Let's chat about the National Football League. This thread will be dedicated to all post-season games, including the Super Bowl. This post will be updated with results and schedules going into February (All times Eastern):
Wildcard matchups:
2025-01-11:
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04:30PM: Los Angeles Chargers vs. Houston Texans
08:00PM: Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Baltimore Ravens
2025-01-12:
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01:00PM: Denver Broncos vs. Buffalo Bills,
04:30PM: Green Bay Packers vs. Philadelphia Eagles
08:00PM: Washington Commanders vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
2025-01-13
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08:00PM: Minnesota Vikings vs. Los Angeles Rams
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Notes -
Total disasterpiece for the Lions last night. The motor city kitties never felt like the favorites, they were pressing all game. Washington played fast and loose, and won the game comfortably. Which annoyed me personally, because I was rooting for the Lions, and because I was very tired and planning to go to bed as soon as the Lions put the game away...which they never did. The Lions will hopefully be back next year with better health and better luck, but this was the best Detroit Lions season in 40 years, and sometimes the moment passes. It's elegaic. The sadness for me is muted by the fact that this is the outcome that was best for my Eagles.
Jayden Daniels is going to get the opportunity to be the first rookie QB to ever lead his team to the Super Bowl, playing away against the winner of Eagles-Rams today. My Philadelphia Eagles are touchdown favorites, but we saw how much that meant last night. They're calling for 8 inches of snow during the game, which should favor the Eagles and their road-grading offensive line and strong run game over a precision Matthew Stafford passing attack and speed rushing line from the Rams; but it also makes for unpredictable outcomes which the underdog prefers. The stakes for this game just went up: rather than a chance-at-a-chance-at-a-chance, the winner will be strong favorites against Washington at home. Hoping the Eagles don't get caught looking ahead, and play a disciplined football game today. There's no reason the Rams should beat the Eagles unless you think Nakobe Dean (who to be fair was having a breakout season) was the key to the entire Eagles D. But the Eagles have always been capable of beating themselves.
Elsewhere, the Chiefs handled the Texans fairly comfortably, in a game marred by unfortunate officiating. I wouldn't expect that the game would have gone any differently without a few 15 yard penalties here or there, but it sucks that this is the conversation after that game. I'd like to see the RTP calls become reviewable. The talmudic quality of NFL rules fascinates me, and it's not going anywhere any time soon.
Bills-Ravens was always going to be the main event of the weekend, and there's no way I'm missing it. Rooting for the Bills, as all right thinking people outside Maryland should.
Turns out we ended having some better games this week than I expected! I agree that the officiating fiascos of the Chiefs-Texans didn't effect the outcome - I think the Chiefs win that game regardless - but it may have made it a more interesting game, rather than an easy victory(plus I could've hit my league pick at Texans +8.5 instead of losing due to a missed field goal! So frustrating). The Lions and Commies game was much better than I expected. The Commies' defense really came to play, racking up five (!) total turnovers against the potent Detroit offense. The Detroit defense... not so much. Jayden Daniels sure looks like the truth - and while my fears of him being too slight to run at the pace he does haven't been proven totally unjustified, unless there's a catastrophic one in his near future he looks like he'll be a top QB for a long time. That being said, between Detroit and Tampa the Commanders have faced some pretty weak defenses in their run to the NFC Championship Game, something that will change when they head to Philly for their third matchup with the Eagles this Sunday.
The Eagles were able to handle business against the Rams, although they made you sweat it out at the end. Jalen Carter looks like one of if not the most disruptive interior guys in the league now that Aaron Donald has retired (ironically showing out against Donald's former team). Howie Roseman should thank his lucky stars Georgia's athletics department doesn't install a speed limiter on their player's cars. Als, bit of a sidenote but can we talk about how Philly managed to get all the best players from that Georgia Bulldogs squad? Jordan Davis, Nakobe Dean, Jalen Carter - they were the best players on the best defense in college football, and somehow the Eagles managed to land all of them. Even Nolan Smith had a sack! Craziness. Who would've thought "take all the good players from the best defense in college football" was a winning strategy? Apparently not other GMs, seeing as none of them did. Sometimes these teams overthink things. Back to the game, the Rams led a valiant comeback effort but it wasn't enough to overcome Saquon Barkley's two long touchdowns, including a 70-yarder to put the team up two scores. Jalen Hurts continues to look extremely pedestrian in the playoffs - the Eagles netted just 65 passing yards - but "just don't fuck up and we'll win" is a hard strategy to argue with considering how well it's worked for them so far. Plus, he added in his own long TD run to pitch in as well. Jake Elliot has been pretty shaky all year, and it hasn't come back to bite them yet. We'll see if they can keep overcoming him leaving points on the board.
