Jordan Love is outside the circle of trust, the Rams saved Matthew Stafford (again) and 9 things we learned in Week 9

The Detroit Lions exerted their dominance atop the NFC North by rolling over the Green Bay Packers in a rainy Lambeau Field. The Chicago Bears made their fans pay for their optimism by meekly bowing out of a winnable game against the Arizona Cardinals.

There was plenty to unpack in Week 9, whether it was the New England Patriots' re-establishing their place atop the 2025 draft order by losing to the Tennessee Titans (coupled with a Carolina Panthers win over the freefalling New Orleans Saints) or the Philadelphia Eagles' ability to torture their own fans with a win over the Jacksonville Jaguars.

What stood out most from a busy slate? Let's talk about it. 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. Myles Garrett is a monster once more (and it did not matter a single bit for the Cleveland Browns)

Garrett is having, for him, a tumultuous season. Injuries and the fatigue of carrying a Deshaun Watson-led offense limited him to a career low 0.5 sacks per game through the first eight weeks of 2024. His Cleveland Browns began the season 1-6 and he was forced into the blue injury tent repeatedly thanks to foot, ankle and thigh issues.

As a result, Cleveland's once elite defense suffered. After allowing -0.155 expected points added (EPA) per play in 2023 -- tops in the NFL -- the Browns slid to -0.016 this fall, which ranked 17th through the first seven weeks of the season. That led to a challenge after that early slump; Garrett told the world at large he needed to be better and his teammates needed to follow suit.

That change didn't happen immediately. But against the young offensive line of the Los Angeles Chargers, it happened all at once.

Garrett had three sacks in the first 21 minutes of Sunday's game. And it did not matter.

Garrett's efforts were obfuscated by the rot that seeped into almost every corner of the Browns' 2024 season. Jameis Winston rallied this team to a comeback win over the Baltimore Ravens in Week 8, then promptly crawled back into his hole in Week 9. Before a garbage time drive pulled the Chargers' lead down to 27-10 in the final two minutes, Winston completed 21 of 39 passes for 188 yards and three interceptions. This was good for a 35.0 passer rating. 40 straight incompletions would have gotten him to a 39.6.

Winston, to his credit, threw downfield more often than his predecessor in an effort to spark a comeback win. 21 of his 46 pass attempts traveled at least 10 yards downfield. To his detriment, he did not do this especially well.

Nick Chubb continued his slow return from last year's knee injury. After averaging 2.7 yards per carry in his first two games of 2024 he toted the ball 15 times for 39 yards... a frustrating 2.6 yards per carry.

Garrett came to play, finishing with three sacks and five quarterback hits on a day where the Cleveland defense brought down Justin Herbert six times. But the unit behind him was forced to account for short fields and got burned deep as Herbert continued to quietly prove himself in 2024. This led to a deficit that could not be erased.

This is terrible news for the 2025 Browns, who will be led by Watson and his un-sheddable fully guaranteed contract. The former Pro Bowler, accused of more than 20 counts of sexual misconduct as a Houston Texan and what the NFL described as "predatory behavior" was a bottom-four quarterback before a torn Achilles ended his season. He'll be back next fall, providing little momentum or difference making behind center. The supporting cast around him is unlikely to improve much; Cleveland has an estimated -$3.6 million in salary cap space next spring, per Over the Cap.

This all suggests more superhuman Garrett efforts will go to waste. The Browns spent an absurd amount of money to fix a broken franchise and were given snake oil in return. Now Garrett stands to inherit the boulder Joe Thomas could never quite get up the hill in his long Cleveland career.

2. Daniel Jones had the wildest first half stat line I've ever seen

Remember the waning days of Jerome Bettis' career? Where the Pittsburgh Steelers brought him out mostly in short yardage situations and maximized his surplus of running back beef? He once gave the world this stat line: five carries, one yard and three rushing touchdowns.

For one half Sunday, Daniel Jones scraped the face of late-stage Jerome Bettis.

