Two Colossal Matchups for Conference Championship Sunday
In today's Fantasy Life Newsletter, presented by BetMGM:
The NFL Postseason? More like the most season, am I right? (ducks) Sorry, Dad jokes come free with the analysis. When we left off last, the fearless cooterdoodle was doing her very best to rectify what we all knew about the Chiefs’ game, but no one had the guts to say—except for Joe Mixon, of course.
Commanders 45, Lions 31
What a game! Lions faithful lit up the Motor City like a Midwestern blue-and-silver version of Burning Man—and things (predictably) headed south from there. Rookie phenom Jayden Daniels completed 71% of his throws, putting on a clinic in composure in passing for 299 yards and 2 TDs, plus 16-51-0 rushing, which cemented last year’s second overall pick as a top-3 fantasy option under center for 2025.
No home team had ever given up 31 points in the first half of a Divisional Playoff game—but that wouldn’t stop the NFC’s top-seeded squad from evoking decades of misery for the 65,000 in attendance. Future first-round fantasy pick Jahmyr Gibbs helped answer the Lions’ call with his best Barry Sanders impression. Unfortunately for Detroit Rock City, even a (14-105-2; 6-70-0) statement game proved too little, too late.
Generally thought of as an extremely well-coached unit, Lions fans will be arguing for months over which hole finally sunk Dan Campbell’s boat. Between trusting the erratic Jameson Williams to throw the ball into a swarming secondary and not knowing how to count to 11 on a critical fourth down, mental errors manifested into five turnovers—and a heartbreaking road on the horizon.
For just the sixth time in NFL history, a rookie quarterback is headed to the conference championship. And it further solidified Matthew’s #FaithinFive.
Eagles 28, Rams 22
Let it snow, let it snow, let … please be the last time we’re forced to watch playoff games affected by the snow. Boomer take incoming, but I don’t care. Most normal people don’t want to see months of hard work and attrition boil down to the players’ cleats and footing, most of all Kurt Warner.
Slip-sliding aside, the Eagles left a kelly-green mark on the Rams with signature trench domination on both sides of the ball. Before the first snowflakes even started falling, Jalen Hurts looked more spry than he had in months, pleading to stay in our good fantasy graces with a 44-yard TD gallop. Little did anyone know that would wind up being the third-longest touchdown run on the day for Philadelphia. Next year’s fantasy 1.01 Saquon Barkley went bananas, finishing with over 200 yards and a pair of long scores.
Unsurprisingly, Philly’s league-best interior defense was in its snowy bag, forcing a pair of turnovers to go with 5 sacks and 10 tackles for losses. Matthew Stafford reasserted himself as a backend fantasy QB1, even if the game wasn’t as close as the score suggests—more than half of his 324 passing yards came in the fourth quarter alone.
Bills 27, Ravens 25
Why can’t we have nice things? Sunday’s Divisional tilt between the Bills and Ravens has to rank among the very worst great games ever. Sure, the most anticipated football game in recent memory wound up close enough to keep meat in the seats, except I can’t help but wonder—did I really mop, cook, and shovel all day to be left alone for that?
What I dreamt would resemble the NFL’s version of Hagler vs. Hearns more closely resembled a late-90s Lennox Lewis-esque heavyweight snoozefest. Congrats to Josh Allen and the Bills, but both sides lacked any memorable, marquee moments.
Even though the over never truly felt in doubt, the game played out in an uninspiring exchange of sighs and pointed fingers. From bad holds to inexplicable pass interference calls, the zebras stole more of the show than anyone wanted.
I needed a highlight reel featuring plays made, not botched. The Ravens will be kicking themselves all winter for their miscues—bad interceptions plus fumbles from both Lamar Jackson and Mark Andrews will be causing nightmares for months to come. And just when it looked like I’d be eating these words, Andrews went full stone hands on a potential game-tying two-point conversion with just 90 seconds to go.
If there’s a fantasy-related bright spot for Baltimore, however, it’s the emergence of Rashod Bateman, who played brilliantly and is my earliest sleeper WR for 2025.
And we’re on to Conference Championship Sunday. Just three more NFL games …
What else is in today’s newsletter?
- Divisional Round Takeaways: And then there were four
- 2024 Fantasy Rewind: Kendall Valenzuela reflects on what went wrong
- Watercooler: A new fearsome foursome.
And Then There Were Four …
By Geoff Ulrich
Hello friends. It’s Geoff Ulrich, filling in for Peerless Pete Overzet this week to bring you the latest edition of Pete's Pick 6—a weekly recap column where we spotlight the best and (worst performances) from this weekend’s games.
