One of a million examples, not to pick on Tim Brando:

@TimBrando

The 4th down decision there? Following the 4th & 2 Miss up 14 were

Mistakes! Analytics matters today and I love Dan Hampton and his story as much as anyone but take the 3’s and you’re not behind at this point! Simple as that. 🏈🎙️🎧

We know, it’s Dan Campbell.

Somewhere outside of 40 yards, the chance of failure on the field goal has to be part of the equation.

@ASchatzNFL

A lot of NFL analysts feel like a 48-yard field goal is a gimme.

@ASchatzNFL

Let’s try this again. We can have an interesting conversation about Dan Campbell’s decisions but the idea of “take the points” assumes you will always get the points. Some field goals are hard!

Kyle Shanahan “took the points” on 4th-and-6 at Lions 30, except his kicker missed a 48-yard try and no one criticized him even though events proved his strategy a failure.

Up 14, early in the 3^rd quarter, Dan Campbell did not “take the points” on 4^th-and-2 at the SF 28 (passing up a 46-yard FG “attempt”, not a 46-yard FG).  The pass clanked off the hands of Josh Reynolds – and everything bad that happened after that is blamed on Campbell’s decision by some quarters of the commentariat.

Getting a 46-yard FG with Michaell Badgely was probably about an 80% probability, maybe a little more.  Getting two yards, probably about 80%, maybe a little less, but no guarantee of a touchdown.   It’s not like one decision was a sure thing and the other was doomed to failure.

More on this in DETROIT.

– – –

From the eye of Jay Cuda, a reason to take the 49ers in the Super Bowl:

@JayCuda

Every time the 49ers have won the NFC Champ. game vs. a team that has a shade of blue in their logo they’ve gone on to win the Super Bowl.

And any time they’ve beat a non-blue team in the NFC Champ. game they’ve gone on to lose the Super Bowl.

Of course, Joe Montana or Steve Young was QB’ing the Niners when they beat the Cowboys twice, Bears twice and Rams once to go the Super Bowl.  And it was Colin Kaepernick and Jimmy Garoppolo QB’ing the Niners when they beat the Falcons in 2013 and the Packers in 2020.

– – –

This reason to take the Chiefs:

@FrontOfficeNFL

This will be the fourth Super Bowl rematches among head coaches all-time:

Chuck Noll-Tom Landry

Jimmy Johnson-Marv Levy

Tom Coughlin-Bill Belichick

Andy Reid-Kyle Shanahan

In each of the previous 3 instances, the coach to win the first one also won the second one.

DETROIT

Is he exaggerating?

@stoolpresidente

I’m not exaggerating.  Considering the team, the city etc this may be the worst loss I’ve ever seen.  Detroit was 10000% better.   Balls off heads, fumble, dropped passes, not kicking fg’s etc.   Everything went wrong.   Devastating.

Praise from another source;

@Eminem

So proud of the @Lions  Thanks 4 an amazing season!!!! We’ll b back!!!

– – –

Eric Woodyard of ESPN.com:

– An emotional Dan Campbell strolled out of Levi’s Stadium on Sunday evening with his arm wrapped around veteran quarterback Teddy Bridgewater after his team fell to the San Francisco 49ers 34-31 in the NFC Championship Game.

Despite the loss, the third-year Detroit Lions coach continued to hold his head high and said he had no regrets about two critical failed attempts on fourth down in the second half.

“It’s easy hindsight. I get it. I get that, but I don’t regret those decisions, and it’s hard,” Campbell said. “It’s hard because we didn’t come through, and it wasn’t able to work out, but I don’t. And I understand the scrutiny I’ll get — that’s part of the gig — but it just didn’t work out.”

After a dominant first half by the Lions gave them a 17-point lead, things turned on their head in the second half — including a third quarter in which they were outscored 17-0, their worst point differential in a quarter this season. Rookie running back Jahmyr Gibbs had a costly fumble with 5:15 remaining in the third quarter, and the Lions had three dropped passes in the second half.

“A few third downs we wish that we could have converted,” said Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, who had seven receptions for 87 yards. “We went for it on fourth down a few times; I wish we would have had those. They played well on defense that second half. We were still moving the ball quite a bit, a turnover and whatnot. We both had one turnover, so it was tough.”

One of Campbell’s decisions to go for it was on fourth-and-2 from the San Francisco 28-yard line with 7:03 left in the third quarter; Lions quarterback Jared Goff’s pass went incomplete to veteran wide receiver Josh Reynolds. ESPN Analytics slightly favored the decision to go for it (90.5% chance to win the game) as opposed to attempting a field goal (90.3%).

The other decision, on fourth-and-3 at the San Francisco 30-yard line with 7:38 remaining in the fourth quarter, was also considered a toss-up according to ESPN’s model, which leaned very slightly toward going for it (39.1% vs. 38.8%). Goff threw an incomplete pass to St. Brown.

Campbell generally isn’t afraid to pull the trigger on fourth-down situations. The Lions went for it on fourth down 34% of the time during the regular season, the highest rate of any team this century, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. Goff said he is all-in on Campbell’s decisions to go for it but noted that the Lions have to convert.

“I love it. Keep us out there. We should convert,” said Goff, who completed 25 of 41 passes for 273 yards and a touchdown. “He believes in us. I don’t know what the numbers are, but we had a lot of big-time conversions this year that changed games.

“But it can change a game if you convert them, and we didn’t, and that’s part of the reason why we lost.”

Prior to this postseason run, the Lions hadn’t won a playoff game since the 1991 campaign. Campbell said Sunday’s defeat felt like “getting your heart ripped out” but that the bar has now been raised within the organization.

“It’s Super Bowl or bust,” Detroit linebacker Alex Anzalone said. “That was our mindset this year, even though the outside people didn’t necessarily think that or believe that. But inside our team, that’s our standard, and that should be our standard going forward.”

After failing to reach the playoffs last season, the Lions tied the franchise mark for most wins in a single season at 12 with this group. However, they have now lost 12 straight road playoff games, the longest such streak in NFL postseason history, with their last away win coming in the 1957 divisional round against the 49ers.

As a player, Campbell appeared in the Super Bowl during the 2000 campaign with the New York Giants but never won a title. After Sunday’s game, he told his players how difficult it is to go on deep playoff runs and how they would have to capitalize on this momentum in the future.

The goal, of course, is to go even further next year.

“Look, I told those guys, this may have been our only shot. Do I think that? No. Do I believe that? No. However, I know how hard it is to get here. I’m well-aware. It’s going to be twice as hard to get back to this point next year than it was this year,” Campbell said. “That’s the reality. And if we don’t have the same hunger and the same work — which is a whole nother thing — once we get to the offseason, then we’ve got no shot of getting back here.

“I don’t care how much better we did or what we add or what we draft. It’s irrelevant. It’s going to be tough. But then our division’s going to be loaded back up. You’re not hiding from anybody anymore. Everybody’s going to want a piece of you, which is fine. So, it’s hard. You want to make the most of every opportunity, and we had an opportunity — and we just couldn’t close it out, and it stings.”

