Darren Smith’s NFL Wild Card Takeaways

Darren Smith’s NFL Wild Card Takeaways

By: Darren Smith

Host, “The ‘Ship w/Darren Smith” on Sports Radio 810 WHB and ESPN Kansas City

This weekend was a tale of two conferences that left you feeling with a strange taste in your mouth, depending on the teams you wanted to win. For the record, I chose Houston Texans over the Buffalo Bills, Tennessee Titans over the New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints over the Minnesota Vikings, and the Philadelphia Eagles over the Seattle Seahawks, so for me, Saturday was an extreme high while Sunday, was dare I say, meh.

This takeaway is only regarding the first game…you have to tune in for my thoughts on the rest .

For the life of me, I can’t understand when watching the opening game why folks are so hard on Booger McFarland. He’s a two-time Super Bowl winner and he knows the game of football, yet people who could never get behind the microphone and do what he does, always want to criticize the man and the way he calls the game. I thought he and his colleague called a great game that included a tale of two halves by both quarterbacks, the first half great by Bills quarterback Josh Allen, the second half and overtime brilliance by Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson.

And for the record, I know the man has a crooked finger, he played on the defensive line, sheesh!

I have always thought the Kansas City Chiefs should have taken Deshaun Watson over Patrick Mahomes leading into the 2017 NFL Draft, based solely off of Watson’s leadership and championship mantle in his last two seasons at Clemson, which to me, the Chiefs didn’t have in Alex Smith. That said, Allen showed in the first half why, with questions unanswered about the future of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick in New England, he and running back Devin Singletary could lead this team to some division titles in the near future. His ability to move inside and outside the pocket and to take off at a moment’s notice for large gains is something only Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson can do well from that quarterback class.

I am not sure what he the hell he was doing in the second half because his playmaking and decision making was straight garbage. I thought the game, playoff atmosphere, and more importantly, the crowd was going to be too much for him, when in the end, he just stunk it up and was just doing things that left you scratching your head in bewilderment. He will be thinking about this game and playing it over and over all offseason, but I believe he will learn from it the way Jackson did in his postseason debut.

In the second half, Watson had me mesmerized and screaming at the television screen with his exciting plays, touchdown runs, and quarterback sacks. I am caught in a personal quandary when dealing with my support of Deshaun. I root for him to win because I am a huge fan of his, however, I know that the more he wins, the longer Bill O’Brien remains the head coach, and THAT, I cannot accept. O’Brien in my humble opinion based on what America saw Saturday afternoon, is going to get Watson killed with his play-calling and all the hits he takes behind that offensive line. BTW, I love Deshaun, but all good things must come to an end next Sunday at Arrowhead. He will get sacked a lot (hopefully) and will have a good game, just not good enough to pull off a win (please God no).

Chiefs 38, Texans 17