Week 6 of the NFL season is in the books and there are some good candidates to eulogize this week. For now though we'll just kill off Jonathan Gannon and the 1-5 Cardinals.
Obituary: Cardinals (1-5)
Before we put the Cardinals to bed and never speak of them again this season in the Hierarchy, let's just review the Jonathan Gannon timeline one last time:
• He had impermissible contact with the Cardinals in between the Eagles' NFC Championship Game win and their Super Bowl appearance, locking down a head coaching job while his Philly coaching staff colleagues were preparing to win a Super Bowl.
• He was probably the No. 1 reason the Eagles lost the Super Bowl, with excellent points made here, here, here, and here.
• He was hired by he Cardinals, and got goofy right off the bat.
• During a Q&A session in April, he completely made up an interaction with Philly media that simply never happened.
• More goofiness:
• He said he told Nick Sirianni to give up play calling to Shane Steichen in 2021, which was another lie.
Basically, he proved to be a lying weirdo all offseason.
In their first two games, the Cardinals had fourth quarter leads that turned into losses, but at least they kept those games close. In Week 3, they had one of the bigger upsets of the season so far when they beat the Cowboys. In some ways the 2023 Cardinals exceeded expectations just on those three games, which just goes to show how pathetically low their bar for achievement was this season. Their 1-2 start prompted some morons to spike the football prematurely and proclaim the Cardinals' hiring of Gannon a good one because "hE hAs tHEm pLAyiNg hArD."
But the Cardinals have since settled in as the wholly unthreatening team we expected to see this season, as they have lost each of their last three games by at least 14 points. And, well, now they're just boring and I've lost interest in following their season.
Graveyard
Hierarchy
13) Giants (1-5): At the end of the first half, the Giants had the ball at the 1 yard line after a Bills pass interference call in the end zone. There were 14 seconds on the clock, and Giants had no timeouts. This is what happened:
As you can see, Brian Daboll lit into backup quarterback Tyrod Taylor like he was Tom Coughlin screaming at Matt Dodge.
Daboll's explanation of the play, via Kevin Patra of NFL.com:
"Had a play called, it was a run action pass play and ended up alerting it to a run. Didn't get it off," head coach Brian Daboll said tersely after the loss, via the official transcript. "He saw a look based on the play that we had, and he ended up alerting it."
And Taylor's explanation:
"Yeah, it was a decision, looking back on it, definitely shouldn't have made," he said. "Alerted to a run, thought I saw a look that was beneficial for us, and it wasn't the right call. That falls on me, as a quarterback, as a leader, as the one that's communicating everything to everyone -- got to be better in that situation."
At a minimum, the Giants could have easily walked away from that series with three points. And, well, they could have used those points, seeing as the game ended like this:
Beyond the outcome of this game, which, I mean who cares since the Giants aren't going anywhere this season, I'd be concerned about Daboll's leadership. He publicly shamed Taylor on the field at the end of the half, and then threw him under the bus in the press conference after it. A couple weeks ago, he threw a tablet while reviewing a play with Daniel Jones:
Daboll could have taken some accountability along with Taylor by stressing that it should have been on him and his staff to communicate that under no circumstances should Taylor alert to a run, and perhaps note that as a staff they'll have to be better at safeguarding against that kind of mistake in those situations going forward. But Daboll was basically like, nope, quarterback's fault. Taylor took accountability, while Daboll took none. Are you a coach, or a red-faced maniac? You can only keep up that kind of behavior for so long before you lose the players.
Last week: 14
12) Vikings (2-4): Kirk Cousins was asked if he would waive his no-trade clause before the trade deadline, and he didn't want to talk about that, which I get.
I think the bigger question here is, LOL THE VIKINGS GAVE KIRK COUSINS A NO-TRADE CLAUSE?!?!
Last week: 12
11) Commanders (3-3): The Commanders beat the Falcons on Sunday despite getting out-gained 402-193 and only picking up 13 first downs vs. 25 for the Falcons. They have been out-gained in each of their last five games:
| Opponent | Yards gained | Yards allowed |
| Broncos | 388 | 399 |
| Bills | 230 | 386 |
| Eagles | 365 | 415 |
| Bears | 388 | 451 |
| Falcons | 193 | 402 |
| TOTAL | 1564 | 2053 |
It's also not great that they are consistently allowing around 400 yards every week.
Last week: 11
10) Packers (2-3): The Packers had their bye Week 6, so I will exercise my option not to write about them.
Last week: 10
9) Falcons (3-3): Watch this INT:
And then watch Arthur Smith's reaction to that INT:
Last week: 8
8) Saints (3-3): There are a lot of crappy teams with 3-3 records. In no particular order: Jets, Bengals, Colts, Texans, Raiders, Commanders, Falcons, Rams, and, of course, the Saints.
