Thursday Football Afterword: Broncos vs Chargers

San Diego's game plan was to feed Ryan Mathews the ball, and it worked.
Mathews gained 128 yards and a touchdown on 29 carries in Thursday's win.

Cory Puffett

Denver’s defense could not stop Ryan Mathews, and when you give up a lot of rushing yards and your offense has a few 3 & outs, it makes it difficult to pull out a win.

The Broncos got close, but San Diego handed Denver its first division loss since Peyton Manning joined the team last season. The Chargers controlled the ball for 39 minutes of the game by gaining 178 rushing yards. Philip Rivers helped keep the clock running by completing 12 of 19 passes for 166 yards and two touchdowns, both to Keenan Allen.

Denver gained just 18 yards on 11 carries and by the time Denver gave up on the run and turned things over to Peyton Manning, it was just about too late. He tried his hardest to pull the game out for the Broncos, but when he was hit in the pocket and the ball found Thomas Keiser in the secondary, there just wasn’t enough time.

Manning did close the gap on Tom Brady’s single-season record for touchdown passes by recording two more on Thursday night. He now just 47 this season and is just three away from tying the record and two away from tying his career best.

Andre Caldwell led the Broncos with 10 targets and had six catches for 59 yards and two touchdowns, playing in place of Wes Welker who was not cleared in time to play after suffering a concussion on Sunday against Tennessee.

San Diego keeps their slim playoff hopes alive with the win, which pushes their record to 7-7.

In Week 10, San Diego held Denver to 28 points, the best any defense had done against them all season. The next week, Kansas City held Denver to 27 points, but San Diego took back the top spot for fewest points allowed to the Broncos’ juggernaut offense on Thursday.

The Broncos are now 11-3 and are in danger of losing home-field advantage for the postseason. If New England wins in Miami on Sunday, the Patriots take over the top spot in the AFC based on the head-to-head tiebreaker. The good news for Denver is that neither of their last two games are likely losses, as they play at Houston and then at Oakland.

Final Score:

San Diego Chargers – 27

Denver Broncos – 20

Thanksgiving Football Afterword: Ravens vs Steelers

Joe Flacco completed 24 of 35 passes (68.6%) for 251 yards and a
touchdown in a Thanksgiving home win that could save Baltimore's season.

Cory Puffett

Before I get into my recap, I think the most important thing is to express how thankful I am that the injury to Le’Veon Bell was not more serious than it was. I wasn’t sure he’d play football again, let alone get up and walk off the field.

The rookie had a big day. He said it’s always been his dream to play on Thanksgiving. And just like in every other game he’s played this year, he made the most of the opportunity. He had 73 rushing yards and a touchdown in addition to 63 receiving yards on seven catches. I pray that one play doesn’t end his career.

Overall, the Steelers played well. Their defense struggled early but then picked it up down the stretch. Similarly, the offense couldn’t sustain drives in the first half, but found success in the second.

The Ravens played well all game. The second half would lead some to believe that the defense let up, but that isn’t true. And though the Ravens didn’t score very much, they scored often. So though they were only able to find the end zone once, they still found a way to win.

Justin Tucker was on last night. Five-for-five from an average of more than 40 yards out is a pretty damn good night.

I was equally impressed with Joe Flacco. It was far from a perfect night, but he has made more good throws in the last two weeks than he had all season leading up to then; and they don’t appear to be fluky throws.

With their victory, the Ravens have an opportunity to go out and prove to the country that they are for real. They will likely not still hold the sixth playoff spot once this weekend concludes, but they have a tough schedule ahead of them. If they can overcome that and secure a playoff spot, a lot of people, myself included, will be hard-pressed to find a reason to pick against them in the playoffs.

The Steelers’ stumble on Thanksgiving all but takes them out of the playoff picture. They aren’t mathematically eliminated, but the math also doesn’t give them very kind odds.

Final Score:

Pittsburgh Steelers – 20

Baltimore Ravens – 22

Thursday Football Afterword: Falcons vs Saints

Akeim Hicks (sacking Ryan) and John Jenkins were a big part of a defensive
line that was in Matt Ryan's face for the better part of Thursday night.

