Nick Sirianni went full Nick Sirianni at the latest Philadelphia Eagles game

We are halfway through October, a crazy thing to be true, and are starting to have a full and firm grasp on what is going on this NFL season.

The two undefeated teams we talked about last week were both on bye, but in their absence many other stepped up or rotted further into obscurity. Monday will see the team in charge of the first head coach firing try to pick up the pieces, but for the most part Week 6 is all said and done which allows us to draw conclusions about it all.

This is where The Skinny Post comes in. It is our job to discuss the most notable things that happened in a given NFL week and low and behold that is exactly what we are going to do today.

Let’s ride (not in the Russell Wilson voice).

We are past the point where the Deshaun Watson thing is bad

RJ:

The Cleveland Browns have one of the worst quarterback situations going on in the NFL right now and that has plagued the league (including the Browns specifically!) in a long time.

Even if we just talk about football... Deshaun Watson is arguably the worst in the entire league. He is holding back a group that could seemingly be competitive in his absence and doing so in historically bad fashion.

Much has been said and written and pontificated about the contract that Cleveland gave Deshaun and the impediment that it is in terms of moving on from him. I have no words of advice to make that particular part of this problem better. But I think that I speak for everyone in saying that this simply cannot continue to go along.

Read the included tweet again. Deshaun is, by an interesting line of measurement, the worst one since 2007. 2007! America’s Best Dance Crew was still a thing in 2007!

The Browns are down as bad as you can be.

Michael:

It’s honestly incredible how bad things have gone for Deshaun Watson since he signed with the Browns on that insane fully guaranteed contract. I’m not even taking into consideration any of his off-field nonsense; the on-field stuff has been so putrid that it’s crazy that no one who was in on the decision has been fired yet.

I love that you used a Bill Barnwell tweet in your blurb because I’m also going to drop some Barnwell, too.

This is HISTORICALLY bad. But not just “amongst” the all-time bad starts, Watson is literally in LAST PLACE(!) in first-down rate while being second-to-last in yards per dropback.

The Browns have Jameis Winston right there and the front office/coaching staff is choosing to stick with Watson because they know that him working out may be the difference between them having the same job or not a year from now.

Watson used to be a blast to watch when he was with the Texans. There’s not a shred of that player left right now.

The Browns by no means have the worst supporting cast in the NFL. There’ve been some injuries up front, but you can’t name another stud passer who hasn’t dealt with that before, either. Heck, even when Nick Chubb returns, I can’t imagine Watson’s play all of a sudden getting fixed because he has a better ground game to lean on.

At the end of the day, the Browns will get exactly what they deserve if they continue down this path.

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Caleb Williams was the only rookie QB (out of 5) who won their matchup on Sunday. Which of the other four were the most impressive in their loss?

Michael:

My vote here goes to Drake Maye of the Patriots. While he didn’t get a ton of help from his defense (41 points allowed), Maye still hung in there and threw a trio of touchdown passes compared to two interceptions. He also ended up leading his team in rushing with 38 yards on five carries. Overall, he accounted for 281 of the team’s 325 total yards of offense.

Why is this encouraging to me? Because quarterbacks who are able to carry their team offensive in more ways than one when the unit is struggling is an easy path to being one of the better players at your position.

Outside of someone like Lamar Jackson who obviously can do it all, Patrick Mahomes knows how to utilize his legs and keep drives alive when opposing defenses get a stranglehold on both their passing attack and the traditional ground game. More than once I’ve seen Mahomes lead his team in rushing because it’s the only thing the defense can’t entirely account for when they’ve clamped down on everything else.

Good quarterbacks with the kind of athletic ability that Maye and others have can make opposing teams pay with a pick-your-poison approach where they can truly make them wrong on almost every play.

Maye showed glimpses against the Texans that should keep the fan base optimistic. It also did not ruin his development because he played in a big loss.

RJ:

I’m going to stick with Jayden Daniels here even if the answer is low-hanging fruit. I certainly want to acknowledge that Drake Maye looked great, but Daniels continues to impress.

