Post by spiderfan on Jan 24, 2020 22:34:22 GMT -8
I'm WAY WAY late SCtoC! Yeah, I know this is coming out WAY WAY later than it should, but I was under the weather and wanted to recuperate. With that out of the way, I'm going to talk about the deciding games of both the American and National Football Conferences. Let us begin!
Tennessee Titans vs Kansas City Chiefs
The Tennessee Titans and Kansas City Chiefs played against each other in Nashville in Week 10. Ya had the CBS A-Team announcers broadcasting to a national TV audience in what was a high scoring and compelling game. Here were my thoughts at the time:
Ryan Tannehill TRUCKED AND RAN OVER DEFENDERS?! WHAT?! Ok, I've talked about the Chiefs poor defensive performances before and how they need to improve and yada yada yada blah. This has to be the worst defensive performance by the Chiefs during the Mahomes era, because I will repeat: Ryan Tannehill TRUCKED AND RAN OVER DEFENDERS?!
If Ryan Tannehill can do it, than that obviously means that Derrick Henry (who is known for running over defenders) can do it too. Which he did, multiple times. I have no clue how the Chiefs dominated the Ravens early in the year, because their run defense has been atrocious as of late. If you think atrocious run defense is bad, how about the worst attempt at prevent defense of all time.
Seriously, prevent defense is already stupid and teams shouldn't do it, and yet somehow on the Titans final drive (in which the Titans had less than 2 minutes and no timeouts) the Chiefs couldn't even run prevent defense properly with the "drive" only lasting 3 plays and those plays being passes which were so wide open, you could fit a Penske truck lot in the space in between the "defenders" and the receivers.
The whole thing that the Chiefs said during the offseason was "We R gOinG tO chANgE Da DEFensiVE scHeme TO a 4-3". Bob Sutton and his 3-4 defensive scheme it turns out weren't the problem. IT WAS THE DEFENSIVE PERSONNEL! You ain't winning a Super Bowl with anything resembling this defense, Chiefs. Tony Romo was talking about how "the Chiefs can't lose this game, because that means they won't get home field advantage in the playoffs". Forget that nonsense, right now the Chiefs have Las Vegas... er.. Oakland Raiders breathing down their necks in the AFC West with the Chargers only 2 games back themselves. The Chiefs might not get a home playoff game or a playoff game period.
Of course, the big shame in all of this is the wasting of the efforts by the best QB in the NFL, Patrick Mahomes. You shouldn't lose a game where you put up 32 points. But, that is the issue Mahomes had at Texas Tech, he would put the points and the defense would give up even more points. The now iconic 66-59 Oklahoma-Texas Tech game is the most famous example. That shouldn't have been happening then, and it shouldn't be happening now.
If Ryan Tannehill can do it, than that obviously means that Derrick Henry (who is known for running over defenders) can do it too. Which he did, multiple times. I have no clue how the Chiefs dominated the Ravens early in the year, because their run defense has been atrocious as of late. If you think atrocious run defense is bad, how about the worst attempt at prevent defense of all time.
Seriously, prevent defense is already stupid and teams shouldn't do it, and yet somehow on the Titans final drive (in which the Titans had less than 2 minutes and no timeouts) the Chiefs couldn't even run prevent defense properly with the "drive" only lasting 3 plays and those plays being passes which were so wide open, you could fit a Penske truck lot in the space in between the "defenders" and the receivers.
The whole thing that the Chiefs said during the offseason was "We R gOinG tO chANgE Da DEFensiVE scHeme TO a 4-3". Bob Sutton and his 3-4 defensive scheme it turns out weren't the problem. IT WAS THE DEFENSIVE PERSONNEL! You ain't winning a Super Bowl with anything resembling this defense, Chiefs. Tony Romo was talking about how "the Chiefs can't lose this game, because that means they won't get home field advantage in the playoffs". Forget that nonsense, right now the Chiefs have Las Vegas... er.. Oakland Raiders breathing down their necks in the AFC West with the Chargers only 2 games back themselves. The Chiefs might not get a home playoff game or a playoff game period.
Of course, the big shame in all of this is the wasting of the efforts by the best QB in the NFL, Patrick Mahomes. You shouldn't lose a game where you put up 32 points. But, that is the issue Mahomes had at Texas Tech, he would put the points and the defense would give up even more points. The now iconic 66-59 Oklahoma-Texas Tech game is the most famous example. That shouldn't have been happening then, and it shouldn't be happening now.
