Tag: Brock Purdy

2025 NFL Stat Oddity: Divisional Round

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

The 2025 NFL Divisional Round was a mixed bag of a weekend. We had an overtime classic that played out like a Greek tragedy that probably had both locker rooms crying after it was over.

We had a total rout that you could have called after the opening kickoff return for a touchdown. Spike their boombox and everything. We had a disgusting game in snowy New England on the 22nd anniversary of the 2003 AFC Championship Game that looked familiar. Then we had another game that maybe won’t reach overtime classic status because of the overtime itself, but it did offer one of the most thrilling game-tying touchdowns in defeat in NFL playoff history.

But we’re left with a final four of the Broncos, Patriots, Rams, and Seahawks. It was that close to being the top two seeds in each conference, which would have been incredibly lame for such an unpredictable season.

But in the end, it’s those AFC schedule merchants (minus QB1 in Denver) and the two best teams in the best division in the NFC West getting a rematch for the Game of the Year.

First, a recap of what could be a significant weekend in NFL history, or maybe it’s just a one-off leading to the ridiculous conclusion of Sam Darnold holding a Super Bowl MVP trophy that Donald Trump will want, or God forbid, Jarrett Stidham doing his best Nick Foles impersonation and going to the Jets for $80M to shit his pants the next few years.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Bills at Broncos: The One Where Both Teams Lost

In a game that could have catapulted Josh Allen or Bo Nix to their first Super Bowl, Saturday’s 33-30 overtime classic ended up being a great day for Drake Maye instead. A game that could have huge ramifications in the AFC going forward, it was one where I joked during it that I wish both teams could lose, and they kind of did.

While many in the media want to push this narrative that you have to “feel sorry” for Josh Allen and the Bills, I don’t. I only feel sorry for Bo Nix and the Broncos fans as he was actually the one quarterback this postseason who really played well enough to elevate his legacy. And now he can’t continue this season after breaking his ankle in overtime.

In a game where people thought you had to attack the Buffalo defense with the running game, Sean Payton put it in Bo Nix’s hands on 58-of-68 plays (85.3%), often ignoring handoffs altogether on first downs. In the end, he sure wishes he would have called a RB carry on first down instead of this funky play that I blasted right away on Twitter, not knowing the 2-yard loss would be the play that broke Nix’s ankle and ended his season for surgery.

Nix didn’t take a single sack. He tied the single-season record with his eighth game-winning drive of the year, and now it’s over as Jarrett Stidham has to start the AFC Championship Game against the Patriots, his former team, next week. Just doesn’t seem real or fair, but that’s the outcome here for Nix after he played really well.

That’s the big news out of this one, and I have all week to cover where the Broncos go from here with Stidham. But the other story is Allen and the Bills losing for the seventh-straight postseason short of the Super Bowl after it was supposed to be their year. This one felt different, didn’t it? Players were visibly crying, including a teary-eyed Allen in his post-game presser.

This team has lost some huge games during this run, but I think they’re taking this one the worst because they knew this was their year. The “no excuses” stuff in the media for Allen was never hyperbole. Without the Kansas City Chiefs, the team they were 0-4 in the playoffs against, in the playoff field, this was their best shot. If you watched the way the Patriots and Texans played on Sunday, then you know damn well this was their best shot yet at getting to that elusive Super Bowl before Allen’s 30th birthday in May.

But the league’s greatest bridesmaid has to make peace with the fact that he had his worst playoff game yet, turning it over four times on one of the most feast-or-famine performances in NFL history. The Bills are the only team in NFL history to have three touchdowns, three field goals, five turnovers, and zero punts in a game. All 11 drives were scores or turnovers, and James Cook only had one of the turnovers that weren’t charged to Allen. Otherwise he had over 100 rushing yards.

Khail Shakir had a huge YAC play, Keon Coleman made a nice touchdown, and Dalton Kincaid played very well and caught a touchdown. Again, the “no excuses” thing was not hyperbole, and for all the talk about Allen needing to be Superman, it’s a miracle you can turn the ball over five times and still have a chance to win this thing on the road. That just proves the margin for error for Allen was actually higher than some believe.

Allen did some very good things in this game and was effective enough to score 30 points. But there were key mistakes and misses that will haunt him all offseason.

  • There was the horrific decision to be aggressive with 0:16 left in the half where Allen scrambled and fumbled, gifting the Broncos 3 big points.
  • Allen’s strip-sack to start the second half led to another Denver field goal, a win for the Buffalo defense that had to defend a short field and only gave up 2 yards.
  • Allen wasted a Nix interception by throwing one of his own.
  • Leading 24-23, Allen short-hopped a bad throw to Shakir on a 3rd-and-8 with 4:14 left, and the Bills had to settle for a field goal instead of a touchdown.
  • Allen missed a very open Dawson Knox for a potential game-winning touchdown before settling for a field goal and overtime.
  • In overtime, Allen threw a very low pass to Mecole Hardman that he tried to reach down for before losing control of it. A better throw gets a big play there.
  • That set up the fateful 3rd-and-11 where Allen underthrew a deep ball that Brandin Cooks had to slow down for, which helped Ja’Quan McMillian catch up to the receiver and take the ball from him for an interception that ended up being Allen’s last play of the game.

I’ve said for the last year that Allen is a turnover waiting to happen in the playoffs. His turnover numbers have always been misleading because of all the dropped interceptions he’s had in games against Kansas City alone. He also had 12 fumbles with only 2 lost, so that was lucky too.

Guess turnover regression came in every form for the Bills in 2025 as he finally met a defense who wouldn’t drop his picks or fail to recover his fumbles. After the Bills turned it over for the fifth time, the Broncos just needed a field goal. To that point, there were only five penalties in the entire game on both teams, so they were letting them play despite Denver’s poor habits of leading the league in penalty yardage.

One of the biggest calls was a holding penalty that would have wiped out a Keon Coleman touchdown had he held onto it. But he dropped it, so that brought up fourth down on that drive earlier in the game.

But for the most part, the refs were a moot point until they became the story on Denver’s game-winning drive with 53 yards worth of penalties on Buffalo’s defense.

The first penalty, I don’t know if it was a good call or not for DPI, but I know I don’t really care since Joey Bosa was also flagged for roughing for a late hit. So, it was either 15 or 17 yards and an automatic first down either way for Denver. They ended up getting 2 extra yards out of it, so no beef there.

Then the 30-yard DPI flag on Tre’Davious White for contacting Mims early. I think that was pretty textbook DPI. Then White was flagged for throwing his helmet off right in front of a ref, a foolish penalty to take. Then Denver was able to kick the field goal and win it 33-30.

I think the final drive was officiated fairly, but let’s back up to the last Buffalo drive as that’s the one people are throwing a big stink about.

If you want to talk about a cruel twist of fate, this game could have ended 32-30 on a safety for offensive holding on Buffalo in the end zone. Denver would have won that way after a clear hold was missed at the start of the drive, and Bo Nix would be healthy and playing on Sunday to go to the Super Bowl. Alas, it was missed.

Then with the throw to Cooks, you maybe could argue McMillian got there early and we had some DPI. That might actually be the better argument than saying it was a catch, because I can’t believe the number of people this week who don’t understand why this was ruled an interception. The Calvin Johnson Rule, the “complete the process” and the “survive the ground” concepts have only been around for the last 15 years in the NFL.

This was not simultaneous possession because they never both had control of the ball at the same time, so forget that idea of tie goes to the offense. For this to be a catch by Cooks, he has to complete the process of the catch going to the ground, so his knee or shin being down while being touched is irrelevant. He’s not a runner trying to get a down by contact ruling. He’s making a diving catch and he has to survive the ground. He didn’t.

When Cooks lands and flips over, he loses control of the ball and McMillian has it firmly in his grasp and it didn’t touch the ground. That’s an interception. I like the argument of removing the defender from the picture altogether. If Cooks lands there and the ball pops out with no defender to go to, they’d rule that incomplete every time in January 2026. But since the ball was lost to a defender without it hitting the ground, it’s an interception.

I don’t see it as that controversial either. There were closer calls on other plays this year like the pick the Rams got on SNF against Cade Otton and the Bucs when his knee was down as he was trying to get control of a ball he bobbled. This was a pick.

This was a pick for Payton Wilson against the Ravens in 2024 when he took the ball away from Justice Hill who got multiple feet down, then went to the ground and lost control of the ball. Interception.

You may not like the rule or the way it’s written, but I think this clearly was an interception for Denver as Cooks lost control of the ball before he completed the process. If you watch it at real speed (see the last 7 seconds here), it’s hard to deny this was a fluid motion with McMillian emerging with a ball Cooks lost:

Deal with it, Buffalo fans, that was a pick. I also think a big stink over this is because it was thrown by Allen, who we’re told by the likes of Albert Breer and Orlovsky that we’re supposed to feel sorry for after a game like this. Had Bo Nix thrown this pick and the Bills went on to win, I imagine a far quieter outcry over the ruling on the field.

Five turnovers on the road, four from your quarterback, it just can’t happen. That’s why the Bills came up short yet again. It wasn’t the run defense. It wasn’t because Tyrell Shavers was on injured reserve. Their best players turned it over five times on offense, and two of their vets had penalties on the final drive. Allen missed multiple game-sealing throws again.

I don’t get the sense the Bills are going to fire Sean McDermott after this one with so many coach openings out there and some already filled. But I’m not sure they can sell the fans with their new stadium that running this crew back is going to result in anything different next season.

Then with Nix getting injured here, the Patriots might have the clearest path any team’s ever had to a Super Bowl, and that would be disastrous for Maye to get one so early while Allen is still seeking that elusive first Super Bowl. The Bills would have had a chance to kill that noise with another road win next week against a quarterback that’s been so shaky in these two playoff games.

Instead, Buffalo finished second in the AFC East and won one fewer playoff game than it did a year ago despite coming into 2025 as the favorite to earn the No. 1 seed because of the schedule’s advantages.

Denver and New England swooped in there and outdid them instead. If I had to pick which duo of teams wins more AFC Championship Games in the next eight years, I’d still take the Chiefs/Bills over the Broncos/Patriots even with the latter going up 1-0 this season.

But Saturday was definitely the worst playoff outcome yet for Allen and the Bills, so I understand why they are extra emotional about this one. I just wish there was more acknowledgement from fans who want to focus on a fairly clear interception that it was just one of the last mistakes in a long line from the Bills in this game.

I’m still of the belief that 13 Seconds was supposed to be the year for Allen/McDermott, and it’s just never going to happen for them as a duo with this team. As Jim Nantz awkwardly said after this one, the next time you see Josh Allen he’ll be a 30-year-old dad.

Damn, Jim. He’s also 0-7 in overtime, the first quarterback to start his career like that since Aaron Rodgers. But even Rodgers won his only Super Bowl in his third year as a starter (2010) in his second trip to the playoffs.

Allen will have to make history by being the first quarterback to reach his first Super Bowl in his 8th postseason or more. I remember when Buffalo’s greatest quarterback (Jim Kelly) was slandered for losing four straight Super Bowls. Now, Allen is starting to look like he might hold that legacy of being the greatest quarterback to never start a Super Bowl.

That’s his title going into 2026, and we’ll just have to wait and see if this loss snowballs into a New England run that they could have stopped.

Rams at Bears: A Breaking Point or a Sacrificial Lamb Served Up to Seattle Next Week?

It’s hard to say what lasting impact this game will have without seeing the trajectory of the Ben Johnson-led Bears or the outcome for the 2025 Rams this postseason. Maybe it’s the breaking point for the Rams on their way to a second Super Bowl in five years as they were pushed pretty hard in overtime here, if it should have even gone to overtime.

Maybe it’s the game that gets Caleb Williams to work more on the fundamentals and tightening up his throwing motion and hitting the routine plays better next year to go along with the spectacular plays.

Seriously, did anyone have a better highlight reel than Caleb in 2025? The touchdown throw to D.J. Moore against Cleveland that resembled The Catch but deeper, the touchdown to Moore in overtime against the Packers, the 4th-and-8 against the Packers, and then the longest 14-yard touchdown pass you’ll ever see (51.2 air yards) to tie this game up in the final minute are four plays as good as any by a quarterback this year.

But this was a strange game all around. The Bears came out hot until Rome Odunze dropped a 23-yard touchdown from Williams. Two plays later on a fourth down, his pass was intercepted by a diving Ram, and that actually netted 6 yards of field position for Chicago. Still, you’d like to see Odunze step up as WR1 and squeeze that one for a quick score to make a statement.

The Rams had a great opening drive that went 85 yards in 14 plays with Matthew Stafford in command of things. But they really struggled after that with six punts and one field goal the next seven drives as the Bears were getting home with quick pressures, and the Rams weren’t attacking their low-ranked running defense enough.

In the third quarter, Williams threw his second interception, though it could have been argued the refs missed a blow to the head on the play. The Rams had the ball at the 50 but still went three-and-out, so it didn’t have a big impact on the game as a scoreless third quarter remained 10-10 going into the fourth.

We know the fourth quarter is where the Bears have been at their best all year, but the Rams struck first with a 91-yard touchdown drive that focused on the running game again as Kyren Williams scored for the second time. They called a WR run to Puka Nacua on a big 4th-and-1 before the touchdown, shades of the Cooper Kupp play on their game-winning drive in Super Bowl 56.

Also on this go-ahead drive, there was a 12-yard pass to Davante Adams that people are trying to compare to the Brandin Cooks play in Denver. It’s a silly comparison from people who are reaching.

This is not the same play at all. Adams caught the ball in a crowd, established control, then was held up and tackled. As he was going down the ground with the catch already secured, his knee hit the ground, then he was stripped of the ball. But since he already completed the catch, the play is dead the moment his knee hit the ground. It was not a diving catch where he had to survive going to the ground like Cooks did (and did not succeed in doing). Not the same play. Move on.

To answer the touchdown, the Bears drove to the LA 2, but Williams’ fourth-down pass was batted down with 3:03 left. I might have to look into this more if the Rams keep advancing, but I’ve always said Sean McVay is incredibly conservative in the four-minute offense, so it didn’t surprise me the Bears got the ball back in a 17-10 game. I’m just surprised at how conservative the Rams were, because they chose to run Williams five times in a row. He screwed up the one by going out of bounds instead of sliding down.

But with 2:07 left and the Bears down to one timeout, McVay still called a run on third-and-10, which was silly since a pass and punt could still use up the two-minute warning, and the pass might have even given them a first down that could have come very close to wrapping this one up. Instead, Williams got the ball at the 50 with 1:50 left after a poor punt.

He didn’t necessarily make the drive look easy, but he’s been comfortable in the last 2:00 all season, and on fourth-and-4 at the 14, he ran all the way back to his 40 before throwing a pass up to the end zone where either Cole Kmet or one defensive back could get it. Kmet won the battle with ease as the DB misplayed the ball, and the Bears had their clutch touchdown with 0:18 left on an insane play by Williams.

With 18 seconds left, do you go for two? It’s the call that will probably haunt Ben Johnson all offseason, and I imagine next time he’ll go into a playoff game making sure he has the perfect 2PC call. But allegedly he didn’t go for it because he didn’t like the team’s execution in short yardage all night. Fair enough.

