NFL (2024 Season)

[KCRoadFan]

What a comeback for the Jaguars to beat the Chargers 31-30 after trailing 27-0!

[Roadgeekteen]

Brandon Staley has to be fired

[kurumi]

In regular season game 7, the Niners were 3-4 and the Jags were 2-5. They're doing better now.

I don't want to jinx it by talking about them playing each other this postseason, so I won't bring it up :-)

[ilpt4u]

What a comeback for the Jaguars to beat the Chargers 31-30 after trailing 27-0!

Bolts won the turnover battle +5, and still allowed the Jags to come back and beat them

Before tonight, no playoff team was +5 in Turnovers and lost the game. Good job, LA!

[jgb191]

In Week Three, the Jaguars won at the Chargers 38-10.  During halftime tonight, I thought the playoff game would repeat the same exact score with the two teams swapping sides of that score in Jacksonville (in other words the Chargers winning at the Jaguars 38-10).  Tonight was just a reminder that regular season results mean nothing come playoff time.

[Ted$8roadFan]

I went to bed after halftime with the Chargers up 27-7. Good thing I'm not a Chargers fan.

[Max Rockatansky]

Brandon Staley has to be fired

I disagree, the Chargers have had two winning seasons under Staley and have been visibly improving.  I'm not convinced Justin Herbert is a top ten quarterback in the NFL at this point.  The guy can't seem to come up big when it matters like the best QBs in the league can.  What we haven't talked yet is Trevor Lawrence throwing four interceptions only to flip the switch and come back with four touchdowns.

[Flint1979]

Well it looks like the Chargers showed up in the first half and Jacksonville showed up in the second half.

[webny99]

Brandon Staley has to be fired

I disagree, the Chargers have had two winning seasons under Staley and have been visibly improving.  I'm not convinced Justin Herbert is a top ten quarterback in the NFL at this point.  The guy can't seem to come up big when it matters like the best QBs in the league can. 

I think Staley is done. Yes, they've improved marginally the past two season, but they are one of the most talented teams in the league and that was one of the most sickening meltdowns in NFL history. And it was Staley's decision to play starters last week that led to Mike Williams not being on the field, which could have easily been the difference in that game. And coaching absolutely cost them last night. Doug Pederson came up big in key moments and Staley did not, not relying on the run game enough with a huge lead and then getting conservative on 4th down leading to a missed field goal.

It was an entire team meltdown (yikes, Joey Bosa) but after last week's controversy and doing nothing on offense or defense in the second half, you have to place a large share of the blame on coaching.

[thspfc]

Brandon Staley has to be fired

I disagree, the Chargers have had two winning seasons under Staley and have been visibly improving.  I'm not convinced Justin Herbert is a top ten quarterback in the NFL at this point.  The guy can't seem to come up big when it matters like the best QBs in the league can.  What we haven't talked yet is Trevor Lawrence throwing four interceptions only to flip the switch and come back with four touchdowns.

I would say he's top 10, but I agree that he doesn't have the "it factor" that Brady and Mahomes and Burrow and  prime Rodgers have. When the camera pans to one of those guys jogging onto the field down by one possession with a couple minutes left in the 4th, you just get the feeling that they're going to win. I don't get that feeling with Herbert (or Allen, but that's unfair because the narrative would be totally different if the Bills defense didn't implode with 13 seconds left).

Also, a very underrated aspect of today's NFL is closing out games with the offense. Nobody is better at this than the Chiefs: sealing the victory with a clutch drive late while in the lead. It can be as much as a touchdown or as little as one first down depending on the time on the clock. If you're the Chargers you absolutely cannot go 3 and out in that situation, knowing that your defense can't stop the Jags and is exhausted from being on the field for the majority of the half. The Cowboys did the same thing against the Jags a few weeks ago.

[hobsini2]

What a comeback for the Jaguars to beat the Chargers 31-30 after trailing 27-0!

Fucking Chargers blew my parlay with 6 minutes to go.

[Ted$8roadFan]

To the surprise of many, the Buffalo Bills beat the Miami Dolphins by a grand total of 3 points and with much agita.

[NWI_Irish96]

Not even the refs could get Minny a playoff win.

[Roadgeekteen]

Fraudkings

[Great Lakes Roads]

Final scores from today's games:

Bills 34, Dolphins 31
Giants 31, Vikings 24
Bengals 24, Ravens 17

Games on Saturday, 1/21
Jaguars vs. Cheifs
Giants vs. Eagles

Games on Sunday, 1/22
Bengals vs. Bills
Cowboys or Buccaneers vs. 49ers

[epzik8]

Purdy, Thompson, Huntley...what a weekend for those backup QBs.

[jmacswimmer]

So the 7-seeds are now 0-6 since they were first introduced 2 years ago. Of those 6, maybe 2 were competitive? (The Colts 2 years ago and the Dolphins this year, both against the 2-seed Bills coincidentally.) Curious how long it will take for a 7-seed to register their first win.

