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https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/01/15/v...ggs-walkoff-touchdown-nfl-playoffs-peter-king
Diggs, Dings and Dumbfounded Vikings On How They Stunned Saints
By Peter King
GETTY IMAGES
MINNEAPOLIS—Ding! … Ding!
Forty minutes after he ran (levitated?) off the field Sunday, Case Keenum picked up his iPhone in the Vikings’ locker room at U.S. Bank Stadium, looked at the screen … Ding! … and just shook his head. Keenum repeated a line he could not stop saying. He said to no one, “I can’t believe it.” That ding sound, the annoying sound when a text message lands in an iPhone, just wouldn’t stop, and Keenum, bemused, tossed the phone onto the wooden seat of his locker.
“Can’t believe it,” Keenum said. “A hundred and 73 texts.”
He rose to pose for pictures with Stefon Diggs, his partner in the most stunning moment in Vikings history. Their grins were goofy. “Dude, I can’t believe this!” Keenum said. There are times when people are so happy they appear to be almost in a daze, and that was Keenum, right here, right now, turning back to his locker.
Ding!
“I’m not mad about it,” Keenum said. “It’s a good problem to have.”
Keenum just sat and thought for a few moments, and looked at me.
“How are you gonna write THIS?” he said.
Ding!
HANNAH FOSLIEN/GETTY IMAGES
There are football games, and there are mini-series, and there are Spielberg epics. Minnesota 29, New Orleans 24 falls somewhere north of football game on this spectrum. Well north.
Plenty of good material from the Vikings taking a 17-0 halftime lead, and the Saints clawing back to go up 21-20 with three minutes left, and the Vikings going up 23-21 with 89 seconds left, and the Saints going up 24-23 with 25 seconds left. But we’ll fast-forward through that, to third-and-10, 10 seconds to go, with Keenum gathering his team for one last gasp at the Minnesota 39.
In his helmet, Keenum heard the call from offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur.
“Buffalo right, 7 Heaven,” Shurmur said.
And …
“Case!” Shurmur said. “Make sure you get the ball launched!”
One-by-three formation, all sideline routes. “Buffalo right” is three receivers overloaded to the right (“B” signifies “bunch formation,” thus “Buffalo,” so the players get the “B” for bunch), close together to confuse coverage. The “7” signified the 7 Route, or corner route—where the receivers runs down the sideline and cuts out to the boundary and looks for the ball.
To the left, Adam Thielen, running a 20-yard sideline-hugging route. To the right, tight end Kyle Rudolph running a six-yard out; wideout Jarius Wright running about a 20-yard out, and Stefon Diggs running about five yards deeper, also right on the sideline. The instructions were clear: Catch the ball, get out of bounds with a second or two left so kicker Kai Forbath would have prayer at a long field goal.
The huddle broke. Keenum looked at his three wideouts.
“Guys!” he said, and they looked at him quickly. “I’m gonna give somebody a chance here!”
Shurmur doesn’t know how many times he’s called the play this year. “But we’ve practiced it probably every week,” he said.
It’s a low-percentage deal. Most defenses, one Viking said, usually play this play near the end of a half designed to tackle the receiver in-bounds, so the clock can die before the opponent can attempt a field goal. On this play, as it developed, you saw the defenders on the right tight to the wide right stripe.
If the Vikings caught the pass, New Orleans was going to do its darndest for the tackle to be in-bounds, so the clock would run out and the Saints would be the team going to Philadelphia for the NFC Championship Game after a 24-23 win. But hold on.
At the snap, four receivers bolted from the line; the back stayed to help block. Thielen got blanketed by Marshon Lattimore to the left; nothing to see there. Rudolph just an emergency place-holder to the right. All along, Keenum thought he’d throw it deep and to the right, because Diggs was going to be the deepest, and if he caught it, ideally, Forbath would be left with a 52-yarder.
“The play there is to just flood the sideline,” said Shurmur.
And hope.
With seven seconds left, facing pressure up the middle from Saints defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins, Keenum let it fly. In a way, he was lucky that Rankins pressured him.
Make sure you get the ball launched!
“I remember seeing a flash of Stefon breaking towards the sideline,” Keenum told me, “and I threw it right at the back of his head, trying to put it high on the back of his head, and he jumped up and I thought, ‘Oh wow, he has a chance at this.’ I could see his gloves up in the air. I can still see the image of his gloves going up for it. He catches it, and I'm like, ‘Oh man, he caught it!’”
:05. Diggs catch at the Saints 34-yard line.
“Get out of bounds!” Keenum yelled.
“Get out of bounds!” coach Mike Zimmer, just yards away, yelled.
Get out of bounds! Shurmur thought.
:04. Safety Marcus Williams of the Saints came in for the low kill shot on Diggs.
Williams whiffed.
HANNAH FOSLIEN/GETTY IMAGES
If Williams connected with Diggs’ legs and clipped him over, Diggs would have stayed in the field of play. Game over.
“And then I see the safety fly by him!” Keenum told me.
Ding!
:04. Williams and cornerback Ken Crawley banged into each other. They fell like bowling pins.
“That was God,” Adam Thielen said. “That play right there was God.”
“I’m just waiting for someone to hit me,” Diggs said. “That’s why—did you see me?—I almost fell. I turned around to run, and I almost fell.”
“I see him put his hand down, and he didn’t go down,” Keenum said. “I’m like, ‘Oh wait. He didn’t go down!’ There’s nobody in front of him!“
View: https://twitter.com/ScottKegley/status/952738439413121024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.si.com%2Fnfl%2F2018%2F01%2F15%2Fvikings-saints-case-keenum-stefon-diggs-walkoff-touchdown-nfl-playoffs-peter-king
Five inches from the wide white boundary stripe, Diggs pivoted and headed upfield.
:03. At the 21-yard line, Diggs looked over his shoulder.
Nobody. :02, :01 …
:00. Diggs passed the goal line as the clock struck double zero.
Keenum: “He scored … wait, he just scored? What happened? … What is going on? Is this real life?”
“I was at a loss for words,” Diggs said. “Speechless. Biggest moment of my life. My whole life.”
HANNAH FOSLIEN/GETTY IMAGES
Keenum started running down the field, looking almost exactly like Jim Valvano looking for someone to hug in Albuquerque. Finally, he found someone—left guard Mike Remmers.
“OH MY GOD!” were the only words that came out of Keenum, and he jumped into Remmers’ arms.
STEPHEN MATUREN/GETTY IMAGES
This was a special place to be Sunday, obviously. The Vikings have been to Super Bowls before, four of them in their 57 NFL seasons. They lost all four—Super Bowls IV, VIII, IX and XI, and none was particularly pretty. Every loss was by double-digits. They have not been to a Super Bowl in 41 years, and now stand one win away from not only being in their fifth Super Bowl, but also being the first team in the 52-year history of the Super Bowl to play the game on its home field. Super Bowl LII will be Feb. 4, right here.
