The Daily Briefing Monday, January 24, 2022

In 25 hours on the greatest playoff weekend in the 102-year history of professional football, the headlines, one by one, kept overtaking the last one:

BENGALS KNOCK OFF 1 SEED TO REACH FIRST AFC TITLE GAME SINCE 1988

NINERS KNOCK OFF 1 SEED ON 45-YARD FIELD GOAL AT :00

RODGERS’ FUTURE UNCERTAIN; WON’T SAY IF HE’LL STAY A PACKER

BRADY, IN A STUNNER, MIGHT WALK AWAY TOO

RAMS AVOID MEGA-COLLAPSE, WIN ON FIELD GOAL AT :00

HAS BRADY PLAYED HIS LAST GAME?

MAHOMES, ALLEN IN A DUEL FOR THE AGES

KC WINS ON GREATEST COMEBACK OF REID’S LIFE

OVERTIME RULES STINK

ALL FOUR DIVISIONAL GAMES DECIDED ON FINAL PLAY

I’m sitting here, just after 11 Sunday night, trying to process the last day-plus. Or, as Jack Buck once said: “I don’t believe WHAT I JUST SAW!!!” We came within 13 shocking seconds of the road team winning all four divisional games for the first time in history. The heroes/newsmakers: Evan McPherson (who’s he?), Joe Burrow, Jeffery Simmons, 39-year-old Robbie Gould, Deebo Samuel, the conflicted brain of Kyle Shanahan, Jordan Willis (former Jet, of all things), Cooper Kupp, Matthew Stafford, the unblockable Aaron Donald, Josh Allen, Josh Allen, Josh Allen, Gabriel Davis the touchdown machine, the tough-as-nails Patrick Mahomes, the incomparable Tyreek Hill. And Josh Allen.

GREEN BAY

Michael David Smith on the two AARON RODGERS:

@MichaelDavSmith

Aaron Rodgers had one excellent postseason, after the 2010 season, when he won Super Bowl MVP. Aside from that year, he has been mediocre as a playoff quarterback. Great in the regular season, not great in the playoffs.

11-10 in the postseason with a 100.1 passer rating.  45 TD passes in 21 games.  We would say Rodgers has been “good” in the postseason, better than “mediocre.”  But not to the level of his traditional regular season play.

This from Peter King:

Packers lousy in crunch time for second straight year. Last year, in the NFC title game, it was Rodgers going incomplete, incomplete, incomplete in the game-deciding series against Tampa Bay. This year, it was the worst offensive performance by the Pack in Rodgers’ 22 playoff starts. You can look it up: They’d never scored less than 20 points in any of Rodgers’ playoff games till this one. Ten. Jordan Love-like. Two top seeds, two crushing disappointments.

Rodgers defers decision on future. He could request a trade in the coming weeks and the Packers would have to oblige, or he could play one more year and be an unrestricted free-agent in 2023 at 39, or he could quit now. “I’ll have conversations [with Packer management] in the next week or so and start to contemplate after that,” he said after the game. No sign of which way he’s leaning, but he did say he didn’t want to be part of a rebuild.

DALLAS

The Cowboys are getting frustrated with WR AMARI COOPER who is deemed a huge talent with a huge contract who is only generating good production.  Jared Dubin of CBSSports.com:

Dallas Cowboys owner and de facto general manager Jerry Jones is frustrated with a whole lot of things after his team’s disappointing opening-round playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers. Among the things disappointing him at the moment is wide receiver Amari Cooper.

“Amari Cooper should take half the field with him when he runs a route,” Jones said during his weekly radio appearance, per The Athletic’s Jon Machota. “A whole bunch of that defense ought to have to honor Cooper. He ought to be able to catch it in the middle when they’re going with him. Others do. You throw to people that are covered all the time.”

Cooper, whom the Cowboys acquired from the then-Oakland Raiders in exchange for their 2019 first-round pick during a midseason trade in 2018, is coming off his worst season as a Cowboy. He finished the year with just 68 receptions for 865 yards and eight touchdowns while playing in 15 of 17 games. (He missed two games due to a positive COVID-19 test while unvaccinated, then was limited in a third contest as he continued to experience symptoms after his return.) He was considerably more productive during previous seasons, totaling 224 receptions for 3,028 yards and 19 touchdowns in 41 games with Dallas prior to 2021.

Cooper signed a five-year, $100 million contract prior to the 2020 season, but of the $66 million remaining on the deal, only $6 million is guaranteed. Given Jones’ apparent level of frustration with the wide receiver, it cannot be ruled out that the Cowboys would move on from Cooper and save $16 million against the cap in the process.

Doing so would be complicated, though. Michael Gallup and Cedrick Wilson are both free agents this offseason. Gallup tore his ACL toward the end of this season and might not be ready for the beginning of next year. Wilson could be elsewhere. Same with tight end Dalton Schultz. Letting Cooper leave would dramatically thin out Dallas’ pass-catching corps, making it even more difficult to get the ball to CeeDee Lamb — something the Cowboys already struggled to do in their playoff loss.

If Jones is this frustrated with Cooper, though, it should be noted that the team has several other high-priced players whose production does not match their contract status. Most notable among them is, of course, running back Ezekiel Elliott. Because the Cowboys re-structured Elliott’s contract extension before it even kicked in, it is almost impossible to move on from him without an enormous financial penalty until 2024.

Dallas is currently over the cap for 2022. Many moves will have to be made to get their books in line, especially if they want to retain any of the free agents they have that are set to hit the market. Perhaps a surprising change or two could be in the offing.

NEW ORLEANS

Ian Rapoport of NFL.com with the interesting report that Sean Payton, despite three years left on his contract, may not be all in to serve as the Saints coach in 2022 and beyond.

The New Orleans Saints’ season has been over for two weeks and as the days have gone by, one question has remained open: Is head coach Sean Payton coming back?

Sources say that Payton, who has three years left on his contract, has not committed to returning to coach for another season in New Orleans. He has not yet informed the organization for whom he’s coached since 2006 that he will definitely return.

Multiple attempts by NFL.com to reach Payton went unreturned.

Payton has been on vacation for more than a week, and a person turning off their phone while on vacation is not unprecedented. Payton using the time to decide if he wants to return or step away for a year is noteworthy, however, and he has gone dark on several people close to him.

It would be highly unlikely for Payton to coach another team in 2022, sources say. Rather, this would be a mini-retirement to recharge for a year after a season several people close to him described as incredibly challenging and difficult.

In this scenario, the Payton era likely would be over in New Orleans. If he were to return to coaching, it’s expected it would be with another organization, sources say.

Such a move would not be without precedent. Bruce Arians retired following the 2017 season after five years with the Cardinals, only to come out of retirement in 2019 to coach the Buccaneers. Tampa Bay sent Arizona a sixth-round draft pick as part of the package to hire Arians as he remained under contract with the Cardinals.

Saints defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, who has a head coaching interview scheduled with the Chicago Bears, would be a top candidate to take over, sources say, but New Orleans would have to conduct a complete search to replace Payton.

One of the highest-paid coaches in the NFL, Payton is under contract through the 2024 season. Him walking away from at least $45 million is hard to fathom, but it has not been ruled out, sources say.

