VITO'S VIEWS

This is a critical week for the NFL.

Not on the field, but off the field. Since too many Americans seem to be ignoring the CDC’s recommendation to stay home for Thanksgiving, the holiday is likely to be a super spreader event.

And it could affect the NFL, which has issued new guidelines to try to keep teams from having multiple players testing positive in the near future and having problems fielding a team.

It’s probably time for the NFL to isolate teams in a hotel for the final six weeks of the season, but they seem reluctant to take that move so they are risking having the virus having a major impact on the rest of the season.

–The 8-1 Chiefs face the 6-3 Raiders in the Sunday night feature attraction. The Chiefs-Raiders is an old rivalry although it doesn’t appear to be the same with the Raiders now in Las Vegas. The Raiders handed the Chiefs their only loss of the year but I can’t imagine the Raiders sweeping Patrick Mahomes. In my book, the Chiefs are still favored to repeat and they should stay a game behind the Steelers in the battle for the top seed with a victory.

–The 6-3 Rams vs. the 7-3 Bucs should be a good Monday night matchup. Not so long ago Brady beat the Rams in the Super Bowl although he didn’t play a great game. This year, he’s having trouble hitting deep passes but you have to like Brady over Jared Goff. 

–The 7-2 Packers face the 6-3 Colts in the Fox doubleheader game. The key is whether Aaron Rodgers can put enough points on the board to offset the Packers soft run defense that figures to have problems stopping the Colts running game. This should be one of the better matchups of the weekend.

–The Philadelphia-Cleveland game features a 6-3 vs. a 3-5-1 team. The strange thing is that the 3-5-1 Eagles are leading the NFC East and the 6-3 Browns are three games behind the unbeaten Steelers in the AFC North. Not surprising the Browns are favored but they have injury problems so an Eagle win wouldn’t be a major surprise.

–The 7-2 Saints figure to have an edge on the 3-6 Falcons but with Drew Brees sidelined, the Falcons have a chance. The interesting thing is that coach Sean Payton will go with Taysom Hill over Jameis Winston. Now it is Hill’s chance to show he is as good as Payton thinks he is. How Hill plays will be the most interesting aspect of this game.

–Now that Tom Brady is gone, the Patriots have become more of a running team. They pounded Baltimore on the ground last week and figure to do the same against Houston’s rush defense, the worst in the NFL. A win gets the Patriots to 5-5 and gets them in the wild card race after a 3-5 record in the first half of the season.

–When a team has won only one game, good opposing teams don’t tend to take them seriously. That is what happened to the Packers last week when they barely beat the 1-8 Jaguars. Now it is the unbeaten Steeler turn to see if they overlook the Jaguars, especially since they have the Ravens on Thanksgiving Day. Walterfootball.com reports the Steelers are 4-19 against the spread the last 23 times they were favored by eight or more. The Steeler figure to win, but the only question is whether they will sleepwalk through the game and fail to cover the spread.

–The Titans and Ravens are both 6-3 and both need this game. It is one of the better matchups of the week but is a 1 p.m. game so it won’t get a lot of TV coverage. The Ravens couldn’t stop the Patriots running game last week and now they face Derrick Henry while the Ravens need Lamar Jackson to get in a groove.

–The winless Jets, one game ahead of the Jaguars in the race for the top pick, face the 2-7 Chargers so they would seem to have a shot at a victory. But the Chargers have lost several close games and appear to be better than their record, so the odds are against the Jets getting that first victory.

–DeAndre Hopkins made the play of the year when he jumped high in the air to snatch a game winning Hail Mary pass to give the Cardinals the victory over the Bills. It will be included on all the highlight reels of the top plays of the season. It was a key victory for the Cards that tied them for first place in NFC West at 6-3. The loss left the Bills tied in the loss column with the Dolphins with three in the AFC East.

–Tom Brady bounced back from the loss to the Saints by throwing for 341 yards in the victory over Carolina to keep the Bucs in the race. But it wasn’t just Brady. They also went back to the running game with 37 runs after running just three times against the Saints plus two kneel downs.

–The Baltimore Ravens suffered their first road loss in 11 starts and the timing couldn’t be worse as they were beaten by the Patriots. They are now 6-3 and three games behind the unbeaten Steelers and now will have to fight for a playoff spot. Lamar Jackson was hampered by the rainy conditions but still has to prove he can be an elite quarterback.