Beating a fledgling America’s Team, Dallas, for the NFC title in 1973 might qualify as the biggest win in franchise history. I won’t argue that this win is better. This win, simply, was one of the most shocking endings in NFL history: a walk-off 61-yard touchdown in the playoffs, from a undrafted quarterback cut loose by the Texans and Rams twice each, to a receiver picked 146th overall in 2014, coached by a man who was a head-coaching bridesmaid for years before getting the Vikings job in 2014. Against, of course, a walk-in Hall of Fame quarterback playing at his peak.
It was such a energizing, shocking win. The game ended at 7:15 p.m. Central Time. At 10:36 p.m. CT, in the restaurant at the Radisson Red Hotel a couple of blocks from the stadium, some guy with a Randy Moss Vikings jersey stood up and yelled, “CAN I GET A SKOL?!!!!!’’
(“Skol” is a Danish/Norwegian/Swedish word for “cheers,” according to Wikipedia. The Vikings have been using it as part of their fight song since their founding in 1961.)
“Skol!,” one guy yelled back. Soon, the entire restaurant, as one, was chanting: “SKOL! SKOL! SKOL! SKOL!”
“Dilly Dilly! We’re goin’ to Philly!” another guy yelled next.
Good thing today’s a national holiday. Doubt much work will get done in the Twin Cities. Pretty big hangover day, from the looks of the Radisson Red last night.
But the joy was cool to see. I asked Mike Zimmer what it was about football that caused so many coaches and so many teams to latch onto the no-respect angle, or the thought that no one gave them a chance. It seems so natural with this team. “I think it's even not so much football,” he said. “I think it's sports. All sports. They see all your deficiencies and the guys that end up making it are the guys that keep their nose to the grindstone and keep fighting, keep trying to figure out a way.
That's a little bit like our team. No one thought we were going to be any good. I know you guys didn't pick us very good going into the year. But we have a bunch of fighters in that locker room, guys that will compete. I said to Harrison Smith yesterday in practice, ‘Are you afraid of these guys?’ He said, ‘I am afraid of everybody. That's why I play good.’ That's how our team is.”
PETER KING/THE MMQB
As the euphoria was winding down in the Minnesota locker room, Adam Thielen walked out past the scene at the Diggs locker. For the longest time, maybe an hour, Diggs didn’t remove a stitch of clothing. “I don’t want to take this uniform off,” he said at one point to Vikings alum Sage Rosenfels. Now, about 75 minutes after the game, Diggs had family gathered around, enjoying the moment.
His godfather held the ball like it was a newborn. Thielen—small-college Minnesota guy, never lived outside the state in his life, never given a chance by any team but the Vikings—walked by, and they shared a moment, and then Thielen said, “Be ready tomorrow. We gotta work. Big week.”
“We got guys, taken late or free agents,” Diggs said after a while. “We got so much to prove. Adam Thielen? Come on now. Guy’s got so much much to prove every day, every play. We got a group of those guys with things to prove daily. We’re all the same. With us, every play matters. I believe that’s why we can make plays like we made today.”
Ding!
From a couple of lockers down. Keenum was doing his press conference now, but his phone kept chirping. Alone. Everybody wanted a piece of Keenum, and boy, was that different from his days at the end of an NFL roster. What did the future hold? No one knows. “He’s got a Heisman Trophy winner backing him up now,” Shurmur said, speaking of Sam Bradford.
“Early in the year, when he stepped in for Sam, he didn’t know how long it’d last, and he told me, ‘Listen, I’m getting a chance to drive a really beautiful fast car. I’m gonna drive it as far and as long as I can.’ And he’s never approached it with anxiety, or looking at anything except what’s important that day.”
I’d bet the Vikings try to re-sign Keenum, a free agent, after the season, but there could be bigger offers in Denver (John Elway is an admirer), Arizona, Cleveland or who knows where else. Now’s not the time for that. The NFC Championship Game awaits, Sunday in Philadelphia. Case Keenum is one win away from the Super Bowl, folks.
Back at Keenum’s locker, post-press conference, I wondered if he was still driven by that chip, by the people who still think he’ll implode. Sunday’s start wasn’t wonderful, and wasn’t nearly his best in a 12-3 season as starter. But he made the biggest throw of the day—of the season, really—when it had to be made. And he put it right on the spot.
“I mean, I've done so much work at trying to block those people out,” said Keenum. “I kind of have a little space in my mind that I just throw all that stuff in and maybe one day when I am not thinking about waking up to go work out or one last wind sprint, I’ll think about it. But it's not my biggest motivation now.”
Before he left the locker room with family up from Texas, he checked his texts again. “Now it’s 205,” he said, and he shook his head.
Get used to it. That happens to hero quarterbacks who just made the biggest throw of their lives.
* * *
IN OTHER NEWS …
ROB CARR/GETTY IMAGES
Think of what we saw this weekend.
• We saw Tom Brady
joined in the NFL’s Final Four by Blake Bortles, Case Keenum and Nick Foles. Don’t overrate this and think it means the decline in importance of the Franchise Quarterback. It doesn’t. Just think of championship weekend as an outlier. All four defenses can win games.
• One game (Pats 35, Titans 14) was drama-less. One game (Vikes 29, Saints 24) was won on the last play of the game. One game (Eagles 15, Falcons 10) was decided when Atlanta couldn’t complete a touchdown pass on any of four shots inside the Philadelphia 10 with less than two minutes left. One game (Jags 45, Steelers 42) was precisely the opposite of what any sane person thought, with 87 points and 923 offensive yards.
• Good for Ben Roethlisberger saying he’ll be back in 2018, and of course he should. He diced up Jacksonville after early struggles for 469 yards, five touchdowns and 42 points.
• Good, too, for Drew Brees. Folks, let me tell you about a home-field advantage. This crowd in Minneapolis on Sunday was just brutal for the visitors. I doubt Brees was able to be heard once on 44 pass drops—you could tell how tough it was to hear because Brees had to consistently lightly slap center Max Unger’s rear end to indicate the start of the snap count.
The Saints struggled throughout the first half, but Brees was 17 of 22 with three touchdowns and no picks in the second half. The man turns 39 today, and he said after the game in Minnesota that he fully intends to play for the Saints in 2018. (He can opt to sign elsewhere if he chooses.) Brees should stay. He and Asshole Face added some maturity and growth to their 12-year relationship this year, and I still think they can make beautiful jazz together with the Saints next year.
• New Orleans safety Marcus Williams made a stupid—and tremendously costly—play when he went low to try to upend Stefon Diggs on the walkoff Diggs touchdown. He could have simply tackled him either in or out of bounds. But the second-rounder rookie from Utah had a starry rookie year, finishing 12th on the Pro Football Focussafety grades, ahead of Micah Hyde, Malcolm Jenkins and Eric Weddle. There will be better days ahead, lots of them.
• Kudos to Adam Schefter for buttoning up one more coaching vacancy—Pats defensive coordinator Matt Patricia to the Lions—while three others are in flux. The Giants, Colts and Cards still are in play. Our Albert Breer reports that it’s down to Pats offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels or Houston defensive coordinator Mike Vrabel in Indianapolis. The Cards have a ways to go, it sounds like, and the Giants are cloaked in a Pat Shurmur/McDaniels/unknown trio.