And here we go – an exhaustive breakdown from Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com who ends up not being too critical of Campbell:

Detroit coach Dan Campbell finally got too aggressive for his own good. Given an opportunity to restore a 17-point lead early in the third quarter against the 49ers, Campbell’s appetite for dominating opposing teams finally outweighed decades of football acumen. The Lions passed up a 46-yard field goal opportunity to go for it on fourth-and-2 in 49ers territory, Josh Reynolds dropped a catchable pass, and the floodgates opened. Four minutes of football later, the game was tied at 24. When Campbell passed up another chance to kick the field goal on fourth-and-3 in the fourth quarter, he had might as well have handed the 49ers their tickets to Las Vegas. San Francisco scored to go up 10 before a late Detroit rally came up short.

That’s the story you’ll read in some circles today. Maybe many. And if you believe the 49ers were extra motivated by their fourth-down stop or that a 17-point lead in the third quarter might have been unsurmountable, well, I’ll never be able to prove otherwise. I would argue that research has shown teams aren’t any more likely to score after stopping the opposing team on fourth down as opposed to getting the ball in the same area from a punt, and I’d point out we see comebacks from 17 down in the third quarter about as often as we see comebacks from 14 down in the same situation. We can never know for sure how things might have played out if the Lions had attempted a field goal in the same spot, however.

Facing a complicated question, one way to try to gain a sense of what happened and what was actually fact or fiction for the Lions in the second half is to break down the game into a series of smaller questions.

Did analytics say the Lions should have gone for it on those fourth-down tries? ESPN’s fourth-down decision data suggests they were very slightly situations in which the Lions would have been better off going for it. The first decision in the third quarter favored going for it by 0.3%. The second, down three points in the fourth quarter, favored going for it by 0.2%.

Most people who follow analytics closely around the NFL would consider those to be toss-ups before considering the other factors that come into play. And when you get those involved …

Did the stuff that people worry about models not capturing well suggest the Lions should have gone for it? Absolutely. There’s hardly a question. The strength of the Lions is their offense, especially their offensive line and ability to overpower opposing defenses. Their weakness is their defense, particularly their pass defense. They should be more aggressive than the numbers suggest on fourth down because it aligns with the strength of their team.

On top of that, I often hear coaches and even analysts rely on what has happened earlier in games as evidence that models can’t account for situations. When Rams coach Sean McVay punted on fourth down against the Lions in the wild-card round and never saw the ball again, he referred to this as the “flow of the game,” the idea that a model can’t innately account for what has happened so far in a contest and what is likely to occur afterward.

I would argue that’s a product of the base rate fallacy, but if we want to overweigh what had happened in this game as a significant factor in evaluating what the Lions should have done in this situation, that’s even more of an argument in favor of going for it in the third quarter. Detroit had dominated throughout this game on offense, scoring points on four of its first five possessions. It was averaging more than 6.0 yards per play and had blown the 49ers off the line of scrimmage repeatedly during the contest. On their prior drive, the Lions had converted third-and-12 on the ground. Their two short-yardage snaps of the game up to this point had been David Montgomery conversions for first downs. If you dismissed what models say because they’re too aggressive when a game dictates otherwise, this is the exact sort of game and situation in which Campbell should have been more aggressive than what a model would have indicated, not less.

On top of all that, the Lions didn’t exactly have Justin Tucker lining up. Michael Badgley was on this team’s practice squad before taking over for the released Riley Patterson. He has gone 6-of-6 on field goal attempts, but he has missed two extra points in six games and has historically hit 82.4% of his field goals, including a 77% rate in the 40-49-yard range. If the Lions could have been assured Badgley would hit the 46-yarder, the math would have been different. Given that he misses this kick about one-quarter of the time, there’s even more of a reason to rely on the offense as opposed to a replacement-level kicker.

The Lions had been struggling more by the time the second kick rolled around, although they had successfully driven into field goal range. That kick would have been a 48-yarder, making it just slightly more difficult for Badgley. It also would have given the ball back to the 49ers in a tie game with 7:38 to go, a scenario in which Detroit might not see the ball again until September. I can understand going for it there, although I don’t think the recency factors are as strong.

What models do capture really well is how many possessions each team is likely to have over the remainder of the game and how difficult it is to overcome leads of various sizes. ESPN’s model (and other public and private fourth-down models out there) do a good job of estimating the relative scale of different-sized leads and the benefits of going up 14 vs. 17 vs. 21.

Should Campbell have been more conservative because it was the postseason? I don’t see why. He has been lauded for sticking to his aggressive principles over the entirety of his three-year tenure in Detroit, an aggressiveness that has extended to key moments and produced results. He went for it on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line in the second quarter against the Rams and was rewarded with a touchdown in a game that was eventually won 24-23.

Against the Bucs last week, Campbell went for it on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line in a tie game in the third quarter despite the fact the Lions were discombobulated on offense and had third-string back Craig Reynolds take the handoff. Reynolds wasn’t supposed to be in the game, but he plowed through the line for a score on his first carry since Halloween. Detroit won that game by eight.

Those were games in which the score was closer and the impact of failing on a fourth down was much more significant. If anything, it would be riskier to go for it and fail on fourth down. If you want to treat them as less valuable or important because they weren’t the conference championship game and were merely playoff games, that’s your prerogative, but that seems like an arbitrary distinction.

If the argument is instead that the Lions were on the road and underdogs, that’s even more of a reason to be aggressive. Playing as an underdog means teams should try to stretch advantages and be more aggressive, knowing that a conservative script and a game without many surprising events will typically favor your opponent, since it’s the better team over a broader period of time. The Lions had unquestionably played like the better team up to that third-quarter point, but they weren’t able to sustain that after the fourth-down failure.

Are other teams punished for going for it on fourth down in the playoffs? If anything, they’re rewarded more often than not. Baltimore’s only touchdown in the early game came on a drive in which it converted a fourth-and-1 deep in its own territory. Kansas City also scored on its opening drive after the game after converting a fourth-and-2 on the Baltimore side of the field.

Maybe those games were too close. What about in the 2019 playoffs, when the Texans got out to an early lead against the Chiefs? Houston held a 21-0 lead on Kansas City at the end of the first quarter and then got the ball back after a three-and-out. Facing a fourth-and-1 in the red zone, Bill O’Brien sent out his kicker to put the Texans up by 24 points, denying the Chiefs any chance at a momentum-sparking stop on downs.

The Chiefs returned the ensuing kickoff 58 yards. They scored a touchdown two plays later. The Texans went three-and-out, and on fourth down, they tried a fake punt and failed. The Chiefs scored another touchdown on their ensuing possession. Then again. After the Texans ignored what the numbers said in an obvious go-for-it situation and attempted a field goal to avoid giving the Chiefs any hope, the Chiefs proceeded to do exactly what the Texans were hoping to avoid. They outscored Houston 51-7 the rest of the way. (And if you don’t want to compare these 49ers to those Chiefs, consider that the 49ers averaged 29.4 points in Brock Purdy’s starts this season, while the 2019 Chiefs came in at 28.5 points in Mahomes’ full regular-season starts.)

