NFL Wild Card week: Quitting

Jim Vallet and Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter

An Apple TV commercial is proclaiming that the second Friday of January is “National Quitters Day” and challenges us to, “…look it up”.

So I did. And, I found that, according to “National Today”, there is such a thing. And, that it will fall this year on Friday January 10. It got its name because research conducted by Strava in 2019 found that 80% of people who made New Year’s resolutions had abandoned them by that date. 

Wow. I guess we’re a nation of quitters.

My definition of quitting is not finishing what you signed up to do. If you are on the baseball, football, basketball, dance, cheerleading, or cross country team, it is up to you to finish what you start. When our children were living at home, my wife and I had a rule that we had to approve of our children quitting anything. 

Generally,I hesitate to say an athlete quit. I wonder how many people have ever done any sort of physical activity until they threw up. I know that, although I have come close, I never have. Yet, I see football players “losing their lunches” on football fields a lot, particularly on the professional and college levels. So I think it’s important to recognize the effort and dedication so many players exhibit, and merely saying, “They get paid for it…” doesn’t cut it for me.

The word “quitting” has a well deserved negative connotation, especially concerning athletes. Since I value the features of my face remaining in their present places, I would not accuse many athletes of quitting. But there are several well known examples of quitting. Roberto Duran quit his prize fight against Sugar Ray Leonard and uttered his now famous words, ”No mas”. Antonio Brown, 49er linebacker De’Vondre Campbell, Dolphins’ wideout Mike Wallace, and Bills’ cornerback Vontae Davis all apparently quit on their teams in the middle of games. No matter how it is spun today, I think Barry Sanders quit on the Detroit Lions when he just didn’t show up for training camp and could not be reached for several days. Yankees’ catcher Joge Posada, Tennessee Titans’ QB Vince Young, NFL All-Pro wideout Santonio Holmes, tennis professional Alex Bogomolov, Atlanta Falcons head coach Bobby Petrino, and NFL wideout Randy Moss have all, rightly, been accused of quitting on their teams. But none, in my opinion, can top Minnesota high school hockey player Austin Krause when it comes to quitting. According to bleacherreport.com, with his team holding on to a 2-1 lead late in the third period, Krause picked up the puck from behind his own net and threw it into his team’s net before skating off the ice while giving the finger to his own team’s bench. Krause explained his actions as only a 17-year old could, saying it was his last game and he wanted to do it for himself.

And now, it appears to have happened once again. NFL.com is reporting that MIami Dolphins’ wide receiver Tyreek Hill refused to enter last Sunday’s game against the New York Jets, possibly after he saw on the scoreboard that the Denver Broncos were easily whipping the Kansas City Chiefs, a result that would knock Hill’s Dolphins out of the NFL playoffs. In typical quitter fashion, Hill at first tried to blame poor communication with his coach on his choice to quit. When he is not quitting or beating up his children or the mother of his children, Tyreek Hill has been a very good wide receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins.

I bring up all this quitting stuff because some of my own friends accused me of quitting on the Lions after my comments last week on the Lions’ poor defensive showing against the San Francisco 49ers. Although I said I would not bet on them last week (yet another bad prediction this season) I still watched the game with all my Lions’ apparel and celebrated a great Lions win. At the same time I said I wouldn’t bet on them, I said the injuries  were a temporary setback on the Detroit Lions’ march towards building a solid team for a long time. I did not throw my Lions’ jerseys into the trash. I did not pick a new favorite team. I did not criticize anybody. Pointing out obvious flaws is not quitting. Go Lions!

Wild Card Weekend, and if history repeats itself, there will be upsets. It doesn’t seem to me that there are as many upsets in the Wild Card round as there were before 2020 when the NFL went from six teams making the playoffs and two teams getting a first round bye to the present system of seven teams making the postseason and only one team from each conference getting a bye. Now, instead of two good teams, this year Buffalo and Philadelphia, resting, those two teams will play the 7th best team in their respective conferences at their home venues. Still, the 3rd seeds will play the 6th seeds and the 4th seeds will play the 5th, just like before. The problem for me is trying to figure out which favorites will prevail and which won’t. 

If you believe that defense wins championships, this week 10 of the 12 teams playing rank in the top half of the NFL in defense. The two teams not in the top half defensively are the Buffalo Bills and the LA Rams. The Philadelphia Eagles have the No. 1 rated defense and, wouldn’t you know it, they play the next highly-rated playoff defense in the Green Bay Packers, who are rated fifth. The Houston Texans and Denver Broncos are rated sixth and seventh, respectively, and they’re both underdogs. The Broncos are more than a TD dogs to the Buffalo Bills, whose defense is not in the NFL’s top half. The Rams, with the 26th ranked NFL defense, are only a point underdogs against the 14-win MInnesota Vikings.

If you think quarterbacks are the key in the postseason, you can find a lot of information that supports your position. Ten of the 12 QBs playing this week are solid starters for their respective teams next year, Russell Wilson of the Steelers and Sam Darnold of the Vikings are the exceptions. According to foxsports.com, only the Cincinnati Bengals have a QB rated in the top 10 who did not make the playoffs. All the teams that made the playoffs have QBs rated in Fox’s top half of the rankings, and the lowest ranked QB playing this week is the Steelers’ Russell Wilson at no. 16. 