• The Jaguars are one impressive team. How about forcing six Roethlisberger picks and scoring 75 points on the Steelers this season? Jacksonville is a physically tough team, not to be intimidated, and that surely comes from Tom Coughlin and Doug Marrone. I remember in training camp listening to Coughlin opine that he wasn’t sure about a lot of things with such a young team, but he did know they’d be good running the ball.
And Leonard Fournette has backed him up. In his two games against the formidable (or so we thought) Steelers D, Fournette had 51 carries for 290 yards and five touchdowns. I don’t know how they’ll game plan against New England, but my guess is they’ll go all out to blitz and bother and hit Tom Brady. Wouldn't you? Tennessee didn’t sack Brady, and hit him only five times, per Pro Football Focus.
• I love the Eagles’ game plan in the 15-10 win over Atlanta. To me, this was the best coaching job of the weekend. Philadelphia offensive coordinator Frank Reich and coach Doug Pederson combined to make a very smart and industrious offensive plan work well enough to win—while not crushing the confidence of shaky quarterback Nick Foles. Here’s the way I view Philly now: The Eagles don’t have one offensive weapon who can beat you. But they have five or six who can be dangerous. On Saturday, the Eagles incorporated a lot of interesting stuff with Nelson Agholor.
He is the Eagles’ version of Tyreek Hill. On Saturday they motioned Agholor from behind right tackle on a left end sweep. They motioned him from the left side in front of Foles, who flipped him one of those newfangled passes teams have incorporated to try to copycat the Chiefs and Hill. Both plays worked—for 21 and 10 yards, respectively. I like how Reich incorporated and Pederson called plays to make the absence of Carson Wentz less of a crisis.
* * *
THE AWARD SECTION
OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Leonard Fournette, running back, Jacksonville. Two touchdowns in the first 10 minutes of a game in which the Jags were significant underdogs, and the scores came in the sort of diverse ways Jacksonville has come to expect from its rookie franchise back. On fourth and goal from five feet away, Fournette leaped and dove for the end zone, and broke the plane.
Minutes later, from the Steelers 19, after a Ben Roethlisberger interception, Fournette sprinted around right end and muscled his way inside the pylon at the goal line. Fournette ran the Jags to a 14-0 lead. Did you hear the Steelers crowd right about then? Neither did I. By the time Jacksonvile made it 21-zip early in the second quarter, Fournette had 80 rushing yards. Fournette finished with 25 carries for 109 yards and three touchdowns.
Tom Brady, quarterback, New England. His 35-of-53, 337-yard, three-TD, no-pick game in the 35-14 rout of Tennessee on Saturday night was a clarion call to those (maybe even in his own organization) who wondered whether Brady’s just-average performance in December was a harbinger of things to come. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels put the Titans game on Brady’s 40-year-old shoulders, and Brady did not disappoint.
The one play you don’t see many 40-year-olds make (never mind 30- or 33-year-olds) was his crazy jump pass across his body to the left and against the grain to Danny Amendola. Where’d that come from? Interesting to note: This was Brady’s 35thplayoff start, and only the third time that he played a postseason game reaching these mile markers: at least 65 percent accuracy, at least 325 yards passing, at least a 102 rating, at least a plus-three touchdown-to-interception differential with no interceptions.
Nick Foles, quarterback, Philadelphia. “You guys doubted him,” said wideout Alshon Jeffrey. “We never doubted him.” That’s right—we did doubt him. In a very big way. And we should have have. Foles was a 47-percent passer, with a 48.2 rating, over his previous two games, and he looked shaky, with flagging confidence. But using an excellent offensive game plan against a pressure defense, Foles was 23 of 30 (76.7 percent accuracy) for 246 yards, no touchdowns but no turnovers either … and a 100.1 rating.
No one would watch this game and say Foles played great. But he played the right way, and he played efficiently. With the exception of one missed throw on a potential big play to tight end Trey Burton, he didn’t err in the biggest spot of his career—quarterbacking a top seed to within one game of the Super Bowl.
Stefon Diggs, wide receiver, Minnesota. For so many of the reasons listed above—making the catch of his life, and not being content to settle for a field-goal try. The 61-yard walk-off touchdown will live forever in Vikings lore—perhaps not in the Immaculate Reception way for Franco Harris and the Steelers, but if this team gets to the Super Bowl, what a milepost that play will be. Diggs (who finished with six catches for 137 yards) was already having a fine day before the catch.
DEFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Myles Jack, linebacker, Jacksonville. The Jags drafted Jack high in 2016 because they thought the smallish, fast ’backer from UCLA was part of a new breed of linebackers—sideline to sideline playmakers. Midway through the first quarter at Pittsburgh, Jack showed what a wise choice it was. Running stride for stride in coverage against Pittsburgh tight end Vance McDonald, Jack broke ahead of his man and fingertip-picked Ben Roethlisberger at the sideline. A beautiful and tone-setting play.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Thomas Morstead, punter, New Orleans. Morstead is one of the best punters in football and has been since 2010, never averaging less than 45 yards per punt in the past eight years. But it was his tackling that prevented a 74-yard Marcus Sherels punt return for touchdown in the first quarter for the Vikings. Sherels returned it 19 yards to the Viking 45, and that where Morstead, the 6'4" nine-year vet, corralled Sherels and smashed him to the ground. The Vikings still scored the game’s first touchdown on the drive, but that’s not Morstead’s fault. He did his job well. Morstead broke two ribs on the play—and kept punting.
Jake Elliott, kicker, Philadelphia. Scored the last nine points of an It’s-Anybody’s-Game game, making up for doinking an early PAT off the left upright. His 53-yard field goal brought the Eagles to within 10-9 at halftime. His 37-yard field goal in the third quarter gave the Eagles a 12-10 lead. His 21-yard field goal in the fourth quarter gave the Eagles some insurance and a 15-10 lead.
COACH OF THE WEEK
Frank Reich, offensive coordinator, Philadelphia. Love the Eagles’ game plan, which is captained and put together each game by Reich, with veto power from Doug Pederson—and then Pederson calls the game. Reich obviously put his time in during the off-week, and by the way things played out, the run-pass balance was just what it should have been: 51 percent runs (32 runs, 31 called pass plays), and nothing too daring with shaky quarterback Nick Foles. As I detailed higher in the column, the diversity and unpredictability with that Nelson Agholor jet-sweep was a smart way to get Eagle speed on the edge.
Doug Marrone, head coach, Jacksonville. This is easy. The Jags on Sunday surpassed the win total of the past three Jacksonville seasons combined. You can look it up: 11-37 the previous three years before Marrone arrived, 12-6 this year. It’s part Tom Coughlin, part Doug Marrone, but you’ve got to give Marrone his due here. His appointment last January to succeed Gus Bradley was widely derided as uninspired, but it turns out Marrone’s toughness and consistency with his team were just what the Jaguars needed.
