Every week in the NFL season brings a host of new questions … and answers some old ones, too. Let’s run down what we learned in the divisional playoffs … and what we’ll be wondering about in the conference championships and beyond.
ANSWERED: We’re all pretty sick of Patrick Mahomes at this point
Look, let’s just all get this out of the way up front. Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs have ascended to 2000s Patriots or 1990s Bulls territory — yes, they’re historically great; yes, we’d love to have them as our team; yes, we’re sick as hell of them and wish they’d just go away. That’s what happens with dynasties, you get tired of seeing the same team winning all the time … unless it’s your team, in which case you want the train to keep running forever.
By every measure, Mahomes struggled this year to get anywhere near his previous highs. And yet the Chiefs still won 15 games during the regular season and, on Saturday, didn’t really have much trouble with Houston. That leads to cries of bias and favoritism, and the soft roughing-the-passer calls that Mahomes can seemingly conjure out of thin air don’t really mitigate that perception.
“Oh, come on! I mean, he’s a runner. I could not disagree with that one more. He barely gets hit.” – Troy Aikman
“The two Houston players hit each other. That should not have been a foul.” – Russell Yurk
“They’ve gotta address it in the offseason…” – Aikman 🏈🎙️🦓 #NFL https://t.co/vXj2v7VTKg pic.twitter.com/QioQ5IQwhg
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 18, 2025
Kansas City has now made seven straight AFC championship games, meaning that the other 15 teams in the conference have had to divide those other seven spots among themselves. That’s a recipe for boredom and frustration.
You can’t blame the Chiefs for being good and winning. And you can’t blame the rest of us for being tired of it all.
ASKED: Why does playoff cruelty always come for the same teams?
When you’re in the midst of a magical run, like Baltimore, Minnesota and especially Detroit were this year, you feel invulnerable. You feel like the stars have aligned, the football gods have smiled upon you, fortune and fate are ushering you into the land of champions. And then reality hits, and you get the absolute crap beaten out of you in January. It’s a hard, fast fall, and all the more brutal because certain teams, as noted above, don’t seem to ever suffer these kinds of falls.
Baltimore has been here before and will again, and Minnesota already had an inkling that they were out on a thin limb with the way the team unraveled at the end of the regular season. But Detroit … man, you’ve got to feel for Detroit. Going 15-2 in the regular season, completely remaking the franchise’s entire image in just a year, setting up for a long playoff run, only to see it all undone by the whims of injury, the misfires of your own quarterback and a generational rookie on the other side of the ball. The Lions ought to be back in the mix next season, but that window is a narrow one, and it always seems to close on the same teams.
ANSWERED: Lamar Jackson deserved better
Let’s set this up: Mark Andrews is a Baltimore stalwart, a Pro Bowler who’s helped this team immeasurably over the course of his career. The weather in Buffalo on Sunday night was brutal, cold and windy and challenging to everyone involved. There’s no guarantee Baltimore would have won an overtime game against Buffalo in Buffalo. And, of course, none of us would survive eight seconds on an NFL field.
All that said: Damn, why couldn’t Baltimore have scored on that two-point conversion?
Lamar Jackson has battled the ghost and reputation of Playoff Lamar for his entire career, spectacular regular-season results leading inevitably to postseason disappointment. And he had moments Sunday night — a cringeworthy interception, a doing-too-much fumble — that led to seven Buffalo points.
But Jackson also engineered the drive of his career, an eight-play, 88-yard do-or-die gem that put the Ravens within two points of tying the game with 93 seconds left. Again, no guarantee Josh Allen wouldn’t have marched the Bills right back down into field-goal range even if Andrews had held onto the ball. But this game deserved to end on a score, not a kneel-down. Jackson and John Harbaugh defended Andrews, as they should. But oh, what could have been.
Playoff Lamar lives on, alas.
ASKED: Can the Commanders really do this?
There’s some karmic justice for Commanders fans this season. After a quarter-century of suffering under the worst owner in the NFL, the team is reborn, with a thrilling rookie quarterback and a new mindset. This isn’t the grimy Hogs of the Joe Gibbs era, this is a sleek burgundy-and-gold Lamborghini of a team that’s either ahead of you or right on your bumper, waiting to pass you.
The Commanders have a stout test ahead, going up against the NFL’s leading defense in Philadelphia and an offense that seems to surprise itself with what it can do. But Washington is the team with that extra bit of magic this postseason, the team that upends narratives and undercuts assumptions. Jayden Daniels might just win this team a Super Bowl, and it would be surprising, but not really all that shocking. Washington has hope and star power, and it’s been a long time since the franchise had either, let alone both.
ANSWERED: There are no bad games left
Somehow, the NFL always manages to win, even when some of its best teams are losing. Take this year, for instance. After a lackluster wild-card round, this year featured three legitimately thrilling divisional games … and KC-Houston. There’s a school of thought that the divisional weekend is, pound for pound, the best weekend of football — all killer, no filler — and this weekend pretty much bore that out.
Now, we’ve got four legitimately fascinating teams still in the mix, and any combination of them would be a spectacular Super Bowl. Sure, we’ve lost eight of the 10 most compelling potential Super Bowl matchups already, but that’s just because we never figured the Commanders would get this far.
Jayden Daniels leading a team to the Super Bowl in his rookie year … the Buffalo Bills finally gaining some redemption … the chaotic magic of Saquon Barkley and the Eagles … and, oh yeah, the Kansas City Swifties going for an unprecedented three in a row. That’s one hell of a quartet. We’ve only got three games left in the season, but at least we know all three will be gems.
ASKED: Which NFC team has not made the conference championship this century?
Let’s close with some trivia. Every single NFC team has made the conference championship team in the 21st century … except one. Can you guess which one? I bet you can. Good luck with the next coaching hire, Jerry.