Meanwhile what a swing in last night's game, with Sam Hubbard doing his best James Harrison impression.

[Henry]

So the 7-seeds are now 0-6 since they were first introduced 2 years ago. Of those 6, maybe 2 were competitive? (The Colts 2 years ago and the Dolphins this year, both against the 2-seed Bills coincidentally.) Curious how long it will take for a 7-seed to register their first win.

To be fair, no 16-seed in the NCAA men's tournament had beaten a 1-seed until 2018, when UMBC did so against Virginia (who went on to win the national championship the very next year).

Not even the refs could get Minny a playoff win.

Fraudkings

I really was hoping for a Vikings-Bills Super Bowl, which would've guaranteed a Lombardi Trophy for one of those teams.

Meanwhile what a swing in last night's game, with Sam Hubbard doing his best James Harrison impression.

Yes, that ending sure was exciting. Sort of like the gridiron equivalent of LeBron James blocking Andre Igoudala's layup in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals.

[Max Rockatansky]

Didn't both the Vikings and Giants have a negative points differential?  When is the last time two teams with negative point differentials matched up in the playoffs? 

[epzik8]

Two Giants fans I know think the Ravens will trade Lamar during the offseason.

[thspfc]

Reportedly, the Giants will continue to stumble (iykyk) with Daniel Jones and Joe Judge in 2022. So I'm forking their 2022 playoff chances before 2021 is over.

Alright, I'll bite. The Giants WILL make the playoffs in 2022.

Not that I really have that much confidence, but there's something sort of Cinderella-like about the Giants franchise that it wouldn't shock me at all if they have one or two playoff runs out of nowhere, maybe even Super Bowl runs, sometime in the next few years. That's the tradeoff for some really bad football in their down years, injuries obviously being a huge factor recently.

This was quite an incredible take, though it was kinda watered down by the forking of the Giants before this season started.

I never bought into the Giants this season, and I've obviously been proven wrong. I was feeling pretty confident about their downfall after three rough losses to the Lions, Cowboys, and Eagles, but the win at Washington saved their season, and they've ridden that momentum to the divisional round. As the playoff picture shaped up it seemed like the second Giants/Commies matchup would be one of the most consequential regular season games in years, and it clearly was: Daniel Jones might well have played himself into a contract extension yesterday, and if that week 15 game had gone the other way, he never would've gotten the chance. On the Commanders side, Rivera and Heinicke are both on the chopping block after a disappointing end to the season, which likely wouldn't be the case had they beaten the Giants.

the Bills should still be above the Vikings given the insane nature of what had to happen for the Vikings to beat them in overtime

If things were different then they would be different.

My top 10 right now would be:
1) Chiefs
2) Eagles
3) Vikings
4) Bills
5) Ravens
6) Cowboys
7) Dolphins
8) 49ers
9) Bengals
10) Jets

this insane stat adding to the flukiness

News flash: great players make great plays. They didn't flip a coin or something to determine whether he caught it.

I disagree with the heavy usage of the word "fluke", because in this context it's a logical fallacy - you're assuming from the go that the Bills are better than all these teams at doing all these things and therefore every time the Bills mess up it must be a "fluke", not even a potentially legitimate representation of the Bills level relative to other teams.

Here's what I will give you: the Bills/Dolphins game was extremely bizarre and is not an accurate representation of those two teams. For Buffalo to gain nearly 500 yards of offense to Miami's 212, gain 30 first downs, have the ball for more than two thirds of the game, turn it over just once, never trail by multiple possessions, only trail period for about 10 minutes, and still lose?

All in all there's still no standout team or few teams to me. The top 4 are interchangeable. Philly beat Minnesota, Minnesota beat Buffalo, Buffalo beat KC, but KC has looked without a doubt the best of the four outside of that loss to Buffalo.

I was also wrong here, though I still think it's dumb to call the Vikings/Bills game a "fluke". An upset, sure, but not all upsets are flukes. Bills/Dolphins in week 3 is a real example of a fluke. The truth has been exposed, Bills > Vikings.

[webny99]

Reportedly, the Giants will continue to stumble (iykyk) with Daniel Jones and Joe Judge in 2022. So I'm forking their 2022 playoff chances before 2021 is over.

Alright, I'll bite. The Giants WILL make the playoffs in 2022.

Not that I really have that much confidence, but there's something sort of Cinderella-like about the Giants franchise that it wouldn't shock me at all if they have one or two playoff runs out of nowhere, maybe even Super Bowl runs, sometime in the next few years. That's the tradeoff for some really bad football in their down years, injuries obviously being a huge factor recently.

This was quite an incredible take, though it was kinda watered down by the forking of the Giants before this season started.

