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Excerpts. If you want to read the whole article click the link below.
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https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.c...redictions-matt-millen-heart-fmia-peter-king/
By Peter King
• For the final two NFC seeds: Arizona at Seattle, Philadelphia at Washington, Chicago at Minnesota, 4:25 p.m. Seattle clinched a playoff spot Sunday night, and now has to beat the worst team in football, the Cardinals, at home, to clinch the fifth seed. The Vikings (8-6-1) and Eagles (8-7) will battle for one spot. If Minnesota beats the Bears, the Vikings make the playoffs; if they lose and Philadelphia beats Washington, the Eagles are in.
Will the Bears play all-out to win, with only a whisper of a chance to pass the Rams for the second seed? Good question. “We need some help,” Zach Ertz told me after the dramatic Philly win over Houston, “but we’ve had the kind of year where you just don’t know anything.”
The Eagles have had the strangest of seasons; they’ve gone 4-1 since being embarrassed 48-7 by the Saints last month.
• For AFC seeding: The Chiefs host Oakland (4:25 p.m. ET), and if the Chiefs beat the 3-11 Raiders, they win first seed and will play at home throughout the playoffs … The Patriots host the Jets (1:05 p.m.), and if the Pats beat New York, they win second seed in the playoffs … Houston has a nightmare scenario: losing to Jacksonville (1:05 p.m.) and falling to the number six seed, with the Colts-Titans winner advancing to first place in AFC South. The 11-4 Chargers are locked at five, unless Oakland beats KC and LA wins at Denver (4:25 p.m.)
• For NFC seeding: New Orleans (13-2) has clinched the top seed … The 12-3 Rams must beat the Niners (4:25 p.m.) to clinch the other first-round bye and will be heavily favored to do so … The 11-4 Bears are likely locked into the three seed; they can only move up with a win over Minnesota and loss by the Rams to San Francisco … Dallas (9-6) is locked in at the four seed, with a Seattle-at-Dallas rematch likely in wild-card weekend. Very attractive TV matchup there.
So … my very imprecise crystal ball shows:
The AFC
1. Kansas City
2. New England
3. Houston
4. Baltimore
5. Chargers
6. Indianapolis
The NFC
1. New Orleans
2. Rams
3. Chicago
4. Dallas
5. Seattle
6. Minnesota
Under that scenario, all four wild-card games would be rematches of 2018 regular-season games, with three played at the same site, and all four games played in Eastern or Central time.
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• The officiating is a major concern. Some of the calls in Pittsburgh-New Orleans were just ghost calls. The early Joe Haden pass interference, a big call in a one-score game, was a phantom call, as so many are. So I was sitting here in a San Francisco hotel writing early this morning when a prominent NFL club official sent me a text. This source is unemotional, even-tempered and a total, absolute league guy. In part, he wrote:
“Something has to give on the officiating in our league. The random nature of things week to week, the volume of penalties that breaks up the game. I hear Joe Buck and Troy [Aikman] on FOX and Cris [Collinsworth] and Al [Michaels] on Sunday night confused. Everyone is at a loss. There is no consistency.
The game is choppy. It’s obvious that something is broke. Teams, coaches, GMs are at a loss for what will be emphasized week to week. At the same time, officials feel like they have been betrayed by the league and no one has their back. I’ve been around this league for over 25 years. This is as bad as I have seen it.”
There is no question, with four good referees being replaced this year (there are 17 refs in all), that the league doesn’t have the same quality of officiating overall. The NFL will have to decide after the season, with more refs on the verge of retirement, how to handle the turnover so it doesn’t affect the overall quality.
As it is, the league seems afraid to give the newbies and more inexperienced guys the big games. And there’s a total inequity in some calls from crew to crew. There’s an outcry about officiating every year. I don’t know if it’s worse than ever, but it seems like more and more games hinge on precarious calls.
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• Merry Fitzmas. In Arizona on Sunday, on the big screens in the stadium, the Cardinals played this during two straight play breaks against the Rams:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qImwkuXpDlE
“I couldn’t even bear to look, honestly,” Fitzgerald said.
