NFL Musings, Week 6: Cam Newton Thrives on Being Sleepless in Seattle, Kirk Cousins is Who We Thought He Was

The week opened with Atlanta falling in New Orleans on Thursday night. That did not portend chaos and disaster for the remaining unblemished teams, though several were pushed to the brink. We are now left with five undefeated teams at the end of Week 6, the most in NFL history at this point (2009 featured four such undefeated teams, no other season has had more than three).

Cincinnati pulled away in clinical fashion against a Buffalo team suddenly banged up and in the throes of a Rex Ryan up-and-down campaign. New England outmatched the Colts at the line of scrimmage on 4th and 3, and shut Andrew Luck’s offense down for much of the second half. The Packers survived injuries and a Chargers last-gasp effort at the goal line. Denver played the same game they have played for six weeks – a defensive score, field goals, and one offensive score – on the way to an overtime victory in Cleveland. And Carolina stunned Seattle … leaving the Seahawks grasping for answers again.

Cam Strikes Back in Seattle

Seattle did it again. For the third loss this year, Seattle had a late lead but gave up a touchdown in the closing minutes. This time around, it was two, as Carolina trailed 23-14 with less than four minutes remaining, but lost in regulation.

For Carolina, it was an improbable victory after trailing almost the entire game. Newton was completing under half of his passes for the day, until the closing stretch. Then, he found Greg Olsen on a complete busted coverage in the closing seconds, when it looked like Carolina may be setting up for a tying field goal. Kudos to the Panthers for going for it and not settling for a coin flip, but taking advantage of Seattle’s mistake.

For Seattle, it’s part of a very troubling trend. With the two late touchdowns yesterday, Seattle has surrendered four touchdowns in the final 4 minutes of a game, when leading, that ultimately led to a loss. We are just six weeks in. Add in the Super Bowl defeat, and the Seahawks’ vaunted defense has given up a lead four times in losses in their last seven games.

To put that in perspective, we have accurate play-by-play info back to the 1998 season. Only one team has given up more touchdowns when leading, in the final 4 minutes of an eventual loss, for an entire season. That was the 2013 Vikings with five allowed. Going back to the start of the 2012 season, five franchises haven’t allowed it to happen even once (Arizona, Cincinnati, Denver, Houston, and New York Jets).

Seattle isn’t alone this year. It has happened 17 times this year. Kansas City and Baltimore sit at 1-5 and each have allowed three late touchdowns that contributed to go-from-ahead losses. To put that in perspective, in 1998, there were 17 late comeback touchdowns total. We’ve matched that mark in six weeks. Your father’s win probability  charts (assuming he had such a thing) aren’t real helpful. Hell,

Denver Survives Again in Cleveland

On Friday, I wrote about Denver’s troubling outlook and rank among undefeated teams, having scored only eight offensive touchdowns in the first five games. For 3.5 quarters, it looked like Denver was following the same script as two earlier wins. No offensive scores. A defensive touchdown. And field goals.

Then, Cleveland scored to pull it close, and Peyton Manning threw a pick-six that gave the lead to the Browns. With the formula in doubt, the offense actually needed to make a play. And for a brief moment, Manning returned, hitting Emmanuel Sanders down the sideline for a 75 yard touchdown. The rest of the game was nondescript (some drops by Demaryius Thomas didn’t help) and Denver’s smothering defense simply outlasted the Browns. An overtime win, another close win, and nine offensive touchdowns after six games.

Kirk Cousins Happened … 

The New York-Washington game Sunday started out like the Eagles’ loss for the Jets. Early turnovers negated what should have been an advantage. Eventually, though, the Jets pulled away with a methodical performance, and allowed Kirk Cousins to happen.

Let’s first talk about Cousins, who will be a big talking point in Washington. Gruden has – rightfully – drawn criticism for his differing handling of quarterbacks. Whereas Gruden blasted Robert Griffin III immediately last year, he has minimized and justified Cousins’ performances, particularly when it comes to turnovers.

By both age and relative repetitions, Cousins is not actually young by NFL standards when judging whether it’s time to move on. Before last season, I wrote that Kirk Cousins was “ridiculously overrated” and nothing has changed that opinion. Since then, while he has thrown for more yards, he is still throwing interceptions at an alarming rate.

He has thrown 17 picks on 432 attempts. It’s not accompanied by enough big plays to offset it. Those 17 picks follow a year when he threw 7 interceptions on 155 pass attempts. The wind, and bad luck, and arm punts, seem to affect Cousins more than anyone else.

How historic is Cousins’ talent for giving away the ball? Plenty of quarterbacks have had bad interception years. There is a large element of luck and teammate factors and game situation that contribute to interceptions. Cousins, though, has done it for three straight years. Only one other quarterback in the last 50 years has had three straight seasons with at least 150 passes thrown, where they were more than a standard deviation worse than the league average INT rate every year: Marc Wilson of the Los Angeles Raiders from 1984-1986.

Cousins is 27. He should be a career backup. As for time/opportunity, the following first round picks going back to 1978 put up roughly similar league-adjusted efficiency numbers to Cousins, and got fewer than 700 career pass attempts (Cousins is at 635 and counting): Andre Ware, Matt Leinart, Todd Marinovich, Cade McNown, David Klingler, Timm Rosenbach, and Chuck Long (along with E.J. Manuel, it appears).

… And the New York Jets are a Few Breaks from those Undefeated Teams

Yes, there are five teams still undefeated. The most surprising and impressive team, though, might be the New York Jets, and next week is Patriots’ week. When people talk about splashy moves not working out, you might point them to the New York Jets. Darrelle Revis and Brandon Marshall have both had a huge impact. A team that was sliding at the end of the Rex Ryan era suddenly seems like much more than a stopgap team applying band-aids. This team is a real threat – and perhaps only real threat outside of Pittsburgh when Roethlisberger returns – to the Patriots/Broncos/Bengals triumvirate.

The Jets have yet to allow a team to pick up more than 18 first downs (Eagles). We knew the defense had the potential to be stout with the defensive line investments in the draft to go with Revis, but it’s the other side of the ball that has been surprising. The Jets have yet to have fewer than 18 first downs on offense (week 1 vs. Cleveland). In the last two wins over Miami and Washington, they have nearly doubled up the opponent – 899 yards versus 451 allowed.

The Steelers Somehow Get it Done Against Arizona

Bruce Arians’ Arizona team has been pretty consistently good at the fundamentals and little things over the last few years. On his return trip to Pittsburgh, though, that fell apart as Arizona lost a game they absolutely should have won against a limited Steelers’ offense.

If I showed you many of the key numbers, you might think Arizona won.

Arizona had 469 yards. They allowed only 14 first downs to the Steelers. They held the ball for far more plays. Pittsburgh had 6 passing yards when Michael Vick was in the game.

But turnovers (3) and a missed field goal, while Pittsburgh had no turnovers and went 4 for 4 on field goal attempts, was too much to overcome. And then Landry Jones hit the mercurial Martavis Bryant for an 88 yard catch and run to seal it late.

It’s not a repeatable formula, but Pittsburgh has eked out two important victories while Ben Roethlisberger was sidelined. And we probably witnessed the last of Michael Vick in a NFL uniform.

Dan Campbell Fires Up the Dolphins

Miami came out and rolled over Tennessee, given a bye week and an interim coach in Dan Campbell who brought an aggressive, empowering mentality. The defensive line was freed up to get after the quarterback. They did so–sometimes too aggressively–but they made the difference. The offense committed more to Lamar Miller. The outcome was pretty much not in doubt by halftime.

Expect Campbell to get lots of kudos. Given how much the team had seemingly given up right before Philbin was fired, it would have been a major red flag if they didn’t come out and play better with no more excuses. Now, the key with a rah-rah “in-your-face” motivating coach is the follow-up. Will the Dolphins be an up-and-down affair all season riding a roller coaster, or will this continue?

NO-HUDDLE ATTACK

Minnesota 16, Kansas City 10: The Vikings allowed the Chiefs to stick around and somehow have a chance late. It was a fairly uninspiring game. Stefon Diggs of the Vikings looks like he’s going to make an impact for the rest of the season.

San Francisco 25, Baltimore 20: The Ravens’ pass defense is terrible. Kaepernick has played much better, though everyone has been lighting up Baltimore.

Cincinnati 34, Buffalo 21: We’ll just leave this here–

Detroit 37, Chicago 34: Has there ever been a game with so many points scored that we just wanted to end so it was out of its misery?

Houston 31, Jacksonville 20: The Jags led by a score of 14-10 going to the fourth. They lost another at home, while giving up two Hoyer-to-Hopkins touchdowns and a pick-six. Moral victory time is far past in Jacksonville.

Green Bay 27, San Diego 20: Philip Rivers continues to deal, but the Chargers came up just short on the goal line. This Chargers team is capable of losing to, or beating, anyone.

New England 34, Indianapolis 27: Nothing to see here. We learned what we didn’t know before– don’t line up with just a center and someone directly behind him.