–The NFC East is still the NFC Least. The Eagles lost to the Giants but still lead the division at 3-5-1. Not since the 1970 merger has a team been in first place with just three wins at the 10-game mark.

–As Allen Iverson once said, it’s just practice. Ben Roethlisberger didn’t practice last week because of Covid exposure but threw four touchdown passes against the Bengals to keep the Steelers unbeaten.

–The Saints lost Drew Brees for multiple games with multiple rib fractures and a collapsed lung when he suffered a hit from San Francisco lineman Kentavius Street although all the injuries weren’t caused by the hit. Jameis Winston played the second half for the Saints. There was much talk that Brees would retire after this year. These injuries may make it more likely he will.

The Sunday night feature prime time game is Baltimore-New England. Used to be a great rivalry. But the Patriot dynasty is over and the Patriots figure to fall to 3-6 while the Ravens need a victory to go to 7-2. They are like two ships passing in the night.
–Ben Roethlisberger is off the COVID-19 19 list so the Steelers figure to go 9-0 for the first time in the history of the franchise with a victory over Cincinnati. In the Steelers six Super Bowl victory seasons, they never started better than 7-0.
–Tom Brady and the Bucs will attempt to bounce back from last week’s embarrassing loss to New Orleans when they play the 3-6 Panthers. A victory would boost the Bucs to 7-3. Brady wasn’t the only problem last week but even coach Bruce Arians noted he didn’t play well against the Saints.
–Coming off the big victory over the Seahawks, the Bills will attempt to go to 8-2 with a victory over the 5-3 Cardinals.
–The Chargers-Dolphins matchup features a duel between Justin Herbert and Tua Tagovailoa, two rookie quarterbacks. It won’t be the last.
–Seattle needs to bounce back from the loss to Buffalo by beating the 5-3 Rams, who could tie the Seahawks, and possibly, the Cardinals in the NFC West in the loss column with three with a win. A Seattle victory would keep them in control at 7-2. Every team in the NFC has at least two losses so the race is wide open.
–The 3-4-1 Eagles can get to .500 and take a three-game lead in the NFC Least in the loss column with a victory over 2-6 Washington.
–The Saints are tied with the Packers and Seahawks with the best NFC record at 6-2. They figure to go to 7-2 with a victory over the 49ers. That would lead them tied with the Packers and Seahawks, who figure to beat the Jaguars and Rams.

It is now becoming apparent that there isn’t a dominant team in the NFL this year.

In the NFC, no team has lost fewer than two losses. Seattle appeared to be one at first but has lost two of three games and has a shaky defense.

Pittsburgh is the only unbeaten team but struggled to beat the Cowboys. The Chiefs are probably still the team to beat, but their defense is porous. The race to the Super Bowl seems wide open.

—The Seattle loss shows Russell Wilson is no longer the favorite for MVP honors, an honor he has never won. Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers are now in the conversation. So is Dalvin Cook.

—Buffalo is emerging as a contender after the Bills outscored the Seahawks 44-34 following a 2-2 stretch. Now they’re 7-2, their best nine game start since 1993.

—There is now a two team race in the AFC East. After the win over Arizona as Tua Tagovailoa played well in his second start, the Dolphins are now 5-3.–Meanwhile, the Patriots had to rally to beat the winless Jets to get to 3-5 and they no longer appear to be a contender in the post Tom Brady era.

—The 2-6 Chargers lost on the last play of the game for the second week in a row as they lost to the Raiders.

—Tom Brady played his worst game as a Buc as they were routed by the Saints. Where do the Bucs go from here? Stay tuned.

—Brady may be fortunate he never had to play Drew Brees In a Super Bowl. Brees is 4-1 against Brady.–Pittsburgh has won six Super Bowls but has never started out 8-0 before this season.

Not a great weekend for national TV attractions.

The Thursday night game was a rout with the Packers clobbering an injury-riddled San Francisco team, 34-17.

The Monday night game is the winless Jets against the struggling Patriots.

And the Sunday doubleheader game is rich in tradition – Pittsburgh vs. Dallas – because they’ve played each other three times in the Super Bowl. But with the Steelers unbeaten and the Cowboys struggling, it doesn’t look like a good matchup.

Fortunately, the Sunday night game –New Orleans at Tampa Bay – should be a good one featuring two aging quarterbacks – Tom Brady and Drew Brees – although Brees probably won’t be 100 percent.

