Another Long Wet Weird October Sunday

In this Week 5 edition of NFL Walkthrough:

• The 49ers are 5-0! [Insert obligatory hackneyed substation joke here.]
• The Colts settle for a field goal.
• The Patriots reassert themselves as an AFC powerhouse.
• The Colts settle for a field goal.
• The Jaguars find a way to win despite 13 penalties and dreadful red zone playcalling.
• The Colts settle for a field goal.
• The Vikings remain undefeated despite the fact that it often looks like Kyler Murray is playing blindfolded.
• The Colts settle for a field goal.
• Sunday Night Football goes to overtime, because sleep is only for the just.

And much more! Including another Colts field goal!

Let's start at the beginning ...

Prelude to Another Endless NFL Sunday

An eerie calm hung in the dreary autumn drizzle over Greater Philly on Sunday morning.

The Eagles were in London, having flown out on Friday afternoon like a verge-of-divorce couple going on one last vacation because they couldn’t refund the plane tickets. But their numbers were depleted, their morale devastated.

Lane Johnson: retired. Cam Jurgens: traded for future draft picks. Saquon Barkley and DeVonta Smith: injured. Andy Dalton: exposed as a saboteur and sent to meet a firing squad. 

The situation was so dire that Eagles expert Jimmy Kempski reported on Sunday that the retired Johnson would remain on the 53-man roster for the rest of 2026 so his salary cap hits could be deferred through 2027 and 2028. Howie Roseman, resorting to Mickey Loomis-style cap tactics? What's next? Melting down Super Bowl rings to purchase hoagie rolls for the team cafeteria?

Philly taverns opened early for the game, offering specials and promotions planned months in advance, when "Breakfast with the Eagles" sounded like a treat. Come to Paddy’s Pub for half-priced Bloody Marys and $5 pork roll-egg-&-cheese sammies at 8:30 AM!!! No, thank you, we’ll have a hard enough time keeping our Grape Nuts down. The fact that the Philly drizzle turned into a downpour did little to lift spirits. 

Many Eagles fans – perhaps most – woke up on Sunday hoping for their team’s fever to finally come to a head with a lopsided, era-ending loss. One coup de grace, please, wit’ fried onions. 

The only forces standing in the way of Eagles embarrassment in London on Sunday: 

• The Jaguars, a team that has spent most of its 30-year existence trying very hard to never be taken seriously.
• Jalen Hurts and Jalen Carter, who weren’t informed about the team’s impending surrender.

Game Spotlight: Jacksonville Jaguars 19, Philadelphia Eagles 17

What Happened

A Jaguars touchdown on the opening kickoff was negated by offsetting penalties, with The Son of Jeremiah Trotter and The Other Bryan Thomas ejected on the play for an impromptu steel cage match at midfield.

After that, the game got sloppy and strange.

Jalen Hurts manufactured two touchdown drives with some uncharacteristic quick rhythm passes to what’s left of the Eagles receiving corps. Jalen Carter strip-sacked Trevor Lawrence twice, though the Jaguars recovered both fumbles. The Jaguars strung together daisy chains of penalties and suffered two catastrophic system failures at the goal line, one just before halftime and the other while trailing 14-10 in the fourth quarter. 

Parker Washington made a one-handed, over-the-shoulder catch on a 22-yard Lawrence teardrop to give the Jaguars a 16-14 lead with 3:26 to play. Jaguars long snapper Ross Matiscik suffered an early-game injury, however, and fill-in DaVon Hamilton’s high snap resulted in a missed extra point. 

Hurts couldn’t move the Eagles offense (which was taking its customary second-half siesta) on the subsequent drive, but he managed to push the jalopy into field goal range when granted a second chance. Jake Elliott appeared to put the game away with a 47-yard field goal.

But there were 12 seconds left. 

Ameer Abdullah fielded Elliott’s final kickoff at the 8-yard line, found a wide running lane, and raced 53 yards before getting tackled with one second left. Cam Little drilled a 57-yard game winner, with the help of a fine snap from Hamilton. 

It’s hard to describe the mood at my local tavern in those final seconds. Several patrons went from cheering to shouting “WTF???” A few inattentive souls didn’t realize the Eagles had lost until two or three minutes later; the Bloody Marys were reportedly on point. The lady wearing head-to-toe Eagles gear next to me slammed her chair against the bar as she stormed out. As for me …

Whoopsie!

What It Means for the Jaguars

The Jaguars committed 13 penalties for 100 yards on Sunday. They committed 13 penalties for 125 yards in Week 4 against the Bengals. The penalties have negated multiple touchdowns and turned far too many productive plays into 10-yard losses. 

The Jaguars’ goal-to-go playcalling was also dreadful on Sunday. Liam Coen called a fourth-and-goal jet sweep for Bhayshul Tuten that even the Brits could see coming. A fourth-quarter attempt at some Wildcat chicanery, with an offensive lineman split wide and Chris Rodriguez taking the snap, sparked a cascade of penalties and mistakes that turned first-and-goal from the one-yard line into third-and-goal from the 14, then a turnover on downs.

