Monday Night Observations

On A Plane

I missed this game because I was on an overnight flight back to Portugal via Munich last night. Just got in, actually, jetlagged af, so I won’t have too much to say about it. Plus, our bags didn’t make the connecting flight, which is annoying.

• If the Niners score 34 against you, that’s not a good sign for the playoffs. I guess the last TD came in garbage time, but still. I would say Vikings +2.5 this week, but Detroit could easily drop to the fifth seed.

• Brock Purdy is a top-10 NFL QB IMO. I didn’t see this game, but he always passes the eye test for me. (Looks like he got banged up too, but nothing serious.)

• George Kittle is quietly having a huge year on just 91 targets, thanks to 11.9 YPT. Kittle is in the Rob Gronkowski lineage, while Travis Kelce is more Tony Gonzalez (higher volume, less blocking.)

• Ricky Pearsall apparently had a breakout game. They took him in the first round, so it makes sense they’d give him an extended audition while drawing dead. It’s odd that Pearsall and Jauan Jennings are more relevant that Deebo Samuel and the injured Brandon Aiyuk.

• Amon-Ra St. Brown didn’t get a lot of headlines this year, but he’s up to 112-1,186-12 on 8.9 YPT. Not bad.

• Even with David Montgomery out, Jahmyr Gibbs’ workload was fairly modest — 18 carries/four targets. This game didn’t matter to the Lions though. Against the Vikings I should think he’d get a McCaffrey-esque stat line, but we’ll see.