The Packers and Texans are the hot underdogs heading (perhaps in the Texans case) to the top seed.  The Lions get a second home game.  Here is how the Divisional Weekend shakes out:

Full divisional-round schedule (all times Eastern)

Saturday, Jan. 20

Texans at Ravens or Chiefs at 4:30 p.m. on ESPN/ABC etc.

Packers at 49ers at 8 p.m. on FOX

Sunday, Jan. 21

Eagles or Buccaneers at Lions at 3 p.m. on NBC, Peacock

Chiefs at Bills or Steelers at Ravens at 6:30 p.m. on CBS, Paramount+.

If the Bills hold home serve tonight – QB PATRICK MAHOMES will finally be flushed out of his Arrowhead hideout.  Mike Florio:

Since Patrick Mahomes became the starting quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, the Chiefs have played 11 playoff games. Every one of them has happened at Arrowhead Stadium.

That streak hinges on Monday’s game in Buffalo. If the Steelers win, the Chiefs will host the Texans. If the Bills win, Mahomes and company will go to Buffalo.

Not that it will affect Mahomes. Nothing affects him. The cold last night didn’t affect him. The broken helmet didn’t affect him. Nothing that would happen in Buffalo would affect him.

It would be a great matchup. Mahomes and Josh Allen, meeting again. They’re 3-3. Mahomes has won both playoff games. Mahomes won the only meeting between the two teams in Buffalo.

Presumably, Florio is treating the Super Bowl as a separate category.  Even so, we count 12 playoff games now after the win over the Dolphins.  There also have been three Super Bowls.

That said, if Mahomes has to go to Buffalo, it won’t be his first postseason game on a hostile field – On 2/7/21, in Super Bowl 55, he and the Chiefs lost to the Buccaneers on their home turf.

NFC NORTH

DETROIT

Peter King experienced Football Heaven in downtown Detroit on Sunday night:

You may know that this is my 40th season covering the NFL (I’ve banged you over the head enough with that this season). In terms of quality of game and atmosphere and electricity on site, this Sunday night game—Lions 24, Rams 23—will go down in the top five of games I’ve covered. I wasn’t alone.

“Walking out about an hour and 15 minutes before the game,” Detroit coach Dan Campbell told me outside the Lions’ locker room Sunday night, “man, it felt electric. I’m not even out on the field yet—just on my way there. What’s this? It’s over an hour before the game! But I can feel the hum, the buzz. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.”

“You imagine days like this when you’re 5 years old, thinking of what it’d be like to play in a big football game,” said Lions linebacker Alex Anzalone. “This was a big football game. It had everything.”

You know what I loved about it? Great, great performances—Puka Nacua simply could not be stopped, Jared Goff and Matthew Stafford put away the incredible internal pressure each must have felt and played A games, Detroit kid Aidan Hutchinson chipped in two sacks and four pressures in the game he was drafted to win. No turnovers, in a game that was as physical as a game within the rules can be. No chippiness. Just good, clean, effervescent football with a crowd that waited 32 years for a home playoff game and made the 2 hours and 46 minutes fly by.

It was a beautiful athletic contest, with skill and strategy, and two very good teams playing at the top of their games on the biggest day of their seasons. It was apt, 24-23, because it was so close, and a shame one team had to lose a game there was absolutely no shame in losing.

The crowd … The place went batcrap when local hero Eminem was shown on the scoreboard, “Lose Yourself” playing over the PA, and even batcrappier when Barry Sanders, in a Lions letterman jacket, was introduced on the field during a timeout. But it was the football that got the biggest reactions, all game long. Lots of stadiums have these decibel-measuring devices (who knows how accurate they are, but they’re in a few stadia), and in the fourth quarter, 4:20 to play, one-point game, Rams’ ball with a third-and-14, the decibel device got to 118.

Now, 118 decibels is this: standing on an airport runway as a 737 whizzes by you on takeoff. That’s the kind of night it was, a night those attending the first NFL playoff game in Ford Field won’t forget.

Serious question – the commentators mentioned the atmosphere several times, did the rest of the NBC production convey what King does here?  Was the background sound mix muted on your set?

More from King:

This is a game Goff should have been nervous for. The guy who took his job and won the Super Bowl he couldn’t win for the Rams, Matthew Stafford, was coming back to Detroit. Everyone here seems to like Stafford, who left here in the classiest way he could, but that didn’t matter Sunday night. When Stafford came out for pre-game warmups with his mates, this was the reaction:

“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

This was the reaction a bit later for Detroit’s current QB1:

“JA-RED GOFF! JA-RED GOFF! JA-RED GOFF!”

Like: Stafford, one day, when you’re gray, we’ll honor you right here in this stadium. But not now. Not today. Today, you’re a bum, the enemy, and we’ll make your life a living hell for four quarters.

But Goff clearly was not nervous. Ben Johnson didn’t have to program some confidence throws into his gameplan early. Goff’s second throw, a 24-yard zip job to Josh Reynolds, told us everything we needed to know about this day. Reynolds ran a deep incut from the left, and when Goff released it, four Rams were buzzing around the middle of the field. On the replay, it’s easy to think, No! No! Don’t risk that! The window for Goff was the size of a hummingbird. But the line drive was perfect, and the big gain set up the Lions’ first TD. And that is precisely how Goff played all night. He threw it around, pressure-free, like this was a May minicamp practice.

Goff was 20 of 23 through three quarters, with touch passers and zingers like the Reynolds throw. Stafford played great too, and very nearly got the Rams in position to win it late with a field goal. But in the end, the Rams lost because they settled for field goals from the Detroit 6-, 9- and 11-yard lines instead of winning in the Red Zone. In any case, Detroit’s going to be a hard out in the playoffs if Goff replicates this show.

When it was over, someone caught Holmes, the GM, in the elevator going down to the locker letting out a series of primal screams: “YEAHHHHHH!!!! YEAHHHHHH!!!!!” Campbell, surprisingly, was the measured one afterward.

“What’s it feel like, right now, to know you built this—you and Brad?” I asked.

“Believe me,” Campbell said, “it feels good. But I think until this season gets over, I don’t know that I’ll entirely grasp all of what we’ve been able to do. As a coach, it’s the next one in front of you. We just won our first playoff game and now we got another one coming up back here at Ford Field. We gotta get ready for Tampa or Philly.

“But a day like this, this is what we’ve worked for. This was always the vision for what we could do here. I knew this was a sleeping giant. And we gave ‘em something today.”

GREEN BAY

This:

@The33rdTeamFB

The Packers now have more playoff wins at AT&T Stadium (3) than the Cowboys do (2).

Wow.

Green Bay is 6-0 at Jerry World – 3-0 regular season, 2-0 playoffs vs. Cowboys, 1-0 Super Bowl over Pittsburgh.

This from Peter King:

Jordan Love in his last nine games: 7-2 … 21 TDs, 1 interception.

NFC EAST

DALLAS

A tweet from Ed Werder:

@WerderEdESPN

The #Cowboys are the 1^st team to win 12 games in 3 straight seasons and fail to make the conference championship in any of them.

That is since the AFC & NFC created in 1970 Merger.

Peter King on the fallout of the Dallas debacle:

The impact of the Cowboy implosion. I mentioned the Mike McCarthy speculation, and for now, that’s all it is. But we’ve all known the meaning of what Fox put on the screen late in the game—Dallas, with 36 wins over the past three regular seasons, is the only NFL team with that many wins in a three-season span to not to have made a championship game appearance in any of those seasons. I can’t believe Jerry Jones, with a star (fading though he is) like Bill Belichick on the free market, wouldn’t go hard after him to try to salvage this era of Cowboys history. But the other byproduct of this game is that Dan Quinn’s stock fell precipitously with the divebombing performance of his D. Six touchdowns allowed in the first seven Green Bay possessions, and a defense that looked totally non-competitive in the biggest game of the year. That’s not going to help Quinn in Seattle. Nor will the Dallas defense in the final seven games of the year: 25 points and 353 yards allowed per game.

PHILADELPHIA

Peter King on the whispers from Philadelphia and the importance of Monday night’s game for Coach Nick Sirianni:

On Nick Sirianni. No inside information here, other than to know the people involved, and if I’m Sirianni, I’m thinking I’ve got to win tonight at Tampa Bay to show owner Jeffrey Lurie and GM Howie Roseman that I deserve the chance to re-shape the coaching staff. He’ll have to erase the defensive staff, at least, and do surgery on the offensive staff. Maybe Sirianni proposes to the bosses that he call the offensive plays next year. Either way, the 1-5 plummet job down the stretch, with some effortless stretches of terrible losses, puts Sirianni’s future in question.

NFC SOUTH

TAMPA BAY

Jenna Laine of ESPN.com on how QB BAKER MAYFIELD won over the Buccaneers:

He wasn’t trying to be Tom,” Bowles said. “You’re not going to replace Tom, ever — nobody is. He’s a legend, he’ll go down in the Hall of Fame.”

Mayfield integrated with the team seamlessly, though.

When word quietly trickled around that Mayfield believed in Bigfoot, having gone Sasquatch hunting for his bachelor party in 2019, Leverett’s ears perked up.

“The thing about it, we would go Sasquatch hunting, and we’ll come back with Sasquatch jackets, Sasquatch fur jackets,” Leverett said. “That’s how I feel about going anywhere with Bake.”

Teammates have been struck by Mayfield’s authenticity. The relationships have come naturally.

“That’s just honestly how I’ve always been,” Mayfield said. “Be involved with the team, be one of the guys. [As a] quarterback, you get a lot of the press, but you’ve got to get down and dirty with the guys. You’ve got to understand that you’re in the process with them. Everything needs to feel involved.

“I’ve talked about how a quarterback’s job is to elevate the people around him, and that’s also to make them feel like everybody is a leader. Everybody has a role here.”

Mike Evans wasn’t sure what he was getting in Mayfield. All the franchise’s all-time leading wide receiver could go off of was what he saw on television and read about.

“He’s a much cooler guy than I thought he was,” Evans said. “I always knew he was a really talented player, knew he was tough, knew he played with a lot of energy, mobile and all of those things. But I’ve come to find out he’s an unbelievable teammate.”

Mayfield wasn’t given the starting job either. He had to earn it, and he wouldn’t want it any other way. He entered camp in a competition with Kyle Trask. John Wolford also made this case, but Mayfield ultimately earned the nod, being named the starter after the team’s second preseason game.

Still, through the process, Mayfield earned the respect amid the competition and has stayed the course with his peers.

“He’s just very authentic,” Wolford said. “I kind of believe that the best leaders that I’ve been around are themselves, true to themselves. They’re not trying to be what their dad or what their coach or what their idea of a leader is supposed to be. They are who they are. So that’s what Baker is.”

THE FONDNESS FOR Mayfield has grown on the field. He has shown a willingness to leave the pocket, lower his shoulder and do whatever it takes for a first down.

“Trying to run through guys — you don’t see that from many quarterbacks,” right tackle Luke Goedeke said. “He needs to start eating his Wheaties a little bit more. He’s a little light right now.”

Evans’ favorite quality about Mayfield is his ability to bounce back from a bad play and in between series tell teammates, “Hit the reset button. Onto the next one.”

“He’s got a [really] cool way of how he relates to the players — particularly guys who might be struggling,” Canales said. “He’s got a way of talking to them and doing those things.”

Mayfield also can read the room and knows when to ease the tension.

“I always love when he first comes into the huddle — whether it’s practice or a game — he’s always cracking a joke,” tight end Cade Otton said. “It’s either cracking a joke or giving some motivational speech. I’m always on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what he’s going to do, and that’s always great.”

During the team’s strong late stretch, Mayfield and Otton connected on an 11-yard, game-winning touchdown with 31 seconds to go in Week 14 at the Atlanta Falcons.

Everything didn’t go as planned, but when Otton said, “We believed and we fought” after the game, his words summarized what Mayfield has helped instill in this team.

“That’s something that’s super admirable — just being in his position, like thrust into [that] role, and being comfortable in who he is,” Otton said of filling Brady’s shoes. “We certainly had our share of adversity this season — losing some games that we felt like we shouldn’t have.

“We all stayed the course, Baker stayed the course and just kept working. And that’s at the foundation of who he is — he works, he competes and he brings us all together.”

Wirfs, who was 21 when he began blocking for Brady, admits Mayfield is more relatable from an age-gap standpoint. At 28, Mayfield is more like a brother than a dad for a team that went from the league’s oldest to the youngest.

“I love Tom to death,” Wirfs said. “I think we had a great relationship, but Bake’s three years older than me. It’s different. Me and Bake go have a drink. We go out to dinner. Tom couldn’t. With the level of fame that Tom was at, he couldn’t come out. He couldn’t go to the O-line dinner with us. So they were just different relationships.”

THE LONE BLEMISH in the Bucs’ end-of-season run was a 23-13 loss to the New Orleans Saints in Week 17. The same Saints team they had beaten in three straight, including a dominant Week 4 victory.

“It’s just handling the highs and the lows,” Canales said. “When you have relationships, you weather those storms better, when you have each other’s back and there’s no finger-pointing and we’re all pulling in the same direction.”

Mayfield suffered a rib injury that game that limited his ability to throw the following week in the finale at the Panthers.

“I didn’t take any impactful shots,” Mayfield said of the Carolina game. “Each day it gets better and better.”

Still, he left that game dealing with an ankle injury as the rematch against the Eagles looms. He had limited practice time as the team prepared for Monday.

“We were really trying to find ourselves at that point in the season — trying to figure out who we were going to be, especially offensively,” Mayfield said of the Week 3 matchup with Philadelphia. “I think we’ve kind of realized what we’re good at [and] the bread and butter for us.”

The defense is now fully healthy too, with starting cornerback Carlton Davis III and outside linebacker Shaquil Barrett back from injuries, and that unit took several steps forward ending the season with a shutout. Kicker Chase McLaughlin went 3-for-3 and finished the season with a franchise record 93.3 field goal percentage in his first year with the Bucs.

“Knowing the pieces we have, knowing that you don’t have to do anything special — do your job at the highest level you can, you don’t have to be Superman — the rest will take care of itself,” Mayfield said. “Luckily, we got bailed out by the defense and special teams, but it’s time for us [as an offense] to carry our weight and improve. What better time than now in the playoffs?”

As Mayfield’s contract status looms, he and the team’s focus is strictly on the playoffs, and Bowles is thrilled with what he has seen both on and off the field.

“He just put his head down, and he worked and he won the team over, which is what was great about it,” Bowles said. “He’s doing things his way, and we’re doing things our way. It’s not as pretty as when Tom was here, but we’re scrappy and we’re pulling them out and we’re getting things done.”

NFC WEST

SAN FRANCISCO

Peter King on linebackers coach Johnny Holland, coaching with an incurable disease:

It’s hard to imagine feeling lucky while processing the news that you’ve got an incurable disease. But if you know Mr. Sunshine, Johnny Holland, maybe it’s not so hard.

