DIVISIONAL ROUND RECAP - HOW FAR CAN HOUSTAN GO??

In the Liam O'Keefe podcast, Liam discusses the first round of the NFL playoffs. He mentions that the Cleveland Browns had a disappointing loss and that the Houston Texans have shown great improvement under coach D'Amico Ryans. He also talks about the Miami Dolphins' struggles and questions their future with quarterback Tua. Liam believes the Miami offense needs a revamp and mentions their lack of a strong running game and interior offensive line. He also comments on the Pittsburgh Steelers' need for a new quarterback and the Buffalo Bills' impressive performance. All right, everybody, welcome back to the Liam O'Keefe podcast. It's me, Liam O'Keefe, and I am here to deliver a massive podcast to you guys. The first round of the NFL playoffs has come and gone, and we had some pretty huge matchups. Obviously, everything in the playoffs gets turned up to 11. Huge matchups happened. Every single game, it seems like, was decided by a couple touchdowns. So there were very, very convincing wins all across the board. And we're going to go through every single one of them. I made my predictions last week. A few of them hit, a fair amount of them did not, but we're going to talk about every single game and we're going to review the divisional round as well. So we can jump right into the episode, and I hope you all enjoy. Starting things off, we're just going to rip the bandaid. I'm sorry to everyone who bought in, but the Cleveland Browns, the hype train went off the rails, man. I couldn't believe it. I was watching that game in disbelief. Everything that made the Browns great just vanished. It was unbelievable, man. I actually can't deal with this. They had no front seven play at all due to the injuries they had. It was Myles Garrett vs. the world, and he was getting locked down by Laramie Tunzel. The secondary was just completely out of it. No one wanted to tackle. They weren't playing smart football at all. And obviously, C.J. Stratton's just going to take advantage of that every single time. So I'm sorry to all those who followed me and put their trust and money into the Cleveland Browns. Shout out Cole. But, I mean, it was just such a rough one to watch. I had a bunch of takes, and some of them weren't the most popular. I know, like, this was my biggest one, though, man. The Cleveland Browns agenda was my, that was my child. I was holding on to that one more than anything else, and, I mean, we've got other things here. Tampa Bay, we had some huge Ws, but that was just a tough one to lose. But actually talking about the Texans, dude, they're so nice. It's actually insane, man. C.J. Stroud, everyone knows how great he is. He's a premier quarterback in his first year in the league. Nico Collins has been a huge story. His leap from last year to this year is unparalleled. He's really cementing himself as one of the top wide receivers in the league, especially top of the young guys. D'Amico Ryans, who I had as my coach of the year in my earlier episode this year, I still think that holds true. The turnaround this team has had is utterly insane, and you can give a lot of that credit to the young talent developing, but you have to have someone to develop that talent, and I think D'Amico Ryans has done head and shoulders above every other coach in the NFL in terms of exceeding expectations and increasing the young talent. So D'Amico should definitely be crowned coach of the year, and he is a huge reason why Houston is going to be as dangerous as they are going into the rest of the postseason, and we'll talk about that later when we get into the divisional round, but I think it's time to talk about the other Saturday game, which was Kansas City and Miami. This game was just sad to watch, if we're being honest. Miami looked miserable throughout the entire game. You could tell they had no heart whatsoever, and they just got punched in the throat by Patrick Mahomes in that offense, man. And I understand the Dolphins' defense didn't have it easy, they didn't have Xavier Howard, they lost their top three edge rushers, which is an insane loss to have, it's a huge hit for any defense, especially a defense playing Patrick Mahomes, because you have to heat him up, you can't let him sit back in the pocket all day, or else he'll pick you apart then. But also, once you blitz him, you're man up on everybody, and he's going to have some magic happen, whether it's Kelsey or Rasheed Rice, who's really had a breakout year. I'm really impressed with what I've seen from Rasheed Rice. But Mahomes will find those guys if you put them one-on-one, and he'll make you pay. So they were really in a tough situation defensively, and offensively, Tua just has no juice. I think we're going to have real, real discussions about him and his future with the Miami Dolphins, because every other quarterback from the 2020 draft class has gotten a huge deal. Joe Burrow got a lot of money, Justin Herbert got a lot of money, even Jalen Hurts has gotten a lot of money, and he doesn't look great now, so I think the Miami Dolphins should be very careful about how they handle Tua's contract in the coming off-seasons. I know he's a liked guy in Miami, Tyreek Hill loves him, everyone speaks so highly of him there, but it just doesn't translate. When we get to the games on Sundays, he's just not a guy who can carry you to that championship level. He doesn't have insane arm talent, he doesn't have insane escapability. His career health record is pretty bad, too. Last year