The Greatest Play of a Very Dumb Season: Week 17 of Dumb Football with Mike Tunison

There are an endless number of rules in the NFL. If you didn’t become familiar with the league during your formative years, I don’t know how your mind could be pliable enough to absorb the all of minutiae necessary to understand pro football. You’d be better off devoting that brainpower to learning the tax code.

One of the easier concepts to grasp? The ball is always live on a kickoff. This was lost on Buffalo running back Mike Gillislee on Sunday against the New York Jets. After the Jets kicked a field goal to make it 23-3 in the fourth quarter, New York’s Nick Folk effectively angled the ensuing kickoff toward the sideline, where it wasn’t caught by anyone on the Bills’ return team. Gillislee had a chance to recover it, but instead allowed the ball to trickle into the end zone, presumably under the assumption that, like a punt, it would be ruled a touchback.

Nope. Touchdown, Jets.

Gillislee scored a garbage time rushing touchdown later in the fourth quarter because, hey, it’s Week 17, who cares, let’s be happy we got out of here with our health. After the game, reports indicated that interim coach Anthony Lynn is the favorite to be named the new Bills head coach. You could argue that one thoughtless play in a meaningless game shouldn’t derail a coach’s chances, and that would be reasonable enough. However, this is also Buffalo, and they have a brand to maintain.

Read More: The Cleveland Browns Cannot Escape Their Brownsiness

The 49ers Defied The Will of Smash Mouth and Rob Schneider

San Francisco cleaned house, firing head coach Chip Kelly, and general manager Trent Baalke, who chased Jim Harbaugh out of town just so he could choose Jim Tomsula over Adam Gase. While locals were fed up enough to fly a banner over the stadium on Sunday that called Levi’s Stadium “the house that Harbaugh built“, the Niners’ contingent of marginal celebrity fans was solidly in Baalke’s corner. Ultimately and completely predictably, the latter didn’t matter; with Baalke out, someone else will be tasked with sorting through the rubble that is the current 49ers roster.

Meanwhile, it has been a swift fall from grace for Kelly, who just two years ago was viewed as a football visionary, someone working to reshape everything about the sport. Turning this 49ers team into a winner in one year likely was an impossible task for any coach, yet Kelly couldn’t even register minimal progress. In case you’re inclined to feel badly for him, remember that he’s still going to getting buyout money from both the Niners and the Philadelphia Eagles in 2017. He’s not alone: the Niners reportedly owe $69 million (nice) to a host of former coaches and assistants.

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick also is probably gone, even after the team bestowed its award for courage on him, and more dramatic roster reshaping seems inevitable. The best thing you can say about the Niners’ current plight is that they’re too far from contending to bother making a run at Tony Romo. So that’s something.

The Cowboys Are About To Sucker Somebody Good

One of the more inexplicable developments of the last few years is Dallas Cowboys owner/czar Jerry Jones making some savvy roster moves. Yes, he brought in Greg Hardy, and that deservedly blew up in his face. But Jones also passed on drafting Johnny Manziel to take linemen who now anchor a dominating squad. And very soon, he’s gonna fleece a quarterback-desperate team in a Romo trade.

The Cowboys insist they’re not going to trade Romo, but that sounds like a PR leverage ploy. Given that Dak Prescott is both the team’s present and future, I find it hard to believe that a trade partner willing to take on Romo’s huge contract—and give up a high draft pick to boot—won’t get what they want.

Dallas has played the situation perfectly. Romo came in and dazzled on one touchdown drive this weekend, and then was yanked from the game. Sure, that’s a tiny sample size, but add in Romo’s career body of work and it’s enough to stoke a frenzy—especially in a quarterback-desperate league where Sam Bradford can fetch a first-round pick, and Brock Osweiler can get $37 million guaranteed.

No franchise wants to turn to their backup quarterback in the postseason, but that scenario could work out perfectly for Dallas. So long as Romo doesn’t melt down relieving Prescott, another flash of solid play under playoff pressure could make him even more attractive to potential trade partners. Increasingly, it seems like a matter of time before some team mortgages its future for one or two seasons of Romo.

He’s Protesting Like a Kid Out There

Between Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem to protest racial inequality and Bill Belichick writing a pre-election letter to Donald Trump, it has been a fascinating season in political football, and thankfully, that element wasn’t missing from the regular season’s final Sunday. Three Dakota Access Pipeline protesters were arrested for scaling the rafters of U.S. Bank Stadium in Minnesota and hanging a banner urging divestment from the proposed pipeline. The fan hanging from the banner was wearing a Brett Favre jersey and dabbing, giving the whole thing an added element of bizarro spectacle. Anyway, I’m interested to see what the postseason has in store. Perhaps a Packers fan will rip off their shirt in single-digit temperatures to reveal some impassioned commentary on the recent United Nations vote condemning Israel.

