Jan 23, 2021
2020 Conference Championships: Four Excellent QBs
The 2020 NFL season has been quite a roller coaster with COVID-19 elements. Players missing games for positive cases or being around someone who had it. Postponed games being stretched into midweek or moved around when there was more flexibility. Facilities being shut down for two days after games, limiting practices that have already been scarce with no team practices until mid-August.
But the good news is we’re down to four teams. Three more games. Two this Sunday. Four teams that are all for real. Two veteran all-time great quarterbacks in the NFC. Two young ones with a really bright future in the AFC. (The four in the NFC divisional round were all 26 and older, two being in their 40s. And the four in the AFC divisional were all 25 and younger. Kind of like the adult dinner table and the kids table shown on NBC.)
In the NFC Championship at 2:05 CT, Aaron Rodgers and the №1 seed-Green Bay Packers, a team that’s been hot pretty much all year host Tom Brady and the №5 seed-Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a squad that’s been hot down the stretch.
Despite going 13–3 last season and losing in the NFC Championship game, the Pack had doubts this season. Rodgers wasn’t looking quite as well at 36 with a first-round quarterback in Jordan Love being drafted even though the former had five years left on his contract. (Rodgers was drafted when Brett Favre had three years left. Like Favre, Rodgers didn’t like it. It’s what they do in Titletown.)
They didn’t look for a №2 wide receiver to compliment Davante Adams. And they had a small margin of victory in 2019, making them look like they wouldn’t be as good this year. Pretty much all that felt squashed in the regular season opener when Rodgers threw a resounding-364 yards and four touchdowns against Minnesota while Marquez Valdes-Scantling had 96 receiving yards and a touchdown, showing the depth on the receiving corps the former felt was already there.
Rodgers, the two-time regular season MVP, went on to throw a career high-48 touchdowns with just five interceptions while having a balanced running game again with Aaron Jones leading the way as Green Bay finished with the highest-scoring offense. Meanwhile, the defense complimented well, ranking in the top 10 with Za’Darius Smith having another great year, attaining 12.5 sacks.
For Tampa, going into this season was like seeing an NBA team getting a star in free agency (cough, cough LeBron James) and having a bunch of ring chasers following him. That pretty much sums up the ageless GOAT, 43-year-old Tom Brady, who he and his team took awhile to settle into without a real offseason as he threw 40 touchdown passes, the second-most in his career. He’s got Pro Bowl receivers (lacking in New England) in Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Antonio Brown, who was picked up midseason but seems a little more mature. The defense is still strong at stopping the run, ranking №1 overall in yards and TDs allowed.
The Bucs came back to relevancy, going 11–5 as they hadn’t made the playoffs in 13 years or won a playoff game in 18 when they won Super Bowl XXXVII. There were times when this squad didn’t look like a championship roster whether it was the secondary getting burned or the passing game not clicking without a running game balance but now they’re playing their best football in December/January, a specialty of Brady, winning their last seven games. Plus, Brady seems to actually be having fun with a head coach in Bruce Arians who lets players a little loose more than the staunch and serious Bill Belichick, whom he sat under for 20 seasons.
If you want to know who the ring chasers are, it’s quite a list. There’s Brady’s old teammate, former All-Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski, who came out of a retirement after a year, former №4 overall pick running back Leonard Fournette, former All-Pro RB LeSean McCoy and former All-Pro wide receiver Antonio Brown. And on the defensive side, there’s two defensive linemen who were already in Tampa but seem like they just came since you don’t hear about them much anymore in former All-Pro Ndamukong Suh and Pro Bowler Jean Pierre-Paul.
In case you haven’t been following the playoffs, it’s different this year. There’s seven teams in each conference, the №2 seeds don’t get a bye week just the №1, which made for a crazy Super Wild Card Weekend with six games. During that weekend, the Bucs took down the №4 seed-Washington Football Team on the road (no fans) as heavy favorites, 31–23, since the latter won the ugly NFC East at 7–9 and reverted to their then backup, Taylor Heinecke, who hadn’t started a game in over two seasons and was simply in college classes and playing fantasy football just weeks prior. (Heinecke was also the fourth quarterback to start for Washington due to injuries and poor play.) Brady looked sharp, throwing for 381 yards and two touchdowns.
