$.01--The Cleveland Browns and Tennessee Titans played A Tale of Two Halves in Nashville on Sunday in the rare instance where the best matchup on paper delivered in the flesh, too.  

Cleveland raced out to a 38-7 halftime lead behind nearly flawless play from QB Baker Mayfield executing a brilliant gameplan by rookie head coach Kevin Stefanski. The Titans loaded up to stop the run, and the Browns promptly aired it out with rousing success. Mayfield threw 4 TDs at the half and the Browns scored on all six possessions in the greatest half of football in the long and stories history of the Cleveland Browns. 

It wasn’t just the offense. On Tennessee’s first offensive drive, Browns DT Sheldon Richardson clobbered NFL rushing champ Derrick Henry short on 4th-and-1. On the Titans’ next offensive snap, Richardson ripped the ball out of Henry’s arms for the RB’s first fumble in a year. Henry had 15 yards on 7 carries at the half. 

The book turned from heroic epic to disaster novel for Cleveland after halftime. Tennessee figured out that the same way to beat Cleveland was to do unto others what was being done to them. Ryan Tannehill found Corey Davis all over the field (11 catches, 182 yards, 1 TD) against a Browns secondary missing its two best players. The Titans cranked out two too-easy TD drives in rapid fashion and suddenly everyone in Cleveland was wondering if this was the bad Die Hard alternate ending where Hans Gruber throws John McClane off the side of the Nakatomi Towers before flying away and sitting on a beach earning 20 percent. 

The Browns eventually clamped down. Barely. The Browns held on, 41-35, holding off a valiant comeback. Normally such a near-catastrophe would require some serious scrutiny. We’ll get to that with the Browns later, but in the moment, it’s a glorious triumph, a happy ending to a novel that’s still being written. 

Cleveland is 9-3 for the first time since 1994. Only the Chiefs and Steelers have more wins in the AFC. A win over Baltimore next Monday night clinches just the second postseason berth this century for the Browns. This was a much-needed validation by beating a good team on the road. They’re still learning how to win and that’s obvious, but it’s also obvious the Browns are dangerous. 

$.02--God bless Gregg Williams, the Patron Saint of the 0-16. Williams is doing his best to be an integral part of an 0-16 team for the second time in four years. 

Williams is the New York Jets defensive coordinator. He was also the defensive coordinator for the 2017 Cleveland Browns, who lost every game in part because of Williams’ bizarre fetish of aligning his high safety some 25 yards off the line of scrimmage and never figuring out that teams were killing them with underneath routes. 

Williams still hasn’t figured that out either, but it’s another one of his dangerously incompetent football fetishes that helped the Jets seize defeat from the jaws of sure victory on Sunday. 

The scene of the crimes against football, as committed by Williams…

His Jets are up 28-24 against the Las Vegas Raiders, an aspiring playoff team. With just 13 seconds left, the Raiders have the ball at the Jets’ 46 and no timeouts left. Las Vegas comes out with five eligible receivers, empty backfield. 

Most teams will drop into a prevent shell to stop the deep pass and mitigate any chance for a blown coverage or a holding penalty that would extend the game. Not Williams. He brought the house, baby!  

Williams dialed up a Cover-0 blitz, leaving his cornerbacks on islands on the outside with no help while everyone else rushes the passer. It created the matchup of Raiders WR Henry Ruggs against Jets CB Lamar Jackson. Ruggs just might be the fastest human in pro sports. Jackson is one of the slowest cornerbacks in the NFL. As you might suspect, as anyone with any rational thought process might suspect, Ruggs flew past Jackson up the left sideline. QB Derek Carr calmly stepped up past the well-blocked rush (give the Raiders OL credit) and hit Ruggs in stride for the game-winning touchdown.  

That’s how 0-16 happens, ladies and gentlemen. It takes a special kind of egregious coaching to lose every game. Gregg Williams is well on his way to being an integral force in two of the NFL’s three 0-16 outcomes. And no, he wasn’t trying to lose the game to preserve the Jets’ No. 1 overall pick. He was trying to kill Carr and prove he’s smarter than everyone else. At some point, NFL teams will stop hiring Williams...unless they have a secret fetish of being dominated by average teams and going 0-16. That’s about all Williams, who you might remember as the chief archvillain of the Saints’ Bountygate scandal a decade ago, is good for these days.  

$.03--It was technically Week 12, but the Baltimore Ravens finally snuck through enough loopholes to actually play against the rival Pittsburgh Steelers on Wednesday afternoon. A game that was originally scheduled for Thanksgiving night in prime time was instead relegated to competing against Dr. Phil and your local evening news in order to be done in time so NBC could switch coverage to the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.  

It’s a shame the NFL let the Ravens play, even with the dilapidated roster. After as many as 25 Baltimore players and staffers were sidelined with positive COVID-19 tests, merely playing the game let the team off the hook for failing to follow proper protocols. Nearly all the positive tests traced back to one Ravens staffer who refused to cooperate with the required and carefully detailed protocols. Losing the game while playing a plethora of backups wasn’t punishment enough for the havoc they wreaked upon Pittsburgh’s schedule or the NFL’s credibility at actually giving a damn about the players’ health and welfare. 

The Steelers nearly let them off the hook with their worst effort of the season. Sometimes the word “effort” doesn’t get used in its literal context, but Pittsburgh embraced the intended meaning of poor effort. There were dropped passes galore, missed tackles, communication breakdowns and sloppy special teams play. Mike Tomlin’s team was lucky they were facing Robert Griffin III and then Trace McSorley throwing to practice squad guys and not seeing Lamar Jackson on offense or half the starting lineup of the Ravens defense.  

The 19-14 win keeps the Steelers unbeaten at 11-0. Pittsburgh will need to play better than this if they’re to keep the unblemished record. Hopefully the awkward schedule accommodation forced upon them by the NFL’s refusal to take the Ravens’ rampant violations seriously doesn’t impact the Steelers too much. About the only upshot is we get a double-header on Monday and then a special Tuesday game between the Ravens and the Cowboys, a game where the loser sees its postseason hopes largely finished.

$.04--Philadelphia has itself a whole host of problems right now. None are bigger than the quarterback problem management has willingly facilitated with some curious decisions. And in the Eagles’ Week 13 loss to the Packers, the QB problem manifested into a monster that will burn all the oxygen in any room Carson Wentz, Jalen Hurts, coach Doug Pederson and GM Howie Roseman step into for the rest of the year. 

Wentz was in the midst of yet another clunker when Hurts took over as the actual QB, not just getting a random play here or there. And Hurts operated the Eagles offense demonstrably better than Wentz has in some time. The ball got when and where it needed to be much better, and Hurts showed some pocket poise and awareness where Wentz keeps seeing angry Juggalos chasing him with hatchets, or at least full bottles of Faygo. 

The numbers weren’t radically different, but there was a tangible positive energy Hurts brought into the game. Hurts gave the entire team a lift because he believes in himself and inspires that in his teammates. That’s not a quality anyone would say about Wentz right now. He’s not the only problem with the Eagles right now, but Wentz is the most expensive one. With great salary comes greater responsibility and accountability.  

Whatever the Eagles think they’re doing with Wentz, it isn’t working. Drafting Jalen Hurts in the second round didn’t motivate Wentz or create a working dynamic. It’s painfully obvious it instead dinged Wentz’s confidence and planted the seeds of discontent from the coaches into his head. Based on what we’ve seen from the struggling QB in 2020, I don’t see how he snaps out of that mental fog in Philadelphia and certainly not with Doug Pederson as head coach. The unintended consequences of myopically drafting Hurts, a great story and person but not necessarily an NFL-ready quarterback, have helped ruin the Eagles. 

It’s not the only problem with the Eagles, of course. Wild draft misses at wide receiver and injuries all over the roster have paralyzed progress in Philadelphia. They peaked with a Super Bowl win after the 2017 season. It’s time for Eagles fans to realize that magic is gone. And either Wentz or Pederson, or perhaps both, need to be gone, too. 

