Football is a wonderful, thrilling, inspiring game that can lift us to new heights in our lives.
But football is also a weird, inexplicable, at times downright stupid game that may force you to perform Keith Moon-level furniture destruction in your own living room.
So, as much as we at Touchdown Wire endeavor to write about what makes the game great, there are also times when it’s important to point out the dumb plays, boneheaded decisions, and officiating errors that make football all too human.
Folks, it’s time for the Worst of the Week for Week 7 of the 2023 NFL season.
Derek Carr's loud, angry incompletion to Chris Olave.
Not much went right for quarterback Derek Carr in the New Orleans Saints’ 31-24 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars last Thursday. Carr completed 33 passes on 55 attempts for 301 yards, one touchdown, one interception, and a passer rating of 73.4. Were it not for a no-huddle series in the fourth quarter in which Carr completed three passes for 51 yards and a touchdown in 51 seconds, it would have been even worse.
The nadir of Carr’s game was this throw out of bounds with 10:44 left in the game.
The New Orleans #Saints QB Derek Carr is screaming at young wide receiver Chris Olave for giving up on the route! The ball was over thrown and out of bounds BUT you’re in the NFL, you can not give up on a play! 👀
pic.twitter.com/P0Xm6mpOEO— CJR Sports (@Sports_CJR) October 20, 2023
Carr did indeed seem quite miffed at his receiver for giving up on the route, but as Saints receiver Michael Thomas said of the play (he later deleted the tweet), Olave wasn’t even in the progression. Olave’s vertical route would be to clear things out to that side.
maybe mike could … talk to chris pic.twitter.com/MV9lflBoNH
— Denny Carter (@CDCarter13) October 21, 2023
If that’s the case, Carr’s reads should have been to Taysom Hill running the speed out from the right slot, then Rashid Shaheed on the short crosser from the left slot, and finally, Thomas to the back side. It was third-and-5, so why Carr uncorked this throw is a mystery.
“I think that’s frustrating,” head coach Dennis Allen said after the game regarding his quarterback and receivers being on the same page… or not. “That is probably one of the things that I’m most frustrated about is just that part of that inconsistency. We have got to…somehow, someway, we have to get those guys on the same page. There’s a lot that goes into that.”
“I wasn’t talking to Chris, like the past two weeks I was just talking in general,” Carr said of the play. “There were some things that happened today that led to some pretty big negative plays that should never happened, and I think that’s where my frustration came from.”
Based on Thomas’ evidence, throwing to receivers in the progression would be a great start to turning those frowns upside down.
Desmond Ridder's three fumbles.
The Atlanta Falcons somehow escaped the Big Sombrero with a 16-13 over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but Atlanta quarterback Desmond Ridder didn’t help his own case, nor that of his team’s. Ridder coughed up three fumbles in the game, lost all three, and those fumbles came at the Tampa Bay 20-yard line, the Tampa Bay one-yard line, and the Tampa Bay one-inch line.
Oof.
Desmond Ridder’s THIRD fumble of the day… One at the one yard line and now THIS. At MINIMUM his three fumbles have cost Atlanta 17 points. Possibly 21 pic.twitter.com/Apq3MiTGlI
— Thumser (@JeffreyThumser) October 22, 2023
After the game, Falcons head coach Arthur Smith had his quarterback’s back.
Arthur Smith strongly supports Desmond Ridder:
"Guy played phenomenal in the pocket. It's his 11th start, just got a good win, so let's give him some credit, give this team some credit. We found a way to win. I know this about Desmond Ridder: he's tough, and he's a winner."
— Daniel Flick (@ByDanielFlick) October 22, 2023
So, the play was great, Mrs. Lincoln. Ridder had fumbled three times in Atlanta’s first four games of the season, so this wasn’t a fluke.
Everything about Deshaun Watson's contract.
The Cleveland Browns have been in quite the quarterback purgatory since re-entering the NFL in 1999, and the blockbuster trade for Deshaun Watson was supposed to end all that. Perhaps it has — since offloading three first-round picks to the Texans for Watson’s services, and ignoring his disgraceful off-field behavior, and signing him to a five-year, $230 million, fully-guaranteed contract, the Browns are now in a quarterback hell of their own making.
Watson had missed two straight games before Sunday’s matchup with the Indianapolis Colts, and he didn’t last long in this one. He suffered what looked to be a concussion on an overturned interception with 3:23 left in the first quarter, and though he was cleared to return, he didn’t — PJ Walker finished the game. Watson completed one of five passes for five yards and a non-overturned interception before exiting.