Cory Puffett

A game of inconsistency on both sides; that’s the best way I came up to explain this game in one statement.

There were plays when Atlanta’s defense played great. On other plays, it was just poor play calling or poor execution by the Saints’ offense.

New Orleans’ defense played pretty well for the most part, but it didn’t always feel that way, especially early in the game. The Falcons scored on each of their first three drives, combining for 31 plays, 190 yards and 13 points.

They almost scored again late in the fourth quarter, but in a rare case of successful icing, Sean Payton called a timeout before Matt Bryant made a 52-yard field goal. After the timeout, Bryant missed his kick wide left.

With the exception of that drive, the Saints played great defense after giving up those 13 points to Atlanta, putting a lot of pretty on Matt Ryan in the pocket and forcing a turnover on one promising Atlanta drive.

As for the Saints’ low score, it’s as I said above. It was a mix of some poor offensive plays by New Orleans and some great defensive plays by Atlanta, though rarely on the same play; if you follow that, kudos.

Despite both quarterbacks seeming to struggle at times, their stats don’t reflect it. Several of Drew Brees’s passes appeared to be nearly intercepted, but he completed 23 of 33 passes for 278 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

Matt Ryan completed 30 of 39 passes for 297 yards. The only turnover of the day was a fumble by rookie Atlanta wide receiver Darius Johnson.

Jimmy Graham set a record for tight ends with his sixth 100-yard receiving game of the season.

The Saints should have won by more, but the win improves their record to 9-2 and helps them to keep pace with the Seahawks, who are 10-1 and on their bye week. If they can take advantage of any possible slip-ups by Seattle, they could earn home field advantage. In fact, in a way they control their destiny since they play at Seattle next week on Monday Night Football. A win there would put the Saints in the driver's seat of the conference with just four games remaining.

Final Score:

New Orleans Saints – 17

Atlanta Falcons – 13

Thursday Football Afterword: Titans vs Colts

Former 1st round draft pick Donald Brown had a career day, rushing
for 80 yards and two touchdowns in Indy's win on Thursday.

Cory Puffett

After one of their worst performances since the 2011 season, the Colts needed bounce-back game. They got just that, and it could not have come at a more critical time.

Visiting their AFC South rivals, Indianapolis held a two-game lead over Tennessee entering Thursday. With another matchup with the Titans coming in Week 13, the Colts could ill afford to give up a game in their division race.

The Titans got off to a booming start. Chris Johnson talked during the week about wanting to gain 100 yards on the ground in this game after failing to do so in each of Tennessee’s last five tangles with the Colts.

He certainly got off to a good start, rushing for 70 yards and two touchdowns on eight carries on the Titans’ first two possessions.

But Tennessee got away from the run game and Johnson only saw the ball ten more times the rest of the game, nine times on the ground and once through the air, and finished with just 84 total yards.

Still, trailing 17-3 early in the second quarter and 17-6 at halftime, Indianapolis was looking far too much like the team we saw last week against St. Louis. The offensive line was not blocking well in any aspect of the game, and though the defense settled down after the first two Tennessee drives, it looked like those scores might be enough for the Titans.

But the Colts flipped the switch in the second half. Indy got the ball to start the second half, and Andrew Luck went 5/5 for 42 yards along with a 13-yard scramble that led to a six-yard Donald Brown touchdown run.

Tennessee return man Devon Wylie fumbled the ensuing kickoff and after tossing a nine-yard completion, Luck scored on an 11-yard scramble to give the Colts a 20-17 lead.

In all, the Titans ran just seven plays for eleven yards in the third quarter.

The Titans did a better job of stringing plays together and keeping their defense off the field in the final quarter, but the damage was already done and the Colts rode their momentum swing to a big victory that gives them a three-game lead in the AFC South and a 3-0 division record.

This win also protected a long-standing accomplishment for Andrew Luck. He has not lost consecutive games since his redshirt freshman year at Stanford.

The Colts have divisional games every other week for the rest of the season with matchups at Arizona, at Cincinnati and at Kansas City in between.

