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The team I'd most like to see win: Buffalo. They're a small market team that has never won a Super Bowl even though they hold the record for the most consecutive appearances (4). A close 2nd would be the Bengals, another team from a small market that has never one the big one. However, since the Hawks didn't get invited to the dance, I don't really have a favorite girl to partner with.

The team I'm most like to see lose: The Bucs, and only because of one person: Tom Brady. I can't stand that conceited little prick. I want him off my TV screen forever. The Packers and Aaron Rodgers, along with the Cowboys and Jerry Jones, are also teams/players/owners that I wouldn't mind seeing lose. I know that a lot of people will cite the Patriots and Steelers as teams they'd like to see be one and done, but they don't carry the same degree of repulsion with me as they do a lot of my friends.

I can see how they justified the two extra seeds as it gives them the opportunity to stretch the games from Saturday through Monday. As is typical for mid-January, the weather sucks and with the latest virus surge limiting my getting together with friends, I've been spending quite a bit of time at home and indoors, so having a robust playoff schedule is a welcome event.

I love Buffalo . I think Allen is the most dangerous Qb in the league . He’s streaky but if he’s on they don’t lose much . Watch the refs I’m sure the league wants Pats Bucs . I don’t harbor the animosity towards Brady anymore at all . He’s the goat . I wish Russ were as locked in as that guy . Steelers , meh watch the refs there too It’s Big Ben’s retirement tour . If I’m Dallas I’m not sleeping too well because that’s a gritty nasty 9ers team playing house money . I like the bengals to advance . Matt stafford is gonna throw 3 picks and stay winless in the postseason as the cards recover from the whipping season gave them

Hawktawk wrote:I love Buffalo . I think Allen is the most dangerous Qb in the league . He’s streaky but if he’s on they don’t lose much . Watch the refs I’m sure the league wants Pats Bucs . I don’t harbor the animosity towards Brady anymore at all . He’s the goat . I wish Russ were as locked in as that guy . Steelers , meh watch the refs there too It’s Big Ben’s retirement tour . If I’m Dallas I’m not sleeping too well because that’s a gritty nasty 9ers team playing house money . I like the bengals to advance . Matt stafford is gonna throw 3 picks and stay winless in the postseason as the cards recover from the whipping season gave them

I'm not into the conspiracy theories. Outside of questionable calls by the officials, I have seen zero evidence that there is some sort of cooperative attempt to influence the outcome of a game, and if there was, the more plausible suspect would be gambling interests, not the league.

IMO the Cards have peaked early. They've lost 6 of their last, including butt whippings from a couple of sub .500 clubs in the Lions and Panthers, and 4 of their past 6 since Murray has returned. Our win over them last Sunday was no fluke. They aren't a playoff quality team.

Stafford hasn't looked very good of late so your forecast is justified. But I think that the Rams are the most complete team in the division and although I'm not predicting a SB appearance, I wouldn't be surprised if they made it to the Promised Land this season. They had won 5 in a row until their loss last weekend to the Niners in a game that didn't mean as much to them as it did their opponent.

But I have to go with the Packers as my favorite in the NFC. Rodgers is playing lights out and they have one of the biggest home field advantages in the league. No one likes playing there in January.

Probably go Packers/Titans. Can't root for most, although I do follow Cowboys 'cause of Kellen Moore (I'm a Prosser boy - amazingly the Cowboys have had 2 OC's in a row from the Mid-Valley league (although I'm sure due to Linehan).

TriCitySam wrote:Probably go Packers/Titans. Can't root for most, although I do follow Cowboys 'cause of Kellen Moore (I'm a Prosser boy - amazingly the Cowboys have had 2 OC's in a row from the Mid-Valley league (although I'm sure due to Linehan).

I love Prosser. Too bad that they're so close to an interstate instead of a small town like Dayton or Pomeroy, well off the beaten path.

I'm betting on a replay of Super Bowl I, Packers-Chiefs.

