Week 7 might have been the wildest week of the NFL we've had this season. Even if it wasn't, the Sunday night game alone made up for it. Here is your weekly fix of analysis, stats, gifs, and more from the week that was in the NFL.

1. SEATTLE-ARIZONA Gets Crazy

Once this game got bumped into the Sunday Night Football slot, it was destined to be wild. )Let’s not forget, this matchup was originally destined to be buried in the late afternoon.) We got everything we could have hoped for from the teams that once brought us a 6-6 tie.  Of course, this was the opposite of a low-scoring defensive effort and the eventual 37-34 Arizona Cardinals overtime win over the Seattle Seahawks went in almost every direction possible.

Arizona kept the game tight despite never taking the lead until the final field goal. For as much as the offenses dictated this matchup in the shootout, the defensive philosophies played a major role. Seattle’s once great defense has been among the league’s worst this season, 26th in defensive DVOA entering the week and 29th against the pass.

With the fear of getting beat by Kyler Murray, the Seahawks typically kept a spy on Murray. On many plays, that was Shaquem Griffin, who was on the field for nearly half (48.1%) of Seattle’s defensive snaps while his previous season-high had been 30%. Griffin is one of the few players who could match Murray’s speed but his role as a spy kept the Seahawks’ pass rush tame. The Seahawks blitzed on just two of Murray’s 48 dropbacks and did not create a pressure until late in the overtime period.

That allowed Murray to sit back and extend plays. Even without facing a blitz or pressure, Murray held the ball for an average of 2.92 seconds per Next Gen Stats. Early on, Arizona took advantage by using a heavy dose of play-action and on a 35-yard touchdown pass to DeAndre Hopkins, used some college trickery on a quick snap with the offense looking to the sideline. The defense was caught off-guard and Hopkins was able to beat Quinton Dunbar down the sideline.

 

 

Murray didn’t go deep often but the extension of plays resulted in 14 rushing attempts for 67 yards and a touchdown to go along with an efficient day on short passes. Murray missed just one of 20 attempts between 1-10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.

Murray finished the game with 0.26 EPA per dropback and a 61% success rate, per nflfastR data, and spread the ball around more than he typically had. Hopkins still led the team in targets (13) but Christian Kirk and Larry Fitzgerald weren’t far behind (eight each). Chase Edmonds also had seven receptions and 82 yards on seven targets.

The Seahawks had an early lead, 20-7 near the end of the first half, behind the arm of Russell Wilson. The Let Russ Cook philosophy isn’t going anywhere for Seattle. Entering the game, the Seahawks were first in pass rate on early downs in the first three quarters after they were a bottom-10 team in 2019. Some wondered if Seattle’s pass-first philosophy would carry throughout the season and so far it has. In this game, the Seahawks passed on 68.1% of their early down plays.

Seattle’s shift was partly due to a realization that the team should put the ball in its best player’s hands more often, but also that the defense wasn’t going to be good enough to hold opponents to low scoring games.

Wilson had one of the wildest games of his career and it started from the first play of the game when he hit Tyler Lockett on a 34-yard pass after an aggressive press from Patrick Peterson off the line.

 

 

Per Next Gen Stats, that pass had just a 21.3% completion probability given the distance and coverage but it wasn’t even his craziest pass to Lockett in the game. That was a 49-yard rainbow touchdown in the final minute of the second quarter, which had an 18.1% completion probability when Wilson released the ball. 

 

 

For as on as Wilson was, he was also as off as he’s been in a game, possibly ever. He threw three interceptions in the game, something he had only done three other times in his career and not since 2017. Of course, the first one is where the focus is because of the chase from D.K. Metcalf. But let’s not overlook the initial read and jump Budda Baker had on the floater to Chris Carson.

 

 

The second interception was luckily followed up by Murray’s lone pick on the next play. But the third gave the Cardinals the chance to win the game at the end of overtime. Cardinals rookie linebacker Isaiah Simmons was supposed to be one of the brightest stars in the new wave of defenders but his development has not been instant and Arizona has kept him off the field.

That has led to a lot more playing time for free agent acquisition De’Vondre Campbell, who can be picked on in coverage. The Seahawks did just that with six catches for 80 yards on seven targets against Campbell in coverage.

