Football

The 2-6 Giants are not yet making a quarterback change. Coach Brian Daboll told reporters on Tuesday that Daniel Jones remains the starting quarterback going forward. The Giants host the Commanders on Sunday. In Week 2, the Giants had a chance to beat them. If the Giants had a kicker, maybe they would have. If the Giants lose to the Commanders again, they’ll be 2-7. At some point, the Giants will likely bench Jones in order to avoid his $23 million injury guarantee for 2025. They’re apparently not at that point yet.

When you get beaten by a Hail Mary on a play that featured one of your defensive backs jawing with the crowd rather than covering the guy who eventually caught the touchdown, it makes sense that most of the focus is on what went wrong at the end of the game. Bears tight end Cole Kmet took a little bit of a longer view of what helped lead to Sunday’s 18-15 loss to the Commanders. Kmet referenced cornerback Tyrique Stevenson’s lapse in judgment by saying you always need to play until the clock strikes zero and he said it was also a reminder of the work that has to be put in all week. “I think it’s a really good lesson for everybody to learn from in terms of how to respect the game,” Kmet said in a videoconference on Monday. “I think we had examples of that throughout the game and, quite frankly, throughout the week of practice this past week. There’s moments where maybe some guys lay off here and there and those are the types of things that can happen when you do that for just a split-second. It doesn’t always come to bite you in the butt, but, when it does, it hurts. That’s the unfortunate and, I would also say, beauty of this game, if you disrespect it in a certain way and it’ll come to haunt you in some form or fashion. I think it’s a learning experience for everybody.” Kmet said his comments were “more of a general thing” than a specific critique of anything that went on last week, but reiterated his view that “if you relentlessly respect the game, you’ll get the results that you want.”

When deciding where to throw the football, some quarterbacks obsess over completion percentages and touchdown-to-interception ratio. Russell Wilson is not one of those quarterbacks. Wilson is willing to throw caution to the wind and trust his receivers. We’re seeing that play out for the Steelers in a big way, giving them their best quarterback play since Ben Roethlisberger retired. It’s been obvious since George Pickens’s rookie year that, as he wrote on his eye strips recently, he’s “open fucking always.” Even when he’s covered. If one man is on Pickens, throw it to him. Chances are he’ll catch it. If two guys are on him, throw it to him. Chances are he’ll catch it. Wilson is the first Steelers quarterback consistently willing to do something that on the surface is so simple: Throw the ball to 14. Russ is willing to throw it deep to others, too. He uncorked multiple long balls against the Giants, to multiple receivers. So what if it falls incomplete? So what if it’s picked off? Wilson realizes that the potential reward is worth the risk. The reward for Wilson and the Steelers has been two wins in two starts. Now, he and the Steelers have nearly two weeks to get ready for a stretch of three games in eleven days against the Commanders, the Ravens, and the suddenly resurgent Browns.

With Andy Dalton sidelined by a thumb injury, Bryce Young was back in the saddle as Carolina’s starting quarterback in Week 8. Young, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2023 draft, didn’t lead the Panthers to victory. But he did put together what was easily his best outing of the season, completing 24-of-37 passes for 224 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. While head coach Dave Canales wasn’t ready to say on Monday who will start at QB in the Week 9 matchup with New Orleans, Canales did note that Young’s ability to compete stood out against the Broncos. “He found some great completions throughout the game,” Canales said. “I thought the chemistry, finding Xavier [Legette], finding Jalen [Coker] a couple of times, finding D.Mo [David Moore]. There were some things that I was really encouraged by, and I think he took steps in that regard and I think that, the whole process, the pre-snap operation is the focus and the intent for us improvement-wise.” Canales added that he thought Young’s in-play timing also improved, though he again mentioned that there are things pre-snap that need to be cleaned up. “I thought he played fast, I thought he was very decisive,” Canales said. “He had some scrambles, he threw the ball away in some situations which it was the right thing to do. He found a little bit of extra time in the pocket to get some of those late completions, dealt with a pretty good rush group some things they threw at him. That was encouraging, that part of it to see him play with that type of speed and urgency that showed up on gameday was great, and so I was excited about that and now again, like I said before, just focusing on the pre-snap operation, get up there, be decisive, try to keep the pressure on the defense is where we’re heading this week.” While Young displayed improvement, the possibility remains out there that the Panthers could trade the quarterback before the Nov. 5 deadline. Canales said he’s not thinking about that. “Again, all those things are stuff that Dan [Morgan] and Brandt [Tilis] are talking through,” Canales said. “For me, my focus is to address some of the issues that we’re talking about from a football standpoint. That’s really where I have to keep my energy and focus right now.”

After Greg Zuerlein missed two kicks in Sunday’s loss to the Patriots, Jets interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich said that he had no regrets about sticking with Zuerlein despite several other missed kicks that have played major roles in several of the team’s losses this season. Ulbrich’s lack of regret isn’t keeping the team from looking at other options as they head into Thursday night’s game against the Texans. Ulbrich said at a Monday press conference that the team is “going to bring the kickers in for a workout” on Tuesday and then decide who will handle the duties on Halloween. “We’re going to have a good week of work,” Ulbrich said. “The beauty of the kicking area, you don’t need the rest that the rest of these guys necessarily need, so we’ll have a competition, bring some guys in and the best guy will play on Thursday.” Zuerlein was reliable over his first two seasons with the Jets, but that has not been the case this season and the Jets haven’t been able to do enough in other phases of the game to overcome his struggles. That makes a change likely, even if it may be too late to correct the Jets’ overall trajectory.

The Steelers saw their three-week streak of games with a blocked kick come to an end against the Giants on Monday night, but they came up with another way to impact the game on special teams. Calvin Austin broke a 9-9 tie with a 73-yard punt return touchdown in the third quarter that sent the Steelers on their way to a 26-18 home win. After the game, Tomlin called Austin’s play a “catalyst” for the entire team and gave credit to Austin’s blockers while talking about the value that the team places on making big plays in the kicking game. “It’s a legitimate phase of the game for us,” Tomlin said. “We give it that respect, not only in words but in our approach, in how we work. The guys make it real with their efforts.” The Steelers have shown a more explosive offense since turning to Russell Wilson at quarterback and matching that with a strong defense and opportunistic special teams units is looking like a good formula for continued success in Pittsburgh.

Buccaneers wide receiver Chris Godwin had surgery to repair the dislocated ankle he suffered in the team’s Week Seven loss to the Ravens, but he’s not ready to throw in the towel on a return to the field this season just yet. Godwin appeared at an event for his foundation on Monday night and said that his “spirits are high” as he looks forward to starting rehab work in the near future. Godwin said he’s heading into that process with a goal of making it back to the team in time for postseason action. “I mean, I think that’s best-case scenario, right? Like absolute best case,” Godwin said, via Jenna Laine of ESPN.com. “For all involved. Everything lines up. That’s what you kind of aim for.” The Buccaneers have lost their last two games to drop to 4-4 and they’re also without wide receiver Mike Evans indefinitely, so getting to the postseason is far from a sure thing in Tampa. Godwin said he has “no doubt” that the team can find their way to the playoffs, but time will tell about both those hopes and Godwin’s own ability to get back from his injury.

The two-point conversion turned 30 this year. The NFL’s first two-point conversion was scored on September 4, 1994, when Browns coach Bill Belichick called for a trick play and his extra point holder, Tom Tupa, ran the ball into the end zone. Since then, two-point conversions have typically been about a 50-50 proposition, with half of them succeeding and half falling short. This year has been very different. After the Giants’ failed two-point conversion on Monday night, NFL teams are 18-for-58 on two-point conversions this season. That success rate of just 31 percent is well below the historical average and well below last season, when NFL teams succeeded on 70 of their 127 two-point conversion attempts, a success rate of 55 percent. There’s no obvious reason why two-point conversions have been so difficult to make this year; no offseason rule changes favored the defense or impaired the offense in goal-line situations. But it’s a real issue that NFL coaches should consider, especially if their offenses have already shown themselves to struggle with two-point conversions. Brian Daboll’s Giants are now 0-for-4 on two-point conversions this season. In hindsight he may have wish he had kicked.

The Steelers were 4-2 with Justin Fields as their starting quarterback, so there was some risk to the team’s decision to switch to Russell Wilson before their Week Seven game against the Jets After two games, it’s hard to imagine anyone is questioning head coach Mike Tomlin’s choice. The Steelers posted a season-high 409 yards in beating the Jets in Wilson’s first start and they beat that with 426 yards in Monday night’s 26-18 win over the Giants. The team has made nine passing plays of more than 20 yards in the two wins and they’ve scored 63 points after averaging 20.7 points per game in the first six weeks. Wilson was 20-of-28 for 278 yards against the Giants and the Steelers posted 167 yards on the ground as the upgraded passing game has made life more difficult for defenses across the board. After the win, Tomlin said he thought Wilson looked far removed from his long layoff to start the season. “I just thought he didn’t need to warm up to it,” Tomlin said at his press conference. “A little less rust than the week before, but I’m not surprised by his capabilities.” Wilson’s two seasons in Denver created some doubt about those capabilities, but his first two games in Pittsburgh have been a lot more promising.

As he so often does, Steelers pass rusher T.J. Watt made a game-changing play in the fourth quarter on Monday night, blowing past Giants right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor, knocking the ball out of Daniel Jones’ hand and jumping on the fumble. And that raises an important question: Why did the Giants have Eluemunor blocking Watt one-on-one in that situation? The answer is because Jones screwed up, failing to signal to tight end Theo Johnson to go in motion to be on the other side of the line and help Eluemunor with Watt. Giants head coach Daboll said after the game that Eluemunor was supposed to get help from a chip block on Watt, but a miscommunication resulted in the wrong pass protection being called. Daboll said Jones was supposed to call for Johnson to shift to the other side of the formation to help out with Watt, but Jones never made the call. “He was supposed to be chipped,” Daboll said. “DJ was looking at the coverage, communication, but Jermaine was anticipating a chip. . . . We had a shift to the tight end to get over to Watt and we didn’t get the shift. . . . DJ feels terrible, to be honest with you. I don’t know if he’s gonna own it. He came up here to say he’d own it, it was a shift that was accompanying the play, he was kind of surveying the coverage, deciding what he wanted to do, and we didn’t get the shift.” Jones did own it. “I needed to shift, needed to shift Theo,” Jones said. “I was looking at the coverage, didn’t chip him, Jermaine was expecting a chip and didn’t get that, so that was my fault.” That’s the kind of mistake the Giants just can’t have from their franchise quarterback, and it’s sure to renew calls for the Giants to make the decision now to move on.