Zero passing yards, one win. Did the Bucs just reinvent the NFL in all the wrong ways?

I don’t think I’m being cheeky when I say that passing is the most exciting part of football. A solid hit is nice, and a big run can thrill you, but this is a quarterback-centric game. When a QB is bad, teams usually lose and fans get bored. So, Sunday’s performance by Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has me positively gobsmacked. I wouldn’t say their 16-0 win over the Atlanta Falcons was thrill-a-minute, but it certainly was historic. By completing a grand total of zero passes out of a paltry three attempts, Baker Mayfield led the Bucs to the first game with no passing offense since the Buffalo Bills beat the New York Jets 16-12 on 29 September 1974. If you are miraculously old enough to remember the NFL before the advent of the forward pass in 1906, first off, congratulations on being over 120 years of age. Please email me your full diet and exercise regimen. You’re probably on your feet (if standing is still something physically possible), cheering a bit of hard-nosed, classic football. The rest of us young whippersnappers still grinding through our first century are holding our noses.Allow content provided by a third party?This article includes content hosted on embed.bsky.app. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as the provider may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'.Of course, Mayfield – a former No 1 overall pick – can throw. As recently as 2024 he threw for 41 touchdowns and 4,500 passing yards in a season. But Sunday’s game was played in pouring rain that led to farcical moments like this, and Tampa clearly decided that the ground game was the only way to go. That Tampa Bay could score at all, let alone 16 points, is a credit to Bucky Irving and Kenneth Gainwell running as if their lives depended on it. Irving finished the day with 170 rushing yards and one touchdown, while Gainwell had 140. Combined, they rushed 52 times for 324 yards – the most ever in a single game for the Bucs. They more than made up for Mayfield’s borderline irrelevance in the pocket. Mayfield made himself useful blocking for his runners, but otherwise, I probably could have started at QB for the Buccaneers and the game would have been the same, other than the high likelihood of me suffering at least one gruesome injury.“If I’m not going to throw the ball, I have to get active somehow,” Mayfield said after the game. He certainly was more valuable for his team than Falcons quarterback Michael Penix Jr, who had a game that would be front-page terrible if not for the historic passing futility on the other side. Penix went 8-24 with four interceptions. The field was wet and as slippery as a greased-up ferret with a sugar rush. But even a wet playing surface wasn’t enough to stop Tampa’s run game, or kicker Chase McLaughlin’s three field goals. Having said that, McLaughlin didn’t even need to make one – Atlanta were just that bad. Next week, the Falcons face the Bengals in Spain. If Atlanta play like this in Madrid, they’ll be the worst American export to Europe since David Hasselhoff’s first album.MVP of the weekJoe Burrow, QB, Cincinnati Bengals. We’ll start with the positives: Burrow threw five touchdowns, ran for another, racked up 462 passing yards and led his team back from 13 points down to a 43-36 overtime win on Sunday. On the downside, he threw three interceptions and all this came against the Titans. But Burrow gets MVP this week for a refusal to do anything dull. And the Bengals are off to their best start since the 2021 season, when they made the Super Bowl. Joe Burrow accounted for six touchdowns on Sunday. Photograph: Brian Mack/Zuma Press Wire/ShutterstockVideo of the weekThe Chiefs-Broncos game was absorbing until the final moments. The Chiefs, down 28-24, looked set to pull of a late victory when they have a first and goal on the Denver four-yard line with 35 seconds left. But stout Broncos defending and a sloppy penalty from the Chiefs when they thought they had scored the winning touchdown meant they had to score on the final play of the game. When Patrick Mahomes is under center in this type of situation, a Chiefs win is automatic. Not this time, though.Allow content provided by a third party?This article includes content hosted on embed.bsky.app. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as the provider may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'.Stat of the week259. That’s the number of career touchdown passes across the regular season and playoffs by Josh Allen for the Bills after his pair during his team’s victory over the Ravens on Sunday. In reaching that milestone, he broke the record set by Buffalo legend Jim Kelly. The victory moved the Bills to 6-1 and they now have the best record in the AFC. Sadly, the game was also marked by a thumb injury to the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson, which may end his season, a sad turn of events for one of the most thrilling players in the league.Elsewhere around the league The Vikings are undefeated no more. The Lions pulled out a thriller to end Minnesota’s hopes of a perfect season. Jared Goff found Jameson Williams for a score with 4:35 left in the game to squeak home 19-15. This was Detroit’s third straight victory, but they were also bit by losing linebacker Jack Campbell to a neck injury. Campbell had to be carted off the field on a backboard early in the fourth quarter, which put an undeniable damper on the post-victory celebrations. Instead of reveling in his late-game heroics, Goff was somber and reflective when speaking about Campbell. “That was definitely scary. He’s a husband and a father.” There’s more heartbreak on display at AT&T Stadium this year than a Kazuo Ishiguro novel. The Dallas Cowboys looked to be in the driver’s seat against Arizona as the fourth quarter began. They led 24-10 and their defense was looking well-prepared to lock down a win. Except, folks, they weren’t. Arizona exploded for 20 points in the fourth, as Gardner Minshew took over from an underperforming Jacoby Brissett. Minshew marched the Cardinals down the field in 63 seconds late in the fourth to tie the game at 30-30. A simple Chad Ryland extra point would have been enough to win the game, but the PAT flew wide left. This was Ryland’s first extra-point miss in the last 58 tries. To overtime, they went. Ryland was able to rescue his no-good, very bad day by hitting a 42-yard field goal to finally clinch the comeback. The Cowboys are 3-5, and a brutal 1-3 at home as we near the halfway mark of the season. Lucky for Dallas that they play in a division where only one team is above .500.Gardner Minshew and the Cardinals celebrate a touchdown in their wild comeback. Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP Are the Rams back? Or are the Chargers just awful? Time will tell, but in the Battle of Los Angeles, it was the Rams who took care of business, 24-9. The game was close until a pivotal second-half period in which the Rams scored two touchdowns. The Chargers are 0-7. They’re the only team in the NFL who haven’t scored 100 points or more combined this season – 99 points for, versus 175 against. All this with alleged offensive mastermind Mike McDaniel at OC. The Jacksonville Jaguars remain the most pleasant surprise in the NFL, destroying Indianapolis at home, 42-7. The Jags are top of the AFC South, above three teams with sub-.300 winning percentages. Trevor Lawrence was superb for Jacksonville, sporting a 153.3 RTG, 210 yards on 10/14 passing, and three touchdowns. The Jags’ defense forced three turnovers – two interceptions and a fumble – and only surrendered one pity touchdown in the third quarter. Jacksonville are at the top of a terrible division. Is there any reason to think they won’t stay there? As someone who has dated both a woman from Cleveland and a woman from Pittsburgh (not at the same time), I can attest that Steelers/Browns is one of the most heated rivalries there is, primarily because Pittsburgh and Cleveland are cities with chips the size of dinner plates on their shoulders. Personally, I prefer the food in Pittsburgh (specifically the giant hot dog they sold at Pirates games that had pierogies on top), and so I was pulling for the Steelers on Sunday. They did not let me down. This was the 23rd-straight home win for the Steelers over the Browns. Pittsburgh sacked Deshaun Watson eight times. Eerily, the last time I did this column, Deshaun was sacked … eight times by the Jets in Week 5. Maybe next time I’m writing this, I’ll give the Browns a heads-up.Nick Herbig sacks Deshaun Watson during the Steelers’ win over Cleveland. Photograph: Brent Gudenschwager/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock The Raiders pulled off another of the day’s improbable comebacks, scoring 24 points in the second half to beat the New York Jets 38-33. Las Vegas broke a four-game losing streak and are 4-4 on the year. Kirk Cousins threw for 247 yards on 19/26 passing and three touchdown passes, plus a TD run in the third quarter that he punctuated with a peculiar Arrested Development-style chicken dance that he called his “wellness celebration.” He said, “We do a lot of tissue work here. At my age, it’s especially helpful. ... So I said someday if I run a touchdown in, I’m going to give a shoutout to all the staff that works so hard to help us feel good and be one of the healthier teams in the league.” Cousins almost forgot to do this peculiar celly, but Brock Bowers reminded him. Perhaps the first and last time anyone will ever say “Hit them with the wellness celebration!” on an NFL field. Or at least I hope so.