Month: January 2020

Houston found itself in a familiar place, playing in the Saturday afternoon slot of the wild-card round. But Watson and the Texans, held scoreless by the Bills until late in the third quarter, made sure it was a game to remember.

HOUSTON — Saturday afternoon again. Shut out at the half again. Nearly a month before Groundhog Day, the Texans appeared to be stuck reliving a playoff nightmare—but Deshaun Watson and his teammates never wavered.

The AFC South champs trailed 16-0 more than halfway through the third quarter, but stormed back with 19 straight points and survived overtime to beat the Bills 22-19. They’ll travel to Baltimore to face Lamar Jackson and the top-seeded Ravens in the divisional round.

Watson did a little of everything during the second-half comeback. He threw some darts. He plowed through multiple defenders to cap off a 20-yard touchdown run, then ran in the two-point conversion himself for good measure. He improvised and converted third downs. He dialed up targets for his All-Pro receiver DeAndre Hopkins and sent the decisive pass to Taiwan Jones, a player who had just one catch the whole regular season.

On second-and-six, just on the outskirts of field-goal range, Watson engineered arguably the play of the game, in which he spun away from two defenders and a guaranteed sack, somehow staying on his feet and escaping to his right. Jones caught his pass at the right sideline, two yards shy of the line of scrimmage, cut in and took off. Thirty-four yards later, Ka’imi Fairbairn ran on to send everyone home with a chip-shot field goal.

“When you’ve got a quarterback like 4 [Watson],” Jones said, “and a team like this—no matter what’s going on on the field, we always feel like we can come back. No matter how much we’re down, or what’s gone on previously. Every time we step on the field, we feel like we can make plays or make a comeback, or do whatever we need to do to win the game.

Hopkins said similar. He was held without a catch in the first half and then stripped for a costly fumble after he finally got on the board in the third quarter. But he finished with six catches for 90 yards, including a 41-yarder on which he blew by All-Pro Bills safety TreDavious White.

“I’m not [surprised] at all,” Hopkins said of his quarterback. “Honestly, I’ve seen him do it over and over, so no I’m not surprised.”

The wide receiver said the message at halftime was nothing special: Don’t panic, take it play-by-play. The team didn’t even discuss getting Hopkins more involved, either. They just wanted to stay the course and stick with the offense that led them to 10 wins and a home playoff game.

Early in the game, it looked like a Buffalo blowout was coming, as second-year quarterback Josh Allen’s two best plays came right out of the gate on the first drive. First he scampered to the right on a designed run, followed three blockers and took it 42 yards. Then the Bills reached into their bag of tricks, with Allen tossing the ball back to receiver John Brown, leaking out to the left and hauling in an easy catch for a receiving touchdown.

But that would be the Buffalo’s lone touchdown of the day. The Bills left points on the board multiple times, most notably during their final drive before halftime. Starting at their own four-yard line, Buffalo ran 15 plays to chew up all but four seconds off the clock. But the drive ended in a field goal, and a 13-0 lead.

On the other side of the field, Watson couldn’t get anything going in the first half. Buffalo’s ferocious pass defense dropped him for four sacks and forced him to dance out of the pocket nearly every time he wanted to look downfield.

“I mean, the game is never over,” Watson said. “Regardless if we’re down 16-0, 7-0, 28-0, I’m going to keep fighting. I’m going to keep playing. That’s just me.”

But when the Bills were on the verge of putting the game out of reach, the Texans’ best players showed up—most notably, J.J. Watt, the three-time Defensive Player of the Year, who was returning just 10 weeks after tearing his pectoral muscle. He and his coaches had said before the game that he’d be playing plenty, but he spent most of the game coming in on third downs and obvious pass rush situations. His hard shot on Josh Allen resulted in an eight-yard sack, forcing Buffalo to settle for another field goal and a 16-0 lead. However you feel about momentum in football, that’s what things turned around.

But ultimately the day belonged to Watson—one of the AFC’s three young quarterbacks, who have become one of the brightest stories the NFL currently has going. Watson, took the league by storm as a rookie in 2017 until tearing his ACL with just seven games under his belt. He then watched as Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson put up MVP seasons in 2018 and ’19, respectively. Now the three of them—a potentially era-defining trio of young superstar quarterbacks—will all share the stage of the divisional round next weekend.

