Week 9 in the NFL was a bit of a wild one, with close finishes up and down the slate on Sunday. Unfortunately, the prime time games were duds, with the Ravens, Seahawks and Cardinals all dominating in front of a national audience.
Now that the season is at the halfway point, all focus shifted to the trade deadline, where there was plenty of action from contenders across the league. The Jets stole the show with a crazy fire sale, trading away both Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams in monster deals.
Before some of these new-look teams take center stage and the calendar flips to Week 10, let's look back at the biggest winners from Week 9 of the NFL slate.
Steelers defense makes a long-awaited statement
For years and years, the conversation around the Steelers was this: just give them a competent offense, and this team could compete in the AFC. Mike Tomlin has fielded a very good defense over the last five years since Ben Roethlisberger retired, but the offense consistently lagged behind due to poor quarterback play.
This year, Aaron Rodgers has given the Steelers solid play at the game's most important position, but the defense was anchoring the team down. Pittsburgh's veteran-laden unit on that side of the ball couldn't stop anybody during the first half of the season, which was an ominous trend right before playing the red-hot Colts offense.
As it turns out, maybe a high-profile matchup like that was exactly what these Steelers needed. Pittsburgh forced six turnovers — yes, six — in a 27-20 win over the best team in the AFC so far this season to get to 5-3 on the season.
The Steelers defense posted the fourth-best EPA per play allowed for the week, and the best mark in that department against the pass in Week 9. Whether they are starting to turn a corner on that side of the ball remains to be seen, but this was certainly a great sign against an elite offense for a unit that was in need of a reset. If Pittsburgh is going to hold off the Ravens in the AFC North, it will need this to be a trend and not a blip.
Seahawks show out in prime time
The Seahawks have been one of the surprises of the season so far. Sam Darnold is playing MVP-level ball, Jaxon Smith-Njigba is having a historic season so far, and Mike Macdonald has this defense playing at a very high level despite some key injuries.
However, there were still some questions about Seattle's viability as a team at the top of the NFC. Was this a real contender, or was it just a playoff-caliber team? On Sunday night, those questions were answered with a dominate 38-14 win over the Washington Commanders.
Darnold completed his first 16 passes and the Seahawks jumped out to a 28-0 lead in a blink. They were never threatened on a national stage and easily closed out the win to get to 6-2 on the season.
The NFC is wide open at the moment (the whole NFL is, really), and there is no team that is dominating like the Eagles did last year. While Philadelphia, the Rams, and the teams at the top of the NFC North will be tough to beat in January, Seattle is proving that it belongs right in that discussion.
JJ McCarthy is finally headed in the right direction
The JJ McCarthy experiment is off to a rocky start in Minnesota. The former first-rounder out of Michigan missed his entire rookie season with a knee injury, and then he was sidelined again after just two games this season with a high-ankle sprain.
Now, McCarthy is back, and all “soft-benching” discourse is officially in the past. His first start back went about as well as it could have for the Vikings, as Minnesota stayed right in the middle of the NFC North race with a shocking 27-24 win over the Detroit Lions.
McCarthy was far from perfect in this game, and he still showed some of the blemishes as a pure passer that he did early in the season. However, the positives of his skillset were also on display. He extended a play and found TJ Hockenson for a touchdown in the first half, and then he scrambled for another score in the third quarter.
There are still some warts in McCarthy's game that have to be ironed out during the rest of the season and beyond. That's okay! He's still made just three NFL starts. But this was a step in the right direction after the first two games, which were mostly pretty brutal from his perspective.
Bills beat the Chiefs — does it matter?
Bills-Chiefs week has become somewhat of a national holiday during the NFL regular season. CBS clears out the afternoon window for a matchup of two of the best quarterbacks in the world, and they both go put on a show for everyone to see.
On Sunday, only one signal caller was up to the task. Allen had one of the most efficient games of his career in a 28-21 Buffalo win, while Mahomes completed less than 50% of his passes for the first time. It was jarring to see the red-hot Chiefs offense stifled so badly by a Bills defense that had looked gettable in recent weeks, and now Buffalo has the upper hand in the AFC race while the Chiefs will be in the chasing pack the rest of the way.
The question is: does this result really matter? Allen is now 5-1 against Mahomes in his career in the regular season, but he is 0-4 in the playoffs. The Chiefs have sent the Bills home in four of the last five postseasons, and it still is very possible the two will meet in January again. If they do, are the Bills ready to take out the kings of the AFC for good this time?
I'm not sure this game answers that question. Maybe the answer is yes, but Sunday's victory isn't the reason why. Still, it was a good sign to see Buffalo come out and put on an improved performance on one side of the ball against a very good team.
