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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Doug Farrar

The NFL’s Worst of the Week: Bad officiating, Deshaun Watson’s issues, Derek Carr’s loud misses

Derek Carr Deshaun Watson NFL Desmond Ridder Chris Olave Kevin Stefanski Lamar Jackson Browns (Organization) Ravens Saints

Football is a wonderful, thrilling, inspiring game that can lift us to new heights in our lives.

But football is also a weird, inexplicable, at times downright stupid game that may force you to perform Keith Moon-level furniture destruction in your own living room.

So, as much as we at Touchdown Wire endeavor to write about what makes the game great, there are also times when it’s important to point out the dumb plays, boneheaded decisions, and officiating errors that make football all too human.

Folks, it’s time for the Worst of the Week for Week 7 of the 2023 NFL season.

Derek Carr's loud, angry incompletion to Chris Olave.

(Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)

Not much went right for quarterback Derek Carr in the New Orleans Saints’ 31-24 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars last Thursday. Carr completed 33 passes on 55 attempts for 301 yards, one touchdown, one interception, and a passer rating of 73.4. Were it not for a no-huddle series in the fourth quarter in which Carr completed three passes for 51 yards and a touchdown in 51 seconds, it would have been even worse.

The nadir of Carr’s game was this throw out of bounds with 10:44 left in the game.

Carr did indeed seem quite miffed at his receiver for giving up on the route, but as Saints receiver Michael Thomas said of the play (he later deleted the tweet), Olave wasn’t even in the progression. Olave’s vertical route would be to clear things out to that side.

If that’s the case, Carr’s reads should have been to Taysom Hill running the speed out from the right slot, then Rashid Shaheed on the short crosser from the left slot, and finally, Thomas to the back side. It was third-and-5, so why Carr uncorked this throw is a mystery.

“I think that’s frustrating,” head coach Dennis Allen said after the game regarding his quarterback and receivers being on the same page… or not. “That is probably one of the things that I’m most frustrated about is just that part of that inconsistency. We have got to…somehow, someway, we have to get those guys on the same page. There’s a lot that goes into that.”

“I wasn’t talking to Chris, like the past two weeks I was just talking in general,” Carr said of the play. “There were some things that happened today that led to some pretty big negative plays that should never happened, and I think that’s where my frustration came from.”

Based on Thomas’ evidence, throwing to receivers in the progression would be a great start to turning those frowns upside down.

Desmond Ridder's three fumbles.

(Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports)

The Atlanta Falcons somehow escaped the Big Sombrero with a 16-13 over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but Atlanta quarterback Desmond Ridder didn’t help his own case, nor that of his team’s. Ridder coughed up three fumbles in the game, lost all three, and those fumbles came at the Tampa Bay 20-yard line, the Tampa Bay one-yard line, and the Tampa Bay one-inch line.

Oof.

After the game, Falcons head coach Arthur Smith had his quarterback’s back.

So, the play was great, Mrs. Lincoln. Ridder had fumbled three times in Atlanta’s first four games of the season, so this wasn’t a fluke.

Everything about Deshaun Watson's contract.

(Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports)

The Cleveland Browns have been in quite the quarterback purgatory since re-entering the NFL in 1999, and the blockbuster trade for Deshaun Watson was supposed to end all that. Perhaps it has — since offloading three first-round picks to the Texans for Watson’s services, and ignoring his disgraceful off-field behavior, and signing him to a five-year, $230 million, fully-guaranteed contract, the Browns are now in a quarterback hell of their own making.

Watson had missed two straight games before Sunday’s matchup with the Indianapolis Colts, and he didn’t last long in this one. He suffered what looked to be a concussion on an overturned interception with 3:23 left in the first quarter, and though he was cleared to return, he didn’t — PJ Walker finished the game. Watson completed one of five passes for five yards and a non-overturned interception before exiting.

After the game, everybody wanted to know — was this about the head injury, or a re-aggravation of the shoulder injury that had cost him two games… or was it about performance?

Perhaps it was stuff like this that had head coach Kevin Stefanski thinking, “Nah — we’re good here.”

“He’s our starter moving forward,” Stefanski said after the game. “He’s our starter in Seattle [next week]. It’s always going to be my decision to protect our players.”

