The NFL Player of the Week rewards the top players from Week 10. The nature of the NFL hardly allows non-quarterbacks to win offensive awards, so we decided to break these categories up. One of these days, I’ll get an offensive lineman in for Offensive Player of the Week. I guess I’ll wait to see if someone can slow down Myles Garrett for a week (if that’s even possible at this point).
NFL Players of the Week
This is where I like to bring up some of the other candidates for the week.
Josh Allen and Dak Prescott both had big days, and before Sunday Night Football, they were the contenders for the crown.
D’Andre Swift needed to find the end zone, and the Lions needed to find the win for him to receive the OPOW award. Stefon Diggs had a bigger day than Justin Jefferson, but it came against the second-worst passing defense in the league.
Defensively, Devin White had a monster game from a production perspective, but the Buccaneers lost, and their defense as a whole allowed a putrid offense to move the ball. Jamal Adams caught a football pass, which automatically made him a contender, but the Seahawks lost.
NFL Quarterback of the Week | Patrick Mahomes
Man, y’all look pretty darn foolish after the past few weeks. I understand these big three-plus-hour network shows need topics, and producers are ruthless for ratings, but we couldn’t just let a lousy stretch be a bad stretch, could we?
No, we had to spit hot takes about how the NFL had figured that offense out and Patrick Mahomes was broken. Pathetic. Now, he’s an NFL Player of the Week for Week 10.
So, Mahomes went out and diced up a Raiders defense that, while not consistently great at defending the pass, can absolutely fly to the quarterback as rushers. It didn’t matter against Mahomes, as he maneuvered his way about the pocket and decided to carve up Las Vegas’ defense weeks before we even hit Thanksgiving.
Can we stop now with these grandiose proclamations about the downfall of Mahomes? The man had a few-week stretch where he played like an average quarterback. Now, the Chiefs are back in first place, and he’s going for 400+ and 5 touchdowns. All is right with the world once again.
NFL Offensive Player of the Week | Justin Jefferson
There is no shortage of elite talent at the wide receiver position these days. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to cover them. If a cornerback so much as breathes on a receiver, there’s a chance the referee is going to crow hop into a flag toss in the cornerback’s direction.
Consequently, receivers like Justin Jefferson (who wins through deception, footwork, and flexibility) can now flourish in the NFL because they’re not able to be beaten to a pulp at the top of routes anymore. At LSU, Jefferson was the best receiver I’ve seen at attacking off-coverage, and now he’s winning in every situation. That was clear in Week 10 of the NFL season.
Go watch the tape from this past game. Watch how the Vikings use Jefferson in every conceivable fashion through the air. His target chart from Next Gen Stats looks nearly symmetrical. He’s running the gambit of routes from all different alignments. Against the Chargers, it appears that whatever worked on one side of the field was flipped and ran on the opposite side with the same conclusion — Jefferson impressing.
Bear in mind Minnesota is a team that was 3-5 and facing not only the end of realistic playoff contention, but the end of their head coach’s tenure. This win was massive on multiple fronts, and Jefferson’s 9-catch, 143-yard day is a big reason the Vikings’ season has been temporarily saved.
NFL Defensive Player of the Week | Jeffery Simmons
This is admittedly a bit of an extended award. Jeffery Simmons was in the running last week with his 3-sack performance against the Rams, but he lost out to Xavier McKinney, who had 2 huge interceptions that led to points for the Giants in a win against the Raiders.
Simmons followed that performance up with a 2-sack day against the Saints, bullying Cesar Ruiz first and picking a cleanup sack up during a New Orleans two-minute drill before the half.
To be sure, Simmons is no one-trick pony at defensive tackle. He’s not a pass-rushing tackle that shoots gaps and gets too deep, allowing holes to open in the run game. No, Simmons is a full three-down tackle who is stout against the run. He possesses powerful hands and great agility for his size that allows him to get to the QB.
Kiss the days of knowing your interior offensive line goodbye when he’s in the game. There is a reason the young man went in Round 1 despite having an ACL tear and an off-field incident when he was younger. Simmons was a top-three player in the 2019 NFL Draft class, and his character checked out. It’s awesome to see him flourish alongside Harold Landry. In Week 10 of the NFL season, Simmons deserved DPOW honors.