Ranking the 9 dumbest mistakes from a WTF Sunday in NFL Week 10

So what the hell was that all about?

Every NFL game had some kind of out-of-nowhere upset this Sunday. The Saints lost as double-digit favorites at home by double digits. The Falcons remembered how to play football. Mitchell Trubisky looked, occasionally, like a real quarterback when the game wasn’t even in garbage time. The Dolphins are on a winning streak. The Jets scored more than 30 points. The Browns won a game in Cleveland. Kirk Cousins won a primetime game.

After everything that happened at the end of September, we thought it’d be hard to top the chaos that week brought. Week 10 proved us wrong, though.

Luckily, there’s one thing we can count on no matter what: The NFL will give us more dumb mistakes than we know what to do with. Here are our nine favorites from Week 10:

This wasn’t entirely Williams’ fault. For one thing, the Cardinals tight end was probably still super pumped to see his alma mater, Minnesota, reach 9-0 for the first time since 1904.

For another, the Minnesota native who spent the first four years of his career in Baltimore is likely still learning what this “sun” thing is all about. And the sun was REALLY bright when he couldn’t haul in this Kyler Murray pass:

On the other hand, it was fourth down and Williams’ drop gave the Bucs the ball back early in the third quarter. They went on to score a field goal on that possession — and ended up winning by, yup, a field goal.

The current Titans starting quarterback has fumbled plenty of times in his career — 56, to be exact. So you’d think he’d know at this point that it’s important to, ya know, actually recover a fumble, if possible.

Tannehill had an opportunity to get back the fumble forced by Chiefs defensive lineman Chris Jones, but he opted to casually rest his hand on top of the ball. That made it easy for Kansas City’s Tanoh Kpassagnon to steal it away.

The CBS broadcast team — including former NFL official Gene Steratore — was surprised it wasn’t ruled a recovery for Tannehill. And while there’s certainly a point to be made for whether a hand on top of the ball constitutes possession, Tannehill could’ve avoided the question altogether by grabbing the ball with even a little gusto.

Instead, the Chiefs got the ball deep in Titans territory, setting up a 30-yard field goal for Harrison Butker.

Chicago had a chance to widen its lead over Detroit after a Jeff Driskel interception gave the Bears the ball deep in enemy territory. And with their offense uneven, head coach Matt Nagy dialed up a little trickeration to keep the Lions on their toes. The main problem was the only way his reverse would work was if his team could find a way to neutralize star defensive lineman Trey Flowers as wideout Taylor Gabriel turned upfield.

Flowers weighs 265 pounds and tosses 300+ linemen aside with regularity. And the only thing standing between him and a tackle for loss was 215-pound quarterback Trubisky, who missed two games earlier this season with a shoulder injury.

Trubisky would earn redemption two plays later, turning third-and-long into his third touchdown pass of the day in a 20-13 home win.

It hasn’t been a stellar year for the Titans’ three-time Pro Bowl left tackle. His season started with a four-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs. When he finally got on the field, he got in a Twitter beef with Bills players after the Titans struggled to keep Marcus Mariota upright against the Buffalo defense.

Lewan is giving up pressures and picking up penalties at a much higher rate than he did in 2018. Even after missing four games, he leads the Titans in penalties. Two of those flags made sure Tennessee’s first drive of the second half against the Chiefs ended with a punt.

The first was an unnecessary flag that came after Lewan did some shoving well after the whistle. The second was a holding penalty on a screen pass that would’ve resulted in a first down. The Titans were forced to punt deep in their own territory and the Chiefs took a 19-13 lead with a touchdown on the next possession.

He got another penalty before the game was over and wasted no time taking responsibility after the game.

Last week, former Titans running back Eddie George told a radio show he doesn’t believe Lewan is very respected in the team’s locker room. If that’s true, Lewan’s lack of discipline is probably a significant reason why.

Hoyer’s first meaningful action of 2019 was promising. While he threw a pick-six in relief of Jacoby Brissett in a 26-24 loss to the Steelers last week, he also tossed three touchdown passes to his own players, creating hope the journeyman backup could keep the Colts’ better-than-expected season afloat.

This hope was misplaced. Hoyer struggled all afternoon as his offense turned a home game against the Dolphins — the NFL equivalent of a license to print your own money — into a 12-point implosion. The veteran understudy completed just 18 of his 39 passes and threw three interceptions against the league’s 32nd-ranked scoring defense.

He still had a chance to rally Indianapolis to victory with a last-gasp drive into Miami territory, only to undo any of that progress with a series of bad reads on his most important plays of the game. He passed up easy yardage in favor of prayers into double-coverage with regularity and overtaxed a receiving corps that was already without T.Y Hilton and Parris Campbell.

