On paper, the San Francisco 49ers probably shouldn’t be 5-2 right now. The club’s laundry list of injuries should be enough to take down even the greatest contender: No Brock Purdy, Ricky Pearsall, or Brandon Aiyuk on offence; no Fred Warner or Nick Bosa headlining the defence; and the team’s trenches are a constant puzzle.
And yet, here they are, still sitting atop the NFC West, tied with the L.A. Rams and waiting to see if Seattle will join them Monday night in what is already a gridlocked divisional race.
Sunday night against the Atlanta Falcons, it was running back Christian McCaffrey who propelled San Francisco to a 20-10 victory with a 129-yard effort on the ground and 72 more through the air.
His receiving yards saw him lead all players on the field Sunday night — including his opponents — in the category, and of course his rushing numbers, which included a pair of TDs, speak for themselves. McCaffrey’s sensational all-around performance accounted for 62 per cent of his team’s total offensive yards.
Here’s a collection of our other top takeaways from Sunday’s Week 7 action:
Broncos, Giants deliver drama-filled classic
For three quarters, Sunday’s matchup between the Giants and Broncos looked like a blowout for the underdog visitors as Jackson Dart & Co. put up 19 unanswered points against a Denver squad that couldn’t do anything on offence.
The offensive concerns were real, considering one week earlier they’d posted a mere 13 points against a listless Jets squad and one week before that, they’d been held out of the endzone by the Eagles for the first 45 minutes of play. Yes, they won both of those games, their rallying comeback in Philadelphia serving as their statement game of the season to that point. But surely this time, their early-game offensive woes would get the best of them, right? Surely, a 19-point deficit was too much to overcome.
Wrong. Rather than see their win streak halted at three, Bo Nix and the Broncos offence came to life. The QB completed 16 passes for 174 yards and two touchdowns in the final frame, tallying 33 points to climb back and win it with a walk-off field goal. That’s a historically great quarter.
Now the question is: Can they do that in the first three quarters? A date with Dallas’ sensational offence next week poses a great challenge. Get behind against the Cowboys, who just put up 44 points with a healthy CeeDee Lamb back in the mix Sunday against Washington, and there may be no comeback to be had… right?
Rams’ red zone offence is red hot against Jaguars
Through the first third of the season, the Rams’ offence offered an interesting puzzle: The club ranked third in red zone scoring attempts, averaging 4.3 per game through six weeks of play, but lacked success once there. The club turned just half of its 26 trips to the red zone into actual touchdowns, their 50 per cent TD rate ranking them 24th in the category.
Those struggles were front-of-mind for the Rams as they traveled across the pond for their Week 7 matchup against Jacksonville, particularly after a mic’d up Puka Nacua was heard rallying his teammates and urging them to cash in on something other than a field goal once in enemy territory:
With Nacua sidelined by an ankle injury this week, all eyes were on Davante Adams to step into the top role.
He did exactly that in Sunday’s 35-7 drubbing of the Jaguars, looking right at home in the red zone with three short-pass touchdown catches on the day totalling four yards worth 18 points. Adams was Stafford’s top target on the day, catching five passes.
While Nacua’s big-play potential was noticeably absent in the victory, the team’s ability to reshape the offence with a by-committee approach has the Rams looking like the real deal heading into their bye week.
After early-season struggles, Philly fires up passing game
It may have been Carson Wentz’s revenge game, but it was his Eagles replacement that shone on Sunday as Jalen Hurts and the Eagles outscored the backup-led Vikings 28-22. It was a crucial win for Philadelphia, who entered Week 7 coming off back-to-back losses prompting plenty of speculation about the dysfunctional passing game and lack of late-game offence overall.
Hurts put any doubt and drama to rest with his 326-yard outing, which saw him connect on 19 of 23 passes for three touchdowns — including an incredible 79-yard air-out to Devonta Smith in the third quarter.