You know the stats we see this time every year: Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger have represented the AFC in 15 of the last 16 Super Bowls, while the NFC has seen 14 different quarterbacks in the big game over that same span.

A generation of players has entered and exited the NFL as we’ve waited for a new crop to rise in the AFC. At long last, this may finally be the season.

This 2019 Texans squad made the playoffs for the sixth time in franchise history, and in all six seasons the road through the playoffs has started in the Saturday afternoon wild-card time slot, typically reserved for the least-appealing game. Houston is the eternal appetizers—an opening act striving to graduate to a headliner.

So this was a much-needed win for a Texans team that went all-in this season, trading future draft picks for current talent. For one half of football, the bet paid off.

And if Watson keeps playing like he did in the second half and overtime, the Texans won’t be early-game fodder much longer.

Question or comment? Email us at [email protected].

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady says he has no plans to retire

Tillie leads No. 1 Gonzaga over Pepperdine, 75-70

Why the Vikings offense matches up pretty well with New Orleans. Also, the crumminess of Seahawks-Eagles, and who every team with a head coach opening should hire

1a. There’s been plenty of talk about Kirk Cousins’s performance—or lack thereof—in big games (even if Monday Night Football doesn’t qualify as a big game anymore). The volume on that criticism gets turned up in light of his contract, and it will reach a crescendo as he makes his postseason debut for the Vikings. But he has a chance to rewrite some narratives on Sunday.

We’ve seen Minnesota’s offense unable to function against great pass rushes, and Cam Jordan is capable of wrecking this game singlehandedly. But with Marcus Davenport and Sheldon Rankins out there’s really no one else in the New Orleans pass rush who the Vikings shouldn’t be able to handle. Dennis Allen dials up some well-timed blitzes, but Cousins has been excellent against the blitz all year. The issues have been against teams the create pressure without the extra rusher.

It’s not easy to go into New Orleans in January, but for Cousins, it’s really not a bad matchup, especially with Adam Thielen and Dalvin Cook presumably back in full and the Saints thin in the secondary. And if the stage starts to feel too big for Cousins, my advice is to just picture everybody in their underwear.

1b. If it was Michael Thomas versus the Xavier Rhodes of two years ago, it would be a monster matchup. But right now, it’s a mismatch. The fact that the Vikings probably don’t have the bodies to deal with Thomas and Alvin Kamara (and Jared Cook) is probably why the Saints roll to a comfortable victory in their own building.

1c.

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2a. If you’ve ever dreamed of expanded NFL playoffs that retain bye weeks for top seeds and therefore pit 7-9 teams against each other on the first weekend, consider Eagles-Seahawks a look into the wonderful future.

We’ll start with the Seahawks, who, even before a rash of injuries, were one of the most suspect success stories of the 2019 season. On the year they ranked third in opposing kicker luck (expected points by opposing kickers based on league averages on under 50, 50-plus and PATs vs. actual points scored by opposing kickers), something almost entirely out of a team’s control. They also ranked 10th in points above expected red-zone performance, a volatile stat every year. They finished 14th in point differential (+7), and if you smooth out opponent kicker and red-zone rates, they would have finished 20th in point differential.

And that doesn’t even factor in the turnovers, oh the turnovers! Teams that have a lot of takeaways typically have either a great pass rush that forces opponents into playing too fast and making mistakes, and/or a secondary with a ballhawk or two. The Seahawks have neither of those things, yet they managed a mind-bending 32 takeaways on the season. None of it makes sense. Like a performance that only could have taken place within the Twin Peaks universe, and probably would have involved the backward-talking guy tipping off Pete Carroll, or at least giving Carroll good news about his gum.

The drying up of the takeaways has been an issue for the Seahawks of late; they didn’t force a turnover in season-ending losses to the Cardinals and 49ers. In fact, in the seven games when they didn’t have multiple takeaways (or, more appropriately, receive multiple giveaways), they went 3-4, with the victories coming against the Steelers the week Mason Rudolph came on in relief, the Cardinals, and the Bucs in overtime. They got five turnovers against the Eagles in the teams’ Week 12 meeting, and they only won 17-9.

2b. The Eagles, of course, have issues of their own, even if things look a little better after a four-game winning streak over NFC East opponents to close out the year (they went 4-6 outside the division in 2019). The issues with the receiving corps have been well-documented and they might be without Zach Ertz for a second straight week, meaning that Carson Wentz will have to stand on his head in his playoff debut if they fall behind early.