he contemplated retirement because there was such a bad time with his concussions. And of course, Tua's not the only problem with the Miami offense. Their running game, while on the stat sheet, is wildly efficient. It's so many outside zone trickery plays and stuff that's big boom but also can bust really hard if you're not careful. And they also lack the ability to run the ball straight at you. Their interior offensive line is a huge point of weakness for them. You've never seen Miami try and successfully run the ball straight up the middle. It never works. They always have to do some trickery and some motion to throw everyone off guard. They don't have that element of offense to them. They're so one-dimensional, which is so weird to say, because in the beginning of the year, it was honestly the opposite. They were multi-dimensional, they were running with such great efficiency, they were passing on historic numbers, and it has just fallen off completely. And I understand it was cold, but Patrick Mahomes was dealing with the same weather under worse, with worse wide receivers. So I think this offense really needs a revamp. I don't know what they can do to get through it. I don't know what other options are available at quarterback, because they're in a weird spot where it's hard to get someone better than Tua, but they need to get someone better than Tua without giving up too many assets, because their window to win now is right now. They've paid Tyreek Hill, they've got all these guys on the roster, aging vets and young guys alike. They're in the perfect opportunity to win a Super Bowl. They're just, two or three things are holding them back, because they've got the play caller and they've got everything else they need except for a real interior offensive line and a real playoff elevator quarterback, a guy who's going to go into Arrowhead Stadium and at the very least make it a game. You knew this game was over by halftime. You knew Miami was not going to come back. They didn't have that heart. They didn't have that, like, need in them. They were, I don't know what happened in that locker room, but everyone just felt so defeated. No one in that locker room had an ounce of fight in them, and I don't know if it's because they lost the division or they were just so tired of guys, like, getting killed to injury or whatever, but they were a team with no fight and looked like a team that didn't even deserve to be in the playoffs. Speaking of teams that don't belong in the playoffs, we're going to round out our AFC wildcard weekend matchups with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Buffalo Bills. If I'm being honest, this was probably the most boring game in my opinion. Every other game at least had a huge thrill or upset or was really, really close the entire time. This game was the most forgettable and the most boring for me, and there's not much I really have to say about this except, you know, the Pittsburgh Steelers need to go figure their stuff out. They need a new quarterback. They might need a new head coach. There have been conflicting reports on Mike Tomlin's availability and eagerness to play in the 2024 season, or not play, rather coach, but he doesn't, like, he walked off the podium after their loss when someone brought up his contract situation, so I really don't know what's up with him. Obviously, losing him is a horrific thing because he's one of the top coaches in the NFL. He's constantly elevating talent that has no business being in the playoffs when he gets them there every time, so hopefully he stays and that's a huge relief for Pittsburgh, but the quarterback situation stays the same regardless. They need a new guy. I say they get a veteran, but if they somehow trade up and get one of those rookies, great for them. You've probably just extended your playoff window by a little bit. Buffalo's obviously the interesting team to talk about because they won, they will be moving on, and will play Kansas City, which is a huge matchup. Everyone knows, everyone loves the Kansas City-Buffalo games. This one's going to be in Hyde Park Stadium, but in terms of how Buffalo played, they came out there and they were just on one, man. Everything Josh Allen did was working. Their black voodoo magic was awesome. He pulled out the fake slide, which I thought was really cool from Josh Allen, and normally I'm pretty negative when it comes to Buffalo, and I still don't treat them as true contenders, and it's going to be a real nice coin flip to see what comes next in terms of how they play at Kansas City, but they went out there and they beat up on the Pittsburgh Steelers who didn't really deserve to be there. I would have rather seen Jacksonville, or even Indianapolis for that matter, but obviously Pittsburgh won. They deserved to be there, so you can't really say anything about it. There's not much for me to say about this game. I wasn't super locked in, super dialed into the two and seven seeds battling it out. This was the least cool of the two and seven seed matchups, so we can, honestly, we can just talk about the next game because that one was so much more interesting. Dallas Cowboys, what happened? How did you lose to the Green Bay Packers? Oh my God. The league has messed up, man. They let it happen again. Green Bay really went 3-for-3 on incredible superstar quarterbacks, and Jordan Love, if you went to my week three or week four podcast and I ended up talking about the Packers, it would have looked so rough for me right now because I