FROM THE DESK OF JON RALPH
AARON Rogers has thrown the mother of all curve-balls into the NFL season. Or to be more accurate, one of those perfect tight spirals that hit with punishing force for all of us NFL aficionados.
Everyone dreams that their team might hold up the Vince Lombardi Trophy (or expects it if they are a Tom Brady fan) but is eventually happy to throw in their lot during playoffs with an adopted NFL side.
For so many that team wasn’t America’s Team – the Dallas Cowboys – but Roger’s Green Bay Packers.
Why? Rogers golden arm, his sheer force of personality, the Packers’ DNA as a small-market team that never quit and just that darn attractive style of football.
Then Rogers went and dropped the bombshell that he hadn’t been vaccinated all along despite deceiving the public, before going down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole about alternate therapies instead of good old science. Say it ain’t so, Aaron…
A man so popular he had a genuine chance of becoming America’s ‘Jeopardy’ game show host was suddenly persona non grata. He doesn’t care, and his Covid case hasn’t affected his or Green Bay’s title hopes on a weekend when he broke Brett Favre’s Packers franchise touchdown record in a 24-22 win over Cleveland.
Every sport needs a villain, and with Green Bay rolling at 12-3, unbeaten at home and with a five-game NFC North lead, they will take some beating this season with Rogers wearing the archetypal black hat.
So with two weeks left in the new 18-week season, as teams endure Covid batterings and dramatic form fluctuations, is there another compelling storyline that will steal the hearts of all those neutral fans?
You bloody bet there is.
With teams decimated on a weekly basis by Covid – 205 players alone were in the Covid protocol last week, actually predicting a Super Bowl winner is a mug’s game given the title might come down to the vagaries of close contacts in the days before the actual contest.
But the beauty of this newly extended season is it has allowed so many dramatic pivots that have set this season up so beautifully.
There are the perennial contenders, with Brady rebounding from his usual battering against New Orleans last week to orchestrate a 32-6 Tampa Bay victory over the hapless Carolina Panthers to maintain an iron grip on the NFC South.
Remember when Kansas City and Patrick Mahomes were shot?
Eight straight victories later the 11-4 Chiefs are exactly where they want to be, having rediscovered their defensive stinginess and covering for Week 16 absences (Travis Kelce’s Covid issues, Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s shoulder injury) as they racked up 30 points and three defensive take-aways against Ben Roethlisberger in what now seems like his NFL swansong.
There are the conundrums.
The Buffalo Bills marched into Title Town on Sunday and beat Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots behind quarterback Josh Allen’s exquisite blend of arm strength and rushing ability, with the pundits now swooning about Buffalo’s hopes. If they win out they take the AFC East.
Yet if Buffalo are all the rage the Patriots did something similar to Buffalo only three weeks ago – securing an away win to put their flag in the ground – so both teams are 9-6 and with more to prove.
The Arizona Cardinals finally clinched a playoff spot after other results went their way this weekend but a 7-0 start to the season has been followed by a 3-5 stretch that now has them as the fifth seed in the NFC.
But the silver lining for a team locked into the playoffs for the first time since 2015?
It took the Indianapolis Colts, some messy penalties and three misses to kicker Matt Prater
to beat them 16-22 on Thursday in their third straight loss.
The Colts are up there with the Miami Dolphins as one of those contenders who you might just want to latch onto given the sheer improbability of their late-season charge. The Colts started the season 0-3 and were 1-4 and have lost only three times since, building momentum through MVP candidate Jonathan Taylor and their peerless defence. Taylor now leads the league in rushing – 1626 yards, 17 touchdowns – but he averaged only four yards a tote from 27 attempts against Arizona and the Colts lost All-Pro linebacker Darius Leonard and their best cornerback Rock Ya-Sin entering the game to Covid. This time it was quarterback Carson Wentz who stepped up with the perfect throw on the run to Dezmon Patmon as he was chased from the pocket to seal the game.
The Colts’ playoff charge can’t even hold a candle to Miami’s rollercoaster of a season.
The Dolphins beat New England in Week 1, lost seven in a row, then poured on six straight wins leading into Monday night football against a New Orleans Saints team playing fourth-string quarterback Ian Book. The 2021 fourth-round draft pick was foisted into the starting role after injury and Covid positives and performed as expected with a pick from his second throw of the night. It wasn’t always pretty, but Miami’s eventual 20-3 victory made it seven on the bounce and they are still alive for a wildcard spot.
In Week 16 Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow threw for 525 yards and four touchdowns, with a fifth touchdown stripped by a penalty, and Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott torched Washington in a 56-14 rout so bad two players came to blows. The Cowboys’ best is good enough and the Burrow-Ja’Marr Chase QB-WR combination can light up the league in coming years and might even do damage given the Bengals lead the AFC North.
So there are no shortage of title candidates and the expanded 14-team play-off series with only the No.1 seeds of each conference handed Week 1 byes adds another level of chaos.
Covid chaos? Well, the show must go on even as some teams battle up to 20 cases per week.
Aaron Rogers? You can have him.
Two Super Bowl sides worthy of the price of admission when that game finally rolls around?
Who will they be? NFI.
And that is the best part of this rollicking, random, ridiculously entertaining season.