Simmons got just five defensive snaps in the game, but the fifth was all that was needed. Arizona blitzed Wilson heavily in overtime. The timing and designs of the blitzes threw Wilson off what had been a good rhythm throughout most of the game. On the final pick, Arizona showed a rush look with a stacked line but then rushed just three with a spy. Simmons dropped right into the path of Tyler Lockett’s route and able to grab the interception.

 

 

For all of those interceptions, Wilson still finished the game with positive EPA — 0.03 per dropback. That’s an incredible feat considering the Baker interception alone was worth -11.5 EPA.

This game was only in overtime because of some crazy end of game situations. Murrays’ interception led to a Seattle touchdown to give the Seahawks a 10-point lead late in the fourth quarter. But the Cardinals came back with a 14-play, 75-yard drive for a touchdown. Seattle came back with a drive that lasted just five plays. 

For as aggressive as Pete Carroll has been in 2020, this drive was as conservative as could be. Seattle ran four times and punted with just over a minute to go in regulation. Arizona then went 54 yards in eight plays to kick a game-tying 44-yard field goal.

Even overtime made no sense. The Cardinals lucked out with a forced punt of the Seahawks but settled for a 41-yard field goal attempt on second-and-15 after calling a timeout on themselves just before a made kick. Kliff Kingsbury has gotten better at not settling for short field goals (Arizona went for a fourth-and-goal from the 3-yard line earlier in the game) but settling for long ones at the end of games can be just as bad.

But the Cardinals were able to get the Simmons interception and add 19 yards for a game-winning 49-yard field goal.

Arizona now pulled itself within a half-game of Seattle in the division and the Cardinals now have a 66.9% chance of making the playoffs. And if this game wasn’t enough. These two meet again — in primetime — for Thursday Night Football in Week 11.

2. Steelers Third Downs

The top of the AFC is a bit of a cluster. Neither the Kansas City Chiefs nor Baltimore Ravens have been truly as dominant as they were last season and entering Sunday, the two undefeated teams in the conference were the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans. Despite the combined 11-0 record heading into the Week 7 matchup, both were still considered to be in the second tier of contenders due to some flaws. Some still showed up in Pittsburgh’s 27-24 win, but the winner was able to get around them.

There’s been a discussion about Ben Roethlisberger’s arm strength and how much he has on his deep ball. To be fair to Roethlisberger, that’s currently the conversation around every older quarterback this season; one bad deep pass and the arm is considered dead. But Roethlisberger has struggled there this year. Entering the week, he was only 7-of-20 (35%) on passes that traveled over 20 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. But luckily when those passes have hit, they’ve been successful — four of those seven completions were touchdowns.

Pittsburgh has been scheming the offense around any possible decline in arm strength and that was on full display again against the Titans. Per Next Gen Stats, Roethlisberger’s average pass traveled just 5.6 yards beyond the line of scrimmage and his average completion came at 3.1 yards. His average time to throw was an incredibly low 2.05 seconds. That’s a time where it’s impossible to get pressure but also impossible to push the ball down the field. Roethlisberger now has the fastest average time to throw on the season at 2.29.

This has clearly been the strategy to get the ball out of the quarterback’s hands quickly. For a player who was once known for wild extended plays, the Steelers are now making sure their soon-to-be 39-year-old quarterback is no longer doing that. This isn’t about pressure either; the Titans were just 25th in pressure rate through Week 6, per SIS.

Roethlisberger also showed why this should be the strategy. He was 0-for-3 with two interceptions on passes over 20 yards. But the Steelers knew where to target the Titans secondary and that was to the shallow left. Roethlisberger was 15-of-17 for 122 yards with a touchdown and an interception.

Pittsburgh had to rely heavily on yards after the catch in this game, especially on third down. The Steelers converted 13-of-18 third downs in this game, an impressive figure, but also troubling that 18 third downs occurred. The Steelers struggled on early downs (-0.20 EPA per dropbacks and -0.04 EPA per rush) but they lit it up on third down with 0.75 EPA per play.

Most of Roethlisberger’s third down completions came short with yards after the catch. Even his deeper passes took some impressive efforts from the receivers.

 

 

Overall, Roethlisberger threw for just 5.5 yards per attempt and had 11 of his passes defensed. The third down success was just enough to give him a 51.1 QBR and positive EPA on the day, but it’s hard to see success in that way continuing.

