NFL Winners and Losers: Fair or not, Daniel Jones' performance vs. Steelers is why there's skepticism on Colts Frank Schwab November 2, 2025 at 10:42 PM 0 The Indianapolis Colts did nothing in the first eight weeks to indicate they were anything but one of the best teams in the NFL. They were 71 and even their loss, against a good Los Angeles Rams team, came on a couple of dumb and uncharacteristic mistakes. Yet the Colts weren't being embraced as a true Super Bowl contender. The naysayers now have a terrible performance to point to.
- - NFL Winners and Losers: Fair or not, Daniel Jones' performance vs. Steelers is why there's skepticism on Colts
Frank Schwab November 2, 2025 at 10:42 PM
0
The Indianapolis Colts did nothing in the first eight weeks to indicate they were anything but one of the best teams in the NFL. They were 7-1 and even their loss, against a good Los Angeles Rams team, came on a couple of dumb and uncharacteristic mistakes.
Yet the Colts weren't being embraced as a true Super Bowl contender. The naysayers now have a terrible performance to point to.
The Colts were bad in a 27-20 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. It's the kind of game from quarterback Daniel Jones that will fuel more doubts about him and the Colts going forward.
Against a Steelers defense that has been bad most of the season, the Colts couldn't do much. The Steelers clearly wanted to take Jonathan Taylor out of the game and were pretty successful at that. That put Jones on the spot. He had been pretty good all season. But on Sunday, Jones looked like the quarterback that was cut by the lowly New York Giants in the middle of last season. That version of Jones, with unsteady play and untimely mistakes, is the player everyone got used to seeing when he was in New York.
Jones was hesitant and made the types of mistakes that he had avoided over the first half of the season. He was sacked five times after taking just nine sacks in the first eight games. The Colts, who had four turnovers all season before Sunday, had three in the first half against the Steelers. The Colts finished with six turnovers, four of which were on Jones. He had two interceptions and two lost fumbles. Jones finished with 342 passing yards but that was a lot of empty calories at the end of a game that was rarely in doubt for the Steelers.
If it was a classic Steelers defense, a bad game would be more reasonable for the Colts, who were bound to have a down performance eventually. But Pittsburgh has had trouble stopping anyone this season.
Jones wasn't solely to blame. The offensive line played its worst game of the season. Taylor has been amazing all season but was a non-factor on Sunday. The Colts' defense wasn't terrible but didn't make any big plays to help the offense out.
After a 7-1 start, one rough performance is excusable. However, it won't help the perception of the Colts as being a step behind some of the better teams in the NFL, despite them posting the best record in football through eight weeks. It won't help anyone be more confident in Jones playing at a top-10 level all season.
Every team in the NFL has had a couple of down weeks so far. Nobody figured on the Colts avoiding some downturns for a full season. But now they have to prove themselves again to the NFL world that the first half of the season is their true level. It isn't easy to fight preconceived notions.
Here are the rest of the winners and losers from Week 9 of the NFL season:
J.J. McCarthy: There's a long way to go for McCarthy to show he's the Minnesota Vikings' answer at quarterback, or even a good option in the present. But he and the Vikings needed a game like Sunday.
In McCarthy's first game back to the lineup after dealing with an ankle injury, he played well in a 27-24 road win over the Detroit Lions. The Lions were big favorites but struggled all game on offense and defense. McCarthy took advantage. He had two passing touchdowns and another rushing touchdown as the Vikings pulled off the upset, and he clinched it with a completion on third-and-5 when the Lions still had a timeout left. McCarthy wasn't prolific, with just 143 passing yards, but he did enough.
The Vikings needed a win to avoid falling to 3-5. Now they're 4-4 and if McCarthy looks like the confident quarterback we saw Sunday and continues to grow, it's not too late for the Vikings to be a factor in the NFC playoff race.
Mac Jones: Jones might have made himself some good money the past few weeks, with Brock Purdy out for the San Francisco 49ers.
Jones hasn't been perfect but he has done pretty well filling in for Purdy. He played well again against the New York Giants in a 34-24 win. Jones was 19 of 24 for 235 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. If Purdy returns for the 49ers' next game, Jones will head back to the bench after helping the 49ers to a 5-2 record with their starting quarterback sidelined.
His play will be looked at closely by teams looking for the next Daniel Jones/Sam Darnold reclamation as a starter, or even as a high-end backup. The 49ers have him under contract for another season. The team will likely field some calls on him, but San Francisco might not be quick to deal him. Jones might have to wait until the 2027 offseason to cash in, but he'll be just 28 years old then. He'll be in demand whenever he's available.