Yeah the last half of that section didn't age well. Regardless, because of how the last game turned out, along with the their winning streak, various folks actually had the Titans going to the Super Bowl instead of the Chiefs. Well, the AFC Championship Game started out with the Titans having a solid 17-7 going into the 2nd quarter. The Titans defense had contained the Chiefs offense, and the Chiefs defense looked bad. Despite what the Chiefs defense has done in the last month, I figured that at some point the Chiefs defense would resume playing badly at some point. The 1st quarter was a prime example. Missed tackles, being trucked, bad coverage, the whole shabang. But then things changed midway through the 2nd quarter.
See the Titans got the ball to start the game, meaning the Chiefs would get the ball to start the 2nd half. What this meant was, that even though the Chiefs were down 10, if they could find a way to score before the half, and then score coming out of half that the deficit would be reduced or possibly eliminated entirely. As we saw in the divisional round game against the Texans, the Chiefs can score and score fast. The Chiefs scored and scored fast with Mahomes throwing the ball effectively to all kinds of targets and ending in a TD pass to Tyreek Hill.
The Titans needed to score on their next drive to gain back the momentum that they had secured early in the game. Instead they went 3 and out, the Chiefs getting the ball back with a chance to tie, if not take the lead. After driving the Chiefs down the field again, Patrick Mahomes set up what should be a legendary TD run by... himself. (Click Watch on YouTube to see the clip)
If you watch the whole clip, you will the ever confident Titans HC Mike Vrabel have a look of amazement, defeat, and akwardness all wrapped into one. Mahomes usually does that to players and coaches, but to see that face on may I repeat Mike Vrabel who has been the most confident coach in the playoffs having defeated the Patriots and Ravens on the road. Ya knew the game was over at that point. Which it pretty much was because the Titans never recovered and ended up losing 35-24, with that last TD coming in garbage time. For the folks in Nashville's sake I hope Mahomes and the Chiefs didn't completely mentally obliterate the Titans, like the Cam Newton and the Panthers did to the Cardinals 5 years ago. That was a situation where the Cardinals had a talented team and they never fully mentally recovered from having lost that NFC Title Game. The Titans are a talented team and it would be a shame to see them never recover from this.
As for the Chiefs, their playoff run has been wild. They've been down, but they've never been out. I'll say this though, while the comebacks have been thrilling and exciting, I think it would be better for the Chiefs to not spot the 49ers a decent or big sized lead in the Super Bowl. Speaking of which
San Francisco 49ers vs Green Bay Packers
An accurate representation of what happened to the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game:
There was a whole lot of talk about the Packers and 49ers previous match up (in which the Packers lost 37-8) and whether or not that outcome would be repeated. Would it be closer? Would the Packers win? Would Aaron Rodgers finally get his revenge on the 49ers for not picking him instead of Alex Smith all those years ago? The answer to all of those questions is a resounding no.
49ers RB Raheem Mostert flat out destroyed the Packers defense with a whopping 4 TD runs (3 of those coming in the 1st half) and 220 yards on 29 carries. Ya wanna know how many times Jimmy G had to pass? 8 times. The whole game.
Meanwhile, Packers RB Aaron Jones was shut down and Aaron Rodgers was under pressure and wait a minute. Deja Vu, I've been in this place before:
The final score 37-8 and those 8 points came in the second half because the 49ers were up 23-0 at half. Rodgers was under pressure by the 49ers defense all night, the run game was stuffed, and the 49ers defense simply dominated on the defense side of the ball. This set up short fields and various opportunities for the 49ers offense, which capitalized and put up points. An impressive team effort for sure.
The San Francisco 49ers are flat out a better team than the Green Bay Packers and it isn't a fluke. When you dominate a 13-3 team like the Packers in a big spot under the brightest lights twice, you deserve to be the NFC Champions, which the 49ers are.
Zone Coverage
-Happy Trails, Eli!
Even though this edition of Web of Football was belated, I hope that ya still enjoyed it and I hope to see ya again for the Super Bowl! Also, check out our Pro Bowl and Playoff Results threads! This is spiderfan out.
Graphic courtesy of David.