GOAT OF THE WEEK
Marcus Williams, cornerback, New Orleans. We don’t need to rehash what went wrong on the final play, but I would like to point out how Williams did not duck the spotlight after the game. Through bloodshot eyes, the Saints rookie safety answered the questions and vowed to learn from the experience. “You can't let it beat you down,” Williams told the media. “I'm gonna take it upon myself to do all that I can to never let that happen again. And, I mean, if it happens again, then I shouldn't be playing. But I'm gonna take it upon myself to do all that I can to make sure nothing like this happens again to me."
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THINGS I THINK I THINK
1. I think these are my quick thoughts on divisional weekend:
a. How strange it was to watch Saints and Vikings, realizing that Adrian Peterson was on both teams within the past 13 months, and seeing how invisible he’s become in both places.
b. The Minnesota defensive front gets a lot of credit, and it should. But that back seven is a force of nature. Harrison Smith is everywhere, at all times.
c. One of the cool things smart offensive play-callers have taken to a new level this year—and Pat Shurmur does it exceedingly well—is very naturally make receivers pick defenders. The picks are legal because they look like accidents. But they’re not.
d. Adam Thielen versus Marshon Lattimore is the kind of wideout-corner matchup that I wish would happen twice a year for the next eight years. Too bad they’re in different divisions.
e. Jacksonville put up 75 points in eight quarters at Heinz Field this year. That’s not something I would have thought humanly possible.
f. Either the Steelers were just plain logy, or not ready to play. I don’t know. But those first 20 minutes were pretty pathetic.
g. And boy, do they miss the play-making of Ryan Shazier.
h. Whoa. Marcel Dareus manhandled the guy many consider the best guard in football, David DeCastro, on his way to a second-quarter sack of Ben Roethlisberger.
i. Great play to pick up a fumble and sprint for a touchdown to make it 28-7, Telvin Smith. Stupid play by Smith to get a taunting call and give the Steelers a shorter field and help them narrow it to 28-14 at the half.
j. Who’d have thought that the best play by a Jaguars secondary player in Pittsburgh would be a run stuff? Cornerback Jalen Ramsey made the perfect run stop on fourth-and-a-half-yard at the Steeler 20, knifing through the Pittsburgh line to envelop Le’Veon Bell for a four-yard loss late in the first quarter. It’s not like that was Pittsburgh’s last chance to win the game, but I’d call it the Steelers’ last best chance.
k. Great CBS graphic 10 minutes into Steelers-Jaguars: rushing touchdowns at Heinz Field this year: Leonard Fournette four, Le’Veon Bell three.
l. Ronald Darby has made the Philadelphia secondary formidable.
m. Howie Roseman trading for Ronald Darby has helped make the Philadelphia secondary formidable.
n. Jon Robinson (Titans GM) drafting Corey Davis with the fifth pick—widely derided—last year looked like a heck of a move Saturday night.
o. How did Corey Davis’ first touchdown of the season come in Week 19, and his 13th pro game?
p. Good for CBS’s Tony Romo calling out Marcus Mariota and the coaching staff in the fourth quarter of a lost cause, saying he needs to be better and the Titans’ play-calling needs to be more aggressive.
q. True point from Philadelphia safety Rodney McLeod, on the final play of the Falcons’ season, a fourth-down call from the Eagles 2-yard line, down 15-10, a play that had Matt Ryan roll out and throw incomplete. McLeod: “It is surprising. I was like, ‘There’s no way they’re going to run this play.’ And as soon as I saw the tight end come over, I shouted it out. Yeah, I wouldn’t expect them to cut off half the field like that."
r. Observation of the Weekend: No cornerback ever believes he’s committed pass interference.
2. I think it’s okay to question the Steelers’ preparedness and play against the Jaguars. But I can’t see a team winning 45 games over the past four years even remotely entertaining the thought of firing Mike Tomlin. The Steelers do not panic. That would be a panic move.
3. I think I’d like to hear, given a shot of sodium pentothal, if Tennessee GM Jon Robinson wants to keep Mike Mularkey for Marcus Mariota’s fourth NFL season.
4. I think I wonder if all those teams that passed on Doug Marrone as a head for two years when he divorced the Bills after the 2014 season—Cleveland, Denver, Miami, the New York Jets, the New York Giants, Oakland, Tennessee, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco—were watching when the Jaguars drove the length of the field on the first series of Sunday’s playoff game against the Steelers at Heinz Field, had the chutzpah to go for it on fourth down just inside the Steeler two-yard line, and scored on a Leonard Fournette touchdown dive. And if they were watching, what were they thinking?
5. I think I wonder why Jacksonville defensive coordinator Todd Wash has gotten zero national buzz on the head-coach-search market.
6. I think I thought of this when watching 80-year-old Dick LeBeau coach Tennessee’s defense against the Patriots on Saturday night: I wonder if that was LeBeau’s last game? I hope not, but just realize that this was LeBeau’s 59th season as an NFL player or coach. Bill Belichick was a 7-year-old second-grader in Annapolis when LeBeau made his first interception as a cornerback for the Detroit Lions in 1959. I hope LeBeau gets to go out on his own terms, whenever that is.
7. I think I just hate the spot foul for defensive pass interference. Hate it. Some hand-checking by Saints cornerback Ken Crawley on Stefon Diggs of the Vikings results in Diggs falling—and there is no way you watch the play and think some excessive force by Crawley knocked him over—and here comes a flag for defensive pass interference, a marginal call, and it’s a 34-yard markoff.
Ridiculous. There are 200 such hand-fighting incidents, most not called, in every football game, and this one gave the Vikings a gigantic edge toward a touchdown. Make defensive pass interference a 15-yard call, period. Stop tilting the field with these game-changing calls.
8. I think I give up. I have no earthly idea who Blake Bortles is—the shaky, run-only, worrisome quarterback from last week, or the competent leader and thrower from Sunday in Pittsburgh. If I were New England, however, I'd be far more worried about Leonard Fournette.
9. I think one of the ways football is changing is the analytics side of it, which has been discussed endlessly in recent years. But in the past week, I was talking about the subject with one NFL coach, and three times in a 15-minute conversation he brought up how Pro Football Focus, for instance, shortens the time it takes him to quantify some aspects of scouting when he’s helping prepare his team’s game plan.
Then I saw this 296-page monster of a quarterback guide PFF has published on the play of passers in the 2017 season. It’s very football-nerdy, but it’s also valuable in judging how quarterbacks played in the season just passed. With nuggets such as:
• Detroit’s Matthew Stafford had 15 interceptions dropped by defenders this year, most in the NFL.
• Houston’s Deshaun Watson had the highest big-time-throw percentage in the NFL at 7.49 percent of all his attempts. PFFcalls these “passes with excellent ball location and timing, generally thrown farther down the field and into tighter windows.”
• Matt Ryan of the Falcons had the league's best turnover-worthy percentage in the NFL despite 12 interceptions. He had just six turnover-worthy plays in 2017, and was the victim of bad luck to cause double that number of interceptions.
• Though he played a limited schedule, Jimmy Garoppolo of the Niners was every bit as good as you thought at first glance, particularly on difficult down-and-distance plays. The league average for third-and-six-yards-plus for quarterbacks was 26.5 percent positive plays. Garoppolo had the best percentage in the league with 53.3 percent positive grades on third-and-six-plus plays.
