Author: Scott

2024 NFL Predictions

~ Scott ~ 3 Comments

Going into my 14th season of NFL coverage, I would just once like to say I predicted that year’s Super Bowl winner correctly before the season. Seven times I ended up getting a Super Bowl team right, but all seven times I managed to have the wrong game outcome.

Just my luck. I probably couldn’t predict seven coin flips in a row but I managed that.

But I’m on a three-year drought of not getting any Super Bowl teams right. Last year, I thought I had something cooking with Ravens over Cowboys as it was a year set up beautifully for Baltimore with the No. 1 seed and the best defense. Even Dak Prescott had arguably his best year and the Cowboys were blowing out scrubs left and right. The Ravens were blowing out a lot of good teams, so maybe it’d work out.

But we know what happened in January. The same thing that always seems to happen for the Cowboys (since 1996) and for the Ravens with Lamar Jackson. I won’t be revisiting that matchup anytime soon.

Is 2024 a layup with the Kansas City Chiefs going for a historic three-peat with a roster that’s quite arguably better than their last two teams? Are they just inevitable as long as their core is intact? We’ll see.

The three-peat is clearly the No. 1 story this season. But my vision for this year’s narrative has been on my mind since February. One fanbase will be happy to see I’m picking them for the first time here, but don’t get too excited when you look back at my track record of picking the ultimate winner.

Right Super Bowl team, wrong Super Bowl outcome.

My 2023 NFL predictions were the second-most accurate I’ve done since 2013. I’m proud of what I came up with for the AFC where I nailed the Ravens as a 13-4 No. 1 seed, nailed the Bills finishing No. 2 ahead of No. 3 Kansas City, and also had the No. 7 Steelers with a 10-7 record. A perfect 4-for-4 on those picks even if I had no clue Mason Rudolph would be leading the playoff charge for the Steelers at the end there.

Of course, my other picks flopped in the AFC as 2023 was just a brutal year for quarterback injuries. Trevor Lawrence got a little banged up late in the season and never won another start after that. The Jets lost Aaron Rodgers on opening night to a torn Achilles, and Joe Burrow neither started (calf) nor ended (wrist) the season healthy. That killed those picks, and I really didn’t see Houston coming so fast. Much more on them later.

My theme for 2023 was uncertainty. This year, it’s MOGA: Make Offense Great Again.

We can blame 2023 on a quarter of the league’s starting quarterbacks going down with a season-ending injury (shades of 2017). Hopefully, that means regression to the mean in 2024, and we see fewer serious injuries. We already lost rookie J.J. McCarthy in the preseason and are stuck with Sam Darnold in Minnesota, but they never really factored into the big picture of 2024 anyway.

But for as much as people try to pretend the NFL has turned into the (classic) Pac-12 with offense, that’s simply not the case. Ever since the 2020 COVID year with the empty stadiums led to record-setting offensive numbers, we continue to see a decline.

In fact, points and yards have decreased 3 years in a row in the NFL, which has only happened one other time since the 1970 merger. Since 2022, teams are scoring just under 22.0 points per game, which hasn’t happened in consecutive years since 2006-07.

If you bet the under in every NFL game, you would have been profitable (better than 52.38%) in each of the last three seasons. So, let’s look for more points this year, more touchdowns, and more comebacks.

After a historic 2022 season for comeback wins, things regressed to the rates we’ve seen in recent seasons. But we still went from 85 comebacks in the fourth quarter to 68 last year. More games were early runaways as 73.7% of the teams who led after the first quarter in 2023 won the game, up from about 60% in previous seasons.

Besides regression and better quarterback health, what else could facilitate more scoring? Let’s see what this new dynamic kickoff does. I was skeptical of it from the preseason, but when I crunched the numbers, 26.0 yards per kick return would be the highest season in NFL history. Touchbacks in the end zone can still happen, but the ball will go to the 30 instead of the 25. There should also be about triple the number of returnable kicks from 2023’s touchback fest.

Add that together and you get better starting field position for the league, which should improve scoring. May not help with the yardage numbers, but we’ll see what happens.

More offense, fewer blowouts. That’s what I’m looking for this year. I also am taking a bold approach in counting on two teams with quarterbacks who have only been a starter for one season to move into the elite class this year. If they got an early start on their success last year, I’m just trying to get there early in 2024 for what could be the start of something great.

But it’s definitely adding more risk than usual to my picks as things could always go badly there with disappointment. If all else fails, I’ll just back the three-peat as we all wait to see if the Chiefs make history.

This summer, I only did one full preview per team at 365Scores, but that project was heavy work night after night going back to July. I only finished with the Chiefs on Tuesday, and that ended up being a 7,300-word epic. Then I also wrote out 5,000 words on my NFL betting picks for the season (award winners, playoff teams, Super Bowl teams), so I’m not exactly looking to jump into 8,000 words here for this annual blog post of my final record predictions.

But I have a standard to uphold for myself, and this is still the only place where I post my final record predictions for each team. So, let’s get into it, and again, if you want more detailed analysis and writing about these teams rather than my 25th hour thoughts below, you have to go read the linked previews at 365Scores.

Note: Some of the over/under picks in these articles were subject to change as I only made my final record predictions over the weekend after going through the schedule. My final, official picks are as presented below.

NFL 2024 Predictions

AFC WEST

1. Kansas City Chiefs (13-4)

365Scores Preview: I looked at just how historic the Super Bowl three-peat would be, the new flaws the Chiefs had to deal with in 2023 that led to their most difficult regular season yet, and the subtle changes they made to emerge on top once again in the playoffs. I also tackled the myth that they’re beating up weak competition when the reality is they’ve done the best job of limiting their rivals from having championship success. The Chiefs only have the No. 4 scoring differential since 2019, but they are 6-0 in the playoffs against the teams (49ers, Ravens, Bills) ranked ahead of them. That’s how you end up with a dynasty and keep those teams ringless.

But another thing I talked about in the preview is the chances we haven’t seen the best Kansas City teams yet around Patrick Mahomes. If you make the offense faster and more efficient than last year, and if the defense can stay in the top 8 or so, then you might be looking at the 2024 Chiefs as their best team yet.

However, it’s still a team held together by its core pieces of Mahomes, Andy Reid, Travis Kelce, Chris Jones, and Steve Spagnuolo. That core covers up a lot of the flaws, and we’ll just have to see if letting L’Jarius Sneed go at corner comes back to haunt them if they face a team with better receiving talent that has a quarterback who can duel with Mahomes.

There are a couple out there I think, and they’re not the usual suspects. It’s time for some new rivals for the Chiefs to vanquish if they want to keep the throne for another year. This is probably the only great shot Mahomes will have at a three-peat, which would give him an edge as the first to do it in the hardest era to do it. It took 19 years just for a team to repeat, the longest drought in history. A three-peat is insane in this game.

So, that way even if Mahomes never wins a certain number of rings, he’d still have the three-peat as his ace in the hole. It’s such a huge opportunity for Kansas City.

2. Los Angeles Chargers (10-7)

365Scores Preview: Of the 8 new head coach hirings this season, Jim Harbaugh to the Chargers is my top pick. He makes history with Sean Payton and Andy Reid in the AFC West this week as this becomes a division where three coaches have won over 60% of their games. That’s never happened since the merger. He doesn’t have a roster as talented as the one he took over in 2011 in San Francisco, but he knows he has the quarterback in place with Justin Herbert.

I obviously think highly of Herbert, and more people would if they ever saw him get a legitimate defense. The 2023 Chargers had 5 lost comebacks, which I believe to be a single-season record in all of NFL history. That’s five games (three with Herbert) where they trailed in the fourth quarter, took the lead, and still lost. That’s maddening and so on brand for the Chargers.

I liked the draft picks of Joe Alt and Ladd McConkey instead of taking Malik Nabers at No. 5. But it sure would have been nice to keep Keenan Allen around. Definitely some young receivers to deal with, but I think Harbaugh and Herbert are going to figure it out and they should have a winning record this year.

3. Denver Broncos (6-11)

365Scores Preview: I am excited to see how Sean Payton fares with a rookie quarterback he can mold from Day 1 in Bo Nix. Go figure, he drafted someone who set a NCAA single-season record for completion percentage at Oregon. That was Drew Brees’ money stat in the NFL, but it would be hard for Nix to ever come close to the legacy of Brees in the NFL. Still, I think there’s some potential here and at least he looked confident in the preseason and led some scoring drives.

But still a lot of roster flaws here. A 6-11 record would actually be the worst of Payton’s career as he’s never done worse than 7-9 before. But I had to find wins for other teams and Denver just didn’t stand out enough on defense to give them the benefit of the doubt. The preview goes into how the 2023 Broncos had three different identities in one season.

We’ll see what Payton can cook up with Nix in a fresh direction after they swallowed $85 million in dead cap money to get rid of Russell Wilson. I still can’t believe how poorly that went these last two years.

4. Las Vegas Raiders (4-13)

365Scores Preview: I spent much of this preview questioning the hiring of Antonio Pierce, who was never a defensive coordinator in the NFL, lost a 3-0 home game indoors to the Vikings, relied on two defensive touchdowns in 7 seconds to upset the Chiefs in a game where they couldn’t complete a pass after the opening quarter, and then the Broncos gave up in Week 18 when they beat him. The 63-21 win over the Chargers was the team giving up on Brandon Staley after Justin Herbert and Keenan Allen were lost for the season.

I just don’t see it with Pierce, and it’s even worse when you saddle him with the least impressive quarterback situation in the NFL in 2024. Gardner Minshew and Aidan O’Connell? What’s the plan there? Getting Deion Sanders’ son in 2025?

I hope Brock Bowers is legit at tight end, because elite tight ends are fun to watch. Don’t expect to see much this year though given the quarterback situation and Pierce’s likely one-sided coaching that will cater to the defense.

Yeah, they’ll probably win a few more games than this, but I’ll be damned if I could find them on the schedule. I already have them getting wins over the Rams and Jaguars.

NFC WEST

1. San Francisco 49ers (12-5)

365Scores Preview: What more can you even say at this point? They should have gone last in overtime on offense. Guess they’ll know better next time, but this team has to be close to running out of chances after not turning four recent NFC Championship Game appearances into a ring. They might get passed over by Green Bay this year in the NFC if they’re not careful. At least Brock Purdy showed his rookie season wasn’t a fluke. He didn’t lose that Super Bowl for them either. He just didn’t win it.

The division and their talent should keep them near the top again. But it’s getting a little stale and tiring with this team. Glad they finally ended the Brandon Aiyuk saga, the most annoying story of the offseason. Should have just paid him months ago. He’s their best weapon for the long term.

2. Los Angeles Rams (9-8)

365Scores Preview: I definitely missed on this team last year, but that’s because I had no expectations for Puka Nacua looking more like Cooper Kupp than Kupp did. Incredible rookie season for a fifth-round pick. I’d sneakily pick him for OPOY if I knew I could trust him to stay healthy and that Stafford wouldn’t still rely on Kupp so much.

But you lose Aaron Donald and that’s tough to replace. They also beat up on some not-so-great teams down the stretch last year after a poor start despite Puka’s hot start. I’m still not fully sold on this team and could see them finish 9-8 and have to see if the tie-breakers work in their favor or not. Remember, that 10th win last year was against San Francisco’s backups in a battle of backups where Carson Wentz of all people led a comeback win.

3. Seattle Seahawks (8-9)

365Scores Preview: A little dark horse team if rookie coach Mike Macdonald can get the defense up to par right away. But I think that’ll take at least a second season. Still, a better defense is exactly what Geno Smith and a talented offense needed the last two years to do better than 9-8 records that don’t always qualify for a playoff spot.

I’m not picking them to get it done, but I can at least understand what they’re cooking in Seattle if they do pull off a playoff year.

4. Arizona Cardinals (6-11)

365Scores Preview: I’m all for staying put at No. 4 and drafting Marvin Harrison Jr. I’m also down with the Cardinals winning a few more games than last year with what will hopefully be a full season from Kyler Murray, but the lack of defensive stars still bothers me here. In going through the schedule, the Cardinals became an easy choice for a loss when I felt they had to play a team with a better quarterback as I just didn’t trust that defense to win a shootout with Murray.

But I’m not against Jonathan Gannon yet or anything. Just don’t think the defensive rebuild is going that great.

AFC EAST

1. Buffalo Bills (11-6)

365Scores Preview: This could be one of the best division races we’ve ever seen as it’s legitimately between three teams. Everyone but New England, which is music to my ears.

In the end, I still put the Bills on top as I just trust Josh Allen more than I do a 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers coming off a torn Achilles, an of course over Tua Tagovailoa. The Bills likely moved on from Stefon Diggs at the right time. But the receivers are young and raw, and I think you’re going to see the Bills struggle in some of those bigger showdowns with the Ravens, Chiefs, Texans, and more this year.

But I still think they are balanced enough and know how to win and won’t get swept by the Jets. They’re still capable of sweeping Miami too.

2. New York Jets (11-6)

365Scores Preview: Yeah, “This should be fun” he said last year. Aaron Rodgers lasted 4 snaps and we were treated to a ton of island games with Zach Wilson and Tim Boyle at quarterback. Real fun.

But I recycled a lot of the 2023 preview for 2024 since it feels like the same situation and questions, just a year older and more concerned about Rodgers’ health. We haven’t seen him play at a high level since 2021.

Yet, I find myself going with the optimistic approach that Rodgers will be good and the defense will still be great. They also upgraded the offensive line and should run the ball better. That combo sounds like enough to win 11 games against a schedule that is more balanced and forgiving than last year.

But the Jets are definitely one of the biggest wild cards in 2024 as you can see anything from 12-loss disaster to a No. 1 seed. Shit, maybe we’ll even see a Mahomes vs. Rodgers playoff game. About damn time.

3. Miami Dolphins (9-8)

365Scores Preview: My paper tiger team. Sure, they might have the fastest offense in history, but where does it go when they go on the road and play a good team? That’s 10 straight losses for Mike McDaniel on the road against a playoff team.

The Dolphins swept the Jets last year. With Rodgers back, I have that turning around, which is a big reason why I only have the Dolphins at 9-8. Is that enough for the wild card? We’ll see below.

4. New England Patriots (3-14)

365Scores Preview: I’ll be shocked if they’re not starting Drake Maye by Week 5. Jerod Mayo is in over his head, and yes, Bill Belichick the GM has a lot to do with the poor state of this team right now.

I have 3-14 as the worst record this year too, by the way. Should be fun to hear what Belichick has to say as a media member when this team comes up. Hard to be too critical, Bill. You left these cupboards bare.

NFC EAST

1. Philadelphia Eagles (11-6)

365Scores Preview: It’s one of my favorite stats that the NFC East has not had a repeat winner since the 2001-04 Eagles. Meanwhile, every other division has had at least two repeat winners in that time. I go through it in here why this has happened to the East, and it’s usually because of the shared quarterback talent in the division (no alpha for a long time), and injuries to those quarterbacks.

But you can also argue the 2023 Eagles had the greatest collapse in NFL history after a 10-1 start. No division title and no playoff win after a 10-1 start. But I go into why that was always fishy, why I was right to compare them to the 2022 Vikings when they were 10-1, and why I still think the streak continues as they steal the division back from Dallas this year with better coordinators.

The key is the home game late in the year against Dallas. These teams have been splitting home games with each other, and the Eagles get the big one late.

Also, I am curious to see that Tush Push without Jason Kelce at center, but something tells me it will still work well.

2. Dallas Cowboys (10-7)

365Scores Preview: The Cowboys more or less did what you expected them to do last year. Smashed the bad teams, split with the Eagles at home, and got smashed by teams like the 49ers and Bills. Lost a close one on the road to their paper tiger doppelganger from the AFC in Miami.

But everything was going fine until the playoffs when they fell behind 27-0 in the blink of an eye against Green Bay. That one floored me, and it’s a bad sign for this team that they’ve turned three straight 12-win seasons into a playoff win over a lousy Tampa Bay team in 2022 and that’s it.

So, I am soured on Dallas, but the preview has some interesting facts about why 2024 might be the last chance for Dak Prescott if he’s ever going to win a Super Bowl for Dallas. Either he or the coach should probably go if they fail this year.

3. Washington Commanders (4-13)

365Scores Preview: This would probably be more shocking than the RGIII year in 2012 if this team was good. But I just don’t see it this year with Dan Quinn and Kliff Kingsbury as the retread coaches getting another shot. Jayden Daniels had incredible numbers in 2023, but not so much in his first four college seasons. He’ll also have to prove he can stay healthy after taking some comically bad hits in college.

4. New York Giants (3-14)

365Scores Preview: What is the most shocking outcome possible for the 2024 NFL season? I might have to go with a legitimate breakout season from Daniel Jones. It’s Year 6 and I’m out. He had one of the worst Year 5 seasons ever in 2023, and he’s a quarterback coming off a torn ACL where his mobility is his best feature. It’s not a good fit, it’s not going to get fixed with Brian Daboll, and they should just admit a mistake (like Russ in Denver) and cut bait after this year.

Good draft pick of Nabers though. The next quarterback should love him.

AFC SOUTH

1. Houston Texans (13-4)

365Scores Preview: Yeah, I went big at 13-4. I think the Texans have the right stuff this year and their preview was one I was very much looking forward to writing. C.J. Stroud is my MVP pick as I loved his ability to lead the league in INT% and passing yards per game (first time that’s happened since 1970 John Brodie) as a rookie. Now you give him Stefon Diggs and possibly the best group of weapons in the league if Tank Dell stays healthy and takes a second-year leap. Stroud could spread the ball around and lead a No. 1 offense here if everything goes well.

But I also loved the move of Danielle Hunter for the pass rush. Don’t just settle with Will Anderson Jr. doing well as a rookie. He’ll get better too, giving them bookends to rush the passer with.

As I detailed in the preview, so many NFL teams that go to Super Bowls do it early in their runs. It only took two seasons for Don Shula and Dan Marino, Bill Cowher and Ben Roethlisberger, Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson, and Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes.

Stroud had one of the best rookie seasons ever. I think he has one of the best sophomore seasons ever, and he can wrap up MVP and possibly a No. 1 seed in December in those island games against the Chiefs and Ravens, the most important part of the NFL schedule this year with those teams playing 3 games in 10 days.

But just read the linked preview to fully understand why I’m high on Houston in 2024. They were only scratching the surface in 2023.

2. Jacksonville Jaguars (9-8)

365Scores Preview: I struggle with this team since I think they rode improbable comebacks and the Titans’ collapse to a division title in 2022. Then last year, they were 9-8 again and probably a better team had Trevor Lawrence not gotten injured against the Bengals. But I’m not a big Lawrence fan, and this preview goes into some interesting numbers that show how absurdly important completion percentage has been to him, and why throwing short might be the key to his success. It could also explain why Calvin Ridley just wasn’t his guy but he loves Christian Kirk and Evan Engram. That also could contradict giving him Gabe Davis and the rookie from LSU.

In the end, I landed on 9-8 again as I clearly have bigger plans for Houston in this division. But I do acknowledge the AFC South is a division where anyone could win this year. Nothing would surprise me on that front.

3. Indianapolis Colts (8-9)

365Scores Preview: Speaking of why anyone could win the AFC South, imagine if the Colts go from 9-8 and a red zone touchdown shy of the division title to hopefully getting a full, healthy season from Anthony Richardson and Jonathan Taylor. They also drafted possibly the best edge rusher in the draft and a favorite for DROY (Laiatu Latu).

However, I’m not sold that Richardson can stay healthy as he was knocked out of three games with injuries on runs last year, and he’s going to probably run 100+ times this season if he can. At least they have Joe Flacco as the backup. But I also think Richardson is going to be an inconsistent player with a great highlight reel who misses some easy plays.

It should be a grind for the Colts, who haven’t won the division since 2014.

4. Tennessee Titans (7-10)

365Scores Preview: I like the table in this preview that looks at what happens when you get a second-year quarterback (Will Levis) and pair him with a rookie coach (Brian Callahan). Some good turnaround stories have happened this way, especially if the quarterback needs a boost after a struggle last year. The Titans fit that mold, and they really upgraded the offense around Levis. Not saying I love the additions of Tony Pollard and Calvin Ridley, but it’s more than just an aging DeAndre Hopkins and Derrick Henry like they had last year. They also got Tyler Boyd, so you’re talking about one of the better WR trios in the league, a key component for a Callahan offense coming from Cincy.

But I’m also curious to see if Levis dramatically brings down his ADOT, which led the league last year while Callahan’s quarterbacks had the two lowest figures for the Bengals. Not going crazy to pick a worst-to-first team here, but it’s one of the few chances of that happening this year if Levis were to have that 2017 Jared Goff type of Year 2 leap.

NFC SOUTH

1. Atlanta Falcons (10-7)

365Scores Preview: I hated the Michael Penix Jr. draft pick and still don’t understand it when you’re paying Kirk Cousins this much money in a winnable division. They should have gave him Rome Odunze, a new left tackle for the long term, or Dallas Turner/Latu instead. Having said that, I think the Falcons have a great schedule with an easy finish that will allow them to clinch the division title after a slow start to the year with Cousins coming off a torn Achilles.

Expecting big things from Bijan Robinson in this offense since I’m still not sold that much on Kyle Pitts or the receivers after Drake London. I also think hiring Raheem Morris over Bill Belichick was a mistake, but we’ll see what he does given another chance.

2. New Orleans Saints (9-8)

365Scores Preview: I spent this preview thinking we are overlooking the Saints, who became an afterthought after missing the playoffs last year despite giving Derek Carr the best defense of his career and the easy schedule living up to the hype. But the Saints finished strong in a way that usually bodes well for playoff success the next season. They’re basically the same team as last year, but a year older, and inching further to real cap hell.

But that still might be good enough for 9-8 again, and hopefully this time that’s enough for the playoffs. As I mentioned in the preview, it was really a blown 17-0 lead and missed clutch field goal in Week 3 in Green Bay that ruined the team’s season. Otherwise, we would be viewing the Packers and Saints very differently going into this year.

Also, the Saints were the only team in the NFL to not have a 4th-quarter comeback win in 2023 (playoffs included). Remember when that was Carr’s specialty? Let’s see some positive regression in that department this year to get to 9-8 again. More close wins should make up for any shortcomings they have as an aging roster.

3. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7-10)

365Scores Preview: Remember when the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl and basically brought the whole team back? That almost worked out for them in 2021. But I think doing it again in 2024 is a mistake when that roster has declined to the point where barely getting to 9-8 is all they can do to win the division title, and the division should be stronger this year.

Even if they get to 8-9 or 9-8 again, I think Tampa’s reign at the top of the NFC South ends this year.

