It was a brutal Sunday for NFL quarterbacks.
Injuries, inefficiencies and in-your-face defenses made for rough outings all around the league.
The Rams beat the Las Vegas Raiders, 20-15, and the quarterbacks combined for zero touchdowns and four interceptions.
Meanwhile, Patrick Mahomes and Brock Purdy combined for zero touchdowns and five interceptions in Kansas City’s 28-18 win at San Francisco.
Houston’s C.J. Stroud, last season’s Offensive Rookie of the Year, had a terrible day at Green Bay, and Washington’s Jayden Daniels, on track for those honors this season, left Sunday’s game with a rib injury after the first series.
That might have spelled doom for the Commanders, but they were playing Carolina, led by Andy Dalton — 93 yards passing, two interceptions.
Washington won, 40-7.
“We all called each other and told ourselves, `We’re gonna suck it up today,’” joked Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, when asked about the coast-to-coast subpar quarterback play.
At SoFi Stadium, the Rams defense ruled.
Aidan O’Connell, starting quarterback for the Raiders, left in the first quarter with a thumb injury. His replacement, Gardner Minshew, struggled to generate any kind of spark.
The Rams picked him off three times, and he left with a passer rating barely old enough to drink — 21.0.
“It’s super frustrating,” Minshew said. “I’ve never turned the ball over like this in my life.”
And to think Tom Brady just signed on as minority owner of the Raiders, he of the seven Super Bowl rings. Mercifully, he wasn’t there to witness that debacle. Less mercifully, Brady was in the broadcast booth for Fox calling the Super Bowl rematch between the Chiefs and 49ers.
Miami lost Tyler Huntley to a shoulder injury at Indianapolis, leaving the Dolphins with Tim Boyle under center. The team, which lost 16-10, has used four quarterbacks this season but is due to get Tua Tagovailoa back this week after he missed four weeks because of his latest concussion.
The New York Giants benched Daniel Jones in the fourth quarter of a 28-3 loss to Philadelphia, replacing him with Drew Lock. After the game, Giants coach Brian Daboll told reporters that Jones would retain his starting job.
“Yeah, it was frustrating,” Jones told reporters. “You want to be out there playing with your teammates and fighting to score points and move the ball. So, I was frustrated, but not my decision.
“Didn’t like it, obviously.”
And in Cleveland, the ill-fated Deshaun Watson experiment took another downturn. Watson, you’ll recall, was signed by the Browns to a fully guaranteed $230-million contract despite more than 20 lawsuits against him alleging sexual assault and/or misconduct.
He suffered an apparent season-ending injury to his Achilles tendon and was booed by some in the hometown crowd as he was taken off the field on a cart.
“We don’t boo guys that are injured on the field, especially when the cart comes out,” teammate Myles Garrett told reporters. “We should be ashamed of ourselves as Browns and as fans to boo anyone and their downfall.”
Every game is its own story. It’s a peculiar coincidence that so many quarterbacks across the league had such a bad Week 7. But it is notable that, generally speaking, this is the time of the season when offenses tend to have a slight edge over defenses.
Often, defenses have an edge early in the season — they have a thinner playbook, after all — and it takes a few weeks for offenses to catch up and hit their stride. Sunday, at least, that wasn’t the case.
“It’s any given week in this league,” said Stafford, who absorbed multiple big hits and finished with a season-low passer rating of 62.6. “Defenses are paid to stop us as well. They’re doing a nice job. … I know I left some plays out there for sure, couple of out routes to my left that I want back.”
The Rams are relishing in the play of their young defense, as they should in the wake of a win that felt more lopsided than the five-point difference suggests.
They get All-Pro receiver Cooper Kupp back for Thursday night’s home game against Minnesota, and that should be a big boost to Stafford, providing he gets sufficient protection up front.
Not every quarterback struggled Sunday. Detroit’s Jared Goff completed all but three of his 25 passes for 280 yards and two touchdowns. The Lions are a powerhouse.
Again, weird season.