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    What to Watch for in Sunday’s N.F.L. Wild-Card Games

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesVaccination StrategiesVaccine InformationF.A.Q.TimelineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat to Watch for in Sunday’s N.F.L. Wild-Card GamesLamar Jackson will try to get over the playoff hump against the Titans, the Saints will try to avoid any surprises, and the Steelers and the Browns circle each other for the third time this season.Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson will try to win his first playoff game in his third try when the Ravens face the Titans in a rematch of last year’s divisional-round contest.Credit…Bryan Woolston/Associated PressJan. 10, 2021, 8:00 a.m. ETSunday brings another day chock-full of N.F.L. playoff football, with three games kicking off roughly 14 hours after the last of Saturday’s trio of postseason contests ended. Distinct, pitched rivalries heighten the stakes of two of the matchups — Baltimore at Tennessee at 1:05 p.m. Eastern, and Cleveland at Pittsburgh at 8:15 p.m. — but the middle game, which has Chicago visiting New Orleans at 4:40 p.m., is seen as an apparent mismatch since it includes the erratic Bears, one of only two teams without winning records that have barged into the playoffs.Lamar Jackson will try to finally win a playoff game.Near the midpoint of the 2018 season, Lamar Jackson was named Baltimore’s starting quarterback and took the N.F.L. by storm, running the football (79.4 rushing yards per game in seven starts, six of which were victories) as well as he threw it (he averaged 159 passing yards per game during that stretch). Viewed as a team that nobody in the postseason wanted to play, the Ravens were instead upset at home by the Los Angeles Chargers in their opening playoff game, in which Jackson looked out of sorts and ruined two critical drives with an interception and a fumble.Last season, Jackson was the league’s most valuable player, and the Ravens were the top playoff seed in the A.F.C. But Baltimore was routed at home by the Titans as Jackson again struggled with two interceptions and a lost fumble.This season, the Ravens (11-5), a fifth seed, have looked unbeatable in their last five games, when they averaged 37.2 points per game. Jackson has regained his usual regular-season form. But another playoff loss, especially against a Tennessee (11-5) defense that ranked among the N.F.L.’s worst against the run and the pass, will amplify the spotlight on Jackson’s winless playoff record.In the Titans’ playoff victory over the Ravens last season, running back Derrick Henry rushed for 195 yards on 30 carries. It will be fascinating to see if Baltimore Coach John Harbaugh and his proud, physical defense have come up with an answer for stopping Henry — as they must. When the teams met in late November this season, Henry was kept under 100 rushing yards as the fourth quarter ended in a tie, but he took over in overtime, winning the game with a bulldozing 29-yard touchdown dash through most of the Ravens defense.The Saints hope for a miracle-less postseason.The bad mojo haunting the Saints in the last three postseasons has been well-documented. If Mitchell Trubisky and the Bears (8-8) were able to add to the franchise’s sense of playoff doom, it would be a sign that something really odd was afoot in New Orleans. The Bears backed into the playoffs as the N.F.C.’s seventh and last seed on a tiebreaker when matched against the equally inconsistent Arizona Cardinals (8-8). The Saints, winners of 11 of their last 13 games, are the second seed, trailing only the Green Bay Packers.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Quarterback Keeper? Jets, Browns and Bears Face Contract Decisions

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrend WatchQuarterback Keeper? Jets, Browns and Bears Face Contract DecisionsSam Darnold, Baker Mayfield and Mitchell Trubisky have all been marginally impressive at times. But is that enough for their teams to sign them to salary-cap-straining contracts?Jets quarterback Sam Darnold, right, and Baker Mayfield of the Cleveland Browns have each made their teams’ decisions about extending their contracts trickier by playing well — but not that well — over the last few weeks.Credit…Bill Kostroun/Associated PressDec. 