Cal in the NFL: Week 11

The Busts (Statwise)

These guys will show up on the stat sheet but may have not had the greatest of contributions in their respective games.

• The Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost a close 38-25 contest against the New York Giants in what wasn’t the greatest of games for our two Bear representatives on the Bucs. Bryan Anger had only one punt for 44 yards (which was ironically his exact same stat-line from just a week ago), and DeSean Jackson caught four of seven targets for a total of 38 yards. Our two Bears now turn their focus to a Week 12 match-up against the San Francisco 49ers.
• In another close game, Brandon Mebane and the Los Angeles Chargers suffered a tough 23-22 loss on a game-winning field goal from Denver Broncos’ kicker Brandon McManus. Mebane made two tackles in the loss.
• Maurice Harris has yet to have a true encore to his Week 9 performance, as he caught just one of four targets for 13 yards in a 23-21 loss to the Houston Texans. Nick Sundberg, the Redskins’ long snapper, also actually recorded a tackle in the game.
• The New Orleans Saints killed the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles by a score of 48-7 this past Sunday. Cameron Jordan only had one tackle in the big win, but it did go for a huge loss of eight yards.
• Trevor Davis of the Green Bay Packers finally returned to action in a 27-24 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, returned three punts for a total of 31 yards (with a long of 15 yards) and one kick for 20 yards.
• Alex Mack played every single snap for a Falcons offense that managed just 19 points in a 22-19 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.

The Booms

Some HUGE games this week from our former Bears!

• We will talk about the Rams-Chiefs game in just a moment, but for now I’ll just say that Mitchell Schwartz played a fantastic game, as always.
• Despite losing to the Seahawks, Aaron Rodgers had a bounceback game after struggling, at least in terms of Aaron Rodgers, over the past few weeks. He completed 21/30 passes for 332 yards, throwing for two touchdowns with zero interceptions.
• Keenan Allen was able to find the end zone for the second straight week, but this time, he was much more impressive as a whole. He acted as the Chargers’ workhorse through the air, catching 9/12 targets for 89 yards and the aforementioned touchdown in the loss to the Broncos.
• Wow! Hardy Nickerson had a great start to the season, but failed to record a stat in each of his last three games. Then, just when we thought he may have been done, he enjoyed the best game of his young NFL career, making 11(!) tackles in a 24-21 loss to the Baltimore Ravens. In a lot of weeks, I would have given him the player of the week, but we all know who got it this week.
• This performance made me just as happy as Nickerson’s: Tyson Alualu made his first start of the season for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and made seven tackles! Despite being widely regarded as a draft bust after being selected 10th overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2010, it is surely nice to see him still hanging around in the league. In fact, the seven tackles he made in this game were tied for second most in a single game by him in his career, second to only his eight-tackle performance in Week 17 of last year against the Cleveland Browns. What made this even sweeter was that the Steelers picked up the 20-16 win over Alualu’s former Jaguars.

Player of the Week

• Jared Goff, QB, Los Angeles Rams

Are we bored of having the same player be featured here each week? Well, definitely not when it comes with performances like Goff had on Monday Night against the Chiefs. I really hope you watched the game, and if you didn’t, you need to go watch highlights RIGHT NOW. It was the best regular season NFL football game I have ever watched, as the Chiefs and Rams battled the entire way in a game that ended up in a 54-51 Rams win, the highest scoring Monday Night game in NFL history and the third highest scoring game overall.

Goff was masterful all night, completing 31/49 passes for 413 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions (despite losing two fumbles) and adding another touchdown on the ground. It was absolute insanity that mirrored the Air-Raid days of Goff’s past. In fact, in the post-game interview, Goff compared the game to a hypothetical Cal vs. Texas Tech match-up between himself and former Texas Tech and current Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

The best moment of the game had to be Goff’s game-winning touchdown drive, but there were so many great moments that I honestly can’t successfully recap them all without making an entirely separate article. However, I will leave you all with the following highlight video at the very least so you can witness the greatness yourself. Simply beautiful.

Week 11 In Recap

• The streak is over! Our Cal players had some amazing individual performances this week, but their teams failed to replicate that same success as a whole. As a result, we had our first losing record of the season, and it wasn’t even all that close, as we went 3-11 on the week.
• The average scores of those games did still favor us though, giving us a 30-28 win.

Season Record: 88–65–2

Weekly W/L Record: 7-1-3

Pythagorean Win-Loss: 9–2

Bears Record: 6–4

GO BEARS!