The whole Overreactions thing can get in your head, man. Like, I've been watching the Bengals for the past two months thinking, "What if they're really the best team in the league and most people just haven't realized it yet?" and wondering if I was overreacting.
I'm starting to think I was not.
In the press box Saturday at Arrowhead Stadium, after Patrick Mahomes sprained his ankle, someone sitting near me professed aloud a belief that the Chiefs could not win the game if he didn't come back 100 percent. That, I thought, is an overreaction. And it was.
In the buildup to the Giants-Eagles game Saturday night, I started to let it creep into my head that Jalen Hurts' shoulder injury was the kind of thing that could level the playing field and give the Giants a chance.
That was a major overreaction.
So, yeah. By this point in the season, on Sunday nights, I'm pretty much thinking in overreactions. So the fact that the NFL season is down to its final four does not mean it's time to stop. Quite the contrary, in fact. We hereby present the divisional round edition of the Overreactions column.
Patrick Mahomes' ankle injury will keep the Chiefs out of the Super Bowl
As time was ticking down in the Bengals-Bills game Sunday, the Chiefs were opening as a 3-point favorite in next week's AFC Championship Game at home against the Bengals. A half-hour later, that line was down to 1.5, perhaps because America had listened to Tony Romo's very pessimistic description of a high ankle sprain and heard him raise the possibility of Mahomes having to miss the game completely. Personally, I think there's a better chance of the sun exploding this week than there is of Mahomes missing the AFC Championship Game. But it's certainly not crazy to think Mahomes will be less than 100 percent.
It didn't show up Saturday against the Jacksonville team that, for some inexplicable reason, decided not to pressure him in the second half. But Mahomes' ability to escape the rush and make plays off script is a major part of the reason the Chiefs score the way they do. And if he doesn't have it, that could be more than enough to swing a playoff game against the team that won the conference a season ago.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
The Bengals have beaten a healthy Mahomes three times in the past 13 months, including last year in the AFC Championship Game at Arrowhead. They just went into Buffalo, in the playoffs, in the snow, and won by 17 against a Bills team that was the preseason Super Bowl favorite and hadn't lost a game all year by more than a field goal. Cincinnati might just be a better team than Kansas City. But if Mahomes is limited in what he can do because of a bum ankle, you could make the case that the visitors deserve to be favored in this game. We know the Bengals won't be intimidated. We know they believe themselves to be the better team. We know they know how to beat the Chiefs. We also know the Chiefs can beat anyone and that Mahomes is a sorcerer, so we pick against Kansas City at our own risk. But to win a game like this, the Chiefs probably need Mahomes to be otherworldly. If he's playing hurt, that's less likely. Not impossible, but less likely.
The Eagles can win the Super Bowl in spite of Jalen Hurts' shoulder injury
Hurts said after the game that he was far from 100 percent, which matches up with what we were hearing in advance of the game. From what my sources have told me, we shouldn't expect Hurts' throwing shoulder to be back to 100 percent at any point this season, no matter how far the Eagles advance. But it didn't hurt the Eagles on Saturday night, as they obliterated the overmatched Giants to advance to the NFC Championship Game. Hurts threw a couple of short first-quarter touchdown passes and ran for a 5-yard touchdown in the second quarter. But Philadelphia ran for 268 yards on 44 carries and honestly didn't need to ask too much of Hurts to beat the Giants. Things get tougher from here on out.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
The run game travels. The defense gets five or six sacks every game. The Eagles definitely look like the kind of team that can keep winning postseason games even if its quarterback isn't 100 percent. Every week that goes by, Hurts feels a bit better, and it might be that he can make a play or two more this week than he could last week. The NFC Championship Game is going to be at home, which matters a lot, and the winner of Eagles-49ers gets two weeks off before the Super Bowl. If Hurts had never been injured, we'd be asking whether anybody left in the field had a chance against the Eagles. His injury is the reason we're questioning them, but it's not enough to kill their chances at winning it all.
