mayhap | Entries tagged with nfl

People thought that the 2024 Chiefs were frauds. People thought that Patrick Mahomes wasn’t a top three quarterback in the league and didn’t deserve to go to the Pro Bowl. People thought that Josh Allen was the dangerous one when he used his legs. People thought that this year could actually be the Bills’ year. People thought that their prayers to be spared seeing the Chiefs in the Super Bowl again this year might be answered by some kind of merciful deity. People thought a lot of things.

The Chiefs are going back to the Super Bowl. That's already farther than any other back-to-back winners have made it in the third year. Obviously I would prefer to complete the threepeat, but I think we're doing pretty okay so far.

Commanders @ Eagles — This game really got out of hand by the end and thus did not hold a lot of interest for the neutral fan. It did end up introducing quite a lot of more casual viewers to the concept of the palpably unfair act which is found in the NFL rulebook. Good times!

Bills @ Chiefs — People find it ridiculous when Chiefs fans say that the Chiefs will simply start playing better in the playoffs, but here's the thing: they legitimately do. They've adopted a paradigm whereby they play a twenty game preseason in order to prepare for a three- to four-game season.

This game was nothing like our regular season game against the Bills. Not that they wouldn't have liked to win that game, and they tried to win that game, but not the same way that they tried to win this game. It helped that we’d gotten various offensive and defensive players back, of course, but we were also doing things like calling Patrick Mahomes designed runs, which never happens in a mere preseason game. (I've seen fans of other teams not realize that Andy isn't calling any of these runs. Pat is just so good at reading the defenses and knowing when he can scramble successfully that it seems like it might have been designed.) Xavier Worthy made the Bills live to regret trading back with us to let us draft him. On the other side of the ball, Spags was calling blitzes so exotic that I think you might need a license to keep them. Genuine works of art.

They had to go ahead and be dazzling, because the Bills are a good team with a really good quarterback who happens to be living in his own personal timeloop hell. This is the fourth time in five years that he's had his postseason ended by the Chiefs and frankly he looked like a hollow shell of a man in the postgame. He seems like a pretty nice guy and it’s fun to watch him play, especially if I don’t need him to lose for seeding purposes, but honestly, I feel like it gives us an edge in each subsequent postseason game when he sees our uniforms and flashes back to the previous losses and that’s so helpful. Don't really feel bad for a lot of Bills fans, though, especially the ones who attacked our players with snowballs last year and hanged a Mahomes muppet in effigy. I hope they, specifically, never experience joy.

There was an adorable moment after Pat ran in his second touchdown when he tried to spike the ball and completely muffed it, possibly because Travis was all up in his personal space. I think he was just being proactive, lest any Bills players try to start something with Pat like they did when he ran in his first touchdown and Trav had to fend them off. ❤️

It's kind of wild that we’re rerunning our matchup against the Eagles after we already had a rematch with the 49ers last year. Jason has already committed to rooting for the Eagles against his own brother, much to Travis’s disgust. That subplot should be entertaining!

Current Mood: bouncy

Another batch of six wild card games are in the books and five of them were blowouts won by the home team. Sure, that sounds boring and perfunctory, but when you bear in mind that the Chargers were two-and-a-half point favorites as the away team because everyone involved in setting that line apparently forgot that they were dealing with the Chargers, one third of the games were upsets!

Chargers @ Texans — it's a testament to how fundamentally cursed the Chargers are as a franchise that I'm incapable of taking them seriously as a division rival even when they find themselves in the playoffs. Watching them get absolutely buried by a Texans team that had been largely left for dead engendered more secondhand embarrassment than glee, honestly. Justin Herbert threw more interceptions in this single playoff game (four) than he did in an entire seventeen-game regular season (three). That fun fact will be the entire legacy of the 2024 Chargers.

This game caused much weeping and gnashing of teeth on tumblr, a bizarre pocket mirrorverse where the Chargers are one of the most popular teams in the NFL, second only to the Joe Burrow Bengals. This lies in sharp contrast to the real world, where a woman became a viral superstar for attending a Chargers game and being discernibly invested in the outcome and people suggested she could be a plant.

