What’s hot and what’s knott in football – Week 9

By Rhys Knott

An Irish kicker who made his name in Gaelic football, trick plays, circus catches, extreme weather, getting ejected and more questionable officiating all reminded us why the NFL is appointment viewing. There were also some long-awaited breakout performances and proof that Anthony Richardson isn’t the Colts’ biggest problem.

On the other side of the Week 9 football coin, nepo babies, a dangerous field, and incompetent officiating all make the list of the things we’d really rather forget about. While getting your quarterback sacked into oblivion became very trendy amongst offensive linemen. 

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What’s Hot in Football – Week 9

The hottest athlete on the planet right now has to be Freddie Freeman. But he doesn’t play football and the World Series is quickly fading into the mists of time so we’ll take Saquon Barkley. How does 199 total yards from scrimmage, two touchdowns, and what Nick Sirianni called the best play he’d ever seen grab you? 

Jaxon Smith-Njigba wasn’t far behind though. C.J Stroud’s former college teammate Smith-Njigba racked up 180 receiving yards a career-high. That’s his second 100-yard game in the National Football League. The 22-year-old also caught two scoring passes for the first time in his career!

JSN might have a monster week, but 10 other pass catchers went over 100 yards too. Even Mike Gesicki, who is a tight end in the same way that Banksy is a painter and decorator, racked up 100 yards and two touchdowns on five catches! 

But the medal for the most efficient receiving display of the week goes to Scary Terry (tis spooky SZN after all). The Commanders stud only hauled in two passes for 19 yards, But they were both scoring passes and Washington just squeezed past the Giants by five points.

Week 9 won’t so much be remembered for those numbers. It’s the highlight plays that are going to go down in history. Garrett Wilson started it all on Thursday night. Wilson snagged what can only be described as a wayward pass from Aaron Rodgers with impressive alacrity.

Then Devonta Smith did this.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Saqoun caught his touchdown pass like this.

Amon-Ra St. Brown performed the rarely attempted celebration “helmet headstand into forward roll” combo, presumably in tribute to Incarnate Word?

But ASRB wasn’t the only guy who found himself in an unusual position in Week 9. Do you want to see Saquon Barkley again, this time jumping a tackle backside first? Of course you do.

Kam Kinchens went full Honey Badger in Seattle too.

But they’re all great players, their feats of athletic excellence are no surprise. Punters on the other hand are not always physical specimens. So when one clocks the fourth fastest ball carry of the week we have to give him some flowers! Props for that name too Matthew Hayball.

But even that pales into insignificance when you know that Justin Jefferson threw a pass to convert a third down!

And, despite Ravens linebacker Malik Harrison winning “Malik of the Week“ for the first time, Bo Nix scored a receiving touchdown on a Philly special. In Baltimore. Just another totally normal week in the National Football League then.

What’s Knott in Football – Week 9

Well, briefly, throwing interceptions is very much Knott, but you knew that already. Five quarterbacks threw the football to defenders more than once in Week 9.

Jameis Winston’s Week 8 performance turned out to be a false dawn. Week 9 Jameis didn’t look like the surgical quarterback he seemed to be against Baltimore. His chuck-and-duck act against the Chargers resulted in three picks. Geno Smith joined him with three, including that 103-yarder to Kinchens.

On the scariest night of the year, the National Football League took us all to the scariest field in football (where Sam Darnold once saw “ghosts”) and produced a horror show. The most entertaining thing in MetLife on Thursday were the fans who got dressed up for Halloween.

Playing football on a short week has a permanent place in the Knott list, but Week 9’s effort was so very Knott that it deserves its own website! Even the so far reliable Kai’imi Fairbairn had his worst game of the season presumably in protest at having to play at MetLife on a Thursday night.

 C.J. Stroud is probably having nightmares after the Texans’ performance in New Jersey. The poor guy got sacked eight times bringing his total for the season to 30!

Stroud only suffered 38 sacks in total last season. Remember that next time the “sophomore season” gang pipes up weigh in on Strouds’ so-called regression. 

The former Buckeye wasn’t the only quarterback who took a beating this week though. Nine signal callers suffered four or more sacks and five hit the deck six times or more! Only Justin Herbert could overcome horrible pass protection to record a win.

Does NFL officials standing by and ignoring a defender’s hand making contact with Sam Darnold’s helmet, sound familiar? Sure it does, it featured heavily on Week 8’s Knott list. Well, it happened again in Week 9. Grover Stewart clocked Darnold (forceful contact with the head is supposed to be roughing the passer) causing Darnold to fumble the football and the Colts to score their only touchdown of the game. 

We all know nepo babies are Knott, just look at Woody Johnson. Tax dodger and owner of the Jets, Johnson appears to be letting a 40-year-old quarterback make the football decisions in 2024. But then if you decided to donate millions of dollars to Donald Trump it’s probably best to leave the decision-making to other people.

Johnson wasn’t even the worst nepo baby at MetLife on Thursday night though, that ignominious honour fell to the referee, Shawn Hochuli.

Ed Hochuli and his biceps spent 28 years flexing his guns on TV screens in the name of refereeing NFL games. And if that wasn’t enough his progeny has spent the last 10 years ruining games of football too. 

Hochuli junior and his crew spent the entire first half looking for anything that might be a penalty and then flagging it even if it wasn’t. There were nine in the first half alone, and then mysteriously just one in the third quarter (it’s as if someone told him to put his whistle away at halftime).

If you didn’t hate the Thursday night game with the fire of a thousand burning suns you just weren’t paying enough attention. It wasn’t just the officiating that prevented entertaining football from breaking out.

The turf at MetLife is quickly becoming a graveyard and, just as the cherry on top of a particularly unappetising cake there was rank incompetence from all involved. 

Malachi Corley grabbed all the headlines by fumbling the football before he broke the plane of the goal line. The rookie had such an unabated pathway to the endzone that no defender even considered the prospect of the showboating youngster not scoring. Subsequently, the ball rolled through the endzone and resulted in a touchback for the Texans!

But by far the most egregious display of incompetence came from Houston’s offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik. Despite J.J Taylor and C.J Stroud averaging 7.45 yards per carry (for a team that ran the football better than they passed it) they only accounted for 31% of the carries.

C.J. Stroud ended the game with a terrifyingly bad 36% completion rate. What makes that even worse is Slowik seems to have no interest in simplifying things to get him in rhythm. The Texans didn’t even take a page out of the Jaguars playbook. In Wembley Jacksonville ran the football because the Patriots defense couldn’t stop them.

Persisting with the passing game made even less sense given the Texans were missing their first two centre’s. Houston currently have an offensive tackle and a guard on injured reserve too. Stroud took 11 hits and wound up on the ground eight times, happy Halloween youngster!

But the football gods definitely didn’t smile on the Texans on Halloween, Will Anderson Jr’s ankle injury kick-started the Jets’ offense. And after a penalty the Jets on a successful 43-yard field goal Houston conspired to go three and out. Then they missed the subsequent 27-yard attempt. When it’s not your day, it’s really not your day.

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

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