What’s Hot and What’s Knott in Football – Week 12

By Rhys Knott

There are a couple of questions to address after Week 12 in the National Football League. First up, is winning a game after allowing eight sacks hot or Knott? And how can you ignore a running back who scored three touchdowns?

Well, we’re not ignoring Josh Jacobs’ hat-trick but he doesn’t make the hot list. Partly because the 49ers defense hasn’t recovered from Dre Greenlaw’s Super Bowl celebration snafu. But, also because another back eclipsed Jacobs’s impressive showing. The Packers gained revenge for their nail-biting playoff loss with a 28-point shellacking of Kyle Shanahan’s beleaguered football team.

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And how can you not love the Bryce Young Renaissance? He only became the Panthers starter when Andy Dalton was involved in a car accident. But the 23-year-old is completing 60% of his passes this season. Only Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen have thrown for more yards against the Chiefs this season than the former Alabama signal caller. Not hot enough for the hot list, but well worth a special mention.

The first snow angels of the 2024 season made an appearance in Cleveland. But that didn’t stop Thursday Night Football from producing an absolute barnburner. We even had a controversial officiating call in the last few minutes of the game to infuriate Steeler Nation. Although both sets of fans should be delighted that their team played one of the best Thursday night games in living memory.

Elsewhere special teams conspired to lose games, and Da Bears even recovered an onside kick. But they had already had a field goal blocked!

Further south in the NFC, the Eagles continued their streak of grinding opponents into a fine powder. Right now they’re not so much hot as supreme! 

Talking of things that are gathering momentum, bad pass protection raised its ugly head again. 23 quarterbacks suffered sacks with 78 sacks in total!

What’s Hot in Football – Week 12

Saquon (yes, again). Not content with racking up 475 yards from scrimmage during November the former Giant gained 302 total yards against the Rams! His run map looks like a fireworks display. 

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. the Commanders and Cowboys conspired to prove that the NFC East is still crazy after all these years. The Commanders blocked a field goal and a punt, then there were four turnovers and there were two kickoff returns for touchdowns! One of those returns came on an onside kick! 

Oh yeah, there was also a missed extra point that would have tied the game and a total of 60 points if the Eagles hadn’t cornered the NFC East market when for dominating both sides of the line of scrimmage it would be one unpredictable division.

If The NFC East is the home bonkers football in the NFC, the AFC’s version is the AFC South. The Texans and Titans game involved seven turnovers, 12 sacks and 17 penalties! The Texans’ offence only managed five for yards than Saquon! And Chig Okonkwo did this.

Bizarrely, considering they lost the Steelers were pretty hot. Russell Wilson completed 21 of 28 passes. That’s pretty good in moderate weather, but it’s really good in a blizzard. It’s even better when you consider Myles Garrett was in Wilson’s face for most of the game. 

Garrett sacked Wilson three times in the first half (!!!) and later forced a fumble. All of which is very nice, but his comments after the game aimed in T.J. Watt’s direction made it even better. The Browns will meet the Steelers in just two weeks’ time, bring it on. 

Calvin Austin had himself a night in the snow. The third-year receiver hauled in three passes for 78 yards or 29% of the Steelers’ receiving yards. The 25-year-old also caught Wilson’s only touchdown pass. It was the first time Austin had caught a touchdown and the Steelers hadn’t gone on to win the game. 

The Browns’ offense was hot too. Nick Chubb might have scored two touchdowns, but Jerry Jeudy caught the football for some vital first downs.

But you can’t talk about the Browns Thursday night performance and not mention Jameis Winston.

Winston didn’t put up outstanding numbers, he threw nine incomplete passes. He ended the game with a QBR of just 80.1 after being picked off by Donte Jackson and he fumbled the football when Nick Herbig strip sacked him.

However, the Browns just look like a different offence with Winston in the huddle. Cleveland has only won two games this season, but they beat the Ravens and the Steelers and Winston was under centre for both games! 