Steelers @ Ravens — I had hoped that something interesting, maybe even an upset, might happen here, purely because this was a divisional matchup and sometimes those can get weird, but nah. Just another blowout.

Broncos @ Bills — The seven seed is an abomination. The Broncos did not belong here at all and it showed. I did enjoy seeing them get demolished, though. That is a true division rivalry, where hatred springs eternal.

Packers @ Eagles — You know this was not an entertaining game when it causes concern that the Eagles offense didn't do more in a game that they won 22-10. Again, seven seeds simply should not be here. I do also hate the Packers so I didn't totally object to seeing them lose.

Commanders @ Buccaneers — This is it! The game that was exciting for a neutral fan! The Commanders upset the Bucs by a field goal that doinked through the uprights as time expired. It could hardly have been any closer, and since I was quite neutral, I was entertained.

Vikings @ Rams — I don't know why I ever bother to get even a little bit invested in a Vikings team. All they ever do when they do well is find new ways to disappoint. I have to say, going 14-2 with a chance to seize the one seed and the bye in their final game only to get blown out, stuck in the five seed, and get blown out again in the wild card round was certainly new. I have to say, it was very considerate of Sam Darnold to turn back into a pumpkin in plenty of time to avoid creating a quarterback controversy. The most fun Vikings team to make an improbable run behind an unexpectedly-elevated backup quarterback before ending their season in a playoff blowout is still the 2017 Case Keenum Vikings, anyway.

It's been twenty long days since I saw a meaningful snap of Chiefs football. I can't wait for Saturday afternoon.

Current Mood: chipper

This year the Chiefs gave me the delightful gift of a non-stressful win for Christmas. No one-score margins of victory, no wacky antics as time expires, just a nice 29-10 stomping of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are a playoff team, even, although I think they were already fading down the stretch before we got there, but whatever.

With Hollywood Brown back, we've finally realized the vision for what the offense was supposed to be, albeit with DeAndre Hopkins filling in for what Rashee Rice would have been doing, and that trade didn't even cost us that much. If we'd had this offense all year, those games wouldn't have been so stressful to watch in the first place. Regardless, we went 15-1 and locked up the one seed, even though the schedulers absolutely tried to kill us with the excessively-early week six bye and the late three games in eleven days gauntlet, and it's not like the wins count any less if they're crazy and stressful. Now with nothing left to play for until the divisional round we have a ton of time to rest our starters, get healthy, game plan, etc.

This must be absolutely infuriating to watch if you're a fan (or a player, or a coach…) of another team. It's so much fun for me, though!

Current Mood: complacent

The good news is that the Chiefs improved to 13-1 and still control the one seed! The bad news is that my poor baby Pat has sprained an ankle again. We already had one ankle scare a month and a half ago against the Bucs, although he refused to come out of that game and afterwards Andy told the media that he has, and I quote, “the loosest ankles in America,” which honestly sounds like an old-timey way of calling him a slut. This time it was bad enough that allowed himself to be removed from remainder of the game, albeit ungraciously, but he says that it’s not as bad as the sprain in the divisional round against the Jags in 2023 that he played through in the AFCCG and then the Super Bowl.

The most annoying thing is that it didn’t need to happen in the first place, like, at all. The Chiefs were already playing with a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency offensive line with Joe Thuney sliding over to left tackle because all the actual tackles are too hurt or too untrusted at the moment. It was suboptimal, but combined with some nifty play calling that had Pat constantly dancing out of danger, they were definitely getting away with it in the first half. It helped that Jameis, being Jameis, absolutely could not stop turning the ball over, so while the Chiefs offense was literally being pressured, in the larger, more metaphorical sense, there was very little pressure on them at all. In the second half, even though the Browns defense clamped down on the run and Pat was dropping back a million miles, chucking incompletion after incompletion and getting knocked around constantly, the Chiefs were still up 21-7 with five minutes left to play when Andy made the fateful decision to go for it on fourth and three. Pat dropped back to attempt yet another pass and got folded up like an origami crane.

He wants to play on Saturday because of course he does. It's not like I don't believe he can play through a sprained ankle, because, I mean, I've already seen him win a Super Bowl on a sprained ankle in 2023. I just didn't particularly want to test whether that feat was repeatable, especially since we're already rerunning the minimum viable receiver talent experiment of 2024. Doing both at once feels…challenging. Especially since then we have the accursed Netflix Christmas Day game on an even shorter week.

