What’s Hot and What’s Knott in Football – Week 17

By Rhys Knott

Newsflash – The NFC North is still really good at doing a football. And the Vikings are better than everyone seems to think. Oh yeah, there’s a duck playing special teams for the Buccaneers too (sort of). The Cowboys and Eagles enjoyed some festive rough and tumble involving some officials and took out security staff!

Rookie records tumbled left, right and centre. Brock Bowers, Jayden Daniels and Malik Nabers justified the excitement surrounding the 2024 draft class.

Brian Thomas Jr. tied Randy Moss’ record for the most games with 60+ receiving yards and a touchdown as he clocked up his eighth! That LSU offense is taking the league by storm. Technically this class plays more games than other rookie classes, but hey, a record is a record. 

Brock Bowers broke Mike Ditka’s rookie receiving yards record set in 1961! Ditka only played in 14 games to set his original record!  

With one week of the regular season left the NFL forced fans to watch some of the worst football of 2024. The Texans’ offense scored zero points, the Steelers were helpless to stop the Chiefs and the Bears still don’t understand how timeouts work. 

On the plus side, we discovered that Kay Adams is the only member of the Netflix broadcast team who is shorter than Ian Rappaport (Mina Kimes is sneaky tall, no wonder she can scoot).

On the field, Leonard ‘Big Cat’ Williams (who is 18 inches taller than Kay Adams) demonstrated why his signature should have been at the top of every team’s Christmas list. 

Elsewhere Lamar Jackson did Lamar Jackson things, Travis Kelce is hitting playoff form and Derrick Henry is just getting started.

What’s Hot in Football – Week 17

Let’s start with the defense for a change. The Seahawks’ Leonard Williams has been in great form all season, his 26 QB Hits are the most he’s recorded in a single season since 2020 and he’s still got a week left. 

The Big Cat has been bossing games since his 92-yard interception return in Week 13. The former Giant has made 24 tackles and eight tackles for a loss in the last month! He sacked Caleb Williams twice on Thursday night and stuffed a run! 

After all the grumbling about kickers, it was nice to see someone not named Chris Boswell win a game for a change. Shout out to Jason Myers for scoring the Seahawks’ only points in a very rainy Chicago. But that’s all the good things you can say about that absolute travesty of a game. 

We can’t forget the duck that settled on the turf at Raymond James Stadium. Why can’t we forget it? Well, because it decided to land just before the Panthers lined up to punt the ball away and Joe Tryon-Shoyinka blocked the punt. JJ Russell gathered the loose ball and returned it for Tampa Bay’s first special teams touchdown of the season. The Most Valuable Duck is definitely hot.

Back to those rookie records. Jayden Daniels broke Robert Griffin III’s record for the most rushing yards by a rookie quarterback. Daniels has carried the ball 864 yards this season.  

The rookie QB definitely falls into the hot category this week. He threw for 227 yards and ran for 127 more. Daniels’ 354 total yards accounted for 86% of the Commanders’ total yards! Daniels’ ability to run the ball at will also allowed Washington to keep the ball for 20:59 minutes in the second half!    

It goes without saying these days, but Saquon Barkley is absolutely hot. He led running backs with 167 yards on the ground! The former Nittany Lion also caught two passes for two yards (that’s not all that hot), but his handshake with his daughter is the real reason for talking about the MVP candidate.

If Derrick Henry touched the ball as often as Saquon he’d be an MVP candidate too. The Ravens could be trying to save Henry for the playoffs, he matched Saquon’s 5.4 yards per carry average in Week 17. But Saquon touched the ball four times more than Henry this week. Overall this season Barkley has 56 more touches that may have an impact during the playoffs.

Joe Burrow has been scorching hot for at least six weeks. The Bengal’s quarterback needs to start a support group for signal-callers who need better play-calling and teammates. Baker Mayfield and Tua Tagovailoa should sign up. 

Burrow threw 49 passes (!!!!) against Denver whilst getting sacked seven times. He ended the game with a 79.6% completion rate and a passer rating of 122.1. 

After throwing five touchdowns against the Panthers Mayfield’s Week 17 passer rating of 153.0 (out of 158.3) is his eighth passer rating over 100.0 in 2024. Josh Allen has 10 games with a passer rating over 100.0 in 2024. Mayfield’s 2024 performance is playoff-worthy but Tampa Bay could still miss out. 

You’ll never guess who the hottest receiver in football is in Week 17. Ok, you will, it’s Malik Nabers. This week’s Malik of the Week caught just seven passes, but he took them for 171 yards. The 21-year-old caught two touchdown passes from Drew Lock, breaking the Giants’ rookie reception record and giving Giants fans that “if only” feeling. 

What’s Knott in Football – Week 17

Not having an offensive line is very Knott and the Bears haven’t had an offensive line all season (they’re not alone, all the worst teams have been hampered by their line play). But losing Tevin Jenkins to injury this week made the Bears line even worse. 

Jenkins’ replacement, Jake Curhan (who is actually a tackle) had a nightmare in his first start of the season. The 26-year-old conceded two crucial penalties. A false start penalty turned a 4th and 1 in the last three minutes of the game into a 4th and 6! It also led to Thomas Jones deciding to punt and having to burn a timeout to put the offense back on the field as the Soldier Field went wild! Curhan conceded an even more important penalty in the first half. 

Curhan’s hold on Uchenna Nwosu negated the only touchdown that either team could have scored! Caleb Williams’ pass was hauled in by Rome Odunze, those two have formed a very promising partnership in the red zone and Williams is one of the few quarterbacks who is comfortable dissecting defenses around the goal line. All they need is an offensive line.

You know what else is Knott? Having an interception taken out of your hands by a teammate. For that to happen twice in the same week is just brutal. First Khalen Saunders had his chance at glory snatched away from him by Saints safety Tyrann Mathieu. 

On Thursday Tremain Edmunds had the chance to compound Geno Smith’s red zone issues. Edmund almost picked off a pass intended for Tyler Lockett. T.J. Edwards had other ideas though and lit up Edmunds as the linebacker tried to secure possession. 

Fumbling is Knott, Kenny Pickett thinks acrobatic fumbles are hot, but he’s wrong.

Then there’s obviously the kickers, kickers are always Knott. Riley Patterson, who is playing for a third different team in 2024, missed a 56-yarder that would have won the Falcons game in D.C. In fairness, even his coach Raheem Morris called it “a desperation shot”.  

Cade York, who is only on his second team of the year, missed a 33-yarder! The Bengals still won the game with Denver, but it extended the most frustrating game of the season. 

Will Reichard missed two field goals for the Vikings! But they squeezed past the Packers by two points. Matt Gay missed one for the Colts, but they lost by 12 points, so it’s fine. Obviously, it isn’t, but if you let the Giants score 45 points you’ve got bigger problems. 

Harrison Butker missed his second extra point of the season on Christmas day too. It’s what the baby Jesus would have wanted. 

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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