I see the argument both ways, going for it and playing for overtime. In the playoffs, overtime really isn’t bad at all anymore since you can about guarantee you’ll have a possession and it won’t be pressed for time either. Johnson already surprised me once this year when he didn’t go for 2 against Green Bay in Week 16 and won in overtime as we know he comes from that aggressive Dan Campbell coaching tree in Detroit.

With 18 seconds left, that’s definitely the right amount of time to justify going for the win. You could also argue that the Rams were shook by such a spectacular touchdown that going for the kill may have been the right call.

Alas, they went to overtime where the Bears won the toss, and I think they were correct to receive. Again, put the shellshocked Rams on the field first, and give Caleb four-down football with that extra margin for error, knowing exactly what he needs. Love that decision and would do it every time here.

It almost worked out too. Predictably, the Rams got conservative and called three straight runs (that’s 10 in a row going back to the fourth quarter) and went three-and-out after their 3rd-and-1 run was stuffed. Those short-yardage failures are something I’ve been highlighting for several weeks for the Rams this season, and between blowing that run and the lead, it looked like their weaknesses were going to eliminate them.

The Bears just needed a field goal for their eighth game-winning drive of the season (tie the NFL record) while the Rams had already allowed five GWD this season. But after a Williams sneak on a fourth down to convert at midfield, things went awry on a 2nd-and-8 at the LA 48. D.J. Moore had a poor effort on a route, and Williams was intercepted by Curl on a miscommunication that really isn’t on the QB or at least not entirely. Bad spot to be off like that.

Just like the Bills on Saturday, the team that just had to get a field goal to win the game threw a pick and never saw the ball again. Stafford finally got involved again with three completions for 43 yards, including a great grab by Adams and a big chain mover on third down to Puka (who else?).

Beyond blowing leads and short-yardage runs, the field goal unit is my other often cited flaw with the 2025 Rams. But rookie kicker Harrison Mevis had his team’s back with a 42-yard kick that was good enough to win this one at 20-17.

It was definitely a scare from the Bears, and who knows what happens had they gone for 2 against these Rams a la Seattle in Week 16. But the Rams escaped with the win, and now we’ll see if they can avenge that loss in Seattle. Barring a Darnold meltdown, it’s probably not going to happen if they play like this next Sunday night.

Texans at Patriots: It’s the Patriot Way

It’s actually fitting this game took place 22 years to the date of the 2003 AFC Championship Game, the game that ruined quarterback discourse for the rest of time. The game where Peyton Manning threw four interceptions and Tom Brady tried to match him bar for bar against a much inferior defense.

It’s not that Sunday’s game was expected to be a quarterback duel with two defenses on all-time runs of not allowing yards and neither gave up a touchdown in wins last week. It’s not like anyone has C.J. Stroud in MVP talks like Drake Maye, and the consensus was Stroud just needed to be a guy who doesn’t screw things up with his defense.

Well, that was always going to be harder to do without Nico Collins, who was out with a concussion. It got worse when tight end Dalton Schultz, the team’s second-leading receiver in yards (first in catches too), left the game early with an injury, putting Stroud in a familiar position of having limited weapons in the postseason after two years of injuries to Tank Dell (twice) and Stefon Diggs (2024).

But the Texans were supposed to have better depth this year. That didn’t really show up, and neither did their hands on the road as the offense looked like a “dome team” with some costly drops on late downs from Christian Kirk (early) and Cade Stover (late).

But the fact is Stroud was an absolute mess in this game, he threw four interceptions before halftime, including a pick-six I predicted, and there was a stretch where every pass looked like a prayer. Someone just hoping to get rid of the ball with no care where it went.

I’m actually shocked Davis Mills didn’t enter the game to start the second half, and maybe he should have. Mills has as many comeback wins this year as Stroud has in three seasons for Houston. I would have told him he can’t settle down, he’s not seeing the field well in the snow, and we’re going to give Mills a shot. Not that I’d expect it’d help the protection that looked outmatched, and the running game stunk (20 carries for 37 yards). But sometimes you see better protection when a backup comes in as if the linemen know they need to do better for that guy. Sometimes that backup just gets rid of the ball better or more accurately too.

Stroud was awful, and while he was better in the second half, it still didn’t make up for the damage caused early. However, a Woody Marks fumble in the red zone after he lost his shoe was another callback to the 2003 AFC-CG when Marvin Harrison fumbled in the red zone when it finally looked like the Colts had something going.

Despite the five turnovers by Houston, the only one the Patriots got any points off of was the pick-six by Marcus Jones. That’s because the Houston defense did its job by making sure Drake Maye looked pretty awful too. Maye had five sacks as Danielle Hunter and Will Anderson caused about as much havoc as they could on the road. They forced Maye to fumble four times, recovered two of them, and the other two were right there for grabs as well. Could have easily been a 5-turnover day for Maye, who also threw a Hail Mary interception to end the half that didn’t matter.

Still, that’s why it’s so much like the 2003 AFC-CG in that Maye tried his best to match Stroud turnover for turnover, but Houston didn’t capitalize enough.

But Maye looked shellshocked by the pass rush, not unlike what he did against a lesser Chargers defense a week earlier. He was just fortunate his defense was stellar as neither team had 250 yards of offense. The Patriots were also just 3-of-14 on third down.

The turnovers meant each team had 9 possessions by halftime, and the Patriots finished the day with 21 offensive points on a whopping 14 drives. Maye had three touchdown passes, but those plays said more about the receivers helping him out with a good YAC play by Pop Douglas, a very strong catch by Stefon Diggs to hang onto it in traffic in the end zone, then a brilliant one-handed catch for 32 yards by Boutte to put the Patriots up 28-16, the end of the scoring.

The unheralded play of the game happened three plays before that Boutte catch. The Texans had a chance to get the ball back in a 21-16 game in the fourth quarter with the Patriots facing a 3rd-and-8. But Derek Stingley Jr. was flagged correctly for defensive pass interference for 17 yards, and then he was beat on the touchdown too, so a rough series for him and the defense when they had a chance to set up a 4QC opportunity.

But be honest. Do you think Stroud, who is 2-10 at such games, would have capitalized? When the Texans later had the ball in a 12-point game, they punted on 4th-and-18 with 4:17 left. I know no one wants to go for it in that spot, but you at least give yourself a chance to get a penalty to convert or something. With only one timeout left, punting is such a cowardly move, but that’s what Ryans did.

Does he not realize you could end up forcing them to kick a field goal after three snaps and it’s still a 31-16 game? Two-score game. But Ryans did the cowardly punt, and the Texans had 1:45 left when they got the ball back. Just enough time for another Stroud prayer on 4th down to not be answered deep by Hutchinson on a pass broken up by linebacker Robert Spillane.

The Patriots put on a defensive masterclass against a quarterback in over his head. I’m honestly not sure Collins and Schutlz playing the whole game would have made a huge difference for Stroud, who became the first quarterback ever to throw 5 picks and fumble at least 5 times in the same postseason. He did it in just two games.

Stroud was awful, and ESPN’s Troy Aikman had some scathing commentary about how Stroud has been chasing his rookie success the last two years, and it’s just not there for whatever reason.

The Texans are going to have a difficult decision to make when it comes to extending him. This was their opportunity for a Super Bowl, or at least their first AFC Championship Game with this defense. If only Stroud didn’t screw it up.

He did though, and it led to a loss on a day where Maye didn’t show up either with his best stuff.

49ers at Seahawks: Just Keep Hitting Snooze for 3 Hours

They delayed this game’s start by 20 minutes for the conclusion of Bills-Broncos, and even then I missed the live airing of the competitive portion of the game, which was the opening kickoff return. By the time I switched over to FOX, Rashid Shaheed had taken the kickoff back 95 yards for a touchdown and the rout was on.

This isn’t the first time I watched a dramatic playoff game end at Mile High before having a hard time ever getting into the later game that involved the 49ers (Colin Kaeperick’s 176-yard rushing night against the Packers after the Ravens beat Denver in double overtime in the 2012 divisional round).

This one was like 2015 when we watched the Broncos beat the Patriots for the last round of Manning vs. Brady before the Panthers stunk up the joint in the NFC Championship Game at Carolina. That was another game I had high hopes for and was backing Arizona and Carson Palmer only to be disappointed with a dud.

That’s what this was: A massive dud. Seattle played well but the 49ers did almost no favors for themselves as the battered underdog. They gave up that kick return touchdown, then after getting good field position following a landing zone rule quirk, they still wasted it by calling the worst play they possibly could on a 4th-and-1. Seriously, option with Kyle Juszczyk going wide against a fast defense? You can’t be serious with 1 yard to go.

Right from Brock Purdy’s first dropback and incompletion you could see it was going to be a nightmare up front, but the 49ers killed themselves with three turnover on downs and two turnovers. The loss of tight end George Kittle (Achilles) unfortunately had an impact. Backup Jake Tonges fumbled on the second drive near midfield, the third big mistake of the night for the 49ers, and that led to a 42-yard touchdown drive for the Seahawks and a quick 17-0 lead.

The last time this was a game was late in the second quarter. Ricky Pearsall, who missed the last two weeks, had a shot at a 3rd-and-6 catch where if he caught it, the 49ers had a shot to get a touchdown and make this 17-10 getting near halftime. Instead, he didn’t come up with the ball and the 49ers settled for their second field goal to make it 17-6.

That’s when the Seahawks put together maybe their best offensive drive, a full 80 yards this time, as they mostly relied on the run with Sam Darnold suffering that oblique injury on Thursday. But that wasn’t a big deal with the early lead and the way the 49ers struggled in the trenches. Darnold didn’t even have 100 passing yards by the time it was 27-6 in the third quarter. It didn’t matter that the Seahawks still had some red-zone issues in finishing drives with touchdowns.

I don’t think Brock Purdy played that poorly on an impossible night. He even led the team with 37 rushing yards, a bad sign. His first turnover came in the third quarter when it was 27-6, and again it was a play involving a backup tight end (Luke Farrell), who made a pretty weak effort on the route and allowed the defender to cut him off for the pick and another short field. Soon it was 34-6 and rout was in full effect.

Jauan Jennings couldn’t come down with a great 3rd-down pass by Purdy, so the 49ers ended up turning it over on downs with a 4th-down miss, leading to yet another short field (37 yards) for a Seattle touchdown.

Down 41-6, Purdy was strip-sacked with 9:12 left before both teams played backups to run the clock out. The 49ers didn’t have a single play gain 20 yards and only scored 9 points in the last 8 quarters against Seattle in January.

But when they’re doing shit like this, is there any wonder they played so poorly?

I’ll have to eat crow on the 49ers stealing this one, but now we’ll see if the Seahawks can take care of the Rams with the Super Bowl on the line. Hell, I think the 2025 NFC Championship Game is the real Super Bowl this year.

Next week: I’m glad the little AFC appetizer game is on first, then we can make room for the showdown between the Rams and Seahawks that has little chance of living up to the Week 16 meeting. But with a record 14 lead changes in the fourth quarter this postseason, maybe we’ve got one great game left here before a Super Bowl that could be less than stellar.

2025 NFL Stat Oddity: Wild Card Weekend

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

The story all season for the NFL in 2025 was new contenders. The Chiefs, Ravens, and Lions didn’t even make the playoffs. The Eagles didn’t win a playoff game, so we’ll have a new champion.

We only have three of the same final eight teams from 2024 (Bills, Rams, and Texans). The Broncos, Seahawks, Patriots, Bears, and 49ers are all new in that round. This should have led to a crazy, unpredictable postseason, and if wild card weekend is any indication, we’re getting one of the craziest postseasons in NFL history.

All six games had a comeback opportunity, and the first four all had a game-winning touchdown scored by a trailing team after the two-minute warning, a single-postseason record. There’s never been a postseason with more than five fourth-quarter comebacks, so we have a great shot of tying or exceeding that here.

We’ve also already had 12 fourth-quarter lead changes in six games, another single-postseason record with seven games left. There have been entire postseasons where there wasn’t a single fourth-quarter lead change like 2020 (COVID year with empty stadiums) or 2005 (No. 6 seed Pittsburgh won).

I predicted Eagles over Bills in Super Bowl 60 on Friday night, and that’s already halfway wrong after Philadelphia’s title defense ended in somewhat predictable fashion. The 49ers’ insane 22-year streak of either making the NFC Championship Game (7x) or missing the playoffs with a non-winning record (15x) is still alive and just has to get through Sam Darnold next week to continue for the 23rd year in a row.

But that’s next week. First, let’s recap the weekend, which I think you can argue is the best wild card weekend in NFL history. I don’t think any one game this weekend would make a top 5 list of NFL wild card playoff games, but the collective competitiveness of the weekend and the way these teams were just matching scores (for four games) in the fourth quarter was crazy to watch.

Something truly memorable from a weird season to this point.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Texans at Steelers: Same Old Steelers with Their Old Quarterback

The Steelers lost their seventh playoff game in a row as DeMeco Ryans has already matched Mike Tomlin’s last 15 seasons in playoff wins (3) in just three years on the job in Houston. What a job it’s been too. He just won a playoff game by 24 points on the road despite his quarterback, C.J. Stroud, turning the ball over three times with five fumbles (two lost).

But that 30-6 score is going to be one of the most misleading finals in postseason history. This was a 7-6 game at halftime and going into the fourth quarter. It was only 10-6 Houston when Pittsburgh foolishly called another run on 2nd-and-10 that lost 2 yards as they never got a ground game going all night.

Then on 3rd-and-12, Rodgers was buried in the backfield, coughed up the ball, and the Texans returned it for a touchdown. You could definitely argue there was a blow to the head that made his helmet move that could have been called for roughing the passer to negate the turnover and touchdown.

If this is Rodgers’ last playoff game (or game period), maybe it’s fitting it ends with a fumble-six after an uncalled penalty, shades of no facemask call on him in Arizona in the 2009 wild card loss. Actually, his last pass of the night here ended up being a fourth-down pick-six as the Texans have now scored six return touchdowns in just five playoff games in the Stroud-Ryans era. It’s possible his last pass is a playoff pick-six after his last pass as a Packer was a game-ending interception at home in a game with playoff implications against the Lions.

It usually never ends well. For the Steelers, nothing has ended well in the last decade, but I’ll say this one was a little different since you really can’t blame the defense. Sure, they had poor plays on third downs all night, but it was a 10-6 game with 13:00 left. Do something on offense. The Steelers got a Stroud fumble at the Houston 21 and moved the ball 4 yards before settling for a field goal.

They stuck to their guns, which means they have no identity on offense. They had some good plays early to D.K. Metcalf before he dropped a big pass and shut down the rest of the night. Pat Freiermuth’s usage all season was criminal, but that’s what happens when your QB is so WR-centric and your OC is in love with Jonnu Smith.

The Steelers even led 3-0 after the first quarter, a big departure from their usual 21-0 deficit in the playoffs. But the Texans still got to 30 points, extending their record streak to 7 playoff games allowing 28+ points. They also set a record with a fifth-straight playoff loss by double digits.

The Houston defense is great, but the Steelers had them on their heels early and just got worse by the drive. No touchdowns scored. It was actually better when the Steelers would lose a 45-42 playoff game at home. At least the offense could score after some mistakes. This was impotency.

