Jaguars running back Leonard Fournette wants you to believe he is not cold. (Charles LeClaire / USA Today)
Top story lines | NFL headlines
Injury news | Divisional-playoff picks / Super Bowl odds
For Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger, like Brady, these playoff games remind us that the clock is ticking on their careers.
[Jenkins: Tom Brady looks like he has nothing but time as Patriots roll past Titans]
For Brees, Sunday’s divisional game falls on the eve of his 39th birthday. As he showed last week, he still can be Drew Brees (passing for 376 yards and two touchdowns), but the Saints also have a strong running game that takes the pressure off him.
“It sure is nice,” Brees said when he asked last week how it feels to be called upon to pass for “only” 4,334 yards rather than the 5,208 of last year. Five times, he has thrown for over 5,000 yards.
“Does it change the way I prepare? No. Does it change my mind-set going into the game? No,” Brees said. “It’s just when you add up the number of throws — I don’t know what it was, but it was probably my fewest attempts in a long time, right? So if you’re taking away five, seven, 10 attempts a game, and those are going to the run game, well that means you’re doing something right in the run game. And it probably means that you’re playing good defense because you’re not in a position where you have to throw the ball to get big chunks.
“Still, my mind-set doesn’t change in regards to preparation or the efficiency that I want to play at. I still think ‘positive plays.’ I still think ‘taking care of the football’ and all those things. But I think at the end of the day, what has it done for me? Well, it doesn’t force me to have to take as many chances.”
The Steelers’ Roethlisberger is the baby of the bunch, awaiting his 36th birthday in March. For him, though, how much longer he will play depends less on his body and more on his mind. He has spoken often of his growing awareness of the link between playing football and degenerative nerve disease, and he mulled retirement during the offseason. After a five-interception game in October, he even wondered if “maybe I don’t have it anymore.”
[Will Sunday’s game be Ben Roethlisberger’s last home game with the Steelers?]
He does and here he is again. Still, he knows his time is finite.
“You have to treat every game like it could be your last because you never know when it is,” Roethlisberger told reporters last week. “We saw an example of that obviously earlier in the season with Ryan [Shazier, the Steelers linebacker who suffered a spinal cord injury during a game in early December]. You just never know when it could be your last. I’m hoping it’s not his last. But you have to go out and play every play and enjoy every play and every game like it could be your last.”
Top story lines
Arrest made after threat to Steelers, fans: A San Antonio man was arrested after allegedly threatening a mass shooting during the game Sunday at Heinz Field. (Read more.)
Jaguars at Steelers (1:05 p.m. EST, CBS): The Jaguars made quite a statement when they played the Steelers during the regular season, intercepting Ben Roethlisberger five times, sacking him twice and going on to win 30-9 in Week 5. Since then, the Jaguars are 8-4 and the Steelers are 10-1. For the Steelers, wide receiver Antonio Brown will play, but will he be effective after suffering a calf injury a few weeks ago? For the Jags, it’s a question of whether Blake Bortles and the offense can score enough to support the defense.
Saints at Vikings (4:40 p.m. EST, Fox): Sam Bradford was the quarterback when these teams played in the Monday night season opener and he long ago was supplanted by Case Keenum and Adrian Peterson was on the Saints’ bench. Much has changed since the Vikings 29-19 victory and both team have improved dramatically. The Saints have a three-pronged offense with Drew Brees, Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram. The Vikings have a smothering defense and, with Keenum playing well, have managed to avoid being hurt by the loss of Dalvin Cook.
The Patriots do their thing: New England’s reign over the AFC continued Saturday night in Foxborough, Mass., in the form of a 35-14 blowout win over the Tennessee Titans. The victory sends the Pats to their seventh consecutive conference championship game, and 12th in the past 17 years.
Tom Brady passed for 337 yards and three touchdowns, the 10th time in his career he’s had at least three scoring passes in a playoff game. Dion Lewis had 141 total yards for New England, while Danny Amendola caught 11 passes for 112 yards, Rob Gronkowski had six catches for 81 yards and a touchdown, and James White added two touchdowns. Tennessee led 7-0 before the Patriots ran off 35 straight points in the rout, which featured a moment in the fourth quarter when the hosts had just nine fewer first downs (30) than the visitors had total plays (39).