Chiefs and the Packers in the SB and GB will win it all. But I'd love to see Buffalo win it all. If Henry is able to play and at 100% then I'd pick the Titans over the Chiefs. But GB has the most complete team IMO.

trents wrote:Chiefs and the Packers in the SB and GB will win it all. But I'd love to see Buffalo win it all. If Henry is able to play and at !00% then I'd pick the Titans over the Chiefs. But GB has the most complete team IMO.

The major difference for the Packers is Aaron Rodgers. As much as I don't like him, he's the best QB in the league, and that includes the so-called GOAT.

Rodgers is a better QB than Brady ever was - even if he is an ass.

I would like to see the Bills win it all - if only because their fans deserve to have a champion. I'm not sure they will make it though.
Cincinnati is young and maybe don't yet know how to win in the playoffs but that would be a good change, too.
In the end, I think it will be the Titans who make it to the SB. I think they have the most complete team and if Henry gets back on the field they will be that much tougher.

On the NFC side, I hope the teams in our division all lose as soon as possible.
The eventual champion should be GB who like the Titans have the best balance on both sides of the ball.
Look out for the Cowboys who might surprise people, as they have a good Defense and a lot of weapons on Offense.
But if the Packers don't blow it the NFC championship will go through GB in the dead of winter.

My own hope is that Green Bay will win it all and then A.Rodgers can make his "great escape" from G.Bay to any AFC team where I can ignor his QB prowess...

tarlhawk wrote:My own hope is that Green Bay will win it all and then A.Rodgers can make his "great escape" from G.Bay to any AFC team where I can ignor his QB prowess...

LOL!

I'd like to ignore both him and Brady, period.

Not relevant to the topic, but the mention of local coaches reminds me that I think that Doug Peterson would be a good HC for the 'Hawks. He's from Ferndale which is a Wison bomb up I-5 north of Bellingham. Maybe its Pederson. My spelling is generic.

Old but Slow wrote:Not relevant to the topic, but the mention of local coaches reminds me that I think that Doug Peterson would be a good HC for the 'Hawks. He's from Ferndale which is a Wison bomb up I-5 north of Bellingham. Maybe its Pederson. My spelling is generic.

Yeah, well Dennis Erickson was from Everett and he didn't work out so well.

RiverDog wrote:Not relevant to the topic, but the mention of local coaches reminds me that I think that Doug Peterson would be a good HC for the 'Hawks. He's from Ferndale .

Yeah, well Dennis Erickson was from Everett and he didn't work out so well.

Yeah but Peterson is a great coach imo . What he did with Foles in a town that it had never been done in was crazy .

He or Quinn would be my first choice if PC leaves .

I don't see Quinn as a good choice, partly because he is primarily a defensive coach, and I would prefer one with a stronger offense background. He has coached some very good defenses, but it seems that he has mostly found himself in the right situations rather than developing things on his own.

I am intrigued by Kellen Moore, although he is very young for the job.

I'm watching Raiders-Bengals, Burrow scrambles to his right and a half step before going out of bounds, hits his receiver for a TD to make it 20-6.

Did anyone else hear a whistle blow indicating that the ref thought that Burrow was out of bounds when he let go of the ball? I sure as hell did. They didn't replay the audio so I couldn't tell, but if the whistle blew, then the play stops and it's not reviewable.

I guess I wasn't the only one:

NFL Rules Expert Confirms Refs Screwed Las Vegas Raiders By Allowing Joe Burrow TD To Stand After Erroneous Whistle (VIDEO)

https://www.totalprosports.com/2022/01/ ... vRV2gKAUxc

I didn't hear a whistle until the moment the catch is made. Besides, so what? Welcome to our world Raiders.

c_hawkbob wrote:I didn't hear a whistle until the moment the catch is made. Besides, so what? Welcome to our world Raiders.

I agree that the whistle was very close to when he made the catch, but the play is still live for a split second or so after he secures the ball and completes the process of a completed pass, so IMO it should have been stopped.

But in the long run, the slightly early whistle didn't give the offense an advantage, so Raiders fans don't have a legitimate gripe as they'd be hoping to get bailed out by an official's mistake.

