One more bit of drama, of course. With 2:15 left, Green Bay was down 31-23. Third-and-goal from the Bucs’ 8-yard line. Then this happened:
The Bucs were clinging to a 14-10 lead on the Packers in Sunday’s NFC Championship Game and had picked off Aaron Rodgers with 28 seconds left in the half. But they missed on second and third down and faced a fourth-and-4 with 0:13 left, and Bruce Arians made the safe move, sending his punt team on the field.
Then he got to thinking, called a timeout and sent quarterback Tom Brady and his offense back on the field.
“I went through a couple of scenarios in my mind . . . I said, ‘No, we’re going back out. We’ve got a good play. We’re going back out to try to get some points.”
To create a cushion, to keep control of a tight game, the Bucs took a chance in those final 28 seconds. Arians is famous for saying “no risk it, no biscuit,” and with so much at stake, that was more than just a catchphrase Sunday night at Lambeau Field.
“BA wanted to go for it. I liked the call,” Brady said after the game. “I’m going to do whatever he asks me to do.”
Brady threw a pass to running back Leonard Fournette, who gained 6 yards for the first down, and the Bucs used their final timeout with eight seconds remaining. At the 39-yard line, they were outside their reasonable field goal range. Would they try a 10-yard throw to the sideline, hoping to get out of bounds to set up a kick and extend their lead?
Instead, they stunned the Packers, with Brady dropping back and firing a long pass down the left sideline. Receiver Scotty Miller, pressed into a larger role with Antonio Brown sidelined by a knee injury, got past cornerback Kevin King and reeled in a 39-yard touchdown. The Bucs extended their lead to 21-10, taking the energy out of a limited-capacity Packers crowd at halftime.
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| Aaron Rodgers’ future is not as much in the Packers’ hands as much as some think, even if he is contractually tied to Green Bay for the next three seasons. It’s just the opposite - Rodgers controls his own future, if he wants and if he is willing. pic.twitter.com/ | |||||
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Goats of the Week
Kevin King, cornerback, Green Bay. The jersey grab to lose the game (actually, the grab of Bucs wideout Tyler Johnson’s jersey on a third-and-four incompletion in the final two minutes helped Tampa to run the clock out) capped a horrible day for the Packers corner. King was clearly the weak link in the secondary the Bucs aimed. To close the first half, King had zero situational awareness with eight seconds left, allowing the speedy Scotty Miller to get behind him in single coverage down the left side; Tom Brady hit Miller for a touchdown. King’s going to have to live with that mis-play for a long time. It led to . . .
Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs Kansas City Chiefs
Tampa Bay Buccaneers +3½
Kansas City Chiefs -3½
Over/Under 57½
Moneyline
Tampa Bay Buccaneers +160 (8/5)
Kansas City Chiefs -180 (5/9)
Eleven.
That's 6.5% of the games he's played in.
He's the list: Jahvid Best, Kerryon Johnson (three times), Kevin Smith (twice), Reggie Bush (three times), D'Andre Swift and Miikel Leshoure.
-HE’S DURABLE: Stafford has played in 165 games, or 85.9% of them. He missed 19 games in his first two seasons, since then, he's played in 152 of a possible 160 games, 95%.
IT TOOK HALL OF FAME COMMITTEE :13 ON MANNING.......
Length of the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection meeting—on Zoom this year, last Tuesday—for the 48 selectors picking the class of 2021:
8 hours, 43 minutes
Length of discussion for the 18 candidates for selection:
^Calvin Johnson: 39 minutes, 28 seconds
John Lynch: 36:55
Tony Boselli: 31:50
=Bill Nunn: 31:29
#Drew Pearson: 28:28
+Tom Flores: 27:45
Reggie Wayne: 25:13
Sam Mills: 20:57
Clay Matthews Jr.: 20:11
LeRoy Butler: 17:44
Charles Woodson: 16:37
Zach Thomas: 15:52
Alan Faneca: 13:08
Richard Seymour: 12:29
Torry Holt: 11:10
Ronde Barber: 8:08
Jared Allen: 7:44
Peyton Manning: 0:13
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The final damage: 127-108, a misleading final score considering Utah had a 30-point halftime lead and climbed up 40 before yanking the big names.
But blowouts, however predictable and unavoidable, have a way of shining a brighter spotlight on your biggest problems. The Warriors — now at a fortunate 8-8 considering their point differential is minus-59, sixth-worst in the NBA behind only the Pistons, Magic, Thunder, Kings and Timberwolves — have some obvious ones.
The struggling starting lineup is the most persistently hurtful. Within 80 seconds Saturday night, the Warriors airballed two jumpers, the Jazz hit three 3s, and it was 9-0. The Utah lead was 19-2 before Steph Curry even took a shot. At that point, Kelly Oubre Jr. had already missed four.
Let’s start by dispelling a growing concern among the asset-tracking portion of the Warriors’ fan base. The Timberwolves aren’t losing too much for the Warriors’ interest. Minnesota can finish with a bottom-three record this season and the Warriors still would have a better-than-50-percent chance of keeping the Wolves’ 2021 top-three protected first-round pick.