This team was false hope all year. They’d look good for a half against a contender, then they’d get crushed after halftime against the Seahawks, Chargers, Packers, Bills, and now the Texans.

And the sad part is nothing really changes until they fire Tomlin and get lucky with a high draft pick on a quarterback. That’s the only way you’re going to get fundamental change in Pittsburgh.

I think 600 words will suffice, because what more could you say at this point? Same old Steelers.

Packers at Bears: Finally, This Rivalry Is Worth Watching in Prime Time

The 2025 Packers-Bears just gave us the best trilogy since, what, Nolan’s Batman? For years we had to endure this dated rivalry in an island game, but with the arrival of coach  Ben Johnson in Chicago, we got three great games late in the season with the Bears winning both meetings at Soldier Field in dramatic comeback fashion as they’ve done all year.

I’m not sure if Johnson’s vitriol for the Packers stems from his Lions days (jealousy?), or if it’s just manufactured bravado to endear himself with the Chicago community. But he may have ended Matt LaFleur’s time in Green Bay or at least limited it to one more season at best after a total collapse from the Packers, who lost their last four regular-season games before blowing a 21-3 lead on the road, and a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter (only the fourth time that’s happened in the playoffs after Roger Staubach’s comeback off the bench in 1972, the 2002 49ers vs. Giants, and Super Bowl 51).

The wild part is, much like John Harbaugh losing his Baltimore job on the swing of a kicker’s 44-yard field goal, it’s not like Johnson badly outcoached LaFleur in this game. In fact, some curious decisions by Johnson on fourth downs (Dan Campbell’s protégé) helped lead to the Bears trailing 21-3 at halftime. Green Bay kicker Brandon McManus also cost the team 7 points by missing three makeable kicks.

The Packers, who never won another game after Micah Parsons tore his ACL in Denver, wasted one of Jordan Love’s best games of the season. He didn’t turn the ball over, he distributed the ball very well to his wideouts with four of them catching a touchdown, including the first of the year for rookie Matthew Golden after they got him in space to show off his speed. Love did this with Josh Jacobs not producing a damn thing on the ground after halftime, which is part of why the Packers became ineffective and kept giving the ball back to the Bears to make this 18-point comeback.

Caleb Williams looked like a young quarterback going through first-playoff start jitters. He threw two interceptions on fourth downs, one of which shouldn’t have been caught as it cost the Packers 27 yards in field position.

But the Bears were hanging in there at 21-6 in the fourth quarter, then proceeded to catch quite a few breaks. Williams nearly lost a fumble on a 3rd-and-10 sack, but the Bears recovered the ball and were able to kick the 51-yard field goal to make it 21-9.

After Love was called for his second grounding penalty of the half, the Bears scored a touchdown to make it 21-16. The Packers overcame some mistakes and made it 28-16 on Golden’s great touchdown with 6:36 left. That should have been a dagger, but these 2025 Bears don’t know when to die.

But it’s funny how the key turning point of the game was the result of the Bears not being well prepared on offense, which should be Johnson’s expertise area, and getting bailed out for it to save the game. Chicago faced a 4th-and-3 at midfield with 5:37 left. Hurrying to get the snap off, the Bears snapped the ball over Williams’ head, which would have been a disastrous, likely game-ending turnover on downs.

But the Bears were penalized for a false start, setting up a 4th-and-8, and given a second chance, Williams made the throw of his career to find Rome Odunze for 27 yards. Game on from there.

It could have been curtains without the false start, so that’s how another Chicago mistake actually saved the game. The Bears turned that drive into 8 points and it was 27-24 with 4:18 left. But then it was LaFleur’s turn to ruin the game for his team with infuriating timeout usage. He burned one after an incomplete pass brought up 3rd-and-10, then the Packers immediately suffered a delay of game coming out of it anyway. Inexcusable.

That’s when McManus missed the 44-yard field goal with 2:51 left. Not the biggest miss of the game for him if you ask me. He missed the extra point after Golden’s touchdown that would have made it 28-16 with 6:36 left. That would have meant the Bears had to score two touchdowns instead of possibly settling for 8+3 or 3+8.

The Bears ended up scoring 2 touchdowns anyway, but look at the impact that point had. Instead of trailing 31-28 or 29-28 after Chicago’s last score, it was a 31-27 deficit, meaning Love had to get a touchdown with 1:36 and one timeout left instead of a field goal.

Green Bay’s usage of that final timeout was also questionable, then as fate would have it, an injury led to a 10-second runoff, making things even harder. Love almost had Golden for a touchdown on one play, but then he fumbled the final snap and had to fire a pass to the end zone that fell incomplete, and the Bears extended their record with a seventh win this season after trailing in the final 2:00.

Going into this game, I would have thought the rumors of LaFleur getting fired with a loss were BS. But after seeing the way it played out and thinking about all the big-game failures he’s had in seven years, the Packers might be wise for a change of leadership here.

It probably wasn’t going to be a Super Bowl season anyway for the Packers after losing Parsons, but that second half was coaching malpractice. It wouldn’t be so crazy for LaFleur to be moving on to another team for 2026 now.

As for the Bears, what more can you say? Caleb Williams is exactly the reason why a stat like EPA per play isn’t the end-all, be-all of stats for quarterbacks. Can you get the job done and score when you have to no matter how many downs or snaps it takes? He seems to be pretty good at that, and some of the throws are just incredible. Still misses his share of easy ones, but he can get better with that.

It should be quite the game with the Rams next week, another new matchup. The Rams have already allowed five game-winning drives, so Williams might have a shot at tying the single-season 4QC/GWD records with eight each.

Bills at Jaguars: The Trevor Lawrence Legacy Game Goes as Expected

The Buffalo pass defense. Like I’ve been saying for over a month, the Buffalo pass defense in a playoff field without Patrick Mahomes is why this team can get to the Super Bowl even without home games or a good run defense. They just have to stop some unproven quarterbacks in crunch time, and Lawrence was the first on their list, bringing the season totals to 8 saves and 0 blown leads for the Bills.

Oh, there were lead changes in the fourth quarter just as there were in all the early games this weekend. But when it came time for the final drive and Lawrence had a solid minute to get a kicker with incredible range into position, he immediately threw a pick to end the season.

But I think the game was lost well before that. The Jaguars should have had a run-heavy approach in this one. How does Tuten rip off runs of 20, 14, and 13 yards to end the first quarter and get one more carry the rest of the game? How?

They put their eggs in Lawrence’s basket, and while he settled down later in the game and made some nice throws, he killed them early with a pick that led to a 1-yard field goal drive for the Bills. He killed them when he ducked under a defender and his shin was down short on a 4th down in the red zone when the Jags had a chance to go up 14-3 after the Bills fumbled a kickoff.

It was evident early that Lawrence wasn’t on his A game, but the Jaguars didn’t do enough to test that run defense of the Bills. Also, the Jags were gifted a 54-yard field goal attempt before halftime that I’m not sure they deserved by beating the clock (did they really?), and Cam Little, after all the praise for his record-long kicks, missed it. That hurts in a 3-point loss.

But the Bills had a good offensive plan to throw those little short passes to Shakir to pace the offense on a day where James Cook was bottled up by the No. 1 run defense. Maybe a few too many Josh Allen designed runs when he’s banged up, but they made it work. And of course with the season on the line, he went to the Tush Push again, and this time he was pushed ahead for a 10-yard gain on 4th-and-1 with the season on the line.

That play was so weird to me. You obviously want to stop them since it’s fourth down. But once he got moving like that, do you just let them score? It was 24-20, so Buffalo absolutely needed a touchdown, but what if you stop them at the 5? You can still get a stop there to win the game. Once he got to the 1, why not just let him go the distance? Weird play.

Then Buffalo was stuck in no man’s land since you really don’t want to risk wasting a down with a bad play and getting a penalty or something stupid to push you back. Ideally, you’d run clock there and score on 2nd down with the sneak, leaving the Jaguars less than 20 seconds to work with. But they scored on first down, whether by design or not, and the Jaguars were going to get the ball back in a 27-24 game with 59 seconds left.

But you get a wild tipped ball that’s intercepted, and just like that, the season is over for the Jaguars. To evoke Dan Campbell, this may have been their best shot too in this AFC. But that’s one road win and one postseason game-winning drive in the books for Allen, who had neither of those things in his career before Sunday.

Next up is Denver as I predicted it’d be, and I think they have a very good shot of winning that one too because of their pass defense against Bo Nix. Again, someone has to be willing to run to take this team down, and someone better get Allen to the ground on defense. That’s why Houston is really the danger team for the Bills, but they may end up avoiding them here.

So far, so good.

Rams at Panthers: Stafford with MVP-Style Revenge Against Carolina

I kept saying the spread (Rams -10.5) was always too high for a team that’s been shaky in the last month like the Rams, who have already blown games as a huge favorite along with two huge leads in the second half against the Eagles and Seahawks. They already lost in Carolina in Week 13.

The Rams prevailed 34-31 this time, but it did show why they’re a shaky bet to go the distance. The short-yardage runs, the fourth-down decision making, the defensive play as of late, and some turnovers from Stafford and the offense are not leading to dominant play late in the season.

In this game, Stafford completed his first eight passes with Puka Nacua doing whatever he wants. But then Stafford hit his hand on a helmet and wasn’t the same. Nacua dropped a 46-yard touchdown going into halftime, and the Rams had a huge turnover on downs moment late in the second quarter. I get why McVay went for it; to control the rest of the clock and go into halftime up 13-17 points. But by not getting it, the Rams only led by 3.

Bryce Young was more than solid in his first playoff game. Certainly a few plays he’d like to have back, but the running game wasn’t there for him, and he made some clutch throws in big spots to finish with 264 passing yards.

Young did lead two go-ahead touchdown drives in the fourth quarter, but the defense was unable to hold up. They had a chance at a Stafford interception on a mix-up with Nacua with just under 12:00 left, but Puka made a play on the ball to force an incompletion on a drive that ended with a touchdown instead.

But when the Rams got the ball back with 2:34 left, it was all calmness and precision from Stafford on the 71-yard march to win the game. He reportedly told Davante Adams that it was time to go rip their hearts out, which he did. He threw a 19-yard touchdown to Colby Parkinson with 38 seconds left.

Young got the ball back in a 34-31 game with all three timeouts, so that gives you access to the entire playbook and you can use every square inch of the field with no concern for the clock. However, he unfortunately saved his worst drive for the last as the Panthers couldn’t gain a yard, and Young threw four straight incompletions to end the game on downs.

Horn had a chance at a low catch on fourth down, but by that point, you’re down to under 7 seconds and still not in field goal range, so the real failure of the drive came well before the final snap. Just not the execution we saw from Young in these moments in the regular season, and it cost them at the end here.

But it was still a great effort for an 8-9 team that was the biggest home underdog in NFL playoff history. Scary times for the Rams, but they prevailed and are moving onto Chicago.

49ers at Eagles: Repeating Is Hard

The 2025 Eagles were able to end a long drought and repeat as NFC East champions, but the only other repeat they’re going to end 2025 with is reminding us that this offense played half-assed football all season going back to opening night against Dallas when they only scored a field goal after a great first half.

The Eagles repeatedly did this all season, so it’s no surprise their season ended in this fashion. They scored two touchdowns on their first three drives, then never found the end zone on their last seven possessions. A.J. Brown bitched about targets all year and finished this game with 3 catches for 25 yards and some bad drops/incompletions. He might have played his last game with Philly.

Meanwhile, the 49ers hung in there and made it work without Ricky Pearsall, then they lost tight end George Kittle to a torn Achilles early in the game. Demarcus Robinson set the tone early with a 61-yard catch-and-run in stride on the opening drive, which he finished with a touchdown on his way to 111 yards.

Brock Purdy wasn’t perfect with a couple of interceptions, but he played well to get to 262 yards and 2 touchdowns without Kittle and Pearsall. They also couldn’t run the ball for much (16 carries for 51 yards). But on the first play of the fourth quarter, they brought back a trick play from Super Bowl 58 with Jauan Jennings throwing a 29-yard touchdown that required a great diving catch from Chrisitan McCaffrey to take a 17-16 lead. Both teams missed an extra point in the game (Eagles early, 49ers late).

The Eagles didn’t have Lane Johnson at tackle, which hurt as there were some big holding penalties that killed drives in the second half. They were able to turn Purdy’s second pick into a field goal drive that took a 19-17 lead with 8:00 left. But a defense that’s wilted in some fourth quarters blew a fifth lead this year. Purdy led a 66-yard march, finishing on third down with a 4-yard touchdown pass to CMC for a 23-19 lead with 2:54 left after the extra point was missed.

The 49ers probably should have gone for 2 there as 4 vs. 5 is little difference, and at least if you’re up 6 points, the other team might miss the extra point as we’ve seen Jake Elliott do this year.

Anyways, it was on Hurts to deliver a game-winning drive, which would have been his first in the postseason. It was nearly a four-and-out drive after a horrible drop by Brown on third down. But Dallas Goedert cleaned it up with 15 yards on fourth-and-5. However, once the drive reached the San Francisco 20, things stalled out. The poor pass rush for the 49ers got home for a 1-yard loss on a sack, then Hurts threw three straight incompletions to end the season for the Eagles.

On 4th-and-11, Hurts threw to Goedert with three defenders around him and it was closer to a pick than anything. I’m not sure he had any real other options on the play, but that’s season over there. The 49ers pulled it off.

I was going to reply to a tweet I saw before kickoff about the bad EPA rankings for the 49ers’ defense this year, and I keep hearing the sentiment that they’re a bottom-5 defense, which doesn’t jive with their ranking of 13th in points and 16th in points per drive allowed.

Again, this is an example of how EPA can miss some fundamental information. That’s a stat that can get juiced and heavily inflated by splash plays like sacks and turnovers. So, it’s not a surprise the 49ers don’t look good in EPA when they don’t get many splash plays. But they must be doing something right if they’re usually not getting destroyed on the scoreboard.

Throw in the struggles of the Eagles to play a 60-minute game on offense, and the 49ers always had a good shot of pulling this one out as a low-scoring game you win in the fourth quarter. That’s exactly what happened too.

They can do the same thing in Seattle, a team they’ve held to 13 points in both meetings this year. But we have all week to build up that one.

The Eagles are done. No repeat for them like I foolishly picked on Friday night. But I thought the defense would be better than this as I didn’t see getting killed by Robinson and a touchdown pass from Jennings leading to the end for this team.

Finally, I don’t think it’s hindsight to question why Nick Sirianni didn’t try to get that No. 2 seed last week by beating Washington. Wouldn’t you rather face a banged-up Green Bay team that’s lost four in a row? A team you already beat in a low-scoring game instead of a 49ers team that is well coached and still has some elite players, and they never seem to go one-and-done in the postseason. They can score too with Purdy, so yeah, I think that was a tactical error by Sirianni.

Not to mention getting home-field over Chicago if you’re the No. 2 seed. I didn’t like that decision to rest last week, and I really don’t like it now after what we saw from the Eagles on Sunday.