Current Mood: worried

He’s finally done it, the absolute madman. Patrick Mahomes completed a behind-the-back pass in a preseason game to—who else?—Travis Kelce.

( Hang this in the Louvre fr )

Much like Ahab’s quest for the titular whale, this feat was, according to Pat’s in-game interview, motivated by spite:

I mean, long story short, Travis didn't run the route he was supposed to run, and then it was kind of a behind-the-back pass kind of ’cause I was mad, I was pissed off at Travis. He was supposed to run a flat route—I don't know if you can hear me in the broadcast, I was yelling at him, and then he doesn't run it, so out of spite, I threw a behind-the-back pass, but now it's going to be a highlight.

Hilarious behavior. I'm going to throw you the ball, that'll show you! Pat, this flawed approach could be why you have limited success keeping Travis under control, I'm just saying.

Naturally, once I heard this, I was curious what Travis’s side of the story would be, and luckily he had his own in-game interview, since who even knows when the New Heights podcast is coming back.

You know, he’s got the voice thing, [incomprehensible frog noises], so he kind of mumbled out the play, I couldn't hear it, and I was walking up to the line and I was trying to, like, decipher what he was saying, and before I knew it, he snapped the ball, and, uh, yeah. And then I kind of saw him out of my peripheral run to the sideline, so I was trying to go help my guy out. By the time I looked over there, he was already in mid form, like a photo on a sports card, throwing the ball to me, so it was just, uh, I guess, right place at the right time.

Travis doesn't bust out his Pat impression too often, but whenever he does, it's gold. (Andy Reid supposedly does an incredible one, but alas, we, the public, will probably never hear it, because that's how he rolls.) Not that I think just anyone should be allowed to make fun of Pat’s voice, because that's rude and hurtful, but Travis can get away with it, like he can get away with not even knowing what he’s doing instead of running the correct route.

Now, this is all very fun, but preseason games are barely even games at all, only slightly more serious than practices. I still long to see the behind-the-back pass in a real game. Of course, like Pat said in the postgame, it has to happen naturally—they're not going actually call for it in the huddle, but when a play breaks down, Pat’s so good at recognizing opportunities, and if the stars align and he has this in his back pocket, he could finally pull the trigger on it, and it could be so beautiful…

Current Mood: impressed

These Super Bowl rings are such preposterous objects. They look hilarious on even giant athlete hands. I love them so much.

Oh, yeah, baby, time to strut your stuff, you earned it. ❤️

I'm not the one who grouped the picture of himself with Travis with the picture of himself with Brittany in a single Instagram post, okay.

Taylor was watching along on Mecole Hardman's girlfriend's livestream! ❤️

Current Mood: mischievous

Every year the Chiefs' social media team tantalizes us with Patrick Mahomes behind the back passes from practices like this one:

So fucking hot.

Tragically, the behind the back pass has yet to be unleashed in an actual game. When questioned about it on First Things First, this is what Pat said:

I think it was we didn’t play as well offensively enough for me to pull the behind-the-back pass off this last year. But it’s no one else’s fault than myself, because Coach Reid wants me to throw it behind the back more than anyone in the world. And so he deliberately puts in plays that I have the opportunity to throw the ball behind the back. So it’s not a coaching thing. It’s me not having that confidence to do it in a game. But one of these games, man, we’ve got to do it. There’s been too much hype on it. We’ve got to do it and hopefully it’s to Trav. He’s the best at judging that behind-the-back pass.

I do love that he just had to get that last part in there, fully unprompted. If he wants his first time to be with Travis, though, it might be a good idea to pull the trigger sooner rather than later, loathe though I am to even think about it.

Current Mood: giggly

God damn it, Rashee Rice, when you're already embroiled in legal problems relating with your your high speed luxury car crash where only by the purest luck was nobody killed, you can't be out here punching photographers in the club. You shouldn't even know that there are photographers you might want to punch in the club, because you should not be in the club. You're going to make Patrick Mahomes cry again.

