nfl-playoff Page 4 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Wide Right: The biggest missed kicks in NFL playoff history
About halfway through the fourth quarter of Saturday’s Wild Card game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Jacksonville Jaguars, Chargers’ kicker Cameron Dicker missed a seemingly insignificant field goal wide left. No matter though. The Chargers were up 10, and with so little time, three points wou...

Brock Purdy’s debut made him into the new apex predator of rookie playoff QBs
Brock Purdy’s NFL playoff debut was a tour-de-force performance that shattered the paradigm for rookie NFL quarterbacks. In one game, the San Francisco 49ers’ virtuoso logged more playoff touchdowns than Jimmy Garoppolo has in his entire Niners career....

Here are the 11 best possible Super Bowl LVII matchups
The NFL postseason is upon us, and as usual, anything can happen when it’s, win or go home. This year’s AFC field feels like a three-team race, while the NFC looks pretty open. Some teams don’t have a great shot, but it’s always fun to play matchmaker and look at the most exciting potential Super Bo...

Don't discount the Jacksonville Jaguars, who are back in the postseason
Jacksonville clinched their first postseason appearance and AFC South title since 2017 in dramatic fashion on Saturday night with a 20-16 win over Tennessee. The Jaguars also accomplished a feat only four other teams have done since the AFL-NFL merger, which is going from worst to first in the divis...

Scott Van Pelt and Ryan Clark stepped up when the sports world needed them most
Scott Van Pelt knows how to advertise himself after developing a loyal fan base after more than two decades on ESPN’s airwaves. The Marylander’s Twitter bio says it best, he anchors the network’s flagship show, SportsCenter, starting at midnight on the East Coast. Or after the game you’re watching e...

Everybody Hurts sometimes
With three weeks left in the regular season, the Philadelphia Eagles have all but locked up the top seed in the NFC, needing just one win or a loss from both the Minnesota Vikings and San Francisco 49ers in order to secure home-field advantage through the NFC Championship and a first-round bye. With...

You like <i>that</i>?
The silence was deafening at U.S. Bank Stadium Saturday afternoon. The home team Minnesota Vikings came into the game with a 10-3 record, holding a half-game lead over the San Francisco 49ers for the second-seed in the NFC. Their opponent was the Indianapolis Colts, who earlier this year, became the...

NFL Week 6: Is it time to stop doubting the NY Giants?
The New York Giants have shocked the NFL world through five weeks, going 4-1 with wins against teams like the Tennessee Titans (3-2) and Green Bay Packers (3-2) to boot. Still, despite their impressive record, the Giants are viewed in a mostly negative light by the NFL elite. The G-Men head into the...

A rematch for the ages?
Josh Allen watched overtime from the sideline. Gabe Davis hauled in two of his NFL playoff-record four touchdown catches within the two-minute warning and also didn’t take the field beyond the fourth quarter. A coin flip that sparked controversy as to whether the league needed to change postseason o...

From race-norming to Tua Tagovailoa — do all brains matter in the NFL?
During every NFL broadcast, you can be certain that you’ll hear about a player’s IQ or the genius of a coach or coordinator. This league values smarts — just not brains....

Vin Scully felt like family
Growing up in Los Angeles, my favorite Dodger was never anyone on the field. The guys on the field constantly changed. Injuries or slumps sometimes kept them out of the lineup. Trades and free agency changed the makeup of the team....

Tom Brady is the first quarterback that can finally get Julio Jones more than 10 touchdowns in a season
John Parker Wilson, Greg McElroy, A.J. McCarron, Matt Ryan, and Ryan Tannehill. Those are the men that are responsible for why one of the best wide receivers over the last decade-plus has underwhelming touchdown numbers....

Stop comparing viewership numbers for the NFL and NBA
Viewership for the 2022 NBA Finals is up 37 percent from last year and its ratings are the highest they’ve been since the last time the Warriors were in the Finals in 2019. That said, there are some worrisome figures. For one, while viewership is up from 2020 and 2021, Game 1 of these Finals were th...

Tennessee Titans’ proposal aims to change NFL overtime rules
The NFL Rules Committee’s sluggish acceptance of progressive ideas is analogous to another legislative body in the United States. Someone presents a grand notion and five, 10 or 20 years later, some lawmaker digs it up and gets praised as a visionary....

Rams win Super Bowl LVI as MVP Cooper Kupp carries team on game-winning drive
Patience is a virtue — sometimes you have to wait an entire half for a makeup call. And yet I don’t think the Rams are complaining after beating the Cincinnati Bengals, 23-20, in their home stadium, to win their first Super Bowl in Los Angeles....

Live coverage of Super Bowl LVI: Analyzing each team’s first 15 plays
Around the NFL, it’s common practice for teams to script their first 15 offensive plays. Why? This is usually before teams can adjust on defense. That makes the first few drives the perfect opportunity for a coaching staff to strut its stuff. You can often figure out a staff’s plan for attacking an ...

Possible Super Bowl one-hit wonders
The Super Bowl is the most covered single sporting event on the American sporting calendar every year. No pregame leaf unturned by the gaggle of broadcast and print media, tugging at the heartstrings of even the most jaded sports fans. There’s going to be a package about how Bengals quarterback Joe ...

Meet Deadspin’s Super idiots
The Super Bowl is the biggest stage in sports, where stars are made, legends are born… and embarrassment lives forever. There are plays that just don’t get made, sure — like Scott Norwood’s field goal at the end of Super Bowl XXV — but there’s a difference between not getting the job done, and screw...

Who kicked the shortest field goal in Super Bowl history?
You can’t kick a 9-yard field goal anymore, but two players did it. Jim Turner kicked one for the Jets in Super Bowl III, having already made kicks from 32 and 30, and Mike Clark did as well in Super Bowl VI....