The bright side for Pittsburgh was a defense that had its most complete performance of the season. Early in the season, the Steelers had been a push-rush-only team with a secondary that left a lot to be desired, even with the talent in place. Ryan Tannehill still had decent numbers on the day and A.J. Brown escaped with some long catch-and-runs, but the Steelers were able to stop the big shot play. Tennessee was 0-for-2 on 20-plus-yard attempts and Tannehill was just 3-for-7 to the intermediate area.

So much of Tennessee’s success on offense has been creating space off play-action and the Titans weren’t able to completely take advantage of that. And while they are a heavy play-action team, Tennessee is also a team that does believe in the early down run (the Titans lead the league in early down run rate) and that put them behind in this game.

Tennessee had a near even run-pass split on early downs (21-22) but the difference in production was significant: 0.17 EPA per dropback and -0.13 EPA per rush, per nflfastR.

That put them in a hole early but they came close to climbing out of at the end of the game. Tennessee had a drive to pull within a field goal, capped by a 1-yard Henry run. Then on the following drive, the Steelers went 16 plays and 72 yards to kill over half the quarter: seven minutes and 38 seconds. There were four separate third down conversions on that drive alone. 

Then on a third-and-12, Roethlisberger fired an ill-advised pass to a covered JuJu Smith-Schuster in the end zone that resulted in an interception. Tennessee then went 12 plays and 52 yards but missed a 45-yard field to tie the game.

3. OHIO Shootout

Two of the most exciting games this season have come from meeting between the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals. The Week 2 35-30 Browns win on Thursday Night Football was an unexpected surprise and the Week 7 sequel, a 37-34 Browns win, brought even more to the table.

Baker Mayfield started this game 0-for-5 and finished the game with only five incompletions on actual pass attempts. His final line, 22-of-28, only added an incompletion on a spike at the end of the game. This might have been Mayfield’s best performance of his career. He had five touchdowns, along with an interception, and his 97.3 QBR was only bested by his 98 QBR from the first time these teams met this season.

What was so impressive about Mayfield’s performance on Sunday is how much of it came from the pocket. To this point, Mayfield’s career has been defined by his play outside of the pocket. On his poor days, he drifts outside of it too quickly and if he’s pressured there he can fall apart. But in this new offense, there has been a controlled effort to get him out of the pocket on bootlegs and there’s a significant production split between when Mayfield is designed to leave the pocket and when he’s pressured.

But in this game, he did his best play from inside the pocket. All five of Mayfield’s touchdown passes came from the pocket in this game and all five were quick, decisive strikes. Mayfield only had six touchdown passes from the pocket prior to this game, per Sports Info Solutions.

Mayfield was on in this game and it was in such a different way than he’s succeeded previously. Without Odell Beckham, who left the game with a knee injury, and Austin Hooper, out with appendicitis, the Browns had to dig into the offensive skill depth. That meant a little less natural separation created, but Mayfield trusted the offense and made some plays into tight windows he might not have otherwise attempted.

Per Next Gen Stats, 21.1% of Mayfield’s attempts were into tight windows (a yard or fewer of separation). He showed little hesitation and was able to fit the ball in, like on his touchdown pass to David Njoku early in the fourth quarter.

 

 

Mayfield was nearly matched in this game by Joe Burrow, who threw for 406 yards and three touchdowns for an 84.5 QBR. Burrow might already be one of the best rhythm throwers in the league. Some of that has been due to offensive line issues but is aided by the quarterback’s comfort in empty formations. Burrow was 21-of-22 for 203 yards, two touchdowns, and an interception on throws between 1-10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.

Entering the game, Burrow had been one of the best intermediate throwers in the league by EPA:

One thing Burrow needed to work on was the deep pass and the Bengals have started to work around that by implementing more deep back-shoulder throws. Burrow hit A.J. Green with a 22-yarder at the end of the first quarter and Tee Higgins on another for 27 yards at the end of the second.

The two quarterbacks traded scores as the first game to ever have five go-ahead touchdown passes in the fourth quarter. 

Mayfield threw the final dagger with a 24-yard strike to Donovan Peoples-Jones with just 11 seconds left in the game.

