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Kirk Cousins was a mirage, Matthew Stafford is alligator blood and 9 things we learned in Week 14

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For The Win (usatoday.com) 

Week 14 was backdrop to the last bye week on the NFL slate. It also featured a handful of teams who didn’t bother showing up to games on their schedule.

Kirk Cousins continued his descent into the great Atlanta Falcons pit of regrets. The Chicago Bears bucked the recent trend of teams performing well one week after firing a maligned head coach by getting thoroughly outclassed by the San Francisco 49ers. Matchups between the New Orleans Saints and New York Giants, as well as a battle for the AFC South basement between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Tennessee Titans were close, but mostly unwatchable games.

Fortunately, I was watching anyway. So what did we learn across a smattering of action and a desert of poorly orchestrated football? Let’s dig in.

[Please bear with me for any Twitter embed issues. Our editing software has become a whole problem on that front the past couple weeks. Rest assured, if there’s a play alluded to in the text it’s worth clicking through to see if it didn’t make it into the article itself.]

1. Malik Nabers is stuck in football purgatory

Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Ladd McConkey is the NFL’s leading rookie receiver. He’s surrounded by average-to-below-average targets. But since he’s got a great defense and a surging young quarterback, he’s thriving. In Week 13, the Los Angeles Chargers beat the Atlanta Falcons despite funneling nearly 80 percent of their passing offense through the rookie wideout.

This should be New York Giants star Malik Nabers’s lot in life. The second wideout drafted in April is a dynamic player with game-changing capabilities. But instead of torching cornerbacks with deep routes and waltzing into the end zone, he’s been reduced to this:

Nabers has been saddled with three quarterbacks his rookie season. Daniel Jones was bad enough to be benched, then released just so there’s be no chance the Giants would have to pay him in 2025. Tommy DeVito was bad, then hurt, and is currently both. That brings us to Drew Lock, who started his Sunday with incompletions on his first eight passes and finished his day with a passing chart that looks like a toddler’s attempt at pointillism.

via nextgenstats.nfl.com

Nabers averaged nearly 18 yards per catch in his final season at LSU. His average catch as a Giant has come just 6.8 yards downfield. He wasn’t targeted deep a single time in three of his previous four games before Week 14. With the big-armed Lock behind center, he managed to add three more deep targets… only one of which was catchable.

A run through Nabers’s route charts shows a litany of short passes and the occasional deep route that goes nowhere. There are two factors contributing to this. The first is the list of quarterbacks we’ve already discussed.

The second is the fact that defenses have the choice to double him, Wan’Dale Robinson, Darius Slayton or Daniel Bellinger. Nabers draws the short straw nearly every time and, thus, the team’s most targeted player on third down is Robinson — a receiver whose 1.19 yards per route run rank 92nd among 130 wideouts with at least 100 routes this season. Nabers YPRR, by comparison, is a heady 2.09 (32nd).

There is, at least in theory, balm in Gilead. New York’s failures are pushing it closer to a premium draft pick. The Giants can sell a veteran quarterback on the promise of winging deep shots to Nabers and his absurd catch radius. But for now, the rookie is stuck running routes in double coverage and getting open in places his QB can’t find him.

2. Aaron Rodgers maintains the right to poison the New York Jets in a new and exciting way

Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

2024 was not supposed to be a lost season for the Jets. Their quarterback was a four-time MVP, finally healthy after missing all but four snaps of the 2023 season. A top three defense returned alongside a lineup with exciting young skill players. New York entered the season with top odds to win the AFC East.

That did not happen. Rodgers played like a 41-year-old coming off a torn Achilles. His posturing contributed to the firing of Robert Saleh, the head coach apparently vital to keeping the defense rolling. He pressed for the in-season addition of Davante Adams at the cost of future draft picks. He stirred up a typical amount of trash with his weekly Pat McAfee appearances, including one that followed a report the Jets were looking to part ways with their opinionated, but no longer very good, quarterback.

Sunday’s performance in Miami Gardens was proof Rodgers could still find a way to make life worse for the Jets. Namely, by winning games and taking their future draft stock.

For moments, Rodgers looked like the kind of player worthy of being dealt for multiple second round picks. Week 14 marked his first 300-plus yard passing performance since 2021. He completed 60 percent of his passes that traveled at least nine yards downfield and led New York to its most total yards of the season (402).

This drove the Jets dangerously close to a win and potentially two things they don’t want; a worse draft pick and a difficult decision to make on whether to bring Rodgers back for 2025.

Fortunately for New York’s long term hopes, a 52-yard Jason Sanders field goal in the waning seconds and a lost overtime coin flip managed to doom the team to 3-10 on the season. And yes, there’s something to be said when a one-touchdown game stands out as a statement performance from Rodgers. But the message was clear; the veteran quarterback remains good enough to win a few games — maybe enough to take the Jets out of draft position to select his successor.

No team wants to lose games, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a benefit. The silver lining of this latest New York season was it wasn’t a halfway failure. A sustained losing streak pushed the franchise closer to the top of a two-quarterback draft that could provide salvation even if this wasn’t the process in which Jets fans had placed their trust.

Instead, the punchless team that flailed to a Week 13 loss to the Seattle Seahawks despite an early 14-0 lead looks capable of playing spoiler over the final quarter of a schedule that includes winnable games against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Los Angeles Rams and a home rematch against the Dolphins.

With that, Rodgers could find one more point of light to extinguish in a season he’s dragged into his darkness. New York won’t make the playoffs in 2024. This season will go down as a failure. The only way it could get worse is with a few meaningless wins that hinder the team’s ability to meaningfully improve in the near future.

If Rodgers keeps playing the way he did in Week 14, he might just get there.

3. Kirk Cousins embraced all the wrong parts of the Atlanta Falcons

Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

The Falcons have gone from a two-game lead atop the NFC South to second place over the course of a four-game losing streak. The culprit behind the slump? The veteran quarterback who was supposed to unlock the potential of the elite playmakers at every position. Instead, Cousins has been predictable and exploitable, setting up a smorgasbord for opposing defenses along the way.

From Kirk Cousins is embracing all the wrong parts of the Falcons:

The issues are myriad, but many stem from the combination of last year’s injury and the fact he’s now 36 years old. He’s been a sitting duck in the pocket, and while that hasn’t resulted in more sacks — his 5.7 percent sack rate is actually better than it was most years in Minnesota — it’s created an impetus to make poor decisions and rushed throws downfield.

You can see that in the clip above. With the walls crashing around him, Cousins has the veteran gravitas to move up in the pocket but rushes the throw, blanking Josh Metellus waiting underneath in the process. This isn’t new; even when Cousins is nimble enough to escape pressure he’s seemingly doing so at the cost of his own sanity.

Scrambling was never something on which Cousins could reliably lean, but it was a tool he could unleash in a pinch. That hasn’t been the case in 2024. Per Pro Football Reference, he’s scrambled for a gain just twice in 13 games this season. So while Atlanta’s line has done a good job protecting him he’s been unable to maximize that relative lack of pressure.

Further complicating things is his inability to work efficiently out of play action sets. Cousins used fake handoffs to start more than 31 percent of his pass plays in 2023 — a season in which he put up a Pro Bowl pace over eight games. In 2024, that’s down to 14 percent, per NFL Pro.

He’s got one of the league’s top tailback tandems in Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier, so we know it’s not an issue with shoddy runs and defenses that won’t be fooled. The Falcons are clearly concerned about Cousins’s ability to drop back in space, scan the field, step up and exploit the gaps created when a safety or linebacker crashes a split-second too early toward the line of scrimmage.

That leads us to our second problem. Cousins isn’t finding space downfield.

His on-target throw rate is roughly on par with where it had been as a Viking. His tight window rate, however, has shot up from 13.8 percent to 20.8 percent this fall. He’s traded easy throws for tough ones. The combination of increased coverage and whatever zip may be missing from his passes as a man in his late 30s overcoming a significant injury has created a vortex that’s turned him into a turnover machine.

Opponents have figured this out. They don’t need to blitz him, because if one member of a four man rush can beat his blocker that’s capable of doing enough to throw Cousins into panic mode without an easy way out. A 31 percent blitz rate in 2023 has dipped to 20.3 in 2024. Over the last four games, two teams (the Chargers and Saints) blitzed him less than 13 percent of the time despite a deluge of passing downs for a trailing offense.

https://twitter.com/Saints/status/1855716646893076870

That creates more defenders in the second level, more of the tight window throws that don’t have the same success they used to and, crucially, more opportunities to create turnovers against an offense punching way, way below its weight class. By those powers combined, you get plays like this.

4. Jags-Titans was an insult unto the football gods

Andrew Nelles / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The early slate of games Sunday was, to put it generously, bad football. Three of the six showdowns were blowouts. One of the three remaining tight games involved entirely too much Drew Lock.

