Play Sheet

by Playoff Predictors

Week 3 Game Changing Plays: And Here’s the Kicker…

8 min read
1 year ago Bryan Knowles
Week 3's Game Changing Plays feature kickers aplenty, as game-winning kicks were attempted by Indianapolis, Baltimore and New Orleans.

Packers LB Quay Walker

In what was, on paper, a fairly boring Week 3 in the NFL, we had some sheet utter craziness break out on Sunday. The Miami Dolphins dropped 70 points, becoming the first team to do that since the 1960s. The Dallas Cowboys stumbled against the Arizona Cardinals, who might not be the pushovers we all thought they would be. And C.J. Stroud picked up the first win of his NFL career as the Houston Texans upset the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Amidst all of this anarchy, PlaySheet’s top 10 most significant plays of the week all ended up coming from three matchups. With most of the schedule ending up being notable because of historic blowouts or surprising upsets, three games ended up percolating to the top based on competitiveness. In Baltimore, the Colts and Ravens battled into overtime. Jordan Love’s debut in Green Bay featured a massive Packers comeback over the Saints. And, in a battle between 0-2 teams that still had some hope entering the week, the Vikings and Chargers fought to see who could blow things more effectively. These are your game changing plays from Week 3.

10. Keenan Allen Goes Off

Keenan Allen practically stood on his head, pacing the Chargers to their eventual 28-24 victory. His 18 receptions broke the franchise record, going for 215 yards. And while he didn’t score a touchdown himself, he did manage to throw one, finding Mike Williams for a 49-yard score midway through the third quarter on a trick play. A number of Allen highlights could go here, but the most significant one from a win-probability perspective was his conversion on 3rd-and-17 at midfield midway through the fourth quarter. That kept the drive alive, setting up Josh Palmer’s touchdown on the very next play, giving Los Angeles a lead they’d never relinquish. Fail, and the Chargers would be stuck in no man’s land — too far out for a game-tying field goal, too close to the end zone for a punt, too far from the sticks to go for it. At least thanks to the conversion, there’d be no questionable fourth-down decisions in this one!

9. Jordan Love is Heavy and Light, Bright and Dark, Hot and Cold

Jordan Love and the Packers’ offense struggled mightily for three quarters. To be fair, they were far from full strength — no Aaron Jones, no David Bakhtiari, no Christian Watson (and no Jaire Alexander, for that matter). To be less fair, there was no running game to speak of, receivers were dropping passes, the Saints’ defense was getting consistent pressure, and in general, everything just seemed disconnected and sloppy. But, with the Saints’ offense choking out after Derek Carr’s injury, Green Bay slowly fought their way back into things. They had four drives in the fourth quarter. Three resulted in points, and the fourth ended in victory formation. The capper on the third drive, and the one that finally gave the Packers the lead, was this pass to Romeo Doubs. A tremendous snag, capping off the 18-point quarter — one which gave them the lead because they did the Patented Analytics Play and went for two on their previous touchdown, allowing them to get the win in regulation. Assuming, of course, they could hold on…

8. John Fox Award for Conservatism Winner: John Harbaugh

The much-injured Ravens — and what else is new? — moved the ball alright against the Colts, but had more than their fair share of drops and fumbles in the wet conditions in Baltimore. Both Lamar Jackson and Kenyan Drake lost fumbles, while a bad snap by Sam Mustipher forced a punt killing another promising drive. That meant the Ravens were in a tighter-than-expected game, giving the Ravens some tough decisions late in the game. John Harbaugh faced four fourth-down decisions where the various models suggested he should go for it. He punted three times. During regulation, he punted on a 4th-and-3 from the Baltimore 43 early in the third quarter, and opted to kick a field goal on 4th-and-2 from the Indianapolis 42 midway through the fourth. Those were both somewhat defensible, if statistically wrong, but the overtime decision was not.

The Ravens opted to punt from Colts territory midway through overtime. 4th-and-6 is far from a gimme, but even if they didn’t feel confident attempting to go for it, you have Justin Tucker who is more than capable of launching a 61-yard field goal. Instead, Baltimore opted to give the ball up, and they were never able to get closer to the end zone again. The decision dropped their win probability from 42% to 23%. They were fortunate to get the ball back, but when they were forced to attempt a fourth down on the next drive, they failed, though Zay Flowers was arguably interfered with on the play.