Current Mood: irate

Oh wow, when I hit post on that fic yesterday morning I was not expecting to hear the news later in the day that the Bills were trading Stefon Diggs to the Texans for a bag of chips. They're eating $31 million in dead cap just to have him gone and be done with it, which speaks to a relationship that had really irretrievably broken down. I kind of feel like I'm rubbing salt in Bills fans' wounds now. Which, to be fair, sounds like something I might have done on purpose if I had known, but in point of fact I did not.

I've loved watching Stefon Diggs since his Vikings days but I will admit that he seems like he can be A Lot. I'm not so much surprised that a team would want to trade him away as that they would do it when the terms are so unfavorable to them. Apparently, though, an actual point of contention between him and the team was that Stefon wouldn't defend the Bills when his little brother Trevon, who's an All-Pro cornerback for the Cowboys, would make taunting posts on social media. Would responding have actually made anything better? Don't any of these people have their own little brothers??

Edit: According to Chris Simms, Stefon Diggs was allowed to seek a trade to any team other than the Kansas City Chiefs. We are the bogeyman that haunts Buffalo's nightmares and I love it.

Current Mood: amused

I've never really been able to get into hockey because they won't put a team in my city, and I'm like, well, fuck you, too, buddy! We actually did have one, briefly, and they ended up moving it to New Jersey, which is almost as insulting as the time they took our basketball team and moved it to Sacramento, but I digress. I don't read a lot of hockey RPF because I don't follow the sport, but I was introduced to the trope of the winner's room, where a player from the winning team gets to fuck a player from the losing team after the game, and to me this is just the perfect plot device for putting some guys into situations that simply could not exist without institutionalized sex rituals.

The regular season Bills game against the Chiefs—the one that led to the infamous "Mahomes 'meltdown'"—was already top of mind as the draft approaches because the Chiefs need to keep improving the receiver room this offseason so things like that don't happen again, and Rashee Rice is not currently helping! The angst is delicious, though, and since we ended up winning the game that actually mattered against the Bills again this year, it was easier for me to enjoy wallowing in it. Which is what I ended up doing, virtually against my will, because I started writing this and then I couldn't stop writing this:

Acts of Service (3131 words) by mayhap
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: National Football League RPF
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Josh Allen/Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce & Patrick Mahomes
Characters: Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen (National Football League RPF), Travis Kelce
Additional Tags: Winner's Room, Dubious Consent, Under-negotiated Kink, Light Dom/sub, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, Awkward Sexual Situations, Praise Kink, Alternate Universe - No Girlfriends/No Wives
Summary:

Winner’s room AU, set after the December 10, 2023 Bills @ Chiefs game.

Pat knew he was starting to get a reputation for how he was when he was in the room, but he couldn’t help it. When he was the winner, he liked to show off, liked to get the other guy into it, like it was just another game for him to win at. When he was the loser, he found himself desperate to do something, anything right.

Current Mood: indescribable

I’m going to have to recover from that game-watching experience. My goodness.

Current Mood: ecstatic

UNDERDOGS, SHMUNDERDOGS! LET’S DO THIS THING!

Current Mood: ecstatic

Patrick Mahomes has still never not made it to the AFC Championship game as a starter, even though his five-year streak of hosting it has been snapped. His floor is an AFC Championship loss, and so far that has happened as many times has he has been named Super Bowl MVP (twice). It's really quite astonishing and ought to be properly appreciated, no matter what else happens this postseason.

In the afternoon game, two castoff number one overall draft picks faced off against each other with their new teams and Jared Goff and the Lions duly defeated Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers 31-23, although it was close right up until the end and managed to adequately distract me while I was waiting for my game to start. With the 49ers looking a bit mortal in their last game, it's not at all out of the question that the Lions could make it to the Super Bowl, strange as that is to say.

At last, it was time for the feature presentation. There exists a rivalry between the Chiefs and the Bills, although it's arguably just a subset of the rivalry between the Bills and postseason success. The Chiefs crushed the Bills in the 2021 AFC Championship. Then the Bills won the regular season matchup in 2022 and their fans seemed to feel like their team had really accomplished something for some reason, only to find themselves playing the Chiefs again in the divisional round. A truly epic game ensued, with 25 points scored and four lead changes after the two-minute warning alone. When Josh Allen threw a touchdown with thirteen seconds left on the clock, people joked that he'd left Patrick Mahomes too much time to score…and they were correct. Thanks in no small part to Mahomes audibling to a play that Kelce suggested, the Chiefs kicked a game-tying field goal in those unlucky thirteen seconds and won in overtime.