That’s a problem for the Browns ownership. If they want to win games they need to keep the former first overall pick around but he’s only on a one-year deal. Dorian Thompson-Robinson looks a fine prospect, but not many quarterbacks garner the response from their teammates (and even TV pundits) that Jameis does. 

On the subject of quarterbacks who galvanise their offense, Caleb Williams went off in Chicago. Just two weeks after Shane Waldron was shown the door the rookie signal caller threw for 340 yards and two touchdowns.

The former USC Trojan had to throw the football 47 times against a Vikings defense that only allowed the Bears to run for 78 yards.  

As if to demonstrate how much the Bears offensive struggle to run block, Williams also led his team on the ground too.

The Bears are not a good team and they still need a head coach, but Williams looks more comfortable working alongside Thomas Brown. 

Jordan Addison highlighted another of the Bears’ weaknesses as he racked up 162 yards on just eight catches. For context, Jaylen Waddle dominated the woeful Patriots defense with 114 yards on eight catches.

So the Bears are worse than a team that must be trying to lose games to secure another high draft pick (nobody can be that bad by accident)! 

Pass rushers were hot in Week 12, very hot. 10 defenders recorded multiple sacks, including Jadaveon Clowney (remember him?) for the Panthers, Chop Robinson (nice of you to show up rookie) and Micah Parsons (so that’s what he does when he isn’t recording podcasts).  

We’ve covered Myles Garrett’s three-sack performance on Thursday Night Football, but in one of Sunday’s madder games another veteran defensive star thought “Anything you can do I can do better”. Danielle Hunter of the Texans sacked Will Levis three times, hit him three more times and then tacked on five tackles for a loss!

The return of the “Malik of the Week” award is hot too. Week 12’s winner is Malik Heath for his touchdown reception against the 49ers. The 24-year-old only grabbed two catches, but he only saw two targets. Now that’s what you call efficiency. 

What’s Knott in Football – Week 12

How does a 15-yard punt sound? That’s pretty Knott, right? Well, how about a 12-yard punt? That was Corey Bojorquez’s first attempt of the game before the blizzard conditions began (the wind was gusting though).

The 15-yarder came from the Steelers’ Corliss Waitman. It was his only attempt of the game!  With 3:29 left on the game clock he shanked one straight off the field. That would set up a Browns 45-yard drive that resulted in the winning touchdown. Whoops 

The NFC West is very much Knott too. It’s the division that nobody wants to win and whoever stumbles into the playoffs is going to meet a swift end. 

Pass protection definitely makes the Knott list, especially what passes for protection in Tennessee. Poor Will Levis suffered eight sacks and took nine hits in total! Brian Callahan probably still chewed out his quarterback though. 

Given how poor pass protection is across the league losing a pass rusher is brutal. Brandon Graham’s injury is awful news for an Eagles defensive front that bullied the Rams offensive line off the field in SoFi. Graham recorded three of Philadelphia’s 11 QB Hits! But he announced after the game that he has torn a tricep muscle and that could signal the end of the road for the 36-year-old veteran. 

Jake Bates is the only kicker in the league who hasn’t missed a field goal in 2024. So the kicker sh*t list is going to become a regular attraction. Ka’imi Fairbairn set a new benchmark when he became the first kicker to hit 12 field goals from 50 yards or more. But then he missed a 28-yard try to take the game to overtime. 

The Texans’ kicker isn’t alone though Commanders kicker Austin Seibert missed his first extra point of the season after a terrible snap. Like Fairbairn’s miss, Seibert’s prevented the Commanders from taking the Cowboys to overtime. 

Cairo Santos had another kick blocked in Chicago, last week’s block would have won the game against the Packers. This week’s version ultimately cost the Bears a victory as they wound up losing to Minnesota in overtime! 

Joshua Karty, Joey Slye, Chad Ryland, Chris Boswell, Graham Gano and as previously mentioned Brandon Aubrey all missed kicks that would not have altered the result of their games. But still, lads, get better! All you do all day is kick a football. 

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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