But the bigger issue might be a group of cornerbacks that have taken a collective step back this season. Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf are a handful, and it’s not difficult to picture Russell Wilson and his receivers dunking on the quartet of Mills-Douglas-Maddox-Jones, not unlike what Ryan Fitzpatrick did in putting up 37 points on this defense in the Eagles’ last loss: Chuck it up there and trust your guy is going to get it against these Philly corners.

2c. Considering the state of their receiving corps, will the Eagles try to take advantage of a crummy Seahawks pass defense? Seattle is one of the teams that still keeps three linebackers on the field the majority of the time, but they lost one in Mychal Kendricks, meaning rookie Cody Barton slides into a prominent role (unless Quandre Diggs returns to the lineup, in which case they might resort to three safeties with Delano Hill staying on the field). Either way, you’d think there’s an opportunity for the Eagles to get the run game going against a lighter Seahawks box.

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3. The Panthers should hire Eric Bieniemy and never look back. Matt Rhule should just take the Giants job—the quarterback is in place, plus you don’t want to run a war room off the bat anyway, and if things continue to go wrong the GM is already set up as the fall guy. The Cowboys should go get Robert Saleh—the flavoring he put in the Seattle-style Cover-3 would fit perfectly with Dallas’s defensive personnel—and keep Kellen Moore on as the offensive coordinator/de facto offensive head coach. I don’t want to advocate for anyone losing his job, but the Jaguars should really reconsider this Doug Marrone thing. The Browns should hire Mike McCarthy, if not now then in 20 months when they fire the head coach and general manager they hire this time around. McCarthy molded a young Aaron Rodgers into the quarterback he became and could fix a young Baker Mayfield. Someone should give Jason Garrett a hug. But mostly, everyone should be happy that Chan Gailey is back to wreck AFC East defenses.

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4. Ladies and gentlemen . . . …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead!

• Question or comment? Email us at [email protected].

NFL Playoff Capsules

Bodie Hume had 22 points as Northern Colorado defeated Montana 74-66

Deshaun Watson put up major highlights as he overcame the largest deficit of his career in the Texans’ AFC Wild Card overtime victory.

In an AFC Wild-Card Game that was for the taking, quarterback Deshaun Watson overcame the largest deficit of his career to lead the Houston Texans’ comeback victory over the Buffalo Bills in overtime.

After a Buffalo-dominated first half, the Texans fell in a 16-0 hole after a Bills’ field goal with six minutes remaining in the third quarter. Watson then went to work, running in a 20-yard touchdown and adding his own two-point conversion, cutting the deficit in half before the fourth quarter. 

The Texans then started to hit their stride. A forced fumble led to a field goal that cut the deficit to five, and a five-yard touchdown pass from Watson to Carlos Hyde, followed by another two-point conversion, gave Houston a three-point lead with 4:37 left in regulation.

After a Bills’ field goal forced overtime, Watson had his shining moment. On the Texans’ second run during the extra period, Watson improbably stayed on his feet after avoiding two Bills players and a sack. He went on to throw a completion that put the Texans in field goal range and led to victory.

Watson knew he had to step up in big moments, and now the Texans are moving on to face the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Divisional Round. 

“I said let’s be great today,” Watson said after the game. “So somebody had to be great. Why not me?”

Plus, Josh Allen’s wild ride, another unexpected hero emerges for the Titans, the Bills let up too early, punter domination, stupid clock rules, a phantom flag in overtime, and much more.

Reacting and overreacting to everything that happened during Wild-Card Weekend…

Things That Made Me Giddy

This Is Why You Love Deshaun Watson: He’s not a perfect quarterback, and this offense’s shortcomings were on display for the first 40 minutes or so on Saturday. But he has a knack for making these out-of-structure plays where he is mapping the field among absolute chaos, and he often delivers those plays at the biggest moments. You hate to lean on vague descriptors like “grit” and “heart” and “intangibles,” but it’s tough to describe Saturday’s comeback—and Watson’s first NFL postseason win—without them.

Derrick Henry As Atlas: Or something like that, I don’t know my Greek mythology very well—though Atlas was a titan, right? Huh? Yeah? (Is that right?) Anyway, 34 carries for 182 yards when they know you’re coming is something to behold, and just about the only way you can justify building an offense around a running back in this day and age.

