Top team-by-team takeaways from Sunday’s two NFL conference championship games, plus top news from around the league
Top team-by-team takeaways from Sunday’s two NFL conference championship games, plus top news from around the league:
CHIEFS: HOBBLIN’ PATRICK
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Maybe Patrick Mahomes doesn’t have a high ankle sprain.
Yes, by late in the third quarter of Sunday’s AFC championship game, he was hobbling badly on his right foot. But that he could play at all on a high ankle sprain surprised medical experts and former players, who this week predicted there’d be little chance the QB could play if, indeed, he had a high ankle sprain.
Whatever the specific nature and label, some manner of limiting, painful injury to Mahomes’ foot/ankle area was evident Sunday — an injury he suffered last week in the Kansas City Chiefs’ divisional-round win over the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Thing is, as last week vs. the Jags, the superstar sixth-year passer nonetheless was able — at least through three quarters — to move around enough to mostly avoid sacks and continually flick accurate, clutch passes all over the field, including on a touchdown drive late in the third quarter that gave K.C. a 20-13 lead.
Thereafter, on four Chiefs possessions over the game’s final 19:15, Mahomes lost a fumble on a sack and completed 7-of-12 for just 61 yards. Yet it was Mahomes’ five-yard scramble with three seconds left, plus a 15-yard penalty for a late hit, that set up Harrison Butker’s game-winning 45-yard field goal.
Medical experts predicted this past week that the real struggle for Mahomes likely would come late in the game, after aggravating his ankle injury over the first two-plus hours.
True enough. And yet it still didn’t limit him enough from playing hero in his team’s biggest game of the year.
BENGALS: Early pressure, then late
Obviously, no one needed to remind Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo that the best way to defeat the Bengals is to get to quarterback Joe Burrow, early and often.
The Chiefs on Sunday proceeded to sack the third-year superstar on Cincinnati’s fifth, seventh and eighth offensive plays of the game — then sacked him a fourth time early in the second quarter.
The Bengals had an 11-1 record this season coming into Sunday’s AFC championship game when Burrow was sacked fewer than three times. But they were 1-3 when he was tackled behind the line of scrimmage four times or more. So that didn’t bode well for Cincinnati.
Thing is, the Bengals in recent weeks have lost three of their five starting offensive linemen. The impact was not felt last week in the Bengals’ big win at Buffalo, what with so much snow on the ground; poorer footing always affects defenders more than offensive players.
Unlike Bill defenders last week, the Chiefs’ enjoyed firm footing on Sunday. And that sure mattered — at least early on.
Kansas City’s pressure on Burrow fast began drying up after those first two Cincinnati drives. After he was sacked for a fourth time just 2:37 into the second quarter, Burrow wasn’t sacked on his last 17 dropbacks of the first half, nor on his first 22 of the second half, which included two long touchdown drives.
It was only on the Bengals’ final offensive snap of the game, with 41 seconds left, that Chris Jones recorded K.C.’s fifth sack of Burrow — on a 3rd-and-8 for Cincinnati from its 28, with the score tied 20-20. The Bengals punted, and that was it.
Five sacks was enough.
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49ers: HELLUVA HEX
Has any NFL club as otherwise loaded as the San Francisco 49ers had to scramble as much at quarterback in one season?
Here’s how bad they had it.
Some three months after ostensible 2022 starter Trey Lance was lost for the season with a torn ACL, and a day before his replacement, Jimmy Garoppolo, was carted off with a serious ankle injury, Brock Purdy had yet to throw a meaningful NFL pass, and Josh Johnson wasn’t even on an NFL team.
That was on Dec. 3, just 57 days before Sunday’s NFC championship game. That’s when the worst of San Fran’s horrendous single-season quarterback luck really came crashing down.
Purdy started Sunday’s game at Philadelphia. He’d performed as well as any raw rookie, let alone a seventh-round draft pick, could be expected to over the previous seven games.
But on the Niners’ sixth offensive snap of the game, Eagles pass rusher Haason Reddick took a mighty swat at Purdy’s throwing arm just as his follow-through began — and smashed his hand into Purdy’s elbow, sending the fumbled ball flying.
Philly found the ball, and Purdy lost the feeling in his throwing elbow — an apparent nerve injury.
Then Johnson, who signed with the Niners on Dec. 5, replaced Purdy at QB, and mostly struggled big-time, even just to get snaps off before the play clock expired. Alas, he left the game for good midway through the third quarter with a concussion.
Then there was short-term confusion whether the Niners would plod on with their designated emergency third-string QB, starting running back Christian McCaffrey, repositioned, or just re-insert Purdy, even if he could barely throw.
Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan chose the latter of two evils. But by that point, it barely mattered anyway. San Francisco soon punted, and the Eagles marched for another defensive-penalties-aided touchdown drive, to go up 28-7 in the waning moments of the third quarter. Ball game. Philly added a field goal to win 31-7.
As someone once said, if it weren’t for bad luck the 49ers this season would have had no luck at all in the 2022 season. Yet still the team made it to within three hours of a Super Bowl berth.
Coaching matters, people.
EAGLES: SPEAKING OF LUCK
Look, the Philadelphia Eagles are a sound, solid, talented team that’s coached well and starts one of the most effective quarterbacks in the NFL this season, Jalen Hurts.
They’re worthy NFC champs.
That said, in more than a few games this season the ball sure has bounced right for the Eagles, or they’ve gained more than their fair shake of good fortune.
Case in point, Sunday. Not just the Niners’ QB woes, as described above, but two to three times on each of Philly’s three long touchdown drives the Niners defence (or officials) gifted them with a drive-extending penalty. Or they just got an incredible break.
None bigger than on Philly’s game-opening TD drive. It was made possible only by a long-bomb, 4th-and-3 completion from the San Fran 32-yard line — which actually should have been ruled an incompletion, and Niners’ ball.
But the FOX-TV replay booth couldn’t find the definitive replay until some time during the commercial break following the Eagles touchdown, two plays later.
Maybe if FOX’s forgettable first-year No. 1 broadcast booth of Kevin Burkhardt and motormouth Greg Olsen (who continually sounds like Jim Carey speed-reading a satellite-radio commercial’s legal disclaimer) had stopped blabbing for one second, and observed the Eagles pass-catcher on that fourth-down bomb, DeVonta Smith, frantically signaling his team to hurry up and run the next play, so as to render his long catch unreviewable, they’d have noted something that surely millions watching on TV suspected — that maybe it wasn’t a catch.
Which it wasn’t.
If nearly every member of the Eagles — owner, front office or team — didn’t behave and act as though every smidgen of their good fortune is self-manufactured, this might not even be worth bringing up. But, yeah.
SURGERY FOR HERBERT
In the biggest news elsewhere around the league on Sunday, the Los Angeles Chargers announced that quarterback Justin Herbert has undergone surgery — to repair a torn labrum in his non-throwing, left shoulder.
The fabulous third-year passer won’t be able to participate in Pro Bowl activities this week, after undergoing surgery this past Wednesday.
“Herbert is expected to be cleared for participation in the off-season program this spring,” the club said.
STETSON BLEW IT?
Oh, to be able to hear how team talent evaluators will grill Stetson Bennett about this.
The draft-eligible quarterback of the two-time defending NCAA champion University of Georgia Bulldogs was arrested in Dallas early Sunday and charged with public intoxication, according to a local radio station.
The report said police officers responded to reports of a man banging on doors in the Old East Dallas neighbourhood. A police news release said responding officers found Bennett and “determined he was intoxicated.”
The 25-year-old was a Heisman Trophy finalist this past season, and over the past two seasons experienced defeat only once with the Bulldogs — to Alabama in the 2021 SEC title game.
Before the weekend, Bennett was widely viewed as, at best, a late-round draft pick. This incident will not raise his perceived draft grade.
KELLEN MOORE OUT
The Dallas Cowboys and offensive coordinator Kellen Moore have reportedly agreed to separate.
The Dallas Morning News reported Sunday that Moore is moving on, by mutual agreement with the club mutually and, furthermore, that head coach Mike McCarthy will call plays in 2023, as he did during his long stint as head coach of the Green Bay Packers.
EXTRA POINTS
Miami hired former Denver Broncos head coach Vic Fangio as defensive coordinator. He has been chief defensive strategist with Carolina (1995-98), Indianapolis (1999-2001), Houston (2002-05), San Francisco (2011-14), Chicago (2015-18) and Denver (2019-21) … ESPN reported that the Dolphins are not expected to woo Tom Brady should the QB, who will be 46 in August, choose to keep playing … NFL.com named second-year Toronto-born, Brampton-raised wide receiver Josh Palmer as the Chargers’ “unsung hero” of the 2022 regular season, after catching 72 passes for 769 yards and three touchdowns as each of Justin Herbert’s top two wideout targets, Keenan Allen and Mike Williams, missed numerous games.
John Kryk writes a weekly newsletter on NFL matters. That’s where you can first see his straight-up picks each week. You can have the newsletter automatically dropped into your email inbox on Wednesdays simply by signing up — for free — at https://torontosun.com/newsletters/
JoKryk@postmedia.com
@JohnKryk
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