After the game, everybody wanted to know — was this about the head injury, or a re-aggravation of the shoulder injury that had cost him two games… or was it about performance?
Perhaps it was stuff like this that had head coach Kevin Stefanski thinking, “Nah — we’re good here.”
Deshaun Watson cannot be serious pic.twitter.com/2w7B8tCt4l
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) October 22, 2023
“He’s our starter moving forward,” Stefanski said after the game. “He’s our starter in Seattle [next week]. It’s always going to be my decision to protect our players.”
But Stefanski would give no absolute status report.
Stefanski was asked to explain his decision to not send Watson back out there. He talked around it and eventually said, "It is always going to be my decision to protect our players."
#1 That's a strange answer
#2 I know a former Browns QB who would like a word pic.twitter.com/UgVU1wzrAw
— Roberto Shenanigans (@Rob_Shenanigans) October 23, 2023
Watson said that he “was not sure” whether he suffered further shoulder issues.
“Just a medical decision with the staff and everyone that is a part of making that decision,” Watson said. “They felt like the decision was best to let P.J. go in, finish the game and make sure it benefits the team.”
#Browns Deshaun Watson said he wanted to continue playing but understands Kevin Stefanski’s decision pic.twitter.com/zjAwTzRnlA
— Mary Kay Cabot (@MaryKayCabot) October 22, 2023
Well, alrighty then.
Walker completed just 15 of 32 passes for 176 yards, no touchdowns, and an interception, but the Browns managed a 39-38 win.
With a little help from their friends.
The officiating in the Colts-Browns game.
Referee Shawn Smith and his crew will be persona non grata in Indianapolis for a long time after Sunday’s events. These officials will have to wait a long time for tables at Prime 47 and Harry and Izzy’s and the legendary St. Elmo’s with all that happened late in the fourth quarter.
With 47 seconds left in the game, and the Colts up 38-33, a sack fumble in the Colts’ favor was negated by an illegal contact penalty on cornerback Darrell Baker. And on the very next play, Baker was busted for defensive pass interference.
Both calls were highly suspect. And they set up Kareem Hunt’s one-yard game-winning touchdown with 19 seconds left.
Definitely looks like an uncatchable pass on a play that was ruled pass interference to give the Browns first and goal at the 1
They then take the lead with 19 seconds left #CLEvsIND pic.twitter.com/q1qSxcNI8h
— Bad Sports Refs (@BadSportsRefs) October 22, 2023
Refs saving the Browns
How is this a illegal contact on the Colts?!
ITS AN OFFENSIVE PASS INTERFERENCE ON COOPER! #ForTheShoe pic.twitter.com/htNupvUsk1
— (JC) RussIsDaLife 🏁 #WhyNot 😤 (@Number9IsDaLife) October 22, 2023
The Lions' defense.
Sunday’s game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Detroit Lions looked like the most interesting schematic matchup of Week 7. One of many reasons? Baltimore’s offense under Todd Monken against Aaron Glenn’s Detroit defense, which has been one of the NFL’s pleasant surprises this season.
The Lions came into this game ranked third in Defensive DVOA, second in Weighted Defensive DVOA, fifth against the pass, and third against the run.
What Lamar and the Ravens are doing to them is astonishing.
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) October 22, 2023
In the end, it was all Baltimore on both sides of the ball, but Lamar Jackson was especially ridiculous through the first half. The Ravens scored touchdowns on each of their first four drives, and that Lions defense had absolutely no answer whatsoever. Jackson completed 17 of 21 passes in the first half for 255 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 149.0. The Ravens ran 16 times for 100 yards, as well. Overall, Baltimore’s 355 yards to Detroit’s 97 yards gave a pretty thorough picture of the unbalanced nature of that first half, which saw the Ravens headed into the locker room with a 28-0 lead.
The @Ravens have scored 4 times in the 1st half 😳
📺: #DETvsBAL on FOX
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/iTs8HMaXlh pic.twitter.com/hcdl8friB4— NFL (@NFL) October 22, 2023
In the end, the Ravens won, 38-6, as Jackson completed 21 of 21 yards for 357 yards and three touchdowns, and Baltimore outgained Detroit, 503-337.
After the game, Lions head coach Dan Campbell put a fine point on the debacle.
“Here’s what happens,” Campbell said, when asked about the difficulties in containing Jackson. “There were a number of plays where we’ve got him boxed in, and it’s long. He’s back there, six seconds, but it’s hard to do. He just keeps squeezing, keeps squeezing, keeps you, seven seconds, keeps squeezing. What happens is, it gets long, gets longer, and then I commit, and then he just breaks out. Now all of a sudden, you’ve already been covering long, and so that’s what happens. That’s why he’s so dangerous. It’s hard to do when you’re a rusher. I thought we were pretty disciplined for a while. Then as it kind of got longer in there, and he’s holding up.