But this time it was definitely supposed to be different. After all, the Bills had home field advantage. Their fans were burning Taylor Swift in effigy in the parking lot and throwing snowballs at players on the field with impunity. Surely the third time would be the charm.

The game reminded me of the thirteen seconds game, and not just because Tony Romo and Jim Nantz were bringing it up constantly. Tony Romo, in particular, is really starting to get on my nerves when he calls Chiefs-Bills games, because he's been hyping up Josh Allen for years now and he really wants his guy to finally live up to his hype and it's increasingly irritating when his commentary starts to feel slanted towards the outcome that he so clearly desires (and it's for my team to lose). I believe at one point during this game he said that “they” call Josh “the Alien” and “Mr. January,” when in fact those are both nicknames that he made up and that nobody else uses. “Mr. January,“ in particular, attracted a lot of scorn, since the Super Bowl is now played in February and he was basically saying that his guy can get to the playoffs but never play in the big game. Which, I mean, thus far that's been true, but it doesn't seem to have been what he meant. At any rate, this game was a real back-and-forth nail biter with lead changes galore, so it did indeed hearken back to the thirteen seconds game.

Fortunately to alleviate some of the tension we got periodic peeks at Jason Kelce living it up in the box with the rest of Travis's posse. Whether this is retirement or just the offseason for him, he is definitely living his best, most shirtless life. He even broke containment to hoist up a little girl with an “I ❤️ Taylor Swift” sign so she could say hi. [EDIT: That little girl shared her story, awwwww!] Travis accounted for two of the touchdowns in the game, so his friends and family had plenty to cheer for up there. I'm glad we've been able to show Taylor a good time with postseason football so far; it would be sad if we could only offer her a loss in the divisional round.

The last two minutes of this game were relatively dramatic, although nowhere near as action-packed as the thirteen seconds game, which is an outlier and should not have been counted. This time the Bills were the ones who needed a field goal to tie the game, and they missed it—wide right, naturally. Then the Chiefs just needed to pick up a single first down to be able to kneel it out, which they did, and that was the game.

It's extremely fun to watch your team just repeatedly rip another team's soul out like that. Mahomes says that he likes to be the villain in away games, and his teammates all confirmed that he was excited for it. Just look at this adorable little villain! We're only three and a half point underdogs against the Ravens next week, so who knows, maybe we'll fuck around and win another away playoff game and go to another Super Bowl in a ‘down year.’

Current Mood: impressed

Texans-Ravens went and got my hopes up that the Chiefs might get to host another AFC Championship game after all when they were tied 10-10 at the half, but after that, it was all, quoth the Ravens, “Now we score.” End result: 34-10 blowout.

Packers-49ers had me seriously worried that I was going to have to see their dumb cheeseheads in the NFC Championship game right up until the very end, when Jordan Love threw a silly pick and spared us all that indignity. End result: 24-21 nailbiter.

Two down, two to go.

Current Mood: sleepy

Jason Kelce said on the New Heights podcast that he has not actually announced his retirement yet.

That is a big decision and it's probably a good idea to give it more consideration first, but somehow I think that whenever he makes the decision, it's going to be to retire. He looked really down during the game and again on the podcast, although he did take some time to make his favorite McDonald's employee's day in the drive-thru.

Current Mood: sad

Three days, six games, and one inexcusable Peacock exclusive later, we have the bracket set for the divisional round. Is the newly-expanded “‘Super’ Wild Card Weekend” good? No. Is it wild? Also no. Is it a lot of football? Yes.

(5) Browns at (4) Texans

Ordinarily, I'd have been happy to root for a quarterback barely a year younger than me getting signed off the couch and leading his former division rival to the playoffs, an outcome both heartwarming and chaotic. Unfortunately, the team in question is the Cleveland Browns, and I would never want anything good for the Browns after they traded away a king's ransom in draft picks for the privilege of giving Deshaun Watson an unheard of fully-guaranteed five-year $230 million dollar contract after he was outed as a serial predator who sexually harassed or sexually assaulted at least twenty-two massage therapists, so I could hardly enjoy the Joe Flacco Renaissance.

