Anybody who thought the NFL would allow something like a global pandemic interfere with its ability to stage 256 regular-season TV programs and a subsequent playoff ratings bonanza doesn’t know a thing about how the folks at 345 Park Avenue think. Back before the season started, El Hombre said that the league would gladly bulldoze the fallen bodies off the fields in order to keep the cameras rolling, and though it never quite came to that, the weekly count of infected players, coaches, mascots and other team personnel and the subsequent facility closings showed that getting to this point in the 2020 season required quite a combination of medical high-wire acrobatics and a willing suspension of disbelief.
On the road to the expanded post-season, we learned that the Jets can’t tank properly and the Jags can. We learned that maybe Dreamy Tom was a little more important to New England than Captain Hoodie wanted to admit. We learned that dumpster fires laughed at the NFC East, and we found out that Mitch Trubisky might actually be a fully functioning NFL quarterback. Might be.
Now that the Eagles have closed out the season with a coaching decision that came straight out of the Ringling Brothers playbook (more on that later), it’s time to go about the business of choosing a champion, provided the 14 remaining teams can stay clear enough of the virus to stage a four-week tournament. That said, here’s how the first weekend is going to play out.
Indianapolis at Buffalo (-6.5): The whole mess kicks off with the first home playoff game for the Bills since Golden Wheels Dubenion was playing, or something like that. The good news is that no folding tables will be sacrificed in preparation for the big game. The better news, at least for the home team, is that Buffalo has matured from an upstart with a precocious but unreliable QB into a contender with an attitude as nasty as a northwestern New York winter and a budding MVP candidate under center. Coach Sean McDermott is a defensive guy by training, but he understands that Josh Allen needs room to fire his rocket launcher arm. The Bills can stuff you and bomb you. That’s a good combination, and while the rugged Indy defense and Philip Rivers’ odd delivery angle have brought the Colts to this point, the fun ends during Saturday’s early window. Buffalo 23, Indianapolis 14
Los Angeles Rams at Seattle (-4): Ah, January in Seattle. There’s nothing like it, particularly if you like 40 degree temperatures and rain that cuts through the skin like a stiletto. Usually, there are about 65,000 rabid cohoheads adding to the atmosphere, but thanks to the pandemic, the Rams will just have to deal with Russell Wilson and crew. Seattle has won 10 straight home post-season games, dating back to 2005, and it’s unlikely that streak will end Saturday, especially since LA quarterback Jared Goff’s thumb could well keep him from playing at a high level. Backup John Wolford wasn’t awful last week against the Cardinals, but the Ram offense didn’t score a TD with him at the helm, and it’s hard to imagine LA doing much of anything in this one, no matter how brilliant coach Sean McVay might be. Seattle 20, Los Angeles 12
Tampa Bay (-8) at Washington: The D.C. crowd is no doubt still giddy over its thrilling division-clinching victory over the rotting corpse of the once-proud Eagles, and it gets as a reward a date with Dreamy Tom and the Bucs, who look a lot sharper than those hats Tampa Bay coach Bruce Arians favors. To make things interesting, Washington rookie defensive end Chase Young has promised an ugly welcome for the legendary QB, which means he might slip
some real sugar into his avocado “ice cream” at the pre-game meal. Wouldn’t it be great if the “best” team in the worst division in football history made the Buccaneers walk the plank? You bet. It would also be great if hot dogs fulfilled our daily vitamin needs. Tampa Bay 33, Washington 16
Baltimore (-3) at Tennessee: Lamar Jackson has to win a game that matters eventually, right? Right? So far, the Ravens’ playoff success with Jackson hasn’t come close to matching its regular-season prosperity. Two years ago, the Chargers flummoxed him with a defense that included something like 11 defensive backs. Last year, the Titans picked him off two times in a 28-12 victory that made Jackson look overmatched. So, third time and all that. Nope. The Titans are a dynamic team that thrives on the no-prisoners running of Derrick Henry, who has led the league in rushing two straight years and runs with the subtlety of a cyclone. Expect Henry to soften up the Raven front seven and then the underrated Ryan Tannehill to make Baltimore pay up top. Maybe next year, Lamar. Tennessee 24, Baltimore 20
Chicago at New Orleans (-10): It’s amusing to watch Bears fans try to convince themselves that Mitchell Trubisky is a quarterback worthy of their love. Destined forever to be the NFL’s Sam Bowie (look it up), Trubisky has showed relative competence in helping his squad grab a wild-card spot, even if that status comes courtesy of the league’s desire to swell its post-season bottom line by giving an 8-8 team entrée into the playoffs. Last week, Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers carved up the Chicago defense with four TDs, and now its Drew Brees’ turn. The Saints may not have stormed into the post-season (3-2 in their last five), but they are getting healthy. Sure, New Orleans has had some brutal playoff luck in recent years, but its fortunes have changed this year, because the Bears are the Saints’ first-round opponent. Just to make this matchup more crazy, consider that it will be aired on Nickelodeon. SpongeBob Footballpants? Whatever. New Orleans 27, Chicago 20
Cleveland at Pittsburgh (-6): This one looked as compelling and entertaining as could be – why else would NBC want it for SNF – until word came down that Cleveland head coach Kevin Stefanski would be out due to COVID-19 concerns. No word on if there will be player casualties, too. And Tuesday, a pair of Brownies was cited for drag racing – at 9:30 a.m. Wise. Now it looks like this battle between historic rivals will be a Steeler rout. Not so fast. Pittsburgh staggers into the playoffs on a 1-4 slide that includes last week’s rest-and-relax loss to the Browns. The Steeler offense isn’t nearly as potent as it once was, and the defense hasn’t been overpowering, either. The win over Indy two weeks ago was impressive. Was it a turning point? This week, yes. Next week? Not so much. Pittsburgh 24, Cleveland 14
