The Saints marched right down the field on their first drive of the third quarter: six plays, 82 yards, with gashes between the tackles for 35 and 17 yards, all wrapped up with a one-yard Mark Ingram touchdown. The Saints extended their lead to 27-0, and the folks at Fox Sports had seen enough. In many television markets, they switched from Saints-Colts to Buccaneers-Redskins.If the Colts aren't going to try, why bother televising them'The final score read 27-21, so the Colts didn't completely throw in the towel while the rest of us watched the Redskins come back against the Buccaneers and the Patriots survive a scare from the Jets.But the score creates the false impression that the Colts engineered an impressive comeback. In fact, T.Y. Hilton beat the mistake-prone Saints secondary for a pair of long touchdowns, then the Colts dithered for several drives (the Saints did their part by dithering right back) until putting up a final touchdown with three minutes left."The first half was unacceptable," Colts head coachChuck Pagano saidafter the game. "It's hard enough to win football games when you don't shoot yourself in the foot."The foot shooting came in the form of fumbled punt returns, getting fooled by fake field goals and a pair of Andrew Luck interceptions.But according to Pagano, the Colts "fought their asses off" in the second half. The coach even left a pause after their so you could insert your favorite cuss word. Unfortunately, that wasn't really true. If the Colts left the locker room and fought like madmen to start the second half, the Saints wouldn't have been able to cruise downfield and put the game out of reach. If the Colts hadn't followed Hilton's touchdowns with several useless offensive series, they could have mounted a legitimate comeback.It's easy to pile on Pagano right now. His special teams are comically inept. His defense barely mounts a pass rush, gave up 183 rushing yards Sunday and sometimes fails to do little things like line up properly in the red zone. His offense has been outscored 100-58 in first halves this season (despite a trio of games against awful divisional opponents) and plays some astoundingly stupid situational football.Pagano is an obvious lame duck, the coach on the hottest hot seat right now. It's all he can do to make it sound like his team came out breathing fire after some halftime adjustments and pep talks, when all it did was exploit some late lapses by a middleweight opponent.Pagano is in bad shape, but he isn't alone. This was a bad week for many struggling coaches, the kind that moves them one step further toward an unwanted meeting with the team owner. Let's take a look around the league at some of the most beleaguered head coaches who could be on the firing line soon. A quick disclaimer: This is all analysis and speculation, not insider reporting.Chuck Pagano: Toast.Mike McCoy: The Chargers are quietly falling apart in the left bottom corner of the nation. Three fourth-quarter touchdowns made their 37-29 loss to the Raiders this week look far less dire than it really was. The Raiders scored on their first seven possessions to mount a 37-6 lead before going into prevent mode. It was like the Colts' loss, only worse.The loss to Oakland comes on the heels of two straight tough defeats that were decided in the closing moments. It was a chance for a statement game against a perennial division doormat.Unfortunately, the loss may have been the statement.The Chargers have no big-play capability on defense and have somehow converted league-leading yards-per-game (430.7) and top-five time-of-possession (32:38) figures into unimpressive point totals. That's a bad sign for a coaching staff: It points to poor situational football, special teams problems and other fit-and-finish issues that a third-year head coach should have hammered out by now.In McCoy's defense, the Chargers have dealt with brutal injury problems. The lack of pass rush and general defensive sizzle lays at coordinator John Pagano'sfeet (the end of the season won't be a fun time for the Pagano brothers).After two straight winning seasons, McCoy will probably get another chance, even if the Chargers bottom out. Right now, it's hard to see what he is doing to elevate the team.Jason Garrett: Garrett has survived worse predicaments than the current season, and the Tony Romo/Dez Bryant injuries give Jerry and Stephen Jones an easy rationale for giving a coach they feel comfortable with one more mulligan.Then again, the Joneses cannot be happy with just how flat the Cowboys have been during their four-game losing streak, with how ineffective Matt Cassel looked while throwing three interceptions in a 27-20 