What we learned in NFL Week 9: Lions ‘built to win’ anywhere, Eagles making a leap

It was a move straight out of “Super Mario Bros.,” or maybe a “John Wick” movie — a blind leap over a helpless cornerback while Saquon Barkley’s entire back faced the defense.

Who even thinks of pulling something like this off, let alone has the ability to do so?

“There’s going to be kids all over the country and all over Philadelphia trying to make that play,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said later.

“I kinda just let go, and let my body just react,” Barkley said later. “That play was cool.”

Chalk it up as one of the best plays of the year — and of Barkley’s career. And it put him in the Offensive Player of the Year conversation. The Eagles running back was stellar once again on Sunday, piling up 199 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns (despite fumbling once) in Philadelphia’s 28-23 win over Jacksonville. The Eagles’ win streak is now four as they try to keep pace with the red-hot Washington Commanders, 27-22 winners over the reeling Giants on Sunday, in the NFC East.

By the way, the last time Washington started 7-2? You have to go all the way back to 1996, three years before Dan Snyder bought the team.

Everyone in the NFC remains in pursuit of the Detroit Lions, who handled the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field, 24-14. Any concern of Dan Campbell’s team fading after star pass rusher Aidan Hutchinson went down has been silenced. Rather emphatically, in fact. The Lions are dangerous. This looks every bit like a Super Bowl team.

Meanwhile, the Dallas Cowboys don’t even look like a playoff team. They’re officially in a free fall. With Sunday’s 27-21 loss in Atlanta, Dallas (3-5) has lost three straight and sits two games under .500 for the first time since 2020, Mike McCarthy’s first season as coach. Plenty of signs point to this being his last. Making matters worse, quarterback Dak Prescott left the game with a hamstring injury and was seen limping to the locker room. “Concerned” was how owner Jerry Jones put it after the game.

For a franchise that did almost nothing to improve its roster in the offseason and brushed away the outside criticism that followed, something about the Cowboys’ disastrous start feels appropriate.

In the NFC West, two teams are heating up, and all four in the division are within a game of the lead. It’s the surprising Cardinals in front after Arizona routed the Bears 29-9 at home. But don’t sleep on the Rams, who’ve won three straight after beating the Seahawks 26-20 in overtime.

In Carolina, the lowly Panthers won for just the second time this season, and Bryce Young won for just the third time in his career. “More than anything, I’m happy for the guys,” Young said.

New Orleans has dropped seven straight and is now in the running for the first overall pick. Derek Carr’s oblique injury — the quarterback missed three games — played a role, but Carr returned for Sunday’s game against the Panthers, and the Saints couldn’t even beat one of the worst teams in the league.

In Baltimore, Lamar Jackson put together an MVP-worthy performance for the second time in three weeks, throwing three touchdowns and finishing with a perfect passer rating in a 41-10 blowout of the Broncos. Speaking of the Offensive Player of the Year race, with two more touchdowns Sunday, Derrick Henry became just the third player in league history to pile up 10 or more rushing scores in seven straight seasons. The others: LaDainian Tomlinson and Adrian Peterson.

Amid the offseason drama the Bengals carried with them into Week 1, it’s sometimes easy to forget how good Joe Burrow is at football. Sunday was a reminder. Burrow torched the Raiders for five touchdowns in a 41-24 win.

Las Vegas is now 2-7 and has dropped five straight. Veteran defensive end Maxx Crosby sounded off after the game. “It (expletive) sucks to lose five in a row.” Late Sunday, the Raiders announced they had fired offensive coordinator Luke Getsy.

In Nashville, Patriots rookie quarterback Drake Maye made the play of the day — until Barkley surpassed him about an hour later — as regulation ended, scrambling in the pocket for 12 long seconds before finding Rhamondre Stevenson in the end zone for a game-tying touchdown. It was some remarkable poise from a rookie in a big moment, but in the end, it wasn’t enough: The Titans kicked a field goal in overtime, and the Patriots couldn’t match. The win was Tennessee’s second in eight tries this season.

