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Good, bad, and ugly from Week 7
Arizona Cardinals outside linebacker Chandler Jones forces Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson to fumble during the second half of a football game, Sunday, Oct. 23, 2016, in Glendale, Ariz. The Seahawks recovered the ball and had to punt. AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

Good, bad, and ugly from Week 7

Cincinnati Bengals running back Jeremy Hill found a seam on the outside and ran through it. Cleveland Browns defenders were nowhere to be found. They couldn't hold contain against a running back that has rarely found success outside the hashes in the NFL. The end result was a 74-yard touchdown run for Hill.

That's just 74 of the 559 total yards Cincinnati racked up in its 31-17 victory over the still winless Browns.

This came on the same day that Cleveland was forced to use its sixth different quarterback under center. And despite a beautiful 28-yard touchdown run from Kevin Hogan, the end result was as ugly as it gets. Hogan threw two interceptions in defeat. It now remains to be seen when fellow rookie Cody Kessler will return after he suffered a concussion on Sunday. Not that it really matters.

Now at 0-7 on the season, it's time to actually ask aloud whether Cleveland will win a single football game. Its defense was embarrassed on Sunday. It has a half of dozen average quarterbacks vying for who will be injured next. Its top receiver is still suspended. Its head coach seems lost. And Cleveland itself might not care too much with the Indians in the World Series.

Talk about factory of sadness. And so starts the bad from NFL Week 7.

* If you can't stop a peasant from stealing out of your garden, you're bound to go hungry. The San Francisco 49ers are starving. After yielding another 200-plus yards on the ground Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Chip Kelly's squad has given up 1,233 rushing during its six-game losing streak.

This is bad. This is historically bad. It's sad. Really sad.

Up 14-0 in the first quarter, San Francisco proceeded to let the Buccaneers score 34 of the game's final 37 points in yet another embarrassing team-wide performance.

San Francisco has now lost six consecutive games by a combined 103 points. During that very same span, San Francisco is yielding over 210 rushing yards and 36.5 points per game. One has to wonder just how hard Jim Harbaugh is laughing as he's leading his Michigan Wolverines to a top-two overall ranking this season.

* Up 16-14 midway through the third quarter, the Baltimore Ravens looked like they were prepared to take out a weak New York Jets team. Then, two plays changed the destiny of the team. Two Joe Flacco interceptions. On consecutive possessions. Both indirectly leading to Jets points, 10 in total.

They were bad interceptions. Mistakes that are usually reserved for rookies or those who lack the necessarily experience to avoid game-changing errors.

They were committed by a Super Bowl-winning quarterback that needed to lead his team to a victory in order to get to over .500 on the season. It didn't happen. And now at 3-4 on the season, we are left wondering whether the Ravens will even be in contention for a playoff spot down the stretch.

“Confidence is ignorance. If you're feeling cocky, it's because there's something you don't know." 

It's with this quote that we look at the ugly from Week 7 of the NFL season.

* Even after his quarterback threw four interceptions in a disastrous performance against the New York Giants on Sunday, Los Angeles Rams head coach Jeff Fisher refused to point the finger in Case Keenum's direction. Instead, he called out the team's receivers and pretty much indicated that the loss was not on Keenum.

“The quarterback is not the reason, by the way, that we lost three (straight) games,” Fisher said following Sunday’s outing.

Your quarterback threw four interceptions, two of which led directly to Giants touchdowns in a 17-10 loss. How in the world did Keenum not lose you the game? At some point, you might want to actually call a a player out after he put up a miserable performance. Maybe take a page from Bruce Arians' book.

That did not happen with Jeff Fisher. Instead, he's now willing to continue this charade of starting Keenum while the No. 1 overall pick collects dust on the sideline. And we wonder why Fisher is best known for failing to lead his teams to playoff contention for the better part of the past decade. Is he the worst coach in the NFL? Potentially.

* Matt Barkley is a starting quarterback in the NFL today. That tells us exactly what we need to know about the quarterback position around the league.

Barkley replaced an injured Brian Hoyer under center in Thursday's blowout loss to the Green Bay Packers. He proceeded to complete 6-of-15 passes for 81 yards with zero touchdowns and two interceptions. Now in three-plus NFL seasons, Barkley is completing 55.4 percent of his passes with zero touchdowns and six interceptions.

What makes the situation so bad in Chicago is the fact that the team has already seemingly moved on from Jay Cutler.

With Hoyer now likely done for the remainder of the season, this means that we're going to be forced to watch Barkley attempt to play this thing called football for the next nine games. Happy us.

When looking at dreadful performances, one can't help but wonder what the greats in the game think. Do they look at themselves in the mirror with admiration of just how great they are.

Of course, we're talking about Tom Brady and what has to be his absolutely amazing ego. It's in this that we look at the good from NFL Week 7.

* It's quite possible that Brady is playing the best football of his career. Considering this is a dude that put up 50 touchdowns and a 117.2 quarterback rating in a full season earlier in is career, that's telling us something.

All said, Brady completed 19-of-26 passes for 222 yards with two scores and zero picks in an 11-point win over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. Now, through three games this season, Brady is completing 74 percent of his passes for over 1,000 yards with eight scores and zero interceptions.

Yes folks, that's a quarterback rating of 132.6. Think about this for second. And then, take a step back and realize Brady is playing with a fire we have yet to see in his career. He's angry. He's pissed. And the rest of the NFL will bear the brunt of this moving forward on the year.

* The Detroit Lions are now 4-3 on the season after a late-game win over the Washington Redskins on Sunday. It wasn't a pretty win, but an opportunistic Matthew Stafford took advantage of shortcomings on the Redskins' defense to pull off what seems to have been a magic trick.

Down 17-13 with just over a minute left in the game, Detroit took possession of the ball at its own 25 yard line. Stafford proceeded to complete 3-of-5 passes for 61 yards, including an 18-yard game-winning touchdown strike to Anquan Boldin with just 16 seconds remaining.

It's the one true defining moment in what has been an up-and-down career for Stafford. And in reality, it kept Detroit clearly in the NFC playoff race.

Interestingly enough, this one super impressive drive could also have some wide-ranging ramifications moving forward. By virtue of the loss, Washington falls two games behind the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC East. Should it finish with the same record as the Lions, Sunday's game will act as the tiebreaker. How's that for an important late-October game.

* A.J. Green is absolutely absurd. Absurd in the way that your jaw drops to the ground when you watch him play. This came out in droves Sunday against a hapless Cleveland Browns team.

From this ridiculous catch on a Hail Mary to end the first half to an amazing one-handed grab down the right sideline in the third quarter, Green was definitely on his game. All said, the Pro Bowler caught all eight passes thrown in is direction for 169 yards and a score. It doesn't get much better than that.

* After what seemed to be an electric slate of afternoon games on Sunday, most NFL fans were looking forward to a tremendous NFC West battle between the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals.

That didn't happen. Instead, we were treated to a blooper reel of epic proportions from each team's offense. Both Russell Wilson and Carson Palmer played poorly. The receivers couldn't make catches even when they were open. The offensive lines were disastrous. The offensive schemes left a whole lot to be desired. The kickers from each team might as well not show up for work on Monday.

This is how bad it was. Yet another example of horrendous nationally televised football during a season that's been absolutely full of prime-time duds.

Fortunately, neither team won. It ended in a 6-6 tie. The football gods were laughing. They were laughing at all of us. And in reality, this is the best thing that could have happened to an otherwise solid weekend of NFL football.

 

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