Week 6 saw the Philadelphia Eagles and Buffalo Bills stake their claims as the top teams in their respective divisions with important wins over rivals they’ll likely see again in the postseason. The other dozen games, however, offered little clarity.
The Green Bay Packers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers each raised cause for alarm as they slipped to .500 in upset losses. Fringe playoff teams like the New York Jets, Atlanta Falcons, New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks each boosted their resumes with double-digit wins. Joe Burrow outdueled Andy Dalton in a battle between the Cincinnati Bengals’ past and its present.
Another week of games provides another data point to define the trends what will dictate how 2022 unfolds. And since we’ve already talked about all the NFC’s troubling veteran quarterbacks and how Aaron Rodgers should be really, truly concerned, let’s take on five other emerging storylines and figure out whether or not they’ve got the steam to persist for the final 12 weeks of the regular season.
Russell Wilson, cooked?
Over the course of two drives and 20 minutes of Monday Night Football, Russell Wilson looked like he’d fixed the issues that plagued him through his first five starts as a Denver Bronco. He completed his first 10 passes of the game for 126 yards, a touchdown, and 10 points on two possessions.
Then, the Russell Wilson we’ve come to know and hate emerged from its human-sized, Subway-branded cocoon, unfolded its leathery wings, then flew high above SoFi Stadium to crap all over this game. Here’s Wilson’s final nine drives:
- 5-18, 62 yards, 0 touchdowns, 0 interceptions, six total points in a 19-16 overtime loss
Now the Broncos are 2-4 and, despite a swarming defense, have a worse record in 2022 with Wilson than they did in 2021 behind Teddy Bridgewater.
Buy or sell? … (sighs) Buy.
It’s not just that Wilson is bad. It’s that he’s so much worse than the guy he replaced. Here’s how Broncos quarterbacks have rated out over the first six weeks of the season since 2017 according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats expected points added (EPA) metric:
- Bridgewater, 2021: 0.246 EPA/play
- Trevor Siemian, 2017: 0.081 EPA/play
- Joe Flacco, 2019: 0.048 EPA/play
- Wilson, 2022: 0.004 EPA/play
- Case Keenum, 2018: -0.032 EPA/play
- Drew Lock, 2020: -0.183 EPA/play
Gross! Even when things were good Monday night, they weren’t great. The big play blindspots that have plagued Wilson throughout his brief Denver tenure continue. Here’s a third down in which he has a wide open tight end in the middle of the field to create a fresh set of downs … and the play ends in a sack and a field goal attempt.
Russell Wilson chooses to not throw the wide-open short pass on 3rd-and-2 and instead takes a sack.
"Now this is on Russell Wilson… can't get more open than that."- Troy Aikman pic.twitter.com/c1EsgqIL37
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 18, 2022
This man is broken. There’s no quick fix for this and first-year head coach Nathaniel Hackett seems woefully unprepared to fix it. Wilson can get back to his old self, but it’s not going to snap back in a week. Denver’s big offseason fix is only going to extend the franchise’s playoff drought to a seventh straight year.
Zach Wilson and Jalen Hurts: Both undefeated, basically the same
Zach Wilson is 3-0 as a starter. That puts him in rare company; the only other undefeated quarterbacks in the league right now are Jalen Hurts and, uh, Bailey Zappe.
Granted, he didn’t do much to beat the Packers — 18 passes, 110 yards — but his downfield strike to Corey Davis was instrumental in breaking a 10-10 tie and setting the stage for a runaway win. A week earlier, he completed 14 of 21 passes for 210 yards for another decisive victory, this time against AFC East rival Miami.
More importantly, he showcased a more balanced approach against a tough Packer passing offense. Only 10 of his first 56 pass attempts to open the season were to his left, showcasing the kind of preference that would make an easy lift for opposing defensive coordinators to plan against:
In Week 6, he threw more passes to his left than any other direction. While that didn’t lead to excessive gains, it was still a positive development for a young quarterback who needs to embrace all the small wins he can find.
Buy or sell? Sell.
The Jets are winning games in spite of Wilson rather than because of. Two of the three quarterbacks he’s beaten were rookies from one of the worst draft classes of the past two decades. The third was a not-100-percent Aaron Rodgers and a Packers rushing defense that’s terrible for the fifth straight season.
In the process, Wilson has completed just 56 percent of his passes and thrown a single touchdown pass. His passer rating is lower than backup Joe Flacco for the second straight year. His general impact on a game rates somewhere between Mitch Trubisky and Carson Wentz.
There’s still time to showcase improvement. The Jets need him to do so in order to build on this momentum and keep their playoff hopes alive.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have vacated their claim as contenders
Tom Brady returned for his age 45 season after a brief retirement and is currently in the midst of his worst start since 2012. The Buccaneers are 3-3 and only in first place in the NFC South by virtue of a head-to-head win over the Atlanta Falcons made possible, in part, by one of the worst roughing the passer penalties of the season.
refs called this roughing the passer on 3rd down and i genuinely do not know what Grady Jarrett could have done differently pic.twitter.com/VX6i0UpJiL
— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) October 9, 2022
Brady’s been off his game, but there are flaws on both sides of the ball that have led to a 1-3 stretch. His run game averages just 3.1 yards per carry. His defense allowed Mitch Trubisky to record a 142.4 passer rating against it. Tampa scored at least 22 points in 28 of 33 regular season games to start the Brady era. They’ve hit that threshold just once in 2022.
Buy or sell? Sell, given the circumstances.
One, never count out Touchdown Tom, even if there are mounting reasons why you should. Brady is throwing deep less often than ever before. While a big part of that is his offensive line, his downfield accuracy on these throws is a concern. He’d completed 68 of his 160 deep balls from 2020 to 2021 (42.5 percent) but only eight of 21 this season (38.1 percent).
The defense is playing like a top five unit but has only been tested by one elite offense (the Chiefs) and failed (41 points allowed).
On the other hand, the Bucs are loaded with talent and the NFC, outside of the East, is a mess. That defense has only allowed more than 315 total yards or 20 points once. Brady is Brady, which means even if he’s 45 years old there’s perpetually reason to believe he’ll find another gear when it matters most. It’s still too early to worry about Tampa Bay.
If the Buccaneers were in the AFC, however …
The Indianapolis Colts have jolted themselves back to life behind Matt Ryan
The Colts finally got the version of Matty Ice they’d traded for. In Week 6, Ryan didn’t just throw for 380-plus yards and three touchdowns — he also led Indianapolis back from two different fourth quarter deficits, outdueled a Jacksonville offense that was wildly efficient for 60 full minutes and exorcised some of the lingering demons from Carson Wentz’s Week 18 collapse against the Jaguars last winter.
This was a stunning reversal following an unwatchable Thursday Night Football showdown with the Denver Broncos in which neither team scored a touchdown. This time, Indianapolis didn’t survive because their opponent’s quarterback was too focused on trademarks; the Colts won because Ryan morphed back to his mid-2010s form and led this team to victory.
Now a showdown with the Tennessee Titans looms in Week 7. The winner will take over the AFC South lead. Indianapolis is peaking at the right time to make a statement.
Buy or sell? Sell, while recognizing this team could still win the division.
Beating the Jags was great. Let’s unpack Indianapolis’ other two wins this season:
- defeated the Chiefs in Week 3 thanks to special teams miscues and Harrison Butker’s injury, gained 259 total yards.
- defeated the Broncos in Week 5 because Nathaniel Hackett has no idea what he’s doing as a head coach and Russell Wilson refuses to identify his open receivers in the end zone.
So, not great. Ryan has to do more than carve up a middle-tier passing defense to regain his spot in the circle of trust. Fortunately for him, he’ll have plenty of opportunities. The AFC South is a mess, with the Titans currently holding serve at the top despite an 0-2 start. Tennessee and its 29th-ranked secondary is up in Week 7; a win would go a long way in establishing Indy as a playoff team, even if it would only be a minor threat in the Wild Card round based on what we’ve seen through six weeks.
The Steelers are better off with Mitch Trubisky
Kenny Pickett before exiting Week 6’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers due to injury:
- 11-18, 67 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs, 87.0 rating, -0.04 expected points added (EPA) per play
Mitch Trubisky after entering Week 6’s game against the Bucs in Pickett’s place:
- 9-12, 144 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs, 142.4 rating, 0.48 EPA/play
Trubisky out-played Tom Brady and left Sunday’s game with a win over the GOAT in relief. That’s a sign he’s still got some juice left as Pittsburgh’s starting quarterback, right?
Buy or sell? Sell. Oh, god. Sell.
First, the bad: Kenny Pickett only threw one of his 18 passes more than nine yards downfield (it was incomplete). Trubisky’s *average* pass traveled more than nine yards downfield. For a team trying to put the final two limp-armed years of the Ben Roethlisberger era behind them, that’s a significant distinction.
But Pickett took over the starting role in this lineup for a reason; Trubisky, in his first four games as a Steeler, was a benign lump of nothing. He completed less than 60 percent of his passes and found the end zone twice in 116 attempts. His dual-threat bonafides were rendered useless as he was sacked more often (eight times for a loss of 47 yards) than he ran the ball (seven times, 24 yards).
That’s not something a jolt to the system by being sent to the bench will fix. This is the player we saw fail to become something more than a punchline with the Chicago Bears. His one year as Josh Allen’s backup couldn’t fix that. And while he’s a valuable backup quarterback, that’s his ceiling in 2022 and likely indefinitely.