Holland, 58, coaches linebackers for the 49ers. “How lucky am I,” he said, “to coach the greatest group of linebackers in the world?” That gives you some idea of how Holland approaches life. And he likes to compete. During one summer practice in 2019, he and some coaches were throwing footballs into a laundry hamper 30 yards away—a contest—when, on a perfectly normal pass, he felt a painful break or tear in his ribcage. Fluky thing, he thought, but painful. Three, four weeks passed. No better. His back started hurting. Then his shoulder. Every task hurt his torso. Holland figured after the team’s first home game, Sept. 22, a Sunday, he’d stop in to see the head team physician, Dr. Tim McAdams, after the game and see about getting an MRI or CAT scan. But if the doc had three or four players in his office when Holland walked by, he’d just wait till the end of the season and address it then.

“That’s the football mentality in me,” Holland said in late November, standing on the practice field where the fateful pass occurred. “You know, I can handle this pain; it’s not that bad. I’m lucky I didn’t wait. I’m lucky the doctor’s office was empty when I walked by.”

Holland was sent for a CAT scan on Tuesday. Spots showed up on the scan, spots making doctors fearful of multiple myeloma, a cancer that attacks bone marrow and bone structure. By Wednesday, Holland was told he had multiple myeloma, which is incurable.

Imagine having some rib and back pain on a Sunday, and on Wednesday a doctor tells you you’ve got an incurable disease that you’ve never heard of.

“Talk about a punch in the gut,” Holland said. “And the doctor tells me, ‘Don’t Google it. You’ll scare yourself.’”

It’s 6:14 on a Thursday morning. Seven hundred coaches around the NFL get in their cars in the pre-dawn darkness to head to work. All except one, on this day. Holland’s got to take six hours away from prep work on the Philadelphia Eagles for his monthly chemo treatment and checkup. Holland and wife Faith backed out of their driveway for the 55-minute drive to the UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco. I was in the back seat.

“You thinking about your treatment right now, or are you thinking about how to defend Jalen Hurts?” I said.

“I’m thinking about Philadelphia,” Holland said. “Tush push. How we’re gonna stop it.”

Later on the drive, Holland turned pensive. “I used to say, ‘Man, I’m just blessed to have this day.’ But now it’s like, okay, for real, I’m blessed to have another day. When they hook me up to the IVs, it reminds you that man, this is serious. Like, you’re getting this treatment to live another day.

“People don’t like to talk about it, but we’re all gonna die. You don’t have a letter with an expiration date on your life. One person knows my expiration date: God.”

Pause. A few seconds of quiet.

“Fulfilling your purpose while you’re here is more important than trying to figure out how long you’re gonna live.”

The striking thing about accompanying Holland to his chemo appointment was the contrast between him and others in the waiting room at UCSF. The difference in demeanor and attitude … Holland radiated optimism, saying hello, how’s your day to everyone. Half the patients—10 of 20, perhaps—were a combination of quite sick-looking and anxious.

The nurse practitioner in charge of his case, Samantha Shenoy, said: “I think what really helps Johnny’s attitude is just that gratitude for the time that he has here, and knowing like, ‘Wow, my time is limited. How do I want to spend it?’ That really helps pull him through because it’s like, ‘Well then, let me live each day and do the things that I love the most.’ And for him, he loves football.”

On each of these monthly chemo infusions, he’s examined by Shenoy and Dr. Thomas Martin, one of the country’s foremost multiple myeloma experts. When Holland got on the bed to take the infusion, his worlds collided, sort of. He could look out the window and see the remnants of Kezar Stadium, which was the 49ers’ home field until 1971 and where San Francisco city high schools play football now.

As the chemo was infused, Holland reflected on the good fortune of being diagnosed early, instead of waiting till the end of the 2019 season. Dr. Martin was blunt when I asked what would have happened had Holland waited five months. “That would have pushed some serious limits,” Dr. Martin said. “He wouldn’t have been making it to the Super Bowl. He would have been either too tired or too ill.”

Away from Holland’s bedside, I asked Dr. Martin about the gravity of Holland’s case. “Myeloma is currently an incurable disease,” he said. “That said, over the last five to 10 years, we’ve made dramatic improvements with our treatments for myeloma. We can actually enhance survival and improve survival three times longer than [the survival rate of] 10 years ago.”

This form of cancer strikes about 36,000 Americans a year. It’s more common in men than women, and about twice as common in African Americans as in Caucasians. Holland is Black. One reason why the Holland case interests the medical community is that doctors like Martin want Black men to understand the symptoms of the disease—easy bone breaks, intense soreness like the kind Holland had in his ribs and back, kidney problems—so they can get diagnosed and seek treatment before the problems are too severe to reverse. The clinical trials at hospitals like UCSF can prolong lives by years.

Holland seems great now—very little pain, able to work out, able most weeks to handle a full workload as the Niners gear up for the playoff push. But, as Dr. Martin said, it’s common for multiple myeloma patients to go through different treatment regimens. It’s likely the efficacy of Holland’s current treatment will wane. “I always have to have one or two on deck so that we know if something happens that this therapy doesn’t look like it’s working, we have the next one ready to go,” Dr. Martin said.

I asked him if he has the next one in mind for Holland. “Oh, absolutely,” he said.

Holland is four-plus years into his myeloma journey. The hope is his doctors will have treatments to keep him alive till there’s a cure found. But with such a vexing disease, there are no guarantees.

Before Holland left the hospital for the hour drive back to his football world, I asked his nurse practitioner how she feels about him going back to his job now and working till 10 or 11 in the evening, making up for the time he lost in the morning.

“When he first told me he was doing that, I was like, ‘You’re joking, right?’” Shenoy said. “It’s mind-blowing to me he’s able to do all that and keep going.”

This is Holland’s 22nd season as an NFL assistant. He doesn’t fit the mold of a typical coach. Azeez Al-Shaair saw that early, as an undrafted rookie linebacker who came to the Niners in 2019 rehabbing a surgically repaired knee. One day in the spring, Al-Shaair asked Holland if he could drive him to Wal-Mart after practice. Holland did, and Al-Shaair—who’d experienced homelessness in high school and didn’t have much money—bought a bicycle. That was his rookie-season mode of transport as a Niner. The Hollands began hosting Al-Shaair on Saturdays for meals and talk. And one day, when Al-Shaair was experiencing rookie-year frustrations, Holland went to his home and sat with him in his yard, hearing him out and telling the rookie he’d be fine.

“That day, I was just losing it,” said Al-Shaair, now a Tennessee Titan. “I mean, in the National Football League to have a coach drive to your house and sit outside of your house for two-and-a-half hours and talk about all these different things, just pouring his positivity into you … I never saw him just as a coach. I just always saw him like a grandfather-fatherly figure.”

Al-Shaair was asked what Holland has meant to his life. “Male figures in my life, uh, just kind of let me down,” he said. “I think I always like had a little bit of resentment when it came to male figures and truthfully, African American male figures. I mean, he truly is one of the best men that I I’ve ever met.”

When Holland told his players about his diagnosis in 2019, Al-Shaair cried. Others marveled then, and now, about their coach’s optimistic approach. When he announced he had to take a leave for the 2021 season to undergo intensive treatment, the organization, collectively, was emotional. “I have as much love for Johnny as anyone I’ve ever been around,” coach Kyle Shanahan said. His fellow coaches honored him late that season by wearing IGYB T-shirts — “I Got Your Back.” He’s been back full-time since spring 2022.

“If you’ve met Johnny for the first time,” linebacker Fred Warner said, “you’d never know anything was wrong. The life that he brings, the energy he brings day in and day out, it’s unbelievable. Sometimes I have to pinch myself and remind myself that he does have, you know, something serious that he is dealing with. How can you watch that, as one of his players, and think, ‘Man, you know, I’m just not feeling it today. I’m gonna take today off.’ I got the blueprint right there. I got the guy who’s giving his all through the toughest of times. That’s probably one of the greatest blessings that I’ve had in my career, to be able to see that every day.”

I saw it when I asked Holland a bit of a cliché question after practice on this day.

“Ever say, Why me?”

“Naw,” he said. “Why not me? I’m glad it’s me and not someone else I love. God built me for this. I’ve learned in sports the game’s not over till there’s no time left on the clock. One second left, and you’ve got a chance. And now, this is the game of life I’m playing.”

And winning.

LOS ANGELES RAMS

Sean McVay is gracious after a hard-fought, narrow defeat per Michael David Smith ofProFootballTalk.com:

Rams coach Sean McVay says he’s happy for Jared Goff, the quarterback he coached for four seasons, traded away to Detroit, and lost to on Sunday night.

McVay said after the game that he was impressed with Goff both in the way he played against the Rams’ defense, and in the way he has grown as a quarterback in his three seasons in Detroit.

“Jared was really efficient,” McVay said. “You can see the command he has. I think there’s a lot made of it, but I’m really happy for him. Obviously we wanted to come away with the win, but he’s done a great job. I think the grit, the resilience, and the way he’s done his thing here over the last three years, I’m happy for Jared, and I certainly am appreciative of the four years we had together.”

The Rams will never regret trading Goff and two first-round picks for Matthew Stafford, given that Stafford won the Super Bowl in his first season with the Rams. But Goff is showing that the Lions made the right move.

SEATTLE

Thoughts from Peter King:

On Pete Carroll. The right coach at the right time for Seattle won 147 games in 14 seasons, won one Super Bowl and had a very ugly Super Bowl loss in his other trip to the big game. But I see why the ‘Hawks did this. Seattle, with the 16th pick in the draft, has to think about starting over with a quarterback in a strong-QB draft in round one, and doing that with a coach who will be 73 next season isn’t a smart way to go. Carroll’s tireless and the youngest 72-year-old man, by far, I know. But his locker room has heard the same message for a long time and responded by going 26-26 over the past three years. That plus Carroll’s history with the defense; he knew he had to fix the run defense after Seattle allowed 138.4 yards a game in 2022. The response: allowing 150.2 this year. Yikes. Still, Carroll made this franchise one of the league’s bright lights, consistently competitive, and he delivered a crushing Super Bowl victory. Kudos to him for a great run.

AFC WEST

KANSAS CITY

Adam Teicher of ESPN.com on Chiefs victory in the Game No One Saw:

There have been times this season when the Kansas City Chiefs’ offense didn’t resemble the high-octane units of their Super Bowl champions, but on a frigid Saturday night, against a banged-up Miami Dolphins defense, Patrick Mahomes guided the Chiefs to a 26-7 wild-card victory to advance to the divisional round.

The Dolphins’ offense was on a record-setting pace early in the season, but it faltered down the stretch, scoring a combined 33 points in losing the last two games of the regular season. Miami didn’t convert a third down Saturday until 10:00 remained in the fourth quarter.

Kansas City Chiefs

The Chiefs are in the divisional round of the playoffs for the sixth straight season, but this time with a different type of team. The Chiefs’ defense, as it has done most of the season, led the way. The Chiefs limited the Dolphins to 264 yards and one touchdown.

QB breakdown: The Dolphins tried to blitz Mahomes like no other Chiefs opponent. They came after him on 60% of his dropbacks in the first half, the highest percentage of his career. He went 8-of-15 when blitzed for 100 yards in the half. The Dolphins backed off the pressure some in the second half. Mahomes finished 23-of-41 for 262 yards and a touchdown.

Buy on a breakout performance: Rookie wide receiver Rashee Rice had his biggest game yet with 130 yards and a touchdown on eight catches. Most often, if Mahomes was going to a wide receiver, it was Rice. He was the target on 12 of Mahomes’ first 20 passes thrown to a wide receiver. Rice had 92 receiving yards in the first half. A Chiefs wide receiver didn’t hit 92 receiving yards for a game until Week 12 in the regular season. It was the most receiving yards in a first half by a Chiefs WR since the 2021 opener (Tyreek Hill, 96 receiving yards). And it was the most by a rookie in the first half of a playoff game since 2009 (Colts WR Austin Collie had 105 receiving yards in the first half of the AFC Championship Game vs. the Jets).

Eye-popping stat: Offensive tackle Jawaan Taylor’s block-in-the-back penalty wiped out a Chiefs touchdown in the second quarter. Taylor had 17 accepted penalties in the regular season, the most by any offensive player in a season since 2003. Taylor later in the first half had another penalty, this one a false start, when the Chiefs were in the two-minute drill.

Troubling trend: The Chiefs were 2-of-6 scoring touchdowns in the red zone. They were 1-of-3 in Week 17 against the Cincinnati Bengals in the red zone in their most recent game playing their starters. They were 17^th in red zone efficiency in the regular season at 54.1%. – Adam Teicher

As usual, Kevin Harlan painted some nice word pictures on the radio call with Ross Tucker and Olivia Harlan.

LAS VEGAS

Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com says the Raiders are focused on the GM job, and speculates why:

The Raiders are looking for a new coach and a new General Manager. For now, they’re focusing only on filling one of those jobs.

As noted by Mike Garafolo of NFL Media, the Raiders have conducted zero known coaching interviews this week.

From the PFT coach/G.M. tracker, the only interviews and requests for interviews relate to the G.M. job.

The players want interim coach Antonio Pierce to get the job. Defensive end Maxx Crosby apparently plans to request a trade if Pierce doesn’t get it.

Some think it eventually will be Mike Vrabel, given his ties to prospective part owner Tom Brady. Others think Jim Harbaugh could be in play. For now, it seems that Raiders owner Mark Davis is looking only at filling the G.M. job.

Does that mean the G.M. will hire the coach? At a minimum, it suggests the G.M. will have plenty of power and influence over the process of hiring the next coach.

Peter King:

Give Antonio Pierce the job already. Mark Davis, it seems to me, wants to keep his 5-4 interim coach on a string while he explores Jim Harbaugh and maybe Belichick, and while he looks for a GM. It’s a mistake, unless for some reason Harbaugh would take the Raider job over better ones, because the owner would be alienating his players worse than he did when he bypassed Rich Bisaccia for Josh McDaniels. Pierce has the Raider love, and he appeals to the locker room. The delay doesn’t seem smart to me.

But word Sunday was that the Raiders wanted to talk to Leslie Frazier – not a very exciting candidate – while the Falcons have requested an interview for Pierce.

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS

With Michigan waiting anxiously, Jim Harbaugh goes on a date with the Chargers.  Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk.com:

Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines celebrated their national title with a parade and ceremony in Ann Arbor on Saturday and Harbaugh will be moving on to other business on Monday.

According to multiple reports, Harbaugh will meet with the Chargers about their head coaching vacancy on Monday. Reports last week indicated that such a meeting was coming as Harbaugh looks to potentially move back to the NFL after leading his alma mater to a championship.

The Chargers have interviewed a number of other candidates for the job, including Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald. Macdonald spent one season working as the Michigan defensive coordinator under Harbaugh.

Harbaugh went 44-19-1 in the regular season and 5-3 in the playoffs over four seasons as the 49ers head coach. The 49ers advanced to three straight NFC title games to kick off that run and lost to Harbaugh’s brother John’s Ravens in Super Bowl XLVII.

