2025-26 NFL Playoffs Thread

[HarryDoyle]

5 hours ago, adambr2 said:

I will be very curious to see what the Bills do with McDermott. 

I am still blown away by the MLF extension:

- He lost his last 5 games

- He blew an 18 point lead in the last game against his division rivals

- He hasn’t finished better than the 7 seed in the conference in 4 seasons and has won one playoff game during that span.

- After all that, which would have likely earned him his walking papers much earlier in just about any other NFL city, he is going to likely get a 50% or more raise and multiple more years of commitment.

If McDermott gets a pink slip, MLF becomes the longest tenured NFL head coach never to play in the Super Bowl.

I was reliably told by the talking heads on television that head coaches that have a lot of regular season wins don't deserve to be fired.

[HarryDoyle]

I sure hope our next DC teaches our defense to punch balls out like the Bears and Texans do. 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Patriots are probably going back to the Super Bowl already but tell me again that what the Packers do is okay because winning is hard. 

Honestly, I love them. Just an incredible franchise and we probably picked the wrong GM when we had a 50% chance to pick the right one. 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

6 hours ago, adambr2 said:

I will be very curious to see what the Bills do with McDermott. 

I am still blown away by the MLF extension:

- He lost his last 5 games

- He blew an 18 point lead in the last game against his division rivals

- He hasn’t finished better than the 7 seed in the conference in 4 seasons and has won one playoff game during that span.

- After all that, which would have likely earned him his walking papers much earlier in just about any other NFL city, he is going to likely get a 50% or more raise and multiple more years of commitment.

If McDermott gets a pink slip, MLF becomes the longest tenured NFL head coach never to play in the Super Bowl.

I'm done with MLF but the 7 seed thing is the one thing that's getting a little disingenuous. It keeps making the rounds along with the "fact" that they'd have missed the playoffs under the old format which is a technicality and ignores that they gave Week 18 away both years. 

The first year they were a 7 seed was seen as a huge overachievement. The second year they went 11-6 while punting their final game; that's almost never going to be a 7 seed. And this year, when they were at least not going to be a 7 seed before a rash of injuries. 

I saw the extension coming a mile away though. Eventually though the Packers are going to fart hard while trying to run it back. They'll have a 6-win season that sneaks in there eventually. It happens to everybody.  

[HarryDoyle]

Houston has a championship caliber defense but Stroud has fallen off since his rookie year. Not that that last pick was his fault but the pick six certainly was.

[Fear The Chorizo]

8 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Patriots are probably going back to the Super Bowl already but tell me again that what the Packers do is okay because winning is hard. 

Honestly, I love them. Just an incredible franchise and we probably picked the wrong GM when we had a 50% chance to pick the right one. 

Its a shame Stroud and the Texans' offense is imploding with turnovers on dropped passes and terrible pocket presence....their defense is awesome to watch play

[adambr2]

6 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

I'm done with MLF but the 7 seed thing is the one thing that's getting a little disingenuous. It keeps making the rounds along with the "fact" that they'd have missed the playoffs under the old format which is a technicality and ignores that they gave Week 18 away both years. 

The first year they were a 7 seed was seen as a huge overachievement. The second year they went 11-6 while punting their final game; that's almost never going to be a 7 seed. And this year, when they were at least not going to be a 7 seed before a rash of injuries. 

Huh? The 7 seed was definitely a good accomplishment in 2023, I’ll grant that, but it’s still relevant to point out that they would have missed the playoffs under any pre-MLF coaching regime. Both are true.

They definitely played to win in Week 18 last year and even if they had won, they would have been the 7 seed.

This was the only year that they did in fact punt Week 18 but the reason was that they were already capped at the 7. 

In none of the three seasons could the Packers have raised their seeding with a different outcome in Week 18. 

[adambr2]

Why is it that New England can turn a total dumpster fire with numerous holes into a powerful juggernaut overnight, and we have to hear “hang on! Be patient! Youngest team in the NFL! Growing and developing!” for like 5 years. 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

6 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

Huh? The 7 seed was definitely a good accomplishment in 2023, I’ll grant that, but it’s still relevant to point out that they would have missed the playoffs under any pre-MLF coaching regime. Both are true.

