We Just Had Ourselves An All-Time Witching Hour
We've got a few individual blogs out there from the games that just ended, but I wanted to call out how great a finish that was league-wide. That's what RedZone was made for. An all-time witching hour with three or four games' fates coming down to the final minutes with leads changing every time you blinked. It was so chaotic that Hanson didn't even have time to talk about what was going on. The moment one play ended they had to jump somewhere else. Let's try and sift through the chaos
The Texans were cruising in the first half until Nico Collins was ruled out for the game with a hamstring injury. All of a sudden Houston couldn't move the ball which opened the door for Buffalo. The whole squad streaming in Chicago, including the good folks from Bob Does Sports, rode James Cook anytime TD and got their cash in the 2nd half.
CJ Stroud had multiple mental errors in the 2nd half including this pick
and this strip sack deep in Houston territory
That allowed Buffalo to tie things up. On the ensuing possession Stroud would get called for a back breaking intentional grounding flag that pushed Houston out of field goal range. Buffalo would then get pinned at their own 3 on the punt with 40 seconds left. The Texans had three timeouts so you'd think the move for Buffalo would be the run the ball, make them use those timeouts, and hopefully get a first down to get to OT. Even if you don't get the first, it'd be hard for Houston to get into FG range and spike the ball with time still on the clock. Instead, Sean McDermott threw the ball three times. Deep shots. Three incompletions led to minimal time coming off the clock and Houston keeping all three timeouts. After the punt, one pass over the middle of the field set them up to win the game.
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About as head scratching a loss as you'll see for Buffalo. No idea what McDermott was thinking in that final possession with the ball. Had all the momentum and just had to get to OT to feel good about their chances. Instead he called plays like they were down in the score. Bizarre, but led to chaotic TV for us at home.
While that was going on we had a 41 point 4th quarter in Jacksonville. Tank Bigsby seemingly put this one away with his second TD of the game. This guy is a load of a man to take down.
Joe Flacco's old devil magic would keep Indy in this however with multiple bombs down the field. Before you knew it, that game was tied up.
Trevor Lawrence would then lead a late drive down the field to set up rookie Cam Little for his first ever game winning kick. Finally a win for Jacksonville! For a week they can pretend that the Pederson-Lawrence combo is the right duo.
And while that was all going on, the Bengals and Ravens had themselves an AFC North war. Cincy seemed set up to run the clock and be in position to atleast extend their lead to six with less than 3 minutes to go. Then Joe Burrow threw this pick.
Lamar would drive Baltimore down the field and leave Tucker with a 56 yarder to tie it. People have gotten on the HOF kicker for being washed, but not today. In windy conditions he banged this home to tie things up.
We would go to OT where Lamar committed a crucial mistake and fumbled on Balt's first possession. Pure madness.
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Despite being gifted with amazing field position, Zac Taylor played things SUPER conservatively and ran the ball not once, not twice, but three times before sending McPherson out for the long FG attempt. Burrow was 30/39 for 392 yards and 5 touchdowns, but was put on the back burner for three runs that went nowhere. Beyond moronic. Definition of playing with fire. They were just begging for McPherson to miss the kick and thanks to a bad hold, the kick did in fact go wide.
King Henry would make them pay almost immediately with this run deep into Cincy territory.
Not too long after Tucker would bang it home for the win.
Three games with all sorts of chaos involved. Rapid fire RedZone game switching that you can't get anywhere else. The beauty of the channel in full force. Wanna throw Miami-New England in there too? Sure, but I'm not wasting my time pretending that game was worth anyone's time.
What an early witching hour.