I had a dream last night that the Jets almost won a football game and then when I woke up this morning, I realized it wasn’t a dream! The problem is that now I’m completely rattled, because what other dreams have I had that weren’t actually dreams?
Do you see what’s happening here? The Jets almost win ONE football game and it causes me to completely lose my sanity. If you didn’t watch the game on Monday night, I don’t blame you, the Jets aren’t for everyone. I wasn’t going to watch either, but I have to say, I’m glad I did, because it ended up being one of the craziest Monday games of the year.
The Jets had a 27-17 lead in the fourth quarter, but then they realized they were the Jets and they ended up losing 30-27. That being said, the Jets actually won by losing and that’s because they’re now one step closer to earning the first overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.
Speaking of the 2021 draft, we’ve got a full newsletter today that includes a mock draft. We’ll also cover Pete Prisco’s latest power rankings, my Week 10 picks and the playoff proposal that’s being voted on by NFL owners today.
1. Today’s Show: Patriots stave off Jets upset attempt
I’ll be honest, I didn’t think one of the best games of Week 9 would involve the New York Jets, but that’s exactly what happened after they nearly upset the Patriots on Monday night. As always, I stayed up late with Will Brinson and Ryan Wilson so we could talk about the game, which the Patriots won 30-27. We even brought on a special guest in the form of noted Patriots homer Tyler Sullivan, who had mixed feelings about the win (Sullivan would have been equally happy with a loss that would have helped New England get a higher draft pick).
If you’re wondering why the Patriots won, here are three quick reasons:
Cam Newton was on fire. OK, so Cam wasn’t literally on fire, but he was metaphorically on fire. After four straight weeks of struggling, Newton had one of his best games of the season as he completed 27 of 35 passes for 274 yards. The Patriots quarterback also rushed for two touchdowns.
Jakobi Meyers had a coming out party. Before Week 9, the Patriots receiver had never even finished a game in his career with 100 yards, but he blew past that number on Monday with 12 catches for 169 yards against the Jets. Meyers had more receiving yardage against New York than he’s had in every other game this year combined (125).
Joe Flacco made one mistake. For the first three quarters of this game, Joe Flacco played so well that I thought Patrick Mahomes was secretly playing quarterback for the Jets. Flacco put on a show, throwing for 262 yards and three touchdowns, including a 50-yard TD pass in the first half. However, Flacco did make one very Flacco-like mistake and it was costly. With six minutes left to play and the Jets leading 27-20, Flacco launched a bomb down field that was picked off by New England’s J.C. Jackson (You can see the ugly highlight here). Following the interception, the Patriots drove straight down the field and tied the game at 27. If Flacco doesn’t throw the pick, the Jets might have held on for the win.
As for the podcast, we spent most of our time debating two things for each team. First, we spent a lot of time evaluating the state of the Patriots and whether they’ll be able to rebuild their roster anytime soon. We also debated who might end up being their quarterback after the 2020 season. As for the Jets, our conversation mostly revolved around whether or not Adam Gase will make it through the year (I personally think he’ll be fired after the season). We also spent some time talking about the Jets’ chances of going 0-16.
To listen to today’s episode — and subscribe to the podcast — be sure to click here.
2. Pete Prisco unveils his Week 10 power rankings
Mike Meredith / CBS Sports
When it comes to Prisco’s Power Rankings, I have some big news this week! I pulled some strings and convinced our graphics department to create an image so that you can see his entire rankings right here in the newsletter. I also requested that every newsletter subscriber get sent a free waffle maker, but that one didn’t get approved.
Anyway, now that you have Prisco’s entire Power Rankings in front of you, let’s go through a few things real quick. For one, Prisco actually has two new teams in his top five (Bills and Saints), which means he had to dump two teams from his top five, so my apologies in advance to fans of the Seahawks and Buccaneers, who both got the boot this week.
