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What We Learned: NFL Week Six

It’s Tuesday and that means it’s time to review our less plan to figure out what we learned in Week Six of the NFL season.

September means nothing

The Denver Broncos of September were one of the two or three best teams in the league and looking like a strong contender to get back into the Super Bowl. October’s Broncos have lost consecutive games, one to the Atlanta Falcons at home and the other to the San Diego Chargers who are in such bad shape that their head coach, Mike McCoy, might have been fired in the locker room if the Chargers had lost.

So what’s happened? The problem when you run a basic-level offense with a rookie quarterback (Paxton Lynch) or a decent, but unspectacular back-up (Trevor Siemian) is it has to be perfect. Any slight screw up puts your defense back on the field and even a defense as talented as Denver’s can get worn down. What looked like an easy schedule ahead for the Broncos (the Houston Texans and Chargers again), now could be a real challenge. Denver is 4-2 and that’s good, but they could easily end October 4-4.

The Buffalo Bills looked all but done in September and ready to play out the streak. Rex Ryan fired his best assistant coach, offensive coordinator Greg Roman, and replaced him with a lackey and, seemingly in defiance of God’s plan for us, has won four straight games and are primed for a playoff run. Quarterback Tyrod Taylor, who I have shit on mercilessly, has completed 63.4 percent of his passes for eight touchdowns, just two picks and has a 92.4 quarterback rating. With the Dolphins coming back up this week, there’s no reason the Bills won’t be 5-2 when they have their rematch with the Patriots on Oct. 30.

As excited as we all were at Carson Wentz’s performance with the Philadelphia Eagles in September, October has reminded us this is a team with a lot of holes on its depth chart thanks to some stupid Chip Kelly moves. Defenses have also figured out how to flummox Wentz more, with the Redskins especially blitzing his brains out Sunday. Against the onslaught, Wentz was just 11 for 22 for 179 yards and no touchdowns. It’s not going to get any easier. The future is bright in Philly, there’s no question about that. It’s just hard not to be let down by the present after such a promising start.

The Panthers aren’t going to make the playoffs

A healthy Cam Newton alone should have been enough to propel the Panthers over the New Orleans Saints Sunday. A healthy Cam Newton that throws for 322 yards and two touchdowns should have been more than enough. Instead, the Panthers lost in the final minut, 41-38 and dropped to 1-5. Carolina isn’t making the playoffs this year. Hell, they might not even reach .500.

The Panthers’ problems are team wide. The defense hasn’t shown up all year, and there’s no way just the loss of Josh Norman in free agency makes that much of a difference. The Panthers gave up 48 points and 41 points in two of the last three weeks. The other game, a 17-14 loss to the Bucs was surrendered when the Panthers gave up a game-winning scoring drive in the final seconds. Looking at this schedule in the preseason, I saw at worst a 5-1 team at this point. Nobody saw 1-5.

Now Cam is walking out of press conferences again and the team is in complete disarray. The last time the Panthers were in a funk back in 2013, Ron Rivera began rolling the dice on fourth downs and risky plays, earning the nickname “Riverboat Ron.” He’ll need to become “Rolling Straight Sevens Ron” if he’s going to pull the Panthers out of this tailspin.

Colin Kaepernick still sucks

His stats were mediocre and his team lost, but none of that really tells the story about how poorly Colin Kaepernick played Sunday for the San Francisco 49ers in a 45-16 loss to the Buffalo Bills. Kaepernick’s inability to fool anyone on his read-option plays or consistently complete passes all but shut down running back Carlos Hyde. Hyde, who was one of the league’s top rushers entering the game, carried the ball just 14 times for 52 yards. Meanwhile Kapernick kept it eight times for 66 yards.

But the most glaring, game-losing stats of the day are the 49ers’ third down efficiency. The 49ers were 3-of-13 on third down in the game and 0-for-2 on fourth down. They managed just 16 first downs the entire game.

Compare that to Blaine Gabbert the week before in a loss to the Cardinals. Gabby was 4-for-14 on third down and 1-for-1 on fourth down with 25 first downs in the game.

Written by Adam Greene

Adam Greene is a writer and photographer based out of East Tennessee. His work has appeared on Cracked.com, in USA Today, the Associated Press, the Chicago Cubs Vineline Magazine, AskMen.com and many other publications.

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