probably said some bad things about Jordan Love because the beginning of the season he looked so rough. He wasn't getting anything done anywhere, and the midseason turnaround he's had in season has been one of the most special things I've seen in a long time in the NFL. He has gone from zero to hero in the span of what seems like a week. He's thrown like 20 touchdowns to one interception since week 11, I think was the stat. He finished with the second most passing touchdowns in the league. He is a real superstar quarterback, and he's making highlight-level throws. He's off his back foot. He's slinging it into tight windows. He looks like Aaron Rodgers. How did we let them do it again, man? We should have learned the first time, and everyone mocked him for it originally because Aaron Rodgers then went out after Love was drafted and had two MVP seasons, but it doesn't matter. He's developed, and now they have another Aaron Rodgers, and I think it's really cool to see, truthfully, as much as I think it's insane. The Jordan Love film is so sweet. It's so smooth. He plays the game with complete confidence and control, and it just works out for him every time. It was honestly the most fun I had watching any specific player in the playoffs. He absolutely diced up a Dallas Cowboys defense. That was supposed to be an intimidating threat with Micah and Stephon Diggs playing as well as they had been playing all year. Stephon Diggs got burned, whoa, did I just say Diggs? Stephon Gilmore got burned on the worst, like, outbreaking route ever. It was embarrassing. The receiver was wide open. Every single thing was going Green Bay's way, and in terms of the offense, Dak Prescott, it might be over. The fraud allegations, they're all on you. We've seen it. We need to stop believing. Every single year, it's, this isn't their year, and then they win, like, 13, 12, 13 games, and everyone's like, maybe this is the year they finally get it done. I think, I think maybe they can finally do it this year. And then they lose again, and then everyone's like, oh, how could we be so stupid? How could we not have seen that this was gonna happen again? And then the cycle continues anew, where we all act like we know everything, and then we get to the end of the year, and we're like, maybe they can go on the run, and then they're gonna blow it next year to, like, I don't know, the Saints or something. That's a weird guess, but it's just, it's bad. I'm not even gonna give you the respect of talking about you on this great podcast. We're moving on to the Lions and Rams. Oh, baby, this was a game. It started out high-scoring affair. It kind of had everything you wanted. Every single fan of football could enjoy this game, because not only did it start out as a high-flying affair with so many, like, storylines, Josh Reynolds, former Ram, was going off, Jared Goff was going off, Matt Stafford was looking great. He came back from, like, two separate injuries. He busted his hand, and he got absolutely rocked by Hutchinson, and I think it was Alene McNeil swamped him. It looks, he definitely has a broken rib after the hit he took. They brought him into the blue tent, and they panned the Carson Wentz for, like, three seconds, and I started dying. I thought there was no way we were gonna get a Carson Wentz playoffs, like, playoffs of appearance. It, oh my God, it was so good. Everything about that game was absolute cinema. Detroit moves on in dynamic fashion. He, whoo, everything about that game was sick, dude. That was, like, one, that's a top-tier NFL game for sure, and I'm so, so glad Detroit pulled it out. Watching the reactions of those players and those fans in Ford, what is it, Ford Stadium? Something like that. Oh, man. It was special. Let them know that they deserve to win that game, because everyone in that stadium had needed it. That city was begging for any type of sports success at all, after the Pistons and the Lions and everything that's just gone on in that sad, sad sports city. It was a good win for them, and I'm really excited to see where they go from here. They play Tampa Bay next week, or I guess it's this week by now, but that's gonna be a huge game, and let's just, let's rip it off. Let's talk about it right now, baby. Baker Mayfield and them boys, it wasn't even close. It wasn't even close. Philadelphia, you're sorry, you're sad. That was the worst football I've ever seen. It was a, this whole season for them was, like, the worst, like, they started on the highest of highs, they were flying, they were 10-1, and then it just hit a, like, train. They just couldn't do anything, they fell off in a insane way, a way that we've, like, almost never seen before in our entire lives. They lost 5 out of 6, they finished 11-6, and they get SWASHED. It was, like, a disgraceful game. If you had covered up the records on both of those teams, you would have thought Philadelphia was the team that barely snuck into the playoffs. You would have thought they didn't even deserve to be in the playoffs. Their defense is atrocious, and I, I do know why. I do know why they're so bad. It's because Matt Patricia is calling the plays. He ruined this team. I don't know why they, like, Josh Desai, who was originally calling the plays, he was not good either. But handing your play calling over to Matt Patricia was the worst thing that team could have done. It completely sunk their season, it, like, I, there's no real explanation for why they just got bad at football. I wish I could tell you, I wish I could have