What a crazy play by Mariota throwing a TD pass to himself.
The Chiefs are a cursed playoff team at home.
That’s probably a whole slew of firsts, isn’t it? First TD pass. Probably his first TD reception? Maybe first QB to throw and receive his own catch (I mean, how often can that happen?). Definitely his first time catching his own pass. Haha, the list goes on.
After the first quarter, I thought “well, the Chiefs ought to win this. Now how will they screw it up?” By not playing in the second half, apparently. Yes, there was that one crazy play of Mariota to Mariota, but beyond that the Titans just dominated the second half. They even gave up the ball once on that muffed punt, and the Chiefs couldn’t turn that into points.
Not that it much matters. I fully expect next week to be dominated by Pittsburgh and New England in the AFC games, no matter who they’re playing.
The Kelce injury just killed the Chiefs offense. Damn…
That’s right, kids! Hunt those heads and it might help you win a playoff game!
More often than you’d think. The defense gets a hand up and bats the ball back at the QB. I’ve seen it happen before.
Never seen one go for a TD though.
My brother looked it up when it happened. Brad Johnson threw a touchdown pass to himself in a game in 1997, which the Buccaneers coincidentally won by 7.
Also, Marcus Mariota’s quarterback rating when targeting Marcus Mariota is 131.5.
Jon Gruden held his phone up to the camera on national TV to show us this. This has to be some sort of historic event in sports broadcasting. It was kind of terrible. I suppose he doesn’t care at this point!
You have to feel good about the Falcons’ chances to get back to the Super Bowl. Looked good against LA, though admittedly the Rams helped with some awful special teams. Then they’ll be at Philly, against a backup QB. The NFC championship should be a good one no matter which of the three on that side of the bracket comes out, but I think an Atlanta team playing good ball would have a great chance against any of them.
I hope they win it all.
As expected, neither team looked very good in the early game. I fully expect the Steelers to dismantle the Jaguars, particularly if Bortles plays as badly as he did today.
It looked to me as if the Panthers had a good shot at winning the late game if they had been healthy. Newton didn’t look right ever since the sack early in the game when he hit his helmet against a teammate, and Funchess didn’t appear to have any business being on the field. For their sake, I’m glad to see Carolina going home so they can rest.
I think the Vikings have the edge against the Saints next week, but you never know what Drew Brees may pull off. I’d kinda like to see Minnesota win out and play at home in the Super Bowl, but New Orleans and then (probably) Atlanta ain’t easy, even at home.
Was really hoping to see the Bills pull off the late comeback given all the buzz this past week between the Bills fans and Bengals players/fans. As a fellow fan of a franchise that has seen it’s fair share of hard times, I totally get the Bills Mafia excitement and would have loved to see them get to the second round at least. They also have two players with local connections, Preston Brown who came out of my high school program, and Eric Wood who came up through my son’s high school program. Better luck next year guys.
Now I will probably have to root for Atlanta, New Orleans or Minnesota.
I’ve been a Saints fan for a long time, but I don’t really like their chances this season. Brees is too unreliable this season, and the defense is often sloppy. I predict the Vikings end their season next weekend.
Minnesota has another player from my son’s high school (and grade school) in Kyle Rudolph (really nice guy from a really great family…he just donated a bunch of money to build new weight room and training facilities at the high school), plus I always liked Jay Gruden when he was coaching here in Cincinnati.
Atlanta has Mohamed Sanu, another really good guy who used to be a Bengal. We should have never let him go, he and A.J. Green would have made an amazing duo. I like Atlanta’s underdog vibe, and I’d like to see Sanu get a Super Bowl ring.
Teams I will actively be rooting against : The Patriots (no malice, I’d just like to see someone else win for a change) and the Steelers because fuck the Steelers.
Whoops - proofreading as compared to spell-check FTW!
Now THAT’S a wardrobe malfunction.
23 TD, 8 INT and I think he set the all-time NFL record for completion percent? Huh? :)
But I also think the Vikings will win. Happy with either, as I like both teams. Mostly, I’m just happy the Rams are out.
HA, was about to ask exactly what you mean by that but I see Oghier has it covered on preview. Led the league in passing yards and yards per throw too. Ingram and Kamara combined for 21(?!?!) TDs so that kept Brees total lower than you’d expect.
Yeah, “unreliable” was the wrong word to use. Maybe “not as prolific” would have been a better way to put it. Basically, in the few Saints games I watch this season, it just didn’t seem like Brees was…well, as “Brees” as he usually is. Looks like the numbers on the regular season confirm this.
2017 TDs - 23
2016 TDs - 37
2017 Att/Comp - 536/386
2016 Att/Comp - 673/471
2017 Yards - 4,334
2016 Yards - 5,208
2017 YPG - 270.9
2016 YPG - 325.5
In fact, 2017 saw Brees’ lowest totals in a decade on TDs, Yards and YPG.
Granted, his QB rating was one of the highest of his career this year, and the fact that the Saints finally seem to have found a running game they can depend on undoubtedly impacted his stats, so it’s probably more just a perception thing on my part more than any true drop off in his ability to play.
I still don’t think they make it past the Vikings this weekend.
NO-MIN seems like the only good game of the weekend.
Brees actually had a running game this year. I don’t ever remember the Saints having a running game.