VITO'S VIEWS

Once the NFL went to a 17-game season with three preseason games in 2021, it seemed like just a matter of time before the league went to 18 games with two preseason games.

More games mean more money and make it more  easy to play more international games. And while the players aren’t keen on the idea, they usually give the owners what they want in negotiations. In fact, New England owner Bob Kraft said recently it was a foregone conclusion to happen.

But at the Super Bowl, it didn’t sound like it is a sure thing. 

First, commissioner Roger Goodell said at his Monday press conference that an 18-game season is not a given and can’t assume it will happen. He said it is something they have to talk to the union about and that they haven’t had discussions about it.

And the next day, David White, the acting director of the NFLPA, said of the players, “They don’t have any appetite for (18 games).”

He brought up the injuries that happened at the end of the year. And more games mean more injuries.

“These injuries, they cost players pay,” he said. “They can shorten careers. They can diminish lifetime earnings.”

He said all this will be a matter of negotiations as they decide whether to agree to 18 games. His comments made it easy to understand why Goodell said it is not a given. Sounds like it is a red line for the players. 

And White then added, “But as it stands right now, players have been very clear (they don’t want an 18 game season).”

So the battle lines seem to be drawn. The question now is what the players would want to give the owners an 18th game and whether the owners are willing to give them what they want or just stick to 17 games.

These negotiations in a few years are going to be interesting. The current deal expires in March of 2031 but the owners could call for new talks two years earlier. Whenever they starts, the 18-game season will be a major topic of conversation.

Joe Brady was upstaged when the Buffalo Bills recently announced him as their new head coach at a press conference. He replaced Sean McDermott , who was fired after the Bills lost their second playoff game to the Denver Broncos.

Stealing the spotlight was quarterback Josh Allen, who showed up for the press conference on crutches. He said he underwent surgery for a broken bone in his foot (fifth metatarsal) after the season ended, but he would still be playing with the injury if the Bills had made the Super Bowl. He suffered the injury on Dec. 21 in the second quarter of a 23-20 win over Cleveland but kept playing the rest of the regular season and two playoff games. The Bills announced he had a foot injury but didn’t reveal he had a broken bone in his foot.

“I had a little broken bone in there, so they went and took it out and cleaned it up,” Allen said. “Obviously, not an ideal situation. Painful throughout the weeks. But again, game day, different story. Just being able to put that to the side and go out there and play football.”

Allen said he was trying to take things one day at a time after the way last season ended as he committed four turnovers in the Denver loss and now has to adjust to a new head coach, although Brady has run the offense the last three years. He said if he’d made one more play against Denver to win the game, the team probably wouldn’t have made a coaching change.

“I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say I am still sick to my stomach about the way the season ended,” he said. As he enters his ninth season, Allen has had a frustrating career because he has yet to make the Super Bowl. Allen has taken the Bills to the playoffs seven years in a row but has  fallen  short of the Super Bowl.

Playing with the injury showed he is not only one of the best quarterbacks in the league but one of the toughest. And he should recover in eight to ten weeks and be ready for the offseason program. Now the question is whether Allen can finally take the Bills to the Super Bowl.

Mike  McCarthy and Joe Brady have little in common.

McCarthy, hired as the fourth head coach of the Steelers (his hometown team) since 1969, is an 18-year veteran who has coached the Packers and Cowboys and won a Super Bowl coaching the Packers against the Steelers.Brady, hired by the Bills to replace Sean McDermott, is a young coach who will become a head coach for the first time.

But they have one thing in common. They are taking over teams with large fan bases who aren’t into rebuilding and want to win now. Which puts a lot of pressure on both coaches.

Sean McDermott was fired because he kept getting the Bills to the playoffs but kept falling short of the Super Bowl. Brady has been the team’s offensive coordinator the last two years and by staying in house, the Bills’ message was that it doesn’t need an overhaul.

Buffalo already has one of the best quarterbacks in the league in Josh Allen and just needs a coach to get them over the top. The Pegula family that owns the team not only kept general manager Brandon Beane but promoted him to be the president of football operations. So anything less than a Super Bowl will be a disappointment, especially since the Bills have yet to win one although they lost four in a row in the 1990s.

By contrast, the Steelers have won six Super Bowls and Tomlin never had a losing season but also hasn’t won a won a playoff game since 2016 and won only one Super Bowl. Like Bills fans, they want to win a Super Bowl. Many weren’t thrilled with his hiring because they wanted a younger guy but he may win them over because he is a Pittsburgh native and got emotional at his first press conference talking about how it was special for him to coach the Steelers. But he faces more of a rebuilding job than Brady does even though he said the cupboard isn’t bare.

