Five quick takes on Week 10 in the NFL:
1. Drew Brees continued his climb up the standings in the record books and kept New Orleans in the driver’s seat for homefield advantage in the NFC playoffs by leading the Saints to a 51-14 rout of the Cincinnati Bengals. Brees threw three touchdown passes to move ahead of Brett Favre with 509 for his career. Favre had 508. Tom Brady, who didn’t throw a touchdown pass in a loss to the Tennessee Titans, is at 505. Peyton Manning is on top at 539.
2. Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs is having such a sensational second season that he threw for 249 yards and two touchdowns in a 26-14 victory over the Arizona Cardinals and it wasn’t one of his better games. He had thrown for 300 yards and three touchdowns in four consecutive games. Mahomes fell one game short of the mark of Steve Young, who is the only quarterback to do it in five straight games.
3. Andrew Luck appears to be back. He threw three touchdown passes in the first half in the Indianapolis Colts’ 29-26 win over the fading Jacksonville Jaguars, who have lost five in a row. He is now one of three quarterbacks in NFL history to throw for three or more touchdowns in six consecutive games. Tom Brady once did it 10 games in a row, and Peyton Manning did it eight times in a row.
4. Are the New England Patriots getting bored because they won’t play another important game until the playoffs? Or is Tom Brady having trouble dealing with the blitz because offensive line isn’t protecting him very well? It’s still too early to tell, but the Patriots’ offensive line struggled to protect him as they lost to the Titans, 34-10. The Pats’ win streak was snapped at six. Do the Patriots have a problem the Titans exploited, or did the Patriots just have an off game? We will see. The Patriots now get a bye to recharge their batteries.
5. The Philadelphia Eagles are not looking like the team that won the Super Bowl last year. Coming off a bye week, they lost to the Dallas Cowboys 27-20 to fall to 4-5. The Eagles now only have a 35 percent chance of making the playoffs, much less winning the Super Bowl again. They were inept in the first half, fell behind 13-3 and were booed by the home fans. They rallied in the second half, but it wasn’t enough as Ezekiel Elliott burned them for 151 yards on 19 carries. No team has repeated since the Patriots in the early 2000s, and the Eagles don’t seem likely to break that streak.