‘Garbage’ move as ‘blame game’ turns ugly; why Brady back-up will shock the NFL: Talking Points
Just four teams remain in the hunt for the Super Bowl.
One is suddenly down its starting quarterback, but the “best-kept secret” in the NFL could be about to shock the world.
Watch an average of 6 games per week and every game of the NFL Postseason, LIVE with ESPN on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1. (https://kayosports.com.au/?pg=ussports&extcamp=fsaeditoriallinkgridiron-edt-fsp-lnk-awr-grc-nfl-kyo&channel=fsa&campaign=fsacontra&voucher=)
Conference Championships
Meanwhile, Monday’s other championship game pits two of the smartest minds in the sport against each other.
Plus, drama is bubbling away at one of the teams who had their Super Bowl run end this week.
Read on for all that and MORE in our latest edition of NFL Talking Points!
‘GARBAGE’ MOVE AS PLAYER THROWN UNDER THE BUS IN ‘BLAME GAME’
It’s finger-pointing season in Buffalo — and according to the owner, Brandon Beane’s hands are clean.
In a bizarre scene at the team’s end-of-season press conference after falling to the Broncos in the Divisional Round and then firing head coach Sean McDermott, team owner Terry Pegula threw second-year receiver Keon Coleman under the bus.
When asked about the 2024 second-round pick who was a healthy scratch at times and appeared to be given up on at one point this season, Pegula interrupted his general manager and now president of football operations Brandon Beane to defend him and shovel some dirt over his ex-coach.
“Can I interrupt?” Pegula said during a press conference as Beane was answering a question about Coleman.
“I’ll address the Keon situation. The coaching staff pushed to draft Keon. I’m not saying Brandon wouldn’t have drafted him, but he wasn’t his next choice. That was Brandon being a team player and taking advice from his coaching staff, who felt strongly about the player. (Brandon) has taken for some reason heat over, but I’m here to tell you the true story.”
Coleman is still under contract for two more years and is the highest-drafted Bills receiver since they selected Sammy Watkins with the No. 4 pick in 2014.
The Bills famously traded with the Chiefs, allowing their rivals to grab receiver Xavier Worthy, and then took Coleman one pick ahead of Chargers star Ladd McConkey.
After tallying 556 receiving yards and four receiving touchdowns in his rookie year, Coleman regressed to 404 receiving yards and another four scores.
Pegula’s comments drew an immediate reaction from ESPN analyst Field Yates, who questioned the impact the Bills owner’s words would have on the rest of the locker room.
“This is when it became the blame game, right?” Yates said on ‘NFL Live’.
“Hey, the coaching is the reason why we have not reached the heights that we think we should have reached by this point already. And one of the biggest roster flaws right now for Buffalo is, of course, the lack of a difference-making wide receiver.
“Well, the biggest investment they’ve made in the draft recently is Keon Coleman. And not only did Terry Pegula sort of, once again, kind of kick Sean McDermott and the entire coaching staff when they were already down, but he put his GM in a really bad spot there, right?
“It makes Brandon Beane all of a sudden, it sort of undercuts him a little bit. Brandon, I thought, did a nice save. And I thought that Brandon Beane today handled some difficult circumstances pretty well. I think Terry Pegula was probably the one that caused the most reaction emotionally from people today.
“It also puts a player still on your roster, and let’s all be honest, is there a likely long-term future for Keon Coleman at Buffalo? Probably not, right? He’s still under contract. And the next time you can make a move on Keon Coleman is about a month and a half away from now, when the new league year begins in early March.
“I can’t imagine there are a bunch of Buffalo Bills players who are sitting there right now and really fired up that their owner is just throwing a young player who does have immense talent, he was the first pick in the second round just two years ago, under the bus like that. Like, why are we doing this?
“There are some things that are so much better left unsaid.”
Former NFL quarterback Matt Leinart, meanwhile, called it a “garbage” move from the Bills owner.
“The stuff coming out of the Bills organization about the owner / GM and what they are saying about Keon Coleman is garbage. Kid is still on the team!” Leinart wrote on X (https://x.com/MattLeinartQB).
With Pegula blaming Coleman on McDermott, it added another layer to the reported coach vs. front office dissension that played out in Buffalo.
The key moment that upset the team, according to reports, was a meeting roughly five weeks ago when McDermott questioned the roster’s talent for why the team was struggling to reach its Super Bowl goals.
Beane added during the press conference that his biggest regret was “putting pressure on the wide receiver group” earlier this year, adding that he felt at the time that they were being picked on unfairly.
The Bills ended the season with Khalil Shakir, midseason signing Brandin Cooks and Coleman as their wide receiver group, with Cooks letting Broncos defensive back Ja’Quan McMillian wrestle the ball away in a game-deciding interception in overtime on Sunday.
