Tag: 2024 playoffs

Quinn won’t permit Commanders to look ahead

Dan Quinn will not let the Commanders look past the next game.

The Commanders have two games remaining and the playoffs loom just beyond the mountain of the regular season.

Yet, Commanders head coach Dan Quinn is determined not to allow his team to look too far ahead. He knows the discussions that are happening in the media and fan base but said Monday to the press that if he doesn’t like his team’s focus, he will not look the other way. He will address it.

“Yep. And I know that, I don’t have my head in the sand, but I do really stay true to the process with the players,”Quinn said. “And I promise you all the things that are going on through my head, the what ifs aren’t part of it. I just don’t see the benefit in that for us; we’ve got a lot of stuff to improve upon.”

Quinn knows there is no use his players getting involved in the playoff seedings, the playoff implications, the playoff scenarios. They can’t control what any of the other teams do anyway, so, why not remain focused on what you can control? What you can address?

“If I can stay our chasing of constant improvement, that’s where we’re at. And so for us, we kind of talk about when we came back from the bye [week] we were at a base camp, and we’re trying to get to a next spot, a new next spot. And so that’s what Atlanta is in six days. And so, we know we’ve got a lot to improve upon and so we just dig in on that and that way we don’t have to get caught up in the what ifs.”

It’s what Kirk Cousins talked about way back in his years in Washington. He wasn’t understood by many when he notoriously said, “I’m a little more process-oriented than that.”

Whether he was understood by many is insignificant. He was right, and so is Quinn. Be busy, be focused on what you need to address and in how you can improve. Work your process.

Mercy Killing: Washington win eliminates Cowboys from playoff chase before Dallas plays

Washington’s win gives them a win total the Cowboys cannot achieve, let the 2024 postmortem analysis begin. | From @KDDrummondNFL

If misery loves company, Dallas is now in the right place. After a tumultuous offseason expectedly led to a horrible start to the regular season, the 2024 season is now over for the Cowboys. Though they will line up on Sunday night to take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Dallas Cowboys no longer have a shot to make the 2024 playoffs.

Thanks to an untimely third-down drop by Eagles wideout DeVonta Smith, the Washington Commanders were able to take advantage of a final possession, marching down the field to score a touchdown with six seconds remaining. Despite five turnovers and knocking Jalen Hurts out the game early, Washington’s 36-33 win over Philadelphia gives them 10 wins on the season.

With only three games remaining, including SNF, and only six wins, it is now impossible for the Cowboys to become the seventh seed in the NFC playoffs. Dan Quinn’s unit had a ton to do with the end of last season for the Cowboys, and now his team has put the nail in the coffin of this season.

There will be plenty of ink spilled over the disaster that started last January with a wild-card blowout loss to Green Bay, saw Jerry Jones bring back a lame-duck coaching staff and a total lack of free agency activity. The Cowboys toyed with extensions with their two biggest offensive stars before caving and allowed a stink to hover over the organization for seemingly no gain aside from collecting interest on the guaranteed money they eventually forked over for Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb’s deal.

Now, the club is behind the eight ball for 2025, with two key defensive stars already knocked out for most if not all of next year in LB DeMarvion Overshown and CB Trevon Diggs.

But for now, the post mortem is going to focus on what has gone wrong in 2024, and that’s one big suitcase to try and unpack. There’s no rush to fix it, because the playoffs are no longer an option.

Cowboys facing potential dubious playoff distinction in Week 12

A look at the playoff elimination scenarios facing the Cowboys in Week 12.

The goal of almost every NFL team is to win the Super Bowl each year. Sure, there are a handful of teams that enter a season on a rebuild trajectory, but by and large every team wants to end of representing their conference in The Big Game. For years, the easiest path to the Super Bowl is to host the NFC Championship Game, and the easiest way to do that is to finish the regular season with your respective conference’s best record.

Things have gone woefully awry for the 2024 Dallas Cowboys as they sit with a 3-7 record through 11 weeks. And with the Washington Commanders sitting at 7-4 entering their Week 12 battle, Dallas is in danger of being eliminated from that top regular season objective. Everyone knows they aren’t going anywhere this year, but an officially elimination scenario is now on the table.

There are five scenarios where the Cowboys can be eliminated from contention for the No. 1 seed in the NFC.

  1. Dallas loses to Washington
  2. Dallas and Washington tie, while the Detroit Lions win
  3. Dallas and Washington tie, Detroit and Indianapolis tie, Minnesota wins
  4. DAL/WAS tie, Minnesota wins, Green Bay wins
  5. DAL/WAS tie, Minnesota wins, Green Bay ties

Any of the above five scenarios means that Dallas starts losing paths to the playoffs as early as Week 12.

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Dolphins beat writer throws serious shade at Steelers and the playoffs

Are the Steelers in the playoffs an automatic win?

The NFL regular season is still two months away but people are already starting to talk trash. First up we have Miami Dolphins beat writer Travis Wingfield. Wingfield decided to disrespect the Steelers by saying if the Dolphins get them at home in the divisional round of the 2024 playoffs, it’s an automatic win for Miami.

“Can we get the Steelers, at home, in the divisional round this year,” Wingfield asked. “That would be a guaranteed trip to the conference championship game this year.”

At first, my thought was, ‘he’s not wrong considering the Steelers haven’t won a playoff game since 2016. But then after reading it again, and he mentioned the divisional round, which means taking on the Dolphins means the Steelers have probably won a playoff game to get there. If the streak is broken, all bets are off.

The Steelers last won a playoff game in the 2016 playoffs. They beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the division round. Ironically, the Steelers beat the Dolphins that year in the wild-card round.

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