The New England Patriots are one game away from making the Super Bowl and favored to win the AFC Championship game against the Broncos.

I thought they were dead! I thought we wouldn’t need to think about them for YEARS! Somehow, Patriotine returned?!?!?!?!?!?

I am so mad about this that I am simply pretending it is not happening. I will deal with my emotions on the topic if and when they make the Super Bowl and not before. I am gonna have to read about current events to prevent myself from thinking about the Patriots being good again.

– Rodger Sherman

Broncos 33, Bills 30 (OT)

The more I write about football, the more the grim truth becomes clear: Half of winning the Super Bowl is about putting together the best roster; the other half is keeping those players physically healthy through 20 or 21 games in America’s most violent sport.

Attrition has been a killer these playoffs. The 49ers’s too-long-to-list injury woes doomed them against the Seahawks in a 41-6 loss on Saturday night. The Chargers invested heavily in protecting Justin Herbert, only for both of their Pro Bowl tackles to suffer season-ending injuries, leading to a beatdown at the hands of the Patriots in their playoff game.

The Broncos clearly knew the grisly arithmetic in their matchup with the Bills on Saturday. Bo Nix’s second touchdown was a pass to Lil’Jordan Humphrey, who was being guarded by Bills safety Darnell Savage. Savage was playing because starter Cam Lewis had a cramp, but Lewis was only starting because Jordan Poyer was out with a hamstring injury, but Poyer was only starting because of a pectoral injury to Damar Hamlin, but Hamlin was only starting because of a season-ending knee injury to Taylor Rapp in October. Savage was cut by the Jaguars and Commanders earlier this season, and didn’t play in the Bills’ first playoff game against the Jags. He only played three snaps Saturday night, and one was the touchdown when the Broncos threw right at him:

Nix’s third touchdown went to Marvin Mims, who was being guarded by Bills cornerback Dane Jackson. Jackson only entered the game for that one play because of an injury to Tre'Davious White, and because first-round pick Maxwell Hairston suffered an ankle injury in Week 18. Jackson spent almost the entire season on the practice squad, appearing in just one game in Week 10 against Miami. On his only snap of the postseason, the Broncos threw directly at him and scored. (In Jackson’s defense: Not much he coulda done, perfect throw!)

The Broncos won in overtime — we don’t need to talk about the details — and then, the injury bug came for them. Minutes after Denver’s win, Sean Payton delivered the shocking news that Nix had suffered a season-ending broken ankle on one of the final plays of the game, and that the Broncos would have to start backup quarterback Jarrett Stidham in the AFC Championship Game.

Stidham threw zero passes this season, as the Broncos were the only NFL team this season whose backup QB did not attempt any passes. Stidham also threw zero passes last season, as the Broncos were the only NFL team in 2024 whose backup QB did not attempt any passes. The last time Stidham threw a pass in an NFL game was Week 18 of the 2023 season, after Payton had thoroughly tired of Russell Wilson.

There are zero Broncos fans with Jarrett Stidham jerseys. TV debate show hosts have no opinions about Jarrett Stidham. I have been aware of Jarrett Stidham for about 10 years now, since he was a freshman at Baylor, and if you showed me the above picture of Jarrett Stidham playing for the Denver Broncos and asked “Who is this?” there is a zero percent chance that I would have said “Jarrett Stidham.” His teammates know who he is, but not whether he is good at throwing footballs. And he might be the most important man in football right now.

Although Stidham has started four NFL games in his career (two with Denver, two with the Raiders), I will forever associate him with the time the Patriots put him in to relieve Tom Brady in a blowout win over the Jets, only for Stidham to immediately throw a pick-six and force the Pats to put Brady back in.

After some extensive research, I feel confident saying Stidham is the first QB to make his season debut starting in a conference championship game. Only one other QB has started a playoff game without throwing a pass in the regular season — Joe Webb, the quarterback-turned-receiver for the 2012 Vikings — but that was in the first round of the playoffs, and the Vikings lost. Only one other QB has made his season debut this late — Bill Musgrave, who threw his first pass of the 1994 season in the 1995 Super Bowl — but that was with his Niners up 49-26 with under two minutes to go.

You could argue that the Broncos have put themselves in a bad spot here. They didn’t have many opportunities to play Stidham during the regular season with 14 of their 17 games decided by one score, but they probably could’ve given him some reps in Week 18 when their opponents were resting starters.

