The Chicago Bears had themselves yet another stunning defeat in a season full of them on Sunday. This time, they fell as the Green Bay Packers blocked a would-be, game-winning field goal by Cairo Santos.
In the aftermath of the loss, Bears coach Matt Eberflus defended his decision to kick the 46-yard attempt rather than run an additional play. But come Monday, Eberflus turned his attention to another aspect of that blocked field goal:
He thinks the refs missed a penalty.
According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, Eberflus is turning video over to the league to argue that the officials missed a penalty on the Packers for illegally initiating contact with the long snapper.
#Bears coach Matt Eberflus says they’ll turn in Sunday’s game-sealing blocked field goal to the league office because the #Packers “were on our long snapper” and felt a penalty could’ve been called. No flag was thrown.
NFL rules prohibit defenders from making contact with the long snapper when his head is down and within one second of the snap. And sure, Eberflus does appear to be right as contact was made on long snapper Scott Daly in a vulnerable position.
But what is he hoping to accomplish by protesting to the league? The game is over. That’s not going to change.
By protesting the call, it just brings more focus on his decision to kick before they needed to. That won’t help him at all with Bears fans or his players.
NFC North watch: Recapping the Lions division in Week 11 including a thriller between the Bears and Packers
A look around the NFC North and their matchups
Detroit Lions
In what seemed to be a lopsided matchup, the Jaguars looked to pull an upset against the Lions.
Jacksonville started the game with the ball and got down the field just enough for kicker Cam Little to kick a 59-yard field goal. The lead would not stand for very long though, as Detroit would score a touchdown on every single one of their possessions in the first half. The Jaguars would tack on another field goal, but they were in a huge 28-6 deficit going into the half.
After that, it was more the same as Jacksonville would not score another point and were plagued by a Mac Jones interception and a turnover on downs. The Lions, on the other hand, continued their touchdown streak, scoring one on every possession except for the last drive, where they settled for a field goal. Detroit put on another sensational offensive performance and won the game 52-6.
The Lions continue their dominance and remain on top of not only the division, but the NFC as well. They will travel to Indianapolis next week to take on the Colts.
Minnesota Vikings
The Vikings looked to get their groove back against the struggling Titans.
Minnesota began the game with a fumble that set up for a Tennessee field goal for the first points of the game. That being said, the Vikings owned the rest of the half and would follow the mistake up with a three-play touchdown drive to reclaim the lead. That would then be followed by a methodical touchdown drive and a field goal, taking the 16-3 lead at the half. After the half, the Titans’ defense started giving Minnesota problems, forcing two straight punts and having a 3-play touchdown drive of their own, closing the gap 16-10. The Vikings would end up getting those points back on the very next drive, followed by yet another Tennessee field goal. The Titans’ defense looked stellar but their offense scuffled. The next three drives consisted of two turnovers on downs and an interception, and they could not close the gap, losing the game 23-13.
Minnesota keeps the number two spot in the conference but will need to clean up their mistakes going into their next game against the Bears.
Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears
The two conference rivals met for the first time this season after both of them took losses in their last game.
Out of the gate, both teams were very strong on offense, getting points on the board in their first possessions. After the Packers picked off Jordan Love in the red zone, the Bears marched their way down the field and punched in a one-yard touchdown. Finding themselves on top, 10-7 going into the half. After Chicago kicked a 27 yard field goal, both teams scored a touchdown, leaving Green Bay in a 19-14 deficit. With 4:17 left in the fourth quarter, the Bears needed a touchdown to take the lead. Love threw a deep ball to Christian Watson for 60 yards and the very next play it was punched in for the touchdown, the Packers led 20-19. Chicago had a little under three minutes to get a field goal to win the game. After getting down into Green Bay territory, Cairo Santos was set to kick a 46-yard field goal, but it would end up being blocked, sealing the victory for the Packers.
Green Bay improves to 7-3 and sits at third in the division, while the Bears remain in last place with a 4-6 record. Next week, the Packers will head back home and face the San Francisco 49ers, while Chicago will take on division rival, Minnesota Vikings.
Plus, Aaron Rodgers gets outplayed by the NFL’s worst QB, the 49ers window tightens and Bo Nix broke the Falcons.
The Buffalo Bills did what the Buffalo Bills do. They beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the regular season.
2024 marks the fourth straight year in which the Bills have beaten the Chiefs before the playoffs. As encouraging as these wins have been, none have led to a Super Bowl breakthrough; two of them simply served as window dressing for a Kansas City win in the postseason. Will this January serve more of the same? Or was it the precursor to Buffalo’s inevitable glory?
Chiefs-Bills wasn’t the only gave with major playoff implications played Sunday. The Baltimore Ravens ceded control of the AFC North to the Pittsburgh Steelers, for now. The San Francisco 49ers continued what’s become a troubling slump. And the New York Jets continued to spelunk in a reverse-Sisyphus quest to find rock bottom.
