Halloween has come and gone and the latest week of NFL action provided us with plenty of treats – or tricks – depending on which team(s) you were gunning for over the weekend.
The Bills and Chiefs provided us with another classic between two AFC powers as Josh Allen came out on top over Patrick Mahomes. Sam Darnold was nearly flawless for Seattle against the Commanders in the same game Washington lost Jayden Daniels to a severe arm injury. The Chargers came back to survive a pesky Titans team but watched star left tackle Joe Alt go down with yet another ankle injury.
Some teams got their favorite king-sized candy bar while others got stuck with a rock (shoutout The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown). Some teams also got humbled a bit when they showed up looking a bit less scary than they did this time a season ago.
With all that said, let’s dive into this week’s post-Halloween edition of The Skinny Post. Also, BOO!!!
Which NFL team received the best treat in Week 9?
It is easy to go with the Seahawks here as they won the official Washington Football Team Bowl and did so in epic fashion. Seattle looks like one of the powerhouses in the NFC and has every reason to feel great about themselves.
I am going to go with the Bears, though. They have every right to feel a bit scared after flying so close to the sun that is Joe Flacco, but they pulled off a win. There is something to be said about a team winning a game like that. As our colleague here at SB Nation Brandon Lee Gowton once coined… it is a morale loss. You get the win with the lessons of losing.
Chicago survived and in that sense proved that things are a little bit different than in the past. Beyond that they saw the Vikings upset the Lions and the Packers fall to the lowly Panthers at Lambeau Field of all places.
I’m going with the Vikings who not only got back J.J. McCarthy at quarterback but also an upset win over the Lions in his first start since being injured in Week Two.
McCarthy totaled a pair of passing touchdowns and rushed for another in what should have been the absolute SCARIEST matchup to return against if you were a young and inexperienced quarterback. Instead, McCarthy looked the part the whole way through and managed to make the tough, back-shoulder throw to ice the win on their final drive.
Maybe it was playing in the state of Michigan again, but this guy looked like the player the Vikings hoped he’d be for them when they took him in the first round of last year’s draft.
Which NFL team was on the wrong side of a trick?
I don’t know how the Indianapolis Colts weren’t the recipients of the biggest trick of Halloween weekend.
Entering Week 9, the Colts were averaging well over 30 points per game and running back Jonathan Taylor was right smack in the middle of the MVP conversation through the first half of the schedule. In their loss to the Steelers, Indy scored just 20 points, quarterback Daniel Jones (the Colts version) turned back into Daniel Jones (the Giants version) with three interceptions thrown, and Taylor was held under 50 yards rushing and zero trips to the end zone.
This all happened against a Steelers defense that has been wildly underperforming by their own lofty standards. Does this signal a shift in the Colts’ season? Will they get back on track in Week 10? I don’t have the answer, but it sure looked like Cinderella’s carriage turning back into the pumpkin that many believed the Colts to be prior to the season.
We as a collective football society spent the last two months absolutely destroying the Minnesota Vikings for how they approached the J.J. McCarthy situation. Overreacting to one game seems like a bad idea, but that one game was super impressive as the Vikings took down the Lions in Detroit.
The Vikings are still not off of the hook, the Carson Wentz injury stuff adds to the poor presentation of the whole thing, but winning cures all and they bought themselves time. The Lions on the other hand got seriously burned by a trick and couldn’t capitalize on Green Bay dropping (as noted by Chicago having a great week earlier).
There is no reason to doubt the Lions, but this is one of those weeks that they are going to look back and be upset that they got got.
Who has a long-lasting cavity as a result of the weekend?
This was probably the week that seriously changed the trajectory of the Cincinnati Bengals. While this season was effectively lost when Joe Burrow got hurt, things have gotten a little bit more chaotic and are now bordering on toxic with how upset Ja’Marr Chase clearly was following the loss.
Something I think about often is the main policeman/detective in National Treasure and what he tells Nic Cage at the end of the movie after the treasure has been discovered. He tells Nic, the man who found the treasure but stole the Declaration of Independence to help the process, that someone has to go to prison as a result of everything (Cage gives him the name of the true bad guy in the film, don’t worry).
Someone has to “go to prison” for the Bengals after this season. There has to be a price paid and this may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back for Zac Taylor.
The Chargers were probably feeling pretty sweet about themselves heading into a cake matchup against the lowly Titans. While they managed to turn around a sour start to the game, they’re now left with a gapping hole up front as left tackle Joe Alt went down with another high ankle sprain on the same leg he injured earlier this year.
It was looking like the Chargers would be able to make a run through the next month with games against the Steelers, Jaguars, and Raiders coming up before a tough final five games, but now I don’t see them being favored in any of them outside of their home date with Las Vegas.
Without Alt, their entire offense looks much different. The protection just isn’t there for Justin Herbert who was once again hit 11 times and sacked six times on Sunday. You want to talk about a cavity that’s going to rot the team from the inside? The inability to protect Herbert going forward is going to do just that.
Who didn’t dress up as good as they did last year?
I’m going to take any chance I can to dunk on the Chiefs a little so we’re going with Kansas City after they fell to 5-4 following a loss to the Bills this week.
The Chiefs went 15-2 last season en route to making another Super Bowl (they were crushed by the Eagles if you don’t recall) and they are now at twice as many losses compared to last year with eight more games to go on the schedule.
Now I’ll be fair and say that the latter half of their schedule is much less daunting, but they still have games against the Chargers, Broncos (twice), Colts, and Texans. Kansas City will finish comfortably over .500, but things aren’t nearly as pretty as they were last year now that they’re sitting at 5-4 and out of the playoffs if the season ended today.
First of all, the Packers had one of those outfits that should never be worn again. It was a miss.
As far as this question is concerned I don’t know how Commanders fans can’t feel like last year was when everything was so much better. Their worst fears have been realized in that 2024 looks like a significant outlier and not like the beginning of something new.
It goes without saying that Jayden Daniels’ health is the most utmost priority and Dan Quinn is going to rightfully face criticism for having him in the game so late and down 31 points.
Nothing seems like it can go right for the Commanders in 2025 and it is hard to figure out how things get better at any point moving forward.