At 4-6, the Titans’ playoff hopes are slim. Their next move is a three-game road trip. They get a long week to prepare for Oakland, and then they play in Indianapolis with Thursday’s loss fresh in their minds. They will finish this road trip in Denver. If they lose either of their next two games, that will be a must-win for Tennessee.

Final Score:

Indianapolis Colts – 30

Tennessee Titans – 27

Thursday Football Afterword: Vikings vs Redskins

Starting in place of injured TE Kyle Rudolph, John Carlson made
seven receptions for 98 yards and a touchdown in Minnesota's win.

Cory Puffett

Christian Ponder said a couple weeks ago that he was a different quarterback. He said that things were slowing down for him, that he was approaching the game differently, that, at least, things could get much worse after being benched.

Well, he certainly had a game last night. He completed 17 of 21 attempts for 174 yards, two touchdowns and an interception, earning a 113.1 passer rating and helping his team to a big win, their second of the season and their first on this side of the Atlantic.

When Ponder suffered what appeared to be an arm injury in the third quarter as he reached and fell a foot short of the pylon on a scramble, and Matt Cassel came in to finish the job, completing four of six passes but letting Adrian Peterson do most of the work down the stretch.

Ponder was seen smiling on the sidelines before being taken to the locker room. Hopefully for Minnesota, it was only precautionary that he did not return.

The Redskins’ offense looked fantastic in the first half. Robert Griffin III was slinging and had three touchdown passes. The Vikings were powerless against Alfred Morris, who may inspire some Washington fans to bring back the old diesel train horn back from the glory days of old with the way he’s trucking defenders.

But the Redskins struggled in the second half, and it didn’t look like it was anything the Vikings were doing. Washington got away from the ground game. Griffin III struggled to complete his passes, and the offensive line deserves some of the blame for that as he was sacked three times in the second half.

As Eric said after the game, “it’s always one step forward and two steps back with the Skins.” After a big offensive game last week and an important win against the Chargers, all signs pointed to a big win against a struggling Minnesota squad reeling after a last-minute defeat against Dallas four days earlier. Instead, Christian Ponder had a great day, Peterson ran well in the second half, and the Vikings improved to 2-7.

Thursday night’s loss pushed the Redskins down to 3-6. Incidentally, that is the same record they had at this time last season before reeling off seven straight wins and winning the NFC East title. It will take a miracle to pull of such a run this season with the Eagles, 49ers and Chiefs on the slate three of the next four weeks.

Minnesota will have a long week to prepare for a game in Seattle. The Vikings’ playoff hopes are long gone, but Seattle has not be invincible at home this season, nearly losing to a much worse Tampa Bay squad last week.

Final Score:
Washington Redskins – 27

Minnesota Vikings – 34

Thursday Football Afterword: Dolphins vs Bengals

With 79 rushing yards and two touchdowns on just nine carries,
Giovani Bernard (25) left an impression on the Dolphins and me.

Cory Puffett

Andy Dalton, often described as a perfectionist, was far from perfect on Thursday night. But his three-interceptions performance was not as discouraging as a lot of quarterbacks’ similar performances.

I give a lot of credit to Dimitri Patterson on the first pick. It wasn’t a bad decision by Dalton, Patterson just made a great break to the ball. If Dalton had thrown the pass to A.J. Green’s back shoulder, Patterson might still have gotten there.

On the second interception, again it was not a bad decision by Dalton, it was just thrown way behind Marvin Jones and Brent Grimes took advantage.

The third interception is a tough one. Dalton had a man wide open in the flat but decided to go over the middle for Mohamed Sanu. To Dalton’s credit, the pass was on the mark, but Sanu couldn’t catch it quickly and bobbled it to linebacker Dannell Ellerbe.

The mistake Dalton made that stuck out to me came with about 90 seconds left in the second quarter. He targeted Dane Sanzenbacher, who was interfered with by Patterson. But Dalton’s pass sailed way out of bounds and the flag was picked up because the ball was uncatchable, forcing fourth down. Nobody is comparing Dalton to them, but the Mount Rushmore of NFL quarterbacks know to at least put the ball close to their receiver, just in case of interference. Hopefully he will learn from it.