What stood out most from a busy slate? Let’s talk about it.
[Please bear with me for any Twitter embed issues. Our editing software has become a whole problem on that front the past couple weeks. Rest assured, if there’s a play alluded to in the text it’s worth clicking through to see if it didn’t make it into the article itself.]
Brad Penner-Imagn Images
1. The New York Jets, and stop me if you’ve heard this before, are cooked
Let’s start with the good news. The Jets scored more than 24 points for the first time this season. They scored more points against the Indianapolis Colts than they had the last two weeks combined. Aaron Rodgers threw two touchdown passes without an interception and led his team back from a 13-0 deficit.
This did not matter. The Jets still lost to the Colts at home, despite their opponent starting the player who’d been the NFL’s least efficient quarterback by a long shot. Rodgers’s offense remained stuck in neutral far too long:
Games with no first down on first four opening drives:
New York Jets: 3 Rest of NFL: 3
Games with no first down on first FIVE opening drives:
A defense that’s been mostly aimless since firing head coach Robert Saleh after Week 5 continued to flounder. Anthony Richardson came into Week 11 having completed just 44.4 percent of his passes. He’d been benched in favor of a nearly 40-year-old Joe Flacco. He’d never before played an NFL game in which he threw at least five passes, completed more than half of them and had a passer rating better than 99.0.
Richardson was a menace through the air and on the ground, where he scored the majority of Indianapolis’s touchdowns. Sunday marked the first time in his career where he’d thrown at least 30 passes and completed two-thirds of them. It was the second time in his career where he’d thrown for at least one touchdown without an interception. This could have been a statement game for interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich’s defense; instead it was further evidence Saleh was the haggard thread keeping everything from unraveling.
The Jets have given up at least 23 points in five of the six games they’ve played without Saleh on the sideline. The 26.2 points per game they’ve allowed in that stretch would rank 26th in the league this winter, right next to the hapless Jacksonville Jaguars. In terms of expected points added (EPA) allowed per snap, no one in the NFL has been worse than Ulbrich’s guys.
via rbsdm.com and the author.
This was not what Rodgers signed up for. His legacy was supposed to be secured by a defense that had finished in the top five in yards allowed the last two seasons. Instead, that group has crumbled despite the presence of stars like Quincy Williams, Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams. They were the balm that could soothe his aches on the rough days certain to chase down a soon-to-be 41-year-old man coming off major injury.
Instead, it’s placed the onus of victory right on Rodgers’s shoulders, creating the kind of environment that helped fuel his dissatisfaction in Green Bay. Rodgers played a perfectly fine game. Statistically, his 114.1 passer rating makes this one of the three best performances of his 2024.
On the field, however, it was a much more generic game than we’ve grown accustomed to from a special player:
via nextgenstats.nfl.com
Rodgers had a single completion that went more than 11 yards downfield. He ran the ball just once for seven yards. He robbed us all of the opportunity to watch one of his glorious Hail Marys by taking a sack at the worst possible time.
This is, effectively, who Aaron Rodgers is now. He’s only had two games with more than two passing touchdowns since 2022. His yards per scramble have dropped from 7.8 in his last pre-injury season (2022) to 4.8 this fall. His 3.2 deep balls per game are his lowest since an injury-marred 2017.
Father Time has come for Rodgers’s game. While he’s been able to mitigate that with his vision and a still lively arm, there’s no denying he’s not the consistent terrifying presence he once was. He’s nearing the game manager stage of his career, albeit with more zip on his passes than Ben Roethlisberger or Drew Brees before him.
Roethlisberger and Brees still made it to the playoffs because they had stout defenses and playmakers around them. Rodgers has Breece Hall, Garrett Wilson and Davante Adams, each of whom can create short-term magic on their own. What they cannot do, apparently, is overcome the curse of what’s somehow become the NFL’s worst defense in recent weeks.
That leaves Rodgers in search of a six-game winning streak just to snap New York’s eight-year span of losing seasons. The Jets are a mess right now in a way that extends beyond the issues of a veteran quarterback for whom they paid dearly.
New York piled up expectations this offseason just to smash them back into dust. All their efforts to rebuild on the fly this fall have failed mightily. But hey, at least they got a head start on their 2025 coaching search.
Mark Hoffman/USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images
2. Firing Shane Waldron didn’t fix the Bears, but it reminded us how great Caleb Williams could be
The Chicago Bears didn’t defend their home turf Sunday against the Green Bay Packers. This was not Caleb Williams’s fault.
Williams, playing under interim offensive coordinator Thomas Brown after former play-caller Shane Waldron’s firing, thrived in an offense that prioritized getting the ball out early and turning upfield at the first sign of pressure. The offensive line that had gotten him run over in a 19-3 Week 10 loss to the New England Patriots held up well enough to limit Williams to only one sack in the game’s first 57 minutes.