4. Carolina Panthers (6-11)

365Scores Preview: This is the Tennessee team in the NFC this year. A second-year quarterback (Bryce Young) who really struggled with a rookie coach (Dave Canales) and better weapons beyond just Adam Thielen. Yet, while I loved the over 5.5 wins for Carolina, I initially gave them 5-12 as their final record. It was the last change I made to the picks to get them to 6-11.

I want to believe in the turnaround and that Young will be okay, but I need to see more first.

AFC NORTH

1. Baltimore Ravens (12-5)

365Scores Preview: Just once it’d be sweet to see a full, healthy season from both Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow so we can put this nonsense to rest. I’ve said the Bengals won the division in 2021 and 2022 because Jackson was injured in both Decembers and never played again those years. At the time of his injury, the Ravens were in first place both years. That’s just a fact.

That’s also my motivation for why I picked the Ravens to be a 13-4 No. 1 seed last year, which is exactly what they did. Now for this year, I’m not as optimistic about them going to the Super Bowl, but I can at least understand why it’d happen if it does. I think Derrick Henry is a perfect fit for what they do, but I’m very skeptical you can ride a back who will be 31 in January to a Super Bowl in this era. He’s also led the league in carries in 4-of-5 seasons, so the injury risk is higher.

Having said that, I think the Ravens, Chiefs, Texans, and Packers are the four most important previews I wrote this year. Definitely read this one if you want to see why the Ravens have struggled in the playoffs with Lamar. They try to be something they’re not in the playoffs. They can’t fall into that trap again if they’re ever going to get to a Super Bowl with Jackson and Harbaugh.

2. Cincinnati Bengals (11-6)

365Scores Preview: I had the Bengals at 11-6 last year and of course they started poorly and were never a real threat in the AFC. Joe Burrow needs to prove he can stay healthy, and he needs to increase his level of play. Show me more clutch moments in those tight games. Show me fewer sacks. He also has to get it done without Joe Mixon and Tyler Boyd, though I agree it was time to cut bait with both. We’ll see how the in-house promotion goes with offensive coordinator, but I always say good quarterbacks get their OCs hired, bad quarterbacks get their coaches fired. Most do just fine with a coordinator change.

Still have one of the best wide receiver duos in the game as I expect Ja’Marr Chase will get a payday soon. But I am hesitantly picking 11 wins for a team that was 9-8 last year and was swept by Pittsburgh as that defense was kryptonite for Jake Browning, who led the league in completion percentage in Burrow’s absence.

But the return of Burrow and reversing that Pittsburgh sweep could essentially be the difference in these teams’ records this year.

3. Pittsburgh Steelers (8-9)

365Scores Preview: I knew all offseason I’d likely have the Steelers straddling the line between 8-9 and 9-8 with history on the line as they try to tie the record with 21 non-losing seasons. But when it came time to go through the schedule, I have the Chiefs in Week 17 putting the nail in the coffin for the streak as they hand the Steelers their 9th loss, guaranteeing a losing record.

In the end, I just can’t buy the Diontae Johnson trade being a good idea, I don’t care for the hiring of Arthur Smith, and Russell Wilson just might be washed. He could end up getting benched in October a la Donovan McNabb as the Steelers see what they have with Justin Fields instead.

But I know Fields is in the running for the worst clutch quarterback of the 21st century, so those close wins the Steelers rely on to keep their streak going? Kiss them goodbye. At least Wilson can deliver some of those and keep the .500 record in striking distance.

But it’s just too hard to think this team rises above mediocrity this year. At the very least, we won’t be fooled again by the preseason like last year. The Steelers’ starting offense looked awful in August this time. Something tells me they aren’t holding back. Expect a ton of sacks no matter which quarterback plays.

4. Cleveland Browns (7-10)

365Scores Preview: I’ve said Deshaun Watson is the worst trade in NFL history, but he still has a chance to refute that. However, I’m not convinced he will with a team that lost some linemen, a good OL coach, and Nick Chubb is still on PUP. It didn’t take Baker Mayfield, Jacoby Brissett, or Joe Flacco this long to figure out Kevin Stefanski’s offense. What’s the holdup with Watson? I think he’s just washed, and I think his teammates are losing confidence in him.

There’s enough talent here to still flirt with the wild card, but I don’t think the Browns are anywhere near as successful as last season.

NFC NORTH

1. Green Bay Packers (13-4)

365Scores Preview: The youngest team to make the playoffs since 1977 will build on their hot finish and look like a top-tier team in 2024. We’ve already seen Matt LaFleur become the only coach to win 13 games in three straight seasons in 2019-21. He knows what he’s doing, and Jordan Love played at an MVP level down the stretch. I’m not fading a team that already beat Detroit in Detroit, beat the Chiefs, beat the Cowboys in the playoffs, and should have won in San Francisco if not for the rare 7-point comeback in the fourth quarter by the 49ers (rare for Kyle Shanahan teams).

I expect big things from the Packers this year, so definitely check that preview out for the full reasons why.

2. Detroit Lions (10-7)

365Scores Preview: I expressed my doubt in this preview of Detroit finishing the job it started last year. I just think 2023 set up perfectly for them with home games against the Rams and Buccaneers in the playoffs, then a San Francisco team that was a little vulnerable down the stretch with Deebo’s health and the defense not looking as elite. But to blow that 17-point lead the way they did, that was brutal, and a lot of it goes on Josh Reynolds’ drops and their inability to trust their kicker to make a field goal.

Reynolds is gone, but the kicking situation is still iffy, and I don’t think they have a great WR2 ready. Not that they really need one with all the other weapons they have. But I don’t see the offense getting even better this year, and that will be up to the defense for the team to move up a tier.

However, the Packers are my pick and I think that knocks Detroit down a peg to the wild card. I’m just not ready to crown the Lions as back-to-back division champs. They need to tighten things up defensively.

3. Chicago Bears (8-9)

365Scores Preview: Did a lot of research on Chicago again this offseason, concluding that Caleb Williams is walking into the best situation ever for a No. 1 quarterback pick. That’s why he’s my favorite pick for any award as he has the best odds to win OROY, but will it lead to a winning record as the Bears are favored for at over 8.5 wins?

I couldn’t quite get there as I still see the Packers and Lions as better teams in the division. I’m also not sold on Matt Eberflus as a coach, and while the offense should be better, I don’t expect the defense to be elite.

Remember, Andrew Luck is the only No. 1 pick at quarterback to win more than 7 games his rookie year. I think Caleb will be the second, but it’s an 8-9 record. Still, I’m excited about seeing him after how good he looked in the preseason.

But we’ve been fooled before with August football. Just look at Kenny Pickett and Sam Howell in 2023. But I really do believe the Bears finally landed on their franchise quarterback, and my preview goes to great lengths to explain the few chances they’ve had to replace Sid Luckman since the 1950s.

4. Minnesota Vikings (4-13)

365Scores Preview: I was already sour on the 2024 Vikings before J.J. McCarthy required season-ending surgery after one preseason game. I am not looking forward to Sam Darnold for a year, and thankfully the early schedule is so brutal that I doubt we’ll be talking up any Minnesota fool’s gold with a 3-1 start like the Panthers experienced a few years ago with Darnold before they finished 5-11.

But sure, it should be better for Justin Jefferson’s stats this year. Just keep feeding him the ball while you’re playing from behind most of the year. But it is a good opportunity for Kevin O’Connell to flex his coaching muscles if the offense can look semi-decent with Darnold in what should be his last chance to show he can start in the NFL.

PLAYOFFS

I was happy with most of my initial run through the schedule and getting things to add up to 272 wins. But after seeing I didn’t have many new playoff teams in the AFC, I made a change to drop Miami a game and move the Chargers up. I also happened to redo some of my 2023 picks with the Jets and Bengals winning 11 games as wild card teams.

AFC

  • 1. Houston (13-4)
  • 2. Kansas City (13-4)
  • 3. Baltimore (12-5)
  • 4. Buffalo (11-6)
  • 5. NY Jets (11-6)
  • 6. Cincinnati (11-6)
  • 7. LA Chargers (10-7)

For those wondering, yes, I have Houston getting the No. 1 seed by virtue of beating the Chiefs at Arrowhead in Week 16, setting up some interesting dynamics for the playoffs.

I think this would be a fantastic bracket in January. You get a wild card round with all division rematches with Chiefs-Chargers, Ravens-Bengals, and Bills-Jets. How incredible would that be? I think that sets up a rematch of Ravens-Chiefs in the divisional round, but this time in Kansas City where the Chiefs do it again to Lamar.

While I did give the Bills the AFC East title, I’m going to pick Rodgers and his defense to win in the playoffs in the wild card round, setting up a Jets-Texans game. I have the Jets being some kryptonite to C.J. Stroud, the team he had the concussion against last year, and they use Sauce Gardner and that defense to complete a season sweep of the young Texans. Defense still wins in January. Another MVP crashes and burns.

But this sets up a Jets-Chiefs AFC Championship Game in Arrowhead. We finally get to see Rodgers vs. Mahomes, but like usual in this round, Rodgers doesn’t get it done on the road. Mahomes helps the Chiefs to a record fifth Super Bowl in the last six seasons and the three-peat is one game away.

NFC

  • 1. Green Bay (13-4)
  • 2. San Francisco (12-5)
  • 3. Philadelphia (11-6)
  • 4. Atlanta (10-7)
  • 5. Dallas (10-7)
  • 6. Detroit (10-7)
  • 7. New Orleans (9-8)

The Saints sneak in at 9-8 this year, but don’t worry, they won’t be going on an epic run to host the Super Bowl. They’re going to lose in San Francisco, which loses out on the No. 1 seed thanks to a loss in Green Bay in Week 12.

Lions-Eagles could be a fun shootout, and I think I’ll back the Eagles at home. The Cowboys actually can win a road playoff game against the Falcons. I have some faith in that one.

That means the Eagles in San Francisco (BIG DOM REVENGE GAME) and Cowboys in Green Bay. Jordan Love shows he has that Rodgers way of owning the Cowboys in the postseason again. The Eagles come up short in San Francisco, setting up a rematch from last year but this time at Green Bay. LaFleur has struggled with Shanahan’s team so much, but I think the Packers get their revenge this time and complete a sweep of the 49ers to get to a Super Bowl.

SUPER BOWL LIX

It’s a rematch of Super Bowl I, a game where the 1966 Packers beat the Chiefs and won their second championship in a row. They followed it up with a third in Super Bowl II, completing the only official three-peat in NFL playoff history. Now it’s up to the 2024 Packers to defend that and stop the Chiefs in New Orleans.

You go back to 2021, Jordan Love actually made his first NFL start against the Chiefs when Rodgers was out with COVID. It didn’t go well, but the 13-7 final is the lowest-scoring game of Mahomes’ career with the Chiefs. Then when they met last year in Green Bay, Love outplayed Mahomes and was the only quarterback to score more than 24 points against the Chiefs. We know LaFleur got a 31-24 win over Reid’s Chiefs in 2019 too in a game Mahomes missed for injury.

What if the Packers just have the right stuff for beating the Chiefs? They have several talented receivers who can step up and attack that Kansas City secondary that is now just Trent McDuffie and some guys. You don’t know where the ball is going in any given matchup, and that’s the 2001-06 Patriots-like beauty of the Green Bay offense right now. Defenses don’t know who to double and Love can just pick his spots and expect the guys to produce.

But I’m not going to spend any more time talking about such a hypothetical. Let’s see if it happens, because it certainly makes the most sense of any matchup this year to me. The champs going for a three-peat against a team that beat them last year and nearly knocked out the 49ers last year too. It’s their time to move up a class, and beating the Chiefs in such a historic game would be one hell of an achievement for these Packers.

Love accomplishes what Rodgers couldn’t two weeks ago and beats Mahomes in this one with a late field goal as the kick finally goes in this time for Green Bay. Hell, maybe Harrison Butker will get so pissed on Kamala’s Inauguration Day that he makes a disparaging rant about women that even turns the Swifties against him so bad that he ends up choking on a game-tying field goal to the loudest boos you’ve ever heard just when you thought we were going to overtime for the second year in a row in the Super Bowl.

At least I’d have my angle for why the three-peat didn’t happen, and it wouldn’t be the real GOAT’s fault.

Packers 27, Chiefs 24 (Super Bowl MVP: Jordan Love)

TL;DR Version: The Chiefs want the three-peat about as much as I want the three-peat. But I know that statistically the odds should be against it, and I just have this vision for Green Bay being the latest flash-in-the-pan NFC team. The story would be incredible of them preventing the three-peat to save the legacy of the 1965-67 team the way Don Shula’s Dolphins protected the perfect season from the 85 Bears.

If the three-peat doesn’t happen, I already know who I hope I can lay it at the feet of…

Also, my predictions might be totally fvcked if the Texans and Packers both flop this year. But at least one should deliver for me. Emphasis on should.

Best 15 New TV Shows of 2023

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

It feels a little weird to talk about the best new TV shows of 2023 when it’s July 2024. But once again, I’m a little behind in getting this out. However, I am still three weeks ahead of when I put out last year’s list.

In fact, I would like to go back and revise my top 15 lists for the last decade where I’ve been doing this. But for now, let’s just focus on 2023, which started incredibly strong. Most of my top series were released before my birthday in April.

There was that one weekend in early April where Netflix dropped Beef, and then that Sunday night’s episode of Succession was the one where you know who died off screen. That was an incredible weekend of television, one that could go unrivaled for some time.

As you’ll see in my list, limited series are really starting to take over these days. So many shows have recently ended or will end with their next season. It’s getting harder to sustain something great for three or more seasons, and sometimes they bring a limited series back when maybe it should have stayed a limited series.

But I can complain about Shogun next summer. Let’s get on with the 2023 list.

Note: Limited series and anime are included; all documentary series are excluded. I try my best to limit spoilers (but no promises).

15. Scavengers Reign (Max)

If you want an animated sci-fi series with a colorful, unique world and a progressively engrossing plot, Scavengers Reign will hit the spot. Don’t go in expecting anything like Aliens or Star Wars. This is more like if Primal was turned into a futuristic sci-fi series about exploring a new planet. Psychedelic drug users may also find a lot of value in this one, which was already cancelled but bought by Netflix with an uncertain future.

I don’t think the voice acting and overall plot are strong enough to move it into all-time status, but it’s worth the time.

14. The Curse (Showtime)

My best advice is if you want to watch The Curse, please make sure you’ve watched some of Nathan Fielder’s other work before like Nathan for You and The Rehearsal. If you already have and you don’t like his schtick, then you probably will hate this show since he acts very similar in it. However, he also shows more acting range than ever before, and Emma Stone is in her prime right now and does a great job as his wife.

Benny Safdie (Uncut Gems) is the third lead, and you can literally play a game each episode trying to decide which of the main characters is the worst person on the show. Your answer will likely change too as we learn more about this couple and their phony personas for their HGTV shows about flipping houses.

The finale is insane, and unless you’ve been spoiled on it already, you’ll never guess how it ends. But this is definitely one for Nathan Fielder fans.

13. The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix)

If you’ve watched Mike Flanagan’s other horror series for Netflix like The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass, then you should have a good idea of what to expect here. I’d rank those two series ahead of this one, but this is still very good and arguably the darkest series yet.

All six children of a pharmaceutical company CEO die in a 2-week span. That’s not a spoiler. You find out through the course of the season how and why they died.

It does a great job of handling the flashbacks and different timelines. The aftermath of the party scene in episode 2 is traumatizing.

12. Pluto (Netflix)

It was a banner year for Netflix anime, and Pluto was one of the best as a sci-fi murder mystery. If you like anime like Psycho Pass and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, you’ll dig this for sure. A Blade Runner fan should also like it.

I won’t give away spoilers, but it follows a detective investigating a string of murders of robots and humans. Even the dubbed version is quality work.

11. Gen V (Amazon Prime)

I’ll avoid the Season 4 discourse of The Boys, especially after it dropped the worst episode in franchise history on the 4th of July. But Gen V is a worthy spin-off with a lot of new, younger characters and a fresh take on the same universe of The Boys.

Yes, you can expect the same over-the-top violence and a ridiculous CGI penis scene. But if you like The Boys, chances are you’ve watched this already.

10. Silo (Apple TV+)

Who would have guessed that Apple TV+ would become the top streaming service for sci-fi series? Silo was another strong entry led by Rebecca Ferguson’s character navigating a dystopian, underground community where people aren’t supposed to go to the surface unless they want to die a few steps after being exposed to the atmosphere.

Of course, there’s a big mystery and conspiracy over the truth of this silo and what’s outside. It’s a great show and the setting gives it a video game feel a la BioShock or Fallout Shelter.

Good to see Season 2 is on the way, because too often shows like this get cancelled.

9. Shrinking (Apple TV+)

My kind of dramedy with Jason Segel as a grieving therapist (his wife died in a car accident) who starts to take an active role in his patient’s lives. Perfectly cast. It bounces between his work and his life at home trying to raise his daughter alone.

It’s a quick binge with episodes of the perfect length. It’s also great to see Harrison Ford get to do some real acting in his old age instead of being forced to play Han Solo or Indiana Jones again.

8. A Small Light (National Geographic)

    You don’t expect such quality from National Geographic, but the show was also available quickly on Hulu and Disney+ where I watched it. This is about the family who helped hide Anne Frank’s family during World War II.

    Yes, you already know the ending is going to be sad, but it’s a well-paced WWII story. Could they have just made a 2-hour movie about Miep Gies? Sure, but I think the limited series approach did a good job of showing just how long they had to endure the horror of the war, and how tragic it was that they lost so much of the Frank family in the later stages of it.

    7. One Piece (Netflix)

    This really could have been a disaster given the numerous misses already on Netflix’s resume for making live-action adaptations of popular anime series. There’s also the fact that I have never watched the One Piece anime because I’m always afraid of my OCD completionist qualities taking over and having to finish over 1,000 episodes of a show I may not actually enjoy that much.

    So, there was a lot working against this for me. But I went into the first episode with an open mind and found it surprisingly enjoyable. Good cast, the action scenes didn’t look cheap, and the story kept my attention the whole way. By the end, I was looking forward to Season 2.

    Still not planning to start the anime anytime soon.

    6. Poker Face (Peacock)

    See, Peacock isn’t entirely useless. A “case of the week” show format usually isn’t my vibe, but they pull it off so well with great special guests and Natasha Lyonne doing her Columbo thing every episode.

    It’s a throwback but also feels modern and high budget, and the pilot gets you interested immediately with Lyonne on the run from some casino gangsters that accounts for the serialized part of the plot.

    Bring on Season 2.

    5. Jury Duty (Freevee)

    Huge points for originality and creativity, and it’s coming from Freevee? Even more reason to celebrate this unlikely success of a scripted show about a jury trial where everyone is an actor except for one guy named Ronald.

    Assuming he truly was being himself and was not clued in on what this was, it’s an excellent comedy experiment with James Marsden stealing the show as he plays a fictionalized version of himself.

    But Ronald makes the show work, because if this guy was an asshole, the show could have been a disaster. Any future attempts at a story like this could go really poorly if they pick the wrong person, which is why I still have some suspicions that he really had no idea this was all scripted and planned.

    It’s far from the funniest show you’ll ever see, but it is very entertaining, and you have to give some bonus points for creativity these days. This shit could have been the Night Court reboot instead.

    4. Daisy Jones & the Six (Amazon Prime)

    I picked a good weekend to binge this last year as I was going through some shit at the time. They basically take a 1970s rock band in the vein of Fleetwood Mac and make a documentary 20 years later about their success and downfall, complete with a love affair angle between the two lead singers of the band (Riley Keough and Sam Claflin).

    It’s not going to work for everyone, but it clicked for me. Definitely helps to be a fan of that era of rock bands and to enjoy music documentaries. I also find myself still listening to one of the songs the actors recorded for the show called “Look at Us Now (Honeycomb)” where you can instantly hear the Fleetwood Mac influence.

    3. Blue Eye Samurai (Netflix)

    I would call Blue Eye Samurai the best Netflix anime offering, except it’s not really a Japanese anime series. This is a beautiful mixture of 2D and 3D animation with scenes that look as cinematic as something you’d see in Kill Bill.

    In this tale of revenge, you get excellent storytelling, top-notch voice acting, and memorable fight sequences. This should go down as one of the best animated series ever made.

    2. The Last of Us (HBO)

    I’m ashamed to admit I bought The Last of Us many years ago for PlayStation 3 and have yet to play it. So, I went into this one cold about the plot, but the pilot instantly grabbed me. I knew the girl he was with in the game wasn’t his daughter, but why didn’t I connect the dots that something horrible was going to happen to his real daughter in the first episode? What a start.

    While I could not give you the comparison to the game, I’m not sure it matters. What they did stood on its own as damn good television. I was pumped each week to watch this, and I even enjoyed the “one-off” episodes with the gay couple and the flashback to the mall with Ellie’s friend. Not to mention the other moments that shocked me, someone oblivious to the game, like what happened to Tess and the young kid and father they met up with later.

    Hopefully the day will come when I get around to playing the game, but for a video game adaptation to lead to this good of a season of TV, I’m optimistic about what we could see down the road.

    Something tells me not many of these adaptations will be as well done as this season was.

    1. Beef (Netflix)

    If you saw me tweeting about Beef in April 2023, you probably knew I’d put this as the No. 1 new show of the year. When it came out, all I knew about it was that it was a road rage story with Steven Yeun. I didn’t really know anything about Ali Wong at the time, but she was great as Amy in this. Glad they cleaned up at the award shows for this.

    I was basically dialed in from the first episode. A dark dramedy? That’s my genre. Loved the way they escalated the story to reach that absurd climax in the ninth episode, one of the craziest I’ve seen in any show, before calming things down for a memorable finale. The supporting cast was great, especially Danny’s brother and Amy’s husband.

    The music also put it over the top for me. Right in the first episode, they find a way to use Hoobastank (“The Reason”) as a needle drop going to the end credits. Later on you get Incubus (“Drive”), The Offspring (“Self Esteem”), System of a Down (“Lonely Day”), Bush (“Machinehead”), Keane (“Somewhere Only We Know”), and my favorite woman singer of all time in Björk (“All Is Full of Love”) to end the penultimate episode.

    Then the final scene couldn’t have gone any better when I heard “Mayonaise” start, my favorite Smashing Pumpkins song. The way the light in the room flashes to sync up with the drums, then getting to the line with “June” just before the credits show the name of the actress who played her daughter June… It’s perfect. I get goosebumps every time like when I watch the final scene of The Dark Knight.

    The script, the acting, the music, it all came together for me quickly. I felt I was watching something special in the third episode when Danny’s character goes to a church and starts crying during an excellent performance of “O Come to the Altar” by a church band. I’m not a religious person at all, but I find myself watching this video on YouTube frequently to this day as I really enjoy the way the song sounds here. Elevation Worship is the group best known for this song, but the extra guitars and dueling male-female vocals they use in Beef gives it a 1990s Midwest emo sound that just works best for me.

    Hands down, one of my favorite limited series of all time. Of course, they have announced a Season 2, so it looks like they’ll be turning this into an anthology series. That could be good, but I hope they leave the story of Danny and Amy alone.

    This was already perfection.

    Honorable Mentions

    • Carol & the End of the World: Carol’s voice can be annoying, but this animated dramedy about the apocalypse is worth the watch.
    • The Diplomat: Punchy dialogue between Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell lightens up meaty political plots.
    • Fellow Travelers: Well done gay love story that spans decades with Matt Bomer.
    • Lessons in Chemistry: Bill Pullman’s son can act, and I was certainly blown away by his character in this – just not as blown away as he was by…Just watch it.
    • A Murder at the End of the World – Some feel the ending is predictable, but I enjoyed the show and setting.
    • My Adventures with Superman: I actually didn’t watch the animated Superman series in the 90s, but I’ve been enjoying this one and S1 is better than S2 (so far).
    • The Night Agent: Very solid binge for fans of 24.
    • Rabbit Hole: In my best Jack Bauer voice, DAMNIT! They cancelled a good one here. Kiefer should be pissed at busted ass Paramount for not continuing this twisty thriller.
    • Special Ops: Lioness – Taylor Sheridan is singlehandedly keeping Paramount alive. Another good offering here with a CIA operative show.
    • Tiny Beautiful Things: Kathryn Hahn carries this dramedy about motherhood.

     So, that’s where I’m at with 2023. Here is a little table look at my picks for 2018-2023, and I’ll have to eventually get something updated and expanded for past years.

    As for 2024, I feel like I’ve been keeping up well with the new shows halfway through the year. Really enjoyed some of them already like Dark Matter and Baby Reindeer.

    I’m sure it’ll still take me into next July to get that 2024 list out. But as long as I get it out…

    NFL Stat Oddity: Super Bowl LVIII

    ~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

    Super Bowl LVIII was in fact a race to 24 points, but I’m not sure anyone imagined we would be 3 seconds away from double overtime, making this the longest Super Bowl ever played by game time (74:57).

    But the Kansas City Chiefs are all about making history. It has been that way since Patrick Mahomes took over as the full-time starter in 2018, and it is only fitting that this team is now officially an NFL dynasty with 3 Super Bowl wins in the last 5 seasons. The longest drought in NFL history without a repeat champion is over at 18 seasons (2005-22).

    The Chiefs have done it a little differently each time, though the ending that links all three has been Mahomes rallying the team back from a 10-point deficit in the Super Bowl and being named MVP. He joins Bart Starr (1966-67) and Terry Bradshaw (1978-79) as the only players to win Super Bowl MVP in back-to-back years.

    But 2023 was just a season-long epic performance from Steve Spagnuolo’s defense, fairly reliable special teams, and Mahomes’ receivers did not screw up the games in the postseason like they did in the regular season. Ending things with a touchdown pass to Mecole Hardman, one of those scrutinized targets, was just the cherry on top to another year where the Chiefs beat the odds to finish with a championship.

    This was a wild Super Bowl. If you ask me:

    • First 42 minutes – a bottom 5 Super Bowl all time with a bunch of fumbles (indoors to boot) and drive-killing plays
    • Last 33 minutes – a top 5 Super Bowl all time with 7 straight scoring drives to end it (minus a kneeldown)

    I’d like to try to get into bed by 8 AM, so let’s jump into the recap and put this season to rest after another historic Super Bowl.

    This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

    The First Quarter: Scoreless

    The 49ers came out strong doing exactly the things I thought they needed to do to win this game. That meant quality runs by Christian McCaffrey and easy completions to help Brock Purdy’s nerves. They chewed up 46 yards in 4 snaps before an unexpected blunder when the Chiefs forced CMC to fumble at the Kansas City 27, and they were able to jump on top of it for a shocking turnover.

    The Chiefs had that incredible streak going of 8 straight playoff games with an opening-drive score (6 TD, 2 FG), but that came to a screeching halt with a 3-and-out. It was almost doomed from the first snap when Isiah Pacheco was stuffed for a 3-yard loss. Little did we know the 1-yard screen to Travis Kelce would be his only catch of the first half.

    While Kelce sorted himself out later, George Kittle never got going in a hugely disappointing game for the other star tight end in this matchup. Kittle had an 18-yard catch wiped out by a holding penalty on Trent Williams, who was also called for a false start before the play. When that sets up 2nd-and-27, you might as well forget it against this blitzing defense.

    Penalties didn’t become a huge story on the night – thank God – with both teams getting flagged 6 times. The Chiefs actually had more penalty yardage than the 49ers (55-40), so we can put the conspiracy theories to rest on the Swifties getting the calls.

    But right from the second drive you could see pass protection was going to be an issue for Mahomes. Left tackle Donovan Smith was beat cleanly for a sack by Chase Young, and the 49ers almost brought Mahomes down for another sack before he scrambled for 4 yards on 3rd-and-14 on another short drive.

    While the quarter ended scoreless, the 49ers had a drive going and it was actually the secondary receivers who were making the big plays. Chris Conley (18 yards) and Ray Ray McCloud (19 yards) pulled in back-to-back plays that gained more yards than the Chiefs had in the entire first quarter (16 yards).

    Things were looking like 4 years ago when the 49ers played very well on defense and the game swung on a crucial 3rd-and-15 in the fourth quarter. But so far, Purdy was holding up very well and Mahomes wasn’t able to get in a rhythm.

    This was only the 10th scoreless first quarter in Super Bowl history. The previous 5 all involved the Patriots.

    The Second Quarter: Strange

    After Kansas City corner Trent McDuffie made a great play to prevent a long touchdown to Deebo Samuel, the 49ers decided to try a 55-yard field goal. I’ve been hammering on Jake Moody being problematic as a rookie kicker, but he made me eat crow in this game. He calmly hit a 55-yard field goal, which was a Super Bowl record (for the time being) to get the first points on the board.

    I’ll bemoan the Chiefs and their short-yardage flaws later, but they were getting creative with Rashee Rice taking a handoff on a 3rd-and-1 to convert on the ground. He actually looked like he tried to pitch it forward on the play, which should have been a penalty in my book, but nothing was said or flagged. Instead, it goes down as a fumble in the play-by-play that the Chiefs recovered, a theme of the night as they would recover 6 of the 7 fumbles in this game.

    After Rice’s odd play, Mahomes went deep and found Mecole Hardman for the longest play of the game at 52 yards, which was hilarious since he is usually so awful at tracking the ball in the air. But he made that play work and the Chiefs had life. However, Pacheco continued what turned out to be a bad game for him and he fumbled from the 9-yard line, making sure the obligatory fumble was alive and well for Kansas City.

    This kicked off a series of strange events, including Kelce’s meltdown on the sideline where he approached coach Andy Reid and was visibly frustrated with not being on the field for the Pacheco fumble:

    We know he’s an emotional player, but this was a bad look for Kelce. The Chiefs followed that play up with a horse collar tackle of Purdy, but the defense delivered with a third-down pressure that led to a sack of Purdy. The Chiefs lost out on points on the Pacheco fumble, but at least it was still 3-0.

    But the pressure on Mahomes was becoming the story again in a Super Bowl. The next drive was torpedoed from the first snap when Mahomes was pressured, held onto the ball a bit too long, and he tried to throw the ball away in the vicinity of his receiver. The officials didn’t agree and flagged him for intentional grounding, bringing up a 2nd-and-20. That call was iffy. The drive ended with Mahomes scrambling again for a few yards to avoid a sack.

    In the end, Mahomes ended up taking 3 sacks on the night, and it could have easily been double that or more. Keep in mind, the only game in Mahomes’ NFL career where he took 5 sacks was against the Cardinals in 2018. Their head coach was Steve Wilks, who is San Francisco’s defensive coordinator. Things were looking good for his unit so far in this one.

    Unfortunately, the 49ers lost a very good linebacker in Dre Greenlaw prior to this drive when he injured his Achilles in a freak moment of celebration coming onto the field. I’ve never seen anything quite like this:

    What an awful way for your season to end. But the Chiefs were starting to lose their composure with another 15-yard penalty going against L’Jarius Sneed on the ensuing drive. Two plays later, the 49ers dialed up a trick play with wide receiver Jauan Jennings making the long pass back to CMC, who was left alone for a 23-yard touchdown to take a 10-0 lead. Pretty play with a sweet camera angle like this:

    Like clockwork, it’s a Chiefs’ Super Bowl with Patrick Mahomes and they’re down 10 points. It’s happened all four times now, but they obviously have the experience at winning these games.

    After CEH was stuffed for no gain (predictable) and Hardman was flagged for a false start, Mahomes was facing a 3rd-and-9 at his 40 at the 2-minute warning. I saw this as the play of the game so far:

    Mahomes had barely thrown the ball before this drive, but in the big moment, he bought himself time and found Justin Watson for 21 yards. Huge play as the 49ers were not able to manage the clock and really give themselves another shot to score before halftime. The Chiefs marched into the red zone, but their play calls were a bit odd with Rice getting another rush on 2nd-and-7. Mahomes took another sack on 3rd down and the Chiefs had to kick a 28-yard field goal, but at least it was points on the board.

    The Chiefs could have done a lot worse than 10-3 at the half.

    The Third Quarter: Turning Point

    This game was always going to come down to the second half, and we had all those interesting stats to watch play out here:

    • The Chiefs allowed the fewest points after halftime
    • The 49ers scored the most points after halftime
    • The Chiefs scored the 3rd-fewest points after halftime
    • The 49ers allowed the 2nd-fewest points in the 4th quarter

    With numbers like that and the way these teams have recently played, I thought maybe we’d see a role reversal and the 49ers would have to be the team trying to come back this time. But instead, it was business as usual with Mahomes trying to lead the Chiefs back.

    Things got off to a horrendous start when on the first play of the half, Mahomes pitched back to Pacheco and he didn’t handle it and nearly caused a fumble, an unforced error. That made it 2nd-and-22, practically short-circuiting another KC drive on the first snap, something that happened a solid 3 or 4 times in this game. The pitch from Mahomes could have been better, but Pacheco was caught looking upfield early.

    Two plays later, Mahomes made his only real mistake with an interception on a forced throw on 3rd-and-12. In the first half, his only 2 incompletions were the debatable grounding and a pass Justin Watson could have caught but didn’t. This was the first time Mahomes really put the ball in danger and missed.

    But the 49ers did not make him pay for it from the Kansas City 44. They called 3 straight passes, had a false start in the mix, and Purdy ended up scrambling for 4 yards on 3rd-and-15 to end the drive with a punt. This is why many might say the 49ers lost this game in the third quarter when they failed to take advantage of moments like this and passed too much. There is some truth to that, but it’s also true that they needed more points to win, and CMC was getting stuffed pretty well ever since his fumble. Purdy looked like he was handling the moment fine, but the Chiefs did get creative and relentless with their 3rd-down blitz packages.

    But this was turning into a really lousy Super Bowl at this point with the teams unable to move the ball. The Chiefs went 3-and-out again after Pacheco was stuffed on a 3rd-and-1, because they refuse to run the tush push or normal quarterback sneak.

    Purdy tried to create something with a pass to Jennings, but he lost 8 yards and killed the drive for another 3-and-out.

    At this point, Mahomes started to take matters into his own hands, or more accurately – his own legs. He scrambled for 4 yards to convert a 3rd-and-4, then he took off by design for 22 more yards. But the drive stalled and Harrison Butker made sure Moody’s record didn’t hold up for 2 full quarters as he nailed a 57-yard field goal to make it 10-6.

    The kickers at least showed up to play.

    This game really needed a spark as the teams went back to trading 3-and-out drives. I was thinking the Chiefs were now going to win 13-10, fueling the conspiracy theories about it being fixed – 13 is Taylor Swift’s lucky number – and taking away one of my favorite stats where Tom Brady is the only quarterback to win a Super Bowl scoring 13 points. Actually, he did it twice too if you consider the offense only scored 13 in Super Bowl 36 against the Rams.

    But with just under 3 minutes left in the quarter, we had our turning point on a real fluke of a play.

    The 49ers were trying to field the punt, it grazed the heel of a San Francisco player, and McCloud did not make a great effort to pick up the ball. The Chiefs got it instead and were only 16 yards away from the lead. Mahomes immediately found MVS wide open for a go-ahead touchdown and the game was on at 13-10.

    After the Chiefs took their first lead of the game, this really woke everyone up and led to one of the greatest finishes in Super Bowl history.

    The Fourth Quarter: Back and Forth

    We know even a 3-point deficit to start the fourth quarter is usually a deathblow for a Kyle Shanahan team in San Francisco. But things have been different this postseason, and they were driving again behind Purdy this time.

    But what a ballsy call Shanahan made that will largely be forgotten because of the loss. Facing a 4th-and-3 at the Kansas City 15 with 12:46 left, Shanahan had his offense go for it and bypassed the game-tying field goal. I have to say I probably would have kicked it given the low-scoring game and the fact it was 3 yards to go, and you weren’t even in goal-to-go. A lot of risk with that call, but Purdy found Kittle, and he made his only real positive contribution of the game as a receiver with a 4-yard conversion.

    Two snaps later, Purdy found Jennings over the middle and he fought his way into the end zone for a 10-yard touchdown to regain the lead. Could it really be possible that Jennings would win Super Bowl MVP with his touchdown pass and touchdown catch? I really think it would have happened if the 49ers held on to win in regulation, but a lot of time remained (11:22).

    Also not good was Kansas City blocking the extra point, keeping it a 16-13 game. We could argue this ended up benefitting the 49ers later as it made the Chiefs feel content with a field goal to tie the game on the next drive instead of having to go for a touchdown on 4th down. Mahomes was sacked again on 3rd-and-goal at the 3, making the field goal a no-brainer in a 16-13 game for the Chiefs.

    All things considered, I’d still much prefer to be up 17-13 and make the Chiefs go for a touchdown as they have had some issues with the red zone at times this year. Also, you never know when a low snap will derail their drive as that was a problem in this game again, and it was nearly a disaster with just under 10 minutes left. Mahomes had to field the poor snap and throw the ball away, narrowly avoiding another turnover. Creed Humphrey is a 2-time Pro Bowl center, but someone needs to work on his shotgun snaps with him because this is past the point of ridiculous.

    We were tied again with 5:46 left. It wouldn’t be easy, but the 49ers had a chance to work the clock and kick a game-winning field goal with no time left. The Chiefs were down to 2 timeouts after Reid wasted one early in the third quarter to set up a Pacheco run on 3rd-and-1 that failed. In fact, that sequence was nutty as he could have challenged a possible bad spot on a Kelce catch that brought up that 3rd-and-1, but instead he just wasted a timeout for nothing. It really could have haunted the Chiefs here as the 49ers came so close to making this the knockout drive and finally delivering a Super Bowl ring to Shanahan.

    A pass to Kittle for no gain was not an ideal outcome, but the play took so long that the 49ers did not have to run another play until the 2-minute warning, which was huge. This basically put the game on a 3rd-and-5 at the Kansas City 35. If the 49ers could convert, they could run out most of the clock on the Chiefs and kick the winning field goal.

    But Spags sent another blitz and Trent McDuffie was the hero with a pass defensed in Purdy’s face. According to Next Gen Stats, Kansas City’s blitzing led to 9 unblocked pressures, their most in any game this season, and none were bigger than that one by McDuffie.

    Again, credit Moody for silencing the critics with a 53-yard field goal. He played a great game. The 49ers led 19-16 and it was like watching a reverse of the 1988’s season Super Bowl when Joe Montana broke the Cincinnati Bengals’ hearts for the 49ers in a 20-16 comeback win.

    Mahomes was going to have his moment with 1:53 and 2 timeouts left, an eternity for him to drive 75 yards for the winning touchdown. He made getting into field goal range look easy, but things perked up for the touchdown when he found Kelce on a 3rd-and-7 for 22 yards, getting out of bounds at the San Francisco 11 with 10 seconds left.

    Kelce had 1 yard at halftime and still finished the game with 93 yards, his 13th-striaght playoff game with at least 70 yards (next closest is 7 games).According to Next Gen Stats, Kelce reached a top speed of 19.68 miles per hour on that 22-yard gain, his fastest speed in the last 7 seasons. That’s a pretty good argument for “wanting it more” on the big stage with your super-famous girlfriend watching.

    But there wasn’t a Hollywood ending with Kelce catching the winning touchdown in regulation. The Chiefs only really had one shot at it, and while Mahomes went to Kelce, the play wasn’t there and they had to kick the field goal. Butker did his job from 29 yards out and we were getting overtime as Purdy took a knee with 3 seconds left.

    Overtime: Underthinking the New Rules?

    I have been wanting to see an overtime playoff game ever since they changed the rules two seasons ago. The irony is they changed them because of the way the Chiefs beat Buffalo in that 42-36 game in the divisional round. The Chiefs tied it in 13 seconds, they won the coin toss, drove down the field for a walk-off touchdown and Josh Allen, in his finest moment, never saw the ball again.

    We can’t keep letting that happen just as it should have changed after Super Bowl LI ended that way between the Falcons and Patriots, and then again two years later when these Chiefs lost that way to the Patriots in the 2018 AFC Championship Game.

    So, the Chiefs have been on both sides of this, but now they were in uncharted territory with the new rules allowing for both teams to get a possession even if there’s a touchdown. Well, a safety on the opening drive ends it too as would a defensive return touchdown. It’s a little weird to talk about, but the heart of the rule change is definitely in the right spot and we should see more fair outcomes like this was.

    But new rules should mean new strategies, and I’m not sure Shanahan and the 49ers thought this one through in overtime.

    In college, the common strategy is to go on defense first because you’ll know what you need on offense. I have to think that translates a lot here in the NFL’s new overtime system too. I think you go first on defense so you know what you need, and you can get it by playing 4-down football with no time rush at all. That means 4 plays to get 10 yards the whole way, and it doesn’t matter if the clock expires and you’re still trailing. The game will just go to overtime No. 2.

    At least that’s my understanding of it now. During the game, I was not sure about the clock situation, and I know I wasn’t alone in that.

    But in getting back to the strategy, I just don’t think you can realistically give Mahomes the ball last. Even if you get a touchdown and lead by 7 points, they can march down, score the touchdown, and go for 2 and the win and you never see the ball again. That is allowed, so the argument of “you get the first crack at a second possession” doesn’t sit well with me when Mahomes is the opponent.

    Plus, if you go first like San Francisco, you are rather limited by more conventional, 3-down football. You are more likely to kick a field goal if it’s available. That’s just the nature of the game.

    I also don’t buy the “49ers needed to rest the defense” argument. The Chiefs did run 11 more plays in the second half, but the 49ers won time of possession for the game (38-36 minutes). You really couldn’t handle a 2-minute drill that involved 2 timeouts, which was followed by another couple minute break before overtime?

    And there is no guarantee of rest. The 49ers were about to go 3-and-out in overtime if not for a weak holding penalty on McDuffie on a 3rd-and-13 incompletion. They would have been right back on that field and with the Chiefs only needing a field goal if not for that call.

    Like I said, if the Chiefs go first, they are going to be a little more careful and conservative, not always using 4 downs and going for the kill with the touchdown. With the game Pacheco was having, let them run more conventional plays instead of putting the game in Mahomes’ hands. Then even if Mahomes drives for a touchdown, you know they’re kicking the extra point. You get it back, down 7, and you can go win it with 8 and take your time in the process.

    I just think it was absolutely the wrong call by San Francisco to go on offense first against Mahomes. You might get away with that against Burrow or Lamar. Not this quarterback.

    Sure enough, the 49ers did not finish the job. They reached the Kansas City 9 before McCaffrey was stuffed, then another pressure by Chris Jones forced Purdy to throw the ball away, bringing out the field goal team on 4th-and-4. If they were more aggressive or behind, they are going for that 4th-and-4. But given the situation, it is practically impossible to bypass that field goal, so you take it and pray the Chiefs screw up or you get the ball again.

    By the way, the 49ers were 3-of-12 on 3rd down while the Chiefs were 9-for-19. That mattered a lot too.

    With 7:22 left, Mahomes was 75 yards away from one of the biggest legacy drives in NFL history. He could join the exclusive club of 3 Super Bowl winners, and it is the first time in NFL history we’ve ever seen a trailing team with the ball in overtime of the Super Bowl.

    But it almost ended in 4 snaps. Pacheco was stuffed on another 3rd-and-1 run, and that’s when I thought this team’s refusal to run the quarterback sneak was going to cost them a championship. They just will not do it with Mahomes because he dislocated his kneecap in a freak accident play in Denver in 2019. It’s chickenshit logic that reminds me of how my uncle won’t eat kielbasa (unless it’s Easter or Christmas) because he ate a piece of glass from a package of it decades ago. Apparently, they screen out all the glass for holidays.

    On 4th-and-1, season on the line, the Chiefs did put the ball in Mahomes’ hands, but it was on a keeper and he ran for 8 yards to save the game. Then MVS tried to give up the repeat bid on the next snap. Instead of cutting his losses on a play, he kept running backwards and lost 3 yards to set up 2nd-and-13. At least he made up for it with a 7-yard gain, then Mahomes found Rice to settle things down for 13 yards on 3rd-and-6.

    Another 3rd-and-1 came up, and it was another scramble by Mahomes for 19 yards into the red zone that started to make this ending feel predictable, or inevitable with Kansas City. Pacheco ran for 3 more yards, Kelce caught a short one and took it 7 yards as you could see he wanted the touchdown so bad.

    But that made it 1st-and-goal at the 3, and the clock just continued to tick down. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if the game was about to end or go to another overtime at this point, because the idea of a clock expiring with a team still trailing and the game continuing just doesn’t compute for me in the NFL (or NBA).

    I found out after the game the rule is that if the second team’s initial possession has not been completed yet, the game does extend to a second overtime. So that’s that.

    But with the Chiefs playing it casually and the 49ers not calling a timeout, the ending was almost anticlimactic as Mahomes hit Hardman with one of those uncovered passes to the flat they beat the Eagles with a year ago. Enjoy the Korean call of it:

    After berating the wide receivers since Week 1, we watched Mahomes complete 9-of-13 passes for 131 yards and 2 touchdowns in the Super Bowl to the trio of Mecole Hardman, MVS, and Justin Watson. Meanwhile, Purdy was 8-of-20 for 86 yards throwing to his stud trio of Deebo, Kittle, and Aiyuk. That was largely the ballgame as CMC did finish with 80 yards on the ground and 80 through the air. Jennings stepped up. The run defense stepped up against Pacheco. The pass rush was very strong early for the 49ers before Mahomes started finding rushing lanes to exploit.

    There wasn’t a singular moment this time as much as in LIV when Mahomes finding Tyreek Hill on 3rd-and-15 was the difference maker. But the 49ers had a few chances to put this game away and just didn’t do it.

    That Shanahan, always a bridesmaid. I think he should have kicked off in overtime. Instead, we watched Mahomes become the first quarterback in NFL history with multiple walk-off touchdown passes in the postseason. He was the last to do it under the old rules, and he’s the first to do it in the first game with the new rules.

    That is some king shit. So is having three of the top 5 postseasons in QBR for a Super Bowl-winning quarterback since 2006:

    With 333 passing yards, 66 rushing yards, and 2 touchdown passes, Mahomes won his third Super Bowl MVP award. He is the only player to win that award for 3 consecutive rings won. Even Joe Montana needed to reach a fourth after Jerry Rice won the MVP for his third ring. Tom Brady’s third ring saw Deion Branch win the Super Bowl MVP against the 2004 Eagles.

    Montana, Brady, and Mahomes all won their third Super Bowl in a season where they beat the No. 1 scoring defense on the road in the Conference Championship round.

    But the 2023 Chiefs are the first team to ever beat 4 teams in the same postseason that had a +100 scoring differential in the regular season. They did this despite not being one of those teams themselves as they were only +77.

    But after trailing the Bengals 17-7 in Week 17, the offense hit a switch, and it reached a level it could win games at with this defense providing a stellar performance since Week 1. The Chiefs never gave up more than 27 points in any game this season, and they even held all but one opponent under 25 points. You’re not going to put this defense on a historic level with the 2000 Ravens, 2002 Buccaneers, or 2013 Seahawks, but they were legitimately great this year and helped the team overcome one of the toughest postseason paths anyone has taken to a Super Bowl win.

    You can say this is a team that got hot at the right time and carried that all the way to a Super Bowl win. But unlike the 2011 Giants or 2012 Ravens, this team has staying power and can do it again. This is closer to the 1988 49ers shaking off a 10-6 regular season and winning the third Super Bowl in the Joe Montana era, and we know what kind of encore that team had in 1989.

    Conclusion: Yes, It’s a Dynasty and Mahomes Is 1-of-1

    It’s been 19 long years, but we can finally add another dynasty to the annals of NFL history. The Chiefs were the expected pick to replace the Patriots for this years ago, but they gave us pause on multiple occasions since winning that first Super Bowl right around the time the world was starting to face a global pandemic with COVID-19.

    They lost 31-9 to the Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV. They blew a 21-3 lead to the Bengals a year later at home in the AFC Championship Game. Then I thought last year would be the crowning achievement of Patrick Mahomes’ career, winning that Super Bowl with an MVP season and top offense after losing Tyreek Hill, then navigating that playoff run on a high-ankle sprain.

    But this season was almost more impressive in some ways. He didn’t play as well individually, but he hung in there through the rough losses, the league-leading wide receiver drops, the excessive penalties and fumbles, and he knew he could trust the defense this time. Then they got it done on the road in the playoffs twice after never having to leave Arrowhead in January before. They took down both No. 1 seeds. They came back from 10 points down in this game. He had nearly 400 yards of offense and was flawless in overtime.

    I always ask what is Mahomes’ weakness? I don’t think in 114 starts he has shown one yet. You have a better chance if you can make him hold the ball and throw low-percentage passes down the field, but we’ve also seen him destroy some teams by extending the play. Even in this game, I think that 3rd-and-9 conversion to Watson at the 2-minute warning in the first half was a game-changing moment to keep the Chiefs alive.

    In all of NFL history, we have not seen a quarterback play this well so consistently while still being able to win at such a high level as often as Mahomes has. Usually, dynasties were stacked on defense, or they could run the ball really well, or they just didn’t have to rely on the quarterback as much. But the Chiefs are an outlier because their quarterback might just be 1 of 1 in this game.

    My interest in the NFL was starting to wane in the 2017 season. Maybe it was the 7-year itch or burnout of covering this stuff 52 weeks a year with no real breaks. Getting into gambling helped some that year, but Mahomes taking over for the Chiefs in 2018 and instantly turning this into a historic team that’s always setting some record has rejuvenated my interest more than anything.

    I want to make sure Mahomes and the Chiefs are being covered properly for their place in history. So, when a big game like this one comes up, I put things into perspective for what a win or loss means for the team. When Mahomes is telling CBS in his pre-game taped interview that dynasty is the goal, and Jim Nantz starts off the 6:00 p.m. broadcast window with dynasty talk, it was the big story of the night. The Chiefs would hands down be a dynasty with a third championship in five seasons.

    But if they had lost this game? Then you start having people looking differently at a team that’s only 2-2 in the Super Bowl, and at a quarterback who had 5 touchdowns and 5 interceptions in those Super Bowls before the blocked punt changed the dynamics of this game. Suddenly it’s “what if Purdy didn’t get injured in Philly last year; he might be 2-0 in the Super Bowl and have more rings than Mahomes.”

    You nip that talk in the bud by performing and winning the game, which he did again. Does it take some luck too like a muffed punt off a teammate’s heel? Does it take a defense stopping a great offense repeatedly on third down, and a kicker you can rely on for a long field goal? Yeah, it takes some combo of that too, every time.

    It wouldn’t be the ultimate team game without those things. But where I take issue is when people still try to belittle his accomplishments by poorly comparing and equating them to some of the only quarterbacks you can even still compare Mahomes to as a 2-time MVP and 3-time Super Bowl MVP.

    They’ll say Mahomes doesn’t win without his defense this year. Yeah, as if Bart Starr, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, and Tom Brady were winning shootouts all the time and didn’t almost exclusively have top 10 defenses when they won their rings. Meanwhile, Mahomes is the only quarterback to win a Super Bowl when his team allowed 25 points per game in the postseason, and he’s done it twice. That number was much lower this year (15.8), but he still can’t hold a candle to Montana, who won 3 rings in postseasons where the 49ers did not allow more points than the 35 the Eagles scored in last year’s Super Bowl.

    They’ll say Mahomes threw a pick in this game. But will they note it was on 3rd-and-12 and the 49ers went 3-and-out from midfield with it? It’s not like he threw a pick-6 to Robert Alford to fall behind 21-0. Will they acknowledge their King of Kings from New England, even in his best Super Bowl moment against the 2003 Panthers, threw a terrible red-zone pick midway through the fourth quarter when he could have taken a 2-score lead? Or that his game-winning drive that day started at the 40-yard line in a tied game after John Kasay sailed the kickoff out of bounds? Not quite driving 75 yards for the touchdown while facing a deficit in overtime, is it?

    Also, will they ever acknowledge Montana had 4 turnovers before The Catch happened in the 1981 NFC Championship Game? Still put up enough points and won the game with a clutch drive, didn’t he? That used to be enough for the old days, but you know they fear Mahomes when they have to treat him differently and start holding him to standards they never put the past greats through.

    But he keeps finding ways to succeed, and he should be the new standard for quarterback play if we are being honest about things. Does that mean he’ll win a lot more rings going forward? That will depend on what the rest of the league does more than anything. But I never believed for a second that Mahomes needs to win 7 or 8 Super Bowls to be the GOAT.

    He’s up to 3 before his 29th birthday. He has some wiggle room as the LOAT did not win his 4th until he was 37 years old. Mahomes can win next year for the first 3-peat in the Super Bowl era. If he can do that, then win a fifth down the road without Reid and Kelce, I don’t see how anyone can reasonably deny him, assuming he’s also not done winning MVP awards and setting the pace for the most yards and touchdown passes in NFL history.

    Mahomes and the Chiefs are a historic team, and that keeps me interested in the future to see where this story grows and goes. This was my 13th season of coverage, and it was a challenging one. I was dealt a personal shock in August, just 3 days after one of my oldest cats died, that I still am not really over. I guess you can say I should have researched this girl I thought I knew for the last 6-7 years as well as I’ve researched Mahomes for his 7 seasons as an NFL quarterback. Be careful who you trust in this world. There aren’t many people who are genuinely looking out for your best interests.

    Then it seems like I’ve been sick every day since December, which is why I’ve had so many short posts on here for prediction pieces on the weekend because I usually didn’t feel that great. Just a lot of sinus stuff with sneezing attacks, then I got the flu in January for a couple of weeks, and I’m still coughing at times from that.

    Hopefully there isn’t another pandemic brewing since the Chiefs took down the 49ers in the Super Bowl again, just like when COVID started four years ago.

    I’m not sure what my offseason plans include, but I expect to be back for another season of NFL coverage. It is a grind, though. I’d love to make use of the next 7 months to also make sure I’m taking care of my mental and physical health better, since that can go ignored during the grind of the season.

    But the offseason always hits better when the Super Bowl outcome was to your liking. At least I got closure from something I love this year.

    NFL Super Bowl LVIII: 49ers vs. Chiefs Predictions

    ~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

    The buildup for the Super Bowl seems to get longer every year. But we made it to another one this weekend, and I think the potential is there for a great game between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs.

    I’ve been writing a ton of articles the last 2 weeks, including some that have nothing to do with this game like the top 5 Super Bowl matchups we didn’t get. I’m burned out a bit and just eagerly awaiting tomorrow’s game that will kick off 24 hours from the minute I’m writing this paragraph.

    Super Bowl Articles:

    I think that’s all of them.

    Super Bowl LVIII Picks

    One more time this season, here are my bets for the big game:

    After 2 weeks and many hours of research and thousands of typed words, the game comes down to this for me:

    Can the 49ers get a dominant game out of Christian McCaffrey to attack the weakness of the KC defense and help protect the nerves of Brock Purdy and the weakness of the offense (pass protection) against a top pass rush and set of corners?

    I really think that is the main story in the game and a matter of attacking the Chiefs like Buffalo did with safe passes that move the chains thanks to a steady run game too. Purdy needs easy completions and to not be facing that blitz all night cause he will make mistakes that lose the game for San Francisco. Ride CMC here.

    On the other side, same as it ever was. Can the Chiefs avoid or at least severely limit the mistakes that plagued them in their losses this year with drops by the WRs, penalties by the WR/OT, and fumbles by everyone? Can they stop calling the gadget shit and just run a normal play to extend a drive? Can they keep Mecole Hardman and Kadarius Toney’s asses on the sideline for any offensive snaps?

    If the Chiefs protect the ball, they have a great chance to repeat here. But it’s such an interesting matchup of recent trends vs. season trends here. Not just the ball security stuff, but the way the Chiefs allowed the fewest points after halftime, scored the 3rd-fewest too, and the 49ers scored the most points after halftime while allowing the 2nd-fewest 4th quarter points. That points to a San Francisco team that can come back this time like they did in the first two playoff games, and it may be the Chiefs who are leaning on defense to close things out this time.

    Or it could just revert back to their old ways. The front-running 49ers under Kyle Shanahan get out to a double-digit lead like all 3 teams that have faced Mahomes in the Super Bowl have done, but the Chiefs have that ability to string together scores and come back. Definitely going to be fun to see which game script wins out here.

    I keep coming down on my score predictions. My gut was 30-27 on Championship Sunday night. Then I came down to 27-23 where I thought I’d stay at. But now I’m thinking it’s the 24-20 final that Super Bowl LIV should have had before Damien Williams had to cost me a $400 win on my Chiefs by exactly 4 bet with a touchdown he didn’t need to make it 31-20. But 24-20 is the kind of score the Chiefs have flirted with often in big games this year, and usually they came out on the wrong end (Lions, Eagles, Bills). This time I think they make the big play in the 4th quarter.

    Did I mention all of those scores (30-27, 27-23, 24-20) had the Chiefs winning? It actually scares me just how easily I’ve picked KC the whole 2 weeks here. I usually have an easy time setting them up as a legit underdog where I’m quite skeptical they’ll win the game. But for some reason, I just feel confident about this one, and that bugs me a lot.

    But I just think Purdy has the big game mistakes you expect from a young QB in this spot, and the Chiefs have been so reliable on defense this year. This shouldn’t be a 38-35 game like last year, but the Chiefs won that too with Mahomes on a high-ankle sprain and now he’s healthy for this one. I just think it’s hard to bet against him, but I do see the path for a San Francisco victory. I’m just not trusting their defense enough to take it. If you gave this offense the 2019 San Francisco defense, then hands down I am picking the 49ers to win this game. But that’s just not the case in 2023.

    I’ll be back tomorrow night with a season-ending recap of it all. Hopefully it’ll be a memorable night cause the more I see the TD odds getting worse for CMC and the field, the more worried I am we’re getting some 17-9 dud as this season has been filled with island game disappointments. But let’s think positively and that both teams will score at least 20 points and give us a lot to talk about.

    Final: Chiefs 24, 49ers 20 (Super Bowl MVP: Patrick Mahomes)

    NFL Stat Oddity: 2023 Conference Championship Games

    ~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

    We were so close to ending the season how it started, but the Detroit Lions lost a heartbreaker in San Francisco after blowing a 24-7 halftime lead. It happened so quickly too as ball security doomed the Lions.

    Ball security was the concern for the Chiefs this year, but outside of a Mecole Hardman lowlight for the ages in Buffalo, they avoided those mistakes this postseason, and that’s why they are heading to their fourth Super Bowl in the last five years. Only the 1990-93 Bills and 2014-18 Patriots can say they’ve done that.

    Experience really did seem to win out Sunday as the Chiefs and 49ers have been in the last several championship games while the Lions and Ravens sunk in unchartered water for those franchises. You saw the Chiefs handle business early and late while the Ravens imploded. The Lions started so strong, but we’ll talk about that horrific third quarter that ended them.

    Both road teams covered in games decided by a grand total of 10 points, but there was actually just 1 lead change all day, and the Ravens technically didn’t have a 4th-quarter comeback attempt as they never had the ball when trailing by 1-8 points. But that still means they finished this season without a single game-winning drive.

    There is a lot to cover, not just from Sunday’s games but also from past talking points from earlier in the season that played out amusingly on Championship Sunday. It is a Super Bowl rematch at the end of the year, but it’s 54 and not 47.

    Music to my ears.

    This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

    Chiefs at Ravens: Patrick Mahomes + Elite Defense = Nightmare Combo for NFL

    I had to break this one down into sections to make sure all the talking points are covered.

    Giving Flowers to the Right Guy for This One

    I am going to start by praising someone who should go down as one of the key contributors to this Kansas City run that still has a shot at getting the dynasty label if they can finish the job in Vegas.

    Steve Spagnuolo is an all-time great defensive coordinator, and this run probably isn’t what it is if the team never hired him in 2019. Those 2018 Chiefs were so explosive on offense and so terrible on defense under coordinator Bob Sutton. That’s how you lose a 54-51 game to Jared Goff. If they didn’t make that switch after the title game loss to the Patriots, I think you’d see these early Mahomes seasons as another one of those offensive juggernauts that watches their defense get shredded every January and has an empty trophy case.

    Spagnuolo never found success as a head coach, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be a great coordinator and specialist. He fits that mold. The 2007 Super Bowl run with the Giants is his biggest achievement when he held the 18-0 Patriots to 14 points in Super Bowl 42.

    But even that year, his regular season defense left something to be desired, and the same was true in Kansas City until this year when they had great numbers across the board, they never allowed more than 27 points in any game, and they allowed the fewest points after halftime with his adjustments.  But in big games, you can usually trust Spags to deliver something. They sacked Joe Burrow 5 times in last year’s AFC Championship Game, and they were all over Lamar Jackson in Baltimore on Sunday.

    In a league where so many of the top defensive minds have repeatedly seen their defenses tank in the playoffs and make opponents look better than average (yeah, we’re calling out Mike Tomlin and Sean McDermott, among others), Spagnuolo usually exceeds expectations with his defense.

    This is Andy Reid’s offense, but Spagnuolo is his defensive ace in the hole. Another great job on Sunday.

    The Unbelievable Start

    Over bettors (44.5) have to be in shambles this one ended 17-10, because the start of the game was unbelievable stuff.

    The Chiefs were right to kick off after winning the coin toss. I liked receiving first for the underdogs in the last two rounds, but the Chiefs are a veteran team, and an early 7-0 hole isn’t going to bother them. But they started things properly with a three-and-out, then the offense went to work with another brilliant opening drive in a playoff game.

    Patrick Mahomes would set a tone for the day that he was going to get the ball out quickly and to his best players. He converted a 4th-and-2 with a nice grab by Travis Kelce for 13 yards, and it was right back to Kelce with safety Kyle Hamilton in coverage for a 19-yard touchdown to open the scoring.

    The Ravens were able to answer with a helter-skelter drive where Lamar Jackson almost got called for intentional grounding after a deep retreat, took off for 21 yards on a 4th-and-1 QB Power run from his own 34, then avoided a sack from Willie Gay’s replacement at linebacker only to find Zay Flowers alone for a 30-yard touchdown to tie the game. Wild stuff, but you can see early on from that drive that the Chiefs were bringing it after finishing No. 2 in pressure rate and sacks this season.

    The Chiefs answered with another great drive where they converted all 4 of their third-down opportunities, including a ridiculous play from Mahomes to Kelce where he held the ball for nearly 10 seconds, and Kelce made a great diving catch. Isiah Pacheco finished the drive off with a 2-yard touchdown run a few minutes into the second quarter.

    After three straight touchdown drives, this looked like it might be a wild shootout, proving a couple of multiple MVP winners outweigh the presence of the top two scoring defenses. But that would be the end of the touchdowns for the day.

    The Defenses Step Up

    Remember how the Chiefs almost got to Jackson on the touchdown drive? They got to him good on the ensuing drive, and the blindside hit produced a strip-sack and the Chiefs suddenly had the ball at the Baltimore 33.

    But instead of taking a 21-7 lead, the Chiefs were stopped after driving 20 yards and turned it over on downs. It looked like Kelce had a 3rd-and-9 conversion, but the replay proved he was just a hair short. The Chiefs’ refusal to run the quarterback sneak since Mahomes was injured (dislocated kneecap) on that play in Denver in 2019 is a real bummer, because they are depriving themselves of the most effective play from scrimmage in this game. They tried to run Pacheco for the 4th-and-1, but he was stuffed and the Chiefs blew the opportunity from the fumble.

    Without standout guard Joe Thuney available, the Chiefs didn’t have much of a strong push in the interior line against a tough defense, especially after those first two drives. The backs only finished with 69 yards on 25 carries.

    Then when Jackson caught his own pass on a deflection for a 13-yard gain, it was starting to look like maybe this would be Baltimore’s day after another shaky start. This play was shades of Tennessee’s Marcus Mariota catching his own pass and scoring a touchdown in the 2017 wild card upset in Arrowhead.

    Incredibly, Jackson went to halftime with only 4 completions besides that play. The Chiefs did not let him get into a rhythm, and some of the play-calling from Baltimore was questionable. How does Gus Edwards get 1 carry in the first half when it went for 15 yards? I used to think under Greg Roman that Jackson would struggle in these Kansas City games because he’d try to keep up with Mahomes as a passer, and that’s just not what Baltimore is built to do.

    Now you go to this game, and the Ravens had more passing efficiency this year than in years past, but the Chiefs have the right mixture of pass rush and strong corner play to make things very hard on Jackson. And if we’re being honest, was a receiving corps of Zay Flowers (rookie), Odell Beckham Jr. (aged veteran), and marginal receivers like Nelson Agholor (drops) and Rashod Bateman (ghostly at times) really all that great to begin with? Throw in Mark Andrews just coming back from injury.

    Count that as another reason I was not buying the Baltimore offensive hype for why Jackson should win MVP. This was a good rushing team that is made better by Jackson’s rushing threat and production (especially as a scrambler), and they took advantage of the best field position from having the best defense to score more points than expected.

    But they weren’t getting those short fields in this game. Even when they did, they did nothing with it like the drive with 2:47 left in the half. The Ravens started at their own 41, and it was a big opportunity to tie the game. But the offense went 3-and-out after Jackson threw a couple of incompletions.

    The Chiefs took over with 1:46 left at their own 11, and the Ravens started to lose their composure with a couple of 15-yard penalties for unnecessary roughness on the defense, including a roughing the passer call for hitting Mahomes in the face. It may have been accidental, but it was a big shot to the face and an easy call.

    But the Chiefs stalled just shy of the red zone after guard Trey Smith was called for back-to-back holding penalties. The second one wiped out a 33-yard touchdown on a screen to Rashee Rice, but it didn’t look like much of a hold either. The Chiefs ended up settling fo a 52-yard field goal, and Harrison Butker did well to split the uprights.

    The Chiefs led 17-7 at halftime, flipping the script on the front-running Ravens who were used to leading at the half this year. But the Chiefs no doubt left some opportunities on the field for even more points.

    The Scoreless Third

    Again, the Chiefs allowed the fewest points after halftime this season, and their own offense had some issues at times after the half as well. Remember the 3-week stretch where they didn’t score a single point after halftime against the Broncos, Dolphins, and Eagles?

    It happened again this time, adding to the misery of the Ravens that they couldn’t win a game where the Chiefs scored 3 points on their final 9 drives. In fact, the Chiefs are only the 7th team to win a playoff game where they didn’t score more than 17 points and didn’t score after halftime. It hadn’t happened since the 2005 Redskins beat Tampa Bay 17-10, the game I remember best for watching the weekend the furnace broke and it was bitter cold.

    But it was fascinating watching these defenses repeatedly stop these offenses, especially after the way the game started with those 3 straight touchdown drives.

    The Chiefs were not getting effective runs, center Creed Humphrey’s snaps were getting lower and lower, and the Ravens were getting wise to the short passes out to Rice and the running backs. They kept stifling those for no gain or even a loss of yards.

    But the Ravens really weren’t doing any better outside of the odd completion to a running back in the flat. But after getting into Kansas City territory, Jackson was sacked on a 3rd-and-9 and knocked out of field goal range. The Ravens had to punt.

    I read on Twitter the lights went out in the stadium during break, and my mind went to Super Bowl 47 (49ers-Ravens) when that happened in New Orleans. The Ravens were up big at the time, and the 49ers got back in the game after that delay. I was thinking are these hypocrites going to be okay with this possibly helping the Ravens calm down and finish this comeback? Did they purposely try it after what happened in that Super Bowl?

    Well, it was done on purpose by Baltimore, and it was for a reason as corny as you could think of. They brought out Terrell Suggs to pump up the crowd and team. I didn’t even think you were allowed to do something like that except for before the kickoff. Talk about desperate.

    But the Chiefs did go 3-and-out in their own end. When the Ravens got the ball back, Flowers was all alone for a 54-yard gain, but then he made the stupid decision of taunting and drew a 15-yard flag. Take your pick for that one. It could have been for standing over the receiver, throwing the ball at him, or talking trash. Just a stupid mistake to lose some of the yards from the longest play of the game.