Hoyer eventually connected with his top target on fourth-and-10. It was a strike to tight end Eric Ebron — who had run an eight-yard route and was easily stopped before making the line to gain. And that’s how the Dolphins suddenly have a winning streak going.

Sunday’s snowy Panthers-Packers game came down to the wire. In just over two minutes, Kyle Allen managed to get his offense from its own 11 down to the Packers’ 2-yard line, helped by an offsides and neutral zone infractions by Green Bay.

Inside the red zone, though, the Panthers didn’t use MVP candidate Christian McCaffrey nearly as much as they should’ve. And when they finally did, it was too late.

Allen threw four incompletions in the red zone, including two straight on third and fourth down before the offsides penalty gave the Panthers a first down. On first-and-goal with eight seconds left, Allen threw an incomplete pass to McCaffrey. With three seconds left on the last play, the Panthers finally gave it to McCaffrey, who was stopped short:

Look, we know it was snowing and the field was slick, but you at least have to give it to McCaffrey earlier than the last play of the game. He had 108 yards on Sunday! Come on, Norv Turner.

Yeah, so ... Freddie Kitchens is bad at this whole “calling plays” thing. We already knew that, but each week brings us a new layer of ineptitude. Early in the first quarter against the Bills, the Browns made it to the Buffalo 1-yard line with a first down. What followed was a series of idiotic decisions.

First, they tried to run it up the middle — which, fine. They have Nick Chubb. Try and punch it in. He lost a yard on first down, then they tried it again and he got the yard back. On third-and-goal, Baker Mayfield missed Odell Beckham Jr., but the Bills were called for pass interference. That gave Cleveland a new set of downs.

They went with the same play they ran earlier with Chubb and didn’t get it. Then Mayfield threw to Beckham, a forced pass that had no chance of making it. On third-and-goal, they tried another Chubb run, this one to the left side (all the others were to the right side), and he was stuffed.

So what did they try on fourth down? They went for it, with both Beckham AND Jarvis Landry on the sideline. Gee, I wonder what the play call would be?

A run — but not just any run, a slow-moving toss to the right side that lost the Browns two yards and turned the ball over on downs. We cannot fathom why they would toss it in that situation, but they did, and that sure went poorly.

To recap, eight plays inside the 1-yard line and zero points:

It almost happened again later in the second quarter when the Browns couldn’t get in the end zone inside the Buffalo 3-yard line. Fortunately for the Browns, Chris Hubbard false started — on purpose? — and the Browns kicked the field goal.

They ended up winning by three points, but, yeesh, it feels like Kitchens is getting worse at this, huh?

Kansas City looked to be in control in Nashville. The Chiefs led the Titans 32-27 with 1:27 left and were at the Tennessee 29-yard line. Harrison Butker — 4 of 4 on field goal attempts that afternoon — was lined up to boot a 47-yarder to pad the lead to eight points.

He never got the chance. Instead, the snap came too early for punter/holder Dustin Colquitt, who struggled to corral the ball and then had to throw it away before getting trounced in the backfield.

That led to a 10-yard intentional grounding penalty. A 61-yard drive later, the Titans were up 35-32 with just 23 seconds left on the clock.

But Butker and Colquitt would get a second chance! Patrick Mahomes did very Patrick Mahomes things to drive the Chiefs 28 yards in 20 seconds, setting up a game-tying 52-yard attempt with three seconds left on the clock. And while this one would get to Colquitt successfully, it would soon wind up careening past his head in the wrong direction:

Kansas City’s last two field goal attempts went 0 for 2, and the Chiefs fell to 2-3 in their last five games as a result.

Dak Prescott had terrific game against the Vikings on Sunday night, throwing for nearly 400 yards and three touchdowns. Receivers Michael Gallup, Randall Cobb, and Amari Cooper all came up with highlight-reel catches, too. Meanwhile, the Minnesota defense was able to shut down Ezekiel Elliott all night long, holding him to just 47 yards on the ground.

So down 28-24 with under a minute left, why in the world did the Cowboys try to run the ball on the last few plays?

Their explanation — to not leave too much time for the Vikings — makes no sense either.

Nevertheless, Dallas had all three of its timeouts at that point, and the defense forced a three-and-out. So the Cowboys had a second chance when Minnesota punted it back to the them with 24 seconds left.

Except the return man, Tavon Austin, fair caught it (as the coaching staff instructed him to). But take a look at how much space Austin had along the sideline:

There’s no guarantee Austin would’ve housed it — the Vikings could’ve closed in on him if they thought he was taking off. But at the very least, Austin could’ve given the Cowboys better field position for their final possession if his coaches had let him do what he’s out there to do.

On second thought, if that had happened, the Cowboys probably would’ve just tried to run the ball.