Then in the divisional round, they went to their next road game against the №2 seed-New Orleans Saints, their NFC South rival who swept them during the regular season. This was a long-awaited postseason matchup between two greats who were the oldest QBs to square off in playoff history, that being Drew Brees, 42, and Brady, 43, which prompted the latter to share this funny History Channel tweet.
Both legends showed their age as neither did much for over a half in a tight tie game at 20 before the Bucs forced three turnovers in the final quarter, winning the turnover battle 4–0 and the game, 30–20. Brees looked like it was time for him to retire (and probably will) as he threw three interceptions while Brady had a modest 199 yards and two touchdowns with another one on the ground, getting a more balanced attack with 125 combined rushing yards from Ronald Jones and Fournette.
For the Packers, they got the №1 seed prize, getting an extra week of rest and sailing through a Los Angeles Rams (№5 seed) defense that was the best in the league but didn’t have All-Pro defensive tackle Aaron Donald for half of the snaps due to injury. Green Bay won 32–18 in a game that felt could have been much worse with Rams quarterback Jared Goff dealing with a broken thumb. Rodgers threw for 296 yards and two touchdowns while the rushing game gained 188 yards.
In back-to-back weeks, Brady is getting to face an all-time great again just like himself. He’s an outstanding 14–2 in the divisional round, making this his 14th conference championship game except this one is in the NFC. Despite the greatness of Rodgers, he’s just 1–3 in this game and hasn’t been to or won a Super Bowl in ten years. Brady also has had the best of him in their three matchups with a 2–1 advantage.
The difference between last week’s duel against Brees and this is that Rodgers can still throw unlike the former who didn’t attempt a pass more than 20 yards downfield, something Brady has been phenomenal at this season even though he’s never done it anywhere near as much, thanks to Arians’s “No risk it, no biscuit” philosophy.
These teams weren’t the same in Week 6 when the Bucs dismantled the Packers, 38–10, dominating Rodgers and setting up short fields for their offense. And while TB12 is having a great season and is on a roll, he’s just 30th in DVOA against pressure.
The Packers are at home where they haven’t hosted an NFC Championship Game in 13 years. It’s going to be in the 20s with a chance of snow, which won’t bother Brady and Gronkowski and Brown, who won’t play but it could be a problem for a warm weather team. The fans are finally being allowed since it’s the playoffs and made quite a difference last week even if it was just 8,456. They’re redeeming last year’s debacle against San Francisco. They’re due for it. Packers win 31–26 in a battle of the Bays and go to Super Bowl LV in head coach Matt LaFluer’s second year, keeping the Bucs away from playing the big game in their own stadium, which has still yet to happen historically.
In the AFC Championship Game at 5:40 CT, it’s a battle of the young guns in Patrick Mahomes (the future GOAT?) and the №1 seed-Kansas City Chiefs hosting a red-hot Josh Allen and the №3 seed-Buffalo Bills.
This game is a little harder to pick because of Mahomes not being 100 percent. The Chiefs have been on the run-it-back tour this season, defending their Super Bowl trophy quite well. KC has the best offense in passing and total yards. Mahomes has a modest 40 touchdown passes. Travis Kelce set a tight end record for most receiving yards with 1,416 while also leading the league in that as a tight end. (Loved having him on my fantasy team.) Speedy wideout Tyreek Hill had a career-high 15 touchdowns.
The running game makes them a little more balanced. The availability of rookie Clyde Edwards-Helaire could make a difference. (He was disappointing for my team.) The defense is still top-10 in yards allowed. Kansas City has found a way to win games in all fashions this season, which is why they’re a little more mature, going 14–2 with their last loss coming in the regular season finale played without key starters.
Last week in the divisional round against the №6 seed-Cleveland Browns, the Chiefs looked like they were on their way to another easy win up 19–10 until Mahomes left midway through the third quarter after this tackle on third-and-1. He went into concussion protocol, having already been dealing with what looked like a toe injury and never returned. (I also didn’t agree with the call to run him on a play like that. He’s worth half-a-billion, for crying out loud.)