    But that mistake was quickly forgotten about as the game moved to the 4th quarter with the Ravens still down 17-7.

    The Final Quarter

    Flowers giveth and Flowers taketh away. He had a hard game to analyze because he made big plays with 115 yards and the team’s only touchdown. But he also self-destructed this drive and entered playoff lore with a fumble for the highlight reels for years to come. Earnest Byner? Jeremy Hill? Jerome Bettis? You have company from a division mate.

    On the first play of the quarter, Flowers took a short pass from Jackson and looked like he was going to score. But the ball came out and the Chiefs recovered in the end zone for a touchback. Did he break the plane first for a score? I thought he did live, but replay was definitive and L’Jarius Sneed made perhaps his biggest play for the Chiefs with a forced fumble:

    https://twitter.com/YahooSports/status/1751734825294397674/video/1

    Incredible play. According to Next Gen Stats, this fumble cut Baltimore’s win probability in half from 28.3% to 13.5%. But it still felt like the Ravens had a chance if only because the Chiefs did not capitalize on a few opportunities to grow the lead.

    But speaking of incredible plays, Mahomes took his first sack of the game and he almost got out of it before Jadeveon Clowney, who was penalized for roughing the passer on the previous play, got him down.

    You really don’t want to see him bending like that in the playoffs, but that was close to an escape. But the Chiefs had to punt again, and it was a hell of a punt as it pinned the Ravens at their 1 with 10:35 left.

    If Lamar wanted a legacy drive to restore some faith in this game, this was the chance. The field was obviously a long one to drive, but I can’t say the Ravens were helping themselves to make it look possible. When Jackson scrambled on a 3rd-and-1, I thought for sure he was waiting for a lane to take off for a scramble and first down, but he only hesitated more and took a sack for a 2-yard loss.

    That was the moment where it felt like the Chiefs won the game if he’s making that kind of play on a 3rd-and-1. But the Chiefs really could have won the game if they stopped the Ravens on 4th-and-3 from their own 18 as I thought that was a ballsy call by John Harbaugh. Sure, they could justify going for that, but the defense was playing great and it’s game over without that conversion. But Jackson converted with a 6-yard pass to Odell Beckham, and that seemed to ease some pressure for the time being.

    Agholor caught a 39-yard deep ball to get this drive moving faster, but two plays later, Jackson threw a pick in the end zone despite three defenders around tight end Isaiah Likely. Why in the world was Likely putting his hand up like he was Randy Moss? He wasn’t open.

    Only 6:45 remained, but this was Kansas City’s second takeaway of the quarter. It was the first time since Week 7 against the Chargers that the Chiefs had multiple takeaways in a game. Ouch, Ravens. Ouch.

    But the Chiefs went 3-and-out again after Mahomes was sacked for the second time. A good punt return gave the Ravens their best starting field position of the day at their 46, and they were able to set up a 43-yard field goal from Justin Tucker with 2:34 left to make it 17-10. Did the officials swallow their whistles a bit in the fourth quarter? Yeah, you could say that. But I don’t think there was anything egregious enough worth a flag on those final Baltimore throws. Jackson didn’t even have an intended target on the last one as he looked to throw it away out of bounds.

    The Chiefs had 2:34 left to burn. Mahomes probably hasn’t been quite the God of 4-minute offense like he was in that 2020 season when he was automatic at putting the game away, but this was the opportunity here. The Ravens started the drive with too many men on the field for a 5-yard penalty, which is an embarrassing way to start a drive. Was it intentional? I’m not sure it could be to give any real advantage. Now knocking a lineman over pre-snap like the Ravens did on the next play, that was surely intentional to manipulate the clock. The Ravens even got popped for a 15-yard flag for that one, but the end result was 6 seconds passes and the Chiefs still had 1st-and-10 after moving up 20 yards.

    After holding Pacheco to gains of -1 and 2 yards, the Ravens had what they wanted with a 3rd-and-9 at the 2:19 mark after having used their final timeout. A conversion wins the game for the Chiefs, and a stop gives the Ravens one more chance. It had to be a pass all the way.

    The Ravens only rushed 4, and Mahomes decided to go deep to the unlikeliest of targets in Marquez Valdes-Scantling, but the receiver who seems to only show up for Championship Sunday made his best play all year with a 32-yard grab while falling down to complete the process of the catch. Here, it’s even better with the Korean audio calling it:

    That’s ballgame. In the regular season, MVS likely drops that pass, and the Ravens get another shot. Maybe they blow it quickly. Maybe they force overtime with a touchdown. Maybe they win by going for 2. But the Chiefs avoided all of that drama because MVS finally just made the play and it clinched another playoff win, the 14th for this core group since 2018.

    In the end, the best team won, the best quarterback won, and while the Ravens finished strong on defense, the Chiefs made the bigger plays on that side of the ball as well.

    Lamar Jackson: Not Saying I Told You So, But…

    I had a tweet go somewhat viral this week – almost 500,000 views for a longform post with no pictures or video is pretty good – that irked some fans of the Chiefs, Bills, and Ravens who largely misinterpreted what I was saying.

    My point was Josh Allen is a great quarterback, Mahomes is better, but quarterback play is not how the Bills are ever going to get past the Chiefs and into a Super Bowl. They need their defense to step up and make Mahomes look mortal or knock him down a peg in a playoff game instead of making him even better than usual. Apparently, Joe Burrow and Tom Brady are the lucky ones who got their defenses to do that to Mahomes for a half or a full Super Bowl, or they won a coin toss in overtime and got the ball again unlike Josh in the 13 Seconds game. Buffalo’s failures on defense are why they haven’t gotten the job done despite the league’s 2nd-best record since 2019 and a 3-1 regular-season record against Mahomes. They implode defensively in the playoffs against Mahomes, and it isn’t Allen’s job to defend him better.

    Along the way, I brought up Lamar Jackson and the fact he is 0-3 in the playoffs when the Ravens allow more than 13 points (0-4 now). I said he would implode against the Chiefs in those playoff games that Allen lost to them with Buffalo.

    I’m not even going to repeat some of the ridiculous things people said to me about that part, but the idea that I was taking a shot at Lamar for no reason is just not true. He was Kansas City’s next opponent, and he is a top peer of Allen’s and Mahomes’ in this AFC. His history is relevant, and knowing his history as I did, that’s why my claim he would implode was not at all baseless. I had strong reasons to feel that way:

    • Lamar was 1-3 against the high-flying Chiefs of 2018-21, only winning in 2021 against their worst defense in a game where he still threw multiple picks and needed CEH to fumble in game-winning field goal territory.
    • Lamar is 3-14 against playoff teams that score more than 21 points against his team.
    • Why more than 21? Mahomes led the Chiefs to at least 22 points in 15-of-16 career playoff games before Sunday.
    • Why not include 21 points? Because scoring 21 points is a below-average scoring figure for every NFL season since 2007.
    • Finally, Lamar was 0-3 in the playoffs when teams scored more than 13 points, already losing 23-17 to the Chargers and 17-3 to Buffalo in a game where he threw a pick-six.

    When you mix all of that together as I do in my mind, why would I expect anything but an implosion if he had to face a Kansas City team in the playoffs that scored 38, 42, and 27 points the way the Chiefs did against Allen’s Buffalo defense?

    Sure enough, he imploded against the Chiefs in the playoffs, but it was in a low-scoring game, which makes it even worse. The Chiefs only scored 17 points on 11 drives. You’ll take that against Mahomes any chance you get. Even 17 points on 10 drives (Chiefs ran out clock on last drive) is great work by the defense.

    The Ravens scored 10 points on 10 drives, which tied their lowest scoring output of the season with Lamar at quarterback. In fact, the team lost a pair of 17-10 games to Pittsburgh, and now it’s another 17-10 game in the playoffs. And Jackson was much better in that Pittsburgh loss than he was on Sunday. At least he can blame his receivers for dropping a couple of touchdowns that day.

    He can blame Flowers for costing him a second touchdown drive in this game with that fumble at the 1, but this is still highly disappointing stuff in what was supposed to be his year with everything aligning and all the dominant wins over good teams they had.

    But again, this continues to make Lamar look like a big outlier as he is now 4-for-4 at scoring his season low in the playoffs.

    • Lamar Jackson (100%): four times in four postseasons (2018, 2019, 2020, 2023-T)
    • Joe Flacco (28.6%): twice in seven postseasons (2009, 2023)
    • Philip Rivers (28.6%): twice in seven postseasons (2007, 2009)
    • Tom Brady (25.0%): five times in 20 postseasons (2005, 2007, 2011-T, 2012, 2019-T)
    • Cam Newton (25.0%): once in four postseasons (2015)
    • Peyton Manning (20.0%): three times in 15 postseasons (2002, 2004, 2013)
    • Josh Allen (20.0%): once in five postseasons (2022)
    • Matthew Stafford (20.0%): once in five postseasons (2016-T)
    • Patrick Mahomes (16.7%): once in six postseasons (2020)
    • Matt Ryan (16.7%): once in six postseasons (2011)
    • Russell Wilson (12.5%): once in eight postseasons (2015)
    • Drew Brees (10.0%): once in 10 postseasons (2020)
    • Dak Prescott (0.0%): zero times in 5 postseasons
    • Aaron Rodgers (0.0%): zero times in 11 postseasons
    • Ben Roethlisberger (0.0%): zero times in 12 postseasons

    This was also Jackson’s fourth wire-to-wire playoff loss (never led), so if you’re still going to try comparing him to early Peyton Manning in the playoffs, just stop. It’s not close.

    And it’s not like I was all for keeping this narrative alive, but you have to when this is the performance he’s putting out there in the biggest game of his career. For a change, I’d like to actually say I predicted a season’s Super Bowl winner before Week 1. I was not on the Kansas City repeat train. At least not until about 6:20 PM ET on Sunday.

    The Ravens were my preseason Super Bowl pick and Lamar was my Super Bowl MVP. I got that one wrong again, but I really thought this could be their year, and they had what they needed with home-field advantage, a great defense, the best kicker, better receivers and scheme under the new offensive coordinator.

    But this looked like your same old Ravens and same old Lamar in a big game. I actually think he should have ran the ball more than he did, because that’s where he still looks most comfortable and dangerous to me.

    That’s why I never bought into the MVP surge for him that only came late in December after they had those big wins against the 49ers and Dolphins. But if you followed the season closely, you know that wasn’t your typical MVP season or offense. They had the shortest fields thanks to the defense that was No. 1 at points allowed, sacks, and takeaways.

    I wrote earlier this week that any team that loses to Gardner Minshew, Kenny Pickett, and Deshaun Watson can certainly lose to Patrick Mahomes with the best defense of his career. It reminded me of when I said the 2007 Patriots aren’t going undefeated after seeing how they should have lost to A.J. Feeley (Eagles) and Kyle Boller (Ravens) in back-to-back weeks. I had to wait until deep in the Super Bowl for that one to com true.

    I just needed Mahomes and the Chiefs to show up Sunday to take care of this one. And yes, I picked Lamar as the default MVP, because no one else deserved it. He doesn’t either as I have repeatedly said no one had a true MVP season in 2023. The race was always cooked, and someone was going to steal it late. I fundamentally don’t believe a quarterback should win MVP when their team is clearly driven by the best defense instead of the offense. Hopefully that won’t happen again in the future, but it was unavoidable with this season’s race.

    The Five-Year Rule

    If the Super Bowl couldn’t happen for them this year, when does it happen for the Ravens with Lamar? Does it ever happen with John Harbaugh as the coach, or do they move on there eventually? We’ve said similar things about Josh Allen and Sean McDermott in Buffalo, and sure enough, the Five-Year Rule survived its toughest challenge yet.

    That was the article I wrote for FiveThirtyEight in 2017 about how no team has ever won its first Super Bowl starting the same quarterback for the same coach for more than 5 seasons.

    Both drafted in 2018, this was already Year 6 for McDermott-Allen and Harbaugh-Jackson. I thought maybe the Ravens got some extra life for Lamar having back-to-back December injuries in 2021-22, so he didn’t really get a normal 5 seasons.

    But nope, Mahomes and the Chiefs went on the road and slayed them both again. And this was supposed to be the worst Kansas City team with the worst offense and receivers. Remember, this Kansas City team lost at home to the Raiders with Andrew Walter Aidan O’Connell not completing a pass after the first quarter on Christmas. That was barely a full month ago.

    But Mahomes continues to be the outlier. Maybe if he did get drafted by Chicago in 2017, the Bills and Ravens would have already been to a Super Bowl each. Maybe they still lose those games, but they should have at least been ready in the post-Brady AFC to take advantage.

    Allen’s offensive output against the Chiefs in January has been just fine. It’s his defense that needs to step up. As I correctly predicted and we now have a data point of proof, Lamar’s offensive output against the Chiefs in the playoffs was trash today, and he is the one who needs to step up more than his defense in the postseason. That’s also evident by literally every playoff run of his career.

    I hope that clears up why I talk about Allen as the best young active quarterback in the playoffs behind Mahomes. But like the rest of the league, they’re all looking up to the best player in the game.

    Mahomes Is 1 of 1

    Finally, what more can you say about Mahomes? Give him an elite defense and he’s right back in the Super Bowl. His QBR this postseason is also 90.2, which would be the 5th-highest since 2006 (min. 2 games).

    It was a down year in the regular season for sure, but my argument for months has been that his play has not slipped as much as the mistakes around him (drops, fumbles, penalties) have shot up. It was always an outlier to have as many significant drops and penalties as they had to take away game-winning plays against the Lions, Eagles, and Bills, all playoff teams.

    If they could just limit those mistakes, they were going to have a good shot at repeating behind Mahomes and the best defense of his career, and here we are. He’s now at 14 playoff wins, already tying him for 3rd all time with the likes of Terry Bradshaw, John Elway, and Peyton Manning.

    Never won a road playoff game? Took care of that with a pair, and he was an underdog both times. That also gives him one up on Joe Montana and Tom Brady, who did something very similar the game before they won their 3rd Super Bowl ring:

    • In the 1988 NFC Championship Game before he won his 3rd Super Bowl, Joe Montana beat the No. 1 scoring defense (Bears) on the road in a 28-3 win (49ers were favored by 2).
    • In the 2004 AFC Championship Game before he won his 3rd Super Bowl, Tom Brady beat the No. 1 scoring defense (Steelers) on the road in a 41-27 win (Patriots were favored by 3).

    Mahomes can win his 3rd ring now after beating the No. 1 scoring defense (Ravens) on the road in the AFC title game, but he also did it as a 4.5-point underdog.

    Twenty years ago, I thought the 2003 AFC Championship Game ruined quarterback discourse for the next two decades when Tom Brady tried matching Peyton Manning pick for pick but only one defense made the quarterback pay for his mistakes. I thought the 2023 AFC Championship Game could have been a significant factor in how the next decade is viewed for quarterbacks, and maybe it will be.

    But it will be to show that Mahomes is just in his own class right now.

    The AFC let him get through last year on a high-ankle sprain. Having his health and a great defense is almost unfair now.

    Lions at 49ers: Third Quarter from Hell Ends Dream Season for Detroit

    I always thought the Lions (+7.5) had a decent shot this week despite the spread, because this team can score, it can run and pass, it can shut down the run, and you just know Dan Campbell is going to do some aggressive things.

    Campbell is certainly facing criticism for his decisions in this game, but I don’t think that’s where Detroit lost its 24-7 lead. It was largely from one terrible quarter after what was nearly a flawless half.

    The Lions were dominating on the ground with Jameson Williams scoring a 42-yard touchdown run and looking more like Deebo Samuel on the play to start the game. The 49ers missed a 48-yard field goal from rookie Jake Moody, exactly the type of break an underdog needs.

    Brock Purdy forced a bad ball in the second quarter that was intercepted and not dropped this time, and that set up another Detroit touchdown run for a 21-7 lead. Purdy was a bit off again despite having Deebo back this week.

    The Lions used the final 5 minutes of the half to get a field goal, and you’re almost shocked they decided to kick it from the 3-yard line given how much Campbell loves to go for it. But that was the right call as only 10 seconds remained, you don’t get the advantage of field position should you fail, and the 49ers were getting the ball to start the next half. Going up 24-7 was the right move.

    At that point, Campbell and the Lions really could do no wrong. But after the 49ers quickly got a field goal, the Lions went on a fateful drive that changed everything. Their win probability was over 90% as they led 224-10 and were driving again after scoring on 4-of-5 drives in the first half.

    But on a 4th-and-2 at the San Francisco 28, Campbell bypassed the 46-yard field goal and kept his offense on the field. Jared Goff threw a solid pass and Josh Reynolds just dropped the conversion. I think it was the right call as the Lions do not have a great kicker like a Matt Prater (former Lion), let alone Justin Tucker or Harrison Butker. I think trying to make the 49ers go down 21 was the right call, or you could also work on more clock and kick a shorter field goal that’s more likely to go in and make it a 17-point game again. My beef is with Reynolds for dropping it, not the call itself.

    But that’s kind of where the game was lost. Reynolds didn’t make a fairly easy catch, and the 49ers had the break of the game when a deep ball for Brandon Aiyuk clanked off the facemask of defender Kindle Vildor, and Aiyuk caught it on the deflection for a huge 51-yard gain.

    There was a flag initially thrown on the play but it was picked up entirely. That doesn’t mean it was declined, it was just not called, so if Vidor could catch, that’s an interception for Detroit. Instead, it’s a 51-yard gain and the longest play of the game. Do I have my new LOAT target in Purdy?

    Aiyuk finished that drive for a touchdown to make it 24-17, then the Lions fumbled on a funky looking handoff to Jahmyr Gibbs on the very next snap, setting up the 49ers from 24 yards out for the tying touchdown, which they got on the ground with Christian McCaffrey.

    It only took the 49ers about 12 minutes to erase that 17-point deficit. It just felt like the Lions were cooked at that point, and they did respond with a 3-and-out after Reynolds had another atrocious drop on 3rd-and-long that would have extended that drive.

    The 49ers drove into scoring range after a big pass to George Kittle (28 yards) for his only positive gain of the game, but it was a big one. Despite back-to-back sacks by the Lions to stall the drive, the 49ers took their first lead at 27-24 with a 33-yard field goal.

    The Lions moved the ball but were facing a 4th-and-3 at the San Francisco 30 with 7:38 left. I know it’s in the team’s DNA to go for it, but I think you really have to consider the field goal here. The 49ers were hot, your offense was a mess this half, and 48 yards is a reasonable kick. But the Lions went for it, and Goff was unable to connect with Amon-Ra St. Brown with half a quarter left. Uh-oh.

    I know the other factor is kicker Michael Badgley is not a great player at all, and he could have easily missed that kick. But I’m just not sure going for it was the right call in that spot. If they were closer, I could see it, but time was a factor now, and you are playing an offense good enough to put the game away with another score.

    That ended up being exactly what happened too. Now this debate with Purdy and system quarterbacks will wage on, but he is a better runner than Jimmy Garoppolo ever was, and his legs were very effective as a scrambler in this game. He was able to rip off a 21-yard run on a 3rd-and-4 from midfield that had to rip the hearts out of Detroit fans.

    Then when McCaffrey finally had a big gain with a 25-yard run to the 3, you could see the end was a snap or two away. The 49ers punched it in and led 34-24 with 3:02 left. The Detroit Super Bowl dream was all but dead.

    The hope was to get a touchdown while saving all the timeouts and having enough time to get a field goal or touchdown. They almost pulled it off, but I thought a pass in the flat to Anthony Firkser was a huge missed opportunity as he didn’t score on the play and instead got out at the 1-yard line. At least he got out to stop the clock, but when David Montgomery got stuffed for a 2-yard loss on 3rd down, that destroyed the drive. The Lions ended up having to burn a precious timeout, then decided to go for the touchdown anyway on 4th-and-goal given the dire prospects. Fortunately, Williams came down with a nice touchdown grab and that made it 34-31 with 56 seconds left.

    But since they burned that timeout, it was all coming down to the onside kick. Those have gotten so hard to do and the number this year was reportedly 2-for-41 (4.9%). The Lions had a faint glimmer of hope for a second, but the 49ers recovered, and it would have been a penalty on Detroit for touching the ball before 10 yards anyway to negate a recovery. The game was over after the 49ers ran out every last second.

    Just pure heartbreak for Detroit because they were so close and looked so good at halftime. I think the poor ball security killed them more than any choice to go for 4th down did, and maybe if they had a better kicker, they’d trust that more. You never know if you are going to get back to this point, but you have to think maybe Williams can develop into their WR2 to replace an awful Reynolds performance, and the best days could be ahead for Sam LaPorta and Jahmyr Gibbs. There’s some hope there but NFC is tough as it usually has a new flash in the pan team every year.

    But one mainstay has been the 49ers, who are going to the Super Bowl for the 2nd time since 2019 and it’s a rematch with the Chiefs again. I’ll have to write so much about this game the next two weeks that it’s pointless to go into it now, but I think it can be a great game again. But it should be different from LIV.

    If you told me the 49ers would trail after halftime the way they have this postseason, I’d never believe they made it to the Super Bowl. But they answered the bell with overcoming adversity, and you could still say they haven’t played their best on either side of the ball yet this postseason.

    I hope these 2 weeks go quickly, because that should be a fun night in Vegas with this matchup. But definitely am a little bummed out the Lions didn’t finish the job and give their fan bases a Super Bowl appearance.

    Next 2 weeks: I’m happy. The last thing I wanted was a Super Bowl with both No. 1 seeds as I always believed since Christmas night that would have produced an awful, one-sided game. And I was not looking forward to 2 weeks of researching if a pair of front-running teams can produce a close game or writing about “if Brock Purdy can just avoid the turnovers on deflected balls.” Well, I might still write something like that multiple times with many pieces to come on this game, but 49ers-Chiefs provides good writing opportunities with a recent history and teams that have changed quite a bit from 2019. I can dig it as the game to decide this 2023 season.

    NFL 2023 Conference Championship Game Predictions

    ~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

    After a long week, it’s almost time for Championship Sunday. Both No. 1 seeds are favored but crazier things have happened before. Final score predictions below.

    This Week’s Articles

    NFL Conference Championship Game Predictions

    Here is my grid for picks this weekend. Many of the props are explained in the links above.

    Chiefs at Ravens (-4.5)

    It seems like every year when the Chiefs are in a big game like this, I go back to my Super Bowl LIV preview before they beat the 2019 49ers and the same logic applies to the next game.