Prior to the end of the 2021 season, sources say Payton was approached by at least one TV network about working in media, and that appears to be a possibility, as well.

New Orleans battled through endless injuries this season, while using four QBs (Jameis Winston, Taysom Hill, Trevor Siemian and Ian Book). It was trying and extremely taxing for Payton, according to those close to him. That necessitated some time away to consider his next move.

Several people close to Payton have said they simply don’t know if he’s returning, with others mentioning they’ve heard the “he could walk away” rumors like the public. Meanwhile, the Saints are in a holding pattern.

But the reality is simple: No one knows what he will do.

Payton to TV for a year like Arians.  Then, his pick of several jobs in 2023, without another season out of the playoffs with the Saints to blight his resume.

We thought this might be the case:

Front Office Sports

@FOS

BREAKING: Fox Sports is targeting Sean Payton as a potential replacement for Troy Aikman, should Aikman leave for Amazon.

The Saints head coach has not committed to returning to the New Orleans for the 2022 season.

TAMPA BAY

Peter King supposes that QB TOM BRADY might be thinking retirement, but not because of his decline, but because of Tampa Bay’s upcoming battle with the salary cap:

I don’t know if Tom Brady will retire. I do know that there are some close to Brady who wonder if he will, including one person Sunday night who told me when I asked about Brady walking away at 44, “Friday I would have said no. Today, I don’t know.”

Don’t take that to mean Brady had some epiphany over the weekend that told him he should retire. I’ve always felt—as someone who knows Brady in passing; I am not close to him—that when he retired, it would not be because he felt he was incapable of playing at a high level. God knows anyone who leads the NFL in passing yards at 44 can and is still playing at a high level. But I’ve thought there’s something else that’s important for Brady, who knows he has focused so much energy for exactly half of his life on being a great professional football player. At some point he’s going to want a different focus in his life. And at a time when the Bucs were all-in on 2021 and it didn’t result in a second Tampa Super Bowl, Brady knows 2022 is going to be worse because of the cap and because some of the vets are not going to be able to be the impact players they were in the Super Bowl season. So maybe this is time to go. But I stress: I don’t know if he will. Brady might come back and throw for 5K again next fall. We’ll see. He does deserve to take his time and make the choice he wants to make.

This from Dan Wetzel of YahooSports.com:

The Rams move to the NFC title game against San Francisco. Tampa Bay’s shot at repeating as Super Bowl champs ends with a question hanging over everything.

Was Brady’s 365th career game his last?

If it is, then he’ll probably one day smile at the endearing image of himself, mid-40s, bloodied and bitter yet never backing down. The loss will hurt longer than the lip. But if he couldn’t go out hoisting a Lombardi Trophy, then at least still putting a fourth-quarter scare into the Rams was something, an old gunslinger still pumping off shots until the end.

No one knows Brady’s plan, perhaps even Brady. He may retire. He may not. He has promised to take some time after the season to think and talk it over with his family. That’s to be expected at his age.

“I haven’t put a lot of thought into it,” Brady said after the game. “Taking it day by day.”

He isn’t playing for the money. It isn’t for additional fame. It isn’t even for the legacy — if the first six Super Bowls in New England weren’t enough, adding a seventh last year in Tampa, sans Bill Belichick, cemented his greatness forever. Motivation must be found. Maybe it’s being involved in classics like this.

Brady is still one of the best quarterbacks in the league. His streak of starting 107 consecutive games (playoffs included) is the longest active among quarterbacks. He hasn’t missed a start due to injury since 2009. (He was suspended for four games in 2016 following the Deflategate scandal.)

Pro Football Focus graded him out in the top three in most major categories for the 2021 season, where he completed 68 percent of his passes and threw 45 touchdowns. He’s likely a top-three vote getter for NFL MVP.

Yet it wasn’t enough Sunday, which is just the nature of the NFL. Only one team wins it all, and yes, that includes teams not quarterbacked by Brady.

Everything needs to go right to win a Lombardi Trophy. Against the Rams, way too much went wrong — inaccurate passes, an interception, a strip fumble — until everything started going right — 24 consecutive points as the Rams spit up on themselves — before Stafford hit Cooper Kupp deep to effectively end it.

This was a Brady classic though, no matter the scoreboard. He stood up to a relentless rush from Miller and Aaron Donald. He made a patchwork line and a decimated receiving corps come alive. He even earned the first unsportsmanlike conduct flag of his career for berating referee Shawn Hochuli, one year his junior, for not flagging Miller for the helmet shot to the mouth. He finished 30-for-54 for 329 yards and a touchdown.

Brady once stated his goal was to play until 45. It was met with disbelief at the time, but he’ll hit that age in training camp in August.

If he’s there.

He told NBC before the game that his dream ending would be to win a Super Bowl, “but I think I’ll know when I know. But there’s a lot that’s inconclusive.”

In other words, stay tuned.

SAN FRANCISCO

How about this?

@theStevenRuiz

The 49ers drafted Alex Smith over Aaron Rodgers and have been to more super bowls than Green Bay since while going 4-0 against them in the playoffs.

And this:

@NFLResearch

The 49ers just made Aaron Rodgers the only QB in NFL history to lose 4 playoff starts to a single opponent

They will make their 17th conference championship appearance, breaking a tie with the Steelers for most by any team since the conferences were formed in the 1970 NFL merger

LOS ANGELES RAMS

@ESPNStatsInfo

The Rams are the first team to win a playoff game after losing 4 or more fumbles since the 1975 Steelers in the AFC Championship against the Raiders (lost 4 fumbles in that game).

The Steelers prevailed, 16-10, and won the Super Bowl 2 weeks later.

– – –

When they broke the huddle, the last thing the Rams expected to do on the play was throw deep to WR COOPER KUPP.  Albert Breer of SI.com:

On first-and-10, out of an empty set, the Bucs rush drove upfield and Stafford started moving up in the pocket. Jason Pierre-Paul corralled him for a sack at the 24.

The Rams had to burn their final timeout.

Some teams, in that spot, having taken the sack and spent the timeout, might play for overtime. Instead, McVay decided to push his chips in one more time, and bet on the come with Stafford again.

“We knew we were going to try to go for it, because really, they had no timeouts left, there was no downside,” the coach told me. “So it wasn’t like you were at a risk of them getting the ball back. It was like, ‘Hey, we’re going to go win this. Here’s a couple things that we’re thinking, here’s what we expect them to do.’ And he balled. He was like, ‘Let’s go. Put the game in my hands.’”

McVay then smiled and said, “He didn’t say that, but the look in his eye told me that.” And the trust McVay showed did make a difference.

“Yep,” Stafford said to me a few minutes later. “It’s great, that’s a lot of trust we have in each other. I know he’s going to put us in position to succeed. Really, the sack was probably not the smartest play by myself, trying to get out and run, in a two-man situation. But he’s got a lot of trust in me and really our whole team. That’s what it really shows to me … or not so much me but, hey, it’s everyone on the team that he’s got trust in.”

So McVay’s plan was to give his offense one shot on that second-and-11, and if it didn’t go the Rams’ way, he’d probably have run the clock out on third down and gone to overtime. And the call there was to attack what McVay had seen in a two-man contour look the Bucs had given the Rams—he figured they’d get a matchup Cooper Kupp could win, and Kupp won that rep, with his guy, Sean Murphy-Bunting, falling down in coverage.