Both Smith, who feasted with 183 receiving yards on nine catches, and A.J. Brown, who averaged 30 yards a catch on four receptions, two of which resulted in touchdowns, were kept happy with this pass-first effort from Hurts, who completed all five of his attempts on 20-plus yard tosses.
Those big plays stood out even more in comparison to the club’s lacklustre results in the run game. Philly totaled just 45 rushing yards, 44 of which came from Saquon Barkley on 18 carries.
The Chiefs’ offence is so back
Like the Eagles, the Kansas City Chiefs also made a statement with their own dominant offensive effort as they blew out — and shut out — the lifeless Raiders on Sunday. While Kansas City’s defence was flawless, holding Las Vegas to 95 total yards, it’s the offence that stole the show in this one.
We’ve been waiting to see what a fully healthy, fully available, fully intact Chiefs offence looks like for a while now. We finally saw it on Sunday, and it was worth the wait.
Specifically, it was the return of Rashee Rice, who spent the first six weeks of the season suspended after spending most of last year on the sideline with a torn ACL, that made this offence really pop. Rice’s season debut saw him lead the team in receptions (seven) and touchdowns (two), and his insertion into the playbook opened the offence right up.
Mahomes connected with nine different pass-catchers on Sunday, his offence in vintage Mahomes form — a warning to the rest of the league that the Chiefs are the Chiefs again.
Drake Maye wows with near-perfect passing game
Considering the Titans’ coaching change last week with the firing of Brian Callahan and the return of Mike Vrabel to his old stomping grounds in Tennessee, coaching was the story heading into Sunday’s matchup between the Patriots and Titans.
It didn’t take long for Drake Maye to steal the show, though. What else is new? The second-year QB is proving himself week after week and now has New England sitting at 5-2 atop the AFC East and second in the entire conference thanks to four straight wins including the last three on the road.
Maye was nearly perfect on Sunday, completing all but two of his 23 passes for 222 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions. An early reliance on running back Rhamondre Stevenson helped keep Tennessee’s defence on its heels all game, with Maye picking them apart with every passing play and earning a pretty cool place in franchise history: His 91.3 per cent completion rate is better than any other Patriots QB (yep, even better than Brady). He also joins some pretty elite company when it comes to great young quarterbacks:
Dolphins’ season drops from bad to worse
Considering Cleveland’s game-time weather report — rain, wind, repeat — Sunday’s matchup between the Dolphins and Browns was never going to be pretty. But Miami hit a whole new level of ugly football in the 31-6 loss to drop the Dolphins to 1-6 on the season.
Tua Tagovailoa completed just 12 of his 23 pass attempts, tallying 100 yards, no touchdowns, and three interceptions — all of which revealed poor decision-making by the QB1, who’s now thrown three INTs in back-to-back matchups and has totaled 10 on the season. He posted a basement-bottom passer rating of 24.1. That his performance followed a week spent in hot water after calling out teammates in the media made his performance that much messier.
What now? Something needs to change in Miami, whether it’s the man under centre or on the sideline — or both — as Tagovailoa and head coach Mike McDaniel, who’s been on the hot seat all season, both face uncertain futures.
Bears’ defence clicks in fourth straight win
Apparently, this was the defensive coordinator revenge game we didn’t know we needed. Bears offensive coordinator Dennis Allen — formerly head coach of the Saints — took things personally and guided his squad to a masterclass on defence as the Bears handled New Orleans 26-14 with their best defensive effort of the season.
Chicago posted four takeaways on Sunday, starting with a first-half strip-sack and an interception to put the ball in Caleb Williams’ hands and help the offence get ahead early. The unit came up clutch late, too, snatching two interceptions off Spencer Rattler in the Saints’ final three drives to hold off any rallying efforts.
Chicago now leads the league in takeaways, and don’t look now, but this team is starting to click. Four straight wins, and each has brought a building block — a strong offensive showing against Dallas in Week 3, a pair of tight victories that followed, and now a defensive showcase that should have Bears fans feeling good.
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