Post by spiderfan on Jan 16, 2023 21:10:00 GMT -8
Greetings and salutations Sports Coast to Coast, it is I, Spiderfan the official NFL Analyst of this great forum coming to you with a special Wild Card Weekend Edition (Calling it Super Wild Card Weekend is dumb, it made sense the first year they added the extra playoff spots, now it is a meaningless adjective) of Red Hot Gridiron. We have a whole lot to discuss, so without further ado, let us begin!
Gold Rush
2:34 in the 3rd Quarter, 2nd Down and 14 in the redzone. The score was 49ers lead the Seahawks 23-17. Seahawks have the ball. Prior to this moment, the Seahawks improbably had held their own against their division rivals who had beaten them twice in the regular season. Despite the 49ers taking the early 10-0 lead because of poor Seahawks play on both sides of the ball, the Seahawks managed to turn things around in the 2nd quarter, and because of a cheap shot by 49ers FS Jimmie Ward on Seahawks QB Geno Smith, the Seahawks managed to take a 17-16 lead at halftime.
The feeling of fear and anxiety had been palpable on the 49ers sideline. Rookie QB Brock Purdy hadn't played as good as he had at the end of the regular season, 49ers HC Kyle Shanahan looked desperate, and the 49ers as a whole did not seem to react well to the Seahawks surviving and then thriving after the 49ers initial efforts. Seahawks QB Geno Smith was playing the best he had played in months and Seahawks WR DK Metcalf was reminding the football world just how good he is. Coming out of half, the 49ers had a long drive that chewed a ton of clock due to the fact it was nearly all runs, and retook the lead. Then the Seahawks got the ball and after having a somewhat lengthy drive themselves ended up in the redzone. Which bring us to where this segment started.
2:34 in the 3rd Quarter, 2nd Down and 14 in the redzone. Geno Smith goes back to pass and throws it to DK Metcalf who is denied the catch thanks to a great defensive play by 49ers FS Jimmie Ward. If that play hadn't been made, the Seahawks would have retaken the lead, and with the way the 49ers were playing, likely would have the lead until sometime until the 4th quarter. Who knows? Maybe Brock Purdy leads his first 4th quarter playoff comeback (however so slight) and his legend grows even bigger. Maybe Brock Purdy chokes under the pressure of trailing in the 4th quarter of a playoff game. We'll never know how Purdy and the 49ers as a whole would have reacted, nor will we know how the Seahawks would have handled that situation because on the very next play the when Geno Smith went back to pass the ball was knocked out of his hand and recovered by 49ers DE Nick Bosa.
Anyone who has ever played Madden and/or watched a Madden YouTuber knows when something such as a turnover happening late in a game that usually results in a player outright quitting the game. That's what Geno's fumble reminded me of. The air in the proverbial balloon had officially popped for the Seahawks. The beneficiary of that pop were the 49ers, who went on a gold rush scoring 18 unanswered points and a game that was a 6 point game became a 24 point game at one point. The Seahawks completely imploded, playing awful on offense, not just failing to get yards, but committing a bunch of penalties and Geno having a predictable interception. Sure the Seahawks got a garbage time TD to make it a 18 point game but who cares?
For as much of a 49er hater as I am, I will give them credit, they played well in the second half, dominated at the line of scrimmage and made the plays they had to make to ultimately come out on top. The Cowboys are going to have a hard time against them, that's for sure.
Since this is the last time the Seahawks will come up this season, I would like to manage that for as up and down the season was, it was still a fun season to watch as a Seahawks fan. I thought they win 3 or 4 games and end up with the #1 pick in the draft. Instead, they managed to get into the playoffs and for a brief period of time, looked they might win a playoff game. I do want to go on record as saying I think the Seahawks should draft a QB with the #5 pick they got from the Broncos, as I don't Geno is the answer long term.
Disaster in Jacksonville
If Chargers HC Brandon Staley's job was ever in actually in doubt and not just wishful thinking by the homers in the national sports media world wishing that Staley wasn't the HC, then Staley will find himself unemployed. When you a blow a 27 point lead in a playoff game? Yeah, that's a fireable offense. How did things to get that point though? Well, it comes because of an important thing called adjustments.
In the first half the Jaguars barely ran the football, instead almost entirely passing. The problem with this two fold 1.) was that the Jaguars offense became predictable and 2.) Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence kept trying to fit balls in windows that no quarterback should try to fit balls into, resulting in not one, not two, not three, but FOUR interceptions in the first half. The passes that weren't intercepted looked like they could have been intercepted. The Chargers did a decent job of turning those INTs into points for themselves. 17 points of the Chargers 27 point lead were off of those interceptions.
In the second half the Jaguars ran the ball some with RB Travis Eitenne, which opened up more passing lanes for Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence, who with open receivers played a ridiculously better than he had in the 1st half. Once the offense got going, when the defense kept holding the Chargers, the Chargers lead slowly shrank and shrank until it was gone.
What turned out to the biggest play of the game in my opinion was late in the 1st half when the Jaguars muffed the punt due to the ball bouncing off a Jaguars player's head, causing a wild scramble for the ball that the Chargers ultimately came up with. The Chargers had 1st and Goal at the 6 and were up 24 points at that point. If the they had gotten a TD, they would have gone up 31-0. Instead, the Jaguars held the Chargers to 3 points and the Chargers ended up with a 27 point lead instead of a 31 point lead. In the back of my mind, I remember thinking "the Jaguars still have a shot". There was something about the difference between a 5 possession game and a 4 possession game that stuck with me. My feeling ended up being correct because the final score was 31-30. The Chargers scored only a FG in the second half. If they had gone up 31 instead of 27, the final score would have been 34-31, assuming the Jaguars still put all their eggs in the comeback basket.
It's a reminder that coming out of the redzone with only 3 points is REALLY not good. An obvious statement on paper, but one that I wanted to say anyway, because as regular readers know I like to point out the obvious.
It's also a reminder that one team/one player's career defining moment is another team's failure. Regardless of what happens going forward the rest of this postseason or heck even the rest of his career, Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars will always have this win. It will be remembered and talked about and shown on NFL Films programming for years to come. Meanwhile for the Chargers it is a complete humiliation that will may or may not get their HC fired. It is kind of bitter sweet for me as a "Chargers are overrated" pundit because on one hand, I do enjoy seeing the Chargers fail on a national stage in a playoff game thus reinforcing my view that the Chargers are consistently overrated, on the other hand, if/when Staley gets fired and someone like Sean Payton is hired, then all the talk is going to be about how dominant the Chargers are going to be and how great Justin Herbert is, which are things I'm already sick of hearing and seeing. I guess I there is no winning as an analyst is there?
Low Tide
The Miami Dolphins have made the playoffs 5 times since the retirement of Dan Marino in 1999. Two of those games featured a different quarterback than the one that started the season for them. In 2016, it was Matt Moore filling in for Ryan Tannehill, and on Sunday it was Skylar Thompson filling in for Tua Tagovailoa and Teddy Bridgewater. The last time the starting quarterback of the Dolphins for the season started a playoff game for them, was Chad Pennington in 2008. The reason why the Bills were 13 point favorites, the reason everyone thought the Bills would win, and the reason the Bills ended up winning was because of Dolphins QB Skylar Thompson.
Now to be fair, Dolphins HC Mike McDaniel looked completely overmatched and intimated by playoff football. After all, terrible clock management causing delay of game penalties is on the head coach. Dolphins WRs Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle along with Dolphins TE Mike Gesicki had some drops early in the game that helped put the Dolphins in a 17-0 hole early. Eventually though, they started catching passes, and for all his terrible clock management, McDaniel did call a heck of a game from a playcaller standpoint. The Dolphins defense made plays, whether it was getting turnovers or scoring a TD themselves. There's also the factor that Tua has become notorious for choking in late season games and if healthy could have very easily had a bad game and I could have been writing this segment with Tua as the focus of blame. The person who did play was Skylar Thompson.
Where things become Skylar Thompson's fault is really throughout the whole game. He wasn't particularly accurate with the football on a consistent basis, he refused to run where there wide open lanes for him to run to get first downs, he threw an awful interception that put the Bills in Dolphins territory (and would use that opportunity to score a TD), and most importantly missed an open Tyreek Hill at the end of the game on a play that CBS color commentator said could have been the game winning touchdown.
What makes Skylar Thompson's poor play all the more discussion worthy is the fact that the Bills did not play all that great, particularly on offense, where the Bills were just seemingly determined to lose the game. Bills QB Josh Allen had 3 turnovers, a bunch of missed throws, and flat out looked bad. If Josh Allen plays the way he did against the Dolphins, against the Bengals, the Bills will lose.
A Giant Win
What happens when you have a franchise that I've called the worst franchise in football for years, a team that I've mocked for humiliating failure on the football field play against a team that has a history of regular season success and even some playoff success, yet have always come up short and had their fair share of devastating defeats, especially in the playoffs? The answer is that for the first time since I've been doing this column, not only did the franchise I've mocked for years make the playoffs, they won a playoff game on the road. People of Sports Coast to Coast, the New York Football Giants have left me shocked with their victory over the Minnesota Vikings.
The game itself was compelling, a back and forth contest where neither team gained significant separation. Sure the Giants had a 10 point lead, but it was briefly held one. Both offenses were making plays and it sure looked like whoever had the ball last would win the game. Looks however can be deceiving. This was clearest at the end of the game.
After all the back and forth, the Giants had the ball up 7 late in the 4th quarter. Their defense had forced a Vikings three and out, and with the way the game was going an additional score by the Giants would put them in great position to pull off the upset. The Giants had a drive going and ended up facing a 4th and 1 on their own 45 yard line. Considering the field position that the Giants would be giving the Vikings if they didn't make it, the conservative play would have been to punt the ball and force the Vikings to drive the length of the field to tie the game. That's not what Giants HC Brian Daboll did. He did the aggressive thing and went for it. They got it. That's when the Vikings started to call timeouts. Once the timeouts started being called it was clear that the Vikings were on the ropes. It couldn't happen, right? There is NO WAY that the team who I've mocked for years and years could actually pull this thing out... right?
3rd and 15 with a little over 3 minutes to go, with the Vikings having no timeouts and the Giants having the ball, Giants QB Daniel Jones threw to wide open WR Darius Slayton who looked to have plenty of running room to get a first down and end the game. Slayton dropped the pass. I couldn't help but laugh, realizing that the team that I know and I love to mock had finally shown up in this playoff game that I was watching. My thought process was furthered by a roughing the passer on the next Vikings offensive series. It looked to me that the Vikings would go down the field and tie the game and win it in overtime. Again, there is NO WAY that the team who I've mocked for years and years could actually pull this thing out... right?
Well, the Vikings didn't score, in fact only 2 plays after the 2 minute warning, the Vikings were stopped on downs. I couldn't believe it, the Giants had actually pulled off a close PLAYOFF win. It really was a Giant win. My perception of this team has changed, at least in the short term. Maybe, despite their lackluster second half of the regular season, and despite their efforts to lose against the Vikings, the Giants have finally turned the corner to become a winning team. How about that?
The Bengals Are Still The Kings Of The Jungle
Yet another backup quarterback starting in a playoff game this week and yet another near upset. By this point in the week was a stale rerun. What set it apart from the other games was having a play that will be on highlight reels forever.
Early in the 4th quarter game tied at 17, the Ravens had the ball inside the 5 yard line, and on 3rd and Goal Ravens QB Tyler Huntley went for a QB sneak. It was a smart idea, except for the fact that Huntley wasn't all that close to the endzone, meaning that he short, meaning that his jump toward the endzone left him vulnerable to hit. The ball was forced out and Bengals DE Sam Hubbard returned it 98 yards for a touchdown, a touchdown that would end up being the game winning touchdown as despite a whole bunch of offensive series by both teams after, neither scored and the game was left with a 24-17 final score.
Ultimately because of the game's stale rerun nature it isn't nearly as interesting to talk about as the other games. I do think that if Lamar Jackson had been healthy, the Ravens would have won for what that's worth. Even with that opinion, I don't think the Bengals should feel discouraged entering their game against the Bills. The Bills defense isn't as good as the Ravens defense, and the Bills offensive style isn't as tricky to deal with as the Ravens offensive style is.
Sunken Ship
One of the nice things about the Wild Card round was that all the weekend games had been competitive for some period of time. Cowboys-Buccaneers was competitive for a little bit early, only because both teams looked like non-playoff teams who were playing in a playoff game. Once the Cowboys got their offense rolling, the game was over because the Buccaneers kept playing a non-playoff team. The Buccaneers defense let the Cowboys offense do whatever they wanted and made Cowboys OC Kellen Moore and Cowboys QB Dak Prescott both look far better than they actually are. The Buccaneers offense was embarrassingly bad at times. The Buccaneers offensive line couldn't block the Cowboys defensive line, the Buccaneers receivers couldn't gain any separation against the Cowboys defensive backs, nor could they regularly catch a football. Buccaneers QB Tom Brady had one of his rare bad playoff games, made worse by the ever present reality that it could be his last game.
Do I think it will be Brady's last game? No. Last year there was a sense that he was done and played like it against the Rams. I thought he was done and for a few weeks he was retired. This year is different, primarily because of Brady's much publicized divorce to Gisele. From various reports she didn't want to keep playing. As we all know he decided to keep playing. With him now entering a new phase of life, the Buccaneers having a disappointing season, and the fact the whole Buccaneers organization is built around him (they forced out Bruce Arians who they are putting in the Ring of Honor for crying out loud), I think that Brady is not only going to come back, he is going to play for the Buccaneers.
And with all of that said that is all for this Wild Card Weekend edition of Red Hot Gridiron. I hope ya enjoyed and I hope to see ya again next week for the Divisional Round. Remember, football is the greatest game in the world. This is spiderfan out.
