Week 14 was background to the last bye week on the NFL slate. It likewise included a handful of groups who didn't trouble appearing to video games on their schedule.
Kirk Cousins continued his descent into the terrific Atlanta Falcons pit of remorses. The Chicago Bears bucked the current pattern of groups carrying out well one week after shooting a maligned head coach by getting completely outplayed by the San Francisco 49ers. Matches in between the New Orleans Saints and New York Giants, along with a fight for the AFC South basement in between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Tennessee Titans were close, however primarily unwatchable video games.
I was viewing anyhow. What did we find out throughout a smattering of action and a desert of inadequately managed football? Let's dig in.
[Please bear with me for any Twitter embed issues. Our editing software has become a whole problem on that front the past couple weeks. Rest assured, if there's a play alluded to in the text it's worth clicking through to see if it didn't make it into the article itself.]
1. Malik Nabers is stuck in football purgatory
Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
Ladd McConkey is the NFL's leading novice receiver. He's surrounded by average-to-below-average targets. Because he's got a terrific defense and a rising young quarterback, he's growing. In Week 13, the Los Angeles Chargers beat the Atlanta Falcons regardless of funneling almost 80 percent of their passing offense through the novice wideout.
This must be New York Giants star Malik Nabers's lot in life. The 2nd wideout prepared in April is a vibrant gamer with game-changing abilities. Rather of torching cornerbacks with deep paths and waltzing into the end zone, he's been minimized to this:
Malik for 2
: FOX pic.twitter.com/4iNThF1ZgM
— New York Giants (@Giants) December 8, 2024
Nabers has actually been encumbered 3 quarterbacks his novice season. Daniel Jones was bad enough to be benched, then launched so there's be no opportunity the Giants would need to pay him in 2025. Tommy DeVito was bad, then harmed, and is presently both. That brings us to Drew Lock, who began his Sunday with incompletions on his very first 8 passes and completed his day with a passing chart that appears like a young child's effort at pointillism.
by means of nextgenstats.nfl.com
Nabers balanced almost 18 backyards per catch in his last season at LSU. His typical catch as a Giant has actually come simply 6.8 backyards downfield. He wasn't targeted deep a single time in 3 of his previous 4 video games before Week 14. With the big-armed Lock behind center, he handled to include 3 more deep targets … just one of which was catchable.
A run through Nabers's path charts reveals a list of brief passes and the periodic deep path that goes no place. There are 2 elements adding to this.