I’ll leave with some smart words from my good friend Michael Kist, whose blend of self-loathe, excitable passion and sober lucidity make him a must-follow on Twitter:

$.05--I was enjoying a light lunch with the FOX Sunday pregame show on as background noise when Terry Bradshaw said something that nearly made me spit my yogurt across the room. On national television and with as straight of a face as the willing (and genuinely likable) clown can have, Bradshaw threw out a truly wild scenario for the Rams and their underwhelming results at QB with Jared Goff. 

Bradshaw boldly declared that Rams coach Sean McVay needs to "sit his (expletive) down" because the Rams "cannot win with the way (Goff) is playing right now."

Okay. I too would like to see Goff play better if I’m a Rams fan. While he spikes up above the line from time to time, in general Goff is an average NFL quarterback. Yet he’s paid to be elite, earning the same salary ($33.5M a year on average) as Aaron Rodgers. And though Goff does struggle at times, the Rams backup is *checks notes* John Wolford, a guy who couldn’t stick on the Jets practice squad not long ago. 

Maybe Bradshaw was thinking on a more macro level. I’m not sure the lovable goofball would understand that concept, but he then made an even bolder proclamation. After noting Goff's $134 million contract being problematic, Bradshaw proposed a solution: trading for Lions QB Matthew Stafford. 

"There's a quarterback out there named Matthew Stafford. And if you could, I would make a move to get rid of the one you've got and bring in Stafford," Bradshaw stated.

On a simple level, which is where Bradshaw seems to operate at his best, it’s not a dumb suggestion for either team. The Lions could be willing to move on from Stafford after 12 seasons without a playoff win and a new regime taking over. Goff probably would benefit from a change of scenery, and I don’t see McVay objecting to that happening. 

There’s the tricky matter of reality in the salary cap era that makes the naive suggestion sound ridiculous. Goff’s massive contract contains a truly astonishing poison pill that makes trading him literally impossible. The Rams would eat $95M in dead salary cap room over the next two years by moving on from Goff. They’re already on the low end of available cap room to pay players. Paying Goff $60M in cap room to go away in 2021--his dead cap value sticks even if his salary does not--violates very basic math. 

After Goff’s performance on Sunday in the Rams’ 38-28 win over the floundering Cardinals, it looks like an even more ridiculous suggestion. Goff threw for 351 yards, 1 TD and no giveaways as the Rams improved to 8-4. Maybe the good folks at FOX Sports can offer Bradshaw some guidance or at least pre-fact-check his segments. It would save a lot of hot air and embarrassment. At least when they turned from Bradshaw to the rest of the crew, both Michael Strahan and Howie Long were openly laughing at Bradshaw’s wild fantasy. 

$.06--Last week saw the end of the Matt Patricia reign of coaching malpractice in Detroit. Three other NFL coaches greased their own skids towards joining Patrica on the unemployment line on Sunday.

It’s not going to end well for Anthony Lynn with the Chargers. Losing 45-0 to the Patriots on Sunday in what might have been the worst game in franchise history should expedite the ending. New England scored on a blocked field goal and a punt return, exploiting the Chargers’ long-running issues on special teams. The game was never really a contest.  

Lynn is a good man and a fine running backs coach who has proven incapable of running a whole team. The Chargers are 3-9 and have beaten the 0-12 Jets, 1-11 Jaguars and 2-9-1 Bengals. The worst Patriots team of the 21st century just buried them 45-0. It’s time. As in, it needs to happen before you read this on Monday type of urgency.  

It might not quite be time for the Bengals to move on from Zac Taylor, not that immediate anyway. But it certainly needs to happen. Taylor’s Bengals meekly lost to Miami, 19-7, but not before inciting a brawl with a cheap shot on Dolphins punt returner Jakeem Grant. Miami had some guilty parties too (looks at Devante Parker) but the larger point is that Taylor lost control of his players. If they’re not getting better--and progress has stymied for a few too many Bengals players under Taylor--and they’re making undisciplined mistakes, that’s coaching. Taylor can ride out the remainder of the season, but if the Bengals truly want to thrive with Joe Burrow, they have to know Taylor’s not the guy to get them there.  

