From 1967 through 1975, the Oakland Raiders were the most successful team in professional football ... in the regular season. They compiled a record of 95-24-7, and that winning percentage of .798 was a full 70 percentage points higher than the second-best team, the Dallas Cowboys. Those Raiders were packed with future Hall of Famers, and they had John Madden, one of the NFL’s best coaches, for most of that span.
And throughout that time, they were stopped from winning the big one by several different dynasties. They lost Super Bowl II to the Green Bay Packers, and were crossed off in successive seasons in the playoffs by the Miami Dolphins and the Pittsburgh Steelers – two more all-time teams.
Oakland’s 7-8 postseason record tended to render everything else irrelevant. It wasn’t until 1976, when the Raiders went 13-1 in the regular season and poleaxed the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl XI, that they finally got that albatross off their backs.
For the Buffalo Bills of the Josh Allen era, there is still that same albatross, though there’s only one dynasty that has stood in their way. That, of course, would be the Kansas City Chiefs, who worked past the Bills once again in a hard-fought 32-29 win on Sunday night. The Bills had their chances in this one, as they have in most of their postseason games against Patrick Mahomes and his crew, but things tend to turn out the way they turn out.
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Since 2018, the Bills have 77 regular-season wins, third-most in the NFL behind the Chiefs and the Baltimore Ravens. But the 7-6 postseason record, and all those losses to the Chiefs, will continue to sting. Their 84 wins in that time are the most by any team in a seven-year span never to make the Super Bowl.
“It was not the result we wanted,” Bills head coach Sean McDermott said postgame, when asked what he told his players. “I told them that they had nothing to be ashamed of; they gave it all they had, and I love them.”
McDermott said nothing about the officials, and as much as people want to believe that the refs have it in the bag for the Chiefs, said officials should never have been in the position they were in this game’s pivotal moment. With 13:01 left in the fourth quarter, Josh Allen tried to convert fourth-and-one from the Kansas City 41-yard line.
The Bills were up 22-21 at this point, so a drive-extending conversion would have been huge. It was a close call either way, and two officials on referee Clete Blakeman’s crew made different initial calls on the play – one ruled for a successful conversion, and one didn’t – and in the end, it was ruled that Allen didn’t make it.
First of all, the Chiefs’ defence had this on lock throughout the game. Second of all, many coaches and executives around the league have pleaded their cases to the NFL’s Competition Committee how ridiculous it is that conversions are ruled upon with no technical assistance as opposed to a couple of zebras and another official holding a first-down marker.
Al Davis, who ran those old-school Raiders brilliantly, loved to say that the refs had it out for his teams because he had a fractious relationship with then-NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle. The Bills were classier about the whole thing, most likely because they knew that it was really – and as usual – about the opportunities the Chiefs had and exploited, ones that the Bills could not.
There were several turning points in this game, and even when the Bills were able to answer, the Chiefs just had something extra – as they have all season long.
That failed fourth-down conversion in the fourth quarter led to Mahomes’ touchdown run, and gave the Chiefs the lead again. Mahomes was able to convert his two-point attempt when Allen wasn’t on Buffalo’s touchdown drive, and that was yet another little death for the Bills.
The Bills had an advantage with their run game that showed up in Week 11 of the regular season, when they beat the Chiefs, 30-21 and scored three rushing touchdowns. But it wasn’t until the middle of the third quarter that Buffalo finally led with it. Down 21-16 with 10:01 left in the third quarter, the Bills went on a brilliant 12-play, 80-yard drive with just one pass play, and James Cook’s one-yard touchdown that put the Bills up, 22-21.
We can dice up all the reasons the Bills can’t get past the Chiefs, but in the end, it’s not too dissimilar from the questions those Raiders were asking themselves when they went up against Vince Lombardi, Don Shula, and Chuck Noll.
Sometimes, your dynastic opponents just have more on the ball when it counts than you do. That’s why they’re dynasties.
MVP of the week
Howie Roseman, general manager, Philadelphia Eagles: Roseman had already established himself as one of the NFL’s able personnel executives before the 2024 season, but this past off-season has to be considered one of the best in pro football history.
The 2023 Eagles started their season with a 10-1 record, fell embarrassingly to 11-6, and then got blown out by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the wildcard round.
And that’s when Roseman went to work. He replaced offensive coordinator Brian Johnson with Kellen Moore, and defensive coordinator Sean Desai with Vic Fangio. He signed former Giants running back Saquon Barkley to a three-year, $37.75 million contract with $26 million guaranteed, which was considered an overpay at the time, and has become one of the best free-agent signings ever.
Roseman signed former New Orleans Saints bit-player Zack Baun to a one-year, $3.5 million contract that made no waves at all. But Fangio saw something in Baun, and turned him into an All-Pro level off-ball linebacker and pass-rusher.
Then, there was the 2024 draft, which the Eagles absolutely nailed. Cornerback Qionyon Mitchell and defensive back Cooper DeJean, the team’s first two picks, became similarly indispensable parts in Fangio’s defence. They are primary reasons that the Eagles jumped from 29th in Defensive DVOA in 2023 to first overall this time around. Defensive tackle Jalen Carter and edge-rusher Nolan Smith, Philly’s first two picks in the 2023 draft, have each elevated their cases for dominance.
Just about everything Roseman has touched this season has turned to gold, and there’s a lot more than luck in that equation. If the Eagles are able to vanquish the Chiefs, and exact revenge for their loss to Kansas City in Super Bowl LVII, you can point to Roseman as the main reason why.
Video of the week
Why are the Chiefs nearly infallible in one-score games? Why do they always seem to get it done at the most crucial moments? Why are these annoying people so darned automatic? Why are they now on the verge of the first three-peat in the Super Bowl era?
