Tag: 2024 NFL Playoffs

Mics caught Mitch Morse encouraging old teammate Travis Kelce after Chiefs-Bills game

Well, this is just awesome.

The Kansas City Chiefs won their latest playoff battle with the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, but sportsmanship still showed through for two old teammates after the game.

Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and Bills center Mitch Morse played together in Kansas City for a few seasons before the latter left for Buffalo in 2019.

As the two greeted each other on the field after the game, Morse shared a special message with Kelce, applauding his career and encouraging him to go all the way with Kansas City this season.

It’s the kind of friendly reunion that shows the game of football is always bigger than the game itself, and it’s just always heartwarming to see two old friends still exchange pleasantries after a tough contest.

The Chiefs will have their hands full this weekend when they travel to Baltimore to take on the Ravens, but Kelce can know his old pal Morse will be rooting him on.

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Jared Goff had a playful exchange with reporter over Lions’ lack of star power compared with the 49ers’

Jared Goff, probably: “I see the 49ers’ talent and raise you the Detroit Lions’.”

The Detroit Lions are loaded with talent, and after a historic playoff win, that talent is rightfully getting the recognition they deserve. Yet, leading up to the NFC Championship, there’s a perception that the Lions don’t have as many superstars as the San Francisco 49ers. On Wednesday, Quarterback Jared Goff was asked about that notion and jokingly started rattling off players from his roster.

When fans think of the San Francisco 49ers, they probably think of Brock Purdy, Deebo Samuel, Trent Williams, Christian McCaffrey, Brandon Aiyuk, Kyle Juszczyk and George Kittle on the offensive side of the ball. On defense, there’s Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, Javon Hargrave and Charvarius Ward, to name a few.

But when it comes to the Detroit Lions, fans might not be able to rattle off names as easily, creating the perception that the Lions’ talent isn’t comparable in some areas to the 49ers’. Jared Goff was asked about this during media availability Wednesday and handled the question in the best way possible.

NFL conference championship quarterback rankings: Lamar Jackson reigns, Patrick Mahomes isn’t where you’d expect

The presumptive 2023 MVP is No. 1. Then what?

You can’t win a Super Bowl in the modern NFL without a good quarterback. Fortunately for the four teams remaining as the conference championship games loom, four good-to-great passers remain.

Unsurprisingly, the guy headed into the gridiron’s final four with the most momentum is its presumptive regular season MVP. Lamar Jackson finished 2023 as a first-team All-Pro, typically the prerequisite to the league’s top individual award. He harnessed that momentum into a gorgeous performance in the divisional round, ending the Houston Texans’ Cinderella story in a 31-10 win.

If Jackson is the top quarterback remaining in the playoffs, how does the rest of the field sort out? Fortunately, we’ve got data that can help us sort through the remaining three candidates.

Expected points added (EPA) is a concept that’s been around since 1970. It’s effectively a comparison between what an average quarterback could be expected to do on a certain down and what he actually did — and how it increased his team’s chances of scoring. The model we use comes from The Athletic’s Ben Baldwin and his RBSDM.com website, which is both wildly useful AND includes adjusted EPA, which accounts for defensive strength. It considers the impact of penalties and does not negatively impact passers for fumbles after a completion.

Because the playoffs are as much about how hot you are as how good your team has been, let’s limit the scope of our data. Rather than limit ourselves to the too-wide net of all of 2023 or the too-small sample size of this year’s playoffs, let’s scoop our numbers from the final six weeks of the regular season on. Plotting that data gives us a 34-quarterback sample size that looks like this:

via RBSDM.com

That’s entirely too busy for our purposes, so let’s eliminate all the guys who aren’t playing this weekend. Poorly and with garbage photoshop skills, as is tradition.

via rbsdm.com

Let’s see how everyone rates when sorted by a composite of EPA and completion percentage over expected (CPOE). The guy at No. 1 won’t surprise you. The guy at No. 4 might.

1 fatal flaw, including Brock Purdy’s downfield yips, for each Super Bowl 58 contender

Purdy’s downfield struggles against the Packers, rain or not, are a concern. Fortunately, he faces a leaky Lions secondary.

282 NFL games have been played this season. Three remain, along with four teams with dreams of a Super Bowl 58 victory still intact.

That means the winter will conclude with disappointment for 75 percent of the teams still in the hunt for the Vince Lombardi Trophy. With 20 weeks of regular season and playoff data from which to work, we have a reasonable idea of how things might end.

All of our final four teams — the Baltimore Ravens, Kansas City Chiefs, Detroit Lions and San Francisco 49ers — have flaws that could finish their seasons, loose strings that could unravel everything for which they’ve worked. In some cases, it’s clear. In others it takes a little digging to find.

Let’s talk about these flaws, moving from least serious to most.

Detroit Lions best and worst PFF grades from the playoff win over the Bucs

Let’s take a look at the best and worst PFF graded players for the Detroit Lions in their victorious encounter with the Buccaneers.

Following their triumph over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Detroit Lions are now on the cusp of glory, eyeing the NFC Championship game against the San Francisco 49ers.

The victory was the result of a collective effort from all three phases, reflecting the Lions’ characteristic resilience in close matches. This team is built to adapt, with each phase compensating when one aspect takes a moment to find its rhythm. While key players delivered outstanding performances that propelled the Lions to victory, there were also areas where improvement is needed as they prepare to face San Francisco.

Let’s take a look at the best and worst PFF graded players for the Lions in their victorious encounter with the Buccaneers.

NFL playoff power rankings: Can the Lions leave the 49ers to languish in misery en route to Super Bowl 58?

The Ravens hold down the top spot, but the NFC looks a little more uncertain after Brock Purdy’s three-quarter unraveling.

The Detroit Lions look vulnerable, but that’s about what we expected. Dan Campbell’s team, crafted from a mix of impact young players and savvy veterans, has carried the growing pains that come with a rise from 3-13-1 to the NFC championship game in just two years throughout the 2024 NFL Playoffs.

The San Francisco 49ers look vulnerable as well, and that’s more concerning. Saturday night’s comeback win over the Green Bay Packers proved Kyle Shanahan’s team could erase a late deficit — it was his first win in 32 tries after entering the fourth quarter trailing by five points or more. But it also proved the NFC’s top seed is flawed, from Brock Purdy’s early struggles with accuracy to the run defense that got torn up by Aaron Jones on its home turf.

That’s what makes this week’s NFC title game between the Lions and 49ers so compelling — and what keeps the Baltimore Ravens in the top spot as the penultimate weekend of the 2023 NFL season looms.

The Ravens didn’t allow a single offensive touchdown en route to a 31-10 dusting of the Houston Texans. Next up are the Kansas City Chiefs, who took advantage of the Buffalo Bills’ miscues to advance to a sixth straight AFC title game but serve as three-point underdogs in Maryland. Here’s how the rest of the playoff field, and the 28 other teams in the NFL, sorts out behind them.

Patrick Mahomes added even more fire to Chiefs-Bills rivalry with playoff victory speech

Don’t listen to this, Bills fans.

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes wasn’t afraid to throw a little fire on his team’s rivalry with the Buffalo Bills after winning in the AFC divisional round on Sunday.

The Chiefs and Bills have one of the best rivalries in all of football right now, and it’d be Mahomes’ team to get this latest playoff matchup on the road.

As he addressed the Kansas City locker room after the big win, Mahomes told his teammates that the Bills “asked for it” and that the team “got what they asked for” by playing the Chiefs.

If you’re a Bills fan, you might want to turn away for this.

These two teams should hopefully battle on the field for playoff wins as long as Mahomes and Bills quarterback Josh Allen are at the helm.

