By Matthew Kaplan
In a depressing week for Eagles fans, other teams around the NFC East would find great success, starting with the division leading Redskins. The Redskins would kick off a long day of strange football on Sunday in Tampa Bay taking on the Buccaneers. The Bucs’ would come in to this game in the middle of a stretch that has seen them pick up one win in their last six games. This stretch has been full of tough games against good teams, such as the Steelers at home then away against the Bears, Falcons, Bengals and Panthers. Their lack of success is mostly blamed on the quarterback play.
After a poor week three showing against the Steelers, the once magical Ryan Fitzpatrick would once again assume his role as a back-up to Jamies Winston. Despite some high scoring affairs overall poor performances would lead to Fitzpatrick once again taking over as the starter against Washington. While Fitzpatrick would throw for 406 yards and look to have better chemistry with his receivers, he would make two vital mistakes and his team would turn the ball over four times. The best news to come out of this game for Tampa Bay was their defense as they held the Redskins to 16 points with only one touchdown and two of the three field goals being 40+ yards.
While the Buccaneers were good defensively, the Redskins, forcing the previously mentioned 4 turnovers and holding the Buccaneers to only 3 points, would win this game, 16-3. Their hit or miss offense was led by the run as they managed about 40 percent of their total yards on the ground. The Redskins will go home to take on the Houston Texans next week, in a match-up of division leaders as they both look to gain breathing room on the teams behind them.
Outside of the Cowboys-Eagles the division would have one more game on Monday night as the Giants battled the 49ers in San Francisco. In a close battle throughout, the veteran quarterback Eli Manning would quite simply out play the inexperienced backup Nick Mullens. Mullens, out of Southern Miss, would throw two untimely interceptions. This would not only ruin the Niners chances to win, but would also waste the strong efforts of running back Matt Breida. Breida would rack up 132 total yards and account for both 49er touchdowns, building on what has already been a very strong season for him so far.
Thanks to Eli Manning and company, the Giants would win this game, 27-23. Eli led the way with three touchdowns, spreading the ball around to seven different receivers. Two of those touchdowns would go to Odell Beckham, who would have a huge impact on this game despite only catching four balls. Beckham would total 73 yards and demand not only San Francisco’s best cornerback covering him, but usually safety help as well. His ability to draw so much attention would really open the field for the Giants offense. The Giants will hope to take this momentum and bring themselves back in to the divisional race and out of the draft conversation next week against the Buccaneers.
Current 2019 NFL Draft Order:
1. Raiders (1-8)
2. 49ers (2-8)
3. Giants (2-7)
4. Cardinals (2-7)
5. Jets (3-7)
6. Bills (3-7)
7. Lions (3-7)
8. Broncos (3-6)
9. Jaguars (3-6)
10. Buccaneers (3-6)— Field Yates (@FieldYates) November 13, 2018
After the Redskins and Cowboys wins in their games, the Redskins will now take a two-game lead on the division with four more divisional games to play, as they hope to put the division out of reach by their December 16th match-up against the Jaguars. But there is still a lot of important football yet to be played around the league and very few teams are completely out of the picture yet.