The New York Giants trailed the Washington Commanders 21-7 at halftime. Jones completed 66 percent of his passes, which is good. This led to zero actual passing yards and negative-eight net yards across seven Giants dropbacks, which is not. He'd attempted only three passes that went more than two yards downfield, completing one.

But he made the one that did count -- even if the chart above counts it as a two-yard target because it came at the goal line.

That was nice. Not in a way that mattered, of course, but still nice. The Giants lost 27-22 on a day where Jones finished with 174 passing yards -- a solid enough turnaround from, uh, zero. He even managed to dial up some solid downfield throws, completing four of five passes that traveled at least 15 yards downfield. This deep ball touchdown to Theo Johnson didn't have a huge degree of difficulty, but credit where it's due; it got done.

This wasn't enough to push the Giants to a win. It probably won't be enough to keep Jones in northern New Jersey before 2024. New York can shave $30 million off its salary cap by designating the former first round draft pick a post-June 1 release this offseason. So as fun as a zero-yard, one touchdown performance may be, it's probably not worth superyacht money.

3. Drake London can do everything

It was a big risk when the Atlanta Falcons dedicated a third straight top-10 draft pick on a skill player in 2022. Drake London, the Pac-12 offensive player of the year in a season where a broken ankle limited him to only eight games, has proven to be absolutely worth it.

The addition of Kirk Cousins has unlocked the offensive potential that had simmered until a calm surface of subpar quarterback play the last two seasons. London has been a primary beneficiary of the upgrade. His catches per game have risen from 4.3 to six. His catch rate is up from 62 percent to 70. And he's got a passer willing to trust him with throws like this:

London put the Falcons on the board early with the exact kind of catch Atlanta drafted him to make. The 6-foot-4 wideout's talent extends beyond his size and speed to the fact he has one of the largest catch radii in the NFL. In 2022 and 2023, that meant bailing out uneven quarterbacks on off-target throws (catch rate? 62 percent). In 2024, it means back shoulder throws threaded through tight coverage to a place where only London can reach and a 71 percent catch rate.

There's more to London's game than just the wingspan and awareness of a bald eagle. He's capable of putting that big frame to work elsewhere. Here's the blocking a yard downfield on what became a 12-yard Bijan Robinson carry:

Six blockers are roughly a yard beyond the line of scrimmage. Four yards behind them, erasing a Dallas Cowboys cornerback from the play and creating the path to the sideline Robinson's about to exploit? That's London, doing his job without even running a route.

It's possible London's 2024 shine is merely being illuminated by the modest standard of low Falcons expectations. He is, by all accounts, merely doing his job. But his ability to do so helps everyone thrive. Let's compare him against fellow high profile Atlanta draft pick Kyle Pitts on Sunday:

Not great! London exited Sunday's game after that touchdown catch with a hip pointer. He didn't return and the Falcons still emerged with a 27-21 win. But when he's on the field he's a rising tide; a player who can't be left in single coverage with a competent quarterback who clears space for the playmaking machine in the backfield. No one aside from Cousins may be more important to Atlanta's quest for its first playoff win since 2017.

4. Bo Nix is trying so hard

From Bo Nix worked so hard for the Broncos to get so little:

Bo Nix worked so hard for the Broncos to get so little

Read the full breakdown here.

7. Jordan Love has exited the circle of trust

Through the first 10 weeks of the 2023 season, the Green Bay Packers were 3-6. Jordan Love, in his first season as the team's starting quarterback, had thrown 10 interceptions. His 0.061 expected points added (EPA) per dropback ranked 14th among NFL passers.

Through the first nine weeks of the 2024 season, the Packers are 6-3. Love, in his second season as the team's starting quarterback, has thrown 10 interceptions, including one in every game so far this year. His 0.147 EPA/play ranks 12th among NFL passers.

His history suggests a switch will be flipped soon. He rallied Green Bay to the postseason last winter by throwing a single interception in his final eight games. However, Sunday's rain-soaked game against the Detroit Lions failed to inspire confidence.

