2025 NFL Season 🏈 Weekly Discussion Thread – Week 18

Whole swath of firings this week hasn't it been, red monday.

Glad to see Stefanski get canned (I'm still bitter about Baker), although that's going to do jack shit to help the browns (they're screwed, ownership is useless, the watson contract still haunts them, and Shedeur Ain't It (tm)).

Neutral on the arizona firing. Neutral on Carroll, but damn they had a bad season, had hoped the Geno experiment worked out better but hey.

I don't have a lot of faith in the Bills going deep in the playoffs, but it's been a fun season, and that last game against the Jets was great, gives me exactly what I wanted: the Jets losing horribly. No idea what the Jets are going to try and do next season but it won't work, fuck that franchise.

Emotional week 18 as a Vikings fan, looking like it might be the last for CJ Ham and Harrison Smith. Absolute class acts who spent their entire careers in Minnesota, and in Smith's case I truly believe he's an all time great at his position. They're the last remaining players from the team I rooted for back in high school, and even though every year sees players come and go, this will feel different. Glad it could come with a win against the Packers, even if it didn't mean much for the season.

That Steelers-Ravens game was an all-timer. Ravens fans would have a strong case against the 49ers as the team with the most soul-crushing defeats in the 21st century if not for the fact that they have delivered their fair share of soul-crushing defeats in route to a couple of Super Bowl wins (I'll never forgive you, Rahim).

My Broncos somehow secured the #1 seed, thanks in large part to the 32nd place Oakland Las Vegas Raiders, who somehow managed to beat New England in week one. I'm still in shock. I try my best to be a faithful Boliever, but I don't think they are good enough to win, nor are they good enough to actually be the 1-seed. That honor belongs to the Pats, who kicked the shit out of bad teams and played well against the handful of good teams they faced. However, when you look back at Denver's season, there was really only one legit loss. They had a bad 7 minutes against the Chargers in a game where they had the lead, and they were a missed ~40 yard FG/a rare leverage call away from beating the Colts. Anything can happen, I guess.

Off the top of my head, the only other 1-seed I can remember being this shaky is the 2008 Titans, who somehow managed to go 13-3 and had their own surprising 10 game win streak. 2008 is a decent comparison to this season in that the final standings were quite different from preseason expectations, plus the absence of the league's boogyman. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot of lower seeds advance like they did in 2008. On that note, I am not thrilled about the seeding in the AFC. The two teams I most want to see in the Super Bowl are the Broncos (obviously) and the Bills. I was hoping they would manage to face each other in the AFCCG, but that would require a Chargers win in NE and the Bills beating the red-hot Jags. It's certainly plausible, but even if that does happen, the Chargers are probably the last team I want Denver to face in round 2, and the Bills would have a hell of a time going up against the Texans. Should NE and Jacksonville win, the team I'd want to see in round 2 is the Steelers. Then again, I could see them pulling off a 2012 Ravens/2008 Cardinals magical run for the aging superstar. I'm glad I have some money set aside for emotional hedge bets.

I have no idea what to expect or what I want from the NFC. As an LA guy, I wouldn't hate to see the Rams make another run, nor would I have any issues with a 49ers run given their Denver connections (Lynch, Shanahan, McCaffrey). Come to think of it, I don't have any qualms with the Packers, Bears, or Panthers, either. Looks like we're getting Eagles v Seahawks in the NFCCG.

Your resident Carolina fan here, we apparently needed one last stunt on this roller coaster of a regular season before we bring it into the station.

Against the Bucs... I don't think I can really share my true feelings in polite company. The team didn't quite perform to the level I was expecting, but it was also raining like crazy and our OLine just can't get leverage to spring our run game anymore. I think we've been figured out and that's something to address in the off season.

But I think I need to talk about the elephant in the room: this was the absolute worst officiating I've seen in a long time. And I wouldn't be mad if it had not absolutely felt one sided against the Panthers. I try to keep out of conspiracies and "What if's" when it comes to sports officiating because in 99% of the time it's a fool's errand. This time? I think I found the 1% of the time where it could be easily argued that they prevented Carolina from winning. I'm just going to stick to the two major ones: First I want to talk about is the phantom OPI on TMac that took away a major 30 yard gain and effectively killed the drive. This guy was clearly doing arm fighting with the defender and breaking free where the defender was caught off balance and staggered a bit. The announcers were clearly giving the refs shit for this one too, as I'm not sure what TMac was supposed to do.

The second, I think was bigger: The blown dead backwards pass where the ball was clearly passed backwards, meaning it can be dropped and picked back up and run forward. Rico had room in front of him to run and was ready to get a good chunk of yards, but as soon as the ball was in his hands the play was blown dead. Which was wrong. That's okay, the refs are human and mistakes can happen. There are ways to correct this, by allowing the offense to replay the down. Which the refs did not give the option for Canales (the HC) to do. INSTEAD what they did was to rule this ball "Out of bounds" six yards behind the line of scrimmage. Out of bounds. Friends, I'm sure you have eyes. Rico has the ball in his hands when the whistle blows and the players let up. Clearly he is in bounds. Where in the hell did they get that idea that it wasn't?

....I'll cut off here, I could go on for ages on how bad this officiating was. Something needs to happen, but I know nothing will and that makes me sad.

So ultimately, instead of just comfortably watching the rest of the weekend knowing full well we were in the playoffs, I was subjected to Saints at Falcons, and having to root for a division rival in a proxy war to determine the fate of the division. The Falcons came out on top (thankfully) and we're moving on, but it was weird to watch a game where division rivals were in the stands being friendly with one another. The tickets were cheap enough for fans from Carolina to buy up a bunch and drive down to ATL to get in on the action and I don't blame them, if I still lived in the area I'd have considered doing it too.

Our next opponent is the LA Rams. We beat them before, but I also know this team appears to be running on fumes. I don't expect a win, and I would be happy enough to just to have the playoff appearance. I just want it to be a good, competitive game.