Although McCarthy is not expected to win a Super Bowl his first year, the fans will want at least a playoff victory.  So they both face  expectations to win now. 

The two conference title games came down to coaching last Sunday. The two losing coaches, Sean Payton of the Broncos and Sean McVay of the Rams, both made moves that backfired and help cost their teams a trip to the Super Bowl.

In the AFC game, leading 7-0, Payton decided to pass up a field goal on fourth-and-1 on the New England 14 in the second quarter. Jarrett Stidham’s  pass  went incomplete  and that was the difference as Denver lost to New England, 10-7 in a game that had little offense in the second half when a snowstorm made it difficult for either team to move the ball. Payton said after the game he regretted passing up the field goal. New England’s only touchdown was set up when the Patriots knocked the ball out of the hands of Stidham, who was playing for injured Bo Nix. Drake Maye passed for only 86 yards but ran for 65. Maye became the second quarterback to pass 20 times or more for less than 100 yards and score less than 14 points and still win a playoff game. Blake Bortles was the first in 2017 for Jacksonville against Buffalo. The victory sent New England to its 12th Super Bowl but will be underdogs against Seattle 

In the NFC game, Seattle outscored the Rams, 31-27, as Sam Darnold completed 25 of 36 passes to make thee Super Bowl for the first time. He is in his eighth season playing for his fifth team. But the Rams got some help by some questionable decisions by McVay. The Rams wound up punting with 39 seconds left in first half when McVay called for two passes that went incomplete instead of running the ball to take more time off the clock. That gave Darnold time to lead the Seahawks to another touchdown drive. And with five minutes left in the game, trailing by four points, he passed up a field goal that would have cut the deficit to a point and went for it on fourth down and a Matthew Stafford pass was incomplete. The Seahawks managed to run the clock down to 25 seconds before the Rams got the ball back, needing a touchdown instead of a field goal to win. They didn’t get past midfield and Seattle now goes to the Super Bowl as a 4.5-point favorite against the Patriots.

The two top seeds, Seattle and Denver, both won their first playoff games and will be home for the conference title games Sunday .

But Denver suffered a major setback when quarterback Bo Nix suffered a broken leg at the end of the victory over Buffalo. Now Jarrett Stidham will make his first start this year after not throwing a pass all year. The loss of Nix changed the odds from the Broncos being a slight favorite to a four- or five-point underdog against the Patriots. In the AFC title game. But the Broncos remain confidence they can still win with Stidham at quarterback. Meanwhile, Drake Maye has to play better than he did last week against Houston when the poor play of quarterback C.J. Stroud helped hand the victory to the Patriots.  

In the NFC title game, Seattle will host the Los Angeles Rams and is favored by a field goal after routing the 49ers last week. This will be the third meeting of the season between the two teams and it should be virtually a tossup. They split the first two games but the Rams had a 30-14 lead in the second game before the Seahawks rallied to win in overtime with a two point conversion. This should be a good duel between quarterbacks Matthew Stafford and Sam Darnold and is likely to be decided in the fourth quarter if not overtime. The winner of this game will be favored to win the Super Bowl.

A Seattle-New England Super Bowl would be interesting because it would bring back memories of how the Seahawks were a yard away from winning the Super Bowl in 2015 before Malcolm Butler intercepted the Russell Wilson pass that gave the Patriots and Tom Brady the victory.

The two top seeds, Denver and Seattle, both posted victories in their first playoff games to advance to the conference title games Sunday.

But Denver’s  overtime 33-30 victory over the Bills was a costly one for the Broncos because quarterback Bo Nix suffered a broken leg late in the game and will miss the rest of the playoffs. They will now try to beat the New England Patriots in the AFC title game with Jarrett Stidham, a former Patriot who hasn’t thrown a pass in the regular season, at quarterback.

The loss was devastating for Buffalo as Josh Allen had one of his worst games, throwing two picks and fumbling twice. And in the aftermath, coach Sean McDermott was fired after nine years. There was a lot of controversy over the officiating, particular a Denver interception when the defender ripped it out of the receiver’s hands when the Bills thought it was a catch and down by contact. That set up the game winning field goal along with the help of a controversial pass interference call. But the Bills got a break when a lineman wasn’t called for an apparent hold in the end zone that would have given the Broncos the victory and kept them from getting Nix hurt. 