They combined for 10 catches for 109 yards with one touchdown in the loss, with Coleman notching the score on his lone 10-yard reception.
— with New York Post (https://nypost.com/2026/01/21/sports/bills-press-conference-goes-off-the-rails-over-keon-coleman-draft-blame/)
Bills' Allen says he 'let the team down' | 00:38
‘NOT BEEN THE SAME PLAYER’: BIG QUESTION HANGS OVER HISTORIC QB
After his historic rookie season, C.J. Stroud’s name was being mentioned among the likes of Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen.
He looked to be the saviour for a team that had only just parted ways with would-be franchise quarterback Deshaun Watson, who has since proven to be nothing but an anchor on Cleveland’s roster.
The Texans dodged a major bullet there and in drafting Stroud, it looked like not only had they saved themselves from a major headache with Watson but they had found their long-term answer at the position.
Ask some of the NFL’s most miserable franchises, from Watson’s Browns to the New York Jets, and they will tell you how hard that can be.
It is not something to be taken for granted and in the case of the Texans, they started to make aggressive roster moves after Stroud’s breakout rookie season to try to compete immediately and capitalize on his inexpensive rookie deal.
But now, with Stroud eligible for a contract extension this spring, the Texans suddenly find themselves at a crossroads of sorts.
The Stroud, who was taken second overall in the 2023 draft and threw for 4,108 yards and 23 touchdowns with just five picks in his rookie season, looked like an automatic lock to receive a lucrative extension at this point in his career.
But Stroud’s play has regressed as the circumstances around him have changed.
The offensive line is a major work in progress. The run game, for the most part, has been non-existent.
The result was a four-interception disaster against the Patriots which saw the Texans crash out of the playoffs and serious questions be asked of Stroud’s future as Houston’s long-term QB.
“C.J. Stroud has been chasing his rookie success for the last two years,” Troy Aikman said during the ESPN broadcast.
“He’s not been the same player. We’ve not seen the development from him. There’s a reason for that, and it has to be addressed.”
One of the major reasons is the breakdown of the offensive line, while even if the run game wasn’t necessarily explosive it was certainly much more consistent on a down-to-down basis in Stroud’s rookie year.
Now, everything feels difficult. But Stroud isn’t blameless in that. As ESPN analyst Mina Kimes pointed out on her podcast, the interceptions weren’t the only concern from the loss to New England.
“I think what struck me most watching him wasn’t just making bad plays worse, which is also what we saw in the previous round, but he also missed a lot of throws,” she said.
“I think that’s kind of been lost... just simple outs. In fact, a lot of his throws in this game were out-breaking which is not the way he wants to play and you really saw the absence of Nico Collins and then Dalton Schultz leaving the game.
“This is not to make excuses for him, but when people are like, ‘How the hell did this happen?’... I think what we have in him now, (he’s) very young still, but what he has shown to be is a quarterback who will make a bad situation worse. I think that’s something we have seen over the course of his career at times.”
The Texans have a decision to make this offseason, not only when it comes to a possible extension for Stroud but even in relation to picking up his fifth-year option.
Realistically though, the fifth-year option shouldn’t even be much of a question for Houston.
Sure, Stroud may no longer look like he is capable of reaching the heights he seemed destined to after his rookie year. But that doesn’t mean he is lost to the NFL.
Instead, he seems more likely to settle into the middle class of quarterbacks who are good enough to win NFL games with but perhaps not quite good enough to win because of.
Underdog’s Josh Norris put it best on X, formerly known as Twitter, when he wrote that the NFL community was perhaps too quick to judge Stroud and set expectations for him based on his rookie year without considering the his supporting cast played in getting him there.
That is especially true now when you think of how Stroud’s weaknesses have been exacerbated playing with poor pass protection and a run game that struggled to consistently put him in favourable downs and distances.
“You absolutely pick up the 5th year option,” Norris wrote (https://x.com/JoshNorris/status/2013267578907500680).
“This isn’t a question. I’ll buy low. Long career still ahead of him - real point is how underrated the environment was in 2023, but it was all attributed to the QB.”
HOW BRADY’S BACK-UP COULD SPARK SHOCK SUPER BOWL RUN
Broncos fans went on an emotional rollercoaster last week.
One minute they were hosting an AFC Championship game after outlasting the Buffalo Bills in an overtime epic, and the next they had already been counted out by most pundits when news came out that quarterback Bo Nix would miss the rest of the season with an ankle injury.
It felt like a gut-punch and for many other teams, it would have been an end to their Super Bowl hopes.
But one quarterback guru believes Denver back-up Jarrett Stidham may have exactly what the Broncos need to book their spot in the NFL’s biggest game of the year.
It would be quite the story, especially when you consider the Patriots drafted Stidham in the fourth round of the 2019 draft.