It was extremely fitting that the Browns were matched up against the Texans, a team that rebuilt itself partially on the draft picks they got from the Browns for Watson, who, in addition to being evil, has also been ineffectual and injured for the Browns, the sin that even the amoral fans don't forgive. Speaking of sins, the Texans had a very weird period where they were taken over by Jack Easterby, a chaplain with minimal football experience who somehow rose through the ranks to become a kind of co-general manager and then interim general manager. During his brief but baffling reign, he released Andre Johnson and traded DeAndre Hopkins for peanuts, seemingly because he perceived them as threats to his leadership. However, the team course corrected quickly after someone broke his spell, hiring a good new coach, drafting a new young quarterback who's looked amazing all year, and, of course, using the aforementioned draft haul. They still have the Browns' first-round draft pick next year, too!

Joe Flacco turned back into a pumpkin and threw back-to-back pick-sixes. The Texans cruised to a 45-14 victory. This game was not very interesting to watch but at least the Browns were not rewarded for their bad behavior.

(6) Dolphins at (3) Chiefs

Extremely cynically, this game was selected to be made available only on Peacock, NBC's streaming service, unless you were in the home market of one of the teams playing, in which case they are still required to show it on actual broadcast television. I hate this. NBC is bragging that they set a “new record” with 23 million viewers, which is indeed the most viewers for a streaming-exclusive playoff game in history, since it's also the only streaming-exclusive playoff game in history. Meanwhile, Browns-Texans, an utterly uncompetitive rout, easily drew a casual 29 million viewers in the afternoon slot because they put it on actual fucking NBC.

The game itself was pretty fun! I mean, not if you like the Dolphins, or close final scores, or seeing more total touchdowns scored than field goals kicked, but the game was competitive for longer than the final score of 26-7 would suggest, and there was also plenty of extreme weather-related amusement, from Andy Reid's mustache freezing to Patrick Mahomes's helmet shattering on contact. (That was obviously also worrisome, but they got it replaced with minimal disruption and everyone was okay, so all's well that ends well.)

My favorite play of the game was this pass to Travis Kelce, where he fell on the Dolphins player who tackled him in such a way that he was never actually rendered down by contact and then popped back up to gain more yardage and a first down. It's just a little thing, but it's a fun combination of luck and high football IQ. Overall, the team looked a little more like themselves than they have all year, and while I still don't have expectations of a deep playoff run, I at least believe that it's plausible that they could avoid embarrassing themselves for as many games as they manage to stay in it.

Taylor Swift and Brittany Mahomes wore matching football jersey winter coats customized by Kristin Juszczyk, wife of the 49ers' fullback. They look like they're having a lot of fun and it's adorable.

(7) Packers at (2) Cowboys

For the first time since the expansion of the playoffs in 2021, a seven seed has defeated a two seed and advanced to the divisional round. The game wasn't even as close as the final score of 48 to 32 makes it look, and that is actually not very close at all. This is hilarious because the Cowboys found a completely new way to disappoint their large and annoying fanbase, but it is also terrible because the Packers are still in the playoffs. Albeit they are matched up against against the 49ers, who currently have a four-game postseason winning streak against them dating back twelve years, so hopefully they will not stick around for long. (I live in the AFC West but I come from the NFC North and I maintain the traditional grudges of my people.)

Does this unprecedented outcome justify the addition of two whole wild card games every year? No, it is an abomination.

(6) Rams at (3) Lions

This was another narrative game that they clearly scripted up in the NFL writers' room. Matt Stafford had endured twelve years of futility with the Lions when the Rams came calling, looking to jettison former number one overall pick Jared Goff. This trade paid off immediately for the Rams, who won a Super Bowl with Stafford in his first year. Meanwhile, the Lions ended up hanging on to Goff, who had almost been an afterthought in the trade, and when they won the NFC North for the first time since that division was even created and earned a home playoff game for the first time in exactly thirty years, it was only fitting that their opponent should be Matt Stafford and his new team.