The Patriots beat the Texans, 28-16, in a mistake-filled game as Drake Maye fumbled four times and lost two while C.J. Stroud threw four picks. It put the Patriots back in the conference title game for the first time since Tom Brady left. With Nix out, they have a good shot at the Super Bowl but have to play better than they did against the Texans.

In the NFC, the Seahawks routed the 49ers, 41-6, who beat the Eagles in Philadelphia a week ago to end their bid for a repeat but were no match for the Seahawks. All the injuries finally caught up with the 49ers.

By contrast, the Rams beat the Bears in Chicago in an overtime. Caleb Williams made one of the best plays of the year on fourth down at the Rams 14. He retreated to the 40 with three Rams chasing him and heaved a pass in the end zone for a touchdown. Coach Ben Johnson decided not to go for two to try to win and sent the game into overtime. Williams then threw a pick in overtime to send up the Rams’ game winning drive although D.J Moore ran a poor route on the play. Now the Rams will try to win their third straight road playoff game in Seattle to make the Super Bowl. They are the only wild card team left in the playoffs.

I’ve often said the dirty little secret of the NFL is that the main goal isn’t winning the Super Bowl. The goal is staying competitive and avoiding those 5-12 seasons that erode the fan base and make it harder to sell tickets.

But things are changing now. Just winning isn’t enough. Owners and fans want Super Bowl titles.

Buffalo coach Sean McDermott found that out when he was fired Monday after the Bills lost in overtime at Denver despite winning 10 or more games for the past seven years. 

That follows the firing of Baltimore coach John Harbaugh, who coached the Ravens for 18 years and won a Super Bowl. He  was fired just two years after he had the Ravens in the AFC title game. The Ravens didn’t make  the playoffs this year because of a missed field goal against Pittsburgh on the final play of the regular season.

It didn’t take him long to find a new job. He was hired by the New York Giants and will report to the owner instead of the general manager.

And Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin decided to step down after 19 years as the head coach. He won a Super Bowl but hadn’t won a playoff game since 2016 and the fans have been calling for a new coach for the last two or three years even though owner Art Rooney II was going to stick with him if he hadn’t stepped down. Unlike Harbaugh, Tomlin is still under contract and will sit out a year.

In Buffalo, general manager Brandon Beene was promoted to the role of director of football operations and is under pressure to find the right coach and to get a better supporting cast around Josh Allen.

So far, four of the 10 teams who will have new coaches besides the Giants have hired a new coach. The Falcons hired former quarterback Matt Ryan to run the football operations, and he hired Kevin Stefanski, who was fired by Cleveland; the Titans hired Robert Salah, formerly of the Jets; the Dolphins hired Jeff  Hafley; and the Steelers hired Mike McCarthy to replace Tomlin.

When it is all said and done, 10 of the 32 teams will have new coaches. It remains to be seen if the new way of doing things is Super Bowl or bust for coaches.

The two top seeds, Denver and Seattle, come off the bye well rested and both play on Saturday against teams (Buffalo and the 49ers) who both played last Sunday and must travel on a short week.

Former coach Tony Dungy, now an NBC broadcaster, said this week that this is unfair and the league is putting TV ratings ahead of what is fair for the teams. But putting TV ratings first is business as usual for the league. Houston has to play on a short week Sunday because it played Monday night.

Dungy suggested eliminating the Monday night game on the wild card weekend, but the league wants the extra prime time game so teams who travel on a short week have to deal with it.

Here is a look at the four games:

—Buffalo at Denver Bills at 4:30 p.m. Saturday: Denver is a top seed and Buffalo is a wild card team but the game is pick em. That is because the Bills have superman Josh Allen at quarterback and the Broncos have second year quarterback  Bo Nix. Allen played with foot, hand and knee injuries and still led the Bills to a fourth quarter comeback against the Jaguars last week. The odds are that Allen will outduel Nix.

—San Francisco at Seattle 8 p.m. Saturday: The key to this game is how the 49ers cope with their injuries. They will have Trent Williams back, who didn’t play in their loss to Seattle two weeks ago in the season finale. But they lost George Kittle last week and Nick Bosa is out for the year and Fred Warner is out at least another week. Still, they beat the Eagles in Philadelphia last week so they could pull off another upset, especially if Sam Darnold makes some mistakes.