I know that it is easy to jump to Caleb because he was amazing in London (those games barely count, though). While Daniels’ Washington Commanders ultimately lost to the Baltimore Ravens, they did not get blown out and were highly competitive throughout against one of the best teams in the NFL.

We assumed this would be a measuring stick or announcement game or whatever for Daniels and the Commanders and I think many will assume that they failed the test because they lost. But it is important to note that they hung with Baltimore and take away from that that they are very clearly for real. They just aren’t going to win every single game.

Daniels is keeping things steady and handling the hype in a very impressive way. He is still the ROTY for me, granted we are only at mid-October.

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Should Eagles fans feel any sort of relief after beating Cleveland?

RJ:

We talked about the Deshaun Watson element a little bit up top, but it was the Philadelphia Eagles who ultimately got the better of him on Sunday.

To be clear the Eagles won and a win is a win, but they barely squeaked this thing out and did so against one of the worst teams in the NFL. This, of course, did not stop Nick Sirianni from (seemingly) chirping at Eagles fans who (we assume) were in his ear all game long after Philly officially took care of business.

Football is a game of passion and I am always cool with people expressing it. That being said, I do think it is more than fair to expect your head coach to act like he’s been there before in general but additionally to be able to read the room.

Philly has been in a funk since the second half of last year and, as noted, barely hung on to beat the lowly Browns. Unlike when Sirianni chirped at Indianapolis Colts fans when the Eagles beat them two years ago... this was his own fan group! In his home stadium! It smells like someone who knows they are up against it and expressing that how they see fit. Again, I support flexing when you have earned the opportunity to do so, but wow this is such a bad look for the head coach of all people. What’s more is given Sirianni’s antics over the years... he seems like someone who can dish it out but not take it.

Michael:

So at first, I thought this was Sirianni chirping at opposing fans but this whole thing changes now that I know it was his own fan base.

It wasn’t a pretty win by any means. Emotions flare in football and it’s understandable that some may not be able to handle it as well as others. However, it’s the head coach that’s handling it the worst? This incident — I guess if we can call it that — makes me think that we’d have been seeing a lot more of this behavior in his tenure if the Eagles weren’t as good as they’ve been the past few seasons. Like, if they weren’t a constant playoff team and/or made the Super Bowl two seasons ago, would we have gotten more sound bites from Sirianni just tearing into his fans, which also happen to be some of the most dedicated in all of the NFL?

I do think so. But luckily for him he’s got himself a decent football team right now.

Either way, again, this is the head coach of a NFL franchise. I don’t know what those fans were screaming at him all game, but I can’t imagine how bad it could have been in a VICTORY that would cause him to turn around and give them as much attention as he did.

But hey, he apologized so it’s all god, right?

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Rookie TE Brock Bowers is the real deal just six games into his first professional season

Michael:

Okay so as a former tight end I absolutely loved Bowers coming out of this year’s draft. He honestly was so much more than a tight end though. The dude was an absolute weapon for the Georgia Bulldogs and it didn’t take him long to hit the ground running this year with the Raiders.

Entering Week 7, he’s currently first among all tight ends in the NFL with 384 receiving yards. He’s also tied for THIRD among ALL PLAYERS in the league with 37 receptions. If the Raiders had a better quarterback, he’d also probably have more than just a lone touchdown, too. First-year tight ends are not supposed to be this good! But here we are!

The only thing I wish wasn’t a part of reality is that it was a former Chargers general manager who drafted him to a divison rival, meaning I have to watch this guy dominate up close for the next 10-12 years.

Thanks Tom Telesco!

RJ:

Looking at what Bowers has done is really astonishing so far to this point in his young career. I know this is a sensitive subject for fantasy players (and Falcons fans — especially the ones who are also UGA fans), but it feels like he is everything that we wanted Kyle Pitts to be.

It really is interesting how this hasn’t gotten a ton of national pop given the discourse around tight ends. I suppose the discourse is that large to where it can bury some of this, but it also doesn’t help that Bowers is thriving for a Las Vegas Raiders team that is largely forgettable.

I’m very here for Brock Bowers resuscitating the tight end position and taking us to a new world. Let it be done.