Championship Round Recap

Well, that was an interesting Sunday. After a couple fairly mediocre playoff weekends, we had a real show in the Championship Round, the first time in NFL history that two playoff games went into overtime on the same day. And even though both were resolved fairly quickly in overtime, there was still plenty of heartpounding drama before it was decided that the Rams will play the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

I’ll have more to say about these two teams next week, but before that happens I want to run through what happened on Sunday, starting unfortunately with where all conversations about the day have to start.

The Referees

I wish I could just ignore this. I wish I could just say that a bunch of bad calls even out over the course of a game, then move on to discuss the actual football action. I’m pretty sure everyone wishes this (except perhaps the losing fans, who want a clear scapegoat to target). But the officiating was the major story of Sunday’s games, most notably their failure to call pass interference on the Rams in a situation that likely would have given the Saints the victory.

There are a lot of borderline calls over the course of an NFL game. This wasn’t one of them. The defender clearly arrived before the ball did, and he clearly made no attempt to do anything other than knock the receiver to the ground. He has admitted it, the league has admitted it, and even the most delusional Rams fan needs to accept that this was a penalty, it should have been called, and the Saints should have had the opportunity to run the clock down under thirty seconds before kicking the field goal to take the lead.

The Saints and their fans are justifiably outraged today, and everyone else is looking around for ways to fix this. I’m certain there will be consequences for the referees involved, and possibly even a change at the head of the officiating office. The league will meet this offseason to discuss rule changes, and I expect they will come out with something to try to prevent this specific scenario from happening in the future.

The problem is that this specific scenario won’t happen in the future, and any rule they create will have much greater ripple effects than I would care to have happen. The most common suggestion is to allow penalties to be reviewed, an idea that has been floating around for quite some time. A review would have allowed the referees to check the tape and clearly see that the call was missed, giving the Saints the first down they deserved.

But what if things had been a bit more marginal? What if the Rams defender had gotten his head around and merely bumped into the receiver while trying to play the ball? Very few pass interference penalties are as clear cut as this one, and the moment we allow a review to be held, we are opening ourselves up to questioning every single play that happens in a game. Two players are handfighting down the sideline? Normally that doesn’t get flagged, but in slow motion you can see a few moments where the receiver’s path to the ball is impeded. Even as frequently as we see penalties called in the secondary, by the letter of the law there could be even more, and allowing every play to be reexamined in slow motion will further impact the flow of the game.

And do we even stop at pass interference? Do we allow a touchdown to be called back if on review we see that the receiver wasn’t all the way up on the line of scrimmage? Does every big play get checked for a holding penalty on the opposite end of the field? Perhaps we put in a rule that a review can strip away a penalty but can’t create a new one (which from all reports seems to be the approach the league favors). Well that would just incentivize officials to throw more flags, knowing that if they are uncertain it’s only possible to correct a mistake if it goes one way.

Officiating is an almost inescapable conversation these days, but Sunday’s outcome aside, I’m not convinced it’s as big a problem as everyone makes it out to be. The expansion of high definition television, instant replay, and social media has made every single decision subject to instantaneous scrutiny, often by people who don’t know what they’re talking about. One of the defenses I’ve heard from Rams fans is that the officials missed a facemask on Jared Goff that would have given the Rams first and goal from the one on a drive that ended with them settling for a field goal. These complaints get magnified and broadcast so much more than the play itself, which shows that there wasn’t actually a facemask to be called, as the hand merely brushed Goff’s face without grabbing or twisting.

Every sport complains about officials, because officiating is a damn hard job. Especially when it comes to moments like the questionable muffed punt by Julian Edelman that ended up being overturned because the ball passed within a centimeter of both hands and his upper arm. There are hundreds of moments each game that happen at ludicrously fast speeds, with unclear rules and margins so tiny that you sometimes can’t even tell in high definition, slowed down replays.

Are there things that could be done to improve officiating? Probably. It’s a little appalling that most NFL officials are still only part time employees, and that they spend the offseason working other jobs rather than training to be better. Most are probably too old as well, and we would be better suited with officials closer to the physical capabilities of the players they are trying to track. I even think we could discuss adding another one or two officials to the field, though I’m wary that would just result in more penalties.

