The Buscher

Belichick will be shown in Jerry’s owners box before this game is over

The Dolphins were always a fraudulent team this year.

Chiefs waltz down the field on the Dolphins with absolute ease to open the game. Strongly suspect this isn’t gonna be a good one.

Washington’s incoming recruiting class is basically non-existent and there’s a chance they’ll lose some of the players they have now. Sure looks like if it wasn’t Bama, DeBoer was always gonna bolt out of there before the going got too tough.

Flacco has turned into a pumpkin. Was fun while it lasted.

Bills/Steelers officially moved to 4:30 PM EST on Monday. League apparently had no real say, Kathy Hochul mandated it couldn't be played as scheduled and Monday afternoon is the only other time they could've done it without messing up the playoff schedule even more. Assuming the Chiefs and Bills both advance, the Chiefs will now have 2 extra days of rest for their second round matchup.

As Bill Simmons points out the only weird part about this is they still have to fill the GM seat and now whoever they hire doesn't have a say in coach. Best guess though is they have a reasonably similar succession plan mapped out in-house. With Mayo they could hire him immediately. If they're promoting an in-house front office member who is white they will, unfortunately, have to make a sham of the Rooney process.

My favorite recent Belichick memory was when someone asked him a question about long snappers in his press conference and he went into like a 15-minute filibuster about the history of the position. Both helped him milk the clock on his mandatory media availability while also being a history lesson. All the more reason I’d prefer he just go into a media and just talk football. But I know he’ll coach again.

Aaaand Rodgers was right back on the show today. I almost have to commend McAfee for the trolling. Feels pretty clear his relationship with ESPN is gonna blow up at some point this year. Which was as obvious an outcome as could be once it was announced he was going there.

Quinn Ewers has declined to declare for the draft and will return to Texas for another season. Early word is that Arch Manning is not considering a transfer. So it'll effectively be a 2nd redshirt season for him unless he's pressed into duty. In theory, he could take over as starter in 2025, play one season and then instantly go pro if he has a good year and the draft buzz is there. Family history would suggest he'll stay for a 4th year of college, though.

A bunch of Oregon players are taking to social media to say Lanning isn’t going anywhere. I sense it is just wishful thinking. Ducks fans have seen lots of coaches leave over the years. If Lanning says no to Bama of all places they probably won’t have to worry about losing him anytime soon.

Jets fans calling into WFAN screaming about how they’re keeping Robert Saleh despite one of the best coaching markets in recent history has been quite entertaining.

Though it's been expected for a couple of days now enough has come out where I think Wink looks really bad here. All of the leaks in the past couple of months seemed to be coming from Wink's camp (Wink and the Wilkins brothers) painting Daboll as a terrible guy to work for. Daboll's side didn't respond to any of these reports and even tried to downplay them. But then Monday rolled around widely reported Wink cursed out Daboll on Monday before leaving the building and he didn't even hand in his resignation, he flew to Florida and was seemingly just waiting to get fired. Now a bunch has come out about Wink abandoning gameplans on a dime during games, straight up ignoring Daboll's orders both in-game and during game prep, and trying to create his own faction in the locker room, seemingly succeeding with it as players were said to be pissed off at what's happened. So they pretty much had to part ways. But they've now done it in a way where it's a clean break. Wink can go anywhere he wants to now. If I were the Giants I'd have held him under contract and approve only non-divisional interviews. Maybe some teams will be scared off about him being difficult to work with, but he's got too much of a track record to not land a job. If one of the other 3 NFC East teams want him they'll absolutely be his preferred landing spots. He's gonna want to stick it to Daboll.

RIP Bears' Jim Harbaugh hopes January 8, 2024 - January 10, 2024

I'll give a like for the effort but I'll be pretty pissed off if the Giants got McCarthy. I don't think he'll be anything in the NFL.