Well they sure are trying to give it to them now with that BS roughing call.

c_hawkbob wrote:Well they sure are trying to give it to them now with that BS roughing call.

No argument there.

They really need to revisit their roughing the passer penalty. A lot of those calls aren't putting the QB at risk of injury. I don't know of anyone that's satisfied with the way they're calling them.

Did you guys see that first Buffalo touchdown that the announcers called an "excuse me" touchdown? It was incredible! How Allen got that one off as he was being chased out of bounds was just amazing. And those tight window rockets he squeezed into the hands of receivers were reminiscent of Bret Favre - without the interceptions. There has never been a QB in the NFL that has the athletic tool set Josh Allen has. He just needs to work on consistency a little bit.

trents wrote:Did you guys see that first Buffalo touchdown that the announcers called an "excuse me" touchdown? It was incredible! How Allen got that one off as he was being chased out of bounds was just amazing. And those tight window rockets he squeezed into the hands of receivers were reminiscent of Bret Favre - without the interceptions. There has never been a QB in the NFL that has the athletic tool set Josh Allen has. He just needs to work on consistency a little bit.

Well, I can't say that I agree with your 2nd to last sentence, but the Bills and Allen looked fantastic, scoring touchdowns on every drive and against a solid, playoff defense. It doesn't get any better than that.

trents wrote:Did you guys see that first Buffalo touchdown that the announcers called an "excuse me" touchdown? It was incredible! How Allen got that one off as he was being chased out of bounds was just amazing. And those tight window rockets he squeezed into the hands of receivers were reminiscent of Bret Favre - without the interceptions. There has never been a QB in the NFL that has the athletic tool set Josh Allen has. He just needs to work on consistency a little bit.

The only nfl QB I can compare to Allen is Steve McNair in his prime . Cannon arm , can run past you with amazing moves for his size and can run over you . He’s un questionably the most dangerous qb as his performance against a great defensive mind shows . I was surprised to hear Burrows has been sacked 51 times and still done what he’s done .

Hawktawk wrote:The only nfl QB I can compare to Allen is Steve McNair in his prime . Cannon arm , can run past you with amazing moves for his size and can run over you . He’s un questionably the most dangerous qb as his performance against a great defensive mind shows . I was surprised to hear Burrows has been sacked 51 times and still done what he’s done .

John Elway in his first few years was an incredible athlete, and of course, he had a rocket launcher of an arm equal to anyone that's ever played the game. The difference between him and Allen is that Elway did nearly all of his running ad lib, that the Broncos didn't design plays to take advantage of his skills like the Bills do with Allen. Michael Vick and Steve Young also comes to mind, and you can't ignore what Patrick Mahomes has done, either.

They're having more discussion about the inadvertent whistle in the Raiders-Bengals game. Apparently, the league is saying that the whistle blew after the catch so that the call on the field was correct, but re-watching it in real time speed, my eyes and ears tell me that the whistle blew just a split second before the ball touched the receiver's hands. Besides, the play isn't over until the receiver completes the process of the catch, which doesn't occur for a second or so after he touches the ball. They're trying to cover their arse as best they can.

But the refs on the field made the right choice. It would have been a more outrageous call had they done it by Hoyle and replayed the down and had it been the difference in the game, so they chose the lesser of two evils. We can expect them to address it in the offseason by some type of rule change similar to the tuck rule, the PI vs. the Saints, and so on.

The whistle came definitely before the catch. The thing was complicated by the fact that the sideline official hesitated to blow the whistle such that it was a delayed whistle that wasn't blown until the ball was almost in the receiver's hands rather than when Burrow crossed the sideline. The NFL is just covering their backside by saying the whistle came after the catch.

trents wrote:The whistle came definitely before the catch. The thing was complicated by the fact that the sideline official hesitated to blow the whistle such that it was a delayed whistle that wasn't blown until the ball was almost in the receiver's hands rather than when Burrow crossed the sideline. The NFL is just covering their backside by saying the whistle came after the catch.

