Ranking the 4 dumbest mistakes from the Wild Card Weekend losers

Last week we didn’t just say goodbye to the regular season. We said goodbye to most of our material for the dumbest mistakes in the NFL. We can’t dunk on the Bills, Jets, and Blake Bortles now that they’re all sitting at home.

But the playoffs also mean the stakes are much higher, so any failures are going to be all that costlier — even if they aren’t as easy of a target as Eli Manning noodle-arming the ball to the opposing team.

On Wild Card Weekend, the playoff field was pared down to eight teams after the Texans, Seahawks, Ravens, and Bears were this year’s one-and-dones. All four teams, even the Texans who lost by double digits, had chances to win. But they all blew it in their own ways.

This is each team’s biggest miscue, ranked from least egregious to most.

With two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, the Ravens had hope at the end of their 23-17 loss to the Chargers. If only they had found the end zone before then.

Baltimore’s best scoring opportunity of the first three quarters came after a Virgil Green fumble set the Ravens up at the LA 21-yard line. But instead of dialing up some bold shots to the end zone to take advantage of his team’s newfound momentum, head coach John Harbaugh opted to chip away at the Los Angeles defense with three straight runs that gained six yards total.

This was an especially conservative plan of attack, and the fans didn’t like it, showering the field with boos after Lamar Jackson’s third-down run came up four yards short of a first down. But it may have been the right idea — Baltimore’s passing offense had been responsible for negative yards to that point:

Baltimore settled for a 33-yard field goal on the drive, turning the Chargers’ two-possession lead into a ... two-possession lead. Jackson and the passing game later rebounded, but it was too late.

It didn’t take long for the Texans to dig themselves a hole against the Colts. They fell behind 14-0 early and then 21-0 by halftime. So Houston went for it on fourth down A LOT — five times in fact. And converted just two of those times.

Going for it on fourth down was the right move each time. The actual plays the Texans ran during those, though? YIIIIIKES. Two in particular were bad enough for us to call ‘em out.

At the end of the first quarter and down by two touchdowns, Houston went for it on fourth-and-4 from the Indy 45. It pains us to say this — especially because his JV-equivalent offensive line gave him no time at all in this game, or really this year — but this was just an awful throw by Watson, who didn’t see Kenny Moore at all:

Fast forward a little right before halftime and now the Texans are trailing by three scores. They NEED points. It’s fourth-and-1 at the Colts’ 9-yard line with a minute and a half to play. Settling for a field goal is not going to help, so they line up to go for it with an empty backfield — when they need ONE yard. And Watson can pick that up in his sleep.

Instead, Watson missed on an end zone throw to DeAndre Hopkins, leaving the star wide receiver (who suffered a sprained shoulder joint on the play) looking like:

It was another off-target throw (and yes, Watson could’ve run for that first down). But damn, call the play that gets that yard, Bill O’Brien. Or better yet, just give up play-calling duties because what you’re doing isn’t cutting it:

Being down 21-7 and maybe taking some momentum to halftime could’ve been just what the Texans needed. Being down 21-0, with no momentum, and an injured Nuk was a disaster.

Bears coach Matt Nagy and Eagles coach Doug Pederson know each other pretty well. They’re recent branches snipped off the same coaching tree and transplanted in new dirt. Pederson already has a Super Bowl under his belt after two seasons. Nagy’s Bears look like a team that could have their own someday too, despite a tough loss to the Eagles in the Wild Card Round.

They also share a particular affinity for being terrible with their timeouts. Both coaches showed us their lack of mastery on the same possession with time winding down on Sunday night.

Nagy struck first. Instead of stopping the clock after the Eagles completed an 11-yard pass to get to the Bears’ 2-yard line, he let the clock run until the Eagles ran one more play, a run for no gain on first-and-goal. He had all three left at the time too, and he finally called one after that first-down play.

Not to be outdone, Pederson risked some heat when he did take a timeout after an incomplete pass on third down on that same possession at the Bears’ 2. Fortunately for Pederson and the Eagles, they scored on the next play to take a 16-15 lead. Had the Bears defense made one more stop though, we’d be burying Pederson for that decision.

In the end, Nagy’s decision was the more costly one. Had he taken the timeout when he should have, it would have left the Bears with another 30 seconds or so on the clock, a couple more plays that might have put the Bears into easy field goal range (especially with the ropes Mitchell Trubisky was throwing late in the game) — and maybe this one wouldn’t have gone off the uprights.

On Saturday night in Dallas, it felt like the entire offensive game plan for Seattle was to run on first down, run on second down, and pass on third down. The Seahawks offense was incredibly predictable from start to finish against the Cowboys, and it cost them the game.

What has to be incredibly frustrating for the Seahawks is that on the times they deviated from banging their head against a wall on the first two downs, they actually found a lot of success:

The result of the rigid plan from Seahawks offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer was just 14 points in the first 58 minutes of the game. When Seattle had its back against the wall in the final minutes, facing a 10-point deficit, the Seahawks finally started throwing the ball and they drove 75 yards in 50 seconds.

Why on Earth they didn’t try that sooner is a question the Seahawks will be asking themselves all offseason.