But even Lock managed to avoid the worst game of Week 14. Behold, a battle between Mac Jones and Will Levis that could be used as a vital teaching tool for preaching quarterback draft abstinence.

Mac Jones completed the only two deep balls in Sunday’s game. One was to rookie wideout Brian Thomas Jr. The other was to Chidobe Awuzie, who does not play on his team.

Jones was every bit the quarterback the New England Patriots gave up on, floating passes downfield and checking down into low-risk, low-reward plays entirely too often. He had one move he spammed repeatedly against the Titans; a short throw to his right that made up 57 percent of his completions and 35 percent of his total yardage.

via habitatring.com

Despite this infuriating level of predictability, the Titans were unable to turn this flaw into a victory. They lost 10-6 on a day where Will Levis came out and immediately left six easy points on the field.

Levis was the opposite of Jones, a low yield passer limited to short throws to his left. Tony Pollard ran for 102 yards on 21 carries and handily outgained his quarterback’s average yards per touch (4.9 to 4.3). Somehow, things could have been even worse for the Titans:

There’s more to unpack here, but… why? The only winner Sunday were the Giants and Las Vegas Raiders, each of whom saw their 2025 NFL Draft position rise by virtue of the Jaguars’ third win of the year. For Jacksonville and Tennessee, Week 14 was a test of their fans’ loyalty and a reminder to the rest of the world that we don’t have to watch the games each Sunday.

5. Jameis Winston is a beautiful disaster (but we knew that already)

Barry Reeger-Imagn Images

Behold, the duality of Jameis Winston. Here he is, expertly avoiding pressure in the pocket and using the threat of his legs to create leverage for Jerry Jeudy to effectively run free to the end zone.

And here he is, botching a screen pass so badly that Keeanu Benson, a 310-pound nose tackle, comes up with the first interception of his career at either the pro or college levels.

This is the Winston experience. He is the opposite of a game manager. He is the shooting guard called off the bench to whip threes toward the hoop with impunity, vacillating between scorching hot and ice cold with little time wasted between these zones. His stint with the Browns has cooled off some of his more volatile downfield tendencies, but he remains capable of dazzling brilliance and baffling confusion on a regular basis.

Take this first half play in which he does a wonderful job of looking off David Njoku’s defender to free the tight end. He even rolls out alongside an open Njoku to set up an easy 15-to-20 yard gain… and then flips the ball out of bounds 10 yards in front of the guy who could have made an incredibly easy catch.

Winston can be a microwave or a freezer. You never know what you’re getting until he drops back to pass. But he’ll never be boring, and that’s wonderful.

6. Kadarius Toney remains an inexplicable mess

Justin Berl/Getty Images

Toney touched the ball five times for the Cleveland Browns in Week 14, all on punt returns. He turned his first three into 44 net return yards, serving as a tidy reminder of how his athleticism can swing a game on special teams.

Then he reminded the world why multiple teams have given up on him fewer than four years after being a top 20 draft pick. Here he is costing the Browns 15 yards for no good reason by jawing toward, then flipping the ball at, Steelers gunner Ben Skowronek.

And here he is, not waiting for the whistle this time and straight up giving Skowronek the ball after the force of a punted ball, incredibly, seems to knock him backward

Just as Jameis Winston had a tremendously Jameis Winston day, Kadarius Toney was his maximum self. It’s beautiful. As long as he’s not on the team for which you root.

7. Matthew Stafford has alligator blood

Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images

The Los Angeles Rams started the 2023 season 3-6 in what looked like a rebuilding year. They went on to a 10-7 record and the sixth seed in the NFC side of the playoffs.

The Rams started the 2024 season 1-4. Now they’re 7-6 and one game out of the playoff picture after Stafford out-dueled Josh Allen and the AFC East champion Buffalo Bills Sunday afternoon.

The 36-year-old remains a truly special talent when it comes to slinging deep, accurate passes to a place only his targets can get to them. Stafford effectively told the Bills and their seventh-ranked passing defense what he was going to do. He spammed targets exactly where you’d expect, slinging 22 of his 30 passes to Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp. Tight windows and double-coverage be damned, Buffalo couldn’t stop it.

Sunday’s performance was littered with throws like that. The Bills coverage was reasonable, even tight.

It did.

Not.

Matter.

This was perfect placement for a quarterback aging very differently than a hobbled Kirk Cousins. Stafford luxuriated in the pocket against a pass rush that failed to sack him even once (and only hit him three times). He utilized a seven-step drop multiple times, using the space created to step up in the pocket on a day where his average pass traveled 9.3 yards downfield — two yards further than his season average to day.