This Week in Concussed Players Sent Back Into Games

For NFL teams coming to the end of disappointing seasons and franchises locked into playoff position alike, Week 17 is mostly a time to play out the string. Problem is, gruesome injuries never take a week off, as we saw Denver linebacker Zaire Anderson and Green Bay cornerback Quinten Rollins both transported to hospitals with head and neck injuries.

One player who didn’t get shipped out—and, instead, was briefly sent back into a game— was Houston quarterback Tom Savage. He was removed from Sunday’s game in the first half by a referee and a medical spotter following a hard hit he took on a sneak. Later in the half, he was brought back on the field to take a knee after it was announced that he had been cleared by the league’s concussion protocol. When the second half began, Savage was back out of the game, with the Texans announcing that he was reevaluated at halftime and did, in fact, have a concussion.

Perhaps a QB kneel is not the most dangerous play. Still, Savage is lucky he didn’t see more action before he was reevaluated—and once again, the protocol seems to have broken down. If he isn’t cleared by a doctor, Savage may miss Houston’s first-round playoff game. For the sake of Savage’s brain health, let’s hope his next evaluation is more thorough and accurate.

You Heard It Here First

The Chicago Bears face a number of offseason questions, as any franchise would coming off a 13-loss campaign. Chief among them: who will be the starting quarterback in 2017? What we do know, however, is that they’re winning the goddamn Super Bowl next season, at least according to receiver Alshon Jeffery. The last time a player guaranteed a title before the season, it was Panthers center Ryan Kalil in 2012 doing so in a newspaper ad. Carolina went on to finish 7-9. It doesn’t look good for Alshon’s guarantee either, though at least he made his guarantee in a much less expensive way.

Fan of the Week

That’s one way to come to grips with your team signing a receiver fresh off what Arizona law terms a “super extreme DUI” for being passed out behind the wheel with a BAC over .2. The New England Patriots picking up Michael Floyd is another classic case of NFL amorality in the service of victory, and it was effective enough on Sunday. Floyd scored a touchdown and dished out a vicious block to spring Julian Edelman for another score.

New England is now just two wins away from returning to the Super Bowl. If that happens, the world will spend two weeks hearing the team is looking to avenge the grave injustice of Deflategate. The NFL is bad, for sure, but let’s not pretend the Patriots are a bunch of innocent do-gooders running a golden retriever rescue farm.

On the other hand, Martellus Bennett is pretty great:

Five Winners Who Covered Their Bloodline in Glory

1. Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie—He undercut Pierre Garcon in the final minutes to snag his second interception of the game, ending the playoff hopes of division rival Washington. That closed out a game in which he only allowed one catch for five yards on five targets. The New York Giants defense is coming together at the right time, and they have to face the Packers on the road in the postseason. Enough parallels are there for fans to presume yet another Super Bowl showdown with the Patriots is in the offing.

2. Robert Mathis—Coming into the final game of his career, Mathis was already the NFL’s all-time leader in strip sacks. He collected his 47th on Sunday in a victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars in front of an appreciative Indianapolis crowd, who saw him off after a 13-year career spent entirely with the Colts. Even though he was a teammate of Peyton Manning for nearly a decade, Mathis still managed to sack both Manning brothers twice in his career, which has to be more satisfying than the seven times he brought down David Carr.

3. Joey Bosa—While it surely comes as little consolation to the locals as the San Diego Chargers, uh, bolt from town, the team made itself a fine first-round pick last year. Bosa tallied a sack and five hurries in a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, bumping his sack total for the season to 10.5 in 12 games. That may be enough to earn him Defensive Rookie of the Year honors over Jacksonville cornerback Jalen Ramsey.

4. Rex Burkhead—You wouldn’t think Burkhead would command that much on the free agent market, but he buoyed his prospects on Sunday, rushing for 119 yards and two touchdowns in his first career start, all against a Baltimore rush defense considered among the best in the league. Burkhead is five years younger than Danny Woodhead and doesn’t have the recent history of serious injury, so the market for scrappy looks to be all his.

5. Matt Ryan—The Atlanta quarterback’s third four-touchdown game of the season may have locked up MVP honors. Whether Ryan gets that award ultimately comes down to several arbitrary factors. Anyway, the more prestigious honor is having his face Photoshopped onto Big Boi on the cover of Stankonia by Sir Lucious Left Foot himself.

Five Losers Bathing in the Hard Water of Infinite Shame

1. Cam Newton—The reigning MVP was decidedly in DGAF mode in the finale of a frustrating season in Tampa. Newton threw three picks, one of which was returned for a touchdown by Brent Grimes. Nevertheless, it’s a credit to how bad the Bucs offense was on Sunday that the Panthers still had a chance to win at the end of regulation, except Greg Olsen fell down on a route during a possible game-winning two-point attempt, and Carolina closed out its Super Bowl hangover with loss number 10.

