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Sports
Bucs Could Have Easily Won 11 Games; It's Not All Jameis Winston’s Fault
NFL Playoff Bracket 2020; Divisional Round Starts Saturday
The divisional round of the 2020 NFL Playoffs is upon us. There are just eight teams remaining after Wild- Card Weekend.
And if the divisional round is anywhere as good as the wild-card round was, then NFL fans are in for a major treat.
The wild-card round def- initely lived up to its name with three home teams going down in what turned out to be an extremely wild week- end of postseason football.
Divisional Round Saturday, Jan. 11
No. 6 Vikings at No. 1 49ers, 4:35 p.m. ET (NBC,)
No. 6 Titans at No. 1
Ravens, 8:15 p.m. ET (CBS)
Sunday, Jan. 12
No. 4 Texans at No. 2 Chiefs, 3:05 p.m. ET (CBS,)
No. 5 Seahawks at No. 2 Packers, 6:40 p.m. ET (Fox
Who Will Make To The Super Bowl?
KIRK COUSINS
DESHAUN WATSON
JIMMY GAROPPOLO
PATRICK MAHOMES
RYAN TANNEHILL
RUSSELL WILSON
LAMAR JACKSON
AARON RODGERS
Bucs QB Jameis Winston and head coach Bruce Arians.
How The Ravens Are Approaching Titans Monster Derrick Henry
Bruce Arians and the coaches are just as perplexed as everyone else is with the high amount of turnovers from Jameis Winston, but they watch the film and the film doesn’t lie – whether it was a poorly run route or a bad decision.
Winston is always going to throw more interceptions than most quarterbacks with his daring playing style and playing in Arians’ vertical passing game. I just don’t see how that changes, especially in this offense that requires a lot of difficult downfield throws, and a lot of times throws in tight windows. As far as your suggested rea- sons, I do believe it is a little of both.
The question now is, can Arians and his staff help to reduce that number and to what? Then can the Bucs live with the number, whatever it maybe–sayit’s18INTs– and still win consistently?
If we take the Giants and Falcons games, those should have been wins if Matt Gay makes his kicks. Then Tampa Bay has nine wins. Take the Seattle game where Win- ston played nearly flawless football, but the defense was
awful, and now there are 10 wins. Throw in the Ten- nessee game where the de- fense wasn’t great and lost a fourth quarter lead, and the officials missed a big call and now the Bucs are sitting at 11 wins. Eleven wins is enough to get them into the playoffs. However, how far Tampa Bay could go even if it gets in the postseason tournament with a quarterback prone to turnovers is another debate. Chances are the team isn’t going too far.
In the four playoff games this past weekend, the four winning quarterbacks threw a total of one interception. That really answers your question. NFL teams can possibly get into the NFL playoffs throwing some in- terceptions, but aren’t win- ning many playoff games turning the ball over.
Arians and his staff will analyze Winston’s entire season, and every single pass he threw and see if they can identify some things that Winston can do to correct those issues. That will be a big part of his evaluation and will go into their decision on Winston’s future in Tampa Bay.
Near the end of last Sat- urday night’s wild-card play- off game between the Patriots and Titans, the Ravens’ defensive linemen and their coach, Joe Cullen, hopped on their group text chat.
Derrick Henry piled up 182 rushing yards on the Pa- triots, bulldozing through defenders and running past others. It was as if he was to- tally unstoppable.
There is no question as to what the Ravens’ chief prior- ity on defense is this week. They must stop a 6-foot-3, 247-pound wrecking ball that had 1,540 rushing yards this season – the most in the league.
Henry has been particu- larly lethal the past two games. He put up 211 yards on 32 carries in the Titans’ regular-season finale, put- ting the team on his back to secure a playoff berth.
With 182 yards against the Patriots, that’s 393 yards and 64 carries in back-to- back weeks. Henry has topped 100 rushing yards in six of his last seven games. Those are monster numbers.
What makes Henry so difficult is his combination of
DERRICK HENRY
size and speed. He runs be-
hind his pads, but if he gets the edge, he can take it to the end zone. He has touchdown runs of 53, 68 and 74 yards this season.
“Obviously, No. 22 [Henry] is about as good as you’ll see coming downhill running the ball,” Head Coach John Harbaugh said. “He’s very unique. You’d be hard pressed to say who he’s like right now.”
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