Tag: Week 7

Seahawks CB Shaquill Griffin ruled out of game after concussion testing

Seahawks CB Shaquill Griffin has been ruled out of the remainder of the Week-7 contest against the Cardinals after concussion testing.

The Seattle Seahawks will be without the services of cornerback Shaquill Griffin for the remainder of the Week-7 contest against the Arizona Cardinals.

Griffin left the game in the third quarter and was sent to the medical tent to undergo concussion testing.

He was ruled out of the matchup shortly thereafter.

Tre Flowers has entered the game as Griffin’s replacement.

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VIDEO: Wilson, Lockett connect again to extend Seahawks lead

Seattle Seahawks QB Russell Wilson and WR Tyler Lockett connected again in the second quarter to extend the lead over the Cardinals Week 7.

The Seattle Seahawks extended their lead over the Arizona Cardinals Sunday night when quarterback Russell Wilson found wide receiver Tyler Lockett for the duo’s second score of the night.

You can watch the first TD here.

Their second touchdown came on yet another longball, 47 yards through the air. The drive went just three plays for 75 yards in half a minute.

At the half, the Seahawks lead the Cardinals 27-17.

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Watch: DK Metcalf chases Budda Baker down to save a pick-six

Seattle Seahawks receiver DK Metcalf is unusually fast for his size. How fast? Just ask Cardinals safety Budda Baker.

It’s highly unusual when Russell Wilson throws an interception. Coming into Sunday night’s game against the Cardinals, he’d only thrown three all season. But he threw one to Arizona safety Budda Baker — the reigning NFC Defensive Player of the Week — with 9:05 left in the first half, and it looked to all the world that Baker was on his way to a pick-six that would have traveled nearly 100 yards, .

And then, Seahawks receiver DK Metcalf, at 6-foot-4 and 229 pounds, chased Baker down out of nowhere, and tackled the 5-foot-10, 195-pound Baker at the Seattle eight-yard line.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise — Metcalf blew up the 2019 scouting combine by running a 4.33 40-yard dash, while Baker ran a 4.45 at the 2017 combine.

This was more than just a splash play — it would have been an easy touchdown were it not for Metcalf’s effort, but the Seahawks’ defense stopped the Cardinals from scoring any points on the subsequent drive, and the score remained 13-7.

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Raheem Morris wanted Todd Gurley ‘to take the knee on the 1’

The Falcons did something you can’t do on Sunday. They gave the ball back to Lions quarterback Matt Stafford with a minute to play in regulation.

The Falcons did something you can’t do on Sunday. They gave the ball back to Lions quarterback Matt Stafford with too much time on the clock.

Atlanta scored with a minute left in the fourth quarter on a run from RB Todd Gurley, taking a 22-16 lead. It was Gurley’s second score of the game, but not one that he wanted.

Gurley attempted to fall down on the one-yard line, but couldn’t stop his forward momentum and ended up barely crossing the goal line. Stafford, one of the NFL’s best late-game performers, made quick work of the Falcons’ secondary. Just like that, another great team effort by Atlanta was wasted by an inability to close out its opponent.

Following the game, interim head coach Raheem Morris said he had instructed Gurley to fall down, per ESPN’s Michael Rothstein.

“It was talked about right at that moment,” Morris told reporters after the game “We knew that was kind of going to be their ideal choice for us to get in the end zone so they could have a chance to go down there and score.

“So we wanted to take the knee on the 1, and he obviously tried and he fell into the end zone at the last second there, getting tripped up a little bit.”

Some have made the case that the Falcons should have chosen to kneel the ball, run the clock down a bit more and give kicker Younghoe Koo a chance at a short field goal.

However, Gurley has previously been good at getting down in situations like this. Plus, some would prefer to have a six-point lead that late in the game rather than risking a loss on a missed kick.

Atlanta had every chance to end this one and ultimately, couldn’t hold up against Detroit’s two-minute offense.

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WATCH: Russell Wilson finds Tyler Lockett for Seahawks 1st score

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson connected with wide receiver Tyler Lockett early in the first quarter for the score Week 7.

The Seattle Seahawks are in the desert to take on the Arizona Cardinals Week 7 in primetime for “Sunday Night Football.”

Seattle got the ball to start and three quick minutes later, quarterback Russell Wilson connected with wide receiver Tyler Lockett for three yards and the Seahawks first touchdown of the night.

The scoring drive went six plays for 75 yards in 3:01.

Seahawks lead the Cardinals 7-0 with just under nine minutes to go in the first quarter.

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Week 7 inactives: Seattle Seahawks at Arizona Cardinals

The inactive players for the Week-7 contest between the Seattle Seahawks and the Arizona Cardinals for “Sunday Night Football.”

Detroit Lions Week 7 Studs and Duds: Matthew Stafford’s clutch magic returns

Declaring the Studs and Duds from the Detroit Lions Week 7 victory over the Atlanta Falcons.

In the battle of two of the worst fourth-quarter teams, the Detroit Lions returned to their 2016 form to coordinate a clutch comeback in the final minute of the game.

