The Vikings and the Bills played to what might have been the N.F.L.’s best finish so far this season, with Minnesota claiming yet another late comeback victory thanks in part to an unreal catch by Justin Jefferson to keep a fourth-quarter drive alive.
Elsewhere, two wobbling franchises have come alive in the regular season’s second half as Tom Brady had the full force of his receiving corps ready to play and Justin Fields continued to make sense of when to use his wheels.
Tom Brady has receivers again.
It’s rare that a Week 10 game feels like a season opener, but given Tampa Bay’s injury woes until now, that’s just what the Buccaneers’ 21-16 win over a streaking Seahawks team looked like.
The Tampa Bay receivers Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Julio Jones make an elite unit, in theory, but they’ve fought injuries and have rarely played two games in a row together this season. (Evans also served a one-game suspension in September.)
The offense was struggling to find stability behind a reshuffled offensive line, and Tom Brady was forcing out quick throws, averaging a middle-of-the-pack 5.9 net yards per attempt. Without go-to targets, Brady threw even more; he attempted at least 40 passes per game in the teams’ previous seven contests, in which the Buccaneers went 2-5.
Sunday’s win in Germany was the third straight game in which all three receivers appeared, and the results showed that the Buccaneers can still make good on their preseason promise. Forgive Tampa Bay for a bizarre Leonard Fournette interception on a pass to Brady out of a wildcat formation; over the rest of the game, the Buccaneers’ passing offense found a perfect balance between Brady’s envelope-pushing and his receivers stepping up to make plays.
With Brady throwing to deeper targets, six different receivers finished the day with at least 10.8 yards per catch. The top three receivers stretched Seattle’s defense down the field, which also created room for layups — an advantage that allowed Jones to thrive as he caught three of five targets, including a 31-yard touchdown score.
Those kinds of “easy” touchdowns just did not exist in Tampa Bay’s constrained passing offense for the season’s first nine weeks. Jones played just four games as he struggled with a knee injury.
But with Evans, Godwin and Jones all available, Brady had a remarkably efficient stat line — 22 of 29 passing for 258 yards and two touchdowns, albeit with an interception — that felt like a call back to the offense that won the Super Bowl two seasons ago.
Justin Fields is coming into his own.
After Sunday’s 31-30 loss to the Lions, the Bears dropped to 3-7 on the season but Chicago seems anything but distressed by where the franchise is heading.
The team traded up in the 2021 draft to select Justin Fields at No. 11 overall and, in his second season, the franchise quarterback is developing into a special talent as he figures out how to maximize his speed and his arm strength. Fields has had a historic two-game stretch, setting a regular-season, single-game record for most rushing yards by a quarterback (178) against Miami in Week 9 and following that with a 147-yard rushing performance against Detroit on Sunday.
Those totals owe to an increase in designed quarterback runs and to Fields making faster decisions over the past month, a period in which the Chicago front office has set itself up to compete in the future.
Against the Lions, Fields had a hand in all four of the Bears’ touchdowns, throwing for two scores and running in two more. Fields’s day as a passer — 12 of 20, for 167 yards — was mostly impressive, save for a pick-6 by Jeff Okudah that saw the Lions tie the game at 24-24 early in the fourth quarter.
But as both as a scrambler and a designed runner, Fields looked like the best athlete on the field, an advantage that the Bears have to feel good about.
Fields’s scramble touchdown right before halftime jump-started the Bears’ offense, and tied the score at 10-10, but it was his fourth-quarter score that made clear how special a talent Fields is. On the possession that followed Okudah’s interception return, the Bears turned to Fields on a designed run on third-and-2 from Chicago’s 33-yard line.
The call was “arc read,” a version of zone read in which the tight end comes across the formation to block for the quarterback on the perimeter. The Lions’ flat defender had to respect the tight end as he moved out to the edge as if running a flat route on a rollout, giving Fields the crease inside to take off for a 67-yard touchdown.
Unfortunately, kicker Cairo Santos missed the extra point. The Lions eventually answered with a touchdown and won the game. But Fields has emerged as one of the league’s best rushing threats and an improving passer who can build chemistry with receiver Chase Claypool, whom Chicago acquired from Pittsburgh at the trade deadline.
Bears General Manager Ryan Poles has been working to clear cap space ahead of this off-season, and Fields should be hitting a new level just as help arrives in 2023.
Around the N.F.L.
Giants 24, Texans 16
Vikings 33, Bills 30 (overtime)
Titans 17, Broncos 10
Steelers 20, Saints 10
Dolphins 39, Browns 17
Kansas City 27, Jaguars 17
Lions 31, Bears 30
Buccaneers 21, Seahawks 16
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