Did Campbell (and/or offensive coordinator Ben Johnson) call the wrong play? I don’t think so. We’ve focused on the first fourth-down try. Goff was briefly pressured around left tackle Taylor Decker by Nick Bosa, but he stepped up in the pocket and found an open receiver in Reynolds. Goff was 0-for-8 when pressured in this game, but this should have been a completion. Reynolds just dropped what should have been a completion. That’s a good playcall, although the third-and-4 handoff to Amon-Ra St. Brown out of the backfield on the previous snap might have been cuter than necessary.

The fourth-and-3 in the fourth quarter was a great job by the San Francisco defense. The Lions used motion before the snap to get an indicator that the 49ers were in man coverage and dialed up a man-beating “mesh” pass concept, with two crossers and a wheel route. After the snap, though, the Niners were in zone. Goff was slowed down by not getting the look he expected, St. Brown and Sam LaPorta were knocked into one another, and the play broke down. Goff wasn’t able to create something out of structure, and the 49ers took over.

I’m not opposed to the idea of running the ball, especially on the fourth-and-2, but I’m guessing Goff had the ability to check into a run play if he got the right look. Detroit just had to execute, and it didn’t get the job done.

Did the first fourth-down failure turn the game toward the 49ers? It’s hard to argue against it feeling that way. The 49ers had already begun to get going on offense, but just about every big break went their way from that point forward. They scored two touchdowns to tie the game in a matter of minutes, with a Jahmyr Gibbs fumble helping hand them a short field.

There’s certainly correlation here, but can we say for sure the fourth-down failure did or did not cause the floodgates to open? It’s impossible to say. The Chiefs example above is why. That was a game in which the Texans had all the momentum, every break was going their way, Houston did the safe, traditional thing by kicking a field goal, and it didn’t matter. The Chiefs dominated the game from that moment forward, even before the Texans attempted a fake punt. Remember how the Chiefs turned things around late against the 49ers in the Super Bowl a few years ago, or how the Ravens got white-hot on offense in the second half after struggling against the Texans last week. Teams make drastic improvements during the game plenty of times without there being some rallying factor or easy storyline.

If you want to argue the 49ers hit a little harder, or had some extra pep in their step, or felt a tiny bit better about their chances after the fourth-down stop, I won’t complain. What I will say, though, is the play that opened up this game and got the 49ers going is about as fluky and unlikely of a play as you can possibly imagine. Purdy threw up a 50-50 ball for Brandon Aiyuk, and Kindle Vildor appeared to bump Aiyuk and gained better position on the football for what should have been an interception. Instead, the ball bounced off his helmet and into the hands of Aiyuk, who caught it for a 51-yard gain. (The referees threw a flag downfield, so the interception might not have counted, but there was no announcement about a declined penalty after the play, per the NFL’s game book.)

For a second, pretend Campbell kicked the field goal to go up 17. What changes about this play? Does Vildor have more confidence up three scores and catch the pass? Does it fall harmlessly to the ground? Was the pressure of having to come up with a stop after a failed fourth-down so stressful that he tried to catch a pass with his facemask? Does Purdy not have as much of the wind under his sails and so he throws a shorter pass that is completed? The 49ers scored a touchdown three plays later.

If anything got the crowd going and seemed to turn the game, it was the pass off Vildor’s helmet as opposed to the fourth-down stuff. Gibbs fumbled while running a Crunch concept on the opening play of the next series, two players dove to the ground simultaneously to try to land on the ball, and Arik Armstead narrowly beat Kayode Awosika to the ball on the ground. It was a great play by Tashaun Gipson, who had struggled earlier in the game. Does he not make a great play if the Lions kick a field goal? Does Armstead not fall on the ball first?

The 49ers then drove four plays to score the game-tying touchdown, with a 21-yard Purdy scramble leading the way. The Lions got the ball back, and on a third-and-9, Goff found an open Reynolds for what should have been a first down, only for Reynolds to drop the ball. That first drop never happens if Campbell kicks the field goal, but the problem there isn’t being aggressive. It’s a wide receiver getting in his head after a drop that could just as easily have happened on first or second down.

The Lions punt. The 49ers march down the field with a big completion to George Kittle and a Purdy scramble and appear to be on their way to a lead-taking touchdown. And then, with no warning, the momentum stops. Purdy is sacked twice on consecutive plays, checks down on third-and-long, and the 49ers kick a field goal to go up three.

Suddenly, the same Lions who were thrown off by their failure on fourth down have remembered how to catch the ball and start thriving on offense. Their first play is a 22-yard completion to Jameson Williams where the ball bounces in the air before being dragged in. If it bounces into Ambry Thomas’s hands, it’s more proof the Lions are shook. Instead, it’s a completion. Montgomery runs for 16 yards. They are already in field goal range, pick up seven yards on third down, and then fail on fourth-and-3. If the 49ers had the momentum, where did it go to lead to the sacks? If the Lions gained it back, shouldn’t they have tried to ride the wave and go for it on fourth-and-3?

If anything, given that the 49ers had scored on the opening drive of the third quarter and already appeared to have some momentum on offense, shouldn’t we look back toward the final drive of the second quarter? Do you remember what happened there? For all of his audacity going for it on fourth down, Campbell faced a fourth-and-goal from the 2-yard line and decided to kick a field goal. As much as the three points would have come in handy from the fourth-down kick he passed up with a big lead, wouldn’t four more points from a touchdown have been even handier? ESPN’s model also had that decision at the end of the first half as a toss-up, so I’m not going to criticize Campbell for kicking.

So, it’s always right when a coach goes for it on fourth down, regardless of situation? No. It’s easy to feel analytics models are always recommending coaches go for it because of a selection bias; we don’t hear about those models in obvious situations where teams punt. And on the whole, coaches are still generally more conservative than the evidence suggests they should be, so we see way more plays in which coaches should be going for it and don’t than ones in which coaches should be punting and go for it instead.

What I’m struck by is how often we apply arguments to the side of being conservative and how rarely those arguments are used to justify being aggressive. Teams need to kick field goals before the fourth quarter to make a one-possession game a two-possession game or a two-score game a three-score one, but if a team’s trailing by two points before the extra point, that’s often derided as “too early” to go for a game-tying 2-pointer. Why should teams play to the score when they do the conservative, traditional move, but not the aggressive one?

Coaches are far more forward-thinking nowadays than they were when I first started regularly writing about their decisions nearly 15 years ago. Win expectancy models are better, both privately and publicly, than they were then. Throughout the season, I’ll hear plenty of coaches say why they were more conservative than what a model suggested because the model couldn’t incorporate something about the game. I’ll almost never hear a coach say a model said to punt but that they wanted to go for it because they were running over the opposing team up front, even though we should see hear that about as often if coaches are really paying attention to the evidence as opposed to merely finding excuses to be conservative.

For all the talk of what momentum the defense can get from coming up with a stop, doesn’t the offense get any momentum from converting? I didn’t hear a single person criticize the Ravens going for it on fourth-and-1 inside their own territory Sunday after they converted, even though they ran the risk of handing the Chiefs a short field with an early deficit. Nobody suggested Campbell was too aggressive when the Lions scored on fourth down in the prior two playoff games.

Did the Lions lose the game Sunday night because they didn’t get any points from those two situations? Of course. Three would have been better than zero. Three isn’t a guarantee, though, and seven is far better than three. They also lost because they gave up too many big plays in the passing game, allowed Purdy to break them with scrambles, weren’t able to get consistent pressure and stopped converting third-and-anything after an incredible run in the first half. They ran the ball 21 times for 148 yards in the first half and just eight times for 34 yards after the break.

Did Campbell’s decision hurt the Lions’ chances of winning and put them in an actively worse position? No. As the stages have grown bigger and bigger, he has continued to trust his players on the offensive side of the ball. Those decisions have generally paid off. He didn’t stop going for it in short yardage after the Lions failed on that 2-point conversion against the Cowboys in December and it probably won them a playoff game against the Rams. It helped win them the game against the Bucs last week. On Sunday, those decisions didn’t pay off. Campbell’s best chance of getting back to this spot next season — and advancing even further — is by continuing to stay aggressive when his team has a chance to score.

PHILADELPHIA

Peter King on Nick Sirianni and his changing staff in Philadelphia:

On Nick Sirianni. The instant-coffee type of changeover of coordinators is simply not a good sign for the staying power of Sirianni. Vic Fangio and Kellen Moore, good coaches, are the sixth and seventh coordinators (in title or reality) under Sirianni in the last 12 months. Dating back 50 weeks, these have been the most important coaches on Sirianni’s staff:

Offensive coordinators: Shane Steichen, Brian Johnson, Moore.

Defensive coordinators/play-callers: Jonathan Gannon, Sean Desai, Matt Patricia, Fangio.

Steichen and Gannon got head-coaching jobs, so they’re certainly not evidence of poor choices. But the Eagles crashed by any metric on defense this year, and Desai and Patricia were powerless to stop a landslide of 30.6 points allowed per game after Dec. 1. Johnson and Sirianni oversaw the late-season cratering of Jalen Hurts’ game to finishing 18th in passing yards per game and 22nd in passer rating, a stunning decline for a quarterback who was every bit Patrick Mahomes’ peer in the Super Bowl last season. The most important task for Sirianni and Moore will be getting Hurts back to all-in. His laconic play, his aloof attitude and his tepid support of Sirianni in his post-playoff-loss press conference must be addressed by the coach. Hurts just didn’t look like the same player in the 1-6 finish. On the bench, he looked like he wanted to be anywhere but where he was. It’s all concerning, particularly after the Eagles trusted him enough to make him the highest-paid player, by a lot, in franchise history.

So, there’s a lot to do. Sirianni’s a good coach—I have no doubt about that. But the Eagles’ brass has allowed him now to bring on new coordinators in two consecutive years. I doubt Sirianni will have a third chance to wipe the slate clean.

TAMPA BAY

With Ken Dorsey (Browns), Kellen Moore (Eagles) and Zac Robinson (Falcons) taking OC gigs elsewhere, the Buccaneers turn their attention to Jerrod Johnson.  Myles Simmons of ProFootballTalk.com:

The Buccaneers are taking a look at a candidate from the AFC South to be their next offensive coordinator after the departure of Dave Canales.

Tampa Bay has requested an interview with Texans quarterbacks coach Jerrod Johnson, according to multiple reports.

Johnson just completed his first year with the Texans, joining the team when DeMeco Ryans was hired as head coach. He helped lead rookie C.J. Stroud to a tremendous season, as the quarterback threw for 4,108 yards with 23 touchdowns and just five interceptions. He led the league with 273.9 yards per game and an interception rate of just 1.0 percent.

Johnson has been a popular request on the offensive coordinator circuit and may have his choice of jobs. Of the teams who still have jobs available, he has also interviewed with the Saints and Steelers.

A member of the Buccaneers current offensive staff may be getting an OC job elsewhere.  Anthony Rizzuti of USAToday:

We have ourselves a favorite in the Carolina Panthers’ search for their new offensive coordinator.

According to NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero, the Panthers are likely to hire Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receivers coach Brad Idzik for the opening. Carolina, as reported by JC Allen of BucsGameday on Friday, has already requested to interview the Palm Harbor, Fla. native.

Idzik has worked alongside new Panthers head coach Dave Canales in the past, most recently when the latter was the offensive coordinator for the Buccaneers in 2023. They also spent four years together with the Seattle Seahawks, where Idzik served as the assistant wide receivers coach, the assistant quarterbacks coach and an offensive quality control coach and Canales as the quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator.

With the transition to Canales, the Panthers are not expected to retain offensive coordinator Thomas Brown. Brown has already received interest for the same position from the Chicago Bears, New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers.

Carolina has also reportedly requested to speak with Philadelphia Eagles senior offensive assistant Marcus Brady for the job.

SAN FRANCISCO

Charles Robinson of YahooSports.com turns to the Super Bowl matchup in his championship game wrapup:

Finally, we can definitively cross off the comeback anxieties dogging the San Francisco 49ers. Whether it’s the last drive of a playoff game, or the entire second half, Sunday’s furious rally to secure a 34-31 NFC championship win over the Detroit Lions should lay some doubts to rest.

That’s good considering the next task at hand is arguably the steepest this 49ers franchise has faced under head coach Kyle Shanahan: Stopping Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs from securing the NFL’s first post-New England Patriots dynasty.

It’s a somewhat symmetrical assignment, given that the 49ers fell victim to Mahomes in his first championship appearance, suffering a 31-20 nightmare loss in Super Bowl LIV that saw San Francisco blow a 10-point fourth quarter lead. That comeback secured Mahomes’ first ring of his career, launching him on a Tom Brady-esque trajectory that has featured six straight AFC title game appearances and now four Super Bowls in that same span. Arguably none of those games has carried as much weight for Kansas City than this one, given that it offers the Chiefs an opportunity to be the first franchise since New England to win back-to-back Super Bowls since the 2003/2004 seasons. Simply put, it’s a dynasty stamp opportunity.

In the parlance of how the NFL views its eras, the Chiefs already represent that kind of franchise. But if they win a Super Bowl on Feb. 11 — which would be three since 2020 — any dynasty deniers at that point risk being boxed up with the rest of the league’s unyielding trolls and shot into the sun. While preventing that kind of history wasn’t on the 49ers’ mind Sunday night, the hurdle wasn’t hard to grasp.