After the second break, with the crowd chanting for Fitzgerald, a play got called that Fitzgerald has been waiting for. He took a backward-lateral pass from quarterback Josh Rosen, then stopped and threw a 32-yard touchdown pass, the first TD pass of his 15-year Cardinals career. More chants. More “LAR-ree, LAR-ree …”
“It a little uncomfortable, to be honest with you,” Fitzgerald said. “I play a team sport. I’m not Michael Phelps or Tiger Woods, who do individual things. So it’s a little uncomfortable being singled out.”
In the midst of a dingy Arizona season, it’s nice that the last good memory fans are likely to have is a Larry Fitzgerald first, at a memorable time.
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Coach of the Week
Bill Belichick, head coach, New England. It wasn’t the best week for Belichick(but gosh darn it I like to kiss some serious Patriot's butt each week whether they deserve it or not), who saw his gamble on Josh Gordon go up in smoke. But Belichick ended it with a win over Buffalo, and he’s now the first coach in history to win 10 division titles in a row.
Belichick doesn’t get a lot of credit, particularly in a year like this one, when the Patriots have sprung leaks all over the place. But they’re 10-5, in position to have a playoff bye again, and the man at the top deserves a hand for the long-term greatness that adds another record here.
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“Ultimately, the state of play in 2018 boils down to a simple metaphor: A coach no longer has to dig deep within himself to create something new or cutting edge, like some reclusive ‘70s singer-songwriter. The best football schemers now are more like electronic house musicians, judged on their ability to creatively sample from what’s already out there.”
—Conor Orr of The MMQB, in the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year issue, in an excellent piece on the rise of creativity in the NFL.
As Orr writes, it was impossible until the last couple of years for coaches to sift through tens of thousands of plays to find the kinds of plays that would work against specific defenses or specific players. Pro Football Focus, reports Orr, allows teams to filter plays by more than 200 different factors.
It’s a fascinating age we’re living through. This kind of play-mining is what led the Eagles’ staff to discover the factors and invent the play—the Nick Foles-to-Zach Ertz touchdown pass—that ensured their Super Bowl victory over New England.
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We talk about what a great time it is to be a quarterback or wideout in the NFL, because of the explosion of the passing game. And it is. But the versatile backs that have entered the league in the last four drafts have been huge impact players too.
We’re seeing an explosion of versatile backs, and they’re all kids. Among active players, each of the NFL’s top active running backs in yards from scrimmage since the start of the 2017 season are 25 or younger, and four haven’t turned 24 yet.
Using the marvelous tools of Pro Football Reference,ranking the yards-per-scrimmage leaders among backs over the past two seasons in order, ranked by average yards per touch (age in parentheses):
One more note about the list I find significant: Gurley, McCaffrey, Gordon and Elliott were drafted in the first half of their first round of their drafts (10th, 8th, 15th and 4th overall, respectively). The top guy on the list, Kamara, was a third-round pick, 67th overall, by the smart-shopping Saints, by GM Mickey Loomis, coach Asshole Face and personnel czar Jeff Ireland.
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View: https://twitter.com/MichaelDavSmith/status/1076987123293663232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1076987123293663232&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fprofootballtalk.nbcsports.com%2F2018%2F12%2F24%2Fnfl-playoff-scenarios-predictions-matt-millen-heart-fmia-peter-king%2F
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I think Aaron Donald clinched the Defensive Player of the Year award Sunday with a three-sack day in Arizona. He’s got 19.5, and should win the sack title with room to spare. On Sunday, he set the record for most sacks in a season by a defensive tackle. Now, against the Niners and inexperienced quarterback Nick Mullens in the regular-season finale, Donald will need 3.5 sacks to break Michael Strahan’s record of 22.5.
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I fault the Patriots for not signing Brandin Cooks in the offseason, and I fault them for not getting a receiving weapon for Tom Brady when Cooks was traded to the Rams in the spring.
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https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.c...redictions-matt-millen-heart-fmia-peter-king/
By Peter King
• For the final two NFC seeds: Arizona at Seattle, Philadelphia at Washington, Chicago at Minnesota, 4:25 p.m. Seattle clinched a playoff spot Sunday night, and now has to beat the worst team in football, the Cardinals, at home, to clinch the fifth seed. The Vikings (8-6-1) and Eagles (8-7) will battle for one spot. If Minnesota beats the Bears, the Vikings make the playoffs; if they lose and Philadelphia beats Washington, the Eagles are in.
Will the Bears play all-out to win, with only a whisper of a chance to pass the Rams for the second seed? Good question. “We need some help,” Zach Ertz told me after the dramatic Philly win over Houston, “but we’ve had the kind of year where you just don’t know anything.”
The Eagles have had the strangest of seasons; they’ve gone 4-1 since being embarrassed 48-7 by the Saints last month.
• For AFC seeding: The Chiefs host Oakland (4:25 p.m. ET), and if the Chiefs beat the 3-11 Raiders, they win first seed and will play at home throughout the playoffs … The Patriots host the Jets (1:05 p.m.), and if the Pats beat New York, they win second seed in the playoffs … Houston has a nightmare scenario: losing to Jacksonville (1:05 p.m.) and falling to the number six seed, with the Colts-Titans winner advancing to first place in AFC South. The 11-4 Chargers are locked at five, unless Oakland beats KC and LA wins at Denver (4:25 p.m.)
• For NFC seeding: New Orleans (13-2) has clinched the top seed … The 12-3 Rams must beat the Niners (4:25 p.m.) to clinch the other first-round bye and will be heavily favored to do so … The 11-4 Bears are likely locked into the three seed; they can only move up with a win over Minnesota and loss by the Rams to San Francisco … Dallas (9-6) is locked in at the four seed, with a Seattle-at-Dallas rematch likely in wild-card weekend. Very attractive TV matchup there.
So … my very imprecise crystal ball shows:
The AFC
1. Kansas City
2. New England
3. Houston
4. Baltimore
5. Chargers
6. Indianapolis
The NFC
1. New Orleans
2. Rams
3. Chicago
4. Dallas
5. Seattle
6. Minnesota
Under that scenario, all four wild-card games would be rematches of 2018 regular-season games, with three played at the same site, and all four games played in Eastern or Central time.
---------------
• The officiating is a major concern. Some of the calls in Pittsburgh-New Orleans were just ghost calls. The early Joe Haden pass interference, a big call in a one-score game, was a phantom call, as so many are. So I was sitting here in a San Francisco hotel writing early this morning when a prominent NFL club official sent me a text. This source is unemotional, even-tempered and a total, absolute league guy. In part, he wrote:
“Something has to give on the officiating in our league. The random nature of things week to week, the volume of penalties that breaks up the game. I hear Joe Buck and Troy [Aikman] on FOX and Cris [Collinsworth] and Al [Michaels] on Sunday night confused. Everyone is at a loss. There is no consistency.
The game is choppy. It’s obvious that something is broke. Teams, coaches, GMs are at a loss for what will be emphasized week to week. At the same time, officials feel like they have been betrayed by the league and no one has their back. I’ve been around this league for over 25 years. This is as bad as I have seen it.”
There is no question, with four good referees being replaced this year (there are 17 refs in all), that the league doesn’t have the same quality of officiating overall. The NFL will have to decide after the season, with more refs on the verge of retirement, how to handle the turnover so it doesn’t affect the overall quality.
As it is, the league seems afraid to give the newbies and more inexperienced guys the big games. And there’s a total inequity in some calls from crew to crew. There’s an outcry about officiating every year. I don’t know if it’s worse than ever, but it seems like more and more games hinge on precarious calls.
----------------------
• Merry Fitzmas. In Arizona on Sunday, on the big screens in the stadium, the Cardinals played this during two straight play breaks against the Rams:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qImwkuXpDlE
“I couldn’t even bear to look, honestly,” Fitzgerald said.
After the second break, with the crowd chanting for Fitzgerald, a play got called that Fitzgerald has been waiting for. He took a backward-lateral pass from quarterback Josh Rosen, then stopped and threw a 32-yard touchdown pass, the first TD pass of his 15-year Cardinals career. More chants. More “LAR-ree, LAR-ree …”
“It a little uncomfortable, to be honest with you,” Fitzgerald said. “I play a team sport. I’m not Michael Phelps or Tiger Woods, who do individual things. So it’s a little uncomfortable being singled out.”