I’d recommend it—and I’m not even a third of the way through it yet.
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https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/01/15/v...ggs-walkoff-touchdown-nfl-playoffs-peter-king
Diggs, Dings and Dumbfounded Vikings On How They Stunned Saints
By Peter King
GETTY IMAGES
MINNEAPOLIS—Ding! … Ding!
Forty minutes after he ran (levitated?) off the field Sunday, Case Keenum picked up his iPhone in the Vikings’ locker room at U.S. Bank Stadium, looked at the screen … Ding! … and just shook his head. Keenum repeated a line he could not stop saying. He said to no one, “I can’t believe it.” That ding sound, the annoying sound when a text message lands in an iPhone, just wouldn’t stop, and Keenum, bemused, tossed the phone onto the wooden seat of his locker.
“Can’t believe it,” Keenum said. “A hundred and 73 texts.”
He rose to pose for pictures with Stefon Diggs, his partner in the most stunning moment in Vikings history. Their grins were goofy. “Dude, I can’t believe this!” Keenum said. There are times when people are so happy they appear to be almost in a daze, and that was Keenum, right here, right now, turning back to his locker.
Ding!
“I’m not mad about it,” Keenum said. “It’s a good problem to have.”
Keenum just sat and thought for a few moments, and looked at me.
“How are you gonna write THIS?” he said.
Ding!
HANNAH FOSLIEN/GETTY IMAGES
There are football games, and there are mini-series, and there are Spielberg epics. Minnesota 29, New Orleans 24 falls somewhere north of football game on this spectrum. Well north.
Plenty of good material from the Vikings taking a 17-0 halftime lead, and the Saints clawing back to go up 21-20 with three minutes left, and the Vikings going up 23-21 with 89 seconds left, and the Saints going up 24-23 with 25 seconds left. But we’ll fast-forward through that, to third-and-10, 10 seconds to go, with Keenum gathering his team for one last gasp at the Minnesota 39.
In his helmet, Keenum heard the call from offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur.
“Buffalo right, 7 Heaven,” Shurmur said.
And …
“Case!” Shurmur said. “Make sure you get the ball launched!”
One-by-three formation, all sideline routes. “Buffalo right” is three receivers overloaded to the right (“B” signifies “bunch formation,” thus “Buffalo,” so the players get the “B” for bunch), close together to confuse coverage. The “7” signified the 7 Route, or corner route—where the receivers runs down the sideline and cuts out to the boundary and looks for the ball.
To the left, Adam Thielen, running a 20-yard sideline-hugging route. To the right, tight end Kyle Rudolph running a six-yard out; wideout Jarius Wright running about a 20-yard out, and Stefon Diggs running about five yards deeper, also right on the sideline. The instructions were clear: Catch the ball, get out of bounds with a second or two left so kicker Kai Forbath would have prayer at a long field goal.
The huddle broke. Keenum looked at his three wideouts.
“Guys!” he said, and they looked at him quickly. “I’m gonna give somebody a chance here!”
Shurmur doesn’t know how many times he’s called the play this year. “But we’ve practiced it probably every week,” he said.
It’s a low-percentage deal. Most defenses, one Viking said, usually play this play near the end of a half designed to tackle the receiver in-bounds, so the clock can die before the opponent can attempt a field goal. On this play, as it developed, you saw the defenders on the right tight to the wide right stripe.
If the Vikings caught the pass, New Orleans was going to do its darndest for the tackle to be in-bounds, so the clock would run out and the Saints would be the team going to Philadelphia for the NFC Championship Game after a 24-23 win. But hold on.
At the snap, four receivers bolted from the line; the back stayed to help block. Thielen got blanketed by Marshon Lattimore to the left; nothing to see there. Rudolph just an emergency place-holder to the right. All along, Keenum thought he’d throw it deep and to the right, because Diggs was going to be the deepest, and if he caught it, ideally, Forbath would be left with a 52-yarder.
“The play there is to just flood the sideline,” said Shurmur.
And hope.
With seven seconds left, facing pressure up the middle from Saints defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins, Keenum let it fly. In a way, he was lucky that Rankins pressured him.
Make sure you get the ball launched!
“I remember seeing a flash of Stefon breaking towards the sideline,” Keenum told me, “and I threw it right at the back of his head, trying to put it high on the back of his head, and he jumped up and I thought, ‘Oh wow, he has a chance at this.’ I could see his gloves up in the air. I can still see the image of his gloves going up for it. He catches it, and I'm like, ‘Oh man, he caught it!’”
:05. Diggs catch at the Saints 34-yard line.
“Get out of bounds!” Keenum yelled.
“Get out of bounds!” coach Mike Zimmer, just yards away, yelled.
Get out of bounds! Shurmur thought.
:04. Safety Marcus Williams of the Saints came in for the low kill shot on Diggs.
Williams whiffed.
HANNAH FOSLIEN/GETTY IMAGES
If Williams connected with Diggs’ legs and clipped him over, Diggs would have stayed in the field of play. Game over.
“And then I see the safety fly by him!” Keenum told me.
Ding!
:04. Williams and cornerback Ken Crawley banged into each other. They fell like bowling pins.
“That was God,” Adam Thielen said. “That play right there was God.”
“I’m just waiting for someone to hit me,” Diggs said. “That’s why—did you see me?—I almost fell. I turned around to run, and I almost fell.”
“I see him put his hand down, and he didn’t go down,” Keenum said. “I’m like, ‘Oh wait. He didn’t go down!’ There’s nobody in front of him!“
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Five inches from the wide white boundary stripe, Diggs pivoted and headed upfield.
:03. At the 21-yard line, Diggs looked over his shoulder.
Nobody. :02, :01 …
:00. Diggs passed the goal line as the clock struck double zero.
Keenum: “He scored … wait, he just scored? What happened? … What is going on? Is this real life?”
“I was at a loss for words,” Diggs said. “Speechless. Biggest moment of my life. My whole life.”
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Keenum started running down the field, looking almost exactly like Jim Valvano looking for someone to hug in Albuquerque. Finally, he found someone—left guard Mike Remmers.
“OH MY GOD!” were the only words that came out of Keenum, and he jumped into Remmers’ arms.
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This was a special place to be Sunday, obviously. The Vikings have been to Super Bowls before, four of them in their 57 NFL seasons. They lost all four—Super Bowls IV, VIII, IX and XI, and none was particularly pretty. Every loss was by double-digits. They have not been to a Super Bowl in 41 years, and now stand one win away from not only being in their fifth Super Bowl, but also being the first team in the 52-year history of the Super Bowl to play the game on its home field. Super Bowl LII will be Feb. 4, right here.
Beating a fledgling America’s Team, Dallas, for the NFC title in 1973 might qualify as the biggest win in franchise history. I won’t argue that this win is better. This win, simply, was one of the most shocking endings in NFL history: a walk-off 61-yard touchdown in the playoffs, from a undrafted quarterback cut loose by the Texans and Rams twice each, to a receiver picked 146th overall in 2014, coached by a man who was a head-coaching bridesmaid for years before getting the Vikings job in 2014. Against, of course, a walk-in Hall of Fame quarterback playing at his peak.
