🤔 2 Big Wins (Or 2 Choke Jobs??)

I was SCREAMING when I heard Taylor has a concert in Tokyo on February 10th…

In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by Underdog Fantasy:

The Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers will meet in the Super Bowl for the second time in four seasons.

They certainly earned it, but a lot of the discourse over the next few days will rightfully center around how the Baltimore Ravens and the Detroit Lions blew it.

Let’s try to unpack where things went wrong…

🤷‍♂️ What happened to the Ravens?

Their defense did their part (minus Travis Kelce carving them up—more on him in the Wrap-Up). Hell, they held the entire Chiefs offense scoreless in the second half.

But their offense wilted under the pressure.

The Ravens had ten offensive possessions yesterday and only scored one TD.

They had two disastrous turnovers, including Zay Flowers fumbling the ball into the endzone at the one-yard line.

Baltimore also bizarrely got away from their running game, despite the Chiefs’ pass defense being one of the best in the league. Gus Edwards and Justice Hill combined for only six total carries.

Lamar Jackson made some big plays on the ground (and even completed a pass to himself), but his interception into triple-coverage from the Chiefs’ 25 with 6:45 left in the game was a costly mistake.

He’ll win the MVP, but he’ll once again have to spend an entire offseason hearing about how he can’t win in the playoffs.

🤷 What happened to the Lions?

The narrative you’ll repeatedly hear parroted this week is that Dan Campbell lost this game.

And while he wasn’t perfect, it hardly tells the whole story of how the Lions choked away a 24-7 halftime lead.

Dan Campbell didn’t have a ball bounce off his helmet into Brandon Aiyuk’s hands.

Dan Campbell didn’t drop a perfect ball on 4th and 2 or on 4th and 9.

Dan Campbell didn’t mess up a handoff that led to a Jahmyr Gibbs fumble.

And Dan Campbell didn’t burn a timeout after running the ball on third and goal with 1:00 minute left in the game down 10—ok, he did do that, but you get my point.

What actually happened is that Dan Campbell went for it in two different coin-flip situations that didn’t break his way and those decisions will be disproportionately scrutinized relative to the aforementioned bad breaks in the game.

It’s a brutal end to a storybook season for the Lions (our Lions?!), but they’ll be back.

🏆️ Super Bowl: Niners vs. Chiefs

• Sunday, February 11 at 6:30pm ET (CBS/Paramount+)

• 49ers -2.5

• Total: 48

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Peter is here to share his big takeaways from the Conference Championships. Take it away, Pete...

🏆️ Travis Kelce gives us a vintage performance

He might get overshadowed by his girlfriend these days, but Kelce was in his bag vs. the Ravens and in total sync with Patrick Mahomes.

He totaled 11 catches for 116 yards and 1 TD. In doing so, he passed Jerry Rice for the most postseason catches in NFL history.

What an animal:

🤝 CMC every. single. week.

The Niners offense was up-and-down yesterday, but Christian McCaffrey was the engine yet again. He dropped 132 yards from scrimmage and 2 TDs vs. a Lions defense that had no answer for him.

The QB position is inherently more valuable, but this team would be lost without CMC.

🎢 The Zay Flowers rollercoaster

Most will only remember this horrific sequence, but let’s not forget that Flowers (5-115-1) was the only playmaker who stepped up outside of Lamar.

This Lamar-to-Zay TD was the lone bright spot for the offense all day.

💥 Jameson Williams out of nowhere

We’ve been collectively wishcasting Jamo to become a thing since he came into the league and he finally delivered on his potential in the Lions’ loss yesterday:

• A massive rushing TD on the first drive of the game

• A sick bobbling catch

• Another TD in the back of the endzone to cut the lead to 3 with less than a minute left

It will be fascinating to see where he goes in 2024 drafts. I took him in the 7th round of our recent Fantasy Life mock draft.

✍️ Super Bowl 58 is set. These early bets are offering value you shouldn’t ignore.

🏆️ They can’t keep getting away with this. The Chiefs are inevitable.

🐔 Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. CJ Gardner-Johnson learned a valuable lesson.

🦁 Look, if your team had one shot or one opportunity, would you let it slip? Yes.

✈️ Guys, relax. Taylor Swift will be at the Super Bowl. Despite having a concert in Tokyo the day before.

🐺 MVS is something else. What a time to show up.

🌃 Have we unlocked the characters for the CBS studio crew yet? Tough game.

🏟️ Interesting jersey choice. Respect.

We're humans who play fantasy football, so we are prone to overreact. Today, Kendall overreacts to this weekend’s action…

💪 They’re inevitable…

We almost knew what kind of game it was going to be for the Kansas City Chiefs from their first drive. Patrick Mahomes connected with Travis Kelce for a 19-yard touchdown and never looked back. It was the first time Kyle Hamilton gave up a touchdown to a tight end all season. 

Mahomes finished the game 30-of-39 for 241 yards with a passer rating of 100.5.

Lamar Jackson had an up-and-down day, but ultimately he and offensive coordinator Todd Monken had no answers for the Chiefs defense. He’ll probably get that second MVP, but it would have tasted a little sweeter with his first trip to the Super Bowl. They’ll be back in the playoffs, but this loss STINGS.

The Chiefs had the playoff experience too, which was the biggest edge. You’ll see it in the penalties — The Chiefs (3) had only 30 yards compared to the Ravens’ (8) 95 yards. The Zay Flowers fumble while diving into the endzone was absolutely brutal (Kansas City had no turnovers).

You can never count the Chiefs out. No Tyreek Hill? No problem. 2023 regular season woes? No problem. On to the Super Bowl … again.

👋 Don’t forget the hiring updates

I know that some of the recent coaching hires may have gone under the radar because of, well, the Conference Championships, but there was some movement over the last few days that could have serious fantasy football implications.

🦅 Eagles hire Kellen Moore:

Kellen Moore with the Chargers wasn’t groundbreaking last season. The Chargers finished 5-12 and averaged 3.8 yards per rush, the same number they posted in 2022.

I like this hire for the Eagles. We saw a team that totally nosedived towards the end of the season, which was painful with all the stars they have on the offensive side. The team averaged 18.9 points per game in their last seven matchups. Give us something good here, Kellen Moore.

👀 Falcon hiring Zac Robinson: 

Dare we say … Kyle Pitts SZN?!? Alright, kidding. But really this could be fun.

Zac Robinson and the Rams were eighth in the NFL in scoring last year and now he gets to coach weapons like Pitts, Drake London and Bijan Robinson.

The bar for this offense is literally on the floor with what we got from the coaching staff last season, so sign me up for some optimistic Falcons talk this offseason. 

🤝 Bills promote Joe Brady: 

The Buffalo Bills are sticking with Joe Brady as their Offensive Coordinator.

We all remember that the Bills fired Ken Dorsey in the middle of the 2023 season after the team started 5-5. Once Brady took over the interim role he helped the Bills finish 11-6. Head coach Sean McDermott said last week that “this is not a situation where you strip it down to the studs” after failing to make it past the divisional round of the playoffs for the third straight year. 

Josh Allen is familiar with Brady, which is a positive. We also saw him reestablish Allen as a rushing threat. The Bills averaged 27 points over the last nine games — here’s hoping for some fantasy goodness from Brady and the Bills in 2024.