As always I'm struck by the finality of the playoffs. A team has a great season and then thud (the Rams) or snap (the Panthers), and it's over. Relatively little controversy this week, but a few players with a long offseason to contemplate things.
Titans at Kansas City: For a half, this game went as expected. Tennessee's offense struggled. Mike Mularkey was getting ready to be fired. Kansas City was preparing for a trip to Foxborough, where they opened the season in such impressive fashion. And then a big hit on Travis Kelce (I'm not going to say there was intent to knock him out of the game, but I was thinking it), and suddenly Kansas City's offense went in the tank and Derrick Henry and Marcus Mariota took over. BTW, I remembered the Brad Johnson touchdown from some years back -- not nearly as incredible as this one.
It's baffling why Kansas City didn't give Kareem Hunt more work. It was an issue during the team's midseason slump, and there it was again. You can't explain it, you can only say the game flow got away from Andy Reid, and maybe the team got a little too comfortable with the big lead. The defense was short a player from the Eric Berry injury on. So now the Titans travel to New England as nearly a two-touchdown underdog. Their pass defense is soft, so I suppose Tom Brady will have a huge game and everyone will be talking about how he hasn't lost anything and can play until he's 50 and all that. Maybe the Titans can run the ball and have some success for a while, but it's hard to feel confident about them winning the coaching battle. As for Kansas City, ironic that the player who had the best game for them, Alex Smith, probably won't be on the roster next season.
Falcons at Rams: I had a hunch the Falcons might be trouble for the Rams in this one. They have a good defense that played well for most of the season. They're battle-tested (Super Bowl collapse and all). And Jared Goff didn't fare particularly well against the good pass defenses he faced this season. Sadly, I did not fully bet my hunches -- bizarrely, I picked the Rams to cover and the over in my pool, even though the score I predicted in Saturday's column wasn't consistent with those picks. What can I say? Blinded by Todd Gurley. But as we see year after year in the playoffs, one great running back can only get you so far. Lots of great ones didn't win Super Bowls. And the Rams making a couple of huge special teams gaffes was both unpredictable, and pivotal -- probably the main reason they lost.
The Falcons are good -- much better than the typical No. 6 seed. Nowhere is this more apparent than the fact that they're FAVORED over top seed Philadelphia next week; how often does that happen? I get that Philadelphia is down to Nick Foles rather than Carson Wentz, but it's still a little surprising for the No. 1 seed to be an underdog in its first playoff game. But clearly no one will be surprised if the Falcons do in fact go in and win. Those of us who used Devonta Freeman or Julio Jones in leagues might just get three games out of them. Or four. For the Rams, well, I don't think they have much to feel bad about. Look like a team that will be in contention for the next several years.
Bills at Jaguars: Like watching ice melt, paint dry, or whatever you want to say -- this was a kind of awful game to watch. I know that Blake Bortles was inaccurate, missing on some throws. But it wasn't all on him. Leonard Fournette dropped a third-down pass on the first drive. Several throws that Bortles just missed might have been caught by quicker receivers than guys like Marcedes Lewis and Ben Koyack -- weird that they kept running screen passes to slow-footed players. Bortles was however lucky to avoid a couple of picks on bad throws and bad decisions. Nobody watching this game could realistically say, Yeah, he's going to take this team to the Super Bowl.
Yes, Jacksonville has a great defense. But defending Tyrod Taylor and probably the worst group of receivers ever to suit up for a playoff game isn't much of a test. Jalen Ramsey is awesome and thank heavens they didn't overturn his game-clinching interception (some referees probably would have), which was a great athletic play. But the difficulty level with Antonio Brown (assuming health, that's what the reports were yesterday) and company goes way up. I watched all of the game Jacksonville won in Pittsburgh. The Steelers' pass-heavy game plan that day made no sense. They should be wiser this time. BTW, I enjoyed Tony Romo this year, but his harping on there needing to be a 10-second runoff with Tyrod Taylor lying prone on the turf in the final minute was pretty uncomfortable. Commercial break, please.
Panthers at Saints: Like KC-Tennessee, this went about as expected for a half. Full credit to Ian for anticipating the Saints' powerhouse running game wouldn't do much, and Drew Brees would lead the way. And he did, and the Saints passing game was great. But Carolina hung around, Cam Newton made some plays, and it really looked like they were going to come up off the turf and win. Guess I owe Christian McCaffrey an apology, he made about the game's biggest play.
Couple of last few minutes thoughts, and it was definitely the highest drama of the weekend. First, I liked New Orleans' decision to go for it on fourth and 2. If you pick it up, you win the game. If you punt there, you've given up your chance to win the game right then and there, needing to stop the offense. Maybe you gained 30 yards for your defense. But taking a shot to win the game, I think, is the right move. Second, I haven't gone back and rewatched to confirm that Cam Newton was definitely still in the pocket on the intentional grounding play. Panthers seem to think he wasn't. Watching it live, I thought it was absolutely intentional grounding -- the very letter of the rule. He threw it away to avoid a sack, period. Seemed to be in the pocket. No receiver in the area. Looked like the right call. Even with that, it looked like Newton threw a pass that should have or at least could have been a touchdown to Devin Funchess on third down, and he didn't seem to be looking for it, at least not very well. Newton isn't a great passer, but he earned my respect in this game -- looked like he could have pulled it out against a very good Saints team. (But I like New Orleans' chances of winning next week a lot more than I would have Carolina's.)
And that's that. Not a great weekend of football; two very good games and a couple of lesser ones. Next week? NFC games look compelling. It will be a shock and a mild disappointment if we don't get Pats-Steelers in the AFC. Will talk more about it this week.