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Dallas 📈

I’m buying what Mike Zimmer is selling. It's a slight grain of salt since the Cleveland line had injured/missing tackles, but this was an elite effort along all three levels, including a secondary that had me concerned since Bland is missing time.

The offense needs to be more consistent. Some of it was scoreboard-dictated, and yes, the Cleveland defense is pretty good, but they had NINE drives that went for 20 yards or fewer. This does not include the two truncated drives at the end of the 2nd and 4th quarters.

Other upgrades: MIN, NO

• Vikings defensive scheme looks tough as hell and the offensive line shut down the one thing I thought the Giants would be able to do well, small bumps in a few spots has them up among the average!

• Despite the weak opponent, I saw a lot of good from folks I was concerned about. The rookie tackles Taliese Fuaga, as well as third-year project/problem Trevor Penning, both played well, and Derek Carr looked good in the metrics that are somewhat opponent-adjusted.

Green Bay 📉

I didn’t want to skip over it, even though it’s not like I have some deep analysis here. The downgrade for me is around six full points. We’ll see if the Indy defense is truly bad against the run this week, I guess.

Other downgrades: CIN, CLE, CAR, ATL

• Joe Burrow’s wrist may not be right. Plenty of takes on both sides of that right now, but the fact is they didn’t push it deep much, and he finished with the 20th-best EPA/play in the loss. The bigger issue is the health of the top two WRs, but for now it’s still a pretty easy downgrade for now until we see it from this offense.

• The tackle injuries are a part of this, but Watson was pretty rough. It’s hard to parse out how much of that was playing an elite defense, but he still made bad decisions at too many points in the game.

• Carolina looked worse than I thought was possible, and now loses a key defender, likely for the year. You’ll hear this a bunch, but at least they have their first round pick this upcoming April.

• Kirk Cousins is obviously not 100% and they also didn’t want to run the sort of offense that he’s succeeded in. Here’s a clip from the NFL+ film room for every Kirk pass play where he used Play Action.

BONUS: DOUBLE MOVE BUCS

I was high on Tampa Bay, I bet them last week, and even against a really good matchup, what I saw from Baker impressed me, which led to a small move up.

Unfortunately, they lost FOUR defensive backs during the course of the game, and this secondary is in shambles, leading to a defensive downgrade that has this team actually slightly lower than where they were in my ratings for last week.

Knee Jerk Awards

We’ll talk a bit more about betting into these markets over the course of this week’s podcast and the halftime shows, these are just my “guy I think has a clear path to win it after one week’s worth of data/film/stats”. This is not financial advice, I’m not running to the window for these, yet.

MVP - Josh Allen

He may have to carry this damn team a bunch. If he stays healthy and puts up 40 touchdowns with 15 on the ground and wins this division with a bad defense, it may finally be time to give it to him.

OROY - Xavier Worthy

The correct answer is “whichever QB starts to get it a little”, but for my money, Daniels looked the best of the three, and I don’t know if you can get it when you won’t/don’t/shouldn’t throw a good deep ball, somewhat because of the team around you. Worthy getting volume in important spots on a winning team is the entire reasoning

DROY - Jared Verse

He had a nice week (a sack, a TFL and a couple of QB hits), but he also had volume and this wasn’t supposed to be a good matchup. He was out there for 43 plays against this tough Detroit offensive line and ranked in the top 10 in the league in Pass Rush Win Rate for the week.

OPOY - Saquon Barkley

From the folks who brought you Miles Sanders and D’Andre Swift: here’s an elite back in the prime of his career in the most perfect situation possible. Elite offensive line and a scheme that’s going to allow him to put up counting stats and matter to the team’s success.

DPOY - T.J. Watt

He was an animal out there last week. This seems like another year where the list of realistic candidates can be counted on one hand, and if he plays all 17, I think he gets his second DPOY over Micah, Myles, and Maxx.

Coach - KOC

It may not be pretty the whole year, but he’ll get credit for the wins, even if it’s the defense keeping things close for a Sam Darnold-led offense. The narrative of getting it done with him/reviving his career plays well I think. Might only take a wildcard spot to get there.

Comeback - No Opinion (Probably Rodgers)

We don’t do that one anymore, it doesn’t make sense as an award and never will (Kyler at 20/1 or better is tempting with the market seemingly handing this to Rodgers at the moment)

🚨Podcast Tonight🚨

Every game, every angle we can think of. Live tonight at 7 ET on YouTube/Twitter and out in podcast form tomorrow morning.