Week 16 Takeaways: Not Quite So Playoffs.

One Of The More Beguiling Attributes Of Football Happens More In Literature Than In Sports But Makes America's Number One Sport All The More Enthralling. It Not only Served To Further Individualized And, In Some Way, Distinguish The Gridiron Play From Any Other League but It In Some Ways Define Its Brand Of Athletic Performance

Football Mirrors Life: “Football is a great deal like life in that it teaches that work, sacrifice, perseverance, competitive drive, selflessness and respect for authority is the price that each and every one of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.” 

Both The NBA And NFL Have Had Challenges Put Forth By The Emerging Omicron Variant, pronounced aa·muh·kraan; I heard Omni-Cron The Other Day, I nearly collapsed. It's Proving Harder To Snuff Out Now that The Charming Churn of Vaccine Chatter Got Chalk Out Some Deltas Ago. I Won't Be Here All Week, Still enjoy The Poetic Stylings. Honestly.

"Look What You Made Me Do. Look What I Made For You knew if I Paid My due. How Would the Pay you." See This, That's Why I'm Not Getting Any Push Or Any Sponsors.

Not that I'm Being Phlegmatic About It. Cities Are Entering Into What the Atlantic Noted As A "Soft" Shutdown.

While The NBA Counter By Activating Its "hardship" Initiative, They were calling On A Number G-Leaguers And Other Noteworthy Expendables. The NFL Moved A Few Games Over To A Tuesday, Held A Few Noteworthy Expendable Out Of Play, Week 15 And 16 (Sorry Taylor Heinicke, Sorry, Taysom Hill) which I enjoyed-- The Tues—the Tuesday Thing—then Commenced With Action. I Believe That's Something They Should Consider more of, The Tuesday Thing.

I'm Amongst A Small Group of Pundits Concerned That The Growing Number Of Games Could Have A "Stalling" effect. Similar To The One You Get From Eating Too Many Baked Goods. Moving Some Games To Tuesday Could Be A Means Of Assuaging What May Soon Become A Problem. Look, Nobody Here Wants Less Football; That's Never Solved Anything. How The Games Are Bevvied Out, Now Becomes A Growing issue. The Logistics Of It All Are Esoteric. Too Great To Ponder For A Mind Such As My Own, But The NFL  Can Figure This Out.

 Ultimately The NFL Kept Things churning Forward. They persevered. The NFL Didn't Concede And Occlude Vaccinated Players From Getting Another Test And Playing Whenever Viable. Baker Mayfield's Status Seemed In Question for Most of The Week, But He Played. It Did Little To Help The Brown Playoff Chances, But It Went Some Way "to fight A Phantom Version Of Covid-19". The NFL Has even Earned Praise For Its Approach. The Wall Street Journal Champion Football As The Model For Success Amidst An Outbreak.

The Media Scantly Praises The NFL For Its Approach Any Social Or Public Related Matter. Underscore Reich Underscore Of How The Volatile Nature Of The Virus Administrated Itself Over and  Altering  Teams Stature: "The First News I Got [Saturday] Was A Text [That] It looked Like We Were good," Reich Said. "And Then All Of A sudden, We Weren't Good." Good In Both Sense I perceive. The Colts Were Down Three Starters Including Pro Bowl Linebacker Darius Leonard. "We Adapted And Adjusted… There Was No flinching."

Yes, the Virus Forced A Few NFL Teams To Replace Their "Noteworthy Expendables" With Lesser-Known-Quite-Equally-irredeemable expendables. But The Product Remained Mostly Unobscured. I wonder Which Vain Of Those Expendables Sam Darnold Falls?

Suppose You Are Aaron Rodgers and The Sizzling Hot Packers And The Brown's Quarterback. In that case, Baker Mayfield throws Four Interceptions, After Pecking off Another Wayward Team In the Ravens, not to Mention "Owning the Bears" A few Week Ago: The Quality Of the opponent Doesn't Matter. The Remnants Of An MVP Season Are Beginning To Pile Up. I Know Rodger's Leadership comes Into Question, But The truth Maybe "They Never Taught Me How To Be A Man, Only How To Be A Shooter." Not A Slight At Rodgers, There Happens to be Much of that, Those Lyrics Are Too Congruent.

