I wouldn’t say it was an advantage, but it was certainly much less of a disadvantage due to the fact that they were playing the same team as the previous week.
TV announcers might want to think how ridiculous they sound late in games where the outcome is no longer in doubt, when they say “if Team X hangs on to win, then…”.
Examples: both New Orleans and Los Angeles being up big with scant time left. I think L.A. had a three-score lead with two minutes-plus remaining.
I know you want to prolong the “suspense”, but c’mon.
Interesting fact I saw on TV this morning: Baker Mayfield is the oldest quarterback of the four remaining AFC starting QBs.
Of course, in the NFC, three of the starting QBs are 37, 42, and 43 years old. (Brees will turn 42 on Friday.)
Since Seattle is now out of it, sure, Browns all the way! I would really love to see them in the Super Bowl, as unlikely as that is, but seeing Super Bowl MVP Baker Mayfield would be pretty fun.
We may see a spree of high-profile QB retirements like no other when this season is over.
Brady, Rivers, Brees, Rodgers and Roethlisberger may all hang up the cleats.
Or, even better: Super Bowl MVP Nick Chubb pounding it downfield Jim Brown style!
PS. To be honest, there is also a small part of me hoping that Tom Brady and the Bucs take it, just to watch everyone’s heads explode in impotent rage 
But most of me says: go Browns!
11-0 and then 1-5 and then a first round exit at home to a team depleted by the virus. What happened to Pittsburg?
I believe that Brees has recently said that he’s going to retire. I’d be stunned if Rodgers does, as he’s playing as well as he has in years, and he’s likely to win the MVP award. If the Packers win the Super Bowl, maybe he might decide to go out on top, but I doubt he’ll leave when he feels he still has gas left in his tank.
I think his recent troubles were due to a lack of weapons, not a lack of ability on his part. I expect to see Aaron for a few years yet.
Anybody catch any of that game on Nickelodeon? I kind of liked some of the animated on-field graphics, but the slime was a little much.
I caught a tiny bit of it at the beginning of the game. Neat sort of outreach to younger viewers explaining the game, but I couldn’t really watch it - too distracting for me.
The Eagles fired Doug Pederson. Should be interesting to see if they do any better with someone else.
I ended up watching 2 games and recording one each day. I ended up fast forwarding through most of the early games late at night. I wouldn’t say that I was fatigued, since I’ll watch 3 games every Sunday, but I wasn’t fired up either. Watching a lousy Bears team get beat up on wasn’t exactly scintillating. Having multiple games with backup/third string QBs was a bit of a bummer too, though the Heinikie show was actually pretty fun.
Is this the fastest a head coach has ever been fired after winning a Super Bowl? Just 3 years.
(1994 Cowboys and Jimmy Johnson doesn’t really count)
Wild stuff. I mean, I think I get it since they’ve been a garbage fire and everyone seems to be fed up with the guy, but the dude won them a Super Bowl like yesterday. Not sure if Philly is a good job or an awful one. I suppose it depends if Wentz is an albatross or if he’s tradable. Though a new coach may prefer Wentz to Hurts. We’ll see.
I don’t think Pederson is the problem in Philly. I wonder if it’s more an issue of looking at the field of potential coaching hires and thinking they can do better, or perhaps his relationship with the players has broken down enough to be a liability. (Especially given the public complaints from players after the tank job of the final week.)
I think Pederson’s basically a good coach, but fair or not, he’s getting blamed for his handling of the QB, which is the most important player-coach relationship a coach has. He compounded that mistake by benching Hurts and looking like he was deliberately tanking. There could be more that we don’t know (i.e. Pederson might have had a beef with Eagles’ management and fired himself, though that’s obviously getting into conspiracy theory land).
The end of the Redskins game has nothing to do with this, this much I’m sure of.
I also don’t think it’s entirely about the QB situation. I think him destroying his relationship with Wentz after he signed the monster deal is certainly a big issue, but based on the whispers and rumors I’ve been hearing, he’s alienated pretty much everyone. I wouldn’t be surprised if the lack of success the last couple years, after a bit of self-scouting, was attributed to poor preparation. Certainly the post-Super Bowl hires in the coaching staff have been bad ones.
While I admit that I have Brady fatigue it wouldn’t piss me off if the Bucs won. Just be aware that the number of heads that explode would be equaled by all of the Brady fanboys jerking off in public.
And a team they play often. I could see the lack of preparation being a bigger deal against a non-divisional opponent - practices this late aren’t so much learning plays as tune-ups against how the upcoming opponent will attack, based on tape. There’s generally not many surprises left between divisional opponents.
Best guess is they do so to avoid looking absolutely terrible in the rare occasion the trailing team comes back. It was only a few years ago that Seattle required the Packers to drive and kick a last minute field goal to tie the game after being up by two scores just before the two-minute warning. It’s not so much “suspense” as “can’t call it over until the clock hits zero”.