    This is a game that a team like the Ravens should win most of the time. They have home-field advantage (a good one at that), they have the No. 1 defense, No. 1 running game, a quarterback playing with a chip on his shoulder who is about to get the MVP award again, the best kicker in the game, a coach who has won big games before, and they have killed some top teams this year. Meanwhile, the Chiefs are challenged at wide receiver, have a poor turnover differential, don’t often start games well, don’t protect the ball well, and it probably is going to rain during the game to possibly exacerbate these ball security issues with drops and fumbles against a ball-hawking defense and front-running team.

    All that said, the Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes, and that usually is good enough to win the game. He’s 3-1 against the Ravens and would be 4-0 if CEH didn’t fumble in game-winning field goal territory in the last matchup in 2021. He’s 12-2 against top 5 defenses (7-0 away from Arrowhead), he’s 13-3 in the playoffs, and he’s 8-3 as an underdog. He even comes into this game with his best defense as this is a matchup of the top two scoring defenses, so that differential is more on his side this week than in past big games this time of year.

    If the Chiefs can cut down on their mistakes, and Kadarius Toney is inactive again (that helps), I think they win the game. But the Ravens were my preseason Super Bowl pick, Lamar Jackson was my Super Bowl MVP pick, and I’ve been predicting doom in the playoffs for the Chiefs since October:

    Not going to change my pick now, so here we go. KC to cover but another egregious mistake by one of Mahomes’ teammates costs them the repeat bid.

    Final: Ravens 24, Chiefs 21

    Lions at 49ers (-7.5)

    It sounds like Deebo Samuel is playing, which doesn’t help Detroit’s cause as they try to make their first Super Bowl. In a weird way, I think if the Chiefs win the first game, the Lions are winning this game to set up that rematch from opening night. Otherwise, it’s No. 1 vs. No. 1 in the SB, and I’m not sure how many times I can keep writing for 2 weeks how Brock Purdy needs to protect the ball better against that defense this time.

    But isn’t that always the case with Purdy and this team? They don’t have normal weaknesses, and they actually showed they could win a close game and overcome some adversity last week against Green Bay. If he doesn’t throw a pick parade, you have to like their chances against anybody, but I am looking to see how the defense fares against one of the best offenses they’ll see this year.

    The problem is Detroit comes in with the No. 23 defense and has allowed 5 straight quarterbacks to pass for 345+ yards. They’ve still gone 4-1 in those games and would have been 5-0 if not for a certain ending in Dallas, but that kind of bad secondary play is going to catch up to you, and the 49ers obviously scheme open receivers better than any team in the league. That’s why I love Brandon Aiyuk to step up and dominate this week, though the return of Deebo could hurt that. Watch it be a George Kittle masterclass instead. That’s the problem for Detroit, the 49ers are just loaded.

    But I am going to be keenly watching for how aggressive Dan Campbell is as a road underdog. He’s had it a little easy at home as a favorite these last two playoff games. Curious to see how many 4th downs he goes for, if he does anything like a fake punt or surprise onside to steal a possession. Anything to win the game.

    But in the end, I think the 49ers are too balanced and simply better than the Lions, so I have to go with the home team. But the Lions should be able to cover even if it’s through the backdoor.

    Final: 49ers 30, Lions 23

    NFL Stat Oddity: 2023 Divisional Round

    ~ Scott ~ 2 Comments

    Block out the first game of the weekend, and the NFL playoffs were back with points, lead changes, game-winning drives, game-ending interceptions, and questionable coaching decisions and flags from the officials. All the real drama this postseason was lacking last week.

    Also, I’d love to see one of the charting sites confirm if this postseason has had more dropped interceptions than actual interceptions, because it sure feels like it has. The fact that Jordan Love and Baker Mayfield were the only quarterbacks to have a pick in their stat line this weekend is crazy, and even half of the pair they each threw was a deflection off their own receiver.

    We also were reminded that kickers are people too, and like people, it sucks when they are too far right or far left. The Packers and Bills got a dose of that in their latest January exits.

    But the streak of 27 quarters this postseason without a lead change ended Saturday night in San Francisco in a big way, and the games continued being competitive through Sunday too. It sets up a Championship Sunday where the No. 1 seeds (Ravens-49ers) will host the No. 3 seeds (Chiefs-Lions), and I know damn well which rematch I’d rather see in Super Bowl 58.

    (Hint: It’s how this season started.)

    But before we get to that, let’s go over the four games from this weekend.

    This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

    Chiefs at Bills: History Did Repeat Itself (But It Was Buffalo Wide Right)

    I spent the week comparing this game to the 2006 AFC Championship Game, which was played 17 years ago to the date on Sunday when the Colts came back from a 21-3 deficit to win 38-34 and slay that New England dragon in the playoffs so they could win a Super Bowl.

    Well, history did repeat itself in Buffalo, but it looked more like Super Bowl 25 with the Bills playing the role of the ball-control Giants before ultimately revealing themselves to be who we thought they were: Buffalo, the wide right team. The drought continues for another year.

    The Chiefs coughed up their worst Obligatory Fumble yet, and even that wasn’t enough for Buffalo to take this game. I am not going to force any more old narratives on this game and will just go over the facts of what happened. But I badly wanted to write early in the fourth quarter that the Kansas City offense was having its best game of the season, and the defense was trying to waste it with its worst.

    That was definitely happening into the fourth quarter. Even though Buffalo never had a play gain more than 18 yards, the combination of effective short throws and a strong ground game (sometimes aided by Josh Allen) was producing points and draining clock at alarming rates for the Chiefs. The Bills had 24 points and were averaging 60 yards per drive on their first 5 possessions.

    In the 3 divisional round games since 2020, the Bills only gave Allen a grand total of 33 carries for 107 yards in non-quarterback rushing support. In this game alone, he had 27 carries for 110 yards.

    Usually, shrinking the game is a good strategy against the Chiefs, because you want to maximize their mistakes like the dropped passes, fumbles, and penalties. Those hurt more if the Chiefs are only getting like 8 drives in the game, which is basically what they had in this one if you ignore the kneeldown to get to halftime after a penalty.

    But the Chiefs didn’t hurt themselves that badly in this game. Sure, Justin Watson could have made a better play on a third-down pass on the opening drive that led to a field goal. Mahomes missed a couple of throws in the end zone, settling for a second field goal. But after those couple of misses, the Chiefs were all business with 3 touchdowns.

    Patrick Mahomes looked great in his first road playoff game as I expected he would. Travis Kelce ended his 7-game drought without a touchdown by scoring twice. Isiah Pacheco chipped in 97 yards. Even MVS looked competent with catches of 32 and 30 yards. In fact, the Chiefs had 8 plays that gained 20 yards, a huge edge over Buffalo (0) that allowed the Chiefs to score 27 points despite barely possessing the ball. The Bills held the ball for 37:03. This is already the third time in his career that Mahomes has led the Chiefs to at least 27 points in a playoff game despite not having the ball for at least 25 minutes. No other quarterback has done that more than once.

    This game was an offensive gem for both teams until the Chiefs scored the go-ahead touchdown (Pacheco 4-yard run) with 14:20 left to take a 27-24 lead. Shortly after that, this one went off the rails.

    To Kansas City’s credit, Steve Spagnuolo’s defense has been great at adjusting in the second half all year. They needed until the fourth quarter to get on track here as Buffalo’s only third-quarter drive was a 15-play, 75-yard touchdown march that took up 8:25. That’s always the concern when you have a team using clock and scoring touchdowns to limit Mahomes’ opportunities.

    But after Allen had another designed run for 8 yards, the defense made their mark with a run stop that got James Cook 3 yards behind the line. Allen’s pass on 3rd-and-5 for Stefon Diggs was batted down at the line and it was a 3-and-out.

    But instead of punting, the Bills ran a fake to Damar Hamlin of all people, and he only gained 2 yards, giving the Chiefs the ball at the Buffalo 32. Supposedly they caught the Chiefs with 10 players on the field and gave it a shot, but I hate that call. It’s just too risky in that spot.

    Pacheco immediately ripped off a 29-yard run to the 3 and it looked like that fake punt was going to be the dagger and put the Bills down 10 points. But I had my most prescient moment of the weekend when I warned Saturday night that the Chiefs could try something excessively stupid with Mecole Hardman in this game:

    Hardman already got a carry earlier in the game and fumbled in the red zone, which the Chiefs were lucky to recover. Sure enough, they gave him the ball again on a trick play and he fumbled it through the end zone, reaching too hard for a touchdown he’d never get. One of the worst rules in football was correctly applied after a Buffalo challenge, and the Chiefs coughed up their worst Obligatory Fumble of the season.

    Just couldn’t help yourself, could you, Andy? No Kadarius Toney (inactive), but you had to make sure Hardman made his mark on this one. I thought that would doom the Chiefs, but again, the run defense made the difference by stopping Cook for a 4-yard loss. Allen threw a deep ball on 3rd-and-12 and Trent Sherfield, playing more for an inactive Gabe Davis, was unable to come down with it. He had a chance.

    The Chiefs also had a chance with solid field position (own 43) to put this one away, and they even got a controversial defensive pass interference penalty to convert a third down when it looked like the contact was made before the ball was released. Thankfully, no one is going to care about that one as the Chiefs punted 3 plays later.

    The Bills took over with 8:23 left and tried to slow-walk this one down the field. The drive was long, but it was almost constant short throws by Allen. By stuffing Cook for -7 yards on the last two series, I think the Chiefs spooked the Bills out of not running anymore. Right or wrong, the Bills put the ball in Allen’s hands on 10 straight plays on this drive.

    It wasn’t going all that great. Allen fumbled on a 3rd-and-10 run and it was a miracle the Chiefs didn’t recover before the Bills did. Looking more and more like fumble bounce fortune was going to end the Chiefs’ season and repeat bid.

    Allen converted a 4th-and-3. Cook eventually received 2 carries on the drive, but they went for no gain and 1 yard. I said this drive was full of short throws, but it started with a deep ball for Diggs, who did a horrible job of locating it.

    Diggs had a season-low 24 yards on 11 targets against the Chiefs in Week 14. This time, he caught 3-of-8 targets for 21 yards, fumbling on the first snap of the game (Bills batted it out of bounds for a penalty), and making that egregious effort. His decline in the second half of a season where he only turned 30 needs to be studied, because this was significant.

    Allen no doubt had love for the short throws in this one, but maybe he was doing it too much. According to Next Gen Stats, Allen’s 16 completions behind the line of scrimmage were tied for the most in any game since 2018.

    Having said that, maybe he could have used a few more at the end of this drive? When these teams met in the divisional round 2 years ago, there were 31 points scored after the 2-minute warning. The game reached that point again, so what would we see this time?

    Well, I think Allen tried to recreate one of his touchdowns to Davis from that game. The receiver (Shakir) was open in the end zone but they didn’t come close to connecting on a bit of a wasted snap that quickly brought up 3rd-and-9. On that one, I really don’t know what the plan was from Allen, but that too was incomplete and thrown away. There were no sacks in the game by either defense.

    You had to go with kicker Tyler Bass from 44 yards out at that point. If you play this game long enough, no kicker is perfect in these situations. But Bass has not established himself yet as someone who you would call reliable in the clutch. After this miss, now you wonder if his career is going to tank like many before him have seen happen after they miss a legacy-defining field goal in the playoffs.

    With 1:43 left, Bass’ kick was wide right, the worst fate you can have as a Buffalo kicker as it immediately recalls what Scott Norwood did at the end of Super Bowl 25, which is sadly still going to be the closest the Bills ever were to winning a Super Bowl.

    The Chiefs just had to hand it to Pacheco twice for a first down, and that was the ball game. The Chiefs held on for a 27-24 win as no points were scored in the final 14:20 after such a stellar start for both offenses. Mahomes’ road playoff debut was a huge success.

    The fake punt didn’t really ruin Buffalo’s game thanks to the Hardman fumble cancelling it out, but would things have gone better without that? Then again, the punter was injured and not doing well all night. Maybe the Bills are just cursed this time of year, and something will always go wrong, and it seems like special teams are often at the forefront of that (Norwood, Music City Miracle, not kicking short to burn time in the 13 seconds game, etc.).

    Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, but three times is a pattern. The Bills can beat the Chiefs by 35 points in the regular season next year and I cannot in good faith pick them to win the next playoff matchup.

    I’m out on Buffalo if Mahomes and the Chiefs are involved.

    Packers at 49ers: Did Love Text a Dick Pic or Incriminating Welfare Scam Question Before His Favreian Interception?

    The future may be bright for the Packers again with Jordan Love at quarterback. But if Saturday night is any indication of things to come, the future may resemble a lot of the past three decades as well.

    Jordan Love paid homage to Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre in the same night by throwing a disastrous game-ending interception and losing to the 49ers in the NFC divisional round. The Packers are now 0-5 in the playoffs since 2012 against the 49ers, including an 0-3 record for coach Matt LaFleur.

    Oh, what could have been this time. Like last week, the Packers won the coin toss and rightfully chose to receive. Take it to that front-running team early. But this time the Packers were stopped in the red zone and held to a field goal, which would become a theme of the night.

    Brock Purdy had an interception dropped right off the bat and in between his completions to Deebo Samuel, who left with an injury after what looked like could have been a huge night for him.

    But the Packers messed up the early second quarter drive when they tried to quickly run a quarterback sneak and Love was ruled short. I hate when teams rush the sneak. The best thing about the play is you can usually convert even when the defense knows it’s coming. Take your time, dig in, and get push. The Packers didn’t get enough push and that was a bad turnover on downs. I never saw any real convincing angle to show Love got it for sure to overturn the call.

    George Kittle struck with a touchdown on Purdy’s best throw of the half, then the 49ers later had a 48-yard field goal blocked to end the half with a 7-6 lead. I honestly wasn’t sure which team should have felt better about that half. Both left chances on the field for more points and the Deebo injury was big.

    The third quarter was some of the best action this postseason. Bo Melton caught a 19-yard touchdown, which was answered by a 39-yard touchdown run from Christian McCaffrey. After 27 straight quarters without a lead change this postseason, we finally had them pouring in. The Packers even had special teams revenge in mind for their horrific performance in the 2021 divisional round loss. They returned a kickoff 73 yards after CMC’s score, but they nearly lost it on a fumble. That set up a 20-yard touchdown drive, and Love threw to Aaron Jones for the 2-point conversion. Speaking of Jones, the Packers had been a bit of an outlier this postseason as the only real road team who was winning games and running the ball well. Jones had 108 yards on a tough run defense, though 53 of that did come on one play.

    But it was enough to take a 21-14 lead into the fourth quarter. Could it have been better? Sure. Love threw behind his tight end and the pass was tipped for an interception, only his second pick in the second half of the season. That set the 49ers up at midfield as the final quarter approached.

    But isn’t a 7-point lead usually enough to beat Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers? Yes and no. The stat they showed during the game was that Shanahan is 0-30 when entering the fourth quarter and trailing by 5+ points. He’s now 1-30. But that isn’t the same as saying Shanahan has never won a game when trailing by 5+ in the 4th quarter. In fact, the 49ers were down 24-17 late when they came back to force overtime against the 2021 Rams in Week 18. That win is how they made the playoffs that year.

    In those playoffs, they were infamously down 10-3 in the fourth against the No. 1 seeded Packers in the divisional round when they blocked a punt for a game-tying touchdown with 4:41 left before winning 13-10 on a last-second field goal.

    That means of the 3 times Shanahan has won a game when trailing by 7 points in the fourth quarter, 2-of-3 were in the playoffs against LaFleur and the Packers. Ouch.

    Shanahan’s 0-for stat, which did not apply here and is still active, is that he is 0-38 when the 49ers trail by at least 8 points in the fourth quarter. We’ll see if that one comes up the rest of this season.

    The season is continuing after a big finish from the team. Rookie kicker Jake Moody had that big game-deciding miss in Cleveland this year, but he looked good on a 52-yard kick on the first snap of the fourth quarter to make it 21-17.

    The 49ers got the ball back and reached the Green Bay 40, but the drive stalled once Purdy tried throwing deep on 3rd-and-10 for Ray-Ray McCloud. That seemed like an insane decision, but that’s what happens when Deebo is out, and Brandon Aiyuk was oddly quiet.

    Jones broke his 53-yard run, and that looked like it might be a dagger. But the Packers stalled again, and rookie kicker Anders Carlson was about to join the infamous list of kickers who choked in the playoffs. He’s had his struggles this year, missing 5 extra points, and this was going to be a 41-yard attempt, which shouldn’t have been so bad. I was worried about Moody for the 49ers, but Carlson should have been the one on my radar instead. Sure enough, he pulled the kick wide left with 6:18 left.

    It wasn’t nearly as bad as what Gary Anderson did for the 1998 Vikings to ruin his perfect season and fail to give his team a late 10-point lead. But it would have been a big kick for Carlson’s team to go up 24-17 with overtime a possibility in the worst-case scenario. But now he left the door open for the 49ers to take the lead and break the hearts of Packers’ fans again.

    I thought Purdy had an underwhelming game and his accuracy was spotty all night. But when it came to the drive of the game, he was money this time. He was 6-of-7 passing with a drop by Kittle. He found Aiyuk for a key 3rd-and-5 pickup. He scrambled for a good 9-yard gain in the red zone. On the next play, McCaffrey took the handoff for an easy 6-yard touchdown run, his second of the game. It almost looked like the Packers let  him score, and given the situation (3rd-and-1, 1:11 left), maybe that was the right call.

    But I hated the idea of Carlson’s next kick being one that would determine if Green Bay still had a season left. He probably wanted no part of that kick either, but first the offense had to get him out there.

    I attacked Favre and Rodgers for years for their performances in these spots. Favre was in the situation a ton, so he had a lot of game-winning drives, but boy did he have a lot more awful turnovers. Rodgers got better at this in the second half of his career, but he was still prone to taking sacks and not being aggressive enough.

    We are still of course learning about Love but yikes, what an impression he left in the biggest moment of his career so far. He had 67 seconds and 3 timeouts, so that is plenty of time to get a field goal even if you had to get that sucker within 35 yards for this kicker to make it.

    It looked a little like pulling teeth to get that initial first down, but sometimes that is the hardest one to get. But after using the first timeout with 52 seconds left, I never imagined Love would make such a reckless, awful throw on 1st-and-10. I don’t know what he thought was going to happen, but Dre Greenlaw was there for another pick. Instead of going down and ending the game, Greenlaw was relentless in trying to return the ball. Did he tell his cash-strapped friends to bet $$$$$ on 49ers -9.5 or something? Jesus Christ, get down, man.

    The 49ers had separate drives with a 53-yard run and a 38-yard completion and scored no points on either drive. They had a 41-yard field goal to take a 7-point lead and missed it. They were maybe 30 yards away from another game-tying field goal attempt and threw a horrific pick that only would have looked more like Favre if Love was wearing Crocs and texting how to defraud the Mississippi Welfare Fund.

    It was a classic Green Bay playoff loss, and it’s good to know the new era is going to share a lot in common with the past two. Better find a Reggie White or Charles Woodson again. Someone who will put down Purdy or hold onto his interception in the big moment.

    But hats off to the 49ers too. This was the kind of game I questioned if they could win since they had no game-winning drives all season and rarely were tested this way. They showed they can overcome a slow start and some adversity like the Deebo injury. It should serve them well the rest of the postseason.

    Buccaneers at Lions: The Baker-Goff Sunday Matinee We Deserved

    Given the lack of history between these teams, I didn’t know what to write to fill up their game preview, so I spent about 1,100 words on showing some appreciation for Jared Goff and Baker Mayfield. They’re both No. 1 picks who have been accused of being play-action merchants and products of Sean McVay and Kevin Stefanski, but both have now won playoff games with different teams, and not anyone can end long playoff droughts for the f’n Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions.

    So, this may not have been your typical divisional round matchup, but the quarterbacks and teams put on a good show in a competitive 31-23 game that got increasingly higher scoring as the talent took over.

    Early on, the defenses were making it tough to earn anything. Mayfield had a pass deflected off Mike Evans’ hands that was intercepted on a third-and-long, and the Bucs should have picked off Jared Goff in the end zone on that drive, but he got away with it (drop by Jamel Dean) and the Lions got a field goal out of it.

    But that was what made it a good game as the defenses were playing well and making the offenses really earn every first down and point. The Bucs had the upper hand in running the ball early, which was surprising given they were the 32nd-ranked run game again this year, but neither team ran the ball well at all in Week 6. Eventually, the Lions did figure things out and Jahmyr Gibbs popped a 31-yard touchdown run to start the fourth quarter that broke a 17-17 tie and was in effect the game-winning touchdown. Gibbs finished with 74 rushing yards, and tight end Sam LaPorta had 9 catches for 65 yards, so it was another successful outing for the rookie class of the Lions.

    Tampa hit the upright on a 50-yard field goal late in the first half, but it did rebound by getting the ball back and Mayfield threw a touchdown to Cade Otton, another young tight end who played well and tied the game at 10 at halftime.

    I thought Mayfield played quite well, but there were some troubling mistakes that you’re not sure if it was his fault for missing something pre-snap or if it was a coaching mistake. But there is no reason for Aidan Hutchinson to come in unblocked off the edge on multiple occasions, including a 3rd-and-4 sack to start the third quarter that knocked the Bucs out of field goal range. Hell, the kicker (Chase McLaughlin) probably would have missed again anyway. But that was a mistake that happened a few times in this game.

    Speaking of mistakes, I thought the Lions were hosed on a chop block to wipe out a 25-yard gain on 3rd-and-10 deep in their own in the third quarter. It looked like David Montgomery went to block the defender before his lineman did, so that call was pretty weak to me. But the Lions ended up getting the ball back and scored a go-ahead touchdown on a 4th-and-1 run by Craig Reynolds after some passes were unsuccessful by Goff. Just pound it in, Detroit.

    But I have my complaints with Dan Campbell too as I felt he was asleep at the wheel when he didn’t challenge if Baker was down on a sack before he threw a ball away to almost end the quarter. It looked like his calf was down and that would have made it a lot tougher on the Bucs to convert. Instead, they threw a screen on 3rd-and-10 and Rachaad White scored a 12-yard touchdown on a great call to tie the game.

    Gibbs was absolutely dominant on the game-winning drive with 57 of the 75 yards. The Bucs went 3-and-out, and it looked like the Lions put it away with an 89-yard touchdown drive where Amon-Ra St. Brown was the star this time. He converted a 3rd-and-15 with a strong YAC effort to just get over the line, then finished the drive with a 9-yard touchdown to make it 31-17 with 6:22 left.

    St. Brown had his ninth straight game with at least 6 catches and 70 yards. Only Marvin Harrison (2001-02 Colts) and Travis Kelce (2020-21 Chiefs) have done that for 9 straight games in their careers.

    But Mayfield kept the game alive and led a great drive with a 4th-and-14 conversion to Evans, who also caught a 16-yard touchdown with 4:37 left to make it 31-23. The Bucs went for 2, and Evans is usually excellent at acting and embellishing to draw DPI flags, but he didn’t do it well here and there was no call despite the defensive back not playing the ball that well. The Bucs still trailed 31-23.

