Week 7 brought some big upsets, a few scoring fests, and some wacky plays. Below we'll look at some of the top plays from Week 6 as if we are in the film room. Enter All-22, an exclusive NFL Pro feature that allows its subscribers to watch film like the pros do. Sign up for NFL+ Premium to gain access.
What is All-22?
As the name suggests, All-22 is a wide-angle film view that allows you to see all 22 players on the field at one time. This is the film view that coaches, scouts and players use to study or review film. Because it reveals how every player is positioned during a play, it's the most comprehensive perspective for evaluating players, schemes and game strategy. It reaches beyond what is visible on a standard broadcast.
NFL+ Premium: Top All-22 plays of Week 7
This play certainly takes the cake for the weirdest one in Week 7. The situation is third-and-long, and from the second the ball is snapped, Jaxson Dart looks for Wan'Dale Robinson on a routine slant route from the left, though Robinson can't come down with it. At first, it looks like it'll be an incomplete pass that will force the Giants to settle for a field goal. Enter second-year tight end Theo Johnson. Flying in like a knight in shining armor off his slant route from the right side, he somehow snags the airborne ball and takes it the distance to paydirt past a top-ranked Broncos defense. A good lesson in always following through on your routes.
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There aren't many plays where the time stamp for "pass arrival" and the timestamp for "pass completed" are nearly a full second apart, but that's what occurred on this wild touchdown from Dart to Robinson to Johnson. The rookie QB's laser of a throw found Robinson's hands with just a yard of separation from Broncos CB Ja'Quan McMillian, but then quickly found its way through his hands and roughly four yards further down the field into Johnson's. Whatever the completion probability might have been on a routine catch for Robinson, the odds that Johnson would end up snagging a deflection and taking it to the end zone have to be one in a million.
This play defied logic and science, but Dart has started to make the miraculous seem mundane rather often. He finished this game with 283 yards and three touchdowns passing -- plus a rushing score to boot -- for 28.42 fantasy points against one of the league's toughest defenses. Dart has been the fantasy QB5 since he became the starter in Week 4 and has now logged consecutive outings with 23+ points in difficult matchups. He's locked in as a must-start QB rest of season and could easily finish near or in the top tier in points per game.
The Cowboys seem to find their way onto this list almost every week, and rightfully so -- they're leading the league in total yards per game and rank second in points per game. This offense is a machine, and it starts with incredible discipline from their offensive line. Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens will get their flowers -- but the unsung hero of this dynamic offense is an offensive line that's allowed just eight sacks (T-second in NFL) and a 29.8% pressure rate (seventh). On this play, Prescott has almost four seconds to find Lamb on a go route right through the middle of the Commanders defense. Lamb comes down with it right between the corner and the free safety, and that likely would have been the end of the play had the two defenders not run into each other and left Lamb with a lot of real estate and zero (vertical) defenders in his vicinity.
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Prescott has made several incredible throws to legitimize his standing as one of the league's top quarterbacks, but this one was quietly brilliant. When Lamb threw his hand up 2.6 seconds after the snap, Prescott was just finishing an 11-yard dropback. He held the ball for another 1.3 seconds before slinging it 44.5 yards of air distance into Lamb's breadbasket. And by perfectly layering and locating the pass, Prescott essentially manipulated the Commanders defenders into a collision that unlocked Lamb for 35.0 yards after catch over expected and a 74-yard score.
This play accounted for 30% of Prescott's 23.26 fantasy points on the day and 61% of Lamb's 22.0 points. And it reminded us, immediately on Lamb's return from a four-game absence, why these two are among the best in fantasy when they're together. In fact, among active QB-receiver duos, only Jared Goff-Amon-Ra St. Brown and Joe Burrow-Ja'Marr Chase have scored more fantasy points on their connections. Both are elite options and possible league-winners at their positions from here on out.
This one was ALL Cam Skattebo. A rookie running back forcing multiple missed tackles in a single run is crazy. A rookie running back forcing somewhere in the ballpark of eight missed tackles (by the Denver defense no less) in a single run is downright trickery. Skattebo and the Giants are becoming football's darling this season, and this play perfectly encapsulates why. On paper they might not have an elite-level roster, but they outwork most of their opponents and never play like an underdog.
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This is becoming Skattebo's bread-and-butter, but it's mind-boggling, nonetheless. The rookie running back was first contacted 2.2 yards behind the line of scrimmage and given a grand total of two expected rush yards, according to Next Gen Stats. But "expected" isn't in Skattebo's vocabulary. He officially forced three missed tackles on this 18-yard scamper, but an argument could be made that he broke, outran or juked his way past eight potential tacklers, picking up a few extra yards for each and every one.
Through his first couple of months in the NFL, Skattebo has forced 28 missed tackles on rushes (seventh-most in the NFL) and averaged 3.6 yards after contact per attempt. He's totaled more yards solely after contact (357) than David Montgomery has in total (355). And he seems to be getting better each week. Like his fellow rookie, QB Jaxson Dart, Skattebo is a locked-and-loaded must-start asset in fantasy.
Just another day at the office for Jahmyr Gibbs. He gets right through the B-gap thanks to phenomenal blocking from his offensive line and then he was gone -- so gone that Goff put his hand up to celebrate when he still had 70 yards to go. At that point it was a foot race, and I'd be hard pressed to find a defender in football who can beat a touchdown-seeking Gibbs. He traveled a total of 78 yards to the end zone and wasn't touched once.
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Only two players across the entire league have hit 22+ miles per hour as a ball-carrier multiple times over the last three years. One is Brian Thomas Jr. The other is Gibbs … who's now done it three times (and twice in the last six weeks). His 22.23 mph top speed on this run is the third-highest by a ball-carrier this season behind Jonathan Taylor (22.38) and Gibbs himself (22.34). He's a strong contender for most explosive player in the league, and is currently tied with Taylor, De'Von Achane and Kenneth Walker III for most rushes of 10+ yards this year (five).
Meanwhile, for fantasy, Gibbs has strong competition to repeat as the RB1 overall, with Christian McCaffrey, Taylor and Bijan Robinson currently outscoring him, even after Gibbs' 36.8-point performance on Monday night. But there's no question he belongs in the elite-of-the-elite tier and has as high a ceiling as any player in the game.
