NFL Week 6 winners and losers: It’s time to fire Mike McCarthy

Things are starting to get real, but to get a proper look at the landscape of the NFL we need to look beyond the box score.

We are now through the first six weeks of the football season — an you believe the season is almost half over? It feels like just yesterday Jets fans were falling over themselves after the team finally re-signed Ryan Fitzpatrick.

Needless to say, things have changed all over the NFL landscape. Fitzpatrick is being replaced by Geno Smith, the Vikings are still undefeated (by default, but bye weeks will do that) and we still don’t know what a catch is.

Perhaps the most perplexing thing about this first half of the season is just how roasted Mike McCarthy is as head coach in Green Bay. While we’ve seen the Packers get off to rough starts before, this seems like a course that won’t be corrected by Aaron Rodgers. McCarthy is a problem, we hear that all the time out of Green Bay when it comes to his relationship with Rodgers. Both Ben McAdoo and Joe Philbin were championed by Rodgers and neither are still in Green Bay.

Only McCarthy remains, and Ted Thompson has to see that there’s a correlation between the Packers struggles, the struggles of their franchise quarterback in his prime and the head coach who is failing to connect.  We’ll get more on this in a bit.

Before we start looking ahead to Week 7, let’s live outside of the box score a little, since that’s where the real battles are won and lost anyways.

Loser: Cleveland Browns

We all know the Browns are losers. They’re like something from Pet Sematary; they are a franchise that died and came back to life but something remains dead about them. They’re not the same and that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. But that’s what makes this even more tragic, as the tides have changed in Cleveland.

The city is no longer the perpetual loser it once was. In the course of a year, they have an NBA champion and a team one-game away from the World Series. Cleveland could legitimately end both their NBA and MLB championship draughts — one of which would be an accost to history — while the Browns continue to toil away. We didn’t really care they Browns were habitual losers until the rest of the city decided they’d had enough of that.

Winner: Tony Romo

But he’s losing his job to Dak Prescott, how can he be a winner? He may have lost his jb in Dallas but he’s hardly finished being a starting quarterback in the NFL. Just look back at other quarterback who have been replaced due to injury, just about all of them have found work in the twilight of their careers. Joe Montana went to Kansas City, Drew Bledsoe went to Buffalo and most recently Peyton Manning won a Super Bowl in Denver.

History is on Romo’s side. The Broncos would love to swap out Trevor Seimian for Romo, much like they wanted to transition from Elway to Steve Young. The Jets desperately need a quarterback and the Redskins wining with Romo is the perfect Dan Snyder middle finger to Jerry Jones. Romo returning to his college roots in Illinois to play for the Bears shouldn’t be discounted either. There are plenty of places he can be the starter in 2017, and you’d best believe this he’s as big a winner here as Dak is.

Loser: NFL Officials

You can get made at officials all you want, but let’s take a moment to be sympathetic. The NFL doesn’t care about its officials and this season has been proof positive of that. Refs in Seattle blew a bad pass interference call that cost the Falcons the game on Sunday. That’s on them but because the NFL refuses to allow late game pass interference calls to be reviewed, they were left on an island. They should have made the call, but that’s exactly why you have replay, to make sure you nail the call.

There’s also all of this excessive celebration nonsense. It’s not Ed Hochuli coming up with the rule that forbid players from expressing joy at succeeding in their jobs. It’s the NFL that has handed down the rules for Hochuli and his crew to enforce. They’re the face of the NFL’s obsession with not having fun and complicating a game that is going the way of the baseball dinosaur.

Week 6 NFL Head Coach Hot Seat

The coaching hot seat is starting to get more than a little warm for these underachievers:

1. Mike McCarthy, Green Bay Packers

I addressed this earlier but it can’t stress it enough. At what point do you pick Rodgers over McCarthy? It’s not a hard decision to make, and the Packers would have coaches lining up to lead this team, especially big fish like Jon Gruden and Bill Cowher.

2.  Jeff Fisher, Los Angeles Rams

Remember when the Rams lost to the 49ers in Week 1, but the Rams were rumored to be giving Fisher an extension? That was five weeks ago and said extension is still unannounced. That makes you wonder if we could see a total reversal on the decision to keep Fisher around in a market that won’t be hard to attract top-notch coaches.

3. John Fox, Chicago Bears

He’s the Mike McCoy of the NFC. John Fox might actually be actively trying to lose his job. He knows the Bears are trash and aren’t going anywhere in their current state and he wants the hell out. He’s also a big reason why that offense is so bad, which means it’s a matter of time before Fox and Cutler are jettisoned and McDaniels/Garoppolo step in.

Trades That Need To Happen (But Won’t)

1. Philip Rivers to New York Jets

The Jets won’t win a Super Bowl this year, even with a competent quarterback, but can you imagine how much better they would be with Rivers. They’re a contender with him this year, which says a lot considering they’re 1-5 and in possession of a defense Ryan Fitzpatrick doesn’t deserve.

2. Joe Haden to Carolina Panthers

Carolina’s defense stinks. There’s no other way to put it. Cam Newton brought the team back from an impossible spot last week only to have his defense and non-existent secondary blow it. Haden is more than an upgrade, he’s a body in the secondary — which is something that doesn’t exist right now.

3. Antonio Gates to Cincinnati Bengals 

The Bengals offense isn’t working the way it should right now, which is partly on Andy Dalton and partly on the absence of Tyler Eifert. Without him, A.J. Green gets more attention and the dual-threat running game is stifled. Insert Gates and you have a killer target for Dalton and much needed veteran leader in the locker room. There’s no losing here.

Power Ranking of Pain

This week, let’s take a look at the worst performances of Week 6.

3. Drew Brees

Things are so bad in New Orleans, with that putrid paper thin defense, that a Hall of Fame quarterback is being called underrated. Trees can only throw for a million yards so many times before he just gives up and lets his defense eat itself and free him from its clutches.

2. Mike Tomlin

Without Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers don’t work. The Landry Jones experience — which Tomlin will have to roll with against the Patriots — ends at 7-9. It also exposes Tomlin as a more glamorous Marvin Lewis. Tomlin is a not a wining coach without Roethlisberger in the lineup, especially on the road and doubly against winning teams.

1. Geno Smith 

There’s no winning here. Smith can lead the Jets to the AFC Championship game this year and he’ll still get replaced at the end of the year. New York has been looking for his replacement for years, stiffed him in the offseason when Ryan Fitzpatrick tricked the team into overpaying him and he’s in a position where he can’t win.

Let’s close out with a look ahead at some things that will definitely happen next week in the NFL. First, let’s look at Week 6 predictions, which turned out to be pretty alright:

• The Chargers will lose to the Broncos on Thursday and promptly fire Mike McCoy as head coach. He got lucky, I didn’t. 
• Dak Prescott and the Cowboys will win in Lambeau, further proving how serious a Super Bowl contender they are. Nailed it. 
• Kansas City will get back on track by beating Oakland, probably on some failed Jack Del Rio stunt. It was a monsoon but they got it done.
• The Falcons will get a reality check when the Seahawks beat them, and the hot takes will be unreal. The hot takes are pending, but the Falcons indeed went down. 

Alright, as for things that will happen in Week 7:

• The Packers will get back on track and beat the Bears, but the questions about McCarthy’s job will remain.
• The Vikings will come close to losing, but will remain undefeated for at least one more week.
• Arizona will beat Seattle, thus forcing all pundits who wrote them off pull a Ross and pivot their hot takes.
• Buffalo will get one more win before their season characteristically blows up in their face.

We’ll have to see how right or wrong these are when Week 7 of NFL action kicks off on Thursday.

Stay safe out there, America.