IT’S TANNEHILL TIME! @ryantannehill1 | #TENvsBAL pic.twitter.com/RGHDMgWQk7
— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) January 12, 2020
The four Divisional games left little doubt about who should play in the Conference championships. But how we got there in each contest was particularly jarring.
Let’s start with the only home team to lose despite a Wild Card bye. A lot of folks were in their feelings when the Baltimore Ravens and likely 2019 NFL MVP QB Lamar Jackson took it on the chin against the visiting #6 Tennessee Titans. Now, the three people who read what I write on a weekly basis (I don’t even know who y’all are, but I appreciate ya) may remember how impressed I was when the Cleveland Browns went to Baltimore in September and ran all over them. There was no Lamar Jackson shade in that game, just an acknowledgement that the Browns would be able to take advantage of a weakness in the Ravens’ defense and exploit it to spectacular results.
Well, damn! I tried to warn you good people last week that the Titans were capable of winning in Baltimore. What did I say last week…?
11 years ago, the Titans hosted the Ravens in the Divisional Round as the
Wild Cardtop seed and lost. The Titans can return the favor this time, and Derrick Henry will play a critical role once again. Tennessee QB Ryan Tannehill wasn’t great in New England, but outside of a third quarter INT, Tannehill did well to avoid mistakes. Tannehill protecting the football will be key against a Baltimore team that is not good at generating pressure without blitzing. Of course, the Titans were among the worst teams in the league at protecting the quarterback, so expect Henry to get as many touches as possible to avoid that being a factor.
Derrick Henry got a lot of touches – 32 of them! Henry turned those touches into 202 scoreless yards; that represented 67.3% of Tennessee’s yardage at The Bank Saturday night. Henry even threw a TD pass!
But while many of you were hurt-hurt over Jackson backlash (or providing the backlash yourselves as if Jackson was supposed to be the one tackling Henry), some of you turned your noses up at Tannehill’s performance. Yes, the Tennessee QB was held under 100 yards passing again while completing only seven attempts. All that matters is that Tannehill threw two dope TD passes to TE Jonnu Smith and WR Kalif Raymond to take what would ultimately be an insurmountable 14-0 lead. Tannehill took only one sack all game, and it was the play before Smith’s impossible TD reception for the first score of the game. And Tannehill added another TD on the ground to complete a day where the Titans had no turnovers.
Jackson, on the other hand, threw two INTs to go with a lost fumble on a night where he was sacked four times. Jackson still made plays, but the Tennessee defense made the critical ones, especially on fourth down. The Titans protected the quarterback, Tannehill protected the ball, and Henry was the centerpiece to upsetting the top team in the NFL this season. And it all came a week after the Titans beat the defending Super Bowl champs. Energy was different a week ago!
Now, I expected the Texans to win in Kansas City. That wasn’t even as much of a stretch, considering their regular season win at Arrowhead Stadium in October. Watching a Texans team make winning plays on special teams was flabbergasting: they turned a blocked punt and a muff by Kansas City WR Tyreek Hill into two TDs. That was all after the Kansas City secondary blew a coverage on Houston’s opening drive that led to a 54-yard touchdown pass from QB Deshaun Watson to WR Kenny Stills.
A lot of you like overcoaching, especially in hindsight. But kicking a field goal to go up 24-0 isn’t a bad thing, despite the timeout on 4th and 1 at the Kansas City 13 that preceded it. But for narrative purposes, that’s when the Texans that you all expected to see showed up, and Kansas City QB Patrick Mahomes went on to steward a 51-7 run that featured 41 unanswered points.
Houston’s good special teams helped build their lead, and then it immediately helped implode it in the second quarter:
- Kansas City Pro Bowl rookie WR Mecole Hardman returned Houston K Ka’imi Fairbairn’s kickoff 58 yards; two plays later, Mahomes threw the first of five TD passes.
- On the ensuing possession, Houston failed on a direct snap in punt formation to SS Justin Reid on 4th and 4 at their own 31. I’ll defend Houston head coach Bill O’Brien’s decision to kick a field goal, but I won’t defend this silliness. Three plays later, Mahomes threw the first of his three second quarter TD passes to TE Travis Kelce.
- On the ensuing kickoff, Houston WR DeAndre Carter was popped by Kansas City SS Daniel Sorensen, losing a fumble directly into Kansas City RB Darwin Thompson’s arms. Sorensen also stopped the fake punt. That turnover set the Chiefs up with 1st and Goal, and Mahomes found Kelce again.