In the midst of a dingy Arizona season, it’s nice that the last good memory fans are likely to have is a Larry Fitzgerald first, at a memorable time.
-----------------
Coach of the Week
Bill Belichick, head coach, New England. It wasn’t the best week for Belichick(but gosh darn it I like to kiss some serious Patriot's butt each week whether they deserve it or not), who saw his gamble on Josh Gordon go up in smoke. But Belichick ended it with a win over Buffalo, and he’s now the first coach in history to win 10 division titles in a row.
Belichick doesn’t get a lot of credit, particularly in a year like this one, when the Patriots have sprung leaks all over the place. But they’re 10-5, in position to have a playoff bye again, and the man at the top deserves a hand for the long-term greatness that adds another record here.
----------------
“Ultimately, the state of play in 2018 boils down to a simple metaphor: A coach no longer has to dig deep within himself to create something new or cutting edge, like some reclusive ‘70s singer-songwriter. The best football schemers now are more like electronic house musicians, judged on their ability to creatively sample from what’s already out there.”
—Conor Orr of The MMQB, in the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year issue, in an excellent piece on the rise of creativity in the NFL.
As Orr writes, it was impossible until the last couple of years for coaches to sift through tens of thousands of plays to find the kinds of plays that would work against specific defenses or specific players. Pro Football Focus, reports Orr, allows teams to filter plays by more than 200 different factors.
It’s a fascinating age we’re living through. This kind of play-mining is what led the Eagles’ staff to discover the factors and invent the play—the Nick Foles-to-Zach Ertz touchdown pass—that ensured their Super Bowl victory over New England.
------------------
We talk about what a great time it is to be a quarterback or wideout in the NFL, because of the explosion of the passing game. And it is. But the versatile backs that have entered the league in the last four drafts have been huge impact players too.
We’re seeing an explosion of versatile backs, and they’re all kids. Among active players, each of the NFL’s top active running backs in yards from scrimmage since the start of the 2017 season are 25 or younger, and four haven’t turned 24 yet.
Using the marvelous tools of Pro Football Reference,ranking the yards-per-scrimmage leaders among backs over the past two seasons in order, ranked by average yards per touch (age in parentheses):
- Alvin Kamara, Saints (23): 6.61 yards per touch, 3,041 yards
- Todd Gurley, Rams (24): 5.96 yards per touch, 3,924 yards
- Christian McCaffrey, Panthers (22): 5.81 yards per touch, 3,011 yards
- Melvin Gordon, Chargers (25): 5.22 yards per touch, 2,890 yards
- Ezekiel Elliott, Cowboys (23): 5.01 yards per touch, 3,253 yards
One more note about the list I find significant: Gurley, McCaffrey, Gordon and Elliott were drafted in the first half of their first round of their drafts (10th, 8th, 15th and 4th overall, respectively). The top guy on the list, Kamara, was a third-round pick, 67th overall, by the smart-shopping Saints, by GM Mickey Loomis, coach Asshole Face and personnel czar Jeff Ireland.
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View: https://twitter.com/MichaelDavSmith/status/1076987123293663232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1076987123293663232&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fprofootballtalk.nbcsports.com%2F2018%2F12%2F24%2Fnfl-playoff-scenarios-predictions-matt-millen-heart-fmia-peter-king%2F
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I think Aaron Donald clinched the Defensive Player of the Year award Sunday with a three-sack day in Arizona. He’s got 19.5, and should win the sack title with room to spare. On Sunday, he set the record for most sacks in a season by a defensive tackle. Now, against the Niners and inexperienced quarterback Nick Mullens in the regular-season finale, Donald will need 3.5 sacks to break Michael Strahan’s record of 22.5.
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I fault the Patriots for not signing Brandin Cooks in the offseason, and I fault them for not getting a receiving weapon for Tom Brady when Cooks was traded to the Rams in the spring.
