1. Congratulations to the Chicago Bears on one of the most fun seasons of football they\u2019ve ever put together. Seriously. That was awesome. Obviously, it\u2019s over now, but it was awesome to take the ride with all of you.<\/p>\n
2. Weren\u2019t we just talking about how Caleb Williams just made the greatest throw Bears fans had ever seen against the Green Bay Packers\u2014until he somehow makes the next one? Well\u2026we didn\u2019t think he was actually going to do it<\/a>. What the hell is he going to do next? A walkoff Hail Mary to win the Super Bowl next year? Psh, there\u2019s no way that will ever happen. I dare him to prove me wrong. But I bet he can\u2019t. (Of course, it would be just as cool if he just dominated the old-fashioned way and won MVP next season by hitting more of the simple stuff. But again, bet he can\u2019t do that, either. Boy, would that really show me if he did, though.)<\/p>\n 3. Count me among the people who had it out for DJ Moore after that overtime interception, and the bits of context that have come in from film gurus haven\u2019t made his play look any better there. But new hot take on this: I\u2019m actually not mad at him anymore, and I hope the Bears don\u2019t trade him this offseason (though it could definitely help them from a salary perspective). Because I have a feeling he\u2019s going to be even more motivated than ever to prove himself in 2026. Here\u2019s hoping that\u2019s the case. When he\u2019s engaged, he\u2019s a really good player. What\u2019s more: I like that Caleb Williams has taken accountability for that play rather than shifting the blame. This guy gets it.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n 4. I\u2019m not the biggest Bo Nix fan in the world, but watching him go down with a broken ankle after a gutsy three-touchdown performance against the Buffalo Bills is extremely depressing. He deserved a chance to keep it going and prove all the haters wrong in the AFC Championship game (and potentially beyond). He\u2019s another guy I\u2019m hoping comes back even better than ever next season.<\/p>\n 5. On the flip side of things: can I just say that I don\u2019t feel even the slightest bit bad for Josh Allen? Yeah, I get it. The Bills don\u2019t have a ton of other stars on that team, and the receiving corps, which was already worn down to the nub heading into the Broncos game, only got more injured during the contest. But let\u2019s not pretend his offensive line didn\u2019t give him enough time, and the defense didn\u2019t do enough to keep them in the game. Allen\u2019s miss of a wide-open Dalton Knox could\u2019ve ensured the game never went to overtime in the first place, and the controversial overtime interception on the throw to Brandin Cooks wouldn\u2019t have happened if Allen had put that ball out in front of Cooks, which he had more than enough arm to do. He doubtless holds himself to a higher standard than everyone else does, so it\u2019s not an Allen problem. He\u2019s still a great player and a top-five quarterback in the league. But he shouldn\u2019t get a pass for this one\u2014not when he wouldn\u2019t even give himself one.<\/p>\n 6. Allen\u2019s young carbon copy, Drake Maye, on the other hand, might be getting narratively shafted a bit. He obviously hasn\u2019t performed quite to the same level as he did in the regular season as he\u2019s played a much higher level of defense, and that has shown itself in his six overall fumbles and three total giveaways (two INTs, one lost fumble). You simply can\u2019t put the ball in harm\u2019s way that many times and consistently hope to win, though the Patriots\u2019 defense has done more than its fair share to pick him up so far in the postseason. But this is where you look at context. Not a single player on New England\u2019s offense (aside from Maye) earned an All-Pro or Pro Bowl nod. Maye\u2019s first-round left tackle Will Campbell, who is still getting his legs under him after missing time with injury, has gotten annihilated in consecutive weeks by Khalil Mack and Will Anderson. No skill player aside from Maye keeps opponents up at night, not even Stefon Diggs. He\u2019s speed-running the Infinity Gauntlet of top-10 defenses<\/a>, having faced the second- and 10th-best scoring units in the league so far with the third-ranked unit on deck and the first-ranked final boss Seattle Seahawks possibly waiting in the Super Bowl. Regardless of who plays quarterback for the Broncos next week, getting this team to the title game would be an insane accomplishment.