Super Bowl LVIII is set.
The Kansas City Chiefs advanced with an outstanding defensive performance while the San Francisco 49ers needed a huge second-half comeback, setting up a Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl rematch — but the Monday morning story is all about Sunday's losers, not its winners.
The Ravens blew the huge opportunity they had played so well all season to set up. The Lions blew a monster opportunity up 14-0 early and 24-7 at the half.
We should be prepping for a Ravens-Lions Super Bowl. Instead we're writing their obituaries.
So what happened?
Ravens Live By the Lamar, Die By the Lamar
The Ravens entered Championship Sunday with one of the greatest profiles of any team in history by many advanced metrics, like DVOA. Baltimore was an absolute juggernaut, great at every facet, with terrific special teams and coaching, elite defense, and an efficient offense built entirely around Lamar Jackson.
The defense and special teams did just fine.
The Chiefs rumbled to a couple Big Boy Football drives to open the game, racking up 161 yards for two TDs. Patrick Mahomes was sizzling early, without a single incompletion until the second quarter. Travis Kelce looked rejuvenated.
But Baltimore adjusted and held the Chiefs to three points on 3.4 yards per play for just 158 yards the entire rest of the game after those two drives. Kyle Hamilton was spectacular, all over the field. The Ravens held Mahomes and the Chiefs scoreless the entire second half.
You hold Mahomes to 17 points, nothing in the second half? You did your job. You expect to win.
You do not expect your MVP to lead your team to 10 points.
Zay Flowers will get plenty of criticism, and it's merited. Flowers caught a 54-yard bomb near the end of the third quarter, but a stupid taunting penalty cost his team 15 yards. He got the yards back two plays later, then caught another one to start the fourth quarter, raced for the end zone, stretched the ball out — and fumbled into the end zone, where the Chiefs recovered for a touchback.
That kept the game at 17-7 when it felt like it was already 17-14, and the way the Chiefs defense played all night, that felt like the end of the ball game. It didn't help that Flowers was then seen with a laceration on his hand, not from the fumble, but from slamming his hand on the bench in frustration afterward.
That was a damaging play, certainly, but it's not why the Ravens lost. Truth be told, Flowers was the only real Ravens player who showed up on offense.
Baltimore offensive coordinator Todd Monken was atrocious. Horrendous. Awful. Horrid.
The one thing we knew for certain coming into this matchup is that the Ravens would be able to run on a Chiefs rushing defense that was bad all season. Sure enough, Gus Edwards ripped off a 15-yard run on his first touch. Yet, somehow, Ravens RBs had only six called runs all night for just eight more yards after that run. Edwards didn't get another carry until the second half.
Instead, Monken turned over the keys of the offense — and its engine, its shocks, and everything else — to the guy set to win MVP in 10 days.
The Ravens built an offensive game plan like a team that believed they had the MVP at quarterback, but Lamar Jackson was awful.
Sure, Jackson had some spectacular moments.
On the early Ravens TD drive — their only one of the game — Jackson burst through the line on 4th and 1 for 21 yards. Later that drive he escaped a surefire sack, kept the play alive, and hit Flowers deep for a TD.
Later, Jackson's pass was tipped sky-high at the line and looked like a possible pick-6, then came from out of nowhere to catch his own pass and raced for 13 yards and a first down. A highlight reel play for the ages!
At that point, Jackson was his team's leading passer, its leading rusher, and its second leading receiver. The MVP was truly doing everything.
That's the funny thing about all this, though.
You live by the MVP; you die by the MVP.
Until Patrick Mahomes did it last year, no MVP had won the Super Bowl the same season this entire century. Sometimes it's possible for a player to be too valuable to his own team. And that's what happened with Lamar Jackson on Sunday.
The Ravens built a game plan around Jackson outplaying Mahomes, and he failed badly at doing so.
That highlight reel throw-and-pass to himself? That was actually a bad pass, one of three throws right at Chiefs defenders in a four-play window when Jackson looked completely out of sorts.