loss to the Giants, or with Greg Hardy throwing a sideline tantrum and shoving teammates and coaches.Yes, the Jones family bought the groceries, including Cassel and pillar-of-the-community Hardy. They deposedbackup quarterback Brandon Weeden. If your last name is Jones, you can neither be fired nor internally blamed. It's Garrett's job to coach up players like Weeden, who had a full year in the system, and Hardy, whose personality should be nothing unusual to a Cowboys lifer like the head coach.Garrett's problem right now is that the Cowboys' Super Bowl window is shutting quickly. He did not just have Romo, Bryant and Jason Witten this season. He also had an offensive line coming off a monster season and a reasonable amount of defensive talent and second-line skill-position talent.Garrett should have been able to do what the Steelers did in Ben Roethlisberger's absence: manufacture a pair of wins by running the ball down opponents' throats, sprinkling in some Wildcat or doing something besides winding up bad quarterbacks and watching them execute three-and-outs.Even if the Cowboys miss the playoffs, Garrett may get another year because Jerry likes him as a middle manager and Romo is comfortable with him. At some point, Garrett is going to lose tenured-faculty status.Bill O'Brien: Ryan Mallett is O'Brien's biggest problem right now. Mallett missed the team's flight to Miami, according to the Houston Chronicle's John McClain, among others, and thenclaimed he got stuck in traffic. He made it to the game but was not inserted as a garbage-time quarterback in the 44-26 blowout loss. He was the only active player on either roster who did not participate.The missed flight was the latest in a long line of eyebrow-raisers by Mallett, a player the Texans acquired based on his past relationship with O'Brien. An immature backup quarterback who keeps getting second chances can eat up a lot of coaching benefit of the doubt, and O'Brien needs all of that benefit after his second ugly blowout of the month.O'Brien must relegate Mallett to third string for a while, even if it means sticking with Brian Hoyer through more blowouts. He also has to answer the question of why Arian Foster was still playing late in a blowout loss. Foster injured his Achilles, which will set the Texans offense back for weeks to come. And the defense seems built to squander the talents of the best defensive player of this decade.Once the bloom starts to fade from one of these off-brand Patriots franchises, things often deteriorate quickly.Jim Caldwell: The Lions would probably have to drop to about 4-12 to seriously consider firing Caldwell after last year's playoff run. But the Lions are on the road to just that kind of collapse. They squandered two impressive early drives in a 28-19 home loss to the Vikings, converting 1 of 10 third downs and retaining possession for just 23 minutes and 33 seconds.Allegations that opponents can predict Lions plays have quieted down since the start of the season, but it was still happening as recently as theloss to the Cardinals. Coordinator Joe Lombardi could be the sacrificial offering that saves Caldwell.Right now, with the Lions playing poorly on both sides of the ball against most opponents, it's hard to see what the Caldwell regime brings to the table.Here are some other coaches on the watch list:Gus Bradley: Bradley looked like a goner when the Bills erased a 27-3 deficit and took a 31-27 lead late in the fourth quarter. The Jaguars would not have fired him when the plane from London landed, but they probably would have made up their minds.The Jaguars came back to win 34-31, but Bradley's problem is that the Jaguars have never really gotten good at anything. Developing teams often acquire a trait or two on the road to relevance. He has to show his bosses a developing Blake Bortles, a scary pass rush or something besides some strange, scattered victories.Jay Gruden: Just when you think Gruden is about to lose the confidence of everyone, he calls a clever little game to spark a comeback or beat a half-decent opponent. He and his quarterback are birds of a feather.Chip Kelly: Not going anywhere unless he wants to this year, despite Sunday night's loss. Owner Jeffrey Lurie is a slow hook, and Kelly has in his favor both a pair of winning seasons and the occasional sign that the Eagles are a muscle car whose engine won't quite turn over.Sean Payton: Certainly won't get fired. Probably won't leave.Mike Pettine: The Browns would be better off firing everybody else in the organization but Pettine.Rex Ryan: The Buffalo Sabres have had a pretty quick coaching hook since Lindy Ruff. Just throwing it out there.Stock WatchIt's