30, 2020, 3:00 a.m. ETThe most pivotal decision an N.F.L. team must make is often not drafting the right quarterback but determining the right thing to do with the quarterback it drafted a few years ago.The Jets and Sam Darnold are reaching a crossroads. The Cleveland Browns and Chicago Bears are facing similar decisions with Baker Mayfield and Mitchell Trubisky. Should these teams offer their marginally impressive, often disappointing young starters budget-burdening contracts or send them away and start over again?There is no middle ground. If there exists a compensation package for a former first-round quarterback that lands somewhere between nine-figure golden handcuffs and bus fare out of town, N.F.L. front offices have yet to discover it.Darnold, Mayfield and Trubisky have all made their teams’ decisions trickier by playing well — but not that well — over the past few weeks. Darnold has led the Jets to back-to-back victories. Mayfield threw 10 touchdowns and just one interception in a four-game stretch that ended when a coronavirus outbreak left him throwing to scout-team wide receivers in Sunday’s loss to the Jets. Trubisky has completed over 70 percent of his passes and thrown six touchdowns while leading the Bears to three straight victories, albeit against a trio of scuffling opponents.All three quarterbacks could be showing signs of improvement at the end of their third (Darnold and Mayfield) and fourth (Trubisky) N.F.L. seasons. Or their warm streaks may simply be random fluctuations caused by the quality of their opponents, some lucky bounces and heavily tempered expectations.Trubisky is just a few weeks removed from being benched in favor of Nick Foles. Mayfield behaved as if he were his own internet troll at times last year and struggled against quality defenses early in this season. Darnold is graded on the Jets curve: Showing up and trying his hardest guarantees at least a C-plus.The contracts of first-round draft picks come with built-in fifth-year team options: The player gets a hefty raise (Darnold’s base salary, for example, would jump from roughly $920,000 in 2021 to around $25 million in 2022), while the team gets an extra year of evaluation/procrastination. So the Jets and the Browns could delay their final decisions on Darnold and Mayfield until 2022. But exercising a quarterback’s fifth-year option is like asking a fiancé to postpone the wedding until they finish graduate school: perhaps prudent, but an undeniable sign of one’s true feelings.Team politics also typically play a large role in determining a young quarterback’s fate. Newly hired coaches are rarely eager to repair the prospect who helped get the last coach fired.The Chicago Bears famously traded up in the 2017 N.F.L. draft to select Mitchell Trubisky, center, when Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson were still on the board.Credit…Steve Mitchell/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe next Jets head coach is likely to approach undoing Adam Gase’s handiwork the way Batman defuses one of The Joker’s time bombs: The safest bet is to just hurl everything into Gotham River. So if the Jets keep Darnold, it may be only as a lame-duck place holder while his rookie replacement learns the playbook. Under such circumstances, a trade or release could provide both the Jets and Darnold a much-needed fresh start.The Bears declined Trubisky’s fifth-year option last off-season, so he enters 2021 as a free agent, leaving the team with several expensive, suboptimal choices. Franchise tagging Trubisky would cost the Bears more than the nearly $32 million one-year salary that Dak Prescott earned from the Dallas Cowboys’ indecision this season. A long-term contract may cost around $118 million over four years, as indicated by Ryan Tannehill’s contract with the Tennessee Titans. The cap-strapped Bears would struggle to afford either choice, neither of which Trubisky has earned.Front-office politics could also play a role in the Bears’ decision. General Manager Ryan Pace famously traded a bundle of mid-round draft picks to the San Francisco 49ers in 2017 to select Trubisky when Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson were still on the board. An executive who admits such a huge mistake rarely gets the chance to make another one. All the more reason to pretend that Trubisky is a late-blooming Aaron Rodgers.Mayfield has outperformed Darnold and Trubisky, overcoming many youthful bad habits while leading the Browns to their first winning record since 2007. That makes the team’s next decision even more perilous. Mayfield appears to be in line for a contract in the $32 million to $40 million range per year, like those signed by Watson, Jared Goff and Carson Wentz in recent years. (Mahomes’s $500 million contract, like his entire career so far, belongs in its own category).The Eagles, of course, have benched Wentz in favor of the rookie Jalen Hurts. But Wentz’s huge contract will make trading him like trying to sell a Lamborghini with 48 remaining payments after it was hit by a train. And Goff is the football equivalent of a $40 hamburger. Watson has played well in hopeless circumstances, and not every mammoth quarterback contract brings instant regret. But if the Browns choose to overpay Mayfield for “good enough,” they are likely to get precisely what they bargained for.It’s easy to suggest that any team that is not completely satisfied with its young quarterback’s development should cut bait and dip instead into next year’s deep pool of can’t-miss rookies. But Darnold, Trubisky, Mayfield, Wentz and Goff all came from similar can’t-miss pools. If selecting and developing a franchise quarterback were easy, multiple teams would not face this predicament each year.Ultimately, the Jets will probably trade or release Darnold; Mayfield should get Goff/Wentz money from the Browns; the Bears will find a solution to the Trubisky conundrum that makes sense only to the Bears; and everyone will wish they had selected Mahomes when they had the chance. The whole cycle will just begin anew next year when the Giants try to figure out what to do with Daniel Jones.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      NFL Week 14: What We Learned

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat We Learned From Week 14 of the N.F.L. SeasonThe Chiefs did not need perfection to win, the Bears’ losing streak finally ended and the N.F.C. East remained wide open.Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes was able to recover this fumble, but his day included three interceptions and a 30-yard sack. He also threw for 393 yards and won.Credit…Wilfredo Lee/Associated PressDec. 13, 2020Updated 9:10 p.m. ETMost of the favored teams won on Sunday, but there was still a little drama, including a mistake-filled performance by the leading candidate for the Most Valuable Player Award, an unbelievably bad day for a veteran kicker and an upset led by a rookie quarterback making his first start.Here’s what we learned:[embedded content]The Chiefs are not fair. Coming into the day, Patrick Mahomes appeared locked in for the second M.V.P. Award of his career and had been intercepted just twice in 463 passing attempts. The Miami Dolphins’ opportunistic defense had him flustered for much of the day, picking him off three times in 34 attempts. On top of that, Miami made Mahomes look foolish on a rambling play in which he repeatedly retreated before being sacked for a 30-yard loss. The Dolphins picked up a fourth takeaway on a fumble by Mecole Hardman. And Tua Tagovailoa had the first 300-yard passing game of his career.Despite all that, Miami lost, 33-27. And it didn’t feel that close.The win improved Kansas City to 12-1, and the Chiefs, who clinched the A.F.C. West, have a good chance to secure the A.F.C.’s only first-round bye in the playoffs. Miami dropped to 8-5, but is still a strong contender for a wild-card spot.Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts threw for 167 yards and a touchdown in a win over New Orleans while rushing for 106 yards.Credit…Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Eagles have a new quarterback. No player had topped 100 yards rushing in a game against New Orleans since Nov. 19, 2017 — a span of 56 games — but thanks to a new-look Eagles offense led by quarterback Jalen Hurts, two players surpassed that mark on Sunday. Hurts showed enough skill as a passer to keep the Saints’ defense honest — his 15-yard touchdown pass to Alshon Jeffery in the first quarter was a thing of beauty — and that allowed Miles Sanders to rush for 115 yards and two touchdowns. Hurts carried 18 times for 106 yards, joining Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson as the only quarterbacks to rush for 100 or more yards in their first N.F.L. start.In five seasons under Coach Doug Pederson, the Eagles are 10-3 in games not started by Carson Wentz (including the playoffs) and 35-33-1 with Wentz starting.The N.F.C. East is far from decided. The Giants’ four-game winning streak came to a screeching halt with a 26-7 loss to the Arizona Cardinals. That result, combined with wins by Washington, Philadelphia and Dallas, kept things interesting in the N.F.C. East, which is making up for its lack of quality by having