Week 10 - ATL/DAL, CLE/NE, SEA/GB, KC/LV - Quickly; because who would choose to watch this slate?

 

What a Sunday of football that was.

While not exactly the gambler's nightmare of the last two weeks, there were still six teams whose offensive gameplans were dead on arrival. Which I wouldn't even complain about, except I got to watch four of them. I'm not going to waste either my time or yours by breaking down ATL/DAL, CLE/NE, SEA/GB, or KC/LV in great depth.

I learned very little watching these games. In fact, I was barely able to keep my eyes on them for long stretches. Every Dallas scoring drive annoyed me – the Atlanta defense couldn't do simple things right. And their offense was Matt Ryan throwing prayers to Kyle Pitts and Cordarrelle breaking off a long run here and there. Nothing else worked at all.

That was the game I kept on the TV. Because the other 1 o'clock game was Cleveland @ New England, and every time I turned over there to get a reprieve from Atlanta, the Browns were taking an even worse ass-whoopin. Which is how I know I'm not actually a Browns fan – I had exactly no interest in watching that misery; not when Baker needed to be on the sidelines, and when he found his way there, it obviously didn't matter anymore.

So I made tacos to try to wash the taste of those games out of my mouth and get hyped up for Green Bay and Russell Wilson's miraculous return from a broken finger.

A return which, it turns out, was maybe less miraculous than it was a week too soon.

The tacos were good, though.

Originally I was going to write in this piece that there were a number of uncompetitive games. This game was not uncompetitive, but the offense never bothered to show up.

I cannot be objective when I watch Russell Wilson play. He is a member of the only quarterback draft class about which I have any particular bones: 2012. I've watched his teams find the kind of success Ryan Tannehill was never realistically going to find with Miami – and I have formed opinions about Russell Wilson which are neither fair to the man nor shared by just about anyone else who watches football. But, really it just comes down to: I don't think he's actually a very good quarterback. Russell Wilson is a third round pick – he has third round traits and he plays like a third round quarterback to me – he plays like a backup who has benefited from playing time and from a very good defense and a coaching staff who care more about winning than winning pretty.

And it's been fun. But I can't disagree with my girlfriend anymore that the offense has looked better with Geno Smith in there.

The only thing I saw Russell Wilson do well in that game was scramble for a couple first downs. I saw three horrendous (a word I've never had need of spelling before) interceptions in the endzone – and another series of series of drives filled with interceptable passes.

That isn't to say that Rodgers had a good afternoon.

Maybe I am going to talk about this game. Because I've been saying all season – look back, I dare you – no – I double dog dare you— What was I saying? I've been saying all season that the Packers defense is actually pretty good. Better than pretty good. It's really good. The problem has been the offense.

When I look around Twitter and around the media landscape at people talking about football, they seem to put the Packers losses and close late games on the defense. There was a stretch of the season that lasted five or six weeks where they went without a redzone stop, but I've been thinking a lot about what that means since they ended that streak. And I think I'd better save those thoughts for another piece.

My point is that I've been carrying water for the Packers defense and I want the credit that comes with this performance. I'm laughing as I write this, but seriously. The problem is not the defense. Their offense seems to run on near-misses on apparently-easy throws and short runs on early downs, then Aaron Rodgers making magic on third downs – or punts. There doesn't seem to be any sort of sustaining element, and more and more even Davante Adams is unreliable as the funnel through which the offense pours.

But AJ Dillon is a dude. He probably should have been getting the majority of the carries before Aaron Jones went down. When you have Aaron Rodgers, you have a shot. Especially if the defense continues to play well enough to keep teams under 24.

And Amari Rodgers seems to be a natural and skilled punt returner – so that's something else.

I did get to see the final drives of the Tennessee and Washington games. That was pretty sweet. I really wish I could have watched the entire Washington/Tampa Bay game, but that's what Game Pass is for, isn't it?

Chiefs/Raiders was a boring game.

I tweeted after the first Chiefs drive that the Raiders really did not want to be their get-right game. Well, turns out they Raiders didn't get anything they wanted out of this game.

Travis Kelce is suddenly able to get open again, to catch and maintain possession of the ball, too. And when that happens, everything seems to work right for that offense. Even Hardman and Pringle contributed. Nay – had big plays.

Not great for a Raiders team I've been saying is staving off an inevitable end-of-season collapse for weeks now.

Normally I'm not into blowout wins like this on principle. The Chiefs were throwing it late into the contest. Hell, at one point I said they were treating the game like a practice session, they were so obviously in control of the game. But, that prefaced, I do enjoy watching Division rivals completely trounce one another. So while the game was boring, I didn't really look away until midway through the fourth when it was clear the Raiders weren't mounting any sort of comeback.

Not with Derek Carr throwing the kinds of interceptions he was.

It's like he's heard the criticisms about him crumbling under the pass rush and thinks that now he has to be one of those guys who makes miracle throws when they're in the grasp. No, Derek. No. Just embrace being kind of a wuss – no one really expects you to elevate the team. Your fans and the football-viewing public at large just want to see you complete forward passes with regularity. Which is something I don't think you were unable to do because of the subtraction of Henry Ruggs from the team.

They talked a lot about that in the first half of the game – the absence of Ruggs, that impact on the offense.

Maybe I'm a stupid person, but Kansas City's pass defense wasn't only getting eat-up by the downfield passing element. They couldn't defend anything well. Well, they sure could defend the Raiders. So maybe it was that Ruggs was missing. Or maybe it's just that the gameplan was DOA.

I'm not sure. I know I didn't see anything else that I want to talk about, that's for sure.

A quick one this time!

I've been away a while. I had some life stuff crop up, and I don't have the best habits vis-a-vis my creativity in those situations. But I'm back at it. The only way to get better is to keep going at it. So that's where I'm at. I'm gonna spend the day watching the games, then I'll get the Rewatch Rankings out, and I want to talk about what I started to talk about earlier: redzone defense as a reflection of the opponent more than the defender; and other elements of defensive football as reflections of what we think of offensive football.

So I'll talk at you soon.