Kupp caught the ball outside the left hash and quickly ran it to the boundary, barely getting out of bounds after a 20-yard gain with 28 seconds showing.

Up next? A play that almost certainly wouldn’t go to Kupp. In fact, the call had Kupp running a “love of the game” route—a downfield sprint to clear out coverage so other receivers would have more space underneath. What the Rams couldn’t forecast was the Buccaneers’ sending the house.

“I mean, it was a total blitz, and I was able to hold onto it long enough,” Stafford said. “Our guys up front did a great job, and Coop set a great angle and he hit it.”

Did he ever, pulling down Stafford’s bomb for 44 yards, to put the Rams at the Bucs’ 12 and, after the quarterback hustled the offense to the line to clock it, set up Matt Gay’s 30-yard game-winner (which avenged a 47-yard miss earlier in the day).

One key to making it happen was Stafford’s willingness to grit his teeth and take a hit, as he saw Bucs DC Todd Bowles bringing the pressure at the snap, knowing the rush would probably get to him just as he let the ball go. Another was the air he put underneath the ball, which allowed Kupp to run under it and get away from safety Antoine Winfield Jr.

“The trajectory that he put on it, you could see Cooper was digging out,” McVay said. “He knew he had to beat the blitzer, so he kind of drifted off and he put great trajectory under it. Cooper ended up running underneath it. And that’s two of our guys that have been huge all year, two of the stars, two of our captains, making a play when we had to. It was awesome.”

The third key to it was a little less obvious: The Rams hustled to the line, even though Kupp had gotten out of bounds on the previous snap.

“A great idea to jump the ball and go fast, and we were able to hit it,” Stafford said. “So I don’t know, he’s probably watched some football, he’s been on the other end of some of those too. So he knows it can happen. I’m just happy it did.”

Of course, the Rams would’ve rather it not come to that.

KANSAS CITY

A comparison:

@Ihartitz

Chiefs seriously moved 44 yards to set up the game tying field goal in less time than a Dak QB draw lmao

Frank Schwab of YahooSports.com on where Chiefs 42, Bills 36 (OT) stands in NFL great game annals.

It’s hard to historically rank anything in the moment. We want some time and space to see how something ages before putting it in context.

Yet, we all know that the Buffalo Bills-Kansas City Chiefs playoff game on Sunday night was special.

You can watch a lot more football and not see drama like that again. There was an NFL postseason record 25 points scored in the final two minutes, shattering the old record of 17 according to ESPN Stats and Info. And then we had an overtime. The Chiefs moved on to the AFC championship game with the 42-36 win, the Bills were heartbroken and all football fans knew they’d just seen one of the greatest games ever.

But how high can we rank Bills-Chiefs in NFL history? Is it one of the five best of all time? It’s tough to say how we’ll remember it years from now or where it will rank. But let’s try anyway.

Chiefs’ win over Bills was fantastic

First let’s go through some of the credentials of the game and what makes it an all-time classic.

Quarterbacks: It’s arguable no quarterback ever played better in a playoff loss than Buffalo’s Josh Allen on Sunday night. Tom Brady and his 505 yards against the Eagles in Super Bowl LII is likely the main contender in that unfortunate category. Allen had 329 yards, four touchdowns, no interceptions and led the Bills with 68 rushing yards. On a 17-play drive that gave the Bills the lead inside of the two-minute warning in regulation, Allen picked up five third- or fourth-down conversions. After the Chiefs scored with 1:02 left, Allen hit four completions including a go-ahead touchdown with 13 seconds left. He never saw the ball again.

Patrick Mahomes might not need a legacy game at this point, but he got another one. Mahomes trailed twice in the final two minutes and somehow the Chiefs won. He’s as big of a superstar as we have seen at quarterback and Sunday night was further validation of his greatness.

Late drama: When we talk about some of the great games in NFL history, whether it’s the “Ice Bowl” or “The Catch,” it usually includes one defining scoring drive. Bills-Chiefs had five. Buffalo’s 17-play drive to take a lead inside of two minutes to go in regulation was filled with tense moments. Then Tyreek Hill went on a breathtaking run after catching a crossing route for a 64-yard score. Allen answered by hitting Gabriel Davis for Davis’ fourth touchdown (Davis set an NFL record with four receiving touchdowns, checking the great game box for “unlikely hero has the game of his life”). Mahomes then somehow drove the Chiefs 44 yards in 13 seconds for a game-tying field goal, then 75 yards for a walk-off touchdown to Travis Kelce. No other greatest game contender had that kind of back-and-forth in the final two minutes, much less overtime.

The stakes: Narrative matters when it comes to greatest games lists. Super Bowl III was not a good game on its own, but it is considered a classic because of the AFL’s Jets upsetting the Colts following Joe Namath’s guarantee. Other great games like the “Ice Bowl” or “The Catch” feature an established team fighting against an upstart. The Bills trying to knock off the Chiefs and maybe get the franchise’s first Super Bowl victory at the end of the season, against Mahomes and his nearly immaculate start to his career, was compelling. Much like the Falcons’ eternal angst at letting 28-3 get away against the Patriots, Sunday night’s game mattered a little more because the pain for the Bills and their anguished fans. We’ll see how the Chiefs’ story turns out, but the legend of the win over the Bills will rise if they win another Super Bowl this postseason.

We’ll see how this game ages. It could be a game like the 2018 AFC championship between the Chiefs and Patriots, which featured four lead changes in the fourth quarter and an overtime win by the Patriots, but hasn’t gotten its due as an all-time great game for some reason. But right now I’d have Chiefs-Bills in my top five.

For the NFL’s 100th season, the league did a list of its top 100 games of all time. I disagree with that list slightly, but many of the top ones will appear on any all-time greatest games list. Here’s how I’d rank them:

1. Super Bowl XLIX: I’m fine being the lone one shouting that this was the greatest game ever. It featured two champions in the Seahawks and Patriots, and the Malcolm Butler play and sequence we’ll talk about forever.

2. Epic in Miami: The Chargers’ double-overtime win over the Dolphins at the end of the 1981 season had a ridiculous comeback, an indelible highlight play (the Dolphins’ hook-and-ladder), a legendary individual performance by Kellen Winslow and just about anything else you’d want in a football game.

3. Greatest Game Ever Played: The 1958 NFL championship game between the Colts and Giants has a special place in history because it was the moment the league truly started to arrive. The game itself wasn’t the best you’ll see (seven turnovers) but the great players, drama and its place in growing the sport gives it a spot on any top-five list.

4. Ice Bowl: The weather conditions for the 1967 NFL championship game between the Packers and Cowboys, and the story of Vince Lombardi’s Packers driving the field at the end of their dynasty will outlive us all. 