Well, thanks: I had forgotten about this take. This was before Daboll and Joe Schoen were hired, but knowing they were connected to the Giants was definitely a factor.  Even so, I felt good about the fork: I figured they'd have an 8-9 or 7-10 season and show major improvement from the Joe Judge years, but fall short of the playoffs.

(You should know by now that there is no such thing as a home run webny99 take... I always blunder into some sort of unnecessary caveat or backtrack  )

As the playoff picture shaped up it seemed like the second Giants/Commies matchup would be one of the most consequential regular season games in years, and it clearly was: Daniel Jones might well have played himself into a contract extension yesterday, and if that week 15 game had gone the other way, he never would've gotten the chance. On the Commanders side, Rivera and Heinicke are both on the chopping block after a disappointing end to the season, which likely wouldn't be the case had they beaten the Giants.

Agreed overall, but two things worth mentioning:
1) The Giants might have snuck into the playoffs with a Week 15 loss if they'd beat the Eagles in Week 18. That seems very possible considering their backups were competitive in a must-win game for the Eagles (we'll see what that means for next week, but I expect another competitive contest).

2) The Commanders might have snuck into the playoffs even despite that Week 15 loss if they'd just beaten the Browns in Week 16. In hindsight, I think either Heinicke or Howell could have done it and the switch back to Wentz was even more costly than losing to the Giants. Also, Rivera not knowing the playoff scenarios was a pretty big blunder: maybe he doesn't make the switch if he knows they could be eliminated with a loss?

[NWI_Irish96]

I will repeat my call for the NFL to abolish conferences. Just have 8 divisions and seed the division winners 1-8 and the wild cards 9-14.
here's what this postseason would have looked like:

Byes: 1 Philadelphia, 2 Kansas City
3 Buffalo vs 14 Pittsburgh
4 San Francisco vs 13 Miami
5 Minnesota vs 12 NY Giants
6 Cincinnati vs 11 Baltimore
7 Jacksonville vs 10 LA Chargers
8 Tampa Bay vs 9 Dallas

Remarkably, 4 of the 6 Wild Card matchups stay the same, with Pittsburgh replacing Seattle as the last team in.

Assuming the same winners, the divisional round would have:

1 Philadelphia vs 12 NY Giants
2 Kansas City vs 8/9 TB/DAL
3 Buffalo vs 7 Jacksonville
4 San Francisco vs 6 Cincinnati

[webny99]

So the 7-seeds are now 0-6 since they were first introduced 2 years ago. Of those 6, maybe 2 were competitive? (The Colts 2 years ago and the Dolphins this year, both against the 2-seed Bills coincidentally.) Curious how long it will take for a 7-seed to register their first win.

Yes, I was also noticing that. The Bills have given us two close games against the #7 seed and the other four have all been blowouts.

2020 NFC: Saints 21, Bears 9 (Saints bizarre goal line turnover on downs, Bears TD on final play, should have been at least 28-3)
2021 AFC: Chiefs 42, Steelers 21 (Chiefs were up 35-7 at one point)
2021 NFC: Bucs 31, Eagles 15 (Bucs were up 31-0 at one point)
2022 NFC: 49ers 41, Seahawks 23 (no reminder needed)

And yet... I feel like the NFL has been very unlucky with these games. Not just their lopsided nature, but the fact that almost without exception, there's still a better team that got left out of the playoffs that would have been a more competitive matchup with the #2 seed. 2020 AFC is the exception, as the Colts were a very good #7 seed and proved it by taking the Bills down to the wire.

2020 NFC: Cardinals > Bears
2021 AFC: Chargers/Colts > Steelers
2021 NFC: Saints  ≥ Eagles
2022 AFC: Steelers > Dolphins
2022 NFC: Lions/Packers > Seahawks

I'm certainly not advocating for further expansion: if anything, this is an argument for returning to the 12-team format. I'm just hoping the seeding and tiebreakers will work out a bit more favorably in future years because it's been a strange and disappointing run of the final wild card team not being a top 7 team in the conference.

I will repeat my call for the NFL to abolish conferences. Just have 8 divisions and seed the division winners 1-8 and the wild cards 9-14.
here's what this postseason would have looked like:

...
Remarkably, 4 of the 6 Wild Card matchups stay the same, with Pittsburgh replacing Seattle as the last team in.

Pittsburgh over Seattle is a slight improvement, but this still leaves out Detroit and Green Bay who I think were better than both. There's going to be an element of luck no matter how the seeding works... and some tiebreakers are conference-based so that would have to be addressed as well.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

It's probably not a coincidence the more competitive 2-7 games have generally involved division rivals who know each other well, but just don't have enough talent to pull off the upset. Seattle kept it close for nearly 3 quarters, but the strip-sack fumble that ended their drive at the 49ers' 25 yard line when it was 23-17 opened up an avalanche.