It was such a energizing, shocking win. The game ended at 7:15 p.m. Central Time. At 10:36 p.m. CT, in the restaurant at the Radisson Red Hotel a couple of blocks from the stadium, some guy with a Randy Moss Vikings jersey stood up and yelled, “CAN I GET A SKOL?!!!!!’’
(“Skol” is a Danish/Norwegian/Swedish word for “cheers,” according to Wikipedia. The Vikings have been using it as part of their fight song since their founding in 1961.)
“Skol!,” one guy yelled back. Soon, the entire restaurant, as one, was chanting: “SKOL! SKOL! SKOL! SKOL!”
“Dilly Dilly! We’re goin’ to Philly!” another guy yelled next.
Good thing today’s a national holiday. Doubt much work will get done in the Twin Cities. Pretty big hangover day, from the looks of the Radisson Red last night.
But the joy was cool to see. I asked Mike Zimmer what it was about football that caused so many coaches and so many teams to latch onto the no-respect angle, or the thought that no one gave them a chance. It seems so natural with this team. “I think it's even not so much football,” he said. “I think it's sports. All sports. They see all your deficiencies and the guys that end up making it are the guys that keep their nose to the grindstone and keep fighting, keep trying to figure out a way.
That's a little bit like our team. No one thought we were going to be any good. I know you guys didn't pick us very good going into the year. But we have a bunch of fighters in that locker room, guys that will compete. I said to Harrison Smith yesterday in practice, ‘Are you afraid of these guys?’ He said, ‘I am afraid of everybody. That's why I play good.’ That's how our team is.”
PETER KING/THE MMQB
As the euphoria was winding down in the Minnesota locker room, Adam Thielen walked out past the scene at the Diggs locker. For the longest time, maybe an hour, Diggs didn’t remove a stitch of clothing. “I don’t want to take this uniform off,” he said at one point to Vikings alum Sage Rosenfels. Now, about 75 minutes after the game, Diggs had family gathered around, enjoying the moment.
His godfather held the ball like it was a newborn. Thielen—small-college Minnesota guy, never lived outside the state in his life, never given a chance by any team but the Vikings—walked by, and they shared a moment, and then Thielen said, “Be ready tomorrow. We gotta work. Big week.”
“We got guys, taken late or free agents,” Diggs said after a while. “We got so much to prove. Adam Thielen? Come on now. Guy’s got so much much to prove every day, every play. We got a group of those guys with things to prove daily. We’re all the same. With us, every play matters. I believe that’s why we can make plays like we made today.”
Ding!
From a couple of lockers down. Keenum was doing his press conference now, but his phone kept chirping. Alone. Everybody wanted a piece of Keenum, and boy, was that different from his days at the end of an NFL roster. What did the future hold? No one knows. “He’s got a Heisman Trophy winner backing him up now,” Shurmur said, speaking of Sam Bradford.
“Early in the year, when he stepped in for Sam, he didn’t know how long it’d last, and he told me, ‘Listen, I’m getting a chance to drive a really beautiful fast car. I’m gonna drive it as far and as long as I can.’ And he’s never approached it with anxiety, or looking at anything except what’s important that day.”
I’d bet the Vikings try to re-sign Keenum, a free agent, after the season, but there could be bigger offers in Denver (John Elway is an admirer), Arizona, Cleveland or who knows where else. Now’s not the time for that. The NFC Championship Game awaits, Sunday in Philadelphia. Case Keenum is one win away from the Super Bowl, folks.
Back at Keenum’s locker, post-press conference, I wondered if he was still driven by that chip, by the people who still think he’ll implode. Sunday’s start wasn’t wonderful, and wasn’t nearly his best in a 12-3 season as starter. But he made the biggest throw of the day—of the season, really—when it had to be made. And he put it right on the spot.
“I mean, I've done so much work at trying to block those people out,” said Keenum. “I kind of have a little space in my mind that I just throw all that stuff in and maybe one day when I am not thinking about waking up to go work out or one last wind sprint, I’ll think about it. But it's not my biggest motivation now.”
Before he left the locker room with family up from Texas, he checked his texts again. “Now it’s 205,” he said, and he shook his head.
Get used to it. That happens to hero quarterbacks who just made the biggest throw of their lives.
* * *
IN OTHER NEWS …
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Think of what we saw this weekend.
• We saw Tom Brady
joined in the NFL’s Final Four by Blake Bortles, Case Keenum and Nick Foles. Don’t overrate this and think it means the decline in importance of the Franchise Quarterback. It doesn’t. Just think of championship weekend as an outlier. All four defenses can win games.• One game (Pats 35, Titans 14) was drama-less. One game (Vikes 29, Saints 24) was won on the last play of the game. One game (Eagles 15, Falcons 10) was decided when Atlanta couldn’t complete a touchdown pass on any of four shots inside the Philadelphia 10 with less than two minutes left. One game (Jags 45, Steelers 42) was precisely the opposite of what any sane person thought, with 87 points and 923 offensive yards.
• Good for Ben Roethlisberger saying he’ll be back in 2018, and of course he should. He diced up Jacksonville after early struggles for 469 yards, five touchdowns and 42 points.
• Good, too, for Drew Brees. Folks, let me tell you about a home-field advantage. This crowd in Minneapolis on Sunday was just brutal for the visitors. I doubt Brees was able to be heard once on 44 pass drops—you could tell how tough it was to hear because Brees had to consistently lightly slap center Max Unger’s rear end to indicate the start of the snap count.
The Saints struggled throughout the first half, but Brees was 17 of 22 with three touchdowns and no picks in the second half. The man turns 39 today, and he said after the game in Minnesota that he fully intends to play for the Saints in 2018. (He can opt to sign elsewhere if he chooses.) Brees should stay. He and Asshole Face added some maturity and growth to their 12-year relationship this year, and I still think they can make beautiful jazz together with the Saints next year.
• New Orleans safety Marcus Williams made a stupid—and tremendously costly—play when he went low to try to upend Stefon Diggs on the walkoff Diggs touchdown. He could have simply tackled him either in or out of bounds. But the second-rounder rookie from Utah had a starry rookie year, finishing 12th on the Pro Football Focussafety grades, ahead of Micah Hyde, Malcolm Jenkins and Eric Weddle. There will be better days ahead, lots of them.
• Kudos to Adam Schefter for buttoning up one more coaching vacancy—Pats defensive coordinator Matt Patricia to the Lions—while three others are in flux. The Giants, Colts and Cards still are in play. Our Albert Breer reports that it’s down to Pats offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels or Houston defensive coordinator Mike Vrabel in Indianapolis. The Cards have a ways to go, it sounds like, and the Giants are cloaked in a Pat Shurmur/McDaniels/unknown trio.
