When your team loses the turnover battle 5-0 and also has 12 men on the field for a 4th and 2 at the 4 yd line (which is at least a half turnover), you will lose the game. Detroit lost. It still took great play from Jayden Daniels and Washington to win, so it’s a well deserved trip to the NFC Championship. Washington’s Defense is the same suspect group that doesn’t have a pass rush, run defense, or CBs, so I’m not a buyer. On any given Sunday, you can receive or turn over the ball enough times to win or lose. Play the game.
I hope John Mara gets nauseous next week in a Barkley/PHL vs WAS NFC Championship. Likely he will be delusional, thinking his franchise can make the leap to a Conference title with one QB draft pick. That is because Mara still does not see himself as part of the problem. While Jayden Daniels in your division is a nightmare for the Giants, it will accomplish one thing- I think the Giants are not in this mediocrity loop anymore. We detailed how, despite chronic underachievement, the Giants were able to feast on an even more dysfunctional Washington team. This padded bad season after bad season with an extra win or two, pumping the Giants up to mediocrity. Last season, as an example, the Giants swept the Commanders. You think that those 2 extra wins mattered in the Daniels sweepstakes?! Daniels will make the Giants better because they’ll either be better, or they will be completely exposed.
With Detroit gone, I will go on record saying that this evening’s BUF/BAL game will determine the Super Bowl winner. I have not been a believer in KC. Yesterday, to borrow from Denny Green, “they were who we thought they were, and (Houston) let them off the hook.” Houston outplayed them for much of the game. They would have arguably been a different threat with Diggs and Dell. KC has been winning with less all year. Yes, with the stakes elevated, it’s hard to short Mahomes. It’s even harder when they have so much help from the officials. The Chiefs are continually the recipient of generous calls, and yesterday there were another two that were brutal. Mahomes, while clearly the best QB of this decade, is not the best QB this year. I am starting to grow tired of his manipulative soccer dive cr*p. One announcer pointed out that he slowed up when going out of bounds just so that he could potentially draw a 15 yd personal foul for a late hit. He’s crafty, and you can feel free to argue that he’s legal there; other teams need to be coached up properly to not fall for his tricks. Yet between that and his late slides, he is (imho) pushing the rules which protect QBs right to the edge, where it becomes abusive. One announcer suggested that Mahomes could get (a penalty) called for this. I would go much further, putting him on warning and letting him know that he will get called in the future if he pulls up before giving himself up.
Speaking about officiating, friends, family and myself have been chatting about this subject for years now… I don’t blog about it a lot but it is starting to get so bad that I must shine some attention on it- (1) the NFL is so damn cheap, just hire these NFL officials full time at a younger age. Total NFL revenue for 2025 is estimated at ~$18 Billion dollars. This is why we hate Roger Goodell. He selfishly makes 10’s of millions of dollars, the owners make billions, and they pinch pennies on refs who give us poor officiating. I think this a vestige of the old days when the NFL was scraping by on ticket sales. Wake up, get the lint out of your wallet, and invest in better officiating. (1A) Poor officiating magnifies the legal betting partnership which the sport has embraced. If the NFL wants to make money off of legalized gambling, then having more integrity in outcomes becomes yet more critical. (2) The NFL needs to be able to overrule bad penalties. OR, the same way that the head coach can challenge a call, a head coach should be able to challenge a penalty. (3) When are they going to bring the NFL into the 21st Century with a chip in the ball and chips on players’ uniforms? This way, so much judgment can be removed from humans. Every time my family watches those chains come out, we roll our eyes in contempt for the luddites of the NFL. (3A) Artificial Intelligence is advancing so quickly that I guarantee that the system will become extremely proficient in learning from errors. You can use it in parallel in preseason for a couple of years to “learn” and iterate.
BUF/BAL commentary: Baltimore was actually the better team. 2 turnovers (the other was effectively a punt) + 2 failed 2-pt conversions = a loss. Baltimore missed Flowers also. Buffalo couldn’t get a pass rush on Jackson. Yet it wasn’t enough for BAL to get a win. I thought BUF offensive coaching in the second half was awful. Two FGs total. Prevent. Keep the ball in Josh Allen’s hands on first down.