5. Bills-Chiefs: All this one might need is a nickname.

It’s impossible for everyone to agree on a list of the greatest games ever. Someone might prefer the 28-3 Patriots win over the Falcons or the Bills’ wild-card comeback on the Houston Oilers after they trailed 35-3 to some on the list (I don’t rate either of those games high because for two-plus quarters they were not entertaining). Others could place Super Bowl III or “The Catch” in the top five for historical significance alone. Maybe some great Super Bowls (Giants over Patriots in XLII, Steelers over Cardinals in XLIII, Eagles over Patriots in LII, Giants over Bills in XXV) will rank higher to some because the significance was higher than a divisional-round game.

Wherever Sunday night’s game ranks, or will rank in the upcoming years, it’s hard to deny it was an unbelievable night of football.

LAS VEGAS

49ers DC DeMeco Ryans is on the Raiders’ coaching list.  Matt Holder ofSilverAndBlackPride.com:

As expected, there’s been quite a bit of news surrounding the Las Vegas Raiders’ head coach vacancy this week. Between interim head coach Rich Bisaccia interviewing for the job, speculation that the Raiders are interested in New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, and a few news stories about Jim Harbaugh, there’s been no shortage of headlines on the topic and they keep on coming.

Unlike the other names listed above, Ryans doesn’t have an extensive résumé with decades of coaching experience. He was a second-round pick and a first-team All-Pro selection during his 10-year career as a player, but he didn’t break into coaching until 2017 when the 49ers brought him on as a defensive quality control coach.

However, Ryans was quickly promoted to inside linebackers coach the following season and played a significant role in developing a former third-round pick, Fred Warner into a first-team All-Pro and Pro Bowler. Linebackers Dre Greenlaw and Al-Shaair Azeez among others have also turned into quality players under Ryans’ tutelage.

After Robert Saleh left San Francisco to become the New York Jets head coach this offseason, Ryans was promoted to fill Saleh’s shoes. The 49ers’ defense barely skipped a beat with the new man in charge, ranking third in total yards allowed (5,270) and ninth in points surrendered (365).

So, despite his inexperience as a coach, the 37-year-old has a pretty impressive résumé in his own right, especially when factoring in his success as a player. Now it’s just a matter if that’s enough to sway Mark Davis away from the other, more well-tenured candidates.

If Ryans is the guy, Davis and the Raiders might have to act swiftly. As Schefter noted, Ryans will be meeting with the Minnesota Vikings for their head coach vacancy on Sunday, so he has other potential suitors. Also, slowing down MVP candidate Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers’ high-flying offense in a primetime playoff matchup tonight could peak a few more teams’ interests. We’ll have to wait and find out!

But Peter King had a birdie whisper in his ear about this:

I think the combo platter of two Patriots—offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and director of player personnel Dave Ziegler—is in contention to be the next coach/GM team running the Las Vegas Raiders. I didn’t say “will be” the next coach and GM, but it’s in play.

CINCINNATI

Peter King on PK EVAN McPHERSON and how he became a Bengal:

Evan McPherson, kicker, Cincinnati. With the fifth pick of the fifth round last April, the Bengals chose the one and only kicker picked in the 2021 draft, Florida’s Evan McPherson. They chose wisely. McPherson scored all of Cincinnati’s points in the first half of the divisional playoffs at Tennessee, with field goals of 38, 45, and 54 yards. Then, of course, he kicked the game-winner from 52 yard at the final gun. What a wow moment, for the franchise and for the rookie kicker. Of all NFL kickers, McPherson now has the most field goals from 50 yards or longer this season, 11, folding in regular-season and postseason kicks, in 13 attempts. Something else good: In two narrow playoff wins over Las Vegas and Tennessee, McPherson has made all eight field-goal tries.

And this:

Go back to draft weekend. The Bengals did like McPherson, who came out a year early from Florida and the team scouted heavily. Special team coordinator Darren Simmons gave his seal of approval, which was big in the eyes of draft czar and director of player personnel Duke Tobin. They liked McPherson’s physical gifts and his moxie. But the team wanted to draft at least two offensive linemen and two defensive linemen (and maybe a third) in the draft, and they knew they were going to pick Ja’Marr Chase. To get Chase, the kicker (no sure thing if they didn’t deal for extra picks) and the linemen, they needed extra picks. “We definitely needed to fill in on both lines of scrimmage,” Tobin recalled from Cincinnati on Sunday. “But we also liked the kicker, because taking him would hopefully take us out of the grind cycle of manufacturing a kicker.”

The Bengals had the 38th overall pick in the second round. Tobin wanted to move down. He engaged with New England, picking 46th. The Patriots agreed to send pick 46, plus two fourth-round picks (122 and 139) to Cincinnati for the 38th pick. That’s a hefty sum, but only a slight overpayment per the note draft-trade value chart. But the trade allowed the Bengals to pick two offensive tackles and three defensive linemen by the time the fifth round began.

 “I can’t say I’m Carnac in that way,” said Tobin, referring to the mind-reader Johnny Carson used to play on late-night TV. “You have guys on your board that you’re saying, okay, if we make this deal we could get three guys we liked instead of picking only one. It felt good to get three swings at picks in the fourth round.”

That freed Cincinnati to pick McPherson early in the fifth round. It also came with seal of approval of his father Bill Tobin, a long-time scout and draft chief.

“My dad told me in 1985, when he was with the Bears, they took a kicker in the fourth round who made a huge difference in their Super Bowl team that year. That kicker was Kevin Butler. So it’s not without precedent, taking a kicker and having him make a real difference in your team. We felt good about Evan being there in the fifth round for us, and the difference he could make for us.”

Some difference. McPherson scored 14 points in a seven-point wild-card win last week, and 13 points in sending home the AFC’s top seed this weekend. That’s pretty good value, making all 11 kicks in clutch playoff situations, for the 154th pick in the draft.

We’re getting old when King has to tell his younger readers who Carnac is/was.

– – –

Albert Breer of SI.com on the new mentality of the Bengals, more than QB JOE BURROW, as important as he has been:

There were plenty of plays you could’ve picked out of the Bengals’ 19–16 stunner over the top-seeded Titans on Saturday and tagged as game-changers. There was Ja’Marr Chase’s 57-yard catch-and-run in the first quarter; Mike Hilton’s circus red-zone pick in the third quarter; short-yardage stops on a two-point try in the second quarter, and third- and fourth-and-1s in the fourth quarter; and then, of course, Logan Wilson’s pick; Joe Burrow’s clutch throw to Chase in the final minute; and, well, Evan McPherson’s whole day.

But if you really want to, as far as Burrow himself is concerned, you can meld all those individual efforts together and categorize them as one.

Those, quite simply, over the 33 years since Cincinnati last made the AFC title game, are the kinds of plays the Bengals have never made. That is, until now. And now, they seem to be the kinds of plays the Bengals make all the time. And that, as Burrow sees it, is no accident.

“We’ve got great players that it really, really matters to—this is the life of everybody in that locker room,” Burrow told me, as he was leaving Nissan Stadium Saturday. “Everyone works really hard to put themselves in that moment and take advantage of those opportunities. Those are the kind of guys we have. … Everybody at this level is capable of making plays like that, but I don’t think everybody’s capable of making plays in that moment.”

These Bengals, most certainly, and most surprisingly, are. And while we’ve been over through the last few months how Burrow’s been the change agent in Southwest Ohio, as the team has overhauled its identity and mindset, the Bengals’ win over a rugged Tennessee team that kept swinging through the final bell showed it’s far more than just No. 9.