There has also been word of interest in Harbaugh from the Raiders, although no meeting has been scheduled between the two sides at this time.

AFC NORTH

CLEVELAND

QB JOE FLACCO was not the equal of the great QB C.J. STROUD on Saturday, but that doesn’t mean the Browns would not be better off with him or someone else at the helm in 2024, rather than with QB DESHAUN WATSON.  Thoughts from Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com:

Now, after an impressive season and a Flacco fairy-tale, the Browns will need to get back to the drudging reality of their biggest problem. Watson hasn’t played since midseason after surgery on his injured throwing shoulder. He didn’t get to suit up against his former team during its two matchups with the Browns this season, and while Cleveland should undoubtedly regard the 2023 season as a success, there are even more big-picture questions about the most notable decision of Andrew Berry’s tenure as general manager.

On one hand, Browns fans might feel like Watson wasn’t a problem. The team went 5-1 with him as the starter and 6-5 with its four other quarterbacks. In his final start, he helped lead the Browns to a 33-31 comeback victory over the top-seeded Ravens, with the Browns scoring 16 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to take home the victory.

It’s easy to poke holes in that record, though. Watson is given credit for a 39-38 win over the Colts in which he left the game in the first quarter after starting 1-for-5 with an interception. Three of the wins saw the defense allow a total of six points. The two games in which Watson posted a passer rating over 75.0 were victories over the Titans and Cardinals, who ranked 24th and 32nd, respectively, in QBR allowed.

The game against the Ravens was the one win in which Watson faced a tough defense and had his defense give up more than three points. In that game, he went 20-of-34 for 213 yards with a touchdown and an interception on a pick-six to Kyle Hamilton after 40 seconds. Watson was terrible in the first half before playing much better after halftime; there’s no doubting the best two quarters of football he played were his final two of the season, when he went 14-of-14 for 134 yards and a touchdown while adding another first down on a scramble.

I’ve also seen Browns fans point to Watson’s performance in the second half across all of his games as proof he was playing at a much higher level than expected. And certainly, by passer rating, it’s again hard to argue: He posted a 116.8 passer rating in the second half of his games this season, which was the second-best mark for any quarterback who attempted at least 150 passes.

The problem — to stick with passer rating for the purposes of this argument — is Watson ranked 41st out of those 42 passers in passer rating during the first half of games, where his 63.9 mark was worse than anybody besides Daniel Jones of the Giants. Watson had a 6.6% drop rate in the first half of his games this season, which is among the highest in football, but that fell to 0.0% in the second half. Unless he was really good at giving halftime speeches in which he reminded his teammates to catch his passes, that’s some bad luck in the first half and good luck in the second half.

For the second-half success to be something meaningful, we would need to see it as a trend throughout Watson’s career as opposed to simply in 2023. In 2022, dropping the sample down to passers with 100 pass attempts to include him, he ranked 39th in passer rating in the first half and 35th in the second half. And during his time with the Texans, he was 10th in passer rating during the first half and fifth after the break. I could see a conclusion where he gets a little better late in games because pass rushes tire and his ability to extend reps on scramble drills plays up, but he’s not going to morph into an MVP candidate after halftime in 2024.

The reason Watson had such a better record than his teammates is the Cleveland defense. Removing drives that resulted in kneel-downs, defensive touchdowns and the meaningless Week 18 game in which coach Kevin Stefanski sat his starters most of the way, the Browns averaged 1.9 points per drive in the games in which Watson started. (This includes the first quarter of the Colts game before Watson left injured.) They averaged 1.0 points per drive with Dorian Thompson-Robinson or PJ Walker on the field, but that figure rose by a full point to 2.0 points per drive with Flacco.

Flip that to the defense. Jim Schwartz’s unit allowed just 1.0 points per drive during the stretches in which Watson was the team’s quarterback. Without him, that figure rose to 1.7 points per drive. I would chalk that up to Garrett’s shoulder injury and the subsequent struggles the defense had when they weren’t forcing turnovers as opposed to something Watson was doing to make the defense better.

Flacco’s offense was better than Watson’s on a drive-by-drive basis, even as the Browns battled more injuries around the veteran quarterback. Both players were without right tackle Jack Conklin and running back Nick Chubb for most of the season, but Watson had left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. for most of his time on the field. Flacco even lit up the Jets without receiver Amari Cooper, who didn’t finish the regular season after his mammoth Week 16 game against the Texans and then didn’t made an impact in the rematch Saturday.

One of the reasons Flacco was better? He fits what Stefanski does best on offense. Going back to his time in Minnesota, Stefanski has gotten the most out of quarterbacks when they’ve operated with heavy doses of play-action. Kirk Cousins and Baker Mayfield had their best seasons when Stefanski took over playcalling and upped their play-action rates. Both Stefanski and Houston offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik learned from different branches of the Gary Kubiak/Kyle Shanahan tree, and Saturday’s game was almost funny to watch given that so many of its big plays came off the same play-action boot flood concept that has permeated that offensive tree for decades.

Watson has gotten a small boost from play-action, but the Browns don’t use it with their franchise quarterback as often. His QBR this season jumped from 34.2 without play-action to 40.1 with a play fake attached, but Stefanski had play-action involved on only 23.4% of his pass attempts. That’s just over the leaguewide rate, which is 23.3%.

With Flacco, that play-fake percentage jumped to 30.4%. And while Watson and Flacco were basically identical in terms of QBR without play-action, Flacco’s QBR skyrocketed with a play fake. The Super Bowl XLVII MVP posted a 78.7 QBR with play-action and a 33.3 mark without it this season. He finished with a QBR five points ahead of Watson, entirely because of what he did on those play-action passes.

One of the related issues here is Watson doesn’t prefer to operate from under center, which changes up the running game and forces a different sort of play-action. He took just over 16% of his dropbacks from under center this season and struggled mightily as a passer there, posting a 10.1 QBR. Flacco took more than 27% of his dropbacks under center and had a 64.9 QBR. In 2020, Mayfield’s best season with Stefanski, he was under center on nearly 33% of his dropbacks. Cousins was under center more than 49% of the time in Stefanski’s season as Vikings coordinator in 2019.

The league as a whole is more comfortable operating out of pistol and shotgun than ever before. Teams can certainly run a coherent play-action attack without being under center, but the impact is muted. Under center, the QBR with and without play-action nearly doubles; quarterbacks in 2023 posted a 33.3 QBR without a play fake and a 60.2 mark with one. In the pistol or shotgun, the effects are much less significant; quarterbacks posted a 55.1 QBR without play-action and a 63.9 mark with a play fake.

Coaches should mold their offenses to the players and not vice versa, so the Browns need to build and employ the best offense they can to play to Watson’s strengths. I would argue that neither the 2022 nor 2023 situations have been ideal for him given that he was coming off a suspension last season and battling injuries and missing players this season. The Browns surely wouldn’t have made the trade for him if they knew they were getting the quarterback who has struggled to both stay healthy and play effective football for an extended period of time since arriving in Cleveland.

The Browns can’t undo the trade, but would Flacco’s success lead them to give up on Watson? He is owed $138 million over the next three seasons, all of which is guaranteed, but the structure of his contract would make him movable. The Browns can’t cut him, but if they found a trade partner, they would owe $62.9 million in dead money, which is essentially what they’ll owe for him to be on the roster next season. Their cap would be clear of Watson in 2025, and while they would be down three first-round picks from a disastrous deal, they would be able to move forward without a player accused of more than two dozen cases of sexual misconduct on their roster.