Texans 2-for-2 For Two: If they don’t convert one of them the game might play out differently (as in, Houston wouldn’t necessarily have lost by two in regulation), but obviously, both conversions were huge. Deshaun Watson made a Superman play on the first one, then a nice design put DeAndre Hopkins in the slot for a layup on the second one.

Anthony Firkser Delivers: Who would’ve thought the mismatch of Saturday night would be Firkser on Terrence Brooks? The third-year tight end, who shares an alma mater with Ryan Fitzpatrick and Cameron Brate (New England Tractor Trailer Training School), filleted Brooks on a red-zone third-and-10 for a second-quarter touchdown, and beat him again on a third-and-8 to keep the final clock-killing drive alive.

Brian Daboll’s Opening Script: Someone is going to have to write their master’s thesis on it. The perfectly designed and executed QB sweep, then pulls the wide receiver throwback to the quarterback to cap the drive.

Brett Kern Punts the Patriots’ Souls Into the Abyss: New England settled for a game of field position, and Kern won it. The 58-yard line drive in the face of a full-on rush, downed at the New England 1 in the final seconds, was the pièce de résistance.

J.J. Watt Is Back, Huh?: He was left unblocked on a blown assignment in overtime (so that one doesn’t count), but he also made a handful of impact plays along the way on Saturday, including a huge third-down sack to keep it a one-possession game. The Texans might not win without him.

Rashaan Evans’s Very Goal Line Stand: The Patriots had a first-and-goal at the 1 in the second quarter and ran it to the left three times, with Evans, the second-year linebacker, knifing in and spoiling the play each time.

Bills Stuff the Sneak: Star Lotulelei has been something of a disappointment since arriving in Buffalo on that big free-agent deal, but he was crucial in blowing up the fourth-and-inches, would-be-game-clinching Deshaun Watson sneak to keep the Bills alive.

What Did the Bills Think When the Bears Jumped In Front of Them Last Spring . . . : to take a running back, and it was David Montgomery instead of Devin Singletary? The nervous laughter must’ve been deafening.

Patriots Spent a Second-Rounder on a Decent Punt Returner: Mohamed Sanu had a 23-yard punt return to set up a field goal in the second quarter, so don’t say they got nothing out of him.

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Regrets

Buffalo Let ’Em Off the Hook: Early on it felt like it was going to be different. Two postseasons ago, the Bills went into Jacksonville with Tyrod Taylor under center. That day, Taylor played so conservatively that it made you want to claw out your eyes—it was just short of an all-out refusal to try to score points, even as Buffalo trailed late. On Saturday, it looked like they would unleash Josh Allen after that first drive, especially against a flat-out bad Texans secondary. While a couple of holding calls, a Duke Williams end-zone drop and a John Brown failure to toe-tap were game-changing failures, there’s no doubt that the Bills went too conservative after the opening drive. They played for field goals and that’s what they got, never stretching it to a three-possession lead. (When Denver did this to the Texans a couple weeks ago, they just kept collecting touchdowns in the first half and led by four possessions at halftime.) That’s how you end up playing the role of the Washington Generals against Deshaun Watson.

Buffalo’s Ultra-Conservative Drive to Wrap Up the First Half: With one timeout, 30 seconds left, a 10-0 lead and a first down with the ball on the 23 against a Texans defensive backfield on its heels, they . . . hand it to Frank Gore? That was the most disappointing playcall any team made this season. The running play (for one yard) forced a spike, setting up a third-and-9 and essentially a single shot at the touchdown (which was a Duke Williams dropped touchdown, but still . . . ). It’s NFL football in 2019; go get seven points and put the game out of reach.

The Illegal Blindside Block Flag: I don’t want to overstate this, because the Bills lost this game first and foremost because they chose to settle for field goals. And if this play isn’t flagged, Steven Hauschka is going to be attempting a 55-yarder (he was 1-for-5 from beyond 50 this season). But, simply put: This is not a penalty. I understand why an official might have flagged this play while watching full-speed in real-time, but to throw this flag in overtime of a playoff game on a team in field goal range, an official has to be 100% certain there was an infraction. And there’s no way an official could have been 100% certain there was an infraction here, because there wasn’t an infraction. (And it’s all a shame, because at least on first viewing it was a pretty well-officiated game.)

