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As Jakobi Meyers wound up to whip a 10-yard backward pass to Mac Jones, he was hoping to make New England Patriots history.
He did just that—but not in the way he was hoping.
The all-time gaffe wound up in the hands of Las Vegas Raiders defensive end (and former Patriots defensive end) Chandler Jones, who threw a vicious stiff-arm to the face of Mac Jones and scampered all the way to the end zone for one of the most improbable walk-off wins in NFL history.
Speaking to Peter King of NBC Sports, Chandler Jones described what was going through his mind as the play unfolded:
"It was a desperado situation, and that was a team that would try to do anything to advance the ball for a touchdown. They'll throw the ball, pitch it, lateral it. I knew that was a possibility to happen. I thought they would do a hook-and-lateral, or something like that. They had a random run.
"I actually missed a tackle on [Rhamondre Stevenson]. I went to go punch the ball out on that play and I missed. The guy kept running. By the time I stood up, I realized that the ball was being pitched around.
"They were playing hot potato now. Instead of pursuing the ball, I just started playing back into saying, 'All right, who's the next passer? Who could they possibly throw it to next that's behind the line of scrimmage?' Because they're playing this whole hot potato game. Sure enough, I saw Jakobi Meyers kinda look back at Mac Jones, the quarterback. He was standing in the middle of the field. I literally just jumped up when I saw the ball coming, intended for Mac. Mac was kind of standing there, looking at me with big eyes.
"I literally just jumped up and intercepted it. I just gave Mac a nice stiff-arm with my right hand. The rest was history."
"I don't think I've thrown a stiff-arm in practice," Jones told Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated. "When I caught the ball, he was there, I was thinking, You know what, I could try to put a juke move on. I could try to outrun him. I don't know, maybe I could outrun Mac Jones. But whenever defensive players are running for touchdowns, they always get made fun of for getting caught by the quarterback. So I thought, I'm not gonna try to outrun him. I'm just trying to run over him. If I fall and trip, I'll pitch it. Because there were guys behind me."
There was no logical excuse for what transpired. The game was tied 24-24 and seemingly headed for overtime.
The odds of Meyers completing a 10-yard lateral were already low in any situation. Throwing the pass to Mac Jones, who is certainly not the fleetest of foot, lowered the odds of success by an exponential degree. There was no world in which Jones was going to scamper 50 yards for a touchdown, so the options were going to be limited even if Meyers did complete the attempt at a miracle.
Instead, the result was perhaps Chandler Jones' greatest individual play of his career and arguably the most embarrassing moment of Bill Belichick's coaching career.
Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor is reportedly "highly unlikely" to play again this season after suffering a high ankle sprain in Saturday's loss to the Minnesota Vikings.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reported no formal determination has been made, but "all eyes are expected to be on a healthy 2023."
Taylor missed time earlier this season in Weeks 5 and 6 with an ankle injury. He returned for Weeks 7 and 8 but then missed Week 9 after reaggravating the injury in an Oct. 30 loss to the Washington Commanders.
In a Week 15 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, Taylor suffered another ankle injury and was ruled out for the remainder of the contest.
Losing the 23-year-old for any period of time certainly isn't ideal for the Colts. He has rushed for 861 yards and four scores in 11 games this season.
However, Indy's offense hasn't played well even with Taylor in the lineup. Quarterback Matt Ryan has been at the root of the team's problems, though the offensive line hasn't been any better.
When Taylor misses time, the Colts turn to Deon Jackson and Zack Moss at running back. Jackson has rushed for 191 yards and one score in 13 games, while Moss, who was acquired from the Buffalo Bills at the trade deadline, has rushed for 112 yards in five games with the Colts.
Indianapolis is third in the AFC South with a 4-9-1 record.
Nikola Jokić is having one of the greatest individual seasons in NBA history. For the third season in a row. As the two-time reigning MVP.
And yet, prior to Sunday's 40-point, 27-rebound, 10-assist triple-double (no typos there), he'd received, at best, minimal MVP buzz for this season.
