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Halloween is still a few days away, but Week 7 in the NFL was quite spooky. After a Week 6 where there were a lot more losers than winners, there were some truly frightening displays of football on tap throughout the National Football League on Sunday.
The Los Angeles Rams, despite losing another slew of stars to injury, showed off a scary good form in a dominant win over the Las Vegas Raiders. Aaron Glenn and the New York Jets also laid a rotten egg at home against the 0-5 Miami Dolphins, which could lead to him getting quite the scare for his job security. Who else rated amongst the Winners and Losers from another NFL Sunday?
Maybe the Rams were simply too talented for their own good. After a sluggish start to the season and another trio of injured starters landing on injured reserve during the week, these plucky underdogs dug deep to put together their most complete performance of the season in a dominant win over the Las Vegas Raiders.
Balance was the name of the game for the Rams, who evenly split their rushing workload between Blake Corum and Kyren Williams while calling a nearly identical amount of runs and passes. Just days after it appeared that Los Angeles was in a complete crisis mode, they have bought themselves some goodwill with a dominant road win despite being down a litany of starters.
This applies specifically to Sunday morning's Paris game, which was a relatively hum-drum 16-10 win for the Pittsburgh Steelers over the New Orleans Saints. The big win for the NFL, however, is the fact that they were able to get the game in without incident despite a period of political unrest in the French capital.
There had been calls from many outside observers, including President Donald Trump, for the league to move the game due to the unstable climate in Paris. Time will tell whether it was a proper use of police resources to secure an NFL stadium, but the league got exactly what it wanted as they saw a stadium packed with fans celebrating the first-ever NFL game in the country.
Things looked dicey as the Cleveland Browns fell into an early hole against the 1-win Tennessee Titans but it turned out that Watson had the game right where he wanted it. Watson had his best game of the season, completing 25-of-36 passes for 308 yards, and rallied the Browns to a 27-24 come-from-behind win to help the surprising Browns improve to 5-2.
The season itself has been a huge win for Watson, who was booed lustily throughout the summer but is now the quarterback of the team in first place in the AFC North. Next Sunday's matchup with the Steelers offers Watson a chance to complete a sweep of the season series and put the division into a true stranglehold.
The Browns may be 5-2 but the Bengals are determined to make the AFC North a true Battle of Ohio. The absence of Lamar Jackson proved to be a big gift for Cincinnati, which didn't look a gift horse in the mouth as they pummeled the Ravens 35-13 to improve to 4-2 on the season.
Joe Burrow shredded the Baltimore defense for 292 yards and four touchdowns while Cincinnati's D played some solid bend-but-don't-break style, coming up with two turnovers and four timely sacks of Tyler Huntley. It was also impressive to see Cincinnati clamp down on Derrick Henry, who racked up just 45 yards on 17 carries.
There had been a lot of negativity swirling around the Giants this week as Harbaugh made himself the center of attention by executing a quarterback change while also not having a real good answer for why Cam Skattebo didn't touch the football in a home loss to the Saints. Harbaugh's resume gave him the chance to have the benefit of the doubt and his moves paid off as the Giants pulled off a road upset of the Houston Texans to improve to 4-2-1 on the year.
McCarthy was efficient as a passer, completing 20-of-28 passes for 252 yards in the win, while Skattebo responded to his benching with a 17-carry performance for 124 yards and a score. The physicality Skattebo provided was a big spark to the Giants, who took the ball in overtime in a next-score-wins situation and got to the end zone in just three plays to hit the bye in a strong position in their division.
The seat under Glenn is scorching following a home loss to the 0-5 Dolphins, who hadn't led in a game all season before taking charge nearly wire-to-wire in East Rutherford. The Jets' defense was gashed all afternoon, letting up 28 points to a Miami team bereft of playmakers and getting bullied up the middle as the Dolphins imposed their will with 41 carries for 156 yards.
Glenn didn't help his cause after the game when trying to explain why he didn't use any timeouts at the end of the first half, saying he didn't do it because he felt his defense was going to make a stop. Not only did Miami score a touchdown to go up 21-7, they burned most of the time off the clock, denying the New York offense an opportunity to chase at least three points in a game they lost by 3.
Losing a division game at home happens in the NFL, which we just described with the Jets. Getting blown out of the building against a team that entered the contest with one win is a horrible look, which is exactly what happened to Carolina as they got smacked by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 43-13.
The return of Baker Mayfield ignited a dormant Bucs offense, but he didn't even need to do much with just 11 pass attempts. Carolina was pushed all over the field by Tampa Bay, which racked up an absurd 49 rushing attempts for 258 yards and three touchdowns, which speaks to a clear lack of desire to win the trenches in a critical division game.
In retrospect, we shouldn't be surprised that the 49ers found a way to pick up their first loss in Atlanta on Sunday. The game came on a short week with San Francisco flying across the country to play in the early window, but falling behind 26-14 early in the fourth quarter was not a good look for a more talented 49ers' side.
Injuries have clearly taken their toll on the 49ers, who saw Christian McCaffrey check out for a stretch with his own ailments and had to rely on Brandin Cooks and Jordan Watkins as their top pass catchers. The bye came at a perfect time for San Francisco, which needs a week off to try and give some of their injured playmakers time to work their way back into the lineup.
The Colts' decision to fire Chris Ballard came in part as a result of his decision to go all-in on a great half season from Jones, who has reverted back to his middling Giants' form this year. Jones was no match for Brian Flores' aggressive defense, getting sacked four times and throwing an interception in a 16-10 loss to drop Indianapolis to 2-5.
It has become clear that Jones needs nearly perfect conditions to be a winning quarterback in the NFL. Presenting him with the slightest adversity can lead to true calamity and Indianapolis appears to be spiraling out of control in a year where their first-round pick belongs to the Jets.
Life comes at you fast in the NFL and the Raiders have crashed back to Earth hard after a 3-0 start. The much-lauded moral victory against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 4 has not led to any more actual victories, as Sunday's loss to the Rams was Las Vegas' fourth consecutive setback.
Even though Kirk Cousins is playing well, the Raiders are being let down by a defense that is hemorrhaging yards and points faster than a vampire can suck blood. If the Raiders can't stop the bleeding against Glenn's hapless Jets next week, we could see a quarterback switch to top pick Fernando Mendoza to try and spark some life in Las Vegas.
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