WHAT WE LEARNED: NFL WEEK 18

BY ADAM GREENE

Our NFL regular season has ended. Here’s what we need to talk about heading into the Wild Card Round.

OUR PLAYOFF PICTURE IS SET

AFC

1. Baltimore Ravens 13-4

2. Buffalo Bills 11-6

3. Kansas City Chiefs 11-6

4. Houston Texans 10-7

5. Cleveland Browns 11-6

6. Miami Dolphins 11-6

7. Pittsburgh Steelers 10-7

WILD CARD ROUND

Pittsburgh Steelers at Buffalo Bills (-10, O/U: 35)

Miami Dolphins at Kansas City Chiefs (-3.5, O/U: 43.5)

Cleveland Browns at Houston Texans (+3, O/U: 44.5)

NFC

1. San Francisco 49ers 12-5

2. Dallas Cowboys 12-5

3. Detroit Lions 12-5

4. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 9-8

5. Philadelphia Eagles 11-6

6. Los Angeles Rams 10-7

7. Green Bay Packers 9-8

WILD CARD

Green Bay Packers at Dallas Cowboys -7.5, O/U: 51)

Los Angeles Rams at Detroit Lions (-3, O/U: 51.5)

Philadelphia Eagles at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+3, O/U: 44)

There we go. You want storylines? Oh, we have storylines.

Let’s start with the biggest story of Wild Card weekend. Matthew Stafford, Super Bowl winning quarterback of the Los Angeles Rams, returning to Detroit to face the Lions, who won the NFC North for the first time in their team’s history. A feat that Stafford, led by some of the worst head coaches in the league’s history, could never do in Detroit. The guy that did do it? Jared Goff, the man the Rams traded to the Lions along with multiple picks to acquire Stafford and win the Super Bowl in the same season. Goff, of course, lost his Super Bowl (that was very winnable and one of the worst offensive Super Bowl performances in NFL history) with Los Angeles. But he gave the Lions the NFC North, again, something Stafford never could. Stafford hoisted the Vince Lombardi, something Goff didn’t do. McVay vs Goff. Stafford vs the Lions. Stafford vs Goff. No, the NFL isn’t scripted, but this is as good as it gets.

But, much like the infomercials for waterproof tape and towels that soak up entire buckets of water, there’s more!

We have the Green Bay Packers and head coach Matt LaFleur traveling to face off against the Dallas Cowboys and Mike McCarthy, the guy LaFleur was hired to replace in Green Bay. LaFleur vs McCarthy. Oh, and anything short of an NFC Championship appearance, especially after how this regular season ended for Dallas, will land McCarthy right on the street unemployed. The dude is coaching for his job for the next two weeks at the very least.

How about the Eagles losing five of their last six heading into the postseason? And these were all horrible losses. Blown out by the 49ers and Cowboys in back-to-back weeks, then losing in the last seconds to a mediocre Seattle Seahawks team, then falling in back-to-back games to end the season against the Arizona Cardinals and New York Giants, two of the worst teams in the NFL The Giants pick at No. 6 and the Cards at No. 4 in April’s NFL Draft and those two franchises did whatever they wanted to the Eagles. A month ago, even after the Cowboys and Niners losses, you’d still expect Philadelphia to blow out the Buccaneers in this game. Now? I’m not sure they can win it at all.

Your biggest story in the AFC is the Cleveland Browns, the conference’s top Wild Card team, traveling to the Houston Texans, the franchise they traded a ton of picks to for their quarterback Deshaun Watson… who is not playing in this game. Instead, it’s Joe Flacco, the only quarterback outside of Patrick Mahomes in the AFC bracket to have won a Super Bowl. The Texans turned that pick capital into this very team, led by CJ Stroud, the odds-on favorite to land NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year and the best rookie quarterback in NFL history.

When the Dolphins at the defending Super Bowl Champion Chiefs and the historic Pittsburgh Steelers at the Buffalo Bills are afterthoughts, that’s a pretty good playoff bracket. These are teams that have been to the Super Bowl a combined 22 times and there have only been 52 of them.

And that leads us to the final storylines of this particular set of playoff participants. Of this entire field, three teams (Texans, Browns and Lions) have never even made it to a Super Bowl.

The other 11 teams have been a combined 49 times. This is just about as good a playoff field as we could have ever hoped to get.

BLACK MONDAY STRIKES

In years past, we didn’t really get to enjoy a “Black Monday,” where moribund franchises do the thing that can improve their team immediately — fire a crappy head coach.

Over the last half decade, most of these firings have happened on Sunday night. Not this time. With three jobs (Carolina Panthers, Las Vegas Raiders and Los Angeles Chargers) already open, the Atlanta Falcons and Washington Commanders decided they too would like to entire the coaching sweepstakes by loading Arthur Smith and Ron Rivera, respectively, into the trebuchet and firing them both over the nearest castle wall.

I’m writing this Monday afternoon and we still don’t have any official news on the Chicago Bears’ Matt Eberflus, the New Orleans Saints’ Dennis Allen and even Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots.

Though, ESPN is reporting that Belichick, the Super Genius who ran Tom Brady out of town and hasn’t slected a decent draft in a decade, could be “open to change with his personnel role.”

Which means, to use the parlance of Belichick’s former boss, he’ll let a new general manager come in and pick his groceries.

Allen did, at least, lead New Orleans to a winning record, but the fact that his entire offensive team overruled his call late in the game against the Atlanta Falcons, according to quarterback Jameis Winston, makes me feel he’s not a great leader of men. Do you think for a second a backup quarterback would ignore a coaching command from Sean McVay? Kyle Shanahan? Andy Reid? Bill Belichick? It would never happen. If the Saints needed an excuse to fire Allen after winning nine games, Winston handed it to them.

As for Eberflus? The tide seems to have turned in his favor with how strong the Bears performed at the end of the season. With the solid number of offensive head coaching options that will be available and the shape Chicago will be in, with its draft capital, I would still make the change. Better now than next year after messing up a season with Caleb Williams at quarterback. As the Texans have proven, a good head coach and solid draft can turn around a team in a hurry.

Follow Adam Greene on Twitter @TheFirstMan.

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