The Little Things

 

Entering the weekend, the Championship Round looked to be a real heavyweight fight. With Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Tom Brady, and Aaron Rodgers, you had arguably the four best quarterbacks in the league this year (I’d probably put Ryan Tannehill and Deshaun Watson ahead of Brady, but these are small quibbles). 

It isn't surprising that this is the case, since an elite quarterback is a big help getting to this stage. But things rarely work out this neatly. Only three years ago we were treated to a final four that included Case Keenum, Nick Foles, and Blake Bortles, a far sight from the elite collection of quarterbacking talent on display this weekend.

Of course, when both teams have an elite quarterback, it’s almost the same as if neither team has an elite quarterback. Having someone like Rodgers or Mahomes is enough to put a team into contention, but where a team goes from there often depends on everything else around the quarterback. At this stage, pieces like supporting cast, coaching, and simple luck are the little things that make all the difference.

(To those of you accusing me of using the theme and title of this article as a soulless promotion for the new film “The Little Things” starring Denzel Washington, Jared Leto, and Rami Malek being released this Friday in theaters and on HBO Max, I have only this to say: No Comment.)

The Pieces of a Defeat

In the much-anticipated clash of two of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game, Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers fought to pretty much a standstill. Brady of course had three ugly interceptions in the second half that allowed the Packers to get back into the game, but he also made several plays down the field in the first half that built this lead to begin with (sort of the opposite of his Super Bowl performance against the Falcons in 2016). Meanwhile, Rodgers spent most of the day frustrated trying to pick things apart underneath while under pressure of the sort he hasn’t faced all year. He only made the one egregious error, but he didn’t really produce offense on his own the way we’re used to seeing.

Both quarterbacks did enough to win this game, and enough to lose it. The difference came in those other pieces I mentioned above. If you had asked entering this matchup, I would have given a slight edge to Tampa Bay’s supporting cast, especially with the Packers missing David Bakhtiari on the offensive line. And, unsurprisingly, this difference showed up when Green Bay’s normal advantage at quarterback failed to materialize.

The most glaring disparity was along the front lines. Entering the game it wasn’t clear who would have the definitive edge in the pass-rushing game. Tampa Bay was a top five unit by ESPN’s pass rush win rate, but they would be facing the best pass protecting unit in the league. On the other side, Green Bay’s pass rush was mostly average this year, going against a pass protection unit that finished in the middle of the pack as well.

Of course, there were clear signs that these season-long measures wouldn’t be indicative of what we would see in this game. Green Bay was playing without the best pass-blocking left tackle in the league, while Tampa Bay’s offensive line was mostly healthy after a season where they were up and down due to injuries. And on the defensive side, the Buccaneers got back Vita Vea who—while not exactly an elite penetrator as a defensive tackle—is a dominant anchor in the middle that opened up their edge rushers to attack.

Tampa Bay won this battle on both sides of the ball. Brady had all day to throw, taking only a single sack and having one interception forced by pressure. Rodgers on the other hand spent much of the day running for his life, taking five sacks that caused drives to repeatedly stall before they could get anything going.

The other big factors in this game were coaching and officiating, two topics that have been discussed to death already and I don’t have much to add to. Matt LaFleur’s decision to kick the field goal on fourth down with just over two minutes left in the game was bizarre at the time, but in hindsight I don’t think it played a huge factor in the outcome.

Even if they had gone for it, the Packers would have needed so many things to pan out to win the game. They would have needed to convert the fourth down from the eight yardline to start with. They then would have needed to pick up the two-point conversion to tie the game. After that they would have had two minutes to try to stop Tampa Bay’s offense from moving down into field goal range. And then, if all that worked out, it still would have come down to the coin toss of overtime.

People have made a huge deal about going from a touchdown deficit to a touchdown deficit. But the difference between an eight-point game and a five-point game is actually meaningful. You still need a touchdown either way, but in the first scenario a touchdown merely gives you an opportunity to tie the game on what is basically a 50/50 shot, while in the second a touchdown would give you the win.

That’s not to say LaFleur made the right call. It’s just that this error didn’t actually play a huge impact in the outcome of the game. By the best win probabilities I’ve seen, the Packers had around a 13% chance to win the game if they went for it, and a 9% chance kicking the field goal. An error, but not as glaring as it looked at first blush.

