It's the NFL playoffs now, so this is where the real stuff matters. You watch two games Saturday knowing you have three more Sunday and, this season, one on Monday night, and you know you have to do the overreactions column. You want to get it just right. It's the playoffs, after all.
So you go back and forth with your editor, kicking around ideas on what the best ones will be, which angles make the most sense, which one should lead the column. You talk about the Raiders' coaching situation, the Bengals' chances of a deep run, the long-term viability of Mac Jones, the Bills' dominance, the long-term viability of Jalen Hurts, Tom Brady's chances to repeat ...
And then the Cowboys lose in the first round, and you know you have what you need. Without further ado, your wild-card round overreactions:
The Cowboys will fire Mike McCarthy and elevate one of their coordinators
The only one of the five playoff home teams that has lost so far, Dallas enters the offseason as one of January's biggest disappointments. You could argue the Cowboys were overseeded and shouldn't have beaten the 49ers, since they were 6-0 against NFC East teams and 6-6 against everyone else.
But they lost a home playoff game by six points when they committed 14 penalties and called a quarterback draw up the middle from the 41-yard line with 14 seconds left and no timeouts. Discipline is a reflection of coaching, and in the regular season the Cowboys led the NFL with 153 penalties and finished second with 1,103 penalty yards (1 yard behind the league-leading Raiders).
The final playcall is on offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, but the number of mistakes the Cowboys made is inexcusable, and it's absolutely fair for Cowboys ownership to question whether the right people are in charge.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. The most likely outcome here is that team owner Jerry Jones sticks with McCarthy, who is 18-15 in two seasons as coach. Jones -- who said he was "extraordinarily disappointed" by the loss -- has stood strongly behind him through so many mistakes over the past two years, it's clear that Jones is either determined to be right about him or really believes he's the right coach for the team.
But there has been some chatter around the league in recent days, with Dallas defensive coordinator Dan Quinn in high demand for head-coaching interviews with other teams, that a first-round exit could lead Dallas to move on from McCarthy and elevate Quinn to head coach rather than lose him to the Broncos or someone else. Again, not saying this will happen, and I believe it's more likely they stay the course. But it's not inconceivable, and you could make a case that it's justified.
The Eagles will be in the market for a quarterback upgrade
This season was an audition for 2020 second-round draft pick Jalen Hurts -- a chance for him to show the Eagles that he could be their long-term answer at quarterback. And he did a lot to state his case. He showed he could be a vital part of a run-centric offense, leading them into the playoffs in what most people would have expected to be a rebuilding year.
Hurts is certainly not without his flaws, and his issues with downfield accuracy were on full display in Sunday's 31-15 loss to the Buccaneers. But he's obviously a tough player with strong leadership qualities who gave the Eagles everything he had and showed enough improvement over the course of the year to convince you he's capable of improving even more.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. The problem is, Hurts didn't do enough to make the Eagles sure he's their long-term answer. And between their resources and the possibilities this offseason's quarterback market could potentially offer, they owe it to themselves to at least consider the possibility of an upgrade.
The Eagles will have three first-round picks in April's draft -- Nos. 15, 16 and 19. That could offer them the opportunity to move up into the early part of the round to draft a quarterback if they think there's one who looks like a franchise cornerstone. But if there isn't such a player, it's still possible that this offseason will see the likes of Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, Deshaun Watson and others on the trade market. And a team with three first-round picks in this draft would have a head start on other teams if it wanted to make a run at players like that.
It'd be no insult to Hurts if the team decided it would be better off with Wilson or Rodgers or Watson. And while it might not be possible to get those guys and might be wiser to use the picks to build around Hurts, this is an organization that is always considering all of its options at the most critical position. That's why Hurts is on the team in the first place, remember.
The Bills are the team to beat in the AFC
Defensive coordinators have nightmares more pleasant than what they saw if they watched the Bills beat the Patriots on Saturday night. The final score was 47-17, but that really doesn't do it justice. Buffalo scored touchdowns on each of its first seven possessions and knelt the clock out to end the game on the eighth. It was the first game ever in which a team did not kick a field goal, punt or commit a turnover. The only fourth down the Bills had all night was the one that resulted from their third-down kneel-down that allowed them to run out the clock without running another play.