 

 

Neither Ohio quarterback has been perfect this season, but both showed promising flashes of progression as they tried to one-up each other on Sunday.

4.  You Can’t Stop The Chiefs, You Can Only Hope To Contain Them

There has been a shift in how teams defend the Kansas City Chiefs this season. It started in Week 1 with the Houston Texans and while the execution has taken different forms, the idea remains the same. Opponents don’t want to get beat deep. Defenses are now playing back and allowing the Chiefs to either throw short or just run the ball. Against Houston in the opener, it was all short passes. Last week against Buffalo, it was the Clyde Edwards-Helaire show.

The Broncos got caught somewhere in between. Patrick Mahomes had one of his worst games as a pro (still good enough for a 53.4 QBR) and the Chiefs only rushed for 101 yards on 22 carries as a team. Denver had a fairly good strategy that played that passive game on early downs and got aggressive on third. The Broncos brought pressure on Kansas City’s first two third downs, both of which resulted in a sack. This gave the Chiefs, a team that has dominated third downs this season, their worst EPA of the season: -0.74. 

Kansas City did just enough to keep the ball moving on early downs. Mahomes hit a few intermediate and deep passes and the Chiefs were able to take advantage on the ground when the opportunity was there, like this 27-yard first down run against a light box.

But the problem for a team playing the Chiefs is even if that team holds Mahomes down, the opposing offense has to outperform Kansas City, and mistakes can’t be made elsewhere. Denver and Drew Lock couldn’t keep up. Lock’s accuracy was wild, he finished with a completion percentage over expectation of -8.8%, according to Next Gen Stats, he was baited into some bad decisions and made others on his own.

Denver allowed two non-offensive touchdowns, a 50-yard pick-6 to Daniel Sorensen and a 102-yard kickoff return to Byron Pringle. The Chiefs now have multiple ways to beat opponents. If needed, they still have the best quarterback in the league, but they haven’t felt the need to press that this season. They’ll take winning on the ground and with splash plays on defense. The other difference between the Chiefs and others is some of those teams need those kinds of plays to compete. Right now, the Chiefs are using them because they can. The offense didn’t have a particularly good day and there were still 43 points up on the board. Even when a plan works, it might not.

5. 49ers worked the Patriots

There was a lot to take in from the 33-6 blowout win by the San Francisco 49ers over the New England Patriots. In the past, Bill Belichick has been able to adjust personnel and scheme to give the team a chance to win, but the past two weeks have been among the worst Patriots performances in decades.

It’s not a coaching issue, either. The typical Belichickian ideas were there. Stephon Gilmore covered George Kittle on third downs. New England used a 6-1 front to try to stop the 49ers run game. None of it worked. Kyle Shanahan was a step ahead from the opening drive.

Just over their own 40-yard line, San Francisco used Deebo Samuel on jet motion, faked to the back, and eventually threw the swing to Samuel. All the misdirection froze the defense and Samuel had an opening for 23 yards.

 

 

Later in the drive, the 49ers reversed the jet direction. This time it was man coverage as Jonathan Jones followed Samuel across the formation. But watch Kittle from the right side take out Jones as he came across the field, which left Samuel one-on-one with Ja’Whaun Bentley in the open field.

 

 

The 49ers even worked plays down the field later in the game, with a pick to get Brandon Aiyuk free for a 35-yard gain.

 

 

San Francisco had nearly 200 yards on the ground, just shy at 197, with four rushing touchdowns. Jeff Wilson had 112 yards and three touchdowns on his own. There was little New England had to stop wherever San Francisco wanted to do on offense.

The other side of the ball might have been a bigger disaster. After an impressive first two weeks of the season, the Patriots offense and Cam Newton have looked nothing like what we saw. Newton’s past two games have been rough and there were naturally injury concerns brought up, but we should also remember Newton did test positive for COVID-19 earlier in the season, so it’s reasonable to believe he’s not in peak physical shape in his return.

What made those first few weeks so great for the Patriots was how Newton was able to take complete control of the offense to make up for the lack of talent at the other positions. Without Newton doing that, he and the offense look even worse because that surrounding talent isn’t there to carry the quarterback.

Newton looked terrible in this game and was deservedly benched but Belichick did not give any indication that Newton would be done as the starter. But if Newton can’t be the quarterback he was early in the season, the Patriots just don’t have enough anywhere else to make up for it.

