Week 17 NFL Awards: A smooth criminal, a risky fart and a perfect* punt

We only have one full weekend of football left. After that, over half the teams in the NFL go on vacation, and we get less and less football every single week. It sucks, but that’s reality. It’s important to cherish what we have, because we’re not going to have anything in six weeks from now. 

It’s important to show the football gods appreciation for the gifts that they have given us, and they gave us a whole lot on Sunday.

Beneficiary of the Week: Drake Maye

Sometimes things work out perfectly. You’ll hit every green light on your way home from work. You’ll get to the bakery right as they put out fresh donuts. You’ll walk into the bathroom right after the janitor leaves. You’ll play the New York Jets in Week 17 of a season where you’re a contender for the NFL MVP.

Drake Maye has been playing really, really good football this season; that’s undeniable. He’s also played against one of the most pathetic combinations of 16 teams that has ever been assembled; that’s also undeniable.

It is very impressive that he went 19-of-21 for 256 yards and five touchdowns, and it should’ve been that impressive because that defense gave up eight weeks ago. 

It’s not Maye’s fault that the Jets are terrible. 

His job is to throw touchdowns, and he’s going to do that no matter who tries to stop him. It could be All-Pros lined up against him, or it could be one of those 40U teams full of juiced-out dads… The Jets just so happen to be closer to one of those 40U teams.

Fart of the Week: Sam Darnold

The only thing that really matters is that the Seahawks beat the Panthers… However, if you were looking to get a little peace of mind from your quarterback who historically crumbles in big moments, Sam Darnold gave you nothing. 

He ended the game 18-of-27 for 147 yards and a touchdown, but he also threw an interception and lost a fumble. 

The fumble was super chaotic. Darnold dropped the snap, recovered it, and then got strip-sacked at midfield. The Panthers recovered it on Seattle’s 26-yard line.

The interception ended Seattle’s first drive of the second half. They got all the way down to the red zone, and then Darnold dropped one in the bucket… but the bucket belonged to the Panthers’ cornerback Mike Jackson. 

They ended up only being a couple of farts, but they were some stinky ones. For a guy like Darnold, those farts can easily turn into something solid during the meaningful games in the next month.

Cursed number of the Week: 22

In Week 13 of the 2017 season, the Bengals and Steelers were playing in Cincinnati on Monday Night Football. Ben Roethlisberger threw a short pass to Le’Veon Bell, who ran down the sideline for a 35-yard touchdown. 

On that run, the Bengals' cornerback William Jackson pulled up and didn’t knock Bell out of bounds, which took more effort than it would’ve to make the tackle.

On Sunday, the Bengals did something very similar. Michael Wilson caught a ball and ran down the left sideline for a 38-yard touchdown. On his way downfield, he actually blew threw three defenders who were so bad at tackling that it looked like they were trying to let him score.

The most prominent guy was Geno Stone. He just threw himself at Wilson, completely forgetting that he’s allowed to use more than just his torso to tackle. You can use your arms, Mr. Stone. As a matter of fact, your job is a whole lot easier to do when you use your arms. 

Both Stone and Williams wear/wore the No. 22 jersey for the Bengals, and both of them looked terrible being near a guy who is running down the sideline for a touchdown… That’s a really bad place to look that bad.

Criminal of the Week: Chase Young

There are a billion reasons why football rocks. One of them is that the players are allowed to do things on the field that would be considered felonies off the field. You want to run down the sidewalk and hit someone like Sheldon Brown hit Reggie Bush, but you can’t because you’d go to jail. 

The Saints’ defensive end Chase Young committed one of the more fun would-be crimes on Sunday: a mugging. 

I think that’s technically a mugging, right? He beats up a guy and steals something. The problem is that he was too smooth with it. 

A traditional mugging is brutal; bashing someone until they’re crumpled on the ground and then taking their wallet. 

Young doesn’t do that. He loops around, lets Cam Ward clothesline himself, yoinks the ball away, and gets out of Dodge. It was the most graceful mugging you’ll ever see.

Drama Queens of the Week: Pittsburgh Steelers

The Steelers could’ve wrapped up the AFC North and made everyone’s lives a whole lot easier by simply beating the Browns. Instead, they (apparently) focused more on making sure Myles Garrett didn’t set the NFL single-season sack record…

They could’ve just won one lousy game and chilled out for a week, but they lost in a 13-6 barn burner. Now we have to spend all week reading reports about whether or not Lamar Jackson is going to play and dealing with Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh talk. We’ve been doing that all season, and it’s tiring. 

Also, it wasn’t just that the Steelers lost. It’s also how they lost/how the Browns won. 