Then there’s Chicago and Matt Nagy. His Bears have fallen from 5-1 to 5-7 after choking away a home win over Patricia’s Detroit replacement, Darrell Bevell. A Romeo Okwara strip-sack of Mitchell Trubisky set up a game-winning TD run by Adrian Peterson to lift the Lions to the win. A Lions team playing without its top WR, top RB and two defensive starters who went on IR midweek, no less. Nagy, like Taylor and Lynn, probably needs to drop back down to being a coordinator again before getting another head coaching sniff that (justifiably) might never come.  

$.07--Any Given Sunday, Week 13 edition

The New York Giants brought some actual respect to the lowly NFC East by stunning the Seahawks in Seattle, 17-12. That they did so behind backup QB Colt McCoy and with backup RBs by committee makes it even more unlikely and impressive. 

New York’s defense deserves the credit. They’ve been trending up for the last few weeks, figuring out better how they fit together in coordinator Patrick Graham’s defense. That was on full display in Seattle, where the Big Blue defense forced Russell Wilson to cook without any spices.  

The Giants defense sacked Wilson five times and bothered him consistently. The outside-in contain rush was executed expertly, not freeing up Wilson for many of his patented great escapes. Holding the Seahawks offense to just 10 points in a 17-12 win--the Seahawks blocked a punt for a safety to get to a 5-0 lead early--is no fluke. That’s good defense.

New York also found some life on the ground with Wayne Gallman. His 60-yard run was the cherry on top of a 135-yard Sunday, with Alfred Morris scoring a touchdown as the sprinkles on top. McCoy didn’t have to do much other than not let the ice cream melt, and the veteran did just that. He only threw for 105 yards and did toss an INT, but he didn’t succumb to pressure and kept things simple.  

The Giants are now 5-7 and have won four in a row. They haven’t allowed more than 20 points in any of those games. This was the most impressive win of the foursome. It’s time to stop snickering at the first-place Giants. They’re playing some solid football under rookie coach Joe Judge lately. 

$.08--NFL quickies

--Arizona’s loss and Minnesota’s narrow overtime win over Jacksonville further muddied the bottom of the NFC playoff standings. It’s looking more like the old Monty Python skit, the 100M freestyle for nonswimmers than it is a race for good football teams. Put it this way: Washington is 4-7, about to play the unbeaten Steelers, and still has a viable chance to earn a Wild Card. I do think Arizona gets its act together and earns the final Wild Card spot, but they’re trending badly in the wrong direction at 6-6. 

--Colts punter Rigoberto Sanchez watched his teammates win a game on Sunday. Sanchez had emergency surgery to remove a cancerous growth earlier this week. He played last Sunday. Good reminder that there are humans inside those helmets, guys with real-world problems too. Get well soon, Rigoberto! 

--Want to know why the Bears are 5-7 after starting 5-1 and now share last place in the NFC North with the Lions? Here’s a good indication…

--Congrats to Aaron Rodgers, who became the fastest QB to throw 400 career TD passes. Rodgers blew the record away, too. He beat Drew Brees to the mark by 12 games. 

--Chargers WR Keenan Allen set the NFL record for the most receptions in the first 96 games of a career. An arbitrary number of games to be sure (he’s had injuries that don’t make it a clean six seasons), but that doesn’t diminish how good Allen has been in relative anonymity. He passed Antonio Brown and Julio Jones on the list with 605. Allen leads the NFL with 85 receptions in 2020, and I bet he’s not in the first five names most fans would think of when asked who would be atop the list.  

$.09--College/Draft Quickies

--Alabama WR Devonta Smith put on a show against LSU and earned my top vote for the Biletnikoff Award in the process. Smith caught eight passes for 231 yards and 3 TDs in the Crimson Tide’s 55-17 win over the rotting shell of the defending national champs. Smith lacks bulk but it doesn’t impact his ability to get separation from press coverage or make tough catches. He’s a legit top-10 overall prospect and a playmaker extraordinaire.  

Folks will argue over WR1 this year between Smith and LSU’s JaMarr Chase (who opted out) and I’ll just say this: there is no wrong answer. They’re both outstanding. I happen to prefer Smith a little, but that’s not any knock on Chase. Each is worthy of a top-10 pick.  

