Week 8 of the NFL season featured multiple teams not expected to win beating the team that was expected to win, meaning that there were plenty of good and bad performances, from Thursday Night Football between the Los Angeles Rams and the Minnesota Vikings, to Monday Night Football between the New York Giants and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now lets recap the worst and the best performances of the week.

The Worst

At number three is Seattle Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker, who could not get things going against the Buffalo Bills run defense which really hasn’t been great this year.

Walker had 9 attempts for only 12 yards, 1.3 yards per carry and 0 touchdowns, he also had 4 catches for 33 yards which isn’t great either.

In all fairness to Walker the Seahawks lost the game 31-10 so they were down by quite a bit and forced to pass the ball more, meaning he didn’t get much of a chance to get things going, but even then 9 attempts for 12 yards isn’t ideal.

At number two is Las Vegas Raiders running back Alexander Mattison, who was basically a non-factor for his team in their close game against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Mattison had 14 attempts for 15 yards, 1.1 yards per carry and 0 touchdowns, he also had 5 catches for 29 yards, just like Walker, not doing much for the team at all.

In all fairness to Mattison the Chiefs have one of the best defenses in the league and are very good against the run, but if he played better the Raiders may have actually had a chance to beat the Chiefs in such a close game.

At number one is Indianapolis Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson, who played terrible and on top of that made things worse by admitting to subbing himself out of the game for a play because he was out of breath.

Richardson completed just 10 passes on 32 attempts for 175 yards, 5.5 yards per attempt, 1 touchdown and 1 interception, he also had 6 rushing attempts for 45 yards, overall not helping the team very much in a game against the Texans that was relatively close.

In all fairness to Richardson, he was constantly on the run from pressure, and it does seem fair to sub yourself out for a play if you don’t think you’re good to go for the next play, especially when the backup QB is someone as good as Joe Flacco, but it’s probably not the best thing to admit in a post game conference.

The Best

At number three is Atlanta Falcons QB Kirk Cousins who put on his second best game of the season so far against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which is funny because his best game of the season also came against the Buccaneers.

Cousins completed 23 passes on 29 attempts for 276 yards, 9.5 yards per attempt, 4 touchdowns and 0 interceptions. This was a great performance which helped the Falcons barely squeak out a win against the injury battered Buccaneers.

Cousins has been good for the Falcons this year which has been important for them to get their 5 wins, although in his games against teams that aren’t the Buccaneers he hasn’t been as good, good enough to win games but not spectacular.

At number two is Rams QB Matthew Stafford, who put together a great game in the first game back for both of his wide receivers, and this helped them get a win over the Minnesota Vikings who have been very good this year.

Stafford completed 25 passes on 34 attempts for 279 yards, 8.2 yards per attempt, 4 touchdowns and 1 interception. While Stafford is a great QB he can probably thank wide receivers Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua for being good to come back from injury for that game, because they were a big help the entire time.

Before this game there were trade rumors about the Rams trading Kupp and Stafford, and oddly enough even though QB Sam Darnold has been good for the Vikings they were in talks about Stafford, but after the Rams beat the Vikings both Stafford and Kupp are officially off the trade block and are staying in Los Angeles, so this was a very important win for the Rams.

At number one is Philadelphia Eagles QB Jalen Hurts, who may have stolen multiple touchdowns away from running back Saquan Barkley, but in the end they won the game and Barkley probably cares about that more.

Hurts completed 16 passes on 20 attempts for 236 yards, 11.8 yards per attempt, 1 touchdown and 0 interceptions, that’s not an outstanding stat line, but what he did to be number one this week is have 10 rushing attempts for 37 yards and 3 touchdowns. 3 rushing touchdowns in a single game for a QB is very impressive even if the majority are short distance runs.

Hurts started off the season slow but picked things up in the win over the Cincinnati Bengals, the Eagles will want him to continue to play like this and he very well could but the Bengals defense has been terrible this season so the real test will be to see if he keeps it up against some better teams.

Looking Forward to Week 9

Week 9 kicks off on Halloween night with the New York Jets hosting the Houston Texans, a Sunday Night Football match up between in Minnesota where the Vikings are hosting the Indianapolis Colts which should be an entertaining game with Joe Flacco getting to start at QB for the Colts, the week will wrap up on Monday Night Football with the Kansas City Chiefs hosting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. A couple other good games throughout the week are the Atlanta Falcons hosting the Dallas Cowboys, the Baltimore Ravens hosting the Denver Broncos, the Seattle Seahawks hosting the Los Angeles Rams and the Green Bay Packers hosting the Detroit Lions.