The Browns led by one-time Texas Tech quarterback Baker Mayfield suddenly had life and looked like they just might pull off the upset against a team without the true Tech alum and face of their franchise. After a crucial stop with a 22–17 lead, backup QB Chad Henne was this close to getting a first down on 3rd-and-14 and ending the game, but the offensive genius, head coach Andy Reid rolled the dice, going for it on 4th-and-inches near midfield with 1:15 left and Henne threw an easy completion to Hill to end the game….Talk about guts. (It’s too bad Mahomes couldn’t finish the game against Mayfield who once had a crazy college duel in 2016 when the latter was at Oklahoma, setting a bunch of NCAA records. For those that know me, I happen to like one way more than the other and would have been quite annoyed if it went the other way, especially since Mahomes is way better. I even got two Mahomes jerseys for Christmas, Tech and Chiefs each.)
The Buffalo Bills are not who we thought they were! (Chicago Bears reference) Going into this season, critics (including me) were skeptical of this team taking the AFC East as Brady finally left New England. Boy, did they show us wrong, especially Josh Allen, who no one saw coming after two years of inconsistent QB play. Allen threw 37 touchdowns while also having nine on the ground. His completion percentage sky-rocketed from 52.8 in 2018 and 58.8 in 2019 to 69.2 in 2020. Being stuck in quarantine with QB guru Chris Palmer in Southern California also helps.
The trade for Stefon Diggs certainly paid off as he had a career high-1,535 receiving yards. Former Dallas Cowboys receiver Cole Beasley also did well with 967 yards. The defense is starting to come along, leading to blowouts after letting that be their identity in 2017 and 2019 behind head coach Sean McDermott, ending an 18-year playoff drought. All of this led to a 13–3 record, a №2 seed and an AFC East title for the first time in 25 years.
The bumper this year was getting a playoff win, which they finally got after choking away last season’s, being at home in front of fans for the first time this season. (Imagine if there was a full house of the Bills Mafia.) Allen threw for 324 yards and two touchdowns with one on the ground as the Bills held on to beat the Indianapolis Colts, 27–24, after a failed Hail Mary attempt by Phillip Rivers, who still threw for 397 yards and two TDS and just retired this week.
In the divisional round with a matchup of 2018 first-round QBs, both Allen and Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson struggled on a windy night, which also messed up the kickers, particularly Justin Tucker, who missed two under 40 yards. An opening second-half touchdown drive put the Bills up 10–3. Jackson and the Ravens offense looked like they were going to answer that drive until Taron Johnson picked off a playoff record-tying 101 yards for a touchdown in what looked like a statement play for this Bills run. Jackson, last year’s regular season MVP, went into concussion protocol like Mahomes on the next play and the Buffalo defense showed their strength in a 17–3 win, advancing to their first AFC Championship Game in 26 years.
Like the other matchup, these teams also faced off in Week 6. The Chiefs controlled that one, winning 26–17. Mahomes was an efficient 21-of-26 passing for 225 yards and two touchdowns with a dominant rushing attack of 221 yards. Allen struggled with just 127 yards on 14-of-27 passing with two TDs and a pick.
But this Bills team is not like that one as they’ve won eight in a row, winning each one by double digits except for the Colts game. Mahomes was cleared Friday of being in concussion protocol, which is great for Kansas City, but could he be limited with his toe? I’ve been picking the Chiefs all year and don’t want to run away from that, but this Bills team really has a chance. There hasn’t been a repeat champion since 2003–04 when the Patriots did it and maybe good luck is running out on these teams nowadays. The way Allen is playing can be kind of scary. (And a bit frustrating when you play against him in a fantasy playoff game and see him looming over everyone else at 6'5” and making these easy throws….I’m not bitter.)
I have a feeling they might make me wrong again as people still have a hard time believing they’re this good — but Mahomes. He had three comeback wins in all of his postseason games when it looked like they wouldn’t win. I got a feeling that’s going to happen. This is the Chiefs’ third straight AFC Championship Game. The 20,000+ gathered are going to be loud. Chiefs 27, Bills 24. Fun fact is these two teams play each other every 27 years in this game as it happened in 1966 with the Chiefs winning 31–7 before losing to Green Bay in Super Bowl I and ’93 when Buffalo beat KC, 30–13, before losing to Dallas in Super Bowl XXVIII.
So there you have it. I’m predicting a rematch of the first Super Bowl between the Packers and Chiefs. Rodgers will be looking for his elusive second ring and Mahomes will be going for his second in just three years of starting. (A ten-year contract gives him plenty of time though.) I’m 8–2 in my postseason predictions so far, including 4–0 last week. I might have something going.
Tampa sure looks nice. You have to admit these are the best four quarterbacks in championship weekend in quite some years.