But in the end there is too much subjective about these games, and there is always going to be an element of human error. And that sucks for a team like the Saints today, but it should honestly just be looked at as one more in a string of hundreds of pieces of luck that go into every game. The Saints lost because the referees blew a call. They also lost because an overtime pass from Drew Brees landed perfectly on the chest of a defender who had fallen onto his back. They also lost because a 48 yard field goal curled twice in the air and snuck inside the right upright. They also lost because sometimes you lose football games you deserve to win, because there is an element of randomness in this game that we would like to ignore in our belief that the best teams win, and that by winning our team proved that it was the best.

The Rams got lucky yesterday for all the reasons I addressed above. The Patriots got lucky by winning a coin toss at the beginning of overtime (and for the people complaining that it’s unfair the Chiefs didn’t get the ball, I’ll point out that on Sunday teams that won the coin toss in overtime were 1-1). Are they the two best teams, or the two most deserving teams? I don’t know. But they’re the two teams that are left, and that’s how sports always work.

Los Angeles Rams 26 – New Orleans Saints 23

I should probably talk about the games themselves, shouldn’t I? Because despite how much everyone is discussing the officiating today, there was a lot more that went down this weekend that decided the teams who will play on Super Bowl Sunday.

It’s easy to forget with everything that came after, but this was very nearly a blowout for the Saints. In the first quarter the Saints scored three times, while the Rams failed to even pick up a first down. The second quarter began with a failed third down conversion that set them up for a punt, and at that point it looked like things were just about over for them. They’d held the Saints to field goals on their first two drives, but the third had ended with them breaking through for a touchdown, and it seemed inevitable that the Saints would score again once they got the ball back and go up three scores.

There were a number of questionably conservative decisions by Sean McVay later in the game, but he deserves credit for calling for the fake punt that turned the game around. If it had failed, the Saints would have been set up for another easy score, and the game likely would have been over. But it didn’t fail, and it gave the Rams an opportunity to drive down the field for points of their own. Even though it was only a field goal, the seven minute drive gave their defense the time it needed to recover, and from that point on they held the Saints in check.

There were worries about the performance of the Saints offense prior to the game, but after they opened with three scoring drives I really didn’t expect them to score only ten points over their final eight possessions. The lack of depth at receiver finally came back to bite them, as the Rams dedicated their coverage to erasing Michael Thomas and forcing Brees to connect with his other receivers. At times this worked—see their second half touchdown drive that involved four completions to Alvin Kamara—but more often than not Brees was unable to locate anywhere else to go with the football.

Taking Thomas away is obviously easier said than done, and a lot of the credit has to go to the Rams defensive front. Aaron Donald made a number of impact plays as he always does, but in the end it was the attention he drew that did most of the damage. The Saints sent two blockers his way on nearly every play, and Ndamukong Suh and Dante Fowler each played their best game during their time with the Rams. Given time even two defenders can’t contain the athletic route running of Thomas and the precision of Brees, but for most of the game the Saints didn’t have that time to work with.

If the story of that side of the ball was the pressure that disrupted Brees, it was the opposite on the other side. The Saints sacked Goff only one time, and it seemed like he was under pressure even less than that. The Rams offensive line held their ground, a stable piece in an offense that looked thoroughly unlike everything we’ve seen from the Rams to this point in the season.

McVay gets a lot of deserved praise as an innovative offensive mastermind, but there were clear tendencies in this offense the entire season. They played three wide receivers on almost every snap, and when they ran the ball with Todd Gurley it was usually a zone or a stretch play to the outside, getting their offense moving laterally and then trusting their talented running back to cut upfield when he saw the opportunity.

The Saints came out ready for this approach, and they shut the Rams down early on. They played a lot more zone coverage than they have in past weeks, which eliminated some of the matchup edges the Rams normally get from their receivers in the slot and made it more difficult for Gurley to find lanes to run through. Had the Rams stuck with what they’d had success with for most of the season, they would have been as limp on offense the entire game as they were in the first half.