After one half, Williams had 145 yards of total offense. Chicago as a team had gained just 142 total yards through the entirety of Week 10’s 19-3 loss to the New England Patriots. 60 of those yards came on the ground — a career high after just 30 minutes of play. When his pockets shrank, he made a concerted effort to drive forward rather than dance where a loss was almost guaranteed.
Sometimes that led to big gains on the ground. Others, clean strikes to open targets downfield.
this one didn't count because DJ Moore's motion moved toward the line, but nice to see Caleb Williams step up and deliver an on-target strike here, even if it looks ugly pic.twitter.com/WchdSSnMdr
His impressive play wasn’t limited to quick hits and drive-extending scrambles. He showcased the vision and touch that made him a Heisman Trophy winner in situations where his legs limited the Packers’ willingness to blitz. When given a clean pocket, Williams looked great.
One week after being sacked 10 times by a bottom-five pass rush, Williams was sacked thrice against a Green Bay team whose 6.7 percent sack rate is right in the middle of the pack among NFL defenses this year. The lone sack before Chicago’s scuttled game-winning drive was the result of a very Bears miscommunication where they seemed to forget Brenton Cox Jr. existed.
The Packers blitzed on obvious passing downs and failed to crack a quarterback who looked broken just seven days earlier. Williams completed 10 of 12 passes on third or fourth down for 112 yards. He ran four times for 40 more yards to pick up four more vital first downs. He did stuff like this:
to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, there are special traits to his game that give him a higher upside than Fields or Trubisky before him.
Barry Reeger-Imagn Images
3. Justin Tucker is aging all at once
Some NFL kickers age gracefully. Morten Andersen and Adam Vinatieri were both reliable contributors well into their 40s. Others age all at once. Mike Vanderjagt was the most accurate kicker in league history in 2005. By 2007, he was unemployed.
Tucker is trending toward the second category. The soon-to-be 35-year-old had never missed a kick in the often swirling winds of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Acrisure Stadium. In Week 11, he started his day 0-for-2, prompting earnest concern from the CBS broadcast booth.
This isn’t a one-off; a bad game that can be brushed aside. 2024 has been the backdrop of a great kicker regressing to merely good. Tucker hasn’t missed more than two kicks from 40 to 49 yards away in a season since he was a rookie in 2012. His first miss Sunday from 47 yards means he’s already at two with six games left in the season.
Tucker built his reputation as one of the league’s deadliest kickers from long range — someone who handled long bombs like extra points. Between 2012 and 2021 he converted 73 percent of his kicks from 50-plus yards. Cracks began to show in 2022 when he made nine such field goals but on 14 attempts (64 percent). In the season-plus since, he’s connected on only four of 12 kicks from long range (33 percent).
Justin Tucker field goal percentage over expected per @NextGenStats:
The thing is, Tucker’s been so great it’s mind-boggling when he isn’t. His struggles are real, but they don’t obscure the fact he hasn’t missed a field goal from under 40 yards out since 2020. He’s been a model of consistency on the kicks you’d expect an NFL kicker to make, but getting left behind in an era where makes from 55-plus yards are commonplace.
That’s a bummer for Tucker, arguably the first kicker to earn the universal benefit of the doubt whenever he lined up from his opponent’s 50-yard line or deeper. But sometimes the wheels come off. That doesn’t mean Tucker’s 2024 will define what happens next — just that it might be time to rethink his approach now that he’s staring down his mid-30s.
Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union
4. Farewell, Doug Pederson
NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport broke the news Friday that Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson needed a win in Week 11 to avoid a mid-season firing. That was a big ask; not only was he on the road against the NFC’s best team, he’d also been reduced to starting Mac Jones at quarterback thanks to an injury to Trevor Lawrence.
As grim as that seemed, things somehow got worse from there. The Lions scored touchdowns on each of their first seven drives. Pederson’s fate was seemingly sealed in a 52-6 loss.
The Jaguars tried, but not really. This was a team hung out to dry. They were challenged by their ownership to rise up and save their head coach’s job if they truly wanted Pederson in the fold. They responded by taking a beating the likes of which hasn’t been seen in the NFL in more than four decades.
The Lions out-gained the Jaguars by 475 yards today. That's the biggest yardage differential in an NFL game since 1979.
This was a silent vote of no confidence with a deafening effect. It wasn’t the mere outcome of a talent disparity or Jones’s presence behind center. This is a team that leaned into the skid knowing the only way out of the ice cave of defeat in which it’s been trapped is to go deeper into the crevasse and start over.
Thus, the Doug Pederson era likely ends not with a bang but with the volumeless screech of a black hole set down upon a bustling town. Pederson, should he be fired Monday, finishes his Jaguars career on a 3-14 slide owed partially to injuries to Trevor Lawrence, partially to the drafting and talent acquisition around him and partially to Pederson’s own inability to create something more valuable than the sum of its parts.
USA Today Sports
5. David Montgomery properly respected a legend
Montgomery scored a touchdown to open the Detroit Lions’ scoring Sunday. This itself is not newsworthy. The last time the Lions failed to find the end zone on the ground was back in 2022 (24 games ago). The veteran back is thriving once again alongside Jahmyr Gibbs and running behind one of the NFL’s best offensive lines.
Week 11’s touchdown celebration, however, deserves further scrutiny.
While other dance trends have been a staple in the league — most notably Justin Jefferson’s griddy — Montgomery threw it back to a true legend of the game. He channeled fellow stars like Brandon Graham, Steve Smith and, uh, Jared Odrick by putting on his big shoes, humming the riff to The Champs’ hit Tequila and paying homage to the one and only Pee-Wee Herman.
Hell yeah.
Montgomery’s Pee-Wee dance was one of seven Lions touchdown celebrations Sunday afternoon. Was it better than Jameson Williams copying Marshawn Lynch (and almost certainly drawing a league fine for grabbing his nethers)? You be the judge.
6. Sam Darnold is dancing on a razor’s edge at the circle of trust
The Minnesota Vikings had a wonderful offseason. Week 11 was proof.
Pass rushing veterans Andrew Van Ginkel and Jonathan Greenard bullied Will Levis into two sacks, three quarterback hits and four tackles for loss. In-season acquisition Cam Akers had a receiving touchdown. Veteran cornerback Stephon Gilmore continued to provide valuable coverage along the boundary.
None of these additions, however, has had the lasting impact of the journeyman quarterback whose $10 million contract has quickly flipped from a minor overpay to a significant bargain.
Sam Darnold continued his streak of big games for the Vikings, tossing a pair of touchdown passes and running for a third to keep Minnesota in the hunt for the NFC’s top seed. He continued to showcase why he isn’t quite trustable at the same time.
Darnold is a chaos engine thanks to his penchant for big throws downfield. He also sows doubt about his abilities thanks to occasional brain farts that lob balls into double coverage or whip toss sweeps hard and behind his tailback for a drive-killing turnover.
Darnold has exactly one game this season in which he hasn’t fumbled or been intercepted. He holds onto the ball longer in the pocket than any starter but Jalen Hurts or Lamar Jackson. That’s led to a bottom five sack rate despite a merely below average pressure rate. Darnold has been given the freedom to be the quarterback he believes himself to be. Sometimes, that’s wonderful!
Often times, the border between those two nations is razor thin. Anyone who saw him fall off despite flashes of… well, not greatness, but pretty-goodness as a Jet or Carolina Panther knows he’s always a few missed coverages away from spelunking into the caverns of his own mind and overthinking his way back to the bench. Head coach Kevin O’Connell has been quick to cut off those notions, however.
That’s part of Darnold’s long leash — understanding his past makes him vulnerable to spiraling if asked to adjust his game too harshly.
This is the trust that’s turned Darnold into the league’s most accurate deep ball thrower through 11 weeks. O’Connell can deal with that because he’s got Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison (and, eventually, a fully healthy T.J. Hockenson) to bail him out of tough situations. That doesn’t mean Darnold could be the answer for another quarterback-needy team, but he’s been one hell of a pickup for O’Connell and the 8-2 Vikings.
Minnesota’s going to keep giving Darnold the green light to dance in the pocket and take risks because he’s proven he can return a worthy reward. Also, because we’ve seen what tweaking his game in-season can do to his overall level of play. The Vikings keep gambling and winning; they have no choice but to ride it until that hot streak comes to an end.
Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images
7. The Atlanta Falcons are making us feel stupid for believing in them (as is tradition)
Oh dang, another “stop if you’ve heard this before” headline. Ah well, cliche though it may be, this is exactly where we’ve landed.
The Falcons began their season 6-3. With two close wins over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, they appeared to have sewed up the NFC South title halfway through the 2024 season. After starting slowly while recovering from a torn Achilles, Kirk Cousins emerged as a top 10 quarterback occasionally eye to eye with this season’s MVP candidates.
via rbsdm.com and the author.
Then, things got familiarly frustrating for Falcons fans. First, a loss to arch rival New Orleans days after the Saints had fired head coach Dennis Allen. But that’s fine; losing a tight rivalry game against a fired-up team getting a post-coach bounce is understandable.
Getting shredded into breakfast hash by Bo Nix? That’s… something else.
The defense that held three of its first five opponents to fewer than 180 passing yards collapsed against the sixth quarterback selected in last spring’s draft. Nix had:
the first 300-plus passing yard performance of his career
the first four-touchdown performance of his career
his first single game passer rating above 125.0
all in a 38-6 destruction of a once competent Falcons defense. Primaries like Jessie Bates, Justin Simmons and A.J. Terrell were all in the lineup and it did not matter because Atlanta had no answer for the most composed version of Nix we’ve ever seen on Sundays.
Credit where it’s due; Nix’s growth this season has been impressive if not linear. When he’s given time to set his feet and drive the ball downfield he’s proven he can be the difference between a win and a loss. On Sunday, that manifested in eight completions on nine attempts that traveled at least nine yards downfield — racking up 184 yards, one touchdown and a 155.8 passer rating in the process.
via habitatring.com
The Falcons may have been able to counter this if Cousins could even approached Bo Nix at Mile High Stadium. Instead, top wideouts Drake London and Darnell Mooney had just five catches on 11 targets. Kyle Pitts had one catch for nine yards. Cousins was sacked in one in 10 dropbacks and turned in his second-straight zero-touchdown, one-interception performance.
The good news is there’s plenty of room to work through growing pains. Atlanta is still 1.5 games ahead of the second-place Buccaneers in the NFC South. But it’s easy to see the cracks and assume they’ll spread when you’re dealing with a veteran quarterback with a lack of lasting postseason success and a franchise that, well, same.
This is the sword dangling over the Falcons’ throne. Atlanta has spent 2024 proving it can hang with great teams but also implode spectacularly at the smallest sign of resistance. Which version will show up in the playoffs? That’ll be the fun part for non-Falcons fans to figure out and torture within the state limits of Georgia.
David Gonzales-Imagn Images
8. Geno Smith might have closed the 49ers championship window
Geno Smith had never beaten the San Francisco 49ers as a starting quarterback. This year’s 49ers team, however, is very different from the perennial NFC title game invitees that preceded it.
On Sunday, Smith overcame some early struggles to shred the Niners defense when it counted most. After opening the second half with an interception, he completed 14 of his final 16 passes for 130 yards, erasing a pair of late deficits to earn his first win in San Francisco and keep Seattle alive in a turbulent race for the NFC West crown.
Smith was, as is his hallmark, accurate as hell to maximize his offense on a day where his running backs averaged only 3.2 yards per carry. His 16.4 completion percentage over expected (CPOE) was his highest of the season — impressive stuff for a player who has ranked in the top 10 in that category each of the last two years.
That’s all great for the Seahawks, but it could be closing the blinds on a championship window San Francisco would stay open at least a few months longer. The 49ers have slumped before, but those losing streaks either quickly dissipated or were the result of devastating quarterback injuries (and sometimes even that didn’t make a difference). 2024, so far, feels different.
Over the last two years, San Francisco was undefeated against division foes with the exception of a meaningless 2023 Week 18 game that pit Sam Darnold against Carson Wentz. This year Brock Purdy is 1-3 against those rivals. The young quarterback was 2023’s most efficient quarterback but has backslid from “great” to merely “above average” in the Niners’ 5-5 start.
What’s the culprit there? Kyle Shanahan’s offense has always been able to glean the most from an underwhelming quarterback thanks to a cache of dynamic playmakers who could turn short targets into long gains. The 49ers have led the league in yards after catch (YAC) five of the last six years and never finished lower than third place in that stretch.
This season, they rank 17th, dropping from 6.6 YAC to 5.2. Not having Christian McCaffrey in the lineup most of the season and losing a rusty Brandon Aiyuk to injury played a role there. Even so, Shanahan’s offense isn’t hitting the way it once did.
San Francisco averaged 3.5 yards of separation between intended target and nearest defender in Purdy’s first two seasons in the league — a figure that was slightly above average compared to other offenses. His 2024 targets average 3.0 yards of separation per throw — the lowest number in the NFL this fall.
As a result, Purdy’s had to look downfield for bigger gains rather than rely on higher-percentage dump-offs to now-covered players. His average throw distance has gone up (from 8.2 yards to 8.9) and his accuracy has gone down (from 69 percent to 64 percent). Those are all modest drops, but it’s been enough to blow gaskets in the Niners’ high-octane offense.
Further complicating things is a defense that’s gone from elite to average. San Francisco ranked first in scoring defense in 2022 and third in 2023. It sat at 17th coming into Sunday’s game with the Seahawks. The team’s once relentless pass rush has dropped from 10th to 15th in pressure rate this fall. Dre Greenlaw and Tanaloa Hufanga have been hurt and De’Vondre Campbell is looking like a 31-year-old off-ball defender.
The final product are two pieces that aren’t quite good enough. The 49ers are 5-5, and while they’ve come back from worse spots to create headaches for the NFC — they were 3-5 before rallying to the NFC title game in 2022 — this year’s problems feel different. Returns from Greenlaw and Hufanga (playing in a cast) will help, as will getting McCaffrey and Ricky Pearsall in tune with the offense.
Even so, 2024 has been a clear step backward for San Francisco. With a bunch of tough contract decisions looming, this may be the end of their title hopes as currently constructed.
Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images
9. Josh Allen continued the Buffalo Bills’ regular season mastery of the Kansas City Chiefs
For the fourth straight season, the Bills beat the Chiefs in the regular season. Now Buffalo has to hope it can break the streak on the other side of that mirror — the one that’s seen Kansas City end its season in the playoffs three of the last four years.
The Bills did exactly what needed to be done to beat the Chiefs. They learned from mistakes of the Denver Broncos (settled for a field goal) and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (chose not to go for two in a one-point game and opted for overtime). Rather than await the inevitable and give Patrick Mahomes the ball with a five-point deficit and more than two minutes to play, head coach Sean McDermott trusted Josh Allen on fourth-and-two.
You should always trust Josh Allen on fourth-and-two.
Allen did what he did best, embracing a running style best described as “marauding” and dusting the Chiefs’ defense for a game-sealing touchdown in a moment that could have been a precursor to Kansas City’s 10-0 start. Instead, Mahomes took the loss, Taylor Swift haters quietly fist bumped (weird) and someone dropped off a bottle of champagne at Mercury Morris’s grave in accordance to his last will and testament.
Importantly, Sunday’s win felt like a moment where the Bills stole Mahomes’s magic. They took away his comeback opportunity. They held him to 181 total yards on 35 dropbacks (5.2 yards per pass play). They pressured him just enough to make him rely on a group of playmakers that isn’t the hydra it once was.
here's the Mahomes deep miss to Xavier Worthy that had the QB saying "i have to be better" postgame pic.twitter.com/n9alAyD5Vb
Mahomes threw three touchdown passes but countered that with a pair of interceptions. He continued a good season that doesn’t quite live up to his level of greatness — a designation that didn’t matter when he was 9-0 and barely does now that he’s 9-1. This may not make a difference in the long run for Kansas City.
For Buffalo, however, it’s huge. It’s yet more hope the nail can at some point defeat the hammer. More importantly, it’s validation after an 8-2 record came devoid of impressive wins. Before Sunday, the Bills had one victory over an opponent with a winning record and that was against the Arizona Cardinals in Week 1. After an offseason of roster turnover, it was fair to wonder if this hot start was merely the product of an easy schedule.
Being the first blemish on the Chiefs’ resume changes that. A defense that unloaded several key veterans rose to the occasion.
As the Bears continue to tumble down the NFC standings, Pro Bowl defensive end Montez Sweat said he can’t believe how Chicago manages to continue blowing winnable games. In fact, the 28-year-old star defender went as far as to say that he’s never seen a football team as futile as the Bears in crunch-time situations to this point:
#Bears DE Montez Sweat on loss to Packers. (The most down he’s been)
“Couple of these things that’s just been happening this year like it’s never happened to me in my career. It’s happening multiple times within a year is kind of crazy.”
Ouch. When you see Sweat make these kinds of statements, it is a good reminder that he played for the Dan Snyder Washington Commanders, which was one of the most hopeless operations in NFL history. If Sweat really thinks the way the Bears have sometimes lost in 2024 is worse than that, Chicago’s rock bottom might be an abyss.
And while I know football isn’t played in a vacuum, if Eberflus had managed the Bears’ losses to the Packers and Washington Commanders better, they would be the NFC’s sixth seed right now. Now that really stings.
In his stead came interim coordinator Thomas Brown. Brown entered a no-win situation with a team unraveling under a head coach without a future. He seemingly gave young franchise quarterback Caleb Williams a mandate; get rid of the ball early or get the heck out of there, we’re not dancing our way to sacks any more.
apparently Thomas Brown's first act as Bears OC was to tell Caleb Williams to run as soon as he's uncomfortable and, hell yeah, it's working pretty well pic.twitter.com/CVDUQQz4QD
Williams’ shaved his average time in the pocket down considerably, dropping from 2.9 seconds from snap to pass in Weeks 1 through 10 to just 2.1 seconds in the first half against the Green Bay Packers. This was a big deal; Williams thrived in a fast-action offense. He delivered clutch throws on time and accurately. Despite entering Sunday’s game as a 5.5-point home underdog, he was one blocked Cairo Santos field goal away from getting the Bears a much-needed win.
This was the best game Williams had played in over a month. It’s proof the Bears have a player capable of being the franchise quarterback they so desperately need — they just need to maximize his talent in a way they couldn’t with high profile rookies like Justin Fields or Mitchell Trubisky before him.
After one half, Williams had 145 yards of total offense. Chicago as a team had gained just 142 total yards through the entirety of Week 10’s 19-3 loss to the New England Patriots. 60 of those yards came on the ground — a career high after just 30 minutes of play. When his pockets shrank, he made a concerted effort to drive forward rather than dance where a loss was almost guaranteed.
Sometimes that led to big gains on the ground. Others, clean strikes to open targets downfield.
this one didn't count because DJ Moore's motion moved toward the line, but nice to see Caleb Williams step up and deliver an on-target strike here, even if it looks ugly pic.twitter.com/WchdSSnMdr
His impressive play wasn’t limited to quick hits and drive-extending scrambles. He showcased the vision and touch that made him a Heisman Trophy winner in situations where his legs limited the Packers’ willingness to blitz. When given a clean pocket, Williams looked great.
One week after being sacked 10 times by a bottom-five pass rush, Williams was sacked thrice against a Green Bay team whose 6.7 percent sack rate is right in the middle of the pack among NFL defenses this year. The lone sack before Chicago’s scuttled game-winning drive was the result of a very Bears miscommunication where they seemed to forget Brenton Cox Jr. existed.
The Packers blitzed on obvious passing downs and failed to crack a quarterback who looked broken just seven days earlier. Williams completed 10 of 12 passes on third or fourth down for 112 yards. He ran four times for 40 more yards to pick up four more vital first downs. He did stuff like this:
to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, there are special traits to his game that give him a higher upside than Fields or Trubisky before him.
He was also given a boost by a run game that found traction in fits and starts. Williams’s versatility played a role, but D’Andre Swift averaged more than five yards per carry. This created a little extra leverage in play-action situations — a spot where Williams failed to thrive under Waldron.
If that holds true, it’s going to open up new pages in Brown’s playbook. It’s a viable technique to create the time for downfield routes to develop in a way we didn’t see Sunday. Only three of Williams’s 23 completions traveled more than 12 yards downfield, but I’ll be damned if I don’t want to see how this back-shoulder connection with fellow rookie Rome Odunze develops with proper space in the pocket.
Williams wasn’t perfect. His “my guy or no one at all” launched a third-and-goal target to Odunze into the stands and forced a field goal attempt. A deep shot to his streaking rookie teammate was just slightly too flat, caroming off the young gun’s outstretched fingertips. His deep shots required juuuuuust a touch more finesse.
But the quarterback who showed up in Week 11 did enough to win. He let last week’s disappointing loss to the Patriots stay in the past, eschewing the bad habits that have derailed other talented rookies in similarly grim situations.
That’s exactly what he needs to do to survive the Eberflus era. The Bears, in all likelihood, do not have their 2025 head coach on the sideline right now. But they’ve got their 2025 quarterback there, and that’s a great place for the next coach to start.
Let’s take it to the Bears’ fateful last possession, with Chicago down 20-19.
Williams broke contain after taking back-to-back sacks to set up a 3rd-and-19 and found Rome Odunze for a dart of 16-yard pass. Then, on fourth and short, Williams delivered a magical 21-yard back-shoulder pass to Odunze to keep the Bears’ hopes alive.
Please note the clock after Odunze catches the ball. There is 1:27 left. Even with the Bears in a good position for a potential game-winning field goal at the Packers’ 42-yard line, this would’ve not been the time to turtle for a rational team. Instead, Chicago officially ran just two more offensive plays after this sequence — a short 12-yard pass to Keenan Allen along with a Roschon Johnson run right up the middle to nowhere.
The key distinction here is what happened after Allen’s catch. When the Packers took a timeout with 35 seconds left, Chicago probably should’ve run a couple more real plays to get closer to a game-winning attempt for kicker Cairo Santos. The Bears even had a timeout in their back pocket in a worst-case scenario. Williams deserved to help his team more after being the one to put the Bears in position to win with his heroics in the first place.
Instead, Eberflus had the Bears completely turtle and settle for a 46-yard field goal. Now, listen, 46 yards for professional kickers is very doable. That is an attempt a professional kicker should make a majority of the time without breaking a sweat. But the thing is, the Bears could’ve gotten closer and had plenty of time to do so. The football gods do not smile upon that kind of conservative thinking.
Eberflus forced the Bears to stop playing, and he got what he deserved when Santos’ kick was blocked:
The actual margin in talent between most NFL teams is minimal. If you look at the scoreboard every week, most games finish within one score for a reason. That’s what makes a coach’s game management paramount — especially in the clutch — because every strategic decision counts. They are often the literal difference between winning and losing.
That is now twice in a month where Eberflus has let the Bears and Caleb Williams down with a genuinely foolish end-game thought process right after Williams put his teammates on his back. It’s why the overmatched coach has to be fired at all costs — and sooner rather than later — for Williams’ talents to really flourish on a potentially great Bears team in the future.
Around the NFL: Rams win, Bears lose. What does it means for the Seahawks?
