One: I’m going to do something a little bit different with my first thought here.
I’m going to ask that this Christmas, if you celebrate it, you spend it with your loved ones. Not necessarily because I’m on some big moral mission (although, I do earnestly think you should spend the holidays being with your family, if possible), but because I want to warn you about this year’s Christmas Day NFL slate.
It sucks.
The early game features an already-eliminated Dallas Cowboys team in Washington to play the 4-11 Commanders. The midday game sees Detroit, fresh off a heartbreaker loss to Pittsburgh, travel to a lowly Minnesota team. And the night game has Denver in Kansas City to take on the injured and eliminated Chiefs.
It’s hardly the competitive, playoff-defining slate that the NFL hoped for when it made this schedule. Sure, Detroit is going to have a lot to play for, needing to win out and get some help, and Denver can try and keep their seeding in the AFC, but all in all, this schedule is pretty bad.
Netflix and Peacock should ask for their money back. They got robbed.
Two: I’ll tell you what is entertaining, though: the race for the NFC South.
I know a lot of people don’t like when a team with a weak record ends up winning a division. A 9-8 or 8-9 team getting a home playoff game always sparks debate over how we should handle seeding.
Personally though, I love divisional races like these down the stretch. When the wild card isn’t an option and the only path to the playoffs is winning your division, you get to see some pretty desperate football. That’s what we’re seeing out of Carolina and Tampa Bay right now.
The Panthers got a leg up on the Buccaneers this weekend, when they beat them 23-20 at home to get a one-game lead in the division. But, these two could be tied once again in a week.
Carolina hosts a red-hot Seattle team next week, while Tampa visits a lowly Miami team with no point left in their season. Assuming Seattle keeps up their winning ways and Tampa Bay takes care of business, Week 18 could be pretty fun over there!
Three: I am not a fan of the jerseys the New Orleans Saints wore this weekend.
Don’t get me wrong, I see what they were going for, I just don’t think it works. Here’s a look at them out in the wild:
The Saints have a nice color scheme altogether, but it only works when black or white is the dominant color on the jersey. Their Vegas gold-type color works perfectly when it blends in with a black home uniform, or a white away uniform.
This just…isn’t it.
On a positive note for the Saints, however, 26-year-old rookie quarterback Tyler Shough put together his first 300+yard passing day in the NFL, going 32-of-49 against a Jets defense that has struggled all year.
Four: Switching gears here, I did get to see my favorite uniform in the NFL in action Monday night.
Against the San Francisco 49ers, the Indianapolis Colts wore their Indiana Nights jerseys, a slightly different take on their usual blue home uniforms. That different shade of blue, the state/C-letter logo, the black helmet. It’s gorgeous. In case you aren’t familiar with it, here’s the uniform in action:
If it were up to me, I might make these the permanent uniforms for the Colts. But, then you run the risk of making it less special. That’s always the tricky thing when you have an alternate uniform that works as well as this one does for Indianapolis.
Would I feel this way about these jerseys if I got used to seeing them every week? If you like them as much as I do, would you like them less and less the more you saw them?
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