—One of the better games — 6-1 Seattle at 6-2 Buffalo — will be a 1 p.m. Sunday game. The Seahawks probably have the edge with Russell Wilson having an MVP season. The Seahawks are the only NFC team with fewer than two losses so they have the inside track on the top seed.

Another good 1 p.m. game features the 5-3 Bears at the 5-2 Titans. The key to this game is which Nick Foles will show up. He’s been very inconsistent since getting the Bears starting job. He shows flashes of being the Super Bowl Foles at times but also reverts to his journeyman status at times.

The third good 1 p.m. games features two 5-2 teams – Ravens and Colts. The Ravens are already two games behind the Steelers in the loss column in their division and can’t afford another loss while the Colts are tied with the Titans for first place in the AFC South. There’s a lot at stake in this game.

—The 7-1 Chiefs, still trying to beat out unbeaten Pittsburgh for the top seed in the AFC, figures to beat an NFC foe – the 3-5 Panthers.

—The 5-2 Cardinals are a game behind Seattle in the NFC West and can’t afford to stumble against 4-3 Miami. Tua Tagovailoa made his first start last week for Miami against the Rams and looked shaky but the Dolphins pulled it out with big plays on defense and special teams. Tagovailoa has to play better if the Dolphins have a chance to upset the Cardinals.

—And then there’s the 3-4 Broncos vs. the 2-6 Falcons, the 3-4 Lions at the 2-5 Vikings, the 1-6 Texans vs. the 1-6 Jaguars, the 1-7 Giants vs. the 2-5 Redskins, and the 2-5 Patriots at the 0-8 Jets. Enough said about those games. A lot of bad games this weekend.

The Pittsburgh Steelers have emerged as the team the Kansas City Chiefs are going to have to beat if they’re going to become the first team since the 2003-2004 Patriots to repeat.

The Steelers, the league’s only unbeaten team, tied their best start ever by boosting their record to 7-0 with a 28-24 shootout win over the Ravens.

The last time they started out 7-0 was in 1978, when they were on their way to their third Super Bowl victory in five years.

The Chiefs, meanwhile boosted their record to 7-1 with their rout of the winless Jets.

Nobody will be surprised if the Chiefs and Steelers wind up meeting in the AFC title game.

—Lamar Jackson was in position to throw the game-winning pass on the final play but it went incomplete. Still, even though he almost pulled it out, the Ravens have to be worried about the fact his stats have declined from his MVP season last year and he was guilty of four turnovers. At 5-2 and facing the rematch against the Steelers in Pittsburgh, they will probably wind up being a wild-card team.

—Only one team in the NFC – the 6-1 Seahawks – has fewer than two losses. They cruised to a 37-27 victory over the 49ers. Russell Wilson threw for four touchdowns to boost his total to 26 in just seven games. He is on track to win MVP honors.

—The 49ers lost both quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and tight end George Kittle and with a 4-4 record at the halfway point the odds are against them making a playoff run in the second half of the season.

—The Rams fell to 5-3 with a stunning 28-17 loss to the Dolphins, who won with Tua Tagavailoa making his first start and having little impact. He threw for only 93 yards but Jared Goff threw two picks and fumbled twice. The Dolphins have to wonder if they benched Ryan Fitzpatrick too soon and the Rams have to wonder about Goff’s future.

—Joe Burrow showed he is for real as the rookie threw for two fourth period touchdown passes to lead the Bengals to a 31-20 victory over the Titans, who dropped to 5-2 and may not be headed to the AFC title game again.

—And last but not least, the Patriots’ two-decade, six Super Bowl dynasty appeared to end with a 24-21 loss to the Bills as Cam Newton ended their bid to pull it out with a fourth period fumble in the red zone. The Patriots are 2-5, obviously miss Tom Brady and have been hurt by poor personnel decisions by Bill Belichick, who made two questionable coaching decisions, kicking a field goal on third down at the end of the first half and trying an onside kick with the score tied 14-14 in the second half. Belichick is now blaming the salary cap for the team’s demise when he said the team sold out to win their last three two-decade Super Bowls. But the Patriots have never been big spenders in the salary cap era. Strange to hear Belichick making excuses. Belichick should look in the mirror. His mantra is Do Your Job. Belichick hasn’t done his very well as GM and coach the last couple of years.

The feature attraction this weekend is 6-0 Pittsburgh vs. 5-1 Baltimore — one of the best rivalries in the NFL.

And there is a lot at stake with Pittsburgh the league’s last unbeaten team and Baltimore trying to tie them for first place in the AFC North. A loss would drop the Ravens two games back.

The only thing surprising about this game is that it isn’t in prime time or even the doubleheader game. It is one of the CBS five 1 p.m. games so a lot of fans won’t see it.

Still, it could be showcase game for Yann Ngakoue, who wouldn’t have played in high stakes games like this if he had stayed in Jacksonville.

Walterfootball.com predicted he will be “enormous” against the Steelers because their right tackle is injured.

—The end of a dynasty apparently isn’t good TV. The New England-Buffalo game will be shown only in New England and New York. A Buffalo win will all but end the Patriots’ dynasty and their domination of the AFC East. A loss would drop the Pats to 2-5 and leave them three games behind the Bills, who come in 5-2 in the loss column. It will also indicate that GM Bill Belichick hasn’t done a good personnel job in recent years to give coach Belichick a competitive team. Brady held it all together the last few years but with him gone, the Patriots are being exposed as a team that not only won’t win the Super Bowl, it may not even make the playoffs.

—It is hard to believe that the Sunday night game is Dallas at Philadelphia. NBC is showing clips from the days when it used to be a great rivalry to try to hype the game. Now the Eagles are actually leading the division at 2-4-1, with the Cowboys at 2-5. With Andy Dalton out and rookie Ben DiNucci, a seventh-round draft pick from James Madison starting, the Cowboys have virtually no chance of winning. Admit it. How many readers ever heard of DiNucci?

—The Monday night game isn’t much better with Tampa Bay going to the 1-6 Giants. This should be an easy one for Tom Brady as he attempts to boost the Bucs to 6-2 at the halfway mark. Playing with a better team around him than he had in New England in recent years, Brady is looking as if he found the fountain of youth.

—The Seahawks, coming off their first loss of the season, will be favored to beat the 49ers, who boosted their record to 4-3 with the easy victory over the Patriots last week. A loss would drop the 49ers three games behind the Seahawks in the NFC West and probably doom their chances of winning the division. Look for Russell Wilson to have a big game coming off a loss.

—The game pitting the 5-2 Bears vs. the 4-2 Saints looks like a good one on paper, but might not be on the field if Nick Foles and the Bears offense doesn’t rebound from their Monday loss to the Rams. It is always difficult to figure which Foles will show up each week.

—The 5-1 Titans get the 1-6 Bengals this week while the 6-1 Chiefs get the winless Jets. Enough said about those two games.

—Tua Tagovailoa makes his debut at quarterback for the 3-3 Dolphins at the 5-2 Rams. If Tua struggles, the Dolphins may be second guessed for benching Ryan Fitzpatrick, who probably would have given the Dolphins a better chance to win.

As the season nears the halfway mark, there is one unbeaten team (Pittsburgh) and one winless team (the Jets).

The Steelers remained unbeaten by handing Tennessee its first loss while the Jets fell to the Bills, who ended a two-game losing streak.

The odds are better that the Jets will go winless than the Steelers will go unbeaten.

–Seattle fell from the unbeaten ranks when Kyler Murray beat them in a comeback in the same stadium where the Seahawks lost the Super Bowl to the Patriots. The loss means there is a three-team race in the NFC West with the Seahawks at 5-1 and the Cardinals and Rams a game back at 5-2. It was a costly loss three-team for the Seahawks, who would have had a two-game edge over the Rams and a three game margin over the Cardinals in the loss column with a win.

–Speaking of the Patriots, they’re 2-4 without Tom Brady after being routed by the 49ers. Meanwhile, Brady is 5-2 with the Bucs after the easy win over the Raiders.

–The Lions may have a shot at saving Matt Patricia’s job after evening their record to 3-3 with the victory over the Falcons, who probably would have won if Todd Gurley hadn’t gone into the end zone while trying to stop at the one to take time off the clock. That gave Matthew Stafford time to put together a game-winning drive.

–How Nick Foles beat Brady in a Super Bowl remains one of the most inexplicable results in NFL history. He’s back struggling with the Bears and threw two picks against the Rams. Mitch Trubisky had better stats and he was benched Foles.

