Tag: NFL Playoffs 2024

Diontae Johnson brashly trash-talked the Bills’ Kair Elam right before he stole a TD from him

Diontae Johnson’s cockiness blew up in his face at the worst time for the Steelers.

While they weren’t quite out of it just yet, the underdog Pittsburgh Steelers needed to show some sort of pulse on Monday afternoon.

With the Buffalo Bills already holding a two-score lead, a crucial early second-quarter Pittsburgh possession felt like it might decide the game. The Bills as a team are simply too potent without an apt response. And for a moment, with a Kair Elam penalty on Diontae Johnson serving as the catalyst, it looked like the Steelers would finally land a punch on the Bills.

Johnson ensured that Elam understood this fact when he started trash-talking the young Buffalo cornerback. Note: Johnson had zero catches for zero yards and zero touchdowns at the time of this sequence.

Naturally, Elam made Johnson eat his words almost immediately when he picked off Mason “Geno Smith?” Rudolph two plays later. Even better, Elam appeared to steal away a touchdown from the Pittsburgh playmaker:

Let that be a lesson to players like Johnson. You should probably wait until your team actually scores a touchdown before a Super Bowl contender like the Bills gets a chance to respond.

The Lions exorcising their playoff demons by beating Matthew Stafford is the stuff of legend

The Lions beating Matthew Stafford was the best way they could end their playoff curse.

Matthew Stafford was supposed to be the Detroit Lions’ savior.

The former No. 1 overall pick was the franchise quarterback destined to take the once bottom-feeding Lions back to the promised land. A beloved team legend, Stafford was good, perhaps great, but he couldn’t perform miracles. The Lions acknowledged this unfortunate reality when they traded him to the Los Angeles Rams in 2021. They were vindicated when he won a Super Bowl championship with a supporting cast befitting his unique abilities.

A question remained: when was the Lions’ turn at glory? And when would they see Stafford again? Sunday night’s raucous Lions’ Wild Card victory had a poetic way of answering both burning queries in one fell swoop.

Sunday presented the Lions with only their second playoff victory since the fall of the Soviet Union. The last time they featured on the second weekend of the NFL postseason, Arnold Schwarzenegger had not yet saved Linda Hamilton and Edward Furlong from Robert Patrick’s menacing T-1000 Terminator. With the unsurprising demise of the Dallas Cowboys, Detroit is now guaranteed a second game at home this postseason. It could very well make a legitimate run to this year’s NFC title game. Once unthinkable to any average NFL observer (heck, especially Detroit fans), the Lions have become a powerhouse.

But until Sunday evening, they didn’t have a signature moment.

Enter Stafford in his return to Ford Field. Enter the man who got “it” done … but for another NFL team. Enter perhaps the most mythical figure in Lions’ franchise history, the one the organization itself let down at almost every turn. The one who got away. If Dan Campbell’s revitalized Lions couldn’t beat Stafford in his return to the Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie strait, this franchise would never get the playoff win monkey off its back. The Lions would forever be a joke, a sad-sack organization forced to relive its January horrors through an endless circle of torment on a loop.

Don’t you love it when everything comes full circle?

The Lions did not fall victim to Stafford’s trademark brilliance. They did not let him enter Detroit and spoil the biggest pro football party the great state of Michigan has thrown in over three decades. No, no, no. They beat Stafford even after watching him get bruised and battered and launch dime after dime in an ultimately fruitless effort that wasn’t enough to lift his new team to a win. Sound familiar? In a way, it had to be comforting for Lions fans to finally be on the winning end of a futile superhero performance from Stafford in their home stadium.

This sort of breakthrough moment over Stafford would always be the clearest sign the Lions had arrived. It was always going to taste the sweetest, too. While the comparisons aren’t apples to apples, the Lions reaching long-awaited prominence by overcoming Stafford is the equivalent of the Oklahoma City Thunder toppling Kevin Durant in a playoff series. It’d be like the Toronto Maple Leafs sending Phil Kessel home in the postseason. Really, any professional sports icon who couldn’t quite finish the job for the team and city that embraced them wholeheartedly applies to this new Lions-Stafford dynamic.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say someone penned this script for the Lions in Hollywood. The Lions putting themselves on the doorstep of an NFC Championship Game appearance by conquering the finest quarterback in team history sounds sillier every time it crosses my mind. But that’s what happened. The Lions changed a decades-long narrative of misery by surviving Matthew Stafford.

