The Dallas Cowboys deserve to tie
The highest-scoring tie ever sums up the Cowboys, who are only half a team. PLUS the Eagles prove they don't need the Tush Push, A Modest Proposal to fix the Colts' end zone fumbles, AND MORE.
Last week I wrote about how (and why!) NFL field goal blocks are clustered on kicks in the final moments of games.
In Sunday’s Bears-Raiders game … it happened again! Chicago special teamer Josh Blackwell got around the edge on the Raiders’ game-winning kick with no time remaining on the clock, sealing a win for the Bears:
As we talked about last week, NFL teams often have one specific field goal block play call they save for perfect moments. The Bears used theirs. “I wouldn’t say I was shocked,” Bears edge rusher Daniel Hardy told The Athletic. “Because with that specific call, we had been working on it all week and talking about it all week. ‘That’s going to hit. That’s going to hit.’ I’ll honestly never forget it, man.”
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Walk-off tie! Walk-off tie! Walk-off tie!
Sunday night’s game between the Cowboys and Packers finally answered the question: Would a team celebrate a walk-off score to seal a tie?
… No. The answer is no. You do not celebrate a walk-off tie.
The final score was 40-40, the highest-scoring tie in NFL history and, of course, Scorigami. (Mike Tirico said second-highest on the broadcast because he was counting an AFL game that ended 43-43 in 1964.) Per Quirky Research — a must-follow account if you like this newsletter — Packers-Cowboys was the NFL’s first walk-off tie since the introduction of overtime in 1974. The most recent game-ending field goal to secure a tie came in the final game of the 1973 season on a kick by the NFL’s first soccer-style kicker, Pete Gogolak, in Yankee Stadium.
As I wrote in 2018 (along with an extended metaphor about vaccination!), the NFL voluntarily decided to bring back ties after essentially eliminating them when it shortened overtime to 10 minutes and ended the sudden death element. Three ties occurred in the NFL between 1990 and 2017; Sunday night’s game was the eighth in the last eight years. If you have an issue with the result, take it up with Roger Goodell, a tie enthusiast who changed the rules to exponentially increase the number of NFL ties. (Ironically, Rog is a big fan of the “business casual” look with an open top button.)
But I also think Sunday night’s game showed why some ties are good. The Dallas Cowboys are a half-team. After trading away Micah Parsons — to the Packers! They should have mentioned this during the game! Big oversight! — the Cowboys have one of the worst defenses of all time.
Not an exaggeration. The Cowboys made mega-super-triple-washed Russell Wilson look good! They were already historically bad before last night’s game, when they gave up 40 points:
But the Cowboys also have Dak Prescott, and they’re going to score a lot of points. In Week 2, they played a 40-37 game against the Giants, also decided on a field goal in the closing seconds of overtime. Sunday night’s game ended with nine consecutive scoring drives: Packers touchdown, Cowboys touchdown, Packers touchdown, Cowboys touchdown, Packers touchdown, Cowboys touchdown, Packers field goal, Cowboys field goal, Packers field goal.
Under the old overtime rules, a team like this would never be involved in ties. OT used to be sudden death, which meant games ended after the first overtime score. That’s why high-scoring ties never occurred before: The game would get to OT, somebody would score, and everybody would go home. Not anymore. And Dallas is perfectly designed to allow a score on the first possession of OT and match it on the second, or vice versa.
What better way is there to sum up these Oops! All Touchdowns Cowboys than a tie? A half-team deserves half-wins.
Tush Push 2: This Time, It’s Personal
I didn’t think it was possible, but people are even angrier about the Eagles’ use of the Tush Push. After the NFL failed to ban the play in the offseason, and after slo-mo cameras revealed that Eagles’ guards have been false starting on the play this season, the Anti-Tush Brigade has become borderline militant.
So Sunday, the Eagles did the unthinkable: They won a game without running their signature play. Instead, they scored two touchdowns in goal line situations on new, creative short-yardage plays.
First, they ran a “diamond formation,” splitting four receivers to the right to essentially establish a new offensive line made out of receivers. Jalen Hurts shoveled an underhand throw to Dallas Goedert, who got into the end zone easily.
The play was a carbon copy of an Andy Reid design the Chiefs used to run for Travis Kelce. (Also, pretty similar to this play that Boise State ran a few years ago, which literally added a fun spin.)
Then the Eagles ran a fake Tush Push, lining up in their usual Tush Push formation and handing the ball to Saquon Barkley for a walk-in touchdown. They barely needed to block — the Buccaneers were so committed to stopping the push that they essentially took themselves out of the play.
The Eagles’ message was clear: You want us to stop running the Tush Push? FINE. We will simply kick your ass with a variety of other plays, all of which are designed around the same basic premise of “us being strong” and “you being weak.”