This was a rollercoaster of a game, full of some really great plays, and some that were, well, not-so-great.

Here are Lions studs and duds against the Falcons:

Stud: Matthew Stafford

In just about every stat, this was Stafford’s best game of the season. The 32-year-old quarterback had 25 completions on 36 attempts for 340 yards and a touchdown.

That touchdown, of course, was the game-winner as the clock hit zero to tight end T.J. Hockenson. Stafford’s fourth-quarter heroics helped the Lions eke out a win and move to 3-3 on the season.

Despite being pressured on what felt like every time he dropped back, Stafford showed some much-needed mobility in the pocket and also managed not to turnover the ball even once.

Dud: Adrian Peterson

The Lions backfield played poorly today, and Peterson had some especially bad plays. In one instance, Peterson ran back-to-back draw plays for little to no gain and the Lions then had to settle for a field goal.

Peterson isn’t to blame as much as the play calling, but the veteran running back was still disappointing with his 2.6 yards-per-carry.

Studs: Trey Flowers and Romeo Okwara

The two Lions defensive ends both deserve to be listed as studs together for the big, game-saving plays they made.

Flowers must have played cornerback in another life, because his pass breakup on a fourth-down from Matt Ryan was just impressive. Flowers initially laid a block on Julio Jones at the line, and was able to shed it and get in front of a pass to Ito Smith to bat the ball away.

While his heroics were followed by a missed field goal, the defensive end was able to come back big on the next defensive drive.

On a Falcons third-and-10, Romeo Okwara was able to get to Matt Ryan for a sack, where he stripped the ball and Flowers was able to recover and take it an extra four yards down the field. This crucial turnover helped propel the Lions to a 16-14 lead near the end of the game.

Dud: Jesse James

James signed a four-year, $22.5 million dollar deal to come to Detroit last season, and has yet to prove that he deserves any of that money.

The 26-year-old tight end was not targeted once in this game. In fact, his only contribution to this game was a holding penalty that negated a big run from D’Andre Swift.

Studs: Kenny Golladay, Marvin Jones, and Danny Amendola

The trio of wide receivers all did their fair share to move the sticks in this game. Golladay was the most clutch of the three, as he was the reason the team was able to pull off a winning drive in the last minute of the game. He finished with six catches for 114 yards.

Amendola and Jones both had their best games of the season, with three catches for 62 yards and five catches for 80 yards, respectively.

This was the second-best receiving corps last season, and it looked a lot like it again today.

Dud: The pass rush

Despite two of Detroit’s defensive ends being named studs just a few paragraphs up, the pass rush as a whole did not play well.

Matt Ryan was sacked twice, both times by Okwara, but the Lions squandered plenty more opportunities to get to the quarterback.

The play that emphasized this the most was in the second quarter, where the Lions put plenty of pressure on Ryan and both Jahlani Tavai and Danny Shelton were able to land hits on the quarterback. Unfortunately, neither were able to take him down and Ryan threw for a first down.

The pass rush generated pressure well in this game but always seemed like they were just one second too late from making a play.

Stud: Tracy Walker

Walker showed up early on defense. In the second quarter, he put some good coverage onto Falcons tight end Luke Stocker and defended a pass that would have gone for a touchdown.

Later on in the game, with just seven minutes left in the fourth quarter, Walker broke through his block and was able to take Todd Gurley down in the backfield for a loss of yards.

Dud: Halapoulivaati Vaitai

Vaitai still has not acclimated well to the right guard position.

He struggled a lot against Atlanta’s defensive line and allowed a tackle-for-loss on D’Andre Swift on a key fourth-quarter drive.

With another game like that, let’s hope that the Lions come to their senses and swap him out for Joe Dahl real soon.

Stud: Todd Gurley

The biggest stud for the Lions was Atlanta’s star running back.

All Gurley had to do was not score a touchdown with about a minute left in the game. Despite his efforts, he somehow screwed that up.

Because of that, the Lions got the ball with 1:04 left on the clock; ample time for Stafford to orchestrate his all-too-familiar game-winning drive.

Detroit Lions pivotal play of the game: Gurley score allows Lions comeback

The Detroit Lions beat the Atlanta Falcons and it was a mistake committed by Todd Gurley that ended up being the pivotal play this week

WHAT. A. GAME!

The Detroit Lions pulled off a miracle to beat the Atlanta Falcons 23-22 — with Matthew Stafford throwing an 11-yard game-winning touchdown pass to T.J. Hockenson, capped off by a go-ahead extra point from Matt Prater as time expired.

The Lions run defense showed up again this week, only allowing 66 yards on the ground, making the Falcons’ offense one-dimensional. The Lions did allow the Falcons to sustain long drives, but most of the day, they were able to hold their own and made key plays to give the Lions’ offense more opportunities.

The Lions offense did have some questionable play-calling, especially in the run game, but most good old No. 9 stepped up in the spotlight when it mattered. At the end of the day, the Lions’ players didn’t falter down the stretch and brought home a victory.

The pivotal play

For a minute, it looked like the curtains had closed on a potential Lions comeback.