The Bengals weren’t the only team to miss opportunities, though. Lamar Miller fumbled in the red zone early in the second quarter, and Caleb Sturgis missed a 34-yard field goal in the first quarter that could have made overtime unnecessary.

Ultimately, the game ended on a safety, just the third time in NFL history that an overtime game has concluded that way.

The player of the game, to me, came from the losing team, though. Giovani Bernard is the real deal. He has the perfect combination of power and nifty footwork. His balance is amazing, his vision even better. It’s fun to watch this kid play and he can keep the Bengals in any game regardless of how the rest of the team is playing.

The only thing that makes me nervous about the Bengals moving forward is that Geno Atkins, who made his presence felt early in the game, went down with a knee injury and early reports indicate that he likely tore his right ACL. Cincinnati’s defense is more than just Atkins, but this loss still hurts with two important division games looming. The good news is that the Bengals have a long week to prepare for their trip to Baltimore in Week 10.

The Dolphins get an even longer week as their next contest is in Tampa on Monday Night Football in Week 10.

Final Score:

Cincinnati Bengals – 20

Miami Dolphins – 22 (OT)

Thursday Football Afterword: Buccaneers vs Panthers

Cam Newton completed over 70% of his passes for more than 200 yards and
two touchdowns while rushing 11 times for 50 yards and a score.

Cory Puffett

Carolina took over this game from the outset. Their first possession ate nearly nine minutes of game time on a 70-yard touchdown drive. Their next drive lasted less than four minutes but started at their own 20-yard line and ended with a 12-yard touchdown run by DeAngelo Williams.

The Buccaneers lone touchdown came in garbage time, much to Eric’s annoyance (he has Carolina’s defense for fantasy football this week).

I will talk a little more about the Buccaneers tonight on Football Freaks, which will be broadcast live on WMUC Sports from 7-8 p.m., so tune in to hear my take on what the Bucs’ outlook is for the rest of 2013.

The Panthers seem to be on track. Every year since 2011, Carolina goes 1-3 in their first four games. In 2011 and 2012 they followed that up with a 1-3 record in their next four games, as well. They went 4-4 during the second half of the 2011 season and 5-3 last year.

This year, they seem to be picking up the slack a little earlier. Since their 1-3 start, they’ve gone 3-0. A much harder part of the schedule is coming up though. They face the Falcons, 49ers and Patriots in their next three games and then play the Saints twice in their last four. But the rhythm Cam Newton and the rest of his team has found should serve them well down the stretch if they hope to pull out a wild-card spot in the playoffs.

Final Score:

Carolina Panthers – 31

Tampa Bay Buccaneers – 13

Thursday Football Afterword: Cardinals vs Seahawks

Carson Palmer was under duress all night and Seattle's front seven
got to him for seven sacks in the contest.

Cory Puffett

Judging my the score of last night’s game, you’d probably say that Arizona’s defense gave up a game they could have won. Surprisingly, you’d be wrong. The Seahawks, a team that typically underperforms on the road, bounced back from a mediocre home game last week to play a really nice game on both sides of the ball on Thursday night.

Arizona’s defense did all it could, even stuffing Russell Wilson on a fourth down in the second quarter with less than six inches needed to convert. The offense took over and drove the field but had to settle for a field goal.

In the fourth quarter, Carson Palmer put together a long stream of completions, but most of them were check downs with no time outs and a need for a quick score. But even that didn’t last as the Seahawks decided to stop playing prevent defense and broke down the offensive line, which isn’t a very hard task as it is.

Seattle benefitted from a broken play to open the scoring in the first half. Sidney Rice was wide open after breaking deep off a curl route, and Russell Wilson showed off his big arm to find him in the end zone.

Marshawn Lynch fell just short of his second 100-yard game with 91 yards and a score (he’s come close two other times with 98-yard performances against San Francisco and Houston).

Seattle’s defense doesn’t always play as well when they leave the 12^th Man, but two interceptions and seven sacks show that they were ready for this one, and they played a great game.

Arizona has ten days to prepare for the Falcons to visit them and then will enjoy their bye week. Seattle, meanwhile, will have another division road game as they travel to St. Louis next week and then have three more games before their bye week.

