It was tough to care about football last week as the Los Angeles area was devastated by wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes and businesses and forced about 92,000 people to evacuate and seek shelter.
Los Angeles is still hurting and battling, which will be the case for some time. But there was a sense of normalcy by the time the Los Angeles Rams and Minnesota Vikings kicked off for their wild-card matchup in Glendale, Ariz.
It was a bit easier to care about a game after seeing communities rallying to help one another. It was easier to start the process of moving forward when countless people who had lost their homes confidently said We will rebuild while bravely sharing their crushing stories to TV cameras.
I can also assertively say Altadena will be back, a place I called home for nearly a decade. It crushed me to see how much the Eaton fire destroyed the neighborhoods I became familiar with while working as a delivery driver at the local Pizza Hut on Lake Avenue in front of Eliot Arts Magnet school in Altadena.
I’m proud to be from the Los Angeles area, just like Bobby Wagner, who made sure to send well wishes to Southern California in his postgame interview after coming up with the key fumble recovery that helped the Washington Commanders defeat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to advance to the divisional round.
Again, football seems unimportant, but the start of regaining normalcy wouldn’t have been possible without the brave first responders and fire fighters that came together from Los Angeles, neighboring states and countries.
The Rams made the right decision to move the game and allow their city space to fight and heal. In return, the team received plenty of help amid a chaotic week, even from a divisional rival.
Keep battling, Los Angeles.
Here are our winners and losers from the NFL this past week.
Winners
Bobby Wagner
It was fitting that the ageless Wagner came up with the momentum-changing fumble recovery that led to the Commanders rallying for a 23–20 victory over the Buccaneers to advance to face the Detroit Lions on Saturday.
At that point in the game, Jayden Daniels and his offense had just failed to convert on a fourth-and-goal from the Tampa Bay 3-yard line. Baker Mayfield had the opportunity to extend the Buccaneers’ 17–13 lead in the fourth quarter, but a botched handoff paved the way for Wagner’s heroics. Daniels capitalized with a go-ahead touchdown pass to Terry McLaurin and Zane Gonzalez had the game-winning field goal that doinked off the right goal post.
But the game probably would have turned out differently if Wagner wasn’t in the right place at the right time, as he has been for much of his illustrious 13-year career. Wagner continues to play at a high level in his age-34 season and has been instrumental in helping a young team get accustomed to winning.
I must admit, I cheered a bit knowing that a Los Angeles native stepped up in the clutch. Wagner grew up in Inglewood before he and his family moved just outside Los Angeles to Ontario, Calif.
Arizona Cardinals
It was great to see the Cardinals put their NFC West rivalry aside to accommodate the Rams and help them build a home-game-like setting at their stadium. The Cardinals sent planes to pick up the Rams and their families and allowed the team to paint their logo and colors on the field. It was one of many classy moves from several teams that stepped up during a difficult week in the Los Angeles area.
The Rams had buses for their fans to help them get from Southern California to Arizona in time for the game against the Vikings. Rams president Kevin Demoff shared in detail to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer about the logistics that came with moving a playoff game in a short span.
C.J. Stroud and DeMeco Ryans
The Houston Texans were home underdogs in their wild-card matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers. And it was hard to disagree with the oddsmakers because C.J. Stroud was coming off a shaky regular season due to a poor offensive line and a lack of healthy weapons.
But we probably should have seen the Texans’ upset victory coming after all the motivation they had received in the past two weeks. Long before ESPN analyst and former NFL head coach Rex Ryan said the Chargers were getting a playoff bye week, coach DeMeco Ryans and his Texans watched and rested as the Chargers and Pittsburgh Steelers played their starters in Week 18 despite both already having clinched playoff spots and being eliminated from winning their respective division.
To me, that said both teams preferred to play the wounded Texans as the fifth seed and were trying their best to avoid the Baltimore Ravens as a sixth seed. Wisely, Ryans used it as motivation, especially for his defense that was stewing from an ugly Christmas Day loss to the Ravens.