seen some magical way on how they, like, got so bad, but I can't. They just got bad. There's no, there's nothing about it, man. Like, they just stink. I want to hit them with the forget how to play football, Ray, and let Tampa Bay walk all over them. It wasn't even Mike Evans and Chris Godwin like I predicted. Chris Godwin only made an impact when the game was already over. They had their wide receiver three and fours going crazy on this Philadelphia defense. And while they were missing A.J. Brown on offense, there was more than an A.J. Brown sized hole in their offensive scheming game plan. Even if he was there, he would not have been the difference maker in this game. They had so many other problems than A.J. Brown, which, like, Julio Jones is ancient. Quez Watkins is random. All they had was Devontae Smith and Dallas Goddard, but their offensive line was getting smothered. They could not run the ball effectively at all. Jalen Hurts was just fighting for his life out there. He took one of the worst safeties I've seen in my life. He had three chances to get rid of the ball, but he just, like, spun around and got absolutely slammed into the end zone. And the offensive line just couldn't hold up. I saw today that Jason Kelsey has officially retired, which really does suck. He was one of the legends of the game. He's a player that can really change an entire offense. I don't know what Philadelphia is going to look like since Jason Kelsey was such a huge reason that the tush push was a successful play, but, I mean, you lose an impact player like that, we'll see what they can do to replace him and if it matters at all, because this center is not the most valuable position, but everybody loves Jason Kelsey, so it's sorry to see him go. He's one of the most likable guys on that Philadelphia team. That's all I really have to say about that game. Tampa Bay just looked like the better team. There was nothing about it that could sway you otherwise. The Eagles looked awful. They deserve to be out of the playoffs. They deserve to have gotten bounced. So now I think we do some looking into the future and predict the four divisional games. Looking at these divisional games, I think that's a really weird predicament to be in because in my eyes, I have four teams that should win their games and I'm going to predict them all, but there's a real chance that I can hop on here next week and be like, damn, I really went 0 for 4. I can see a reasonable scenario where both of these things are true. Starting off with Kansas City and Buffalo, I think the wheels come off of Kansas City this week. I'm going with Buffalo, even though I've been so anti-Buffalo. They're at home, and this is the time. Kansas City's weapons held up in the first playoff game, that's not going to happen twice in a row. Kadarius Toney is going to have a disaster rep, or Rasheed Rice isn't going to be able to bail him out, or who knows, McCole Hardman is going to be in the game, which is just a net negative all around, and I really think that Buffalo can hold it together for at least one more game. I don't believe Kansas City's as serious as an opponent as you would need to eliminate Buffalo the way that they've been holding themselves up together now, so I think Buffalo can take that one at home. As for the Ravens and the Houston Texans, I think this is the Baltimore's game. I think they're far and away the best team in the AFC, so I hope they don't prove me wrong. I know CJ Stroud is a beast. I know D'Amico Ryans is a beast. We spent so much time talking about that earlier in the episode, but I know Lamar. I know that defense. They're going to give Houston some trouble. They're not like the Cleveland defense. They're healthier. They're like a bigger unit. More guys come and more guys have an impact, which makes it harder to game plan against, so I think that Baltimore is going to steal one from Houston and NCJ Stroud's incredible rookie season. I have Detroit making it out of the divisional round. They're going to beat Tampa Bay. I love Baker. I think that team has so much juice, but just going band for band with the Detroit Lions when you are the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, it's just hard to overcome the gap. I think there's a level that both of these teams are on, and I think Detroit is above that, and I don't know if they have enough luck or any given game in them to really beat Detroit. Finally, I have the San Francisco 49ers taking down the Green Bay Packers. I know Jordan Love is a baller, and I know all the young guys are flashing, but San Francisco is unstoppable. Christian McCaffrey is healthy. That was the only worry I had is that he had a little banged up, but he is totally fine from the reports I'm seeing, and I really don't think there's anyone that can stop them, especially not this young team who played an incredible game against Dallas, but San Francisco is not Dallas. So I know it's boring to have the one and the two seeds in the championship games, but it's really, I just think this year, there's just head and shoulders a bigger gap than there has been in other years with the three and the four and the one and the two. So I would love to see an upset. I'm always game for great football, but this is my prediction. This is who I think is going to win, and we'll see what happens. With all that being said, thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Liam O'Keefe Podcast. I greatly appreciate it. I really hope you enjoyed, and I will see you all next week.