That's exactly how I see it, but I do think that they did the right thing by allowing the TD to stand.

We haven't heard the last of it as I'm sure that they'll address it in the offseason and come up with some confusing rule that gets applied in a manner they didn't anticipate such was the case with the pass interference no call in the NFCCG a few years back.

It was funny watching Joe Burrow and Zac Taylor in their post game presser: "I didn't hear a whistle" said with a chit eating grin and "Whistle? What whistle?" or something to that effect.

River, why do you say you believe the officials did the right thing by letting the TD stand? The play was dead as soon as the whistle blew. The play itself should have been scrutinized via replay technology and the fact established that the whistle blew before the catch was made. Then the TD should have been removed. The problem was that not enough attention was given to reviewing the play itself to establish when the whistle blew in relation to the catch.

trents wrote:River, why do you say you believe the officials did the right thing by letting the TD stand? The play was dead as soon as the whistle blew. The play itself should have been scrutinized via replay technology and the fact established that the whistle blew before the catch was made. Then the TD should have been removed. The problem was that not enough attention was given to reviewing the play itself to establish when the whistle blew in relation to the catch.

That's my view of it as well. Inadvertent whistles happen a lot and the play is stopped, so why didn't it happen on that play, too?

NorthHawk wrote:That's my view of it as well. Inadvertent whistles happen a lot and the play is stopped, so why didn't it happen on that play, too?

Inadvertent? Are you saying the ref didn't mean to blow his whistle in yesterday's game?

But wait a minute. I'm making the assumption that Burrow didn't release the ball until after he crossed the line. That's how I saw it. But was that confirmed?

When the whistle blew, some of the Raiders started to give up on the play.
What I meant by inadvertent was an early whistle. Sometimes we see it on fumbles and the play is called dead even though it was continuous action.
I think it should have been stopped just like in those cases. The pass hadn't been completed when the whistle sounded, so it should not have been
ruled as a completed pass. But, just my opinion.

trents wrote:River, why do you say you believe the officials did the right thing by letting the TD stand? The play was dead as soon as the whistle blew. The play itself should have been scrutinized via replay technology and the fact established that the whistle blew before the catch was made. Then the TD should have been removed. The problem was that not enough attention was given to reviewing the play itself to establish when the whistle blew in relation to the catch.

Because without the whistle, it was a legal play. I would rather see a team lose because they didn't catch a break by getting bailed out on an inadvertent whistle than I would lose a game because of a legal play taken away by an official's mistake. It was damned if you do, damned if you don't, so they chose the lesser of two evils.

Not sure what siriano is thinking leaving hurts in the game . He’s awful . Time for Minshew was a quarter ago .

Hawktawk wrote:Not sure what siriano is thinking leaving hurts in the game . He’s awful . Time for Minshew was a quarter ago .

What's worse is Arians leaving Brady in the game.

Did you guys see this story?:

Absolute Chaos at AT&T Stadium as Fans Rush For Standing Room Only Seats Before Cowboys-49ers

Two hours before gametime, the Cowboys opened up the doors to AT&T Stadium, which caused an absolutely insane mad rush by hundreds of fans hoping to stake their claims to the standing room only area for the playoff matchup.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/ab ... d=msedgntp

Looking like Kellen Moore might be off the market in a couple hours it will sting to see a team the hawks swept in the second round

I would have thought that the Niners would have gone for two after their last TD to make it a 3 score game with 5 minutes left in the 3rd quarter.

Hard to believe Seattle swept the 9ers . Giving Dak hell. I can’t believe what a pussy McCarthey is punting there

Hawktawk wrote:Hard to believe Seattle swept the 9ers . Giving Dak hell. I can’t believe what a pussy McCarthey is punting there

You should have edited your comment.

Hard to believe that the Niners got caught so flat footed on a fake punt in a situation like that.

It's hard to compare performances like that. Some teams just match up better against others. We happened to match up very well against the Niners. Plus one of those wins the Niners started Trey Lance.

Jezus, horrible throw by Jimmy G! Wide open receiver at a short distance that he overthrows for a pick.