All hail the AFC.
At this point the NFC is looking like it already has whittled itself down to three primary Super Bowl contenders — New Orleans, Green Bay and Tampa Bay — followed by a bunch of long-shot hopefuls, each with at least one major malfunctioning element.
But the AFC? Mygawsh, it’s chock-full of hot, talented, exciting teams. You could hardly conclude otherwise based on Sunday’s results.
Undefeated Pittsburgh gets better by the game. The Steelers extended their franchise-best start to 9-0 with a 36-10 dismantling of Cincinnati.
Buffalo (7-3) continued to drop jaws. The resurgent Bills did more than enough to win at Arizona.
Blossoming QB Josh Allen expertly piloted his crew 78 yards and capped what seemed to be the game-winning drive with 34 seconds left with an absolutely ripping 21-yard TD pass to Stefon Diggs — only to see Kyler Murray of the Cardinals heave a 43-yard Hail Mary TD pass to DeAndre Hopkins with two seconds left to lift Arizona, 32-30.
And how about the 6-3 Miami Dolphins? They won their fifth in a row with a 29-21 win over the Los Angeles Chargers. In this streak the Dolphins have beaten three of the four NFC West teams by a combined score of 105-65. Rookie QB Tua Tagovailoa is now 3-0, and his TD-to-interception ratio improved to 5-to-0.
The Las Vegas Raiders are now 6-3, and have won three in a row and four of five. Jon Gruden finally has this team playing winning football, midway through the third season of his Raiders 2.0 coaching stint.
Kansas City was idle Sunday. But even at 8-1 the defending Super Bowl champions aren’t a lock to win the AFC West because the Raiders are the one team that beat them. Lose again to the Raiders this coming Sunday night and the Chiefs would hold only a one-game lead over the Raiders, with no wiggle room.
The Baltimore Ravens, the defending NFL regular-season champion, entered Sunday night’s game at lowly New England with a 6-2 record, and their only losses coming against the Chiefs and Steelers.
Last but not least, there’s the Indianapolis Colts and Tennessee Titans, who squared off Thursday night. The Colts’ impressive 34-17 win left the two teams tied at 6-3 atop the AFC South.
Any one of the above eight teams could win the AFC. And the way most are playing now, as the mid-November dog days of the NFL schedule quickly turn to playoff ramping-up time, whoever wins the NFC championship in late January is going to have its hands full in Super Bowl LV.
AND THEN THERE ARE THE BROWNS
How to feel if you’re a Cleveland Browns fan?
Your team is 6-3 for the first time since 2014 and only the second time since the early 1990s. You’re in the AFC playoff hunt, too, like the above eight teams.
Awesome.
But your quarterback, 2018 No. 1 overall draft pick Baker Mayfield, still cannot consistently make heady, elite-level plays from quarter to quarter, let alone from week to week.
Gruesome.
Sure, the past two Browns home games have taken place in wind tunnels. But for a team that runs it so dang well — Nick Chubb rushed for 126 yards and Kareem Hunt for 104 in Cleveland’s 10-7 win Sunday over Houston — Mayfield ought to be picking out open receivers all over the field. He’s not.
On Sunday Mayfield hit on 12-of-20 for 132 yards and no touchdowns against Houston, and two weeks ago against Las Vegas he was 12-of-25 for 122 yards and no touchdowns in a 16-6 loss.
In fact, Mayfield has not passed for as many as 166 yards in five of Cleveland’s past seven games. You read that right.
Paltry passing.
Again, the wind was a legit factor at FirstEnergy Stadium on the southern banks of Lake Erie. How strong were the winds on and around the shallowest of Great Lakes on Sunday? Well, not too far from Cleveland, to the northeast — near Long Point, Ont. — marine forecasts called for evening waves as high as an incredible 25 feet.
“We had to run the ball throughout the game,” Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski said. “I have never been a part of that type of wind.”
Thing is, as November turns to December the Browns are going to play in must-win games (plural) where Mayfield will have to rescue them with his passing.
Can he?
ANOTHER GIANT STEP FORWARD
If they weren’t in the NFC East, Daniel Jones and the New York Giants surely couldn’t be talking playoffs.
Not after that awful 0-5 and 1-7 start.
But they’re playing better football over the past month or so — unmistakably. Two wins in a row, and three of five, after Sunday’s 27-17 defeat of Philadelphia.
The Giants thus split the season series with the Eagles, and — with Washington losing at Detroit, and Dallas idle — the Giants at 3-7 rose from fourth in the NFC East to second, tucking themselves just behind the leading 3-5-1 Eagles.
Asked if he’d seen the updated NFC East standings, Giants head coach Joe Judge said he had not.
“And I’ll tell everyone right now: It’s irrelevant,” Judge said. “The only thing that matters is we keep improving as a team and go 1-0 every week. The overall standings, we’re not going to look at those, we’re not going to focus on those.”
What’s got to be encouraging for Giants fans is second-year QB Daniel Jones finally is making clutch plays with his arm and not just his feet.
“Daniel made a lot of big-time throws today,” Judge said.
@JohnKryk
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