But The MVP Still Resigns With Tom Brady, And If Anyone Has To Recovery From What Should Be An Isolated Incidence, It's the Bucs. Now That The Rams Have Claim The NFC West And The Cowboys Have A Unflinching Grip On The NFC East. The Bucs Are South Of All The NFC Hierarchy Now After Just Two Weeks And One Game Away from first: Also, They Won The South, But The Play On words Couldn't Structure Without A Late Mention. Aside from home Field, Playoff Position Doesn't Matter Much. That Parity The League haves Been Pining For Equates To Mostly Even Matchups Top To Bottom.

The NBA Did Anything wrong With Their Covid Procedures, Incept Naming Said Procedure A "hardship" Protocol. The Christmas Game Lack A Certain Punch, But The WFT  Threw A Few Late Ones.

Maybe The Patriots May want To Enact Such An initiative Themselves. After scaling The AFC's Mountain, The Pats have taken a two-game Tumble. Maybe The chargers May Look To Do So As Well. Neither team Stands Outside The  Playoff Picture Just Yet, And It Stands To reason Both Could fight There Way In. But With The Level Of Invariance, These finals Two Games Can Create an Anyone's Guess In the AFC. Covid won't tell The Story if Either team Misses Out. To Continue As Reich Quoted, "It's a 60-Minute Game And What Count Is: Do You Make The Plays Necessary To Win?"

The Converse To That Hold  As Well. For The Bills, Whom After, Losing Two In A Row, Have earned Back-To-Back And are Now Poised To Finish With The AFC East Title In "Back-to-Back" Seasons and threaten KC Some At the Top. Josh Allen, he's The Guy. "This Guy Is Unbelievable." But The Bill's MVP Doesn't Stand Alone Earning Praise from Hi Peers Amongst AFC Giants. Carson Wentz, He's The Guy As Well, You Know, for Better Or Worse. Frack Reich More Than Anyone Deserves Coach Of the Year, But Can A Rushing Game Lead A-Team through To The Superbowl.

Chargers Vs. Texans

It Happens. "It Can happen Any Minute For Anybody." It's an "Any Given" Sunday, Saturday, Tuesday(more Please), Monday, Thursday Kind of League. It Happened To The Vikings Against The Altruistic Lions. The Bills Lost To Ahh… The Jags, Inexcusably. The Most Crushing Blow, Any Team, Suffered This Season During Buffalo's Mid-season Slump. Until, well… The Bucs Got Throttled Some. The Charger Are Not one of The  Teams Short Listed That These Sort of Ill-fated Results  Never Happen.

41-29, Hapless Houston Mulched The Circuitous Chargers. The Chargers Are one Of The Few teams, Adored, You want To See Them Succeed, and You Believe They Can. Every Season They Are  A Quandary: "How good could the Los Angeles Chargers be?" The Results Are The Only Consistent Cog About this Team: Inconclusive. The covid Numbers: The Chargers Were Down 13 But Were Still Two Favorites Over the Texans The First team Eliminated from Playoff Contention this Season. The snake Bitten franchise, the Chargers, Plague To play To the Level of Its Competitions. And At That's Welcomed When It's the Chiefs But Then Some Sunday's, Like Sunday pass,  Summon Themselves. The Chargers Play Started With One Of Those Ominous Omens That Appeared Standard. The Chargers Took A 3-0 Lead After Moving the Offense Along Wrung By Wrung In the Short yardage Game. tHe Texans respond.

Rex Burkhead Find A hole For Up Front Eight. David Mills Finds A Hole In The Secondary for The First. Classic Stuff. The Texans Finish The Drive with a Touchdown And A Lead, One of The few First Quarter leads All Season. By the Late 2nd Quarter, The Score Stood at 12-10 After A Charger touchdown, Field Goal, And A Texans Field Goal. Houston Had Hung Around, But No Point had It Occur They Could Win. By The Time the Chargers Began Their Next Drive. Herbert Shifted His Mold And Went Deep And Throw An Interception; the Texans Had Only A 25% Chance of Winning the Game, according To ESPN's Probability Model.

