Welcome To Today’s NFL

Let me paint you a picture of a team’s stats for a particular game. Their defense forces three turnovers and sacks their quarterback four times. Their offense possess the ball for over 40 minutes of the game. Totals 581 yards on offense with no turnovers and no sacks allowed. What if I told you that the team that did all of that ended up losing the game they played with those kinds of stats? That was the Los Angeles Rams on Thursday night against the Seattle Seahawks. Credit to Seattle for making the plays needed to score 16 unanswered points in a 2-1/2 minute stretch to tie the game against the Rams, but there was no way that the Seahawks should have won this game. This is today’s NFL where teams can do everything right, but still manage to blow a game in the most spectacular fashion. Does this mean that Seattle or Los Angeles are not among the best teams in the league? Not necessarily, but it puts the microscope on them as to whether they should be taken seriously if something this happens this late in the season to either one of them. Almost 600 yards of offense by one team and they still lost the game. Yikes.

An Improbable Season

There is no sensible way that the San Francisco 49ers should be in a position to clinch home field advantage in the playoffs. Yet, they are two more wins away from accomplishing that. Thanks to the Seahawks win against the Rams, the 49ers can win out and clinch the number one seed in the NFC. With the Niners dominant win against the Indianapolis Colts on Monday night, they just need to defeat the Chicago Bears and Seattle Seahawks at home to claim the top spot. Nick Bosa, Fred Warner and their first round pick Mykel Williams have been lost to injuries at various points of the season and the defense hasn’t been the same as a result. They’re dead last in sacks and are in the middle of the pack as a pass defense, but they have a top-10 run defense and are just outside the top-10 in points allowed. On offense they’ve also suffered injuries with QB Brock Purdy missing most of the season and TE George Kittle missing time as well in the first two months. Thankfully for them RB Christian McCaffrey has been healthy and the most consistent player on offense. Purdy’s five touchdown performance against the Colts looked to be a culmination for this team and the accomplishments they’ve made this season. If they end up winning out and clinching home field that will be the cherry on top.

Knuckleheads Never Change

When I saw D.K. Metcalf playing in his final season at the university of Mississippi I figured he would get selected somewhere in the first round of the draft. His size, physicality and speed were nearly unmatched and were reminding me of Calvin Johnson years prior for the Detroit Lions. It became apparent though that Metcalf who was drafted late in the 2nd round by the Seattle Seahawks in the 2019 draft wasn’t in the same stratosphere as Johnson. Reason being is that Metcalf wasn’t on for every play and his route running ability needed work. He can run a go-route and go up and get the ball with the best in the league currently, but he wasn’t counted on to run complicated routes and if a defender got physical with him it got to him in frustrating fashion. Eventually that all ran its course in Seattle and him getting traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers this past offseason would give him a fresh start. He would clearly be the number one receiver for a Steelers offense desperately in need of someone like Metcalf. However, there was no cohesion on offense for some time as the Steelers offense has struggled mightily for most of the season. Even though they’ve now won 9 games and are one win away from clinching the AFC North division title, Metcalf did a boneheaded act. Whatever might have happened with him and the fan that he took a swipe at in Detroit, there is no evidence to support his actions. Camera phones everywhere and nothing to support Metcalf’s account. Mind you with what led up to it there was no pause by him to point out the fan to anyone on the Steelers sideline. You’d think that with the amount of people on a team’s sideline, someone else could have taken care of any kind of issue between Metcalf and the fan without it coming to what it became. But no, Metcalf showed that his head wasn’t in the game and that he was distracted by outside noise and was going to take of it himself. As a result he was suspended for the last two games of the season and it might not be that much of a detriment to the Steelers offense. What’s even funnier about all of this is that it turns out there was a clause in his new contract with Pittsburgh that he would lose over 40 million dollars in contract guarantees with a suspension of any kind. Congratulations DeKaylin Zecharius Metcalf, I hope it was worth it.