The Lions and Ravens both failed to reach the Conference Championship games, and that sucks. But it’s okay to criticize them.
The Divisional Round is over and done and there are four teams left standing.
From an AFC perspective, the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills fighting for the right to reach the Super Bowl feels correct. It also feels inevitable, much like the Chiefs themselves, which suggests we are in for some chaos on Sunday.
On the NFC side, it is hardly a surprise to see the Philadelphia Eagles continuing to succeed. The Washington Commanders might have won the NFC East if not for them and they will have a chance to get the ultimate last laugh when they square off in the next opportunity for Jayden Daniels to impress.
There is a lot to take away from the four games that the round provided us and there are certainly questions surrounding the losers. We here at The Skinny Post, Michael Peterson and RJ Ochoa, are here to sort through it all for you.
The Lions failed this season and it is okay to say that without any qualifier
RJ:
The Lions did not just lose on Saturday night. They were embarrassed. Toughness is their creed and they were outdone in every element of it by a Washington team who punched them in the mouth and did not stop until they decided enough was enough.
Need I remind you that the Lions were the belle of the ball all season long? They talked big and walked it all… until the very end. Consider that they had a first-round bye and still lost to a team who was playing on a short week and had to travel twice. (Washington played Sunday night in the Wild Card Round on the road.) There is no excuse for this.
It is silly to me when people see an opinion or two and act like that speaks for a collective, but everything I have seen since the Lions lost is trying to explain, justify or make their loss seem better. Why? It was horrendous.
Dan Campbell said that it was his fault and people are acting like it was a martyr moment. The Lions surrendered a critical fourth-down conversion because they had 12 men on the field. It was his fault. That kind of thing is unacceptable and embarrassing.
It may seem like I am being harsh here, but if we are being honest with ourselves, responding like this is the most respectful thing we can do to the Lions. Their 2023 season was their announcement that they are for real and while they became a fun story in the process… if we try to exonerate them now then we are actually treating them as if they are less than.
Had the Eagles, Buffalo Bills, Dallas Cowboys or San Francisco 49ers lost like this they would be getting totally and completely eviscerated. Just look how the Baltimore Ravens are being talked about.
We do not have to treat the Lions with kid gloves. They deserve for us not to.
Michael:
I think this is a fine statement to make. The Lions were the No. 1 seed in the NFL and a 15-win team. That is WITH the defense in shambles for the majority of the season. In my opinion, they should be viewed as a 16- or 17-win team with their whole squad intact. That’s how good this offense was and just how good of a defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn was to keep that unit serviceable.
The Lions should have beaten the Commanders. I’ll say that again: The Lions should have beat the Commanders. But turnovers sure tend to make great teams look middling in the biggest moments. Jared Goff gave the ball away multiple times. Ben Johnson — whom rightfully is seen as the best offensive coordinator in the NFL — dialed up one of the worst plays in a pivotal moment and rightfully deserves the backlash for making receiver Jameson Williams throw the football down by double-digits.
A number of teams underperformed based on regular season results. The Chargers, Vikings, and now Lions all lost to teams with worse records. They all played one of their worst games of football this year when the pressure could not have been great.
Those who say the contenders are separated from the pretenders in the playoffs have never been more right, in my opinion.
I think it’s not crazy at all to say if your NFL team does not have a quarterback with some wiggle, you’re severely limiting the ceiling of your franchise
Michael:
Of the 14 teams that made the playoffs this year, 10 of them employ a starting quarterback that we consider “mobile” and all four of the teams in this year’s conference championship games employ some of the best of the bunch.
Patrick Mahomes has helped cement his incredible legacy with well-timed scrambles that absolutely demoralize defenses just when they think they’ve finally shut down the Chiefs offense. Josh Allen looks superhuman half the time when he makes plays with his feet. Jalen Hurts has scored at least 13(!) rushing touchdowns in each of the last three seasons and just ripped off a 44-yard score in their win over the Rams. Lastly, Commanders rookie Jayden Daniels set the rookie rushing record by a quarterback this season which was previously held by Lamar Jackson.
It shouldn’t be a surprise these are the guys left in the final four. Of the four teams who started more of a traditional pocket passer, the Rams (Matthew Stafford) were the only one to win a playoff game this month.
So all of this is to say, if you’re a franchise in need of a new quarterback in 2025, I don’t know how you even consider any prospects that closely resemble a statue in the pocket. After Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders go at the top of round one this year, good luck finding one worth investing in.