McAfee happily welcoming Rodgers onto his program every week for him to keep ripping into Jimmy Kimmel (essentially on the same payroll as McAfee) only to have to turn around and apologize to Kimmel the next day is both hilarious and sad. Rodgers has become the most gotten to guy in the NFL.

Apparently a rumor was making the rounds yesterday that there was gonna be some sort of an announcement from EA regarding the College Football video game during the National Championship - even just a tweet with a release date or something. But nope, nada. Supposedly it's still set to come out sometime this summer but it's already been delayed multiple times, so who knows. It's not unusual for them to wait until April/May to start dropping Madden info ahead of an August release. But Madden is also pretty much a copy and paste job every year. This is the return of a college football game after a decade of waiting. If we go another month or so without hearing anything I'll be kinda worried that this will just be a reskinned Madden and EA purposely put out less info to make it less obvious.

Nope. There’s immediate talk that defensive players on the team are absolutely livid about this since Wink was so well-liked. There’s rumors already making the rounds supposedly being passed around from friends of the Wilkins family that Wink during an argument basically called Daboll an overrated hack to his face and said, supposedly a direct quote, “your offense never got one fucking yard on my defense in practice” and that he’s largely just been counting down the days since then. I think the Giants defense has some solid core pieces to build around in Lawrence, Thibodeaux, Banks, and Okereke. In theory it would be an attractive start to draw in a new DC but not if the well-connected Wink is telling everyone Daboll’s a nightmare to work for.

WELP. About an hour ago the Giants fired Drew Wilkins and Kevin Wilkins, both handpicked Wink guys. Drew in particular has been Wink's right-hand man for years. Seemed like an ominous sign. And sure enough, it's now confirmed that Wink and the Giants "mutually parted ways". He'll try to get some head coach interviews again but I don't know if I see a 60-year old guy who has been in the head coaching cycle for years finally getting the chance. I just hope he doesn't land in Philly. Guess I should've figured this would happen when Jay Glazer reported over a month ago that he and Daboll basically hated each other. No matter how much everyone involved tried to downplay it, Glazer doesn't miss.

The Bills being 3rd legitimately shocks me. As someone who has watched a good amount of their games it just felt like they weren't really ever passing the eye test. As much as I'd find it funny to see either team get knocked out in the wild card round, Chiefs/Bills in Buffalo is likely and I do think it's a good thing for that fanbase to get that game. KC would've had to travel to either Cincy, Buffalo, or both last year if not for the Hamlin situation. With how the Chiefs have looked this year, the Bills will be pretty well out of excuses if they can't beat that team at home this year.

