39 WINNERS AND LOSERS FROM WILD CARD WEEKEND!

Na. Couple notes though:

Rams vs Pants

The Dodgers just won a World Series without a bullpen and the Rams will try to win a Super Bowl without a secondary. Interesting tactic. Particularly against Caleb Williams. Rams corner Akhello Witherspoon hit IR and won’t play the rest of the postseason. Is he prime Champ Bailey? No, but he’s 6’3’’ and the Rams only Big Corner. Can the little guys hold up in Chicago? Fortunately, the Bears feature the similarly short DJ Moore and Luther Burden.

Bills vs Jags

Tre’Davious White tipped Trevor Lawrence’s final pass before Cole Bishop caught the game sealing interception. White was the first selection ever from Buffalo regime Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane (GM) in 2017. White would go on to star for Buffalo during the early Josh Allen years before a 2021 torn ACL derailed his career. A torn achilles in 2023 ended his year after 8 games. After brief 2024 stints in LA and Baltimore, White is back in Buffalo and pushing the Bills forward. Hell yeah.

Pack vs Bears

Matt Lafleur is new Mike McCarthy and Jordan Love is new Aaron Rodgers who was new Brett Favre. The Packers last won the Super Bowl in the 2010-2011 season.

49ers vs Eagles

Nick Sirianni is getting fired. Of all the wizadry performed with the NFL salary cap, the Eagles are Harry Potter. How? Void years. There is way, way too much to unpack with Void Years, but the Eagles have pushed most of the salary commitments for their best players far into the future. In exchange, they’re locked into this roster. That’s great when it wins Super Bowls. more to the point, they can’t get rid of Jalen Hurts, AJ Brown, or Zack Baun. They CAN get rid of Sirianni. And they need to. Everything STINKS in Philly right now, but Mike McDaniel could clean it up.

Chargers vs Patriots

I’m going to try not to butcher this legendary Harbaugh concept. Here we go: what’s the one position that influences every play? Did you say QB? C’mon Ball Knower! It’s O-line. Run, pass don’t matter. The O-line is the most important group on EVERY play designed. We all saw the Chargers line against the Pats. No need to explain further.

What a weekend from the NFL. The college game possesses a certain innocence not found in the Pros. That’s great! They’re kids. School pride. But there is something different between the white lines when you take 27yr old men who have spent six years dedicated in a weight room and honestly, don’t have a whole heck of a lot goin outside the game. These individuals are boiling through 8 months of 80 hour work weeks to get to Sunday. The hitting (all legal!) is immense. And sometimes you just need that gladiator sport direct to your living room on a January day.

Indiana squeaked by Old Dominion in week 1 of their season 27-14. Oregon could only dream of keeping it that close. OD is coached by James Franklin disciple Ricky Rahne (sick name) and finished the season with a 10-3 record plus a W in the StaffDNA Cure Bowl. Huge.

This isn’t Ricky Rahne’s moment though. It belongs all to Coach Cig. Curt Cignetti has flipped college football on its head and has the Hoosiers a game away from a perfect season.

How? It’s been covered. Cignetti prefers older, productive, disciplined transfers relative to hot shot teenagers. What an idea? Where could he have got such insight? Well, how about college hoops. Auburn made similar noise last year riding a starting five with an average age of 23.2 years old all the way to the title game. The Tigers were eventually knocked off by a Florida team averaging 21.6 years old. Cignetti is doing is virtually the same thing in a sport built on physicality.

But that’s not to discount the success. Indiana is scouting, coaching, and developing at a higher level thany program in the Nation. How different is it really sifting through 1000s of transfer portal candidates than it is hundred s of high school prospects? And once they’re in the building, you need to coach em up in your system in no time. Fernando Mendoza isn’t the same as Mac Jones (who sat 3 years at Bama before his big break). Mendoza had one spring to distill his playbook and perform it a Heisman level.

This isn’t the time or space to break down what NIL has done to CFB. There’s only room to celebrate the Hoosiers. Win or lose against the Canes, this team’s accomplished more in 8 months than 100 years of IU football. Next Monday night, we’ll see if the old guys can bring home a chip.