NFL Open Thread: Divisional Round

Jerry Jones, everybody:
The thing about this whole search is that the Cowboys themselves may not have been entirely ready for it. Perhaps that does not sound shocking to you given recent events, but if reports are to be believed, this was not work that the team expected to be doing right now.
The Athletic’s Dianna Russini was discussing the idea of Deion Sanders becoming the next coach of the Cowboys on the latest episode of Scoop City, and in noting that people she has spoken to around the league aren’t quite buying it, she mentioned that such is the case because the Cowboys were always planning on Mike McCarthy returning.
There’s definitely a camp that I’m talking to that’s like… this is not real. This is not real. They talked. This is all flirting. This is all… Jerry was not expecting Mike McCarthy and the Cowboys to go separate ways.”
“The plan was to bring him back. They did not have a plan in place here.”
“So a lot of this was scrambling, from what I can gather, of just… I need to figure out how to fix this. Quickly. And so now we’re seeing the coaches get called in.”
This mirrors what Jones keeps doing with star players, waiting until the last minute to sign contracts for no obvious reasons. Admittedly, this is less damaging — getting soaked for above-market contracts while the team’s plans are disrupted is bad, losing McCarthy is probably a net positive, although it depends on who was hired. Deion would be a hilarious choice, not only because it’s hard to see him and Jones meshing but because as Aaron Schatz points out his biggest asset as an NCAA coach — his formidable recruiting skills — are irrelevant to the NFL.
For today’s games, with a reminder that when you’re right 66.6% of the time you’re wrong 33.4% of the time:
Texans at Chiefs (-8.5): Kansas City has looked very vulnerable at times this year, and Houston has one of the components critical to an upset: a potentially ferocious and well-coached pass rush. But the Chiefs have (aside from the meaningless Week 18 game) looked a lot better as they’ve gotten healthier down the stretch, and even if the Texans can hold their own defensively it’s hard to see them moving the ball against the Chiefs. And going up against Andy Reid after what is effectively two bye weeks? No thanks.
Commanders (+9.5) at Lions: Detroit is a better team, of course, and I fully expect them to win. But they’re missing tons of starters on defense, and their dismantling of Sam Darnold looks less impressive in retrospect than it did a the time. I don’t think Washington can stop the formidable Lions offense at all, but Daniels is the real things and I see them scoring enough to keep it competitive (this game has backdoor cover written all over it.)