But Stefanski would give no absolute status report.

Watson said that he “was not sure” whether he suffered further shoulder issues.

“Just a medical decision with the staff and everyone that is a part of making that decision,” Watson said. “They felt like the decision was best to let P.J. go in, finish the game and make sure it benefits the team.”

Well, alrighty then.

Walker completed just 15 of 32 passes for 176 yards, no touchdowns, and an interception, but the Browns managed a 39-38 win.

With a little help from their friends.

The officiating in the Colts-Browns game.

(Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)

Referee Shawn Smith and his crew will be persona non grata in Indianapolis for a long time after Sunday’s events. These officials will have to wait a long time for tables at Prime 47 and Harry and Izzy’s and the legendary St. Elmo’s with all that happened late in the fourth quarter.

With 47 seconds left in the game, and the Colts up 38-33, a sack fumble in the Colts’ favor was negated by an illegal contact penalty on cornerback Darrell Baker. And on the very next play, Baker was busted for defensive pass interference.

Both calls were highly suspect. And they set up Kareem Hunt’s one-yard game-winning touchdown with 19 seconds left.

The Lions' defense.

(Mitch Stringer-USA TODAY Sports)

Sunday’s game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Detroit Lions looked like the most interesting schematic matchup of Week 7. One of many reasons? Baltimore’s offense under Todd Monken against Aaron Glenn’s Detroit defense, which has been one of the NFL’s pleasant surprises this season.

In the end, it was all Baltimore on both sides of the ball, but Lamar Jackson was especially ridiculous through the first half.  The Ravens scored touchdowns on each of their first four drives, and that Lions defense had absolutely no answer whatsoever. Jackson completed 17 of 21 passes in the first half for 255 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 149.0. The Ravens ran 16 times for 100 yards, as well. Overall, Baltimore’s 355 yards to Detroit’s 97 yards gave a pretty thorough picture of the unbalanced nature of that first half, which saw the Ravens headed into the locker room with a 28-0 lead.

In the end, the Ravens won, 38-6, as Jackson completed 21 of 21 yards for 357 yards and three touchdowns, and Baltimore outgained Detroit, 503-337.

After the game, Lions head coach Dan Campbell put a fine point on the debacle.

“Here’s what happens,” Campbell said, when asked about the difficulties in containing Jackson. “There were a number of plays where we’ve got him boxed in, and it’s long. He’s back there, six seconds, but it’s hard to do. He just keeps squeezing, keeps squeezing, keeps you, seven seconds, keeps squeezing. What happens is, it gets long, gets longer, and then I commit, and then he just breaks out. Now all of a sudden, you’ve already been covering long, and so that’s what happens. That’s why he’s so dangerous. It’s hard to do when you’re a rusher. I thought we were pretty disciplined for a while. Then as it kind of got longer in there, and he’s holding up.

“Then we just got ourselves in a bind. Everything plays a hand in each other. There was enough stuff we dropped in coverage. We did not play well enough on offense. You get in a game like that offensively, then you have to be able to match them stride for stride. We got off to a slow start, we didn’t convert a first down for a while, then it’s hard. You just don’t complement each other, so it wasn’t good.” 

The Lions face the Las Vegas Raiders next Monday night, and the Lions’ next opponent caught some strays as Campbell put a box on this distressing loss.

“It’s here, it happened, it’ll motivate us moving forward. The shame would be if we don’t use this to get better for next week and it bleeds over into the Raiders. That would be the ultimate shame.”

Well, let’s get into what an ultimate shame it would be for any team to lose to the Raiders.

The Raiders, man.

(Candice Ward-USA TODAY Sports)

So.

The aforementioned Las Vegas Raiders were facing a Chicago Bears team on Sunday that had a quarterback by the name of *checks notes* Tyson Bagent, an undrafted rookie from Shepherd University — a Division II school that has had exactly six alums ever crack through to the NFL.

You would think that even the Raiders would have an advantage here, but not so fast! The Bears were compromised by Justin Fields’ hand injury, but Josh McDaniels’ team was similarly struck by Jimmy Garoppolo’s back ailment, which opened the door for backups Brian Hoyer and Aidan O’Connell.

