The Read Option: Week 4
12 GIFs, quips and tidbits from the season’s first bye-week action.
Only 12 Sunday games this week, but by now you should know the deal here: one take for each game, but not necessarily one from each game. Let’s get right to it.
1. The Most Obvious Thing in the History of the World
Steve Smith warned us that this would happen. After being cut by the team back in March, Smith told the world what to expect if he happened to face the Carolina Panthers this season. “Put your goggles on because there is going to be blood and guts everywhere.”
Smith would later sign with the Baltimore Ravens, who, of course, had the Panthers on their schedule. Earlier this season, Smith again reminded us of what would happen when he squared off with his former team.
The final tally on Sunday: seven receptions for 139 yards and two touchdowns in a 38–10 blowout win. The first of those touchdowns was fairly ridiculous:
Still, it was incredibly obvious that Smith—possibly the most vengeful player in the league—would have it out for his former team and come up with a huge day. That’s exactly what happened.
2. Better Early and Late Than Never
Mike Glennon’s first pass of the game went for a seven-yard touchdown to rookie wideout Mike Evans, who made an incredible catch to pull it down in the corner of the end zone.
Tampa made four more red zone trips the rest of the day, and on the first three, Glennon failed to complete a single pass. He was 0–6.
On the Bucs’ final drive, Glennon hit Louis Murphy in stride for 41 yards to get his team down the the five-yard line with 15 seconds left, down by four points. After a quick spike to stop the clock, Glennon again threw incomplete, making it seven straight (not including the spike) missed throws inside the red zone.
His last pass of the day, though, went for a five-yard touchdown to Vincent Jackson, and gave the Bucs their first win of the season.
Glennon saved his best for first and last — literally — and led Tampa Bay to the week’s most surprising win.
3. The Best Post-up Player in the NFL
I’m not really sure what happened here. Brandon Marshall tried to post up Davon House and House tried to pull the chair? Maybe? Either way, touchdown Bears.
That might have been their high point, though. The Packers—whose offensive struggles we touched on last week—finally got back on track, tacking on 38 points against Da Bears. Consolation prize?
4. Anyone Want To Make the Easiest Tackle of Their Career? Anyone? Bueller?
I can’t seem to find video of this, but it was pretty embarrassing.
With just less than three minutes left in the 4th quarter of the Bills’ contest against the Texans, Houston had the ball, facing 3rd-and-10 at its own 32-yard line. Ryan Fitzpatrick completed a pass about seven yards down field to Arian Foster, who went to the ground in the process of making the catch.
… And then nobody on Buffalo touched him, allowing him to roll forward three yards for a first down. Houston burned another minute off the clock before punting it away to the Bills. E.J. Manuel, rushing to complete the comeback with a two-minute drill, eventually forced a pass to Robert Woods for a game-ending pick. Maybe if he has more time, he doesn’t do that. (He probably does. He’s E.J. Manuel. But you know what I mean.)
5. J.J. Watt is Back in the End Zone Again
That’s Watt’s second touchdown of the season, though his first came as a tight end in a goal line package. Watt also recorded five tackles, batted a pass down at the line of scrimmage, hit E.J. Manuel nine (NINE!) times and picked picked up two roughing the passer penalties. Not a bad day at the office.
It’s entirely possible that he’s the best player in the league, period, full stop.
6. Rookie Quarterback Watch!
Well, we’d planned on tracking the performance of the placeholder quarterbacks in Minnesota, Jacksonville and Cleveland every week until Teddy Bridgewater, Blake Bortles and Johnny Manziel, respectively, took over, but Matt Cassel’s injury and Chad Henne’s ineffectiveness pushed Teddy and Bortles into the lineup, and the Browns are on a bye this week, so today we’ve got the first installment of the Rookie Quarterback Watch.
In his first start, Bridgewater went 19–30 for 317 yards, adding another 27 yards and a touchdown on five carries as the Vikings surprisingly upset the Falcons, 41–28. He connected repeatedly with Jarius Wright (unsurprising given that both players were working with the second-team offense to start the year), who caught eight passes for 132 yards, beating every defensive back the Falcons threw his way.
He got a ton of help from the backfield timeshare of Matt Asiata and Jerrick McKinnon, who combined to tote the rock 38 times for 213 yards and three touchdowns (all by Asiata). Asiata was the workhorse for most of the day and McKinnon the big-play guy, but it was McKinnon out there running out the clock to seal the game with Christian Ponder, who entered for an injured Bridgewater in the 4th quarter (X-rays on his ankle were negative).
In sum, a solid performance where he found a rhythm with someone who he’s likely had a lot of practice time with, and a very surprising win.
