Best and Worst of NFL Sunday: Wilson, Watson deliver game of the year

Russell Wilson had 452 yards throwing and four touchdown passes as the Seattle Seahawks edged the Houston Texans 41-38.

Welcome to your Monday roundup of the best and worst of NFL Sunday — by which we mean the single very best thing and single very worst thing. Because the stuff in the middle doesn’t matter, really.

THE VERY BEST THING ABOUT THE NFL THIS WEEK: Not that the drama around the league, from the locker rooms to the sidelines to the league offices and the U.S. president’s Twitter account hasn’t been gripping, but wasn’t it nice to have two contending teams with superstars on both sides of the ball finally force everyone’s eyes back to football itself?

It may have taken half a year to get our first game-of-the-year contender, but it’s hard to imagine a better tilt coming along in this 2017 season than Sunday afternoon’s Seattle-Houston heavyweight fight.

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The best NFL games start at quarterback, and the true classics tend to feature a “come at the king, you best not miss” narrative between an emerging superstar and an established great. A few short years ago, Russell Wilson was coming at established greats like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. Yesterday, DeShaun Watson pushed the veteran Wilson to his limit, throwing for four touchdowns and 402 yards. Wilson answered with 452 yards and four touchdowns of his own, the last coming in true redemptive fashion after Wilson’s only pick of the day gave the Texans the football back with a 38–34 lead and just 2:55 to play.

After the Seahawks defence — because what would a great Seattle game be without a game-saving stand? — gave Wilson the ball back with 1:49 left, Wilson took just three plays to go 80 yards and hit Jimmy Graham for the game-winning score. Watson then tossed an interception on his final chance to be a hero.

It might not comfort him today, having lost the game, but it’s worth noting that even after his incredible run of late, there were still doubts about Watson and the Texans ability to stand on the same stage as the big dogs. Their three wins, after all, have come against the Bengals, Titans and Browns. But Watson and company have now lost last-second duels to both Tom Brady and Russel Wilson — no shame in that for a rookie quarterback — and hung 34 points on a very good Chiefs defence in losses.

They aren’t Ws, sure, but every fan should be able to swallow that kind of showing from a team that hasn’t had a quarterback of Watson’s caliber since… ever. In fact, the NFL has never seen a quarterback this good through his first eight games. And if that’s what it takes to get the best out of Wilson, then let’s hope we get the rematch in a Super Bowl a couple years down the road.

 
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THE VERY WORST THING ABOUT THE NFL THIS SUNDAY: I know, rules are rules. Even the rule about what’s a catch in the NFL is, technically, a rule, despite the fact that nobody seems to know how to enforce it consistently. But there’s a time to put away your officially interpreted version of the rules — like when a guy has just dislocated his damn knee coming down with a touchdown catch.

Yet somehow, someway, when Chicago Bears tight end Zach Miller was carted off the field after what appeared to be an insane effort to hold onto the ball through excruciating pain and the officials in the Bears-Saints game went to the replay, your stomach sunk. This being the NFL, you knew what was coming.

Once it became clear the TD was coming off the board, some of the players watching the action while preparing for late games weren’t exactly elated — even though at least one of them plays for a divisional rival and should have been rooting for the Bears to lose.

It’s not that the NFL necessarily got this call wrong — it’s that it doesn’t ever seem possible to get this particular type of call “right.” We could write this column nearly every single week and feature in this section a referee contradicting previous referees about what constitutes a completed catch.

It’s the least-understood rule in the book — by fans, officials, players and the league itself — so to bring it out to take away the last touchdown Zach Miller will score this year and perhaps ever is, well, Tate said it best: a #NEWLOW. That’s a hashtag that should perhaps stick around for a while.

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