I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

So, when’s the Lions’ turn at glory? It’s probably now. Right now, as they prepare for a date in the NFL’s quarterfinals. They’ve cemented themselves as a force to be reckoned with by using Stafford, of all people, as a stepping stone.

Stafford was the Lions’ savior, but Sunday night was definitive proof they could finally stand on their own two legs. The football gods couldn’t have written a better epic if they tried.

Matt LaFleur’s comment about the Packers’ different vibes had everyone making Aaron Rodgers jokes

Aaron Rodgers was a rusty anchor on Matt LaFleur’s Packers.

For years, after winning Super Bowl 45, the Green Bay Packers struggled to reach the NFL’s mountaintop with Aaron Rodgers again. And in the Matt LaFleur era specifically, Green Bay consistently fell short in the postseason. It all culminated with a drama-filled breakup between Rodgers and the Packers last offseason.

After the Packers punched the Dallas Cowboys in the mouth in Sunday’s afternoon Wild Card Game, Matt LaFleur made it seem like all that Rodgers hoopla was firmly in the past.

In fact, based on LaFleur’s phrasing, it was almost as if he had nonsense with Rodgers in mind when praising the Packers’ “different energy” these days. Hmm.

It should be no secret that Rodgers often carries himself like a selfish egotist. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that his tiresome act wore on the Packers toward the end of his Green Bay career. For the organization to get a playoff win with Jordan Love in the first year without Rodgers is almost poetic.

It sure seems like the Packers and LaFleur are overjoyed about it, too.

Everyone blasted Sean McVay for a fourth-quarter Rams punt while in Lions territory

Sean McVay coached scared and it cost the Rams their season.

The Los Angeles Rams had a playoff win in their grasp. Despite red-zone miscues and a defense being besieged by the Detroit Lions (for a half, anyway), the Rams had the Lions on the ropes.

But then Sean McVay decided to turtle at the game’s most critical moment. Now, the Rams are heading to the golf course.

After a controversial non-holding call on Puka Nacua, the Rams were still sitting in Detroit territory. Even on a long fourth-and-14, it was probably worth going for it with only roughly four minutes remaining because L.A. had just one timeout left (also thanks to McVay!). Instead, McVay had Ethan Evans punt the ball away, and the Rams never saw the ball again as their 2023 season officially came to a close.

Woof. A brutal decision that the math agrees with:

I already thought the punt was silly, given the game situation. Now I see it apparently ranks in the 99th percentile of ill-advised punts over the entire season? Oh, my goodness. If that weren’t enough, the Rams settled for not one, not two, but three chip-shot field goals in the loss instead of putting the pedal to the metal. McVay coached scared all around, and the Rams’ last punt was the final cherry on top.

I have a feeling McVay will replay this sequence — including his awful timeout management and general lack of aggressiveness — in his head for a while. He and the Rams will have plenty of time to do so.

The Lions’ Cameron Sutton seemingly got away with a blatant hold of Puka Nacua on a critical third down

The refs let the Lions get away with an obvious hold on Sunday night’s most important play.

The Detroit Lions deserve credit. They certainly earned their first playoff win in over three decades over the Los Angeles Rams. To do it over longtime franchise quarterback Matthew Stafford should mean the world to Dan Campbell’s bunch. But most playoff wins usually come with a tinge of luck.

Sunday’s Wild Card affair in Detroit was no different.

With the Rams driving late in the fourth quarter, Stafford had Puka Nacua open — who dominated the Lions’ secondary all night — on a key third and long. Nacua unfortunately couldn’t come down with the catch, and the Rams punted the ball away, never to see it again in their eventual 24-23 loss.

There was just one problem. It seemed pretty apparent that Lions’ defensive back Cameron Sutton got away with an obvious hold of Nacua as Stafford launched the ball in his direction. I’m talking full-on jersey hold and a grip on his hips. But it’s the playoffs, referees will probably keep their whistles to themselves more than usual, and the Lions had homefield advantage.

So … sorry, Rams.

That’s not how it should work — the rules shouldn’t change or be open to interpretation just because it’s a playoff setting — but that seems to be what happened here.

Who knows what would’ve happened if Sutton would’ve been called for a penalty? The Lions clearly had no answer for Nacua and a gunslinging Stafford. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that the Rams come away with a field goal, at minimum, forcing the Lions’ offense to pull out all the stops on their final possession.

But I suppose credit is due to Sutton. Nacua was sauteeing the Lions’ defense. With the game on the line, Sutton understood that if he wasn’t cheating against a locked-in elite receiver, he probably wasn’t trying.

Dak Prescott tied himself to Mike McCarthy’s Cowboys fate with an unwarranted endorsement

Dak Prescott wants to go down with Mike McCarthy’s sinking ship.

The Cowboys have won 36 regular-season games under Mike McCarthy. They’ve won just one playoff game. When factoring in Jerry Jones’ obvious disappointment with that fact, it seems apparent that McCarthy might not be the head coach in Dallas for much longer.

And that is something that doesn’t sit well with Dak Prescott.

Prescott discussed his head coach’s future as the Cowboys picked up the pieces from an embarrassing Wild Card loss to the Green Bay Packers. He went as far as to say that his job as Cowboys quarterback should also be on the hot seat if McCarthy’s is in danger.

Oh, buddy. I wouldn’t willingly tie myself to the Titanic if I were you:

What Prescott says about McCarthy’s individual coaching of his play is probably true. While Prescott’s always been a good quarterback, in 2023, he was great, at one point even dominating the MVP conversation. That likely never happens without McCarthy designing a tailor-made offense for his skill set.

But the playoff failures are impossible to ignore. If the Cowboys aren’t outright choking a win away, Sunday showed that they might not show up altogether, either. It doesn’t matter what McCarthy did for Prescott. Such a reality is unsustainable. Prescott has one year left on a monster contract and seems due for a massive extension from the Cowboys this off-season.

The veteran quarterback would do well to toe the company line and realize he can probably produce such gaudy numbers — with more success in January — with another head coach.

A dejected Jerry Jones was at a loss for words after the Cowboys’ playoff no-show against the Packers

Jerry Jones is VERY mad about the Cowboys. Watch out, Mike McCarthy.

Aside from tortured Dallas Cowboys fans, no one has likely felt the team’s perennial playoff disappointment more than owner Jerry Jones. It is Jones who has seemingly pulled out all the stops to turn Dallas back into a marquee team with a roster worthy of contending for the Super Bowl.

Yet again, all he has to show for it is a 48-32 playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers that was never all that close.

After Sunday’s defeat, Jones spoke to the gathered press contingent. Actually, scratch that. Because he was so rattled, Jones could only describe the Cowboys’ latest failure as “painful” and “beyond comprehension.” He couldn’t even discuss Mike McCarthy’s potentially shaky future as the head coach in Dallas. (He’s probably already made his decision about McCarthy, anyway.)

Phew.

If a team owner looks and sounds beyond depressed about one playoff loss, you can bet your bottom dollar a lot of upheaval is on the horizon. And Jones, much more than most NFL owners, should be expected to deliver on such a notion.

The Cowboys should fire Mike McCarthy for wasting Dallas’ best Super Bowl shot in 3 decades

It’s time for the Cowboys to give up on Mike McCarthy.

Nothing about the Dallas Cowboys’ performance on Sunday was easy on the eyes.

Before they could blink, the Green Bay Packers — with a first-year starting quarterback, mind you — jumped on the NFC’s No. 2 seed with a 27-0 lead. Whenever it seemed like the Cowboys might make matters interesting, Green Bay returned with a resounding haymaker, eventually driving Dallas’ own fans to leave a postseason game with over 16 minutes (!) left. In hindsight, it is so poetic that the Cowboys became the first NFL team to lose to a No. 7 seed since the league expanded the playoff format in 2020. Of course it would be pro football’s premier punching bags suffering that kind of loss first. Of course they’d do it in a humiliating fashion.

If you were surprised by the Cowboys’ ineptitude in a 48-32 loss, I’d urge you to change your tone. That final score is not nearly indicative of the Packers’ butt-whooping of their long-time NFC rival. This is par for the course for McCarthy’s Cowboys. Build lofty (but reasonable!) expectations, and lay a giant egg as soon as every game is sudden death.

And that is precisely why if the Cowboys aspire to end their 28-year Super Bowl drought, McCarthy can no longer be their head coach.

Since Mike McCarthy took over, the Cowboys have won 36 regular-season games in the last three years. They’ve captured two NFC East titles. They’ve developed blue-chip talents like Micah Parsons, CeeDee Lamb, and even Tyler Smith. For all intents and purposes, they have resembled a Super Bowl contender. On paper, this team has all the horses to win three or four consecutive games in the winter and eventually hoist a Lombardi Trophy in February. There is no debate. Many NFL coaches would likely kill to coach this kind of stacked roster.

Despite this reality, this iteration of the Cowboys owns just one playoff win over a washed-up Tom Brady. They have zero appearances on Championship Sunday, a blemish that long predates McCarthy, but, appropriately, hasn’t ended under his shaky watch.

Dearest readers, welcome to the McCarthy Experience.

McCarthy does deserve credit for changing up his postseason script. Usually, Cowboys playoff disappointments at least go down to the wire. It is there where McCarthy costs his team with questionable time management and play-calling. I would run out of fingers if I tried to count every instance McCarthy broke out into a flop sweat when he had to make a critical decision in a playoff game. He has a notorious but well-deserved reputation for self-combusting as soon as his players and coaches need him to be a leader.

He is a living, breathing meme of a coach.

But the Cowboys didn’t even bother letting McCarthy blow it on Sunday. An early 14-0 deficit felt insurmountable. The Cowboys’ body language on the sideline made it seem like they were already defeated. The audible frustration of their home stadium made it feel like fans knew a decisive knockout to the mat was inevitable. Because it was. This whole afternoon reeked of an organization being rattled by the slightest hint of adversity — the last trait you want when trying to capture that elusive Super Bowl championship.

That falls on McCarthy’s shoulders, too.

If a football team is a reflection of its head coach, then these Cowboys have captured McCarthy’s fragile essence perfectly. They are frontrunners who love beating up on bottom feeders and wilting under the bright spotlight. They take one punch to the mouth and drop to their knees to beg for mercy. The next big play a Cowboys player makes with the game on the line in mid-January will be the first in a long time. No one — and I mean no one — knows how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory quite like McCarthy’s Cowboys.

These Cowboys are McCarthy’s team — a bumbling loser propped up by one magical Aaron Rodgers playoff run roughly 13 years ago — through and through. If the reports are true, McCarthy’s final evaluation of his job did not go swimmingly:

Firing McCarthy now is a necessity. The Cowboys are not an over-the-hill squad. They have the pieces to make a run and shift their narrative as early as next season. With the right coach in tow, this organization might stop being the butt of the joke for the rest of the football world every year.

That’s what could make Sunday’s humiliation a blessing.

The Packers might have saved the Cowboys from themselves. They might have put a merciful end to the McCarthy era that was clearly never going anywhere.

Video shows Cowboys fans filing out of the stadium in the third quarter as the Packers embarrassed them

Cowboys fans were so fed up they started leaving in the THIRD QUARTER!

Seemingly everything about the Dallas Cowboys’ woeful performance against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday was embarrassing. Dallas barely showed up in a lifeless first half, people started calling for Bill Belichick to be the head coach, and an exasperated Jimmy Johnson delivered a heated pep talk. No wonder Jerry Jones was so frustrated.

But all of that pales in comparison to Cowboys fans giving up on their miserable team. In a video courtesy of the Dallas Morning News’ Michael Gehlken, fans started filing out of the Cowboys’ home stadium in the third quarter.

Frankly, I can’t blame these people. It was 41-16, with the Cowboys laying a trademark giant egg in the playoffs. Still, it was the third quarter!

That’s how sad it’s gotten in Dallas:

After more playoff disappointment, many changes are likely coming down the pipe for the Cowboys. This roster is far too talented to lose like this in do-or-die games year after year. And judging from the response from Cowboys fans here, it doesn’t seem like they have much faith that anything meaningful will shift soon.

Jimmy Johnson delivered a passionate pep talk during Fox’s halftime show after the Cowboys’ awful start

Jimmy Johnson is tired of watching the Cowboys choke in the playoffs.

Anyone who follows the NFL closely is accustomed to the Dallas Cowboys crumbling in the playoffs. It may as well be a January tradition. And after getting embarrassed by the Green Bay Packers so badly on Sunday that people started joking about Bill Belichick, one notable person decided enough was enough.

Former Cowboys coaching legend Jimmy Johnson.

During Fox’s halftime show, Johnson looked directly into the camera and delivered a weirdly passionate pep talk to the Cowboys with their season hanging in the balance. He professed that he’d keep it clean before saying the players need to get their “rear-ends” in order.

I’m not stunned this happened, but I love seeing Johnson still show this kind of emotion for the Cowboys:

Whether the Cowboys saw Johnson’s message is irrelevant. It’s apparent that all this consistent playoff failure is starting to wear on some Dallas franchise legends. We’ll see whether the Cowboys can change Johnson’s tune by the end of this Wild Card battle.