Judging biggest overreactions for NFL Week 10 games

Week 10’s lesson for our overreactions column is about overreacting too soon.

If you overreacted too soon to the Giants’ fourth-quarter comeback, you had to backtrack when rookie running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. fumbled the ball away on the first play of overtime and handed Carolina the win. If you overreacted to the Broncos’ final drive to get into position to beat the unbeaten Chiefs on a last-second field goal, you were stunned when the Chiefs blocked the kick to somehow keep their undefeated season alive. And if you thought Sam Darnold’s three interceptions were going to lead to a Vikings loss in Jacksonville, you must have been startled when Mac Jones tapped you on the shoulder and asked you to hold his beer.

Yeah, we’re all supposed to play to the whistle. But if we did that here in weekly overreactions — where we judge a few potential takeaways as legitimate or irrational — what fun would we be able to have? Anybody can wait until the season is over and tell the people what was real and what wasn’t. It takes a special kind of crystal ball — one that resets every week, in fact — to try to figure it out in real time. So here goes for Week 10.

Jump to:
McCaffrey will save the 49ers?
Lamar headed toward third MVP?
Jones should be benched?
Tomlin will win COY?
Cowboys should trade Parsons?

The Niners’ do-it-all star running back finally made his 2024 debut Sunday after missing the first eight games of the season with Achilles tendinitis. They did not ease him into action. He had 13 of the team’s 15 running back carries — though he gained only 39 yards on them against a Buccaneers defense that seemed bent on stopping him — and added 68 yards on six catches. The 49ers beat the Bucs with a buzzer-beating field goal to improve to 5-4 and move into a temporary tie with the Cardinals for first place in the NFC West.

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McCaffrey runs underneath a floating Purdy pass for huge gain

Brock Purdy is hit as he’s throwing and it ends up in the hands of Christian McCaffrey for a large gain.

The 49ers’ offense works best with both McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel Sr. on the field, and they’re looking ahead to, ideally, eight more games in which that will be the case.

Verdict: OVERREACTION

The division might save the 49ers, offering them a path to the playoffs even in a season in which they have been far from dominant. But McCaffrey’s absence hasn’t been San Francisco’s only problem.

The Niners don’t look like their old selves on defense. Brandon Aiyuk’s right knee injury was a season ender, and he was a huge part of last season’s success. The offensive line has a bunch of question marks outside of left tackle Trent Williams. And if any one of McCaffrey, Samuel or George Kittle got hurt, it would have a devastating effect on an offense that, again, needed a last-second field goal to win 23-20 in Tampa Bay.

The fact that the division hasn’t run away from them is a good thing for the 49ers, but even if they end up winning the NFC West title, this doesn’t look like the team that took the Chiefs to overtime in the Super Bowl nine months ago.

Lamar Jackson is about to win his third MVP award

Week 10 opened with a Thursday night barnburner between the Bengals and Ravens, and for the second time this season, Baltimore squeaked out a narrow victory over its division rival. Jackson was 25-for-33 for 290 yards and four touchdown passes, and he added 33 rushing yards for good measure. It was his fourth game in a row — and fifth overall this season — with a QBR over 80. (His 77.6 Total QBR leads the NFL.)

In eight games since the Ravens’ long-forgotten 0-2 start, Jackson has 22 touchdown passes and one interception. Baltimore is now 7-3 and locked in a race with the Steelers for the AFC North title behind the play of its quarterback.

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

There’s a strong case to be made that Jackson is playing even better than he did last season — when he won his second MVP award. He has already thrown 24 touchdown passes, which matches his total from all of 2023 and puts him on pace to smash his career high of 36 set in 2019 — when he won his first MVP award.

Jackson is a man on a mission to deliver a Super Bowl title to Baltimore, after losing the AFC Championship Game to the Chiefs at home as the top seed last season. So MVP might not be a big priority for him right now. But history has shown us that in seasons when Jackson stays healthy, the Ravens are really good and he has a good shot to win the award. There’s no player in the league more clearly central to what his team does than Jackson, and right now he’s at the peak of his powers. If he continues to play like this, the only reason he won’t win MVP is because voters decided it was someone else’s turn.

The Giants need to replace Daniel Jones with Drew Lock for the rest of the season

Jones and the Giants opened Sunday’s action with a heartbreaking overtime loss to the Panthers. After coming from behind in the second half to tie the game and send it to OT, the Giants lost when rookie running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. — who otherwise had a great game — fumbled on the first play of the extra period, allowing Carolina to kick a field goal four plays later. It was the second week in a row in which Jones played a solid second half after doing basically nothing in the first half. And, as you might expect, the Giants lost both of those games. In all, Jones was 22-for-37 on Sunday for 190 yards and two interceptions.

The Giants are now 2-8 heading into their Week 11 bye, with real questions about whether Jones is the guy to lead their franchise into the future — maybe even the near future.

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

The Giants can move on from Jones after this season without much of a cap penalty — just $22.21 million in dead money next year. He has two years left on his contract, but none of the remaining salary is guaranteed … unless he gets hurt. His 2025 salary includes $23 million that is guaranteed against injury only. So if Jones were to suffer an injury that prevented him from passing a physical next March, the Giants would be on the hook for that $23 million.

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Giants’ flea-flicker ends in disaster with Daniel Jones sack

The Giants attempt a flea-flicker on third down, and it ends in a brutal sack of Daniel Jones.