I'll go ahead and throw playoff predictions in here: Wild Card Round -Browns over Texans: "defense wins championships" is the old adage and with that in mind I think I have to take Cleveland's stellar defense over the inexperienced Texans offense, but I think this will be the first of many playoff trips DeMeco Ryans' squad, he was a home run hire. -Chiefs over Dolphins: this one feels easy, Chiefs are a far cry from last year but the Dolphins have lost a ton of edge rushers. A 10 degree weather game might set up a big Mostert/Achane ground and pound showing but I just don't know that this team is prepared to go into such a hostile environment and win. -Bills over Steelers: honestly the Bills being a 2 seed feels so shocking with how mediocre they've looked all year. I have my doubts on the Steelers going in there and winning without Watt and their QB situation is of course a huge question mark, so I'll say Buffalo but it might be closer than the betting lines indicate. -Cowboys over Packers: feels like the biggest lay-up of the first round. The final seeded NFC team was always gonna be a bit mediocre - Dallas just have too many weapons for Green Bay to keep up with. -Rams over Lions: One look at the Lions' subreddit and they are all completely dreading this game. It has "Stafford revenge game" written all over it and so even though I do think the Lions are better I can just see Stafford and Co. putting in a monster outing. -Eagles over Bucs: The Eagles have obviously been sputtering for a while and it looks like almost anyone can beat them. Their terrible defense vs. Evans and Godwin could be a scary matchup - but the Bucs didn't do jack offensively against the Panthers either. All the pressure in the world is on the Eagles in this one, I think the offense rises to the occasion and wins an ugly one to avoid the one-and-done humiliation. Divisional Round -Ravens over Browns: The Flacco revenge game narrative will be fun going in and the last Ravens/Browns outing was a bit of a doozy. But I don't think the Ravens defense will fold the way they did in that last matchup. I'll take the Ravens here. -Chiefs over Bills: I can't really call this with any conviction given what I've seen out of both teams this year. This is merely a gut instinct, proven winners vs. team with a tortured history. Even in Buffalo, Chiefs win. -Niners over Rams: Pretty straightforward here, Niners have dominated the Rams for years and even their backups nearly beat the Rams yesterday. Niners in a pretty comfortable win. -Cowboys over Eagles: Eagles narrowly beat Dallas in their first outing, then their season went south and Dallas blew them out last go around. Who knows what can change in 2 weeks but I'd need to see a huge Philly outing in Tampa to think they could win in Dallas. Gotta go Dallas here. Conference Title Games -Ravens over Chiefs: Gotta admit, if this game actually happened I'd probably lay some money on the Chiefs just because I could easily see it being a close game that comes down to a few questionable calls that will have everyone screaming that the NFL wanted Taylor Swift in the SB. But again, while you never know if Mahomes will get the offense peaking at the right time, I've seen nothing to suggest they match up well with this year's Ravens team. -Niners over Cowboys: Just sticking with the chalk here. Again, the playoffs are a different animal but the Niners have not only been so good this year but they also laid waste to most of their possible NFC opponents during the season. It's just tough to bet against them until proven otherwise. Super Bowl -Ravens over Niners: This would mark the second straight year that the #1 seeds get to the Super Bowl. It rarely ever actually works out like this and I'd say the AFC is more open than the NFC. But it feels right this year. Going by my own logic of weighing in the regular season meetings, the Ravens throttled the Niners just two weeks ago. Obviously the Super Bowl is a long way out and there's plenty of time to make adjustments. The betting line would be fascinating because you'd be considering their last meeting + the Niners looking like the best team in the league for a lot of the season. I'd like to think this game is close, but if Lamar puts up a few scores early I don't know I trust Purdy enough to lead a big comeback. I'll say Ravens take it and Lamar achieves the rare feat of league MVP and Super Bowl MVP in the same season.

Giants fired the pair of coaches pretty much everyone wanted to in ST coordinator Thomas McGaughey and OL coach Bobby Johnson. Special teams were awful this year and the OL gave up the 2nd most sacks in NFL history with basically no signs that any of the 3 OL they used early picks on in the last 2 years is improving. Daboll said he "expects" Mike Kafka and Wink Martindale to both return. Reports had suggested Daboll's relationship with both had soured to the point where it was a real question on if there'd be a full house cleaning. They've phrased things in such a way where it sounds like they might still give both guys the opportunity to exit their contract if they wanted, which would be a pretty bad look for Daboll. Guess we'll see. I guess the benefit of a voluntary early separation vs. a firing is they could possibly work out terms and conditions of the release. If there's any way to ensure Wink can't go within the division that would be ideal, because otherwise I'd say he'd land with the Eagles in 5 seconds.

With the firing of Arthur Smith, I can’t wait to stubbornly talk myself into spending a keeper pick on Kyle Pitts in for another year.

Playoff schedule announced: Browns/Texans at 4:30 PM ET Saturday on NBC (duh) Chiefs’ 1st round game regardless of if it’s against the Dolphins or Steelers is the 8:15 PM ET Saturday game exclusive to Peacock (banking on Swiftie subscribers) Bills’ game is 1 PM ET Sunday on CBS Packers/Cowboys 4:25 PM Sunday on FOX Rams/Lions 8:15 PM Sunday on NBC Eagles/Bucs 8:15 Monday on ESPN