The Bills just missed their best chance to win the Super Bowl
This was supposed to be Buffalo's year, right? The Bills went 13-3 in the regular season, losing no game by more than three points. They had the divisional round game against the Bengals in their own building. Had they won it, they wouldn't have had the AFC Championship Game at home, but they wouldn't have had to go to Kansas City, either. That game would have been in Atlanta, a neutral-site solution as a result of the Bills-Bengals regular-season game that got canceled in the wake of the Damar Hamlin injury, and as we've already discussed, it would have been against a Chiefs team whose all-universe quarterback might not be fully healthy. If ever this Buffalo team was going to get over that postseason hump, it was this year. And for the second year in a row, the Bills are eliminated in the divisional round.
Verdict: OVERREACTION
Josh Allen is only 26 years old, you guys. The core of the team is signed. The Bills could probably stand to find a real, consistent running back threat, but those aren't hard to find. They'll need some help in the secondary and in one or two spots on the offensive line, but there's no reason to think Buffalo won't enter the 2023 season with one of the league's strongest rosters yet again. No one who has followed Von Miller's career would bet against him coming back from his season-ending injury and making an impact in the pass rush. Look, the AFC is tough. The Chiefs will be good as long as Mahomes and Andy Reid are there. The Bengals obviously aren't going away. But the Bills, in spite of a third straight disappointing playoff finish, remain one of the reasons the AFC is so tough. They'll be back.
Daniel Jones will lead the Giants back to the playoffs next season
The Giants got absolutely smoked Saturday night by the Eagles, which was a lousy way to end the season. But that should not obscure just how great the Giants' season was. First-year head coach Brian Daboll put on a masterclass for any team currently looking to fill a head-coach vacancy, getting more out of Jones than any coach had in Jones' first three seasons. In spite of probably the worst wide receiver group of any quarterback in the league, Jones had his best year and led the Giants to their first playoff victory since Super Bowl XLVI. Saquon Barkley managed to stay healthy and productive. The defense, under first-year coordinator Wink Martindale, kept them in games. The Giants took this season further than anyone had a right to expect them to take it, offering hope and promise for the future.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
Oh, there's plenty of work to do. Most prominently, Jones and Barkley are both free agents, and the team has to figure out whether it can bring them both back. The Giants need receivers, and they need to continue to add pieces to the defense. And both Martindale and offensive coordinator Mike Kafka have been requested for head-coach interviews by other teams, so it's possible the Giants could lose one of them. But there are ways to keep Jones and Barkley. The Giants have cap space. Daboll is almost certainly going to win Coach of the Year, and now it's GM Joe Schoen's time to show what he can do. The Giants are on the right track. Plus, someone besides the Eagles has to win the NFC East, which hasn't had a repeat champion in 18 years. Why not the G-Men?
The Cowboys will never win a Super Bowl with Dak Prescott at quarterback
Oh, no. Before you start: Yes, I am well aware there was more that went wrong for the Cowboys in this game than Dak. Mike McCarthy's late-game clock management and decisions, woof. A fair catch of a punt at the 6-yard line with 45 seconds left in the game? What? And there's no doubt the Tony Pollard injury had an impact. But Prescott threw two first-half interceptions at a time when the Cowboys absolutely had a chance to take control of the game. And when he got the ball back down seven points with three minutes to go at the 18-yard line, with a legacy drive staring him in the face, he went three-and-out in totally incompetent fashion -- a near interception on first down, a bad downfield throw on second and a sack on third when he held the ball too long. By the time the Cowboys got it back again, with 45 seconds left on their own 6, it was too late to do anything. Dallas melted down in the fourth quarter of a winnable playoff game, and the Cowboys' quarterback was in the middle of it.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION
Forget that he came up small in the biggest moments Sunday. Forget that he threw a league-leading, career-high 15 interceptions in the regular season in spite of playing in only 12 games. Forget that he has yet to deliver more than one playoff win in a season. Look at the contract. He's got a fully guaranteed $31 million coming next year and a non-guaranteed $34 million coming in 2024, and then he's a free agent. The Cowboys have to have a conversation this offseason about whether they want to do another Dak extension. Anyone but me remember what an excruciating process that was the last time? The Cowboys have won 12 games in each of the past two regular seasons. They have been a very good team with Prescott as their quarterback. But they haven't been to a conference championship game in more than a quarter of a century, and believe it or not, they face long-term questions about their most important position.