London calling - One last time
It's the final game of the season in London this weekend, with the Jacksonville Jaguars facing the Los Angeles Rams at Wembley Stadium on Sunday.
One of the most fascinating elements of this matchup is in relation to the way that the Rams are treating the game itself.
While Jacksonville flew out of Florida on Monday night, Sean McVay’s Rams side stayed in Baltimore after winning last weekend and have built a base on the east coast to work from, training at Camden Yards, the home of the Baltimore Orioles. They are not scheduled to land in London until Saturday morning.
Yes, you’ve read that correctly – Saturday morning.
While other teams such as the Kansas City Chiefs have landed in Europe on the Friday morning and practiced, this looks like a first from a team playing internationally – landing in another country, with no base needed as practice has already taken place. The Rams will simply land in the UK, play on Sunday, and leave.
In an ever-changing environment where the NFL is putting an added focus on international expansion, this decision is one which will raise eyebrows across the league.
Having played a first regular-season game in Dublin last month, the NFL will expand to Berlin, Madrid and Melbourne for the first time over the next year. If Matthew Stafford and company head into London and play at a normal level and win, this could change the blueprint for how a team plays internationally.
We looked at the Jaguars in detail last week. After a stunning win over the Kansas City Chiefs at home in primetime, Jacksonville fell to a disappointing 20-12 loss against the Seattle Seahawks at home last weekend.
While quarterback Trevor Lawrence had a productive game, the Jaguars have been poor in terms of penalties and many Irish fans travelling over to Wembley will want to see hybrid offensive/defensive player Travis Hunter targeted more throughout the matchup.
With the Jags looking to pick back up again and the Rams trying a unique travel strategy, this final game in London for 2025 will be intriguing.
Irish goodbye in Green Bay
Ballyboden’s Mark McNamee (above) is no longer a member of the Green Bay Packers roster after the team released him earlier this week.
The Dubliner was part of the practice squad, the designated 17th player on the roster, which is a free spot for an international player.
Last week, it seemed that McNamee was in line for a sensational regular season debut for the Packers, potentially lining up with Enniskerry’s Dan Whelan in what would have been the first time two Irish players were on the field at the same time for a team.
That was not to be.
The Packers decided to sign Lucas Havrisik before last week's game and ultimately gave him the start.
For McNamee, it will be interesting to see where he goes from here, especially with Ballyboden set to face Na Fianna in the Dublin football final on Saturday.
It would be extremely unlikely to see him play, but many will recall when Rory Beggan lined out for Monaghan in the Ulster Championship hours after being released by the Carolina Panthers.
Outside of McNamee, Whelan is performing at an elite level. He has a 42.4 yard net punting average through the first five games of the season, putting him inside the top five around the league.
Whelan is getting better with each opportunity, and has two road games coming up over the next two weeks, a visit to Arizona and a mouth-watering clash between Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers.
Here come the Dirty Birds
It's fair to say that the Atlanta Falcons are back.
After a statement win last week against the Buffalo Bills, the Falcons are playing at a super level on both sides of the ball. After a bye during week five, the defence is showing up, with 14 sacks so far this season. While that is only 11th in the standings, there are nine teams ahead of them who have played an extra game.
That is something else.
Former New York Jets defensive coordinator and interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich has been working wonders in Atlanta through the first few weeks of the season, with a defence that has steadily improved on both percentage pressure and sacks through the first six weeks, and players reporting a huge change in harmony in the locker room.
That doesn’t even factor in how well the offence has been playing through the last few weeks, as Michael Penix Jr, Bijan Robinson and Drake London have all been playing at a high level. With the team now sitting over .500 at 3-2 entering the seventh week of the season, Atlanta can legitimately be seen as contenders.
They now travel to face the San Francisco 49ers this weekend, before hosting the struggling Miami Dolphins. Then they'll hit the road again to take on Drake Maye and the New England Patriots, before heading to Berlin to play the Indianapolis Colts.
If they can come out on top in these matchups, the hype level in the Deep South may reach fever pitch.
Tame the Lions
Good things come to those who wait.
For NFL fans, this will ring true when the 5-1 Baker Mayfield-led Tampa Bay Buccaneers will head to Detroit to face a Lions team who are reeling from a loss to the Chiefs.
This is a matchup many neutrals would be happy to watch again in the NFC Championship game in the new year.
While the Lions lost 30-17 against the Chiefs, two factors stood out – the Chiefs played at an optimum level against a stout team led by Dan Campbell, with the other being the fact that Detroit could not do what they are usually capable of doing, which is putting points up on the board.
With only 17 points scored at Arrowhead, Lions fans would be forgiven for looking back to the first weekend of the season, when the team were frankly blown out in Green Bay.
Jared Goff's average of 8.8 yards per completion last weekend was an example of this, his second lowest performance of the year. He had an average of 7.3 yards against the Packers.
The Lions need to find a way to not only get Jahmyr Gibbs more open against this Bucs defence, but they also need to find a way to get the pressure on Mayfield.
This Bucs offence has been lethal so far this season. No other quarterback in the league has more passes on long throws (over 20 yards) than Mayfield, with Emeka Egbuka impressing in the early stages.
While the latter will not play this weekend, the Lions will need to try and contain Mike Evans, who returned to practice on Thursday for the Bucs.
Whisper it. Mayfield is in the MVP conversation through the first six weeks of the season.
This game will be a cracker.
Worries in Philadelphia?
Finally, let's take a moment to talk about the Philadelphia Eagles.
After losing to the Denver Broncos at home two weeks ago, they went to Metlife Stadium and lost to the New York Giants in primetime.
The positive? They have had time to reflect and think over the past two weeks of losses after an extended break from playing in New Jersey. They still sit top of the NFC East and now have a matchup on the road this week to the Minnesota Vikings.
The issue for Philadelphia is their offence. Statistically, they have the league's worst when it comes to the first two drives in each game, which means they are not starting off well. This has impacted what they do down the stretch in a matchup.
The offence is not clicking to the level that we have seen – and while that is a problem short term, you can never write off the reigning Super Bowl champions, who will look to get it right this weekend.
It also looks like Carson Wentz is going to get the start for the Vikings after their bye week. One can only wonder how JJ McCarthy feels.
