Five Wide: 2024 Week Thirteen

By Thomas Willoughby

We’re in the mess of it now, folks. The Thanksgiving window gave us 4 games before we even got to Sunday night. Teams are now in the playoffs. Teams are all but out of the playoffs. Five weeks left. If you’re in a slump (FALCONS), get it together. If you’re riding the wave, you’ve gotta do everything you can to make sure you don’t crash out. Is that a surfing reference? I dunno I’ve never done it.

Here are five things that happened this past week!

Sky. What are you doing?

Listen. I don’t hate Paul Merson. I think he’s fine. Good, even. He might go the long way round when getting his point across, but he’s generally on point with his football analysis. There are far worse pundits out there. He works well within the set up Sky have for their football coverage. I don’t think he should be covering American Football, though.

I get you’re still trying to grow your audience, and having a familiar face might entice channel hoppers to stay awhile. But within the space of about half an hour, he shouted to a runner to get him a cup of tea, and had to ask Neil Reynolds to repeat himself because he wasn’t listening to the question. The guy left during halftime of the first game. Come on.

I don’t doubt he knows ball. I don’t doubt he watches the sport and enjoys it. But, on one of the sports biggest days, having effectively a fan on the couch offering insight feels a little disrespectful to your audience. Next year, I urge Sky to reach out to a very cool and handsome Oxfordian writer to make the transition to the screen. Go from disrespecting the audience to flat out insulting it.

I don't recall saying good luck

The Bears made a go of taking down the seemingly unstoppable Detroit Lions, but came up short in the end. They didn’t help themselves, choosing to run and play and let the clock run out rather than use their final time out with seconds on the clock. That makes 3 heartbreaking, final play defeats in 3 games. They’ve not won since they played in London back in mid-October. They left the UK 4-3, and go into December 4-8. Time’s up, Eberflus.

That’s what you’d expect, at least. The next day, however, there he is, taking questions from the press about the game, breaking down where it all went wrong, and, crucially, stating he’s going to be coaching the team next weekend when they travel to Santa Clara.

Love this from the Bears. Yes, you’re in a hole, yes things aren’t going well at all, but Matt Eberflus is your man. Let him face the music, but stand by him, and give him the time he needs to turn this thing around. Enough with the hire and fire culture plaguing the NFL. Buck that trend and stand by your coach.

Ah. Well. Nevertheless.

Two hours after saying he’ll be coaching next week, he was fired. That’s like the second most embarrassing thing he’s done in as many days. I’ll cut them some slack, given it’s the first time the Bears have ever fired a head coach mid-season, but it could have been handled at least a little better.

Friday evening delivery slot

For the second year in a row, Amazon Prime “delivered” (EH! EH!) a Black Friday fixture, with the extremely banged up Las Vegas Raiders travelling to Kansas City hoping to upset the apple cart. And, you know what, they didn’t disgrace themselves. In fact, they did quite well. 19-17 to the current Super Bowl champs isn’t horrid, especially when they could have won it themselves had it not been for a botched snap turned turnover at the end.

The talk among NFL-heads is that his Chiefs side is the worst 11-1 team ever. You know what? That might be true. You know what else? I think they’re probably gonna end up winning it all again. The hallmark of a contender is being able to win while playing badly. The Chiefs have played badly all season, and have lost once. This isn’t going to last. They’re going to click, probably as 2024 flips over to 2025. And then you’ll be sorry. I’ve bet against them once before. Never again.

Denny Medley-Imagn Images

Kicked while they're down

I fear I may have caused a collapse in the kicker position. Since hailing Younghoe Koo as the greatest player in the NFL, his form has nosedived. In the Falcons 17-13 defeat to the Chargers, Koo stepped up to kick a 35 yarder in the first quarter, and it sailed wide. The Falcons had the ball in the redzone multiple times in the 4th quarter looking for a touchdown. Had that field goal been scored, one kick would have been enough to seal the win. Only 4 kickers with a lower field goal success percentage than Koo this season. I am so sorry, my grace.

One such player is Justin Tucker, who is arguably the best kicker to ever play the position. Tucker’s season has been poor by his standards, with the Ravens kicker hitting just over 70% of his kicks all year. On Sunday, Tucker attempted 4, and hit 2. The Ravens lost by 5 points, dropping to 8-5. 

I do not think either player is at risk of being cut mid-season. Both are on contracts secure enough to give them the ability to refind their form. If they don’t, however, 2025 might be the year Justin Tucker hangs his boots up, and Younghoe Koo moves to a new state.

It doesn't show signs of stoppin'

Everyone loves a snow game. It’s, arguably, the backdrop that most exemplifies the NFL. They say that the NFL doesn’t stop for anything. Hurricane season? No worries, we’ll play somewhere else. Christmas? We’re not topping for Christmas. A global pandemic, you say? We can play through that, no problems whatsoever.

Bills fans, as they do, turned up in their droves to shovel snow out of their ground. Some fanbase, by the way. I grumbled at having to do the same thing for the Sunday League side I played for a decade ago, these guys just want to watch their team. And the Bills, once again, didn’t disappoint. They were even treated to a Josh Allen receiving touchdown.

But what a backdrop. A couple of degrees warmer (give it a few years) and you’d be looking at a torrential downpour. Anyone who’d watched football played out in a storm knows that’s not fun to watch. When that rain is slightly frozen and looking pretty? Nothing better. If the NFL wants to continue to thrive, I wholly recommend they invest in developing real snow machine capable of dropping 5/10cm of snow over the course of 3 hours. 

Features Image Credit: Adrian Kraus-AP Photo

Thomas Willoughby

NFL ANALYST

THOMAS IS A WRITER, AND REGULAR GUEST ON THE TOUCHDOWN REVIEW SHOW PODCAST, FOR THE TOUCHDOWN. YOU CAN FIND HIM @WILLO290592 ON TWITTER

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