In this one, it seemed to be everyone not just making plays, but making winning plays.

“We’re proud of the history of Cincinnati, because it’s a great history,” coach Zac Taylor told me after the final whistle. “But we haven’t been a part of some of the stuff that happened. And so we’re gonna make our own future for ourselves. And in our eyes, it’s not about the past. These guys believe that we can play with anybody, and we’ve proven it. So we’re just happy to be one of the final four, and we’re gonna keep moving along.”

And to best explain a ridiculous finish, you have to rewind back another 24 hours, to the team hotel. All seven captains spoke, and each put his own spin on it, but all said something along the same lines—this was no house money, let it ride sort of situation.

This was a big game, and the Bengals wanted all the pressure that came with it.

“They were all aligned,” Taylor said. “And they spoke from the heart. They talked about how much they believe in this team. We’re not lucky to be here, we’re not the underdog. We’re meant to be here, and we gotta go take moments like this.”

PITTSBURGH

QB BEN ROTHLISBERGER is not the only longtime Steelers mainstay to be calling it quits.  Chris Adamski of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

After 19 seasons on the Pittsburgh Steelers’ staff and the past seven as defensive coordinator, Keith Butler announced his retirement from coaching Saturday.

In a statement released by the team, Butler thanked the Rooney family, head coaches Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin as well as the scores of other coaches and players he has worked alongside since taking over as Steelers linebackers coach in 2003.

“It is an emotional day as I announce I am retiring from my football coaching career,” Butler said in the team statement. “I have spent every year since 1990 as a coach in the NFL and the NCAA, but the time is right for me to walk away after a successful career both playing and coaching the game I love.”

Butler, 65, was the longest-tenured coach on the Steelers staff aside from assistant head coach John Mitchell, whose on-field role has been limited in recent years. Mitchell and Butler were the lone holdovers from the Cowher era, which ended when he resigned after the 2006 season.

Butler began his coaching career at his alma mater, Memphis State, in 1990 and spent the 1998 season at Arkansas State — where he met Tomlin — before moving on to the NFL permanently in 1999.

In a statement released by the Steelers, Tomlin said he and Butler “have remained close to this day. He helped me build some of the greatest defenses in the league during our time together in Pittsburgh, and I’m appreciative of his dedication and commitment to making our players better on and off the field.”

After spending the first four seasons with the Cleveland Browns after their rebirth, Butler moved to the division rival Steelers and hasn’t left since.

Butler took over for Hall of Famer Dick LeBeau as Steelers defensive coordinator in 2015. In his seven seasons as defensive coordinator, the Steelers finished in the top 10 in four consecutive seasons before dropping to No. 24 in 2021.

“He was a major contributor to some of our top defenses in the NFL during his coaching career,” Steelers president Art Rooney II said in a statement. “He helped us win two Super Bowls during his tenure, and he guided many All-Pro and Pro Bowl players as both our linebackers coach and then defensive coordinator.”

Butler was a position coach on the staffs that won the Super Bowl after the 2005 and ’08 seasons. Earlier this season, he noted that he would like to get a third Super Bowl ring because he could give one to each of his three sons. But the Steelers lost in the wild-card round for the second year in a row.

“I look forward to spending more time with my family, whom have been so supportive of me throughout the years,” said Butler, who played 10 NFL seasons as a linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks. “I wish nothing but the best to the Pittsburgh Steelers, and I will be cheering them on during my retirement.”

The Steelers did not immediately name a replacement, but an obvious favorite for the job is senior defensive assistant/secondary Teryl Austin. A Pitt alumnus and Sharon native, the highly respected Austin has five seasons of experience as an NFL defensive coordinator for two teams.

TENNESSEE

QB RYAN TANNEHILL calls the finish to Saturday’s game brutal.  Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk.com:

The Titans finished the regular season as the top team in the AFC, but that didn’t help them on Saturday.

Ryan Tannehill threw three interceptions, including one by Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson with less than 30 seconds left to play. The Bengals needed one play to get into field goal position after that pick and Evan McPherson‘s kick made Cincinnati 19-16 winners in Nashville.

After the game, Tannehill called it a “frustrating day all the way around” and that the interceptions were “not my vision for the game at all.”

“This is brutal, you know,” Tannehill said in his postgame press conference. “It’s going to hurt for a long time. It’s going to be on my mind for a long time. It’s gonna take a long time to get over. You don’t look forward to this situation, you don’t look forward to being out when you had a great opportunity. And this is one of those things only time will heal.”

Saturday’s loss makes it two straight Titans seasons that have ended with home playoff losses and the offense has not played particularly well in either defeat. Tannehill’s contract makes it unlikely that he’ll be anywhere other than Tennessee, so finding a better formula will likely require tweaks on other fronts.

So does Titans fan Clay Travis and he also calls Tannehill some things:

@ClayTravis

Three picks from your $100 million quarterback in a home playoff game that he gave away. All awful picks and all his fault. Just brutal.

@ClayTravis

Not gonna lie. This loss is crushing. Defense played their balls off. Got nine sacks. Tannehill completely shit the bed.

@ClayTravis

Here’s Russian announcers laughing at Ryan Tannehill’s last interception. Note he has the tight end wide open underneath for an easy first down.

@ClayTravis

This is no slight on Tannehill. He seems like a really good dude. But he’s made $100 million and he’s not a guy who will ever win a Super Bowl. It’s time to stop pretending otherwise.

– – –

Bill Barnwell on the somewhat inauspicious return of RB DEREK HENRY:

Elsewhere, another long-awaited return also didn’t go as planned. The Titans running back returned from a two-month absence with a steel plate in his broken foot, and with the Bengals missing defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi, the stage appeared to be set for a dramatic comeback. Henry did make his customary impact in the red zone, scoring from 3 yards out as a Wildcat quarterback in the second quarter, although he then came up short on a 2-point try from the 1-yard line.

With the ball in his hands, Henry wasn’t close to his 2019 or 2020 self for the Titans. His 20 carries produced just 62 yards, five first downs and minus-4.4 expected points added (EPA). We saw some of his old burst, but he finished with six fewer rushing yards than an average back would expect to gain with the same blocking, per NFL Next Gen Stats. Henry came up short on the 2-point plunge and was stuffed in the backfield on a fourth-and-1 from Cincinnati’s 35-yard line with 7:21 to go in the fourth quarter.

I can’t fault the Titans for giving their star back the football, but they probably would have been better off with a more even split between Henry and D’Onta Foreman. Foreman’s regular season numbers were right in line with Henry’s averages, and Foreman’s four carries against the Bengals produced 66 yards and two first downs.

