Post by spiderfan on Jan 29, 2023 23:28:39 GMT -8
Hola SCtoC, Spiderfan here, back again with another edition of Red Hot Gridiron, this time for the Conference Championship games. We have a lot of in depth discussion to get to, so without further ado, let us begin!
Kyle Shanahan and the Not So Magic Railroad
In Week 12 when the San Francisco 49ers were 7-4 were on what was then a four game win streak, I had a whole segment discussing how overrated I thought the 49ers. This was not the first time I brought up my view that 49ers are overrated, but to my memory it was the first time I dedicated an entire segment to it (I've been doing this column for 5 years now, I'm bound to not remember things). The 49ers would then go on to win every game between Week 12 and the NFC title game. It looked like I had done some sort of weird reverse jinx on the 49ers where they kept winning and winning, despite being down to their third string quarterback Brock Purdy and despite my distaste for them. It was quite an irritating phenomenon to say the least. Meanwhile, I have been a big proponent of the Philadelphia Eagles throughout most of the season. I've gone from viewing them as good to the best team in football to NFC favorites to Super Bowl favorites. I really haven't seen that view much in the national sports media, which I think is ridiculous.
I wanted to set up that context because I REALLY enjoyed being proven right about the 49ers and Eagles. As long time readers know, I enjoy being right, but there are times when I enjoy it more than others and this year's NFC Championship Game was one of those times. Now, I already can see all the reasons people might say I'm wrong, such as the fact that 49ers QB Brock Purdy got hurt and was replaced by fourth string QB (and former AAF and XFL QB) Josh Johnson and then had to be put back in the game because Josh Johnson got hurt resulting in Purdy playing without being able to throw the ball or the game starting out with a bad call because Eagles WR Devonta Smith's one handed catch on 4th down shouldn't have counted but did because the Eagles ran to the line of scrimmage and ran a play before the replay caught the fact that the ball hit the ground or arguing that the constant penalties on the 49ers were unfair.
In my opinion all of these narratives are false or misleading because of the broad point that the 49ers defense, supposedly the strength of their team completely imploded. The Eagles had 4 touchdown drives and on 3 of them the Eagles were aided by repeated penalties. The drive that sealed the game in the 4th quarter to put the Eagles up by 21 shouldn't have resulted in any points at all because one of the penalties that happened on that drive was a roughing the kicker on a punt. Doing the math and subtracting that touchdown and assuming that without penalties the 49ers would have held the Eagles to FGs, that would put the final score at 16-7. Heck, the FG at the end of the game for the Eagles happened because the 49ers got turned over on downs near midfield in desperation meaning that if they game had stayed close, it probably wouldn't have happened either meaning the score could have been 13-7 late if the 49ers defense didn't screw everything up.
It's also worth pointing out that considering Brock Purdy couldn't throw the football because of the injury to his elbow later in the game resulting in the 49ers running the same run play over and over again, why didn't Shanahan to decide to let RB Christian McCaffrey, the emergency QB, try to play QB? We live in a world where Baker Mayfield won a game on Thursday Night Football despite being on the team for 36 hours and knowing next to nothing in the playbook. You mean to tell me that Christian McCaffrey who has been on the team since early in the season couldn't at least run some of the offense at the quarterback position? Because I don't buy that he couldn't and if he couldn't that proves my longstanding argument that Kyle Shanahan isn't the offensive genius that everyone says he is. Or maybe because Shanahan is one of those offensive coaches that uses plays that are the length of a paragraph of this column causing multiple delay of game penalties when Josh Johnson was in at QB, McCaffrey wouldn't have had luck playing the QB position.
To give the Eagles credit, they managed to take pretty much full advantage of all the penalties that the 49ers committed and made the plays they had to make to win the game in dominant fashion and become champions of the NFC, just like I thought they would be. The fact their defensive injured not one, but two QBs should keep Patrick Mahomes and Chiefs Kingdom up at night. Speaking of which...
You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Trash Talk
Trash talk is a double edged sword. On one hand it is fun to do and can be highly entertaining, on the other it is mean, and in a competitive setting can totally backfire and make you look completely stupid. Well, the Cincinnati Bengals being on a 10 game win streak and feeling incredibly confident about themselves, decided to trash talk, the center of this trash talk being the now infamous claim that Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City should be called Burrowhead Stadium due to Bengals QB Joe Burrow's 2-0 record there. Well, as you likely know as a reader of this column, that record is now 2-1, with the one loss being quite a doozy, not necessarily because of the margin of victory (the game came down to the final seconds), but because of how the Bengals ended up losing.
Being that it is a conference championship game it seems lazy to talk about just a couple plays in detail, but there's two things 1.) It's my column and I'm going to talk about things the way I want to talk about them and 2.) There were a whole bunch of factors and moments that seemed like they would be important before and during the game that didn't end up being important, whether it was Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes' high ankle sprain (he still made great plays) or the Bengals offensive line (which played worse than they did against the Bills, but were still respectable), the weird moment where a whistle wasn't heard and the Chiefs got to re-do a play causing Bengals HC Zac Taylor to bust a gasket (the Chiefs would punt not long after), or even Bengals QB Joe Burrow's dumb late game interception (the Bengals forced a Chiefs punt and got the ball back with plenty of time). So what did end up mattering?
Well, for that we have to look at the Bengals forcing the punt after the Chiefs failed to capitalize on Burrow's interception. The Chiefs could have attempted a long field goal (it looked to me like it would be a 52 yard kick), but instead decided to punt the ball back to the Bengals. It was a good punt putting the Bengals at the 7 yard line. The good thing for the Bengals was that they had 2:30 left to go and 2 timeouts. Because the game was at 20 at that point, in theory the Bengals could have chewed the rest of the game and win the game with a FG. Even if the Bengals didn't accomplish that, they could have chewed enough clock to force the game into overtime. The Bengals did neither.
2nd and 7, 1:27 left go in the game. Instead of taking a sack, Bengals QB Joe Burrow decided to throw the ball directly in the ground while he was in the pocket, leading to an intentional grounding call and a stoppage of the clock, leaving more time on the clock than there should have been. Even though the Bengals ended up getting the first down on the subsequent play and they ran a few plays before punting themselves, the additional seconds matter because the Chiefs ended up getting the ball back with 35 seconds left and only one timeout. Considering the Chiefs struggled to get into FG range (we'll get to that in a second) if there had been 5, 10, or 15 less seconds on the clock, it's likely that Chiefs HC Andy Reid would have decided to take the game into overtime. After all, he did make the conservative choice to punt the ball instead of kicking the long late game FG, so I think it is plausible that with less time, he would have decided to take the game into overtime.
Regardless, the Chiefs did the get ball the back and did have 35 seconds left with one timeout. An impressive return by Chiefs WR Skyy Moore put the ball near midfield. The Chiefs had a couple good plays, most notably the runs by Chiefs RB Isiah Pacheco and Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes to get first downs, but the Chiefs ended up with no timeouts and only 8 seconds left. They were also looking at a 60 yard field goal unless they managed to get out of bounds and gain some yardage on the next play. That thought process was but the briefest of thoughts, because as Mahomes was running out of bounds Bengals DE Joseph Ossai made the shall we say, highly questionable decision, to shove Mahomes while both of them were out of bounds in what was one the most blatant and unnecessary late hits you'll ever see. 15 yards were added to the Mahomes run, and what would have been a 60 yard field goal became a 45 field goal, which was easily made by Chiefs K Harrison Butker resulting in a Chiefs win and a trip to Super Bowl LVII.
None of what I'm about to say changes the fact that Ossai's hit was completely unnecessary and did make the FG shorter, HOWEVER, in Ossai's defense, considering the quality of Butker's kick, I think the Chiefs would have made the FG anyway. As previously discussed, it is also possible that the Chiefs would have managed to get closer as they did have 8 seconds left. 8 seconds that shouldn't have been on the clock because Burrow should have taken the sack when he had the chance. Not to mention the fact that Bengals HC Zac Taylor didn't even try to ice Harrison Butker. Setting aside my analyst role and embracing my Chiefs fandom role for a second, it was really awkward watching Butker's kick because I kept expecting a timeout to be called and causing a considerable delay in my cheering.
All in all considering the Bengals history of memorable postseason losses, I guess they were due for another one, which makes the trash talk age even more poorly when you think about it. Maybe next year they should try not trash talking. Just a thought.
Frank Reich Hired (and other Coaching Carousel thoughts)
Despite the regular season having ended weeks ago, only one of the five head coach openings in the National Football League has been filled with the Carolina Panthers deciding to hire recently fired Colts HC Frank Reich as their new HC over interim HC Steve Wilks. Personally, I thought Wilks had done enough as the interim to earn the full time job, which led to my prediction that he would get it. Obviously, I was wrong.
I'm not a fan of the Reich hiring by the Panthers. By the end of Reich's tenure with Indianapolis, I got the sense that he is better fit as an offensive coordinator (a position that he had great success at) than as a head coach. Additionally, if Reich couldn't pan out as the HC of the Colts, a team with a decent roster, I doubt he is going to do all that well with a team that has a not so decent roster. The biggest winner of the hire to me is the Washington Commanders, who will now have somebody willing to trade anything for Carson Wentz, a longtime favorite of Reich.
In other coaching news the Cowboys decided to fire their OC Kellen Moore in one of the most shocking things in football I've seen in my time doing this column. I genuinely believed that at some point he was going to be the Cowboys HC, hence why I stated last week that I didn't think he was going to go anywhere. I was wrong. Depending on who the next play caller for the Cowboys is, the Moore firing has the potential to be the biggest victory as a franchise the Cowboys have had in close to a decade. I did (sort of) accurately predict Cowboys DC Dan Quinn staying on under the guise of "wanting to win a Super Bowl with the Cowboys" when the actual truth is that Quinn didn't get offered the Broncos or Colts job and so stayed Cowboys DC by default.
And with all of that said that is all for this week's Red Hot Gridiron. As always I hope ya enjoyed and hope to see ya back next week with my annual "Best of" column. In 2 weeks I hope to see ya back for Super Bowl LVII. Remember, football is the greatest game in the world. This is spiderfan out.