With 1:40 left in the fourth quarter, the Browns kicked a 33-yard field goal to go from a 10-6 lead to a 13-6 lead. That’s a horrible process. 

Kicking a field goal to get a six-point lead forces the other team to either score a touchdown or die. That means: 

A. You’re forcing them to be aggressive downfield rather than settle for a field goal.
B. Taking away a decision that they would have to make because now they don’t have to decide on whether or not they should kick a field goal.
C. Giving them an extra down because now they have to go for it on every fourth down. 

But Aaron Rodgers got the ball back, drove inside the Browns’ ten-yard line in five plays, had three straight incompletions to Marquez Valdes-Scantling, and lost. It was a nail-biter, and it really didn’t need to be. This week is going to be full of Aaron Rodgers discussions, and it was completely avoidable. 

Sad touchdown of the Week: Breece Hall

You’ve really got to feel for Breece Hall. The dude was almost a sure thing to get traded from the Jets at the trade deadline, but the asking price was too high. He watched Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams get traded away, but he had to stay in the talent-sucking black holes of MetLife Stadium and the Jets’ locker room.

He’s a really good running back, but his talent doesn’t have a chance of really showing because he’s surrounded by trash. Since the deadline, he’s had 126 carries for 484 yards and two touchdowns…

That second touchdown came on Sunday against the Patriots. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, New England had a 42-3 lead and pulled their starters. Naturally, this is where the Jets really started to cook.

Hall ripped off a 59-yard touchdown, which was his longest rush of the season by about 25 yards. That play cut the Pats’ lead from 39 points to just 32 points, it put Hall over 1,000 rushing yards for the first time in his career, and it was the first time the Jets had a 1,000-yard rusher since Chris Ivory in 2015.

It was incredibly impressive for both the player and the franchise… but the Jets lost by more than 30 points to a divisional rival and now they’re 3-13. That locker room must have been full of the world’s most disingenuous ‘Atta boys’ and butt slaps.

Ding-Dong of the Week: Cam Latu

Being a punter might be the worst job ever. You’re disgustingly undersized compared to everyone else on the field; half of those huge people are on the field to make sure you don’t do your job, and two or more of those fast and huge people are running directly at you.

Even then, you have to do your job perfectly, or else everyone is mad at you. On top of that, you can do your job perfectly, and then someone can do something to completely negate your good work. That job absolutely sucks.

Enter: Braden Mann, the Philadelphia Eagles’ punter.

In the second half of the Eagles' game against the Bills, the Birds’ offense went back to being terrible. They had terrible route combinations, ran into stacked boxes, and kept punting. 

Mann had one of the most beautiful punts you’ll ever see. He bombs it from his 25-yard line, it bounces at the Bills’ 15-yard line, and checks up at the one… Until Cam Latu comes in and touches it for absolutely no reason at all.

Why? Why touch it? In what world do you think that you should touch that ball? It’s dead. Let the dead thing lie, and let Braden Mann have one of the best punts of the season. If you’re going to touch it, definitely don’t be an absolute buffoon.

Latu was a buffoon, and he did touch the ball while his foot was on the goal line. Instead of the Eagles' defense having an opportunity to get a safety, it was a touchback.

Latu puts himself in the running for Ding-Dong of the Year with this move; just really, really boneheaded. 

Decision-maker of the Week: Sean McDermott

The Eagles beat the Bills 13-12 after the Bills failed a two-point conversion. Going for a two-point conversion at the end of a game when you are down by one point can be a very good decision. 

If you’re an underdog and you lucked into a late touchdown, going for two is a good move. 

If you’re an away team in a hostile environment, going for two is a good move. 

If the other team's offense has been ripping you to shreds and you don’t want to give them the ball in overtime, going for two is a good move. 

The Bills were favorites… at home… and the Eagles' offense had 17 total yards in the second half. Going for the two-point conversion instead of going into overtime was an objectively terrible decision.

Prideful team of the Week: New York Giants

The most interesting and impactful game of the week was the battle for the first overall pick between the Giants and the Raiders. Whoever lost set themselves up really well for the future, and these teams desperately need as much future help as they can get.

The Raiders understood the implications. Going into the game, they put Brock Bowers and Maxx Crosby on the IR. Did it make Crosby super mad? It sounds like it. Is it worth making your franchise edge rusher mad just to get the first-overall pick? We’ll see about that.

The Giants, on the other hand, did not really understand the gravity of this game. They got a 14-point lead going into halftime and kept stepping on the gas. 

There was never a doubt that the Raiders were going to lose this game. They saw they were down by 10 points and let Deonte Banks return that kick untouched. These two teams were playing entirely different football games.

…or the Raiders were actually trying, and they actually are this bad. Regardless, they beat the Giants in losing. That’s worth celebrating about.

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