In the first edition of ESPN's MVP straw poll, published late last week, Jokić finished fifth and only received one first-place vote. There are still four players with shorter betting odds on FanDuel's Sportsbook. He hasn't been first on NBA.com's MVP Ladder once all season.
But he's still dominating in every way he did in 2020-21 and 2021-22. In some ways, he's even gotten better.
After his "not since Wilt Chamberlain" triple-double (an increasingly common descriptor for Jokić), he's averaging 25.2 points, 10.9 rebounds and 9.0 assists in just 32.9 minutes per game (27.5 points, 11.5 rebounds and 10.1 assists per 75 possessions).
With the return of Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. (who's been back on the injured list since November 23), Jokić's scoring and rebounding rates are slightly down, but he's had a number of reminder performances of late.
And before he started stacking those games up, Jokić was distributing to teammates and converting the shots he did take at career-best levels.
In what could now be characterized as an off night for the big man, Jokić went 13-of-26 from the field for his 40 points against the Charlotte Hornets. And that somehow dropped his true shooting percentage to 69.2.
He's on track to have the best true shooting percentage of all time for a season in which a player put up at least 15 shots per game. And the rest of the top 10 on that list is inhabited by Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Charles Barkley, Adrian Dantley, Anthony Davis (if he maintains his current level of play) and Jokić's 2021-22.
Had enough? Too bad, the 2022-23 resume doesn't end there.
With the exception of raw plus-minus, Jokić was in the same spots in all of those leaderboards prior to Sunday. The big performance only solidified his positions. So why, with such an absurdly strong case to win a third straight MVP, have so many people seemingly been intent on handing anyone else the MVP?
Well, for one thing, it's early. In ESPN's first edition of the 2021-22 MVP straw poll, Jokić was fourth. Of course, he went on to win the award. In what sometimes turns into a war of attrition, Jokić has a strong record of availability. Coming into 2022-23, he'd averaged 75.3 appearances per season. If that continues along with his remarkably consistent production, analysts and fans will be forced to acknowledge Jokić's presence in the MVP debate.
But he'll still have to overcome the bigger reason for the mass disregard of this campaign: good old-fashioned voter fatigue, which came for plenty of legends before Jokić.
HBO's Bomani Jones certainly has a point. Giannis Antetokounmpo's production didn't drop much after his second MVP (though it's not hard to argue Jokić's case that year). In 2010-11, LeBron James comfortably led the NBA in box plus/minus, but Derrick Rose stole the honor as his Chicago Bulls finished first in the East. Charles Barkley's Phoenix Suns finished first in the West in 1992-93, but Michael Jordan was undoubtedly the better and more productive individual player. The same logic won out in 1972-73, when Dave Cowens beat Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, whose numbers were simply better.
The common thread through all of the above is a potential MVP threepeat cut off by someone on a team with a better record. The underlying, often unsaid, factor there is that voters and fans simply don't want to add to a club that currently has just three members.
Right now, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Larry Bird are the only players in league history to win three straight MVPs. There's an idea that giving a third straight to Jokić will act as a tacit endorsement of him being on the same level of those three.
The problem with the above is that it's not called "the best player on the best team" award, even if that's how it's often framed (now and through history). It's also not called the "most valuable player who's already won a championship" award. It's the [insert given season] Most Valuable Player, and under a plain-language analysis, Jokić has one of the strongest cases in the league.
If rewarding Jokić puts him in the company of Russell, Wilt and Bird, so be it. As we were reminded on Sunday, we should at least be used to the comparisons between Jokić and Chamberlain.
Sunday's incredible sports slate had one more unbelievable finish.
On a day when the men's World Cup final went into penalty shootouts, and nine different NFL games were decided by a single score, the Los Angeles Lakers added some drama of their own with a Thomas Bryant game-winner.
