practically unstoppable in September and early October, has cooled more than the weather. Over the first five games (all victories), KC averaged 33 points, 414 total yards, 156 rush yards and 23 first downs per game. Over the past five, of which KC lost four: 20 points, 328 total yards, 81 rush yards and 17 first downs per game — all immense dropoffs. Of the Chiefs’ star offensive performers, all but tight end Travis Kelce’s numbers are significantly down. Concern is warranted. 2. To put poor Nathan
Peterman’s disastrous, five-interception first-half performance at the Los Angeles Chargers into its starkest perspective, consider this. New England’s Tom
Brady has thrown only five interceptions over his past 24
regular-season games, dating back nearly two full years (to an overtime loss to the New York Jets on Dec. 27, 2015). That’s 48 halves of football. Oh, and in that time Brady has thrown 51 touchdown passes.
3. If Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott turns to Tyrod Taylor again as starting quarterback, after Peterman’s epic debut, remember this. Taylor a week ago could not complete a pass longer than nine yards against a New Orleans defence that Washington’s Kirk Cousins on Sunday was able to gouge out 11 completions of 14 yards or more. Specifically, passes of 21, 14, 16, 32, 26, 14, 14, 16, 40, 36 and 19 yards. Taylor is worlds away from being as reliably effective. Look, when the Bills run game is gang-busters? Taylor can pass effectively. But so can just about every other rostered passer in the NFL.
HERO Drew Brees, QB, Saints
After the New Orleans rushing attack punctured Buffalo’s defence for nearly 300 yards a week ago, maybe we’d forgotten how spectacular a passer Brees can be. He sure was that Sunday vs. Washington, after the Redskins took a 31-16 lead with 5:58 left. Brees completed 7-of-7 on the ensuing drive for 82 yards, including a three-yard TD pass to narrow the deficit to 31-23 with 2:53 left. After a quick Washington punt, Brees completed 4-of-4 for 82 more yards, including an 18-yard TD pass that, with a successful twopoint conversion, sent the game to overtime. There, the Saints won 34-31 on a field goal thanks to Mark
Ingram’s back-to-back runs of 20 and 31 yards.
ZERO Denver Broncos
Who could have foreseen how much of a dysfunctional mess this team would become not even 22 months after winning the Super Bowl. After opening the season 2-0, the Broncos have defeated only the Oakland Raiders (who lost QB Derek
Carr to injury during that game), and narrowly so (1610). Sunday’s 20-17 loss to Cincinnati was Denver’s only loss this year when the Broncos were within reach near the end. Their average margin of defeat in the other six losses: 18 points.
STOCK UP New England Patriots defence
Through Week 10, this unit has ranked dead last in the league all season long in both total yards and pass yards allowed per game. But what an improvement over the past four games, all wins. Over the first six games, the Pats allowed a minimum 408 total yards, and more than 300 pass yards five times. But, in the past four games, the Pats have allowed between 339-349 total yards and 192-235 pass yards.
STOCK DOWN The Washington Redskins
Coming off that huge comeback win at Seattle two weeks ago, to improve to 4-4, Washington has lost twice. That’s largely because the Redskins defence has run off the rails, allowing a combined 850 total yards and 38 points to Minnesota and 34 to New Orleans in back-to-back, likely playoffkilling defeats. If anyone can figure out that team from quarter to quarter, let alone game to game, please share.
NOW THAT WAS COOL
Purple cheese? I wouldn’t eat it. Nor should you. Especially if you see a gargantuan, triangular, slice of it sitting on someone’s head. But that’s what broke me up while watching Sunday’s game pitting the visiting Baltimore Ravens at the Green Bay Packers. Some Packers fans for years now wear as goofy helmets such-shaped, yellowcoloured, plastic homages to upper Wisconsin’s bestknown export commodity: cheese products. They’re the “Cheeseheads,” of course. Late in CBS’ broadcast of the Ravens’ 23-0 runaway win, a closeup of two Ravens fans sporting such cheese headgear was shown. Only they’d painted the yellow headwear purple, one of the Ravens’ colours. Somehow, it looked less goofy. Regardless, it was a smart, fun idea by a couple of brave fans on the road.
KNOW YOUR HISTORY
The Detroit Lions have played annually on U.S. Thanksgiving Day since 1934, when they hosted their now age-old regional rival, the Chicago Bears. The NFL was formed 14 years earlier, and had staged as many as six games on the holiday. The Dallas Cowboys have been playing host to a Thanksgiving game annually since 1966. The American tradition of staging big football games on Thanksgiving actually dates back 141 years, to 1876, when the two premier powers of U.S. college football from the 1870s-90s, Yale and Princeton, squared off. The tradition spilled westward over the Appalachian Mountains as the game did in the 1880s. Universities of Michigan and Chicago entrenched the ritual in the Midwest starting in 1893. The tradition extended as far west as the Pacific coast in 1900, when Stanford and Cal played before an overflow crowd of 19,000, thought to be the largest crowd to that point ever to witness a sporting event in North America west of the Mississippi River.