Tag: NFL Playoffs

Ex-Texans CB Kevin Johnson could start for the Bills in the AFC wild-card

Former Houston Texans cornerback Kevin Johnson could start the Buffalo Bills on Saturday in the NFL playoffs for a reunion game.

Saturday’s wild-card bout between the Houston Texans and Buffalo Bills will be a reunion of sorts.

Former Texans cornerback Kevin Johnson will visit his former place of employment for the first time since Houston released him early in the 2019 offseason. The Texans made him a first-round selection out of Wake Forrest in 2015, but he never became the lock down cornerback they longed for.

The Bills picked up Johnson after his release by the Texans. Now entering the playoff matchup, there is a real possibility that he may start on Saturday in place of injured starter Levi Wallace, who suffered an ankle injury in Week 17.

“We’ve got a lot of confidence in Kevin,” Bills coach Sean McDermott told Buffalo media on Wednesday. “He’s had a good season. I think he’s continued to grow; he fits into our defense.”

Johnson missed 29 games with the Texans in four seasons. In Western New York, his troubling lack of availability didn’t follow. He played in 16 games and started one. According to Pro Football Reference, he did not allow a touchdown in the regular season after seeing 44 targets go his way. His 79.8 passer rating allowed in coverage is a massive improvement over the 139.6 allowed in 2018, when he gave up two touchdowns on five targets.

“Kevin’s playing really well,” Texans coach Bill O’Brien said on Monday. “Playing really well, he’s healthy. He does a really job of transitioning, he does a good job of ball hawking, he’s playing on special teams. He’s doing a lot of things for Buffalo and doing a good job.”

McDermott says Johnson’s past with the Texans won’t factor into the game plan, no matter if he starts or not.

“No, I don’t think so,” McDermott said in response of if Johnson’s past with the Texans will help. “We just got to come out and play good solid defense, and they’re good offense. A lot of playmakers on their offense.”

Saturday’s reunion could either be a good thing or bad thing, depending on which side you root for.

Bills QB Josh Allen doesn’t have great memories versus Texans

The last time Josh Allen saw the Houston Texans, he got injured. The Buffalo Bills quarterback isn’t trying to spark those bad memories on Saturday.

Oct. 14, 2018, a rookie Josh Allen earned his fifth career start. The Buffalo Bills quarterback would win up throwing for 84 yards in the eventual loss to the Houston Texans. He did not finish the game, as he sustained a throwing-elbow injury that sidelined him for the next four outings.

On Saturday, Allen will return to NRG Stadium to face the Texans in a wild card matchup. The winner of the tilt goes on to the next round of the playoffs. For the 23-year-old quarterback, that means recollect not so pleasant memories, that he also learned from.

“Obviously going through that game there’s not great memories, no one likes getting hurt, but having the opportunity to have Derek [Anderson] and Matt [Barkley] come in, learning from those two guys, it was a blessing in disguise,” Allen told Buffalo media on Wednesday. “But having that experience of playing there, seeing a familiar stadium — the crowd’s going to be hyped up a little more being a playoff game, but kind of having a feel for that is experience we can take into that game.”

Allen ultimately eventually found himself back in the Bills’ lineup and started for the entirety of his second season. In year two, the Wyoming product led Buffalo to a 10-6 record, passing for 3,089 yards, 20 touchdowns and nine interceptions on a 58.8% completion rate. He recorded 510 rushing yards and nine touchdowns in the process.

Allen feels as if he’s a different player than what the Texans saw early in the 2018 season.

“Yeah, going back and looking at our notes from last year — being in the same system that they’ve had — just going back and watching that film, seeing how they may have played me, not saying that they’re going to do that again, but I feel like I’m a different player from last year and it’s a different offense, so we have to go out there and control what we can control and do us,” Allen said.

The Texans did a good job containing Allen before his injury in October of 2018. Only time will tell if they did that again on Saturday against a “different” version of him.