<\/p>\n 7. I know those first two Rams vs. Seahawks games this season were lose\u2014both were decided by a combined three points. But I just have this feeling like the Seahawks are going to come up with a level of rapacity the Rams won\u2019t be able to match with the 12th man behind them at Lumen Field. That utter ass-whooping they just put on the (albeit banged up) San Francisco 49ers felt like a warning: this squad is on a mission. And no division rival is going to stand in their way. That said\u2026division rivalries tend to be games where you throw all your expectations out the window. Should be fun.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n 8. I\u2019m a crazy for thinking the Tennessee Titans might have hit a 400-foot home run with the Robert Saleh hire? I say this without knowing who he plans to have coach Cam Ward, of course. But I\u2019d argue the quarterback situation was the only part of job he and his staff couldn\u2019t figure out in New York, with the team getting saddled with three years of Zach Wilson and one with the \u201clate-career Belichick\u201d version of Aaron Rodgers. His defenses, though? Elite. Despite playing on a dumpster fire of a team, I feel comfortable enough believing Ward can at least be good if you give him anything resembling a representative NFL offense. That could be a sneaky-good hire. Plus, we can watch Saleh and Liam Coen stare daggers at each other twice a year<\/a> instead of shaking hands. And you thought the Ben Johnson-Matt LaFleur situation was testy\u2026<\/p>\n 9. We all thought that the Steelers-Ravens game in Week 18 was a battle to determined whether John Harbaugh of Mike Tomlin kept their jobs. Turns out, both of them were doomed and didn\u2019t know it. (I know Tomlin \u201cstepped down\u201d from the Steelers, but it was probably more of a \u201cWe don\u2019t want to have to fire you, so let\u2019s resolve this amicably\u201d affair.) Just like that, almost 40 combined seasons of those two coaches dueling twice a year is over. But neither one of them was going to be without a job for long. Harbaugh\u2019s already back in the saddle with Jaxson Dart and the New York Giants, who will probably show immediate improvement in the NFC East next year. Meanwhile, though Tomlin won\u2019t coach in 2026, half the league will come knocking his door down when he finally puts his \u201cOpenToWork\u201d sign up on LinkedIn. Being a good coach\u2014even if not a great one\u2014still matters in this league.<\/p>\n 10. Please, please let this be the year Brian Flores\u2019 maniacal ass gets a head coaching job with a good quarterback (and gets the hell out of the NFC North, or the NFC altogether). I hear Baltimore is nice this time of year. (It\u2019s not, but that\u2019s where I want to see him the most.) Also, that Matt Nagy first-year vibe bump is going to hit crazy for some NFL team next year\u2014as will the comedown when that team realizes he can\u2019t consistently call an NFL offense without Patrick Mahomes and\/or Andy Reid to save his butt. His trick-play names will be fun, though!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1. Congratulations to the Chicago Bears on one of the most fun seasons of football they\u2019ve ever put…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[626,64,63,613,17469,22416,5366,1261,1268,5372,1248,19990,35756,5374,1243,19076,1274,6580,35194,5384,1242,593,6584,5348,1262,1254,85,5350,15203,1253,23868,23937,60655],"class_list":["post-426540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-aaron-rodgers","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-baltimore","tag-bo-nix","tag-brandin-cooks","tag-broncos","tag-buffalo-bills","tag-caleb-williams","tag-cam-ward","tag-chicago-bears","tag-cole-kmet","tag-dj-moore","tag-drake-maye","tag-green-bay-packers","tag-hail-mary","tag-jaxson-dart","tag-josh-allen","tag-khalil-mack","tag-new-england","tag-new-york-giants","tag-nfl","tag-patrick-mahomes","tag-patriots","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-seattle-seahawks","tag-sports","tag-steelers","tag-stefon-diggs","tag-tennessee-titans","tag-touchdown-pass","tag-will-campbell","tag-zach-wilson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}