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Each week, we’ll offer up the very best of the NFL for a given week, kind of like the fantasy football team you wished you had.
We’ll pick one quarterback, two running backs, two receivers and a tight end – OK, this is sounding a lot like a super-hindsight fantasy football team – as a way to look back on the weekend that was. This team is through the Sunday night game and doesn’t include Monday night.
We got our quarterback from the final game of Sunday, which saw Rico Dowdle stay hot and a Falcons receiver dominate. Let’s get into it:
This was a week with a few four-TD, no-INT games, like the Rams‘ Matthew Stafford and the Ravens‘ Lamar Jackson, but what Darnold did in the first half Sunday against Washington was arguably the best half anybody’s had this season.
The game wasn’t even as close as 31-7 at halftime, and for Darnold to go a perfect 16-for-16 for 282 yards — that’s 17.6 yards per attempt — with four touchdowns and no interceptions underlines how special he has been. Darnold threw an interception in the second half for his only blemish, but it also points to the fact that he didn’t have to do anything at all after halftime — they were just that dominant.
RB: Rico Dowdle, Panthers
He’s had bigger games, but were they in a win at Lambeau Field? Dowdle finished with 25 carries for 130 yards and both Panthers touchdowns in a 16-13 win.
Dowdle has been a central part of why Carolina is now 5-3 with four wins in its last five. He’s rushed for 735 yards after starting the season with just 83 after four games.
Any time you can win a game where your quarterback throws for 102 yards, that means you leaned hard on the running game. Carolina will continue to ride Dowdle to a surprise playoff push this season.
Yes, you can make a case for Christian McCaffrey and his 173 total yards and two touchdowns here, but where’s the fun in that?
Monangai was a seventh-round pick out of Rutgers in this year’s draft, and he’d totaled 186 yards all season before Sunday. With D’Andre Swift injured, the Bears turned to Monangai, and he rushed 26 times for 176 yards while adding another 22 yards receiving. He didn’t get into the end zone, but he was an unsung part of the wildest win of the day.
WR: Tee Higgins, Bengals
Week 9 really wasn’t an amazing weekend for receivers, and we talked a bit about the possibility of flexing a second tight end into this spot.
Again, we shouldn’t fault Higgins because Cincinnati has a terrible, terrible defense, so the fact that his seven catches for 121 yards and two touchdowns came in a losing effort … well, we’re going to downplay that.
This is Higgins’ first 100-yard game of the season, and it’s incredible that he’s caught at least one touchdown in nine straight home games.
Is it a bad thing if we include a bunch of individual players who lost? London had a massive game, with three touchdowns among nine catches for 118 yards, and it’s not his fault that the Falcons missed an extra point and thus lost the game.
London had just two touchdown catches all season, and he’s had a few years in the “Julio Jones School For Talented Receivers Who Really Should Have More Touchdowns,” so this is a good sign for him and for Michael Penix. London snagging three touchdowns with so little else to draw a defense’s attention downfield makes it all the more commendable.
We were going to give it to Chicago’s Colston Loveland, who had 118 yards and two touchdowns, including the insane game-winner. But then Bowers caught a third touchdown pass for the Raiders — they lost on a missed two-point conversion in overtime, but again, it wasn’t really his fault.
It’s the first three-touchdown game for a Raiders tight end in nearly 40 years — Todd Christensen actually had three such games between 1983 and 1986. Bowers looked like the best tight end in the NFL again Sunday, so that gets the nod over two touchdowns in a win.
Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.
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