RJ:
It feels like we have this conversation every other year or so, but obviously for a fair reason.
Mahomes is the most interesting example here because he has clearly chosen to be incredibly picky about when and how he runs. I think that’s my ultimate takeaway. You don’t have to be Lamar or Jayden or tush-pushing, but if you have zero ability to get out and run then you are going to make life significantly more difficult on yourself.
The evidence appears overwhelming in this case and I think the most exciting thing is that we are going to have three games remaining where each defense is going to have to figure out a way to stop the kind of offense that has gotten them to this point.
It may never happen for the Baltimore Ravens and that stinks
RJ:
We all knew that it was going to suck watching one of the Ravens or Bills losing on Sunday evening. Sometimes that is just the way that this goes.
The Chiefs have earned their place in all of this so I am not acting as if the Ravens deserve their spot, again, that is just the way that this cookie crumbled.
But damn it I am upset that the Ravens cannot get over the hump. Lamar Jackson is unbelievable. Derrick Henry had this absurd season. John Harbaugh is somehow an incredibly underrated head coach. And now as a result of everything that happened… we have to live in a world where Mark Andrews had a horrible game for nine months on end.
Consider that the Ravens have been to the playoffs six times in seven seasons since drafting Lamar. He has won two MVPs in that stretch and might add a third in a couple of weeks. Can you believe that they have only played in one AFC Championship Game in that span?!
Maybe this is just another cruel result of the greatness of Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen. Their entire run as starters has run parallel with Lamar’s, and Jackson has lost to those QBs in his last three playoff losses.
We are talking about an all-time era from the Ravens here and nothing is ever promised to be added to it. Ironically it mirrors that which the franchise who they lost to on Sunday had 30 years ago in the Bills where they went to (and lost) four straight Super Bowls.
Sometimes sports suck. And right now they suck for the Ravens.
Michael:
I’m right there with you on this one. The Ravens are year-in and year-out one of the most fun teams to watch, regardless of your allegiance. Lamar Jackson is a generational player that we must appreciate while we can.
As someone who is a fan of a team/player that had an all-time playoff blunder this year, trust me when I say I feel the pain of the Ravens Flock. But as Harbaugh said after the game, the Ravens would not have been where they were without Mark Andrews. He’s been one of the best tight ends in the NFL as of late and sometimes these players — believe or not — are not perfect! Yeah! It happens. Welcome to sports.
But I’ll leave you all with this historical fact: The Bills literally went to four consecutive Super Bowls and LOST all four! For real!
So yes, I feel bad for any franchise that loses in that fashion in the postseason, but the Ravens have multiple Super Bowl championships. I’ll feel bad for today, then I’ll turn around and root for the lone remaining team left in the postseason that hasn’t ever lifted the Lombardi Trophy.
Which NFL teams with coveted coordinators will be the worse off in 2025 should their coach(s) get poached?
Michael:
It’s hard not to look immediately at the Lions who look like they will lose both Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn in one offseason. That duo with Dan Campbell did some amazing things together and it’s now time to pay the piper for those 27 wins over the past two seasons.
However, that one is too obvious. I’m going to turn in a different direction and say the Ravens and offensive coordinator Todd Monken who has interviewed with both the Bears and Jaguars.
The Ravens moved on from Greg Roman because of how fast the offense seemed to fall off from the 2019 season (when Lamar Jackson won his first MVP) to the 2022 season where he resigned after the team lost in the Wild Card round to the Bengals.
In Monken’s first season with the Ravens, Jackson won his second MVP honor and could very well win his third this year after he threw for career highs in both yards (4,172) and touchdowns (41). If the Ravens lose Monken, I’m just not sure how they’d go about replacing a guy that’s turned their offense into the number one unit this season.
RJ:
Monken is an easy choice in terms of logic. But I am going to zig a little bit off of this zag.
I can’t believe I am saying this, but I wonder what life in Washington would be like if Kliff Kingsbury left. Obviously as long as Jayden Daniels is around they are going to be fine, but part of Dan Quinn’s successes as a head coach (in Atlanta and obviously now) involved great offensive minds calling that side of the ball. To be clear he deserves credit for identifying them and letting them run that side, but it goes without saying Daniels is the most important thing on that roster in an overall sense.
Should Kingsbury get a job and leave then I wonder how much of things would remain status quo. It is a fair question in my mind.