But for all the preparation involved in football, you can’t ever truly prepare for situations like this. You get to the end of the season, and it all comes down to some guy.

Rams 20, Bears 17 (OT)

It is with great sadness that I report a structural deficiency in the team built entirely out of miraculous game-winning fourth quarter touchdown passes.

Caleb Williams did it again Sunday night. With the Bears facing a fourth down and the season on the line, Williams again delivered one of the most remarkable passes you’ll ever see, backpedaling and backpedaling and backpedaling and backpedaling before throwing a game-tying touchdown pass to Cole Kmet in the end zone:

NextGenStats reported that Williams threw the ball from 26.5 yards behind the line of scrimmage, a full 4.5 yards farther than anybody had thrown a completed pass since they started measuring. And it was a touchdown to tie a playoff game.

The play came just a week after Williams’ last fourth-down miracle, and a month after his walk-off bomb against the Packers. That a Bears quarterback could make all three of those throws in one month had me wondering if Chicago Pope had beseeched a higher power to intervene on behalf of his favorite team. That would imply that God is real, and that Catholicism is the One True Faith. All that schism, all those wars, all that persecution, all finally settled by the Bears. Incredible.

…….. aaaaaaaaaaaaand then the Rams won in overtime. Williams threw an interception, his third of the game, and Los Angeles kicked a game-winning field goal.

That’s the brutal thing about these back-and-forth playoff games: One second, everything is possible and God is real, and the next it’s all over.

OK, I am here to talk about the big officiating situation everybody is talking about.

No, not the fact that there were two separate plays this weekend in which a receiver caught a ball, went to the ground after being contacted by a defender, then had a defensive back rip the ball away from him, and somehow one was ruled an interception and the other was ruled a catch. I am simply not going to talk again about how the NFL, The Sport With A One Billion-Page Rulebook, has decided that time is a critical factor in determining whether a catch is made, and yet won’t tell you “how much time” or any other relevant details. If I do, I will feel stupid for following this sport.

I am talking, of course, about 49ers kicker Eddy Piñiero trying and failing to execute a soccer-style slide tackle on the Seahawks’ Rashid Shaheed during the returner’s opening kickoff touchdown, only to miss and still get flagged for tripping:

Tripping is a rare penalty in the NFL. It was called 17 times this season, making it the 27th-most common penalty in the league, just behind offensive offsides … and that was an unusually high number, the most since 2009. In 2021, tripping was called just twice all season long.

Most of the time, tripping is called on defenders or blockers who stick out a leg to stop an opponent after getting beat on a play, but a decent number of tripping calls are on players who simply don’t know how to make a tackle. (The #1 example that comes to my mind is Tom Brady after a teammate threw an interception.) Specialists are common culprits. Raiders punter A.J. Cole was flagged for tripping earlier this year, and Brazilian-born kicker Cairo Santos was criticized in 2014 for stopping a Percy Harvin return touchdown with his feet.

But Piñiero’s was perhaps the most blatant tripping call in NFL history. A former high school soccer star who almost pursued college soccer before giving kicking a try, Piñiero had only recorded one tackle in 84 career NFL games. I guess he just reverted to his instincts. No NFL kicker I can find has ever been so bold, though the kicker for the Washington Huskies did it a few years ago and got flagged (made the tackle, though.)

On one hand, it feels silly that tripping is a foul in football. The whole point of the game is to violently drag your opponent to the ground, so why is doing it with your feet illegal? If Piñiero had launched his body towards Shaheed’s feet, that would’ve been totally fine!

On the other hand … Piñiero actually got off rather easily here. In soccer, the sport in which this exact tackle happens frequently, such a blatant attempt to take out the feet of a player streaking towards the goal would’ve been punished much more harshly. Piñiero would’ve gotten a straight red card, resulting in his ejection and his team having to play the rest of the game with one less player on the field at all times. In our football, tripping is just a 15-yard penalty and we move on to the next play. Piñiero didn’t even have to personally sit out the rest of the game, forcing San Francisco to find a backup kicker. If the options are a 15-yard penalty or a touchdown, you trip the return man every time!

On another, third hand … Piñiero was somehow penalized despite totally whiffing on the play, or at the very least not making enough contact to stop Shaheed. In soccer, that goal would be scored and the bad tackle attempt forgotten. Instead the refs came out and drew attention to Piñiero’s malfeasance and poor technique.

Remember that the College Football National Championship game is tonight! I’m still really proud of this thing I wrote last week: