Is Panthers HC Dave Canales ready to commit to Bryce Young as his starting QB for the rest of the 2024 season? He was asked that on Monday.
Apparently, Bryce Young hasn’t made enough of a statement for Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales.
Canales, on Monday afternoon, named Young as the team’s starting quarterback for their Week 12 matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs. This Sunday’s contest will mark the fourth straight start for last year’s No. 1 overall pick.
“This is about the continued progress,” Canales told reporters after today’s practice. “This is about Bryce looking more and more confident as he’s out there. In Germany, just felt a real confidence and just an aggressiveness to his play and all those things. And, of course, the end result—winning. He continues to do things that put us in a position to put him back out there and continue to build on that.”
Young, who was benched in favor of 14th-year veteran Andy Dalton after a disappointing 0-2 start, took back over in Week 8—when Dalton injured his right thumb in a minor car accident. Since then, Young has completed 62.5 percent of his throws for 521 yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions.
The latest of his three outings came in Munich, where the Panthers captured a 20-17 overtime victory over the New York Giants. The triumph gave the franchise their first winning streak since 2022.
But even after two consecutive wins, Young hasn’t been assured the job for the remainder of the campaign just yet.
Canales was then asked if he’ll continue to evaluate the position on a week-to-week basis.
“Yes, yes we will,” he replied. “We’ll continue to look at all the film, look at the whole situation and weigh all those things in.”
Panthers HC Dave Canales has named his starting QB for Week 12.
The Carolina Panthers are Bryce Young’s team . . . but still just on a week-to-week basis.
On Monday, head coach Dave Canales named Young as the team’s starting quarterback for their Week 12 matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs. This upcoming outing will mark the fourth straight start for the second-year passer, who was benched at the beginning of Week 3.
Young took a backseat to 14th-year veteran Andy Dalton after pacing the Panthers to just 13 points and a pair of blowout losses to begin the campaign. Dalton would headline Carolina’s 36-22 win over the Las Vegas Raiders in his first start, but proceeded to lead them to four consecutive losses from Weeks 4 to 7.
Canales and the Panthers went back to Young in Week 8, when Dalton injured his right thumb in a minor car accident. Young has since helped Carolina to a 2-1 mark while completing 62.5 percent of his passes for 521 yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions.
Despite giving him the nod for Sunday, Canales would not commit to Young as the starter for the remainder of the season.
This is a question I have for Travis Kelce, so maybe he’ll answer it on the next New Heights podcast.
What did the clap mean?
The Kansas City Chiefs tight end was the intended receiver on the pass that ended up in the hands of the Buffalo Bills’ Terrel Bernard and ended the first loss of 2024 for the Chiefs.
CBS cameras found Kelce, who gave a little round of applause. So I want to know: what’s the meaning behind that?
Either it could be a little sign of respect for the Bills beating the Chiefs and making a statement after all those losses to Kansas City … or it could be a little derisive, as if saying: Oh, good for you. You won in the regular season, let’s see you do it in the postseason.
Travis Kelce with the postgame clap. He knows the real test comes in January. Allen is 4-1 vs Mahomes in the regular season, Mahomes is 3-0 vs Allen in the playoffs. #ChiefsKingdom@KCTV5pic.twitter.com/hlqwA6SqmJ
The Broncos held out seven players from Sunday’s game against the Falcons.
Seven members of the 53-man roster did not play in the Denver Broncos‘ big 38-6 win over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday afternoon.
Broncos quarterback Zach Wilson*, safety Brandon Jones (abdomen), cornerback Kris Abrams-Draine, offensive tackle Frank Crum, offensive lineman Calvin Throckmorton, tight end Greg Dulcich and defensive lineman Eyioma Uwazurike were inactive in Week 11.
*Wilson was inactive but still dressed as an emergency third quarterback.
Outside of the inactive players, everyone else on the active roster saw the field on Sunday. Jarrett Stidham, Denver’s primary backup quarterback, entered the game in the fourth quarter, marking just the second time he has appeared in a game this season.
Broncos who did not play in Week 11
QB Zach Wilson (*emergency third QB)
DB Brandon Jones (abdomen)
CB Kris Abrams-Draine
OT Frank Crum
OL Calvin Throckmorton
TE Greg Dulcich
DL Eyioma Uwazurike
Up next for Denver is a home against the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 12.
Bills’ Josh Allen plays it cool after Chiefs: ‘It’s another Week 11 win’
Buffalo beat Kansas City in exciting fashion on Sunday.
The club topped the Chiefs 30-21 at home in Orchard Park in front of Bills Mafia on the same field where KC ended its postseason run last year.
Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen put his superhero cape on for the Bills offense when it mattered most, breaking tackles and shaking off defenders for a 26-yard touchdown run on 4th-and-2 with 2:17 left in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach.
After the game ended thanks to a win-sealing interception by Terrel Bernard on defense, Allen was asked about his scoring play by CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson.
“Yeah, appreciate Coach McDermott for trusting the offense going out there,” he said. “We had a man play, they dropped out to zone and they had something good for it. I was just trying to make a play and help our team win a football game. You know, some things we need to clean up, some throws I wish I had back, but we’re going into the bye week 9-2…we’ll take it.”
Allen was sacked zero times for the first time against Kansas City since the 2021 regular season, and the team put up their 30 points without key players on offense in receiver Keon Coleman, tight end Dalton Kincaid, and offensive tackle Spencer Brown.
He finished the day Sunday 27-for-40 with 262 yards, a touchdown, and an interception passing to go with another 55 ground yards with the TD.
The scoring rush was his latest in a career highlight reel of making little-to-no/probability plays.
In fact, per NFL Next Gen Stats, there was only a 1.2% chance of scoring a touchdown on the play once he tucked the ball to run.
On 4th & 2 with 2:27 left in regulation, Josh Allen dropped back before breaking off a 26-yard TD run.
Allen had just a 1.2% chance of scoring a touchdown once he tucked the ball to run. It was Allen’s first scramble TD run against the Chiefs in his career.
The Bills hosted their AFC rivals for their fifth regular-season meeting with the QB under center.
The club is now 4-1 in those matchups, becoming the only team in the NFL to log four victories against Chiefs QB and State Farm insurance enthusiast, Patrick Mahomes.
The squad improves to 9-2 overall headed into their bye week. It’s the franchise’s first time at 9-2 since the 1992 NFL season.
The Bills have treated division games as “counting double” but had previously struggled to translate that in conference matchups that could have a bearing on No. 1 seeding and a first-round bye come playoff time.
But not this time.
The final points were roughly on average for what the two teams have put up throughout this season thus far, and it was the Chiefs’ first time giving up more than 28 points in 31 games and the first time allowing 30 points on offense since 2022.
And while Buffalo continues to have success against Kansas City during the regular season, Allen knows they need to beat them in the playoffs and spoke to that while answering whether it was just another Week 11 win for Buffalo.
“It is, it’s another Week 11 win,” he added. “Knowing how things usually play out we’ll probably see this team again at some point. We’ve got to get there first so like I said, we’ll enjoy this bye week and go into the next week after that and put together a good game plan and try to go 1-0.”
Von Miller shared a perfect message to Broncos fans after the Bills beat the Chiefs on Sunday.
The Denver Broncos suffered a heartbreaking 16-14 road loss to the Kansas City Chiefs last week after the Chiefs blocked a last-second field goal attempt that could have been a game-winner for the Broncos.
One week later, Denver rebounded in a big way with a big 38-6 victory over the Atlanta Falcons at home. The Broncos might have also got some satisfaction when they looked up scores after the game and saw that the Chiefs fell to the Buffalo Bills 30-21, marking KC’s first loss of the season.
Former Denver pass rusher Von Miller played a role in Buffalo’s win with two tackles (one behind the line), one quarterback hit and one sack for a nine-yard loss.
With that sack, Miller passed Derrick Thomas to rank 17th on the NFL’s all-time sack list with 127.5 career sacks. Miller, of course, wore No. 58 with the Broncos because Thomas was the player he grew up idolizing.
After beating the Chiefs, Miller took to social media with a perfect message to fans in Denver.
“Broncos Country … I gotchu!!!! 😉🐴” Miller wrote on his Instagram story.
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.
Josh Allen’s Bills can beat Patrick Mahomes’ Chiefs in the playoffs … with better luck.
Because of the incandescent Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes, there is nothing quite like the Buffalo Bills’ and Kansas City Chiefs’ rivalry in today’s NFL. Every time these two match up, we can expect an instant classic.
But more than most, it seems like the Bills have the Chiefs’ number … in the regular season. There’s no other reasonable conclusion after watching Allen cruise in for an awesome clutch touchdown run to salt away the Bills’ fourth straight regular-season win over their biggest rivals, ending their once-undefeated season.
