The former Chief feels like he’s been “unlocked” under coach Mike McDaniel. Plus, Joe Mixon’s five-touchdown day, Cameron Dicker’s big week and much more in Ten Takeaways.
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Tyreek Hill is a happy dude. I’ll admit, I had my doubts. Hill was leaving Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes and a place that surrounds great skill players with more great skill players to keep double teams at bay. There was talk there’d been some friction between him and the Chiefs over the contract, and how he’d been used in the offense. And so I was skeptical—like others—on how leaving a seemingly ideal situation in Kansas City for the Dolphins would work for him.
My doubts, and the doubts of a lot of others, are dissipating.
“Yeah, I’m happy as hell, man,” Hill told me Sunday of his new surroundings in an area where his family has put down roots. “You know why I’m out here? Because obviously I get a chance to play the great game that God blessed me to play, but each and every time I go home, I get a chance to spend time with my kids, my family, and my whole family is happy.”
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The football part of the equation’s going O.K., too, I’d say.
Through nine games, Hill has 76 catches, 1,104 yards and three scores. That sets his pace at 144 catches (the NFL record is 149 by Michael Thomas in 2019; Cooper Kupp is second with 145 last year) for 2,085 yards (the NFL record is 1,964 by Calvin Johnson in ’12). Both would, obviously, be career highs and validate Hill’s decision to move on from Kansas City, where he had a hyperproductive, six-year start to his career.
And Sunday brought another example of how Hill might be the league’s most unstoppable skill player. Every team is throwing resources at ways to try to cover him. No one seems to be able to do it. Why? Well, for one, Hill’s play speed is one of a kind. But beyond just that, Hill points at the Shanahan-style scheme that Mike McDaniel brought to Miami.
“He just truly unlocked me to be a true No. 1 receiver,” Hill said. “If I had to choose any answer to pinpoint on what he has done for me in my career, he has truly turned me into a full receiver who really runs the full route tree. So teams really got to respect that. I’m breaking in, I’m breaking out. I’m breaking short, I’m going deep. It’s not a one-dimensional thing, man. So he’s able to put me off the ball, he’s able to put me on the ball, send me in motion, all kinds of gadget things to help me get open. I’m really thankful to just be in this situation.”
All that helped Hill go for another 143 yards on seven catches Sunday, and maybe the best illustration of it actually came on a drive in which the Dolphins didn’t score. It was at the end of the first half, as Miami tried to answer Justin Fields’s touchdown pass to Darnell Mooney, which cut the Dolphins’ lead to 21–17. Tagovailoa had the Dolphins in third-and-6 from their own 43 with an even minute left before halftime.
“I came down in motion between Trent [Sherfield] and Mike [Gesicki]—came in motion, Trent released and I kind of hesitated the corner and it was one-on-one,” Hill explained. “So, man, it was a safety over the top, but the safety had to respect Trent on the in-breaking route, which gave me time to take my time, allow the safety to get eyes on Trent. And then I was able to roll up the sideline, like the play design is crazy, man.”
And just like that Hill was free for 39 yards.
That got the Dolphins in field goal range, and though they missed the kick, it was a good display of just how Hill can generate offense to potentially put points on the scoreboard. That happened again on the drive to put Chicago away. He had catches of 20 and 18 yards, the latter to convert a third-and-7, to set up Tagovailoa’s final touchdown pass to newcomer Jeff Wilson Jr. to make it 35–25 with 6:02 left in the third quarter.
A couple of hours later, he, Jaylen Waddle, Tagovailoa, Gesicki and the rest of a suddenly vibrant offense boarded the plane with the rest of the team for the flight back to South Florida. The Dolphins are 6–3. The mix here among McDaniel, his coaches and the locker room is working. “He’s like our young uncle,” Hill said of the Dolphins’ coach. “He’s cool, relaxed, but he knows when to turn it on, when it’s go time.”
The front office showed its belief last week with moves to acquire Wilson and Bradley Chubb. And in the background, from Hill’s phone, you could actually hear how it’s all come together.
“For this whole team, I’m looking at the guys right now, I’m on the plane and I’m just seeing how well all the guys get along,” he said. “There’s not a moment in our locker room where you see an individual player sitting alone or not talking to somebody, whether it’s about football or whether it’s about life. And to me, that’s why we all really get into sports, just to have that brotherhood, just to have that camaraderie with each other, man. Because that really is what builds true championship teams. So for me, everything was already here.”
