It's perfectly fine. I was scrolling past those posts without reading, planning to go back and read them once I've finished with the movies. I don't think I caught much of anything spoilery.

I've long held to the firm rule that you do not, under any circumstances, root for a division rival in the playoffs (provided that they're not playing each other). But it appears that there's a very solid chance that we're headed for Aaron Rodgers vs. the NFC West in round two, and there's just no chance in the world I'm rooting for Rodgers against anyone.

Worst-case scenario is Rodgers vs. the Niners, when I would simply have to pretend that football doesn't exist for 3+ hours.

Anyone in particular you're rooting for in the playoffs?

Buffalo? I guess Buffalo. As long as the Patriots or Steelers don't make it, I'm sure I'll be backing the AFC Champion in the SB (and in some cases will be doing that even if they do). Probably something like Buffalo > Tennessee > KC for a top order of preference. Could live with any of the Raiders/Chargers/Bengals.

NFC is just rough. By default, I want Tampa to emerge from it even though I can't stand Bruce Arians. If they don't, it will probably be a team that I'm strongly against.

This year has been so weird, I'm almost banking something like Steelers/Eagles Super Bowl that'll be as disgusting as it sounds.

How the hell is Tennessee the #1 seed?

I would actually root for the Packers if Rodgers is really going to boycott the SB like I read on the twitter machine.

I don't really buy that Rodgers boycott story, and I don't even think it would get as far as him publicly threatening it if they got that far. But if it did, holy **** would it be the most toxic thing ever. So many people who flipped out with "get politics out of my sports" a few years ago would hail him as their new hero. Ayn Rand's estate would get a big new cash infusion. No thanks to that whole ****ing scene.

I consider the Eagles to be all but drawing dead, but if Gardner Minshew was under center in the playoffs, I'd get behind them hard.

Oh, I just want to see it happen because I don't think it would have nearly the effect that he thinks it would. Nobody would give a **** expect his fans, who he would be pissing off. I also wonder what's going to happen when teams have post-season covid outbreaks.

I can get behind a lot of this line of thinking, though I don't have a problem with either of the two NFC bird teams.

I don’t have a problem with the Eagles either. Cards I prefer to the Rams; they’re not high on my hate list even though it pleases me that we just cost them the division title.

Patriots fan here, but really rooting for Bills/Cardinals so one of them gets off the schneid

Yeah, lot of long-suffering Cards fan in that city with no meaningful civic identity or charm, populated by transplants. Pretty important they get a turn.

True - Arizona transplants have been spoiled by all the championships they've enjoyed from their Indoor Football League and WNBA teams

That ending last night was insane. Raiders were probably going to let the clock expire, but SD coach called a timeout that knocked his own team out of the playoffs.

I'm only rooting for teams that have silver in their color scheme this post-season.

I don't really understand the conversation around that timeout. SD called it after the clock had already reached the range of one more kneeldown or whatever. If that somehow changed whether the Raiders were going to let it expire, that's quite strange to me. Of course, it's possible the Chargers would have defended the pre-timeout play better than they defended the post-timeout play, but that sort of results-oriented analysis is nothing to go on.

Was a really compelling game either way.

Someone said that a Raider was caught on tape telling Ekelor that they were going to let it run out before SD called timeout.

There was really no benefit to calling that timeout for SD. What were they looking to accomplish? How could it possibly have benefited them? They weren't ever going to be in a position to score again. There was 38 second left. Did the Raiders even have to run another snap without it? Even if they did, they wouldn't have had enough time to rush a FG, as they did.

On the other side, can't blame the Raiders at all for not wanting to go to KC rather than Cin, giving the easier opportunity.

Raider coach was perfectly content to let the clock run out before the time out: https://twitter.com/SNFonNBC/status/...041659394?s=20

Here's the clip w/ Ekelor: https://twitter.com/NFL_DovKleiman/s...12997520695297

Ekelor looking dejected kind of looks like that conjecture could be true, though there's not nearly enough there to read lips or anything.

Raiders coach indicated he was fine with letting it run out until they broke a run that put them in FG position, but didn't really say that the timeout was what changed his mind. He said the fact that they didn't call a TO before the previous play was bearing on his thinking, basically that they weren't going to run a hurry-up to prioritize scoring necessarily, but nothing in that clip makes me think they were going to pass up a winning FG attempt if it was there.

It seems to me like SD called the timeout specifically to get in a better position to stop from happening what did happen: the Raiders breaking a run that put them in position for a winning FG. It failed obviously, but calling a timeout to make changes because you don't like the look at the LOS isn't crazy if you think that the result of the play could be highly important.

I'd have to watch the ending sequence again, but had the Chargers, who had to know the Raiders were very likely to run the same play again, not called the time out, would the Jacobs run have ended the game w/o enough time to go for a FG?

Comes down to a tactical decision of whether calling the time out to get different personnel on the field is worth risking the Raiders not running the clock. I still think it's a mistake, though maybe less of one, even then.

The only other thing I could imagine Ekelor being told that would have garnered that type of reaction is that Jish's favorite Star Wars movie was the Last Jedi.

They called TO because their defense was a mess.



The TO was called with 5 seconds on the play clock. I can't understand the logic behind the criticism of calling TO there.

The timeout came with like 4-6 seconds left on the play clock. It was definitely allowed to run down below the point that more than one remaining play would be necessary before a timeout was called, but those extra 4-6 seconds didn't give the Raiders the time needed to call a TO and kick a FG; there was a ton of time for that. I remember seeing Carr go over to talk to the referee in what you clearly see players do sometimes: tell the ref that they'll be calling a timeout when the clock hits one or two seconds left. If he had all the leisurely time to do that, the 4-6 seconds didn't matter from that standpoint.

I agree that Ekelor's reaction fits strangely perfectly with what people are trying to match it to.

There was also a bunch of weirdness last night where people were tweeting "OMG David Carr just admitted that the timeout changed their strategy," and then left out his immediate follow-up sentence that gives significant context.

Yeah, Carr seems to contradict himself, almost like he caught himself saying what he actually thought and immediately followed up with what he was supposed to say.

I don't understand how the defense is that much of a mess, when the Raiders had been doing the same thing the previous two downs. That said, yeah, Staley looks like an idiot if they have the wrong D on the field, Carr calls an audible and throws a TD pass.

I guess it becomes some sort of complicated math problem. I still think he made the wrong call, but what are the chances the Raiders just let the clock run out after the 3rd down play vs the chances that you get caught with your pants down and something crazy happens if you don't call the timeout.

Why would whether or not the TO is called affect this?

From the way it sounded, it seemed to piss them off. In the moment, the Raiders were willing to give them the tie, but the TO seemed to signal them the Chargers wanted more, so F off, now we're gonna win the game.

I mean it's possible that that's exactly what happened, but it's an irrational emotional reaction if so, and I can't see faulting Staley for failing to anticipate a reaction like that.