Stidham stayed in New England for three years as the back-up to Tom Brady before then operating as the third-string quarterback behind Cam Newton and Mac Jones.
Now, all these years later after stops at Las Vegas and Denver, Stidham has a chance to shock the football world according to Jordan Palmer.
Palmer, a former NFL quarterback who has worked with the likes of Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Sam Darnold, Joe Burrow and Bo Nix among others, also worked as Stidham’s longtime throwing coach.
For him, the former fourth-rounder was “one of the best-kept secrets” in the NFL over the last few years.
“I don’t think anybody knows until this weekend how good Jarrett Stidham is,” he said on ‘The Rich Eisen Show’.
“Not because I’ve known him since he was little and spent a lot of time with him.”
Instead, Palmer pointed to the fact Stidham won the back-up job to Brady during his first year at New England as proof of just why the Broncos should have confidence in him taking over Nix in such an important game.
“He was drafted in New England in the fourth round to back up Brady and that offence at that time, it was not just Tom Brady being a great player. It was year nine or 11 I believe of Josh McDaniels and Tom Brady running that offence together... so when you have a fourth-round rookie come in and win the number two job it is not because he is throwing good, it’s because he is learning the offence,” Palmer said.
“It’s because we can actually put you in the game and you can run our offence.”
Further to that, Palmer said that unlike other college quarterbacks Stidham’s experience at Baylor and Auburn didn’t prepare him for the reality of running a modern NFL offence.
Quite the opposite in fact, which makes him winning the back-up battle in his first year at New England all the more impressive.
“He entered the NFL as far behind as anybody I’ve ever had in terms of understanding offence,” Palmer said.
“He went from that to making the New England Patriots comfortable with him being the two with Tom Brady in his ninth year... that’s like walking into calculus but you’re in fifth grade.”
Palmer also said it was telling that current Patriots offensive co-ordinator Josh McDaniels was so quick to trade for Stidham in 2022 when he joined the Raiders as head coach and claimed that a rival team even offered Denver a “ransom” for Stidham last year but were knocked back.
While it is easy to be sceptical of Palmer’s comments given his previous connection with Stidham, there has to be some element of truth to the fact the Patriots trusted him in such an important role as a rookie.
It also can’t be ignored that Stidham has been part of the Broncos organisation since 2023. He isn’t some new guy who is just learning the offence and Sean Payton, Denver’s head coach, is one of the best play-callers in the league.
With no expectations and a defence that ranks among the best in the league, maybe the Broncos could emerge as the unlikely fairytale of the playoffs.
Broncos win thriller against the Bills | 01:55
‘GOT A F***ING RAISE?’ SUPER BOWL COACH BLOWS UP OVER BILLS MESS
Bruce Arians doesn’t have any idea what is going on in Buffalo.
The former Buccaneers’ Super Bowl-winning coach is in agreement with the Bills’ now-former coach Sean McDermott, who reportedly upset owner Terry Pegula and general manager Brandon Beane in a closed-door meeting five weeks ago.
McDermott was then fired after the Bills lost to the Broncos, 33-30, in the Divisional Round, while Beane was promoted to president of football operations.
“This one baffles me,” Arian said Tuesday on ‘The Pat McAfee Show’.
“How Brandon Beane got elevated and Sean McDermott got fired — that just blows my mind because they didn’t have any damn players.
“(McDermott) is one of the best coaches in the league, a great leader of men, he’s taken that team as close as you can get. He didn’t throw any damn interceptions and the referees screwed him bad and he gets fired.
“And Brandon Beane gets a f***king raise? I don’t get that one. That one blows my mind.”
McDermott is widely considered to have done some of his best work this past season.
Josh Allen was given nearly no playmakers at receiver and that ultimately ended their season when Brandin Cooks — who was released by the Saints earlier in the year – couldn’t hold onto a pass that was wrestled away for a controversial interception by Ja’Quan McMillian.
The Broncos eventually got the ball down the field with a few more debatable pass interference penalties to end the game in overtime.
Bills owner Terry Pegula still chose to side with Beane over McDermott despite some bizarre roster choices.
The Bills signed Von Miller in 2022 to a massive six-year contract, but he tore his ACL in year one of the deal and never returned to form.
He was eventually released and became a massive dead cap hit for the Bills, hampering them from making other moves going forward, including re-signing linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, who has enjoyed three strong seasons with the Bears.
With Beane winning the power struggle in Buffalo, it will now be on him to find a coach as good or better than McDermott, which won’t be easy considering the top two candidates in this cycle — John Harbaugh (Giants) and Kevin Stefanski (Falcons) – are now off the board.
McDermott went 98-50 as the coach of the Bills over nine seasons, but was just 8-8 in the playoffs and never advanced to the Super Bowl.
