Week 9 is done and dusted. Three former Hawks found the end zone this week. Two saw their team get kicked directly in the nuts. Let’s roll through Week 9. Quick aside – the season is half over.
Tight Ends
Big week for former Iowa tight ends after a mostly-quiet Week 8 that coincided with National Tight End Day. Let’s start with T.J. Hockenson and Sam LaPorta, who shared a field in Detroit (also shared with Jack Campbell, of course. Cannot forget Captain Jack.)
LaPorta opened the scoring, finding the end zone on this 40-yarder from Jared Goff. Somehow LaPorta scored on this while being tackled by 4 Vikings defenders at the 4.
Hockenson got on the board later in the first quarter, catching this 7-yard dart from JJ McCarthy. What a week and a healthy quarterback can do for the Vikes…
In all it was a quiet day for Hockenson – he finished with just 2 receptions for 11 yards, but caught the touchdown to put Minnesota in the lead. Meanwhile, LaPorta had 6 catches for 97 yard and his 40-yarder. That’s now 3 touchdowns on the year for LaPorta, while Hockenson is on 2.
Quickly on Campbell – 9 tackles (led the team yet again), 1 sack, 1 TFL. Nice day at the office. It wasn’t enough for the Lions, however, as the Vikings picked up a crucial win, 27-24.
Noah Fant was also on the scoreboard this week. Fant had 3 targets on the day, catching 2 for 28 yards. Feels like another ho-hum line, except one catch was this 23-yard touchdown strike from Joe Flacco deep in the 4th quarter, Fant’s third score of the year.
Of course, this game featured a mini-reunion. Geno Stone picked up 7 tackles in the Bengals secondary, though an 8th would’ve been nice and prevented the winning score from the Bears. The Bengals secondary is bad. BAD. They had no business losing this game but instead became the first team since the 1966 Giants to score 38+ points in consecutive games and lose.
Tory Taylor – he’s punting less! Taylor had just 2 punts for 119 yards. That all makes sense given the Bears scored 47 points. Ugh. I feel awful for Stone, as the contact on the first tackle attempt sent Colston Loveland away from Stone, and Loveland went the rest of the way for a crazy game-winner.
Potpourri
George Kittle was the least involved of the tight end corps, hauling in 4 passes for 32 yards. He also had 1 carry for -3 yards as the Niners moved to 6-3 on the year with a 34-24 win over the Giants (Dane Belton with 14 tackles, while one-time Hawk Tyrone Tracy had 5 carries for 18 yards and 3 receptions for 19 yards for the Giants.)
Back to Cincinnati quick – another one-time Hawk, Charlie Jones, had a 98-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to open the game.
Riley Moss finished Denver’s 18-15 win over Houston with 5 tackles and 1 pass defended. Somehow Denver’s 7-2. They could be the top seed in the AFC. They have a lead in the AFC West of a game over Los Angeles, and a 2-game lead over Kansas City.
