Milestones to celebrate, firsts to forget
Brees, overtimes hit new highs
The things we learned from Week 7 of the NFL season:
1. On the milestone front, Drew Brees became the fourth player to throw 500 touchdown passes, joining Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and Tom Brady. The Saints’ defeat of the Ravens also allowed Brees to match Favre and Manning as the only quarterbacks to defeat all 32 NFL teams.
2. On the opposite side of the milestone spectrum, Baltimore’s Justin Tucker missed the first extra point of his career after converting 222. His misfire, occurring with 24 seconds remaining, proved fatal in his team’s 24-23 defeat.
3. We can only imagine Brees and Baltimore’s Joe Flacco commiserating after watching their backups, Taysom Hill and Lamar Jackson, respectively, combine for nine carries while operating packages that minimize the old guys. Jackson did score the first TD of his career on a 1-yard run. Hill contributed 35 rushing yards; however, his wayward pitch ruined New Orleans’ game-opening drive, which lasted nearly 10 minutes but produced no points because of the fumble. Best policy ... in our opinion? Keep Brees out there.
4. The Rams’ bid for a perfect season continued in style. Wearing their allyellow Color Rush uniforms, Los Angeles moved to 7-0 by beating the 49ers, clad in 1994 throwbacks, 39-10.
5. Todd Gurley scored three TDs, giving him an NFL-high 14 and putting him on pace for 32. (Hall of Famer LaDainian Tomlinson set the season record, 31, in
2006.) On the defensive side, the Rams’ Aaron Donald is clearly past another of his slow starts. After failing to record a sack in the first first three games, Donald — he had a career-best four Sunday — has eight in his past four outings. He had one sack in his first four games of
2017 before turning it on on his way to defensive player of the year honors.
6. The NFL continues to serve up bonus football. The Browns-Buccaneers game marked the seventh consecutive week at least one game went into overtime, extending a record to start a season. Cleveland has reached OT four times — the most of any team in one season since 2011 — meaning the Browns have played nearly an extra game in 2018.
7. Tampa Bay K Chandler Catanzaro’s 59-yard field goal, the longest in an NFL overtime game, marked the 13th game this season to be won on the final play. It remains to be seen how his flair for the dramatic serves him given he missed an extra-point try and a 40-yard field goal attempt on the final play of regulation.
8. Chicago’s Mitchell Trubisky amazingly covered 71.9 yards on his circuitous 8-yard TD run in the first quarter — per the NFL’s Next Gen Stats, it was the most distance covered on a run that gained fewer than 50 yards this season and most covered by a quarterback in
2018. Unfortunately, he came up just short on his game-ending Hail Mary pass, which was caught by WR Kevin White ... who was tackled at the 1-yard line as New England prevailed 38-31.
9. #TB1K update: Brady, uh, exploded for 6 yards on his only run Sunday. Brady, who averages 1.7 yards per carry during his 19-career, therefore took a huge step toward his goal of reaching 1,000 rushing yards. He’s now up to 989.
10. The Titans made their first trip to London on Sunday, marking their maiden appearance in an NFL International Series game. The only clubs that haven’t played a regular-season game on foreign soil are the Packers, Panthers and Eagles — and Philadelphia will play Jacksonville at Wembley Stadium next weekend.
11. After starting his four-year career with 41 TD passes in the red zone, Tennessee QB Marcus Mariota was picked off inside the 20 for the first time.
12. Much of the narrative leading up to the Jets’ 37-13 loss to the Vikings was
how pleased New York brass was to have wound up with rookie Sam Darnold at quarterback rather than paying Kirk Cousins at least $30 million annually. The J-E-T-S could be better off in the long run, but Cousins (241 yards, 2 TDs passing) was clearly the better player Sunday, when Darnold finished with four turnovers — while surrounded by an obviously inferior supporting cast.
13. Speaking of supporting casts, Minnesota WR Adam Thielen tied Charley Hennigan (1961 Houston Oilers) by surpassing 100 receiving yards in seven consecutive games to start a season. If Thielen does it again in Week 8, he’ll tie Calvin Johnson’s mark for consecutive
100-yard receiving games at any point. 14. Rookie Kerryon Johnson rushed for 158 yards in Detroit’s win at Miami, becoming the first Lions player with multiple 100-yard games on the ground in the same season since Reggie Bush in
2013. Detroit, the NFL’s worst rushing team in 2015 and 2017, exploded for 248 yards, the Lions’ most since 1997 (when Barry Sanders was still playing).
15. Panthers all-pro MLB Luke Kuechly had 14 tackles Sunday, four of them producing negative-yardage plays for the Eagles.
16. Ten-gallon hats off to the Texans, who have overcome a 0-3 start to reel off four consecutive triumphs. Sunday’s defeat of Jacksonville gave Houston sole possession of first place in the AFC South. The Texans (4-3) also claimed first place in Texas after the Cowboys, who lost in Houston in Week 5, dropped to 3-4 after coming up short in Washington. Dallas has alternated wins and losses in its past 10 games — average defined — and is undefeated at home in
2018 but winless on the road.
17. If the Chiefs are going to play defense, too (season-low 239 yards and 10 points allowed to Cincinnati), then Patrick Mahomes doesn’t need to throw for
358 yards and four TDs every week ... even though he did in Sunday night’s
45-10 walkover.
18. The Bengals are 0-6 on “Sunday Night Football’ in the Andy Dalton/A.J. Green era, which dates to 2011.