This was the only game all weekend with any interest at all for the neutral fan. Matt Stafford battled valiantly through a painful-looking hand injury and Puka Nacua set a new single-game receiving yards by a rookie record, but Jared Goff edged them 24-23 for his revenge, best served cold. Although Detroit has a dome, so it was probably actually pretty warm.

(7) Steelers at (2) Bills

This game had to be delayed a day due to a blizzard but the Steelers could only put off the inevitable for so long. The Bills have been a confusing team this year because as far as I've been able to tell they either look amazing or terrible with no in between, but they had no difficulty making the Steelers look like they didn't belong here in this game. Which they didn't. The seven seed is an abomination

I was rooting, however futilely, for the Steelers to come out on top, since that would have meant that the Chiefs got another home game against the Texans next week, but a 31-17 Bills win means that Patrick Mahomes is headed to Orchard Park for his very first away playoff game. In six years as a starter, Mahomes has played in fifteen postseason games so far, and they have been twelve home games and three Super Bowls. Obviously, the Chiefs demonstrated this week that they're not afraid of playing in the cold, but it's still nice to have a home crowd. Alas.

(5) Eagles at (4) Buccaneers

This game was just sad. I felt bad for Jason Kelce, whom I've really gotten to know from all the hours of podcasting with his little brother as well as well as the intimate documentary on Prime Video. The Eagles' 11-6 record disguises the fact that the team had been in freefall for the last third of their season and this game was more of the same. Even the “Brotherly Shove,” their signature unstoppable version of the quarterback sneak, was stoppable in this game, possibly because they overused it for a want of confidence in any other plays. Jalen Hurts apparently cannot read the defense properly when he's moving left, which might be what Nick Bosa was talking about when he said that the 49ers had figured him out. He's not an ambi-turner, okay?

I was extremely not surprised when Jason decided to retire after that game, because he looked completely done with everything by the end. It was at least a little bit satisfying that the Bucs managed to win a playoff game with Baker Mayfield at quarterback, since he was the one that the Browns cast off so they could overpay for a serial sex offender instead.

Current Mood: relieved

sobs woman who rooted for Underdogs Upsetting Other People's Teams all divisional round.

Current Mood: morose

We've had “Super Wild Card Weekend” (i.e. six wild card games instead of the previous four) twice now, which I think is officially a sufficient sample size to say that it sucks. The seven seeds don't belong there (because they aren't very good). The two seeds don't belong there (because we should have a bye). Six games is too many games. Sure, I could simply not watch some of these games, but I would still know that they were happening and that would be just as bad.

The Chiefs-Steelers matchup was actually extremely fun! Nick Allegretti caught a touchdown! Travis Kelce threw a touchdown! Neither of those things were supposed to happen (because Allegretti and Kelce are an offensive lineman and a tight end, respectively). That's apropos, because the entire game should also not have happened.

Luckily there were no real injuries during the game, so we were able to enjoy this Harlem Globetrotters-style performance with no regrets…this year, anyway.

Current Mood: aggravated

In the words of Travis Kelce crashing Patrick Mahomes’s postgame interview on live television, ”I fucking love you, baby.”

Current Mood: ecstatic

@RyanSeidel: Did your MVP quarterback get you and the rest of your O line anything for Christmas?

@MitchSchwartz72: He hooked us up real well but I’m going to keep what he did private [link]

I choose to believe that this means that they had an orgy. (No but really, it’s adorable.)

Current Mood: amused

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Page generated May. 27th, 2025 07:36 pm

potentialities

mayhap's journal

Entries tagged with nfl

He wants three!

and the crowd goes mild

Ready to engage playoff mode

unlucky thirteen

my white whale

Super Bowl rings for Red Friday

nothing up his sleeves

Rashee Rice Stop Committing Crimes Challenge (Impossible)

breakups in Buffalo

FIC: Acts of Service (Josh Allen/Patrick Mahomes, E)

They did the thing!

WE’RE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL BABYYYYYY

More like Buffalo Chills amirite

Won Seeds

Unbreaking News

Mild Cards

"I never thought underdogs would upset _MY_ team,"

a surfeit of football

How about those Chiefs?

extremely gifted