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Aaron Rodgers and the Packers come up short on a wild final play in Washington
Did the early slate of games this Sunday make sense to you? Did you predict some of these shocking results?
That makes one of you.
The early slate of games in Week 7 of the NFL season offered some true stunners, and made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
We know the NFL is an “any given Sunday” league, and in the era of parity and low scoring, any team can truly win in any given game. But the early slate on Sunday truly put that theory to the test.
Perhaps nothing will top what we saw in Carolina, as the Carolina Panthers, embarrassed Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers by a final score of 21-3. Consider what has happened in Carolina over the past few weeks. The organization fired Matt Rhule and traded Christian McCaffrey to the San Francisco 49ers. They started P.J. Walker at quarterback this week, with Baker Mayfield dealing with an injury. Center Pat Elflein was placed on Injured Reserve with an injury Saturday afternoon.
Despite this, the Panthers kept Brady and the Buccaneers offense out of the end zone, dropping Tampa Bay to a 3-4 record on the season.
After the game, both Brady and head coach Todd Bowles struggled to come up with answers:
#Bucs HC Todd Bowles opens up his postgame press conference by saying that the offense is not playing well. As individuals, as a team, not coaching well. It is about as dark as it’s going to be. They’re just going to dig as a team.
— PewterReport (@PewterReport) October 23, 2022
#Bucs Bowles says the teams mental toughness and fortitude is missing from this team.
— PewterReport (@PewterReport) October 23, 2022
#Bucs QB Tom Brady says the team is just not playing well l. We talked about execution the other day and we’re still not doing it
— PewterReport (@PewterReport) October 23, 2022
Brady finished the day having completed 32 of 49 passes for 290 yards, but was held out of the end zone as the Buccaneers failed to score a touchdown. It looked like Brady and Mike Evans were going to connect early in the game for a huge touchdown pass, as the wide receiver found himself behind the Panthers’ secondary, but he failed to haul in the throw:
That was not the only wacky aspect of the early slate.
Perhaps the most exciting game during the early window came courtesy of the New York Giants and the Jacksonville Jaguars. After a Graham Gano field goal gave the Giants a 23-17 leave with just over a minute remaining, Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars offense got to work on their final drive of the game, with a chance to pull out the win.
Jacksonville got into the red zone and haced a third down from the New York 17-yard line with just five seconds remaining. Lawrence looked towards Christian Kirk in the middle of the field and the two connected, but came up inches short of the heroic finish:
This replay angle shows just how close the Jaguars were to potentially pulling out the stunning victory:
At least the Giants fans who made the trip to Jacksonville were happy:
Then there was the situation in Landover, Maryland.
It has been a rough few months for the Commanders, and in particular a brutal week. Investigations continue to swirl around owner Dan Snyder, and at the NFL League Meetings this past week Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay called into question Snyder’s status as an owner. Add in questions about quarterback Carson Wentz — and a stint on the IR for the quarterback — a check given to a fan after winning a 50/50 raffle that bounced, players like Chris Cooley declining to be honored at halftime because they do not want to be associated with the team, and a seat cushion giveaway being delayed to the end of the game for fear of the fans throwing them onto the field in frustration, and you had the makings of a tough scene at FedEx Field for the Commanders with Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers coming to town.
So naturally Taylor Heinicke and Washington delivered a win. As “sell the team” chants broke out throughout FedEx field, and stadium workers pulled down signs reflecting that sentiment, the Commanders found a way to win. Heinicke threw a pair of touchdown passes, including a deep shot to Terry McLaurin early in the second half, as Washington held on for the 23-21 victory.
McLaurin was huge down the stretch for the Commanders. In addition to the touchdown, he had two critical receptions on Washington’s final drive as the home team tried to salt away the win.
Still, Rodgers had a shot for one last play, and instead of opting for a Hail Mary, they looked to a series of laterals to spark some last-ditch magic. But the play failed, emblematic of the wacky early slate:
The loss dropped the Packers to 3-4 on the season, along with the Buccaneers.
Meaning Green Bay and Tampa Bay, two preseason favorites in the conference, have combined for the same number of wins on the year as the Giants.
Anything can happen on an NFL Sunday, and we saw a lot of that in today’s early slate.
