5 Things I care about

The Packers have a little ... something

Call me a sucker, but I'm interested in the Packers in the NFC playoff race. I certainly find this figure-it-out-on-the-fly-and-possibly-squeak-into-the-race-at-the-last-minute outfit more engaging than prior versions.

The Packers under Matt LaFleur are consistently a favorite. They’ve gone into the playoffs as a high seed after 13 wins in three straight seasons.

If they make it this year, they’ll be the farthest thing from that. It has been a rocky season for Green Bay but I can buy that they’re about to round into their best form to close the year.

The offense has an easy case. They’ve rolled out so many young players in the passing game. As long as Christian Watson is healthy — and it sounds like he avoided a serious injury on Christmas — this team has enough juice in the passing game to get by. Aaron Rodgers’ performance has been rightly critiqued this year and he has a few off-throws a game now but he’s far from cooked. The 2022 version of Rodgers can win a big game — there is no doubt in my mind.

The offense is 18th in neutral pass rate this year. They’re a balanced operation. The running game has been particularly good to close the year, too.

AJ Dillon is going to down as one of the biggest letdowns in fantasy this year but he’s been white-hot to close the season. Since Week 12, he’s converted 50 percent of his third-down rush attempts into first downs. He’s punched in five scores in three games. This is his time of the year.

The defense is an even bigger deal than the offense and while I remain more skeptical of this side of the ball, there is reason to hope. Green Bay has allowed 17 points per game in December.

Now, there are some caveats here. They had a bye week stuck in this month and have played the Bears, Rams and Dolphins; not exactly the stiffest test. However, their Week 16 game against Miami was the most impressive in that it was unlike their typical Packer performances.

The Miami receivers made the stop unit’s life hell for most of the first three quarters. I’ve seen that story for the Packers too many times to count. They aren’t a team that typically rebounds when another team puts them in a blender. And yet, the Packers eventually stuffed Tua Tagovailoa in a locker and won the game on defense.

I can tell myself a story that a young defense full of first-round talent might just now be rounding into form to close the year.

I don’t know if Green Bay has what it takes to make a legitimate Super Bowl run but there are a few things I do know. Good quarterback play is usually a deciding factor in the postseason. I think Rodgers still clearly has it. When I look at some of the other vagabond passers destined to make it in the NFC playoffs, I feel even better about a team captained by even a slightly diminished version of the back-to-back MVP.

I also find that this year’s Packers, a unit fighting for its playoff lives with every snap, are endlessly more fascinating than the teams who have come in ice-cold as heavy favorites in years past.

Vikings’ resiliency

Perhaps I’ve just grown weary of the talking point about the Vikings record in one-score games and how that’s proof they aren’t that good. I’ve begun to wonder if that shouldn’t actually just be a testament to their resolve and Kevin O’Connell as a head coach.

There’s something to be said about leading a team to victory in tight moments. The Vikings have found themselves in those difficult sequences more than their fair share of times in 2022. They always seem to come out on the right end of it — and that’s a feather in the head coach’s hat.

Sure, the fact that their games are this close might prove that the roster isn’t that good. I can buy that argument. However, wouldn’t their ultimate record in one-score games be the primary result of having a great head coach and team identity? I think O’Connell has done a fantastic job this year with a team that lacks star power outside of Justin Jefferson. His relaxed fingerprints are all over a Minnesota culture that couldn’t have been tenser under Mike Zimmer in recent years.

Ultimately, I understand that luck might just be breaking the Vikings’ way and their record is a bit inflated. It’s still better to blow teams away than prove your resolve in one-score games. Still, that resolve should count for something. Even if this year’s Vikings aren’t built to go the distance — a take I’m not 100 percent sold on anyway — at the very least, it speaks incredible optimism about the multi-year future of this team.

The MVP race should be over

If Jalen Hurts’ absence opened up a door for Patrick Mahomes to put some distance in the MVP race, he may have literally soared through it.

Mahomes pylon-diving rushing touchdown against Seattle gives an illustration and a signature moment to his dynamic 2022 campaign. There aren’t enough platitudes to describe how impressive this season has been for the dominant passer.

The only reason Mahomes wouldn’t win the award would be voter fatigue; which is insane for a 27-year-old quarterback who has only been starting since 2018. We should still be in full-blown awe of this guy. If you’re bored or take joy in trying the fruitless journey to find proof he’s not that good, do you even love this sport?

Just like Mahomes stretch to hit that pylon on Saturday, it’s a reach to consider anyone else the MVP right now. He’s been the best player in football this year and is without question the most valuable asset to any team.

Kellen Moore’s CeeDee Lamb spamming

Kellen Moore is a really good offensive coordinator but he’s not been without flaws the last few years. I think he too often gets stuck on his sequence and doesn’t adjust in-game to exploit matchups that game flow has revealed in his favor.

That’s why I was so encouraged by what he did with CeeDee Lamb on Saturday.

Lamb was hot from the beginning. He was slicing through an Eagles defense that has been a strong pass defense for most of the year. He looked uncoverable from the first drive. Then, when Eagles slot corner Avonte Maddox left the game with an injury, Lamb really began to cook.

Moore dialed up so many plays for Lamb the rest of the day. He was targeted on 27.5% of his routes against Philly. He was the engine of the offense. The matchup was in Moore’s favor and he just kept spamming those Lamb slot plays.

Dallas has all the talent in the world at their disposal. Include Kellen Moore in that mix. When he’s in his bag, he can design a fantastic offense. If he takes another step as an in-game play-caller, that makes this team even more dangerous.