In Cleveland, the Chargers won their third in four weeks by beating the Browns 27-10. At this point, it’s going to be hard for either Los Angeles (5-3) or Denver (5-4) to catch Kansas City in the AFC West. But both teams are very much alive for a wild-card spot.

In Buffalo, the Dolphins slumped to 2-6 after dropping their ninth straight road game to the Bills. (Miami’s last win in that stadium? Try Christmas Eve 2016.) Josh Allen finished with three touchdowns, and kicker Tyler Bass — who missed an extra point earlier in the game, and nearly botched another — drilled a field goal from 61 yards with five seconds left to move the Bills to 7-2. That’s the second-best record in the conference, trailing only the 7-0 Chiefs, who host the Bucs Monday night.

Here’s what we learned across Week 9 in the NFL:

Lions ‘built to win’

If you show up to Lambeau Field wearing a “Greenbay sucks” sweatshirt, you had better bring your A game on the field. Turns out, Amon-Ra St. Brown knew what he was doing. Probably because he knows how good his team is.

The Lions wideout had seven catches and a touchdown in a 10-point win over the Packers that was never all that close. On a rain-soaked afternoon against another contender, the Lions left no doubt as to who the best team in the division is, let alone the entire conference.

“I’m not shocked one bit we came out here and played pretty good football out in the elements,” Campbell said. “We’re built for this, man. It doesn’t matter just because we play indoors. It doesn’t matter. We can play anywhere. We can play in the snow. We can play in the rain. We can play in the mud. That’s just us. We are built to win, man.”

He’s right. The Lions are on a tear, winners of seven of their first eight, and look as complete as any other team in football. It’s the franchise’s best start since 1956.

Quarterback Jared Goff continues to play the most efficient football of his career: His 82.8 completion percentage dating to Week 3 passes Peyton Manning for the highest completion percentage over a six-game span in NFL history. Amid heavy rain Sunday, he finished with just four incompletions on 22 attempts, throwing for 145 yards and a touchdown. Over that same six-game stretch, the Lions have piled up more touchdowns (28) than Goff has thrown incompletions (24).

For the Packers, Jordan Love threw his league-leading 10th interception of the season in the loss. Green Bay didn’t find the end zone until the fourth quarter.

Indy’s offense goes backward

When the Colts made the bold decision last week to bench their 22-year-old starting quarterback 10 games into his career for a 39-year-old veteran, this was not what they had in mind.

Indianapolis envisioned an efficient offense reminiscent of Joe Flacco’s two starts earlier this season when Anthony Richardson was injured. Instead, they got a highly disappointing one: The Colts failed to reach the red zone once in a 21-13 loss to the Vikings Sunday night in Minneapolis. Indianapolis never got the run game going — Jonathan Taylor finished with 48 yards on 13 carries — and though Flacco connected on some nice throws, the downfield threat was never there. Flacco finished 16 of 27 for 179 yards and was intercepted once. The Colts went 3 of 11 on third down and managed just 227 yards of total offense.

All told, it wasn’t close to enough. Not when you’re leaving Justin Jefferson (137 receiving yards) in single coverage or failing to slow Aaron Jones (64 rushing yards) in the second half.

It was far from the Vikings’ most impressive win of the season — Minnesota was scoreless in the first half after a handful of self-inflicted wounds — but it was a victory nonetheless for a team that needed it. The Vikings’ two-game losing streak is history, and at 6-2, they remain one game back of the Lions in the NFC North. Sam Darnold finished 28 of 34 for 290 yards, three touchdowns and two picks.

The Colts, meanwhile, are now 4-5, having failed to capitalize on a golden opportunity to pull closer to the struggling Texans (6-3) in the AFC South race. Indy’s only bright spot Sunday was a forced fumble by defensive tackle Grover Stewart that cornerback Kenny Moore returned for the Colts’ lone touchdown. Other than that, Indy’s longest drive was 55 yards — and it ended with an interception.

It won’t get any easier for the Colts. The 7-2 Bills come to town next week.