“What a challenge,” 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy said of the matchup. “You’ve got Mahomes and what he does and their team — they’re special, man. They’re winners. They’ve proven that over however many years he’s been there. So for us to be able to go back and play them is going to be sweet. It’s going to be special for all of us. I wasn’t here obviously in [the 2019 season’s loss], but you can just tell the guys that have been here, for anybody, it’ll be special to play these guys.”

Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan said he didn’t see any of the Chiefs’ 17-10 AFC title game win over the Baltimore Ravens, instead getting the news just prior to the 49ers taking the field against the Lions.

“They’re a hell of a team,” Shanahan said. “They’ve got a hell of a coach, hell of a quarterback, hell of a defense. I haven’t gotten to see them much this year, just because we haven’t had a lot of crossover tape. But I already have a pretty good idea how it’s going to look. They’ve been doing it for a while. Since we met them in [2019 season’s Super Bowl], it seems like they’ve been there every year since. We’ve been trying really hard to get back to that moment.”

Now the 49ers have climbed back, albeit with a vastly different roster than the one that faced Mahomes and Reid in that Super Bowl. Over the course of the season, San Francisco has rostered 11 players who were also on their 2019 team, including six stars: wideout Deebo Samuel, tight end George Kittle, defensive end Nick Bosa, defensive tackle Arik Armstead, and linebackers Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw. All-Pro fullback Kyle Juszczyk was also part of the 2019 team.

The difference now for the 49ers? Experience. All of those players were in the early stages of their NFL careers, and Shanahan was in only his third season as a head coach. San Francisco’s offense was also a far less explosive unit, lacking the playmaking depth of running back Christian McCaffrey, wideout Brandon Aiyuk and even quarterback Brock Purdy, not to mention anchor offensive tackle Trent Williams. It also didn’t have the massive amount of assets invested in the front end of the defense, which now includes a rotation of Chase Young and Randy Gregory in pass-rushing packages, as well as defensive tackle Javon Hargrave.

But as much talent and experience as the 49ers have gained since 2019, arguably the biggest asset San Francisco brings to the table against the Chiefs — beyond the considerable running threat of McCaffrey — is the microwaved development of Purdy, who has suddenly gotten massive postseason moments under his belt. Not only did he survive through a terrible weather-hindered performance against the Green Bay Packers in the NFC’s divisional round, he added Sunday’s second-half gem against the Lions on top of it. It was a performance that saw Purdy make a handful of key throws and devastating runs that knocked Detroit’s defense off its axis and helped engineer a 27-0 run that ultimately buried the Lions.

In the process, the 49ers and Shanahan continued to learn the one thing about Purdy that had been so elusive in these playoffs. That even when he’s going through poor stretches or playing from behind, he can be counted upon to respond to the adversity and piece together wins. It was things that had his teammates clucking their tongues at critics that continued to paint him as a “game manager,” even after a game-winning drive against the Packers in the divisional round.

“I hope they get off his back,” Young said Sunday. “Being the last pick of the draft leading his team to the Super Bowl in Year 2. Leading in every quarterback category. How can you hate on the guy?”

“They’re all going to have something to say,” Warner added. “But he’s a heck of a game manager.”

While Warner was being sarcastic, there’s little doubt that will be one of the massive storylines in this Super Bowl, with Mahomes representing a Michael Jordan-like level of success and playmaking style — not to mention his ability to elevate an offensive roster that is not as good as in past seasons. Conversely, Purdy will continue to be framed as a product of the system and depth chart constructed around him, even if the win over the Lions showcased a handful of linchpin moments from Purdy that were created off script and had little to do with the functionality of Shanahan’s offense.

Without a doubt, the Super Bowl will be a test of what Purdy can be on the biggest stage he’ll ever experience. In a way, it will be square one of his legacy in the league. But for Mahomes, it will be square six, eight, 10 or more, featuring a quest that is about chasing another quarterback entirely. Specifically, the shadow of Brady, whose legacy as the winningest and one of the most statistically dominant players in NFL history could someday be tested by a Chiefs quarterback who could, like Brady, stretch his career well into his 40s. And along with it, the decades-long Patriots dynasty that seemed too far in the stratosphere to even be considered. All that could change in two weeks.

For now, that’s a distant thought for the 49ers. The details of the Super Bowl are just kicking in. Along with a brief chance to catch their breath and refocus.

“I’m excited that we’re going there,” Shanahan said. “I’m happy for the Chiefs, too. Going to have a lot of fun tonight, probably, with my family and everything, and come in a little bit in slow motion tomorrow. [We’ll] figure out all the Super Bowl tickets, all the traveling and stuff, that takes a lot of time for the players and their families. The coaches will start getting a go on Kansas City while they do all that. I’ll probably give the guys a couple days off and then we’ll get to our game plan and practicing by Wednesday or Thursday.”

They’ll do it a little wiser and a little more confident in Purdy. But also with the biggest moment left ahead — for the quarterback, for Shanahan, and for the entire 49ers franchise that is the last roadblock left in front of the unquestioned stamping of another team’s dynasty.

– – –

Peter King with QB BROCK PURDY after the game:

After he led drives that ended field goal-touchdown-touchdown-field goal-touchdown and won the NFC Championship Sunday, Purdy was what I’d call happily and pragmatically blasé.

“Honestly, entering the second half, I felt like I have since I stepped into this role last year when Jimmy [Garoppolo] went down,” he told me. “How can I do my job really well for this team? That’s all I thought of then, and that’s all I thought tonight. I know I have a really good team around me. I have great play-calling. Great coach. Great organization. If I can just do my job well, everything will fall into place how it needs to.”

What no one figured was that Purdy, who in his 29 previous NFL games had never had a run longer than 17 yards, would have two drive-saving runs of 21 yards within 15 minutes in the second half.

“Competed his ass off,” Shanahan said. “He was the difference between us winning and losing.”

“He’s the reason we’re headed to the Super Bowl,” said tackle Trent Williams.

I reminded Purdy late Sunday night of when he realized 14 months ago that his first NFL start would be against Tom Brady, he said, “Cool. He’s been playing football longer than I’ve been alive.”

The man about to be under America’s sports/Taylor Swift microscope over the next 13 days actually did bite on this one. He’s a Mahomes fan. Super Bowl LVIII will be the experience of Brock Purdy’s lifetime.

“It’s gonna be sweet,” he said. “Very cool. Been watching that guy since I was in high school, really. The way he’s taken over the NFL, it’s been fun to watch. To have an opportunity to go up against him for a Super Bowl? Doesn’t get any better than that. Does it?”

No. No, it doesn’t.

SEATTLE

Peter King praises GM John Schneider for letting six or seven other coaches be hired before he makes his move:

Re Seattle: GM John Schneider, running his first coaching search since being hired in 2010, is being intelligently deliberate. Why rush the process? Better to exhaust every avenue for candidates than fall in love with one and always wonder if you were too hasty. Let’s assume it’s Johnson to Washington. Let’s assume there’s no shocker in the offing (I hear the whispers of Andy Reid being in his last days in Kansas City, and never say never, but I don’t think Reid will retire). So, if Seattle’s on the clock with no competition for the field, Schneider can ruminate over Bobby Slowik, Aaron Glenn, Mike Macdonald, Steve Wilks, Patrick Graham, Vrabel, Dan Quinn and the rest. I don’t think, by the way, because Quinn has the Seattle connection that he’s the favorite for the job.