While there’s no way the Browns would be able to expect a significant return for Watson after two disappointing seasons, would they find another team willing to accept the responsibility of his deal for the cost of a conditional seventh-round pick? I would say no, but I’ve learned never to underestimate how desperate teams can talk themselves into quarterbacks. The Bears were willing to eat $22 million in guarantees to get Nick Foles on their roster when his contract was underwater with the Jaguars in 2020.

And for the Browns, if they don’t get financial flexibility from moving on from Watson, they’re about to be in a difficult bind. Cooper, Wills, cornerback Greg Newsome and linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah are all free agents after next season. They are missing significant draft capital after the trade for Watson and will be missing multiple cost-controlled starters from their roster, meaning they’ll have to go out and find those guys in free agency. They’ll likely cut Conklin and ask Chubb to take a pay cut this offseason, but this might be the best version of the Browns we see for the next few years if they don’t make any changes.

Stefanski already has come out and suggested Watson will be the starter heading into the offseason, which is no surprise. What happens next will be fascinating. The Browns should bring Flacco back based on his performance, but will a 38-year-old quarterback who has made more than $175 million in his career really want to come back to sit behind Watson? If he struggles again, would Stefanski bench him for Flacco? And if he doesn’t, will the fans and the Browns’ locker room be willing to accept an inferior quarterback, knowing they’ve had more success with the guy on the sideline? This has been a difficult season for the Browns, but what happens next might be hardest of all.

AFC SOUTH

HOUSTON

Peter King does his thing as we get to know QB C.J. STROUD.  Great testimony from QB CASE KEENUM and others:

The Texans are going to be a problem in the divisional round. A big problem. They put up 31 offensive points on the game’s best defense Saturday, the coordinator consistently found ways to get his receivers waaaay clear of Cleveland’s noted DBs, C.J. Stroud is playing quarterback like Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello, the line held the almighty Myles Garrett to zero sacks and two pressures, and did I tell you the Texans have C.J. Stroud on their team?

If the Bills win this afternoon in the tundra of western New York, it’s Texans at Ravens this weekend. A Pittsburgh win would send Houston to Buffalo. Stroud at Lamar Jackson or Stroud at Josh Allen—winner advancing to the AFC title game—would be a show I’d pay to see. That’d be no walkover for either of the AFC’s top seeds, not the way Stroud is playing. Check him out over his last three games, since returning from a concussion:

Accuracy: 75.9 percent (the record for a full season is 74.4).

TD-to-Interception: 6-0.

Passer rating: 130.3 (which is insane).

Yards per attempt: 9.5 (a virtual first down every time he throws).

Remember the storylines when he was drafted? The S2 test storylines, when Stroud scored low on the exam purported to measure how players process information under real-time pressure? That Stroud was a poor “processor?” On Saturday, in the biggest game of his pro career, eight of his passes came against Cleveland pressure. He completed seven, for 118 yards, per Next Gen Stats … and he did it while getting rid of the ball in 2.64 seconds, his second-fastest average time to throw in a game this year.

Let me extrapolate. Stroud’s a superb processor; he proved that against a great defensive coordinator, Cleveland’s Jim Schwartz, knowing exactly when to cut his losses and check down (not often) and when to turn it loose downfield. He’s playing faster and more efficient against pressure, and he’s in harmony with his play-caller, offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik. Truly, anyone who watched Stroud put up 348 yards, four TDs and 41 points against Georgia’s stifling defense in his last pre-NFL game and thought he’d have trouble making quick decisions as a pro is certifiable. But that narrative hasn’t worn on him.

I met Stroud in a stadium tunnel before he went to see his family post-game. This was a happy man, even when I brought up the pre-draft questioning of his smarts.

“I’m too blessed to stress,” he said with a smile, a big silver “7” chain around his neck. “I mean, it’s just extra motivation. I don’t play this game to prove people wrong. I play this game for the audience of one, God. And then to prove the people who love me and believe in me right. You know? I feel like I’ve done that this year. I just want to keep that going. I don’t really focus on the negativity.”

In Houston’s stunning 45-14 rout, Stroud was so dominant against the league’s best defense that the Texans were able to call off the dogs early in the fourth quarter; he got yanked with 10 minutes left. By halftime Houston led 24-14, and Stroud had already thrown for more yards (236) and touchdowns (three) than Cleveland had allowed in any half all season. His play under pressure was a season-best, per the seven-of-eight Next Gen metrics. And playing so fast. You have to remind yourself the guy’s six years younger than Patrick Mahomes and he’s already in his league in how sees the field and makes decisions.

“I just never expect not to play well,” Stroud said.

He said that so matter-of-factly. The words on paper seem slightly cocky. But the words were spoken with a humble conviction that his mates have seen since draft day.

Then he backs it up on the field, as he did on the Texans’ first scoring drive Saturday. On third-and-six at the Cleveland 41-yard line, four receivers in the formation, he took a shotgun snap and quick-looked right for tight end Dalton Schultz; covered. He turned to wideout John Metchie III running down the middle; covered. With linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah late-blitzing and coming in unblocked from his left, Stroud spied Nico Collins at the last second getting a step on corner Greg Newsome on a go route down the left seam. Stroud knew he was going to take a shot. And he did. A millisecond after releasing a high arcing ball, a perfect spiral, 43 yards in the air toward Collins, Stroud got hit in the torso and twisted around by Owusu-Koramoah. Gain of 38. Newsome’s shoulders slumped. On Saturday, that was the first of many big-time throws by Stroud.

Veteran backup Case Keenum, one of Stroud’s first-year mentors, told me post-game: “I think the combination of vision, his ability to move within the pocket and remain an elite passer, how he still can get really good velocity on some of these throws, and do it under pressure, you just don’t see that in a rookie. But you see it with C.J. every game. We’ve seen it since day one. I can tell you—we didn’t put in any rookie gameplans this year. There weren’t any games we’re like, ‘Hey let’s give this young guy some confidence.’ From week one, it’s been serious NFL football that he’s playing. And there’s something about him when the lights come on in big spots. He’s elite.”

Slowik came from San Francisco, where he was Kyle Shanahan’s passing game coordinator last season. As Shanahan does, he prides himself in giving his quarterback solutions on every pass call. When the year started, Slowik would show his players clips from pass plays of the 49ers. “But now,” Keenum said, “it’s more and more Texans plays. He showed a bunch from our last drive at Indianapolis last week. That’s a confidence-builder right there.”

When it was over, past met present. This was sort of The Deshaun Watson’s Not Here Bowl, with his old team being led by Stroud and his new team being led by the ancient Joe Flacco with Watson out for the season with a shoulder injury. Watson, in fact, was here, and after the game, in a Browns knit cap, sought out Stroud for a hug and a four-second greeting. What must Watson have been thinking, listening to this crowd shower his successor with love, knowing that could have been him with this rebuilt team if he hadn’t gotten himself exiled to Cleveland? Whatever Watson thought, this city’s moved on. It’s Stroudtown now.

This turnaround in Houston—from 7-26-1 over the previous two years to 11-7 in the rookie years of Stroud and coach DeMeco Ryans—is a classic example of a quarterback meaning so much to a football franchise. From the moment he stepped into the huddle in training camp, exuding confidence, Stroud, just 22, won over his teammates. “I wish you guys could be in the huddle and just be around him,” tight end Brevin Jordan told reporters after the game. Named a captain before he ever played a regular-season game, Stroud’s attitude won over players, almost all of whom are older than he is. “I don’t think leadership has an age,” he told me earlier this season. “It’s something that’s in you. I didn’t come in demanding respect. I came in wanting to earn it.”

There’s a guy who gets it. At 22.

