Week 8 was exciting and weird. The football gods made a statement about the quality of football Jayden Daniels and Caleb Williams played in Washington and delivered a miracle finish to the NFL’s newest superstar.
It wasn’t even the biggest karmic reckoning. Aaron Rodgers averaged 8.3 yards per attempt, threw two touchdowns, and didn’t turn the ball over. New York held the Patriots to 136 passing yards and Rhamondre Stevenson to 2.4 yards per carry. And the Jets still lost because you don’t get to bellyache your way to a head coach’s firing, trade for the magical hamstring of Davante Adams, and still win football games.
Of course, the biggest story was National Tight Ends Day, or whatever we’re calling it. And it’s a big story because George Kittle may be the NFL’s best combination of talent and personality; Trey McBride may be the NFL’s best combination of athleticism and ferocity; and Brock Bowers may be the NFL’s best combination of size, smoothness, and unassuming bliss. (Justin Jefferson and Jahmyr Gibbs are now wondering if I’ve seen them play. These guys are good, but they’re tight ends.)
For National Tight Ends Day, we got the career performance from Cade Otton (9-81-2), a man who’s been forced to run myriad targetless routes in the shadow of Mike Evans and Chris Godwin; a return to form from Travis Kelce (10-90-1), who increasingly knows the value of entrance and timing; the best non-DeVonta Smith catch of the day in Adam Trautman’s one-handed TD grab; and even a dead cat bounce from Kyle Pitts, who reminds us to always be aware of try-hard defenders and key thresholds. Act like you’ve been there before, even if you’ve played for Arthur Smith and mostly haven’t.
Finally, folks from the RVOT Guillotine 1 are enjoying the fact that George Pickens holds my head in his hands. I can console myself by pointing out that it’s a figurative beheading on the way, and that five points is often easier said than done. Let’s see what the Game Level Similarity Projections think.
There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there’s usually only one thing you can do.
Hopefully everyone is good there. If I have to add an attribution it will just make me sad.