“Then we just got ourselves in a bind. Everything plays a hand in each other. There was enough stuff we dropped in coverage. We did not play well enough on offense. You get in a game like that offensively, then you have to be able to match them stride for stride. We got off to a slow start, we didn’t convert a first down for a while, then it’s hard. You just don’t complement each other, so it wasn’t good.”
The Lions face the Las Vegas Raiders next Monday night, and the Lions’ next opponent caught some strays as Campbell put a box on this distressing loss.
“It’s here, it happened, it’ll motivate us moving forward. The shame would be if we don’t use this to get better for next week and it bleeds over into the Raiders. That would be the ultimate shame.”
Well, let’s get into what an ultimate shame it would be for any team to lose to the Raiders.
The Raiders, man.
So.
The aforementioned Las Vegas Raiders were facing a Chicago Bears team on Sunday that had a quarterback by the name of *checks notes* Tyson Bagent, an undrafted rookie from Shepherd University — a Division II school that has had exactly six alums ever crack through to the NFL.
You would think that even the Raiders would have an advantage here, but not so fast! The Bears were compromised by Justin Fields’ hand injury, but Josh McDaniels’ team was similarly struck by Jimmy Garoppolo’s back ailment, which opened the door for backups Brian Hoyer and Aidan O’Connell.
In the end, the Bears made the Raiders look pretty hopeless with a 30-12 thrashing in which Bagent completed 21 of 28 passes for 152 yards, a touchdown, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 97.2. Meanwhile, the Raiders’ backup combo threw three picks to one touchdown, and Las Vegas’ pillow-soft defense allowed running back D’onta Foreman to go wild with two touchdowns and 89 yards on 16 carries.
Foreman was also effective in the passing game, as he met little resistance.
D'Onta Foreman is everywhere today 🔥
📺: #LVvsCHI on FOX
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/iTs8HMaXlh pic.twitter.com/Y9zLHVuGkN— NFL (@NFL) October 22, 2023
As usual, there were questionable coaching decisions from McDaniels, but we’d be shocked at this point if that didn’t happen.
Josh McDaniels' red zone decision-making is unintelligible and indefensible pic.twitter.com/xhxC04QrYB
— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) October 22, 2023
The Raiders are now 3-4 after that embarrassing loss, and they look nothing like a playoff contender.
The Commanders, man.
Similarly, the Washington Commanders were facing a seemingly toothless opponent with a backup quarterback, and a better team would have closed this one out with authority. The New York Giants came into this game with the NFL’s worst point differential (-96), and they’d scored just five offensive touchdowns all season long.
With Tyrod Taylor in for the injured Daniel Jones, the Giants’ offense seemed to have more pep in its step, through Jack Del Rio’s Commanders defense — in which you can pretty much guarantee that at least one player will be out of position on every play — helped. Taylor completed 18 of 29 passes for 279 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 116.9 in Big Blue’s 14-7 loss.
That prompted this bit of poetry from defensive lineman Jonathan Allen after the game. (WARNING: Extremely NSFW language)
Jonathan Allen is not happy after Commanders loss. "They whupped our ass, plain and simple." pic.twitter.com/7BaGsfkDWg
— JP Finlay (@JPFinlayNBCS) October 22, 2023
Even team part-owner Magic Johnson, master of the obvious when it comes to football, had this on lock.
Disappointing 14-7 loss for my Commanders to the NY Giants. It’s hard to win in the NFL when you only score 7 points.
— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) October 22, 2023
Washington quarterback Sam Howell is now on pace for 96 sacks on the season after taking six takedowns in this game. Houston Texans quarterback David Carr has the single-season record with 76 in 2002. for some perspective on how bad THAT is.
“I think everyone has a hand in it,” Howell said of the protection issues after this loss. “A lot of the sacks this year, I think I kind of could’ve done a better job of getting rid of the ball and then there is times that we get beat up front. I think we can all do a better job of just focusing on what our job is and what our responsibility is on each and every play, and just taking it one day at a time. At the end of the day, our plan is good, we have good plays, we’ve just got to execute.”
Sack #4 on a 3rd and 10. Wylie absolutely DESTROYED here.
Sam Howell had now been sacked at least 4 times in each of his first 7 games of the season (ties an NFL Record). pic.twitter.com/yRLdI7FULc
— Mark Tyler(Hogs Haven) (@Tiller56) October 22, 2023
Well, that would be a fine step in the right direction.