The marquee Game of the Week was universally considered Ravens-Bills, and it absolutely lived up to the hype. A fantastic game, featuring both great and terrible displays of defense and offense on both sides of the ball, with some minor and balanced reffing issues thrown in. Lamar Jackson has continued to build his playoff narrative for both his supporters and detractors. His supporters will say that overall, he played a pretty good game, particularly in the second half as the Ravens chased the game; it was his receivers, particularly former All-Pro Mark Andrews who lost a pivotal fumble on a great punchout by Bills LB Terrel Bernard and dropped the game-tying two-point conversion. His detractors will say that his two awful first-half turnovers (a bad interception and an even-worse fumble) are the reason the Ravens were chasing the game in the first place. I tend to lean more towards the latter than the former - they were truly awful turnovers, particularly the fumble. I have a hard time absolving him of the blame when he played a big part in the loss. And it's hard for me to say the team (bar Andrews, who truly had just an awful day) let him down. Henry ran for over five yards a carry, it wasn't on him (although he also had a drop on a not-perfect, but catchable ball). His line played pretty well; he had all day to throw that last touchdown, it was incredible. Josh Allen, meanwhile, did just enough for the team to win, grabbing a solid lead in the first half and never relinquishing it. There are definitely quibbles to be had with how the Bills gameplanned the second half, as their offense seemed to be in ball-control mode from the opening possession rather than going for the kill; but they ended up winning, so it worked out for them. Both teams got screwed by one call (the Ravens on a phantom DPI and the Bills on a phantom hold, both off the turnovers in the first half), so the refs did not play any factor in the outcome, to my mind. In the end, the Ravens looked like they're probably the more talented team that just shoots itself in the foot at important moments, which has been the book on them since Lamar's first MVP season back in 2019. Also, just for the record - even if Mark Andrew catches that ball, Josh Allen and the Bills would have had over a minute thirty and two timeouts to get into field goal range and win the game. Do you really think they wouldn't have been able to do it? They had just gotten a chip-shot field goal on their last possession. The discourse around the play has been that it single-handedly lost the game for the Ravens - and while it was the final nail in the coffin, I firmly believe they would have lost even if he held on. Hell, it didn't even give them the lead! It was only to TIE the game, not win it! Overtime is basically a coin flip for these two, so their chances imo went from maybe 25% down to 1. A huge play, to be sure, but less impactful than Lamar's fumble (and Andrews' own, to be honest, although that was a fantastic punch on the ball by Bernard while Lamar just straight-up dropped the ball on the turf for no reason).
They also have Kellee Ringo at 4th CB and gunner on punt returns, and they just added Lewis Cine off Buffalo's practice squad for fun. There's a theoretical lineup next year, with Dean healthy and Cine actually a part of the team, where they have UGA players at 6/11 spots on defense.
This is buzzer-beater discourse in general. Any time you have one play that decides the game, every other play decides the game just as much. Not only every play the Ravens missed on points, but every play the Bills missed on points. If the Bills get an extra field goal earlier in the game, then the play doesn't matter.
I highly suspect that Philly will beat Washington in the least convincing manner possible, then lose in the Super Bowl to either AFC team, so that the Eagles will manage to make two Super Bowls while still getting the "They haven't beaten anyone" treatment, and in the season between they'll have a historic collapse in a year they beat both the Chiefs on the road and the Bills in the rain.
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Well, that was some football. Turns out, both theories of snow-game football were correct: the snow made the passing game difficult, and the snow increased variance; the benefit going to running teams and underdogs.
In Philadelphia, heavy snow that we're still digging out of this morning, and we saw the Eagles run for close to 300 yards and three long explosive touchdowns. Unfortunately, for drops and slips and sacks, the passing game never got going, with Jalen Hurts passing for 128 yards but losing 66 to sacks. An apparent knee sprain hobbled him for parts of the game, and when I've had back or knee stability injuries I know that slipping on snow/ice makes your whole body go haywire so I can't imagine being out there playing agile football; but he gutted it out, and most importantly avoided turning the ball over once. If the Rams had just managed to get a safety to stop those 40+ yard touchdown runs after 30 yards, the Rams win this game. But then if the Eagles had made two snow-slipping PATs, they win the game comfortably and there's not much to talk about. Both teams had drops and screwups that, if you reverse them, change the oucome of the game, it was a sloppy snowgame. So, six of one, half a dozen of the other. The Rams played well, with Jared Verse backing up his trash talk about Eagles fans, but ultimately a couple lost fumbles probably makes the difference in the game. This might be the Rams' swan song with Stafford, and if so it's a damn good run and they should be proud of it.
In Buffalo, Josh Allen won with a very similar formula to Jalen Hurts: throw for about 120 yards, run well, don't turn the ball over, score 28 points at home and count on your defense to get a last minute stop to win the game. The sacks are the difference between Jalen Hurts being criticized as a backup-tier QB, and Josh Allen being praised as a clutch winner who got it done. Which, hey, the sacks happened, including a real bad safety that could have cost the game. But I don't remember ever seeing the term "Net Passing Yards" used a lot by football writers over "Passing Yards" until writers discovered it could be used as a way to criticize Jalen Hurts, and I think a lot of readers don't notice the sleight of hand. Allen is going to get the opportunity to duel Mahomes. Over/Under on the number of plays that end in star QBs lobbying the refs?
Lamar Jackson probably won his third MVP this year, but this loss will define his season, despite it ultimately coming down to drops in single degree weather away in Buffalo. Brutal sport. There's no reason the Ravens shouldn't just run the team back as much as they can, they probably win if Flowers is healthy.
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