NFL Week 10 awards: Alter-egos, helmet punches and sad offense

This Sunday, the NFL gave us the full spectrum of chaos. We started with an overtime thriller in Germany and ended with a snoozefest in Los Angeles. The early slate delivered drama; the late slate delivered blowouts. The duality of man (or NFL Sundays) was on full display. And that means it’s time once again for 10 awards from Week 10: the good, the bad and the completely incomprehensible.

Bettors’ hero (or villain) of the week: Sheldon Rankins

The Texans and Jaguars played one of the wildest finishes of the season. With Houston leading 30-29, Sheldon Rankins scooped up a Trevor Lawrence fumble and ran 32 yards for a touchdown. If you were wondering, the Texans were 1.5-point favorites, so it definitely ruined someone’s Sunday parlay.

Expert orator and rule knower of the week: Clete Blakeman

In the 2024 game in Germany, Shawn Hochuli made a penalty call in German, which is one hell of a way to win over the crowd. It worked:

On Sunday, Clete Blakeman made a penalty call that sounded like drunk Yoda. I would assume that the Germans in attendance had no idea what he was saying, because I have no idea what he was saying.

English is a tough language to understand in general, and the rules in football are hard to explain, especially the intricacies of international groundings and the clock runoff thereafter. Mixing those two things together? Buddy. That’s bleach and ammonia. 

In reality, he probably had someone talking in his ear while he was talking, and that can be tough to deal with. But Blakeman has been a ref since 2008, so you’d hope that he’d be able to deal with that. Afterwards, during the pre-overtime coin flip, he asked the Colts (who were the home team) to call heads or tails, when he was supposed to ask the Falcons. They ended up doing the whole thing over again during a commercial break. So, that’s a bad look. 

Game of the Year of the Week: Texans-Jaguars

If you said the Colts-Falcons game was the GotYotW this week, I wouldn’t necessarily argue with you. Jonathan Taylor ran for 244 yards and three touchdowns, Daniel Jones was bleeding out of his mouth like a psychopath, and it went to overtime. It was fun, but that Texans-Jaguars game was a whole lot more fun.

The game started with Davis Mills throwing an interception (because of course he would). Then, the Texans did that thing where their offense was terrible. All of a sudden, the Jaguars are up 17-0 on the back of a super-sick punt return touchdown by Parker Washington, where he channeled his inner DeSean Jackson and started slow, and ended up falling backwards into the endzone. 

About 30 minutes later, and it’s the start of the fourth quarter. The Jags had a 29-10 lead. All they had to do was not have a bunch of three-and-outs. Well, they had a bunch of three-and-outs, and the Texans had none. 

Instead, the Texans went down and scored on all three of their fourth-quarter drives. The first was a 13-play 65-yard drive, and the score was 29-18. The second was a six-play 51-yard drive, and the score was 29-24. The third was a 14-play 93-yard drive that ended with a 14-yard scramble for a touchdown. The Texans had a 30-29 lead. 

The Jaguars had one last shot. They had 31 seconds to kick a game-winning field goal, and their kicker has a leg that was gifted to him by the gods of Olympus. But he never got a chance. As you know, Trevor Lawrence fumbled, Rankins scooped and returned it for a touchdown. The final score was 36-29.

Offense-Optional Team of the Week: Jets

There are nine teams in the NFL with a winning streak. One of those teams is the New York Jets, who just beat the Browns 27-20. If you didn’t watch that game, you’re probably asking how the Jets offense could score 27 points. Well, they didn’t. The offense had a total of 169 yards, scored one touchdown and kicked two field goals. That’s 13 points. 

The 14 other points came from kick and punt returns. Kene Nwangwu returned a kick 99 yards for a touchdown, and Isaiah Williams returned a punt 74 yards for a touchdown. It was so sick. 

That was Nwangwu’s fifth career kick return touchdown and Williams’ first career punt return. That’s pretty cool. One guy certified himself as one of the elite kick returners, and the other guy got to do something awesome for the first time ever.

I’ll never shame a team for a win, but if you were going to shame the Jets about this one, you could point out that they had 174 yards from two special teams plays and 169 yards off 47 offensive plays. You’d be a jerk if you did that, but there are no laws against being a jerk. 

Buzzkill of the Week: Bills

The year is 2025. The Bills’ record is 6-3. They were just boat raced by the Miami Dolphins and lost 30-13. For almost 50 minutes of that game, Buffalo was held scoreless. They’re a borderline unwatchable team. It’s a different kind of unwatchable than other unwatchable teams though. Some teams get to that point because their quarterback is a turd, or their offensive line consists of CPR dummies. But the Bills are something different.

Josh Allen is a larger-than-life quarterback who had his right arm surgically removed and an ICBM launcher attached. But watching Buffalo’s offense is like watching a toddler give a shark a root canal. You know they’re going to be super inefficient, and if they do get something done, it won’t matter (sharks regrow their teeth, but you already knew that).

The Bills’ route combinations are boring (players going downfield and not getting open), and they don’t really threaten defensive backs with super speed or super talent. They end up making Allen have to throw perfect balls. He can do that, and he does do that, but it’s still super ugly. And just kind of sad. 

You go into a Bills game thinking you’re about to see a fireworks show, but it just ends up being a couple of cracked-out Carnies playing with those stupid ash-snake things. Sure, sometimes those guys end up making a really long ash snake, and it’s kind of impressive, but you came to watch an artillery shell that’s so loud your heart skips a beat. Not whatever this is.

Alter-ego of the Week: J.J. McCarthy (aka “Nine”)

After the Vikings beat the Lions in Week 9, there was a video of J.J. McCarthy looking like a person who hunts humans for sport. He was asked about it and said, “I call him Nine.” He went on to talk about how this nine-character is some kind of ultra-competitor or some nonsense, and it’s actually J.J. 's job to get him snacks and drink water when they’re on the sideline. 

Like a child with an imaginary friend, he was asked about when Nine started showing up. You would think that maybe the origin was when he won the National Championship with Michigan. You’d be wrong.

Nine was invented last season while McCarthy was on the IR. He said, “To be honest with you, it really kind of started to show up this year. It came about last year during IR… It was this built-up anger that was kind of ready to just explode, and I chose to harness it instead of letting it go into a self-destructive kind of way. And it's unique and I love feeding that wolf, because my entire life, at Michigan, it was the smiley face on my hand and smile and you have fun, you're going to play better and all that, which is true, but I also think there's a lot of power that comes from that built-up anger that you can transmute into your performance.”

OK, so the Vikings have an angsty teen on their hands. That’s weird. He also went on to say that his fiancée doesn’t like it when Nine comes home, which is very relatable.

Well, on Sunday, he was 20-of-42 for 248 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. If you’re asking for a guy to throw 42 times, you’re probably hoping that he has over a 50% completion rate, and also that he’s able to have a connection with Justin Jefferson; he did neither of those things.

Justin Jefferson was targeted 12 times and only came down with four balls for a total of 37 yards. It was pretty ugly. 

If you’re going to do the whole split-personality thing, maybe make sure the other guy understands the value of having an extremely dominant WR1. And also make sure he doesn’t go home and creep out your fiancée and newborn baby. 

“Yeah, Duh” Moment of the Week: Jaxson Dart

Two of the biggest questions the human race has ever encountered: ‘How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?’ And ‘How many games will it take for Jaxson Dart to get a concussion?’

We still don’t know the answer to the first one, but the answer to the second one is seven. Dart’s been evaluated for concussions this season (four times, actually), but he hasn’t been ruled out because of one. He took a gnarly hit where his head bounced off the ground near the end of the third quarter; he fumbled, and it looked like he got straight-up knocked out.

He came in for two plays on the next drive before the concussion spotters plucked him out of the game to get tested. You’d think they’d call that in when he was lying semi-unconscious on the ground earlier, but better late than never? On Monday morning, the Giants fired Brian Daboll. If he was going to stand even a remote chance of keeping his job, it was going to be purely because Dart played well.

During that Thursday night game in Week 6 against the Eagles, we saw Daboll go into the blue medical tent while Dart was getting evaluated to see if he was going to be able to come back into the game. Then this week, an (assumedly) very concussed Dart went back into the game. 

Did Daboll get fired because he wanted a concussed 22-year-old to keep playing, or was it because he stunk and had a record of 20-40-1 over the past three and a half seasons? Probably the latter, but maybe the former?

Revenge Tour of the Week: DeMarcus Lawrence

On Sunday, DeMarcus Lawrence wanted to let his ex know that he’s still hot. On the Cardinals’ very first drive, the Seahawks’ linebacker Tyrice Knight strip-sacked Jacoby Brissett. Lawrence was there, scooped it, and subsequently scored. Luckily, if you missed it, there was a second show. Two drives later, the same two guys did the exact same thing. It was so awesome. 

For the past 11 seasons, society’s been acknowledging that DeMarcus Lawrence is a really good football player, but no one wanted him to really succeed. Now that he’s out from under Jerry Jones’ thumb, we can all actually celebrate him. 

Murphy’s Law Abider of the Week: Commanders

Murphy's Law says, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Everything that can go wrong for the Commanders is going wrong. On Sunday, they lost their fourth straight game by more than 21 points. It was against the Cowboys in Week 7, the Chiefs in Week 8, the Seahawks in Week 9, and the Lions in Week 10. 

Jayden Daniels dislocated his elbow against the Seahawks, but somehow, the loss to the Lions was even more pathetic. 

It was all about the energy around the team, and specifically the defense. After the Lions scored their third touchdown to go up 22-3, the Commanders’ defensive tackle Daron Payne was ejected for punching Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Payne’s their best defensive tackle, and now he’s suspended for their Week 11 game in Madrid —against the Dolphins, who just dropped 30 points on the Bills. 

The Commanders absolutely should not lose to the Dolphins by 21 or more points. If they do, they’ll join the 1965 Steelers, who ended their season with a 28-point, a 21-point, a 25-point, a 34-point, and a 21-point loss. That team was saved by the end of the season. The Commanders don’t have that luxury.

Old Guy of the Week: Matthew Stafford

Matthew Stafford might actually be the old guy of the year. He’s 37 years old, averaging 269.7 passing yards (which leads the NFL), has thrown 25 touchdowns (which leads the NFL), thrown only two interceptions, and he has +0.21 EPA per drop back (tied for third best). 

This is his 17th season in the NFL. Per ESPN Insights, he’s played in 231 regular-season games, and after Sunday, it’s the first time he’s had a winning percentage of 50% (115-115-1). That’s not necessarily shocking because he spent 12 seasons in Detroit, where his record was 74-90-1. But it is pretty impressive. 

Rookie of the Week: TreVeyon Henderson

Two guys could’ve been the Rookie of the Week this week: Tyler Warren and TreVeyon Henderson. Warren had eight catches for 99 receiving yards in the Colts’ win over the Falcons, which is fantastic, but he’s won this award before, and Henderson had a phenomenal game. 

The Patriots' second-round running back hasn’t had nearly as good a season as anyone thought he’d have, but he absolutely popped on Sunday. He had 15 carries for 147 yards and two touchdowns. His first touchdown came at the beginning of the second half, when he ripped off a 55-yarder right up the Buccaneers’ guts to give the Patriots a 21-10 lead. 

His second touchdown was the dagger for the game. The Patriots had a 21-16 lead, and with 1:31 left in the game, they just needed to kill the clock. Instead, Henderson ripped a 69-yarder. 

Should he have gone down and not scored? He was wondering the same thing, so he looked at his sideline while he was running 20+ miles per hour. They told him to score, so he scored.