Bill O’Brien With the First-Ever Playoff Pass Interference Challenge: And what a terrible challenge it was. DeAndre Hopkins initiated contact on the route in the form of a vicious head slap, after which DB Taron Johnson grabbed him. It was either offsetting penalties or no penalties, and 99% of the time it’s the latter. It was a waste of a challenge and a timeout.

Tony Corrente Pleads Temporary Insanity: The fact that he even considered calling the second-half kickoff a live ball (and Bills touchdown) when Texans return man DeAndre Carter clearly had no intention of returning the kick is deeply troubling. Corrente is a veteran referee doing a playoff game. Whatever Al Riveron is feeding these guys, it’s melting their brains.

Those Baker Mayfield Progressive Ads: There was a time when it probably felt like a great idea to run those through January.

Bills Can’t Get Off the Field on Third-and-18: If that was a game of Madden 98, John would have piped in with a “the only thing a prevent defense prevents is wins.” It was one of two key plays on Houston’s game-winning drive. The fact that there was little pressure didn’t help matters, but second-year linebacker (and future stud) Tremaine Edmunds dropped way too deep and allowed Duke Johnson to get the first down on a throw well short of the sticks.

NFL Timing Rules Are Stupid: Did you enjoy the pure drama of the Titans taking multiple penalties before they punted in the fourth quarter because the clock doesn’t stop after all penalties like it should? (It does stop in the final five minutes, but the Titans were able to take it from 6:39 to 4:44 without snapping the ball.)

John Brown Versus the Sideline: Smoke had a wonderful first season in Buffalo and is a great fit with Josh Allen. But he sacrificed an and-goal series when he didn’t get his feet down on the sideline on a third down in the first half. And on a desperation drive, with his quarterback (not surprisingly) extending the play, Brown inexplicably ran out of bounds as the ball was being delivered.

The Bills and Their Blocking Assignments: They twice gave up immediate pressure against a three-man rush on a desperation drive. Then, early in overtime, J.J. Watt was left inexplicably unblocked. Then, tight end Dawson Knox whiffed on an otherwise promising first-down QB sweep on the edge of field goal range in overtime, dooming what would be the final series of the season. As uneven as Josh Allen was, his supporting cast was just as wildly inconsistent and mistake-prone on Saturday.

Man, That Tom Brady Is One Pathetic Loser: Go home to your six Super Bowl rings and undisputed standing as the greatest player of alltime and billionaire supermodel wife, loser.

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Moments We’ll Tell Our Grandkids About

Deshaun Watson Surviving This Blitz:

Tom Brady’s Aural Chicanery: “Julian, get in your spot!”

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What We’ll Be Talking About This Week

The Sheer Madness of Josh Allen: I’d rather my QB lean reckless as opposed to overly conservative, but Allen took reckless to strange new places on Saturday. On one hand, you could cite five out-of-structure plays that only he or Patrick Mahomes could have made. On the other hand, you could cite about twice as many near-disastrous decisions on the same night (my personal favorite was the late-in-the-down 60-yard overtime prayer intended for . . . fullback Patrick DiMarco?). Things will get interesting when they (presumably) get Allen a true No. 1 receiver this offseason to go with John Brown and Cole Beasley (shoulda taken DK Metcalf!) so that Allen is not relying on a dropsy Duke Williams in key moments. Bills fans are rightfully excited—and if under the influence of truth serum, probably simultaneously terrified—about Allen’s future.

What Will the Titans Pay Derrick Henry, Anyway?: The pending free agent is a power back who has 356 touches so far on the season—the wear and tear could catch up to him soon (and surely the Titans are looking at what happened with Todd Gurley). Still, it’s hard to imagine this offense without him.

Brady & Belichick: The End?: It might be! But honestly, no one knows, so spend the rest of the weekend wildly conjecturing. I’ll say Brady signs on with the XFL’s St. Louis BattleHawks, and Belichick leaves football to develop a line of gluten-free pizza crusts.

• Question or comment? Email us at [email protected].

In what could be quarterback Tom Brady’s final game with the Patriots, Tennessee knocked New England out of the playoffs with a 20-13 victory at Gillette Stadium on Saturday. It was the team’s earliest playoff exit since a wild-card loss in January 2010.