He was wildly inaccurate almost all game, looking lost in the rain, air mailing short throws and quick outs, constantly failing to give his teammates the opportunities they needed. He consistently held the ball too long, like usual, trying to make too much happen and taking negative plays for his team.
You remember one of the negative plays, an inexplicable interception late. The Ravens were driving again after that Flowers fumble, with a chance to cut the lead to three, when Jackson threw into triple coverage in the end zone.
It was one of the worst throws of his career in one of his biggest moments, and it was lights out for Baltimore's season. But Jackson made an even costlier mistake much earlier in the game.
In his own territory, Jackson held the ball too long as he so often does and was strip sacked by Charles Omenihu. Sacks are a quarterback stat, and Jackson eats a lot of them. He was sacked four times in this game. Jackson also fumbles a lot, his 11 fumbles fifth most in the NFL.
Sacks are drive killers, worth about a third as much in negative EPA as an interception, but they're largely ignored in the discourse, much like fumbles. But those are hugely negative plays that kill an offense, and Jackson made those mistakes all season trying to be just as valuable as everyone wants him to be.
In the end, Jackson just wasn't good enough.
He finished 20-for-37 and padded his yardage late but had the lost fumble, the awful interception, and four sacks. That strip sack was worth -5.5 EPA, more than the Flowers fumble, and the interception was -4.3 EPA. Think 9.8 points might have mattered in a game the Ravens lost by seven?
Jackson finished at -0.27 EPA per play on 47 passing plays. Both of those numbers cost Baltimore the game — far too many pass plays called, and a quarterback who proved himself incapable of making those pass plays on the biggest stage of his life.
There were other reasons the Ravens lost, too. The Flowers fumble was brutal, the offensive game plan was mind numbing, and the penalties and lack of discipline were shocking.
But mostly, the Ravens lost because they believed their own hype about MVP-to-be Lamar Jackson.
The Chiefs converted 8-of-18 third downs, Mahomes being Mahomes against an elite defense, at 0.45 EPA per play on late-down passes. Jackson had -0.79 EPA per play in that spot.
Put a different way, give Jackson and Mahomes eight late-down passes each and it's worth about a touchdown advantage to the Chiefs. That was basically the game.
Mahomes completed 77% of his passes in the rain with a +13.6 Completion Percentage Over Expectation. Jackson was at 54% and a -5.5 CPOE, and that was worse until facing a prevent defense late.
It's no shame not being Patrick Mahomes — no one else is either.
But the Ravens chose to live and die by their MVP, and on Sunday, they died by Lamar.
Everyone raced to crown Jackson last week for his brilliant adjustment to the blitz and for finally solving playoff football thanks to one good half against an average Texans defense, but the truth is that Jackson still hasn't answered the bell on the game's biggest stage.
He'll finish the season with as many MVPs as career playoff wins — two.
Lamar Jackson is the perfect QB for the TikTok generation. Folks love to watch Jackson's five eye-popping highlights every game, but it turns out those other 50 plays matter, too.
On Sunday there were way too few highlights and far too many bad plays.
The Ravens died they same way they lived all season — at the hands of Lamar Jackson.
ESPN Bet is now live! Make sure you're ready for all the action with our exclusive ESPN BET promo code TANBONUS.
Lions Live By Campbell's Aggression, Die By Campbell's Aggression
For one half of the NFC Championship, it certainly looked like the Chiefs would be playing the Lions.
Detroit was spectacular early. The Lions scored a touchdown four plays into the game, then went up 14-0 after a missed Niners field goal and a long TD drive. San Francisco got a touchdown back, then finally stopped Detroit as the Lions chose to punt on 4th-and-6 in Niners territory.
Most teams punt there, but the Lions were up 14-7 and rumbling early, and Dan Campbell's entire brand of football has been uber-aggression from the first kneecap-biting press conference. The Lions usually go for that one, and Dre Greenlaw was off the field hurt, but they chose to punt.
It was probably the right decision, but it was also an early sign of Campbell perhaps straying from the aggression that had gotten his team to this stage, sacrificing his team's identity by playing not to lose instead of playing to win.
On the following drive, the Lions intercepted Brock Purdy and got the ball back right at that 46, then scored again five plays later to make it 21-7. When the defense held San Francisco to three and out, the Lions had the opportunity to crack the game wide open before the half.
Detroit drove 68 yards in 17 plays, chewing up the clock before a stunned 49ers crowd. The Lions reached 1st-and-goal at the 7-yard line with all three timeouts and 28 seconds left. This was Detroit's chance to step on San Francisco's throat. All the Lions had to do was what they'd done all season and all game — run the football down San Francisco's throat and end this.
Instead, the Lions threw incomplete on first down, then handed the ball off to Jahmyr Gibbs for one yard as Detroit called timeout with 17 seconds left. The time remaining is irrelevant at that point. You only call a run on second down if you're trying to get close enough to give yourself a chance to go for it on fourth down. On third down, Gibbs got the ball again on a pass but was tackled at the three.
Detroit had one more chance to go for the kill. This was the moment. The Mortal Kombat FINISH HIM!! was screaming through the television, the 49ers staggering and ready for the knockout.
If Detroit doesn’t finish this, that’s the moment we’ll look back on. https://t.co/XW1xsy9APw
— Brandon Anderson (@wheatonbrando) January 29, 2024
But in a stunning moment, Dan Campbell abandoned everything the Lions had been all season and chose to kick the field goal.
The Lions went up 24-7 heading into the half, but they lost the game on that play.
You have built your entire team identity on aggression. The heavy favorites are on the ropes. You JUST watched them in this exact script one week ago against the Packers, staggered early but surviving just long enough to come back late. You have to go for the kill.
I don't want to hear about a three-score lead. There's an entire half of football remaining, and the total closed at 53 points. The 49ers have an historically great offense. There were a LOT more points coming in this game, and both sides knew it.
A three-score lead was meaningless at that point, just like the presumed fear of giving the Niners a moment of momentum heading into the half.
Hey, you know what wasn't meaningless? Four extra points as huge underdogs, and one final gut punch sending the 49ers reeling into halftime down 28-7 and facing a devastating hole.
Coming out of halftime, Dan Campbell told reporters he thought long and hard about going for that fourth-down kill shot — and he coached the rest of the game like he regretted the decision and knew he'd missed his shot, trying desperately to make up for it.
Everything went wrong for the Lions in the third quarter.
The 49ers cut the lead to 14 with a long field goal drive out of halftime, and the Lions responded with a 47-yard drive of their own that got to the 28 before choosing to go for it on fourth down. Now you go for it on fourth, instead of taking that precious three-score lead with just 21 minutes of game play left? One and not the other is just bad process. Detroit called a good play, Jared Goff made a fine throw, but Josh Reynolds dropped it.
Two plays later, Purdy overthrew a bomb to Brandon Aiyuk that Lions corner Kindle Vildor dove to intercept, but the ball fortuitously bounced off Vildor's helmet right back into Aiyuk's hands for a monster play. The 49ers scored three plays later to cut the lead to seven.
A miscommunication led to a Detroit fumble on its very next play. San Francisco recovered, and four plays later, the game was tied.
That's not all Campbell's fault.
Footballs are weird and oblong, and weird stuff happens. But it's Campbell's responsibility to put his team in the best position possible despite the weird bounces, and it's his job to keep his team playing with its belief and identity, like it had been all season. For once, he did not do so.
That failed fourth down in the third quarter wasn't the last of it.
San Francisco drove down the field again as the game reached the final stanza. Purdy was terrific, constantly keeping plays alive with his feet and hitting his weapons in stride, but consecutive sacks led to a field goal and the first 49ers lead of the game, 27-24.
Detroit had blown this but was still alive, as the Lions marched into scoring territory again.