Obviously they changed things up. The most glaring difference was the amount of time Gurley spent on the sideline, with CJ Anderson taking over the bulk of the carries. Part of this is likely due to the lingering effects of the injury that forced them to bring in Anderson in the first place, but with the way the Saints defense was playing the downhill, interior rushing style of Anderson was a lot more effective. This was bolstered by the decision to go big along the edges, bringing in an extra tight end to kickstart their power rushing attack.

The Saints couldn’t get pressure on Goff, and the Rams made the adjustments they needed to in order to kick their offense to life. They didn’t have a lot of success attacking down the field, but they picked New Orleans apart with long developing routes to their tight ends, the same routes Brees was unable to find on the other side of the ball. The early surge from the Saints was enough to make the game a tossup in the end, but over the final three quarters and overtime the Rams were clearly the better football team.

New England Patriots 37 – Kansas City Chiefs 31

Another game that had the look of a blowout until it wasn’t. The Chiefs came out just as limp as the Rams did, and their struggles lasted through the second quarter. They didn’t score a point in the first half, and they picked up only 32 yards of offense. A brief appearance in field goal range was wasted by a sack, and only the slow monotony of New England’s offense and a red zone interception by Tom Brady prevented them from being down more than 14-0 at halftime.

Patrick Mahomes had a spectacular season and will likely win MVP, but he deserves to bear the brunt of the blame for their first half offensive woes. As I mentioned above he was responsible for a sack that took them out of field goal range, losing 14 yards to turn a 40 yard field go into a 54 yarder. He also took two other sacks, losing 14 yards on third down in their first possession and 15 yards to kill their attempt to score before the end of the half.

The Patriots had a simple gameplan for the Chiefs. They trusted Stephon Gilmore to match up man to man with Sammy Watkins while they kept a constant double team on Tyreek Hill. Hill has developed as a receiver since entering the league, but he still doesn’t have the route running ability to beat a cornerback underneath without being able to threaten him over the top.

This left very few places for Mahomes to go with the ball on the outside, and he reacted as he often does by trying to make a play. But the Patriots were expecting this as well, and they were more cautious with their pass rush than most teams have been. As Mahomes tried to scramble from the pocket, they had defenders in position to contain him, forcing him deeper into the backfield and turning slight negative plays into major losses.

It took a while, but the Chiefs did eventually figure some stuff out on offense. Partially this was Mahomes actually pulling off some spectacular plays, such as the deep ball he hit to Sammy Watkins after escaping the pocket on their first drive of the second half. They didn’t generate anything running the ball, so they wisely abandoned the run in the second half. Instead they managed to get the ball to Damien Williams through the air, connecting with him on a pair of short passes that he turned into touchdowns.

The problems for Kansas City came, as they usually do, on the defensive side of the ball. On defense they played far too conservatively for most of the game, and it came back to bite them in the end. In the start they were beaten up by the rushing attack of the Patriots, and Sony Michel finished the day with over 100 yards rushing, as he did during their matchup earlier in the year. The Patriots controlled the ball throughout the first half, holding possession for 21 of the possible 30 minutes thanks to their dominance on the ground.

The Chiefs could not stop the Patriots on the ground with their initial defensive plan, and New England wasn’t about to stop handing the ball off. So the Chiefs did the only thing they could, and adjusted by putting an extra run stopper in the game. They controlled New England’s rushing attack better in the second half, but this only opened things up in the back end, as the Chiefs took a coverage player off the field and replaced him with a subpar pass rusher.

Kansas City could get no pressure on Tom Brady the entire game. Partially this is due to New England’s underrated offensive line, but it also stems from the fact that Kansas City couldn’t bring all of Dee Ford, Chris Jones, and Justin Houston while still playing a front with three big defensive linemen. They were afraid to blitz Brady repeatedly, and as the game wore on their defense became too exhausted to keep up with the spread out Patriots attack. They softened into a basic two deep zone that left countless holes underneath, which Brady was able to pick apart with ease.

New England dominated this game in pretty much every facet. They ran twice as many plays as the Chiefs, and only a couple of ugly interceptions by Brady kept Kansas City in the game. And of course, as has become his habit in recent years, Brady erased all memory of his poor performance with some late game heroics (which were almost undone by another late interception that was erased by a trivial penalty).