One disappointing game two months after foot surgery isn’t disastrous in itself, but as I pointed out before the playoffs began, Henry’s efficiency in 2021 had already dropped precipitously from his 2019-2020 heights, even before the injury. I doubt a foot injury helps matters there. He will get a full offseason to heal further, but if the Titans don’t get the old Henry back next season, we might see a lot of games like the one we saw Saturday afternoon

BUFFALO

Peter King:

Josh Allen. That is all. A conversation I won’t forget from last August: Allen’s off-season workout guru, former quarterback Jordan Palmer, told me the season would come down to the last four minutes against Kansas City. So I went back and looked at those four minutes: Allen led two touchdown drives, throwing for 107 yards and two touchdowns. He rose to the moment. And here’s something no one’s thinking about in the wake of the game. Allen, as brilliant as he was throwing the ball, was superb and forceful running it. Michael Vick’s career rushing average was 7.0 yards per rush. Steve Young’s 5.9 yards. In his two playoff games this year, Allen is bulling/deking/sprinting for 7.9 yards per carry. When you don’t throw picks, and when you’re putting up 83 points in two playoff games, you’re a great quarterback. That’s Allen.

– – –

Bill Barnwell:

While acknowledging that we’re often prone to recency bias and that great games are in the eye of the beholder, I think the game we saw Sunday night has a strong case for being one of the greatest football games ever. The best playoff game I’ve seen across 14 years of covering the NFL was the Saints-49ers playoff game in the 2011 divisional round, when those two traded the lead with four touchdowns across the final four minutes, culminating in Vernon Davis’ game winner with 9 seconds to go. The Bills-Chiefs game packed that much drama into half as much time.

I’m heartbroken for Allen and the Bills, who were incredible this postseason. They’re not going to disappear anytime soon, given their talent on both sides of the football, but this might end up as having been their best chance of making it to the Super Bowl. The Bills were relatively healthy outside of the season-ending injury suffered by star corner Tre’Davious White, something you can’t guarantee heading into January. They were 13 seconds away from hosting the AFC Championship Game in western New York against the Bengals, who were a league-average team this year by DVOA (at 0.0%). Allen was arguably the best player in the league this postseason.

Think about the 2017 Eagles, who rode home-field advantage to winning a Super Bowl, or the 2010 Packers, who got hot in January and won four straight games. We would have figured that those teams would be perennial contenders to compete for the Super Bowl. The Eagles have won one playoff game since, and Carson Wentz isn’t even on their roster anymore. Aaron Rodgers is about to win his fourth regular-season MVP since that title run and hasn’t been back to the Super Bowl. The NFL moves faster than any of us realize, and opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.

THIS AND THAT

COACHING CAROUSEL

It is barely revolving says Peter King:

It’s Jan. 24, and NFL teams have filled none of their eight head-coaching openings. Certainly what I’m about to say has something to do with the fact that the NFL season stretched this year to Jan. 9, a week later than normal with the advent of the 18-week, 17-game regular season. But look at these NFL coaching factoids:

• Since 2013, not including in-season interim hires, NFL teams have made 63 head-coaching hires or commitments. Only two occurred after Jan. 24: David Culley in Houston last year (Jan. 27) and Frank Reich in Indianapolis in 2018 (Feb. 11, after Josh McDaniels dropped out). Some hires were made official after the Super Bowl, with contracts agreed to before Jan. 24 in that season. I call those commitments.

• Let’s account for the extra week, and let’s figure out how many commitments to new coaches were made as of Jan. 17 in each hiring season. Of the 63 coaches hired, 53 had been hired/committed to by Jan. 17.

• In four of the last nine hiring seasons, every team had hired its coach by Jan. 17.

There are reasons for this, and for the slow pace of GM-hiring. Giants president/co-owner John Mara elucidated one when he said after his coach and GM both were gone after this season: “I don’t want to rush into anything. We made that mistake in the past.” Dave Gettleman, hired as Giants GM on Dec. 28, 2017 is the perfect example. What was the rush? No one was hiring Gettleman. But Mara felt safe with him because Gettleman was a longtime Ernie Accorsi lieutenant. This time, it’s different. The Giants vetted nine GM candidates with interviews, and brought three back for more interviews, before hiring Buffalo assistant GM Joe Schoene on Friday.

Another reason: There’s no superstar coaching candidate out there. Even the coveted ones, former coaches Dan Quinn and Brian Flores, have zits. Quinn was 7-9, 7-9 and 0-5 in his last three Falcons seasons, not able to capitalize on the team’s Super Bowl appearance, before getting fired; Flores coached three straight non-playoff seasons in Miami, though to his credit Miami was getting good in 2021—he had a seven-game winning streak for the Dolphins. But there’s this: In three seasons, Flores had an alarming revolving door on the offensive coaching staff, with four offensive line coaches, four offensive coordinators (including the George Godsey/Eric Studesville job-share in 2021) and four QB coaches. You shuffle coaches that often, particularly with a young quarterback, and there’s going to be some mayhem.

We’ll see how it shakes out, but the fact that teams are slow-playing the coaching carousel, I think, is a very good thing. For a moment, consider the two coaches in the opening game of the divisional weekend. Mike Vrabel was hired 20 days after the end of the regular season in 2018. Zac Taylor reached a commitment with the Bengals 21 days after the end of the regular season in 2019. (He couldn’t sign till after his 2018 team, the Rams, played in the Super Bowl.) Patience paid, for Tennessee and Cincinnati.

HOF CLASS OF 2022

Peter King tells us what he thinks he can about the Hall of Fame vote:

1. I think I’ll update you on the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2022 here. A few things are different now. Because the Hall of Fame class will be announced on the NFL Honors show, and the show has been moved from Saturday night before the Super Bowl to the previous Thursday night, we won’t know the final results till that Thursday, Feb. 10. That’s 23 days between the vote and publicizing it. Normally it’s a few hours. The 49 voters met on Zoom, with new Hall president Jim Porter presiding. Porter took over for David Baker, who retired. The meeting, my 30th as a Hall voter, lasted 7 hours, 26 minutes. A few points:

• The meeting started with presentations on the candidates for contributor (Art McNally), senior (Cliff Branch) and coach (Dick Vermeil). All were selected as candidates before the meeting by HoF subcommittees. The presentations in each case consisted of a five-minute statement by a voter close to each candidate, then discussions; voters hit the “raise hand” function on Zoom and in turn would make a point or give an opinion. After those three candidates had their cases heard, the voters voted yes or no on each candidacy in secret; each candidate needs 80 percent of the vote, or at least 40 of the 49 voters to vote yes, for enshrinement.

• Then the 15 modern-era finalists had their cases heard in the same way. But this round of voting is different. After hearing all 15 candidates discussed, we voted in secret for our top 10. The votes were tabulated, and then we were told the 10 men who were the top vote-getters. A few more points were made by voters who wanted to say something. Then we voted in secret for our top five. Then the top five got announced to the group. Then we voted yes or no on each of the five, with each candidate needing at least 40 of 49 yes votes to get in.

• Although the voters know the top 10, and then the top five, we were asked not to disclose them in advance of the show on Feb. 10. We do not know the outcome of any of the final yes-or-no votes.

• What I really liked about this year’s session: There were no slam dunks, and so we could enter the meeting knowing it was a free-for-all. Fifteen spots, five true openings. And with five first-time finalists (Willie Anderson, Devin Hester, Andre Johnson, DeMarcus Ware, Patrick Willis) and three second-years (Jared Allen, Ronde Barber, Bryant Young), there were lots of fresh faces and new cases to consider. That made the discussions new and interesting. Again, I can’t be specific because we aren’t allowed to spill on the discussions, but it’s compelling to me, for instance, to hear and debate the merits of a truly great return man, Hester, and consider him versus guys who played 1,100 snaps a year at a high level. (I am bullish on Hester’s case, by the way.) I am similarly bullish on Bryant Young, the 49ers’ rock at defensive tackle; his case is relatively unknown because he’s one of the most unassuming big stars in the years I’ve covered the game.

