Greetings from the sports desk located somewhere below decks of the Good Pirate Ship RedState. Sammy the Shark and Karl the Kraken have resumed their regular duties keeping you abreast of the latest developments …

Or the latest available flavors of fish crackers.

Anyway, the first round of NFL playoffs is complete. Save for fans of one or more of the six teams that won, the games were, except for the Washington Commanders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, rather dreary one-sided affairs. In this regard, the pros greatly mimicked the semipros, otherwise known as college football playoffs, where the first round of the 2024-2025 postseason was one to forget. Unless you like your football lopsided.

Thankfully, there were the Commanders and the Buccaneers to entertain us, taking turns trading leads and securing ties until a last-second field goal try by Washington kicker Zane Gonzalez dinked off the right goalpost only to doink its way through, giving the Commanders a 23-20 win. Washington quarterback Jayden Daniels is a star ascendant, cool under pressure and delivering the goods when most needed. Plus, grounded in what matters.

Reporter: How are you so calm and so poised?

Commanders QB Jayden Daniels: “Trust in the Lord God. There’s nothing I should worry about. I put all of my worries on Him. He’ll take care of the rest.” pic.twitter.com/pFou86z2J8

— Jon Root (@JonnyRoot_) January 13, 2025

The other five games on the slate quickly slid into mediocrity as far as watchability was concerned. There was the feel-good aspect of the Los Angeles Rams winning a “home” game in Arizona. Still, the game itself was unspectacular aside from watching Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold kiss any opportunity at a significant paycheck next year disappear beneath his inability to handle pressure. Granted, the Rams’ pass rush was fast and furious throughout, but when you are utterly incapable of getting the ball to Justin Jefferson, arguably the best wide receiver in the NFL, you are not doing it right.

Thus, we look forward to next weekend and four matchups, each with the strong potential to make any football fan’s pigskin and laces heart go pitter-pat. On the surface, the first game up on Saturday, January 18 — Houston Texans at Kansas City Chiefs — appears heavily slanted toward the Chiefs’ barely needing to break a sweat as they get set to host the AFC championship game. It depends on which Texans team visits Missouri. When they are off their game, Houston is Stumblebum City on both sides of the ball. But when they are on, the Texans can and will hit their opponent hard and heavy on offense and defense. Meanwhile, while the Chiefs lost only one game this year in which they bothered to field their starting squad, a veritable plethora of their wins came down to nail-biting time. Kansas City still won them all, but this has not been the dominant team to which we have grown accustomed. Is Kansas City favored? Of course. They are still the Chiefs, and they still have a stout defense, plus a guy who can play a little quarterback in between filming State Farm commercials throwing the football to Taylor Swift’s love muffin. That said, if the Texans can keep it tight going into the game’s latter stages, things could get interesting.

Next on the itinerary for Saturday, January 18, are the Commanders heading to Detroit for a battle with the Lions. At first glance, this appears to be as one-sided as the Christians versus the lions back when the felines played their home games at the Roman Colosseum. But not so fast. Can Detroit score early and often against Washington’s miss or hit defense? Yes. However, significant injuries permeate the Lions’ defense, and the motif of applying heavy pressure on the quarterback that worked quite well when Detroit beat Minnesota in the last game of the season to claim both the NFC Central division title and the #1 seed in the playoffs feeds directly into Jayden Daniels’ running and playmaking under pressure skills. This game threatens to be far more competitive than one might suspect.

Sunday, January 19, kicks off (no pun intended) with the Los Angeles Rams at the Philadelphia Eagles. From the Rams' view of things, the primary goal is simple. Keep Saquon Barkley from running you off the field, thus making Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts win the game through the air. He can, but this is nowhere near as certain as Barkley piling up the yardage on the ground. If Los Angeles’ offense can mitigate its penchant for wildly inconsistent play and be on top of things, it can score more than enough points to keep Barkley at bay. This game should be a good, close one.

The quartet of playoff games ends with the most highly anticipated matchup from a football status, as the Baltimore Ravens fly up through the snow to Buffalo for a tilt with the Bills. Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen and Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson have made strong cases about why they should be the league MVP. Allen is more oriented toward precision, while Jackson is overpowering. Both can make the passes very few of their compatriots can make, and both can hurt you with their running ability, although Jackson has a clear advantage in this area. Jackson has another advantage in that he can hand the ball off to Derrick Henry, although it demands mention that the Bills’ James Cook is no slouch when it comes to running back panache.

Each team has a good but not great defense. Statistically, Baltimore is better at stopping the run, while Buffalo is more adept at stopping the pass. That said, Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford racked up 320 yards and two touchdowns against the Bills, followed by Lions quarterback Jared Goff going off for an eye-popping 494 yards and five touchdowns against Buffalo. Yeeow. This game has all the elements of one where everything can happen and most likely will.

Enjoy the rest of the week, everyone.

Editor's Note: This article was updated post-publication to correct the name of the Eagles quarterback. RedState regrets the error.