The Texans turned The Turnover Into. Touchdown And The All Model Went out of The window. Houston got Hit by Covid As Well, Though You Wouldn't Notice. The Texans Are Home To One Of The Weakest Rosters, As Far As Talent Goes,  In the Sport. Its Only Notably Threat On Offense(The Team Ranks Second To Last In The League), Brandin Cooks,   Fell Victim To The Covid Listing.

In 5 Possessions, The Texans Dominated The Second half. The Texans, who entered the game ranked last in yards rushing, Rode Rex Burkhead, who Finish With 149 Of The Team's season-high 189 yards On The Ground. Burkhead Had 73 Yards Through The B-Gap, Where He Started His Exceptional Rushing Night. Rookie Davis Mills threw for 254 yards and two touchdowns. The Texans Eat Up Nearly 18:00 Of 30:00 of Playing Time. After A Missed field Goal To Start Third The Score On Every Possession After To end The Game.

The Chargers Defense, Without Bosa And Derwin James, Failed To Force A Punt In The Second Half. The Texans On The Season Have The Second Highest Punt Rate And 19th Best Third Down Conversion rate. Facts Lost To  The Charger Apparently  Unapprised. The Texans Passing Attack is Lead By A Rookie Third rounder And Has Been an anemic Offense To Punt Once The Entire Game. The Chargers Playoff hopes Got Deflated. Up Next Are the Broncos And Their Super Active Secondary Led By Rookie Safety Patrick Surtain. Both of Herbert's Interception Came On The End Of Deep passes. The Chargers Offense Played "winnable" Football. Justin Herbert threw for 336 yards, A Late touchdown, and two interceptions abovementioned. Justin Jackson ran for 64 yards and two touchdowns and had 98 yards receiving filling in for Ekeler. He Made Good Work Of The shortage Game, But The Offense Works Best On Justin Herbert Aggressiveness, And Big Time Throws Are Greatest. But They Have To Be Contained. Hebert Finished With One Turnover Worthy Play; Meaning He Protected The Ball. But That Turnover is Worth Play Became A touchdown for The Texans On A Pick Six.

Texans Quarterback Mills Had Success Whenever He Wanted But Excelled When Targeting The Right Hash of the Boundary. Primarily Occupied By Fellow Rookie Asante Samuel And Devontae Harris. Samuel Jr. Finish with  Two Penalties and Harris Surrender A passing rating Of 153.8 When Targeted. The Broncos Are Situationally out Of The Playoffs After The Loss to The Raiders, But They Held The Silver & Black To 17 Points. Week 12 The Broncos Won Over The Chargers Forcing Two Interception and Four Sacks. The Broncos Secondary Lead By Rookie Patrick Surtain II, Earned The Second Greatest Ranking Among Complete Groups According to ESPN. Across That Mountain, The Raiders Who Have Suddenly Forge A  Path Into The Playoffs That Crossover Or Crosses Out the Chargers. In 2000, The Year Surtain II Entered The Charger Ventured Into A Game Featuring Another Patrick Surtain And Another Young Charger Proposed Franchise Quarterback; It Didn’t Go Well:

"How good could the Los Angeles Chargers be?" Out of the Playoffs Good.