AFC EAST

MIAMI

Zak Keifer of The Athletic on the state of the Dolphins after the freeze-out in Kansas City:

The fans brought cardboard sheets to slip between their feet and the frigid concrete. Andy Reid’s mustache turned into icicles. Patrick Mahomes’ helmet cracked like it was constructed of plastic. This was a different kind of cold, a different kind of football, a different kind of test.

“You kinda have to go to a different place to be in that weather and play a contact sport,” Mike McDaniel said.

McDaniel’s Miami Dolphins, a warm-weather team with a warm-weather quarterback, had been called everything from frauds to front-runners this season, the criticisms intensifying as December bled into January and they dropped three of their final five, losing not only their chance at the AFC’s top seed but also their grip on their own division.

The consequence of a Week 18 loss to the Bills proved severe: Instead of an AFC East title and a playoff opener at home — it was 81 degrees in Miami on Saturday — the Dolphins instead were rewarded with a trip to Kansas City for the fourth-coldest game in league history.

“You reap what you sow,” chirped ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith this week, dismissing the Dolphins, like plenty more, as pretenders this year and nothing more. “You deserve this. Go out there and freeze.”

Just about everyone at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium did Saturday night during the Chiefs’ 26-7 win in the wild-card round of the playoffs. With the wind chill, it felt like minus-27 at kickoff. The gusts were whipping, the air biting, the conditions flat-out unforgiving.

One team seemed to relish it. The Chiefs danced and screamed and lit up the scoreboard. The champs looked revived.

The Dolphins, meanwhile, stumbled in silence, whimpering quietly into an offseason of uncertainty.

“Guys are going to take this one on the chin for sure,” wide receiver Tyreek Hill said.

Chiefs handle frigid conditions to outlast Dolphins in AFC wild-card matchup

The conditions didn’t help an offense built on speed and timing. Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was off all game, his throws routinely halted by the wind, some wobbling several feet off target. He finished with 199 yards on 20 completions for a touchdown and an interception, though a large chunk of that came on a single heave to Hill (a 53-yard TD that was the Dolphins’ lone highlight) and plenty more in garbage time, the game’s outcome long decided.

“They beat us one time over the top with Tyreek on a fade route,” Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones said. “We eliminated the big plays and forced them to take the small, short throws. If you stop the run and make them one-dimensional and throw the ball, we’ve got guys who can get after (the QB).”

The Chiefs’ plan paid off. Tagovailoa was erratic and under pressure. The run game never got rolling; the Dolphins made it a point early to stay with it, and it cost them (Miami finished with only 76 yards on the ground). Tagovailoa was sacked twice and hit five more times. Outside of Hill’s spark, nothing worked.

“As an offense, we gotta put drives together and help (the defense) out, man,” Hill said. “We can’t just be a bunch of front-runners.”

But it’s hard to see the Dolphins in another light. The QB’s struggles Saturday night and across the last month mirrored that of this team. Tagovailoa shrunk down the stretch, playing his worst football of the season.

So did Miami.

The NFL’s hottest team in September cooled considerably for a second straight year.

“We felt short of our goals, we had very strong expectations for ourselves,” McDaniel said. “One of the reasons people don’t put themselves out there and hold those expectations is because when you fall short of them, it’s emotional, it’s gut-wrenching.”

McDaniel has won 20 regular-season games in two seasons in Miami and, at times, turned the Dolphins into the most entertaining team in the league. But the next step? The one where the Dolphins become a legitimate threat in the AFC instead of just a splashy early-season story?

They’re still not there yet.

Still no division titles since 2008.

Still only one postseason victory since Dan Marino retired in 1999.

Consider this: McDaniel’s teams are 4-10 in games played in December and January over the last two years. They are 16-6 in others.

They also can’t hang with the league’s best. Not when it matters. Not consistently. Miami couldn’t shake that stigma all season, and outside a Christmas Eve win over the Cowboys, did little to challenge it. The Dolphins, 11-7 for the year, finished 1-6 against playoff teams with a minus-110 point differential.

“We shouldn’t feel entitled to high opinions from the masses,” McDaniel vented after one of those losses, a 21-14 defeat to the Chiefs in Germany in November. “We have to earn that confidence. If you want the narrative to change, (then) change the narrative.”

They never did.

The Dolphins wouldn’t play the excuse game Saturday night, but the rash of setbacks this team faced late in the year undoubtedly played a role in the skid. Top edge rusher Bradley Chubb was lost for the year to injury. Another one, Jaelan Phillips, was, too. Linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel missed Saturday’s game. Same with safety Jevon Holland.

Beyond that, nothing about the Dolphins’ injury report was encouraging this week — or normal, for that matter. Ten players were listed, including most of their top offensive weapons (Hill and fellow wideout Jaylen Waddle, running backs Raheem Mostert and De’Von Achane). Next to Holland’s name: “Knees.” Next to veteran offensive tackle Terron Armstead’s name: knee, ankle, back.

McDaniel allowed after the game that both Mostert and Waddle, after missing the Dolphins’ Week 18 loss to the Bills, wouldn’t take no for an answer. They were playing, period.

“One of the reasons it hurts so bad is because nobody on this team really harbored all the excuses,” the coach said late Saturday night, the wound fresh, the sudden end to the season still something he needed to process. “All the variables people talk about … injuries, weather, all that stuff … we came here to win. Didn’t happen.”

Now the Dolphins enter an offseason of unknown, the future muddied by questions that will need to be answered. Start with the quarterback. Tagovailoa, driven by the disappointment of how 2022 ended — parts of five games missed due to multiple concussions, including the playoff loss in Buffalo, leaving him to briefly consider walking away from the game at age 24 — designed his entire offseason around durability.

He took up jiujitsu, relearning how to fall. “Not everybody’s doing that,” McDaniel gushed last week. “Not everyone would do that.” It paid off. Tagovailoa started all 17 games. He led the league in passing yards (4,624) and finished tied for fifth in touchdowns (29), both career highs. Miami finished with its highest win total since 2008.

“He’s my guy, man,” McDaniel said of his quarterback.

But for how long?

It’s clear this version of the Dolphins — the front office handing out weighty contracts to accomplished veterans while Tagovailoa played out his rookie deal — won’t last. It can’t. The QB’s cap number goes from $9.6 million this year to $23 million in 2024 (the Dolphins exercised his fifth-year option last spring). Hill will be a $31 million cap hit next year, cornerback Jalen Ramsey a $27 million hit, Chubb $26 million, cornerback Xavien Howard $25 million and Armstead $20 million.

The flexibility Tagovailoa’s rookie deal afforded the franchise will vanish, leaving general manager Chris Grier with a dicey decision: Has his QB done enough to earn an extension? Because extensions for starting quarterbacks who lead the league in passing yards aren’t cheap. Tagovailoa has excelled at times in McDaniel’s system, climbing into the MVP conversation early this season, but his struggles late will cloud his value — and potentially his future in South Beach.

As sizzling as his start to 2023 was, Tagovailoa stumbled down the stretch. He didn’t have a 300-yard passing game after Week 10. Over his last eight games, including the playoff loss, he threw nine touchdowns against seven interceptions, and he was badly outplayed by Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes Saturday night, the difference in the two as clear as the night was cold.

Two of the other top quarterbacks in Tagovailoa’s draft class, the Bengals’ Joe Burrow and the Chargers’ Justin Herbert, have already been paid. Burrow got $275 million, Herbert $262 million.

Is Tua worth it?

And do the Dolphins want to tie their future to him, his limitations on full display over the last month with so much on the line?

That’s what is riding on Miami’s next few months.

