Greetings from the sports desk located somewhere belowdecks of the Good Pirate Ship RedState. Sammy the Shark and Karl the Kraken swear they’re going to church this morning at St. Chum of Fishcrackers, so once more, it’s me all by myself. Cue the Eric Carmen.
Anyway, the second round of the NFL playoffs concludes today with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers facing the bitter elements during their 40-second walk from the team bus into Ford Field to face the Detroit Lions. Later in the day, for seemingly the zillionth year in a row, the Kansas City Chiefs line up against the Buffalo Bills, with at least one change of pace from previous meetings being the game is in Buffalo.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Detroit Lions — I wonder what the odds were before the season started regarding this game becoming a reality. The contest features a matchup from the Land of Misfit Quarterbacks, with Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff both suffering the ignominy of being #1 draft picks subsequently jettisoned by their original franchises. Both are still in the playoffs. The teams that drafted them, not so much. A touch of schadenfreude is presently wafting through the Motor City air.
One of the two QBs’ revenge tours stops here, and the consensus is it will be Mayfield hitting the golf course this week instead of Goff. Nothing against him, but he has been more inconsistent than Goff, and simply put, Detroit is a better team than Tampa Bay on both offense and defense. Defensively, both teams are stingy against the run but rather porous against the pass, while on offense, the Lions are flat-out superior in all aspects. This does not bode well for the Buccaneers. With the home-field advantage and knowing a San Francisco 49ers team that looked quite mortal against the Green Bay Packers awaits, it would be a huge upset for Tampa Bay to win this game. But upsets happen.
Kansas City Chiefs at Buffalo Bills — This ought to be good. The Chiefs have presumably repaired Patrick Mahomes’ fractured helmet from their opening-round win over the Miami Dolphins. However, repairing Kansas City’s receiving corps’ inability to imitate fractured flickers when attempting to catch a football is probably beyond the equipment staff’s capacity. The Bills have stampeded back from the brink of playoff elimination to be an even more fearsome foe than the Buffalo weather, which for this game is predicted to be a balmy twenty-something but without snow. Break out the flip-flops.
Much has been made of this being Patrick Mahomes’ first playoff game outside the friendly confines of Arrowhead Stadium, but given that this is Patrick Mahomes we’re talking about, there should be little effect on his game. His counterpart Josh Allen is fond of the big risk/big reward strategy, so between the two, there will be no dull moments on the frozen plastic tundra of Highmark Stadium.
It’s difficult to give either team a clear-cut advantage. Both can chill and thrill, sometimes in the same play. Perhaps Buffalo has a slight edge because it is their house, but the game figures to be competitive until the end.