The NFL Roundup Week 8 - What We Learned

​Written by John Edward Betancourt

(Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

Perhaps the best way to describe Week 8 in the NFL, is that it was quite a sobering weekend of football. Sure there were some great games, but also some staunch lessons about where some teams need to improve and how fast some of the things we take for granted have changed with a couple of rule tweaks in the last couple of years. Either way, everything that happened this weekend was outright fascinating and here is what we learned from this past weekend. 

The Jacksonville Jaguars need to fire Gus Bradley.
​Yes, I fully understand that this is a year where coordinators are being let go before the coach and yes, I am fully aware of the fact that there has been success to be found when this happens, but here's the thing...Gus Bradley is a bad football coach and needs to be fired as soon as possible and here's why. For one, he's had several years now to turn this team around, he's been given every single tool to succeed player wise and every single year, the Jaguars are an awful, awful team and we can blame every coordinator we would like to when it comes to this team's performance, but to see players missing tackles on Thursday Night Football, and an offense that was anemic at best until garbage time, alongside players being ejected over the last couple of weeks...well that says one thing; Gus has lost control of this team and his players are no longer responding to him and that means it's time for Mister Khan to just cut his losses and move on so the team can move forward.

The changes to the kicking game are starting to be felt around the league.
Not that long ago, there was a grand discussion of altering or removing the kicking game altogether because it had become so easy for Kickers to produce points for their teams. PAT's were nothing, and field goals were easy to hit since Kickers had all the confidence in the world. So naturally the league toyed with how that phase of the game is played and here we are, with the kicking game turned upside down. Sunday was a cavalcade of misses on both PAT's and FG's and well, it's clear now that the Kicker has become an ultra important part of the game once again because their accuracy is making or breaking the result of a game. Take the two ties for example, missed kicks helped lead to a pair of them and the Raiders would have been off the field quicker on Sunday had Sebastian Janikowski nailed his kicks. Either way, the changes to the league are a positive, because now a kick means something again, and there's no guarantee that a kicker will win the game and make it look easy in the process. 

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are struggling to put it together.
What an odd place Tampa Bay is in right now. They have a franchise quarterback in place. They made a tough coaching change to elicit a spark on this team and well...while they have shown flashes of brilliance, this is a team that simply hasn't put all the pieces of the puzzle together yet. Case in point, Sunday's game against the Raiders. They were able to hang with one of the top teams in the AFC, even going so far as to control a lead, but then something went awry, coverages were blown on defense, the offense sputtered and the end result was a Raiders win in overtime and that's a shame. Because finally, there's some real talent on this squad and its obvious they can play, but mistakes are killing them and hopefully these players are being taught that these are simply growing pains and they have to move on. If that's happening in the locker room, eventually they'll put it all together, but if not, the mistakes will only get worse, but here's to hoping they do figure it out because this is a team and a fan base that deserves another few of years of success. 

Green Bay needs to be proud of what happened in Atlanta.
Yes, the Packers are a team surrounded by question marks, and yes they have struggled this season on offense, but despite the fact that they lost the game against the Falcons on Sunday, they need to be proud of the fact that they turned this matchup into a flat out shootout. Yes, I understand there are no moral victories in the NFL, and a loss is a loss, but for a struggling Green Bay team to be able to hang with the Falcons like this, and put up some points like this is no small accomplishment and that kind of tough mettle will come in handy later on in the season. But what matters most about this game, is that the old Green Bay team, the one that can seemingly score at will made an appearance and now that they have rediscovered that formula for finding the end zone, you know they will be building upon that so next week they can create an early lead and become a dominant force on offense once again.

​The Minnesota Vikings are suddenly a team in decline. 
A few weeks ago, we (myself included) were all celebrating the resurgence of the Minnesota Vikings with their glorious 5-0 run in this league complete with stunning offensive and powerhouse defensive play. Then the Philadelphia Eagles handed them a loss, and everything changed. Suddenly the defense is no longer stout and Sam Bradford is no longer laser accurate to the point where they lost to an awful Chicago Bears team on Monday night. As to what changed, well it's hard to say, but there is a distinct chance that the Vikings went the way of the Panthers, believing that they were invincible because of their record and are not dealing well with the notion of a loss. Either way, they need to focus and focus quickly because another loss or two and the road to the playoffs gets all the more difficult for Minnesota. 

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