Are they even allowed to add a new player during the playoffs? Or do they have to use someone already on the team?
Yes, though there are some restrictions:
Having to cut someone to make room is a given, but I’m surprised they can only add one player per week.
I’m also surprised that they can’t pick someone from a playoff team that’s been eliminated.
Wondering if they can sign someone from another team’s practice squad?
The Chiefs have a kicker on their practice squad by the name of Matthew Wright. KC re-signed him late in the season, when kicker Harrison Butker aggravated an early-season injury. Wright was with the Chiefs for 2 games when Butker was inactive, and actually set a KC record with a 59-yard FG in a 30-29 win over the Raiders. When Butker was healthy again, KC released Wright and the Steelers picked him up for four games, then released him, whereupon the Chiefs got him again.
For the season, Wright was 15-18 in FGs, and 15-15 in XPs.
Probably because those players are still under contract?
It sounds like they can’t take anyone who is on the roster of any team, whether they made the playoffs or not.
Seattle did not have patience with Stephen Hauschka, and cut him after one bad year. He went to the Bills and was back to his usual great, reliable form again. (His nickname was “Hausch Money”, like “House Money”, he was so reliable.) But I think that money was an issue too; his contract was up and Seattle would probably have to pay him a lot to keep him.
They went to the bargain bin and ended up grabbing Blair Walsh, who was most famous for missing a chip shot FG in freezing weather, causing the Vikings to lose a wild card game to, of course, Seattle. So Seattle responds to that by signing him. He was as bad as you’d expect a kicker to be when that kicker is most famous for missing a key kick.
They then signed Sebastian Janikowski, who looked like someone’s dad won a contest to suit up and pretend to be an NFL player. He did okay, except his dad bod failed him in the middle of a playoff game, as he pulled his hamstring trying to kick a long field goal. (Seattle’s punter had to take over for the rest of the game and proved why punters are punters and not kickers.) Seabass realized he was “too old for that shit” and retired.
Seattle brought on Jason Myers, who had previously signed with Seattle but had lost the job to Janikowski. Myers has been pretty good, he’s even in the Pro Bowl this year. So it eventually worked out.
I do wish that Seattle had been more patient with Hauschka though. They saved a few million but Walsh missed enough key kicks that cost them games, and it was the first time they missed the playoffs since 2011. I maintain that it was a big mistake. Good kickers don’t grow on trees. (Not even in Eastern Europe.)
Washington had Graham Gano in 2010 and 2011 and, for reasons that scientists still don’t understand, replaced him by Billie Cundiff in early 2012. Cundiff lasted about a month, including one game where he missed three FGs. Gano went to Pro Bowl seasons with Carolina and is still playing with the Giants.
Gano was an OK kicker when he was with Washington, but not particularly accurate; he only made 74% of his field goals as a Redskin, in a league where an 80% accuracy rate is pretty much the minimum that a team is willing to tolerate. In 2011 (his final season in Washington), he missed five field goals under 40 yards (19 out of 24), a range at which an NFL kicker is expected to be nearly automatic.
Gano clearly got things sorted out once he went to Carolina; he was 85% accurate on field goals as a Panther, and now is 92% accurate with the Giants.
Love me some Graham Gano.
No, no, Gano. No, no, Gano. No, no, not lookin’ for no Gaa-a-no.
Let’s go, Jakey (Elliot) Boy! 
Graham Guano…
Washington has a history of giving up on kickers too early. Shaun Suisham and Nick Novak were never All-Pros but both came through here and went on to have long stable careers elsewhere. Even Kai Forbath played another 7 seasons on various teams after Washington cut him.
I only watched one game this weekend, seeing the beloved Seahawks go down in valiant defeat. I do want to comment briefly on the blocking downfield penalty that functioned as the turning point of the game. It was a legitimate penalty the way the rule is written; it was borderline as it is typically enforced. And in this case, it turned what was a close, fun game into a one-sided blowout. Not by itself, of course, but it’s unknowable what would have happened had the Seahawks been able to play their third-and-short instead of second-and-long-and-fumble that actually happened. But I really think that penalty set into motion a connected series of events that are unlikely to have happened without the penalty. You gotta be good enough to overcome bad calls, yeah. But this isn’t a “the Seahawks deserved better” rant. It is a “we the fans deserve better” rant.
While I’m certainly biased in this case due to rooting interest, I have a long dislike of letting games turn on overly judicious penalty-calling rather than, you know, football players making football plays. I’m not saying not to call penalties in high-leverage situations - that lack of a DPI that let the Rams in the Superbowl a few years back in lieu of the more deserving Saints was one of the worst calls, taking leverage into account, that has ever happened in the NFL. But I am saying, maybe let’s not call so many. Let’s have a high bar for penalties. Stop rewarding offenses for underthrown balls if the defender “doesn’t turn around to look at the ball.” Figure out what you really want offensive lineman to be able to do on passing plays, and be consistent about it. Figure out some sort of standard for holding, and enforce that.
I didn’t expect the Seahawks to win that game. I didn’t expect them to get into the playoffs. I’m not sure I even wanted them in the playoffs. But given that they were in that game, I at least wanted the outcome to be based on football. And for almost three quarters it was. Then it wasn’t anymore, and that’s an outcome that ought to disappoint any fan.
I wonder if Austin Blythe (their center) getting hurt also had anything to do with the collapse. It seemed like he was hurt and replaced by Kyle Fuller shortly before things went south. I can’t remember if Blythe returned at any point. But the fumble that was the start of the wheels coming off the bus was from a strip sack, and perhaps the protection just wasn’t there like it was earlier in the game.
A lot of things went wrong from there, so it’s hard to say if any one thing was the problem. The way I see it, the 49ers were a more loaded team and Seattle needed to be close to perfect to beat them. And for a while, they were pretty close to perfect. They didn’t even have a penalty for the first half of the game. Once that cracked, bad things followed. Still, they made it tough for the majority of the game and you can’t be too disappointed in how things went for a team that everyone wrote off as one of the worst before the season started.
One more posting in this thread before a new one (hopefully) is started for the Divisional Weekend.
The NFL instituted the third wildcard team in 2020, so this year marks the third season that there have been seven playoff teams in each conference. In that span, that third WC team, the #7 seed, is 0-6, with the average margin of victory being 12.2 points. Not exactly captivating playoff football.
That’s a little unfair. This year, Seattle played toe to toe with the Niners until a few minutes before the 4th quarter. The Miami game came down to the very end. Yes, both 7 seeds ultimately lost, but those were two great games.
Granted, the Bills/Fins game was a nail-biter till the end. But claiming that the Niners 18-point victory that was close for three quarters was a ‘great game’ is a bit of a stretch.
Buffalo’s 3-point win over Miami matched the Bills 3-point win over the 7-seeded Colts two years ago. The other four games have been decided by at least 12 points.
A little off topic humor:
As a Niner fan, I might be biased. A close game through three quarters followed by a stomping in the final quarter is kind of the best of both worlds for me.
Your wish is my command: NFL 2022: Divisional Round