The Super Bowl provided a lot of opportunity for thoughts and reflection.
We are one week closer to the 2025 NFL season, and in that sense we are making progress along the offseason. Buckle up, it will be long.
Thankfully the NFL does its best to make sure we have plenty of things to talk about as we make our way to Week 1. Next week will bring the NFL Combine and with it all sorts of news and updates… until then though, we still need to properly sort everything we just witnessed over the last few months.
This is where we come in. Here at The Skinny Post we, Michael Peterson and RJ Ochoa, catch you up on the latest and greatest in the NFL and help you understand the most important things.
Let’s begin.
What did the Super Bowl change your mind on?
RJ:
Something I started to realize as the second half of the season wore on, which obviously coincides with when the Eagles found themselves, was that Nick Sirianni had mellowed out a bit.
To be clear here, mellowing out from taunting his own team’s fanbase is not really saying much, but Philadelphia was a damn machine from about Thanksgiving on and there are obviously a lot of people who deserve credit for that. I think we have to give the head coach plenty.
The reality is that since taking over the Eagles in 2021… Sirianni has led them to the playoffs each and every single year. They have been to two different Super Bowls and just dismantled a Chiefs team that was generally expected to make history. He deserves his flowers.
I’m fine being the one to give them to him, even if he can be a bit obnoxious.
Michael:
I’m going to take this topic and flip it a bit. Nothing comes to mind from the Super Bowl’s outcome that changed my perspective, but what it did was solidify my rock-steady belief that the modern NFL is about winning in the trenches above all else. The way the Eagles dismantled and undressed the Chiefs from the first whistle until the last will be the biggest lasting impression from the final game of the season. Heck, and that includes the running back position, too!
Where some teams zig, others will be better off zagging as opposed to following the crowd. The Eagles zagged in a league that was full-steam ahead charging towards high-flying passing attacks. They signed Saquon Barkley, continued to build their offensive and defensive lines, and they now have a Lombardi Trophy to show for their efforts.
Which event at the NFL Combine would you most like to participate in?
Michael:
With the Super Bowl come and gone, the next big event on the NFL’s calendar is the combine. A week from this coming Wednesday, the first position group will take the field for athletic testing.
So my question to you is: What drill or test would you most like to participate in if given the chance? It could be one that simply looks fun or one you personally believe you wouldn’t be too bad at.
I think for me, it’s the pro agility shuttle where you run 5 yards one way, pivot and run 10, then finish the final 5 through the starting line. When I was still in my playing days, I loved the feeling of being explosive off the line. This drill was a great way to quantify just how fast you could start, stop, and change direction which obviously transitions very well to the on-field product of the NFL. When you were good at it, it felt REALLY fun, too.
Oh gosh, now I’m feeling nostalgic.
RJ:
This answer was legitimate and real and mine is going to be nothing like that. This is The Skinny Post way.
Honestly I think I’d like to participate in the quarterback throwing drills. It is the most similar to how we (people who are not world-class athletes) play football in our backyards or while tailgating. I would just have to stand there and throw passes to these world-class athletes who were running routes for me.
Plus imagine the narrative I would create if I was super excited to throw at the combine given how against it quarterbacks are nowadays. I would stand out and boost my draft stock. Win, win.
Who needs to nail the offseason the most?
RJ:
Around the third quarter of the Super Bowl, when it was obvious that Kansas City was done, I thought a lot about the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions.
Buffalo surely had to be thinking to themselves that they would have given Philly a better game. Detroit must have thought to themselves that they could have had similar, maybe not identical, levels of success against a Chiefs team we all thought was fraudulent throughout the season.
I think that around this time of year people look to the worst teams in the NFL and think that they are the ones under the most pressure to nail free agency and the draft. There is certainly pressure on the people who work for those teams, but I think the real pressure is around those teams who are really close.
Look at the Eagles of two years ago who lost the Super Bowl. They are a great example of identifying what worked and what didn’t and fixing what needed to be fixed to return to the ultimate game two years later and win it. There is no prize for being close, and what’s more is there is no guarantee that you will stay close.
The Bills, Lions and while we are at it the Baltimore Ravens, San Francisco 49ers, Cincinnati Bengals and Green Bay Packers all need to tighten things up.
Michael:
I like your frame of thought here.
Instead of going with some low-hanging fruit, I’m going with the Baltimore Ravens, believe it or not. After a season where they were the league’s No. 1 offense behind another MVP-caliber season by Lamar Jackson, they fell short in the AFC Championship thanks to a dropped pass by Mark Andrews on a two-point conversion attempt.
“But Michael, what could they possibly need to ‘nail’ this offseason after all the success they just had in 2024?”
Thanks for asking that question, someone who is certainly not me setting myself up.
The Ravens were stellar on offense and also a top-10 defense in terms of points allowed, but their pass defense actually ended the year 31st in the NFL. When opposing teams couldn’t run the ball against them, they far too easily were able to pivot to the air with little to no trouble. In my opinion, this is the last thing the Ravens need to do to get them over that hump into Super Bowl contention.
Should the legality of the Tush Push be a hot topic of debate this offseason at the league meetings next month?
Michael:
I think I’m just tired of it, ya know?
The final straw for me was the Eagles essentially using the intimidation factor of the play to troll the Commanders during the NFC Championship game. Washington defenders were doing everything they could to stop the play at the goal line and knowing that, Nick Sirianni used a long count to try and draw them offsides. It happened twice because linebacker Frankie Luvu was unsurprisingly trying to time the snap up and when he was flagged twice, the officials threatened to give the Eagles a score automatically based on some rule most probably did not even know about.
I think the sheer mental chess game that the Tush Push presents was on full display during that sequence and it looked like one of the most unhealthy situations I’ve ever seen in a football game. Watching a team do everything in their power to stop an already unfair play only to get threatened by the officials was almost surreal. While entirely legal, the Eagles and/or Sirianni sure felt like they should have been flagged for something through that sequence. Egregious baiting? I’d argue they were just as guilty for delaying the game at that point as Washington.
I don’t know. Am I just an old man yelling at a cloud? Quite possibly, but I can’t help but feel like I never want to see that in a football game again.
RJ:
My take on all of this is that we have to decide as a society what we are going to do about all of it this offseason and I don’t care which way that is, but it has to be decided.
This offseason we either outlaw the Tush Push or let it stand forever, but whatever decision we make we have to come to terms with and accept moving forward.
I fully understand the point at hand about how the Eagles are sort of inception-ing the Tush Push at this point. I don’t fault them for this or think they are cheating in any sort of way. They are living and operating within the confines of the rules. That’s completely fair game.
But I’d offer that the league is in a tough spot. If they outlaw the Tush Push then what’s next. How long until they outlaw (maybe they should!) the baiting that Patrick Mahomes was accused of doing relative to officials?
You have to be careful here.
