Over the last 42 years the regular season’s top teams have gone to the playoffs with an expectation of winning their first postseason game. They often don’t, of course, but the people who set sports betting lines have named the No1 seed as favorites every time in their playoff opener. Never have they wavered on this. Their faith in the higher seed has been automatic.
But faith never met Nick Foles, the unfortunate replacement for Carson Wentz as the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback in these playoffs. For the first time since the NFL began using team records to set seeding the sports books are picking a No1 seed to lose a first playoff game, naming the Atlanta Falcons as 2.5 point favorites for their divisional round game next Saturday in Philadelphia.
This is unfair to Foles whose reputation as a serviceable but uninspiring back-up does not match his career statistics, which are pretty decent (this, remember, is a man who once threw seven touchdowns in a single game). But Foles is not Wentz, who may be the league’s best young quarterback. And since Foles only completed 4-of-11 passes for 39 yards in the handful of minutes he played in his last game (one where the Eagles rested their key players for the coming postseason) there is an impression Philadelphia, who were 13-3 in 2017, are going to be trampled by the Falcons.
That perception may be right.
Not because of Foles but because of the way Atlanta played in their 26-13 smothering of the Los Angeles Rams in Saturday’s wild card round. The Falcons linebackers and defensive backs swarmed over the Rams’ fleet of top receivers, batting away passes, crashing into LA’s players and in some cases, knocking them down. It was clear they had intimidated Los Angeles and quarterback Jared Goff, just as they must intimidate the Eagles as well.
This has been an unusual NFL season, one in which many of the game’s best players went out with season-ending injuries. The rush to build bigger, stronger and faster players has only led to more horrific injuries and probably has contributed as much as anything to lower ratings. Who wants to watch an NFL without Odell Beckham Jr, JJ Watt and Aaron Rodgers? While the Eagles and Minnesota Vikings became the NFC’s top two seeds they finished the year without their starting quarterbacks. Just as it is hard to believe in Foles it’s also an enormous leap to expect Case Keenum, who came into the year with almost as many interceptions as touchdowns before filling in for the injured Sam Bradford, will take the Vikings to the Super Bowl that will be held in their own stadium. Much like the Eagles are underdogs to the Falcons, many will expect Minnesota to lose to the New Orleans Saints.
On Sunday, the Saints beat rival Carolina 31-26 as quarterback Drew Brees threw for 376 yards and two touchdowns. Just days from turning 39, Brees is not the same player he once was. – he threw for fewer yards and touchdowns this year than in any of his 12 seasons with the Saints. But he might have been more efficient, and with New Orleans having a more complete attack and an aggressive defense the Saints feel a lot like the team that won the Super Bowl in 2010. The Vikings, while balanced, don’t feel like a championship team.
It’s probably unfair to say this but Atlanta and New Orleans probably are on a collision course for the NFC championship game because they have Matt Ryan and Brees while their opponents have Foles and Keenum. But this is the reality of the NFC in the 2018 postseason.
The AFC doesn’t have such a dilemma. The AFC’s top two seeds, New England and Pittsburgh, are still led by Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger, who have both won Super Bowls. Their presence on the field next weekend against Jacksonville and Tennessee all but guarantee the Pats and Steelers will meet in an AFC championship. This is the state of football today: great quarterbacks usually win in the postseason.
Fantasy player of the week
NFL
(@NFL)Marcus Mariota just caught his own pass for a @Titans TD!!
Not a typo.#TitanUp #NFLPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/bDBVukfZuY
Marcus Mariota. When you get credit for both throwing and catching a touchdown pass on the same play you are a fantasy, well … fantasy. In fact, throwing a touchdown to yourself is such a rare feat no one had done it in the postseason before and the last person to do so in a regular season game was Minnesota’s Brad Johnson. That was 20 years ago. Mariota later joked the pass he threw that was batted down and landed in his arms was about being in “the right place at the right time”. It definitely came at the right time for the Titans, who were trailing Kansas City 21-3 in the third quarter and appeared headed to a blowout defeat.