The six teams the Saints have played so far this season have a combined record of 11-23 and a combined point differential of -143.
Last week: 7
7) Rams (3-3): The Rams won on Sunday, and all three of the other NFC West teams lost. I don't know what their odds were to win the division before and after the results of Week 6 (I'm sure both were/are quite low), but you can kinda-maybe-sorta squint and see a path for them? They beat up on the Seahawks earlier this season, and the 49ers may not be as juggernauty as previously perceived?
Last week: 9
6) Buccaneers (3-2): A 9-8 record will win the NFC South. Losses to teams like the Eagles and Lions are fine. Just beat the other NFC South teams.
Last week: 6
5) Seahawks (3-2): The Seahawks were down 13-17 with a 1st and Goal from the Bengals' 7 yard line and 3:27 to go. Here's how that series went:
But, their defense got a stop and the offense got back into position to score again with a 1st and 10 from the Bengals' 11 yard line. Here's how that series went:
Yuck.
Last week: 4
4) Cowboys (4-2): At the end of the first half against the Chargers, the Cowboys were driving and had a 1st and 10 at the Chargers' 17 yard line with 14 second and 2 timeouts. Dak Prescott completed a 3-yard pass to Tony Pollard, who was tackled inbounds. The clock operator preemptively stopped the clock at 8 seconds, I guess anticipating an obvious Cowboys timeout (?), but McCarthy objected and asked the officials to run the clock down to 3 seconds. So they wound it down to 3, McCarthy called timeout, the Cowboys kicked a FG, and went into the locker room with a timeout in their pocket.
I'd call that cowardly, but I'm not sure it's even that. I think it's just stupidity.
Aaaaand this was your friendly occasional reminder that no matter how good the Cowboys may look at any point this season just remember that their head coach is Mike McCarthy and he's going to mess up a big moment in the playoffs.
Last week: 5
3) Lions (5-1): The Lions' leading receivers:
| Lions receiving | Rec | Yards | YPC | TD |
| Amon-Ra St. Brown | 38 | 455 | 12.0 | 3 |
| Josh Reynolds | 19 | 341 | 17.9 | 3 |
| Sam LaPorta | 29 | 325 | 11.2 | 3 |
| Kalif Raymond | 14 | 187 | 13.4 | 1 |
They have three players on pace for 900-plus yards, and Jared Goff is completing 69.5 percent of his passes. Meanwhile, Jameson Williams, back from suspension, showed a glimpse of what he can do on Sunday.
Last week: 3
2) Eagles (5-1): The Phillies are up 1-0 in the NLCS. So there's that. 🥳🎉
Last week: 2
1) 49ers (5-1): Christian McCaffrey is the 49ers' most important player. Without him, the offense simply isn't the same. You could see how the Niners' offense improved drastically when they acquired him in 2022, and how it fell apart when he had to exit with an oblique injury during the 49ers' loss to the Browns on Sunday. If your team's success is dependent on a running back, you're playing with fire because running backs are so often injury risks.
There are currently eight active running backs with at least 1500 career touches. Here they are, in order of career touches per game:
| Player | Games | Touches | Touches/game |
| Ezekiel Elliott (28) | 109 | 2248 | 20.6 |
| Christian McCaffrey (27) | 81 | 1600 | 19.8 |
| Dalvin Cook (28) | 79 | 1551 | 19.6 |
| Joe Mixon (27) | 86 | 1640 | 19.2 |
| Derrick Henry (29) | 108 | 1986 | 18.4 |
| Alvin Kamara (28) | 91 | 1640 | 18.0 |
| Melvin Gordon (30) | 110 | 1892 | 17.2 |
| Latavius Murray (33) | 141 | 1741 | 12.3 |
Of those eight backs, only McCaffrey has a yards per carry average in 2023 that is better than his career yards per carry average. And really, when you look at the other seven backs on that list, they're either cooked or are on their way. While that is yet another reminder that running backs do not age well, it should also be noted that McCaffrey is still a great player despite his extreme usage.
In our Hierarchy last week, we noted that heading into Week 6 that McCaffrey was on pace for 405 touches during the regular season, which is obviously not ideal and very likely unsustainable for a player who has suffered his fair share of injuries over his career. And sure enough, boom, oblique injury.
To be determined:
- Will McCaffrey return to the field before he is fully healed?
- Will he be affected by that injury whenever he returns?
- Can Kyle Shanahan see the big picture and substantially cut down on McCaffrey's usage so that he can be reasonably close to peak performance for the playoffs?
My guesses:
- Probably.
- If yes on No. 1, then yeah, probably.
- No shot.
Last week: 1
MORE: The latest Lane Johnson injury update
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