Pigskin Papers Take Two: 2022 Week 16
Minnesota Does it Again!
(Published December 27, 2022)
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Happy Holidays to all, and welcome to another edition of “Take Two”. For the second straight weekend, the NFL treated us to 4 days of football in 5 days. As we head down the final stretch of games and toward the playoffs, one of the big stories of the weekend was the same as the week before - a whole bunch of playoff hopefuls losing, opening the door for longshot teams that were able to come away with wins.
Two teams that made the playoffs last year and that had been written off for dead a few weeks ago - the Steelers and Packers - are alive for the playoffs and while both need help, their odds of getting in aren’t as astronomical as they should be, considering they’ve both got a losing record. In fact, a whole bunch of 7-8 teams are alive, not just for division titles in the 2 terrible South divisions, but for wild cards. More than a quarter of the teams in the NFL have 7 wins after 15 games. They are:
AFC: Patriots, Jets, Jaguars, and Titans (all are 7-8).
NFC: Seahawks, Lions, Packers, and Bucs are all 7-8, Commanders are 7-7-1.
Week 16 didn’t have as many close games or crazy finishes as Week 15 (a hard act to follow), but there’s still plenty to dissect. Here is the format, once again: Take One will be a series of takeaways and observations from Week 16, and Take Two will be an another edition of Fun Facts and Stats of the Week.
WEEK 17 FANTASY WAIVER WIRE COLUMN: https://www.thepigskinpapers.com/posts-1/pigskin-papers-2022-waiver-wire-week-17 .
Pickett to Pickens Caps a Magical Night in the Steel City
TAKE ONE - Week 16 Takeaways
One week after completing the biggest comeback in NFL history with a walk off FG in OT, the Vikings walked off with another win on a game-ending FG. This time, the winning kick from Greg Joseph was a franchise record 61 yard boot. How do the Vikings keep winning these games? In a case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object, the Vikings (10-0 in one score games coming in) and the Giants (8-2-1 in such games coming in) traded blows down the stretch and once again the Vikings found a way to escape with a close win. Kirk Cousins has learned to lean heavily on Justin Jefferson when it matters most, and Jefferson is officially a superstar.
DAL 40, PHI 34 was one of the marquee games of the week, and there’s a chance that the Cowboys and Eagles will meet for a rubber match this post-season. They’ve yet to face each other with Hurts and Prescott both playing, and Philadelphia held its own with Gardner Minshew starting. I said this a couple of years ago - Minshew deserves another shot as a starter, and he’s one of several free agent QBs who should draw some interest this offseason. He helped his case on Sunday and will probably start at least one more game while Hurts heals.
It was another rough week for the AFC East teams other than the Bills. I’ll discuss them all:
That was a terrible loss, Miami Dolphins. From the moment that Raheem Mostert fumbled at midfield with Miami driving for points to add to its 10 point lead late in the first half, this team did almost nothing right. Tua has had a lot of luck this year with dropped INTs, but the Packers caught all 3 of the balls he threw directly into their hands in the 4th quarter and the high-flying Dolphins failed to score in the second half. Even though they’ve now lost 4 in a row, Mike McDaniel’s team still controls its own destiny, because the Patriots and Jets also keep losing (see below). Those are the 2 teams Miami needs to beat in the final 2 weeks to get into the playoffs without getting any help. They don’t look like a team that can do that, and especially with Tua back in the concussion protocol. My guess is they’ll shut him down, but we’ll see. You have to wonder whether this latest head injury impacted his play in the second half, not to mention how it was missed when it happened.
The Patriots have had 2 very painful losses in a row, something their fan base hasn't had to deal with much over the last 2 decades. A week after losing on the single dumbest play of the season (so far), the Pats gamely fought back from a 22-0 halftime deficit to the Bengals and in the final minute had a first and goal at the Cincinnati 5, down 22-18, before a fumble all but ended the contest. The Pats finish at home vs. Miami and then at Buffalo, a tall order.
The third AFC East team that’s suddenly lost its way is the Jets. We’ve probably seen the last of Zach Wilson as the Jets’ starting QB - he got benched again and the anemic 3 point effort at home against the Jags in the rain was depressing. The Jets finish with 2 on the road - at Seattle and Miami. Also a tall order.
The starting QBs in the Thursday night game were the top 2 picks in the 2021 draft. The drop-off from Trevor Lawrence to Zach Wilson is likely to end up being the biggest gulf between the first 2 QBs taken at or near the very top of the draft since Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf (1998).
What a magical night in Pittsburgh, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Immaculate Reception, and honoring Steelers’ great Franco Harris. Harris, who caught that pass, passed away earlier in the week. On a freezing cold evening, the Steelers came back in the second half, took their only lead of the game in the final minute, and walked off with a storybook win over the Raiders. Tua wasn't the only QB who cost his team with 3 second half interceptions - so did Derek Carr.
The Raiders have played a lot of very close and truly insane games. Their last 3 games finished with Baker Mayfield’s miraculous 2-TD comeback in the final 3 minutes, Chandler Jones’s 48 yard TD return of an intercepted lateral on the final play, and Kenny Pickett driving the field on them for a clinching TD that came in the final minute. You couldn’t write this stuff if you were making a TV show about a high school football team. I’ve got more on the Raiders’ ridiculous season in Take 2, below.