• The Jaguars are one impressive team. How about forcing six Roethlisberger picks and scoring 75 points on the Steelers this season? Jacksonville is a physically tough team, not to be intimidated, and that surely comes from Tom Coughlin and Doug Marrone. I remember in training camp listening to Coughlin opine that he wasn’t sure about a lot of things with such a young team, but he did know they’d be good running the ball.
And Leonard Fournette has backed him up. In his two games against the formidable (or so we thought) Steelers D, Fournette had 51 carries for 290 yards and five touchdowns. I don’t know how they’ll game plan against New England, but my guess is they’ll go all out to blitz and bother and hit Tom Brady. Wouldn't you? Tennessee didn’t sack Brady, and hit him only five times, per Pro Football Focus.
• I love the Eagles’ game plan in the 15-10 win over Atlanta. To me, this was the best coaching job of the weekend. Philadelphia offensive coordinator Frank Reich and coach Doug Pederson combined to make a very smart and industrious offensive plan work well enough to win—while not crushing the confidence of shaky quarterback Nick Foles. Here’s the way I view Philly now: The Eagles don’t have one offensive weapon who can beat you. But they have five or six who can be dangerous. On Saturday, the Eagles incorporated a lot of interesting stuff with Nelson Agholor.
He is the Eagles’ version of Tyreek Hill. On Saturday they motioned Agholor from behind right tackle on a left end sweep. They motioned him from the left side in front of Foles, who flipped him one of those newfangled passes teams have incorporated to try to copycat the Chiefs and Hill. Both plays worked—for 21 and 10 yards, respectively. I like how Reich incorporated and Pederson called plays to make the absence of Carson Wentz less of a crisis.
* * *
THE AWARD SECTION
OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Leonard Fournette, running back, Jacksonville. Two touchdowns in the first 10 minutes of a game in which the Jags were significant underdogs, and the scores came in the sort of diverse ways Jacksonville has come to expect from its rookie franchise back. On fourth and goal from five feet away, Fournette leaped and dove for the end zone, and broke the plane.
Minutes later, from the Steelers 19, after a Ben Roethlisberger interception, Fournette sprinted around right end and muscled his way inside the pylon at the goal line. Fournette ran the Jags to a 14-0 lead. Did you hear the Steelers crowd right about then? Neither did I. By the time Jacksonvile made it 21-zip early in the second quarter, Fournette had 80 rushing yards. Fournette finished with 25 carries for 109 yards and three touchdowns.
Tom Brady
, quarterback, New England. His 35-of-53, 337-yard, three-TD, no-pick game in the 35-14 rout of Tennessee on Saturday night was a clarion call to those (maybe even in his own organization) who wondered whether Brady’s just-average performance in December was a harbinger of things to come. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels put the Titans game on Brady’s 40-year-old shoulders, and Brady did not disappoint. The one play you don’t see many 40-year-olds make (never mind 30- or 33-year-olds) was his crazy jump pass across his body to the left and against the grain to Danny Amendola. Where’d that come from? Interesting to note: This was Brady’s 35thplayoff start, and only the third time that he played a postseason game reaching these mile markers: at least 65 percent accuracy, at least 325 yards passing, at least a 102 rating, at least a plus-three touchdown-to-interception differential with no interceptions.
Nick Foles, quarterback, Philadelphia. “You guys doubted him,” said wideout Alshon Jeffrey. “We never doubted him.” That’s right—we did doubt him. In a very big way. And we should have have. Foles was a 47-percent passer, with a 48.2 rating, over his previous two games, and he looked shaky, with flagging confidence. But using an excellent offensive game plan against a pressure defense, Foles was 23 of 30 (76.7 percent accuracy) for 246 yards, no touchdowns but no turnovers either … and a 100.1 rating.
No one would watch this game and say Foles played great. But he played the right way, and he played efficiently. With the exception of one missed throw on a potential big play to tight end Trey Burton, he didn’t err in the biggest spot of his career—quarterbacking a top seed to within one game of the Super Bowl.
Stefon Diggs, wide receiver, Minnesota. For so many of the reasons listed above—making the catch of his life, and not being content to settle for a field-goal try. The 61-yard walk-off touchdown will live forever in Vikings lore—perhaps not in the Immaculate Reception way for Franco Harris and the Steelers, but if this team gets to the Super Bowl, what a milepost that play will be. Diggs (who finished with six catches for 137 yards) was already having a fine day before the catch.
DEFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Myles Jack, linebacker, Jacksonville. The Jags drafted Jack high in 2016 because they thought the smallish, fast ’backer from UCLA was part of a new breed of linebackers—sideline to sideline playmakers. Midway through the first quarter at Pittsburgh, Jack showed what a wise choice it was. Running stride for stride in coverage against Pittsburgh tight end Vance McDonald, Jack broke ahead of his man and fingertip-picked Ben Roethlisberger at the sideline. A beautiful and tone-setting play.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Thomas Morstead, punter, New Orleans. Morstead is one of the best punters in football and has been since 2010, never averaging less than 45 yards per punt in the past eight years. But it was his tackling that prevented a 74-yard Marcus Sherels punt return for touchdown in the first quarter for the Vikings. Sherels returned it 19 yards to the Viking 45, and that where Morstead, the 6'4" nine-year vet, corralled Sherels and smashed him to the ground. The Vikings still scored the game’s first touchdown on the drive, but that’s not Morstead’s fault. He did his job well. Morstead broke two ribs on the play—and kept punting.
Jake Elliott, kicker, Philadelphia. Scored the last nine points of an It’s-Anybody’s-Game game, making up for doinking an early PAT off the left upright. His 53-yard field goal brought the Eagles to within 10-9 at halftime. His 37-yard field goal in the third quarter gave the Eagles a 12-10 lead. His 21-yard field goal in the fourth quarter gave the Eagles some insurance and a 15-10 lead.
COACH OF THE WEEK
Frank Reich, offensive coordinator, Philadelphia. Love the Eagles’ game plan, which is captained and put together each game by Reich, with veto power from Doug Pederson—and then Pederson calls the game. Reich obviously put his time in during the off-week, and by the way things played out, the run-pass balance was just what it should have been: 51 percent runs (32 runs, 31 called pass plays), and nothing too daring with shaky quarterback Nick Foles. As I detailed higher in the column, the diversity and unpredictability with that Nelson Agholor jet-sweep was a smart way to get Eagle speed on the edge.
Doug Marrone, head coach, Jacksonville. This is easy. The Jags on Sunday surpassed the win total of the past three Jacksonville seasons combined. You can look it up: 11-37 the previous three years before Marrone arrived, 12-6 this year. It’s part Tom Coughlin, part Doug Marrone, but you’ve got to give Marrone his due here. His appointment last January to succeed Gus Bradley was widely derided as uninspired, but it turns out Marrone’s toughness and consistency with his team were just what the Jaguars needed.
GOAT OF THE WEEK
Marcus Williams, cornerback, New Orleans. We don’t need to rehash what went wrong on the final play, but I would like to point out how Williams did not duck the spotlight after the game. Through bloodshot eyes, the Saints rookie safety answered the questions and vowed to learn from the experience. “You can't let it beat you down,” Williams told the media. “I'm gonna take it upon myself to do all that I can to never let that happen again. And, I mean, if it happens again, then I shouldn't be playing. But I'm gonna take it upon myself to do all that I can to make sure nothing like this happens again to me."