Here are the exact numbers: If Minnesota finishes at the bottom of the NBA standings, there’s a 59.9 percent chance the lottery delivers either the fourth or fifth pick, which would flip it over to the Warriors. If Minnesota finishes with the league’s second-worst record, there’s a 59.8 percent chance it’s fourth, fifth or sixth. If it’s the third-worst record, there’s a 59.8 percent chance it’s between fourth and seventh. So there’s basically a 60 percent chance it conveys to the Warriors in all scenarios triggered by the Wolves finishing with one of the league’s three worst records.
There’s also the opposite possibility. It’s conceivable Minnesota finishes out of the bottom three in the standings but hops into the top three of the draft, protecting the pick. That happened last August. Charlotte had the eighth-worst record but lottery-lucked into the third pick, using it on LaMelo Ball.
If the pick is in the top three and the Wolves get to keep it, this won’t be an asset debacle for the Warriors. Minnesota will then instead owe its unprotected 2022 first-rounder, extending the window of a pick that’ll remain prized in the trade market. So Warriors fans should root for every Minnesota loss. The team’s front office and coaching staff have been.
Part 2: The Russell-for-Wiggins swap
The Wolves were hot after Russell since 2019 free agency. That’s known. He agreed to a max deal with the Warriors just before he boarded a helicopter with Minnesota’s decision-makers. Their hearts were broken on the tarmac, but their eyes never wandered.
What’s clear in retrospect: The Warriors are fortunate the Wolves wouldn’t give up on their Russell dreams, very much motivated by Towns’ friendship with the point guard he preferred. If Minnesota had changed direction, there weren’t many other avenues for the Warriors to trade Russell — and the three years, $90 million remaining on his contract — for much value.
Wiggins has a near equal contract: Three years, $94.7 million remaining. Most neutral observers and opposing franchises seem to view them as about equal overpays, the decision on which one you’d want depending on what your current roster lacks more — a skilled high-usage starting point guard with defensive deficiencies or a supplemental wing who can guard better but score a bit worse?
The choice for the Warriors was easy. Wiggins fits their current roster construction — with or without Thompson — better than Russell did next to Steph Curry. They were desperate for competent wing play after Kevin Durant and Andre Iguodala’s departures and Wiggins has given it to them.
Wiggins is their second-leading scorer, is shooting nearly 40 percent from 3 and is defending at a high level early this season, shouldering a bulk of the toughest nightly assignment, contesting more shots than nearly every NBA perimeter player and providing some surprising rim protection. He entered the weekend 13th in blocks, behind 12 centers. The Warriors calculated that Wiggins would fit them better on the court than Russell. They’ve been correct to this point.
Minnesota would argue the flip side for its roster. The situation with Wiggins had clearly grown stale. The Wolves wanted to pair Towns with a prime pick-and-roll partner. Russell is dynamic in the high-screen game. It’s too early to judge how productive those two could be together offensively. Because of several health issues, Russell and Towns have only appeared in five total games together since the trade, winning two.
But this fact remains: The Wolves entered the weekend with a 119.5 defensive rating in Russell’s 430 minutes. The only other 25-minute-plus-per-night player in the league with a worse defensive rating is Sacramento’s Marvin Bagley III.
So it’s fair to wonder, given that they went on to win the 2019 lottery and selected guard Anthony Edwards with the No. 1 pick, what would be a better guard-wing-big trio to build around: Russell, Edwards and Towns … or LaMelo Ball, Wiggins and Towns?
Advantage: Warriors, at least early
Part 3: The draft-pick compensation
Minnesota dealt its 2021 first- and second-round picks in the deal. The Warriors have already used that second-rounder to help facilitate the Oubre trade with Oklahoma City. If the Warriors don’t finish with a top-10 record this season — and the early expectation is they won’t — they’ll protect the first-rounder they owe the Thunder and instead will send Minnesota’s second-rounder.
So that’s already some beneficial early use of an acquired asset. But the grand prize of this entire package — the piece that 28 other franchises would covet most among the players and picks that changed homes in this trade — still sits in the Warriors’ back pocket. That top-three protected 2021 first-round pick grows in value every time the Wolves lose or another one of these potential 2021 lottery-level talents has a huge night.
Minnesota did well to get that top-three protection. That’s probably the lone criticism of the Warriors in the reassessment of this trade. Is there any way they could’ve played hardball and removed all protections? Imagine the ability to dangle this pick on the trade market with the dream of Oklahoma State’s Cade Cunningham attached to it.
But an overall win is a win. The Warriors made this deal presuming the Wolves would stink this season. Minnesota clearly believed differently. So far — with a whole lot of season left and an eventual Towns return dropped into the equation — it’s tilted heavily in the Warriors’ direction.
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Jackie Bradley Jr. rumors: Longtime Boston Red Sox CF drawing interest from Giants (report) trib.al/Tfokv4O 1/24/21, 3:22 PM
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