Congratulations, LA Rams! Yes, it’s true that your Super Bowl defense is the single worst of the 56 teams that have won the Lombardi, but you did win the battle of the NFL’s most disappointing teams, and did so in convincing fashion: Rams 51, Broncos 14. As for the Broncos, Nate Hackett lasted all of 15 games as their Head Coach. Unfortunately, hiring him wasn’t the worst move they made last off-season. No, that would be…
Russell. Freaking. Wilson. The Broncos have been dunked on by everyone for 16 weeks now, as Russ continues to falter, the team continues to lose, and the 2023 first round draft pick that Seattle holds via the Wilson trade (which is just part of the package that Denver surrendered), keeps getting better. Well, it turns out that the Russ deal isn’t the only game in town. I’ll give Deshaun Watson a little more time before jumping to any conclusions and especially since he was essentially out of action for more than a season and a half, and is still only in his mid 20s. But through 4 games, the Browns and their fans can’t be happy with what they’ve seen out of Watson, which has been pretty terrible. He’s exceeded 165 yards passing in just 1 start, and has 3 total TDs vs. 3 INTs. The team is 2-2 with Watson under center. They might be asking Denver fans to hold their beer by the middle of next season. Both teams gave up a ton of capital to get their man, whom they then paid a fortune to play QB.
Dak Continues his NFC East Domination
TAKE TWO - Stats and Facts of the Week
There has been at least one NFL game played on 8 of the last 12 days.
Every team in both the AFC South and NFC South is under .500.
No team in the NFC East is under .500.
If the season ended today, every team in the NFC East would make the playoffs, which would be an NFL first for any division.
After going 24 seasons without winning the AFC East (1996-2019), the Bills have won it 3 years in a row.
In the Raiders at Steelers game, the Raiders scored a TD on the game’s opening drive. Neither team entered the red zone again until the Steelers got there in the final minute of the game, their lone TD drive.
The Eagles have 6+ sacks in 4 straight games, the longest streak since sacks became an official stat in 1982.
The Ravens have played 4 straight games without allowing more than 14 points, and without scoring more than 17 points. They’re 3-1 in those games.
DeMarcus Robinson’s TD catch in Week 16 was the first by a Ravens’ WR since Week 3.
The Panthers’ Chuba Hubbard and D’Onta Foreman both had more than 100 yards rushing in the first half on Saturday vs. the Lions. The last time a team had 2 running backs go over 100 yards rushing in the same half was the Jaguars in Week 14, 2006 (Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew).
The Raiders’ loss to the Steelers on Saturday night marked the 5th time this season that they lost a game where they led by 7+ points at the half. That’s an NFL single-season record.
The 6-9 Raiders have lost 8 one score games this season, the most in the league.
In each of his first 2 career starts, Malik Willis hasn’t thrown for more than 100 yards, or thrown a TD pass.
Ezekiel Elliott has at least one rushing TD in his last 8 games played.
Aaron Rodgers is perfect in December starts (15-0) since Matt Lafleur became the Packers’ HC.
The Vikings are 11-0 in one score games. No team had ever won as many as 11 one score games in a single season until the Vikings this year.
Justin Jefferson needs 244 yards over his last 2 games (122 ypg) to become the first WR to reach 2,000 receiving yards in a season. Jefferson is averaging 117 ypg. The NFL record is 1,964 yards, set by Calvin Johnson of the Lions in 2012 (when the NFL season was 16 games long).
Dak Prescott is 19-1 as a starter in his last 20 games vs. NFC East teams.
Diontae Johnson has 82 catches this season, and 0 receiving TDs.
The Giants are the only NFL team (all time) to lose 2 games on game winning FGs from 60 yards or longer.
Pickett to Pickens for the game winning TD was only the 4th time in the Super Bowl era that a rookie QB threw a game-winning pass to a rookie WR in the final 2 minutes of regulation.
Since the tracking of QB stats began in 1950, only 2 QBs have started their careers by going 3-0 in their first 3 starts, with multiple TDs in all 3 games: Undrafted free agent and Hall of Famer Kurt Warner, and the very last player taken in the 2022 draft, Brock Purdy.
The only Patriots’ player with more TDs than rookie CB Marcus Jones (3) this season is Rhamondre Stevenson (6).
Jones has scored his TDs on a reception, a punt return and an INT return, all of which were longer than 40 yards. The only other player to have done that across an entire career is Deion Sanders.
Bengals 22, Patriots 18 was a Scorigami (an NFL final score that is a first). It was the 3rd Scorigami of this season and the 1,075th all time.
Tyreek Hill has the most total yards from scrimmage in a player’s first season after changing teams (he surpassed Stefon Diggs’s mark of 1,536 yards in 2020).
With 3 TDs on Sunday (2 passing, 1 rushing), Josh Allen now has the most offensive TDs in the first 5 years of a career (174), surpassing Dan Marino (171).
The Bucs averaged 30.1 ppg in 2021, and are averaging 17.7 ppg in 2022. That 12.4 ppg year-to-year dropoff is the largest for any team since the 1975-76 Bills.
A tale of 2 halves, Part I - Joe Burrow in the first half Saturday at New England: 28 completions (the most by any QB in a half this year), 284 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs. His second half: 12 completions, 91 yards, 0 TDs, 2 INTS.
A tale of 2 halves, Part II - Tua’s first 6 completions against Green Bay went for 204 yards, and Miami’s last 3 possessions of the game ended in Tua interceptions.
For the second season in a row, a newly hired Head Coach got fired during his first season (Urban Meyer, Nathaniel Hackett).
Mason Crosby (256) passed Brett Favre (255) for most games played all-time for the Packers franchise.
And…CUT!
DH
***This column (Take 2) and the Weekly Waiver Wire column appear each Monday and Tuesday, and the Weekly Fantasy Preview each Thursday. Please bookmark the site and come back often. You can also follow on Social Media - on Instagram (thepigskinpapers) and Twitter (@PigskinPapers). I appreciate your patronage and welcome your feedback. You can post in the comment boxes or email pigskinpapers@gmail.com.***
