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 9 of the 2023 NFL season.
The NFL's idea of "unnecessary roughness."
We all know that officiating in the NFL this season has been awful, but it’s not all on the refs — the league has provided points of emphasis that make no sense whatsoever. One of those is unnecessary roughness, and we’re still trying to figure out what Philadelphia Eagles running back D’Andre Swift did wrong here against the Washington Commanders in Week 8.
The NFL fined Eagles RB D'Andre Swift $9,857 for "Unnecessary Roughness" that occurred on Swift's truck over safety Percy Butler toward the end of last week's win at Washington Commanders: pic.twitter.com/xCxw0cLwhe
— Josh Tolentino (@JCTSports) November 5, 2023
Swift started by leading with his helmet when Butler was near, but he backed off and trucked Butler with his shoulder instead. Moreover, Swift was not penalized in the game, so this took the league to watch this over and over and decide to take nearly $10,000 out of Swift’s pockets.
You don’t often see such penalties against running backs — we can only imagine how often Marshawn Lynch, for example, would have been fined during his career with this odd point of emphasis.
As far as we know, you have to go back to the 1972 Miami Dolphins to see such a thing.
The NFL's idea of "roughing the passer."
We all know that officiating in the NFL this season has been awful (stop us if you’ve just read this one), but the roughing the passer penalty called against Washington Commanders edge-rusher K.J. Henry after Henry sacked New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones was a real doozy.
It happened with 11:18 left in the third quarter, and the Patriots up, 14-10. Henry came off left tackle to sack Jones, but the officiating crew, led by referee Adrian Hill, somehow decided that this should not stand.
This was called roughing the passer…
pic.twitter.com/XxjO4Yue3T— PFF (@PFF) November 5, 2023
Former VP of Officating and current FOX Sports rules analyst Dean Blandino came on the telecast, and explained what happened after e heavy sigh.
Dean Blandino, on the FOX broadcast RE: the roughing call on K.J. Henry: pic.twitter.com/s9hZccW2rX
— Nicki Jhabvala (@NickiJhabvala) November 5, 2023
The NFL has upped the ante on roughing the passer calls, telling officials in the rule book that a flag should be thrown if there’s even an appearance of it. but I don’t know how you call this play anything remotely like that particular penalty.
Hill’s explanation was… interesting.
NFL ref Adrian Hill on the KJ Henry roughing call: “the call was roughing the passer due to full body weight. The ruling on the field was that the defender came down with forceable contact, chest-to-chest.” Full Q&A with @NickiJhabvala below pic.twitter.com/O6PQaOrsFI
— JP Finlay (@JPFinlayNBCS) November 5, 2023
Perhaps the league is a bit sensitive about roughing the passer after referee Alan Eck failed to call a textbook penalty against Jacksonville Jaguars defensive tackle Adam Gotsis in Week 8 in what was a textbook example of what the NFL doesn’t want you to do. Pickett was injured on the play, but perhaps the guys in Eck’s crew had the Burger King commercial theme in their heads.
Here’s the hit on Kenny Pickett pic.twitter.com/Drut9J4bEU
— lindsey ok (@lindseyyok) October 29, 2023
The (you should pardon the expression) New York Giants.
The Las Vegas Raiders were in an interesting spot coming into Sunday’s game with the New York Giants — owner Mark Davis had fired head coach Josh McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler during the week, and in McDaniels’ case, it was long overdue. Interim head coach Antonio Pierce is clearly the kind of guy whose players have his back as McDaniels isn’t, but what the Raiders did to the New York Giants in a 30-6 thrashing qualifies as NSFW.
Quarterback Daniel Jones left the game early with a knee injury, which left Tommy DeVito at quarterback. As DeVito is a rookie undrafted free agent who would still be riding the bench but for Tyrod Taylor’s rib injury, you can expect stuff like this — even against the Raiders’ defense.
Giants QB Tommy DeVito had more interceptions (2) than he did completions (1) in the first halfpic.twitter.com/9ezEaQM9w0
— Ensign Gridiron (@EnsignGridiron) November 5, 2023
But what in the name of Alex Grinch has happened to Big Blue’s defense under Wink Martindale? The Giants came into this game ranked 19th in Defensive DVOA, and they were unable to contain a Raiders offense with Aidan O’Connell, a fourth-round rookie, at quarterback. This Jakobi Myers 17-yard touchdown run was particularly embarrassing.
Jakobi Myers TD! Raiders strike first. pic.twitter.com/3m0JlcDM4W
— Jonathan Reyes (@InsideherJay) November 5, 2023
Overall, Brian Daboll’s team has been one of the worst Giants squads we’ve seen since Paul Di’Anno was Iron Maiden’s lead singer.
Just re-upping this. No particular reason. https://t.co/553Akc6gPI
— Aaron Schatz 🏈 (@ASchatzNFL) November 5, 2023
The Atlanta Falcons' defense.
It has not been a great two-game stretch for Falcons defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen. In Week 8, his defense allowed Tennessee Titans quarterback Will Levis to become the first player since at least 2016 to throw at least three touchdown passes of at least 50 air yards… in Levis’ first NFL start.
Against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday, the Falcons were supposed to face quarterback Jaren Hall, a fifth-round rookie from BYU. Hall was next man up after Kirk Cousins’ torn Achilles tendon suffered in Week 8 cost him the rest of the season. But Hall suffered a concussion early in the game, and so the scepter fell to Josh Dobbs, a journeyman who was with his fifth team in the last two seasons after a Tuesday trade from the Arizona Cardinals. Dobbs had a rough start, and he was barely on translating terms regarding his new offense with head coach Kevin O’Connell…
Josh Dobbs on KOC helping him today:
"It's like if you were taking AP Spanish all year and you showed up on Wednesday and someone told you you have an AP French exam on Sunday. And you gotta go execute. Someone's gonna talk to you in Spanish and translate it to the French."
— Will Ragatz (@WillRagatz) November 5, 2023
…but once Dobbs got his feet under him, he took it to Nielsen’s defense as Levis had. Dobbs finished his game, a 31-28 Vikings win, with 20 completions on 30 attempts for 158 yards, two touchdowns, a passer rating of 101.8, and this game-winning touchdown pass to Brandon Powell with 22 seconds left in the game.
Game winner. Off the bench. First week with the team. Three total TDs and the game’s leading rusher. Well done Josh Dobbs! https://t.co/WZdta6AVcw
— Reed Carringer (@ReedCarringer) November 5, 2023
Levis and Dobbs are both great stories, but when your defense is the common denominator there… well, that’s not good.
Bryce Young's two pick-sixes.
On the same day that 2023 second-overall pick C.J. Stroud of the Houston Texans set a pro football rookie record with 470 passing yards and tied the rookie touchdown passes record with five, Bryce Young of the Carolina Panthers, selected first overall, saw Indianapolis Colts cornerback Kenny Moore II return two of his passes for touchdowns.
There was this 49-yarder with 22 seconds left in the first half…
Lightning: Bottled. ⚡️
📺 CBS
— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) November 5, 2023
…and this 66-yarder with 13:40 left in what was eventually a 27-13 win for the Colts.
One pick six is good. One Moore is better. ⚡️⚡️
📺 CBS pic.twitter.com/e4z7VSoHBn
— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) November 5, 2023
Later in the fourth quarter, Young threw his third pick of the day — this one to linebacker Segun Olubi, who had barely played in the Colts’ defense up until then.
First NFL interception for Segun Olubi! 👏
📺 CBS pic.twitter.com/AB18yFNbGT
— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) November 5, 2023
It’s the third time this season that Young has thrown at least two picks in a game; he also had two against the aforementioned Falcons’ defense in Week 1, and two against the Detroit Lions in Week 5. Meanwhile, Stroud has one interception on the entire season.
We’re not saying that Young is any kind of bust — it’s far too early for such judgments. But we’re guessing that the Texans are pretty happy about coming in second for draft position in 2023.