another either/or edition of Stock Watch, where we set up false dichotomies and knock 'em down for infotainment purposes.Great Team or Easy Schedule'The Falcons did everything possible to lose to the Zach Mettenberger-led Titans. Matt Ryan threw an interception in the end zone and another into a lineman's hands. Two Falcons penalties negated long Devonta Freeman runs, while a third erased a long interception return before halftime that would have set up a field-goal opportunity.The Falcons got a break because Mettenberger is not very good and Ken Whisenhunt called a completely bonkers game. Mettenberger threw 35 times while the Titans rushed just 16 times in a 10-7 loss. A common Titans offensive sequence: a holding penalty, sack or recovered fumble on first down; an incomplete pass or short run on second down; and an underneath pass on 3rd-and-long against a Falcons defense that literally had six or seven defenders lined up about 15 yards downfield.Answer: Easy Schedule. The Falcons are going to finish 11-5 because of wins like this, then get rocked in the playoffs. That is admittedly better than what they have done for the last two years.Legendary Running Back or Rookie Phenom' Adrian Peterson had a rough week. He coped with a finger injury during practices. Then he suddenly got sick over the weekend. Fox Sports reported Peterson swallowed tobacco juice on the team flight. Peterson denied the report, saying instead he may have ingested some shrimp; Peterson is allergic to shrimp.This requires a little unpacking.First, it'sillegal to chew tobaccoon an airplane, though you can do just about anything you want on a team charter. (So if you find yourself sitting next to Ryan Mallett on a commercial flight and he spits juice at your feet, notify an attendant.)As for the shrimp, it's a pretty easy food to avoid. No one sneaks a little shrimp into, say, a meatloaf or a BLT. You don't look on the side of a bag of M&M's and read "Caution, may contain trace elements of shrimp" because the chocolate and prawn vats are side-by-side in the factory, although you might want to be more cautious with Japanese candy.Maybe Peterson inhaled some shrimp vape. Is "shrimp vape" a thing' I don't hang out in cool enough bars to know for sure.Anyway, Peterson carried nine times for 15 yards in the first half, then broke off a 75-yard run when the Vikings began seizing control of the game in the second half. Peterson's weekly performances are increasingly coming down to one long run surrounded by too many one-yard plunges. Take away his five longest runs and Peterson is averaging 2.75 yards per carry.Todd Gurley carried 19 times for 128 yards and two touchdowns in the Rams' 24-6 win over the Browns, adding four receptions for 35 yards.In just a handful of starts, Gurley has become what Peterson was for many years and is still trying to be. The entire Rams offense flows through Gurley. The Rams' counter play is a Tavon Austin screen or reverse set up by the threat of Gurley. Their rare successful deep shots (like Kenny Britt's 41-yard catch) occur on first downs, after a nonstop barrage of first-down handoffs to Gurley.Answer: Rookie Phenom. Gurley is going to have some bumps on the superstar road, and a running back who fights off illness to provide a 75-yard run is still pretty useful. But the rookiegets the nod this week, and time is on his side for the future.No Weapons or No Quarterback'Whether you call him Sharknado West, Kanye West, Super Nintendo West or the Elven Druid of Neverwinter, Charcandrick West is here to stay.West rushed for 110 yards and a touchdown as the Chiefs cobbled together something that resembled an NFL offense against the Steelers.Chris Conley and Albert Wilson combined for 134 yards and a touchdown on nine catches, and the Chiefs went a remarkable 9-of-16 on third downs. This is a team that resorted to screens and draws on 3rd-and-long when everyone was healthy, remember.On the other side of the field, Steelers coach Todd Haley scrapped the ultra-conservative Wildcat-flavored offenses he used for Michael Vick and decided to give third-stringer Landry Jones lots of opportunities to fire the ball downfield.Jones was not terrible, but many of his downfield throws were late or off-target, and the Steelers couldn't convert short-yardage situations despite a fine game by Le'Veon Bell. A volleyball interception that Antonio Brown bumped to Eric Berry exacerbated the Steelers' offensive problems.Answer: No Weapons. The Steelers did run some reverses, but overall they lacked creativity with getting the ball in the hands of their playmakers. The result was a 23-13 win for the weaponless Chiefs.Short-Term Surge or