—Houston at New England 4:30 p.m. Sunday: The Texans have the better defense, but the Patriots have the better quarterback in Drake Maye so this should be an interesting matchup. The Texans managed to beat the Steelers even though C.J. Stroud fumbled five times while the Texans got two defensive touchdowns. If Stroud plays better and the Texans dominant defense keeps Maye in check, the Texans could pull off an upset.

—Los Angeles Rams at Chicago 8 p.m. Sunday: The Rams were dominating the Panthers last week until Matthew Stafford suffered a finger injury and struggled and gave the Panthers a chance to get back in the game. But Stafford still managed to pull out the game in the fourth quarter. As long as he doesn’t have any lingering effect from the injury, the Rams figure to beat the Bears. The Bears pulled off a victory over Green Bay despite falling behind 21-3, but if they fall behind the Rams, they are not likely to pull off another comeback.

There had never been more than six or more fourth quarter lead changes in a single playoff round. It was also the first time since they started playing wild card games that four games were decided by four or fewer points in a single postseason round.

The Rams beat the Panthers by three, the Bears beat the Packers by four, The Bills beat the Jaguars by three and the 49ers beat the Eagles by four.

In the first three games, the team that had the lead with two minutes left lost.

The Eagles almost made it four when they had the ball on first down on the 49ers 20 at the end but couldn’t score.

The Bears had the best comeback in team history and became one of 12 playoff winners to come back from 18 or more points to beat the Packers, 31-27.

Josh Allen was superman again as he brought the Bills from behind in the fourth quarter twice to beat the Jaguars despite playing with foot, hand and knee injuries. He set up the winning touchdown by driving the pile almost 10 yards to the Jaguars 1. He has now gotten at least one win in six different playoff years (only Tom Brady with eight and Patrick Mahomes with seven have had more)

The only two one-sided games were the Patriots beating the Chargers 16-3 and the Texans beating the Steelers 30-6, although it was a 7-6 game for about three quarters before the Texans scored two defensive touchdowns

. On what may have been his last NFL throw, Aaron Rodgers threw a pick six. It also turned out to be the last Steeler game for Mike Tomlin, who resigned as the head coach after 19 years.

The Chargers were the seventh seed and the Packers, the NFC’s seventh seed, also lost so the seventh seeds are 1-11 since they added a seventh seed six years ago. 

Just 10 days ago, Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh, the veteran Pittsburgh and Baltimore coaches, were going against each other for the NFC North title and the fourth seed in the AFC.

The two coaches had a lot in common. Tomlin was in his 19th year and Harbaugh his 18th and both had won Super Bowls, but Tomlin hadn’t won a playoff game since 2016, while Harbaugh had taken the Ravens to the AFC title game just two years ago.   

The Steelers won when Baltimore missed a last-second field goal and advanced to the playoffs, but lost to the Houston Texans 30-6 on Monday night.

And now both teams will have new coaches next year. Harbaugh was fired in a surprise move after the loss to Pittsburgh, while Tomlin resigned Tuesday. The Steelers had no plans to fire Tomlin, but the fan base had become frustrated with his lack of success in the playoffs in recent years even though he never had a losing season.

With nine jobs open, Harbaugh is the hottest candidate on the market and appears headed to the Giants, while Tomlin — who is under contract with the Steelers in 2026 — might take a year off to try broadcasting before returning to the sidelines in 2027.

Both Tomlin and Steeler owner Art Rooney II, who was apparently surprised by Tomlin’s decision, issued statements. Tomlin said he decided he decided to step down “after much thought and reflection.” Rooney said, “It is hard to put into words the level of respect and appreciation I have for Coach Tomlin.”  

Tomlin was only the third Steelers head coach the team has hired since 1969. That was the year Chuck Noll was hired. He won four Super Bowl in the 1970s and was followed by Cowher and Tomlin, who both won one Super Bowl and lost one. Like Cowher, Cowher also resigned and never returned to the sidelines and still appears on the CBS pregame show.

This will be the first time Art Rooney II has had to hire a head coach, so the pressure is on him to make the right choice. His late father, Dan Rooney, who hired Noll, Cowher and Tomlin, set a high bar. The new coach also has to find a quarterback for the future since Aaron Rodgers is likely to retire.

If he follows his dad’s model, Art II will hire an assistant coach in his 30s who will be on the job for more than decade.

Finding the right coach is easier said than done. But the Steelers like stability and  don’t want to become one of those teams that hires a new coach every few years.