But on 4th-and-3 from the 49ers 30, Campbell was yet again faced with a fourth-down decision. And again, he chose, perhaps too late, to be over aggressive. Another pass call, and this one had no chance as Goff threw up a prayer into no man's land.
A 47-yard field goal is no sure thing, certainly not with so much on the line, but do you really pass up on a chance to tie the game up with seven minutes left? Should the Lions have been kicking for the lead, had they kicked the third-quarter field goal already?
It's easy to second guess those two decisions now, but the real failure came on that fourth down to end the first half, the one everyone forgot. That's when Campbell left four possible points and a kill shot on the board, and that uncharacteristic lack of aggression led him to overplay his hand of aggression in the second half.
Detroit had a huge opportunity to stop the 49ers on 3rd-and-4 from the 49 — a down Campbell would certainly have gone for, leading or trailing, when Kyle Shanahan almost certainly would not have — but Purdy made another outstanding play, escaping the pocket and scrambling for 21 yards.
Purdy finished with 48 rushing yards on five scrambles, making plays with his arm and his feet, looking like the MVP many advanced metrics suggest he was all season long. Perhaps Lamar Jackson should take note.
Christian McCaffrey ran 25 yards the play after Purdy's scramble, the Niners scored one play later, and that was just about that, at 34-24.
Even still, the Lions had a real chance late. Detroit drove again, reaching 2nd-and-goal on the 1-yard line with 1:10 left, down 10 but all three timeouts left.
That's when Campbell and the offense did the one thing they couldn't do there, and the thing they should've been doing the last three quarters — the Lions ran the football.
Detroit had gashed San Francisco running the football all game. They ran 29 times for 182 yards, over six yards a carry for three scores, as both David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs consistently picked up chunks of yardage, especially outside the tackles.
One carry before halftime might have put the Lions up 28-7 and put the game to bed early.
More carries in the third quarter might have bled the clock, settled a reeling Lions team, and kept the chains moving and all those 49ers weapons sidelined. Detroit finished 93rd percentile on 26 early runs with a 58% Success Rate.
Instead, the Lions went pass happy, and the passing offense wasn't good enough. Jared Goff was mediocre on early downs, and Detroit constantly dug itself holes and faced third and longs. The Lions converted some of those early, but others pushed Detroit to get into those 4th-and-short decisions that will be the story of Detroit's failure from this game.
On 2nd-and-1, down two scores with 1:10 left, the one thing you absolutely cannot do is run the ball or call any sort of play that might end with a running clock and cost a precious timeout.
With three timeouts left, a touchdown not only cuts the lead to three but also allows you to kick deep, play defense, and force the ever-conservative Shanahan to choose whether to let Purdy throw on third down. Shanny no doubt turtles, the Lions get a stop, and they get the ball back down three with a minute left.
Instead, the Lions threw incomplete, then called a run play on third down, where Montgomery was stopped short of the goal line.
Detroit burned a timeout before scoring — of course — on fourth down, but the game was already over.
The lost timeout meant the Lions would need to convert an onside kick, something that happened successfully only twice all season. It failed as expected, and the game was over.
Live by the Dan Campbell, die by the Dan Campbell.
Campbell sold his team on kneecap-biting, smashmouth football but failed to run the ball enough when his team had built its lead by doing so, then ran on the one play he couldn't.
Campbell also sold his team on aggressiveness, then failed to make the biggest aggressive decision of the season with an opponent reeling and a 28-7 halftime lead staring him right in the face. He compounded that decision with a pair of questionable-at-best fourth-down decisions in the second half.
And now he'll have all offseason to contemplate them.
The Lions were good enough, and they were good enough because Dan Campbell helped his team believe in itself to get this far and establish the lead they did.
But in the end, Detroit lost the same way it won all season — with Campbell being Campbell.
Tomorrow's story will be about the 49ers and the Chiefs heading toward the Super Bowl.
Sunday was about the Ravens and Lions being exactly what they were all season long — and for one devastating Sunday, it finally wasn't enough.
Maximize your NFL action with our FanDuel promo code.
