Week 7 Game Changing Plays: Browns Win a Wild One
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Browns RB Kareem Hunt
The winner of the Cleveland Browns – Indianapolis Colts game would be in playoff position after Week 7; the loser would not. The Browns were victorious, and thus sit in the proverbial catbird seat.
And there ends what was normal and expected about the Cleveland-Indianapolis game.
The crazy, back-and-forth matchup in the early window ended up being the most significant for the playoff standings in Week 7, with the standings rocking back and forth as the Colts and Browns exchanged haymakers. Eight lead changes — the most in the NFL in the past four season, and once of the 15 most in the century-plus history of the league — saw the Colts and Browns shooting up and down the live standings. The vaunted Browns defense didn’t show up; the Colts offense snapped out of the doldrums. Blocked kicks, questionable calls, an individual defensive performance for the ages — this one had it all.
If the Colts find themselves one game out of the playoffs come January, this is one they’ll look back on as the one that got away. If the Browns find themselves squeaking into the postseason, they’ll have this one to thank.
Let’s run down the biggest plays of Week 7, saving the wild ending in Cleveland for last.
Thursday Night Excitement
But if Michaels called this one flatly, that’s on him, not the game. While the Jaguars never actually trailed in this one, the Saints had come back from a 24-9 fourth quarter deficit to tie the game at 24. But Christian Kirk, who had a costly fumble earlier in the game, found himself matched up against Tyrann Mathieu on a choice route. Mathieu played outside leverage, Kirk cut to the inside, and turned on the jets, racing 44-yards for the game-winning score.
The Jaguars would have been atop the AFC South no matter what, as Indianapolis’ loss keeps them a full game back. But the Saints’ loss knocks them out of playoff position at the moment, a half-game back of Tampa Bay for the seventh seed in the NFC and behind both the Rams and Commanders in a 3-4 tie in eighth.
Bills Buffaloed by the Return of the Mac
Buffalo struggled everywhere, as New England got pressure early and often. Although they reached the red zone four times, they only scored two touchdowns. They were 5-for-12 on third downs, getting off the field far too often. Bad Josh Allen showed up, with his interception on Buffalo’s first play from scrimmage setting up New England’s first touchdown and forcing the Bills to play from a double-digit deficit most of the way.
And all of that almost didn’t matter, as the superior talent on Buffalo nearly won the day. Touchdowns on three of their first four drives of the second half gave this game a sense of inevitability; the Bills were going to wake up from their doldrums, win the game, and we’d spend a week talking about how they nearly blew it yet again — what’s wrong with them?
Instead, they actually blew it, as Jones led arguably the best drive of his career — an 8-play, 75-yard touchdown drive with less than two minutes left, capped by hitting Mike Gesicki in the end zone for the winning score.
This probably does nothing for the Patriots, as their road is very steep from here. It helps that they’re 2-1 in the division and play most of the teams ahead of them in the wildcard race, but they’d have to go an unlikely 7-3 from here on out to have a realistic shot at the postseason. For Buffalo, on the other hand, this is a huge divisional loss. Instead of sitting atop the AFC East, they’re now clinging to the seventh seed, with questions up and down the roster. The one-time Super Bowl favorites are now just crossing their fingers they can keep things afloat long enough to figure out why they can’t seem to play a full 60 minutes week in and week out.
Dolphins at Eagles
The Eagles have been good, not great, this season. In their throwback uniforms, in front of a national audience, they decided to remind everyone that they’re the defending NFC champions and a leading Super Bowl threat, thank you very much.
Fourth and Go
While three of the conversions were of the ‘everyone get into a pile and smash into one another’ variety, the first fourth-down conversion was the biggest. Stuck in no-man’s land at the end of the first half, the Eagles went for it on 4th-and-3. The pocket broke down almost immediately, but Jalen Hurts scrambled out, found his bearings, and then found A.J. Brown past everyone for a huge gain. It wasn’t technically a score — Brown was down at the one and they had to Brotherly Shove Hurts in to finish the drive off — but it was a dagger to a Dolphins team just trying to keep the game from getting out of hand.
Miami Dolphins: Front-Runners?
That’s significantly easier said than done, but Philadelphia had the defensive horses to punch Miami in the mouth, and the Dolphins really didn’t have an answer. Held to just 45 rushing yards and 3.8 yards per carry, and facing a double-digit deficit, the Dolphins became one dimensional. And while they weren’t bad, by any stretch of the imagination, they’re not a 70-point-scoring track team in those situations; they’re a solid offense who can get outmuscled and outbullied by a great defense. They’ll be OK in the long run, but this game was evidence that Miami’s not quite a top contender just yet — they’ll have to be both healthier and a little more creative if they end up facing a defense of this caliber again in a more important game.