Steve Wilks deserves a shot

When Panthers owner David Tepper fired his once-prized head coaching hire, Matt Rhule, and named Steve Wilks the interim HC, it didn’t feel like a significant move. Tepper himself said of Wilks, “If he does an incredible job, he has to be in consideration,” when asked if he had a shot at the full-time gig.

By any measure, what Wilks has done with this 2022 Panthers team has been incredible.

After jettisoning Rhule, Carolina immediately began cashing in assets for draft picks. The Christian McCaffrey trade was the most notable example but Robbie Anderson was also sent packing after he couldn’t wait to yap himself off the roster. Dealing McCaffrey sure felt like a move made by a team that didn’t care much about the present and was solely looking to the beyond.

Despite that, Wilks has the Panthers sitting on a 5-4 record since dealing their best player and face of the franchise.

The Rhule Panthers never felt like a serious NFL operation, both in their quarterback pursuits and especially on game day. There is an air of legitimacy around them now under Wilks and it takes a mere cursory glance of research into the team to know how much the players respond to him.

I’m almost never in favor of hiring the interim head coach to the full-time gig just because a team snuck out some surprising wins. However, Wilks might be the exception.

5 Things I don’t care about

The Dolphins’ floor

The Miami offense has the highest floor in the NFL. With the coaching and pass-catching talent, it would be difficult for this offense to stay stagnant for too long.

It’s absurd that they’re lining up with those two guys at wide receiver. Jaylen Waddle can take a 12-yard throw and house it for an 84-yard touchdown. Mike McDaniel creates so much spacing for these receivers and they shred it. Even the running game has really come along lately.

Yet, the once red-hot Dolphins are coming off a four-game losing streak and have a loose grip on the AFC’s final playoff spot.

The Dolphins mostly figured out the issues that plagued them against the 49ers and Chargers. They turned in some good moments against the Bills despite losing that game. The receivers were running wild during the early moments of their Christmas day game.

Then the quarterback threw the game away.

Tua Tagovailoa himself is a high-floor player. He’s so accurate and plays with enough timing that he has often looked like the perfect pivot man for this offense. But I can’t help wondering if the offense is merely getting the most out of him, not the other way around. There are times when Tua feels like the next big thing at quarterback. There are other moments when this marriage feels destined for a Jared Goff/Rams-style breakup.

The story isn’t written yet. Tua has two big games to end this year against division foes with solid defenses in New England and New York. We need to see him push the Dolphins offense closer to its ceiling, not hovering around their somehow still-enthralling floor.

George Kittle’s “bad timing”

I’ve seen far too many “George Kittle saving his best performances for consolation bracket matchups” jokes over the last two weeks.

Stop it, you sound ridiculous.

For one, the fantasy football schedule has zero impact on these guys. The timing of when a player performs at their peak or their floor is nothing more than a coincidence. No one truly “saves their best for the fantasy playoffs,” or “chokes in the fantasy playoffs.” These are just regular games to these players. Get a grip.

Also, it was perfectly possible to have a great fantasy team that’s competing for a title with Kittle on it this year. If Kittle was your biggest problem at tight end all year and you’re whining about it, you sound spoiled.

Just be happy that a great player is showing he’s still more than capable of domination. That’s the big takeaway. Sorry it didn’t happen on your schedule.

People who don’t understand how good DeVonta Smith is

DeVonta Smith might be the Eagles’ No. 2 receiver but he is NOT a No. 2 receiver. That guy plays like a legitimate No. 1 featured wideout. He just happens to play across from a top-five player at the position.

Smith was excellent against Dallas. He’s always open but demonstrated time again vs. the Cowboys how dominant he can be at the catch point and his knack for winning clutch, tightly contested targets.

Smith doesn’t have any flaws in his game right now. If a defense sells out to stop or slow A.J. Brown, they’ll pay the price by letting Smith have his way.

At a minimum, the Eagles have a 1A/1B wide receiver duo. We should already count them among the game’s best receiver duos. If you don’t know how good Smith is, I don’t know what to tell you.

The Brady/Evans dynamic

There are going to be some bad anti-Mike Evans takes after this season. In fact, they’re already out there.

Tom Brady got rid of the ball in 1.88 seconds against the Cardinals on Christmas night. You tell me the wide receiver who is capable of getting open on downfield routes in fewer than two seconds.

That’s not a serious ask.

No quarterback has gotten rid of the ball faster than Brady this year. He just doesn’t want to get hit or let defenders even get close to him. And since he has zero creation ability at this stage of his career, he’s just throwing the ball before those players close in on him.

So the moments where it looks like Brady and Evans “aren’t on the same page,” are merely a product of the quarterback getting rid of the ball before the downfield receiver is even close to finished with the route. A once-great dynamic has become a toxic relationship.

The 2023 Broncos fix

The Broncos officially began their transition to next year by firing Nathaniel Hackett after getting embarrassed by the Rams’ (maybe) B-team on Christmas. Typically, I find the planning of how a bad team attempts to dig itself out of a hole to be fascinating. Not in this case.

I could not be less interested in how Denver attempts to convince itself that the 2023 season is not already doomed.

There will be plenty of rhetoric about how the Broncos need to find the right offensive coach to get the most out of Russell Wilson. Ask the Seattle Seahawks how that went. Every offense eventually just became the Wilson offense. And that was with a player who wasn’t a rapidly eroding version of his once-stellar self. It honestly might be best for the Broncos to not even consider Wilson in their decision-making process when it comes to coaching and personnel moves.

That’s wild to say about a quarterback you just signed to a mega-deal but that’s what his play has warranted. If you’re making a decision this offseason “because of Wilson,” you’ve already taken the first step to making a wrong decision.

He’s merely a member of the team, not the team as franchise quarterbacks often are.