After the loss, and after his news conference, Tagovailoa lingered in the locker room until it was nearly cleared out. He hugged every teammate he could find, one by one, the emotion and the pain of the loss written across his face.

“It sucks, brother,” he said. “Losing sucks. We didn’t come together then way we wanted to offensively, and it showed tonight.”

It has showed over the past few weeks, a late-season skid that left the Dolphins in the exact same spot they were a year ago. Perhaps one of these years they’ll change that.

More on Tua and the cap from Bill Barnwell:

that leads to another difficult decision. The Dolphins are $43 million over the projected cap for 2024. They can get down by restructuring contracts for Hill, cornerback Jalen Ramsey and left tackle Terron Armstead and releasing edge rusher Emmanuel Ogbah to save $13 million, but this isn’t a team that has a ton of flexibility. By snap-weighted age, it is the league’s eighth-oldest offense, the 10th-oldest defense and the fifth-oldest team overall. This is a team built to win now.

Can the Dolphins do that with Tagovailoa? And should they be confident enough about that belief to offer Tagovailoa a contract extension when that deal would likely cost nearly $60 million per season and more than $150 million in guaranteed money? By the numbers, he’s a franchise quarterback. If you ascribe more of his success to Hill, Waddle and McDaniel, the last three weeks have given you more reasons to be skeptical.

There aren’t many alternative options available to the Dolphins, who will pick in the bottom half of the first round in April’s draft. Their backup is former Jets quarterback Mike White. The draft picks from the Trey Lance and Laremy Tunsil deals have been used elsewhere. This isn’t an offseason with many significant options in free agency; the best-case scenario might be Kirk Cousins, who also appears to have a meaningful postseason ceiling and is coming off a torn Achilles. Trading for Justin Fields could work, but that move would only delay the decision about whether the Dolphins have a quarterback they can trust to win a Super Bowl.

Tagovailoa has a $23.2 million fully guaranteed fifth-year option for 2024, which the Dolphins can restructure to create cap space. Teams typically want to extend their quarterbacks before they enter the final seasons of their deals, but with Tagovailoa, this is a scenario that calls for playing out that option. Sometimes, in the case of Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, it leads to teams deciding that they’re happier without their former top draft picks.

On the other hand, there’s Joe Flacco, who had lost four straight times on the AFC side of the bracket during his first four seasons in the league. Entering his fifth season, the Ravens weren’t able to come to terms on an extension with him before the 2012 season began. You know what happened next: Flacco went white-hot in the postseason, won a Super Bowl and ended up getting two massive contracts from Baltimore as a result. The Dolphins might also feel like they need to see it from Tagovailoa before committing a market-value contract. And he might have little choice but to bet on himself and hope that next season turns out to end much more comfortably than this one did.

NEW ENGLAND

Peter King on the peculiar hiring style of Robert Kraft:

Robert Kraft handled the Jerod Mayo hiring the same way he handled the Bill Belichick hiring. In 2000, against the advice of owners and league officials, Kraft hired a talented coach who was also a sourpuss. He considered others, but never seriously. This time, he signed Mayo to an heir-to-the-throne contract over a year ago and followed through by sticking with Mayo with some strong candidates—Mike Vrabel most notably—on the market. Since being a first-round pick of the Patriots in 2008, Mayo has never stepped foot in another organization as a player or coach. I see why Kraft goes with his gut, but it’s pretty risky to trust the green Mayo with this giant job.

Kraft has never had a GM, which is no reason to not have one now. Seems the Patriots are on the way to promoting an internal candidate or going outside the franchise for VP of Player Personnel. No reason to have a GM, the in-house theory goes; the franchise has been to 10 Super Bowls in Kraft’s three decades without one. I get that. But Kraft’s three coaches (Parcells, Carroll, Belichick) were all veteran NFL hands when hired. Mayo needs a strong personnel rudder. I don’t see why a strong GM isn’t the solution here.

THIS AND THAT

BROADCAST NEWS

NBC is giddy with what it did on Saturday night, claiming 23 million of you watched the game in Kansas City.  Richard Dietsch of The Athletic:

For all the fret and frustration over NBC exclusively broadcasting Saturday night’s wild-card battle on its streaming service Peacock, an average of 23 million viewers tuned in to watch the frozen clash between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins, making it the most-streamed game in NFL history.

Prior to Saturday, the most-streamed game came in late November, when the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Seattle Seahawks on “Thursday Night Football” in front of an average of 15.26 million viewers on Prime Video.

Saturday’s viewership spike came as fans outside of Kansas City and Miami were required to pay a subscription fee to watch Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs take down Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins. Kansas City’s 26-7 victory marked the first playoff matchup in league history to air exclusively on a streaming network.

Peacock’s “Premium” subscription costs $5.99 per month and includes live sports. Last week, the service reportedly had 30 million subscribers, as Comcast previously said subscriptions were up 75 percent over last year.

Peacock previously had an exclusive broadcast for a regular-season game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Buffalo Bills on Dec. 23. That game averaged 7.3 million viewers, peaking at 8.4 million in the fourth quarter. For comparison, Amazon Prime’s “Thursday Night Football” broadcast averaged 11.86 million viewers in 2022, which was up 24 percent from 2021 (9.58 million), according to The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch.

A streaming success

Rick Cordella, the president of NBC Sports, who also oversees sports on Peacock, told The Athletic last week that he would judge the Chiefs-Dolphins game first on the quality of the production and then if the technological distribution was smooth and clear. The next goals included metrics such as how many subs the game drove, how many new subscribers they had, whether they met their internal traffic goals and how advertising partners felt afterward. Viewership goals were not something Peacock executives pushed externally because ultimately the $110 million they paid the NFL for the game was done for subscription acquisition. There’s no doubt the one thing parent company Comcast wanted to avoid was a viewership disaster and they got the opposite. The 23 million viewership average tops last year least-watched playoff game (Chargers-Jaguars, which averaged 20.61 million viewers on NBC) by a couple of million viewers.

Both the league and Peacock will be overjoyed by this viewership number. What does it mean? It means we are near-certain to going to see an exclusive, live-streamed NFL playoff game repeated next year.

We wonder how many TV screens are required to get 23 million “viewers.”

More context from the AP.  The Cleveland at Houston game that preceded the stream, had slightly more viewers.  The Jaguars-Chargers in the Saturday night slot last year on NBC had less.

It also surpassed the audiences for the Saturday night wild-card playoff games that were shown on NBC in two of the last three years.

Last year’s first-round playoff game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Jacksonville Jaguars averaged 20.61 million viewers.

According to various reports, NBCUniversal paid $110 million for the rights to the game. Although the final score wasn’t close, the Dolphins-Chiefs game had the novelty of being one of the coldest in NFL history — and Taylor Swift was in attendance to watch her boyfriend, Travis Kelce.

Judging by the audience, Saturday’s game is unlikely to be the last playoff matchup shown on a streaming service.

Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution, said viewership would be one factor in deciding if a wild card game would continue to be exclusively streamed in the future.

Under the NFL’s contract, each of its four broadcast partners — NBC, CBS, Fox and ESPN/ABC — gets at least one wild-card game. Of the two remaining games, one rotates each year between NBC, CBS and Fox, while the other will likely be up for bid each year. That means Peacock, Paramount+, Amazon or ESPN+ could eventually be in the running.

The Houston Texans’ 45-14 rout of the Cleveland Browns averaged 29 million on NBC, Peacock, digital platforms and Telemundo. That is the most watched wild-card game in the late Saturday afternoon slot since a 2018 game between the Seattle Seahawks and Dallas Cowboys averaged 30.06 million on Fox and streaming platforms.