Fubo News presents five overreactions to Week 14 of the NFL season. Watch the NFL live and for free this weekend on Fubo.
With NFL Week 14 in the books, the overreactions are plenty. The Philadelphia Eagles have fallen from the best record in the NFL to the wild-card team in two weeks. The Kansas City Chiefs tried in vain to blame the officials for their failure to properly line up on a potential go-ahead touchdown.
The laughably weak NFC boasts two teams with losing records in playoff spots with four weeks remaining. The New York Giants, a punchline for the first half of the season, sit a game out of a playoff position despite a 5-8 record.
As for the AFC, nine teams are either 8-5 or 7-6 and 11 of the conference’s 16 teams have winning records.
Four weeks remain in the regular season and the only clear thing is there is little clarity to the playoffs chase.
Let the chaos reign and let the overreactions spring forth.
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5. Tommy DeVito saving the New York Giants … for now
Undrafted rookie Tommy DeVito beat the odds by making the New York Giants roster as their No. 3 quarterback. Now DeVito is the savior of the New Jersey swamps with three wins in his four starts. He appears to have the inside track to keep the job for the rest of the season, even though veteran Tyrod Taylor is healthy.
On Monday night, DeVito led the Giants on a 57-yard game-winning drive, hitting all four of his throws for 53 yards to set up Randy Bullock’s walkoff 37-yard field goal. He was 11-of-12 in the second half, with the lone incompletion coming on a throwaway.
At 5-8, New York trails five teams by just one game for the final wild-card spot in the NFC. Monday night’s win over the Green Bay Packers, who hold the seventh spot via tiebreaker, could be a significant tiebreaker edge.
But DeVito’s emergence brings the contract of Daniel Jones into the spotlight. Jones signed a four-year, $160 million extension that includes $82.5 million in guaranteed money. But the deal only locks the team to the quarterback through next season. Jones tore his right ACL on Nov. 8 after throwing six interceptions and just two touchdown passes in six starts.
DeVito has eight TD tosses in four starts while authoring three of the team’s five victories.
It’s a feel-good story for DeVito. For the Giants in the long run? Maybe not so much.
4. The demise of the Philadelphia Eagles felt inevitable
When the Philadelphia Eagles allowed nearly every opponent to stay within striking distance, a fall seemed inevitable.
With a 42-19 thumping from the San Francisco 49ers at home followed by a 33-13 pasting on the road against the Dallas Cowboys, the fall is upon us.
In two easy steps, Philadelphia went from the top of the NFL to a wild-card team. Dallas holds the break edge with a better divisional record and at 4-1, the Cowboys’ final NFC East matchup comes in Week 18 on the road against the Washington Commanders.
The Eagles, meanwhile, are just 22nd in the NFL in total defense and have surrendered 29 touchdown passes, second-most in the league. Since producing eight turnovers in its first three games, Philadelphia has just seven takeaways in its last 10 games.
In the NFC, it’s unlikely the Eagles fall out of the playoff picture. But the defending conference champs have the wobble of a boxer who’s taken too many heavy shots.
A favorable schedule may save them. Philly visits the Seattle Seahawks on Monday night, and hosts the Giants on Christmas evening before getting a home game with the Arizona Cardinals on New Year’s Eve. It closes with a rematch against the Giants in New Jersey. Not exactly a gauntlet.
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3. Speaking of free-falling NFL teams based in Pennsylvania …
The Pittsburgh Steelers lost to a pair of two-win teams over five days to fall from 7-4 with the first wild-card spot to 7-6 with the tiebreaker advantage for the second but tied with five other teams.
Did we mention both of those losses came at home to the Arizona Cardinals and the New England Patriots?
Pittsburgh is 3-4 at the stadium formerly known as the Ketchup Bottle and has just one home game remaining. The Steelers host the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 16 and have visits to playoff hopefuls in the Indianapolis Colts, Seattle Seahawks and Baltimore Ravens still to play.
After breaking out with 421 yards of offense in a win at Cincinnati on Nov. 26, the Steeler offense is back to its pre-Matt Canada-firing self, putting up just 264 yards in the loss to New England. Pittsburgh is 27th in total offense and 21st in total defense, an unsustainable mix for a playoff contender.
Pittsburgh needs two wins in its final four games to extend coach Mike Tomlin’s run of consecutive winning seasons to 17. But the Steelers last won a playoff game in 2016 and nothing about the current iteration of the club indicates that is likely to change … if they even get an opportunity to do so.
2. Here come the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the two-time defending NFC South champions, reclaimed the division lead on Sunday with a 29-25 road win over the Atlanta Falcons. Tampa Bay, at 6-7, has a tiebreaker edge over both the Falcons and New Orleans Saints. Last year’s division crown came with an 8-9 mark and the division may go without a winning team for a second straight season.
Tampa Bay has won consecutive games for the first time since starting 2-0. Before that, the Bucs had lost six of seven. Are they the best team in the NFC South? That’s a difficult question to answer. It’s akin to being named valedictorian with a 1.38 grade-point average.
The Buccaneers visit the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, host the Jacksonville Jaguars and New Orleans Saints and finish the season on the road at the hapless Carolina Panthers.
Someone will win the NFC South, if only because the NFL rules make it a necessity. But if it’s another 8-9 champion (or worse, 7-10), the league might want to take a harder look at the whole “reward the division champions with a home game” policy.
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1. The Kansas City Chiefs can’t blame the officials, no matter how hard they try
Patrick Mahomes was stomping mad. Andy Reid took a thinly veiled shot at the officials. But the Kansas City Chiefs lost to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday because Kadarius Toney couldn’t execute the simplest part of a play.
Toney lined up offside, negating a spectacular touchdown pass from Mahomes to Travis Kelce, who lateraled across the field to Toney for an apparent go-ahead touchdown. Instead, Buffalo took advantage of the gaffe to hang on for a 20-17 victory that kept its playoff hopes alive.
Officials rarely flag offensive players for offsides. But Toney’s foot was clearly ahead of the line of scrimmage. So despite Mahomes’ tantrum and Reid’s chastising, the play was called correctly.
There’s a reason why offensive players are rarely penalized for the infraction. It’s because they know where they’re supposed to line up and do so. Toney didn’t and, well, didn’t.
Kansas City had a legitimate beef after a no-call on an apparent defensive pass interference in its Week 13 road loss to the Green Bay Packers. But Sunday’s loss? Nah, that’s all on the Chiefs.
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