–Who needs third down? The Chiefs went 0-for-8 on third down and still crushed the Broncos to boost their record to 6-1. The Broncos are 2-4. That Elway guy was a better QB than he is a GM.

–It’s a two-team race in the AFC South. The Titans are 5-1 and the Colts are 4-2 while the Jaguars and Texans are 1-6.

–The Steelers are the only unbeaten team at 6-0 but the Ravens are nipping at their heels at 5-1. The Browns are 5-2 after the victory over the Bengals but don’t have the look of a contender because they were crushed by the Steelers a week ago, 38-7.

–Jerry Jones is good at making money. Running a football team? Not so much. The Cowboys fell to 2-5 after being routed by the Washington football club. Yes, the Cowboys have been hit hard by injuries but they look like a team that was overrated coming into the season. Hard to believe the Cowboys are still in the division race, tied with Washington and a half game back of the 2-4-1 Eagles.

The highlight game this week features a pair of 5-0 teams – Titans vs. Steelers. The only surprising thing about this game is that it is not only not in prime time, it’s now even a doubleheader game. It has a 1 p.m. start. But since CBS has only two other 1 p.m. games it will be like a national game with most of the country seeing it.

—The 5-0 Seahawks will aim to join the Steeler-Titan winner at 6-0. The face a test against the 4-2 Cardinals, who need a victory to avoid falling three games behind the Seahawks in the loss column so they have more at stake.

—The 5-1 Chiefs figure to go to 6-1 against the 2-3 Broncos, who need a victory to avoid falling three games behind the Chiefs in the loss column.

—The New England Patriots are learning that life without Tom Brady can be challenging. They’re 2-3 and need a victory over the 2-3 49ers with both teams trying to avoid a 2-4 start.

—Meanwhile, Brady has the Bucs at 3-2 and faces a 3-2 Raider team coached by the same Jon Gruden, who was coaching the Raiders when they lost the Brady Tuck Rule game in the snow that started the Patriot dynasty. The Raiders have been hit by a Covid outbreak so it is uncertain how prepared they will be for the game.

—After losing two in a row, Buffalo has a get-well game against the winless Jets, who have the inside track in the Trevor Lawrence Derby.–The Panthers and Saints face a critical in the NFC South with both teams at 3-2.–Nick Foles has come off the bench to lead the Bears to a 5-1 start and now he faces a challenging game against the 4-2 Rams.

Ten teams have one win and only one of them figures to make the playoffs because three of them are in the NFC East.

And the Jets are winless, so that means it is likely 21 teams are fighting for 13 playoff spots.

The 14^th goes to the NFC East champion. Dallas currently leads at 2-4. The Eagles are 1-4-1. It might not seem fair that one of them is likely to host a playoff game against a team with a better record.

But the divisions are the bedrock of the NFL and to deny a division champion a home game cheapens a division title.

—Even though the Cowboys are leading their division, they are a dumpster fire after the loss to Arizona. They have lost quarterback Dak Prescott, and anonymous players are already second-guessing new coach Mike McCarthy. It is going to test McCarthy’s mettle as he tried to unite the team and come back from this.

—Just a week after the Bucs lost to the Bears when Tom Brady lost track of downs, they rebounded to crush the Packers while handcuffing Aaron Rodgers.

—Tennessee didn’t get much respect last year for making the AFC title game. But they are for real with Ryan Tannehill finding new life at quarterback and Derrick Henry fueling the running game. They’re one of three unbeaten teams along with Seattle and Pittsburgh after their comeback win over the Texans.

—There was a lot of hype for the Pittsburgh-Cleveland game but it turned out to be just another typical Pittsburgh-Cleveland game dominated by the Steelers. The Browns are pretenders and the Steelers are contenders.

—Two coaches went for two at the end of games last week and both lost. But Romeo Crennel, the interim Houston coach made the right move in trying to get a nine-point lead over Tennessee. He knew his defense couldn’t stop the Titans in crunch time and they didn’t. Washington’s Ron Rivera made a bonehead move in doing it against the Giants trailing by a point. He had a better chance of winning the game in overtime rather than betting t on a two-point try, which is successful about half the time.

—Bill Belichick is finding out what life is like without Tom Brady. The Patriots are 2-3 and under .500 at the five-game mark for the first time since 2003. The Patriots may still win their division once they get back to practicing after their facility was closed because of positive COVID-19 tests, but they not likely to win the Super Bowl. But then Brady isn’t likely either.