Fourth quarter Bo Nix: At some point this season, Sean Payton will have to figure out how to get Nix to play all the entire game like it's the fourth quarter. Maybe the Denver Broncos can use hypnosis.
But for now the Broncos will take the wins that Nix has pulled out of the fire. Nix didn't do much against a very good Houston Texans defense but did just enough on a late fourth-quarter drive, with a couple of huge runs that picked up 34 yards, setting up Wil Lutz for a game-winning field goal as time expired. The Broncos are 7-2 after an ugly 18-15 win.
Denver's record is good but the offense has to find more consistency. But Nix has played well enough in the fourth quarters of games against the Giants, Eagles and Texans to give hope that an offensive revival is on the way.
Bengals defense: Even when the Cincinnati Bengals had what looked like a comeback for the ages, it was too good to be true. Because the Cincinnati defense still had to play for 54 seconds.
The Bears gave up two touchdowns in the final two minutes, with a rare successful onside kick by the Bengals in between, and Cincinnati led 42-41 with 54 seconds left. But somehow Caleb Williams found rookie tight end Colston Loveland over the middle of the field and two Bengals gave halfhearted tackle attempts, allowing Loveland to break free and go 58 yards for the touchdown with 17 seconds remaining.
COLSTON LOVELAND 58 YARDS! WOW! pic.twitter.com/JRZOV8ih3J
— NFL (@NFL) November 2, 2025
The Bears held on after that for a crazy 47-42 win, one week after the Bengals had a similar collapse in the fourth quarter to the winless Jets. Williams had three touchdown passes and a receiving touchdown on a trick play. It was a huge game in his career path, pulling out a win after it seemed like it would be a devastating collapse.
But just about anyone can look good against the Bengals defense. You don't even need a full minute at the end to make them look bad.
Los Angeles Chargers: The Chargers might have lost on Sunday if they were playing a real NFL team and not the Tennessee Titans. But that's OK. A win in any form isn't bad, especially on the road.
The problem for the Chargers was that they lost offensive tackle Joe Alt again. Alt had his leg rolled up on from behind, and he had to be carted off. The Chargers ruled him out with an ankle injury, which looked bad. When Alt missed time earlier this season with a high ankle sprain, the offense wasn't the same. It was already without offensive tackle Rashawn Slater, who suffered a torn patellar tendon in the preseason.
The Chargers beat a 1-8 Titans team 27-20 on Sunday. But it might end up being a bad day in their season, depending on the news with Alt.
Falcons and their kicker woes: Once you're on the kicker carousel in the NFL, you might stay on it all season.
Early in the season the Falcons cut Younghoe Koo after some costly misses. John Parker Romo replaced him and had been mostly good, but he had a miss Sunday that dearly cost the Falcons.
Drake London scored his third touchdown of the game and it looked like the Falcons would tie the New England Patriots at 24 in the fourth quarter. But Parker Romo missed the extra point. The Falcons never got in position after that to take the lead, and the Patriots were able to run out the clock in the final minutes to secure a 24-23 win.
The Falcons played well enough to beat the Patriots, who are in first place of the AFC East. But kicking problems are a big reason Atlanta is just 3-5 to start the season. It's likely we haven't heard the last of their kicking struggles either.
Green Bay Packers: Maybe Matt LaFleur should have just enjoyed his Halloween.
LaFleur gave a viral and explicit answer when asked about Halloween this week, saying he didn't care about it. But the Packers' effort Sunday didn't show that his extra work during the week was worth it. The Packers were flat, as they've been often this season, and lost 16-13 to the Carolina Panthers. The Panthers were 13-point underdogs and pulled off one of the biggest wins of the season on a field goal with no time remaining. They did so a week after being blown out at home 40-9 by the Buffalo Bills.
The Bills look like they could be a Super Bowl contender and more often than not, the Packers haven't. They had been winning games but often struggled to put away inferior opponents. On Sunday it caught up to them. The Packers' defense wasn't very good and the offense didn't do nearly enough, with Jordan Love having a mostly quiet day. An injury to tight end Tucker Kraft didn't help and is a concern going forward. The Packers have often let bad teams hang around before winning at the end. On Sunday they took a bad loss that will follow them around for the rest of the season.
Source: "AOL Sports"
Source: Sports
Published: November 03, 2025 at 01:27AM on Source: KOS MAG
#ShowBiz#Sports#Celebrities#Lifestyle