Tag: Wild-card round

Here’s how Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes plans to spend the playoff bye week

#Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes spoke to reporters on Monday about his plans for the upcoming bye week.

The Kansas City Chiefs were in the building on Monday before players get a few days off for their first-round bye week. They’re the only team in the AFC to get a bye week as the No. 1 seed in the conference and they’ll look to take advantage with some extra preparation, rest and recovery.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes revealed how he plans to spend his time during the bye week. It all starts with getting a baseline understanding of the opponents they could possibly play in the divisional round.

“Yeah, the biggest thing for me, obviously, you don’t know for sure who you’re going to play,” Mahomes said. “So, what I’ll do, I’ll watch like a game or two of each team that we have a possibility of playing. Kind of each day, just try and get a general sense of the team without being too much of a deep dive. Luckily, two of the teams we have already played this year, so I have a general sense of them already.”

Those two teams — the Los Angeles Chargers and Jacksonville Jaguars — are the teams with the two highest probabilities to play the Chiefs in the divisional round. Coming in at No. 3 is the Baltimore Ravens, who you can expect Mahomes and the coaching staff will spend some extra time on this week.

As for what else Mahomes has planned, you can expect he’ll be getting in his workouts. He plans to keep rested, but also stay active during the course of the week.

“(You) make sure you stay working out and stay moving around,” Mahomes said. “Not just sit on the couch all week. Then when we get ready to go the next week I just have to try and be prepared and ready to roll. So, just a little bit of (getting) off your feet and (resting), but you still move around enough so that your body is in good shape whenever you get to the first playoff game for us.”

With Sterling and Bronze, I’m certain Mahomes won’t have to worry about staying active during the bye week. We do know he’ll at least spend Monday evening on the couch, watching the College Football Playoff National Championship Game between TCU and Georgia.

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Chiefs snap counts: Jerick McKinnon surges to RB1

What can we learn from the #Chiefs’ wild-card round snap counts?

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The Kansas City Chiefs played a near-even number of snaps on offense and defense in the wild-card round win over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. It’s not too surprising given the early game punts and turnovers from both squads. It’s also good from a recovery standpoint as they get ready to host the Buffalo Bills in the divisional round.

What else can we learn from this week’s snap counts? Here’s a look at how the snaps played out in the wild-card round:

*Snap counts via NFL Game Statistics and Information System

Observations

  • Jerick McKinnon wasn’t just the workhorse running back for the Chiefs on Sunday, he played more snaps than any other skill player for the team. That includes Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce. It’s something of a rarity this season for Kansas City.
  • Darrel Williams and Derrick Gore both didn’t even crack ten snaps on Sunday. The Chiefs were really riding the hot-hand with McKinnon and they could see more of that in the divisional round.
  • Mecole Hardman and Byron Pringle played the exact same amount of snaps on offense on Sunday night, with Demarcus Robinson not far behind. Each of the three players made their presence felt during the game, which seems important with teams devoting so much attention to Kelce and Hill.
  • Daurice Fountain played just three snaps on offense on Sunday. With 18 snaps on special teams, it’s clear they wanted to add another receiver with special teams prowess to the mix.
  • Nick Allegretti played just two offensive snaps on Sunday and found the endzone on one of them. I’d call that a highly productive day on offense for a backup offensive lineman.
  • No defenders played 100% of the snaps for the Chiefs on Sunday for the first time in a while. Juan Thornhill came close with 67-of-68 possible snaps.
  • Nick Bolton led all Chiefs linebackers in snaps against the Steelers. They clearly wanted his run-stopping prowess on the field against RB Najee Harris and it worked, as the team held him to just 30 yards on 12 carries.
  • Tershawn Wharton played a healthy dose of snaps this week. He seems to be carving out a more significant role on defense as the season has gone on.
  • Mike Hughes was the biggest beneficiary of Rashad Fenton’s pregame back injury. He played over 85% of the defensive snaps as a result.
  • Zayne Anderson played six snaps on defense and 20 snaps on special teams. No egregious errors from the rookie this week after Steve Spagnuolo threw his support behind him.
  • Noah Gray led all Chiefs players in special teams snaps, with Ben Niemann, Dorian O’Daniel and Armani Watts not far behind him.

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Best Twitter reactions from Chiefs’ wild-card round victory over Steelers

Fans and observers react on Twitter to the #Chiefs’ wild-card round victory over the #Steelers | from @EdEastonJr

The Kansas City Chiefs are heading back to the AFC divisional round for the fourth consecutive season after a 42-21 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the wild-card round. In the second quarter, the Chiefs’ offense broke the game wide open, not letting up for a moment to give Pittsburgh an ounce of hope throughout the game. Twitter users captured the highlights and lowlights of the game.

Here are some of the best Twitter reactions from the wild-card round win:

First injury report for Chiefs vs. Steelers, wild-card round

Our first injury report ahead of the #Chiefs vs. #Steelers wild-card game:

The Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers have released their first injury reports of the week on Wednesday. Both teams have relatively clean injury reports to start off the week ahead of the wild-card round.

Check out the injury report for each team down below:

Chiefs clinch No. 2 seed in AFC, wild-card opponent still to be determined

The #Texans came up short of an upset over the #Titans, leaving the #Chiefs to clinch the No. 2 seed and play in the wild-card round of the 2021 NFL playoffs.

The Week 17 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals has proven to be a costly loss for the Kansas City Chiefs.

With the Tennessee Titans defeating the Houston Texans in Week 18, the Chiefs have clinched the No. 2 seed in the AFC conference. As a result, they won’t get a week off in the first round of the playoffs and they’ll be playing an opponent during the NFL’s super wild-card weekend.

The opponent that will travel to Kansas City in the wild-card round is still to be determined pending the results of the Ravens-Steelers, Jets-Bills, Patriots-Dolphins and Chargers-Raiders games. The Chiefs could still play any of the Steelers, Raiders, Ravens, or Colts.

The game that could have the most impact is the Ravens-Steelers game which is currently in overtime. Should the Steelers win, the Chiefs could play either Steelers or Raiders. Should the Ravens win, they’d have a chance to play the Colts, Ravens, or Raiders. A tie would give KC a shot to face either the Raiders or the Colts.

No matter who they face, the team will be ready.

“We’re ready to go wherever against whoever,” Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes said following Saturday’s win. “We just go in with the mindset of we’re going to have to play each-and-every week to try to have a chance to get back to that Super Bowl.”

While the Chiefs won’t get the coveted first-round bye week, there are some perks to being the No. 2 seed in the AFC conference. In the wild-card round, they’ll face the lowest seed in the AFC conference. They’ll have home-field advantage against any team they face unless they play the Titans (No. 1 seed) in the AFC title game. Should the Titans slip up in the divisional round of the playoffs, Kansas City would host their fourth consecutive AFC Championship Game should they advance to it.

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‘We’re not playing Dwayne Haskins:’ Bruce Arians says Bucs won’t overlook WFT with Alex Smith at QB

Bruce Arians delivered a shot at former Washington QB Dwayne Haskins, noting that his team won’t overlook a matchup against Alex Smith.

A lot has been made this past week of the history of underdogs in the first round of the playoffs, especially when they enter the postseason with a losing record. We’ve talked about it a lot on this site, making note that one of the more memorable upsets from a below-.500 team in the wild-card round came the last time Ron Rivera and Bruce Arians met in the playoffs.

One of the main reasons that these upsets happen is because the better team is often caught looking into the future, undervaluing their opponent, and not giving the round 1 game the attention it deserves. According to Arians, that won’t happen this week, simply because of who is playing QB in Washington, and more specifically, who is not playing QB.

Washington may be 7-9 on the season, but considering the fact that they went 5-2 over their last seven games with only one loss coming with Alex Smith under center causes that overall record to be thrown out the window. With Dwayne Haskins at the helm, Washington started the season with a 1-3 record, and then things didn’t get much better with Kyle Allen taking snaps either. However, the dust started to settle once Smith took the reigns, and the average offensive performances, mixed with a dominant defense, made Washington a viable threat.

Who knows if they will be good enough to stop the red-hot Bucs on Saturday, but we know at least that Tom Brady and his team won’t be looking to the divisional round quite yet.

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NFL announces date and time of Washington-Tampa Bay playoff game

Washington will have a quick turnaround this week, facing off against Tampa Bay on Saturday at 8:15 p.m. ET in the wild-card round.

The Washington Football Team will have a quick turnaround before their playoff game this week. After beating the Philadelphia Eagles to lock up a postseason berth, Washington will face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the wild-card round. It is the first time since 2015 that Washington has reached the postseason.

The NFL announced Washington vs. Tampa Bay will be played at 8:15 p.m. ET on Saturday night, with the game being broadcast by NBC. It’s the third game of wild-card weekend, following Colts-Bills on Saturday at 1 p.m. ET, and Rams-Seahawks at 4:40 p.m. ET.

Here’s the full wild-card schedule, as announced by the Rams on Sunday night.