It sure looks that way—even if I may not have predicted it like this a few months back.
Joe Mixon has scored five touchdowns in a game before. In fact, he did it in youth football, he did it in high school and he did it in college. “This is my first one in the NFL,” he told me Sunday from a victorious Bengals locker room.
Indeed, Mixon had a Bo Jackson–in–Tecmo Bowl stat line in Week 9, with 22 carries for 158 yards and four touchdowns on the ground, and another 58 yards and a touchdown on four catches. Which, for him, was a heck of a way to help make up for the absence of Ja’Marr Chase (out with an injury), and better than anyone could after their ugly loss to the Browns.
“It was a rough Monday night, and we basically had a bad taste in our mouth all week and we were just trying to do whatever we could to get it out,” he said. “And we did that today. So I’m very excited and happy for my teammates, man.”
The accounting for Mixon’s Al Bundy afternoon in Cincinnati …
- Two-yard touchdown run in the first quarter to make it 7–0.
- Three-yard touchdown run in the second quarter to make it 21–0.
- One-yard touchdown run in the second quarter to make 28–0.
- 12-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter to make it 35–0.
- 14-yard touchdown run in the third quarter to make 42–7.
After that, in an eventual 42–21 win, Mixon mostly sat, which cost him a chance to tie the NFL record of six touchdowns in a game by Alvin Kamara in 2020. “I was just doing whatever I could to have Coach [Zac Taylor] have that confidence in me to come through and deliver,” he said. “I wasn’t even worrying about the record. I didn’t even know that was the record, to be honest.”
And while it was going on? It was such a blur that Mixon really remembered only the finer details of the first touchdown. “They were squeezing in with the jam front and they gave us a look that we did a toss on, basically to the left side, and I just got to have a race to the end zone and we caught it,” he said. “I think Trent Taylor had a great down-block with the point-man on the D-end, and I just basically raced to the end zone and I just cut up.” And the last score: “We came out in 13-personnel [one running back, three tight ends, one wide receiver], we had a hat-for-a-hat and basically they gave me a premier look to where I could just give a bounce, be one-on-one with a corner, make him miss and score.”
But there’s a bigger picture to this, too. One part is the team’s handling of adversity, after last year’s Super Bowl disappointment, a box that looks like it’s getting checked now, with the team handling a bad loss and Chase’s absence smoothly. Another is how a particular position group, the offensive line, is coming together.
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Suffice it to say, Sunday’s performance was what a lot of people were looking for after the Bengals spent like they did.
“It was basically from the first snap,” Mixon said. “Them guys are firing off the ball and taking care of the little stuff and executing and being in the right places and spaces, and me and [Samaje] Perine being able to get up in the holes and making guys miss and getting those extra yards.”
So now the Bengals (5–4) will hit their bye week in a similar spot to where they were last year. They’ll get Chase back, and their line should keep improving. And as Sunday showed, if it all comes together, the ceiling figures to be every bit as high as it was last year.
Dale Zanine/USA TODAY Sports
Cameron Dicker’s the best story in football this week. Here, in a nutshell, is the way it went for the new Chargers kicker after he replaced the injured Dustin Hopkins:
- Saturday, Oct. 29: He’s cut by the Eagles.
- Saturday night: Eagles fly Dicker home to Austin.
- Sunday, Oct. 30: He attends church with family.
- Wednesday, Nov. 2: He flies to Los Angeles for a workout and signs with the Chargers.
- Thursday, Nov. 3: He practices with the Chargers.
- Saturday, Nov. 5: He flies with the Chargers to Atlanta for a Falcons game.
- Sunday, Nov. 6: He kicks the game-winning field goal and flies back to L.A.
And maybe the biggest wrinkle here for Dicker and his girlfriend is that they’d planned to go to a Carrie Underwood concert Wednesday night in Austin, but the Chargers asked whether he could get on the next flight to California after Taylor Bertolet injured his quad at Wednesday’s practice. The next flight was leaving an hour and a half later, and Dicker was on it.