After a Falcons first down conversion and the Lions out of timeouts, the Lions defense made the decision to allow Falcons running back Todd Gurley to score in order to get the ball back into the hands of the Lions offense.

Falcons coach Raheem Morris commented after the game that the plan was for Gurley to take go down on the one-yard line, but as Gurley tried to stay out of the endzone, he lost his balance and fell into the end zone for the touchdown.

That produced a rare NFL moment where the defense celebrated an opponent scoring a touchdown:

That score gave the Lions offense 1:04 left on the game clock to muster a drive to win this game potentially.

It was a long shot, but don’t tell that to Stafford. He drove the offense down the field bringing back memories of previous 4th quarter comebacks and showing glimpses of what we have been begging for this season.

After completing a couple of nice passes to Hockenson and Danny Amendola along with some spikes sprinkled in for clock management, Stafford found Golladay deep in the red zone on a beautiful 29-yard pass to put the Lions within reach if evening the game up.

There was a heart-stopping moment when they reviewed the catch — and bad memories of the 10-second run-off were running through every Lions fans heads — but it was clear Golladay made the catch. Luckily when the ruling came back, the play stood and the Lions would get the ball with just three seconds remaining.

After another spike gave the Lions more time to come with the perfect play, and as the clock expired, Stafford weaved his way through pressure and fired a dart to Hockenson to tie the game.

Amendola was flagged for a bone head unsportsmanlike conduct penalty — he took his helmet off while on the field — making the extra point a 48-yarder instead of a 33-yarder, but was no problem for Prater as he sailed it through the uprights and gave the Lions a sweet comeback victory to get them to .500 on the season.

Celebrate the win, Lions fans.

Some areas need addressing, but it was wonderful to see vintage Stafford and the run defense continuing their dominance. The Lions will ride their two-game winning streak back home to face the Indianapolis Colts in Week 8.

Chiefs OL Nick Allegretti notches first career start

Allegretti gets the start at left guard for the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 7.

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The Kansas City Chiefs have a new starter at left guard this Sunday with second-year offensive lineman Nick Allegretti earning his first career start.

Last week, Allegretti played 65 snaps at LG after an injury to Mitchell Schwartz forced Mike Remmers to fill in at RT. Now, with Schwartz being made inactive for the first time in his career, Allegretti has coincidently earned the opportunity to make a start at LG.

The Chiefs drafted Allegretti out of the University of Illinois in the seventh round of the 2019 NFL Draft. He played sparingly in his first season in Kansas City, with most of his snaps coming on special teams. In the few games that he did earn an offensive snap, it was as an extra blocker on heavy formations. In fact, Allegretti’s first offensive snap came in Denver, back in 2019.

“Yeah, my first snap up in Denver, that was definitely a good time,” Allegretti told reporters on Thursday. “But I don’t know, just kind of the way I was raised growing up playing football—if you’re going to make a mistake, make it flying around, make it fast, make it physical. So, mistakes are going to happen throughout a football game, there’s a lot of snaps. The one thing I can control is my effort, my physicality, so that’s what I have. The rest, preparation and all that, that comes as I continue to grow. But I know that I can play as hard as I want, or as hard as I can, and be as physical as I can, so that’s what I have.”

One thing that Chiefs OL coach Andy Heck has preached to his unit is preparation. Allegretti has taken that to heart and his preparation has him feeling confident now that he’s out there on the field. Part of that confidence comes from going against the talented Chiefs defensive line group during practice.

“I think that just, the D-line that we have here, an incredibly talented group, so being able to go up against them day in and day out at practice and competing with them,” Allegretti said. “Chris (Jones) is an incredible player and Derrick Nnadi is an incredible player, so being able to get those reps against them and slowly getting to have some success or learn some things from them has been huge.”

Allegretti overcame some butterflies last week and was mostly operating on auto-pilot. This week he’ll have a chance to learn from his Week 6 tape and make some improvements as he faces a talented Broncos defensive front.

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Falcons lose 23-22 thriller to the Lions on final play

Let’s take a look at the how the Falcons’ offense, defense and special teams units performed on Sunday.

The Atlanta Falcons dropped to 1-6 on the season after a 23-22 loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday. It was a low-scoring contest that came down to a game-winning touchdown pass from Matt Stafford on the final play.

On the previous drive, Falcons RB Todd Gurley’s second TD gave Atlanta a 22-16 lead. Let’s take a look at the how the Falcons’ offense, defense and special teams units performed on Sunday.

OFFENSE

Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

On offense, the Falcons got off to a slow start as the Lions’ front seven was too much for Atlanta’s offensive line at times. The team struggled to run the ball, but was able to adapt and utilize Julio Jones, Hayden Hurst and Calvin Ridley as the game wore on.

Ridley caught his sixth touchdown of the year in the second quarter to give Atlanta a 14-7 lead at halftime. Running back Todd Gurley didn’t have much running room for most of the game but ran for two touchdowns, including a potential go-ahead score in the fourth quarter.

Matt Ryan threw for 338 yards and a touchdown pass, while completing 73 percent of his passes.

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