K THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2020 N D3The Indianapolis Colts held on for a
crucial win over the Houston Texans,
the Cleveland Browns shocked the
Tennessee Titans and the New Orleans
Saints won yet again. But none of the
early games on Sunday could match the
excitement of a wild matchup between
the Las Vegas Raiders and the Jets in
which Gang Green managed to snatch
defeat from the jaws of victory.
Here’s what we learned:
You don’t get to 0-16
by making good decisions.
After a fairly thrilling back-and-forth
swing in a game that was expected to
be a blowout victory for Las Vegas, the
Jets appeared to have the game won.
They were leading the Raiders by 28-24
with just 19 seconds remaining and,
thanks to that 4-point lead, Las Vegas
would need a 46-yard touchdown to
win. There has rarely been a more
obvious situation for an extreme pre-
vent defense, but the Jets haven’t gone
winless this far without a fair amount of
questionable decisions.
With Las Vegas throwing deep, the
Jets put only three players in coverage
— with one defender inexplicably left
as a spy in case quarterback Derek
Carr tried to run. Cornerback Lamar
Jackson tried to stick with rookie wide
receiver Henry Ruggs III in man cover-
age, got beaten badly with a double
move, and let the outrageously fast
Ruggs run right past him for what
ended up being a 46-yard touchdown
pass and a 31-28 win for the Raiders.
The Jets became just the 12th team to
start a season 0-12 and are well on their
way to joining the 1960 Dallas Cowboys
(0-11-1), the 1976 Tampa Bay Bucca-
neers (0-14), the 2008 Detroit Lions
(0-16) and the 2017 Cleveland Browns
(0-16) as the only N.F.L. teams since
1944 to go winless for an entire season
not shortened by a strike. To avoid that
fate, the Jets will need a win against
one of four fairly good teams: the Sea-
hawks, the Rams, the Browns and the
Patriots.
Baker Mayfield is confusing.
In an eight-game stretch that began in
Week 3, Mayfield was held to fewer
than 200 yards passing five times and
without a touchdown three times, yet
the Browns still managed to go 6-2
thanks to his team’s running game and
its defense. Just to shake things up,
that stretch also included a 297-yard,
five-touchdown performance against
Cincinnati. In last week’s win over
Jacksonville, Mayfield showed a spike
in efficiency, and this week that surge
continued as he exploded for 334 yards
passing and four touchdowns in a 41-35
win on the road over the heavily fa-
vored Tennessee Titans.
But even in what amounts to Cleve-
land’s most impressive win of a 9-3
season, Mayfield managed to be wildly
inconsistent. All four of his touchdowns
came in a shocking first half in which
Cleveland took a 38-7 lead before the
Browns were outplayed and outscored
by 28-3 in the second half. Cleveland
has its best 12-game start since 1994,
but the Browns seemingly have no idea
what they can expect from Mayfield
once the playoffs roll around.Nothing erases a mistake
quite like a safety.The Colts were clinging to a 4-pointlead over the Texans in the fourth quar-
ter when they turned the ball over on
downs at Houston’s 5-yard line. The
game seemed to be slipping away from
Indianapolis, but DeForest Buckner of
the Colts sacked Houston’s Deshaun
Watson for a 1-yard loss and two plays
later linebacker Justin Houston burst
into the backfield to sack Watson for a
safety. That increased the Colts’ lead to
6 points and gave the Colts the ball
back. Indianapolis held on for a 26-20
victory.
The Vikings, meanwhile, were lead-
ing the Jaguars by 19-16 in the fourthquarter when quarterback Kirk Cousins
fumbled at Jacksonville’s 4-yard line.