They definitely played to win in Week 18 last year and even if they had won, they would have been the 7 seed.

This was the only year that they did in fact punt Week 18 but the reason was that they were already capped at the 7. 

In none of the three seasons could the Packers have raised their seeding with a different outcome in Week 18. 

Not true. Love went 7 of 12 and got benched and Jacobs ran 6 times and got benched. They took a bunch of starters out of Week 18 against the Bears after they got light work in. 

They nearly won anyway. And in virtually no other year are you going to go 11-6 and miss the playoffs. I don't see what's "huh" about it. It's an intentionally misleading factoid that makes them sound worse than they were. Which is annoying because there's plenty of ways to make MLF look hapless without resorting to that.  

[Fear The Chorizo]

6 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

Why is it that New England can turn a total dumpster fire with numerous holes into a powerful juggernaut overnight, and we have to hear “hang on! Be patient! Youngest team in the NFL! Growing and developing!” for like 5 years. 

It starts with them getting a coach who can change a culture that wasnt anything like it was under Belichek.  Along with spending a ton in free agency since their qb is on a rookie deal

 

Also helps facing this Texans offense who seems to be allergic to holding onto the football

[adambr2]

1 minute ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Not true. Love went 7 of 12 and got benched and Jacobs ran 6 times and got benched. They took a bunch of starters out of Week 18 against the Bears after they got light work in. 

They nearly won anyway, and if they had won they wouldn't have been a 7 seed. And in virtually no other year are you going to go 11-6 and miss the playoffs. I don't see what's "huh" about it. It's an intentionally misleading factoid that makes them sound worse than they were. Which is annoying because there's plenty of ways to make MLF look hapless without resorting to that.  

You’re just incorrect, I don’t know how else to say it. They finished 11-6, and Washington finished 12-5 as the 6 seed and had the tiebreaker via better conference record. A Packer win would not have changed their seeding.

The Love thing is kinda true, kinda not, he did start and was only removed because of injury but they did play it safe with him when he could have likely still played, but it was because of the injury. He wasn’t “benched”. 

And again regardless of all that they could have won 84-0 and they still would have been a 12-5 seven seed.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Its amazing that one of these teams or a Broncos team on a backup quarterback will be in the super bowl with how sloppy these offenses are.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

4 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

You’re just incorrect, I don’t know how else to say it. They finished 11-6, and Washington finished 12-5 as the 6 seed and had the tiebreaker via better conference record. A Packer win would not have changed their seeding.

The Love thing is kinda true, kinda not, he did start and was only removed because of injury but they did play it safe with him when he could have likely still played, but it was because of the injury. He wasn’t “benched”. 

And again regardless of all that they could have won 84-0 and they still would have been a 12-5 seven seed.

I'm not incorrect. They took them both out. My point is not that they would have improved their standing. It's that you'll make the playoffs about 99% of the time going 11-6 or 12-5 and the dumb stat making the rounds intentionally ignores that to make a point that MLF is a bad coach.  And that isn't necessary to do because there are 10 other non-disingenuous ways to show he's not a championship coach. 

There were 3 teams that won at least 14 games in the NFC alone. That's insane, and not going to happen a lot. There was a 14-win wild card and two division champions with a worse record than the Packers. 

It was an anomaly of a season and without it, this "tHeY wOuLdN't hAvE mAdE iT fOr 3 yEaRs" stuff wouldn't be parroted every 5 minutes. 

When given the proper context, the more realistic conclusion is this: They wouldn't have made it in 2023, expansion let them squeak in, they make it 98% of the time in 2024, and this year who cares because they were a shell of the team they were in early December anyway. But they were almost definitely going to be a 6 seed with any 2 of Parsons, Tom, Kraft, Love not being concussed.

 

[HarryDoyle]

3 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Its amazing that one of these teams or a Broncos team on a backup quarterback will be in the super bowl with how sloppy these offenses are.

