The pre-Christmas Week 16 of the NFL is over and the Philadelphia Eagles have stumbled. Michael Penix showed why he replaced Kirk Cousins on the Falcons and the Chargers proved something.
sport.de-Editor Marcus Blumberg delivers his insights from the previous NFL weekend every week.
Eagles offense paralyzed without Hurts
In the fight for the top seed in the NFC, the Philadelphia Eagles suffered a major setback in Washington. They lost seconds before the end thanks to a touchdown pass from Jayden Daniels to Jamison Crowder and are now one game behind the Detroit Lions, who are back in pole position despite numerous failures.
The reason for this surprising defeat in the capital is quickly found: the early loss of quarterback Jalen Hurts after his concussion in the first quarter. Sure enough, backup Kenny Pickett then threw a short touchdown pass to AJ Brown and a little later Saquon Barkley also had a 68-yard touchdown run that put the Eagles ahead 21-7. But after that, the Eagles weren’t able to do much on offense.
Pickett only completed 14 of his 24 passes for 143 yards and had one interception. He was often inaccurate, often played with too much risk and, above all, he was not nearly the downfield threat that Hurts posed. This in turn resulted in Commanders head coach Dan Quinn making an important change.
He reacted to Hurts’ exit with an important change: the Commanders mostly moved away from their 2-high looks and mostly only played with a deep safety, so that another defender could go into the box to help against Barkley . After Barkley ran for 109 yards in the first quarter alone, he only ran for 41 in the rest of the game.
According to Next Gen Stats, Barkley gained 99 of his 109 yards from first contact on his first seven carries. However, in his subsequent 22 carries there were even minus-4 rushing yards before first contact. He was also hit by the opponent behind the line of scrimmage on 59.1 percent of his carries.
What made matters worse was that the receivers also had one or two drops, which exacerbated Pickett’s precision problems. What remains particularly memorable is DeVonta Smith’s terrible drop on 3rd & 5 around two minutes before the end. That would have been a new first down and you wouldn’t have had to kick a field goal at that point, which ultimately wasn’t enough.
The takeaway here is that Hurts is ultimately the most important man in this well-stocked defense. If he is missing, the house of cards will gradually collapse.
That made Penix better than Cousins
One of the biggest topics of the past week was the promotion of rookie Michael Penix Jr. to starting quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons. He made his first start in a 34-7 win over the once again hopelessly overwhelmed New York Giants. It was basically the perfect timing for a rookie to make his debut, because the Giants didn’t pose much of a threat, at least offensively.
Penix ultimately threw 18/27 for 202 yards and one interception. Not spectacular numbers, but if you take a closer look, you can see that he can give this offense something that Cousins hasn’t been able to offer recently.
As Next Gen Stats reported, Penix threw 43.8 percent of his passes downfield, meaning more than 10 air yards deep. And that was a significantly higher proportion of such passes than Cousins (34.5 percent) this season. In addition, Penix is simply more mobile than its cousins, even within the pocket. He saw 14 pressures but didn’t concede a single sack.
The interception, on the other hand, was not Penix’s fault; it was a bad drop by Kyle Pitts.
Bijan Robinson did the rest on the ground (94 YDS, 2 TD) as well as Atlanta’s strong defense in this game. Jessie Bates had a 55-yard pick-six in the first half, Matthew Judon followed up with a 27-yard pick-six to start the second half, essentially putting the game out of reach.
The Giants are undoubtedly not a benchmark for anything this season, but the bottom line is that Penix played flawlessly and at least gave encouragement for the tasks ahead in the fight for the NFC South crown and the years to come, considering that Cousins’ departure in the Spring is very likely.
Colts: Blessed is the one who can run like that
At the risk of repeating myself, we need to talk about Anthony Richardson again. Although the Colts won the key duel against the Titans and thus kept their playoff chances alive, the young quarterback was once again not necessarily the solution and rather part of the problem.
Richardson only threw 11 passes, carrying seven for 131 yards, but also managed to throw an interception early in the game. He later threw a short pass to Josh Downs, who turned it into a 27-yard touchdown catch, but Richardson is still headed for a season close to a 46.5 percent pass rate, what Tim Tebow did in the 2011 season succeeded and is still the worst passing percentage for a qualified quarterback in NFL history.
After the pick, the passing game was only used sporadically and more emphasis was placed on careful passes, if at all. The focus was then completely on the run game, which at least worked perfectly. The Colts ran for 335 yards (6.7 per carry) and 4 touchdowns. Jonathan Taylor alone ran for 218 yards and 3 touchdowns, Richardson added 70 yards and another score.
As long as it’s against manageable opponents, there’s certainly a lot in it for this team, but it can be assumed that better opponents will be able to stop the run better. And then at the latest, Richardson would have to show more than before. Whether he can do that at this point is at least doubtful. And this means that the discussion about Richardson’s future is likely to quickly become louder again after he had to sit on the bench earlier this season.
These are no longer the ones old Chargers
After their 34:27 win over the Denver Broncos, the Chargers have a 9-6 record and are on the verge of reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2022. And that after it looked for a long time as if the Broncos would officially end their playoff drought that has been going on since 2015 last Thursday with a long clear lead. But then the Chargers turned it up and did something they hadn’t been known for in a long time.
The Chargers showed taking qualities and turned the game around. They turned a close game and ended up winning it. At the start of the second half, the Broncos’ lead was once again eleven points in the game. And from then on, Justin Herbert took charge and brought his team back with a brilliant second half despite an ankle injury.
In the second half, Herbert was 11/16 for 144 yards and 2 touchdowns. The 19-yard TD pass to Derius Davis was spectacular. The subsequent 2-point conversion by Josh Palmer required an athletic catch from the receiver. Herbert contributed two important scrambles for 18 yards and finally found Hassan Haskins for a 34-yard touchdown pass with just over two minutes to play.
Now the Chargers have a 96 percent chance of making the playoffs. And that is undoubtedly a credit to head coach Jim Harbaugh, who turned this team inside out and made it a dangerous unit again. There are certainly some things that need to be improved, but most importantly, the team has gotten rid of its tendency to lose close games. In 1-score games they are now 4-4 – better than in previous years.
Of course, it’s also worth mentioning that Broncos head coach Sean Payton didn’t have his best day. Immediately after the break, he gave up the chance to decide the game and preferred a short field goal at 4th & 3 at the 23rd. And at 4th & 6 at his own 49 with 4:35 minutes to play it was supposed to be a punt, even though analytics clearly had a “go” tendency – the previous field goal was also “go”, but not as overwhelming as with the punt in question. And at that point we were already 24:27 behind. The Chargers then scored their final touchdown.
In this league the rule is simple: whoever kicks/punts loses. That proved true once again in this groundbreaking game.
Source: www.sport.de