Here are a few other fun nuggets that caught my attention this week:
The San Francisco 49ers took the biggest tumble, dropping 10 spots from 17th to 27th. Ironically enough, I think 27 is also how many players the 49ers have lost to injury this year. The biggest tumble in the AFC went to the Colts, who dropped from seventh to 12th.
The NFC East continues to be the worst division in football. Of the five lowest ranked teams this week, three of them are in the NFC East with the Cowboys, Giants and Washington ranked 28th, 29th and 30th (The Eagles aren’t much better with their ranking currently sitting at 21st overall).
The Falcons made the biggest jump of any team this week, moving up a total of eight spots from 26th to 18th. I’m not saying the Falcons should hire their next coach based on Prisco’s Power Rankings, but if Raheem Morris gets them into Prisco’s top 15, he should get a lifetime contract to coach the team.
Prisco clearly hates the Bengals, who dropped one spot even though they were on a bye.
In a surprise to no one, the Jets are still ranked last. Prisco did not reward them for almost beating the Patriots on Monday night. However, Prisco did reward the Patriots for beating the Jets by moving them up SIX SPOTS from 23rd to 17th. Personally, I would have moved the Patriots down six spots for that performance. In his defense, the game did end past Prisco’s bedtime, so there’s a 50% chance he didn’t get to watch the second half.
If it’s Tuesday, that means it’s time for my weekly picks, although after watching how badly things went last week for me, it might be for the best if I take the week off. OK, so I’ve just been informed that CBS Sports runs our organization like Bill Belichick runs the Patriots, which means NO DAYS OFF, so you’re getting my picks.
Jacksonville (-14) at Green Bay: The past 10 times the Jaguars have played a game where it was 55 degrees or colder at kickoff, they’ve gone 0-10 straight-up and 0-9-1 against the spread. The forecast for Sunday is calling for a high of 50. Packers by a million. You know what, that’s not realistic. Packers by 17. PICK: Packers win 34-17 and cover.
Baltimore (-7) at New England: The Patriots almost lost to the Jets on Monday, which is reason enough to pick against them, but I’m also picking against them because their offense has been horrible over the past few weeks. Even if you include their 30-point outburst against the Jets, they’re averaging just 15.6 points per game over the past five weeks, and now, they have to play a Ravens defense that’s given up the fewest points in the NFL this year. PICK: Ravens win 30-20 and cover.
My betting plan for the week is to parlay the Ravens point spread (-110) with the Packers money line (-1000) which will give me odds of +110 (Bet $100 to win $110). To check out the rest of my picks for Week 10, be sure to click here.
It might be time to lock every AFC North quarterback in a sterile bubble, because for the second time in four days, a quarterback from the division has been placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list. On Saturday, it was Baker Mayfield who got placed on the list. This time around, it was Ben Roethlisberger.
Despite this news, all five players are still eligible to play against the Bengals this week. To get off the COVID list, a player has to have five straight days of negative tests, which means Roethlisberger and friends could be eligible to return as soon as Saturday.
The fact of the matter is that this probably won’t change things much for the Steelers this week and that’s because Roethlisberger likely wouldn’t have spent much time practicing. The Steelers quarterback banged up both of his knees during Pittsburgh’s 24-19 win over the Cowboys on Sunday and likely would have kept things easy in practice this week.
Of course, this will definitely be a situation you want to keep your eye on, because if Big Ben turns in a positive test at any point between now and Sunday, there’s a good chance he won’t be allowed to play in Week 10 against the Bengals.
5. NFL playoff expansion being voted on today
I touched on this last week, but I’m bringing it up again, because the NFL’s 32 owners will actually be voting on this proposal TODAY.
The NFL playoffs have already been expanded once this year — from 12 to 14 teams — but there could be ANOTHER expansion coming if the owners approve a proposal that would potentially expand the postseason field from 14 to 16 teams for one year only.
The important thing to keep in mind here is that even if the proposal passes, that doesn’t necessarily mean the playoffs will expand.