Chargers at Patriots: Roman, Lend Me Your Ears So I Can Whisper “You’re Fired”

The last NFL team to score 3 points in a playoff game before the Chargers on Sunday night was the Ravens in Buffalo during COVD. Who was the offensive coordinator? Greg Roman. I think we’ve seen enough of him here, and while it’s clearly not all his fault, he’s wasting Justin Herbert’s talent and hasn’t gotten any good results in the big games the last two years. I think they should make him the sacrificial lamb and fire him over this one after the Chargers scored 22 points in the final three games of the season.

Moving onto the quarterback, these Herbert playoff appearances keep getting worse. Now 0-3, I actually think he was better last year when he threw four interceptions (one dropped, one down 20) in Houston compared to this impotent performance with 3 points making the 2025 Patriots look like the 2003 Patriots. The weather wasn’t even an issue.

I also think that Houston game might be messing with him mentally, because how do you not pull the trigger to McConkey on this play early?

You can’t be too worried about throwing picks in a game like this. That’s how you end up scoring 3 points and just running or taking sacks all night because you’re scared of putting the ball 10 yards down the field. Terrible mindset to have in a playoff game.

The thing is the pass protection wasn’t really that bad until it was 16-3 in the fourth quarter. Then Herbert was swarmed and engulfed. But the damage had already been done earlier on the first seven drives.

As for Drake Maye in his first playoff game, he was bad. He was inaccurate against a zone defense. He turned into a sack merchant again, going down 5 times (lost over 6 yards per sack too this time so he wasn’t even mitigating the losses this week), and he should have had two lost fumbles, and the second one could have been an easy touchdown for the Chargers that would have made it an interesting 16-10 game with time. Most of his big plays were blown coverage or huge YAC on a checkdown to Stevenson.

Just not impressed, and objectively I don’t know how people can praise a 16-point performance like this from a quarterback. But it was his first playoff game, and he at least did better in the second half after a poor first half. Just interesting to note that in his second NFL win over a winning team, he had a 6-3 lead at halftime in both games (this and at Buffalo).

There’s also the fact that Vrabel and New England are used to these low-scoring playoff wins.

What’s next, two special teams touchdowns against Houston while Josh Dobbs has to come off the bench and direct a win? Then beating the Rams in the Super Bowl with 13 offensive points? Or is that only reserved for Brady?

Neither the Texans nor Patriots allowed a touchdown this week, so who knows what to expect from that one. But based on this game, I wouldn’t expect a ton of scoring from Maye in the passing game.

But the Chargers are in a tough spot as they need a new OC and they’ll probably lose their DC (Jesse Minter) to a head coaching Job. I’m not sure you can ever trust Herbert in one of these games until he proves he can get the job done. And they’re always on the road because they can seemingly never win this division. The Chiefs won’t be down for long, and the Broncos have a lot of good players and a coach on par with Harbaugh.

The 2025 Chargers had that built-in excuse with the offensive tackles going out, but I’m surprised at how little of a factor that was for three quarters on Sunday. Just played a lot of bad, passive football and that can be even worse than getting aggressive and throwing some picks.

At least they scored more points last year in Houston.

Next week: I always say the divisional round is the best weekend of the NFL year, but it’s got a high bar to clear after what we just saw. It’s also going to try to do it by introducing the top seeds, Seattle and Denver, into the mix. We’ll see if the Texans can sack the Patriots, and Rams vs. Bears could be the shootout of the postseason.

2025 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 17

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

That was a very long Week 17 slate in the NFL that started with Josh Johnson on Christmas afternoon and ended with a classic shootout between the Bears and 49ers. It sets up three division title games in Week 18 in prime time and little of substance on Sunday afternoon.

We had nine games with a comeback opportunity, so we still haven’t had a week with 10 chances since Week 4. That has me a little worried about Atlanta’s ability to keep it close with the Rams on Monday night, but we’ll see as I still think that one has upset potential.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Bears at 49ers: Game of the Day

This 42-38 game summed up in one graphic:

The crazy part is the Bears didn’t have their best wideout in Rome Odunze, and D.J. Moore wasn’t 100%, and the two rookies (Luther Burden and Colston Loveland) dominated with 232 yards and 2 TDs). The 49ers didn’t have George Kittle, Ricky Pearsall wasn’t 100%, and they still lit it up too with Brock Purdy accounting for 5 total touchdowns (10 in prime time since Monday night) and 303 passing yards.

Not a bad shootout for a game that started with a pick-six. But I think it’s a game where the 49ers showed they could run the ball very well against a bad run defense as CMC had 140 rushing yards. Purdy played excellent, and it’s past time we act like he always needs George Kittle, Brandon Aiyuk, and Deebo Samuel to do this, because none of those three were available to him on Sunday night. Left tackle Trent Williams also left on the opening drive.

But I also think you have to give Caleb Williams and the Bears credit for hanging in there blow for blow when the 49ers are on a heater like this. It came down to the final snap, and the Bears were that close to extending their record to a seventh win this season when trailing in the final 2:00.

If we somehow got this as a playoff rematch, I think that’d be great. But definitely a strong night for the offensive minds of Ben Johnson and Kyle Shanahan. Now, the 49ers just have to beat Seattle (easier said than done) on Saturday night and they’ll be the No. 1 seed again.

My only warning would be that you see what it might look like without Nick Bosa and Fred Warner, though there is some hope Warner could return during the playoffs. But if Purdy is playing like this, maybe this can finally be San Francisco’s year.

Eagles at Bills: Familiar Trends

Throw in a lot of cold rain to make it even easier on these two strong pass defenses, and Sunday’s 13-12 final more or less played up to the season trends for the Eagles and Bills:

  • The Eagles started strong, taking a 13-0 lead into the locker room with Dallas Goedert adding another easy 1-yard touchdown to his season total.
  • Jalen Hurts then promptly went 0-for-7 passing in the second half with DeVonta Smith only coming close on a overturned catch one time.
  • Saquon Barkley was held to 68 yards on 19 carries, so his disappointing season continued more than the horrid Buffalo run defense did, but it helped that the Eagles weren’t completing passes.
  • Josh Allen took 5 sacks, including another contender for the worst sack of the year that knocked him out of field goal range as the Bills were shut out for 54 minutes.
  • James Cook was held to 77 total yards, and the Bills are now 0-4 this season when Cook is under 100 yards from scrimmage, averaging 14.8 points per game in those games.

But Philadelphia’s classic second-half no show on offense meant the defense had to hold up, and it almost broke. The Bills finally broke through with some big plays to Brandin Cooks and others (another hook-and-lateral) to get down the field twice, and despite the bad foot, Allen snuck in two touchdown runs in the final 5:11, including a 4th-and-goal from the 1 run with 0:08 left.

The Bills made the controversial decision to go for 2 and the win, and Allen completely whiffed on the throw to an open Shakir in the end zone. Game over; the Patriots win the AFC East. It’s no wonder they like to run the ball down there. That should have been an easy conversion, but the Bills have been missing these 2PC plays all season.

However, I have to defend the decision to go for the win instead of playing for overtime. I think it was absolutely the right call for Sunday’s circumstances:

  • The weather was horrible, which can make an extra point even harder, and it’s not like Buffalo’s kicker has been reliable on those, getting one blocked on the first touchdown. The Eagles have good blockers too.
  • Allen’s foot wasn’t 100% and that limits his effectiveness, so you don’t want to keep putting stress on that for more snaps in overtime.
  • The Bills realistically have to admit the Patriots are likely winning the AFC East with only a home game against Miami left, so it’s not like the division title or a No. 1 seed is really on the line here.

If this game was earlier in the season when you have less clarity about the playoff standings, I think you take them to overtime as your defense was playing outstanding and you’re at home. If the weather was better, I think you play on into overtime. If Allen was 100% healthy in a normal game, I think you go to overtime, which is a place he’s never actually won a game in the NFL yet.

But those were not the circumstances on Sunday in Week 17, so I don’t have an issue with the Bills doing what they did. I just have an issue with Allen badly missing the throw as they finally had a good play dialed up for one of those 2PCs.

The Eagles (11-5) still have an outside shot of the No. 2 seed over Chicago. The Bills (11-5) drop from No. 5 to No. 7, and with the Jets only left on the schedule, I think they’ll go to 12-5, the Texans beat the Colts to get to 12-5 and the No. 5 seed by virtue of head-to-head win, and the Chargers lose at Denver to fall to No. 7 seed at 11-6.

I had Buffalo lined up for No. 5 for a while, but seeing as how that now could be Derrick Henry and the Ravens in Baltimore, I’m not sure they want any part of that matchup in two weeks, so it’s possible that bad throw was strategic by Allen.

Then again, going to No. 6 and probably having to go to Jacksonville, a team playing as well as anyone, may not be a great start either for this team. But that’s where I see things trending for Buffalo.

Steelers at Browns: The Tomlin Special (The Last One?)

Once the Ravens beat the Packers on Saturday night, you could see the “Tomlin Special” coming from a mile away.

The Steelers were going to lose to a 3-12 Cleveland team to set up a winner-take-all game on SNF against the Ravens for the AFC North. And they’ll have to do it without D.K. Metcalf (suspended) and Darnell Washington (broke his arm on Sunday). Maybe without Calvin Austin too, or the three players who had 67% of Rodgers’ passing yards in Baltimore earlier this season.

I knew the Ravens being +800 value the other day to win the AFC North was too good to pass up. That’s not to say it’s a sure thing, because the Ravens have a pretty bad history of playing well in Pittsburgh, but the Steelers played Sunday with no real energy or care to want to wrap things up with a great opportunity against a bad team.

Instead, they gave up 10 early points to Shedeur Sanders before picking him off twice later. But even with nine possessions in a 4-to-7 point game the rest of the way, the Steelers never found the end zone even once. They pissed away drives with penalties, a pathetic 4th-and-1 deep pass to Scotty Miller, a Rodgers slide short of the sticks on third down, a bad sack to make a field goal too long, and forcing the ball repeatedly to washed-up wide receivers against a No. 1 pass defense with good corners playing man coverage.

And yes, the Steelers absolutely were too focused on Myles Garrett breaking the sack record. Garrett himself admitted it, and while you might expect him to say that given he was shutout by a makeshift offensive line, anyone who says this didn’t have a big negative impact on the game for Pittsburgh didn’t watch the game.

You could see it in the way they called plays at times, like not calling a single pass in a 13-9 game with 7:03 left and the ball at midfield. Three-and-out on runs. You could see it in the way Rodgers was letting go of the ball extra fast (usually well under 2.6 seconds), sometimes just throwing the ball away before he even dares left Garrett get a whiff of him.

That hampered the offense all day, and it’s a silly thing to worry about when Garrett gets to play Joe Burrow next week. The record is going to fall, but Rodgers sure looked like he’d be damned to be Brett Favre and get caught in a highlight reel forever for going down on the record-breaking sack.

Instead, he reverted to his factory settings by forcing outside throws to wide receivers instead of using the only players that are actually any good in this offense, the tight ends and running backs. Rodgers was 8-of-21 for 60 yards on passes to MVS, Scotty Miller, and Adam Thielen. Meanwhile, Pat Freiermuth had the big plays on the final drive, but he only finished with 63 yards on 3-of-5 passing.

Feed him more, except Rodgers just doesn’t like tight ends and will rather throw to washed-up wideouts he has no real chemistry with against maybe the worst defense to try that against this year.

Just buffoonery from start to finish as the Steelers finished with 6 points on 11 drives. Mike Tomlin is now 0-7 at Cleveland without Ben Roethlisberger, who was 12-2-1 at Cleveland.

I had a bad feeling the Metcalf suspension would lead to something like this, but I really didn’t think Rodgers would go with low-risk passes to MVS in the end zone (against Denzel Ward) on three straight passes with the game on the line. Metcalf would have been a target there. Freiermuth or Jonnu Smith should have been a target there. MVS stinks.

But Rodgers’ loyalty to “his guys” at wideout came back to bite them. A bad gameplan hurt them. Worrying too much about Garrett, who didn’t even generate that much pressure, hurt them.

Frankly, this team doesn’t deserve the postseason. They got their ninth win last week, and at this rate, I’ll be surprised if they get another this season.

Jaguars at Colts: Farewell Philip (Again?)

Hats off to the Jaguars for getting to 12-4 with a sweep of the Colts this month. This was a good back-and-forth game with Trevor Lawrence showing off his legs on two touchdown runs, and the pass defense held up against Philip Rivers for the most part (147 yards, 1 touchdown).

Rivers’ lone pick came in the fourth quarter of a tied game (had to play that tune one more time), and that actually led to Jacksonville’s game-winning field goal drive, which consisted of losing 3 yards after a stuffed Travis Etienne run and two incompletions by Lawrence. Yikes.

Rivers got the ball back in a 23-17 game with 18 seconds left, but instead of seeing him throw one last pick in a one-score game to perhaps end his career for good, a delay of game penalty on the defense moved the ball to the Jacksonville 48. Riley Leonard came off the bench with the stronger, younger arm to throw the Hail Mary, and that too was intercepted to end the game.

Rivers has no regrets about the comeback attempt even though the Colts were eliminated from the playoffs on Saturday with Houston’s win. He’ll go down as an all-time competitor and one of the only people crazy enough to try this after five years away from the game.

If this is the end of the road, he’ll now finish 36-84 (.300) at game-winning drive opportunities and 30-79 (.275) at comeback opportunities down one score.

Seahawks at Panthers: NFC South Shame Pt. 1

It’s not like I expected the Panthers to beat the Seahawks, but damn, have some pride at home. The Panthers were 5-1 ATS as a home underdog this year, but the best they could do in this one was make it 17-10 in the fourth quarter after a Bryce Young touchdown run.

It’s a good thing he had that run because he finished with 54 passing yards on 24 attempts, or 40 yards on 26 plays if you add his sacks.

But a huge facemask penalty got the Seahawks out of a 3rd-and-21 situation, and they punched in another score to go up 20-10. Young took consecutive sacks before throwing a 5-yard pass on 4th-and-17, leading to a 25-yard touchdown drive by the Seahawks to ice it at 27-10.

All three of Seattle’s touchdown drives started inside the Carolina 30 in the second half, taking advantage of Carolina’s mistakes on offense. This game was winnable despite the final score, but it really looks like no one wants to take the NFC South this year.

Their division title game should end in a tie, which would still give it to the Panthers.

Buccaneers at Dolphins: NFC South Shame Pt. 2

This Tampa Bay collapse needs studied. The Dolphins came in ranked No. 26 against the run and the Bucs just couldn’t get anything going on the ground. It doesn’t help when Tristan Wirfs was inactive at tackle. But Baker Mayfield probably has the best 4-WR group in the NFL, and yet they were stuck on 10 points with him throwing two picks deep into this one before a last-minute Mike Evans touchdown led to a failed onside kick in a 20-17 loss.

Quinn Ewers had a couple of touchdown passes to lesser-known Miami targets for the rookie’s first win. The running game was solid. Miami will likely finish 7-10, which sounds like the typical Miami season in the 21st century.

Giants at Raiders: The Toilet Bowl

Both teams had lost nine in a row, but the Raiders would have been dumb to win this game and hand the Giants the No. 1 pick in the draft. The Raiders definitely need it more as they have a quarterback need the Giants don’t with Jaxson Dart rushing for two more scores in this 34-10 rout as Geno Smith took another beating behind his line.