The Texans were well-motivated, rested from not playing many snaps in Week 18 and welcomed Justin Herbert and Chargers to Houston with a dominant defensive performance. It was an ugly first half for Stroud and his thin offense, but the second-year quarterback kept plays alive amid constant pressure from a stout defense.
Everything changed once Stroud hit Xavier Hutchinson for 34 yards on third-and-16 to spark the team’s first points and walk into halftime with a 7–6 advantage. Stroud now has a 2–1 postseason record and advanced to the divisional round for the second time in as many years in the NFL.
Football fans getting to watch Josh Allen vs. Lamar Jackson
The Baltimore Ravens and Buffalo Bills handled business in the first round, and now football fans will be treated to a massive divisional showdown between Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen, the top two candidates for MVP.
This won’t settle the debate for MVP—voters submit their ballots right after the regular season—but this game will put Jackson or Allen one step closer to possibly reaching their first Super Bowl. In fact, no quarterback drafted in 2018 or after has ever won the Super Bowl, which makes sense because of Patrick Mahomes, a ’17 draftee, has often stood in their way.
But maybe this is finally the year that Jackson or Allen, first-round picks from the ’18 draft, knock off the Chiefs in the postseason. Before we get there, there’s a highly anticipated battle between the Bills and Ravens for the possible right to put away some playoff demons against Kansas City—that’s if, of course, the Texans don’t decide to play spoiler again.
Book lovers
Shoutout to SI’s Conor Orr for tracking down Jim Murphy, the author of the book Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown was reading on the sideline during the fourth quarter of Sunday’s win against the Green Bay Packers.
I’m sure that warmed the hearts of many book lovers. Thanks to Brown, Murphy’s phone was filled with messages and his Inner Excellence book instantly became a No. 1 best seller on Amazon.
Losers
Dallas Cowboys’ priorities
The Dallas Cowboys made the head-scratching decision to wait until Mike McCarthy's contract expired to finally begin the process of searching for a new head coach—eight days after the regular season.
Perhaps Jerry Jones will go off Orr’s list of 13 coaching candidates for the Cowboys to make up for lost time. This approach didn’t make much sense unless the Cowboys had no interest in Lions coordinators Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn, who are now both focused on the postseason and won’t be able to interview again for coaching jobs for a few weeks. And maybe there was no urgency because it was obvious that Mike Vrabel had plans to join the New England Patriots.
I guess there’s not much harm with being patient and thinking outside the box for candidates, especially for an organization that is in need of creativity and has had minimal postseason success since the 1990s.
Even then, it wasn’t fair to make McCarthy wait another week. He didn’t end the team’s long drought of not reaching a championship game, but McCarthy got the Cowboys to the postseason in three of his five seasons.
Mark Davis’s 2024 decisions
Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis has whiffed a handful of times on head coaches and general managers the past 14 years. But he didn’t even give coach Antonio Pierce and Tom Telesco a fair shake in firing both after one year.
Davis forced the partnership between Pierce and Telesco because he couldn’t decide on one vision and was rewarded with a dreadful four-win season. He was concerned about Pierce’s lack of coaching experience and paired him with Telesco, a seasoned executive who spent 11 seasons as the Chargers’ GM. But Pierce was more compatible with Champ Kelly, who wasn’t promoted after being the interim GM in 2023.
It’s understandable that Davis is now allowing Tom Brady, the team’s minority owner, to have more say after years of getting it wrong, but it’s a bad look for the organization to fire a GM after one season and not give a coach time to develop knowing well that game management wasn’t a strength. Davis quickly pivoted, and probably for the best, but now Brady has to deliver pitches just to convince top coaching candidates like Johnson to interview with the team and assure them Davis will no longer be in the way, which isn’t even a guarantee.
Steelers’ reputation
The Pittsburgh Steelers continued their tradition of fading in December before a lackluster playoff performance for a one-and-done appearance.
But this playoff exit lacked fight, with many questioning whether coach Mike Tomlin had his team prepared before being embarrassed by the Ravens in the wild-card round. Things have gotten stale for Tomlin and the Steelers.
Something needs to change for teams to fear Tomlin’s Steelers again.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as NFL Wild-Card Round Winners and Losers: C.J. Stroud, Texans Silence the Doubters.