— Bills 27, Ravens 25
Ravens scored TD with 1:33 left, dropped pass for tying 2-point play.
Buffalo led 21-10 at halftime.
Bills in first half: 28 plays, 168 yards, 21 points.
Ravens were 7-10 on third down, outgained Buffalo, 416-273.
Bills visit Kansas City next week, in AFC title game.
— Commanders 45, Lions 31
Detroit gained 521 yards, but turned ball over five times (minus-5)
Pick-6 by Quan Martin put Commanders up 24-14 in second quarter.
Commanders averaged 9.6 yards/pass attempt.
Next week, Washington plays the Eagles in the NFC title game.
— NFC North teams were 33-11 SU/30-14 ATS outside their division this year, then they went 0-3 SU/ATS during the playoffs.
— Chiefs 23, Texans 14
Kelce caught seven passes for 117 yards and a TD.
Texans outgained Kansas City, 336-212; they were 10-17 on third down.
Texans (+9.5) covered spread when KC took an intentional safety with 0:11 left.
Chiefs are in the AFC Championship game for seventh year in a row.
— Eagles 28, Rams 22
Eagles played LA twice this year, ran ball for 314-285 yards.
Philadelphia averaged 8.4 yards/rush in this game.
Jake Elliott kicked three FG’s, missed two PAT’s on a snowy day.
Down 28-22, Rams had ball in red zone in last minute, but didn’t score.
If the Eagles win the Super Bowl this year, do they give Giants’ GM Joe Schoen a Super Bowl ring? After all, he’s done as much as anyone to help the Eagles win this year, allowing Saquon Barkley to walk away from the Giants.
Schoen wanted to build around overpaid QB Daniel Jones, but then he cut him, too!!! How the Giants haven’t fired Schoen is a mystery to me.
— Since 1967, 59 quarterbacks have been selected with a top-4 pick in the draft; Washington QB Jayden Daniels will be the first to start a conference championship game as a rookie.
— Famous birthdays:
Milt Plum, 90
Bill Kenney, 70
Ozzie Guillen, 61
Mark Stepnoski, 58
Brian Giles, 54
Eddie Kennison, 52
David Eckstein, 50
Nick Foles, 36
DeVante Parker, 32
— Random trivia: Magic Johnson/Larry Bird faced off in the 1979 Final Four, which helped popularize college basketball on a national level (that and ESPN starting up). The other two teams in the Final Four that year were DePaul and Penn; imagine an Ivy League team making the Final Four these days?
This was the year before the Big East Conference started; that became a big deal, and most of the other eastern colleges that weren’t included suffered for it.
— Dodgers added reliever Tanner Scott for four years, $72M; $21M of that $$$ is deferred.
Part of the appeal of signing Scott is that Shohei Ohtani is 1-9 against him in his career, but now they’re teammates, so that doesn’t matter.
— It amuses me to hear New York baseball fans whining about the Dodgers signing all these players; welcome to my world, Chief. I’ve been an A’s fan since the mid-60’s; I’m bleeping tired of having teams sign guys away from the A’s. Let’s see how you like it.
— I’ve been watching lot of mock fantasy drafts for baseball season on YouTube; problem is, there are some very good players who are in limbo right now (Bregman, Alonso, Arenad0, Profar) so hard to do a great fantasy draft until you know where those guys will be this year.
— Super Bowl is on FOX this year; FOX is still at war with DirecTV. I feel bad for bars that have DirecTV- they can’t show games from FOX, unless they add an extra antenna on their roof., and that doesn’t always result in a great picture.
— Tennessee Titans signed a new GM, former Chiefs’ assistant GM Mike Borgonzi, who spent the last 16 years in Kansas City.
No pressure; Borgonzi starts out with the Tennessee having the first pick in the 2025 draft.
— Maybe the Falcons shouldn’t have fired Dan Quinn; Atlanta lost the Super Bowl eight years ago, then went 24-24 the next three years and fired Quinn after an 0-5 start in 2020.
Since then, Falcons have gone 33-46, missing the playoffs every year, while Quinn will be in the NFC Championship game next week, in his first year coaching the Washington Commanders.