* * *
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* * *
THINGS I THINK I THINK
1. I think these are my quick thoughts on divisional weekend:
a. How strange it was to watch Saints and Vikings, realizing that Adrian Peterson was on both teams within the past 13 months, and seeing how invisible he’s become in both places.
b. The Minnesota defensive front gets a lot of credit, and it should. But that back seven is a force of nature. Harrison Smith is everywhere, at all times.
c. One of the cool things smart offensive play-callers have taken to a new level this year—and Pat Shurmur does it exceedingly well—is very naturally make receivers pick defenders. The picks are legal because they look like accidents. But they’re not.
d. Adam Thielen versus Marshon Lattimore is the kind of wideout-corner matchup that I wish would happen twice a year for the next eight years. Too bad they’re in different divisions.
e. Jacksonville put up 75 points in eight quarters at Heinz Field this year. That’s not something I would have thought humanly possible.
f. Either the Steelers were just plain logy, or not ready to play. I don’t know. But those first 20 minutes were pretty pathetic.
g. And boy, do they miss the play-making of Ryan Shazier.
h. Whoa. Marcel Dareus manhandled the guy many consider the best guard in football, David DeCastro, on his way to a second-quarter sack of Ben Roethlisberger.
i. Great play to pick up a fumble and sprint for a touchdown to make it 28-7, Telvin Smith. Stupid play by Smith to get a taunting call and give the Steelers a shorter field and help them narrow it to 28-14 at the half.
j. Who’d have thought that the best play by a Jaguars secondary player in Pittsburgh would be a run stuff? Cornerback Jalen Ramsey made the perfect run stop on fourth-and-a-half-yard at the Steeler 20, knifing through the Pittsburgh line to envelop Le’Veon Bell for a four-yard loss late in the first quarter. It’s not like that was Pittsburgh’s last chance to win the game, but I’d call it the Steelers’ last best chance.
k. Great CBS graphic 10 minutes into Steelers-Jaguars: rushing touchdowns at Heinz Field this year: Leonard Fournette four, Le’Veon Bell three.
l. Ronald Darby has made the Philadelphia secondary formidable.
m. Howie Roseman trading for Ronald Darby has helped make the Philadelphia secondary formidable.
n. Jon Robinson (Titans GM) drafting Corey Davis with the fifth pick—widely derided—last year looked like a heck of a move Saturday night.
o. How did Corey Davis’ first touchdown of the season come in Week 19, and his 13th pro game?
p. Good for CBS’s Tony Romo calling out Marcus Mariota and the coaching staff in the fourth quarter of a lost cause, saying he needs to be better and the Titans’ play-calling needs to be more aggressive.
q. True point from Philadelphia safety Rodney McLeod, on the final play of the Falcons’ season, a fourth-down call from the Eagles 2-yard line, down 15-10, a play that had Matt Ryan roll out and throw incomplete. McLeod: “It is surprising. I was like, ‘There’s no way they’re going to run this play.’ And as soon as I saw the tight end come over, I shouted it out. Yeah, I wouldn’t expect them to cut off half the field like that."
r. Observation of the Weekend: No cornerback ever believes he’s committed pass interference.
2. I think it’s okay to question the Steelers’ preparedness and play against the Jaguars. But I can’t see a team winning 45 games over the past four years even remotely entertaining the thought of firing Mike Tomlin. The Steelers do not panic. That would be a panic move.
3. I think I’d like to hear, given a shot of sodium pentothal, if Tennessee GM Jon Robinson wants to keep Mike Mularkey for Marcus Mariota’s fourth NFL season.
4. I think I wonder if all those teams that passed on Doug Marrone as a head for two years when he divorced the Bills after the 2014 season—Cleveland, Denver, Miami, the New York Jets, the New York Giants, Oakland, Tennessee, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco—were watching when the Jaguars drove the length of the field on the first series of Sunday’s playoff game against the Steelers at Heinz Field, had the chutzpah to go for it on fourth down just inside the Steeler two-yard line, and scored on a Leonard Fournette touchdown dive. And if they were watching, what were they thinking?
5. I think I wonder why Jacksonville defensive coordinator Todd Wash has gotten zero national buzz on the head-coach-search market.
6. I think I thought of this when watching 80-year-old Dick LeBeau coach Tennessee’s defense against the Patriots on Saturday night: I wonder if that was LeBeau’s last game? I hope not, but just realize that this was LeBeau’s 59th season as an NFL player or coach. Bill Belichick was a 7-year-old second-grader in Annapolis when LeBeau made his first interception as a cornerback for the Detroit Lions in 1959. I hope LeBeau gets to go out on his own terms, whenever that is.
7. I think I just hate the spot foul for defensive pass interference. Hate it. Some hand-checking by Saints cornerback Ken Crawley on Stefon Diggs of the Vikings results in Diggs falling—and there is no way you watch the play and think some excessive force by Crawley knocked him over—and here comes a flag for defensive pass interference, a marginal call, and it’s a 34-yard markoff.
Ridiculous. There are 200 such hand-fighting incidents, most not called, in every football game, and this one gave the Vikings a gigantic edge toward a touchdown. Make defensive pass interference a 15-yard call, period. Stop tilting the field with these game-changing calls.
8. I think I give up. I have no earthly idea who Blake Bortles is—the shaky, run-only, worrisome quarterback from last week, or the competent leader and thrower from Sunday in Pittsburgh. If I were New England, however, I'd be far more worried about Leonard Fournette.
9. I think one of the ways football is changing is the analytics side of it, which has been discussed endlessly in recent years. But in the past week, I was talking about the subject with one NFL coach, and three times in a 15-minute conversation he brought up how Pro Football Focus, for instance, shortens the time it takes him to quantify some aspects of scouting when he’s helping prepare his team’s game plan.
Then I saw this 296-page monster of a quarterback guide PFF has published on the play of passers in the 2017 season. It’s very football-nerdy, but it’s also valuable in judging how quarterbacks played in the season just passed. With nuggets such as:
• Detroit’s Matthew Stafford had 15 interceptions dropped by defenders this year, most in the NFL.
• Houston’s Deshaun Watson had the highest big-time-throw percentage in the NFL at 7.49 percent of all his attempts. PFFcalls these “passes with excellent ball location and timing, generally thrown farther down the field and into tighter windows.”
• Matt Ryan of the Falcons had the league's best turnover-worthy percentage in the NFL despite 12 interceptions. He had just six turnover-worthy plays in 2017, and was the victim of bad luck to cause double that number of interceptions.
• Though he played a limited schedule, Jimmy Garoppolo of the Niners was every bit as good as you thought at first glance, particularly on difficult down-and-distance plays. The league average for third-and-six-yards-plus for quarterbacks was 26.5 percent positive plays. Garoppolo had the best percentage in the league with 53.3 percent positive grades on third-and-six-plus plays.
I’d recommend it—and I’m not even a third of the way through it yet.