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EL HOMBRE SEZ: Kudos to the National Hockey League for selling sponsorship rights to the names of its divisions. If pro sports are to realize their potential as cynical profiteering enterprises, this kind of creative thinking is necessary. The only problem is that the league should have made the sponsors more sport-appropriate. Instead of choosing a bank, automaker, credit card company and insurance giant, the NHL should have gone with a dentist, orthopedic surgeon, neurologist and beer company…In other hockey news, the U.S. dumped Canada, 2-0, to win the world junior title. Great. Now the Land of Labatt and Back Bacon will keep Americans out of the country for another year…The NBA world is waiting anxiously to find out which team wants to torpedo its culture and championship chances by acquiring serial ball hog James Harden. Here’s hoping Brooklyn is silly enough to team the Bearded Gunner with Kevin Durant and grouchy Kyrie Irving. That would be a lot of fun – for the other 29 teams…The college basketball season is continuing along in stops and starts, with some teams’ having played as many as 13 games and others’ hitting the court on two or three occasions. The single-site NCAA Tournament could have 48 teams or 80 participants. Nobody knows. Meanwhile, programs caught in the NC2A’s snare have tried to mitigate the penalties coming by announcing self-imposed one-year tourney bans. What’s next, no vegetables for a week? Let’s hope the NC2A has the courage to smack these big-time cheaters with some serious penalties. Meanwhile, 3-6 Kentucky seems intent on a more organic kind of tourney ban, one that involves playing some really shaky basketball.
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YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Spare us your outrage at Eagles coach Doug Pederson’s decision to play Nate Sudfeld during the fourth quarter of the Birds’ season-ending loss to the Washington NFL Franchise. That means you, Giants coach Joe Judge. Philadelphia owed you nothing. Your team won six games and didn’t deserve to be in the playoffs. Like all coaches, Judge no doubt preaches accountability and demands it from his players. Well, take some, coach, for your lousy 6-10 record. Those who decried the Eagles’ disrespecting all the hard work that led to the NFL’s completing the 256-game regular season should direct their ire at NBC and the league for putting such a weak game on in prime time. The Eagles had nothing to play for, so expecting them to care about whether Washington or the Giants won the NFC Least was naïve. Finally, Pederson’s tanking effort was ham-handed indeed, especially since he is coaching in a city where Sham Hinkie raised the concept to a level the Medicis would have appreciated. Pederson should have announced before the game that Sudfeld, the third-string QB who before the game had thrown 25 career passes, was going to play. It doesn’t matter. Keep in mind that the difference between a sixth and a ninth pick in the NFL Draft is pretty big, as judged by what teams had to do last year to move up a few spots. Rather than surrender a draft pick or two, the Eagles decided to use a different method: playing a lousy QB. Oh, and by the way, Jalen Hurts wasn’t exactly tearing it up when he was taken out. The NFL is a business, and the Eagles made a business decision. Tough darts for everybody else.
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AND ANOTHER THING: The College Football Invitational is set to conclude Monday night, COVID-permitting, with Alabama and Ohio State’s squaring off in Miami. It’s the final chapter in a grueling, three-game process to determine the number one team, and it has clearly transfixed the nation, or at least espn, which is gearing up for a multi-day hyperventilation. In a year when the NFL added a playoff team, MLB went to eight participants per league, and college hoops could have as many as 80 tourney invitees, college football stood pat and thereby infuriated fans of several schools, proved that it is not interested in including any team that isn’t a big name brand and lost even more credibility. So, in an attempt to save America’s greatest sport, El Hombre is offering a collection of solutions designed to eliminate the rancor and focus people’s attention on the color, pageantry and majesty of the college game. FIRST: Appoint a commissioner. This will not be anyone with ties to a TV network. It will be a former coach or athletic director who cares about the game, not the money or the media deals. He will have power to rule on important issues like scheduling, rules and mascots. SECOND: Expand the CFP field to eight teams. Each conference winner gets an automatic bid. The best team among the Group of Five conferences gets a spot. And there are two at-large berths. THIRD: The number of scholarships drops by seven per school, the better to create more parity at the top, within conferences and among the non-Power Five schools. Yes, it will take away some free rides, but that was never a concern before. Plus, the new commissioner will divert a sizeable chunk of the extra money that comes from the expanded CFP television package to FCS conferences to be used to increase scholarship money there, so teams can add more grants. FOURTH: Since conference champions will be guaranteed playoff berths, it won’t matter if they suffer non-conference losses. So, there will be a mandate for all Power Five teams to play at least one game out of their league against another Power Five team. Every year. And the CFP selection committee will give substantial weight to strength of schedule, just as the NCAA hoops tournament group does. FIFTH: Players get one free transfer during their five-year eligibility window. They can go from one school to the other without worrying about sitting out. That happens once. Do it again, and the player must miss a season. Coaches can do whatever they want. The players should have that freedom, too. SIXTH: All mascots must be live. Ralphie is cool. Brutus Buckeye is not. Period.