Bortles wasn’t quite as efficient, even as he completed a higher percentage of his passes (in fact, the highest of any rookie with at least 30 throws in his first start, ever). He went 29–37 for 253 yards (6.8 yards per attempt, compared to Bridgewater’s 10.6), a touchdown and two picks. He didn’t get nearly as much help from his decrepit running game—non-Bortles Jags ran 19 times for 61 yards, an average of 3.2 per carry.
Bortles worked the underneath game with tight end Clay Harbor and Allen Robinson a bunch, connected with Allen Hurns on a big play that should have been a touchdown (Hurns tripped over his own feet while catching the ball and was tackled at the two; Bortles threw a touchdown on play-action later in the drive), moved around the pocket to buy time a bunch and even ran the ball out of the read-option a few times. He looked as advertised, much as he did last week.
With such a weak running game and a poor offensive line, Bortles’ learning curve will be steep, but the talent is evident when he’s out on the field, and he’s got a few different passing-game weapons to play with in Shorts, Hurns and Robinson. There will be some flashes here and there.
7. Pause For Appreciation
How many other quarterbacks would even attempt the pass that Colin Kaepernick throws there, let alone complete it? That takes insane body control, arm strength and, frankly, balls.
But let’s also please take a moment to appreciate Frank Gore, one of the most underrated players of his generation. Every year, we hear the same chorus of people shouting, “He’s too old. He’s going to break down.” And every year, he rips off another 1,000-yard campaign.
He’s broken the millennium mark in every season of his career but two: his rookie year when he split carries but was mostly the backup to Kevan Barlow, and then when he played only 11 games back in 2010. He’s averaged at least 4.1 yards per carry in every year of his career and has a 4.55 mark overall. He topped 40 catches in five straight years from 2006 through 2010. He’s now got 73 all-purpose touchdowns, one of 82 players in NFL history with at least that many.
He moved past Adrian Peterson into 27th all-time in rushing yards on Sunday, still one of 29 men to run for 10,000 yards in his career. Among those 29, Gore’s 4.55 yards per carry average ranks seventh behind only Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, AP, Tiki Barber, O.J. Simpson and Fred Taylor. His 74.9 yards per game ranks 13th.
Other than Curtis Martin, none of those 29 players was taken later in the draft. Gore was taken with the 65th pick of the 2006 draft, early in the third round. Twenty-three of the 29 10,000-yard rushers were taken in the first round, four of them in the second (each with the 45th pick or earlier) and then Gore and Martin (74th) in the third.
Gore had torn both of his ACLs in college, giving way as the starter at Miami to Clinton Portis and then Willis McGahee on two of the best college football teams of all time, so it was easy to overlook him. All he’s done since is outlast, out-gain and out-run them both, as well as most other backs of his generation.
8. Elsewhere on the Field in That Game
Holy wow, Jeremy Maclin. That is some catch.
Philadelphia’s offense didn’t do much of anything in this game—all three Eagles scores came from the defense or special teams; they turned the ball over four times, controlled it for only 17:43, recorded only five first downs in the game’s first 54 minutes, etc.
Maclin himself only caught the ball five of the 16 times he was targeted, though some of that blame should be placed on the right shoulder of Foles, who missed him open down the field and on the sideline a few different times. It was ugly.
9. Wait, Who’s Our Running Back?
Chris Ivory, who is clearly the best back on the Jets, carried 17 times for 84 yards, compared to Chris Johnson’s six for 44, 35 of which came on one fluky broken-tackle touchdown run up the gut. At this point, it’s tough to justify handing the ball off to anyone who isn’t Ivory.
In the same game, Reggie Bush out-carried Joique Bell 12–8 and had four catches to Bell’s two, but neither back did much with his opportunities. They totaled 104 yards on those 26 touches.
Eddie Lacy took back sole control of Green Bay’s backfield a week after ceding eight carries to James Starks, but he struggled to get anything going once again. He got only 2.8 yards per carry against a Chicago defense that entered the game 16th in DVOA against the run and was 32nd last year.
Doug Martin also took back sole control of Tampa Bay’s backfield after missing a couple games due to injury, out-carrying Bobby Rainey 14–4. Martin, too, did not do much with his opportunities, rushing for only 40 yards.
Alfred Blue (nine) actually got more carries for the Texans than Arian Foster (eight), but they combined for only 15 rushing yards.
Trent Richardson carried (sigh) 20 times for 47 yards for the Colts, while Ahmad Bradshaw—who is just better than Richardson in every conceivable way—received only nine carries and Dan Herron got seven. On the other side of the ball in that one, Bishop Sankey out-carried Shonn Greene six to three. Sankey actually took his six carries for 34 total yards. Not terrible.
Lorenzo Taliaferro wound up with 15 carries to Justin Forsett’s 14, but it was Forsett getting all the work early in the game when the outcome was still in doubt. The two of them actually make for a nice one-two punch, with Forsett getting the early work and Taliaferro punishing a tired defense in the second half, if Baltimore can stake itself to some leads.
Donald Brown was wildly ineffective with his 10 carries (19 yards), but Branden Oliver didn’t really fare much better with his nine (23 yards). Very dispiriting performance for those two against the hapless Jaguars defense.
Should note again the excellent games from Asiata and McKinnon up in Minnesota. Asiata had 20 totes for 78 yards and three TDs. McKinnon, if you take out his 55-yard scamper, had basically the same game. With it, he had 18 carries for 135 yards.
10. Check The Trainer’s Room
The Falcons—already missing starting left tackle Sam Baker, who went down in the preseason with a knee injury—wound up losing right guard Justin Blalock, right tackle Lamar Holmes AND center Joe Hawley to injury in Sunday’s game with the Vikings. They wound up having to use tight end Levine Toilolo at right tackle. Yeah, it was that ugly.
It didn’t kill the Falcons for most of the game, but late in the fourth quarter with the team down by seven and facing a critical third down, the offensive line couldn’t handle a delayed blitz and Ryan was sacked for a 1o-yard loss. Minnesota drove for a field goal on the ensuing possession and basically put the game away.
11. Adventures in Curious Coaching Logic
It could just be me, but I fail to understand the logic of Carolina’s gameplan against the Ravens on Sunday. Playing without Jonathan Stewart and Mike Tolbert, the Panthers were down to just DeAngelo Williams and street free agent Darrin Reaves in the backfield. Williams is a walking injury and Reaves, again, is a street free agent.
The Panthers were squaring off with a defense that had allowed only one 100-yard rusher since December 2012. So what was the deal with giving Williams and Reaves a combined 23 rushes (on which they averaged 2.6 yards), not giving Cam Newton a single carry and letting him sling it only 25 times (for 7.9 yards per attempt)?
Obviously Newton is dealing with a variety of ailments right now, but neutering his running game takes away what makes him special, and also takes away from the effectiveness of the other backs. If the defense knows he’s not a threat to pull the ball and run it, they can concentrate on tackling up the middle.
It would be one thing if they were running it well, but they’re not. Williams and Reaves combined for 60 yards on those 23 carries, and Panther running backs have only 230 yards on 72 carries on the year. That’s 3.2 yards per carry. This from the team that ranked first, eighth and fourth in rushing DVOA in Newton’s first three seasons. If you’re not going to let him run it, and you’re not going to let him throw it, why is he out there at all? How does it make sense to run your running backs into the line again and again?
Down 24–17 with 3:49 to go in the game, Rex Ryan elected to punt on 4th-and-2 from his own 24-yard line. The Jets never got the ball back. I’ll let the 4th Down Bot take it away from here.
By punting instead of going for it, Rex Ryan, the Jets’ coach, cut the Jets’ chances of winning in half, to 5 percent from 10 percent, I estimate. The only way Ryan’s decision would have been rational is if the Jets had less than a 15 percent chance of making a first down, but again, I expect such plays to succeed 55 percent of the time.
Trailing 23–21 with about nine minutes left in the game, Chip Kelly for some reason accepted an offensive pass interference penalty that turned 4th-and-3 from the Philly 24 into 3rd-and-13 from the Philly 34. Colin Kaepernick ran for 16 yards and a first down on a designed quarterback sweep on the next play. The drive ended in a field goal anyway, but turning 4th-and-3 in to 3rd-and-13 was pretty questionable, and wound up costing the Eagles precious time on the clock.
Kaepernick and Jim Harbaugh had some problems of their own. Kaep took two delay of game penalties, including a brutal one on 3rd-and-3 from the Eagles’ 11-yard line in the 4th quarter. There was also apparently a communication miscue as Kaep took San Fran’s second timeout with 14:00 left in the 4th quarter when Harbaugh wanted him to let the play clock run out so they could push the ball back five yards and give Andy Lee more room to punt.
12. How Bout Them Cowboys?
Last season, the Saints embarrassed the Cowboys 49–17 in New Orleans, piling on 625 yards and an NFL-record 40 first downs, controlling the ball for two-thirds of the game.
The Cowboys returned the favor this year, staking themselves to a 24–0 halftime lead on the strength of dominant offensive line play from Tyron Smith, Ronald Leary, Travis Frederick, Zack Martin and, yes, even Doug Free. They cleared the way for DeMarco Murray to run for 149 yards on 24 carries as he became the fourth player ever to start the season with at least 100 yards and a touchdown in each of his first four games.
The ‘Boys are 3–1 now, having rebounded from their opening-week loss to the 49ers by beating the Titans, Rams and now Saints in succession. They get the Texans in AT&T Stadium next week before traveling to Seattle to face the defending champs in Week 6. That could wind up being one of the most unexpectedly important games of the young season.