Because in the end, they one-up their opponents from a schematic perspective.
This was absolutely the case on the Bills’ final offensive play of Sunday’s game. With 2:00 left on the clock, the Bills had fourth-and-five at their own 47-yard line.
If you’ve studied the Chiefs’ defensive tendencies over time, you’re probably aware that when opposing offenses line up in condensed formations where the skill position players are closer to the centre, defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo will blitz his defensive backs.
Here, the Bills lined up in a condensed formation, Spags called his usual jailbreak blitz, several free rushers got through, Allen had to scramble, and he threw up a desperation heave downfield to tight end Dalton Kincaid ... which Kincaid somehow nearly caught.
But it was not to be, and one wonders why Buffalo offensive coordinator Joe Brady – who is generally great with his play calls – didn’t have a “hot alert” (a receiver open for a short pass) to counter what has been an absolute Chiefs tendency for a long time.
Stat of the week
Seven: That’s how many rushing touchdowns the Washington Commanders conceded to Philadelphia in a 55-23 beat down that sends the Eagles to the Super Bowl for the second time in three seasons. We know that the Eagles have led with their run game all season long, which has been the right call, given Barkley’s utter dominance and the iffy nature of the passing game with Jalen Hurts – who, in fairness, looked pretty good on Sunday.
But this was a different breed of cat. The Commanders started the game with an 18-play, 54-yard drive that took 7:03 off the clock, and ended with a field goal. The Eagles’ response was a one-play, 60-yard drive that was yet another Barkley explosive run.
And with that, and linebacker Bobby Wagner tripping over edge-rusher Dante Fowler Jr, the tone was set. Hurts had a good enough game as a passer, completing 20 of 28 passes for 246 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 110.1.
But what Hurts did as a runner was massive – he gained just 16 yards on 10 carries, but three were for touchdowns. Barkley was his usual indomitable self, with 118 yards and three touchdowns on just 15 carries. Fourth-round rookie back Will Shipley got in on the action in garbage time with 77 yards and a touchdown on just four carries.
The Commanders knew they would have to deal with the Eagles running the ball over and over, and they still couldn’t stop any of it. They had seven defenders in the box on that first Barkley touchdown run, and they stacked the box more than they didn’t. Which says as much about what the Eagles did as it does about what the Commanders couldn’t do.
It was a brutal end to the Commanders’ amazing season, but their run is just beginning. They have perhaps the greatest rookie quarterback of all time in Jayden Daniels, they’re not that far away with all the other parts of their roster, and the coaching (starting with head coach Dan Quinn) is outstanding. This was a case where the Commanders, who split their regular-season games with the Eagles, ran into a buzz saw, and had no way to stop it. This was an impressive (and necessary) full rebuild, and it worked marvellously until it didn’t.
The other stat that killed the Commanders? A 4-0 turnover differential in Philly’s favour. Per Next Gen Stats, Washington’s three fumbles (the fourth turnover was a late-game Daniels interception) bought the Eagles +23.6% in win probability. Washington never had a win probability of 50% or more at any point in the game.
Elsewhere around the league
Schottenheimer in for McCarthy: On Friday, the Dallas Cowboys announced that the team’s offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer would be their new head coach, replacing Mike McCarthy. No offence to Schottenheimer, but this has been universally pilloried as yet another uninspired hire by Jerry Jones – essentially, that Schottenheimer does not have the weight behind his name to push back on any personnel decisions made by Jones and his son Stephen, who run things in Big D. Schottenheimer’s 2023 Cowboys offense ranked fifth in yards and first in points, but dropped to 17th in yards and 21st in points last season. Not that it was all his fault by far – injuries to several offensive players (especially quarterback Dak Prescott) affected the picture negatively, and there were times when McCarthy – who was a lame-duck coach on the last year of his contract – performed his tasks as one might expect.
Carroll v Harbaugh: With Pete Carroll returning to the coaching ranks as the Las Vegas Raiders’ head coach, we will be treated to one of pro football’s all-time great coaching rivalries at least twice every season yet again. Around the time Carroll and the Seahawks were engineering their divorce at the end of the 2023 season, the Los Angeles Chargers hired Jim Harbaugh to be their head coach after Harbaugh’s fantastically successful tenure at Michigan.
Carroll and Harbaugh have quite the past. They went against each other in the old Pac-10 when Carroll was at USC and Harbaugh was at Stanford, and then, from 2011-2014, it was Carroll in Seattle, and Harbaugh with the San Francisco 49ers. From the 2012-2014 seasons, either Harbaugh’s or Carroll’s teams represented the NFC in the Super Bowl, and the regular-season and postseason battles between the two teams were always appointment viewing – during and after the games.
Uphill battle: At 73, Carroll is also the oldest person ever to be hired to be a head coach by any NFL team. How long has Carroll been around? His first NFL head coaching job came with the 1994 New York Jets, and Carroll’s first draft pick was a cornerback from Texas A&M by the name of Aaron Glenn. Glenn made three Pro Bowls in 15 seasons with five different teams, became a defensive coach after that, spent his last four seasons as the Detroit Lions’ highly-esteemed defensive coordinator, and is now the Jets’ new head coach.
Glenn has a lot to contend with. There’s the question of whether Aaron Rodgers will be back after a 2024 season that lived up to nobody’s expectations. Every part of the roster could do with some upgrades, and the Jets stand with a little over $20 million in salary cap space for the 2025 season if Rodgers is on the team. They can gain some space with some adept juggling, but given the recent personnel philosophies extended by team ownership ... well, there are no guarantees. – Guardian
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