If turnovers are your betting tip, 12 of the top 13 NFL in turnover differential are still playing, with the lowly Chicago Bears (??) being the only exception. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-1) are the only playoff team with a negative turnover differential, and the Buffalo Bills are the turnover differential champions at +24.

The Baltimore Ravens had the highest rated offense, followed by the Detroit Lions. The Pittsburgh Steelers had the worst offense of the playoff teams, but only one yard per game worse than the Houston Texans. Three of the top 10 rated offenses did not make the playoffs, and Arizona, another couch potato this week, was rated number 11.

And then there’s special teams, and coaching, and weather, and point spreads, and home field, and incentives, and on, and on, and on. Really, although all this information is a guide, it is looking backward, not forward.  

What really matters is how the teams perform starting this Saturday. And with all of everything in mind, here are my picks against the spread for this week. Lines are from espn.com on Wednesday, Jan. 8. When you consider everything, also consider my record this year before listening to me.

Los Angeles Chargers (-3) at Houston Texans: Statistically and using the eye test, I don’t like the Texans.

Baltimore Ravens (-9 ½) vs Pittsburgh Steelers: A lot of points I don’t like giving, but the Steelers are limping into the playoffs in good part because Russell Wilson looks to me like he’s returning to his Denver form.

Buffalo Bills (-8 ½) vs Denver Broncos: The Broncos only beat two playoff teams all season, and one of those, the Chiefs on the last day of the regular season, was when the Chiefs were resting many of their starters. The Bills won’t be resting anybody.

Philadelphia Eagles (-4 ½) vs Green Bay Packers: From the outside looking in, it’s hard to measure a team’s motivation. But the Eagles seem focused and motivated to me. I am worried about Eagles’ QB Jalen Hurts’ health.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers  (-3) vs Washington Commanders: These teams played once this season, the first game of the year and Tampa won by 17. I know that was Jayden Daniels’ first NFL game, but he’s got a lot of ground to make up.

Los Angeles Rams (+1) vs Minnesota Vikings: The Vikings won a lot of close games this year, and the Rams are coming on strong.

Last week 1-6

Season 50-58-2

Robert’s picks

With two rookie quarterbacks in the playoffs this season, and the perception being that rookie quarterbacks don’t do well in the playoffs, I decided to do a little research of my own. What I found is that 27 rookie quarterbacks have started an NFL playoff game, and 12 of them have won an NFL playoff game, but two of those deserve an asterisk. Dieter Brock won two playoff games with the LA Rams in 1985, but he was 34 years old and had played 10 professional seasons in the Canadian Football League. That’s not a rookie in my book. The other was also the Rams – John Wolford in 2020, but he got injured in the first quarter of that game when the score was 0-0 and Jared Goff came in relief even though he himself had an injured thumb, which was the reason he didn’t start the game.

If you discount Wolford, which I do, because he didn’t even play 10 minutes before being injured, and Brock, then only 10 of 25 rookie QBs have won a playoff game, and just two since Russell Wilson did it in 2012. Those were Brock Purdy in 2022 and C.J. Stroud last year. Going back to 2012, rookie quarterbacks in their first playoff game are 2-9.

But that in itself doesn’t mean much, because a couple of those quarterbacks were not their team’s regular starter. Connor Cook of the Raiders lost in 2016, replacing the injured Derek Carr. A.J. McCarron started for the Bengals in 2015 because Andy Dalton was injured.

That still isn’t a very good record, and although it might not be enough on its own to reject the notion of betting one of the rookies in this season’s playoffs, it is enough to at least make me pause.

With fewer games to choose from in the playoffs, I’m far more selective with my picks, and more conservative with my bets. Still, ya gotta have some action, right?

Steelers/Ravens under 43.5: Lamar Jackson is too good to be as consistently mediocre as he has been in the playoffs in his career, but I’m not about to lay 10 points with him. But Russell Wilson has finished the season looking a lot like the guy who couldn’t do much in Denver. With a lack of faith in both QBs, and the history of this rivalry trending under, I’ll go that way, especially since the last meeting between these two went over.

Buccaneers (-3) over Commanders: At first, this line doesn’t make sense, because Washington has a better record in a tougher division, But then you look at the team’s they’ve beat, and only Cincinnati and Philadelphia made the playoffs and the Buccs are 4-3 against playoff teams. Tampa Bay is 6-1 since it’s bye in Week 11 and for my money have been the most underrated team in the league this season. I wish this line was around pick ‘em, but the oddsmakers aren’t stupid.

Vikings (-140) over Rams: Two weeks ago, I said I would bet the Vikings at home -1 against anybody in the NFL. Now they get screwed by the NFL seeding and don’t get to play at home despite having one of the top three records. This game has been moved to Arizona because of the fires in Los Angeles so at least they don’t have to play on the Rams’ home field. I’m a believer in how good this Minnesota team is, but I’m laying the price on the money line, because I’m betting them to win the game.

Last week

College 0-1

NFL 1-2

Season

College 34-33

NFL 31-21-1