The Giants’ plan since the offseason has been to give Jones the season and make a decision based on performance, and they might still do that. But this is Jones’ sixth year in the league. It’s not like he hasn’t had a chance to show what he can do. There are still too many missed reads, missed throws and turnovers after all these years. (He leads the NFL with seven turnovers inside opponents’ territory.)

It’s not likely to fix the offense — which of course has other issues — but no one would blame the Giants if they decided to give up on Jones now and bench him so as not to risk the injury guarantee. Coach Brian Daboll even said the team would be looking at all options during the bye: “We’ll evaluate where we’re at and what we need to do.”

The Cowboys should trade Micah Parsons this offseason

Parsons returned to the Dallas lineup for the first time since Week 4, when he sprained his left ankle against the Giants. He made his presence felt early with a pair of sacks against the Eagles, and he was essentially the only thing keeping Dallas in the game for the first half. But unfortunately for the Cowboys, you have to play two halves, and by the time the second one was revving up, they were toast. Cooper Rush, filling in at quarterback for the injured Dak Prescott (hamstring), could do absolutely nothing against the Eagles’ defense. Eventually Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia offense wore down the home team.

The Cowboys are now 3-6 and were completely uncompetitive against a division rival. The likelihood that Prescott has to miss the rest of the season with his hamstring injury means Sunday could well have been a sign of things to come.

Parsons is signed through 2025 and scheduled to make $21.324 million on the fifth-year option on his rookie contract. This past offseason, the Cowboys signed Prescott and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb to top-of-market contracts for their positions, and Parsons will likely want to be the league’s highest-paid defensive player (or at least very close to it). Signing him long-term would require the Cowboys to really crush it with their draft picks and find cheap solutions at other positions for the next half-decade. Trading him could bring back a trove of picks they could use to help rebuild a roster that got thin in a hurry.

Verdict: OVERREACTION

Oh, I can see the logic. You could probably get three first-round picks for Parsons if you made him available, and my goodness would that help get things turned around for Dallas in a hurry. I wavered on this one, I promise you. But in the end, what it came down to for me is that Parsons is a particularly special player — the kind who would be tough to replace even with three first-rounders. He’s the foundational type you build around, no matter what kind of shape your franchise is in.

I think Jerry Jones has to bite the bullet, sign Parsons to a whopper of a contract, structure it in such a way that it offers as much cap freedom as possible and start hitting on draft picks the way the Cowboys were doing early in Prescott’s tenure. It’s possible to pay three guys top-of-the-market money and still be competitive. It’s just difficult.

The positive side of it is that the Cowboys don’t need to use a first-round pick on quarterback, wide receiver or edge rusher for a long time and can rebuild the offensive line, defensive line or any number of areas on the team that need help. And that’s a lot of areas. But if Dallas trades away Parsons, it’s going to be a very long time before the Cowboys find someone who can do what he does.

Bonus: This week’s underreaction

This is the part where we flip the script and throw out something people are underreacting to right now — something that’s not getting the attention we think it should.

Mike Tomlin should be the Coach of the Year favorite

Yeah, maybe the Steelers got a lucky break on a spot at the end of the game, when Washington might have had a first down to keep it going. But all wins count the same, and the Steelers now have seven of them after beating the Commanders 28-27. And the Steelers’ season has Tomlin’s Hall of Fame fingerprints all over it.

Lost for an answer at quarterback, they signed Russell Wilson after the Broncos cut him and traded for Justin Fields after the Bears decided to draft Caleb Williams. Tomlin picked Wilson as the starter, but Wilson got hurt right before the season opener, leaving Fields to start the first six games. At 4-2, the Steelers looked to be rolling right along, but once Wilson was healthy for Week 7, Tomlin benched Fields and inserted Wilson as the starter, as was his plan all along. The move raised eyebrows around the league and even in his own building, but Pittsburgh is now 3-0 with Wilson as the starter. Wilson’s ability to drop deep passes into the bucket has stood out; those are throws Fields might have been hesitant to try. The teardrop touchdown pass to Mike Williams that won the game Sunday was just the latest example.

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George Pickens makes an incredible TD grab for Steelers

Russell Wilson throws a 16-yard touchdown pass to George Pickens to put the Steelers up 7-0 in the first quarter vs. the Commanders.

The Steelers have an excellent defense (Sunday notwithstanding — that’s a really good Commanders offense it faced), but the offense has had to come together on the fly under first-year coordinator Arthur Smith. Uncertainty at quarterback, very little at wide receiver outside of George Pickens and a young (and banged-up) offensive line have all been obstacles. It’s working, and it’s a testament to Tomlin’s steady hand and his conviction.

The Lions’ Dan Campbell might be the early favorite for the Coach of the Year award, and Washington’s Dan Quinn has to be mentioned along with guys like Sean McDermott, Kevin O’Connell, Matt LaFleur and potentially Jim Harbaugh. And of course, if Andy Reid’s Chiefs go undefeated, it’d be pretty hard not to give it to him. But Tomlin’s clearly doing things few people expected him to be able to do with this team and this quarterback situation. The Steelers still have a tough remaining schedule and all six of their division games to play, so this might not look as good in a few weeks as it does now. But you can’t bet against Tomlin right now, and this 2024 season very well might end up being one of his best.