What's Hot and what's knott in football -week 18

By Rhys Knott

Week 18 is always a mishmash of teams who are just terrible and teams who are resting players ready for the playoffs.  That makes a lot of what happens irrelevant, Bo Nix posted his best passer rating of the year (a whopping 152.4) against the Chiefs team who rested all their important players.  

Denver ran out 38-0 winners, a very impressive result without the necessary context attached to it. Check out this touchdown catch though. 

But now we know the playoff teams and some of them gathered vital momentum in the final round of the regular season. Others, on the other hand, did not. It went horribly for one NFC team. 

Sam Darnold and the Vikings demonstrated just how pressure does funny things to people as their offense coughed and spluttered in the red zone. Brian Flores’ defense on the other hand demonstrated why he should be a head coach again in 2025. 

Saturday night football is definitely Knott and that’s a worry with three playoff games scheduled for this Saturday. Even Joe Burrow couldn’t brighten up this week’s offering. But we did get to see another big guy interception. Michael Pierce politely declined the chance of a thicc six though

And Joe Milton III played so well that his head coach was fired after the Patriots’ 23-16 victory over the Bills! In retrospect letting a uniquely talented rookie loose on the Bills’ second-string defense wasn’t a great plan. It’s very much in keeping with the rest of the Patriots’ 2024 season though. A Patriots loss (along with other results) could have secured the first overall pick (that they would have undoubtedly botched).  

What’s Hot in Football – Week 18

It was a great week for quarterbacks, Michael Penix Jr., Joshua Dobbs and Jimmy Garoppolo all joined Bo Nix in the 300-yard club. But Justin Herbert is Week 18’s king. The Chargers signal caller completed 28 of his 36 passes against a simply horrible Raiders team. He threw two touchdown passes and also ran for 42 yards on just four carries. 

Trey Hendrickson is the hottest man in the NFL right now. The 30-year-old is single-handedly compensating for the Bengals’ dreadful offensive line. Cincinatti’s leading pass rusher took Russell Wilson to the turf 3.5 times to end his season with a league-leading 17.5.    

Derrick Henry has been smoking hot all season but the Ravens haven’t always relied on him as they could have. King Henry is one of seven backs who racked up over 100 yards on the ground this week! The former Titan has eight games with more than 100 rushing yards this season.  
The five-time Pro bowler averages a career-high 5.8 yards per carry this season! The 31-year-old averages 6 yards per carry in the last two weeks, if Baltimore has been trying to keep him fresh for the playoffs it’s worked. 

The hottest running back in Week 18 has to be Jonathan Taylor who rattled up 177 yards on the ground against the burned-out wreckage of the Jaguars. But the Texans’ Dameon Pierce put up the most impressive numbers against the bin fire known as the Titans (The AFC South is just horrible). Pierce went for 9.3 yards per carry as he tallied 176 yards on just 13 carries! 

A defensive lineman taking an interception is always hot. 355-pound Michael Pierce’s record-breaking picking off a Bailey Zappe pass is no exception. Pierce became the heaviest player to intercept a pass since the year 2000. 

Elsewhere in the AFC North Ja’Marr Chase is still hot, even in scrappy divisional games. He didn’t put up his usual stellar numbers, but Chase did hit double figures in the receptions column for the fourth time this season. 

Chase led the league in both receiving yards and touchdown catches with 1,708 yards and 17 touchdowns. But he isn’t the hottest receiver in Week 18, that’s Drake London of the Falcons. The 23-year-old hauled in 10 passes for 187 yards and two touchdowns. That didn’t stop the Falcons from losing to the Panthers though

Five receivers went over 100 yards this week with Quentin Johnston infuriating fantasy owners around the world by racking up 186 now the fantasy season has ended. Brian Thomas Jr. deserves an honourable mention too, he had another 100-yard game for the abominable Jaguars.

Only Chase and Justin Jefferson have more receiving yards than Thomas Jr. in 2024 and they’re all LSU Tigers! Unsurprisingly the 22-year-old has set franchise records for receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns! 

And we can’t not mention Ashtyn Davis who had a day out against the Dolphins. Without Tua Mike McDaniels’ team looks more like a Dolphin that has washed up on the beach than an actual football team. Davis had eight solo tackles, two tackles for a loss and two interceptions! He also did a bit of the old pitchy-pitchy-woo-woo on one of his returns. Get that man to Major League Rugby immediately. 

Then there was an Amon-Ra St. Brown cake. No, really.

What’s Knott in Football – Week 18

Starting four different quarterbacks in the same season is absolutely Knott! Mainly because it demonstrates how incompetent your front office is. When it fails it also highlights how ineffective the coaching and game planning is.

That’s exactly what happened for the 2024 Browns, four different quarterbacks started games this season and four different quarterbacks lost games this season for the Haslam’s franchise. 

Lamar Jackson didn’t exactly tear up trees with his passing game, the MVP candidate only managed to complete 16 of his 32 attempts. Browns fourth starting quarterback this season, Bailey Zappe actually completed a higher percentage of his passes. The former Patriots went 16/31 but threw interceptions and ended the game with a 19.5 QBR! 

Zappe wasn’t alone though. The temperature in Green Bay was far from hot. 

A holding penalty that negates a highlight reel play from your third-string quarterback is absolutely Knott too. It very much typifies the Patriots’ 2024 offensive line play though.

Teeing up the poor guy who is catching your pass to get absolutely smashed by a defender is very much Knott too. Exhibit A.

And Exhibit B. No further questions your honour!

RHYS KNOTT

NFL/FANTASY FOOTBALL ANALYST

Rhys has been watching the NFL for 30 something years and still hasn’t managed to pick a team to support. When he’s not fixatED on pass rushers you can find him blithering on about most sports on Twitter @wrhys_writes

5/5