On the third play of Jacksonville’s ensu-
ing drive, Minnesota defensive ends
Ifeadi Odenigbo and Jordan Brailford
wrapped up Mike Glennon for a safety
that extended the Vikings’ lead to 5
points. Minnesota needed overtime to
hang on for a 27-24 victory, but they
never would have made it that far
without the safety.The Saints barely miss a beat
without Drew Brees.There is no question that New Orleans
has a more prolific offense with Brees
under center, but the team has become
far less dependent on the future Hall of
Famer over the last two seasons. From
2006, his first year with the Saints, to
2018, Brees missed just three starts and
the Saints lost all three games. Over the
last two seasons, Brees has missed
eight starts — and counting — and New
Orleans is 8-0 in those games. Teddy
Bridgewater went 5-0 as a fill-in last
year and Taysom Hill, who threw for
232 yards and ran for 83 in a 21-16 win
over Atlanta on Sunday, is 3-0 this
season.A new coach can be
a wonderful thing.In their first game under interim head
coach Darrell Bevell, the Detroit Lions
faced the fairly stout Chicago Bears’
defense and came away with a 34-30
win on the road that included a season-best 460 yards of total offense. Quarter-
back Matthew Stafford threw for 402
yards and three touchdowns, and in the
final two minutes led his fourth game-
winning drive of the season and the
38th of his career. The win gave Detroit
some revenge for an epic collapse
against Chicago in Week 1, but the
Lions are likely to get a much stiffer
test from Green Bay next week.One* Sentence
About Sunday’s Games*Except when it takes more.BROWNS 41, TITANS 35A marquee
matchup of two of the N.F.L.’s best
running backs largely fizzled, with Nick
Chubb outgaining Derrick Henry 80 to
60 in rushing yards. But this game was
hardly lacking excitement thanks to
Cleveland’s Baker Mayfield and Ten-
nessee’s Ryan Tannehill combining for
723 yards passing and seven touch-
downs.
SAINTS 21, FALCONS 16In the fourth
quarter of a fairly close game, the New
Orleans defense saw its streak of hold-
ing opponents without a touchdown end
at 14 quarters. But on Atlanta’s next
drive, the Saints forced a turnover on
downs to hang on for the win.
COLTS 26, TEXANS 20Houston trailed
by just 6 points with less than two
minutes left to play, and had driven the
ball to the Colts’ 2-yard line. But Texans
quarterback Deshaun Watson, who had
been under fairly intense pressure for
much of the game, fumbled a snap only
to have Anthony Walker of the Colts
recover it to preserve a win for Indian-
apolis.
RAIDERS 31, JETS 28The Raiders and
Jets certainly have their fair share of
memorable finishes. There was the
infamous “Heidi” game in 1968, in
which NBC cut away from the game to
show a movie, missing two late touch-
downs and a surprising Raiders victory.
And 50 years to the day before Sun-
day’s shocking ending, the Raiders beat
the Jets, 14-13, thanks to Daryle Lamon-
ica’s 33-yard touchdown pass to Warren
Wells in the game’s final second.
VIKINGS 27, JAGUARS 24(overtime)
Minnesota’s Dan Bailey missed a 51-
yard field goal attempt with 13 seconds
remaining in regulation, but when he
got another shot in overtime — this
time from just 23 yards — he came
through with a game-winning kick.
LIONS 34, BEARS 30After a 5-1 start,
Chicago has lost six consecutive games
and this one stung more than most as
Mitchell Trubisky and the Bears were
leading Detroit by 10 early in the fourth
quarter before collapsing against a
division rival.
DOLPHINS 19, BENGALS 7Tua Tagov-
ailoa returned from a thumb injury and
threw for a career-high 296 yards, but
the most exciting part of this under-
whelming game was the tension be-
tween the teams that resulted in five
ejections and a benches-clearing argu-
ment.Jets Show How to Blow an Infamy-Averting Lead
Which Mayfield Will Go to the Playoffs? •Safeties Help Secure Wins •Saints Are Good Even Without Brees
N.F.L. Week 13
Needing a touchdown to win in the game’s final seconds, Henry Ruggs III of the Raiders ran right past Lamar Jackson of the Jets for a 46-yard score and a shocking victory for Las Vegas.
AL BELLO/GETTY IMAGESBy BENJAMIN HOFFMANHouston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson fumbling the ball as he is hit
by Indianapolis Colts defensive end Justin Houston in Houston on Sunday.ERIC CHRISTIAN SMITH/ASSOCIATED PRESSCleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield catching a pass against the Tennessee Titans in Nashville on Sunday.BEN MARGOT/ASSOCIATED PRESS