7. Jayden Reed Gets Full Extension

Before Romeo Doubs could score his go-ahead touchdown, Jayden Reed had to get him into position. Three plays before the score, Jordan Love found Reed down the right sideline, converting on 2nd-and-10 and moving the Packers into the red zone as Reed got full extension on the catch. Considering Reed had dropped a touchdown a few drives prior, this was a bit of redemption.

6. Matt Gay from 50+!

5. Matt Gay from 50+!

No, you’re not seeing double — Matt Gay did in fact hit four 50+ yard field goals against the Ravens, setting a new NFL record. On a rainy day where that was far from guaranteed — and we’ll get back to that, just wait — Gay was perfect, scoring 16 of Indianapolis’ 22 points. Perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise. In his career, Gay is 21-for-28 from 50 yards or more, ranking sixth among kickers with at least 20 attempts from the distance. But on a day where the Colts were out their starting quarterback and starting running back, Gay stepped up and provided the bulk of Indianapolis’ scoring, including the game-tier and game-winner. Hard to have a much better day than that as a kicker.

4. Vikings Come Up Short on 4th Down

The Vikings had trouble in the red zone to end the game. They ran ten plays inside the red zone and came away with zero points. This is less than ideal!

On their second-to-last drive, the Vikings had first and goal from the Los Angeles three yard line. The sequence? Alexander Mattison got stopped just short of the goal line on first down. Then Mattison was blasted back two yards on second down. And from there, Kirk Cousins fired two shots at Justin Jefferson, with both of them falling incomplete. It was obviously the right choice to go for it here — Ben Baldwin’s model said attempting it was a 15.3% win probability boost, winning the game 49% of the time with a go and just 34% of the time with a field goal — but the execution left a lot to be desired. Minnesota had a -4.5% offensive DVOA in the red zone entering the Chargers game. It should be significantly lower after this performance. And speaking of which…

3. Vikings Out-Vike the Chargers’ Attempt to Charger

OK, we’ve got a lot to unpack here.

The Vikings got the ball back with 1:47 remaining because the Chargers opted to go for it on 4th-and-1 from their own 24 yard line. They failed, and the decision was destroyed online, but it was probably the right decision. Minnesota was moving the ball up and down the field; it was just the red zone where they bogging out. Punting would have given the Chargers an 80% win probability, but a conversion? A conversion here just wins the game. That’s worth attempting to convert a short fourth down. Even with the failure, Ben Baldwins’ model still had the Chargers with a 59% win probability, with Minnesota needing a touchdown rather than a field goal. Brandon Staley, in a throwback move, made the correct decision on fourth down.

The Vikings got gifted an automatic first down on an illegal use of hands call, and then managed to pick up a 4th-and-5 with just 35 seconds left on the clock, moving the ball to the six. Run up to the ball and spike it? Draw up your three best plays and take three shots at the end zone? No! Let’s slowly walk up to the ball, letting more than half the remaining time tick away, and then throw a desperation shot into coverage, which was tipped and intercepted. Naturally. Great move, guys.

2. Justin Tucker: Human After All?

It seems unfair that we’re shaking our heads at Justin Tucker missing a 61-yard game-winning field goal. The odds of a random kicker making that is close to zero; kickers are just 21-for-71 from 60+ over the last decade. Even Tucker, for all his much-publicized heroics, is a tough call from this distance; he was just 2-for-8 over the last decade from 60+ It’s just, you know, one of those kicks was an NFL record game-winner. We expect Tucker to be able to do anything, so when this kick went up and was straight as the clock hit 0:00, we all just assumed it was going through and the Ravens would win. Instead, it ended up just a yard or two short, and we went to overtime where…well, you know.

1. Heartbreak for New Orleans

A 61-yard game winner is a miracle. A 46-yarder is not.

While far from a gimmie, kickers are making about 75% of their field goals from the mid-40s. Add in the necessity to stop Jordan Love and the Packers for a minute with two time outs left and you lower New Orleans’ win probability to somewhere near 60%, but still — when rookie Blake Grupe lined up for a field goal with 1:10 remaining, you would expect the Saints to win more often than not.

Well, we’ll take the not. After starting his career perfect, Grupe pushed the potential game-winner wide right, sending Lambeau into pandemonium as the 18-point comeback stood. Considering the stakes — a go-ahead field goal with a minute left, in a battle between two teams which may well find themselves battling each other in the wild card race in January — Grupe’s miss takes over the title of biggest play of the NFL season so far, beating out Xavier Gipson’s walk-off punt return touchdown from Jets-Bills in Week 1.

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