NFL awards, superlatives for Week 8: Myles Garrett gets what he got paid for, one-eyed Tua rebounds, Jets eat a W

Well, that certainly was a day of watching football… Kind of. Almost every single game of Week 8 was a blowout. On Sunday, the average winning margin of all 11 games was 17.4 points. So it was technically football, but the vast majority of games were at least two-score games that weren’t remotely competitive… but that can be fun.

With mondo-sized wins, we saw a whole lot of awesome performances, some pretty terrible ones, and a few gruesome things sprinkled in there. Those are where the awards and superlatives for this week come into play.

We’re going to start at the same pace we start every week: with the best game of the day… and it came from a couple of very unlikely teams. 

Game of the Year of the Week: Jets vs. Bengals

The year is 2025. The month is October. The day is 26. The Week is 8.

The Jets won a football game… and not just any football game, but the only competitive football game of the entire week. The Jets won the only competitive football game of Week 8. That’s bonkers.

Justin Fields was coming off a week when he was getting his teeth kicked in left and right… and it mostly stemmed from the Jets’ owner, Woody Johnson, unsolicited insults.

Near the end of the third quarter, the Bengals scored to go up 31-16 over the Jets. The next 15-ish minutes were all about touchdowns. 

The Jets scored and converted a two-point try (31-24). The Bengals scored (38-24). The Jets scored again and converted again (38-32). The Bengals had a three-and-out. The Jets scored again when their running back Breece Hall threw a touchdown (39-38). The Bengals didn’t score again and turned the ball over on downs. 

That’s seven drives in one quarter of a game. That’s awesome… Unless you’re a Bengals fan. In that case, you just lost to a winless Jets team and their emotionally broken quarterback. There’s no coming back from that. 

Even though this was literally the only competitive game of the week, it’s definitely worthy of being the GotYotW.

Catalyst for a Mobility Movement: Cam Skattebo

Mobility is big these days. It’s all about flexibility, increasing range of motion, and bettering your joint health. There’s nothing that really makes you appreciate your flexibility (and health in general) than seeing someone who doesn’t have it. 

If you’re at the grocery store and you see some old bag of bones with mega-osteoporosis, you’ll probably think about your posture a little bit and straighten your back out. Or, if you’re watching a football game and you see someone’s foot fall off, you’ll probably do some ankle circles… 

Enter Cam Skattebo, who suffered a gnarly ankle dislocation on Sunday afternoon.

Objectively, this stinks. Skattebo has a very fun running style where he just hits everything and everyone on the field, and still gets big yardage… and now his season is over. That’s tough.

Let me play devil's advocate and offer some contrary, yet positive aspects of this:

1. Running full speed and actively headbutting 250-pound men doesn’t necessarily lead to a long career, so the Skat man probably isn’t going to have a long NFL career. Missing the rest of this season is probably going to add at least one more year to his career… and probably another 15 years to his life.

2. Also, when he does call it quits, it’s probably going to be related to his brain being semi-permanently turned into hummus. Think of this as him taking a break from your relationship. You know it’s going to end at some point relatively soon, and he’s kind of easing you into the eventual breakup. 

Take this time to think about all of the good times and joy that he gave you, so you can appreciate him even more when he comes back.

Back at it: Bills

You didn’t think the Bills were really going away, did you? They had their bye week in Week 7, so the last time we saw them was when they got gutted by the Falcons on Monday Night Football. The week before that, they lost the Sunday night game against the Patriots. 

There were some pretty bad vibes surrounding that team, and specifically their defense. In Week 8, they went down to Carolina to take on the Panthers, who were on a three-game winning streak fueled by a really dominant run game. It looked like it might’ve been a disaster in the making for Buffalo.

But the thing is: Buffalo is actually a good football team. People forget that. 

They walked right into Bank of America Stadium, shoved their knuckles in a pile of broken glass, and proceeded to beat the life out of Andy Dalton and the Panthers. They sacked the Red Rocket seven times, picked him off once, forced three fumbles… 

And then it was the Bills' turn on offense. James Cook had 19 carries for 216 yards and two touchdowns, while Josh Allen threw for 163 yards and a touchdown, and had a couple of rushing touchdowns himself. 

The Bills used their bye week well; They didn’t just get a win over the Panthers… they absolutely punished that team for stepping on the field, and walked away with a 40-9 win. 

In Week 9, Buffalo plays Kansas City. You have to think getting a win like this is a big-time confidence builder for when they have to look at their Boogeyman right in the eyes. 

Insult to Injury: Anthony Nelson

The best interceptions are interceptions at or behind the line of scrimmage. When a defensive lineman gets one of those, they don’t really know what to do and kind of just stumble forward. 

When a linebacker gets one of those, they turn into the most violent people in the world… which makes sense. They love hitting people, and most of the time, they have to chase someone down to hit them. When they have the ball? Those people are coming to them. 

On Sunday, the Buccaneers’ edge rusher, Anthony Nelson, picked off Spencer Rattler about five yards behind the line of scrimmage. That alone was a problem for Rattler, but the bigger and more immediate problem was that Nelson was about two yards away when he got control of the ball. 

Nelson, who is 6-foot-7 and 270-ish pounds, took that opportunity to lower his shoulder into… and then stiff-arm the six-foot-tall and 200-pound Rattler. It was awesome.

You get what you (got) paid for: Myles Garrett

It’s been a minute since Myles Garrett’s gotten an award for being awesome at his job and having it mean absolutely nothing. In Week 1, he had two sacks, and the Browns lost 17-16. In Week 2, he had 1.5 sacks and the Browns lost 41-17 (even though they outgained the Ravens 323 yards to 242 yards).

This week, Garrett had an absolutely inhuman performance with five sacks… and the Browns lost 32-13. He was not too happy about that.

In his postgame press conference, he was asked, “Does the loss diminish how you feel about your performance today?” Garrett answered, “I would throw the whole performance away for a win.”

Uhhh, nope. You don't get to say that.

No one should ever let him forget that back during Super Bowl Week, he demanded a trade from the Browns because his “desire to win and compete on the biggest stages won't allow me to be complacent.”

He knew that the Browns were a broken franchise and that there were going to be 31 other teams calling him. He had the opportunity to not be on that concrete ship… then the captain of that ship gave him a treasure chest filled with $160 million worth of platinum, and Garrett decided that was worth more than his “desire to win and compete.”

He’s getting what he got paid for, and he knew full well what his team was going to be. He doesn’t get to be mad that his offense punted four times, threw two interceptions, had two turnovers on downs, had a safety, and missed a field goal. That’s exactly what the Browns do.

Holiday Magic: Tight ends

During a 49ers and Lions game in Week 2 of the 2018 season, Jimmy Garoppolo threw a touchdown to his tight end, Garrett Celek. On the sideline, Jimmy G. someone, “Is it national tight end day?’ George Kittle said, “Yeah, it’s National Tight Ends day. It’s a holiday. Tight ends all over the league are scoring.”

It seems a little hokey, but apparently that’s the story. Since then, the fourth Sunday of October has been National Tight Ends Day, and you hear about it every year. Turns out, it might actually have some magic.

On Sunday, 39 different tight ends caught a total of 106 passes for a total of 1,101 yards and 12 touchdowns. The exclamation point was Tucker Kraft’s seven catches for 143 yards and two touchdowns for the Packers on Sunday Night Football.

It’s kind of messed up that the NFL scheduled teams to have their bye week on a holiday, though. Sam LaPorta, Brock Bowers, and Trey McBride all had the day off. Those three guys (maybe not Bowers) are top-tier dudes. 

Tom Aspinall Fan of the Week: Tua Tagovailoa

UFC 321 was on Saturday afternoon, and the main event was a fight between Tom Aspinall and Cyril Gane for the heavyweight belt. Those are the fights that everyone looks forward to; it’s just two giant meatballs punching each other with enough force to euthanize a hippopotamus. 

The fight was called a No Contest four minutes into the first round because Gane poked Aspinall in both eyes, leaving him (hopefully) temporarily blind in one eye. It sucked. The entire card was building up to a Super Saiyan fight, and then it was over, and everyone was sad. 

Apparently, Tua Tagovailoa was upset about it, too. His ‘story’ is that he woke up in the morning and his eye was swollen shut. He ended up playing, and he played pretty awesome. He had 205 passing yards, four touchdowns, and only took one sack in the Dolphins’ 34-10 win over the Falcons. 

This can only mean one of two things:

The first is that Tua got hammered drunk on Saturday, told his teammates that Tom Aspinall was being a sissy, and that he could win a fight with only one eye. A teammate probably said, ‘Well, don’t fight anyone. That’d be dumb. But what if we just mess you up really bad and then you play with one eye tomorrow? Our season’s already over. What is there to lose?’ 

Tua might have responded, ‘Yeah. That’s cool too. When someone asks me about it, I’ll just say I had some kind of sickness or something.’

The teammate might have responded, ‘Wait… you want everyone to think you had pink eye?’ And then slugged Tua right in the face. 

The other option is that Tua actually did have pink eye. If that’s true, then that’s gross, but it also makes the four touchdown passes and the completion rate of 76.9 percent super impressive.

He’s thrown three interceptions in each of his last two games. Maybe seeing less of the field is a good thing for him; a real ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’ kind of thing. 

Nostalgia-triggerer: Saquon Barkley

Is remembering stuff that happened earlier this calendar year considered nostalgia? Eh. Probably. 

Whatever the case, Saquon Barkley finally had his game. On the Eagles’ second play, King-Quan ripped off a 65-yard touchdown run, and he looked super sick when he did it. 

If there was any question about whether he had the explosiveness from last season, that answers them. He ended the day with 14 carries for 150 yards and a touchdown, and four catches for 24 yards and a touchdown. 

It was awesome to finally see him break one, and he did at the perfect time, too. The Eagles' offense had been looking stale, then they had these last two games where they looked awesome… And now they’re going on their bye. Just always leave people wanting more.

Oh, and Tank Bigsby also rushed for 104 yards. You knew that someone in the Eagles’ running back room was going to go off because Boston ‘The Giant Killer’ Scott came to the game. You can’t have a bad ground game against the Giants when BoSco is in attendance; he’s got that aura about him. 

Saquon Barkley of the Week: Jonathan Taylor

Jonathan Taylor keeps having awesome games, and his explosiveness is incredibly reminiscent of Saquon Barkley’s season in 2024. 

You have to take the touchdowns out of the equation when you compare the two because the Eagles use the tush push on goal-to-go situations, but Jonathan Taylor has had 143 carries for 850 yards (5.9 yards per carry). Through eight games last season, Barkley had 157 carries for 925 yards (5.9 yards per carry). That’s crazy.

On Sunday, Taylor ripped an awesome 80-yard touchdown on the Colts’ first play of the second half. It was awesome. 

Last season, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen were playing out of their minds around this time. There isn’t a quarterback that’s really set himself apart this season as an MVP frontrunner. It seems like there’s a real chance that J.T. might be able to do what Barkley didn’t and be the first non-quarterback to win the award since Adrian Peterson in 2012. 

One thing that will help him is his insane touchdown production: He just had his fourth three-touchdown game of the season. Now he’s up to 14 total touchdowns… and it’s only been eight games. 

It’s time for bed, old man: Terry Bradshaw

Last year, Jimmy Johnson retired from the FOX NFL show, and this year, Lee Corso retired from ESPN’s College Gameday. Those two guys were 82 and 90 years old.

Terry Bradshaw is only 77 years old, and he should’ve retired probably 10 years ago because he just is not there mentally. He’s had some slip-ups in the past, but those were more ‘Wow, this old guy just doesn’t know any better’ types of things. 

On Sunday, he had an all-time rambling of a senile old man.

First of all, the chances of that being a real story are just about as close to zero as possible. Hog salesmen probably don’t prefer to do their work over the phone; that seems like an in-person business. That is, unless the guy on the phone was referring to something more phallic in nature. 

Also, what the hell?