Walkthrough Week 8: Blowouts, Bashings and Beatdowns!

In this wild-’n’-wooly Week 8 edition of NFL Walkthrough:

• The Eagles replace disgruntled A.J. Brown with an extra offensive lineman. Better chemistry ensues.
• Brian Daboll’s blood pressure reaches 180-over-probably-fired.
• Bo Nix and the Broncos star in the latest Cowboys implosion to end all Cowboys implosions.
• SNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP.
• Andy Dalton’s fumblitis cures Buffalo’s Billsnesia.
• So. Many. Blowouts.

And much more!

But first:

Divorce, Packers Style

After a while, no one wants to hear about the divorce anymore.

A bickering couple spats and fumes for years. She’s a frugal homebody. He’s a walking midlife crisis. Yet they stay together, for the finances, for the appearances, for the “family,” through his razor-tongued public barbs and her passive-aggressive denial of his desires. I just wanna liven things up by adding a first-round receiver to the mix, baby.

Finally, they break up. There’s grief. But also relief. Plus curiosity. C’mon, we all gossip about our neighbors/friends/coworkers/siblings after the Big Breakup. He’s slumming around New York with them? Yucko. She is shacking up with that young hotness she kept dangling for years? Ooh la la.

Most of us instinctively root for the homebody, not the arrogant, spotlight-hounding jackass seeking greener pastures. Narrative convention demanded him to seek even greater fortune and fame in the big city, making a colossal fool of himself as a result.

Back at home, the rest of the family built a warmer, quieter new normal. They kept up with the Joneses, if not the Campbells. Eventually, they even splurged a bit: did you see that shiny, lightly-preowned edge rusher in their driveway?

The story’s over. Closure achieved. Comeuppance served. The neighborhood busybodies can stop gobble-gobbling. Three rivers’ worth of water has passed beneath a city of bridges.

But what is this? The ex has been seen about town with a whole new sidepiece? They’re getting along well. He’s a little different, too: noticeably older, incrementally humbler, hypothetically wiser.

Meanwhile, the homebodies are … fine, actually. They bicker a bit about how to raise the kids – Matthew is ready to start driving the offense, dear – but none of their current problems are insurmountable, and they have nothing at all to do with the ex.

We should be soooo over this three-year-old breakup by now.

When preparing my notes for Week 8 on Monday afternoon, I overlooked the Aaron Rodgers revenge angle. In fact, I forgot Aaron Rodgers used to play for the Packers!

OK, not quite: I would visit a neurologist if that were true. But the “revenge” storyline was buried in my psyche beneath the Micah Parsons/Cowboys revenge storyline, the Rodgers-versus-Jets saga in the season opener (Rodgers barely out-dueled Justin Fields. VENGEANCE IS HIS.) and a dozen fresher melodramas.

Ah, but the revenge angle was still out there, sustained mostly by the gobble-gobble gossip of the sportstalk and clickbait circuits.

Nothing that happened on Sunday night could erase two years of evidence that divorce was the right thing for the Packers, as well as for Rodgers, the kind of free thinker who must test each electrical socket with his own tongue.

Sunday night’s Packers victory didn’t prove that they made the right decision by trading Rodgers in 2023. The Packers proved that in 2023 and 2024. The win had nothing to do with their past. It was all about the present and perhaps a very bright future when January arrives.

Game Spotlight: Green Bay Packers 35, Pittsburgh Steelers 25

What Happened

The Packers wore their all-white Michigan State uniforms. The Steelers wore their ancient-era throwbacks: prison highway cleanup crew striped jerseys; naked-look nothing-beats-a-great-pair-of-legs pants.

The Packers spent the first half doing Packers stuff: one crisp drive, but lots of Jordan Love hero ball, some third-and-medium disconnections, and two missed field goals from shaky, just-back-from-IR kicker Brandon McManus.