LAS VEGAS

Peter King on the Vegas hires:

Smart of Mark Davis to pair the inexperienced spirit of Antonio Pierce as coach with Tom Telesco as GM. Telesco made of string of errors late in his Chargers tenure, but is a bright, young guy who knows how to build teams

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS

After an exhaustive search, the Chargers hired the coach who was most known.  Peter King with details:

The Chargers interviewed 15 coaches in a 12-day period—between Jan. 9 and 20—and brought only one in for a second interview. That was the winner, Jim Harbaugh. He was smack-dab in the middle of the process, as the lineup shows (in-person interviews marked with an asterisk):

First seven interviews, in order: Giff Smith*, Kellen Moore*, Patrick Graham, Todd Monken, Steve Wilks, Mike Macdonald, Leslie Frazier*.

Eighth interview: Jim Harbaugh*.

Last seven interviews, in order: Brian Callahan, David Shaw*, Mike Vrabel*, Dan Quinn, Aaron Glenn, Ben Johnson, Raheem Morris.

Then, Harbaugh spent the day Tuesday at the Chargers’ facility, Tuesday night at a restaurant in Crystal Cove nearby, and Wednesday at the Chargers before shaking hands on the deal with owner Dean Spanos late that evening.

The DB counts six of the 15 as satisfying Rooney Rule requirements.

TENNESSEE

Peter King helps us get to know the new Titans coach, Brian Callahan:

Seven Questions With …

… New Tennessee coach Brian Callahan:

FMIA: A couple of interesting things about your introductory press conference. You brought up Jurgen Klopp, the Liverpool soccer coach, and his quote, “When you agree on a common idea and work toward it together, you can create something very special.” Why?

Callahan: “There’s a book about him, ‘Believe Us,’ that talks about when he first got to Liverpool. He was a revered manager and Liverpool was sort of the perennial below-expectation team that had a ton of pressure to win. The message was simple and digestible, and he’s talking to all the players and all the fans. I thought, that’s what I want to say if I ever get that opportunity. I hope the players that watched the press conference feel that way. I hope the staff does, too.”

FMIA: Another thing: You got emotional when you talked about [Bengals owner] Mike Brown. Not a lot of people really know Mike Brown, and not a lot of people would get emotional talking about him. Why did you?

Callahan: “Mike took a chance on all of us. Zac [head coach Zac Taylor], myself. I was 34 years old as a coordinator. He saw something in us that I was very happy that we could deliver on. Things didn’t go great in our first two years. We weren’t very good. For him to have the foresight, the patience to see that all of those good things that were happening, the undercurrents that were positive … The belief in a bunch of young coaches, just really resonated with me. He’s an awesome human being. I wouldn’t be here without him.”

FMIA: The last time I was around you for a while was in your time in Denver, when you were in the quarterback room [as an offensive assistant] with Peyton Manning. What’d you take from him?

Callahan: “He kind of coached me. Like, here’s what I need from you. I was the one who presented the blitz problems we were facing that week, part of the protection puzzle we’d put together every week. It’s kind of still my favorite part of football to this day, and it was all off his direction.

“Peyton lives in a world where you can’t say ‘always’ and ‘never.’ Those two words don’t exist for him. Because inevitably you say this team never does something and then it happens in a game. I came in there one time and I said about this team we were facing, ‘They never’—let’s say it was a Double A-gap blitz—’bring this combination together. It’s never happened.’ And I remember sitting there and Peyton, he kind of flips through his notebook for a minute and he says, ‘Hey, go to the Baltimore game from three years ago. Play 26.’ He pulls it up. And it’s exactly the thing I said never happened. I learned that I better make sure I watch every blitz on tape, going way back, before I tell him something never happened.”

FMIA: Your first quarterback coach job came in 2016, when you and [Detroit offensive coordinator] Jim Bob Cooter worked with Matthew Stafford. I remember that because for those two years, he had his fewest picks, 20, over a two-year period. That had to be something that helped you rise in the business.

Callahan: “Jim Bob started it, as the quarterbacks coach for two years and then when he got the coordinator and I joined the staff, we took a really hard look at how could we eliminate the mistakes? Because [Stafford’s] such a great player. He’s incredible. But there were pockets of time that would just undo however well he was playing in a game. Ten people on the planet can put a ball where he can. He knows it. He’s willing to try those throws. We just said, if you throw one less interception per every game, and you throw four more completions, and you take four more check downs as opposed to trying to fit a whole shot in 40 yards down the field in between the safety and the corner, look how much better we could be on offense.

“I’ll say this as a side note: I loved every minute of coaching Matthew. I was so disappointed when we got fired there and we couldn’t continue the trajectory we were on, because I really thought we were going to be really good in the near future. That was a hard professional moment for me.”

FMIA: I really liked the job your staff did with Jake Browning this year in Cincinnati. You know, you’re not always going to have Joe Burrow as your quarterback. Maybe one day he gets hurt, maybe one day he’s not there anymore. And you’ve got to have another guy ready to go. That’s the NFL. Coaching matters. How’d you do that?

Callahan: “Thank you. You know what? Truthfully, those are the moments where even though we didn’t end up making the playoffs, that to me was really rewarding coaching. A ton of credit goes to Jake, who’d been in that quarterback room for two years, for being very transparent and communicating really well that this is something that I don’t like, or this is what I like. That takes a lot of balls from young quarterbacks in the NFL to say. He said, ‘I need to have more pure progression where I can just go 1-2-3, and get the ball out of my hand.’ Going into that Jacksonville Monday night game, we gave him everything he asked for, and now he could just go out and play fast. That’s what happened. He played lights out. Great example of a quarterback believing the coaches are doing everything we can do to help him win. That’s important.”

FMIA: The game’s changed so much in recent years, but do you have a firm offensive philosophy?

Callahan: “It really depends who you have playing quarterback. That’s the first thing. The drop-back passing game, especially on first and second down, as the statistics and information would bear out, you’re always going to be more productive doing that efficiently. It used to be if you run the ball 30 times and throw 20 completions, you’ll win every game. Those old things have been turned on their head. To me, the philosophy of the offense is, you still want to marry run and pass games. Do a great job mixing your screens, your play-action screen game, with your run game. But when it’s time to throw the football, you better have a great protection scheme and you better have a great distribution in your pass game. That’s what I always felt my strength is as a coach—being able to manufacture the passing game to take advantage of what defenses are giving us.

“The game is becoming, throw to get the lead, run to finish it. That’s probably what most of the good teams look like. Kansas City and Buffalo throw it so well, and there’s still a huge component of the run game.”

FMIA: What’d your dad (Bill Callahan, former Raiders head coach and long-time NFL assistant) say when you called and told him you had this job?

Callahan: “Oh man, he was so excited, so happy and proud. That was one of the cooler phone calls I’ve made in my life. I got to tell my dad, ‘Your son’s an NFL head coach.’”

BUFFALO

Mike Caldwell was fired as the Jaguars DC, but the Bills are giving him an interview.  Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk.com:

Former Jaguars defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell’s search for a new job took him to Buffalo.

Mike Garafolo of NFL Media reports that Caldwell interviewed with the Bills about their defensive coordinator position. Bills head coach Sean McDermott handled the duties for the team in 2023 after Leslie Frazier left the team.

Caldwell spent two seasons running the defense in Jacksonville before getting fired this month. He previously coached for the Buccaneers, Jets, Cardinals, and Eagles.

During his first three seasons on the Eagles staff, Caldwell worked with McDermott and he was also playing linebacker for the team when McDermott joined their staff in 2001.

– – –

Peter King is not a fan of how the Bills and QB JOSH ALLEN handled things on the final drive against the Chiefs:

Immediately after a titanic game is not the time to form permanent opinions on what you’ve just seen. I was at the Kansas City-Buffalo game last weekend and covered it from the winner’s angle. During the week, I had time to re-watch the game and consider it from Buffalo’s perspective, and I was left with one overriding question:

Why did the Bills—in the middle of their final, inexorable drive of the game—drastically change their offensive approach at the most critical moment of the season?

To refresh: Buffalo, down 27-24, got the ball back at their 20-, with 8:23 left in the game. The Bills, after a huge miss on a Josh Allen-to-Stefon Diggs bomb (Diggs missed a very catchable ball) on first down, settled into a patient, clock-eating drive, seemingly trying to either tie it or win it and leave KC with very little time left. On seven of the 15 plays on the drive with the clock moving, Allen snapped the ball with an average of 5.1 seconds remaining on the play clock. Efficient, methodical.

So, Buffalo advanced to the Kansas City 26-, at the two-minute warning. Second-and-9. Two timeouts left per team. And here’s where the line of demarcation came. The Bills had to know they were either:

One first down away from moving closer for a Tyler Bass field-goal try inside the 35-yard line that could have tied the game and sent it to overtime;

Or one first down away from scoring a touchdown with very little time left, and leaving KC needing a touchdown, likely on a long field, to win. It was vital, with how great Patrick Mahomes is down the stretch and in the clutch, to give him next-to-no time to do that.

The Bills had to know on any play that ended with the clock running, Kansas City would burn its second timeout, and then its third. So, the strategy for Buffalo was: under all circumstances, get a first down and keep the clock running. Allen—second-and-9, KC 26-, 2:00 left—surveyed the defense as he prepared to take the snap.

Second down: With a wide-open receiver running a crossing route at the KC 22- and an open receiver running an out-route at the 16-, Allen chose to try to hit Khalil Shakir in the back of the trafficky end zone. Overthrown.

Third down: Allen got chased out of the pocket to the right, and probably missed seeing two intermediate receivers shy of the first down to the left. He threw the ball away, deep.

Fourth down: Bass pushed a 44-yard field-goal attempt wide right. The Chiefs, never having to use one of their timeouts in the fourth quarter, won 27-24.

Allen, on this drive, had flipped and thrown and side-armed completions of 7, 4, 8, 10, 6 and 7 yards. And needing a first down here, he went gunslinger. I just don’t know why. Kurt Warner, one who would know, tried to explain it a few days after the game.

“Sometimes,” Warner said, “you talk yourself into a play and say, ‘I’m gonna make this play, and this is the throw that’ll send us to the championship game,’ instead of saying, ‘I’m gonna let the defense dictate where I throw the ball.’ As a quarterback, you have to have the ability to balance those things.”

I thought Warner put it best on Allen in this game, and Allen as a player. He said, “It’s impossible to play perfect games, and Josh played an incredible game—until the end. In the end, he took some chances that wouldn’t have been what I would have done. But he chose to make those throws, and if you choose those throws, you’ve got to make ‘em. That’s part of being great. Brady, Montana, Mahomes—they have careers of making the plays in the absolute crucial times of the game. Now they’re on the Mount Rushmore of NFL quarterbacks.”

Allen is just six years into his career. He’s got much of his NFL life in front of him. He’s a smart guy. He’s one of the most talented quarterbacks ever to play in the NFL. He’s going to have plenty of chances to go deep into the playoffs, and to win a Super Bowl. But this is a crucial lesson he must learn, or he may never hold the Lombardi Trophy.

THIS AND THAT

BELICHICK’S FUTURE

Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com weighs the 2025 chances of Bill Belichick returning to the coaching ranks:

Bill Belichick apparently will go 0-for-7 when it comes to finding a head-coaching job in 2024. If, as it appears, nothing materializes in Seattle or Washington or elsewhere, what will happen in 2025?

The question of control will continue to hover over Belichick’s prospects. Will he want the keys to the football operation? If so, will an owner be prepared to clear out and/or reassign the existing staff in order to accommodate Belichick?

Peter King made this point on Friday’s PFT Live. Most teams now have a full and robust analytics staff, ready to constantly give input and advice to the head coach. What if Belichick doesn’t want any of them around?

What if he wants no one around other than people he knows and trusts? That was one of the problems during his final years in New England. He was too reluctant to trust others. It’s likely a byproduct of his upbringing on the campus of the Naval Academy, where football and the military combine to create an atmosphere of maximum secrecy.

Belichick knows people like to talk. They like to use information to trade favors. They like to impress others with the things they know. Belichick has run the Patriots with full awareness of those basic realities of human dynamics, spending two decades carefully shaping an undersized staff of coaches and others around him.

So if/when he takes over a new team, either the owner will be willing to pass out pink slips or Belichick will suddenly decide to place his faith and trust in a bunch of people he doesn’t know at all and, if he does, he might not want around.

Meanwhile, where will his preferred coaching staff members be a year from now? Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is currently available. If he signs a multi-year contract to, for example, return to the Patriots and work with new coach Jerod Mayo, McDaniels likely won’t be available to partner up with Belichick again. Ditto for others like Matt Patricia and Joe Judge and one or both of Belichick’s sons.

Could a year in TV prompt Belichick to humble himself to the idea that he’ll have to be a coach and only a coach? Maybe. Once he’s a coach again, will he accept that?

It’s a point we raised on Friday. If the team has a fortysomething General Manager who has full control over the draft and the roster and the G.M. wants to draft a certain player and Belichick makes a face and grunts, what will the G.M. do?

The issue isn’t just drafting of players, but development of them. In New England, it’s possible that the dearth of quality players in recent years traces as much to the coach’s failure to develop the draft picks as it does to the de facto General Manager’s failure to pick the right ones. If Belichick has struggled to properly groom the players he wanted, what will he do with players he didn’t?

That’s why anything other than full control for Belichick inevitably could lead to full-blown chaos. That’s why any owner who wants Belichick in 2025 needs to be prepared to throw him the keys to the car, and to tell him to drive it wherever and however he wants.