The No. 1 pick isn’t locked up for the Raiders yet, and the Chiefs would probably be wise to not let them secure it next week either. Then again, it’s not like there looks to be a real QB prize in the 2026 draft.

Cardinals at Bengals: Ho-Hum

Go figure, it took Jacoby Brissett deep into garbage time (trailed by 30 points at the two-minute warning) to finally break 200 yards passing and throw his second touchdown of the day against the Bengals in a 37-14 loss that was never really competitive.

Just glad to say I was right that Ja’Marr Chase and Trey McBride finding the end zone were the only picks you needed from this otherwise fruitless endeavor between losing teams.

Patriots at Jets: Seriously, Just End the Season

The Patriots scored six straight touchdowns to start their 42-10 rout of the Jets, another tip in the cap for offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who has been behind some of those all-time drubbings in NFL history.

Speaking of history, the 2025 Jets have done it. In 16 games, they’ve let quarterbacks throw 32 touchdowns and 0 interceptions after a 5-piece from Drake Maye on Sunday. That’s two weeks after Trevor Lawrence had six total touchdowns on this defense.

I know Aaron Glenn is going to get excuses that they traded two of his best defenders, but this shit was rotten from Week 1 and has only gotten worse. I wouldn’t criticize the Jets if they made him a one-and-done coach, but I doubt that will happen no matter how brutal this 3-win season has gone.

Saints at Titans: Ending 2025 on a High Note

I know people don’t care about these teams this season, but I think it was a very good showing for both Tyler Shough and Cam Ward, and a game that should have their fans excited about what can happen in 2026 with more seasoning from Shough and better coaching/talent around Ward.

But Shough got the best of this matchup as he added another 300-yard passing game and comeback win to his resume. In such a down year for rookies, I’m very serious about voting him for OROY. Just finish strong next week.

Texans at Chargers: Houston Outlasts Them

Going back to Saturday quickly, I was most excited about this game and I think it delivered a playoff atmosphere with a tough, physical grind after some early explosives from Houston’s offense made it 14-0 in the blink of an eye.

But I thought Justin Herbert’s teammates let him down again with the tipped pick in the red zone, and Dicker the Kicker turned into Nate Kaeding in a big game. This guy is supposed to be perfect from inside 40 yards, yet he missed one from 40 and an extra point, costing the Chargers 4 points in a game they lost by, yep, 4 points. And don’t act like I haven’t forgotten about the missed field goal in the Jacksonville playoff loss. I see what this kicker is up to. Can’t trust him.

But the Texans held on for the second week in a row by getting a huge defensive penalty to help them run out the clock. I’m not sure Chargers fans can complain much about that illegal contact that wiped out a third-down sack of Stroud. The Chargers also had two defensive penalties wipe out huge sacks on Herbert on their previous drive to score a touchdown.

This game is a pretty good sign that the Texans are more dangerous than the Chargers in the playoffs because of their defense and their offensive line doesn’t have turnstiles at offensive tackle. But I also think it helped  expose that the Houston offense is still likely to come up short before a Super Bowl appearance to keep this team out of the big game.

Crazy stat: Houston has never been a wild card team. All eight playoff appearances for the Texans have come as the AFC South winner, so we’ll see how that shakes out if Jacksonville wraps this division up on Sunday.

Ravens at Packers: King Henry Reigns Supreme

For a game with two backup quarterbacks, there were a lot of points and quality drive engineering between the Packers and Ravens on Saturday night. While the Ravens leaned on Derrick Henry, who dominated with 216 yards and 4 touchdowns, it was the Packers who surprisingly couldn’t run at all and leaned on Malik Willis to throw for 288 yards and rush for 60 yards and 2 touchdowns. Sadly, a late injury knocked him out and Clayton Tune was intercepted on a tipped ball.

But I think it’s clear that Matt LaFleur is going to help Willis get paid a ton of money from a team to be their starter in 2026 or 2027, a miraculous coaching job with a player who couldn’t throw for 100 yards in any of his starts as a rookie on the 2022 Titans. Maybe even his brother Mike LaFleur, the Rams offensive coordinator, will be hired by a team to make Willis work out as well as his brother has.

Good luck with that, but it was an impressive game from him on Saturday night. They didn’t lose this game because Jordan Love (concussion) was out. They lost because their defense, missing Micah Parsons, was pathetic, a familiar tune in Green Bay in big games.

The Packers are now 0-3 this year when they don’t punt in a game, which has never been done before in a season. The rest of the NFL is 10-0 this year. Green Bay is just the 10th team since 1950 to lose a game by at least 17 points without punting.

Next week: I get to look back at how bad my predictions were for this crazy season. We get the sacrificial lamb game first on Saturday to determine the No. 4 seed in the NFC. We get the No. 1 seed game at night, then it’s a pretty bland Sunday afternoon slate leading up to Ravens vs. Steelers for the AFC North.

2024 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 3

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

I don’t think I’m going to like this season very much. You know there are some shenanigans going on when the first 3-0 teams were the Steelers, Vikings, and Seahawks. None of those teams were favored to even make the playoffs this year.

The Chiefs got there too on Sunday night, but after winning their eighth one-score game during this 9-game winning streak, it doesn’t look like this will be anywhere close to the strongest Kansas City team yet. Might even be the complete opposite.

There are six teams who were in the playoffs last year, including both No. 1 seeds, that are sitting at 1-2: Dolphins, Ravens, Browns, Cowboys, Rams, and 49ers.

Big favorites continue to go down at alarming rates. On Sunday, the four teams who were favored by 6.5 points were 0-4 SU (Buccaneers, Browns, 49ers, and Raiders). There were 18 such losses all of last season and 14 in 2022. We’re already up to seven this season.

Things are just crazy right now, injuries are piling up for many teams, and it’s not like blown leads/comebacks are largely responsible for these results. There were only six games with a comeback opportunity in Week 3, and only two games had a fourth-quarter lead change.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

49ers at Rams: Game of the Week

I thought the Eagles had the worst blown lead in the fourth quarter by a team this season after what they did in each phase against the Falcons on Monday night. But the 49ers may have found a way to outdo it here.

First, Brock Purdy was fantastic in this game. He finished 22-of-30 for 292 yards and 3 touchdowns (all to Jauan Jennings), but that doesn’t account for 6 drops. Ronnie Bell should take a permanent seat on the bench with his Limas Sweed ass hands. Purdy even ran 10 times and looked as mobile as ever as he tried to get the job done for his offense in a game without Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, and Deebo Samuel. His only real mistake was a strip-sack before halftime, but that was right after Trent Williams momentarily left the game with an injury, and it didn’t lead to any points for the Rams.

The short-yardage running game hurt them in the fourth quarter when Jordan Mason couldn’t convert a 3rd-and-short, causing the 49ers to settle for a field goal and 24-14 lead. Later, a holding penalty ruined a drive, but Jake Moody could have made a 55-yard field goal with 2:43 to effectively ice it as a 10-point game, but he missed it. I thought he gained some confidence last year with some big kicks in the playoffs, but this was a big miss in a season where everyone seems to be crushing it from deep.

Then the defense had its letdowns with Matthew Stafford, who didn’t have Cooper Kupp or Puka Nacua, using Tutu Atwell for deep balls to quickly get in scoring range. A 50-yard pass to Atwell set up a Kyren Williams touchdown and it was 24-24 with 1:51 left.

Purdy again did his job on the next drive, but Bell had a horrible drop down the field that set up 3rd-and-10. The Rams forced a punt, and the special teams further contributed to the downfall with a 38-yard punt return by the Rams with 42 seconds left.

The 49ers somehow had three defensive penalties on one snap with the pass interference moving the ball halfway to the 25. You can basically run the clock down there, which the Rams did, and they kicked a 37-yard field goal with 0:02 seconds left to take a 27-24 lead. A shocking comeback and total failure by the 49ers in so many ways, and yet somehow still appropriate for what we’ve come to expect from a Kyle Shanahan team.

I must say the 49ers looked like they had something cooking on their lateral play to end things. Definitely one of the better attempts you’ll see at trying to go 70 yards in one play.

A loss would have buried the season for the Rams (1-2). This loss doesn’t bury the 49ers (1-2), but it could haunt them for seeding. Seattle getting off to a 3-0 start isn’t ideal either, but the teams will meet in Seattle on a Thursday night in Week 6 after the 49ers have some winnable home games with the Patriots and Cardinals.

But the 49ers absolutely wasted one of the best games Purdy will give them this year. The loss will cause others to ignore how well he did with all the injuries they had too. Just a rough day all around if you’re a 49ers fan.

Chiefs at Falcons: Old Hat

I think from 2018-22, the Kansas City Chiefs were the main attraction in the NFL. They played the most entertaining style of offense, and they were involved in the biggest and best games of this era. They were a spectacle to watch.

But the 2023-24 Chiefs? I can see why so many people have turned to hating them, and it’s not just sour grapes over losing big games to them. They’ve become annoying to watch in a Spygate-era Patriots way in that it seems like every game is close, they leave a lot of doubt on the field, and they seem like they still find a way to win these games.

It happened again Sunday night in Atlanta, and while the Chiefs (-3) still covered with the 22-17 win, it was the kind of game that will only fuel the doubters who want to see someone else win the Super Bowl this year.

For the third week in a row, Patrick Mahomes threw a braindead interception. This time it was in the end zone on a 17-play opening drive, so the over bettors were already pissed. The only explanation is Justin Simmons just has that Mahomes voodoo that Ty Law once had for Peyton Manning, because he did it to Mahomes again despite changing teams from Denver to Atlanta.

Fortunately, that was the only turnover the Chiefs had in this game as they couldn’t afford another. They even avoided the obligatory fumble for a change, and Mahomes did not take any sacks. I’m not sure what the snap counts were yet, but the Chiefs did start Wanya Morris at left tackle over rookie Kingsley Suamataia, who was benched in the fourth quarter last week.

However, Travis Kelce really is starting to look washed up as he had just 30 yards on 4 catches, and he hurt the team with a third-down drop in the fourth quarter when they tried to add to the small lead. Kelce is seeing more action in his commercials and new FX series than he does on the field these days.

You combine Kelce possibly falling off a cliff with the injuries to Hollywood Brown and running back Isiah Pacheco, and the Chiefs aren’t offering a whole lot on offense outside of Rashee Rice, who continues to look fantastic as the new No. 1 option. He had 12 catches for 110 yards and a touchdown, accounting for half of Mahomes’ 217 yards and the only gain longer than 17 yards for the offense on the night.

But the Chiefs keep trying to spread the wealth, get other people involved, and their short-yardage offense hasn’t been too impressive. For all the hype about their interior line, you’d think they would do a better job of just pounding it in there.

But the back-to-back three-and-out drives in the fourth quarter do look like an offense that just isn’t what it used to be. Kelce would have held onto that ball in the past. On a late 3rd-and-2, Mahomes looked like he had multiple options on crossing routes, but he chose Xavier Worthy, and the rookie just stopped running on the play to cause an ugly incompletion with 2:26 left. I don’t think JuJu would have done that two years ago, and I know Sammy Watkins wouldn’t have back in the day.

The offense kept giving Atlanta chances to answer with a touchdown the way Kirk Cousins delivered Monday night in Philadelphia. But despite getting three chances in the fourth quarter, Cousins couldn’t get the job done as the Falcons dealt with more pressure from Steve Spagnuolo’s defense, and some injured offensive linemen made it tougher as does Cousins’ lack of mobility. There was a 3rd-and-2 “scramble” in the game where any young, mobile quarterback would have picked it up, but that’s just not happening for Cousins at this stage of his career. But that play was a good example of why the stationary pocket passer is such a dying breed in the NFL.

The referees didn’t help Atlanta much either. Yep, the officials were back in the spotlight at the end of a Kansas City game, and it was more appropriate this time compared to last week against the Bengals. Down 22-17 with just over 4:00 left, Cousins tried to find tight end Kyle Pitts in the end zone, and the Chiefs got away with some obvious pass interference. No flag.

He arrived early, he hugged Pitts, and he didn’t try to play the ball. That should have been an easy call to make. Then on fourth down, I don’t think that one was interference, but some of course will say that because it’s the Chiefs and this is the weekly thing we do now. But again, that comes back to never blowing teams out and leaving this type of doubt.

Then when the Falcons got the ball back with 2:26 left, you saw the make-up calls in full effect from the refs. The Falcons got a phantom DPI flag on Trent McDuffie for 11 yards. Then there was a horse collar tackle penalty, which looked legitimate enough, and that was another 15 yards. So, the calls most certainly don’t always go to Kansas City’s benefit.

But that horse collar was the last time the Falcons moved the chains. I think they got caught up playing the clock with Mahomes on the other side, they wanted to score late as possible, and they forgot to call good plays that make use of Cousins’ abilities. They brought in Tyler Allgeier for a big 3rd-and-1 run, and the Chiefs stopped him for no gain. Neither team wanting to run the QB sneak is a problem in this situation.

The Falcons then tried another 4th-and-1 run with Bijan Robinson, but he was stuffed for a 3-yard loss with 51 seconds left. Ballgame. That’s four plays in a row where the Falcons didn’t bother to let Cousins throw anything more than a horizontal pass.

Mahomes then did a smart move on the first down by waiting several seconds before he finally took a knee. The other knees were much quicker, and he nearly injured himself on one, but he timed it just right to where the Chiefs didn’t have to punt the ball back.

The Chiefs have now won 9 straight games by a combined 54 points, an average margin of victory of 6.0 points per game. That’s the tiniest margin of victory among the 119 teams in NFL history who had a winning streak of at least 9 games.

It’s not like this is uncharted territory for the Chiefs. In 2020, they tied the NFL record with 7 straight wins by 1-to-8 points. They also won 10 games in a row that year by an average of just 8.9 points per game. Only the 1999 Colts with Peyton Manning (8.7) had a lower margin of victory for a double-digit game winning streak.

The Chiefs can take that record next if they beat the Chargers next week by a slim margin. That’s usually what they do to that team.

It’s usually what they do to everyone these days. But that run in 2020 with the close wins was answered with some playoff blowouts, including their 31-9 loss in Super Bowl 55. It also led to a 3-4 start in 2021 during some of the worst losses of the Mahomes era like 38-20 to Buffalo and 27-3 in Tennessee.

So, you do wonder if this team will hit some regression to the mean and start losing these close games or losing by bigger margins during this three-peat attempt. We have always talked about the Chiefs in the context of an elite offense, or in last year’s case, it was an elite defense. Through three games this year, they don’t particularly look elite on either side of the ball. In fact, they look a bit ordinary.

Still 3-0, but not the same spectacle as 2018-22. No longer must-see TV unless you’re into watching reruns of mediocre episodes of your favorite shows. Alas, with the way the rest of the league is playing to start this season, it still might be enough to make history in the end.

Ravens at Cowboys: Almost a Collapse

Is this what every big game in Jerry World is going to look like for Dallas now? The opponent piles up big plays and touchdowns, forcing Dak Prescott to just keep throwing for a ton of volume with no real shot at winning the game. It’s the third time in a row at home with the Packers in the playoffs, the Saints last week, and now the Ravens in this 28-25 final that was somehow a bigger blowout than that suggests, and still really close of a collapse for the Ravens.

Oh yes, I don’t think a win here absolves Baltimore that much for an 0-2 start. This game still reinforced some issues they have with holding leads as they lead the NFL in blown leads of multiple possessions since 2021. The Cowboys cut a 28-6 deficit into 28-25 and were just unfortunate that the defense couldn’t get them the ball back one more time.

The Ravens were explosive with big plays on the ground with Derrick Henry and through the air with Lamar Jackson completing 12 passes for 182 yards. But salting the game away was poorly done, Justin Tucker missed another easy field goal on a day where his new GOAT competition Brandon Aubrey nailed a 65-yard field goal, and you still question if the Ravens would ever dare use this strategy in January with 15 passes to 45 runs.

They absolutely should as I argued this offseason. But they have this obsession with turning Jackson into the passer he’s not and throwing the ball much more in those games when he’s clearly at his most comfortable in a game like this where he threw 15 passes and ran 14 times.

Jackson is now 21-1 against NFC opponents, because they just don’t know him the way his AFC foes (Chiefs, Steelers, Bills, etc.) do. It’s a unique challenge, and I’m not surprised the Cowboys failed it.

But it did get a little too close for comfort at the end there, and I’m not sure how Baltimore keeps letting this happen under John Harbaugh.

Chargers at Steelers: Felt More Like Ravens vs. Steelers

In 2011, Mike Tomlin’s Steelers faced Jim Harbaugh’s 49ers with Ben Roethlisberger struggling through a high-ankle sprain. Pittsburgh was a 3-point underdog, and Ben struggled with 3 interceptions in a 20-3 loss.

Fast forward to 2024, the second career meeting between Tomlin and Harbaugh, and the tables were turned. This time it was Justin Herbert coming in as a 3-point underdog on a high-ankle sprain against an elite defense. He ended up losing 20-10 and didn’t even finish the game.

It’s not a good formula for success, but incredibly, these quarterbacks started a combined 19-for-19 in this game, the best in any game since 1991. It was a ton of short stuff with Fields being safe and Herbert keeping that leg safe for as long as he could. Neither running game was getting it done against these tough defenses.

But in a 10-10 game in the third quarter, the floodgates opened up on the Chargers. Herbert tried to capitalize on Fields’ first turnover of the year after Bud Dupree came down with an interception that was tipped around several players. But Herbert was sacked, and he hurt himself on that one and couldn’t return to the game.

Keep in mind the Chargers already lost edge rusher Joey Bosa in this game. They’d later lose both offensive tackles (Rashawn Slater and rookie Joe Alt) as well. T.J. Watt was getting shut out by Alt, but once those floodgates opened in the third, the Chargers couldn’t stop it. Taylor Heinicke tried to finish the game for Herbert, but he took 3 sacks on 5 dropbacks (!) as the Steelers allowed minus-5 yards of offense in the entire second half.

Fields technically gets credit for a game-winning drive in this one to break the 10-10 tie early with Chris Boswell’s 38-yard field goal, but the Chargers sure did help that along with three penalties for 34 yards on third downs alone to extend the drive.

My hopes of seeing how Fields would perform in a game where a quarterback like Herbert could force him to score in the fourth quarter to win it were dashed when Herbert couldn’t go anymore. Frankly, they probably made a huge mistake in playing him at all this week since this was always a high possibility, and they have the Chiefs up next, a much more important divisional game with the Chiefs looking vulnerable too.

But Fields also put the game away with a 55-yard touchdown pass over the middle to Calvin Ausitn, who showed off his speed. It was the best game Fields played this year by far, and one of the best wins of his career with ease.

I’m still on board with thinking Russell Wilson should get a chance to start in this offense too, but the Steelers are seeing more of Fields each week and he is getting better. The points still aren’t really there, but it hasn’t mattered when you’re giving up 28 points in 3 games.

Eagles at Saints: Let Them Off the Hook

The dumbest team to win this week was definitely Philadelphia. It was evident early on that this was not going to be a high-scoring week for the Saints like the last few have been. Even after starting the game with a field goal, the Saints didn’t have a drive that gained more than 13 yards until the fourth quarter.

Incredibly, this game was still a 3-0 Saints lead going into the fourth quarter despite a total near 50. This is also because the Eagles kept passing up makeable field goals and failing on fourth down. Jalen Hurts had a frustrating game as he completed most of his passes for 311 yards, but he also had multiple turnovers, 4th-down failures, and took 4 sacks.

But it was a game without A.J. Brown that soon became a game without DeVonta Smith too after a dirty-looking hit, and Lane Johnson was also knocked out at right tackle.

But the Eagles did have Saquon Barkley, who rushed for 147 yards and two touchdowns. They also had tight end Dallas Goedert, who had a monster game with 10 catches for 170 yards. Goedert made the critical play on a 3rd-and-16 on the game-winning drive when he got free for 61 yards.

You had three Saints defenders run into each other on the play. A natural pick by the Eagles neutralized the first one, but then veteran corner Marshon Lattimore (No. 23) ran right into his teammate and that’s why Goedert was so wide open. It was like watching the early and mid-2010s Saints on defense.

The Saints are the only NFL team not to win a game after trailing in the fourth quarter since 2023. That was supposed to be a strength of bringing Derek Carr to New Orleans. He had a go-ahead touchdown pass to Chris Olave in this one with 2:03 left, but the Saints missed the crucial 2-point conversion that would have made it 15-7. Instead, the Eagles got the 8 points with Barkley scoring both with 1:01 left.

Carr still had time and a timeout to force overtime with a field goal, but similar to Hurts against Atlanta last week, he took a risk quickly and was intercepted to end the game at 15-12. After leading 15 straight scoring drives to begin 2024, Carr couldn’t even get the team to 15 points in this one.

It was Week 3 last year in Green Bay when the Saints blew a 17-0 lead and missed a clutch field goal that really destroyed their playoff hopes in the end. Let’s hope this game doesn’t set them on a similar path as this was a huge outcome in the NFC to get the Eagles to 2-1 while those teams like Dallas and San Francisco keep losing.

Texans at Vikings: Wiped the Flores with My MVP’s Offense

I guess all that’s left is for the Vikings to start 4-0 by beating up my Super Bowl pick (Packers) next week too. They already won three games in a row against teams I thought would beat them, especially the 49ers and Texans, and they’re only getting stronger after taking down Houston 34-7.

C.J. Stroud is usually very hard to intercept, but he had a pair in this game, he only led one touchdown drive, and he also lost 42 yards on 4 sacks. Defensive coordinator Brian Flores had them flustered, and I don’t think it would have made any difference if running back Joe Mixon was active.

Sam Darnold didn’t have all the big plays this week, but he was smart with the ball, effective, and he threw 4 touchdowns out of it. He’s holding the ball and still making good decisions. We’ll just have to see if he continues it into October or if he starts seeing ghosts again.

But between the schedule looking legit and the team controlling these games on their way to 3-0, I’m dumbfounded by this start. Just never seemed logical that a team that lost Kirk Cousins and Danielle Hunter would get better on both sides of the ball. Not to mention WR2 Jordan Addison has been out with an injury, and tight end T.J. Hockenson has yet to even play in 2024.

They could theoretically get better. But I’m still not ready to crown the Vikings as the new flash in the pan in the NFC. Probably should get on that Kevin O’Connell for Coach of the Year campaign though.

Broncos at Buccaneers: Not “Bo Picks” This Week

This felt like a trap game to me, so the only bet I had on it was for Bo Nix to throw a pick. He’s had multiple picks in both games, and you had to figure the Bucs would send some heat and get him to mess up in a game where he should have needed to score a fair amount to win.

But man, that was way off. The 0-2 Broncos went across country to pants the 2-0 Buccaneers in their building in a 26-7 final. Nix was in control early, he avoided the turnovers and sacks, and he may have led the Broncos in rushing once again if not for a backup (Badie) breaking a 43-yard run.

That’s an encouraging start. As for the Buccaneers, so much for the Baker Mayfield hype. After Aidan Hutchinson had 4.5 sacks of Mayfield for Detroit last week, Mayfield went down 7 times in this one as the Bucs are struggling up front. Mayfield completed 25 passes but for only 163 yards, which ties Joe Montana for the fewest yards ever in a game with exactly 25 completions. A little weird it came in a game against Denver as we just saw Denver set that record for the fewest yards in games with 26 completions (Nix in Week 1) and 27 completions (Russell Wilson in Week 1, 2023).

Maybe it’s just a Denver thing and it goes both ways. But definitely an upset I wasn’t ready for as the Bucs were just never a threat the whole game.

Bears at Colts: Comically Inept

I know Caleb Williams (2) and Anthony Richardson (6) came into this game with 8 starts between them as the youngest quarterbacks in the NFL. But I still found myself during the third quarter thinking of how this would have been Jay Cutler vs. Andrew Luck a decade ago, and that was just more interesting to me. Maybe these two are the future, but right now, they are raw as hell and I question how much help they’re getting from their play callers.

Both had multiple completions of 40-plus yards for the highlight tapes, but both missed easy throws and had multiple interceptions too. It’s a good thing for Richardson that Jonathan Taylor rushed for 110 yards and two scores to really put the game away. Williams ended up throwing the ball 52 times and gained 363 yards, but some of those yards were hollow like his Hail Mary completion to D.J. Moore before halftime that gained 44 yards but was stopped at the 1-yard line.

But the Bears again barely averaged 2.0 yards per carry, proving that the offensive line is dog shit. The Colts couldn’t stop the run at all in Weeks 1-2, but they had few problems in this one. Chicago’s play-calling in the red zone was also horrible, including a ridiculous sequence in the first half where they came away with no points.

Good on Williams to survive a game with this many throws and keep the sacks down to 4, but he’ll still have to do better than that. Still, I’m not sure Richardson is even capable of a game like this in the NFL. He’s throwing for 40 yards or giving you nothing with his arm right now.

Good on the Colts to see Laiatu Latu come up with a strip-sack in a big moment in the fourth quarter when Williams had the ball in a 14-9 game.

That’s why you draft someone like Latu the way Indy did in this offensive-driven class.

Lions at Cardinals: The Shootout That Wasn’t

I was really hoping for a shootout in this one, and it looked promising when both offenses marched right down the field for touchdowns. But there was very little after that as Kyler Murray struggled to throw for 100 yards until late in the second half when the Cardinals were still desperately down 20-10.

It could have been closer as the refs had a costly mistake at the 2-minute warning in the first half when it sure looked like the Cardinals produced a defensive return touchdown. But they tried to say the 2:00 warning hit, but it appeared the ball was snapped at 2:01. Huge turnaround there as the Lions turned that drive into a touchdown on a nifty designed lateral play from Amon-Ra St. Brown to Jahmyr Gibbs.

The Lions never scored the rest of the way, and it was just a matter of holding on as the Cardinals couldn’t run with James Conner, Trey McBride suffered a concussion, and Murray was floating a lot of bad passes to Marvin Harrison Jr. Just not an efficient offensive performance at all after the first two weeks were so good.

The Detroit defense looks improved this year, but it was still up to the offense to run out the clock in a 20-13 game. Goff found St. Brown on a third-and-12, then he iced the game with an 8-yard scramble.

But not many offensive fireworks to see here – keeping up the 2024 brand for the league.

Packers at Titans: Malik Willis Is Better Than Will Levis?

The revenge game is usually a tired narrative, but this time it really worked out. Not that Malik Willis should feel like the Titans did him dirty. He really struggled when he was with them, but in playing for Green Bay these last two weeks, he has done an incredible job of managing the game.

This week was even better than last as Willis passed for a career-high 202 yards on just 19 throws, and he ran for 73 yards and a touchdown. A true dual-threat performance. He also did it this week with much less help from his running backs on the ground unlike last week against the Colts.

To make things sweeter for Willis, he thrived while Will Levis continues to show that his version of “Big Dick Energy” is to play like there’s zero consequences for your actions just because you’re packing a hammer. Levis took 8 sacks and had 3 more turnovers as the Packers are getting splash plays galore to start this season under their new defensive coordinator.

With the hope that Jordan Love is close to returning, my Super Bowl pick of Green Bay is still looking decent. They know they have a viable backup option in a pinch with Willis, and we’ll see a return to more passing when Love gets back. The defense in the meantime just needs to keep this up as they’ve been very impressive in creating negative plays.

Giants at Browns: Please, Call More Plays Where Deshaun Watson Gets Sacked

Okay, the spread never should have been Browns -6.5, because this team is just not that good with the albatross that is Deshaun Watson at quarterback. He’s actually worse than Daniel Jones right now, and he was certainly worse in this game as he took a whopping 8 sacks.

The Giants fumbled the opening kickoff and gave up a short field touchdown to the Browns, but that Cleveland offense did almost nothing the entire rest of the game. Those fumbles were also the only thing keeping this from being a New York blowout as Danny Dimes did actually deliver on his end. He threw two touchdowns to rookie Malik Nabers, who looks very much like the real deal, and he cut down on sacks and turnovers in a big way this week.

I actually feel bad for Cleveland coach Kevin Stefanski as he knows he is likely stuck for Watson for a couple more years. That’s assuming it doesn’t cost him his job. I wouldn’t blame him if he purposely called plays with minimal protection and exposed Watson to more hits in the hopes that he gets injured, and they can keep him off the field that way. The guy was literally just accused of rape once again in a new lawsuit. He doesn’t get any benefit of the doubt, and I don’t know how this team will get through a season if they have to keep playing him when Jameis Winston would obviously outperform him.

Dolphins at Seahawks: Not the Most Unlikely 3-0 Start

Sure, most people probably didn’t see the Seahawks starting 3-0 this year. But with the schedule of quarterbacks, it was very reasonable. They’ve drawn Bo Nix in his rookie debut, a New England passing game that doesn’t want to exist with Jacoby Brissett, and then a break this week with Skylar Thompson starting for an injured Tua Tagovailoa (concussion).

We know Geno Smith and his weapons are good enough to go 9-8. Mike Macdonald just had to improve the defense, and who knows. But we won’t really start to see the defense tested until Week 4 against Detroit.

But this game, it was a 24-3 laugher as the Dolphins were literally showing their ass on the field.

Boy, that stunk. Miami was 1-of-12 on third down, and Thompson took 5 sacks before leaving the game with an injury. It could be Tim Boyle time in Miami next week, or maybe Tyler Huntley who just signed. At what point do we ask if Mike McDaniel and his staff are doing something wrong with their quarterbacks if they’re this brittle that you have to start three in three games? I thought that was a historic outlier when they did it in 2022, but it might happen again here.

All the speed in the world doesn’t mean a damn thing with the wrong player at quarterback.

Panthers at Raiders: Bryce Young Was the Problem After All

Guess I should have bet the house on Andy Dalton after all. He was my No. 1 prop pick this week, I picked the Panthers (+6.5) to win outright, but even then I never expected this 36-22 outcome that completely disproves the idea that Bryce Young had no protection or weapons in Carolina.

The problem was the shortcomings of the quarterback. Similar to last year when Dalton started a game in place of Young for the Panthers, he threw for over 300 yards. But this time he did it much more efficiently, and before you say it was just the Raiders, check again how Maxx Crosby and company fared against Justin Herbert and Lamar Jackson to start this season.