Maybe Allen and Buffalo will finally be able to get past Mahomes and company in the future. For now, it’s still the Chiefs who have the clear upper hand in this rivalry.

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Lions draw controversial referee for NFC Championship against the 49ers

Detroit Lions play against the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship, where they will have a ref who they bad history with in the past

The Detroit Lions secured a decisive victory against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, earning their ticket to the NFC Championship where they are set to face the perennial powerhouse San Francisco 49ers. As the stage is set for this crucial matchup, the referee assignments have been announced, and unfortunately for the Lions, they find themselves under the oversight of Clete Blakeman, a referee with a troubled history in Detroit.

Clete Blakeman has been entrusted with refereeing duties for the NFC Championship, prompting disappointment among Lions fans. The mere mention of Blakeman brings back memories of the 2019 debacle when the Lions appeared on the verge of defeating the Green Bay Packers on Monday Night, only to be thwarted by a series of controversial calls, resulting in a heartbreaking 23-22 loss and almost ensuring the NFC North title for the Packers.

While the Lions had Blakeman as a referee earlier in the season during their matchup against the Las Vegas Raiders, there were no significant issues reported. However, an incident where he waved off a holding call from an umpire raised concerns about his attentiveness to his officiating responsibilities.

Despite Blakeman having one of the lowest totals for flags thrown (220), he has dismissed 45 of those calls, tying for the highest dismissal rate among officiating crews. Recent history includes the memorable flag-heavy game between the Seattle Seahawks and Dallas Cowboys, where flags seemed to fly every 30 seconds, with many being picked up later.

In the playoffs, officiating crews vary from the regular season, introducing an element of unpredictability. However, convincing Lions fans to overlook Blakeman’s contentious history with the team may prove challenging. As the NFC Championship game approaches, all eyes will be on how officiating unfolds, with the shadow of past grievances lingering in the background.

Tom Brady congratulated Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce for ‘one-upping’ him and Rob Gronkowski

Tom Brady was in awe of Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce’s playoff dominance.

They’re not done playing together, and Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce might already be the greatest duo in NFL postseason history. While the two superstars helped lead the Kansas City Chiefs to an upset win over the Buffalo Bills, they surpassed Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski for the most playoff touchdowns (16) between a quarterback and receiver ever.

As the Chiefs began preparing for their sixth straight AFC title game, Brady saw fit to chime in on this news. It may as well have been his unofficial blessing to Mahomes and Kelce for their continued success together. On Twitter, the now-retired future Hall of Fame quarterback graciously complimented Mahomes and Kelce for “one-upping” Gronkowski (and himself, even if he didn’t type it).

Coming from Brady, such a compliment couldn’t mean any more:

There was a time when Brady to Gronkowski was unstoppable this time of year, helping lead the New England Patriots (and Tampa Bay Buccaneers) to terrific achievements in January (and February) year after year. It’s mind-boggling to consider that Mahomes and Kelce might be even better.

Heck, Brady himself seems to be acknowledging that reality. And that’s saying something.

Lip-readers think Chris Jones shouted a 2-word NSFW phrase at Bills fans while flipping them off

Chris Jones was mighty fired up.

The Chiefs and Bills rivalry is alive and well, and Chris Jones is making sure Bills fans know he is over their shenanigans.

In case you missed it, Bills fans are down bad right now. Memes are being made of their sadness, Swifties made notes (and came with receipts) of their trash talk and a Chiefs player has even pulled out an old photo of Stefon Diggs losing to the Chiefs in big moments. WHEW.

If that wasn’t enough, fans threw snowballs at Patrick Mahomes as he ran off the field postgame. But new footage of an interaction between Chris Jones and Bills fans seemingly indicates the snow may have started long before it got to Mahomes.

A recently released clip shows snow falling onto the field while Jones mouths some colorful words at fans in the stands followed by two not-so-nice gifts. Lip-readers think it was “[expletive] you.”

(Warning: NSFW language and gestures.)