With just eight teams to choose from I’m just going to devote my six bullets to the biggest performers and storylines of the Divisional Round, regardless of whether they won or lost.
Let's dig in …
Mark Andrews becomes the villain
Every story needs a villain.
The Lion King has Scar.
Star Wars has Darth Vadar.
The Karate Kid has Daniel LaRusso (no seriously, Google it).
The AFC Conference Championship lived up to its hype as a cinematic masterpiece and part of the reason why is that it created its own villain— and the honors unfortunately went to Ravens TE Mark Andrews, who made two crucial mistakes in the second half of the game.
First, Andrews fumbled the ball on a play where he was trying to gain extra yards downfield by juking a defender.
That was a killer, and a bit of a bad idea to begin with, but the Ravens somehow made their way back from that mistake and set themselves up to tie the game late with a two-point conversion. Andrews, who made a big 19-yard reception on the drive to set up the Isaiah Likely TD, then had a chance for redemption when he found himself wide open within a yard of the end zone on the play.
We all know what happened next.
Barkley Batters the Rams. Again.
The Rams put up a solid effort on Sunday. Not many people gave them a chance to win this game and they had the ball inside the Eagles 20, down six with under a minute to go with a shot at the win.
The Eagles defense put the final nail in the coffin with a late sack on Matthew Stafford, but the reason they were ahead in the first place was the fact that Saquon Barkley went nuclear.
Coming off a game in the first round where he was held out of the end zone by the Packers, Barkley rushed for an absurd 205 yards and 2 TDs, while also adding in four catches and 27 yards receiving.
For the season, Barkley’s line vs the Rams reads as follows:
- 2 games played
- 52 carries
- 460 yards rushing
- 4 rushing TDs
- 8 receptions and 84 receiving yards
Barkley averaged 8.84 yards per rush vs the Rams and over 10 yards per reception.
In some ways, just the fact they were able to keep the game within a TD is a huge accomplishment by Sean McVay and Stafford.
However, there is little doubt the Rams defenders might be seeing Barkley in their dreams (aka, nightmares) in Cancun next week as they try to get over the two soul-crushing performances he dropped on them this season.
4 MORE DIVISIONAL ROUND HIGH/LOWLIGHTS
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AROUND THE WATERCOOLER
The latest analysis and insights from our merry band of football nerds:
4️⃣ And then there were 4. Conference Championship matchups are set.
🪓 It’s Conference Championship week. Know what that means? We have 3-team Guilloteenies.
🤯 News flash. Saquon is pretty good.
🏆 Tonight is the Natty. Thor and Coach Gene break down Notre Dame-Ohio State.
🤝 Josh Allen made a beeline for Lamar Jackson. Game recognize game.
What I Got Wrong This Year: Cardinal Sins
by Kendall Valenzuela
It’s time to look back at the just-completed fantasy season while the memories are still fresh. Some we want to forget. Kendall Valenzuela reflected on some calls that just didn’t work out.
Kyler Murray, QB, Cardinals
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT, Kyler Murray?! We were all rooting for you!!!
If you can't tell by now, I drafted a lot of Kyler Murray in 2024. There were a few reasons for this, but the biggest two being his ADP (which, at the time, I thought was way too high) and the fact that he is a dual-threat quarterback with a shiny new weapon in Marvin Harrison. But as we all know, things just never looked right for Murray during the season.
We never saw him string two or three good games together, and while he did finish the season as the QB12, expectations were that he was going to drastically outperform his ADP. Coming into the season, Matthew Berry even picked Murray as his Ride or Die for various reasons:
Kyler had been a top-5 QB in PPG since he entered the NFL in 2019
He was averaging over 20 PPG for his career
Murray still put up 17-plus fantasy points in six of his eight games during the 2023 season (after he returned from a torn ACL)
It was all there, and then it wasn't. Consistency was definitely an issue for Murray—overall he completed 68.8% of his passes for 3,851 yards and 21 touchdowns with 11 interceptions. The process felt right in this one, but the results were not there. Maybe if Trey McBride fell into the end zone a few more times or if we saw Murray take off and run a bit more, things would be different in this article.
Ian Hartitz has his way-too-early 2025 quarterback rankings out, and in the first go has Murray as a Tier 5 quarterback at QB12. In weeks 10-18, Murray ranked 37th in EPA per dropback (-0.63), 36th in passer rating (13.7), and 31st in completion rate (41.3%) ... GROSS. There's always next season …