Dalton is now the only quarterback this season to throw for over 300 yards and 3 touchdowns in a game. Crazy, right? He got a career game out of Diontae Johnson with 122 yards and a touchdown. Even the running game showed up as Chuba Hubbard rushed for 114 yards.

The Panthers finally ended their 20-game streak of never taking a snap with a fourth-quarter lead. I don’t think Dalton can go too far with this team, but for one game against the Raiders, he was electric. About time we watch a veteran with more than a decade of experience just sling it on these defenses.

There’s almost none of that in the NFL right now, so I fully support Dalton starting more games while Young “sits and learns” from it all. But this game probably did nuke his trade value even more.

Next week: Cowboys-Giants on TNF? Oh, it’s really over for Dallas if they’re going to lose to Danny Dimes next. Saints-Falcons has some importance in the NFC South, Andy Dalton can stack wins against the Bengals, the Steelers can harass Anthony Richardson to start 4-0, the Vikings-Packers game could somehow be the Game of the Week if Jordan Love returns, and let’s just hope Justin Herbert can return for the Kansas City game. Bills-Ravens a big one on Sunday night I get to preview later this week. Another Monday night doubleheader (not a fan) too, and Seahawks-Lions definitely more interesting than Titans-Dolphins (no one cares).

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 Stat Oddity: Week 16

~ Scott ~ 5 Comments

I debated how I wanted to handle posting this week with the holiday, and I just had to wait for Monday to see what the Ravens and 49ers did. Little did I expect the Chiefs would also blow a game at home to the Raiders, but it was that kind of day and I got it covered along with Sunday’s action.

I’m not recapping the Saturday games below.

I will point out it’s probably not a coincidence that Pittsburgh’s only 2 games with 30 points and only 2 games with over 380 yards since 2022 were all in games against Cincinnati. They just have something on that divisional opponent. But it was good to see a legitimate offense for a change, and Mason Rudolph giving a talented receiver like George Pickens opportunities down the field had a lot to do with it. Do they go back to Kenny Pickett for the Seattle game? Probably so given Tomlin’s past, but we’ll see what happens.

As for Buffalo, let’s just say that 24-22 win against Easton Stick was underwhelming and doesn’t inspire much confidence this team will beat the Patriots, the Dolphins in Miami, and then go on a playoff run. But at least they came back to win this one and Josh Allen’s throw to Khalil Shakir on 3rd-and-4 was possibly a season-saver for Buffalo.

In all, Week 16 had 9 games with a comeback opportunity.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Ravens at 49ers: Game of the Ye-Yeah We Need to Stop Hyping These Up

You almost never get to see the top seeds facing off this late in the regular season. When the Seahawks and Colts met in 2005, the Colts blew that game off for playoff rest by quickly resting starters, so it wasn’t even a real matchup.

This could have been something special, and for a half, it was. Both defenses were giving up plays and making plays. Points were going on the board as Baltimore led 16-12. That’s exactly the kind of half you love to see in a game like this.

The Ravens intercepted Brock Purdy 3 times in the half, but the first one was the worst as he didn’t see the defender late in the red zone. The others were tipped balls that were just unfortunate bounces. Lamar Jackson made some plays but also got the scoring started for San Francisco with a ridiculous safety for a grounding call after he retreated 20 yards to the end zone.

Again, it was a fun half as both teams love to take control early. The Ravens are better known for blowing leads, but Kyle Shanahan-coached teams are not known at all for coming back. That’s why you had to feel some real nervousness at halftime with the 16-12 deficit even if the 49ers survived the 3 interceptions to that margin.

But this game basically was decided in a 100-second span to start the second half. The 49ers gave up a big punt return plus a penalty for a huge loss in field position, and the Ravens turned that short field into a quick touchdown to go up 23-12. On the very next snap from scrimmage, Purdy was hit and intercepted as Patrick Queen took the ball to the San Francisco 9. One snap later, Jackson found Zay Flowers for a 9-yard touchdown.

Boom. Just like that, it was 30-12 and the 49ers needed their biggest comeback since 2011. Time was there and the Ravens have blown worse, but the confidence killer that is a 4-pick parade cannot be understated. The Ravens bypassed a 4th-and-1 from the 1 to take a 25-point lead for a field goal and a 21-point lead, but that was one of the last strategic moments of relevance in the game.

Purdy suffered a stinger in the fourth quarter and Sam Darnold came in and finished the drive for a touchdown. The Ravens went 3-and-out, Darnold was still dealing, and this looked like it might have potential for a wild finish if the 49ers could score another touchdown before the 2-minute warning to make it a 33-26 game. But they royally blew that after getting a 1st-and-goal from the 2 with 2:16 left. Darnold took a huge sack, the 49ers were called for a false start, and he eventually threw a pick on 4th-and-goal from the 17 with 1:00 left. Game over.

Put me on record for thinking a Super Bowl rematch between these teams could potentially be lousy. Granted, the 49ers did for the most part contain Baltimore’s running game outside of one 30-yard scramble by Jackson, who only had 15 yards on his other 6 runs. It also was close to being a 7-point game despite the 49ers being down 4-0 in the turnover department (4-1 if we include Jackson’s grounding safety). You can’t count on a couple of deflected picks always going your way. Ask the Ravens. They had a tipped pick-6 go against them in the fourth quarter in their loss to Cleveland this year.

I just think the 49ers are a front-running team, even more than Baltimore, and they are not good at coming back in games. Those early picks threw things off for Purdy all night and he just never recovered. It also didn’t help that the line, which has a weakness in pass pro, looked overmatched, and that was true even before Trent Williams was injured.

As for the excessive amount of MVP talk coming from this game for Purdy, Lamar, and CMC, I don’t feel like getting into it tonight. Let the last 2 weeks play out, but it just sounds absurd to think this one game should drastically change the odds on what is supposed to be a season-long performance award. Somehow, we have let it devolve into Super Bowl RINGZ logic where it should go to the player who goes undefeated in Weeks 15-18 no matter how they played. Screw that. The problem is this race has been a mess all year, so it’s no surprise things are finishing like this.

The sky isn’t falling for the 49ers, but yeah, they are beatable.

Everyone is this year.

Raiders at Chiefs: Get Cute, Get Cut Up by These Raiders

Yes, I’m sure I liked it better when the Chiefs were losing 1-score games due to dropped passes or stupid penalties before Patrick Mahomes eventually threw incomplete on a 4th-and-forever to end things.

This was something far worse. This was probably the weirdest, ugliest game of the Mahomes era. You could see it early when the Chiefs got out of the first quarter with minus-18 yards of offense, the worst by any NFL team since 2004.

This game could not have been any different from the Week 12 matchup between these teams, a game with no turnovers and where the Chiefs put the ball in the hands of their best weapons (Isiah Pacheco, Travis Kelce, and Rashee Rice).

Well, the trio of Rice, Kelce, and Pacheco combined on a 74-yard touchdown drive to get the Chiefs on the board after a trick play got Pacheco in the end zone on a 12-yard run. Admittedly, that play had good design. But the Chiefs have a history of running cutesy trick plays against the Raiders, an opponent that is usually among the most outmatched on their schedule, and it can come off as pretty lame like last year when they did their “Snowglobe” play with everyone spinning around before the snap.

On the next snap from scrimmage for the offense after the Pacheco touchdown, they tried a direct snap to him where he then pitched the ball to Mahomes, who couldn’t gather it and the result was a fumble recovered for a touchdown. Brutal and unnecessary backed up in your own end.

To make matters worse, Mahomes floated a lazy pass late to the sideline to Justin Watson on the next snap, and that was intercepted for a touchdown to give the Vegas defense two touchdown returns in 7 seconds to make it 17-7.

That sequence basically lost the game as the passing game took the rest of the day off for the Raiders. Aidan O’Connell had 9 early completions (all on a field goal drive) but did not complete a pass in the final 3 quarters (0-for-10). I’ve never seen anything like it with a team completing all of its passes on one drive in a game. Supposedly it’s the first time since 2000 a team won a game without completing a pass after the first quarter, but I think that’s because the dataset only went back that far. I can’t imagine any other game since the merger has done this.

That was going to be Kansas City’s ticket to pulling off another comeback, but it was just not their day. Harrison Butker missed a 36-yard field goal to end the half, a big miss. Pacheco’s helmet came off twice and he got kicked in the head the second time. He went to get checked on a table on the sideline and the table collapsed on him. The Chiefs looked like a poverty franchise on Christmas.

The Chiefs only touched the ball 4 times in the second half, and that was partly their own fault as they wasted 13 minutes driving only to turn the ball over on downs in Vegas territory.

By the time the offense finally got another drive in the end zone with 2:42 left to make it 20-14, they were basically in 3-and-out or bust mode for the defense. You would think the defense would sell out to stop the run, but the Raiders had no problem finding running lanes for Zamir White, and he finished the Chiefs off with runs of 6, 43, and 15 yards to finish with 145 yards.

Mahomes ended up leading the Chiefs with 10 runs for 53 yards. He set that Next Gen Stats era record in Super Bowl 55 when he had 497 scramble yards before throwing or taking a sack against Tampa. Earlier that season, I believe he was a few yards short of that in a 40-32 loss to the Raiders, a loss where the Chiefs were an 11-point home favorite like they were in this game.

I haven’t seen the number from Next Gen Stats yet, but I have to believe the scramble yards had to be even higher in this game. He probably topped 500 as they had him running for his life. Maybe it wasn’t always necessary, but it sure looked like a quarterback out of confidence with an offensive line that was outmatched against the Raiders.

Hats off to Antonio Pierce for adding some real attitude to this defense. The offense barely contributed to the win, but the defense definitely got after it.

As for the Chiefs, I’m not sure what you can say anymore. This one looked like a failure in coaching to prepare the team for a physical game. They tried to play it cute and make nice highlights at home, and the Raiders just punched them in the mouth, and they couldn’t recover in time. It really might have turned out differently without that fumble touchdown. I just don’t get the call there backed up in your own end. Run a normal play to Pacheco. Throw the ball to Kelce down the field. Get Richie James more involved as he actually looked good. MVS is worthless.

Just do something differently because this is clearly not working, and now you can forget about the playoffs running through Arrowhead. But the reality is the Chiefs will be lucky to even get out of the wild card round at this rate.

Giants at Eagles: They Never Make It Easy

I’d be lying if I said I paid much attention to this game. It was 20-3 at halftime, so it looked like the Eagles were going to finally blow a team out, they got Tommy DeVito whacked (benched for Tyrod Taylor), and Boston Scott should have been cruising to a late touchdown to hit some fun bets.

But that didn’t happen. Scott fumbled a kickoff to start the third, setting up a short field touchdown for the Giants, and they later scored a pick-6 to make it 20-18. But the Eagles had much better offensive flow with Dallas Goedert finally used properly, a good ground attack, and Jalen Hurts still automatic on those sneaks.

But that defense is still unreliable, and this was a 1-score game after they allowed a 69-yard touchdown pass to Darius Slayton. Tyrod had to go 75 yards in 70 seconds and get a 2-point conversion just to force overtime. But he did get to the Philadelphia 26 before holding the ball forever on the final snap before finally throwing a game-ending interception in the end zone to help the Eagles escape with the 33-25 win.

It might not be a game that sells anyone on the Eagles being the top team in the NFC again, but it keeps them in line to win the division.

Cowboys at Dolphins: Paper Tiger Bowl Goes to Miami

These teams are really a perfect matchup for each other as they only bring their A game if the opponent isn’t an A-caliber team, and where the game is played matters too. Yeah, they can drop 45 points on the Commanders, and Tyreek Hill does this cool crouching thing now, but look what happens when you put a real opponent in front of them.

The Cowboys and Dolphins came into Week 16 with the most points scored this year and yet it was a struggle for both to reach 20 points in this game.

Dallas is going to finish this regular season with an 0-4 record on the road against winning teams (1-7 in its last 8 such games going back to 2022), a bad sign for its postseason prospects as a likely wild card team again.

I don’t want to say Dallas lost this game on the opening drive, but it is so hard to make up for wasting half a quarter if you fumble at the 1-yard line. Dallas only had 8 possessions in the game and that was one of them. Just an awful turnover, getting cute with a handoff to the fullback who had 6 touches all season before they tried to give him 4 on the opening drive. It was first down too. Give it to an experienced ball carrier like Tony Pollard. It once again led to Dak Prescott not establishing a real rhythm for the game as he had just 6 completions more than 35 minutes into the game.

This team simply cannot control games on the road against the good teams. We have to hear Dak’s “yeah, here we go!” as the loudest person in the stadium when the Cowboys are at home, but on the road, this offense shrinks, and the defense doesn’t impress either.

Tua Tagovailoa’s quick release didn’t leave many opportunities for the Dallas defense. They got a little lucky too as you can see the skill players were a bit banged up for Miami, including Jaylen Waddle who only had a 50-yard catch on the opening drive. Raheem Mostert left injured at one point, and we know Hill was just coming back from the ankle injury.

Beyond the fumble on the opening drive that was the only turnover in the game, Dallas also lost this one at the end of each half. Miami scored a touchdown before halftime and managed the clock perfectly on the final drive to make sure the Cowboys had no time left after taking the lead.

There was a lot of settling for field goals in this one, and the Dolphins did find a way to blow a 9-point lead in the fourth quarter. It looked like Dallas might fail in the red zone again in a 19-13 game, but they got their choice of defensive pass interference flags on the Dolphins on a 4th-and-4, which felt like a make-up call for the missed grab of CeeDee Lamb’s pants on an earlier down.

Two plays after an awful sack took the ball from the 1 to the 8, Prescott found Brandin Cooks for a nice touchdown. It wound up being Dallas’ final offensive snap, and somehow it was only Cooks’ second catch of the day. Again, how does this offense justify Cooks and Michael Gallup combining for 18 yards? Is targeting 11 players really necessary when you can’t even get your WR2 and WR3 the ball properly?

But props for Miami for taking over with 3:27 left in a 20-19 game and making sure all of the clock was burned before the field goal despite Dallas having four clock stoppages. The running game helped make sure that happened, but not before Hill converted a 3rd-and-3 with a simple YAC play for 10 yards. That play was really the game for Dallas as  Miami likely would have been kicking the field goal with a stop there.

But no stop came, because the Cowboys are just not a serious team on the road in games like this. I can say the same thing about Miami, but this team will have its shot to prove otherwise in Baltimore next week with the No. 1 seed up for grabs.

Lions at Vikings: Party Like It’s 1993

It had been over 40 years (1982) since the Lions went into a season as the outright favorite in their division. It was 30 years (1993) since the last division title for Detroit. With a 30-24 win in Minnesota, the 2023 Lions lived up to the expectations and claimed the NFC North with their 11th win of the season.

The win was largely a celebration of recent draft successes with Amon-Ra St. Brown going over 100 yards and scoring a touchdown, a pair of touchdowns for rookie back Jahmyr Gibbs, and the defense intercepted Nick Mullens four times, including a game-clincher in the final minute with Minnesota 30 yards away from the lead.

It wasn’t the easiest win for the Lions. Justin Jefferson’s 28-yard catch on a 3rd-and-27 is another great addition to his highlight reel, and it looked like it could lead to the go-ahead touchdown. But the constant downfield passing of Mullens, who passed for 411 yards, eventually stung the Vikings again in the worst moment as his pick from the Detroit 30 with 49 seconds left ended the game.

