Wild-Card Sunday Preview: Tannehill, Lamar and Who's Built to Come Back
1a. Ryan Tannehill led the NFL with five fourth-quarter comeback victories in 2020, while Lamar Jackson had only one. Now, you might argue that’s only because Lamar Jackson’s Ravens typically don’t trail in games, but to that I’d nod my head in agreement.
Fourteen times over the last two seasons has Tannehill had a reasonable chance for a fourth-quarter comeback win (trailing by 14 or less with more than 10 minutes to go). Seven times he has succeeded. As for Jackson, he’s only had an opportunity to mount a fourth-quarter comeback seven times over the past two years, and he’s succeeded in three of those games. That includes Week 8 against the Steelers, when he re-took the lead in the fourth quarter only to have Pittsburgh take it back. It also includes Week 10 in New England, when the weather in the fourth quarter was apocalyptic.
We media folk love grasping onto narratives and running for dear life with them (because otherwise what would we do for the six days between games, talk to our families?), but is this a significant enough sample size to draw any actual conclusions? If you surmised, based on the rhetorical nature of that question, that it is not, then you are correct.
Nobody wants to play from behind, especially teams that rely so heavily on the run. If you want to argue that Tennessee has superior weapons in the passing game and therefore Tannehill better equipped to play from behind, sure! But don’t make the mistake of thinking there’s an edge there just because the Titans have dug themselves an early hole more often.
1b. Having Calais Campbell and Brandon Williams in the lineup for this game, after they missed the overtime loss to Tennessee in Week 11, will be a very big deal for Baltimore.
* * *
2. Road teams finished one game over .500 in the regular season (128-127-1), are 2-1 in the postseason, and going into the weekend each of the six wild-card road teams had a winning record away from home except for the Rams (4-4). Numbers.
* * *
3. “I don’t know where we went wrong but the feeling’s gone and I just can’t get it back.”
—Canadian folk legend Gordon Lightfoot, on his concern that the window has closed on the Chicago Bears’ run as an elite defense
We spent three seasons waiting for the Bears offense to provide a serviceable complement to their tremendous defense, but as they prepare for an unexpected postseason visit to New Orleans it seems that defense has quietly fallen from the ranks of the elite.
Chicago’s path to a deep postseason run is paved by that unit standing on its head, 2015 Broncos- or 2000 Ravens-style. Three years ago that might have been possible—that year the Bears ranked third in net yardage allowed (299.7), first in points allowed (17.7) and led the NFL in takeaways (36). Last season, they fell to eighth (324.1), fourth (18.6) and 22nd (19) in those categories. And this year they sunk to 11th (344.9), 14th (23.1) and 25th (18).
The news is less discouraging for DVOA fans—I’m one of them!—as they went from first to 10th to, this season, eighth. But the point remains: It is difficult to build and maintain a top defense, where all 11 parts are much more interdependent and stars’ primes are shorter than on offense. And the decline was accelerated by bummers like:
• Moving on from Leonard Floyd in order to give Robert Quinn a deal worth twice as much money annually for twice the length (only to watch Quinn give about half the production that Floyd has provided for the Rams)
• Eddie Jackson, whose main value is ball-hawking, registering two interceptions last season and then zero this year after the Bears made him football’s highest-paid safety (though he did force three fumbles in 2020)
• The shaky play of second-round rookie corner Jaylon Johnson and still up-and-down performance of third-year linebacker Roquan Smith, both of whom are questionable for Sunday
• A banged-up Akiem Hicks showing his age
• Kyle Fuller regressing from high-end No. 1 corner to middle-of-the-pack No. 1 corner
When you step back and assess, this defense is very… Khalil Mack and a bunch of dudes.
Last week, we saw the coaching staff slam the brakes on the Trubisky Revival bandwagon, scaling back the play-calling in what they thought was a must-win against the Packers. It was justified, considering how Trubisky repeatedly and almost comedically put the ball in danger in Jacksonville the previous week. But the chances they’re going to keep this game in the teens in New Orleans is quite unlikely, and loosening the reins on Trubisky and hoping for the best might be a necessary evil if they are going to hang around.
* * *
4a. In a nutshell, Baker Mayfield has struggled when under heavy pressure this season, and the Steelers generate a lot of pressure, which is a bad mix. That will be especially true with Joel Bitonio out and either Michael Dunn or Nick Harris trying to handle Cam Heyward and/or Stephon Tuitt, both of whom are stars in their own right but are less recognizable than T.J. Watt since they and their families appear in Subway commercials much less frequently.
But it goes beyond some of the Browns’ linemen being theoretically unable to blocks some of the Steelers’ pass rushers. When Mayfield plays well, it’s often because they can get him out on play-action bootlegs, which puts him in space and provides an unobstructed view of the field, which is much preferred for a 6-foot quarterback who has struggled to play from the pocket for stretches. Those bootleg calls are much less frequent and effective if the down-and-distance and/or score get away from the Browns. That’s what happened the first time they visited Pittsburgh this year, back in October, when the Steelers got an early pick-six and were up 24-0 midway through the second quarter.
You don’t need to “establish the run” in order for play-action to be effective, but you do need to be in scenarios where running the ball is feasible. Trailing by three-plus possessions in the second half, or frequently facing third-and-long, makes play-action far less effective (the Browns converted two third downs—one by penalty, and both on the same drive—and went 0-for-3 on fourth downs in the Week 6 matchup).
Thus, Mayfield was forced to play from the pocket more often in that game and the rib injury he played through surely didn’t help. The team collectively transformed into metaphorical doo-doo and lost 38-7. Substitute play-caller Pills Van Pelt already has his work cut out for him—falling behind big early on again would make his job impossible.
4b. If you are going to win a football game scoring points always helps. One of the storylines of the Steelers’ second half of the regular season was their disinterest in doing so.
The Steelers’ quick-strike approach in the passing game this season seemed motivated almost solely by a desire to keep Ben Roethlisberger from taking hits. Even as the rest of the NFL caught up to their new approach, they didn’t adjust their plan. Ben is not the Hall of Fame thrower he once was, but his last appearance (the comeback win over the Colts in Week 16) was a reminder that he can still push the ball downfield if needed. It’s now the postseason, and winning games is a necessity, surely changing the risk/reward calculus when it comes to putting Roethlisberger in danger.
* * *
5. Ladies and gentlemen . . . Secret Machines!
• Question or comment? Email us.