The bigger decision in the game came at the end of the first half. After being stopped on their drive to try to get into field goal range, the Buccaneers looked at first like they were going to punt on fourth and four with 13 seconds left. Bruce Arians brought the offense to the sideline, only to reconsider and call a timeout to send them back out there. They picked up the first down, and the next play Brady hit Scotty Miller for a stunning touchdown to expand their lead to double-digits before halftime.

This was actually one of the easier calls for a coach to make, and it’s a little relieving that Arians got it right. The proximity to the end of the half really simplifies things. After the fourth down play, there’s really only time for one more play to try to get into field goal range and another to take a desperate shot at the endzone. If the Buccaneers converted, they probably would have needed only another five yards to get into field goal range. If they had failed, the Packers probably still would have been twenty yards away. The edge was clear, and even though they wasted a timeout to make that decision, it’s good to see they reached the right call in the end.

The other thing we have to discuss is the referees. I generally don’t buy any conspiracy theories about officiating deliberately favoring one side or the other, but in close games luck with penalties can make all the difference. And two big moments stand out in this game as an example of that. Tampa Bay’s drive at the end of the first half was set up by an interception on a play that looked to have defensive holding that wasn’t called, while their final drive of the game was extended by a holding that was called.

I understand the frustration of Packers fans with these two calls, but I don’t think either was an egregious error by the officials. The first play was holding, but it was the sort of holding up around the shoulders that officials often miss, and it really didn’t affect the play in any way (if anything the holding gave the receiver a better chance on a throw that was far behind him).

The holding later in the game was the sort that, even after a game spent swallowing their whistle, the referee really couldn’t stop himself from calling. There was much more separation between the receiver and the defender, and the stretching of the jersey was simply larger and more obvious. To not call that would have been malpractice far worse than the missed call earlier in the game. Maybe that’s an example of luck, but I don’t feel like the officiating in this game was particularly lopsided in one way or the other.

The Other Way Things Work

There are probably a few “little things” we could talk about in the AFC Championship Game as well. Josh Allen took several brutal sacks deep in the backfield to kill drive. After years of being one of the most aggressive coaches in the league on fourth down, Sean McDermott became bafflingly conservative in the biggest game of his career, three times kicking field goals in fourth and short situations on drives where they desperately needed touchdowns.

The Bills left opportunities on the board. They also got lucky in a couple of cases. The Chiefs handed them an early touchdown off a muffed punt. Kansas City defenders dropped multiple interception opportunities. If things had all gone against Buffalo, the outcome could have been far uglier than it actually was. But when it comes to all the things I talked about in the Packers-Buccaneers game above, this was a fairly even match.

The one place it wasn’t even was at quarterback. Allen didn’t have his best game, but the dropped interceptions kept it from becoming a true mess, and he created opportunities down the field with scramble drill passes and by taking off on his own. He didn’t play a good game, but he didn’t play a bad game either. He performed about in line with the quarterbacks from the earlier game. Rodgers, Brady, and Allen didn’t live up to their normal standards, but it shouldn’t be a surprise when a quarterback's performance takes a dip on a big stage against a tough opponent.

The exception, of course, is Patrick Mahomes.

There was some concern with how Kansas City performed down the stretch. They didn’t win a single game by more than six points over the second half of the season, and of the final four teams in the playoffs they actually had the lowest scoring offense. For much of the season Mahomes looked like an MVP favorite, but he was fairly pedestrian (by his standards) down the stretch.

It’s pretty obvious in retrospect that they were sleepwalking through the second half of the year, and that they still had the potential to turn things on when they needed to. Because Mahomes was Mahomes once again this past Sunday. Carving the opposing defense up within structure, and making plays that are difficult to believe when things break down.

The crazy part is, I think there’s still another gear for them to hit. The Chiefs haven’t really threatened teams deep yet this postseason, with Mahomes only attempting two passes more than twenty yards down the field. One of these was a drop by Tyreek Hill on Sunday that would have turned into a forty yard gain on one of the few Chiefs drives that didn’t go anywhere.

At this point in the postseason, the little things often make the difference in a matchup of two top-notch quarterbacks. But as Mahomes demonstrated on Sunday, he is capable of elevating his play to a level that no other player in the league can reach. The Buccaneers may be able to carve away similar small victories that they used to oust the Packers—victories that eluded the Bills—but in the end if Mahomes plays as well as he is capable of, there isn’t anything that any opponent can do.