--Rice did what no Rice Owls team has ever done before. The Owls flew into Huntington, WV, and upended the previously unbeaten Marshall Thundering Herd. It’s the first time Rice has knocked off an unbeaten, ranked opponent in school history. Rice was 0-29 against ranked teams since 1997. 

--Coastal Carolina staked its claim to being the best non-power-5 school by holding off BYU in a hastily-assembled thriller of a game. The Chanticleers stopped a BYU receiver about a yard short of the end zone on the final play of a 22-17 win in the battle of the unbeatens. CCU is now 10-0 and ranked 11th in the latest AP poll. Not bad for a team that played in the FCS in 2017.  

--South Carolina hired Shane (son of Frank) Beamer as its new head coach. Beamer, 43, has been in charge of Oklahoma’s offense, but he does have ties to the Gamecocks program. He’s expected to bring in former SC quarterback Connor Shaw, who he helped recruit to Columbia years ago, in a move that should certainly fire up the fan base. 

--Indiana moved up to No. 8 in the rankings after beating Wisconsin over the weekend. The Hoosiers are 6-1 and the loss was a close-shave defeat to unbeaten Ohio State. Head coach Tom Allen is doing a phenomenal job building up a program that couldn’t give away tickets not too long ago. Expect to hear Allen’s name mentioned as a possible successor at bigger programs (Michigan? Texas?) this offseason. Don’t automatically expect him to leave, however.  

--On a weekend where my Ohio Bobcats football team couldn’t play Buffalo due to COVID-19 issues, OUr Bobcat basketball team took out the aggression on Cleveland State. Ohio went on an NCAA-record 40-0 run during the game, the biggest run against another D-I school in the history of college basketball. Ohio won, 101-46. 

$.10--Something about Monday Night Football this past week bothered me. It stuck with me throughout the week, enough that I ranted about it on a podcast I recorded on Friday

It involves Seahawks star wide receiver DK Metcalf and his pregame interaction with Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz. And it reflects one of the underlying problems with our society today. We seek confrontation and drama when there is none.  

Schwartz paid Metcalf a compliment, letting him know he reminded him of Lions great Calvin Johnson, who Schwartz coached for several years. Johnson was “Megatron” for his freakish physical abilities, and Metcalf has many of those same qualities. Schwartz told him so too, with the caveat that Metcalf wasn’t quite there yet in just his second season.  

The gist of the conversation...

"You're the closest thing I've seen to the best WR of the 21st century" - Jim Schwartz

"How dare you insult me like that" - D.K. Metcalf

That’s right. Metcalf turned an earnest compliment from one of the NFL’s reddest asses into a perceived insult. Metcalf proudly doubled down on the disrespect angle after the game, too. He genuinely took offense to being labeled “almost” Calvin Johnson, a surefire Hall of Famer who holds the NFL record for most receiving yards in a season. 

I understand the mentality of trying to find a chip to play, of needing to find an edge or extra motivation. I did it when I played sports, notably beach volleyball. If I had lost badly to a guy in a tournament or if someone celebrated a hit a little too much, it pumped me up and I generally played better. That’s natural. It was even truer with my wife, who won a lot more semi-pro tournaments than I did. But that’s not what Metcalf did…

He took earnest praise and encouragement and contorted it into the equivalent of being called a scrub. Metcalf isn’t the only high-level athlete to turn compliments into perceived insults, but he’s the latest in the viral phenomenon that makes no sense. 

Learn to take a compliment. Learn to be appreciative of someone respecting you. Understand the context, too; Jim Schwartz passes out praise about as frequently as pandas successfully reproduce in captivity. You think treating his hard-earned praise as an insult will make him do it again? You think people will be less willing to give compliments if they’re thrown back in their face with some misconstrued mental gymnastics? 

If someone takes the time to say something nice to you, accept it with grace. Even if you don’t believe it, the fact someone sought you out for a compliment and had the willingness to express it needs to mean something. Be humble. Be nice. And be happy someone cares enough to say something nice about anyone in our current culture.