2. Roberto Aguayo—If nothing else, this season ensured that no NFL team will be drafting a kicker in the second round or higher for several years to come. Aguayo may yet turn out to be decent, but this was a nightmare of a rookie season, and it ended as such with Aguayo missing two more field goals against Carolina. He finished with only a 71 percent success rate in 2016, worst in the league for any kicker with more than three attempts, and even worse than Blair Walsh, who was cut midseason. Anyway, with expectations considerably lower going into his second year, at least the takes won’t be as hot in 2017. Don’t be surprised if the Bucs bring in another kicker to compete with Aguayo in training camp.

This guy was the worst kicker in the league last year. Photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports.

3. Kirk Cousins—Not a ghastly day overall, but a largely listless performance capped by a backbreaking interception on a potential game-winning drive. Cousins is a quality starter and will still get paid in the offseason, but his inability to close out what should have been a second-straight playoff season doubtlessly will make things more difficult for him and his agent at the bargaining table.

4. Isaiah Crowell—If a single mistake is can undo a 150-plus yard rushing day, it would come via fumbling inside the opponent’s five-yard-line during a tie game with a minute left in regulation. That’s what Crowell did, and the Cleveland Browns, ever the Browns, found a way to lose in overtime to a team resting its key starters. Cleveland kept the No. 1 pick in the upcoming NFL Draft, though, and really that’s all that matters for this team for the next four months.

5. Rams offensive line—Jared Goff didn’t get on the field until the second half of his rookie season, so leave it up to his blockers to make sure he endured enough stress to make it feel like he played a whole year for Los Angeles. In Week 17, Goff was sacked seven times and pressured on 17 of his 27 dropbacks. Arizona’s defense ain’t bad, but the Rams also have to play the Cardinals twice a year going forward, so if the franchise wants Goff to survive long enough to see whether or not he’s actually good, they may want to improve on those numbers.

On to Wild Card Weekend …

The first half of the 2016 NFL season was defined by sinking ratings and the perception of diminishing quality on the field, but the second half was … marginally better? At the very least, it was less sloppy, as teams gelled in anticipation of their inevitable postseason deconstructions. Anyway, it’s now the postseason, where the stars truly come out to shine, so long as you ignore that Raiders-Texans game, which we don’t have the heart to do.

Oakland at Houston, Saturday 4:35 p.m. ET

You have to feel for the Raiders, a team that had a truly remarkable season. So long as you could ignore the franchise’s seemingly-inevitable relocation to Las Vegas, the Raiders were one of the few positive NFL stories for much of the year—at least until Derek Carr went down, which means Oakland will appear in the playoffs for the first time since 2002 starting either Matt McGloin or Connor Cook at quarterback. Houston has its own depressing quarterback situation to sort out in the coming days, with Savage in the concussion protocol and Brock Osweiler likely to be booed by the home crowd at a playoff game.

Detroit at Seattle, Saturday 8:15 p.m. ET

Seattle limps into postseason without Earl Thomas and with persistent questions on offense, but the Seahawks are still a tough out at home, where the team went 7-1 this season. The Lions faded down the stretch as well, though Matt Stafford had a standout year. Against a depleted Legion of Boom, he and the Lions have a decent shot at an upset. For what it’s worth, there may not be a bigger exuberance gap in head coaches than between Pete Carroll and Jim Caldwell.

Can this man upset the Seahawks in Seattle? Photo: Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports

Miami at Pittsburgh, Sunday 1:05 p.m. ET

Jay Ajayi is one of the big reasons Miami is back in the playoffs, and his breakout performance came against Pittsburgh in a win back in October in Miami. Now, the running back and his teammates are travelling north to face a Steelers team hitting its stride. Pittsburgh filed a formal complaint to the league after its first game against Miami, alleging that Ndamukong Suh tried to injure Ben Roethlisberger by kicking him in the knee. Given the brutal nature of the Steelers’ first-round playoff game against the Cincinnati Bengals last January, head-hunting ugliness won’t be out of the question in this one.

New York Giants at Green Bay 4:40 p.m. ET

The running of the table prophesied by Aaron Rodgers is complete, and now the Packers have a fully operational MVP-level quarterback ready to wreak havoc on the NFC. Giants fans can take comfort in of footage of Eli Manning winning in Lambeau in January as a ruddy-faced Tom Coughlin glowers on semi-approvingly—but with Ben McAdoo dumpily filling Coughlin’s place, those wins hardly seem relevant. The Packers won the only meeting between the two teams earlier this year, though Odell Beckham managed to steal the spotlight by proposing to a kicking net. You’d think McAdoo would prefer fewer bizarre antics this time around, but he’s also a coach who motivated his team by showing them a viral video of a man punching a kangaroo. So who really knows what to expect?