“Yeah, for me, it’s just trusting God, just trusting in the ability he’s given me and the opportunities he’s given me to go out there and take care of my business,” Dicker told me from the Chargers’ locker room. “It’s obviously weird just sitting at home for the first five weeks of the season, just waiting on calls, seeing what happens. And so it’s cool to get the opportunity to go out there and prove myself.”
Which is where the other part of this life of a rookie kicker lies. He’s also already on his fourth team after spending the early parts of camp with the Rams (he was cut Aug. 16) and the Ravens (he signed Aug. 26 and was cut two days later) before signing with the Eagles on Oct. 4.
“I’m not great with names, so that makes it tough,” Dicker said with a laugh. “But just kind of going in there, all the specialists I’ve been around have been awesome guys. I think most guys in the league are pretty good guys and understand, ‘Hey, let’s let this guy do his thing, help him out when we maybe can.’ So it’s been really cool to kind of come in here and have the opportunities.”
And the opportunity he got Sunday was a pretty good one.
In pregame, Dicker told Brandon Staley he was good from 60 yards inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium—which at least signaled confidence from kicker to coach and maybe, just maybe, allowed Staley the confidence to send Dicker out there in two critical spots in the fourth quarter.
He calmly drilled a 31-yarder to tie the game at 17 with 5:31 left. After that, things got a little funky, the Chargers got into field goal range, fumbled the ball back out of field goal range, going from the Atlanta 22 to the 43, and then got back in field goal range with a Justin Herbert dime to Josh Palmer for 22 yards, which set up Dicker’s 37-yard game-winner.
“I hit it pretty good,” Dicker said. “I don’t think I hit it perfectly. It could’ve been a better ball, but I think it went pretty much down the middle. I saw it going toward the uprights and turned around to J.K. [Scott] and gave him a hug. I knew it was going in after I looked up and saw it.”
From there, he got a ride off the field. He got a game ball from Staley—the third kicker this year to get one. And he flew home with the team.
It’s hard to say what’s next. Depending on the health of Hopkins and Bertolet, he could be back in Austin, helping his girlfriend run her Etsy store again in a matter of days. Or he could hook on somewhere else full time.
“Yeah, it’s crazy,” he says.
But for now, he’s with the Chargers.
And the thing about being terrible with names? He says he’s up to knowing seven or eight in his new locker room. So he’s got some work to do.
There’s a similar feeling in Philadelphia around the 8–0 Eagles. And coach Nick Sirianni saw it come alive during the team’s short week into a Thursday game in Houston.
That’s why after the Eagles dispatched the Texans, 29–17, he went to the unusual (for him) length of giving away a game ball right after the final gun sounded—normally, and a little unconventionally, he likes to wait until he and his staff have a chance to go through the game and discuss things before awarding those. But for Sirianni, there were two obvious recipients for this one.
“We talked about embracing the short week, embrace that, Hey, we’re gonna go play a Thursday-night game. Embrace that our bodies are gonna be ready to go because of all the resources that Mr. [Jeffrey] Lurie had put together,” Sirianni told me while he was out watching his kids play sports over the weekend. “We talked about how we were gonna go about winning that game, and it was like, Really take care of your body as well. I mean, we had every resource available to us through our doctors and our training staff and our strength staff to put the pieces necessary for our guys to have their bodies feel as best as they possibly could.
“And that doesn’t happen unless you have all the support staff in place. It’s just so obvious here with the Eagles that Mr. Lurie—starting with the top—gives us every resource we need to make sure that we’re successful. And that’s really appreciated. In a game where the parity is so tight in the NFL, those things matter and they matter big time. And I’m just happy to be a part of this organization, and I thought it was a good time and an appropriate time to recognize Mr. Lurie for just everything he does for this organization.”
The other game ball went to a similarly obvious, and more conventional, recipient—Javon Hargrave, who ate up the interior of the Texans’ offensive with three sacks.
And in seeing all of it come together—with massage therapists inside the locker room right after the Oct. 30 game against the Steelers ended, and hot tubs, cold tubs, food, drink and recovery tools wheeled right in and at the players’ disposal—Sirianni got to see something else, too.
If you look at the makeup of his staff, you’ll find a lot of guys in a similar age range with kids of similar ages, which has made for a tight-knit group. “When you have common interests and things in common—kids the same age, kids living in the same town, kids playing on the same sports teams, kids going over to each other’s houses to play with each other—that is a special thing.”
