Welcome to NFL Under Review, a weekly column where I will sound off on misguided narratives, inexplicable coaching decisions, and other topics around the NFL. Each Tuesday throughout the season, you’ll get my takes on what happened the previous weekend, with an eye on what’s to come.
Settle down with your Sean McDermott outrage.
Hold on! Don’t close the tab and start watching cutesy cat reels on Instagram! Give me a chance to explain!
Still there? OK, good. Let’s get to it. Sean McDermott has been getting crushed in pretty much every corner of the internet for how he handled the end of the Bills’ loss to the Texans on Sunday. Buffalo’s offense took over at its own 3-yard line with 32 seconds left and the game tied at 20. The Bills had no timeouts remaining, and the Texans had three. Josh Allen threw three straight incompletions, a sequence of plays that caused Scott Hanson to lose his mind. The three plays took just 16 seconds off the game clock, and Buffalo punted. Houston completed a 5-yard pass and used one of its remaining timeouts with two seconds left, and kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn drilled a 59-yarder. Game over. McDermott blew it. He should have run the ball. Simple as that, right? I don’t think so!
I swear I’m not trying to be a contrarian analytics nerd-o here. I legitimately think that McDermott had a tough decision to make. The key here is that the Texans had three timeouts and could have stopped the clock multiple times if the Bills had chosen to run the ball. That means the Bills needed to prioritize picking up a first down. A secondary goal should have been to get into position to kick a field goal. Likely? No. Possible? Of course! The Bills have Josh Allen as their quarterback! Remember, getting to overtime extends the game but gives a team only a 50 percent chance to win.
If the Bills had run the ball three times and picked up a first down, that would have been great. But what if they had run the ball three times and barely picked up any yards? The Texans would have called timeout after each play, and the Bills would have punted anyway. In that scenario, the Texans wouldn’t have had a timeout to call after their 5-yard completion, but they could have attempted a pass to the sideline to stop the clock and still kicked the game-winner. But also, the Texans would have likely had more time to work with since pass plays generally take longer than run plays.
Michael McRoberts is the founder and president of Championship Analytics, a company that advises college and NFL teams on in-game strategy. I wanted to know what he thought about this situation. In an email, he summed up the Bills’ dilemma nicely.
“The simple fact is that the Bills needed something good to happen to get out of jail to end the half—through a first down or a booming punt or a quick stop, or a missed FG,” McRoberts wrote.
Again, the point is that McDermott was faced with a tough decision. It wasn’t as simple as running the ball three times and going to overtime. Now if you want to criticize Allen and/or Joe Brady’s play calls for being so aggressive, I get that. There needed to be a better balance between trying to get into field goal range and playing it safe and trying to get a first down there so that the Texans wouldn’t get the ball back. Allen went for home runs on all three throws. But the actual decision to pass was reasonable.
So have I convinced you? No? Well, I tried my best. You can go ahead and watch those cat videos now.
The Chiefs don’t need to trade for Davante Adams, but they still should.
Have I explained the armpit test here before? No? OK, then, let’s get to it now. I like to imagine that defensive coordinators start their game-planning early in the week by looking at the opponent’s offensive personnel. As they’re going through the quarterback and running back and wide receivers and tight ends, what’s the sweat level? For example, if they’re facing the Eagles and thinking about how they’re going to stop A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Saquon Barkley, well, the beads might start to formulate, and they might need to reach for the deodorant. When they’re facing, say, the Patriots? Well, no worries. All dry under there.
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Which brings us to the Kansas City Chiefs, a team that went up and down the field to the tune of 28 first downs and 460 yards in a breezy 26-13 win over the Saints. The Chiefs are 5-0. They are the favorites in the AFC, and they’re in great position to compete for a third consecutive Super Bowl championship—even if this is the exact roster they wind up taking into the playoffs. But the Chiefs should be in “leave no stone unturned” mode. This version of JuJu Smith-Schuster is a fine option for a Monday night in October. But do you really want to rely on him to be your WR1 on a January weekend when you’re facing the Ravens or the Bills or the Texans? If I’m the Chiefs, I don’t want to find out.
The Chiefs have an extremely efficient offense right now, but they’re playing a very specific style. Patrick Mahomes’s average pass is traveling a league-low 5 yards past the line of scrimmage. They lead the NFL in yards after the catch, but this isn’t the most explosive group of pass catchers. Kansas City’s 14 completions of 20-plus yards ranks tied for 11th. This offense could very much benefit from a downfield threat and someone who can just get them a bucket. We saw Adams take over a game a few weeks ago against the Ravens. Now picture him playing with the best quarterback in the NFL in games that really matter. It would be the perfect way to close out a great career, and he would be a great fit for what Kansas City is lacking.
There’s the old line of thinking that you don’t trade a player to a division rival. My take? That’s completely absurd. The Raiders aren’t going to stop the Chiefs from winning Super Bowls. They’ve already lost that battle. The Raiders should be focusing on maximizing their return so that they can (eventually) get better and be taken seriously. If you’re the Chiefs, outbid the other suitors for Adams. Make the Raiders say no. We’re talking about a likely second-round pick and a one-year financial commitment on a reconfigured contract for the wide receiver. The upside is absolutely worth the risk if you’re Kansas City. If it works out, you can bring Adams back in 2025. Yes, the Chiefs can win the Super Bowl as currently constructed. But why take any chances? Go make those coordinators sweat.