Vikings Vs. Rams

Because It's All "Mushy" Throughout The NFL Playoff structure, every Game Matters--Except Maybe The Jets And Jaguars, Which May  Matter Depending On The Multidimensional void Known As NFL tie Breakers. Nevertheless, Some Game Matter A bit More. Some Games Have The power To Rock Both Ends Of The Playoff Pole. Here are The Vikings And Rams—the 6th Highest Grade of Important According To FiveThrityeight.com.  Rams Entered The Game with Only A 40% Chance Of Winning their Division. That's After Sitting At The 5th Seed For Most of the Season. Then  Quarterback Matthew Stafford Started His Slump. The Former MVP frontrunner, At Times I Think Every NFC's Top Quarterback Has Had That Title. Stafford Recover After A Three-Game Streak Where He played The Titans, 49ers, And Packers; he Wraps up the Series with Five Touchdowns and Five interceptions. Stafford Got Sackednine9 times Over That Stretch. His Worse Such Streak Since 2014. As The season Deepened, The Rams Façade, Under Contender-ship Slowly Degraded. The Rams Resembled Their More Mercurial LA Neighbors. They Entered Minnesota With Something To Prove Against A Team That's A Bit Of Quagmire At Times, In the Vikings, And  Finished Sunday With The Division In Hand  And The Possible Play at The Top Of The NFC. Drive One For The Vikings; Picturesque. The Rams Had Already Carved Out 7-0 Lead But Looked Far from Convincing On Their Opening Drive. Without Dalvin Cook Thanks To Covid Measure, Kirk Cousins Took To The Air. Being Down Bodes Well The Vikings In Some Sense. Minnesota Wins  60 percent of the time, four of 10, When Then score First, According To FiveThrityEighty.com. FiveThirtyEighty.com Also Made a Point of The Vikes Innate Propensity Towards Bad Luck. Kirk Cousins Continues To Write The Story of Being This Era' stony Romo, at The Red Zone, The Vikes, The Third Best Red Zone Offense Coming Into Sunday. According To Flurrysports.com, Of 18 Red Zone Drives, The Vikings finish with a Score Of Any Kind, 94.4%. Cousins Throws A Laser in The Direction Of  K.J. Osbourn Coming Off A Free Release Quick Slant. The Glances Of His  Hands And Gets Intercepted.

 A fail fourth Down and A Interception; The Only Other Possible  Outcomes. Less Than A 6% Chance of Happening Combined. That Drive Went As Follow: "Alexander Mattison rush for -1. Mattison rush for 1. Kirk Cousins' pass intended for Osborn intercepted." More Microcosm of the Vikings Season. Had Those Rushes been "Carries" for Dalvin Cook, Would The Result Have Been Different? Had That Target Been Directed Towards Adam Thielen (157.1 Passing When A Target In Medium Yardage Situations), Who Left Injured On the following red Zone Drive After returning from A Two Game Absence. Would the Vikings Have Had At least A Field Goal on The Board? From Then On, The Vikings Played catchup. Not That The Rams Offense Didn't Oblige To The A Turbulent Turn Of Events In Some Moments. Thankfully You Can Rest Knowing The Vikings Will Beat The Odds Even When The Odds Rest In Their Favor.

Usually, In The NFL Teams That Win, The Turnover Differential Can Expect To Win 3/4 Times.

Stafford coughed Up The Ball Three Times, One Resulting Touchdown, The Others Ending In Quandaries About His Credibility As A leader Of this Team through The NFC, Similar to Jared Goff. Interceptions and Their Effects On Outcomes Are Nuanced. mostly Dependant On Were On The field, At What Point In The Game And The Quarterback In Question And The Team Can Harvest From Them. The Vikings Failed In That Regard. But It’s Rare a Quarterback Escapes With A Win Under Said Circumstances.

Stafford Has Had A Strong Penchant To Interceptions Over His Productive Quarterbacking Career. The Last Time He Threw This Many Picks. Week 1, 2018. A Loss To The Jets. After Throwing Three Picks through Week 5. If You Thought Questions Like 'Can Matthew Stafford Be Consistent Enough To Get The Los Angeles Rams To The Superbowl?" Would Create Legitimate Thought And Concern. You Are A Greater Prognosticator Than I. Stafford  Turned His Play Around Enough. Executed "Enough" Scoring Drives, Like His Link-up With Odell Beckham Jr. On The Out Route At The Back Of The Endzone. The Offense Made Enough of These Plays. In the Short Yardage Game, Stafford finished with an average depth of target of 5.3 Yards. The Running Game Had Its Impact. A Middle Of The Road Vikings Defense Couldn't Get off  The Field Aside From The Turnover. It all Kept The Vikes In The Hunt Up To The Final Drive. The Vikings made five trips inside the red zone And returned With Two touchdowns. The Rams Defense And Special Teams, with One Punt Return For A Touchdown,  Pushed The Ram's Past Quarterback Matthew Stafford Aggressively Pedestrian Play. Stafford Finished The Game With Three Interceptions, One Of The Worse Passing Games Of The Entire Season, Regardless Of team, 197 Yards. And A Division Lead. "It's too late in the season to not play your best football" That's a Lesson The Vikings May Have To live With Into Another early Off-season.