I do not think the Eagles are Tush Push Merchants. The Tush Push is the simplest manifestation of football, and the Eagles, as the best football team in the NFL, are very good at it. Sunday underscored that the Tush Push is not a cheat code. It’s a football play that exists within a larger, more varied menu of touchdown-scoring plays. And if you want them to stop running it, be prepared to get dunked on in other ways.
Baruch Atah AdOH NO!
We’re right between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, so it’s a pretty big week for Adonai for us Jews. And it was almost a big week for Colts receiver Adonai Mitchell, who came mere feet away from scoring his first career touchdown. But as he streaked into the end zone, Mitchell mishandled the football, fumbling it through the end zone:
Mitchell was also flagged for a holding call that took a long Jonathan Taylor touchdown off the board, but you know the rule: You can’t say “the holding penalty took the touchdown off the board” when the act of holding helped the touchdown happen in the first place. But I digress: The Colts could have won this game and moved to 4-0 if Mitchell had scored, but instead lost 27-20 on a late Tutu Atwell touchdown.
Dropping the ball before the end zone is so common that it has YouTube compilations. Mitchell’s was different than most. The standard touchdown killer usually features the player dropping the ball behind his body, but Mitchell dropped the ball from the front while switching the ball between his hands for a post-touchdown celebration. He was also just about the only person who realized he messed up, chasing after the ball as it bounced out of the end zone for a touchback, and drawing attention to the gaffe. Big tactical error, but whatever. Pre-end zone fumbles are brutal and stupid, but they happen, and they’ll happen again.
But here’s the thing.
THE COLTS ALSO LOST A GAME BECAUSE OF THE SAME MISTAKE LAST YEAR.
Jonathan Taylor dropped the ball as he was crossing the goal line on a breakaway run against the Broncos. Instead of going up 20-7, the Colts fell apart and allowed 24 unanswered points.
Head coach Shane Steichen told media that he addressed the issue after Taylor’s fumble. “It’s a point of emphasis and I gotta do a better job of emphasizing it more,” Steichen said. See, that’s worse to me than if you just didn’t address the issue at all last year, because now I feel like your players don’t listen to you. Steichen says he instituted a “letters and logos” policy to remind players that they need to get their feet far enough into the end zone to touch the cool designs before letting go of the ball.
Well, there’s your problem: Steichen’s mnemonic device is not nearly cool enough to make players think twice as they’re experiencing the euphoric high of a breakaway touchdown. When you’re en route to your first career NFL score, “letters and logos” is not popping into your head.
Here is my take on solving this ball-dropping epidemic: Mandatory team touchdown dance practice. Fifteen precious minutes of every training camp practice should be dedicated to “coaching” the players through whatever dance moves/anime references/meme poses they feel like doing, emphasizing that all choreography must feature the ball and begin at the back of the end zone. It would be a fun team-building exercise and actually might remind players to hold onto the ball through the goal line.
NFL coaches are free to borrow this idea so long as they become paying subscribers to the newsletter:
We had another 65-yard field goal Sunday, this one by Buccaneers kicker Chase McLaughlin. NFL kickers have now hit as many 60-yard field goals this season (four, on seven attempts) as they did during the entire 20th century (four, on 60 attempts.) Again. The Kickers Are Too Good.
Isaiah Rodgers followed up The Greatest Individual Defensive Game In NFL History last week by blocking a field goal and hitting the fastest speed ever recorded since NextGenStats started tracking player speeds in 2017. Where did this guy come from?!?!? Unfortunately, that top speed wasn’t on an awesome highlight, but an unsuccessful attempt to chase down D.K. Metcalf on a long Steelers touchdown, and the Vikings lost this time.
After looking like the best team in the league for about 50 minutes of Week 1, the Ravens are now 1-3. Most of their defense is injured, and Lamar Jackson came out of Sunday’s game in the third quarter with a hamstring injury. I’m not sure I have ever seen a team go from “Super Bowl contender” to “missing the playoffs” by Oct. 1 before.
We have COACH BEEF! After 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh said that Jaguars head coach Liam Coen had a “legal, really advanced sign-stealing operation,” Coen confronted Saleh on the field after the Jaguars win:
The Jaguars are 3-1 under Coen. And no, the 49ers did not explain what a “legal, really advanced sign-stealing operation” is, or why they’re complaining about it if it’s legal.
The Giants read last week’s newsletter about how their QB situation was deeply upsetting me and gave Jaxson Dart his first start … and beat the undefeated Chargers! So here’s one more reminder to subscribe to get this newsletter in your inbox every Monday, so you too can beat the undefeated Chargers: