VITO'S VIEWS

One dynasty is apparently over and another one may be on the cusp of starting.

The Patriots lost Thursday night to the Rams, a team that was outcoached and overmatched in the recent Super Bowl loss to New England, showed the Patriots’ 45-0 thrashing of the Chargers was a mirage. The Patriots are no longer a contender.

Meanwhile, the Chiefs continue on the road to a repeat. Pittsburgh’s stunning loss to Washington opens the door for the Chiefs to get the top seed.

—The premier game of the week is the Sunday night matchup of the Bills and Steelers. Are the Bills for real? Are the Steelers not as good as their record? This game will tell us a lot.Meanwhile, the Chiefs figure to beat the Dolphins to remain the team to beat in the AFC for a Super Bowl berth.

—The Jets fired defensive coordinator Gregg Williams after his all-out blitz cost them the loss to the Raiders. Now they are four losses away from getting the No. 1 pick and Trevor Lawrence. They visit Seattle in what is likely to be a mismatch.

—Meanwhile, the Jaguars remain a game behind the Jets in the race for the top pick and they figure to lose to the Titans to remain entrenched in the second spot and a chance to pick Justin Fields.
–The Washington football club and Giants are tied for first place in the NFC East at 5-7 and both figure to lose to fall to 5-8. But if they both lose, it keeps the Giants on track to win the division because they have the tie break by virtue of sweeping the Washington team. Washington has the tougher task vs. San Francisco in Arizona. The Giants host the Cardinals.

—The Saints and Packers seem to have the best Super Bowl shot in the NFC and both are on the road. The Saints have the easier game at Philadelphia, which has benched Carson Wentz for Jalen Hurts, while the Packers figure to beat the Lions. The Saints are 10-2 and the Packers at 9-3. It won’t matter if the Saints are looking ahead to next week’s game against the Chiefs. But given New Orleans recent playoff history, nobody will be surprised if they falter again in the playoffs and don’t make the Super Bowl.

There was much chatter after the Steelers became the last unbeaten team to fall that the 1972 Miami Dolphins could celebrate being the only perfect team.

But the 11-0 Steelers, who may have been affected by all their schedule changes because of their opponents being hit by Covid outbreaks, weren’t likely to go unbeaten even if they had beaten 4-7 Washington.

The Steelers aren’t likely to get to the Super Bowl – hard to imagine them beating Kansas City to get there – much less win it.

—Washington’s upset win over the Steelers and the Giants upset win over the Seahawks left both teams tied for first place in the NFC East at 5-7. One of them is likely to host a playoff game with a losing record.

—The New York Jets remained winless and in the lead in the Trevor Lawrence Derby when defensive coordinator Gregg Williams called an all-out blitz in a Hail Mary situation against the Raiders. Rookie Henry Ruggs III ran by cornerback Lamar Jackson and caught the game-winning 46-yard touchdown pass. Williams was then fired. Why the architect of Bountygate in New Orleans was hired in the first place is a bigger question. According to Next Gen Stats, they’re the only team to send eight or more pass rushers in the last 30 seconds of a game.

—The Jets are the 12^th team to start 0-12 and may join the expansion 0-11-1 Dallas Cowboys, the expansion 0-14 Tampa Bay Bucs, the 0-16 2008 Detroit Lions and the 0-16 2017 Cleveland Browns as the only teams to go winless for an entire season since 1944 that was shortened by a strike. The Jets only have to lose to the Seahawks, Rams, Browns and Patriots to get Lawrence.

—The Chiefs tend to play just well enough to win and that is what they did in a 22-16 victory over the Broncos. But they’ve still got a great shot at repeating as long as Patrick Mahomes stays healthy.-“

—Taysom Hill boosted his record to 3-0 filling in for Drew Brees as the Saints beat Atlanta. Last year, Teddy Bridgewater went 5-0 filling in for Brees.

—The Patriots don’t figure to make the playoffs without Tom Brady but they have won their last two games by a 65-17 margin even though they threw for just 195 yards passing in those two games. They routed the Chargers 45-0.

—Cleveland is finally turning it around. They’re 9-3 after beating the Titans with a franchise record 38 points in the first half. They will likely make the playoffs.–Carson Wentz was benched for rookie Jalen Hurts in the Eagles loss to the Packers and Hurts will start against the Saints, making Wentz an expensive backup.

The NFL starts its five-week stretch run to the end of the regular season Sunday as it tries to outrun the virus.

Commissioner Roger Goodell said he has no plans for a leaguewide bubble with all the teams in one spot, but let’s hope he considers putting the playoff teams isolated in a hotel since the virus figures to be raging January with a post-holiday surge.

In the playoffs, the NFL won’t be able to postpone a game three times the way they did with the Pittsburgh-Baltimore game.

—The Steelers are becoming the kings of midweek afternoon TV. They played Wednesday afternoon last week and now will play at 5 p.m. Monday against Washington. This is a shot for Washington, tied for first place in the NFC East with the Giants at 4-7, to pull off an upset. The Steelers are unbeaten at 11-0 but all the changes in their schedule seem to be taking a toll. They didn’t play well against a Baltimore team that was depleted by the virus. The game will be shown to much of the country on Sunday Ticket. It will be shown on Fox in 71 markets in the northeast and part of the Midwest plus Kansas City, Dallas, Tampa Bay and New Orleans. But not in Houston, Indianapolis, Nashville, Charlotte, Atlanta, Jacksonville and Miami. Weird.

—With all the schedule changes, there was no Thursday night game, but there will be a Tuesday night game pitting Dallas at Baltimore, which is still recovering from its Covid outbreak. The Sunday nght game is likely to be a mismatch with Kansas City expected to beat Denver. The Monday night game features Buffalo at San Francisco and is critical for both teams but will be played in Arizona because the 49ers are barred from using their home stadium.

—The doubleheader game Sunday afternoon is a lackluster game featuring Philadelphia at Green Bay, which figures to be a mismatch in favor of Green Bay. The other CBS late game – New England at the Chargers — matches two losing teams but is likely to be a more entertaining game.

—The best early game features Cleveland at Tennessee, which has playoff implications for both teams.

—The best matchup of the day will have Jalen Ramsey of the Rams covering DeAndre Hopkins of the Cardinals. It will be shown in Jacksonville, where Ramsey started his career before becoming disenchanted with the team. He then forced a trade.

The NFL now seems to be winging it without any rhyme or reason.

They forced Denver to play without a quarterback by refusing to move their game with the Saints, but moved the Baltimore-Pittsburgh game three times. l

Things will get worse with Thanksgiving weekend being a super spreader, but the NFL has increased size of the practice squads so they can replace players on the Covid list.

The NFL seems intent on playing all the games and collecting the TV money even if the teams wind up being a 2020 version of the 1987 replacement teams.

—Patrick Mahomes outdueled Tom Brady to lead the Chiefs to the victory over the Bucs. He threw for 462 yards passing and has had at least 30 completions and 300 yards passing in four consecutive games – an NFL record. Tyreek Hill had 203 yards and two touchdowns in the first quarter and finished with 269 yards. Brady rallied the Bucs but fell short in a 27-24 loss that raised questions about whether the Bucs are running the first offense for Brady.

—It has been assumed that KC and Pittsburgh will meet in the AFC title game, but the Titans can’t be counted out after they crushed the Colts 45-24. Derrick Henry had 178 yards and three touchdowns in the first half. The Colts couldn’t stop him with run stuffer DeForest Buckner sidelined. In bad weather in the playoffs, they could challenge the Chiefs and/or Steelers with their running game.

—What was the NFL thinking when it made Denver play without a quarterback? Running back Phillip Lindsay started but rookie Kendall Hinton, who came up from the practice squad, took most of the snaps in a 31-3 loss to the Saints. Hinton completed one of 9 passes for 13 yards and was picked twice. But nobody was blaming him. He was placed in an impossible situation. With one completion and two picks, he was the first quarterback to have more interceptions than completions since Ryan Leaf did it in 1998.

—Seattle beat Philadelphia, which was no surprise, but a lot of money changed hands at the end. The Eagles scored a Hail Mary touchdown and a two-point conversion to lose by 6. Since they were 6½ point underdogs, they covered the spread. Imagine having Seattle giving the 6½. There was a report that one bettor did that and put down $500,000 on the Seahawks.

—Minnesota edged Carolina 28-27 as Kirk Cousin threw the game-winning touchdown pass with 46 seconds left, but the star of the game was Carolina linebacker Jeremy Chin. He grabbed a Cousins fumble and went 17 yards for a touchdown and then on the first play of the next series, he helped force a Dalvin Cook fumble and went 30 yards for his second touchdown. He was the first player with multiple fumble returns for touchdowns in a game since 1948. He is also believed to be the only player ever to do it on consecutive plays from scrimmage.

—Aaron Rodgers set another milestone, surpassed the 50,000 yard mark in passing yardage as he threw for four touchdowns in a 41-25 win over the Bears. He has better numbers than Brett Favre in several categories but Favre won the personality and is probably more beloved in the hearts and minds of Packer fans.

—The Giants edged the Bengals 19-17 to tie Washington for first place at 4-7 in the NFC East. Imagine one of those teams will likely host a playoff game. Washington beat Dallas on Thanksgiving Day. The Giants have rebounded after starting their season 0-5 but quarterback Daniel Jones could miss time with a hamstring change.

—The Jets and Jaguars both lost to the Dolphins and Brown to retain the top two spots in the draft next year. The winner probably gets Trevor Lawrence. The Jaguars fired general manager Dave Caldwell after the loss and head coach Doug Marrone is likely to join him on the unemployment line after the season. Adam Gase of the Jets also figures to get the pink slip after the season if not before.

—The Lions fired both GM Bob Quinn and coach Matt Patricia after their Thanksgiving Day loss to Houston. Another coach on the hot seat is Anthony Lynn of San Diego, who is 4-14 over his last 18 games and has been guilty of poor game management several times.

—Will interim coach Raheem Morris get the Atlanta job at the end of the year? After the Falcons routed the Raiders, 43-6, he is 4-2 since taking over for Dan Quinn, who was fired after a 0-5 start.

The NFL may be paying the price for not putting its teams in a quarantine bubble during the season.

The pandemic may make it difficult to finish the season. Problems keep popping up.

The Baltimore-Pittsburgh game has been postponed twice and may or may not be played Tuesday night.

The Broncos have all their quarterbacks sidelined for the Sunday game against the Saints. And San Francisco can’t play in its home stadium for at least the next two home games. It is uncertain where they will play.

And if Thanksgiving turns out to be a superspreader, things could get worse.

—It may be hard to believe that of the seven early games Sunday , only one features two winning teams The Titans and Colts are both 7-3 and battling for the lead in the AFC South.

—Two of them feature two losing teams, but the game between the 3-7 Giants and 2-7-1 Bengals is of interest because a Giant victory would tie them for first place with Washington at 4-7. The division winner may have a losing record anda host a playoff game.

—The other game involving two losing teams is the 4-7 Panthers and 4-6 Vikings. Enough said about that game.

—The other games have a winning team playing a losing team and the most interesting game in that category will have the 6-4 Cardinals playing the 4-6 Patriots. A loss would leave the Patriots at 4-7 and would be the first time in his career as a Patriot coach that Belichick has lost seven games in a season. He is now 19-24 without Tom Brady but he’s a defensive coach and his defense has been shaky. It will face a test stopping Kyler Murray although he’s not 100 percent.

—The 0-10 Jets and 1-9 Jaguars are battling for the first pick in next year’s draft and figure to lose to the Dolphins and Browns. The Jaguars will start their third quarterback Mike Glennon against a Browns team that has a rash of injuries.

—The feature game of the day has the Chiefs at 9-1 taking on Tampa Bay at 7-4.It will likely be the last meeting of the best quarterback of the last two decades (Tom Brady) against the player likely to be the best quarterback for the next decade (Patrick Mahomes). Brady is coming off a shaky showing against the Rams last week and will be attempting to bounce back.

—The plus of a Thursday game is teams get 10 days off afterwards. The minus is that it gives losing teams time to make a coaching change. That is what happened to coach Matt Patricia and GM Bob Quinn after the Lions loss to Houston on Thanksgiving Day. Quinn fired Jim Caldwell after consecutive 9-7 seasons three years ago to hire Patricia, another ex-Patriot. Things got worse for the Lions, who have been spinning their wheels for decades. Now they start over. Again.

—The Saints figured to beat the Broncos anyway but what makes this game interesting is that Denver can’t play any of its quarterbacks. They didn’t wear masks in their meeting room so when one tested positive, they all were put in quarantine. So the Broncos will probably play a running back Royce Freeman or a practice squad wide receiver Kendall Hinton at quarterback. Hinton played quarterback at Wake Forest before switching to wide receiver while Freeman only threw one pass at Oregon. The last time non-quarterback started a game was in 1965 when Tom Matte, who played quarterback at Ohio State, started because the Colts’ receivers were injured.