Well, That Was Interesting

The 2025 NFL season can be summed up with one word; interesting. In the sense that there isn’t a single team that was dominant or complete rather. Every team has their flaws and they showed themselves in more ways than one. With that said there have been a few bright spots as far as games go and the last Sunday night game of the season was at the forefront. The winner wins the AFC North division and the loser is eliminated. Two head coaches in Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh who have questions surrounding their futures with their respective organizations. Two former MVP quarterbacks in Lamar Jackson and Aaron Rodgers trying to salvage their team’s seasons. What transpired was a tale as old as time for both the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Ravens had control in the first half thanks in large part to RB Derrick Henry who had 126 yards rushing for the game. Unfortunately he was forgotten about once again in the second half, but Jackson had thrown two touchdown passes to WR Zay Flowers who was left wide open for the second one after beating a linebacker for the first. For the Steelers they had a resurgence in the second half with Rodgers looking like his old self leading them on four scoring drives. It also helped that Baltimore’s defense was reeling with the loss of Kyle Hamilton to a concussion. This all culminated in the Steelers scoring the go-ahead touchdown with less than a minute to go. However, kicker Chris Boswell missed the all important extra point which meant the Ravens just needed a field goal to win the game. They had all three timeouts and Lamar Jackson was on point with his passing attack. With that he completed a pass to Isiah Likely to put the Ravens in field goal range, but the Ravens decided to stay put and wind the clock for a 44-yard attempt by rookie kicker Tyler Loop. The attempt was no good as it went way off to the right. Right down to the very end this game was a roller coaster ride and the result saw a classic that will be talked about for many years to end an otherwise dismal season.

Impressive, But With A Caveat

We have a new single season sack record holder and it’s Cleveland Browns DE Myles Garrett. His 23 sacks beat the 22.5 set by Michael Strahan and T.J. Watt. The likely and I would think unanimous NFL Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett had an impressive run to the record. He had a five sack game in October against New England, a four sack game against Baltimore in November and a three sack game the next game against Las Vegas. My only issue with this is that it was accomplished with an extra game on the schedule. The NFL in all its wisdom has gone to a 17-game schedule since 2021. With that in place in my view any record that is achieved in that 17th game is with a grain of salt. It was accomplished with an extra game that was played. This doesn’t take into account if a player was hurt for any amount of time and broke a record in the last game. I’m also not talking about the 14-game to a 16-game schedules either. Just in my opinion Garrett should have gotten the record before that 17th game. I’m not going as far to say there should be an asterisk or anything like that. The record speaks for itself, but I’m always gonna look at it differently considering when it was accomplished.

Let The Firings Commence

Getting the obvious out of the way if you thought Pete Carroll, Raheem Morris, Jonathan Gannon or Kevin Stefanski were going to be retained, you haven’t been paying attention. Carroll lost his mojo towards the end of his tenure in Seattle long ago and it wasn’t coming back with the Raiders. Morris did not have a firm grasp on his player personnel in Atlanta, especially on offense and his game management got worse since his last head coaching gig. Gannon was the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals the last three seasons. Need I say more about that? Stefanski has had success in Cleveland, but that organization from the top on down is a train wreck and there was no going back into that trash heap. The surprise came from Baltimore firing John Harbaugh and the Miami Dolphins firing Mike McDaniel soon after that announcement about Harbaugh. Saying that McDaniel’s firing had nothing to do with Harbaugh becoming available is rich and if Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross doesn’t get John Harbaugh I would be surprised about that. With Baltimore moving on from Harbaugh I’m not surprised by it at all. Since he and the Ravens won their last Super Bowl in the 2012 season, they have had numerous underachieving seasons. Yes, there have been playoff wins, but they’ve had more losses than wins in the playoffs since 2012. However, not all the blame should be put on Harbaugh. With all of the talent that has been put around Lamar Jackson during his time under Harbaugh the output has been lackluster in that department as well. Two things can be true at the same time. The head coach is going to get the fall for the team’s lack of success, but the quarterback has to do his part as well. Especially one who has already won two MVP awards so far in his career. John Harbaugh will land on his feet and he will have plenty of suitors this offseason if he decides to continue coaching going forward.