The Steelers spent the first half doing Steelers stuff: mostly Aaron Rodgers dink-and-dunk, one old-guy scramble-and-bomb to Roman Wilson, a completion to an offensive lineman, spotty defense and three medium-to-long Chris Boswell field goals.

The Steelers led 16-7 at halftime. Love fired a bottle rocket straight into the sky as he was getting drilled early in the third quarter; Tucker Kraft fetched it and rumbled 59 yards to set up a touchdown.

The referees began hallucinating: missing an obvious offsides call against the Packers defense; allowing Rodgers to avoid a sack by throwing the ball to a nearby worm. Injuries mounted for the Steelers: defensive backs Joey Porter and DeShon Elliott, defensive lineman Daniel Ekuale.

Another bottle rocket of infield-fly-rule trajectory landed in Christian Watson’s hands for a 33-yard gain, setting up a Josh Jacobs touchdown to start the fourth quarter.

Finally, the Steelers collapsed. Micah Parsons, the Packers’ flamethrowing closer, started making Rodgers eager to hit the deck. The Steelers began committing Three Stooges-worthy penalties. And Love, so shaky in the first half and inconsistent for much of this season, took complete command of the game, finishing with 360 passing yards and three touchdowns.

What It Means for the Packers

The Packers we saw in the first half were familiar, frustrating and not very much fun. The team we saw in the fourth quarter was the one we saw against the Lions in the season opener: a legitimate Super Bowl contender.

The Packers need to see more of that latter team in the months to come. But despite not earning many style points, they have the best record in the NFC, giving them time to continue finding themselves.

What It Means for the Steelers

They are porous and banged-up on defense. They are far too reliant on quick throws and schematic wrinkles on offense. That wide-open path to an AFC North title the Steelers saw two weeks ago may be closing a bit as their losses mount and the Ravens injury report shrinks.

What’s Next

The Steelers host the Mighty Colts. The Packers host the flighty Panthers.

Game Spotlight: Denver Broncos 44, Dallas Cowboys 24

What Happened

Another week, another nationally-televised edition of Silly Cowboys Chaos Ball: nothing but splashy highlights, tons of penalties, turnovers, almost-turnovers, random monster encounters and explosively messy tomfoolery.

Watching the Cowboys is like a cross between washing down Taco Bell with vodka and Red Bull and what happens in the powder room approximately 45 minutes later.

The Broncos aren’t above a little chaos themselves. But their offense tends to snooze until the fourth quarter. Bo Nix and company, however, looked more like Peyton Manning’s 2013 Broncos than their usual selves on Sunday. That’s because the Cowboys defense looked like a classroom of third graders at their very first roller skating birthday party.

Seriously: I have seen plenty of bad NFL defenses, but I cannot remember seeing a defense that looked bad the way the Cowboys looked bad on Sunday. Coordinator Matt Eberflus should not be fired; he should be tested for PCP. Nix (four touchdown passes) and his Rarely Ready For Kickoff playmakers could do whatever they wanted. Eberflus’ defense responded like an ant colony after someone tossed a cherry bomb into the terrarium.

Dak Prescott, meanwhile, spent the whole afternoon desperately heaving airballs off his back foot against the crafty, ornery Broncos pass rush. Prescott finished with two interceptions. Joe Milton finished the game for the Cowboys.

There were 16 total penalties for 122 yards in this contest, many of them pass interference and roughness penalties, two of them against Riley Moss, who has become the NFL’s ever-persecuted Jean Valjean. (I thought Moss committed more, but the broadcast just started cutting to him whenever any flag was thrown, even if he was in the parking lot.) The Cowboys and Commanders combined for 21 penalties and 197 yards last week. Something about the Cowboys turns everyone on the field, including the officials, into spotlight-craving vaudevillians.

What It Means for the Broncos

Don’t expect Nix and the offense to look this good against normal opponents. But stop doubting the 6-2 Broncos. Their league-best pass rush can drag any opponent down to their level. Their offense shifts into third gear just often enough to be useful.

Keep an eye on Patrick Surtain’s Sunday shoulder injury, however. Surtain is the only player in the Broncos secondary who can cover a receiver without the referees burning him at the stake for witchcraft.

What It Means for the Cowboys

Nothing. Cowboys football is meaningless: scribbled gibberish on coloring pages. They’ll win by 30 next week, in a game that ends at 2 AM on the East Coast. It won’t matter. They’re just here for the memes.

What’s Next

The Broncos visit the Houston Anti-Cowboys: all defense, sleepy offense.

The Cowboys host the Cardinals in a highly-skippable Week 9 edition of Monday Night Football.

Game Spotlight: Baltimore Ravens 30, Chicago Bears 16

What Happened

The Ravens claimed that Lamar Jackson was a “full participant” in practice by the end of the week, and therefore on track to play. It turns out that he was as much a “full participant” as I was when the marching band parents volunteered to sell snacks during high school football games. Hey, I carried this folding table to the edge of the bleachers and, ouch, my back is a little sore. You guys set up the tent and grill the hotdogs while I sit on the cooler for three hours so no one steals anything.

So Snoop Huntley got the start while Lamar Jackson walked the sidelines in a baggy beige hoodie/beanie/awesome chain/agreeable smile ensemble which made him look – I’m sorry, I love Lamar, but I cannot unsee this, and therefore must share it – like a bedazzled poop emoji.

Snoop has plenty of experience as Jackson’s generic-brand understudy, so he took care of the football, handed off to Derrick Henry and Keaton Mitchell, provided a credible rollout/option threat and avoided unforced errors. It was a big improvement over Cooper Rush, who also looked like a poop emoji in Weeks 4 through 6.

Caleb Williams moved the Bears offense adequately-if-inefficiently early, leading a pair of first-quarter field goal drives. The Bears drove to the Ravens’ 39-yard line with 22 seconds left, but Williams uncorked a panic-ball to nowhere for his second grounding penalty of the game. A quick pass to Colston Loveland got the Bears back into range, but Cairo Santos’ 58-yarder fell short.

The Bears cut the Ravens lead to 16-13 early in the third quarter on a short D’Andre Swift run after a 25-yard third-down Swift screen got them into scoring range. Jordan Stout pinned the Bears at their own two-yard line on the subsequent punt, however, and Nate Wiggins undercut a sideline pass to Rome Odunze, setting up a Snoop pass to Charlie Kolar which essentially iced the game.

What It Means for the Ravens

They are still mostly dead. But Miracle Max has given Jackson the chocolate-coated pill. The Ravens are now healthy enough to at least try to have fun storming the castle.

What It Means for the Bears

Late in the fourth quarter of a 14-point game, Williams took a nasty hit after a playground scramble-and-throw completion to DJ Moore to set up first-and-goal with no timeouts left. His first-down pass was incomplete. His second throw gained two yards from the three-yard line. Tick-tick. Williams attempted a third-down sneak, but he skittered sideways along the line of scrimmage to a spot where he had no blockers and just slammed hopelessly into a wall of Ravens defenders. On fourth down, Williams had a wide-open Moore in the back of the end zone but fired an uncatchable fastball well behind him.

What does all of this mean for Williams’ overall development, his mutual-trust levels with Ben Johnson and the Bears’ future as playoff sleepers? Probably nothing good, nothing good and nothing good.

What’s Next

The Ravens visit the Dolphins on Thursday night, armed with nothing more than a wheelbarrow and a cloak of flames.

The Bears visit the Bengals, who ran out of Flacco Dad Muscles (and run defense) against the Jets.

Game Spotlight: Philadelphia Eagles 38, New York Giants 20

What Happened

The Eagles solved some of their most pressing problems while teaching the Giants not to put too much stock in Thursday night upsets, and also possibly sending Brian Daboll to his cardiologist.