Long-Term Solution' Dan Campbell is obviously doing something right for the Dolphins, who ripped the doors off a second straight opponent with a 44-26 win over the Texans that was not nearly that close.There will probably not be that many calls to remove the "interim" label from Campbell's coaching title early this week. Instead, those columns will be pre-written and stashed in hard drives until Friday so none of us have to work too late into Thursday night if the Dolphins upset the Patriots.For the record, the Patriots are probably rubbing their hands together in anticipation of facing a team on a two-week sugar high.The Dolphins have played a pair of awful opponents. Short-term improvement always occurs whenever there is a management change in any industry on earth. Joe Philbin had reached the point where players would rather listen to coaching from a sweet potato. And the Dolphins have the talent of a .500 team, at least.Answer: Short-Term Surge. Hangover will go easy on the Campbell bashing for a few weeks, but this hot streak has "short term" written all over it, and the Dolphins can't afford to make a long-term decision based on a bunch of AFC South wins.Performance BonusesOffensive Line BonusThe Raiders rushed for 130 yards and allowed Derek Carr to be sacked just once. Yes, the Chargers have the pass rush of a line of garbage cans in a seven-on-seven drill, but it's been a long time since the Raiders offensive line has been singled out for anything good. Let's hear it for Donald Penn, Gabe Jackson, Rodney Hudson, J'Marcus Webb and Austin Howard!Special Teams BonusThere are many special teams bonuses to give out this week. Dwayne Harris scored the game-winningGiants touchdown by slicing right through the Cowboys coverage team on a kickoff return. Harris was a core Cowboys special teamer for many years.Luke McCown and Benjamin Watson connected for a 25-yard completion on a textbook fake field goal. Just because they did it against the playground pickup squad known as the Colts special teams doesn't mean it wasn't a great piece of coaching and execution.Dustin Hopkins and Trenton Robinson also share this bonus for the Redskins' onside kick in the third quarter of their comeback win over the Bucs. Robinson's heads-up play on the loose ball (a teammate failed to pounce on it) quickly led to a Redskins touchdown that cut the Buccaneers lead to 24-21 following the extra point and changed the complexion of the game.It was also a great call by Jay Gruden and special teams coordinator Ben Kotwica.NFL teams were 0-of-23 on onside kicks before Robinson's recovery. (Or, more optimistically, NFL teams were 23-of-23 on not getting fooled or making mistakes on opponents' onside kicks.) The Jets recovered a late onside kick against the Patriots, so perhaps the floodgates are open.This will inevitably lead to the Colts attempting some ridiculous onside kick at some inappropriate time, like when leading the Jaguars by 14 and after calling a timeout to get everyone lined up.Oh wait, the Colts already called a ridiculous, inappropriate onside kick in the preseason. Well, that will only make their next attempt even more ridiculous and inappropriate.Unsung Defensive Hero BonusTelvin Smith did a little of everything for the Jaguars: nine total tackles, three passes defensed, two tackles for a loss and a pick-six that helped the Jaguars defeat the Bills.Smith looked like a rising star last season but has had a rough year: Pro Football Focus charges him with nine missed tackles and four touchdowns allowed in coverage. Smith is Jacksonville's designated coverage linebacker, so he gets a lot of difficult assignments behind a defensive line that provides little pressure and in front of a secondary that doesn't exactly make life miserable for opponents.Sunday's win may be a sign that Smith can turn his season around and help his teammates turn theirs around. It may also be a sign that a pretty good young linebacker finally got a break and faced EJ Manuel.Mysterious Touch Bonus Tyson Alualu, a defensive lineman who often lines up as the Jaguars fullback, took a 3rd-and-1 handoff exactly zero yards during the Jaguars' extended effort to shoot themselves in the foot in short-yardage situations.Earlier in the game, the Jaguars replaced T.J. Yeldon so wannabe fantasy leech Toby Gerhart could get stuffed multiple times at the 1-yard line. Granted, Yeldon is not a traditional short-yardage back. NEITHER IS TYSON ALUALU.Vikings punter Jeff Locke took a safety late in the game in one of those situations when running through the back of the end zone makes more sense than risking a blocked punt. Locke's loss of six yards counts as an official