6. 2019 Matthew Stafford is in there somewhere. Let Him Out.

The Detroit Lions and Atlanta Falcons played a game only two teams best known for crushing defeats could. Detroit snuck out a 23-22 win after Todd Gurley accidentally scored with 1:04 remaining in the game to give the Falcons a 22-16 lead. That was just enough time for the Lions to drive down the field and score a touchdown to win the game as time expired.

Matthew Stafford was excellent in this game and looked like the version seen in the first half of the 2019 season. We got to see that today because the Lions were in a close game and needed to pass to score. But overall, that’s not what the Lions have tried to do this season. Even in this game. Detroit had 25 early down pass attempts to 20 rushing attempts even though the split was significant: 0.36 EPA per dropback vs -0.20 EPA per rush.

Stafford hasn’t been great this season, but he’s also been put behind the sticks so often and the offense has been reliant on the running game. This was closer to a vintage Stafford performance that carried the team whole the leading rusher had 29 yards. 

Somehow the Lions have found themselves back at .500 and while they’re still longshots to make the playoffs (25.6% per Football Outsiders), if they want to stay above .500, putting more on the quarterback should be the way to do it.

7. Let’s talk about Josh Allen

After the first few weeks, a lot of people owed Josh Allen an apology. He was playing at a level he hadn’t hit before and not many expected. But over the past few weeks, that play has dropped off and while he doesn’t look like the quarterback who will throw away the game, he hasn’t been the MVP, either.

Josh Allen, 2020

WeeksComp-AttYards (YPA)TD-INT
1-4105-148 (70.9%)1328 (8.97)12-1
5-770-111 (63.1%)692 (6.23)4-3

Like Cam Newton and the Patriots, what made the Bills dangerous is that Allen had been able to carry them. The running game and the defense have been among the league’s worst this season, so the passing game needed to take the lead. It did that against the Jets, because it doesn’t take much to do that against te Jets, but if the Bills are going to remain contenders at the top of the division and potentially the conference, the Josh Allen of the past few weeks won’t do. 

Against the Jets, the Bills’ best offensive play was an Allen run. That can raise the floor of the offense, but that ceiling looks a little lower than it did a few weeks ago. 

8. Chart of the Day

Justin Herbert didn’t throw deep often at Oregon. It was a system based a lot more on horizontal throws. But even when Herbert did throw deep, he was often inaccurate. That has not been the case in his pro career. Herbert went 4-of-7 for 144 yards and three touchdowns on throws of at least 20 yards in the 39-29 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. Herbert can still have a bit of inconsistency from down-to-down but those splash plays can carry him through his early development.

9. Play(s) of the Day: Green Bay’s Jet Motion

Few things have been more pleasant to watch this season than the development of Green Bay’s jet motion game. The Packers are using it all over the field and it’s been particularly effective near the goal line. Green Bay scored two touchdowns using motion during the 35-20 win over the Houston Texans.

The first used 21 personnel and had Jamaal Williams as the motion man before the snap. After the snap, Jace Sternberger followed the motion and snuck into an open hole for an easy catch in the end zone.

 

 

A second touchdown used Davante Adams as the motion man with a hard play fake to Williams. Malik Taylor faked a block of the left and then released to a quick out for an open touchdown. 

 

 

10. The Buccaneers Are What They Were Supposed To Be

It’s hard to look better than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers right now. After a dominant defensive performance last week, the defense was just ok against the Las Vegas Raiders, but the offense was nearly unstoppable. That’s what makes the Buccaneers on the Chiefs level. They have the top offense that can take over any game and they have multiple ways to win should they need to rely on something else. That can be said as the spread it out around the offense from Mike Evans to Chris Godwin to Scotty Miller to Rob Gronkowski looking like Rob Gronkowski. (It's also what makes their most recent addition more disappointing.)

Tom Brady is currently second in passing touchdown behind Russell Wilson and is getting more comfortable in the offense by the week. We’re starting to see what works and what doesn’t and those plays that don’t are starting to be erased from the call sheet.

Tampa Bay gets a gift in the New York Giants next Monday night but then a fun four-game stretch against the Saints. Panthers, Rams, and Chiefs before a Week 11 bye.