“Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the questions!” That quote came from the late “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, professional wrestling icon. When I thought about the happenings of this past week in the NFL, there isn’t a more spot on description than that Piper quip. So many things that a fan or NFL expert believed that they knew about the sport where tossed out the window. Let’s take a look at the upsets that took a very predictable NFL season thus far and turned it on its head.
TENNESSEE OVER NEW ORLEANS
New Orleans had become one of the hottest teams in the sport the last month. Tennessee was anything but. Yet on Sunday, New Orleans’ momentum came to a screeching halt as they were downed in overtime by the league worst Titans. Now it is common knowledge that the Saints defense leaves a lot to be desired. But a allowing 34 points to a team that had scored 36 in FOUR WEEKS is even a bit much for Rob Ryan’s men. Marcus Mariota had his best game as a professional, besting his performance from his debut trouncing of New Orleans’ division rivals Tampa Bay. The result was puzzling because the NFL is one of the streakiest professional sports there is. Once a team gets on a hot streak, it is very hard to slow them down. Conversely, once a team looks to be heading into the tank, it is just as difficult to get them out of that mindset. Both those notions were obliterated as a once listless Titans team played with a flair of a team making a playoff push, not one thinking about where they’ll pick in the 2016 NFL Draft. The loss also dampened New Orleans’ efforts to insert themselves into the NFC Wild Card race.
SAN FRANCISCO OVER ATLANTA
The NFC South had been doing wonders to rehabilitate their image as a division after last year’s winners, Carolina, took home the crown with an under .500 record. Outside of Carolina though (which we’ll get to soon), the group as a whole took a gigantic step back this past week. New Orleans’ misstep was pretty bad and Tampa’s lack of capitalization of a litany of Giants’ mistakes was frustrating. But no team in the NFC completely warped the masses’ perception of them more than Atlanta did on Sunday. You see, they not only lost to the 49ers, they lost to the Blaine Gabbert-led 49ers. A man who pre-game shows lambasted as the worst QB they’d ever seen, with the statistics to back it up, systematically dismantled a team in a game where the one point margin of victory wasn’t truly indicative of the control of play. Atlanta had some scares in October against the Titans and Redskins, but the 6-1 division challengers are now 6-3 following L’s to the Bucs and the 49ers. It just can’t be stressed enough how horrible Blaine Gabbert is at being an NFL QB. This one game brings Atlanta’s playoff hopes into severe questioning now. Especially with the schedule they have ahead of them starting with…
INDIANAPOLIS OVER DENVER
To say this one came out of left field would make one believe that left field of a normal baseball stadium extended into the outer reaches of the Milky Way galaxy. The Colts were the joke of the AFC “elite”, leading the South but doing so at 3-5 and looking far from the team that had advanced a round further in the playoffs in each of Andrew Luck’s years in the NFL. Their star QB is clearly playing hurt, leading to my suggestion to even bench the star for future preservation. However, this rag tag Colts offense was able to withstand a defense that had laid waste to their opposition all year, including the previously unbeaten Packers and MVP candidate Aaron Rodgers a week prior. Although it may have cost them Luck for a month, Indy put to bed any outlandish comparisons between these Broncos defenders and the 2000 Ravens or even the genesis of Seattle’s Legion of Boom. Denver now has to go back to the drawing board as they play out the string before getting their chance at redemption against the Patriots Week 12.
ODDS & ENDS
- It was a tale of two halves for Green Bay against the Panthers. They looked like the deer in the headlights of the Denver game in the first only to look like Super Bowl Contenders in the second half before falling just short. Carolina proved their “for-realness” even to someone who picked them to lose their first game this past week.
- The Chargers just find the most creative ways to choke away games these days, but even a loss to the Bears can’t really be considered an upset any more. A team that came into 2015 with moderately high expectations have had those all but erased.
- The Rams couldn’t put away the Vikings, but they may have put away Teddy Bridgewater for some time with a concussion. The same could be said about Ben Roethlisberger’s foot as the Raiders couldn’t take advantage of their opponent’s injury either.