Conference Championships: Joe Burrow, Patrick Mahomes, Jimmy Garoppolo, Matthew Stafford - a look at the 'final four' QBs
Watch Conference Championship Sunday in the NFL playoffs, with both games - Cincinnati Bengals @ Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers @ Los Angeles Rams - live on Sky Sports NFL from 7pm, Sunday
Sunday 30 January 2022 11:22, UK
The Fantasy Football season may be over, but Sky Sports' expert Hannah Wilkes is still here to showcase the very best talent you can watch out for in the NFL playoffs, and ahead of the Conference Championships she looks at the final four quarterbacks on show...
We've had a full four days to reflect and recover now on what was a truly sensational divisional weekend of football. So much has been said on all four games (one in particular) and we're all about the future in this corner of the internet but, wow, that was an emotional rollercoaster, nail-biting sport from the moment Ryan Tannehill's first throw was picked off to Travis Kelce's final touchdown (Bills Mafia, I hope you're OK). Now, on to the Conference Championships...
It's pretty remarkable that there are just three games left of the 2021 NFL season, and that by early Monday morning (super early, gross o'clock early - brew the coffee now and tell your boss you're unavailable until at least 3pm) we'll finally know who will be battling it out for the Vince Lombardi trophy and a place in history at SoFi Stadium on February 13 (unlucky for some, but for whom!?). Like all playoff football, but with heightened pressure, the season essentially begins and ends this weekend for the Kansas City Chiefs, Cincinnati Bengals, Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers.
One fact really made me sit up and take notice this week (and I see a lot of NFL factoids on a daily basis); this is the first time since 2009 that the Conference Championship weekend won't feature Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady.
Is this the long-awaited 'changing of the guard' when it comes to NFL quarterbacks? Who knows, but when it comes to this weekend it really is the most critical position in all of sport.
Joe Burrow (Cincinnati Bengals)
Burrow has got the Bengals to their first AFC championship game since 1988. He took nine sacks against the Tennessee Titans and still came out swinging. He has more style and swag than most of us will possess in a lifetime and was winning the college football National Championship Game with LSU just two years ago.
Essentially, in hist first full year as a starter (his 2020 season was curtailed by injury), Burrow has done what first overall draft picks are supposed to, but rarely, do; got his long-maligned franchise back in serious contention.
He's clearly tough and he's clearly smart. He's admitted this week to calling his own plays when his headset went out against the Titans and "all of them worked, it was fun". The questions heading into the match up with the Chiefs are less to do with Burrow's talent, but more that of his offensive line and their ability to hold up against the KC defensive front.
Yes, Burrow took a bunch of sacks and they still won on Saturday. Some may argue that he often elects to take a sack rather than risk losing possession, but letting your QB get beat up that much against a team as explosive as the Chiefs is a risky strategy. Once he's on the floor, it doesn't matter who your QB is, he's not getting anything from the play.
The Bengals played Kansas City in Week 17 and won by three, with Burrow putting up over 400 pass yards and throwing four touchdowns. Ja'Marr Chase set a single-game NFL rookie record in that matchup with 266 receiving yards and caught three of the aforementioned TDs.
As I write this, I'm thinking "they put up those numbers and only won by three!?" and that sums up the scale of the challenge for Cincinnati on Sunday. They know the Chiefs can be beaten, but they're a very different opponent to who they were even at the start of January.
Patrick Mahomes (Kansas City Chiefs)
Strange that the wunderkind of the NFL is the veritable veteran quarterback in this game. And when it comes to AFC Championship games, Mahomes is more experienced than most QBs in the league, having made the 'semi-finals' (as I've been explaining to non-football friends) in four-straight seasons and every year since he became the starting QB in Kansas City. Remember earlier in the season when we were worried about the Chiefs!? What fools we are.
In his career, Mahomes is 8-2 in the playoffs. In both of his losses the opposing quarterback was Brady; in the AFC Championship game of the 2018 season, and in the Super Bowl last year. Some would say it was generous of the Rams to clear the path for some more Mahomes magic all the way to a Super Bowl victory party. Some, not all.
The fact of the matter is that based on that epic divisional round battle with the Buffalo Bills, it's hard to see past the Chiefs right now. Mahomes, Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce were at their telepathic, lethal best. Those guys almost don't need a playbook; it's instinctual, backyard football. They've put up 42 points in both playoff games this season, only the second team in the Super Bowl era to do so, and it's hard to see how the Bengals defense will stop them when the best-in-the-league Bills struggled to.
Matthew Stafford (Los Angeles Rams)
What says more about a team; almost throwing away a 24-point lead through fumbles, dropped catches, and botched snaps, or a quarterback with the composure to put all that aside and orchestrate a game-winning drive to set up a field goal with seconds left on the clock? I choose to believe the latter.
The second-half implosion by the Rams against Tampa Bay had little do with Stafford. Despite a tendency to start throwing interceptions when he's feeling confident, he took care of the football, threw for 366 yards, two TDs and zero interceptions on his way to a 121.1 quarterback rating. Not too shabby.
The bigger concern though, is how the Rams play football out of half-time. We all know Sean McVay's outrageous 42-0 record when leading at the interval, and how it was blown out by the 49ers in Week 18. It very nearly happened again in Tampa and I credit Stafford and the defense for holding on to close it out, but against this San Francisco team, who wouldn't be playing at all right now if the Rams had finished the job in that Week 18 meeting, there can be no let up. The Niners are too physical up front, too dangerous in the run game and too fearless, having gone 9-2 since Week 10 (including the playoffs).
There may have been more pressure on Stafford than any other quarterback in the divisional round due to what the Rams gave up getting him, Von Miller, Odell Beckham Jr., and Jalen Ramsey the year before. They proved, to an extent, that the method works in that win over the reigning champs. Now the question is, can they clean up the mistakes and get to a home Super Bowl at a stadium literally built for it?
Jimmy Garoppolo (San Francisco 49ers)
Let's get this out of the way early; the 49ers are in the NFC Championship game because of their special teams unit.
They didn't score an offensive touchdown in the grind-it-out win over the Green Bay Packers, which arguably had as much to do with the weather as anything. Jimmy G's stat line makes for sombre reading; 11 completions from 19 attempts, 131 pass yards, zero touchdowns, one interception and a 57.1 passer rating. Ouch.
It'll be very different in the California sunshine, and one weakness from the Rams defense against the Buccaneers was the inability to contain the run game on early downs, which the 49ers will be able to exploit effectively. Notice though, that such a game plan doesn't rely on the QB?
Garoppolo runs so hot and cold that head coach Kyle Shanahan doesn't rely on the arm of his QB too often in tight spots. He's admitted that in the last timeout against the Packers he changed the play call to a run, rather than a pass, to eliminate the risk of losing possession and giving the ball back to Aaron Rodgers. Yes, it was 3rd-and-7, but is he not admitting he'd rather go to OT than risk an errant pass from his quarterback? They needed five yards from the play, minimum, to get into field goal range. Maybe I'm being harsh, but I have my interpretation and you can have yours.
Jimmy G is unlikely to win this game for the Niners, he is still banged up lest we forget, but the way they play the game means he shouldn't exactly lose it for them either.
The NFL playoffs continue this weekend when the Kansas City Chiefs host the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship game live on Sky Sports NFL from 8pm Sunday, followed immediately after by the San Francisco 49ers at the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship game at SoFi Stadium.