rushit's an example of the weird little distortions built into NFL stats. See also Matt Moore's three carries for minus-two yards at the end of the Dolphins game. His kneels officially kept the Dolphins from rushing for 250 yards.Meaningless Fantasy Touchdown BonusArian Foster scored a pair of touchdowns to cut the Dolphins lead against the Texans from 41-0 to 41-13. Foster then suffered an Achilles injury while lined up at slot receiver (!') in the fourth quarter of a complete laugher, meaning Chris Polk and Alfred Blue will be sharing the rushing chores for the Texans for a while.Your fantasy team presumably has better options.Fantasy Leech BonusSome fantasy owners drafted Rashad Jennings for the all-purpose production he provides. Others grabbed Andre Williams in search of short touchdowns. Still others selected Shane Vereen in search of point-per-reception goodness to get them through the bye weeks. So naturally, Orleans Darkwa ran 15 yards for a touchdown in the Giants' 27-20 victory over the Cowboys.Darkwa is a Hangover favorite, not just because he's a hard-working survivor who always finds his way onto the bottoms of depth charts. His name sounds like a character in the silliest vampire novel ever:Nervously, she adjusted her heaving bodice and rapped three times on the door of the ancient-looking mansion hidden behind moss-covered willows on St. Charles Street. A tall, shrouded figure answered the door; candlelit human skulls could be seen lighting the foyer behind him. "'Tis I, Orleans Darkwa, caster of spells, brewer of potions and fulfiller of dreams...for a price," he whispered seductively, his voice sending an icy but irresistible shiver down her spine.Gonzo Fantasy Waiver Bid BonusIf you didn't jump on the Stefon Diggs bandwagon last week, it's too late. Diggs' 6-108-1 performance and highlight-reel touchdown in the Vikings' win over the Lions will get the fantasy speculators in your league to start throwing around the beaucoup waiver points.Diggs was a fifth-round pick out of Maryland who got lost in the draft shuffle because a) he suffered numerous injuries in college, including a broken fibulaand a lacerated kidney; b) he played for Maryland, whose last decent quarterback was Scott Zolak; and c) wide receiver prospects are so amazing these days that the ones who aren't 6'4" and faster than bullet trains get drafted on the third day.Diggs' rise to stardom was inevitable when the Vikings traded for Mike Wallace.Wallace's role on a roster is to make other wide receivers look great by comparison. Brian Hartline owes Wallace a huge chunk of his career. Cordarrelle Pattersonwas the most logical beneficiary of Wallace's deflected brilliance, but Patterson is just a walking, breathing unfulfilled expectation.With Wallace and Patterson both bouncing opportunities back at Diggs like a parabolic mirror focusing sunlight (and with Charles Johnson injured), Diggs should continue to impress.A Brief Segment About the PatriotsBecause Patriots fans interpret a failure to mention their team after a win as a sign of "disrespect" instead of an editorial decision based on the fact that tens of thousands of words about the Patriots were written in other Monday columns and we need to hold a little something in reserve for a Thursday nighter, here is a brief segment about the Patriots:The Patriots remain undefeated. They are the best team in the NFL.They were impressive in their 30-23 victory over the Jets.Tom Brady is a great quarterback and he completed several pinpoint passes against a tough defense.The rebuilt offensive line did a fine job. Brady had to scramble a bit and the running game stalled, but it takes a well-oiled organization to put a Josh Kline-David Andrews-Tre' Jackson-Cameron Fleming combination on the field and not get clobbered at the line of scrimmage by the Jets.It took resilience, gumption and all that other stuff to erase a fourth-quarter deficit against the Jets.It was an exciting game. Of course, the alternatives were a bunch of blowouts and trudges like Falcons-Titans.The Patriots proved once again that AFC East upstarts are merely something something (voice tails off into an incoherent mutter).That concludes this week's mandatory Patriots segment. Fans of the other 31 teams can tune back in.Last Call: Streaming MadI am old enough to have listened to blacked-out Eagles games on a transistor radio and watched Monday Night Football on a black-and-white television with rabbit-ear antennae. So it feels a little strange to complain because a football broadcast's image wasn't high-def and crystal clear 100 percent of the time.I also have a somewhat tricked-out computer station for watching football: a wide HD computer screen, heavy-duty Internet connection, comfy chair and all of the other accoutrements that make watching NFL Game Pass on Monday mornings or cutups of draft prospects in March easier and more fruitful. I watch more football at my computer workstation than most fans, so watching the Bills-Jaguars live stream was not particularly inconvenient for me.There was just something infuriating about the live stream. Maybe it was the inability to flop on the couch and watch on the massive television I bought specifically for watching football. Maybe it was stopping by the local tavern to watch the 1 p.m. games on multiple screens but having to hold a magnifying app to a cellphone to watch the exciting Bills-Jaguars conclusion.Maybe it was those little four-second buffering freezes that made me feel like I was watching some indie band's rock video on Myspace in 2005. Maybe it was the periodic downgrades from high-def to blur. I could not tell if the image denigration was random or coincided with the simultaneous Minecraft/Naruto/Doctor Who viewing on various screens outside the home office.Maybe it was all four, or something else.Reviews of the stream on Twitter were mixed. Many comments I read declared the feed to be outstanding by the standards of live sports streams. I wouldn't know; I don't watch soccer matches from Outer Latvernia at 6 a.m. I watch NFL football: the most popular entertainment option in the United States, the one advertisers want to mush in your face the moment you turn on anything television-like because it's the one thing they are fairly certain you will immediately watch.Others assured me the stream looked phenomenal when jacked from state-of-the-art gizmo X through next-gen gizmo Y. Again,the Hangover home office is pretty high-tech, but my computer and television don't easily speak to each other, either, and I don't think they should have to so I can watch football.Not all football fans are tech-savvy, which is why judging the success of the stream by the chatter on Twitter on a Sunday morning may be misleading. Neighbors whose home computers are still big boxes in cubby-hole basement offices probably just ignored Bills-Jaguars instead of doing what they would normally do with a weak Sunday morning game: tuning in and watching between breakfast-making, churchgoing and leaf-raking.The NFL made a social contract with fans decades ago. The league provides easy access to the games on the widest possible platforms. We watch like field mice hypnotized by a king cobra. The sport becomes our autumn lifestyle, and American culture continues on its course.Live streaming may well become the widest platform for a sports broadcast: Folks are cutting cable cords, my sons revere PewDiePiethe way I idolized Fonzie, and so on. The real transition is probably about a decade away, but the distinction between "television broadcast" and "Internet stream" is only getting more blurry. It makes sense for the NFL to start ironing out the wrinkles that make live streams blurry.If only there was some sort of "preseason" during which the NFL could work out the live-streaming kinks.Ah, that's what was infuriating about the Bills-Jaguars live stream. It should have been a preseason game. Experiments like these should take place when only hard-core fans are inconvenienced by lags, blurs and an inability to relax in the customized man cave.The NFL and a streaming partner could select some high-interest preseason games to tinker withthe debut games of rookie quarterbacks, for example. Eventually, the NFL could expand the live-streaming package to the Pro Bowl, a few Thursday night games and the quarterback workouts at the combine.After a decade or so, the NFL could have a killer formula that makes what we think of as state-of-the-art now feel like listening to a story around a campfire. But right now, the technology isn't quite ready, the audience isn't quite ready and the NFL has grafted this experiment on top of its halfhearted London experiment to create the type of Frankenstein's monster that fans tolerate more than love and never really evolves into anything.The NFL should limit live streams to the preseason for two or three years while providers perfect the process and fans purchase next-gen televisions. Of course, that's more of a logical plan than a financially successful plan. So if you are a year or two behind the technological times, get ready to either learn to jack electronics together next year or live with the lag. Or, you can just try to listen to the games on an old transistor radio.Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.
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