Every week this NFL season, we will break down the highs and lows—and everything in between—from the most recent slate of pro football. On Thanksgiving Day, cold weather reigned supreme in Green Bay, Matt Eberflus gave away a chance at a win—or at the very least a tie—and Mike McCarthy may be in the process of saving his job. Welcome to Winners and Losers.
Winner: Cold-Weather Narratives
Tua Tagovailoa may have busted his own personal narrative by throwing for 365 yards and two touchdowns in 25-degree weather at Lambeau Field, but the Dolphins will continue to hear questions about their issues in the cold after a 30-17 loss on Thursday night. Even if you ignore the franchise’s 1-6 record in temperatures below 50 degrees since 2021, it’s easy to see that this team is not built to play in the cold.
Tagovailoa did not play well in the first half. He missed throws that cost Miami points, and with Green Bay leading 24-3, the game was largely over by halftime. But the quarterback was not the main issue for the Dolphins. That continues to be the running game, which ranks near the bottom of the league in various efficiency metrics, including EPA, success rate, and yards per attempt. The Dolphins can’t run the football, and after his team fell behind by three scores, head coach Mike McDaniel didn’t even bother to try. Tagovailoa finished the game with 52 dropbacks in sub-freezing temperatures and 15 mph winds. Any quarterback is going to miss a few in those conditions. Tagaovailoa just picked the wrong times to miss.
On the other side of the ball, Miami’s tackling effort also seemed to be affected by the cold. The Packers averaged 4.6 yards per rush after contact. As Josh Jacobs said after the game, “Them boys looked cold out there.”
The Dolphins should get two more chances to bust this narrative with games in Cleveland and New York in the final two weeks of the season. And Miami will need to win both of those games—and probably three more—to have any shot at making the playoffs. The loss in Green Bay dropped the Dolphins’ postseason odds to 25 percent, per The Athletic’s prediction model.
Winner: Jordan Love
Jordan Love has already won a playoff game and signed a megacontract in Green Bay, but Thursday night was when he officially became a Packers quarterback. There was a lot of talk coming into the game about Tagovailoa’s issues playing in the cold, but this was Love’s first NFL game in sub-30-degree weather. There was no telling how the California native would respond—but it turned out we needn’t have worried. Love completed 75 percent of his passes in the game and averaged 9.8 yards per attempt. Only one of his 28 attempts was off target, according to TruMedia. And Love earned extra Football Guy points by playing the game without sleeves. Green Bay is already pot committed to Love after giving him a four-year, $220 million extension in July, but after his convincing performance on a cold, windy night, Packers fans can now be more confident that he is their guy.
The most significant number from Love’s impressive stat line: zero turnovers. It was only his second game of the season without an interception, and both have come in the past two weeks. He’s playing smarter football, but he’s still pushing the ball downfield whenever he gets a chance. If Love’s second season as a starter follows the same pattern as his first, we could be in the beginning stages of a second-half breakout. Since Week 10, he leads the NFL in yards per dropback, EPA per dropback, and success rate, according to TruMedia. He’s turned the ball over once in that span and ranks just outside the top 10 in off-target throw rate, suggesting that he’s cleaned up the mental errors and accuracy issues from his inconsistent start to the season. He also leads the NFL in doing stuff like this:
The fadeaway throws and downfield strikes have been on Love’s tape all season. His decision-making and accuracy just needed some tightening. We’ve seen that happen now for two weeks.
If we get this version of Love for the rest of the season, the Packers have a shot at making a Super Bowl run. Matt LaFleur has Green Bay’s running game humming, the play-action game is thriving, and Jeff Hafley’s defense is playing at a top-10 clip. The only thing Green Bay lacks is a signature win. The Packers have had their chances in losses to Philadelphia, Detroit, and Minnesota. And wins over Houston and San Francisco aren’t nearly as impressive as we would’ve thought in September. They’ll get another shot at validation when they travel to Detroit next Thursday.
Loser: Matt Eberflus
Editor’s Note: The Bears announced Friday afternoon they have fired Matt Eberflus. Offensive coordinator Thomas Brown will serve as interim head coach.
Matt Eberflus has become a regular loser in this column—so much so that I may have to consider renaming the piece after him. “Winners and Eberfluses” is kind of catchy, isn’t it?
I’ve been running out of ways to criticize the Bears head coach in recent weeks, but he gave me plenty to work with at the end of Chicago’s loss in Detroit. If you weren’t one of the millions of Americans screaming, “CALL A TIMEOUT” at their televisions on Thursday, here’s how it all went down.
I still can’t believe it. There is so much blame to go around here, but I’ll put most of it on Eberflus for not just calling a damn timeout. With 36 seconds on the clock and one timeout in hand, the Bears would’ve had enough time to stop the clock, get a play off, and then spike the ball before the clock hit zeros. Instead they didn’t call timeout, struggled to get a play off, and watched the game end before they could attempt a game-tying field goal. Caleb Williams isn’t without fault, either. He decided to change the play call before the snap when there was not nearly enough time for that. His receivers also had trouble lining up, which forced the rookie to hold the snap for a few extra seconds. By the time Chicago snapped the ball, there were just 14 seconds left on the play clock. The Cowboys snap the ball with an average of 13.3 seconds left on the play clock on all snaps, and the Bears were barely quicker in hurry-up mode.