Seahawks opposing QB preview: Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz

The Seattle Seahawks will get another look at Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback Carson Wentz when the teams square off in the wild-card round.

For the fourth time this year, the Seahawks will play a rematch game against a quarterback and team they faced earlier in the season. The first three were all divisional games, now they will take on the Philadelphia Eagles and Carson Wentz in the first round of the postseason.

When these two teams played each other back in late November, it was hardly a memorable affair for Wentz and the Eagles. The Seahawks dominated defensively, as Seattle won 17-9 with Philadelphia only scoring one touchdown in the final minute of garbage time.

It was a particularly rough outing for Wentz. The former North Dakota State standout did complete 33 of 45 passes, but for only 256 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions, and three fumbles – two of which were lost.

Wentz has been playing with a short deck as all his top receiving options are either on the injured reserve or have missed significant time with various injuries as well. However, it somehow has not stopped Wentz from performing as he has seemingly spun straw into gold.

On the year, Wentz has thrown 27 touchdowns to only seven interceptions for 4,039 yards. In fact, Wentz has become the first player in NFL history to have 4,000 plus yards without a single receiver having at least 500 yards.

I’m not even sure how that math adds up.

Since losing to the Seahawks, Wentz has thrown 10 touchdowns against only one interception, while leading the Eagles to a 4-1 record and an NFC East championship.

Although Wentz has had turnover problems in the past, and especially against Seattle, he has been playing clean football for well over a month straight. The Seahawks will have to get back to forcing turnovers like they were for the majority of the season if they want to avoid another one-and-done trip to the playoffs.

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5 crazy bold predictions for Ravens’ playoff run

The Baltimore Ravens don’t get to play in the first round of the NFL playoffs thanks to a No. 1 seed but we still crafted bold predictions

The Baltimore Ravens get to watch the first round of the NFL postseason on their couches. Not because they didn’t make the cut but because they’re the best team in the league and clinched the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoff picture, granting them a first-round bye.

While we kick off our playoff fix without Baltimore, it gave us here at Ravens Wire a chance to dig into some bold predictions for Baltimore’s postseason run. Each writer thought of the craziest but still logically possible prediction for the 2019 playoffs.

Matthew Stevens:

Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images

We see Robert Griffin III and other backups in at least one fourth-quarter

Baltimore has been dominant this season, especially down the stretch against many of the teams that find themselves in the playoffs right now. Because of that dominance, we got a chance to see backups like quarterback Robert Griffin III come into the game in the fourth quarter of five different games.

I don’t think the Ravens’ dominance is quite over yet and we’ll once again see Baltimore with such a huge lead in a game that Griffin gets a chance to flex his muscles in the postseason as well.

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Texans DE J.J. Watt: Practice feels like football again

Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt says practice feels like football again as he’s going with full pads leading up to match up with the Bills.

Don’t give expectations to J.J. Watt. He will break them.

What was once supposed to be a season-ending torn pectoral, Watt is back at Houston Texans practice two months after having a surgery that normals includes a three to six months recovery time.

The Texans played it safe with Watt at first. However, after they activated him from the injured reserve, he’s already back in the fold. He will play on Saturday in a wild card matchup with the Buffalo Bills.

In preparation for the Bills postseason bout, the Texans are allowing Watt to practice in full pads. For him, that means football feels like, well, football.

“It feels great,” Watt said on Wednesday. “It feels great. It felt like football. It felt like how it’s supposed to feel. It felt great to be out there, to be hitting pads, to be working on all the things I want to work on – bull rush, tackle, pass rush moves, everything I wanted to do. So, it just feels good, feels like I’m home.”

Though the Texans will limit his snaps, Watt won’t get the luxury of taking Saturday’s matchup as one to spend most of his time recovering. Houston’s reeling pass rush desperately needs the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year.

The Texans’ hurry rate (7%) and pressure rate (18.1%) are both 31st in the NFL, just ahead of the Miami Dolphins. Take out Watt’s eight games played, those already dismal numbers sink.

Before the injury, Watt recorded four sacks, 20 quarterback hits and 24 quarterback pressures. He will wear a harness on his pectoral to prevent re-injury. Though there is an increased risk of re-injury, the career-long Texan is risking it all.

Why? Watt is a football guy. If it feels like football, he’ll play it. Now, he seeks to play just more than one weekend’s worth after laboring to recover.

Who will 49ers play against in the divisional round of the playoffs?

The 49ers will have a tough matchup in the divisional round regardless of what happens wild card weekend.

Now that the 49ers are in the postseason, their scenarios simplify dramatically for who they will face.

Since they’re the No. 1 seed with a first-round bye, they’ll have to wait to see who their opponent in the divisional round will be, but it’s a pretty straightforward set of circumstances. They’ll face the lowest-remaining seed.

The first NFC playoff game is Sunday when the sixth-seeded Vikings travel to New Orleans to face the third-seeded Saints.

If the Vikings win, they have a divisional-round date with the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium.

If the Saints win, the 49ers’ attention will turn to the Sunday afternoon game between the No. 4-seed Eagles and No. 5-seed Seahawks in Philadelphia. The winner of that game would become the 49ers’ divisional-round opponent, with New Orleans traveling to No. 2-seed Green Bay.

There’s an argument to be made that any of the three matchups would be favorable for the 49ers. Getting a third crack at the Seahawks at home after they’ve traveled across the country would likely favor San Francisco. Minnesota has been up-and-down all season, and Kirk Cousins hasn’t typically performed well on big stages. And Philadelphia has been hit with so many injuries that it’s hard to see them getting past the 49ers if they happen to make it past the Seahawks.

Either way, the 49ers don’t play on wild-card weekend, but their preparation . will officially start by the time game action concludes Sunday.

DE J.J. Watt trying to spark magic of Texans playoff past

Houston Texans defensive J.J. Watt recollects the franchise’s first playoff win and wants to feel that again on Saturday against the Buffalo Bills.

Jan. 7, 2012.

The Houston Texans won their first playoff game in franchise history. A rookie defensive end J.J. Watt played a major role in the victory over the Cincinnati Bengals.

Tied 10-10 late in the first half, Watt pick-sixed Bengals rookie quarterback Andy Dalton en route to an eventual win.

“Obviously at the time it was unbelievably exciting because it was the organization’s first-ever playoff win, so it was extremely exciting for many reasons,” Watt said on Wednesday. “Obviously, the pick-six, knowing that I could catch the ball and run and not fall, and then everything that came after it. It was a special time and I think that the excitement, the energy, the atmosphere, the buzz around the city during that time was so incredible.”

On Saturday, against the Buffalo Bills, Watt will try to spark a return of the magical feeling while returning from a torn pectoral in Week 8, Oct. 27, of the regular season. If he helps the Texans win, he will do so in the postseason for only the third time in his career.

“I think that as a guy who’s been here for nine years, that feeling is what I want to capture and magnify,” Watt said. “I feel like – not that we haven’t had that same, but there was something magical about that and I want to create that magic again. The only way to do that is by winning. There’s no special sauce. You just have to win. So, the only way to win is to put in the work and then to make it happen on the field and execute. That’s why we practice so hard, that’s why we work so hard and that’s our goal.”

Watt will look to get the Texans their first postseason win since 2017. He wants to emulate parts of the inaugural franchise playoff’s berth (the win), but not at all (the loss to the Baltimore Ravens the next week).

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Carson Wentz lands at No. 8 in ranking of most ‘trustworthy’ playoff QB’s

Eagles’ star Carson Wentz land at No. 8 in a ranking of the most ‘trustworthy’ quarterbacks in the playoffs

The Philadelphia Eagles enter the 2020 NFL playoffs riding the hot hand of Carson Wentz along with a four-game winning streak. The Birds are slight underdogs to the Seahawks, but with Wentz’s play of late, the Eagles should have every opportunity to win the game.

NFL.com’s Ali Bhanpuri, Tom Blair, Gennaro Filice, and Dan Parr recently ranked the 12 signal-callers slated to play in the playoffs.

Using analytics, 2019 production and playoff experience, they ranked the quarterbacks form 1-12 based on trustworthiness.

The Eagles star landed in the top-10 and if not for this being his first playoff start, Wentz would have probably landed higher.

Blair: Now we come to the first of the true playoff naifs. To some extent, we’re still trying to figure out what kind of quarterback Carson Wentz will be, coming off his fourth NFL season, in which he looked both brilliant (299.8 yards per game, 7:0 TD-to-INT ratio and a passer rating of 100.8 in the four-game win streak that propelled the Eagles to the playoffs) and pedestrian (260 yards per game, 5:3 TD-to-INT ratio and a passer rating of 81.6 in the three-game skid that dropped them to 5-7). How he handles his first playoff appearance will go a long way toward filling in the blanks on his resume created by the injuries that kept him from participating in Philly’s last two postseason pushes. Here’s a fact that will soon seem either slightly useless or spookily prescient: Wentz became the fourth QB since 1970 to throw for 1,500-plus yards and 10-plus TDs while notching a win percentage of .800 in December — and two of the three (Kurt Warner in 2001 and Peyton Manning in 2013) went on to reach the Super Bowl. After a very up-and-down season, we’re back where we started the season with Wentz: waiting to see what he can do in the playoffs.

Wentz just became the Eagles single-season leader in passing yards and was the only quarterback this season and the first in team history to throw a touchdown pass in all 16 regular-season games.

Wentz has a touchdown streak of 20 games, going back to last season and it’s the longest current active streak in football.

On the season, Wentz had a completion percentage of 63.9, to go along with 4,039 passing yards, 27 passing touchdowns to just 7 interceptions.

DE J.J. Watt likes the Texans’ usage plan in place for the Bills

The Houston Texans will use defensive end J.J. Watt as more of an interior pass-rusher. He doesn’t mind that and actually likes the plan in place.

The Houston Texans will not risk further injury to defensive end J.J. Watt. In his miraculous short-return from tearing his pectoral on Oct. 27, the 30-year-old is slated to play most of his snaps in Saturday’s playoff game with the Buffalo Bills as a pass-rusher.

Watt doesn’t mind that plan. He hasn’t hit the field since Week 8 and, by most medical standards, wasn’t expected to come back until 2020. However, he’s ready to rock.

“I think we have a good plan. I think we have a good plan for how we’re going to utilize the game and how we’re going to go throughout the game. I think today was a good day for me,” Watt said on Wednesday. “Today was my first day in pads. We were in pads out there on the field and it was good. I went through a lot of tests that I wanted to go through personally. Just mentally, when you’re coming back from – you’ve got to go through some tests mentally to make sure that you can do the things you want to do, and today was a really good day for that.”

Watt, a three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, was activated off of the injured reserve on Monday. He practiced with full-pads on Wednesday and will suit-up to face the Bills in Saturday’s playoff matchup.

“I felt really good out there, did a whole bunch of different stuff to try and simulate what’s going to happen in the game and felt very good in all of those things,,” Watt said. “So, very pleased with where it’s at.”

The Texans’ pass-rush should benefit from the readdition from Watt. Though perhaps not his 2014 self, he is coming off of an All-Pro season in 2018. He tallied four sacks, 21 quarterback hits and four tackles for loss before suffering the torn pectoral against the Oakland Raiders.

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Kirk Cousins vs. Drew Brees: Who had the better first 2 years on their new teams?

The numbers are pretty similar.

The Minnesota Vikings are set to travel to New Orleans on Wild Card weekend, where they will take on the Saints in the playoffs for the second time in three years. Over the last decade, this has become a rivalry for the Vikings franchise with the infamous bounty gate and the Minneapolis Miracle. Whether or not it’s been in the Vikings favor, something interesting always happens between these two teams.  

The Saints went on to win the Super Bowl in 2009 after numerous shots to Brett Favre’s lower body, whereas the Vikings were not able to capitalize after the Minneapolis Miracle. 

Consistency at the quarterback position has been the main reason for the Saints success over the last decade. Drew Brees has now set the record for career touchdown passes, and has shown no signs of slowing down at the age of 40.

On the other hand, the Vikings have struggled since the last playoff loss in New Orleans to find a true franchise quarterback. Whether that be Christian Ponder, Teddy Bridgewater, Sam Bradford or Case Keenum, the team just hasn’t had the best luck when it comes to finding their future quarterback. 

Whether it was due to injuries, or just flat out bad quarterback play, this position has been a big reason the team has struggled with being consistent. Up until 2018 it seemed like the Vikings were never going to find their guy, but then the team signed Kirk Cousins to an $84 million contract. 

There are still people out there that don’t believe in Cousins’ ability to take the Vikings to the next level. Whether that be angry Vikings fans that are still mad about the contract, or national media pointing out that Cousins still hasn’t won a Monday Night Football game, the narratives never seem to stop. 

When the Vikings pulled the trigger and got their guy in 2018, it drew some comparisons to what the Saints did to get their guy in 2006. Both Cousins and Brees had put up solid numbers up until those points in their careers, but both the Washington Redskins and the San Diego Chargers (at the time) decided to let them hit the free agency market. 

The Chargers found another talented quarterback Philip Rivers, but he will never be on the same level as Brees. The Redskins never gave a commitment to Cousins, and now they have their own problems at quarterback. 

The Vikings and Saints both went out and made a splash in free agency to get their current franchise quarterbacks. It has certainly paid off for the Saints, with the team now having a Lombardi Trophy and the all-time passing touchdowns leader. 

For the Vikings, it will be looked at as a failed signing if the team doesn’t eventually make a run at a Super Bowl. Cousins hasn’t shined in the biggest of his games thus far in his career, but he has put up extremely similar numbers to what Brees did in his first two seasons with the Saints. 

In his first two seasons with the Saints, Brees threw for 8,841 yards, 54 touchdowns, 29 interceptions and an average rating of 92.8. During these first two seasons, the Saints were 17-15 with one playoff appearance. 

In Cousins first two seasons with the Vikings, he has thrown for 7,901 yards, 56 touchdowns, 16 interceptions and an average rating of 103.5. In his first two seasons, the Vikings are 18-13-1 with one playoff appearance. 

Those numbers almost mirror each other, but Cousins has actually been more efficient than Brees was in his first two seasons with the Saints. Brees is known for being one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the entire NFL, but Cousins has thrown 13 less interceptions and two more touchdowns in his first two seasons with a new team. 

Not only has Cousins been accurate, but he has done so while throwing the ball down field more often. He is averaging 8.1 yards per throw, which ranks seveth in the NFL in 2019. Even his wide receivers give him credit for throwing a beautiful deep ball. 

These numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt, because Brees has now proven that he can win in the big moments. However, that wasn’t always the case when he started out in New Orleans. He has had his ups and downs, but ultimately he is going to end his career leading the NFL in career passing touchdowns and with at least one Super Bowl victory. 

Cousins has been the best Vikings quarterback since Favre, and one of the best this team has seen in the last 20 years. Due to the fact that he came in to the organization after a dreadful NFC Championship loss, Cousins has had a Super Bowl or bust mentality with a lot of the fanbase. 

With how much talent the Vikings have had on their roster, signing Cousins was looked at as the final piece of the puzzle. It didn’t work out that way, but the second-year Viking has proven that he is one of the more talented quarterbacks in the league. 

Super Bowl winning teams aren’t just built overnight, and the Saints have proven that since signing Brees in 2006. Whether or not Cousins is able to bring to Minnesota what Brees brought to New Orleans, it should be recognized that he’s had two almost identical seasons to what Brees had in his first two years with the Saints.