Saturday Night Observations

This morning I went to check the Titans-Jaguars game on Game Pass, and fortunately it was there.

It wasn’t a great game — the Titans are so well coached, they were in control late before what I consider a questionable fumble call that was returned for a TD. Yes, the ball was loose from his hand, but his arm was going forward and he propelled it in the direction it went, i.e., the ball came out of his hand much more like a pass than a fumble. Either way, it’s better for the league for a young, exciting team like the Jaguars to be in the playoffs than the gritty, old Titans. But Mike Vrabel showed again why he’s one of the best coaches in the league.

• Joshua Dobbs passed the eye test for me. He was poised and made good decisions under tough circumstances. He’s at minimum a quality backup and maybe has upside beyond that.

• There’s been a lot of Trevor Lawrence hype of late, but I don’t see it entirely. Yes, he’s athletic and mobile, and he can make every throw. But he airmails it at times, missed a wide open Zay Jones in the end zone and isn’t smooth like the elite QBs (Joe Burrow/Patrick Mahome/Josh Allen) just yet. Maybe next year, he will be, but not yet.

• It was weird not rooting for Lawrence, Christian Kirk and Travis Etienne after having them in key leagues all year. I would have been ecstatic after the long TD to Kirk, but found myself annoyed it didn’t happen last week.

• I didn’t watch the Chiefs-Raiders — actually I forgot initially there were Saturday games even, and I missed the chance to make a pick in my home picking pool which is close. (At least the Titans covered for me in the late game.)

• I had Isiah Pacheco going for me in the Steak League (which took a hit when Ja’Marr Chase and Logan Wilson got zeroes Monday night), so I really needed that late TD. (I also had Zay Jones going who did little.)

• The Chiefs locked up the No. 1 seed with the win, because the Bills-Bengals game was cancelled. But should the Bills beat the Patriots Sunday, an AFC title game between the two would be played on a neutral field. While that’s not a terrible solution (the Bengals-Bills was roughly a 50/50 contest per the market) for that particular game, it’s pretty rough that the Bills now have to play next week even if they beat New England, when they had the tiebreaker over the Chiefs based on their Week 6 head to head win. I get why they don’t want to try and squeeze in the game, but I’d rather see a coin flip or something to determine who gets the bye.