• The big questions: Would this finally be the year Tony Boselli overcame the short-career knock and got in? Would there be enough of a difference to break a logjam between three excellent receiver candidates, Johnson and Torry Holt and Reggie Wayne—or could two or three make it to the doorstep? What of the inside ‘backer competition between Sam Mills and Zach Thomas, both terrific overachievers who started their careers as longshots and became tackling machines? Did Ronde Barber do enough as a corner and physical nickel to be the fourth Tampa defender to earn a bust in Canton? Would Richard Seymour, the versatile total team guy, finally earn his bust in his fourth year of eligibility?

• It is fantastic to have Joe Horrigan, the smartest man about pro football history in the United States, back in the room after a 2.5-year retirement. Porter got him to come back. Great move. No one can replace Horrigan’s institutional knowledge.

2. I think one of my long-term questions is what the committee is going to do about all the productive wide receivers and quarterbacks who will be in the queue in the next, say, five to eight years. Receivers, particularly. Right now, 14 receivers have 1,000 or more catches, and only seven are in the Hall. Stefon Diggs (595), Davante Adams (669), Jarvis Landry (688), Keenan Allen (730), DeAndre Hopkins (789), Julio Jones (879) and Antonio Brown (928) certainly have a chance to push their numbers up around 1,000, and among all the young and talented ones (Justin Jefferson, 196 catches by age 22), who knows how high they’ll climb? I don’t think we should have a magic number—say, if a receiver catches 1,000 balls, he’s in. I think a lot of it should be what voters saw with their own eyes. For instance, to me, I look at what I’d call the physical grace of the 6-3, 228-pound Johnson, along with his production, along with the fact that he didn’t have Peyton Manning throwing to him, or he wasn’t in the Greatest Show on Turf offense, and that means something to me. Johnson just looks like a Hall of Fame receiver to me. And he produced like one as well. But that’s a big question for Hall voters to contemplate in the future.

THE PLAYOFF OVERTIME RULE

Plenty of complaining on Twitter and elsewhere.

Peter King:

I think I would just say this to anyone who is fine with the NFL overtime rule: No matter how good your defense is, if you win the toss at the start of overtime, are you going to choose to kick off? No. Only in exceedingly rare cases—like, if your quarterback is Spergon Wynn and your defense is the ’85 Bears—would you ever choose to kick off to start OT. That is the definition of the coin flip having too much bearing on the outcome of games.

Of course, the flip side of this is, if they changed the rule so that both teams were guaranteed a possession – would you ever take the ball first, or wait to see what you need after the first team possesses?  Although the flip side of the flip side would seem to be the team taking the ball gets it first in the second inning where a field goal can win?

Mike Florio has a long take of complaint:

The divisional round delivered. In every way possible. Four games. Four walk-off endings. But the best of the quartet of high-stakes postseason games left an unsatisfying feeling for everyone except the Chiefs and their fans.

The overtime rule no longer makes sense. A first-drive touchdown shouldn’t end the game. Not with the rules so skewed toward offenses. In Bills-Chiefs, whoever got the ball first was scoring a touchdown and winning the game. Thus, the coin toss before overtime decided the game.

There’s an essay in Playmakers about the problem that has lingered since the league hatched a clumsy half-measure after the 2009 NFC Championship, when the Saints won the coin toss to start overtime, secured a few first downs (thanks to a couple of questionable calls), and punched a ticket to Miami with a walk-off field goal against the Vikings. The solution reached at the time wasn’t to guarantee the team that kicks off to start overtime an opportunity to possess the ball, no matter what. The solution was to guarantee a crack at matching a field goal only.

In tonight’s game, Josh Allen and the Bills should have a shot to match the touchdown scored by Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. It should have happened in the 2011 wild-card round, when Tim Tebow connected with Demaryius Thomas for an 80-yard, first-play touchdown against the Steelers. It should have happened in the 2014 NFC Championship, when Seattle capped a comeback with a first-drive touchdown against the Packers. It should have happened when the Cardinals scored a first-drive touchdown against the Packers in the 2015 divisional round. It should have happened in Super Bowl LI, when the Patriots scored a touchdown on the opening drive of overtime against the Falcons. It should have happened in the 2018 AFC Championship, when the Patriots kept Mahomes on the sideline for the final drive of his spectacular first season as a starter and scored a touchdown to advance to Super Bowl LIII.

And it should have happened tonight. The Bills should have had a chance to match.

Maybe, in the next playoff game that unfolds like this, the team that loses the coin toss will try an onside kick. (Unfortunately, it’s currently much harder than it used to be to recover an onside kick.) Or maybe there won’t be another next playoff game that unfolds like this. Maybe the NFL will finally realize that the current rule must be replaced with something more fair and equitable.

Former NFL V.P. of officiating Dean Blandino notes on Twitter that the league wants to preserve the sudden-death quality of overtime, so that fans won’t “leave your seat.” This assumes that fans wouldn’t otherwise be glued to the TV throughout all of overtime in a playoff game. This also assumes that fans will find the final outcome fair and satisfying when, as has happened far too often, the team that wins the coin toss advances.

Is it enough to give the kicking team a chance to match? The Bills, if they’d scored, could have gone for two (assuming the Chiefs attempted and made a one-point kick). Still, a pair of touchdowns would have resulted in the Bills kicking off again; there will always be an imbalance to that approach.

The right solution guarantees an equal number of possessions and declares a winner based on who makes a stop. Several years ago, we proposed (and the Spring League and the XFL eventually adopted) a penalty-shot system with teams taking alternating cracks at two-point conversions, whether three or five before it goes one-for-one, back and forth until one team scores and the other doesn’t. (Under our formulation of the procedure, the offense and defense for each team would be on the field at opposite ends of the stadium at the same time, going back and forth with 40 seconds between attempts.)

If the goal is to ensure that fans won’t walk away, something like that would cause them to staple their asses to their easy chairs. And, more than anything else, it would be fair.

That’s all we’re looking for. Something that seems fair, at a visceral level. Tonight’s outcome simply doesn’t fee that way — except for Chiefs fans who were on the wrong side of the coin flip three years ago.

For Bills fans, the prospect of waiting three years for karma to come crashing through a card table doesn’t seem very palatable right now. Win or lose, they needed to emerge from this game believing that the approach to deciding a winner after 60 minutes of regulation play was fair. The current approach simply is not.

We are not a fan of a two-point conversion deciding the game, anymore than we are shootouts deciding soccer games.

In big soccer games, there is a timed overtime period where as many goals as possible can be scored, 30 minutes on top of 90 before the shootout starts.  That’s what Clay Travis would do.

@ClayTravis

If you want to change overtime rules in the NFL, I’d make it a full 15 minutes in overtime for the playoffs and playoffs only. Would make the coin toss less of a big deal and add substantial game strategy to the mix. Right now the clock is rarely in play.