Bryant, who is playing a larger role for the Purple and Gold with Anthony Davis sidelined by a foot injury, scored off a LeBron James assist that came off a broken play. Kyle Kuzma then missed a three-pointer on the other end, and Los Angeles escaped with a 119-117 victory over the Washington Wizards.
There was plenty of reaction on social media:
Bryant notched a double-double of 16 points and 10 rebounds, while James finished with 33 points, nine assists and seven rebounds. The King also had a go-ahead dunk in the final 30 seconds, although Bradley Beal answered on the other end with two free throws.
Los Angeles is still an ugly 13-16 on the season, but it has played much better of late following a 2-10 start.
Maintaining this momentum will be a tall order, though, considering Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium reported Davis is expected to be sidelined for "at least one month" with the foot injury.
Bryant is expected to be the primary fill-in, and he certainly proved he could come through in the big moments in such a role on Sunday.
The Washington Commanders had the chance to complete an improbable comeback against the New York Giants on Sunday Night Football, but they were doomed by some questionable officiating.
Trailing by eight with under two minutes left in the game, Commanders quarterback Taylor Heinicke drove the team down to the Giants goal line. When it looked like rookie running back Brian Robinson punched in a touchdown, the referees threw a flag for illegal formation because star receiver Terry McLaurin was deemed to be not lined up properly.
While that call felt egregious since McLaurin told reporters after the game that he had confirmed the legality of his pre-snap alignment with the referee, fans at FedEx Field were even more incensed after Heinicke's fourth-down throw to the end zone.
The ball bounced off the hand of receiver Curtis Samuel, but a closer look showed a clear and obvious pass interference by Giants cornerback Darnay Holmes. Only this time, the referees swallowed their whistle, sealing a 20-12 loss for Washington in front of its home crowd.
The inconsistent officiating in the crucial moments of Sunday night's game drew the ire of NFL Twitter, as many unloaded on the referees after the game:
Officiating in the NFL has been the subject of controversy throughout the 2022 season. Along with roughing the passer calls, pass interference penalties have fallen under a microscope because of the inconsistencies in how the rules are being enforced.
Washington had overcome an 11-point halftime deficit to make it a one-score game. Heinicke has proven to be able to come up clutch when needed, but he wasn't given a chance this time because the referees took over the spotlight.
The Commanders (7-6-1) are still hoping to make a push for the playoffs, so they will have to regroup quickly and turn the page to next week's game against the San Francisco 49ers (10-4) on Christmas Eve.
The New York Giants have the inside track on a playoff spot thanks in large part to their rookie defensive end.
Despite an inconsistent offensive performance, the New York Giants escaped Sunday's NFC East showdown with a 20-12 victory over the Washington Commanders at FedEx Field. The teams tied two weeks ago and had identical 7-5-1 records entering the game, but the Giants moved ahead with a critical head-to-head win.
While Saquon Barkley is often the headliner for New York and scored a touchdown, it was defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux who stole the show. He finished with 12 tackles, three tackles for loss, one sack, one forced fumble, one fumble recovery and, most importantly, a defensive touchdown.
The Oregon product received plenty of love on social media:
New York seized control and built a 14-3 lead in a first half that included an 18-play, 97-yard drive that took more than eight minutes off the clock and featured a 4th-and-9 conversion and a direct snap to Barkley for a touchdown run.
Yet it was still Thibodeaux who made the big play with a strip-sack before he recovered the fumble he forced and returned it for a touchdown. He was in takeover mode even beyond the highlight play, creating constant pressure and standing out against the running game.
All the pressure was on the Giants defense when their offense went stagnant in the second half with just two field goals, but the unit answered the call. Thibodeaux didn't replicate his statistical dominance of the first half, but he still drew double teams, opened up blitzing lanes for his teammates and sped up Taylor Heinicke's internal clock.
Naturally, he was the one making the tackle at the 1-yard line on Washington's final drive that stalled in a goal-to-go situation in the final minute.
Now Thibodeaux and the rest of the Giants will turn their attention to a Christmas Eve matchup and potential playoff preview against the Minnesota Vikings.