It's difficult to botch a screen pass so badly it results in negative-six points, yet here we are. Love has been beset by multiple maladies along the way this season. He's been injured, missed games and played hurt. He's been stung by terrible turf in Brazil and a torrential downpour on Sunday evening. But, for the most part, he's made the kind of gunslinging mistakes you'd expect from a rookie quarterback and not the fifth-year player who just signed a $220 million extension.

At the same time, he's made plays that fail to show up in the box score. This fourth quarter play is officially an incompletion, but you can see Love stand in the pocket, find his top deep threat with a step downfield and put the ball where he believes Christian Watson will be while taking a big hit. Watson slows down a touch too much and misplays it, but it's still proof why the Packers believe so hard in their mercurial young quarterback.

Love was a monster over the back half of 2023. He has the skill and the receiving corps to be a monster once more. This time, at 6-3, there's much more room for error if he does not. This leaves Green Bay to only moderately worry about the quarterback who makes at least one baffling throw (positive) and one baffling throw (derogatory) per game.

Love has plenty of time to figure things out. But if he can't filter the doofus plays from his repertoire, it could spell playoff disaster for the Packers in January.

8. The Chicago Bears are broken in a very Bears way

In 2018, the Bears were trending upward. Head coach Matt Nagy had turned a young quarterback into a Pro Bowl caliber player. Mitchell Trubisky had Chicago on trajectory for playoff success after a 12-win season. Then, Cody Parkey's game-winning Wild Card field goal blasted off the upright and crossbar before bouncing to the turf, giving us the famous Double Doink and effectively dooming Nagy's team to mediocrity or worse for the next few years.

In 2024, the Bears trended upward once more. Head coach Matt Eberflus had turned a young quarterback into a Pro Bowl-caliber player. Caleb Williams had Chicago at 4-2 and in a solid position to make waves in the NFC playoff race. Then, the Washington Commanders pulled off a 52-yard Hail Mary to win in Week 8, and, well, it may have left some Double Doink-esque residual effects.

Like the Bears' inability to stop a run play from beyond midfield with 13 seconds left in the first half.

Eberflus' post-bye strategy has been genuinely baffling; a makeover for a team whose natural beauty had just begun to shine. Cole Kmet went from weapon (25 catches, 286 yards and three touchdowns between Weeks 2 and 6) to afterthought (one target in Weeks 8 and 9). D'Andre Swift shredded the Commanders' porous defense and then, facing a similarly bad Arizona Cardinals unit, ran for just 51 yards on 16 carries. The offensive line that had seemingly figured things out allowed a 53 percent pressure rate vs. Washington and a 46 percent pressure rate vs. Arizona -- each season highs for those respective defenses, per NFL Pro.

The Bears' once-promising season is threatening to slide off the rails. Even more so when that promising rookie quarterback is left to complete mop-up duty and winds up getting hurt as a result.

The cold comfort for Chicago is every loss takes them closer to the end of the Eberflus era, closing the door on a head coach who never quite seemed to grasp the gravity that his job entailed. Nagy had the Double Doink. Eberflus had the world's worst Hail Mary defense. Barring an unlikely turnaround, that will be his legacy.

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

• QB: Kyler Murray, Cardinals (154 passing yards, six rushing yards, three sacks, one fumble lost, 5.86 fantasy points)

• RB: Tank Bigsby, Jacksonville Jaguars (22 rushing yards, 2.2 fantasy points)

• RB: Braelon Allen, Jets (nine rushing yards, 0.9 fantasy points)

• WR: Marvin Harrison Jr., Arizona Cardinals (two catches, 34 yards, one fumble lost, 3.4 fantasy points)

• WR: Puka Nacua, Rams (one catch, 11 yards, 2.1 fantasy points)

• WR: Keon Coleman, Bills (one catch, 21 yards, one two-point conversion, 5.1 fantasy points)

• TE: Kyle Pitts, Falcons (one catch, 11 yards, 2.1 fantasy points)

• D/ST: Denver Broncos (one sack, 41 points allowed, -7.0 fantasy points)

Total: 14.66 points

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Jordan Love is outside the circle of trust, the Rams saved Matthew Stafford (again) and 9 things we learned in Week 9