Pick Six: Thanksgiving winners, J.J. Watt and the scrappy Jaguars catch the eye

Sky Sports expert Neil Reynolds analyses the key talking points from Week 13 in the NFL...

It was quite a hectic few days for our NFL show on Sky Sports as we covered five live games, including a monster 11 -and-a-half hour marathon on Thanksgiving Day.

There were some decisive wins as Green Bay, Philadelphia and Seattle staked their claims as respective kings of the NFC, while Denver drew level with New England at the top of the AFC.

Here are six storylines that caught my eye over the past few days.

Decisive Thanksgiving Day wins

Let’s start by going back to Thursday night/Friday morning and what turned out to be three pretty one-sided Thanksgiving Day games. Detroit pulled away from Chicago and ran out 34-17 winners in Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson’s best games of the season, Philadelphia were all over Dallas to the tune of a 33-10 scoreline and Seattle won a slug-fest against San Francisco 19 point to three.

Philadelphia’s win – sparked by the rushing of LeSean McCoy – might have been the most impressive of the night but Seattle’s victory on the road in San Francisco was huge in their division, especially given the events that transpired last night with Arizona losing at Atlanta.

With four weeks to play, the Cardinals are still top of the NFC West but struggling to mount any form of offensive challenge and their injuries are beginning to pile up. The Cards are 9-3, Seattle are now just a game back at 8-4 and have to play Arizona again, while the 49ers are now 7-5 and facing an uphill struggle to even make the playoffs.

Time for Johnny?

The Cleveland Browns fell to a 26-10 defeat at the hands of the Buffalo Bills on Sunday and during that loss, starting quarterback Brian Hoyer struggled and was replaced by rookie first round draft choice Johnny Manziel.

Manziel created a spark by scoring on a 10-yard run and generally looked pretty exciting to watch. But does that mean the Browns should be contemplating a quarterback change with a month left in the season and in the midst of a playoff race?

I don’t think this is the time to blood a rookie passer, no matter how exciting he might be and no matter how much pressure from above – or from the fans – is placed on head coach Mike Pettine. Manziel is exciting but there will always be ups and downs with any rookie quarterback. Can the Browns afford that type of inconsistency at the critical stage of the year?

Mind you, Hoyer has been just as up and down and has thrown four touchdowns and eight interceptions while ‘leading’ the Browns to four wins in their last six games. We’ll see if Manziel gets the nod when we take our first look at Cleveland this Sunday on Sky Sports.

Watt a player!

When a quarterback throws for 358 yards, six touchdowns and no interceptions, he should be the star of the show but I’m afraid, in my mind, Ryan Fitzpatrick still has to take a back seat to his Houston Texans team-mate J.J. Watt, who I simply find to be an amazing player.

Fitzpatrick was excellent in leading Houston to a 45-21 victory over Tennessee and has certainly given his coaches something to think about when Ryan Mallett returns from his season-ending injury in 2015. But it was just one game.

Watt has been an absolute beast all season long and he summed up his impact in just a few minutes on Sunday. The powerhouse defensive end produced a hard-hitting sack, knocked the ball free from Titans quarterback Jake Locker and also made the recovery.

As if that were not enough, Watt then lined up on offence – as he has done with great success several times already this season – went in motion, beat the defender to the sideline and caught a one-yard touchdown pass for his fifth score of the year.

I’m sure a high-profile quarterback or skill position player will be named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player on the eve of the 49th Super Bowl in Arizona, but I would have no problem with Watt picking up that prize.

Redskins have more than one problem

The Washington Redskins made a significant change this past week, benching 2012 first round draft choice Robert Griffin III and inserting Colt McCoy into the line-up at quarterback.

But one move was not about to fix a team that has now lost 22 of their last 28 games dating back to last season. The Redskins showed in emphatic fashion on Sunday night that RGIII was not their only problem and they fell to a pretty embarrassing 49-27 defeat against the Indianapolis Colts.

McCoy held up his end of the bargain by completing 31 of 47 attempts for 392 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. But Washington’s defence was just embarrassing as they gave up touchdowns covering 30, 49, 48, 73 and 79 yards. For an idea of how bad things got for Washington in defence Sunday evening, consider this – the Colts were the first NFL team since the 1966 Redskins to score six touchdowns covering 30 yards or more in the same game (D’Qwell Jackson added a 35-yard fumble return score on defence).

Colts quarterback Andrew Luck only completed 19 passes on the night but they were good for 370 yards and five touchdowns (an average of 19.5 yards per completion). The Redskins couldn’t cover anybody in the secondary and they couldn’t tackle. Apart from that, they were just fine!

Rodgers wins star quarterback duel

It was billed as a potential classic as Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers and Tom Brady of the New England Patriots met as starting quarterbacks for the first time in their Hall of Fame careers.

It was not a classic but it was a very good game as Green Bay ran out 26-21 winners and I would have no problem if these teams play for the Vince Lombardi Trophy on February 1 if this was a Super Bowl dress rehearsal.

Rodgers was in sublime form, once again, for the Packers as he hit on 24 of 38 passes for 368 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. The no interceptions part of that statistic should not come as a surprise – Rodgers has now thrown 360 consecutive passes at home without a pick. His last home interception came on December 2, 2012.

As for the other stars of this particular show, it was the Packers defence, for me. Brady is hard to keep in check for an entire game but I thought Green Bay made life difficult for him with some very good team defence.

Jags show some fight

When New York Giants running back Rashad Jennings ran through some half-hearted tackling attempts to put the Big Blue up 21-0 in the second quarter on Sunday, I feared the Jacksonville Jaguars had mailed it in.

It certainly looked as if the 1-10 Jaguars were feeling sorry for themselves. I should have known better. One thing Gus Bradley has always proven he can do is to get players fired up and fighting for all their worth.

And it worked on Sunday as Jacksonville scored 22 unanswered points and then fought back after a New York field goal to win 25-24 on Josh Scobee’s late kick from 43 yards. The Jacksonville defence led from the front with two fumble return touchdowns, but rookie quarterback Blake Bortles also came up big late in the game, leading the Jags on an 11-play march to Scobee’s winning field goal.

It was a good win for the Jaguars and a loss that I think will eventually cost Tom Coughlin his job as head coach of the Giants, who have now lost seven in a row.