The Vikings (7-8) are in a rough spot after yet another close loss. The defense did a good job in only allowing one 20-yard play to the Lions, but Detroit was methodical and effective in this one. By comparison, the Vikings were volatile and living on the edge all day as every Mullens dropback feels like a turnover opportunity.

But Detroit’s division title is the main story here, and the team still has some games left to earn a top seed and improve its chances to do some damage in the playoffs. Imagine if they renewed their 1950s rivalry with the Cleveland Browns by getting to the first Super Bowl for both teams. Speaking of which…

Browns at Texans: Amari Cooper’s Monster Game

Who knew the key to unlocking Kevin Stefanski’s offense was to add Joe Flacco just a few weeks shy of his 39th birthday? What Cleveland is doing with Flacco continues to defy logic. He just had his third game in a row with at least 42 passes, 311 yards, multiple touchdowns, and a win for the 10-5 Browns.

Not only are they winning with Flacco, but they are leaning on him offensively. The Browns’ backfield only had 27 carries for 58 yards in Houston. Amari Cooper also had arguably the game of his career with 11 catches for 265 yards (franchise record), 2 touchdowns, and a 2-point conversion because the Browns lost their kicker and kept going for 2 in this 36-22 win.

Cooper was sensational from the first snap of the game when he hauled in a 53-yard bomb, a sign of things to come. Meanwhile, Houston’s offense looked lost without C.J. Stroud, and Davis Mills ended up replacing starter Case Keenum in a comeback effort that never got too deep. The Browns led 36-7 at one point.

I kind of joked earlier in the week about Flacco going into Canton if he gets a ring out of this season, but this is some really interesting stuff in Cleveland. You have a great defense that can win it all, you have a team that’s already beat the Ravens and 49ers, the current No. 1 seeds, and now you have a quarterback who already has led one of the most improbable Super Bowl runs in NFL history.

And let me repeat, they already beat the 49ers and Ravens with marginal quarterback play in those games earlier this season, so that silences the schedule argument for what they’ve done with Flacco the last month.

This could end horribly in the wild card round for all we know, but if the Browns keep playing like this, they are a team we have to take seriously. And wouldn’t that be a hell of a lot more fun and easier to do with this Flacco story than if this was Deshaun Watson thriving?

Jaguars at Buccaneers: Pirate Ship vs. Sinking Ship

Well, I was very wrong about this one. I thought the Jaguars, who ended up being favored after it was reported Trevor Lawrence would start, would end their 3-game losing streak by winning the turnover battle and throwing some cold water on this Baker Mayfield hot streak, which was largely fueled against the sisters of the poor in the NFC.

But as it turns out, Lawrence was the turnover machine in this game and probably should have been sidelined earlier than he was before yet another injury (shoulder) was added to his 2023 season. Lawrence turned it over 3 times and the Buccaneers turned them all into touchdown drives to build a 27-0 lead early in the third quarter.

The Bucs didn’t even run the ball effectively (36 carries for 70 yards), but it didn’t matter as Mayfield avoided turnovers again and Mike Evans had 2 more touchdowns. By the time Lawrence was finally taken out, the game was already decided. C.J. Beathard mopped up and Calvin Ridley caught a pair of touchdowns after it was 30-0.

Tampa is thriving as the playoffs inch closer and the Jaguars (8-7) are in danger of making it two years in a row where the AFC South leader completely falls apart. The Titans were 7-3 last year before losing out, which the Jaguars benefitted from, and Jacksonville was 8-3 after winning in Houston just a month ago.

Look at them now.

Seahawks at Titans: Just What Pete Carroll’s Heart Needed, Another Nail-Biter

The Titans are a tough out, especially at home, and you knew Derrick Henry would step up after he had 10 yards on 20 touches last week, a historically-bad game. I liked the Titans in this game because of Seattle’s short week and long trip after an emotional win, possible rust for Geno Smith coming back, and Ryan Tannehill starting actually felt like a possible advantage instead of a downgrade from rookie Will Levis, who has problems sustaining drives.

Well, Henry no doubt showed up with 99 scrimmage yards, a touchdown run, and an ugly touchdown pass that still worked. Tannehill didn’t do a lot and took 6 sacks, several of a very untimely fashion, but he didn’t have any turnovers.

It looked like the Titans were going to steal this one after a 15-play, 75-yard touchdown drive consumed almost 9 minutes and was the perfect answer to D.K. Metcalf’s impressive touchdown catch to start the quarter. The Titans led 17-13 and basically left Seattle with one last drive.

This has not been Geno Smith’s spot in his career, but he ended up leading his third fourth-quarter comeback win of 2023 after he came into the season with 5 comebacks in his whole career. He kept the game alive with a 3rd-and-14 conversion to Jaxon Smith-Njigba for 18 yards, the rookie making a huge play once again. Even if he didn’t catch it, defensive holding on the Titans would have brought a fresh set of downs.

A 22-yard flag for defensive pass interference put the ball at the 5, and Smith found rarely used tight end Colby Parkinson for the touchdown with 57 seconds left. Tannehill had enough time with one timeout to set up a field goal, but starting the drive with a sack was a killer, then he ended up taking another one from the 50. I swear quarterbacks have given up on spiking the ball this year, because instead of doing that, the Titans ran another play and the receiver’s momentum was stopped in bounds, allowing the clock to run out on the Titans.

I still think this Seattle team, the current No. 7 seed with an 8-7 record, is a waste of a playoff spot this year. But when you look at the list of teams they are competing with (Vikings, Falcons, Packers, and Saints), maybe they are the best option to get there. And Detroit will want no part of them in a 7-2 matchup should that happen given the results of the last two meetings in Detroit.

Colts at Falcons: The Letdown

I guess the Colts were due for an offensive letdown, but you wouldn’t have guessed this game after they took the opening kickoff and drove 75 yards for a touchdown. But that would be the only trip to the end zone as the offensive line was dominated with Gardner Minshew taking 6 sacks, and Jonathan Taylor returned this week but only had 43 yards on 18 carries.

With Michael Pittman Jr. out, you see the limitations in this receiving corps that relied so heavily on him. While the Colts struggled, the Falcons with Tayler Heinicke at quarterback finally utilized their best players as Kyle Pitts had a 24-yard touchdown and Bijan Robinson had 122 yards from scrimmage.

Just as importantly, the Falcons avoided any turnovers this week, snapping a 19-game streak for the Colts for games with at least 1 takeaway. No takeaways, no run game, no Pittman catches, and just not enough points for Indy in a 29-10 loss that hurts their playoff chances as another one of the 8-7 teams in the AFC.

Commanders at Jets: Frankly, Both Coaches Should Go

There were reports swirling before the game that Jets coach Robert Saleh was safe for 2024. He probably should be given the Aaron Rodgers situation this year, but man did he almost blow a 20-point lead right after that report that certainly would justify moving on with someone else.

Of course, Ron Rivera seems like he’s got a foot out the door already on the Washington side. They couldn’t have started this game much worse than they did. A tipped pick, a blocked punt, a muffed kickoff, and a bad punt led to the Jets leading 17-0 not even 6 minutes into the game.

Are you kidding me? But maybe that’s also a reason why there was a major comeback attempt here, because it’s not like the Jets were earning the lead with long drives or impressive offense behind quarterback Trevor Siemian.

But for the second week in a row, it was a quarterback change for Washington that sparked a near epic comeback with Jacoby Brissett replacing Sam Howell. It was an awful game for Howell, who finished 6-of-22 for 56 yards and 2 interceptions. Brissett sparked the offense as he did against the Rams last week, and he was 10-of-13 for 100 yards and a touchdown.

Brissett led an 83-yard touchdown drive that finally erased the 20-point lead for the Commanders with 4:52 left, but the job was not finished. By throwing 3 straight incompletions after a 1st-and-20 situation, Siemian exhibited some “suck quickly” strategy that Tom Brady once pulled off against the 2013 Saints. Had Siemian completed some passes there and used more clock before ultimately turning the ball back to the Commanders, this one could have ended differently.

But the Jets had all their timeouts to get the ball back, and Washington conceded with three straight basic runs and a punt. The Jets had the ball back 26 seconds after giving it up. All it took was 2 first downs to get into range for Greg Zuerlein, who was good enough on a 54-yard field goal with 5 seconds left to take a 30-28 lead. The Commanders couldn’t even get their lateral going to end it.

I had the Commanders (+3) as my upset pick and for the Jets to not crack 20 points against the worst scoring defense in the league. That start just killed this one for Washington, and even after the effort to come back, they still blew it by being so conservative and playing right into the Jets’ hands.

Both teams cleaning house wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Packers at Panthers: Is It Hope for Bryce Young or Impending Pink Slip for Joe Barry?

Finally, a Week 16 game I can say I nailed right down to Bryce Young having his best game of the season, the Panthers (+4) covering, and Green Bay still getting the close win on the road.

We know the Panthers struggle in the fourth quarter, but they erased a 14-point deficit with relative ease to tie this game at 30. Even after the Packers regained the lead on a field goal and left Young with 19 seconds, he still found two open receivers for 44 more yards and came up one second shy of getting the spike off in time to set up the game-tying field goal for overtime. Just one more second would have been enough for a 49-yard field goal by Eddy Pineiro, but he probably would have missed it given he already missed two extra points in the game.

If you’re a Green Bay fan, you’re satisfied with the performance of Jordan Love and the offense in a balanced attack and game where they put up 33 on the road. But you have to be pulling your hair out over defensive coordinator Joe Barry, who basically lives on dropped passes and turnovers to not give up 30 or 40 points every week. Young had his first 300-yard passing game after throwing for 180 looked like a struggle the last month for him. He joins Tommy DeVito as a struggling rookie to have his brightest moment against this defense in the last month.

I can’t wait to see what this defense does against Nick Mullens next week. At least he is charitable with turnovers, but he might have a 500-yard game indoors.

But if you’re a Carolina fan, you have to at least be encouraged that Young took advantage of a favorable matchup and made some good throws and led a productive offense. Some glimmers of hope in such a bleak season from the Panthers.

Cardinals at Bears: Tank You Very Much

It was 21-0 Chicago halfway through the second quarter before the Cardinals finally woke up. The good news is a 21-0 lead for Justin Fields and Matt Eberflus is not the same as a 21-0 lead for a normal team.

Sure enough, the Cardinals got back in it after Fields threw a horrible interception in the red zone with a 24-10 lead with 10:22 left. It was on first down too, so he could have literally ran the ball three times, kicked a field goal, and the Bears would have had a 3-score lead with 8 minutes left. Just terrible lack of awareness but also par for the course for this quarterback and team.

Kyler Murray turned that into a touchdown drive, the 2-point conversion failed, but the Bears went 3-and-out. So, we had a 24-16 game with 4:21 left, but Murray needed to drive 91 yards. The drive stalled at the Arizona 27, but instead of punting on 4th-and-6 with 3:00 left, the Cardinals went for it. Murray threw deep, the receiver fell down, no flag necessary, and that was basically game over right there with the Bears taking over in field goal range. Even they couldn’t screw this one up and they added a field goal to take a 27-16 lead with 1:02 left. Forget about it at that point.

Was that a subtle way of tanking the game for the now 3-12 Cardinals? Keep in mind Chicago is a team with heavy draft capital thanks to the Carolina trade involving last year’s No. 1 pick. It just seemed like such an asinine call with four clock stoppages left for Arizona, and they were facing one of the worst fourth-quarter closing time teams in NFL history. Any team should be punting in that situation, because if you don’t get the 4th-and-6 (chances are you won’t), it’s game over with the opponent in field goal range.

Just thought that was an odd call with some possible ulterior motives in an otherwise forgettable game.

Patriots at Broncos: Goodnight, Sweet Prince Payton

We’ll see what happens the rest of the way, but there is a good chance Mike Tomlin’s Steelers and Sean Payton’s Broncos will watch the playoffs on TV with the rest of us after losing as big home favorites to Bill Belichick’s Patriots with Bailey Zappe at quarterback.

Go figure, an awful matchup on paper lived up to its low expectations for one half with Denver leading 7-3, and then a real game broke out and it ended up being one of the most entertaining island games (or halves) of the year.

The third quarter was just a comedy of errors by Denver with Russell Wilson taking 4 sacks, Marvin Mims muffing a kick return for a New England touchdown just 8 seconds after a Mike Gesicki touchdown catch from Zappe.

All of a sudden, the Broncos were down 23-7 going into the fourth quarter of a must-win home game they were a 7.5-point favorite for. To their credit, they pulled off the fabled “8+8” comeback to tie the game with 2:53 left. Throw in a quick 3-and-out by New England combined with a bad penalty leading to a re-kick that cost the team 19 yards, and it suddenly looked like we’d get a Denver win in regulation with the ball at their 39 and 1:42 left.

I’m not going to crucify starting a 2-minute drill with a pass to the running back as so many successes in NFL history have done just that. But a 3-yard loss to Samaje Perine set the tone for the rest of the drive, and it was another 3-and-out. The Patriots got it back with 58 seconds left at their 19 and decided to run it before Denver made the likely mistake of calling timeout.

Look, I get you can do great things in limited time, but this game was tied. New England looked content for overtime, and this might have even been the rare game where going on defense first in OT would have been the right call. Make them earn it on a long field.

But by Payton calling timeout, I think Belichick called his bluff and the Patriots snuck in a great, unexpected throw down the field on 3rd-and-3 that was caught for 27 yards by DeVante Parker. Should have let them play for OT, Sean.

After a couple of short completions and a spike, the Patriots were ready to try a 56-yard field goal for the win. Rookie kicker Chad Ryland is someone I have repeatedly said is a sign of how bad player evaluation has gotten in New England under Belichick the GM’s watch. This kicker has sucked all year and he even missed an extra point and a 47-yard field goal in this game. You might recall he missed a 35-yard field goal against the Giants that would have sent the game to overtime instead of a 10-7 loss.

Lower stakes on this one since the game would have gone to overtime with a miss, and he wasn’t expected to make it. But maybe that helped him, because he nailed it right down the middle from 56 yards out to win this one. Wilson tried a Hail Mary from his own 27, but no one was getting that ball to the end zone.

The Broncos (7-8) are pretty screwed for the playoffs at this point, but there’s a reason genuinely good teams almost never start 1-5.

The Patriots really don’t benefit at all from the win, but it is amusing to know that Belichick can still get one over Tomlin and Payton with Zappe as his guy. That also goes down as Zappe’s first game-winning drive, a rarity in New England these days.

Truly a Christmas miracle.

Next week: Week 17 presents another opportunity with a special Saturday night game for the Cowboys to show they can beat a good team, and at least this one is at home. Also a big chance for the Lions to flex some muscles and stay in the race for that No. 1 or No. 2 seed.

Speaking of top two seeds, Miami at Baltimore is a huge game for the AFC, and that’s in an unusual 1 p.m. spot. Ravens need to avenge that blown 21-point lead last year. Bucs can put the clamps on the Saints for the NFC South. The 49ers should score at least 49 points against Washington. Pittsburgh-Seattle has some wild card implications for both conferences, and no, I don’t envy Mike Tomin’s quarterback decision for that one. Packers at Vikings on Sunday night to end 2023, a year to which I say good riddance to.