all four teams in the division race with three games remaining. The Footballers should be in the driver’s seat after improving to 6-7, but that will depend on the health of quarterback Alex Smith, who reinjured the leg that kept him out for nearly two years. The severity of Smith’s injury was not immediately announced.Minnesota’s Dan Bailey was having a terrific season before a brutal two-game stretch in which he has missed four field-goal attempts and three extra points.Credit…Kim Klement/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Vikings might need a new kicker. While his missed kicks would not have provided enough points to give Minnesota a win on the road, it was hard not to point a finger at Dan Bailey in his team’s 26-14 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Bailey missed an extra-point attempt in the first quarter and proceeded to miss field-goal attempts of 36, 54 and 46 yards, with each sailing wide right. According to ESPN Stats & Information, Bailey is the first player to miss three field-goal attempts and an extra point, without a make of any kind, since Washington’s John Aveni in 1961. Bailey also missed two extra points and a 51-yard field-goal attempt last week, making him 1 of 4 on extra points and 2 of 6 on field goals in a two-week period after having started the season 26 of 27 on extra points and 10 of 12 on field goals.With Arizona and Chicago winning, Minnesota (6-7) complicated its wild-card hopes. Tampa Bay, on the other hand, improved to 8-5, and is on its way to its first playoff appearance since 2007.Eighty of David Montgomery’s 113 yards rushing came on one run, but that worked out just fine for Chicago in a win over the Houston Texans.Credit…Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesThe Bears can still make the playoffs — yes, the Chicago Bears. After a 5-1 start, Chicago turned into a laughingstock with six consecutive losses. But the Bears dominated Houston in every way on Sunday and came away with a 36-7 win in which several unlikely things happened. Among them: Mitchell Trubisky outplayed Houston’s Deshaun Watson; running back David Montgomery had his most productive game in nearly a year, rumbling for 113 yards (with 80 of them on a single, electrifying run); and the Bears’ defense sacked Watson seven times, once for a safety. Chicago had more rushing and passing yards, and fewer turnovers, than the Texans. And the win managed to keep the Bears very much alive in the race for the N.F.C.’s third wild card.Derrick Henry has an N.F.L.-record four career games with 200 or more rushing yards and two or more touchdowns. Two of the games have come against Jacksonville.Credit…Stephen B. Morton/Associated PressDerrick Henry stands alone. After a 215-yard performance in Tennessee’s 31-10 win over Jacksonville on Sunday, Henry has four career games with 200 or more rushing yards and two or more touchdowns, breaking a tie he held with Jim Brown, Barry Sanders and LaDainian Tomlinson, each of whom is in the Hall of Fame. Henry is leading the N.F.L. with 1,532 yards rushing this season — just 8 short of the total he led the N.F.L. with last year — and he has run for 100 or more yards in his last nine road games, one short of Sanders’s N.F.L. record.Henry was so dominant that you’d hardly notice that Ryan Tannehill passed for 212 yards and two touchdowns, one of which was an incredible 37-yarder in which A.J. Brown corralled the ball with just his right hand.Green Bay may sneak into a first-round bye. Most of the talk in the N.F.C. this season has centered on New Orleans and Seattle, but a Packers win over Detroit on Sunday, combined with a Saints loss — and some help from a head-to-head tiebreaker, thanks to Green Bay’s Week 3 win over New Orleans — vaulted the Packers to the No. 1 seed in the conference with three games remaining. Green Bay controls its own destiny as far as a first-round bye is concerned, and the Packers will close their season with winnable games against Carolina, Tennessee (in Green Bay) and Chicago.One* Sentence About Sunday’s Games*Except when it takes more.Colts 44, Raiders 27 There were so many things you could focus on in this convincing Indianapolis victory: Philip Rivers’s two touchdown passes; Jonathan Taylor’s career-high 150 yards rushing (and two touchdowns); or Khari Willis’s 50-yard pick-6. But when you factor in the degree of difficulty, the highlight to remember is Kenny Moore’s one-handed interception in the end zone in the second quarter.Chiefs 33, Dolphins 27 It looked like it could be a long day for Kansas City when the Chiefs fell behind by 10-0 in the second quarter, but thanks to touchdown drives of 75 and 74 yards, the Chiefs led at halftime, and never trailed again.Titans 31, Jaguars 10 Jacksonville has lost 12 consecutive games — one short of the franchise record — and a switch at quarterback to Gardner Minshew in the second half led to a quick touchdown, but that wasn’t nearly enough to make this game competitive.Tampa Bay’s defense produced six sacks and 12 quarterback hits, giving Minnesota’s Kirk Cousins almost no time to work.Credit…Alex Menendez/Associated PressBuccaneers 26, Vikings 14 Tampa Bay had the ball for less than 21 of the game’s 48 minutes, and while Minnesota had the game’s leading passer, leading rusher and leading receiver, the Buccaneers walked away with a fairly easy victory thanks largely to mistakes forced by the team’s terrific pass rush.Packers 31, Lions 24 Aaron Rodgers had 290 yards passing, three touchdowns and only seven incompletions — a typical day for him at this point — and Green Bay clinched the N.F.C. North. Of larger concern for Detroit than the loss was an injury sustained by quarterback Matthew Stafford in which he took a hard hit by Green Bay’s Kenny Clark at the end of a run and appeared to hurt his ribs.Eagles 24, Saints 21 Taysom Hill passed for a career-high 291 yards, but he also threw an interception and lost a fumble. The loss broke a streak of eight consecutive wins by backup quarterbacks for New Orleans.Jamal Adams has already set the N.F.L.’s single-season record for sacks by a defensive back in just nine games with the Seahawks. Credit…Joe Nicholson/USA Today Sports, via ReutersSeahawks 40, Jets 3 Last week felt like the bottom for the Jets, but the team’s former star safety, Jamal Adams, was credited with a sack of Sam Darnold in the second quarter, giving him the N.F.L.’s single-season record for sacks by a defensive back with 8.5. Adams only needed nine games to break Adrian Wilson’s record of eight, which was set over the course of 16 games in 2005. Rubbing some salt in the Jets’ wounds, the team’s former quarterback, Geno Smith, came on in relief of Russell Wilson for mop-up duty at the end of the blowout. The Jets are 0-13.Footballers 23, 49ers 15 A lot of things went wrong for Washington in this game, but the rookie defensive end Chase Young put on a show with six tackles, a sack, two passes defended, two quarterback hits and a 47-yard fumble recovery for a touchdown.Cardinals 26, Giants 7 Arizona’s Haason Reddick became the 16th player to record five or more sacks in a game (since the statistic became official in 1982), leading an all-out assault in which the Cardinals produced eight sacks and 11 quarterback hits. Reddick, who came into the day with only 12.5 sacks in 60 career games, also forced three fumbles.Justin Herbert will be credited with a game-winning drive and Michael Badgley with a game-winning field goal, but it was this interception by Michael Davis that won the game for Los Angeles.Credit…Ashley Landis/Associated PressChargers 20, Falcons 17 It looked like the Chargers were throwing away yet another potential win when Justin Herbert was intercepted with less than a minute remaining. But Michael Davis stole momentum right back for Los Angeles by intercepting a Matt Ryan pass, and Herbert was able to get his team close enough for Michael Badgley to win the game with a 43-yard field goal as time expired.Bears 36, Texans 7 Chicago quarterback Mitchell Trubisky has taken his lumps over the last few years — largely as a result of his being drafted ahead of Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes and Houston’s Deshaun Watson — but he had a terrific game against Watson’s Texans, completing 24 of 33 passes for 267 yards and three touchdowns.Aldon Smith of the Cowboys returned a fumble 78 yards for a touchdown.Credit…Emilee Chinn/Associated PressCowboys 30, Bengals 7 In his return to Cincinnati, Andy Dalton was hardly perfect, but he did enough to beat the lowly Bengals, tossing two touchdown passes without committing a turnover. Aldon Smith, a defensive end who missed four seasons because of off-field issues, contributed to the scoring with his first career touchdown.Broncos 32, Panthers 27 A lot went right for Denver in this one, with Drew Lock throwing a career-high four touchdown passes, Diontae Spencer returning a punt 83 yards for a score and the Broncos’ defense holding strong against Carolina’s comeback attempt.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More