As if Bears fans weren’t frustrated enough after watching that shitshow unfold, Eberflus then defended the approach in his postgame presser, saying, “I like what we did there … I think we handled it the right way.”
No, coach, you did not handle it the right way, as evidenced by the timeout left in your back pocket. It’s not an exaggeration to say this was one of the worst displays of clock management in NFL history.
I don’t know whether this will be the end of Eberflus in Chicago—with a week-and-a-half break between this game and Chicago’s next game, against the 49ers, it should be—but it sounds like the players are out on their coach. D.J. Moore openly questioned the decision-making at the end, and Keenan Allen said, “I feel like we did enough as players to win the game.” That’s been the case multiple times in the past month alone. The Bears are 4-8 but have a plus-one point differential on the season. There’s an alternate timeline in which Eberflus shows more competence in late-game situations, and Chicago is firmly in the mix for a playoff spot. Unfortunately for Bears fans, we’re in this timeline:
Winner: Mike McCarthy
McCarthy was a winner before his Cowboys even stepped on the field Thursday. Thanks to Eberflus, he no longer has the most embarrassing display of end-of-game clock management in recent memory. Calling a QB draw with no timeouts while trailing with 14 seconds on the clock looks like a stroke of coaching genius in comparison to what the Bears did.
And McCarthy, who appeared to be coaching his way out of Dallas this season, also got a glimmer of hope from Jerry Jones this week when the Cowboys owner said a new contract extension isn’t out of the question. A comfortable 27-20 win over the Giants on Thanksgiving won’t hurt McCarthy’s case. It’s been a crappy campaign for Dallas all around. Dak Prescott is out for the season, Micah Parsons has missed most of the year to date, and the lack of depth created by the team’s inactivity in free agency has been exposed. But the Cowboys are somehow 5-7 and just two games behind Washington for the final spot in the NFC playoffs. Dallas would have to jump four teams to catch the Commanders, and The Athletic’s prediction model has the team’s playoff odds at less than 1 percent. But while it’s not likely to happen, the Cowboys could go into their Week 18 game against Washington with something to play for. If McCarthy can lead the Cowboys to that point after how this season started, Jones might look favorably upon him.
I can hear Dallas fans screaming out in agony at the thought of running it back with McCarthy, but it’s unlikely we’ll get to that point. Wins over a sad Giants group and the fading Commanders aren’t clear signs of progress, and the overall numbers suggest that this is still one of the worst teams in the NFL. The Panthers and Giants are the only NFC teams with a worse point differential. Dallas is three games ahead of New York in the standings, but its two wins over the Giants came by 12 points combined. We’re a few bounces of the ball away from the Giants being 5-7 and the Cowboys sitting at the bottom of the league standings. And that might be the more desirable outcome. This recent win “streak” could end up saving McCarthy’s job, but it’s pushing Dallas further down the draft board. It’s been that kind of season for America’s Team—even when they win, they still find a way to lose.
Loser: Anyone Who Has to Play Quarterback for the Giants
Daniel Jones should be thankful to the Giants for cutting him when they did. Not only did he land with a winning team and great head coach in Minnesota, but he also got to enjoy his Thanksgiving while his former teammates took an L against Cooper Rush on national television. For the first time in six years, the Giants are no longer his problem. Hopefully, he joined the rest of us in mostly ignoring the game as we stuffed our faces. That includes Tom Brady.
But other poor souls are not so lucky. Last week, Tommy DeVito had the misfortune of lining up under center for this shoddily built offense. He was sacked four times in a loss to Tampa Bay and suffered a forearm injury that kept him out of Thursday’s game. Drew Lock started in his place, but it didn’t make much difference. Lock averaged 5.6 yards per attempt and was sacked six times. He missed throws and made a number of bad decisions—as Brady was happy to point out—but I’m not sure if the GOAT himself could have played well in the hellscape of an offense that Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen have put together. Lock was pressured on 48.8 percent of his dropbacks, his receivers dropped three passes, and the Giants finished the game with a 28 percent success rate on the ground.
All the issues on display on Thursday have persisted since Jones arrived in New York in 2019. The offensive line isn’t getting any better, the receiving corps is led by a (very talented) rookie, and the play calling is arguably worse than ever. Jones wasn’t the solution, but it’s becoming clearer every week that he wasn’t the problem, either. In Minnesota, Jones will get to see how the other half lives. Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell is one of the league’s bright offensive minds, the offensive line is solid when healthy and gets a schematic boost from O’Connell’s play calling, and the receiving corps is loaded with dudes, including the league’s best receiver, Justin Jefferson. Barring an injury to Sam Darnold, Jones probably won’t be taking the reins of the offense any time soon, but spending time on the practice field and in the meeting rooms could help him develop some good habits and start undoing the bad ones he got from playing for the Giants.
