We were starting to run low on superlatives for Colts running back Jonathan Taylor and the season he’s having. Thankfully, he gave us a new one Sunday. That was, without question, the most spectacular performance ever by an NFL player in Berlin.
OK, so it was the first NFL game ever played in Berlin. You’ve got me there. But I’m fairly confident Taylor’s effort would hold up even if they kept playing games there for the next couple of decades. Taylor rushed for 244 yards and three touchdowns — including the overtime game winner — in Sunday’s 31-25 victory over the Falcons. He caught three passes for an additional 42 yards, so that’s 286 total yards from scrimmage, including a breathtaking 83-yard TD run that came with his team down a point with just over six minutes left in the fourth quarter.
A week after he had just 45 yards on 14 carries for his worst game of the season (and his team’s worst game of the season), Taylor authored his best of the season and got the Colts back on track. Indianapolis is 8-2, tied with the Broncos and Patriots for the best record in the NFL through Week 10. It was his fourth outing this season with at least three rushing touchdowns. LaDainian Tomlinson holds the record for the most such games in a season with five, and Taylor still has seven games left to play. It is not an overreaction to say he deserves to lead this week’s overreactions column, where we size up which takeaways are legitimate.
Jump to:
Taylor will break multiple records
Bills’ deadline inactivity will cost them
Chiefs-Broncos will decide AFC West
Seahawks-Rams will decide NFC West
Commanders’ season is over
Fantasy-related overreactions
Taylor is on pace for 2,378 scrimmage yards, which would be the fourth-most ever in a season and within shouting distance of Chris Johnson’s record of 2,509. He’s on pace for 1,936 rushing yards, which would be the 10th-most of all time. But with another game or two over 200, he could make a run at Eric Dickerson’s record of 2,105.
In the scoring department, he’s on pace for 26 rushing touchdowns, which would be the fourth-most of all time. The record for that is Tomlinson’s 28 in 2006. And he’s on pace for 28 total touchdowns, which would tie for the second-most ever and be just three behind Tomlinson’s 31 in 2006.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
Last week’s loss to Pittsburgh aside, this Colts offense has been an absolute wagon, and Taylor has been its engine. (Do wagons have engines? I don’t know. Just go with it.) He’s liable to score from anywhere on the field. He has no Zach Charbonnet or Blake Corum or Tyler Allgeier that Indianapolis uses to spell him and put a cap on his individual statistical production.
It won’t necessarily be easy, since he has only two games left against teams that don’t have top-five rushing defenses. But the Colts are going to keep leaning on him, and as long as the offensive line keeps playing well, there’s no telling how far Taylor can take this.
Coming off their most impressive win of the season — a Week 9 throttling of the three-time defending AFC champion Chiefs — the Bills went down to Miami and laid an egg against a divisional opponent with one of the league’s worst records. Fair to expect a letdown after last week, I guess, but Buffalo can’t be losing to the Dolphins if it wants us to take it seriously as a Super Bowl contender.
Plus, the Patriots — who already won in Buffalo earlier this season — won their seventh game in a row Sunday to improve to 8-2, which puts them a game and a half ahead of the Bills in the division standings. This loss could come back to haunt the Bills even if they beat the Patriots in Foxborough in Week 15. The second tiebreaker for division standings, after head-to-head record, is record in division games. The Bills are 2-2 against AFC East teams while the Pats are 2-0.
Verdict: OVERREACTION
Two years ago, it looked like the Dolphins were going to run away with the division, and the Bills still caught them in the final week to claim the crown. Buffalo has won the AFC East five years in a row. It knows how to do it.
Could the Bills have used some help on the defensive side of the ball at the deadline? Absolutely, and they tried to find it. They are allowing 147.6 rushing yards per game and have already given up more rushing TDs than they did all last season (14), per ESPN Research. But coach Sean McDermott and his staff have shown time and again that they can get their defense into playoff shape by December and January.
The Patriots are legit, don’t get me wrong, and Drake Maye is a deserving favorite for MVP at the moment. But the Bills have done this, and the current iteration of the Patriots have not. I need to see that little “x” next to New England in the standings before I believe it.
Denver opened the week with one of the least impressive wins in NFL history, beating the Raiders 10-7 on Thursday night in a game I feel bad even bringing up. The Broncos have won just two games this season by more than one score. They beat the Jets by two points, the Giants by one point and the Raiders by three. By rights, they should have lost at least two of those games, if not all three.