- Houston punted, but Mahomes led a 90-yard, go-ahead TD drive that ended with Kelce in the end zone again. When Houston got the ball back, Watson and WR DeAndre Hopkins got Fairbairn in position for a 51-yard field goal attempt. Fairbairn missed wide right to send the game into halftime, an appropriate ending to a spectacular special teams collapse.
The Chiefs led for the entire second half. The Texans failed to sack Mahomes once, while Mahomes led both teams with 53 rushing yards. Outside of each team’s special teams fumbles, there were no other turnovers in the game. Houston’s 31 points were the same amount they scored in their Week 6 win over the Chiefs, and the winners of the other seven postseason games this season all scored fewer than 31 points. But there was no answer for the reigning MVP.
There’s not nearly as much to say about the NFC Divisional games. I thought the Vikings would give the 49ers more of a challenge, but after WR Stefon Diggs scored a 41-yard TD to tie the game a 7-7 in the first quarter, the Vikings gained a grand total of four first downs for the rest of the game. That included eight total yards on their ensuing seven possessions. The 49ers took a 14-7 lead behind a run game that ultimately produced 4.0 yards per rush on a whopping 47 attempts, and that ensured that the Vikings wouldn’t be able to keep the ball on the ground with RB Dalvin Cook. And Minnesota failed to protect QB Kirk Cousins, who was dropped for six sacks when he wasn’t checking down to Cook.
I suggested that the Green Bay game would come down to how well the Packers protected QB Aaron Rodgers against the Seahawks pass rush. There were no turnovers in the game at Lambeau Field, and Rodgers was only sacked twice. The first of those sacks came on a drive that ultimately ended with a TD run by Green Bay RB Aaron Jones to give the Packers a 21-3 halftime lead. Now, the second sack was by Seattle OLB Shaquem Griffin on a third down that forced the Packers to punt with 5:04 left in the game and the Seahawks trailing 28-23. But Seattle QB Russell Wilson was let down by his receiving corps (first down drop by WR Malik Turner) and offensive line (sacked for fifth time on subsequent third down) in his own territory, and the Seahawks punted back to the Packers. Rodgers made sure the Seahawks never saw the ball again, converting twice on third down passes. Not much more to say about that one.
We’re on to Championship Sunday! #NFLPlayoffs #WeReady pic.twitter.com/VzbjYXrvxv
— NFL (@NFL) January 13, 2020
Winning units:
SF run offense (RB Tevin Coleman)TEN offensive line (QB Ryan Tannehill)
KC offensive line (QB Patrick Mahomes)
GB offensive line (QB Aaron Rodgers)
Looking ahead to 2019 Championships
Titans at Kansas City: Don’t look now, but that elite Tennessee run game is about to see the worst of the AFC playoff defenses against the run. Here we go again, right? Well, the difference between the Chiefs and the two teams the Titans have beaten on the road is that the Chiefs are built to vaporize leads. The Patriots were relegated to praying their defense could hold on because their offense was so mid this winter, while the Ravens were built to pulverize teams once they had a lead, something the Titans made sure wasn’t the case this past weekend in Baltimore. The Titans can and will run, but they’re going to need more than 100 yards from the passing game to win the AFC Championship. What’s wild, is that we’ve already seen the Titans get just enough from Tannehill to beat the Chiefs this season. In Week 10, Tannehill threw a game-winning TD pass and run for a two-point conversion. The Chiefs capped off that 35-32 loss by botching field goal attempts on their last two drives. The Titans won in Kansas City two years ago on Wild Card weekend, and they have beaten the Chiefs four straight times. Henry has already dominated them once this season for 188 yards, including a 68-yard jaunt. The Chiefs are going to need a complete offensive performance and Mahomes’ power to win, because the Titans are going to do everything except protect the quarterback with extended dropbacks. I think the Titans can pull another upset if they can avoid special teams errors.
Packers at San Francisco: Week 12 saw the Packers visit Levi’s Stadium and get absolutely smacked by the 49ers. Now, Green Bay hasn’t lost since, and they’re playing their best football along the way. But that Week 12 game is why the NFC Championship is in northern California and not Wisconsin. Aaron Rodgers was held to 104 passing yards while getting sacked five times; basically, the San Francisco defense made him look like Kirk Cousins. I’d expect the Packers to try and run better with Aaron Jones, but even he was held under 3.0 yards per rush in San Francisco this season. When the 49ers have the ball, the gameplan should be similar for them: run the ball effectively and find TE George Kittle. The Packers should be able to keep this closer because their pass defense is solid. But I believe the 49ers are the better team.