They played a perfect game on offense -- against Bill Belichick, by the way -- and the defense has been pretty consistently outstanding all season. The No. 3 seed in the AFC, the Bills still have to go to Kansas City and then likely Tennessee if they want to get to the Super Bowl, but no team has looked better in wild-card weekend than Buffalo, which has asked its punter to punt in only one of its past four games.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. The road won't be easy. Unless the Bengals spring the upset in Tennessee, the Bills don't get to play at home again. But this is a team that was among the preseason favorites to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl after losing in the conference championship game a year ago. The Bills had an uneven regular season and had to finish strong to repeat as division champs. But they did both of those things, and this might be a legitimately great team that's playing its best football of the year at exactly the right time.
It also might be that we shouldn't judge them against an overachieving Patriots team that was playing with a rookie quarterback and had a bunch of holes on defense that started showing up once it wasn't forcing turnovers at an incredible rate, but that's some real glass-half-empty stuff, and I'm just not here for it.
My preseason Super Bowl pick was Bills-Packers, and after watching the Bills on Saturday I feel better than ever about it. And don't ask me how they're going to beat the Chiefs, because I don't know and again, you're just too pessimistic. Now excuse me while I go jump through a table.
Jimmy Garoppolo will still be the 49ers' starting quarterback in 2022
Having helped engineer the 49ers' upset victory in Dallas, Garoppolo is two wins away from quarterbacking his team to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years. The Niners are a run-first team that spent a boatload of picks to trade up to take Trey Lance No. 3 overall in last year's draft, but there's no arguing that Garoppolo played very well over the second half of the regular season and is one of the reasons their season is still going on.
He held off Lance all season, so why not into next year, right?
The verdict: OVERREACTION. Are you serious? Garoppolo was a straight-up puddle in the second half of the Cowboys game and looked for all the world like a guy who was trying to give the game away. He missed an easy third-down throw to a wide-open Brandon Aiyuk that would have allowed them to keep running clock at a critical time. He threw a brutal interception that gave the Cowboys life in 49ers territory late. He was so bad in crunch time, Kyle Shanahan has to be thinking about not letting him throw single pass in Green Bay next weekend.
Garoppolo did play well in the second half of the season. But he also got hurt again (which was one of the main reasons Shanahan felt the need to get Lance in the first place), and I think it's fair to say the 49ers know what the ceiling is as long as he's their quarterback. They'll enjoy this run, and who knows? Maybe they go all the way with him. But my money is on Lance starting Week 1 for the 2022 49ers, and yours should be, too.
The Raiders will give the full-time head-coaching job to interim coach Rich Bisaccia
When Jon Gruden resigned earlier this season, the Raiders elevated Bisaccia, their special teams coordinator, to interim coach. The plan at the time was to have him finish out the season and then start fresh, bringing in a new coach, likely a new general manager and maybe even moving on from quarterback Derek Carr, who has one, nonguaranteed year left on his contract and will need an extension if he's to stay. But then a funny thing happened.
After a brutal Week 14 loss in Kansas City just about ended their season, the Raiders won four straight close games to get into the playoffs before losing in the final seconds to Cincinnati in the wild-card round Saturday evening. Along the way, we've heard a lot of glowing things from Raiders players about Bisaccia, a coach they clearly love and for whom they played their hearts out. After the game Saturday, Carr and others were stumping for Bisaccia to get the full-time job, and the way he finished the season surely has earned him at least some consideration for it.
The verdict: OVERREACTION. A deep playoff run might have changed team owner Mark Davis' mind, but that didn't happen, and now I think the most likely outcome here is that Davis reverts to his original plan and goes the overhaul route. I've been hearing Jim Harbaugh connected to the Raiders' opening for weeks now, and I believe it's something Davis will pursue strongly if he hasn't already.
Davis seems unlikely to be a prisoner of the moment, no matter how pleasant the moment has been. And while he surely has an affinity for Bisaccia (most do), the bet here is that he thinks about the bigger picture, the longer term and brings in a head coach with more pedigree who he thinks can lead the team to great things in the long term. Whether that's the right way to go, time will tell. But I do think it's the more likely way the Raiders go.