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December 14, 2020

NFC Hierarchy/Obituary, Week 15

Week 14 of the NFL season is in the books, and the Philadelphia Eagles were able to delay their obituary for a week after their upset win over the Saints. Nine teams remain alive in the hierarchy. Let's just get right to it.

Obituaries

None.

Graveyard

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Hierarchy

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9) Eagles (4-8-1): The Eagles' 13 wins since 2019 have come against the following quarterbacks:

  1. Case Keenum: Currently the Browns' backup.
  2. Aaron Rodgers: An all-time great, obviously.
  3. Luke Falk: Out of the league.
  4. Josh Allen: Before he figured out the NFL.
  5. Mitchell Trubisky: Benched by the Bears this season, got his starting job back when Nick Foles got hurt.
  6. Eli Manning: Had been cooked for years, got benched last season by the Giants, came back to fill in for the injured Daniel Jones.
  7. Dwayne Haskins: Benched this season in favor of Kyle Allen. When Allen got hurt, the Football Team turned to Alex Smith.
  8. Dak Prescott: A hurt version.
  9. Daniel Jones: Rookie season version that turned the ball over like crazy.
  10. Nick Mullens: 49ers' backup.
  11. Daniel Jones: Second-year version that turned the ball over somewhat less, but still a lot.
  12. Ben DiNucci: Cowboys' third quarterback. Jerry Jones compared having to play DiNucci to the Bronocs having to play a practice squad wide receiver at QB.
  13. Taysom Hill: Formerly 3-0 as a starter, but let's be real -- that guy isn't an NFL starter.
Soooo, not exactly an awesome group.

Last week: 9

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8) Giants (5-8): It's kind of funny how low the bar has become in New York, which I suppose is understandable for a team that had the worst record in the NFL during the three year span from 2017 to 2019. 

Last week, Joe Judge started getting "Coach of the Year" hype! Judge has been been fine, I suppose, and the team did put together a four-game winning streak, but, I mean, they were 5-7 at the time, lol.

Anyway, that didn't last long, as the Giants got donkey whomped (™ Bo Wulf) on Sunday in a game in which they gained 159 yards, only had 10 first downs, turned it over 3 times, and held the ball for just 22 minutes.

Last week: 8

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7) Football Team (6-7): Watch at the 1:36 mark, when it sounds like Nick Mullens goes, "Ahhhhh!" as soon as he lets the ball go, because he knows what he just did.

The Football Team's defense is going to be really good for years.

Last week: 7

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6) Cardinals (7-6): Prior to the start of this season, Haason Reddick had just 7.5 sacks and 3 forced fumbles. As such, the Cardinals declined to pick up his fifth year option for 2021. 

On Sunday alone, Reddick had 5 sacks and 3 forced fumbles. 

That brings his sack total on the season to 10.

The Giants offensive line's tradition of helping opposing defensive linemen get paid lives on. 

Last week: 6

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5) Buccaneers (8-5): The Buccaneers were beneficiaries of probably the worst kicking performance of the year from Dan Bailey, who was 0/3 on FG attempts, and 0/1 on PATs. Let's watch them all, because three of them weren't even close. The first was the PAT.

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That should have been 7-0. Then later, he missed an easy one from 36. This should have made it 10-0.

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Then the Vikings sent him out to try a 54-yarder, which, OK, harder kick, buuuut...

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And finally, one last miss that all but sealed the outcome.

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The Bucs also drew a ridiculous defensive pass interference call on the Vikings at the end of the first half, which led to three free points. Anyway, I guess I'm going a long way to say that the Bucs' win on Sunday wasn't exactly without a lot of luck and BS.

Last week: 5

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4) Seahawks (9-4): The Seahawks scored at least 30 points in 7 of their first 8 games, and averaged 34.3 points per game. In their next four games, their offense cooled off, as they averaged 19.8 points per game.

It's nice to get the Jets on your schedule in December to get back on track.

Last week: 4

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3) Rams (9-4): If the season ended today, the Rams would win the NFC West over the Seahawks, but would they be in better shape than Seattle heading into the playoffs? Taking a look at the first-round matchups if the season ended today, the Rams as the 3 seed would host the Bucs, while the Seahawks as the 5 seed would face the Football Team in Maryland.

Would you rather have a home game against one of the best playoff quarterbacks ever? Or would you rather go on the road to face a team that hasn't won a playoff game in 15 years?

Last week: 3

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2) Saints (10-3): As we noted in our 10 awards post, the Saints have owned the Eagles in recent years, and they've been pretty smug about it as well. Sean Payton has had the Saints' bus drivers do laps around Lincoln Financial Field after wins in the past, and Alvin Kamara once stated that the Saints "would have beaten the shit out of" the Eagles in the NFC Championship Game during the 2017 season if the Vikings hadn't eliminated them first.

It's kind of ironic that the Eagles were a team over the last couple of years that the Saints took a certain pleasure in beating, and then they lost to this awful 3-8-1 version because they came out flat, and were probably looking ahead to their Week 15 matchup against the Chiefs. 

OOPS!

Last week: 1

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1) Packers (10-3): OK, so I'm just going to put Aaron Rodgers' and Patrick Mahomes' stats side-by-side:

 MVP candidate Comp-Att (Comp %)Yards (YPA) TD-INT Rating 
 Aaron Rodgers 312-448 (69.6%)3685 (8.2) 39-4 119.7 
 Patrick Mahomes 340-497 (68.4%)4208 (8.5) 33-5 112.3 


And Rodgers has less to work with from the offensive skill positions. I think the MVP right now is Rodgers.

Last week: 2

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