The Gronk-Amendola disappearing act: pic.twitter.com/zMDMPUUguj
— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) January 14, 2018
New England will host the winner of Sunday’s Jaguars-Steelers matchup next Sunday at Gillette Stadium in the AFC championship game with the Patriots looking to reach their eighth Super Bowl since the 2001 season.
[For reasons large and small, Patriots roll back into AFC title game]
Eagles are barking: Then, there were the Philadelphia Eagles. They fell behind early and were relying on a backup quarterback. But the Eagles survived their divisional round matchup with the Atlanta Falcons, winning, 15-10, to advance to next Sunday’s NFC championship game.
Nick Foles passed for 246 yards, LeGarrette Blount rushed for his ninth career postseason touchdown, and the Eagles’ defense held Atlanta to 281 total yards. The NFC’s No. 1 seed, which will host the winner of Sunday’s Saints-Vikings matchup, managed to escape with the Falcons advancing all the way to the Philadelphia 2-yard line on their final possession. A fourth-and-goal pass to Julio Jones by Matt Ryan went through the wide receiver’s hands and fell incomplete with just over a minute left.
[Nick Foles outplays Matt Ryan, and Eagles hold off Falcons for playoff win]
The Eagles were the rare home underdog, a fact that they took great glee in pointing out afterward.
Why were some @Eagles wearing dog masks after their big win against the Falcons? Chris Long explains it all. https://t.co/vfkcv9smrrpic.twitter.com/uBacBJ6Jou
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) January 14, 2018
NFL headlines
Nothing to see here: Tom Brady makes a curious attempt to shoot down reports of friction with Bill Belichick and the Pats. (Read more.)
The return of Chucky: Jon Gruden returns to Raiders to settle “unfinished business” and the NFL will look into whether the hiring violated the Rooney Rule. (Read more on the coach’s return.)
Trivial pursuit: Brady is 40 years, 163 days old; Mariota is 24 years and 75 days old. That age difference will mark the first time in NFL history that starting quarterbacks have been more than 16 years apart. Because you want to know, the largest previous gap was 15 years, 166 days — when the Chiefs’ Steve DeBerg, at 37, beat the Raiders’ 22-year-old Todd Marinovich in 1991.
Diggs was big in high school, too: Before he found success with the Vikings, Stefon Diggs was impossible to stop in high school. (Read more.)
Who will play in London: Three NFL playoff teams will play in London this fall, but a new survey shows Brits are still bored by the American football. (Read more.)
Trump blowback: Athletes of Haitian descent took issue with the president’s vulgar comment about immigration. (Read more.)
Injury news
What can Brown do for the Steelers? Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown, who has been sidelined since suffering a calf injury Dec. 17 in the Steelers’ loss to the Patriots, returned to practice Wednesday but was sent home from practice Friday with an illness. Brown, who entered Heinz Field with no discernible limp, will play.
Shazier mending: Ryan Shazier, the Steelers linebacker who suffered a spinal injury in the Dec. 5 game against the Bengals, visited the team during practice Wednesday. Although he has feeling in his legs, he still is using a wheelchair.
“I want to thank the Lord for the first downs that he has been allowing me to achieve. The touchdown is going to come in his timing, but today was a first down. I was finally able to make it to practice with my teammates,” he wrote on Instagram. “It’s great to be back for practices and meetings. Just to be able to feel a part of it means the world. So I’m working harder than I ever have to get back. I’ve been making strides over the past month and continue to make progress. Taking it day-by-day, but I’m far from done. The Lord has not finished his work yet. I want to say thank you to the fans and Steelers Nation for the prayers. If it wasn’t for my family, friends and your prayers I wouldn’t be were I am now. They have lifted me and my family through this journey and I ask for you to continue praying for me, as I continue to work daily on improving my health.”
Picks
Divisional-playoff picks and Super Bowl odds: The Eagles and Jaguars will upset the Falcons and Steelers. (Read more.)
Read Again https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2018/01/13/nfl-divisional-playoffs-falcons-eagles-kick-off-saturdays-slate-tom-brady-and-patriots-titans-in-prime-time/Bagikan Berita Ini
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