Week 13 observations you can steal to impress your friends

Week 13 in the NFL has come and gone, but what should we make of the most important things we saw?

There are just four weeks left in this NFL season, but we still don’t have a very clear idea of what’s going on. Next week’s Chiefs-Patriots showdown was supposed to be for the No. 1 seed in the AFC, but the Baltimore Ravens snatched that away and seem to be convincingly in command of their own destiny.

Not bad for a team with a running back at quarterback.

The playoff picture got turned upside down and inside out this week, with significant movement happening in both conferences. While the Ravens are skating through the AFC like it’s an ice rink, the San Francisco 49ers are in danger of falling from the No. 1 seed to a Wild Card spot with a loss next week to the Saints. The Vikings and Packers are in a dead heat for the NFC North title, the Titans and Texans are in a duel to the death for the AFC South title, and teams like the Raiders, Bears, Buccaneers, and Browns are still in the hunt.

After losing to the Dolphins, the Eagles are still in a very good position to win the NFC East. Look no further than that to get an idea of how crazy the home stretch of the playoff race will be this year.

If you need more observations to steal and sound smart around the water cooler, dig your hand into our grab bag of absolutely correct takes and thank us later.

Brian Flores deserves your Coach of the Year vote

John Harbaugh will probably end up winning Coach of the Year, and for good reason. He’s managed to create a system that is giving Lamar Jackson Super Saiyan powers and is commanding the best and most exciting team in the league.

But there’s a pretty serious case to be made that Brian Flores is the Coach of the Year. It seems preposterous to say the coach of a 3-9 team is in the conversation, but ponder for a moment what Flores has been able to do.

It cannot be overstated how stunning it is that the Dolphins managed to win even one game, let alone three. This was a franchise that was actively and transparently tanking, selling off star players for spare parts and future draft picks — winning was not part of the plan. They might not be done winning either, as there’s a very real chance the Dolphins finish the year much closer to .500 than anyone expected.

Flores, who has gone from sacrificial lamb to Legitimate Coach in one of the most unexpected plot twists of the season. He’s building something in Miami and even if we don’t know exactly what it is yet, it seems like something positive.

He’s also capital-C, Coaching:

https://twitter.com/i/events/1201225992880017409?s=13

Somewhere, a just came to Bill Belichick’s eye. The Chuch Pagano Colts died so Flores and the Dolphins could clown the Eagles like Krusty.

No, the Dolphins aren’t the best team in the league. No, Brian Flores wouldn’t be your first choice if given the chance to hire any coach in the league right now. But he’s done the unthinkable: Create an exciting and winning culture in Miami.

If that’s not worthy of the highest recognition, what is?

Ranking Lamar Jackson’s jukes

We’re getting to the point where Baltimore is so dominant and Lamar Jackson is so good that there aren’t many new things to say. It’s wash, rinse, repeat with the Ravens at the point, as they faced another test everyone thought they’d fail until they didn’t.

Baltimore is great but the Patriots will kill them. 

There’s no chance the Rams great defense doesn’t expose the Ravens.

Lamar Jackson is having a great year but the 49ers defense is going to eat him alive. 

None of those things happened.

Baltimore lives for the hustle, to violently shake the haters out of their lull. The same things will be said about the upcoming showdown with the Bills on Sunday, how the Ravens need to pass yet another test to convince everyone they’re for real. Rather than pander to that, let’s just re-live the times Lamar Jackson broke ankles with his juke moves — something he did yet again on Sunday against San Francisco.

https://twitter.com/NFLUK/status/1201256748050456576

He also did it against the Chiefs:

https://twitter.com/sn_fantasy/status/1175823015113908224

And the Patriots:

https://twitter.com/lilabbromberg/status/1191198887937298432

Oh, and again against the Chiefs:

https://twitter.com/PlayDuelo/status/1175860380666494976

Of course, we can throw it all the way back to Lamar’s first game — the Hall of Fame Game last year — to get a sneak peek of what was ahead.

https://twitter.com/fanaticsview/status/1025232342137401344

Stop overthinking this, America. Just enjoy everything Baltimore is doing right now.

What to make of the Saints rough stretch

It’s okay to start worrying about the Saints.

New Orleans is 10-2 and became the first team to punch its playoff ticket this season with a win on Thursday over the Falcons. But the last four games for the Saints have given pause to the praise that they’re Super Bowl favorites.

The Saints got blown out but the listless Falcons, took far too long to put the hapless Buccaneers away, and needed a missed kick miracle to beat the Panthers in a game that saw 65 points scored.

Despite clinching the first playoff berth of the season on Thanksgiving, the Saints allowed the Falcons to recover three consecutive onside kicks (only two actually counted). That’s a very important lapse in judgment that absolutely deserves to be read into.

New Orleans has been praised for being one of the most complete teams in football, specifically when it comes to special teams. To have that unit fail so miserably three straight plays is alarming, especially when that’s compounded with the rough stretch the Saints have been on.

Reading into this is absolutely warranted. It doesn’t take that big of a mistake to blow a season up in the playoffs, and the Saints have made it their brand to flame out in epic fashion in January. New Orleans is still one of the best teams at self-diagnosing problems and has the personnel to properly adjust week-to-week. And for all the woes, the team is 3-1 through the rough stretch we’re talking about.

But there’s a game on Sunday with San Francisco that will likely decide the No. 1 seed in the NFC. It’s one thing to teeter on disaster against the Falcons and Panthers, but that won’t fly against the Niners. New Orleans can definitively dispell the rough stretch it just went through or completely confirm our fears.

NBC had the wrong Sunday Night game this week

There’s absolutely no logical reason the Ravens-49ers shouldn’t have been nationally televised. Stop overthinking this, it isn’t overly complicated.

In a week where Lamar Jackson is going up against the best defense in football, Kyle Shanahan is trying to out-scheme John Harbaugh, you have superstars on the rise like George Kittle, Nick Bosa, Matthew Judon, the playoff picture is deeply impacted by the outcome, and the two best teams in the league are going head-to-head, that’s what deserves to be showcased in primetime.

It was the best game of the week and appointment viewing, full stop. It wasn’t, however, the Sunday Night game football.

New England and Houston playing at 3:45 ET on CBS makes sense. It’s a marquee matchup that any other week would have hands down been the Sunday Night game. Just not this week.

Tom Brady threw a pick-six, New England’s offense failed to score a touchdown for the first 44minutes of the game, and there was precisely zero drama.  Bill O’Brien called a timeout 41-seconds into the game — that’s all you need to know. Meanwhile, the Ravens and 49ers were in a heavyweight slugfest in the 1pm ET timeslot that most but not all of the country got to watch.

That’s not right.

The only saving grace for the Patriots-Texans game being nationally televised is that a large audience got to witness just how vulnerable New England is. Tom Brady looked human and the Patriots, for the first time this decade, look mortal.

Oh wait, the Ravens already showed us that.

On Sunday Night. In a nationally televised game.

Flex the Ravens, you cowards. Put some respect on their name.