But they didn’t, and they’re 8-2 and in first place. The Chiefs, on bye this week, are 5-4 and in third place ahead of next week’s trip to Denver. They’re coming off one of the most lackluster performances of the Patrick Mahomes era (last week’s loss to Buffalo), but they’ll also be coming off that bye, and Andy Reid is 22-4 all-time off a bye. This sets up to be the top game of Week 11.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
Look, I know what I just said about the Bills. And I know the Chiefs have won this division nine years in a row. I also know that the Broncos are skating by in a lot of these games and that one-score win luck tends to catch up with most teams eventually. But I’m just talking about the math here.
If Denver wins next week, it’ll go into its own bye week leading the Chiefs by three and a half games. Even if Kansas City beats the Colts in Week 12, the Broncos would come out of the bye week with a three-game lead and six games to play. I never put anything past Reid and Mahomes, but that would be a tough hill to climb.
Conversely, if the Chiefs win next week, the Broncos go into their bye still wondering if they have what it takes to get over that Kansas City hump. If the Chiefs beat the Colts in Week 12, they would be just one game behind the Broncos with six to play and would have one head-to-head tiebreaker victory in hand. Huge, huge swing, at least as far as I can tell.
There were impressive division wins for these teams Sunday. The Seahawks jumped out to a 35-0 first-half lead over Arizona and cruised from there. The Rams built a 21-0 lead on the 49ers, who came back and cut it to one score but couldn’t overcome L.A. for the season sweep. According to ESPN Research, Matthew Stafford became the first QB ever with four touchdown passes and zero interceptions in three straight games, while the Seahawks’ defense finished with 22 pressures.
Now the Rams and Seahawks are both 7-2 and play each other in Los Angeles on Sunday in another one of the really huge games of the week.
The Niners’ injury issues combined with Sunday’s loss leave them 6-4, a game and a half behind the Rams and Seahawks, and Arizona is bringing up the rear at 3-6 after its first blowout loss of the season. So the winner of Seahawks-Rams in Week 11 will be in the driver’s seat in the NFC West.
Verdict: OVERREACTION
The winner of next week’s game will have a one-game lead, and these teams play each other again in Week 16. This division is far from over, no matter who wins Sunday. Yes, the victor will have a leg up, but the Rams still have both of their Arizona games left along with games against the Bucs and the Lions. The Seahawks still have another 49ers game to play as well as a game against the Colts.
The Rams and Seahawks are tied for first, but this NFC West is a beast of a division. The 49ers play tough, and so do the Cardinals, who before Sunday had not lost a game by more than four points all season and just stifled the high-octane Cowboys offense on Nov. 3. There’s a loooooong way to go in the West, no matter who wins next Sunday.
The Commanders’ electrifying second-year quarterback dislocated his left elbow toward the end of the team’s Week 9 loss to Seattle and missed Sunday’s loss to the Lions as a result. He might have to miss more games with the injury, which is his third significant injury of the season. But the Commanders are 3-7 and their once-promising season seems like it won’t end with a second consecutive playoff berth.
There is a bit of a drumbeat around the idea that, by the time Daniels is cleared to return to play, Washington will be out of it and won’t be worth the risk of further injury to put him back into games, as he’s too important to the franchise’s long-term future. We don’t know for sure when or even if he will be cleared to return, but if it’s not until after the team’s Week 12 bye, you can kind of see the reasoning behind the argument.
Verdict: OVERREACTION
Well, I hate this argument. I understand the premise behind it, but I hate it.
Football is a dangerous game. Any player can get hurt on literally any play. Daniels is a football player and wants to play. Washington is still charging for the tickets and should feel a responsibility to put the best possible product on the field. And Daniels is a huge part of the Commanders’ best possible product. He’s also a second-year quarterback who could stand to play and continue to gain experience. The injury isn’t to his legs or his throwing arm. If the doctors say he can play and it’s safe, then he should play, period.
Plus … who’s to say the Commanders are out of it? If they beat Miami next week in Madrid, they go into the bye at 4-7. Seven teams make the playoffs in each conference. Bring Daniels back, run the table to get to 10-7 and maybe squeak in to make another run like the one they made last season. Don’t play scared.