The Seattle Seahawks are currently playing the San Francisco 49ers, but the already high stakes have been raised for them thanks to developments from the early slate of Week 11 games.
The bad news for Seattle is the fact the Los Angeles Rams bounced back from their loss on Monday Night Football to the Miami Dolphins. The Rams took down the New England Patriots in Foxboro 28-22, sealing the deal with a late interception. Former Eastern Washington standouts Cooper Kupp and Kendrick Bourne traded touchdown receptions early, as LA improves to 5-5 on the year. For the moment, the Rams move ahead of the Seahawks in the NFC West standings.
The good news for Seattle is the team directly ahead of them in the NFC playoff picture, the Chicago Bears, lost. Chicago, looking to snap a 10-game losing streak to the Green Bay Packers, held a 19-14 lead in the fourth quarter, which became 20-19 in favor of the Cheese Heads. Rookie quarterback Caleb Williams got the Bears in range of a game winning field goal attempt, which was blocked. Chicago fell to 4-6.
So there you have it, 12’s. Should the Seahawks be able to pull off an upset (they are +6 underdogs) they will greatly increase their playoff hopes, as well as division champions hopes, as they will be right in the mix with the Niners and Rams. Should they lose, the distance between them and the rest of the division will only increase, as the regular season begins to wind down.
However, part of the microscope still has to center on No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams. While there were flashes of Williams’ individual talent and gifts in the early season, the hopeful franchise quarterback has been a shell of himself as the Bears offense has cratered at midseason. For reasons related to him (and his general supporting circumstances), Williams has not looked like the player many believed would pull Chicago out of the NFC’s basement. He should really know “it’s not his fault.”
And as reported by Fox’s Jay Glazer, Williams did not shy away from this reality. He apparently apologized to the Bears for playing so poorly lately that he helped Waldron get fired:
Bears rookie QB Caleb Williams actually got up in a team meeting after OC Shane Waldron was fired and APOLOGIZED for his part in the offense stalling enough where Waldron was fired. Teammates were very impressed by the accountability and his decision to do that. @NFLonFOX
I give credit to Williams for acknowledging the elephant in the room and taking some responsibility as the quarterback of the team. This is especially the case in knowing that it isn’t all his fault. Still, in the end, the NFL is a results-driven business. Actions speak so much louder than words.
For the Bears, it’d be nice if Williams started backing up these kinds of gestures with stellar play on the field.
Former Georgia football running back receives promotion and is now the Chicago Bears’ offensive coordinator
The Chicago Bears promoted passing game coordinator Thomas Brown to be their new offensive coordinator. Brown, who is a former Georgia Bulldogs running back, replaces previous offensive coordinator Shane Waldron.
The Bears fired Waldron after a rough start to the season despite having a very talented offense surrounding quarterback Caleb Williams, who was the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NFL draft. Chicago has the ninth-worst scoring offense in the NFL at 19.4 points per game.
Brown has previous experience as the Carolina Panthers’ offensive coordinator in 2023. He was the Panthers’ play-caller for part (primarily the second-half of the season) of Carolina’s brutal 2-15 season.
Chicago interviewed Brown for their offensive coordinator role before the season. The Bears ended up hiring Brown as their passing game coordinator. Now, he’ll have an opportunity to prove himself and show he deserves to remain as offensive coordinator.
Meet the new Chicago QB, same as the last Chicago QB…
It wasn’t that long ago that the number one overall pick of the 2024 NFL Draft, Caleb Williams, was being picked across the board as a potential winner of the “Offensive Rookie of the Year” award and being touted as the next rookie phenom in the league. Over the last few weeks as the starter for the Chicago Bears, Williams has come way back down to Earth as his rookie season has hit a major wall.
According to Bears fans, Justin Fields held the ball too long. Meanwhile Caleb Williams is doing this: pic.twitter.com/udBlhJYe2e
While there are certainly multiple factors going into the lack of success for Williams and the Bears as of late, the rookie has not been playing up to the level we saw at USC that made him such a highly touted prospect. Over the last three starts, Williams and the Bears have not scored a single touchdown despite boasting one of the best receiver groups in the entire league. In a head-to-head with fellow rookie Drake Maye this past Sunday, Williams looked far behind Maye, who has a much worse supporting cast.
Of course this isn’t to say this lays completely at the shoulders of Williams or that this is going to cement his future in the league. Williams is behind one of the least consistent group of offensive linemen in the league, and with his tendency to hold onto the ball and locate the big play, it has been a disaster when it comes to his sack numbers.
We have seen high levels of play from Williams in a few games this season, and no one questions the talent level that exists for him. If Chicago wants to stop the bleeding and help salvage the rookie season of Williams, they must adapt better on offense and lean into his skillset more. If the protection can start holding up and Williams is able to get more comfortable with better play calling, this offense still has a shot to emerge in the near future.