The win keeps Philadelphia atop the NFC and in lockstep with the 49ers. The Week 13 matchup in Philadelphia still looks like it will decide the NFC, but for that to be the case, neither team can afford to let the other slip away from them. With two games left against Dallas, plus road trips to Seattle and Kansas City left on the schedule, getting a big home victory against one of the AFC’s top teams is a huge hurdle cleared for the Eagles.
Falcons at Buccaneers
We regret to inform you that the NFC South will still host a playoff game.
Mayfield: Baked?
Of course, Atlanta was having their own problems on Sunday, and Desmond Ridder’s third lost fumble of the day gave the Bucs another chance. But on that drive, Mayfield missed an open Chris Godwin in the end zone multiple times and took a sack which forced Tampa Bay to just tie things up, leaving room for…
Kyle Pitts, Game-Saver
Really, Atlanta should have won this one going away, but those three — three! — Ridder fumbles, all in the red zone, kept Tampa alive much longer than they had any right to be. Credit to the Falcons for not folding, however. And credit to Kyle Pitts — while this wasn’t as spectacular as his behind-the-back grab earlier in the game, Pitts’ twisting grab on second down moved the Falcons into range for Younghoe Koo to kick the game-winning field goal at the buzzer.
This game was for first place in the NFC South, but it was probably more important for Atlanta to win. Tampa remains in playoff position at the moment, hanging on a half-game ahead of the Rams/Commanders/Saints trio behind them. Atlanta, on the other hand, goes from out of the playoff picture entirely to a half-game lead in the division, with a 2-0 divisional record. There’s a long way to go in the South, but this win was huge for Atlanta.
Browns at Colts
Well. Where to begin?
Myles Garrett is Very Good at Football
For all the chaos of the ending to this one, it’s worth taking a moment to remember that Myles Garrett basically single-handedly kept the Browns in this game with a DPOY-level performance. Two sacks, two forced fumbles and a blocked kick, single-handedly responsible for at least a 10-point swing in a one point game? Insanity. Indianapolis runs away with this one if Garrett doesn’t blow up multiple plays with tremendous individual efforts. Garrett now has 82 sacks, more than any other player had before his 28th birthday.
Dustin Hopkins is Very Good at Football
In a game decided by one point, a kicker making three 50+ yard kicks is worth acknowledging, as well, and Dustin Hopkins has been on a tear. He now has made a 50-yarder in five straight games, an NFL record, and is seven-for-seven on kicks of 50 yards or further. Not a bad use of a 2025 seventh-round pick, eh?
OK, Fine, the Final Drive
Let’s set the scene. Indianapolis was sitting on a 38-33 lead with 2:35 left in the game. The Browns were down to backup quarterback PJ Walker, as Deshaun Watson was cleared from concussion protocol but would not re-enter the game. Cleveland hadn’t scored an offensive touchdown since the second play of the second quarter, with four field goals, three punts, an interception and a turnover on downs being their total offensive production since then. Now, Cleveland had to march 80 yards in 2:35 with just one time out; a serious uphill climb. Depending on which source you use, their win probability is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% at this point in time.
The Colts defense ended up playing fairly soft, however, and Walker began to deal — a 30-yard toss to Elijah Moore on third-and-10 and a 17-yard pass to Donovan Peoples-Jones to get the ball inside the red zone with about 90 seconds left being most notable. Cleveland had had one drive all day go longer than 40 yards, and that was thanks to one 69-yard rush from Jerome Ford. Now, all of a sudden, they were moving thanks in part to Indianapolis playing back, and they were in business. The Browns’ win probability was now up to about 60%, and the Colts needed to make a big play.
They did. Kind of.
The game-ending strip-sack was negated by illegal contact. Now, that is a ticky-tack illegal contact call, for sure, and it didn’t affect the actual play in any meaningful way, but we’ve seen that be called before. It’s unfortunate when you have small things like that affect the outcome of a game, but the Colts did commit a foul.
Unlike on the next snap.
Unless Donovan Peoples-Jones has a secret 25-foot vertical leap he has yet to unleash in the NFL, there’s no way this ball could be caught in bounds. You just can’t call this pass interference; the rule still states that “contact that would normally be considered pass interference, but the pass is clearly uncatchable by the involved players” is permissible.
Indianapolis still had a chance to stop Cleveland, of course, and they managed to get it all the way to fourth down, but the Browns would not be denied.
The winner of this game would have been in the sixth slot in the AFC, with a 4-3 Colts team having the tiebreaker over Buffalo due to conference record and a 4-2 Browns team being behind the Steelers due to their Week 2 loss. Indianapolis now finds themselves a full game out of the postseason. Their next three weeks will determine whether or not they can stay in contention, with three winnable but by no means guaranteed games — the Saints at home, and the Panthers and Patriots on the road. They’ll need to pick up a couple if they want to stay in the playoff race.
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