NFL, What Do You Know? Week 10 Edition
Stroud Enters the MVP Discussion
Last week, I waxed lyrical about the brilliant job that the Houston Texans are doing as a team, and how they should be taken seriously as a potential playoff team. A huge part of their success has been the steller play of rookie quarterback CJ Stroud. This week, it’s about Stroud putting himself firmly in the MVP race.
One thing that we have learned over the years about the MVP award is that it is partly a narrative award. In a season where there isn’t a runaway MVP favorite up to this point, the narrative that is behind Stroud can be a serious factor if he keeps playing like the way he has been for the rest of the year.
The latest chapter of Stroud’s historic rookie season took place in a 30-27 win over the Cincinnati Bengals on the road. After his amazing performance against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I expected somewhat of a letdown against a Bengals defense that had been rolling over the past few games. Instead Stroud picked up where he left off and completed 23 of 39 passes, threw for 356 yards, and had a passing and a rushing touchdown. The most impressive part of his game against the Bengals was the way he responded to making an uncharacteristic mistake to let the Bengals back in the game. He wasn’t phased, and led a game-winning drive for the second consecutive week.
Cowboys Demolish the Giants Part 2
The Dallas Cowboys were able to bounce back from their defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles last week and beat the New York Giants 49-17. While this victory against the Giants doesn’t prove anything in isolation, it is the first of a few very winnable games that they have coming up that are important to win so that they don’t not lose any more ground on the Eagles.
The Cowboys have proven to have a quality that great teams should have. Which is to completely destroy teams that are significantly inferior. In most of their blowouts this season, it has mostly been about their defense. In this game, it was about the offense. Dak Prescott is playing his best football since the 2021 season over the past month. Prescott completed 26 of 35 passes for, threw for 404 yards, had four touchdown passes, one rushing touchdown, an interception and a passer rating of 138.3. It was his 10th career game with at least 400 passing yards. All other Cowboys’ quarterbacks in the history of the franchise have nine. Prescott’s hot streak is going hand in hand with CeeDee Lamb’s best stretch of football of his career. Lamb had 11 catches for 151 yards, with a passing and rushing touchdown. It is his third straight game with 10 or more receptions and 150 or more receiving yards, which is the longest streak in NFL history.
Chiefs Win Without Playing
We should have known that it was going to be the Kansas City Chiefs’ weekend when Taylor Swift sang “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me,” at her concert in Argentina Saturday night.
The Chiefs had their bye week and got to sit back and watch a few of their AFC rivals lose. Like I mentioned earlier, the Bengals lost to the Texans and now have a 5-4 record. The Bengals have been the team that has given the Chiefs the most trouble in AFC the last couple of years and as things currently stand, would miss the playoffs. The Baltimore Ravens and the Jacksonville Jaguars were the only other two-win teams in the AFC along with Chiefs, and they both lost. The Chiefs have only one loss to an AFC team compared to the Ravens’ three, and also have the head to head tiebreaker over the Jaguars. They have been able to gain a significant advantage in the race for the number one seed without even playing.
Header Photo: The biggest story of the week was definitely C.J. Stroud, but there are so many teams that are making headlines. For example, the Indianapolis Colts and Las Vegas Raiders are 5-5. But the Vikings are the hottest team in the NFL right now… (Tony Gutierrez/The Associated Press)
Write to Mohamed Warsame at mohamed.warsame@mnsu.edu