If the Jaguars can cut their penalties in half and stop outsmarting themselves at the goal line, they are good enough to reach the Super Bowl. 

What It Means for the Eagles

Hurts, Carter and stalwarts like Quinyon Mitchell and Zack Baun will keep the Eagles semi-competitive, even as they dig deep into their practice squad for fourth-stringers like running back Dameon Pierce at other positions. But the Eagles are losing about a stalwart per week – Jalyx Hunt suffered a nasty-looking lower leg injury just before halftime – and their efforts may just end up prolonging the agony for Eagles fans.

The Eagles could still win the NFC East despite not being good and hated by their fans, because the Cowboys, Giants and Commanders all failed to win in Week 5, despite the fact that the Cowboys faced the previously winless Buccaneers and the Giants and Commanders faced each other.

I leave you with the Eagles’ scoring breakdown by quarter through five games: 

• First Quarter: 3 points.
• Second Quarter: 66 points.
• Third Quarter: 6 points.
• Fourth Quarter: 17 points. 

What’s Next

The Jaguars stay in England to “host” the Texans, now (reportedly) with 100% more Marvin Harrison Jr., in Week 6. 

The Eagles return to Philly, where they are still grudgingly welcome, to host the Panthers, who enjoyed an early Week 5 bye.

Game Spotlight: San Francisco 49ers 32, Seattle Seahawks 29

The 49ers and Seahawks are two of the NFL’s sexiest teams. But they are stuck in the same division as Sean McVay’s attention-hounding Real Housewives of Los Angeles. 

The Seahawks are like matrons of honor to the bridezilla Rams: defending champions who were forced to cede the offseason and early-season spotlight to the Dream Team to End All Dream Teams. 

The 49ers, fourth-fiddle to the Rams, Seahawks and their own injured reserve, entered Week 5 undefeated and tops in the NFL in DVOA by a considerable margin. Yet the 49ers are usually talked about like someone who just got diagnosed with having a litter of xenomorphs in their intestinal tract. Gosh, it’s so nice to see them taking advantage of this brief window of vitality before their stomachs explode. Live for the moment, fellas!

With the Rams facing the Bills in a Monday night diva duel, the 49ers and Seahawks finally got a chance to take center stage on Sunday. Was it a showcase of rugged, fundamentally-sound ball-control football between two teams noted for their stingy defenses and balanced offenses? Or did these two usually-staid Super Bowl contenders need to vent a little overheated melodrama of their own?

What Happened

Overheated melodrama.

At the risk of making this segment sound like the story of a schoolyard brawl, as summarized by a third grader who just washed down Oreos with Mountain Dew, let me attempt to summarize this game:

• Sam Darnold throws an interception to Renardo Green which leads to a Brock Purdy-to-Mike Evans touchdown.
• Niners returner Jacob Cowing muffs a punt, setting up an Emanuel Wilson touchdown. The Seahawks later add a field goal. 
• Wilson fumble deep in Seahawks territory. Christian McCaffrey touchdown.
• Backup running back George Holani fumbles even deeper in Seahawks territory than Wilson did. Niners rookie defender Gracen Halton, who stripped Holani, pounces on the football after a few caroms for a touchdown just before halftime.
• Darnold interception, again by Green! But the 49ers miss a field goal. Then the Seahawks make one.
• Purdy interception! Darnold hits Jaxon Smith-Njigba for a touchdown. The Seahawks suddenly take a 23-21 lead.
• Deebo Samuel fumbles, injuring his hamstring on the play. Make that a 26-21 Seahawks lead.
• Purdy, rapidly running out of receivers, conjures a touchdown drive out of throws to Evans, George Kittle and Brandin Cooks, who apparently plays for the 49ers now. After some extended penalty mayhem, Purdy connects with Evans for a two-point conversion.
• Long Rashid Shaheed kickoff return! But a Keion White third-down sack forces the Seahawks to settle for yet another field goal. Tie game.
• Remember McCaffrey? Kyle Shanahan does in the fourth quarter. McCaffrey rushes for 28 yards to get the 49ers into fourth-quarter field goal range. Then Shanny called a handoff to backup Kaelon Black (who had two productive runs in the drive) instead of McCaffrey on third-and-1 to maximize drama by setting up a field goal. Eddy Pineiro’s 44-yarder gives the 49ers a three-point lead at the two minute warning.
• Smith-Njigba catches a 35-yarder to get the Seahawks to midfield. But a catchable pass bounces off his hands after shaking free on a deep route a few plays later. Darnold finds Cooper Kupp in the left flat with a little room to run on fourth-and-10, but Malik Mustapha pushes a diving Kupp out of bounds after a nine-and-a-half yard gain.

Did I miss anything? Oh yeah: Dre Greenlaw got ejected for head-butting an unhelmeted Ernest Jones IV after an out-of-bounds thud on Darnold in the second quarter.

What It Means for the 49ers and Seahawks

Let’s not overreact to two excellent teams getting their turnover wiggles out while bringing out the worst in each other.