And he’s seen the camaraderie there spill over to the locker room, something, I can tell you, that Sirianni takes enormous pride in.
“What I love about football, what I love about this game, I’m 41 years old, I’m still part of a team, is just how close these guys are,” he continued. “And I think that’s what we want and that’s what we preach, and that’s how these guys go about their business. They like each other. They truly love each other. You hear the things that they say about each other. I know A.J. [Brown] and Jalen [Hurts] are in a unique situation, because they’ve been best friends for a long time, like they don’t want to let each other down, but that’s going on all over the place.
“That’s going on with Landon Dickerson and Jordan Mailata. That’s going on with Jason Kelce and Isaac [Seumalo]. I mean, that’s going on everywhere.”
Which has led to what could be the NFL’s most complete roster churning out an 8–0 start.
I went to the Concussion Legacy Foundation dinner on Thursday night in Boston, and it was, to be honest, pretty jarring. I heard the stories of former USMNT soccer star Bruce Murray and former Harvard football captain Chris Eitzmann. And hearing and seeing the stories definitely makes you reckon with a few things.
We’ll have a little more on cofounder and CEO Chris Nowinski’s view on the Tagovailoa situation in the MAQB, but I thought it’d be interesting to pass along this nugget I picked up at the gala and asked him about afterward—the WWE, of which Nowinski was a part, has donated millions to the foundation. Conversely, the NFL, and its teams, haven’t given the CLF one cent. Which seemed a little weird to me, given all the good work being done.
But after Nowinski explained it to me, it made more sense.
“I know the NFL sees it as a business threat,” Nowinski said. “So, I mean, maybe someday when everyone’s doing all the right things, then we can all work together for cures. But until that day comes, we don’t want to engage. With WWE, when they started funding us, at the same time they started letting me come in and just teach all the superstars everything we knew about concussions and CTE, it became like an open-book discussion.
“And again, we’re talking about a sport of entertainment that only adults do, where they have now fully informed consent and people like Paul Levesque were completely bought into injury prevention, and that makes sense because injury prevention is aligned with their business goals. They want to keep these guys healthy as long as they can, because you have a superstar injured from a concussion and his career ends, and that costs you a lot of money.
“And you can’t replace them like you can a special teams player. There’s only one John Cena, one Rock. So you need to protect them.”
Football, on the other hand, involves children, and, as Nowinski sees it, needs CLF more as a watchdog than as a partner. Like I said, more coming in the MAQB.
Two weeks ago, Pete Carroll evoked the names of Jim Plunkett, Rich Gannon and Steve Young in explaining Geno Smith’s mid-career revival—and how Seahawks people actually did see it coming. There’s proof, too, in how the Seahawks kept bringing him back (he’s played on one-year deals four consecutive years in Seattle), and how they fed him all the first-team reps over the spring and summer, amid outside pressure to give Drew Lock, acquired in the Russell Wilson trade, a shot. The people calling to see more of Lock presumed we had a full view, at that point, from his Jets days, of what Smith was. They presumed wrong.
Here are his passer ratings this year: 119.5, 80.1, 99.1, 132.6, 139.7, 82.3, 105.5, 104.0, 106.9.
I don’t want to play the “If he were Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes” game here, but this is feeling less and less flukish by the week—Seattle (6–3) is now just one game shy of last year’s win total with eight games left on the schedule. And Smith keeps coming up big in the other-shoe-dropping moments that everyone seems to be waiting on. Against Arizona on Sunday, there was a perfect example, in how he went 10-of-12 for 123 yards and a touchdown, and picked up another 30 yards on two carries (taking out the kneel down to end the game) after his pick-six.
Now, that doesn’t mean he’s suddenly become Allen or Mahomes. But for a young team with an impressive rookie class and a war chest of draft capital for April, having Smith to be what Alex Smith was for Andy Reid and the Chiefs from 2013 to ’17 is pretty valuable. So much so that, if I were them, I may gauge his interest in a multiyear deal now.
Denny Medley/USA TODAY Sports
I think Andy Reid said it perfectly, in the wake of his Chiefs’ OT win over the Titans on Sunday night. Here’s the quote: “You have to be able to win a game like that, where everything isn’t just perfect, and your emotions are up and down and you have to fight through. We were so close on so many plays. Step up and let’s go.”