The Bills have perfected the recipe to beat Kansas City better than anyone. It’s just that beating Patrick Mahomes when he still has more medium-stakes games to play as opposed to beating him with his team’s season on the line feels like a different animal:
Sunday’s Buffalo game-plan was no different from any of its previous wins over Kansas City.
The Bills relied on a technically sound defensive performance that forced Mahomes to play a dink-and-dunk game and play within himself rather than take meaningful chances downfield. The Chiefs averaged just five meager yards per play, while Mahomes averaged less than six yards per pass attempt. His longest pass completion of the day was a 31-yard dart to Xavier Worthy in the first quarter.
Mahomes is arguably the greatest quarterback of all time. But any time you force an electric maestro like him to play at a slower, more methodical pace with more patience, you’re asking for perfection. You’re asking him to work harder against some of the finest athletes on the planet. When it comes to the Bills, it also happens against some of the brightest defensive coaches in the sport. It’s a volatile mix. You’re asking for trouble without the consistent capability to create chunk plays. And the Bills know this.
While the Chiefs were undefeated entering Buffalo, Mahomes hasn’t done well with this kind of responsibility in 2024. Mahomes is tied for the league lead in interceptions with 11 (he threw two more on Sunday), and he has seen the highest interception percentage (2.9) of his career since his rookie season in 2017 (where he started just one game). It’s starting to seem like he can’t help himself, which the Bills know how to optimize.
Buffalo knows that if you keep the Chiefs’ receivers in front of you, Mahomes will give you a chance at a turnover because of his generally aggressive mentality:
Beyond the Bills’ timely defense usually taking over against the Chiefs in the regular season, it’s Josh Allen’s signature heroics that elevate his team over the top. Against the team almost always standing in Buffalo’s way en route to a potential Super Bowl, Allen is simply nails. This is especially the case when playing on the road in one of the NFL’s toughest environments for opposing teams.
On the road in Kansas City in 2021, Allen created nearly 370 yards of offense by himself and four touchdowns (three in the air, one on the ground) in a blowout victory. In 2022, once again in Kansas City, Allen was masterful from start to finish in a tight game. He threw the game-winning touchdown to Dawson Knox in the final minutes. In 2023, in a defensive road battle, Allen took the Bills on a game-winning field goal drive.
And now, you had Allen putting his team on his back in the fourth quarter with that mentioned magnificent fourth-and-short touchdown run to clinch another win over the other best team in the NFL:
So, if the Bills have the recipe to beat the Chiefs in the regular season — timely defense combined with a top-three quarterback doing his thing — what goes wrong in the playoffs?
Well, during the 2021 AFC title game, the Bills frankly didn’t belong on the same field as the Chiefs in a 38-24 blowout loss that wasn’t all that close. That was the end of the first year of Buffalo’s ascension. They needed that kind of lesson to learn how to compete with the NFL’s big dogs.
During the 2022 AFC divisional round, Allen played a perfect game from start to finish and even gave the Bills the lead with just 13 seconds remaining. To this day, it’s still one of the most remarkable performances I’ve ever seen from a quarterback, win or lose. Somehow, the Chiefs managed to create a game-tying kick at the end of regulation anyway before winning in overtime thanks to a fortuitous coin toss based on archaic possession rules that were later changed.
And in 2024, after Allen and the Bills put their hearts on the line for nearly 60 minutes, kicker Tyler Bass missed a 44-yard game-tying attempt in the waning moments … “wide left.” (Bills fans, I’m sorry for the double trauma.)
In other words, Allen’s Bills didn’t necessarily do anything wrong in each of the three times they’ve lost to Mahomes’ Chiefs in the playoffs.
It’s that they couldn’t be more snakebitten if they tried. Football is a cruel game, dearest readers:
Nothing is a given in the NFL. Nothing guarantees we will see Allen and the Bills square off with Mahomes and the Chiefs again this January in a game that would likely decide the AFC representative in Super Bowl 59. But there’s something cosmic about the way these two teams’ fates seem forever intertwined. Another rematch between two of the best quarterbacks we’ve ever seen feels inevitable. It feels written in the stars.
Whether that rematch takes place in Buffalo or Kansas City, the Bills should feel good about their chances. All they have to do is hope the football gods finally smile upon them and give them a break.