The bad spot that cost the Rams a chance at a comeback.
Since it was a day ending in “Y,” we can assume that it was also a day in which NFL officials did not distinguish themselves as the league would prefer. We’ve already gone over Shawn Smith’s issues in the Browns-Colts game, and what happened in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 24-17 win over the Los Angeles Rams was similarly distressing.
With 2:24 left in the game, Steelers quarterback ran the ball on fourth-and-1 from the Rams’ 39-yard line. It looked for all the world that Pickett came up short of the first down, but Craig Wrolstad’s crew decided that Pickett had done enough, giving the Steelers a highly favorable spot for the first down. From there, Pittsburgh had three kneeldowns to end the game. As Rams head coach Sean McVay was out of timeouts, he couldn’t challenge the spot.
Controversial finish to the Steelers-Rams game.
Pittsburgh goes for it on fourth-and-short. Kenny Pickett looks to be short on a QB sneak, but the officials give him the first down.
The Rams didn't have a time-out and could not challenge. So the spot stood, ending the game. pic.twitter.com/bkhKPjsIpe
— The Comeback (@thecomeback) October 22, 2023
Sean McVay took the high road with regards to the controversial spot on Kenny Pickett's sneak, saying "it doesn't matter what I think."
"That's what we have to be able to live with." https://t.co/oq8gZycJlq
— Cameron DaSilva (@camdasilva) October 22, 2023
McVay’s dismay in the moment was understandable… and artistic.
St. Sebastian, by Andrea Mantegna, 1459, 📸 via @cjzero pic.twitter.com/gKzm1B63vU
— ArtButMakeItSports (@ArtButSports) October 22, 2023
Brad Allen's one-sided officiating crew in Eagles-Dolphins.
With 2:39 left in the first half of Sunday night’s game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Miami Dolphins, Miami offensive tackle Austin Jackson and Eagles defensive lineman Jalen Carter got into a bit of a scuffle. Jackson got a whack to the face by Carter, and when Jackson countered, Carter put up a flop that would make Cristiano Ronaldo proud.
Just hoping Jalen Carter is ok after this exchange pic.twitter.com/vO5aIWYuon
— Steve Palazzolo (@PFF_Steve) October 23, 2023
Carter got himself an offsetting unnecessary roughness call from Brad Allen’s hyperactive crew, so it did work in his favor. Not that we ever want to encourage this.
Eagles Jalen Carter on flopping earlier in the game when pushed by a Dolphins player: "I was thinking of LeBron"
— Chris Franklin (@cfranklinnews) October 23, 2023
This was one of many curious calls Allen’s crew made, and things were absolutely in favor of the home Eagles. Which makes sense, given Allen’s history.
home teams win in 58% of tonight's ref Brad Allen's games & cover 56% ATS since 2016
NFL average is 55% win & 49% cover
Allen's crews have called an above average rate of penalties on road teams in his career, per @nflrefstats1
tonight?
8 penalties (60 yds) on MIA
0 on PHI https://t.co/cCQWMX21vN
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) October 23, 2023
In the end, the Eagles beat the Dolphins, 31-17, and while that wasn’t all on the officiating, like we said… it was curious. Philly had no penalties in the game, and Miami had 10 for 70 yards.
Allen’s crew missed this obvious face mask on cornerback James Bradberry…
James Bradberry got away with a pretty obvious facemask on Cedrick Wilson on 4th down.
Officiating has been the story of Week 7.pic.twitter.com/neKpk29TfM
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) October 23, 2023
…and this roughing the passer call on Dolphins defensive tackle Christian Wilkins was… erm… iffy at best.
Dolphins flagged for Christian Wilkins playing 2-hand touch, which apparently is roughing the passer in today’s NFL. pic.twitter.com/tfbUg7A0s8
— Darren Heitner (@DarrenHeitner) October 23, 2023
Former NFL official and current NBC rules analyst Terry McAulay had a lot of cleaning up to do.
Was this roughing the passer penalty?. Terry McAulay wasn't convinced.
"I say he hits him in one step. He actually pulls off with his hands, he doesn't follow through and blow up the quarterback. This just isn't enough for roughing the passer."pic.twitter.com/Nu9eBK2M5N
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 23, 2023
Both teams called for offsides.
Rules analyst Terry McAulay highlighting that both hands on the Philly side belong to Jason Kelce. pic.twitter.com/nZjyHT2MYg
— Sunday Night Football on NBC (@SNFonNBC) October 23, 2023