In truth, this game was likely over from the moment the Patriots took the first drive down the field. New England is too varied on offense for the Chiefs to successfully contain, and their only hope was to get out to an early lead and try to force the Patriots into a one dimensional attack. Even as the game reached its final minutes, the Patriots were almost always in a situation where running the ball was an option, forcing Kansas City into a defensive alignment they didn’t care for. It’s a credit to the Chiefs that they held on into overtime, but in a tight game the odds always favored a New England team that has been here countless times before.

The Inevitable

The first weekend of the playoffs was a story of the randomness of the NFL postseason. Three of the four visiting teams emerged victorious, and the only home team to hold their ground was Dallas, widely considered the weakest of the division winners. The Wild Card teams proved to be as wild as their name predicted, and it looked like we were in for a truly wide open postseason, proof again that anything can happen if you just get a foot in the door.

The second weekend was all about suffocating that hope. Each of the four home teams won, and three of them did so in thoroughly dominating fashion. The defending champion Eagles put up a good fight by jumping out to an early 14 point lead, then failed to score again the rest of the way as the Saints grinded out a six point victory. And now we’re left with the Saints, Rams, Chiefs, and Patriots, an outcome everyone saw coming months ago.

I don’t mean to harp on it, but it’s fascinating just how evident it was all year that these four teams were above all the others. When I did my midseason review in early November I listed a tier of the true contenders in the league, a tier that contained these four teams and no others. As a fun exercise I recruited some friends and tried to fill out these four teams by drafting from the bottom four, preparing for their inevitable clash at the end of the year. And as I laid outbefore Week 15, it was pretty much inevitable that the top seeded teams would be the ones left standing at this point, even as I tried to talk myself into reasons for the rest of the teams to bother finishing the year.

We all knew this was coming, so we should have these matchups figured out by now. Both of these are rematches from earlier in the season, with the Patriots emerging victorious over the Chiefs in Week 6 and the Saints beating the Rams in Week 9. But it’s been a long time since those games, and now we have to ask ourselves what might have changed, what could go different this time around now that everything is on the line.

New England Patriots @ Kansas City Chiefs

Both these games were shootouts when they occurred earlier in the season, but this one was particularly over the top. The Patriots and the Chiefs combined for 83 points, and there was only a single punt the entire game, a fourth quarter boot by Kansas City that allowed New England to extend the lead it held at that point after the two had jumped back and forth for most of the second half. It was Kansas City’s first loss of the year, and it was the high point of a regular season that was a disappointment by the standards the Patriots have come to expect.

Why things will be different this time around:

The clearest shift from the earlier matchup to this one is the change of venue. The location of the contest has moved from New England to Kansas City, swinging this advantage from the Patriots to the Chiefs. Home field is normally considered worth three points over a neutral site, and New England’s three point victory earlier in the season suggests that these teams are evenly matched. Now with the game in Kansas City, it’s no surprise to see that Vegas has the Chiefs listed as three point favorites themselves.

Home field advantage is the biggest change, but there is obviously more going on than just that. It’s been three months since these teams faced off for the first time, and there have been significant changes to the performances of both rosters. The Chiefs are coming off their best defensive game of the season, and the unit that faces New England won’t be the same one that gave up 43 points earlier in the season.

Eric Berry is back after missing most of the season, giving them a veteran presence on the back end they were lacking before. He’s been the face of this defense since being drafted in the top five in 2010, and his contributions go beyond the stat sheet, even as he’s still slow returning from the myriad injuries that have plagued him over the past few years.

The most significant changes have probably been along the front however. Chris Jones took his performance to a new level down the stretch, turning into an unstoppable pass rushing force on the interior who is perfectly suited to disrupt Tom Brady. And Justin Houston has rediscovered his form after returning from injury, with eight sacks in his past five games. This pass rush is a lot more varied and versatile than it was earlier in the season, and that will give them the edge trying to disrupt Tom Brady.

And then there is the Patrick Mahomes factor. He obviously got off to a torrid start to the season, and it’s easy to forget that prior to facing the Patriots he had only started six games in his entire NFL career. He has tripled that number since, and he will now be better prepared for whatever the Patriots have to throw at him. He wasn’t the issue in the first game, but Kansas City will likely need him to repeat that performance on Sunday, even as Bill Belichick makes his usual adjustments to try to take him out of his game. Mahomes’s ability to adapt to new situations will be a key factor in deciding who advances to the Super Bowl, and so far he has been up to almost every challenge thrown his way.

Why things will be the same:

Just in case you missed it when I mentioned it above, I’m going to reiterate: the Patriots did not punt once in their regular season matchup against the Chiefs. Excluding a four second possession at the end of the first half, here are the results of every possession they had: turnover on downs, field goal, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, field goal, fumble, field goal, touchdown, field goal, field goal. They bogged down more than they would have liked in Kansas City territory, but they came away with points nearly every time they touched the ball, and until the Chiefs prove they can stop the Patriots it’s hard to buy them as being the favorite in this game.

The versatility of New England’s offense is perfectly set up to attack Kansas City’s defense. The Chiefs rely on their pass rush to disrupt the opposing offense, generating negative plays and turnovers to mask their weaknesses on the back end. But no team in the league is better at remaining on schedule than New England, as Brady uses his years of experience to get the ball out of his hands before a pass rusher can so much as breathe on him. The weapons New England has aren’t overwhelming, but they are a pain in the ass nonetheless. Few teams have the ability to match up in both the run and the passing game against an offense that can trot out James White, Cordarrelle Patterson, Rob Gronkowski, and Julian Edelman.

That’s not eve mentioning New England’s most valuable weapon in this game: rookie running back Sony Michel. Michel was in and out of the lineup due to injuries this year, but when he was a major part of the gameplan he produced as well as any running back in the league. Despite missing nearly a quarter of the season he finished just short of 1000 yards rushing, and when the Patriots see an advantage they are perfectly content to let him carry the load on their offense. He has five games this season with more than 20 carries, including last weekend’s victory over the Chargers and the earlier matchup against Kansas City, which saw him go for 106 yards and two touchdowns against the weak Chiefs run defense.

Kansas City has improved defensively, but so has New England. Their secondary has come on strong down the stretch, and over the final six weeks of the season their defense allowed only 88 points, a per game average that would have been comfortably the best in the league. The Chargers put up some points in garbage time last week, but aside from one early blown coverage they could find nothing through the air for most of the game, with their receivers blanketed constantly by the Patriots secondary.

Mahomes has been magnificent this year, but there have been some ugly patches when things have gotten rough. The Chiefs were only 2-4 this season against teams that ended up making the playoffs, and Mahomes looked particularly distressed in early season shootouts against the Patriots and the Rams. When he feels like he has to score on every possession just to keep up, he has a tendency to make mistakes, as evidenced by his five interceptions across those two games. If the Patriots can keep this relatively competitive from the start of the game, they will have the upper hand, with the coach and the quarterback significantly less likely to make a devastating blunder.

Los Angeles Rams @ New Orleans Saints

The final point total was similar in this game to the one between the Patriots and the Chiefs, but it was a much more balanced game overall. There wasn’t a punt in the first half, but there were three in the second, as the Rams made a late run to turn what looked like a blowout into a competitive game before falling short in the end. This victory was the deciding factor in the Saints claiming home field advantage for this repeat matchup, and they appear to have the clear edge heading into this rematch.

Why things will be different this time around:

The Saints look like the better team based on their resume and their roster, but they haven’t exactly performed up to expectations recently. Their offense floundered down the stretch after looking unstoppable for most of the year, and they were the only team to have any trouble in the Divisional Round. Even after falling behind by two touchdowns early, they were clearly the superior team to the Eagles and should have been able to run away in the second half. Yet they needed a dropped pass turned interception to pull out a six point victory in the end.

There are key matchups where the Rams look like they could have an advantage. The Saints are built from the front to the back on defense, and last week they were able to fight their way through a tough Eagles offensive line to hassle Nick Foles after his early success. But the Rams are one of the few teams who might be even better on the offensive line than Philadelphia, and the Saints will now be without Sheldon Rankins, their disruptive force in the middle. The balance the Rams bring offensively will make it tough for the Saints to attack aggressively at the passer, which will open up holes in their aggressive man coverage scheme.

The Rams also pose problems for the Saints offense. New Orleans doesn’t have the deepest stable of receiving weapons, but they’ve been able to generate success on offense thanks to an MVP caliber season from Drew Brees and an offensive line that gave him the freedom to do whatever he wants. But it isn’t a coincidence that their offense has slowed down just as their line has become hindered by injuries. Even though every starter will be available, none of them are quite at 100 percent, and the performance of the unit as a whole has not been what it was earlier in the season.

This is not great news for a team facing Aaron Donald. The story on Drew Brees throughout his career is that he excels only when he has a clean pocket in front of him, as his short stature causes particular problems when there are defenders in his face. And there is no interior defender in the history of the NFL who has excelled at getting into a quarterback’s face like Donald. The Saints will throw everything they have to trying to slow him down, but he has proven consistently that he can beat double teams from lesser players.

Brees is going to have to succeed under pressure, and often that means he won’t have time to wait for Michael Thomas to come open down the field. Thomas can beat double coverage thrown his way, but he needs time and space to do so, which he won’t have if the pass rush is constantly on Brees. The Saints will no doubt try to mitigate this by getting the ball to their running backs, but the Rams finished fourth in the league in pass defense DVOA against running backs. New Orleans is going to need some other weapons on its offense to step up at crucial points in this game, which is not something they’ve been able to rely on to this point in the season.

Why things will be the same:

The Saints have a clear edge at pretty much every position over the Rams. They’re better in the secondary, at linebacker, and at edge rusher. They obviously don’t have anyone the same caliber as Aaron Donald, but their defensive line as a whole is deeper and more versatile (even with the loss of Rankins). On offense the only place they are clearly lacking is down the depth chart at wide receiver, and the versatility of Alvin Kamara is usually enough to make up for that.

And of course there is Brees. In any other season he would probably be the league’s MVP, and even with the insane numbers from Mahomes he has a strong case to make. He shattered the record for completion percentage and was better than any quarterback in the league at avoiding negative plays, ranking in the top three in both interception and sack percentage. He’s a cold machine when it comes to gradually advancing the ball down the field, but he’s also capable of breaking defenses over the top. There is nothing you can ask for from the quarterback position that he can’t do, and the difference between him and Jared Goff might be enough to swing this one even if the rest of the rosters weren’t already in New Orleans’s favor.

Brees was essentially unbothered by the Rams defense the last time they played. He threw for 346 yards and four touchdowns, and that was even with a comfortable lead for most of the game. The Rams will benefit from getting Aqib Talib back, which might help mitigate the 211 receiving yards Thomas had the first time they played. But Thomas is a much better player than Talib, and the Rams will have an extra challenge with Ted Ginn back in the lineup for the Saints. Brees couldn’t quite connect with him deep a week ago, but I would wager they spent the week working those kinks out, and the added deep threat will only make things easier for the rest of the Saints passing attack underneath.

The Saints made a quietly excellent addition in the trade market when they snagged former first round pick Eli Apple from the Giants in the middle of the season. Apple was a disaster both on the field and in the locker room in New York, but he has fit in perfectly across from his former college teammate Marshon Lattimore in New Orleans. The added depth in the secondary has allowed the Saints to be much more aggressive with their man coverage, which has been a boon to Lattimore, one of the best cornerbacks in the league his rookie year who struggled early in his second season. They seem content to play sides of the field rather than matchups, so he’ll have the opportunity to shut down both Brandin Cooks and Robert Woods, forcing the Rams to attack Apple constantly on the other side of the field.

The Saints should have won easily the first time around, and even after the Rams put up a fight they were able to pull out a ten point victory. Playing again in New Orleans, there is every reason to expect that they’ll do the same. Their offense has been up and down over the past month, but I expect them to have little trouble against this Rams defense. And with the way their defense has been playing lately, it wouldn’t shock me to see this turn into a blowout the previous game was not.