Kansas City’s 20–17 win over Tennessee was no Picasso, to be sure.
But it’s always an important test for a team that wins a certain way nine times out of 10—in this case, through its high-powered offense—to be taken out of its comfort zone, and that was the case against the Titans. Tennessee rushed for 172 yards on 29 carries. Malik Willis, limited as a passer at this point, brought a different element to the game. The Chiefs committed 10 penalties and had the game’s only turnover. They had to rely on Mahomes to run the ball in spots (he had a team-leading 63 yards and a touchdown on six carries).
And when it mattered most, their offense drove down the field to get the first points of overtime on a 13-play, 64-yard drive, with Mahomes converting third and fourth downs along the way, and their defense shut the Titans down to seal it.
That night won’t excite many people, of course. But being able to win without your A game is a good tool to have, and the Chiefs proved they can.
I wish I had a better feel for what was wrong with the Raiders. I think the players there are good. I think the coaches there are good. Yet here we are, halfway through the season, and they’re 2–6, having blown a 17-point lead for the third time this year, and now having gone o-fer during their Southeastern swing, with an ugly shutout loss to the Saints last week followed by a collapse in Jacksonville on Sunday.
Here’s Josh McDaniels’s take from his postgame presser: “It’s not good enough. I know that. And so, we got to coach better in those situations. We got to avoid feeling like the situation is O.K. I don’t sense that our team relaxes when we have that situation, but obviously, that might be the wrong thing. We’ve played some stretches of football that are good, good enough to get ahead and produce a lead, but that’s not what this league is about.
“This league is about playing the second half just as well as you played the first half and trying to win the game. So, sometimes, lessons are learned the hard way, and, obviously, we’ve had to swallow some difficult ones this year. But I have a lot of confidence and faith in the way that these guys will respond. They always do.”
I think McDaniels came in equipped to deal with adversity, more so than he was in Denver over a decade ago. The challenge now is doing it with players who were in the playoffs a year ago and aren’t getting the same results now, even with guys such as Davante Adams and Chandler Jones added in the offseason.
The Raiders’ plan, in fact, was similar to Minnesota’s, where a new group comes in and tries to take an existing group to the next level. It hasn’t worked for the Raiders to this point, and the clock is certainly ticking on the team’s ability to get back into contention.
It’s time for some quick-hitters. If you’re ready for them …
• Patriots OLB Matthew Judon’s been a real game-wrecker of late, and he’s up to 11.5 sacks on the year. If he can finish stronger than he did a year ago, he should merit consideration for Defensive Player of the Year.
• … Of course, his three-sack outburst Sunday came against a debilitated Indianapolis offensive line. It’s truly incredible that the Colts could invest as much as they have in that group (Quenton Nelson, Braden Smith, Ryan Kelly) and get these sorts of results. And by that, I mean Sam Ehlinger’s getting the crap kicked out of him the same way Matt Ryan did.
• Justin Fields is becoming must-see TV. He broke the regular-season rushing record for a quarterback (15 carries, 178 yards) Sunday and looked pretty good throwing it, too (17-of-28, 123 yards, three TDs). Like I’ve said in the past, I think Fields is tough as nails, wildly athletic, naturally athletic and very smart. I don’t know, from there, whether he’ll eventually put it all together. That stuff can be unpredictable. But if he does, look out.
• Cordarrelle Patterson had one pretty 38-yard touchdown run called back in the third quarter of Falcons-Chargers. And it continues to amaze me how he’s reinventing himself this way, and how natural he seems to be running the ball as a traditional tailback.
• I really like the acquisition of Calvin Ridley for the Jaguars. They keep stocking that cupboard for Trevor Lawrence, who was 25-of-31 for 235 yards and a touchdown in coming back to beat the Raiders.
• I still think it’ll be tough for the Commanders to send Taylor Heinicke back to the bench.
• Mike Vrabel continues to do great work in Nashville—he’d won five straight and just went toe-to-toe with the Big Red Machine at Arrowhead without Taylor Lewan and Harold Landry—after losing A.J. Brown in the offseason.
• I don’t know how much to make of the sideline squawking we keep seeing from Kyler Murray. But it’s not nothing.
• Rashan Gary on crutches is terrible news for the Packers.
• Kenneth Walker III is one hell of a closer for the Seahawks.
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