    This decision always gets defended as the “analytics play” and NBC’s Cris Collinsworth went through the explanation of it again. I get it. I don’t mind it. I probably would have gone for it too in this game with the way it was going.

    But I just hate the way people hammer on this like it’s some amazing cheat code to win games or that it’s always the right, obvious call.

    Because it’s not.

    I ranted about this on Twitter already, but first, we have to stop pretending that all teams down 14 in the fourth quarter are trying to win in regulation when we know most of them are thinking of tying the game. Todd Bowles does not strike me as the kind of coach who would go for the go-ahead 2 if his team scored its second touchdown with 2:00 or 1:05 left in the game either. He’d think he was playing for overtime.

    Also, this is the playoffs and the rules have changed for overtime where both teams are guaranteed possession now. So, would overtime really be that bad of an outcome now when it can no longer end after a touchdown drive like in the past?

    The only other thing I’ll say is it never seems to be acknowledged just how aggressive you can make the other team when you do this. Don’t you think Detroit might approach the following drive a little differently if it was up 6 points instead of 7 or 8 points? If you’re up 8, you can be a little safer with that cushion. Same way a team approaches things differently if it was down 1 point instead of in a tied game. If you do this move and get it right on the first touchdown, you’re giving the opponent two chances to be more aggressive. Detroit is more aggressive than most to begin with, but encouraging the Lions to be extra aggressive isn’t the smartest move in my view.

    • Since 2021, 48 NFL teams have scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter while down exactly 14 points with a point after decision to make.
    • 34 teams kicked the extra point, and those teams were 8-25-1 (.250) in the game.
    • 14 teams went for the 2-point conversion, 9-of-14 (64.3%) were successful, and they were 2-12 (.143) in the game.
    • The average extra point kick came with 8:48 left to play.
    • The average 2-point conversion came with 5:47 left to play, so there is a time element to consider as this strategy should be attempted with less time left in the game.

    If you ask me, 2-12 when your only wins are the most improbable comeback of the 2023 season (Tennessee in Miami) and a game where the Saints choked on a field goal in Green Bay after having nearly 3:00 to set it up are not a ringing endorsement here. Tua had almost 2 full minutes in that Miami loss too just to get the No. 1 offense in position for a winning field goal. Again, you can’t control the clock like you think you can.

    Anyways, it ended up being a bit moot. The Lions almost were too good on offense as they started the drive with 3 consecutive first downs: 15-yard pass, 11-yard run, and a penalty that wiped out a sack. But the Lions didn’t gain another first down and the Bucs got the ball back with 1:59 and 1 timeout left at their own 10 in a 31-23 game.

    Baker has done this before, but the Lions aren’t the Raiders in a low-stakes Thursday night game. Just two plays into the drive, he forced a pass over the middle and Derrick Barnes made the pick of his life to send the Lions to the NFC Championship Game. Fron 1 playoff win during 1958-2022 to 2 playoff wins in January 2024. Crazy stuff.

    Speaking of crazy, the Bucs still had their final timeout left after the pick. The Lions did them a favor by taking a knee quickly on second down, so after Goff took a knee on third down with 37 seconds left to bring up fourth down, why in the hell would Bowles not call his last timeout with over 30 seconds left?

    The ball was at the Tampa 31. It would have been a 49-yard field goal attempt for a so-so kicker. He could have missed or it could have even been blocked, giving Tampa the ball back with over 25 seconds in a one-possession game. To just let the game end was insane, and the NBC broadcast didn’t even acknowledge this happened.

    Asked after the game, Bowles tried saying they’d have 12 seconds after the field goal. Not a chance. They likely have over 30 seconds left, which even in an 11-point game would still be a chance even if it’d require one of the craziest comebacks ever. But even if it was 12 seconds, you don’t just give up on the game like that. If this weekend showed anything, you don’t trust a kicker from 49 yards away to make the kick.

    The better team, better coach, and better quarterback won in the end. Now let’s see what the Lions have left for a road trip as a big underdog. Watching them win as a home favorite in back-to-back weeks in the playoffs was cool, but they have a much tougher test coming up in San Francisco.

    Texans at Ravens: They Had Me the First Half, I’m Not Gonna Lie

    Ending with the game that started the weekend, Houston’s 34-10 loss in Baltimore was a sobering reminder of just how hard it is for a rookie quarterback to succeed in the NFL’s postseason against a great defense, especially on the road.

    Sure, C.J. Stroud did well at home against Cleveland last week, but the Browns did not travel well defensively this year. Baltimore has been legitimate all year on defense, and it made some history in this game by being able to hold the Texans to just 3 offensive points. The only Houston touchdown was a punt return.

    The Texans set a record for worst margin of defeat (24 points) in NFL history for a team that had no turnovers and no sacks in a game.

    In fact, the Texans are the first NFL team since 1940 (regular season or postseason) to lose by more than 10 points in a game where they had no offensive touchdowns, no sacks, and no turnovers.

    This is a near-impossible combo of stats to pull off in a game, and the Texans only had one missed field goal and one failed fourth down too. The list of teams to have no sacks and no turnovers and only score 10 points (or fewer) is small at just 24 teams in the Super Bowl era. One of those teams was the 2023 Chargers in their 6-0 win over the Patriots this year.

    You would have figured Stroud threw a pick parade or took a handful of sacks like he had in Week 1 when these teams played. But it was nothing like that. Just stopped them cold time and time again. Sure, they dropped a pick in this game, but they didn’t even need a turnover to keep them out of the end zone. They shut down the running game completely as Devin Singletary had 9 carries for 22 yards.

    But for a half, the Texans were hanging in there with Baltimore. I don’t believe this is a case of Baltimore’s past playoff failures getting in their heads. I think it was more like “we blew off Week 18, we had a bye week, and we’re not as sharp as we need to be” for about a half.

    But DeMeco Ryans went against his script and was very aggressive with blitzes, and it is hard to deny it worked for a half. On six drives, they forced the Ravens into a 3-and-out 4 times, gave up a 53-yard field goal to start the game, and only allowed one 76-yard touchdown drive. Lamar Jackson was sacked 3 times in a half that saw him net just 23 passing yards. His damage was on the ground where he had 50 yards.

    If the Texans didn’t miss a 47-yard field goal with 32 seconds left in the half, they likely go to the locker room with a 13-10 lead. Not bad for a team with an offense that couldn’t find the end zone, and one that racked up 8 penalties for 50 yards as pre-snap penalties killed the Texans early in this game. That’s a good sign of an inexperienced team that was struggling to communicate on the road.

    But the second half was a runaway by the Ravens, who put together 3 straight touchdown drives while the Texans floundered. Just like that, it was 31-10 with 5:00 left and the rest of the game was a formality.

    The first drive of the half for each team set the tone for the rest of the game. The Ravens adjusted to Houston’s blitzing, and after Jackson avoided a red-zone interception that was dropped, he took off on a 15-yard quarterback draw for a touchdown. While Stroud had a few impressive throws in the first half, Houston played too scared with him on early downs with ineffective runs and short throws. A screen pass lost 5 yards and short-circuited Houston’s drive in Baltimore territory. They punted and never threatened the rest of the game.

    Isaiah Likely caught a 15-yard touchdown, then Jackson ran for another 8-yard score, giving him 2 by air, 2 by ground to tie a playoff record. It was the first time the Ravens scored more than 20 points in a playoff game under him.

    The future is bright for Houston, but that team just wasn’t ready to win a game like this.

    The Baltimore offense from the second half will need a similar performance against the Chiefs, who look prepared this postseason for these big games. Both teams will provide each other’s biggest challenge this season.

    Next week: I think we are getting the best possible championship game matchups this season could produce. Cowboys and Eagles imploded, and we already saw the 49ers crush them. Give Detroit as an underdog a shot. You know they’ll at least be aggressive.

    As for the AFC, is there any team in the league that you’d trust more to knock off the No. 1 defense on the road than the Chiefs? If the Ravens want this to go down as a historic defense and team, they must take out Mahomes and the champs. It’s a perfect storyline as this was supposed to be the new AFC rivalry years ago, then Buffalo and Cincinnati substituted instead since the Ravens couldn’t win in the postseason or keep their QB healthy through December. Now we get to see it with the Super Bowl on the line.

    Can’t wait for that one and it’s on first.

    NFL 2023 Divisional Round Predictions

    ~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

    It’s finally here. My favorite weekend of the NFL year.

    But I recall being very disappointed with last year’s divisional round.

    • Patrick Mahomes had the high-ankle sprain against Jacksonville, which took some shine off that game.
    • The Giants didn’t even show up in Philadelphia.
    • The Bengals jumped all over Buffalo in another game that was over (competitively) very fast.
    • Then the Cowboys and 49ers played a decent game that ended 19-12.

    It was a major dud compared to two seasons ago (2021 season) when we had the single best divisional round ever.

    • The Bengals survived 9 sacks in Tennessee to upset the No. 1 seed.
    • The 49ers shocked the Packers in Green Bay thanks to special teams.
    • The Rams looked like they sent Tom Brady into retirement in Tampa.
    • The Bills and Chiefs scored 31 points after the 2-minute warning in a 42-36 overtime classic.

    We’ll see what we get this time, and two of the games are rematches from 2 years ago. Oddly enough, we almost had 3 rematches if the Rams would have pulled off the only close finish in the wild card round, but they lost 24-23.

    That’s one of the things I’m looking at this week. We’ve had 22 straight quarters without a lead change this postseason. We already have 5 wire-to-wire wins (recent record is 8 in 2020) with 7 games to go this postseason. We have the No. 1 seeds nearly favored by 10 points, and even the Lions are a 6.5-point home favorite. But I think there is potential for more drama this weekend.

    In 16 of the last 18 seasons, at least one home team lost in the divisional round (exceptions: 2015 and 2018).

    This Week’s Articles

    NFL Divisional Round Predictions

    Let’s start with my chart of stuff I’m betting on this week, which includes most of the picks from the links above.

    Yes, I put both BUF and KC in the ML picks because I will certainly be making bets for each scenario. I think it’s as big of a coin flip game as any this weekend. If you want my official pick you just have to scroll a couple centimeters cause I’m giving the final score picks right here.

    Texans at Ravens (-9.5)

    I certainly don’t think the Ravens have accomplished enough in the playoffs to trust them to take care of business here. But I have my concerns with Houston being down receivers and having an inconsistent defense. The “rookie quarterback on the road against No. 1 defense” is also obviously a huge hurdle to overcome, even if C.J. Stroud is a special case. I think Houston’s best hope is an early turnover or mistake from the Ravens (tipped pick or failed 4th down) and to get up on the scoreboard and let that pressure mount on the top seed. Houston’s lack of turnovers is a real positive in this matchup, because you can’t feed the Ravens short fields and make this easier for them.

    Nothing this weekend would really shock me. None of these upsets would be on the level of the 2010 Jets in New England a month after 45-3 happened. This wouldn’t even be the worst loss by a Baltimore team as a No. 1 seed. In fact, that 2019 upset by the Titans is what makes this less of a surprise if it happens. But I think the Ravens have their best scoring playoff game under Lamar and get the win (but not the cover) over an impressive Stroud who will be the overwhelming favorite to repeat in the AFC South next year and be a top MVP candidate.

    Final: Ravens 27, Texans 19

    Packers at 49ers (-9.5)

    Remember when the Packers were the front-running team that you just had to punch in the face early and take control of the game? The 49ers used to do that to them all the time in big games. In a way, that’s still possible in this matchup as Jordan Love is going to face a tougher challenge than he did a week ago in Dallas. But that game was good prep work for this one as the Cowboys and 49ers were both historical teams this year at winning games by big margins and rarely having to play from behind. That’s why I love the idea of Green Bay taking the ball first if they can like they did last week and getting off to that good start and making Brock Purdy play from behind.

    But I think with an extra week to prepare and a better coaching staff, the 49ers are going to have a plan and have too much talent for the Packers to overcome this year. But just like with Baltimore, who also rested starters in Week 18 and had a bye week, watch out if there’s that early sign of rust and a mistake that the Packers can capitalize on. Remember, the Ravens and 49ers barely won any close games this year, so if you can challenge them early and make them uncomfortable, all the pressure is on them to win these games. That’s why I have some hope we could see at least one close finish, if not an upset out of these Saturday games.

    Final: 49ers 30, Packers 23

    Buccaneers at Lions (-6.5)

    I don’t take much away from the 20-6 game these teams played in Week 6. The Detroit defense has gotten worse, the Tampa offense has gotten better. I think both teams score at least 20 and we get a nice little aerial show out of Goff and Mayfield. I like Evans and St. Brown to both score. But I like that Goff has a history of stepping up against Bowles’ blitz and carrying the offense in those games. The spread would probably be a little lower if I set the line for this game, but it should be a nice appetizer before Sunday’s main event. I’m just going to trust the Lions at home to get the job done again. A game similar to last week but with more balanced scoring over the two halves.

    Final: Lions 30, Buccaneers 24

    Chiefs at Bills (-2.5)

    I think the top AFC preview, Upset Alert, and Scott’s Seven Pick linked above did my talking for me in great detail about this game already. My preseason pick was the Chiefs settling for the #3 seed because they lost to the #2 seed Bills in December. Then I had the Bills beating #7 Pittsburgh in the wild card, then I had them beating the #3 Chiefs in the divisional round to set up an AFC title game in Baltimore against the #1 seed next week.

    Why change the pick now when we’re so close to that all happening? Having said that, I still think you see an upset this weekend, and this is still the game most likely to produce it. The closer we get to kickoff, the more I like the Chiefs’ chances as I think Buffalo’s injuries are relevant not just on defense, but they don’t have Gabe Davis to take some attention away down the field and free up Stefon Diggs, who had his worst game of the season in Arrowhead.

    I also think the road game thing is overblown for Mahomes, who has been fantastic on the road in his career and will likely relish this challenge this week. He’s also 7-3 SU and 8-1-1 as an underdog in his career. Yeah, I’m already repeating things I wrote several times this week, so I would highly recommend reading those links above for my full thoughts on this game.

    I just think the defenses play well enough to keep the score down (no 42-36 this time), and it’ll come down to who makes the big mistake or the big stop at the end. Just like it has the last 3 times these teams have met. And in the end, I’ve been saying all year how the Chiefs’ mistakes (the league-leading drops, the annoying penalties on the OL and one huge one on Kadarius Toney, the obligatory fumble, etc.) are going to kill them come playoff time when they’re on the road trying to keep up with another top quarterback and they have this WR room holding them back.

    So, I stuck with the gut.

    Final: Bills 24, Chiefs 21

    Enjoy the last big slate (4 windows) of the 2023 season.

    NFL Stat Oddity: 2023 Wild Card Weekend

    ~ Scott ~ 3 Comments

    And that’s why we don’t call it Super Wild Card weekend, because not much was super about that 3-day trek of games. Sure, we saw dazzling playoff debuts for C.J. Stroud and Jordan Love, the Detroit Lions finally won a playoff game for the first time since 1991, and the fraud department was busy sending home teams who didn’t stand a chance of going the distance (Dolphins, Steelers, Eagles), or it exposed the defenses who beefed up their stats against the weakest opponents (Cowboys and Browns) and folded when it mattered most.

    On those fronts, it was a strong week of action. But if you told me every home team would win except for Dallas, the team that won 16 games in a row at home and usually in dominant fashion, I might not have believed you.

    I definitely wouldn’t have believed you if you said there wouldn’t be a single lead change in any game after the 12:00 mark in the second quarter of Browns-Texans on Saturday.

    But that happened too. The other 5 games were all wire-to-wire wins, putting this postseason on pace for some history in that department if teams don’t start showing up with better efforts.

    I’m still getting over the flu, but a good night of sleep is one hell of a dose of self-medication for that. I feel good enough to share some thoughts on these 6 games before I go back for more sleep and to start preparing data, previews, and picks for the divisional round, my favorite weekend of the NFL year.

    This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

    Browns at Texans: When the Young Kid Puts Down Old Yeller

    We might look back one day and laugh at the time Joe Flacco, days before his 39th birthday, was a road favorite over C.J. Stroud in a playoff game. But as someone who picked Cleveland to win a tight one, I’m using this game as a good lesson on what to take away from a recent meeting before a playoff rematch.

    The season-long trends mattered more than the recent trends where Flacco was dealing (albeit with a high interception rate), and Stroud was kind of mediocre down the stretch outside of a great job in Indianapolis to get into the playoffs.

    But Houston’s ability to scheme receivers open, especially at home, combined with Stroud’s already advanced skills at throwing off platform and giving his guys chances proved to overwhelm a Cleveland defense that I feared was a paper tiger all along. In the playoffs, you aren’t facing Joe Burrow on a bad calf, or a slumping Ryan Tannehill, or getting Matt Canada fired again in Pittsburgh, or feasting on Arizona rookie Clayton Tune.

    There was just something fishy about a defense that allowed at least 22 points in every road game this year, and you can’t blame that all on their league-leading 37 turnovers as that has been a problem all year for Cleveland. Blame the offense on the Pittsburgh loss for Deshaun Watson’s 2 turnovers getting returned for touchdowns, sure, but that was not the norm for them.  

    Turnovers ended up being a story in this game, but Houston was already up 24-14 in the third quarter before Flacco had his back-to-back pick-sixes that crushed any hope left for Cleveland. But things were already looking bad before that as Myles Garrett contributed more offsides penalties than any impact plays on defense.

    Both offenses were hitting plays early as this one was on pace for over 1,000 total yards. But after Kareem Hunt scored his second touchdown to give the Browns a 14-10 lead, the Texans answered back with a 1-play drive that saw backup tight end Brevin Jordan leak open for a 76-yard touchdown. Houston led 17-0 with 12:00 left in the second quarter and we literally never saw another lead change the rest of wild card weekend.

    The Browns were stopped on 3 straight drives to end the half as pressure got to Flacco. When these teams met in Week 16 and Cleveland won easily, there were multiple lessons we should have taken away from that game and applied to this one:

    • Obviously, having Stroud back at quarterback was huge, but Houston also didn’t have top pass rushers Will Anderson and Jonathan Greenard in Week 16. They were back and Anderson had 1-of-4 sacks of Flacco.
    • Pressure got to Flacco on that fateful first pick-six, and he tried to throw the ball away, only to have it returned 82 yards for a touchdown by Steven Nelson.
    • Cleveland’s lack of a running game in Week 16 was a problem again as they only produced 17 carries for 43 yards this time. Hunt was stuffed on a key 3rd-and-1 run, which led to Flacco’s next pick-six on a 4th-and-2. If the running game is adequate, he’s never throwing in that desperate situation and blowing the game open at 38-14.
    • Flacco overcame his running game woes in Week 16 with huge plays to Amari Cooper, who had 265 yards. But he injured his heel that game and we didn’t know how he’d play in his return game. He finished with 59 yards and was clearly not 100%, and that didn’t help Cleveland’s cause.

    Cooper’s decline of 206 receiving yards is the 5th-largest drop in a playoff rematch in NFL history by a receiver.

    Flacco started the game well, but the cumulative pressure got to him, and the double whammy of picks was a game destroyer, making the fourth quarter pretty forgettable as Houston won 45-14.

    But you did see the value in this game of having a young quarterback with mobility as Stroud could evade pressure and feather the ball to his receivers with accuracy. The barely mobile Flacco tried to throw one away and it ended up going back the other way for a game-changing touchdown.

    I still stand by the data that says there’s no correlation between two team’s turnover margins and what their turnover margin will be in a playoff matchup against each other. Even at extreme levels like the gap in this game, the turnover-prone team usually beats the turnover-averse team.

    But there will be no improbable Flacco Super Bowl run this year, and the Cleveland defense is in fact not even close to being a legendary unit. The history made here is that Stroud only needed a half to tie the record for touchdown passes by a rookie in a playoff game with 3.

    Dolphins at Chiefs: Still Wish It Was Colder?

    My favorite bet for the entire week was Dolphins under 19.5 points. When they usually can’t get to 20 points on the road against good teams in fair weather, how were they going to do it in the 4th-coldest game in NFL history at minus-4 degrees at kickoff?

    One 53-yard touchdown pass to Tyreek Hill was all the Miami offense had to muster. The Chiefs were excellent on defense as that was the only 20-yard play they allowed in the game.

    When Mike McDaniel thought a 22-20 win over Dallas was enough for his players to tell the media to (with all due respect) “fvck off” about his team’s record against winning teams, that’s what my reaction was all year long to people who thought this team was a serious Super Bowl contender and not just a paper tiger.

    McDaniel has now lost 10 straight road games to playoff teams.

    All I can add on this loss is that it’s the kind of performance that should make Miami hold off on giving Tua Tagovailoa a record-setting contract extension, because you know that’s what his agent will be seeking as the next quarterback due to get paid. I’m not saying they have to part ways, but I’d be very careful about making that deal happen. He just doesn’t get the job done in games like this, and guess what, Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes don’t look like they’re going anywhere in the AFC anytime soon. Same with Lamar Jackson, and oh yeah, now you have to think about C.J. Stroud in Houston too.

    Tua’s QBR of 15.8 made him the only quarterback under 40.0 this week.

    But enough about Miami. I want to talk about this Kansas City performance the rest of the way. I thought Patrick Mahomes played very well, and I would not have guessed he’d have that kind of night based on how bad the first 2 snaps looked. But one big 3rd-and-10 conversion to Travis Kelce, who held on that time, and the Chiefs were off to a strong start. Mahomes had a few big scrambles too, and he even cracked his helmet on the frozen night and did not miss a play.

    Mahomes did not take any sacks, and the only turnover was an obligatory fumble late in the game by CEH with the game out of reach for Miami. I thought Mahomes had a good read of the blitz from Miami, and he threw the ball away when he had to. The only drawback was the red-zone performance where the Chiefs settled for 4 field goals, looking similar to Week 17 when they kicked 6 field goals against the Bengals. That can catch up with you against a better team than Miami like they’ll play going forward. It also helped that the Dolphins were so injured on defense, which is why I think they just kept blitzing Mahomes, which is usually a no-no.

    Throwing some deep balls on third downs to Mecole Hardman, who has the worst ball-tracking skills ever, is another dangerous tactic I don’t want to see the Chiefs continue this postseason against better teams. But they had no problem beating Miami without playing their best.

    Now we get a real road game for this team and against a Buffalo team that arguably plays them better than anyone. It could be another classic.

    Just glad we don’t have to entertain the Dolphins as contenders anymore this season.

