NFL Bad Beats for Week 10

Usually when we look back at Week 10 on Monday morning, the lone Bad Beat is obvious, like a nipple piercing at the beach. What you don’t ever desire is two Bad Beats in a single week, because nobody wants to toss their money into a port-a-john and then flick in a match behind it.

BAD BEATS: NFL WEEK 10
BY ADAM GREENE

But that’s what happened, thanks to the Oakland Raiders and Dallas Cowboys.

Now, to be fair, for the Raiders 26-24 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers to hit your kid’s college fund, you had to come in late. Oakland opened as a -1.5 point favorite, but by Wednesday it had moved to Chargers -1.5. After a market correction Thursday, it was Chargers -1.

The Cowboys opened as three-point favorites the whole way. So if, say, you got hosed in the Raiders-Chargers game, you could try to make your money back in the Cowboys-Vikings game.

But you didn’t. And now your daughter can’t get braces this year even though her teeth look like the front porch of a haunted house. Hey, just tell her they give her face character.

When all you have to cover is a point, it’s just about winning the game and Los Angeles was set to do that with four minutes to go after Phillip Rivers hit Austin Ekeler for a six-yard TD that put them up 24-20.

All the Chargers’ defense, one of the better units in the league, had to do was hold Oakland out of the end zone. Give up a field goal, you’re still good at -1. But, no, L.A. opened up every lane for business and Josh Jacobs scored on an 18-yard run with a minute to play. But, there was hope. The Raiders missed the extra point which means that the Chargers could win and cover with a field goal.

For Rivers, with Keenan Allen and his other weapons, a minute might as well be an eternity, but you were thwarted in your hopes to buy those Mannheim Steamroller tickets as a Christmas surprise when Rivers’ fourth down pass fell incomplete. A defensive hold made you believe in Santa again, but all that did was give Phil four more chances to embarrass his nine children. The game ended on a pick, with Los Angeles gaining all of five yards.

But you could make it up. Maybe Mannheim Steamroller was out of the question, but a nice trip to the mall could happen as long as Dallas covered their -3. And even though the Cowboys trailed most of the game, you were never that nervous. The math was in your favor all the way.

The Vikings hit a field goal to go up 17-14, that meant that Dallas head coach Jason Garrett would inevitably play for a tying field goal. You only sweated when his team, being laden with talented players and all, accidentally scored a touchdown instead, leading 21-20. But Minnesota calmed those fears with a TD drive of their own to take a 28-21 lead. Garrett trotted the field goal unit out on the Cowboys’ next possession and, trailing now 28-24, you were already thinking about that hot Aunt Annie’s pretzel you were going to order as your kids skipped into Gamestop.

The Cowboys took over at their own six with 4:34 to play and unraveled a punishing drive that took them all the way down to Minnesota’s 11. Garrett couldn’t kick the field goal. It would do no good. He had to play for the TD, which would make sure that you would be closing down Sbarro’s before the night was out.

Then, the unthinkable happened. With a second-and-two, Ezekiel Elliott, arguably the best running back in football , was stuffed for no gain.

That’s OK. You’ve got third down and those same two yards to go. Zeke gets stuffed again, this time losing three yards.

Now, you’re sweating. The taste of Panda Express slowly leaving your mouth, you have to count on Garrett to make the perfect fourth down call to pick up five yards and keep playing with 44 seconds to go. You already knew what was going to happen.

There would be no hot pretzel, no honey sesame chicken. Your kid’s Nintendo Switch would remain gameless. You didn’t even look as Dak Prescott threw incomplete to turn the ball over on downs.

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