Will someone do it? Belichick’s constant presence on TV (if/when he takes a network job) will give him a platform for displaying his depth of knowledge. He will be far more engaging and charismatic than the person we see treating each and every press conference like a colonoscopy without anesthesia.

All it takes is one owner to decide to roll the dice. It won’t be easy. It won’t be cheap. But Belichick is a proven winner, an expert of experts in mastering situational football. If there’s already a good roster in place, the risks of giving him full control will be minimized.

Teams to watch include (in my own assessment) the Bills, Browns, Jaguars, Giants, Eagles, Vikings, and Buccaneers.

I left off the Cowboys because, if it was ever going to happen, this was the year to do it.

I added the Giants because it’s been long believed he would love to go back to the place where he won a pair of Super Bowls as defensive coordinator, and because the team took a nosedive in 2023 after a playoff berth in 2022.

The Browns are there because owner Jimmy Haslam has a demonstrated capacity to do desperate, impulsive things.

And the Vikings are there for a very simple reason. Owner Zygi Wilf was a huge Giants fan before buying the Vikings. It’s not crazy to envision Zygi and Mark Wilf becoming smitten with the idea of giving Belichick a chance to take the just-good-enough Vikings to the top of the mountain the franchise has been trying to climb for more than 50 years.

That’s still not a long list of potential options. It’s seven. The same number of openings this year, with no owner willing either to turn over football operations to Belichick or to take the leap of faith that making him the coach and only the coach will not lead to widespread organizational dysfunction.

Will an owner be willing to do either thing in 2025?

Again, all it takes is one.

LOOKING AHEAD

From NFL Nerd:

@NerdingonNFL

9 of the 13 playoff games from this season will have a rematch next regular season:

#Rams @ #Lions

#Eagles @ #Buccaneers

#Ravens @ #Texans

#49ers @ #Packers

#Buccaneers @ #Lions

#Chiefs @ #Bills

#Ravens @ #Chiefs

#Lions @ #49ers

#Chiefs @ #49ers

GREG OLSEN

Richard Dietsch of The Athletic looks at what could be ahead for FOX’s Greg Olsen:

t took 30 seconds into Fox’s broadcast of the San Francisco 49ers’ 34-31 win on Sunday night for Greg Olsen to reinforce why he has become a top NFL analyst. As play-by-play partner Kevin Burkhardt explained on Detroit’s opening drive why the run game for the Lions would be so important, Olsen provided the context for viewers.

“If there is one deficiency of this San Francisco defense, it’s they don’t face a lot of runs,” Olsen said. “But when they do, they are kind of middle of the pack. They are not a great yards-per-carry team defense. I think early on, the Lions are going to lean heavily on (David) Montgomery and (Jahmyr) Gibbs, the rookie.”

Immediately after Olsen finished his thought, Montgomery rolled off 15 yards up the middle of the field on a second-and-6.

Then, in the closing minutes of the game, Olsen provided a dissertation on clock management between the Lions’ attempt to close a 10-point gap and how the 49ers should play their final set of downs to run out of the clock. Olsen is ultra-prepared, he sees the entire field, and the best compliment of all — he educates viewers.

It is remarkable to think that Sunday could have been Olsen’s last game as a No. 1 analyst in the short term, but this is likely the case. He has conducted a clinic over the last two seasons when it comes to being in the shadow of Tom Brady, the heir-in-waiting for the No. 1 analyst chair on Fox’s top NFL team. We have never seen a legit No. 1 sports broadcasting analyst work while knowing his replacement has been hired to take the job at a to-be-determined time.

In the NFL broadcasting musical chairs year of 2022, Troy Aikman left Fox to join ESPN, and longtime partner Joe Buck eventually followed. That bumped up the team of Olsen and Burkhardt after the two had found great chemistry on the No. 2 NFL team on Fox. They developed into a terrific listen, had a great Super Bowl broadcast, and every week Olsen provided viewers with a unique look at the field thanks to seeing the game as a tight end and his deep preparation during the week (which Fox NFL staffers confirm).

“I knew very well what I was signing up for,” Olsen told The Athletic earlier this year. “I’ve always said I’m a big boy. I understand the rules of engagement. … All I can do is try to be as good as humanly possible and make it very difficult (for Fox Sports management). I’ve said to (Fox Sports executive producer) Brad Zager and (Fox Sports chairman) Eric Shanks kind of in jest and in humor over a beer — ‘I’m going to make it really hard on you guys.’ I’d be doing those guys a disservice and I’m doing myself and my team a disservice if I went into it half-assed that I’m just a placeholder until (Tom) Brady comes in and takes my spot. That’s not in anyone’s best interest.”

What happens next? Fox has not offered any specifics as to what they have planned in 2024, but Brady has said repeatedly he will join the network for the 2024 season, and Fox Sports has worked under the premise that the job is Brady’s when he arrives. A Fox Sports spokesperson declined comment on Sunday on specific talent assignments for the 2024 NFL season. Said the spokesperson: “The network will reveal its complete production/talent plans in the future as it does before each season.”

At the moment, there are no No. 1 national NFL analyst jobs open between Aikman, Cris Collinsworth (NBC), Kirk Herbstreit (Amazon) and Tony Romo (CBS). Both Olsen’s camp and the networks would be wise to see what each is thinking long-term. It’s instructive to think about Olsen as a player here. He put up Hall of Fame numbers as a tight end, and pro athletes are highly competitive people who want the best (and highest-paid) jobs. Olsen no doubt believes he should be a No. 1 analyst, and his on-air work has proven that he is.

Olsen’s best move might be to stick around Fox for a couple of years on the No. 2 team (while asking for a massive raise to do so). Given Brady’s significant interests away from broadcasting, it seems unlikely he will come close to completing his 10-year broadcasting/ambassador deal with Fox. The network’s NFL package is such that its No. 2 games each week are arguably as good as Amazon’s “Thursday Night Football” schedule. Olsen would also be working with an excellent play-by-play voice in Joe Davis and a great sideline reporter in Pam Oliver. Keep in mind, Fox gave Olsen the opportunity to be a No. 1 analyst and the network’s executives deserve credit for putting him in the chair when other places would have held out for a bigger NFL name. Fox management absolutely loves Olsen’s work.

Not doing playoff games would undoubtedly be a tough pill to take, but Olsen’s camp could set up a deal where he is a major part of the studio coverage of the NFC Championship Game and Super Bowl. Olsen has also expressed interest in coaching, given it is the family profession.

Again, Olsen might be best off playing the long game. Romo is not in any jeopardy for 2024. Aikman and Collinsworth are set too. Could Herbstreit, who also handles college football broadcasting duties for ESPN, want to reduce his travel? Maybe, but most people don’t step away from a No. 1 job.

It’s hard to work as a No. 2 in sports television after you have proven yourself as a No. 1. But jobs will open up in the future. If Olsen stays at Fox, it’s likely that within three to five years, he’d be back in the No. 1 NFL analyst seat.