Final Score:

Seattle Seahawks – 34

Arizona Cardinals – 22

Thursday Football Afterword: Bears vs Giants

The struggle continues for Eli Manning. Thursday night marked the
fourth time in six games that he's thrown at least three picks this season.

Cory Puffett

I let last week slip by without much analysis, at least not via the written word. Well I’m back this week and we (my radio co-hosts and I) will be sure to cover the big games for Week 6 right here.

For the second straight week, we were treated to a really good game on Thursday night that had low expectations going in. It was advertised as a game pitting two “NFL powerhouses” against each other, which was laughable considering one was the 0-5 Giants.

Credit to the Giants for keeping it interesting. Brandon Jacobs had a huge game on the ground, racking up over 100 yards and two scores for the team he gave so much to over the first seven seasons of his career.

Unfortunately, Eli Manning was the undoing of his team for a second straight week. He has six interceptions in the last five days, 15 on the season, and has thrown at least one in every game so far. Two of his first five passes last night were picked off, the second was returned for a touchdown, and his third came on a promising drive late in the fourth quarter that ultimately clinched the victory for Chicago.

Jay Cutler and the Bears improve to 4-2 with the win and will have sole possession of the NFC North if Cleveland can beat Detroit on Sunday. Cutler now has 12 touchdown passes versus six interceptions on the season after throwing a pair to Brandon Marshall.

Speaking of Marshall, the NFL told him earlier this week that if he wore green cleats to support Mental Health Awareness Week, he would be ejected from the game. They backed off that stance and told him that he could wear them but that he would be fined. He responded by saying that he will match the NFL’s fine with a donation to a Mental Health charity. Chalk one up for Good Guy Brandon this week.

Be sure to listen to the Football Freaks’ Week 6 predictions podcast on PodOmatic or iTunes, and then tune in this evening from 6-7pm (emphasis on SIX P.M.) for our live show on WMUC Sports. Call in at 301-314-9979 or Tweet your questions to me, @cpuffnfl.

Thursday Football Afterword: Browns vs Bills

Browns returner Travis Benjamin had a big night, returning a punt for a
touchdown and setting the franchise record for single-game punt return yards.

Cory Puffett

It’s not Thanksgiving, but I’d like to take a quick moment to express how thankful I am that the good Lord has instilled in me a passion for the NFL so deep that I would never for a moment consider missing a game that is available for me to watch live. Conversely, people all over Facebook and Twitter (I’m looking at you, NFL Memes) talked about how lame this game would be, going so far as to say that painting a fence a la Tom Sawyer would be more interesting.

Well, if they stuck to their words and missed this game, it was certainly their loss. The video game score in this one probably surprised a lot of people waking up this morning considering it was a game between the Bills and the Browns. They’ll probably be even more surprised to know that Brandon Weeden entered the game on Cleveland’s second possession and, though it took a couple drives to settle in, played a heck of a game.

E.J. Manuel also left the game, though he lasted until the second half. Jeff Tuel did not fair as well as Weeden.

It was a game of runs, as they say. The Bills opened the game with 10 points, but 17 points from the Browns in the second half gave them the lead at the break. The Bills scored the game’s next 14 points and then the Browns scored the game’s last 20.

On a rainy evening on which Jim Brown, the greatest Brown of all time and maybe one of the best players the NFL has ever seen, was honored at halftime, the ground game was highlighted in a way that probably made the old football hero proud. The two teams combined for nearly 250 rushing yards on 63 carries and the Browns got their first rushing touchdown of the season.

The 3-2 Browns now lead the AFC North. The Bengals will have to beat the Patriots and the Ravens will have to beat the Dolphins if they want to keep pace.

Buffalo falls to 2-3. After an exciting first two games that resulted in a close loss to the Patriots and an exciting last second victory over Carolina, they haven’t looked very good, and things only figure to get tougher with games against Cincinnati, Miami, New Orleans and Kansas City over the next four weeks.

Final Score:

Buffalo Bills – 24

Cleveland Browns – 37

Follow me on Twitter, @cpuffnfl, and keep up with the Football Freaks on Facebook and iTunes.