Cardinals, Rams atop NFC West

It might be time to take the Cardinals seriously.

Jonathan Gannon’s squad — light on talent as it was a year ago — was quietly competitive in 2023 despite finishing 4-13. This year, with Kyler Murray healthy from the start and a new weapon in Marvin Harrison Jr., Arizona is one of the league’s biggest surprises. The Cardinals improved to 5-4 after Sunday’s 20-point win over the Bears and are now in first place in the NFC West, a division they haven’t won in nine years.

“The leaders on this team, they’re doing a really good job of staying connected,” Gannon said after his team’s fourth win in five weeks.

If the playoffs were to start today, Arizona would host a wild-card game for the first time since January 2016.

But the division is as crowded as any other in football. Matthew Stafford’s 39-yard strike to Demarcus Robinson in overtime clinched the Rams’ third win in a row. L.A. started 1-4 as the defense struggled and the team was gashed by injuries. But Sean McVay’s team is getting healthier, and first-year coordinator Chris Shula’s defense hasn’t allowed more than 20 points in three straight games and intercepted Geno Smith three times Sunday.

Don’t forget about the 49ers, who are 4-4 but getting healthier as well with Christian McCaffrey returning soon. The division race could last all the way until Week 18.

Are Eagles figuring it out?

Consider, for a moment, the Eagles’ last 21 months. They suffered a heartbreaking Super Bowl loss in February 2023, then started the next year 10-1 only to crumble down the stretch, losing six of their final seven. They replaced both coordinators after getting routed in a playoff loss to the Bucs, weathered reports of friction between coach Nick Sirianni — whose seat seemed to be warming by the minute — and star quarterback Jalen Hurts, all while rumors swirled about the team’s interest in luring Bill Belichick to town. Then, in the spring, they signed one of the best players in football.

Good thing they did. Because Barkley continues to show why he’s one of the rare talents in this league.

Even with Barkley in the fold, the Eagles’ 3-2 start to 2024 didn’t seem all that encouraging — this was an uneven team still plagued by some of the issues that led to last year’s late-season collapse. Too many turnovers from Hurts. Defensive breakdowns. Odd coaching decisions. Making matters worse: Sirianni was caught jawing at his own fans on the sideline after an ugly win over the Browns in Week 5. It was a bad look for a team that seemed to be underachieving.

At that point, there were far more hints of discord than harmony.

And yet, three weeks later, the Eagles are starting to look more like a contender than a team regressing — this despite some more curious decisions by Sirianni in Sunday’s 28-23 win over the Jaguars. Barkley is a highlight-waiting-to-happen every week. DeVonta Smith made one of the prettiest catches of the year. And the defense closed out the team’s fourth straight win with a Nakobe Dean interception.

The Eagles and Sirianni needed it — a 22-0 game midway through the third quarter had become a 28-23 one late in the fourth. Blowing this one would’ve been a considerable setback for a franchise loaded with talent and desperate to keep pace with the Commanders in the NFC East.

Outside of a pair of games against Washington, the Eagles will see just two teams the rest of the way with winning records at the moment (Baltimore and Pittsburgh). Perhaps Barkley will prove the difference down the stretch the Eagles sorely missed last winter.

Crowded race for the No. 1 pick

Typically, a few bottom-feeders have separated themselves from the pack by this point.

Not this year. Not yet, at least. With a little over two months left in the regular season, the race for next spring’s No. 1 pick has yet to really take shape. The biggest reason? There are so many struggling teams. After Sunday, there are now seven squads with a league-worst 2-7 record: the Patriots, Raiders, Browns, Giants, Saints, Panthers and Jaguars.

And two more — the Dolphins and Titans — aren’t far behind at 2-6.

Which team will finish the regular with the fewest wins? Carolina remains thin on talent, though Bryce Young is playing better since returning from his benching. The Raiders’ quarterback situation remains unresolved, and it won’t be until at least 2025 at the earliest. The Saints are reeling. So are the Jaguars. This figures to go all the way down to the wire.

(Photo of Jared Goff: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)