Unsaid is what Travis would do if overtime is tied after 15 minutes?  Keep playing from whatever point you are at and next score wins?

As you might expect, Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com has a bunch of ideas:

There will (and should) be a long look at changing overtime rules this offseason.

I don’t think anybody wanted to see that game decided by the team that won the coin toss. Normally, I would say that Chiefs fans probably preferred how things went, but I suspect they have their own memories of how painful that coin toss can be. In the 2018 AFC Championship Game, remember that the Chiefs launched a last-second drive just like the one in the fourth quarter here, going 48 yards in two plays and 20 seconds to set up a 39-yard Butker field goal and force overtime against the Patriots. New England won the toss and scored a touchdown without ever giving the football back to Kansas City.

The league did take a step to improve things years ago, when it eliminated the ability to win games with a field goal on the opening possession of overtime. It wasn’t willing to go as far as guaranteeing each team a chance to possess the ball in the extra period, likely because it wanted to incentivize scoring a touchdown on the opening drive and didn’t want to unnecessarily extend games when players have already been going all-out for four quarters.

Nobody needs to see two 3-12 teams get a chance to possess the football, but it’s clear that there’s an appetite for treating playoff overtime differently than we do overtime in the regular season. The NFL plays a full 15-minute overtime period in the playoffs, but drops down to 10 minutes in the regular season. The NHL, as an example, plays a shortened 3-vs.-3 overtime in its regular season before advancing to a shootout. In the postseason, the league plays traditional 5-on-5 hockey with sudden-death rules.

And yet, at the same time, I don’t love the idea that a team needs to be guaranteed an opportunity to possess the football out of fairness. The coin toss puts one team at a disadvantage, but it’s not unfair. Asking your defense to stop the opposing team from scoring a touchdown to keep the game going is a reasonable enough request, and while it’s easy to remember the games in which a team did get the ball in overtime and score a touchdown, there are plenty of times where that doesn’t happen. The Bills couldn’t come up with a stop at the end of regulation or in overtime when they needed one. Offenses already have plenty of advantages; guaranteeing them an extra possession seems charitable. The Chiefs put this up to a vote after their loss to the Patriots and failed to get much traction. I don’t think it’ll succeed this time around, either.

What changes could the league consider? Four options come to mind:

Deciding the first possession of overtime before the end of regulation. The NFL could choose to forgo the overtime coin toss altogether and assign the opening possession of overtime to the team that wins the pregame coin toss or to the home team. By doing so, both teams will know who possesses the ball first in overtime before the game begins, and that could inform some of their late-game decisions. I don’t think this would have impacted Sunday’s game, but it might encourage some teams that know they’re not getting the ball to start overtime to go for two after scoring a late touchdown in regulation as opposed to kicking an extra point and heading into overtime.

Playing out the full 15-minute overtime. There’s no way the league would play a full fifth quarter in the regular season (out of player safety concerns), but doing so in the playoffs would give teams a chance to decide games in the closest comparable way to regulation football. This would be the best solution for fans, but I wonder whether players would be comfortable adding a significant amount of action to the postseason.

Play to eight points. I like some combination of the 15-minute overtime and the idea of playing to a number. If we do “first team to eight points wins,” we’re making it exceedingly difficult (but not impossible) for a team to win on its opening drive. If the coin-toss winner scores a touchdown, it could seal the game by converting a 2-pointer. This would reduce the chances of a team winning on the opening possession of the game by 50%. If it fails, of course, the opposing team could win by scoring a touchdown and getting its own 2-pointer. This could turn out to be a disaster if neither team can score, though, and there would have to be some rule about ending the game with sudden death after the 15-minute OT.

“Spot and choose.” The Ravens pitched this overtime rule in March, and it could be the future of overtime. In this scenario, the overtime kickoff is eliminated and one team gets to choose the yard line from which overtime will begin. The other team then gets to decide whether it will begin overtime on offense or defense.

In this game, I don’t think spot and choose would have been helpful, because these two teams were so dominant on offense. It’s possible that the Bills would have taken the ball on their own 1-yard line and trusted Allen to drive for a winning touchdown, something that isn’t true for the vast majority of offenses in the vast majority of overtimes. There are never going to be perfect overtime rules for every single type of game, which is the reality of football. There was no good way for this classic to come to an end, but there probably were better ways than the one we saw.

John Breech of CBSSports.com takes a swing – with the field goal gamble!

Although it seems like most people want to see the NFL tweak its overtime rules, the one issue is that there aren’t a ton of great proposals, which is why I’m going to give you three that I think are better than what the NFL’s currently doing.

Here’s a look at the three proposals:

The spot-and-choose rule

This was actually proposed by the Ravens last year and if the NFL wants to spice up overtime, it should implement the change. Under this rule, one team would choose the yard line where the overtime drive starts and the other team would choose whether they want to play offense or defense.

For instance, if Team A and Team B were playing in overtime and Team A won the coin toss, it would pick any spot on the field where the first drive of OT would start. If it picked the 10-yard line (90 yards away from the end zone), then Team B would get to choose whether it wanted to play offense or defense. The overtime in this proposal would be a 10-minute sudden-death period and the other rules would be the same as they are now (If a team scores a TD on its first drive, then they win, but if they kick a field goal, the game continues). This rule would take the coin flip out of overtime.

If this rule had been in place on Sunday night, Chiefs coach Andy Reid would have picked a spot on the field. Let’s say he chose the 5-yard line. At that point, Sean McDermott would have to decide whether his team wants the ball, knowing that he’s 95 yards away from a possible touchdown. The risk of taking the ball at the 5-yard line is that if you go three-and-out, then the other team will likely be near field goal range after you punt out of your own end zone.

The field goal gamble

If the NFL wants to get rid of the coin toss and replace it with an actual football skill to determine who gets the ball first in overtime, then they could go with the field goal gamble. Under this rule, the home team would pick a distance for a field goal that would decide who gets the ball first. The away team would then decide which team has to attempt the field goal.

If this rule had been in place on Sunday night, Andy Reid would have picked a distance for a field goal. Let’s say he decided to go with 59 yards. At that point, Sean McDermott would get to decide whether the Chiefs or Bills have to attempt the kick. If he decides that the Chiefs should attempt the kick and they make it, then Kansas City gets the ball first (the Bills would have to kick off to them). On the other hand, if the Chiefs miss the field goal, then the Bills would get the ball first. This would take the coin toss out and put all the pressure on the kicker.

After the field goal gamble is over, then the actual overtime period would be sudden death — the first team that scores wins — putting even more pressure on the kicker who’s attempting the field goal to start overtime.

The simple proposal: Both teams get the ball

Although the Chiefs won on Sunday night, they’ve definitely been on the losing side in an overtime game before. As a matter of fact, they had a high-profile loss to the Patriots in the 2018 AFC Championship Game where Patrick Mahomes never got to touch the ball in overtime. In the offseason following the loss, the Chiefs proposed a simple rule change that would require each team to get at least one possession in overtime.

Basically, if this rule had been in place on Sunday, the touchdown scored by Kelce in overtime wouldn’t have ended the game. Instead, the Chiefs would have had to kick off to the Bills and Buffalo’s offense would have also had a chance to score. Once both teams have had one possession, then the game would turn into sudden death.