Stafford feasted in that intermediate zone. He threw 16 passes that traveled at least nine yards downfield. He completed 12 of them for 228 yards, one touchdown, zero interceptions and a 137.5 passer rating. That’s how he was able to make NFL quarterbacks with three passing and three rushing touchdowns in the same game winless across league history.

This seems like a great time to segue into the Bills’ very good offensive performance and complete inability to get to Stafford.

Allen absolutely cooked, racking up 424 total yards and six touchdowns. He pushed his receiving corps to the limits of its viability, spreading out 11 catches and 201 receiving yards between Amari Cooper and Khalil Shakir. With the game on the line, Cooper was Allen’s huckleberry — a high trust target capable of coming up with tough catches and, just an importantly, using his veteran gravitas to draw chain-moving pass interference penalties.

This did not matter because Stafford was on the other sideline. We saw what pressure can do to the veteran’s game after injuries shredded the Rams’ offensive line, aiding that 1-4 start. But Buffalo couldn’t crack that code with a below average pass rush whose 32.7 percent pressure rate (while blitzing only 17.6 percent of the time) ranks 19th in the NFL. The Bills opted against sending extra pass rushers in order to clog passing lanes downfield. Stafford thrived in these tight windows regardless.

That was enough to end Buffalo’s seven-game winning streak in what was easily the best game in a moribund Week 14. As long as the Rams can protect Matthew Stafford, they’ve got a chance to win every game they’re in. That should terrify the rest of the NFC.

8. Sam Darnold? (ahem) SAM DARNOLD

Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

Kirk Cousins’s revenge game offered nothing of the sort. Instead, his reputation was merely downgraded as a journeyman quarterback proved he can operate the Minnesota Vikings’ offense better than Cousins ever did.

Sam Darnold finished Week 14 with five passing touchdowns. Cousins maxed out at four in a single game over seven years as a Viking. Darnold’s passer rating was 157.9, 0.4 points from perfection. Cousins maxed out at 142.0 in Minnesota. Sunday’s 42 point performance were the most from a Vikings offense since Teddy Bridgewater commanded the offense in 2015.

We got calm and collected red zone darts into coverage. We got extended scrambles that allowed Justin Jefferson to score one of the easiest touchdowns of his career.

We got a little bit of luck predicated on Minnesota’s ability to draft dynamic, ball-tracking wideouts as well:

But what we mostly got was more evidence Darnold can sustain 2024’s hot start. The small sample size success of his 2022 in Carolina has been validated and expanded upon by an offense loaded with playmakers and a head coach capable of being a Kyle Shanahan-type rising tide for his veteran passers.

Darnold’s 28 touchdown passes in 13 games give him eight more than he’d ever had in a season before 2024. His 68.4 percent completion rate and 108.1 passer rating are each career highs by a significant margin. This isn’t a case of shorter, easier passes creating a runway. Darnold’s 9.1 air yards per throw match the second-longest average pass distance of his career. He’s been given the green light to take chances downfield, and though that’s manifested in 10 interceptions in 13 games it’s also led to so, so many big plays.

What looked like a November lull has turned into a six-game winning streak and a place in contention for the NFC’s top seed. There are several factors at play — strong blocking, elite wideouts and a defense that’s effectively a chaos engine among them. But Darnold has been the driving force between one of the NFL’s best offenses. Holy moly, does that feel strange to type.

9. Fantasy team you absolutely didn’t want to field in Week 14

Todd Kirkland/Getty Images

  • QB: Jordan Love, Packers (206 passing yards, one touchdown, 23 rushing yards, one sack, 14.66 fantasy points)
  • RB: Bucky Irving, Buccaneers (3 rushing yards, one catch, 15 receiving yards, 2.8 fantasy points)
  • RB: Nick Chubb, Browns (48 rushing yards, 4.8 fantasy points)
  • WR: Jayden Reed, Packers (one target, zero catches, 0.0 fantasy points)
  • WR: Deebo Samuel, 49ers (two catches, 22 yards, 13 rushing yards, 5.5 fantasy points)
  • WR: Keenan Allen, Bears (three catches, 30 yards, 6.0 fantasy points)
  • TE: Kyle Pitts, Falcons (one catch, 14 yards, 2.4 fantasy points)
  • D/ST: Buffalo Bills (44 points allowed, -8.0 fantasy points)

Total: 28.16 points