In the end, the Bears made the Raiders look pretty hopeless with a 30-12 thrashing in which Bagent completed 21 of 28 passes for 152 yards, a touchdown, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 97.2. Meanwhile, the Raiders’ backup combo threw three picks to one touchdown, and Las Vegas’ pillow-soft defense allowed running back D’onta Foreman to go wild with two touchdowns and 89 yards on 16 carries.

Foreman was also effective in the passing game, as he met little resistance.

As usual, there were questionable coaching decisions from McDaniels, but we’d be shocked at this point if that didn’t happen.

The Raiders are now 3-4 after that embarrassing loss, and they look nothing like a playoff contender.

The Commanders, man.

(Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports)

Similarly, the Washington Commanders were facing a seemingly toothless opponent with a backup quarterback, and a better team would have closed this one out with authority. The New York Giants came into this game with the NFL’s worst point differential (-96), and they’d scored just five offensive touchdowns all season long.

With Tyrod Taylor in for the injured Daniel Jones, the Giants’ offense seemed to have more pep in its step, through Jack Del Rio’s Commanders defense — in which you can pretty much guarantee that at least one player will be out of position on every play — helped. Taylor completed 18 of 29 passes for 279 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 116.9 in Big Blue’s 14-7 loss.

That prompted this bit of poetry from defensive lineman Jonathan Allen after the game. (WARNING: Extremely NSFW language)

Even team part-owner Magic Johnson, master of the obvious when it comes to football, had this on lock.

Washington quarterback Sam Howell is now on pace for 96 sacks on the season after taking six takedowns in this game. Houston Texans quarterback David Carr has the single-season record with 76 in 2002. for some perspective on how bad THAT is.

“I think everyone has a hand in it,” Howell said of the protection issues after this loss. “A lot of the sacks this year, I think I kind of could’ve done a better job of getting rid of the ball and then there is times that we get beat up front. I think we can all do a better job of just focusing on what our job is and what our responsibility is on each and every play, and just taking it one day at a time. At the end of the day, our plan is good, we have good plays, we’ve just got to execute.”

Well, that would be a fine step in the right direction.

The bad spot that cost the Rams a chance at a comeback.

(Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)

Since it was a day ending in “Y,” we can assume that it was also a day in which NFL officials did not distinguish themselves as the league would prefer. We’ve already gone over Shawn Smith’s issues in the Browns-Colts game, and what happened in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 24-17 win over the Los Angeles Rams was similarly distressing.

With 2:24 left in the game, Steelers quarterback ran the ball on fourth-and-1 from the Rams’ 39-yard line. It looked for all the world that Pickett came up short of the first down, but Craig Wrolstad’s crew decided that Pickett had done enough, giving the Steelers a highly favorable spot for the first down. From there, Pittsburgh had three kneeldowns to end the game. As Rams head coach Sean McVay was out of timeouts, he couldn’t challenge the spot.

McVay’s dismay in the moment was understandable… and artistic.

Brad Allen's one-sided officiating crew in Eagles-Dolphins.

(Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports)

With 2:39 left in the first half of Sunday night’s game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Miami Dolphins, Miami offensive tackle Austin Jackson and Eagles defensive lineman Jalen Carter got into a bit of a scuffle. Jackson got a whack to the face by Carter, and when Jackson countered, Carter put up a flop that would make Cristiano Ronaldo proud.

Carter got himself an offsetting unnecessary roughness call from Brad Allen’s hyperactive crew, so it did work in his favor. Not that we ever want to encourage this.

This was one of many curious calls Allen’s crew made, and things were absolutely in favor of the home Eagles. Which makes sense, given Allen’s history.

In the end, the Eagles beat the Dolphins, 31-17, and while that wasn’t all on the officiating, like we said… it was curious. Philly had no penalties in the game, and Miami had 10 for 70 yards.

Allen’s crew missed this obvious face mask on cornerback James Bradberry…

…and this roughing the passer call on Dolphins defensive tackle Christian Wilkins was… erm… iffy at best.

Former NFL official and current NBC rules analyst Terry McAulay had a lot of cleaning up to do.

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