There was a lot of good football last weekend. If it weren’t for the Buffalo Bills' comeback against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night, the Minnesota Vikings’ comeback against the Chicago Bears on Monday night would be getting a whole lot more shine.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of bad football as well. Going into the season, everyone had the Week 11 game between the Eagles and the Lions circled on their calendar as a potential game of the year. Then the Lions went out and laid a stinker. All of a sudden, that game doesn’t look anywhere close to being exciting.
Sure, things can change between now and then; the games that looked awesome a week ago have changed.
When it comes to the best games, there are a whole lot of variables. Aside from what actually happens in the game, you have to keep in mind who is playing, the stakes of the game, and when they are playing.
Take this weekend, for example: The Falcons and Buccaneers game in the early slate was sick. It had two lead changes and a missed field goal in the last four minutes… but it wasn’t the last game of the day, so it’s more or less forgettable… especially since the Bills/Ravens game happened later.
These are the new best games of the season, knowing what we know (or at least think we know) after Week 1. One caveat: except for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I left off Thursday Night football games.
I’m sure there will be one or two good ones (like Week 2 with Washington and Green Bay), but for the most part, those games always have something weird going on with them that is probably definitely related to players not getting the same recovery as normal and a shorter time to game plan.
6. Ravens @ Packers, Week 17
Typically, interconference games mean a whole lot less than games within the conference, playoff seeding-wise. However, late in the season, every win means a whole lot more, especially for teams gunning for the top seed in their conference. That’s exactly what both the Packers and the Ravens look like they’re going to be doing in late December.
Both of these teams have mega-high-powered offenses and pretty sick defenses. There’s going to be a stupid interception late in the game, and a head coach is going to make a bad fourth-down decision. Whichever team goofs up is going to get the two seed, and fans of the other 31 teams are going to be stoked about it.
5. Bengals @ Broncos, Week 4
By Week 4, the Bengals should have their ducks in a row offensively, and the Broncos’ defense should be getting in a groove. That’s good, because both of those are what these two teams’ strengths should be.
The last time they played was in Week 17 of last season, and it was sick. There were 828 total yards on offense, and the Broncos brought the game to overtime with a couple of gnarly big-time throws by Bo Nix. Then in overtime there were five possessions, one of which was a missed field goal by the Bengals (who ended up winning 30-24).
If this game can carry that same juice, September 29th is going to be awesome.
4. Bengals @ Ravens, Week 13
We haven’t exactly had a great Thanksgiving night game in a minute. In the past five third-Thanksgiving games (there were only two in 2020), this is what we were looking at:
Green Bay vs. Miami. Green Bay won 30-17.
Seattle vs. San Francisco. San Francisco won 31-13.
Minnesota vs. New England. Minnesota won 33-26.
New Orleans vs. Buffalo. Buffalo won 31-6.
Atlanta vs. New Orleans. Atlanta won 26-18.
It looks like we’ll get a good one this year. Over the past two years, the games between the Bengals and the Ravens have had an average of 68.25 points and have been decided by an average of 5.25 points. That’s exactly what you want on Thanksgiving night… kind of.
You always want a good football game, but I don’t know if anyone’s going to be able to handle drinking a bottle of Pinot Noir and a bottle of Chardonnay and then watching an actual exciting game… Especially since it’s between Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson.
My prediction? Your uncle, who doesn’t really come around anymore, says, ‘Man, I like that Joe Burrow more than that Lamar fella. Something about the way he plays the game…’
3. Eagles @ Chargers, Week 15
We’ve been watching Justin Herbert for the past five seasons. Has he been good? Yeah. Is he as good as the vocal minority on Twitter says he is? Probably not… BUT he just had one hell of a game in Week 1 against the Chiefs.
In that game, he was 25-of-34 for 318 yards and three touchdowns, and he added a handful of carries that looked pretty clutch as well. It was a good game by him, and he looked like the guy that the football nerds say he is.
Let’s say he keeps that up; let’s say that through 15 weeks, he’s been the hoss that he looked like in Week 1.
If that’s the case, the Week 15 game between them and the Eagles is going to be phenomenal. Two quarterbacks who have gorgeous deep balls, a running game driven by the generational minds of Jeff Stoutland and Greg Roman, and defenses that have roughly the same identity.
All of that with the stress of the game being the beginning of December football? Woof… Buddy. You get goosebumps thinking about it.
2. Broncos @ Chiefs, Week 17
After the Eagles whomped the Chiefs the way that they did in the Super Bowl, the offseason talks were all about how the AFC is wide open because Kansas City was vulnerable. Then, in Week 1, the Chiefs kind of stunk up the joint.
I’m sure that everything is going to end up working out decently well for them this season, because it would be stupid not to. That being said, “decently well” for the Chiefs is still an 11-win season.
The thing is, 11 wins isn’t going to be enough to dominantly come out on top of the AFC West this season, and a Week 17 game against the Broncos (who could be in contention for the division) might mean a whole lot.
It’s kind of dumb to predict how sick a game is going to be in four months from now, but to call my shot: This game will decide who wins the AFC West. In games with that kind of gravity, Mahomes is going to pull out all the stops, and when that happens, you get yourself one hell of a game.
1. Eagles @ Packers, Week 10
These are two of the most complete teams in the NFL, and easily the two best teams in the NFC. Not only is this going to have mega-playoff seeding implications, but there’s also a solid chance that this is going to end up being a playoff game in January.
On top of that, this game has the added juice because the Packers were the ones who submitted this offseason’s proposal to ban the Tush Push. If there’s a head coach who’s going to take that personally, it’s the Eagles’ Nick Sirianni.
That means this game is going to get juice from the results and juice from pure vitriol. The math there is: Real + Vitriol = Rocket Fuel. Rocket Fuel games are good football games. This is going to be the NFL diving headfirst into the meaningful part of the football calendar, and it’s going to be awesome.