In NFL Week 14, coaches help establish the theme

With four weeks of games to go, the NFL season is heading into its final quarter.

In the past week, we’ve seen the coaching chairs of St. Louis’ Jeff Fisher and San Diego’s Mike McCoy grow warmer, those of San Francisco’s Jim Tomsula and Philadelphia’s Chip Kelly grow cooler.

We’ve been reminded that New England isn’t invincible, that Philadelphia’s season could be salvageable, and that Los Angeles is unsolvable … so far.

A look around the league heading into Week 14:

When Oakland plays at Denver on Sunday, Raiders Coach Jack Del Rio, the former Broncos defensive coordinator, will go back to face the Frankenstein monster he built. Denver has the league’s No. 1 defense.

In Houston, it will be Texans Coach Bill O’Brien against his former boss, New England Coach Bill Belichick. The Patriots won a Super Bowl at Reliant Stadium, beating Carolina in a game better remembered for Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at halftime. A co-founder of YouTube claims that the incident led to the creation of that website.

The next Monday night game features the New York Giants at Miami. Though that’s not a scintillating matchup, it does pit the Dolphins’ Dan Campbell, 39, against the Giants’ Tom Coughlin, 69, the NFL’s youngest and oldest coaches.

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Arizona has a three-game lead in the NFC West, so it’s an interesting team to watch. Now, in the wake of Philadelphia’s upset of New England, the Eagles are more interesting too.

Consequently, the NFL has flexed their Dec. 20 game in Philadelphia into the “Sunday Night Football” slot, replacing Cincinnati at San Francisco.

That will be the Cardinals’ fifth prime-time game in 55 days. How times have changed.

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The Cardinals host Minnesota on Thursday night. That game pits Arizona Coach Bruce Arians and Minnesota Coach Mike Zimmer. Both were longtime successful coordinators whose head coaching debuts didn’t come until Zimmer was 58 and Arians was 60. Their first-place teams are a combined 18-6 this season.

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Millennials have their calendars on their phones. But if Buffalo running back LeSean McCoy has a paper version, he’ll have circled Sunday; he’s playing at Philadelphia.

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Green Bay’s final two plays in last Thursday’s Hail Mary game against Detroit were Richard Rodgers to Aaron Rodgers, and Aaron Rodgers to Richard Rodgers.

It was tight end Richard who threw the ball back to Aaron on what would have been the last play of regulation, but for a facemask call on the Lions.

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Detroit receiver Golden Tate was on hand for the past two Hail Mary games involving Green Bay. He caught the ball for Seattle in the controversial “Fail Mary” game in 2012, and watched from the Lions’ sideline Thursday.

That Seahawks game prompted the NFL to end its impasse with locked-out officials, and send the replacements packing.

We can all agree that NFL officiating has been flawless since.

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At 39, Charles Woodson is Benjamin Button.

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Justin Tucker, Josh Brown, Robbie Gould, those kickers are automat…

Brown, the New York Giants kicker, was wide left on a 48-yarder in overtime, the last play of a 23-20 loss to the Jets. Giants-Jets at MetLife Stadium is nicknamed the Snoopy Bowl.

Clearly, the holder was Lucy.

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The Arizona Cardinals doused owner Michael Bidwill with a bucket of Gatorade at the end of Sunday’s win at St. Louis. Sunday was his birthday. It’s refreshing that Bidwill doesn’t walk around as if he owns an NFL team.

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Undrafted running back Thomas Rawls is a sudden star in Seattle, helping open the passing lanes for Russell Wilson.

Too bad the rookie’s last name isn’t Rawlings. Check any football — Wilson and Rawlings are pretty catchy names.

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Indianapolis quarterback Matt Hasselbeck came away from a Week 12 win over Atlanta with a badly bruised foot. One of his offensive linemen accidentally stepped on it.

Hasselbeck sent a picture of his foot to his younger brother, Nathanael, who wasn’t especially impressed.

“He does need a nail clipper, I know that,” Nathanael said. “I was like, ‘Dude, yeah, I see the bruise, but what’s up with the toes? I don’t need you to go get a pedicure, but come on, man. Trim those things up. You look like you should be on ‘Dumb and Dumber.’”

Ah, brothers.

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A favorite Hasselbeck story concerns the dummy audibles he uses at Colts training camp. He has been known to study the defense, then look to his defense and yell, “Dora! Dora the Explorer! Swiper, no swiping!”

He said that one got a rise out of the Indianapolis defensive linemen. A lot of them have young kids.

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There are two sides to every argument — except this one: Longer extra points have made the game better.

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Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey had a huge game against USC on Saturday night with 461 all-purpose yards.

Seeing him reminded me of covering a Monday night game in Denver when his dad, Broncos receiver Ed McCaffrey, suffered a broken leg against the New York Giants. Everybody in the press box was gearing up for that injury to be all the talk the next day.

That was Sept. 10, 2001.

sam.farmer@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATimesfarmer