Wasn’t the NFL dead about a year ago?
Well, here we are headed into the NFL Divisional Playoff round with TV ratings soaring and four outstanding football games on tap for this weekend.
The weekend starts out with the Indianapolis Colts at the Kansas City Chiefs. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes will have a chance to display his skills, once again, to a national audience, but this time he is trying to break a nasty curse of home playoff losses for the hosts.
“A playoff run in general would mean a ton to everyone in this community, including us. I know the history,” Mahomes said earlier this week.
“But at the same time, we are a different generation.”
Mahomes is favored to win the NFL MVP Award, but a loss on Saturday would bring an unceremonious close to one of the most electrifying seasons any quarterback has had in the history of the league.
He completed two-thirds of his passes for 50 touchdowns and 5,097 yards. He threw just 12 interceptions and compiled a 113.8 passer rating.
Have you seen the NFL’s playoff commercial that begins with a high school team sampling Steam’s “Na Na Na Na … Goodbye”?
“We Ready. We Ready We Ready, for y’all.”
If you ever played football, it makes you want to play again. Mahomes is channeling that energy and past failures are just that – in the past.
“I mean, we are definitely ready. We know what it’s going to take,” Mahomes said.
“We know that you have to capitalize on every single play. You can’t let one play get you down for the next. The next play is the most important play. We are excited we get the chance to do that.”
Millions of NFL fans are excited to watch.
The battle of L.A.
Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott seems to be peaking at the right time after completing 22-of-33 passes for 226 yards and a touchdown against the tough-as-nails Seattle Seahawks in last Saturday’s Wild Card game victory.
St. Louis’ own Ezekiel Elliott ripped the Seattle Seahawks for 137 yards and toasted his quarterback by saying Prescott “played like a grown man,” adding that the performance was “legendary.”
“Obviously, we came in together and we’ve been through the ups and the downs of three seasons,” Prescott said of Elliott.
“Just to be where we are at with this team that we have and this offense that we have, it’s a lot of excitement. It’s a hell of a compliment.”
A loss in L.A. against a Rams team that was favored to win the Super Bowl a month ago would not be a disgrace. But the Cowboys aren’t hitting the road to back down to the challenge.
Cowboys home game?
They will have tens of thousands of fans cheering for the Dallas Cowboys in the L.A. Coliseum.
If you ever attended a St. Louis Rams home game against the Cowboys, you know the Dome was chock full of Dallas fans.
Friends of mine will tell you that the final Cowboys visit to St. Louis saw them sporting their blue jerseys. From the second I entered the stadium until I reached my seat I kept screaming, “We got on the blue!”
This goes back to the St. Louis football Cardinals wearing white for home games (which was unheard of back in the 1970s) to force the Cowboys to wear the blue. The Cardinals prevailed in some of those games, but Roger Staubach and Company won the lion’s share.
The Cowboys will be clad in white jerseys on Saturday night when they visit Los Angeles, but there will be plenty of Cowboys fans in the stands. In fact, some estimates say the crowd might be about 50-50.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reminded fans of a preseason game between the teams in the Rams first year after returning to L.A.
“Remember the 2016 preseason game between the Cowboys and Rams that marked the NFL’s return to L.A.? That meaningless game had a postseason vibe,” said Florio.
“This very meaningful postseason game will have a Super Bowl vibe. And it could feel a lot like a Super Bowl being played in Dallas.
“And that could help Dallas secure the ability to play for a berth in the Super Bowl for the first time since January 1996.”
Look for a big TV audience nationwide – including the St. Louis area.
For a city that supposedly hates all things L.A. Rams, the viewership when owner Stan Kroenke’s team was televised here was outstanding – even as high as the L.A. region for some games.
This will be the 15th meeting between the franchises in the playoffs and the series is deadlocked 7-7.
All Charged up
With only two black head coaches in the NFL, it’s great that one of them has led his team to the Divisional Playoff round.
Anthony Lynn’s San Diego Chargers held off the Baltimore Ravens on the road in a Wild Card game on Sunday, earning the right to take on the host New England Patriots.
Lynn and his team aren’t scared of the daunting Patriots – just like in Baltimore.
“Anytime you’re a tough football team, you can play in a parking lot, and it doesn’t matter. You just show up and compete,” he said during his postgame press conference.
“Any time you can get to a championship game and have a chance to play for the [Lombardi] trophy, that’s an honor and it’s flattering. But New England, they’ve made it pretty clear that, most of the time, if you’re going to win that Lombardi Trophy, you’ve got to go through them.”
Chicago Blues
I took my daughter back to Dominican University in Chicago on Sunday and was sitting in my hotel room during the final few minutes of the Philadelphia Eagles at Bears game.
All that drama was playing out right down the highway at Soldier Field and, as we drove through Chicago, there was hardly any traffic. It seemed like the entire population was watching the game.
I’ve absorbed some crushing postseason defeats as a Cowboys fans including “The Catch” by Dwight Clark in 1981 and Tony Romo dropping the snap from center on what could have been a game-winning field goal at Seattle in 2006.
But when kicker Cody Parkey, who missed 10 regular season kicks and hit the upright five times, managed to hit the left upright, then the crossbar before missing a game-winning field goal, I felt for every Bears fan.
I went out later that evening. Trust me, I wore nothing with Dallas Cowboys on it.
The Reid Roundup
I wrote last year that once Terrell Owens was voted into the Hall of Fame it should be Isaac Bruce’s turn. The time is now for Bruce who is fifth in all-time receptions with 1,024, fourth in receiving yards with 15,208 and 12th in receiving touchdowns with 91. He was a four-time Pro Bowler, led the NFL in receiving yards with 1,338 in 1996 and was 1-1 in Super Bowl appearances … St. Louis sports media members are saying former SLU Billiken Carte’Are Gordon was a troubled soul now that he will transfer. I heard nor read nothing but glowing reports when he committed to the SLU program. This is SO St. Louis … Receiver Tavon Austin was drafted as a St. Louis Ram then traded by the L.A. Rams last spring to Dallas. He says he felt “disrespected” and vows vengeance against the Rams in Sunday’s playoff game … Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott reportedly wants a contract extension during the upcoming offseason … After saving the Ravens’ season and reaching the playoffs, quarterback Lamar Jackson was booed and fans chanted for Joe Flacco to enter last Sunday’s loss to the Chargers … USC Athletic Director Lynn Swann, one of few back ADs in the NCAA, refuses to grant newly hired offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury permission to interview for NFL head coaching jobs. Kingsbury is doing it anyway … Speaking of Swann, Bruce’s receiving numbers are better than that Hall of Famer’s.
Alvin A. Reid was honored as the 2017 “Best Sports Columnist – Weeklies” in the Missouri Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest and is a New York Times contributor. He is a panelist on the Nine Network program, Donnybrook, a weekly contributor to “The Charlie Tuna Show” on KFNS and appears monthly on “The Dave Glover Show” on 97.1 Talk.” His Twitter handle is @aareid1.