Here are a few key nuggets from the proposal
Playoffs will only expand to 16 teams if meaningful games are canceled due to COVID. The example here is pretty simple: If you have a situation after Week 17 where a 9-6 team is going to make the playoffs over a 9-7 team, the NFL doesn’t want to punish the 9-7 team because it played one extra game. The way to fix that is to add a playoff slot that will only be added if meaningful games are canceled. The NFL could also end up adding an extra week to the regular season.
No one would get a bye. Under the 14-team system, the top seed in each conference will get a bye to the divisional round. However, if the playoffs expand to 16 teams, all 16 teams will be playing on the wildest Wild Card Weekend ever. The top seed is supposed to get a bye this year, but in a 16-team format, the top seed will play the eighth seed on Wild Card Weekend.
Winning your division won’t guarantee you a home game. If the postseason expands to 16 teams, seeding would be carried out by winning percentage. All four divisional winners will still be guaranteed a playoff spot, but they won’t be guaranteed one of the top four seeds. Basically, this means there’s a good chance the winner of the NFC East will have to go on the road as an eight-seed in the first round of a 16-team playoff. In a 14-team playoff. the NFC East winner would be guaranteed a home game and no worse than the fourth-seed.
You can check out the entire proposal by clicking here. If the proposal gets voted down, then let’s pretend this part of the newsletter never happened.
6. 2021 NFL Mock Draft: Six quarterbacks go in first round
The Jets might have lost the battle on Monday night, but they are still winning the war for the first overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft and that’s a war you want to win this year since it likely means that you’ll be able to draft Trevor Lawrence.
Although Lawrence is the no-brainer pick at No. 1 overall, he’s not going to be the only quarterback who goes in the first round. In this week’s mock draft, Ryan Wilson has SIX quarterbacks off the board after Round 1.
1. Jets: Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence. The only way this pick isn’t going to happen is if Trevor Lawrence decides to stay in school another year. In related news: Trevor Lawrence hasn’t committed to entering the draft and I’m starting to think it’s because he doesn’t want to play for the Jets. 2. Jaguars: Ohio State QB Justin Fields. I had fun watching Jake Luton in Week 9, but it doesn’t look like Lusanity is going to last much longer. 5. Washington: Alabama QB Mac Jones.Dwayne Haskins probably isn’t going to like this pick. 8. Patriots: North Dakota State QB Trey Lance. Trey Lance has decided to leave NDSU so he can train for that draft and I don’t think he’s taking any days off. That sounds like the kind of guy Bill Belichick will like. 16. Bears: BYU QB Zach Wilson. After the Bears went more than 30 years without a franchise quarterback, Ryan Wilson thinks they are finally going to try and land their franchise quarterback. I’ll believe it when I see it. 31. Saints: Florida QB Kyle Trask.Drew Brees has to retire at some point and although Sean Payton will have you believe that Taysom Hill is the QB of the future in New Orleans, I’m not buying it and neither is Ryan Wilson, who has the Saints taking a QB with the second-to-last pick in the first round.
Nothing excites me more than a game-winning field goal and that’s exactly what we got on Monday night in the Patriots-Jets game when Nick Folk hit a 51-YARDER as time expired to give New England a wild 30-27 win.
Somehow, this is the SECOND time Folk has hit a game-winner in a Patriots-Jets game that ended with a final score of 30-27. Back in 2013 while he was playing for New York, Folk hit a 42-yard field goal in overtime to give the Jets an upset win. I have no idea why I found that interesting, but I did. The only explanation I can think of is that I love symmetry.
Speaking of symmetry, the man with the most symmetrical head at CBS Sports, Cody Benjamin, will be in the driver’s seat for tomorrow’s newsletter. To be honest, I’ve never actually measured Cody’s head, so I’m not sure how symmetrical it is, but it definitely looks more symmetrical than mine.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