Well, this postseason has been the most wide open it's possibly ever been and that's exactly how it's playing out.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

9 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

 He wasn’t “benched”. 

Are you serious with this? He was removed from the game for another player. Whatever label you want to throw on it. He would have played a meaningful game, as would Jacobs, and anyone else they removed from a game they had nothing to gain by winning.  

[adambr2]

12 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

I'm not incorrect. They took them both out. My point is not that they would have improved their standing. 

 

You said, and I quote, “They nearly won anyway, and if they had won they wouldn’t have been a 7 seed.”

That was the part I was saying was incorrect. I even gave you credit on the other part saying it was kind of true, but also due to injury, so all of the context was explained.

Then instead of just owning the correction, you get defensive and say that wasn’t your point when I’m literally quoting your post.

 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

8 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

You said, and I quote, “They nearly won anyway, and if they had won they wouldn’t have been a 7 seed.”

That was the part I was saying was incorrect. I even gave you credit on the other part saying it was kind of true, but also due to injury.

Then instead of just owning the correction, you get defensive and say that wasn’t your point when I’m literally quoting your post.

 

Because it's completely inconsequential to the larger point. 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th seed, it doesn't matter, 11-6 still makes the playoffs almost every single year. It's actually wild they would have gone 12-5 and not made the playoffs. 

The other part of this is that the format is the format so who cares? We'd be celebrating our 3rd straight division title if we played in the NFC South. (Edit: this is assuming a 10-6-1 finish if we try to win the last game of the year)

I'm sure the Vikings at 14-3 would have missed the playoffs under the 1936 format when Albany won the title going 12-0 or something. Who cares. 

There are so many better ways of illustrating that Matt LaFleur is a bad coach. Why bother with one this lame that is so easy to argue against. Kicking a field goal down by 8 when your QB is league MVP. Blowing a 21-6 lead in the 4th quarter. Challenging obviously correct calls because no one knows quite why. Seemingly having 1 or 0 timeouts left EVERY time you have a game-winning drive. Leading a team that hasn't been able to execute a fair catch PR without a hold. I could go on all day. 

[adambr2]

1 minute ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Because it's completely inconsequential to the larger point. 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th seed, it doesn't matter, 11-6 still makes the playoffs almost every single year. It's actually wild they would have gone 12-5 and not made the playoffs. 

The other part of this is that the format is the format so who cares? We'd be celebrating our 3rd straight division title if we played in the NFC South. 

I'm sure the Vikings at 14-3 would have missed the playoffs under the 1936 format when Albany won the title going 12-0 or something. Who cares. 

There are so many better ways of illustrating that Matt LaFleur is a bad coach. Why bother with one this lame that is so easy to argue against. Kicking a field goal down by 8 when your QB is league MVP. Blowing a 21-6 lead in the 4th quarter. Challenging obviously correct calls because no one knows quite why. Seemingly having 1 or 0 timeouts left EVERY time you have a game-winning drive. Leading a team that hasn't been able to execute a fair catch PR without a hold. I could go on all day. 

I think it’s consequential, because I think if the real world situation were that playoffs were never expanded, Matt wouldn’t have a job right now, and I think it’s bought him an extension and more time. His playoff appearances are one of his biggest talking points.

I agree that he’s an in-game buffoon and unless he learns over the course of the next 8 months how to effectively delegate tasks and not micromanage when he isn’t a good multi-tasker, things aren’t going to change.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Cannot believe the position Houston is in after 4 picks, this early in the game. 

[HarryDoyle]

Just now, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Cannot believe the position Houston is in after 4 picks, this early in the game. 

It helps when Drake Maye also fumbles the ball 4 times.

[Fear The Chorizo]

This is comically bad in terms of turnovers for Pats/Texans

[HarryDoyle]

That is the 300th turnover of this game. Glad I didn't agree to that drinking game.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

8 turnovers, and 2 fumbles recovered by the fumbling team. 

[HarryDoyle]

Where is the Benny Hill music?

[Fear The Chorizo]

Pats might just kneel on it 3 plays amd punt until the Texans score again