If it’s in the Chiefs’ interest to let the Bengals score, it’s probably in the Bengals’ interest not to. Burrow kneels at the one-inch line and lets the clock keep running, or forces KC to use their timeouts. On third-and-goal (or fourth-and-goal), with no timeouts left, do you still let the Bengals score an easy touchdown?
On fourth-and-goal, no. I try to stop them…which the Chiefs did, twice, but got flagged both times.
On first, second, or third-and-goal, I let them score. I was actually surprised that Burrow did not take a knee short of the goal line.
Recall all of the playoff possibilities and contenders from 3 weeks ago?
All that is by the boards for the most part now. In the AFC there are still several 7-8/8-8/7-7-1 (Steelers) teams which could tie for the final WC spot-except that they will lose all of the tiebreakers even if they did . Winner of the Charger’s/Raider’s is in, and the loser could still sneak in (LV just beat the Colts)-except that Indianapolis plays my hapless Jags, who just gave up 50 points yesterday. Only way for the Steelers to have a chance as well.
In the NFC, Minnesota gave up the ghost last night, so it’s down to the Saints and Niners; SF currently holds the tiebreak but has to beat the Rams in LA, while NO just has to beat Atlanta (in A.).
I read today, but haven’t verified, that if the Colts lose to the Jags, then the Chargers and Broncos would both get in if they tie.
They play the Sunday night game, so if the Jags happen to win, LA and LV would know the outcome before the game started. The teams could agree to kneel three times and punt the ball on every possession, including overtime, and end the game in a 0-0 tie.
That’s true. If the Steelers win out, that’s the only way for both the Raiders and Chargers to get in, as they will win the three-way tiebreaker with the Steelers for the 6th and 7th spots.
If the Steelers lose a game, and the Jags beat the Colts, then the Raiders are in regardless of their game. In that situation, if the Chargers win they’re in, and if not the last spot goes to the Ravens or Colts.
If the Colts lost to the Jags, the shame alone should keep them out of the playoffs.
The Broncos are mathematically eliminated. They’ve at 7-9 and no team with a losing record is going to get in this season. Did you mean the Raiders? There are several possibilities there depending on the Steelers and Colts.
Oops, mea culpa! Should be Chargers and Raiders, of course!
I read that too. The NFL only set the week 18 schedule after Sundays game. It’s strange that they didn’t consider this.
It’s just painful watching this, it has been for the last like 6 games. Browns are easily a playoff team if they let Case Keenum play. Baker should’ve had the surgery and started recovery for next year over a month ago.
Yeah, this one hasn’t exactly been a showcase for quarterback play. Roethlisberger, in probably his last home game, has 96 yards on 34 pass attempts. Yeesh!
I wonder if, at this point, they refuse to sit Baker because of Keenum comes in and the whole offense functions well enough the coaching staff looks really stupid for not making the switch earlier. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was a factor in the decision.
Chubb just had back-to-back carries for maybe the first time tonight.
Sorry, it was the second time that Chubb has carried the ball on two consecutive plays. He’s averaging 6.5 yards per carry. But he has just 8 rushes tonight.
I’m not actually sure Stefanski is actually a good coach. He seems like a guy that inspires his team and gets them to play, and that’s valuable, especially for a franchise that was a joke and needed to learn how to win. But his strategic choices are generally poor. He makes a lot of poor gametime decisions like when to go for it and when not to, and he seems to have completely mismanaged this whole Baker thing. Then again that assumes that Case Keenum wouldn’t be worse, which I think is a reasonable assumption, but in a world where Stefanski hypothetically correctly assessed that Keenum would be somehow worse, we wouldn’t have the evidence that he was right.
Playcalling is also pretty questionable. Browns don’t lean on their run game enough, not enough taking advantage of the run game with the passing plays called (more playaction, misdirection, bootlegs), and in general the play calls don’t match the personnel well. The running game is very well designed, but I wonder if that’s not Callahan more than Stefanski.
So Stefanski might’ve been the right guy to instill a new winning attitude in the team, and I don’t want to downplay that, but I’m not sure he’s actually good at anything else.
Yo! 
Just ran into this clip, where there’s a bit of discussion on exactly how stupid the Giants’ receiving unit was.
All right, my understanding is that a kickoff is a touchback if it’s caught/picked up and downed in the end zone or if it rolls completely out of the end zone. At any time before it gets caught/picked up or rolls out, anyone on the kicking team can recover it (provided it goes at least 10 yards, which is obviously not an issue for a standard kickoff). So cry lousy luck all you want, but even if the ball went into the end zone, unless it took an absolutely terrific roll, any Bear could have jumped on it for a cheapo touchdown. (I’ve already seen this gem.) But then someone says that a ball that lands directly in the end zone is an automatic touchback, and then someone else said that it’s an automatic touchback if it touches the end zone at all… both of which sound highly farfetched to me. Granted I’m not up on all these nonsensical rule manglings every season. (“Taunting.” Geez. 
) but I completely fail to see the logic of a change like that.
I think we can all agree that nobody freaking being in the freaking end zone was a thoroughly boneheaded move no matter what the rulebook says.
I believe that this is now true; when they moved the kickoff line back to the 35 a few years back, and changed the touchback rule so that a touchback on a kickoff comes out to the 25 (rather than the 20), they also instituted the rule that a kickoff which hits the ground in the end zone before it’s touched is automatically a dead ball (and a touchback).
From the NFL’s online rulebook (point (a) is the relevant one here):
Man, that was fast! Hey, thanks for digging up the rulebook on this (I’m never going to have the patience for that.) The league ever give a reason for the change?
I still think it’s dumb not to have at least one man with the ball in his sights, though it’s always questionable how much of a damn you can expect the Giants to give this late in the season in the first place.
The entire set of rule changes on kickoffs were all put in at or about the same time, to reduce the number of kickoff returns. The league debated whether or not to phase out kickoff returns entirely, because they lead to some of the most violent collisions in the game (and this was when the NFL finally started to do something to try to cut down on head injuries), but they felt that the kickoff return is an exciting play that they didn’t want to entirely do away with, so, instead, the rule changes made touchbacks more common (and more attractive for the receiving team).
I was out most of the day on Sunday but recorded all the network pregame shows so I could watch the John Madden tributes. In the spirit of remembering the good times and forgetting about the bad, there was no mention anywhere of the Coach’s Clicker.
Yeah, I think the idea is that if everyone can see the ball is heading for the end zone the players can let up and avoid major collisions. Whether or not that actually is effective I’m not sure.
There’s a relevant Jon Bois video below, making a case for the replacement of the kickoff. The videos are excellent, but for those who don’t want to watch, the major points are that kickoffs have very little strategy, rarely produce an exciting running play (by the videos metrics), produce a touchdown only 0.3% of the time, only get past midfield 2.5% of the time, and are only successful at trapping the offense inside the 10 yard line 1% of the time. In other words, kickoffs aren’t exciting and are rarely consequential for either side. On the flipside the kickoff is the most dangerous play in the sport; a concussion occurs 0.6% of the time, meaning that you’re twice as likely to see a concussion than a touchdown.