    Packers at Cowboys: Doomsday in Dallas Used to Mean Something Different

    My preseason Super Bowl pick was Dallas going on a revenge tour, beating the 49ers in San Francisco in the title game, and ultimately losing to the Ravens in the Super Bowl. Well, Baltimore fans better get nervous, because I literally never pick the correct Super Bowl winner, and now my loser is gone after a shocking first-round exit at home in a 48-32 loss.

    In Mike McCarthy’s best shot yet to become the first coach to win a Super Bowl with multiple teams, he instead became the first coach to lose to a No. 7 seed. We know the Packers always gave the Cowboys fits during Aaron Rodgers’ tenure, but we might have to expect more years of misery at the hands of Jordan Love after this game.

    Right from his first pass on the opening drive, Love came out smoking. In fact, Green Bay’s decision to receive after winning the toss was one of the best coaching decisions all weekend. You need to set the tone when you play a front-running team that is used to leading like Dallas. All the pressure was on Dallas to win this game as the No. 2 seed, and Green Bay was immediately able to take a lead and build that pressure after consuming half the quarter.

    Love was masterful in his first playoff start on the road, completing 16-of-21 passes for 272 yards and 3 touchdowns. He had no sacks or turnovers, and his favorite receiver was the open one. Jayden Reed led the team in receiving categories this year, but he had no catches in this game. Christian Watson was the expected No. 1 coming into the season, but he is always injured. He returned this weekend and had only a 9-yard catch against a defense he broke out against in 2022 when he scored 3 touchdowns. It was Romeo Doubs with the dominant game as he had 151 yards and a touchdown. Rookie tight end Luke Musgrave also broke wide open for a 38-yard touchdown as Matt LaFleur was having a great time roasting his predecessor.

    I’ve said for 20 years since those pesky 2001-04 Patriots teams won 3 Super Bowls that it can be really advantageous to have a group of talented receivers with no clear No. 1 receiver. That was when the Patriots played dink-and-dunk passing with Troy Brown, David Givens, David Patten, and Deion Branch. Mix in your backs and tight ends, and defenses couldn’t go into games on a weekly basis and figure out who to focus on or draw more attention to with double teams. Technically, it was Troy Brown early on in that run and Deion Branch later, but any of them could get open and do something after the catch on any given play.

    The 2023 Packers are kind of enjoying that advantage right now with this young group of receivers, including Doubs, Watson, Reed, and Dontayvion Wicks. Throw in a veteran back and Dallas killer like Aaron Jones (118 yards and 3 touchdowns), and the Packers had a variety of ways to make Dallas look silly.

    Similar to the Browns, the Cowboys had some paper tiger warnings on defense since they padded their stats against awful offenses like the Jets, Panthers, Patriots, and those sack merchant lines for the Giants and Commanders (twice each). You saw Brock Purdy shred them in San Francisco. You saw Jalen Hurts at least put up one great game against them when the Eagles were playing better earlier in the year. Even Geno Smith went into Dallas and put on a passing clinic and 35 points, but that usually doesn’t happen to Dallas in Dallas.

    But the Cowboys were rough on defense, and they were not prepared for a team with a quarterback who came in red hot like Love. Since the Dallas offense is usually so efficient, the Cowboys also faced the fewest drives of any defense this year, so their per-drive numbers were not elite this season.

    But I’m not sure anyone imagined a 48-32 game in favor of the Packers. Worse, it was 27-0 at one point after maybe the worst start to a game in Dak Prescott’s career. You knew it was going to be a long day when he had 0 passing yards in the first quarter for the first time in his career. From the opening drive you could see he was just a little off with CeeDee Lamb after they were so good down the stretch this year. Then Jaire Alexander beat Brandin Cooks to an interception, and the Packers only needed to go 19 yards to make it 14-0.

    The Cowboys continued to stubbornly stick with the run on early downs, and Prescott was not getting into a rhythm and converting enough third downs. Down 20-0 at the 2-minute warning, that’s when disaster struck as Dak did not see Darnell Savage on a pick-six that was returned 64 yards to put the Packers up 27-0.

    Dallas was fortunate to get a touchdown on the final play of the half after it clearly looked live that there was a false start or something funky pre-snap. But nothing was called, and Jake Ferugson caught the first of what would be three touchdowns on the day.

    But the Packers are not the Chargers. They weren’t going to blow a 27-0 lead. This might have been a little more interesting had Dallas pulled off a double touchdown score, but the Cowboys were held to a field goal to start the third quarter, making it 27-10.

    Fox’s Greg Olsen put it perfectly. A comeback like this isn’t possible if your defense can’t get stops. I’ve written about this several times now since Super Bowl 51, including this 2018 post about Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady. It’s not like Brady is the only quarterback who could make a 25-point comeback in a playoff game. He just may be the only one who is lucky enough to have his defense hold a juggernaut offense with the MVP at quarterback to no more points the rest of the way and to even force a short field on a fumble.

    I’m not deflecting the blame from Dak in this game. He blew it. But it’s also true that Dallas scored 32 points over its final 7 drives, and we might have had a game here if the Dallas defense didn’t allow 3 straight Green Bay touchdown drives to start the second half.

    That blown coverage on Musgrave made it 41-16 with 16:27 left in the game, basically asking for Dallas to make the greatest comeback in history at that point. After turning it over on downs, the Cowboys watched the Packers convert a 4th-and-2 for another touchdown to make it 48-16 with 10:23 left. Goodnight, Irene. They couldn’t even get the little 4th-down stop with minimal pressure on both teams at the moment.

    But I must say, for being down 32 with just over 10 minutes left, the Cowboys came closer to 8+8+8+8 then you’d ever want to see as the leading team. They didn’t even recover an onside kick. They just used their timeouts, scored quickly, and got the pair of 3-and-outs on defense they needed earlier in the game.

    This was an incredible one-handed catch from CeeDee Lamb in the end zone away from Dallas going for 2 to make it 48-40 with just over a minute left. Sure, they’d need to then recover an onside kick and score another touchdown with a 4th straight 2-point conversion just to force overtime, but getting to 48-40 with an onside chance after it was 48-16 not that long ago? That would have been an impressive rally attempt.

    But the game should have never gotten that out of hand in the first place, and that is why I wouldn’t be surprised if McCarthy gets the axe for this game. It’s also going to be hard to ever trust Dak in a big game after he had his best season, they were healthy for this game, and he and the offense just laid a turd for the first half.

    Green Bay getting hot at the right time behind a quarterback playing outstanding ball is good stuff. We don’t see that too often anymore in the NFL playoffs, so we’ll see if he can slay the San Francisco dragon that Aaron Rodgers never could. He already got past the Dallas dragon that tripped up Brett Favre in the 90s.

    But these Cowboys are not the Cowboys of the 90s. The fact that Jerry Jones keeps hanging onto those glory hole days and thinking every year is going to end up like that again is why he must annually be so disappointed when his team flops in the playoffs.

    But I have to say, even by Jerry’s standards, this flop was the worst one yet, because things were breaking for them this year.

    Rams at Lions: Puka Gets a Tug and No Happy Ending

    Of all the games this week that should have been high scoring and come down to the final drive, this was the one to pick. In the end, we got an exciting first half with 38 points and both quarterbacks dealing, and then we got 3 field goals and still not a single lead change after halftime as Detroit held on for the 24-23 win.

    Yeah, it’s awesome that the Lions finally won a playoff game. But excuse me for being a little bummed out that this game didn’t have more touchdowns or a better dramatic finish. This was the matchup for it with these underwhelming defenses, and they lived up to it early with all the scoring drives. Detroit scored 3 straight touchdowns to begin the game.

    I thought Matthew Stafford played very well through the pain of a cut on his hand that left him bloody. He may have saved the game on the final play of the first quarter by converting a 3rd-and-16 with the Lions already up 14-3 and humming along. But some of the red-zone struggles and difficulty of hooking up with Cooper Kupp proved fatal to the Rams in this one. It also didn’t help that Kyren Williams kept leaving for health reasons as the league’s leader in rushing yards per game only put up 61 yards in Detroit. Stafford must have really felt at home, trying to carry a team with minimal rushing support and a defense that was getting shredded.

    But by the end of the night, the Lions barely rushed for more yards than the Rams (82 to 68). Both offenses were 3-for-9 on third down. I thought fourth down might play a bigger role in this game with Dan Campbell being much more aggressive than conservative Sean McVay, but both teams were 1-for-1 on fourth downs.

    The Rams can probably kick themselves for outgaining the Lions by 91 yards in a game with zero turnovers and still losing 24-23. But that’s what happens you go 0-for-3 in the red zone at scoring touchdowns and kick 3 field goals under 30 yards.

    Were any of the field goals the wrong call by McVay? No, they were all 4th and 6 or longer. They were the right decisions at the moment. My beef with McVay in this game is a common one I’ve had for him going back several years now: He blew his timeout management in the second half again.

    Stafford took a sack 3 snaps into the third quarter and McVay wasted a timeout on a 3rd-and-11. Save that shit and take the 5-yard delay penalty. The Rams ended up throwing an incomplete pass and punted. He did it again in the fourth quarter before a 3rd-and-8 deep in his own end, down 24-20. More defensible than the first one, I still don’t think it is worth it most of the time in that situation. The Rams ended up converting by a screen pass to Puka Nacua, who was awesome.

    You know Nacua is a real one when he can make Kupp look like a secondary receiver in this offense. Puka was outstanding in his playoff debut with 9 catches for 181 yards and a 50-yard touchdown.

    Unfortunately, Nacua was also involved in the play of the game that will be remembered most by Rams fans. On 3rd-and-14 at the Detroit 44 with 4:20 left, the Rams were in a tough spot. A conversion is hard there, but at least they could get some yards and try a reasonable go-ahead field goal. Stafford went for the big play to Nacua, and his jersey was grabbed from behind and the pass fell incomplete. Receivers usually get that call but there was no flag this time.

    The Rams really had no choice but to punt from their 44, and they were down to just 2 clock stoppages because of the piss-poor clock management earlier. The Lions are good in these situations because they are aggressive under Campbell, and they were able to run out the clock after 2 first downs on pass plays. Amon-Ra St. Brown had a great playoff debut too and got over 100 yards on the night with his 11-yard catch to seal the game.

    Goff had a couple of scary plays in this game that serve as reminders for why you don’t like to trust him in big games. But overall, he played well, and the Lions did enough to survive this one. Now they get to host the Buccaneers with a shot at the NFC Championship Game very much in play as they are a home favorite this week.

    From no playoff wins in 31 seasons to possibly an NFC Championship Game appearance or more? Crazy stuff for Detroit.

    Steelers at Bills: The Standard in Postseason Scoring

    The downside to the Steelers making the playoffs has become the quick exit that almost feels inevitable. Pittsburgh lost its fifth playoff game in a row, meaning Mike Tomlin has not won any playoff games in the last 7 seasons (2017-23).

    This is also the fifth time under Tomlin that the Steelers allowed at least 31 points in a playoff game while forcing no takeaways. The only team with that many playoff games since the 1970 merger is the Denver franchise, which has done this 6 times. But the Steelers have done it 5 times since 2007.

    • Pittsburgh is the first team in NFL history to allow at least 31 points in 5 straight playoff games.
    • Pittsburgh has allowed 202 points in its last 5 playoff games, the most in any 5-game span in playoff history, surpassing a record they already held with 187 points in 2016-21.
    • Pittsburgh has scored at least 16 points in 29 straight playoff games, extending its NFL record in that area but that’s not making up for the recent blowouts.
    • Pittsburgh is the only NFL team with an active 5-game losing streak in the playoffs where it failed to cover the spread in each game.

    Pittsburgh’s best hope in this game was for it to be played during whiteout conditions with heavy snow and wind, increasing the likelihood of randomness like fumbles. But after watching it play out at its rescheduled time on Monday in fairer cold conditions, I’m not so sure Buffalo still doesn’t win comfortably.

    Not when Josh Allen had 1 fe”r rushing yard than the 75 yards the duo of Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren combined for. The Steelers were supposed to be the more physical team that leaned on their backs, but James Cook outrushed them too with 79 yards on 18 carries for Buffalo. Most of Allen’s damage was on his 52-yard touchdown run, which featured some really poor tackling from the Steelers, a common theme on the day.

    Without T.J. Watt available, the Steelers struggled to force any splash plays against the Bills, who did not even flirt with a turnover. No real dangerous throws from Allen, and they had no fumbles to lose. Since 2017, the Steelers are now 2-13-1 when Watt plays fewer than 50% of the snaps in a game.

    It is hard to decide which side of the ball hurt the Steelers more in this one. The offense came out playing scared and taking almost no deep shots to the wide receivers. Pittsburgh’s only 20-yard play in the game was a 33-yard gain by tight end Pat Freiermuth, who fumbled at the end of the play and was fortunate it was ruled to go out of bounds because it sure looked like Buffalo recovered it in bounds.

    George Pickens was less fortunate on a fumble that set up Allen for a 29-yard touchdown drive that took one play as he found Dalton Kincaid wide open. When it looked like the Steelers were going to cut the 14-0 lead in half, Mason Rudolph made his worst throw in the red zone to waste Pittsburgh’s longest drive (88 yards) with an interception. Allen made his big touchdown run from there to build a 21-0 lead, a big early hole being the common lead in every Pittsburgh playoff loss during this streak.

    A blocked field goal saved this from total blowout territory as that led to a 33-yard touchdown drive before the half ended. But even that sequence showed just how poorly prepared the Steelers are for these big games. The Buffalo punter was injured on the blocked field goal. Instead of using his timeouts to try to make Buffalo punt in the last minute of the half, Tomlin sat on his timeouts and only called one on 2nd-and-17 with 2 seconds left? What good does that do? Allen took a knee to end it. After a first-down sack, the Steelers should have been using those 3 timeouts to get a punt block ready. Just poorly managed all around.

    After Rudolph threw his second touchdown of the game to Calvin Austin to make it 24-17 in the fourth quarter, this got a little interesting. But the Bills easily drove for quality play after quality play on a 70-yard drive that ended in another touchdown after awful tackling from Minkah Fitzpatrick and company led to Shakir scoring from 17 yards out to make it 31-17 with 6:27 left.

    That’s game. A missed 27-yard field goal by the Bills after the Steelers turned it over on downs is the only reason we aren’t talking up 34 points as the new piss-poor scoring standard for this defense in the postseason.

    I mentioned at the beginning that Tomlin hasn’t won a playoff game since the 2016 season. If he returns next season for Year 8 of his playoff win drought, it’ll only be the fourth time a team has done that with a coach in the Super Bowl era. Jim Mora (Saints) and Marvin Lewis (Bengals) infamously never won a playoff game in their career. Don Shula’s 8-year drought in Miami (1974-81) led to a Super Bowl loss in 1982, but that was a different league back then. You didn’t have 7 teams making the playoffs in each conference, and he had multiple seasons where he finished 10-4 and didn’t even make the tournament.

    The Steelers shouldn’t have been expected to win this game, especially without Watt, but at what point does hanging onto a streak of non-losing seasons prevent the team from ever getting back to real Super Bowl contention? This is purgatory. There’s no high draft pick and quarterback fix to come out of this season, and it’s not like the effort was all that respectable here. Hell, even Miami lost 34-31 and covered the spread with Skylar Thompson at quarterback in Buffalo in the wild card round last year. They at least forced turnovers.

    SOS is supposed to be a distress call for help, but when it comes to the Steelers, it’s like the organization is content with the same old shit.

    Eagles at Buccaneers: My Apologies to the 1986 Jets and 2022 Vikings

    I just want to start by saying I apologize to the 2022 Vikings for comparing the 2023 Eagles when they were 10-1 to your team. The Vikings actually finished with 13 wins and put up a fight in their home playoff loss to the Giants, which came down to the final drive.

    I also have to apologize for comparing the Eagles to the 1986 Jets, the only other team to start 10-1 and not get to 12 wins. The Jets rebounded in time for the playoffs to beat the Chiefs in the wild card round and gave a superior Cleveland team hell in the divisional round in a double overtime loss.

    After scoring a record number of points (35) for a Super Bowl loser last year, the Eagles scored a season-low 9 points in a 23-point loss to the Buccaneers in the wild card round, completing their full collapse. We will have a new NFC champion again. Only the 2013-14 Seahawks have repeated since 1999.

    They knew it was going to be tough going in without A.J. Brown, but DeVonta Smith stepped up with 8 catches for 148 yards. But the running game was held to just 42 yards on 15 carries after the Eagles were the only team to smack the Bucs for 200 yards in Week 3, which feels like an eternity ago now.

    Philadelphia’s tackling also made Pittsburgh’s look good. Was there a tackling ban in Pennsylvania passed over the weekend? This was an atrocious effort from a team that looked like it gave up on the season. Jason Kelce’s career possibly ending on a sour note like this is sad.

    My favorite bet in this game was the under (43.5), which hit to wrap up 2023 as a season where the under was 15-5 on Monday nights. Loved that bet all season, but I sure did not expect to see Baker Mayfield throw for 337 yards and 3 touchdowns after he could barely move in Carolina in Week 18. But he looked good, and he’s done something Tom Brady couldn’t: win a playoff game with Todd Bowles as his coach.

    But you knew it wasn’t Philly’s night when the Brotherly Shove was stopped on a 2-point conversion in the second quarter when the Eagles got a penalty to put the ball at the 1-yard line. The Bucs got extremely low on the play, and the Eagles didn’t get their normal push, and it helped when you send a linebacker high at Jalen Hurts and grab him by the facemask. That definitely should have been a penalty, but now we’ll wait to see if the league makes any move against this team’s favorite play in the offseason.

    I thought for sure we’d get only our second game with a game-winning drive opportunity out of this one, but that went to shit in a hurry late in the third quarter. Down 16-9, Hurts tried too hard on a 3rd-and-6 and found himself retreating to his end zone despite the line of scrimmage being at his 14. Instead of throwing the ball away, he dug the hole deeper and took a safety due to the penalty for intentional grounding, the right call.

    That made it 18-9, then two plays later, some more of that horrific tackling left Trey Palmer open for a 56-yard touchdown. I would have tried the 2 to make it 26-9, a three-score game, but the Eagles already looked so beaten down that 25-9 was just fine.

    But that little sequence killed any chance of a close finish. Mayfield even hit another blitz with a 23-yard touchdown to Chris Godwin for good measure to make it 32-9.

    This is the kind of loss that could get Nick Sirianni fired just one year removed from a Super Bowl loss. Hell, they had the best record in the NFL in Week 12 not even 2 full months ago.

    The data always said 10-1 was a mirage. The eye test never passed for this year’s team. But to fall this far so quickly, even I am a little surprised this happened.

    The NFC truly does love a flash in the pan.

    Next week: I think they saved the best game both days for the night slot with Chiefs-Bills the best choice to close the weekend. After all these runaway games, it sure would be nice to get an epic divisional round much like we got in 2021 when every game was decided at the end with two of the matchups the same (GB-SF and BUF-KC). We’ll see what happens but there is usually at least one road upset in this round.

    NFL 2023 Wild Card Predictions

    ~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

    We’ve reached the NFL playoffs, and for what feels like the fourth or fifth weekend in a row, I’m writing this after 3 AM and feeling sick. This time it’s the full-on deep cough and a slight fever, so I may have picked up the flu or something this week. A lot of stuff going around out there.

    But I felt better earlier this week when I put in over 12,000 words on playoff previews, I may have gone a little overboard with that, and I wanted to share those links since they are my full previews these days. I no longer have to prepare games just for my blog while maybe only doing 2 games in detail like back in the day. But you tend to forget just how big a 6-game playoff slate is until you start writing these out. But it’s one of my favorite things to do each year, and I like to try holding back on the better teams to have more material for future rounds assuming they make it. So far, the No. 7 seed is 0-6 against the No. 2 seed since 2020, but you never know when the Cowboys and Bills are involved.

    We also have some extreme weather in the AFC games I’m most invested in this week, so that could be weird. For the love of Christ, the Chiefs better not even think of running cutesy trick plays in that -30 wind chill. The obligatory fumble will be plural.

    This Week’s Articles

    NFL Wild Card Predictions

    I’m posting my full grid now that I post on Twitter late on Saturday nights. Not a ton of picks outside of receivers and TD scorers this week.

    Browns at Texans: Very interesting game. I think Amari Cooper and Nico Collins both cool down from their most recent explosive performances (Cooper in Houston, Collins in Indy), and I really like David Njoku to be a big target for Joe Flacco, who I expect to play well again. But he is volatile and I like him to throw a pick. But in the end, I’m going to trust Cleveland’s defense to make enough plays to escape this one with a win.

    Browns 24, Texans 20

    Dolphins at Chiefs: I’ve called the Dolphins a paper tiger since October. Now they play in a freezing cold game against a defense that already held them in check in Germany. The Dolphins are also more banged up. Look, I think the Chiefs are in for a tough postseason and I picked them before the season to finish No. 3 and lose in Buffalo in the divisional round. I’m not backing down from that right now when we’re this close to making it happen. But the Chiefs better hope they don’t make the deadly mistakes with ball security to give the Dolphins a chance.

    Chiefs 20, Dolphins 14

    Steelers at Bills: Steelers are 2-12-1 when T.J. Watt doesn’t play at least 50% of the defensive snaps since 2017. He’s out this week, but what kind of game is it going to be when there could be several inches of lake-effect snow? I think this really favors Pittsburgh to keep it closer than it normally would be, and the Steelers have scored at least 16 points in 28 straight playoff games, the record. Even Mason Rudolph has scored 16 points in 12-of-13 career points. I don’t think the weather allows the Steelers to get blown out here.

    Bills 21, Steelers 16

    Packers at Cowboys: Could be a fun one if Jordan Love is on point, but I think Dallas is too good at home and will shred that Joe Barry-coached defense. But we’ll see if Love has any of that Aaron Rodgers killer instinct in him that always seemed to come out against Dallas (not so much other teams, though).

    Cowboys 31, Packers 23

    Rams at Lions: Should be the best shootout of the weekend. I think the Lions pull it off and finally end that playoff drought at home. Quality run defense to put the game on Stafford’s shoulders, and I think Dan Campbell’s 4th-down aggression is the difference this time as Sean McVay is very conservative. That will pay off in a cumulative effect over the night.

    Lions 30, Rams 27

    Eagles at Bucs: The turd of the week, who is even healthy? Jalen Hurts and Baker Mayfield are playing, right? A.J. Brown maybe not? I still have to do prop picks for this game and that’s not going to be easy if we don’t get some clarity on these injuries. But while I don’t think Tampa is a good playoff team or even worthy of being in the tournament, I can’t go through a whole weekend after a regular season like that and only pick the favorite to win each game. So, Tampa is my upset pick (feel better about this if Brown’s ruled out) as I think the Eagles complete their collapse from 10-1 to getting bounced in Tampa in the wild card round.

    Bucs 20, Eagles 16