Their Playoff Chances Have The Sunken Playoff Chances. So Has Mike Zimmer's Career Trajectory. The Head To Green Bay  This Sunday As the First Team Out of The NFC Playoff Picture. With A 17% chance To Make FiveThirtyEight.com The Playoff Second Worse In the NFC. ESPN FPI Corroborates That Line of Probabilities. ProfootaballFocus.com Had A More Favorable Out Look At 31%. The Rams Can Wrap The Division, But Any chance Of Climbing The NFC Ranks Are Heavily Circumstantial.

The Playoff Picture:

Six teams Are in, Eight Teams Out. Twenty Four Team Are Mathematically alive, But With Tow Games Left The Model Less As The Sums Are Beginning To Add Up So To Say. The Chiefs, Bills, Bucs, Cowboys, Cardinals, And Packers Are Those Six—the Other Are Clutch Together For Warmth And Survival. Any day, The door Could Open, And Light At The End Of Corridor Could Call Their Names. Before A sentenced To The Labor Camps Of Coaching Searches And Draft Boards Get Handed Down.

After Mondays Results.

 The Dolphins "waddled" The Saints and Found Themselves In the Playoff Picture. The Steelers Briefly Held That Spot After the Chargers Lost Before They Too Were Steamrolled By The Chiefs. The Dolphins Sudden Emergence Hoisted Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Chargers, and Raiders Outside The Playoffs. But, Two Games Remain. The Dolphins, They Take On The Patriots, Who Are Suddenly In the Same Boats As The Dolphins, After The Dolphins Face Titans First.  

The Dolphins Alas Have the Lowest Odds To Make Into The Playoffs As Week 18 approaches. Every team In The AFC West Still Has Playoff Eligibility, So To Do The AFC North, Where The Bengals Are Number 1 Again fresh Off this Season's Best Passing Offensive Exhibitions. Joe Burrow had 525 Yards, But My Guy Tee Higgins Went Off. One Hundred Ninety-Four (194), twelve Receptions(12), And Two Touchdowns(2). Higgins Along Side Rookie Jamar Chase Are The Only Two Thousand Yard Receivers In The NFL. Between The Bengals And Colts, Two teams Few  In The AFC, Are Too Eager To Tango With  Early In Playoff Rounds.

The Vikings Defeat Gives The Rousing Eagles A Clear Path To a playoff. They'll Be Knocking At The Front Door Of Their NFC East Rival, The Cowboys, If The standings Hold. The Notoriously Overrated Cowboys Are Now The National Football Best team According To ESPN Efficiency rating And The Only realistic Threat To the Packers For That Coveted bye Week. The Boys Now On Four Game Win Streak With The best Point Differential In the NFC. The "Boys high School Head locked The Washington Football Team Into A Early Submission On Sunday. Dak Had 28 Completions, 337 Yards, And Four Touchdown Passes, All Along with The Offense. The Only Team To Ever Have A Tight End, Wide Receiver, Running Back, And Offensive Lineman Catch A Touchdown. Only The Type Of Stats That Furnish The Cowboys On Their Way To A Disappointing Playoff Finish. The Cowboys Are The Best Team In A Void. If We Make Exempt Four Times The Hung 40 or More On the Eagles, Giants, Falcons, and WFT. All Teams with Bottom Level Defense With the Only Exception Being The Eagles. The Cowboys Are 5-0 Against The More-Times-Than-Not-Mediocre NFC East. 2-3 Against Winning teams. Their Most Impressive Victories Are Over The Patriots, Vikings, And Chargers. ESPN's Football Power Index Model  Makes these Intuitive Deductions, At Least Attempts To  Resolve The Multifaceted Conclusion of The Best Team's Value. The Cowboys Score 5.4, Good Enough For Top Ten But Far From The Top Three In Buffalo, Chiefs and Bucs, Who Are all Above 8 Or More. The Boys Are More In Line With The Colts And Cardinals as Far As Power Structure. Which Seem Right Visually. The Boys Have The Cardinals This Sunday. The Eagles Get The Washington Football team Fresh Off Of being Demoralized Sunday.

"it's playoff games from here on out."

Not Exactly few Matchup Have Critical Situations At Start On Sunday.

Raiders Vs. Colts. Chargers Vs. Broncos. Rams Vs. Ravens. Cardinals Vs. Cowboys.