Zac Taylor was too quick to park the bus.
With 6:28 left in overtime, the Ravens handed the Bengals a gift. Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson had played a nearly flawless game to that point, but he fumbled a shotgun snap, and the Bengals recovered. Their offense took over at the Baltimore 38, needing just a field goal to win. Cincinnati head coach Zac Taylor had called a brilliant offensive game up to that point, with the Bengals offense going up and down the field on the Ravens defense. But Taylor turtled in a big spot in overtime.
The Bengals called three straight runs: one for no gain, the second went for 3 yards, and the third was stopped for no gain. They then sent Evan McPherson out for a 53-yard field goal attempt, but there was an issue with the hold, and McPherson missed the kick wide left. The Ravens got the ball back, scored, and took home a 41-38 victory.
I think I know what Taylor was thinking there. McPherson is an excellent kicker, and Taylor wanted to minimize the possibility of something bad happening. But he seemed to forget he has Joe Burrow! You have to trust the franchise quarterback in that spot to have good judgment. Field goals from 53 yards out are far from gimmes. You’ve got to try to increase your chances there and get a little bit closer. I’m not telling you Taylor’s conservative play-calling there is the main reason the Bengals lost. Their defense couldn’t get a stop throughout the game. They had a costly turnover late in regulation. But the point is that the little things matter in a close game like that.
Zooming out, it appears the Bengals could be headed for an all-time bad-luck season. They are 1-4, and their four losses have been by a combined 15 points—all one-possession games. They are second in both offensive success rate and expected points added per drive. Teams that produce offenses this efficient almost always win more games than they lose, regardless of all other factors. Based on those two metrics (success rate and EPA per drive), this is the most efficient offense that the Bengals have produced in the past 25 years (!), which is as far back as TruMedia’s database goes.
The good news for the Bengals? Nobody is running away with the AFC North, and if their offense continues to play like this, they can beat anybody. But they have to get the little things right because being risk-averse is going to cost them more than it’s going to help them in the long run.
Johnny Ganz played to win the game vs. the 49ers.
A key moment in the Cardinals’ comeback win over the 49ers came after Kyler Murray’s touchdown pass to Elijah Higgins cut San Francisco’s lead to 23-19 early in the fourth quarter. On the scoring play, the 49ers got penalized for roughing the passer. That gave Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon (whom we will exclusively refer to as Johnny Ganz going forward) the option of either kicking a shorter extra point or going for two from the San Francisco 2-yard line.
Typically in these situations, coaches get conservative. They want to cut the lead to three points, thinking that if they can kick a field goal later and force overtime, they’ve got a great chance to win the game. But as mentioned above, getting to overtime gives you only a 50 percent chance of winning. And remember, the Cardinals were 7.5-point underdogs coming into this game; realistically, their chances of winning in overtime were probably less than 50-50.
So Gannon decided to be aggressive and go for two. Had the Cardinals failed there and eventually lost, he probably would have been crushed by the second-guessers for passing up the easy PAT. But it was an analytically sound move that gave the Cardinals the best chance to win. They ended up converting the two-point attempt to cut the lead to 23-21. On the Cardinals’ next possession, they drove into the red zone and kicked a field goal. Had they not gone for two previously, the field goal would have only tied the game. But because they were aggressive and converted, the field goal gave them the lead—and the eventual win. Nice job by Johnny Ganz and an important reminder: The goal is always to win, not to delay losing as long as possible.
The Browns are getting what they deserve.
It feels like this is what everyone’s thinking, but nobody wants to actually say it. So I will. (This is the freedom I get when I don’t have to provide spin for Deshaun Watson’s agent in return for future scoops. It’s actually quite nice.)
Back in 2022, the Browns traded for Watson in a deal that included three first-round picks. Initial reports suggested that Watson wasn’t interested in going to Cleveland, but the Browns decided to give him an unprecedented, fully guaranteed $230 million deal. Suddenly, Cleveland became an attractive destination for Watson. The trade and the new contract came while Watson was the subject of two dozen lawsuits filed by women who said Watson committed sexual misconduct and/or sexual assault during massage appointments.
An NFL investigation determined that the allegations were credible, and Watson was eventually suspended 11 games.
The Browns gambled that the fan backlash would be short-lived and everything they gave up to acquire Watson would be worth it if he played well. But two-plus years later, Watson is a disaster, and the Browns are hopeless.
In Week 5, they got blown out by the Commanders, 34-13, dropping to 1-4 on the season. They have had injuries along the offensive line, an uninspired run game, and too many drops by wide receivers. But most notably, Watson has been terrible. Among 32 qualifying quarterbacks, he is last in both EPA per pass play and success rate. If we zoom out to the past five seasons, there have been 153 quarterbacks with at least 100 dropbacks through the first five weeks. Among that sample, Watson’s 2024 season ranks last in both EPA per pass play and success rate.
The Browns thought they were being shrewd and calculated and aggressive when they decided to trade for Watson. But really, they were acting out of desperation. History will look back on this as the worst trade ever made in the NFL, and because of Watson’s contract, the Browns’ options are limited, and they have no easy way out. There’s a good chance we’ll see some firings in the coming months. Excuses will be made. Fingers will be pointed. And the on-field product will continue to be one of the worst in the NFL.
Anyone feel bad for them? I didn’t think so.