Mariota, who struggled with injuries and inconsistency for much of 2017, was fantastic in the second-half of the Titans’ 22-21 victory over the Chiefs on Saturday. He only threw for 205 yards in the game but rushed for another 46, threw a second touchdown pass and even landed a key block for running back Derrick Henry that sealed the game. Henry, with 156 yards and a touchdown, could have been Fantasy Player of the Week himself. Still, Mariota’s two touchdowns on one play make him the obvious pick.
It may have saved the job of his coach, Mike Mularkey, who was rumored to be fired if the Titans didn’t win. The dream is likely to be short-lived, however. Tennessee will have to play at New England next Saturday, where coming back from 21-3 seems highly unlikely.
Stat of the week
37:35. This is Atlanta’s time of possession in their 26-13 victory over Los Angeles on Saturday night. It’s a remarkable number given the fact the Rams were supposed to have one of the most explosive offenses in these playoffs. But they are still a young team filled with players who had never been in the postseason before. Atlanta, on the other hand, were in the Super Bowl last year. The Rams’ offensive players seemed nervous and the Falcons’ secondary was tremendous, controlling star running back Todd Gurley and keeping LA from making too many big plays.
Atlanta probably got away with pass interference in a couple of circumstances that might have made this game closer but the Rams simply looked overwhelmed. Punt returner Pharoh Cooper struggled all night to catch kicks and the wet turf seemed to slow them more than the Falcons players. For a team that promised to light up the scoreboard they disappointed. Then again, that’s what the playoffs do and why it takes a team two or three years to fully adjust to postseason intensity. Los Angeles are too good not to be coming back to the playoffs for years to come.
Video of the week
(@thefootballgirl).@TonyKhan with the best TD celebration of these playoffs pic.twitter.com/l2T2PXOBJw
You can forgive Tony Khan, the son of Jaguars owner Shahid Khad and the team’s vice president of technology and analysis, for not acting like he’s been part of a playoff win before. He hasn’t. The Jags haven’t been to the postseason since 2007, back when they were owned by Wayne Weaver. Plus, the way Sunday’s game between Buffalo and Jacksonville was going it didn’t seem like anyone would score a touchdown. So when the Jaguars did early in the second half, well Khan was suitably delighted.
What’s wrong with a good handclap and double fist pump? The Jags’ touchdown, on a Blake Bortles to Ben Koyack pass, blew open a game dominated by defense and was the deciding score in a 10-3 Jacksonville victory. It might be the last time Khan gets to celebrate in these playoffs. The Jags play at Pittsburgh next Sunday. Given the way they struggled to move the ball against Buffalo – Bortles actually had more rushing yards (88) than passing (87) – there might be little for them to clap about.
This is probably why Jags president Tom Coughlin, the franchise’s most successful coach who also won two Super Bowls with the New York Giants, reacted to his team’s lone touchdown with Coughlin-like indifference.
As for the Bills, the end of their season may well be remembered for ugly allegations against Richie Incognito.
Quote of the week
“We had a good chance and it’s gone, it’s over” Kansas City quarterback Alex Smith after the Chiefs 22-21 loss to Tennessee on Saturday.
His words were supposedly about a football game but they might have been about something far bigger. The 21-3 halftime lead Kansas City blew will stand as one of the worst playoff losses for a franchise that has had many in the past few decades and it could also be the end of an era. Smith has been a solid if not underappreciated quarterback for the Chiefs the last five seasons, throwing for more than 3,000 in all of them. This past season he actually had more than 4,000. But he has never been able to pull Kansas City to the next level and the Chiefs signaled their intention to move on from him by trading up in the first round of April’s draft to take Texas Tech quarterback Patrick Mahomes II.
You don’t pick a quarterback as high as Kansas City took Mahomes without the intention of playing him. It was clear that 2017 was probably Smith’s last as the Chiefs starting quarterback and he played the first half on Saturday as if he was locked in on one last Super Bowl run, throwing for 231 yards and two touchdowns. The problem for him was Tennessee defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau – still as wily as ever at the age of 80 – made halftime adjustments and Smith only threw for 33 yards in the second half.
Smith slumped off the field on Saturday and it was easy to imagine it was for the last time with the Chiefs.