Post by spiderfan on Jan 21, 2024 21:42:25 GMT -8
Greetings and salutations SCtoC, Spiderfan, the official NFL Analyst of this great forum here, coming to you with the Divisional Round Edition of Red Hot Gridiron. We have a LOT to discuss, so without further ado let us begin!
Well That Was Fun While It Lasted
The Houston Texans were one of the worst teams in football prior to this season. Multiple head coaches, the drama surrounding the front office, and the infamous Deshaun Watson situation. Then this season came around. New HC DeMeco Ryans along with the additions of star rookie QB CJ Stroud and rookie DE Will Anderson, Jr. brought success that the Texans franchise has not experienced in years. Not only did they win the AFC South (which during the Bill O'Brien era was not impressive, but is far more impressive now), they also won a playoff game against the Joe Flacco-led Cleveland Browns a team that I personally thought was going to go far in the AFC playoffs in dominant fashion. At halftime against the Ravens the game was tied at 10. The Texans missed a FG right before half, meaning that they actually could have led going into the second half. And then the Ravens scored 24 unanswered points. The title of this segment says it all.
To be fair, the signs of a Ravens blowout win were there. The Texans offense only scored three points in the first half and their score was inflated by a punt return TD. The Texans' offensive line, which held a great Browns D-line in check, had no absolutely no answers for the Ravens defensive line. Stroud stood no chance and didn't help himself by refusing to use his legs to get positive yardage. The Ravens offense finally got into a rhythm, and when they get into a rhythm are practically unstoppable. That makes them an oddly entertaining team to watch as the Ravens attain their rhythm through their use of the run game which was enhanced by Lamar Jackson rushing for 100 yards himself.
As far as I'm concerned both Ravens DC Mike MacDonald and Ravens OC Todd Monken both deserve HC jobs. Sure, the Ravens have a good team in the past, but because of how they have led their respective units, the Ravens have gone farther they ever have in the Lamar Jackson era. Texans OC Bobby Slovik has done great work with Stroud and the Texans should do all they can financially to keep him around so as to not hurt Stroud's development.
How To Not Upset a #1 Seed
The Green Bay Packers came in as big underdogs to the San Francisco 49ers, which makes sense from a seeding standpoint as the Packers were the seventh seed and the 49ers were the first seed. The Packers were coming off of a blowout win against the second-seeded Dallas Cowboys in which Packers QB Jordan Love had a perfect passer rating. An upset against the 49ers was certainly within the realm of possibility after what happened against the Cowboys. It was even more within the realm of possibility as the game progressed. The Packers went to toe-to-toe with the 49ers from the first snap until the last one. That is all fine and good if you are wanting to avoid being blowout, but to actually pull off the upset you have to go more than toe-to-toe; you have to make the plays to win the game, something which the Packers did not do.
For starters, 49ers QB Brock Purdy kept trying to throw interceptions, I mean REALLY trying. It was ugly to watch and would have been even uglier if they were actually interceptions. However, they weren't picked off because the Packers defenders either dropped them or didn't play the ball like they should have to intercept them. If even a couple of those balls were intercepted the Packers probably win. On offense, the Packers put themselves in position to extend their lead late in the fourth quarter to at least seven points, which would have given them the good ol' fashioned cushion of overtime. If they scored a TD, they would have put the game away practically. Instead they came up with zero points, meaning that when the 49ers scored on the next drive they took the lead with a minute left.
All of those mistakes could have been erased with one final drive by the Packers. Down three, if they scored a TD they would have won the game. A FG would have forced the game into overtime. Instead Love threw an atrociously awful interception. 49ers win.
I'm sure the 49ers are going to be working to refine themselves because if they play the way they played against the Packers against the Lions they won't go to the Super Bowl. Speaking of which...
The Curse Takes Another Hit
The Detroit Lions hadn't made a NFC Championship Game since 1991. A lot of Lions fans weren't around to see that team play. A lot of Lions fans never lived to see their team get that far again. The Detroit Lions have now made it that far once again. The Curse of Bobby Layne was on the ropes for the first time in a long time. But boy it sure looked like it was rearing it's ugly head.
For the first three quarters, the Lions could not pull away from the Buccaneers or the Buccaneers kept up with the Lions which ever way you want to look at it. Either way it was a tie game going into a 4th quarter. That was when the Lions started to pull away. Not only was the Lions offense clicking, but the Buccaneers offense had finally stalled out, something which they had been prone to doing during the regular season. Up 31-17 with less than six-and-a-half minutes left, it felt like the Lions might actually do it. It certainly looked that way. Then Baker Mayfield led a clutch drive to bring the game back to one possession. At that moment I thought to myself "Oh it is happening. The Curse is here." I thought that even more when the Buccaneers decided to go for 2, with the idea being that if they made it, they would win the game outright with a TD and extra point on the next possession. Even though they were down eight and hadn't made the two-point conversion yet, I thought the Buccaneers would win in regulation. Then the two-point conversion failed. Overtime still felt in play, and was especially in play after the Lions failed to chew the rest of the clock.
The Buccaneers had a little less than two minutes to go and a timeout remaining. There was no reason that the Buccaneers would go down the field and score a TD right? And that is when Baker Mayfield threw a interception to Lions LB Derrick Barnes in what is the biggest moment for the Detroit Lions in over 30 years.
As someone who was watched Baker Mayfield many times since his days at Oklahoma, I can't help but feel bad for him. At the same time, recognizing how big of a moment that is for the city of Detroit, I also can't help but feel happy for Lions fans who have waited a LONG time to see a moment like that go their way. In the future I hope that the Lions play more postseason games at Ford Field, because the atmosphere there has been incredible to see.
Who Wants To Lose A Divisional Round Game?
When you write about the NFL as I do, you get wrapped up in storylines whether of your own making as an analyst or agreeing with the storylines as set up by others in the media or even buying into the storylines that teams themselves set up. Things change from week to week; especially during the regular season. One week one team is good, one week another team is bad. Players get injured, players get traded, players get cut, players get signed, coaches get fired, and coaches get promoted. Because all of that happens it is easy to get wrapped up in the moment, especially when it feels like that moment is more than a moment and is representative of things to come.
I say all of this as a long winded preface to say I was wrong about the Joe Flacco-led Cleveland Browns, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills. I didn't think the Bills would make the playoffs and I thought the Joe Flacco led Browns would defeat the Chiefs to go to the AFC Championship Game. Every single aspect of all that was wrong. Not only did the Bills make the playoffs, the Joe Flacco led Browns didn't even get a chance to play the Chiefs, and the Chiefs ended up making it to the AFC Championship Game.
For all the ebbs and flows of the regular season we ended up with a familiar game with familiar faces; the Buffalo Bills playing the Kansas City Chiefs. I thought about how for all the thought I put into thinking that the game I was watching wasn't going to happen, it happened, which in the end I should have expected from the get-go. I bought into the idea that both the Bills and Chiefs were not the same teams we had seen in previous years and that a new contender had appeared. There is a reason that the Bills and Chiefs have been the contenders they have been. Despite it all, they are two of the better teams in the NFL and very few teams are close.
Having said that, the Bills still have yet to get over the hump that is the Chiefs. While the Bills have consistently beaten the Chiefs in the regular season, in the postseason, they have not. Those games were played in Kansas City, and this one was in Buffalo which gave the Bills and a lot of their boosters in the national sports media complex optimism that it was finally their time. Yeah, it wasn't.
The Bills had a good game plan. Run the ball and chew the clock on offense to keep Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes in the pocket and force the Chiefs sub-XFL receiving corps to actually make catches. Here's the problem that the Bills ran into: the Chiefs receiving corps actually caught passes which means that the Chiefs passing game functioned at a high level. That also means that the Chiefs offense was able to be successfully balanced with a fantastic performance by Chiefs RB Isiah Pacheco, which meant the Chiefs offense could keep up with the Bills offense. That meant that the Bills had no room for error, at least in theory.
Where that is a theory and not a fact is that the Chiefs failed to take advantage of the Bills errors; at least initially. The Bills fake punt at the 30-ish yard line that failed should have cost them the game. They set the Chiefs up with great field position with the lead in the 4th quarter, instead Chiefs WR Necole Hardman fumbled the ball near the goal line which led to a touchback. The Bills offense stalled out after they got the ball back, which should have led to the Chiefs putting the game away. Instead, the Chiefs offense also stalled out. The Bills offense finally got rolling and then Bills QB Josh Allen fumbled the ball, which should have led to a recovery and the Chiefs clinching victory. Instead, the Bills recovered the ball and got into FG range. And that was when the Bills finally made one error too many.
The Bills have now had home playoff games against the Bengals and Chiefs in the Josh Allen era and lost both of them. The only one Allen's contemporaries that they have beaten at home in the playoffs is the Ravens. You have to wonder at the point if the Josh Allen-led Bills are going to ever get over the hump. They got to the AFC Championship Game against the Chiefs in 2020 and haven't been back that far since. And it is worth noting that this the worst the Chiefs have been from a record and statistical standpoint. They are only going to get better. The AFC East is only going to get better with Mike McDaniel's Dolphins continuing to come into their own. What a healthy Aaron Rodgers is going to do for the Jets should also be considered. The Bengals are going to continue to be a force in the AFC as are the Ravens, and there will always be a new team trying to make that jump into contender status like the Chargers. This, of course, is all a long-winded overreaction because with Joe Brady as OC and a healthy Josh Allen will probably be right back in the AFC playoffs. That would be against the Chiefs or someone else and eventually make the championship run they have been wanting to see in Buffalo for decades at this point.
Even if the Chiefs lose to the Ravens (which I'm still inclined to think happens), they can hold their heads high knowing they made it this far with the weakest team that the Chiefs have had in the Patrick Mahomes era. And if they make it to the Super Bowl and win it? Well then, the Chiefs have an argument to be made for being the unstoppable force of the National Football League. We will see.
Coaching News
-Antonio Pierce being the named the permanent HC of the Las Vegas Raiders is a pleasant surprise. Raiders owner Mark Davis has shown an ability to hire big names in recent years, so I thought Jim Harbaugh was very much in play for them. He didn't even interview. Ultimately, I think it was a smart move especially considering guys like Maxx Crosby wanted Pierce to stay on as HC.
-I think the Cowboys retaining Mike McCarthy has everything to do with Dak Prescott's vote of confidence in him and his statement that if McCarthy went, he should go too. Dak is not going anywhere anytime soon and therefore McCarthy isn't either.
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 again next week for the conference championship games. Games like the ones we saw this week make you remember that football is the greatest game in the world. This is spiderfan out.
