The Giants should heed the No. 1 lesson of Wild Card weekend during their coaching search: The NFL is about the quarterback. It’s all about the quarterback. The Los Angeles Rams trailed by four points with a minute remaining on Saturday and beat the Carolina Panthers. The Chicago Bears were down 1 1 to the Green Bay Packers with six minutes left and came back. The Buffalo Bills erased a four-point deficit with four minutes remaining to win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. And the San Francisco 49ers upset the Philadelphia Eagles after trailing by two points on the road with seven minutes to go. The NFL is a one-score league. It’s never been tighter. There were 73 games decided by three points or fewer this regular season, tied for the most in league history. And this is the first playoff round in NFL history with four games decided by four points or fewer. Coaches can give their teams an edge, which helps them reach the playoffs in the first place. But at this stage, the margin of error becomes razor thin. And the difference between who wins and loses is obvious: It’s about which team’s quarterback is going to make a play with the game on the line to win. Simple as that. The Rams’ Matthew Stafford didn’t have his best game, but he fired a rope with 38 seconds to play that was snatched out of the air by tight end Colby Parkinson for a game-winning touchdown. The Bears’ Caleb Williams delivered fourth down and fourth quarter heroics, while the Packers’ Jordan Love went mostly quiet after a dominant first half. The Bills’ Josh Allen scored a late touchdown, and the Jags’ Trevor Lawrence threw an interception, even though Jacksonville only needed a field goal to send the game to overtime. Brocky Purdy had the answers in Philadelphia. Jalen Hurts, against a battered 49ers defense, did not. The quarterback position is what this league is all about. It’s the key to the NFL achieving unprecedented parity from year to year, too. Just look at the 2024 NFL Draft and the past two seasons since: The first three picks of that draft, which went to bottom-feeding teams from the previous season, were Williams to the Bears, Jayden Daniels to the Washington Commanders and Drake Maye to the New England Patriots. Daniels and the Commanders went to the NFC Championship Game his rookie season. And this year, Maye is an MVP candidate, and the Patriots and Williams’ Bears both have legitimate roads to a possible Super Bowl appearance and championship. All three of those situations also featured coaching changes that benefitted the new quarterback: Dan Quinn and offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury matched well with Daniels in Year One, while Ben Johnson helped unlock Williams as a first-year coach here in 2025 and Mike Vrabel brought Josh McDaniels back to elevate Maye. Even though the Jaguars flamed out in the first round, they’re another team that immediately improved with a better plan for a young quarterback. Liam Coen got better play out of Lawrence immediately, and it resulted in the franchise’s first playoff berth since 2022. The Giants, as they enter Week 2 of their head coaching search, are desperate to simply restore a baseline of culture and accountability and professionalism to their building. That is one of several reasons why former Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh is such an attractive candidate. But a centerpiece of their hire has to be the coach’s plan to develop Jaxson Dart, his track record with quarterbacks, who will be calling Dart’s plays and how the incoming staff evaluates quarterbacks — since this organization continues to land top 10 picks. Because while simply returning to relevance as a franchise is their most obvious need, the games in this league still come down to making a big play late in a close game. And getting the right quarterback to play the right way at the right time is how NFL teams win in 2025. IS HERBERT GETTING ANOTHER PASS? Justin Herbert’s career playoff record dropped to 0-3 with Sunday’s 16-3 Chargers dud against the Patriots. Herbert has a 54.7% career playoff completion percentage, two touchdown passes and five turnovers in three playoff appearances after posting 159 yards passing, 57 yards rushing and no TDs on Sunday night in Foxborough, Mass. No doubt, the Chargers’ battered offensive line and lack of a competent protection scheme did not help Herbert’s chances against Vrabel’s Patriots defense. Still, it is always interesting to observe how differently certain players and coaches get covered in the NFL compared to others. The postgame glare is being shined hardest on Chargers offensive coordinator Greg Roman, not on Herbert, even though the media and analytics darling now has three playoff games that look like this: A catastrophic collapse, leading 27-0 and losing 31-30 to the Jaguars in Jan. 2023; four interceptions in a 32-21 loss to the Houston Texans one year ago; and no touchdowns in a three-point effort on Sunday night. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, meanwhile, has a 2-5 career playoff record with a 64.5% completion percentage, 18 total touchdowns and seven interceptions. And he is often mocked as a talented player who shrinks in the big playoff moments. Two-time MVP Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson has a 3-5 career postseason record, a 60.6% completion percentage, 13 TDs and 11 turnovers. And he is viewed as an underachiever. But Herbert, somehow, continues to receive more benefit of the doubt. The reality is that expectations for him — if he is that tremendous of a talent — should be higher than making excuses for his playoff resume. WATCHING THE BIRDS BLOW UP Nick Sirianni’s heated sideline berating of wideout A.J. Brown during Sunday’s 23-19 Eagles loss to the 49ers was a telling moment. Sirianni said he was telling Brown to get off the field. But it looked like a coach who was tired of his receiver’s antics yelling at Brown to catch the ball if he’s going to create a season’s worth of distractions for the reigning Super Bowl champions. Brown undoubtedly has played his final snap as an Eagle, and Sirianni presumably is going to have a tough decision to make on his close friend, offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo. If Doug Pederson’s huddle with Nick Foles in that 2017 Super Bowl is Philadelphia’s gold standard play call in the clutch, Sunday’s final play gathering between Hurts, Sirianni and Patullo was the complete opposite: Hurts emerged to run a shockingly simple play that featured four vertical routes, with tight end Dallas Goedert curling inside to fight for a Hurts pass into tight traffic that predictably fell incomplete. This year’s Eagles were the first back-to-back NFC East champions since 2003-04, the last time Philly did it. But their drama on the offensive side of the ball is worth monitoring closely as the division’s dynamic evolves. WILL LAFLEUR STAY IN GREEN BAY? Head coach Matt LaFleur and the Packers reportedly are talking about a possible contract extension after Saturday’s stunning 31-27 loss in Chicago, but will that ultimately result in LaFleur staying in Green Bay? Or are the Packers and LaFleur actually gauging the market for a potential head coach trade while leaving the door open to re-upping if nothing better materializes for both sides? LaFleur has a remarkable .654 winning percentage (76-40-1) in seven regular seasons running the Packers. But he is only 3-6 in the playoffs. There were rumors prior to the weekend that a first-round loss could lead to his firing. He also has a proven track record with quarterbacks, including the development of current franchise QB Jordan Love. So does another team out there need a quarterback whisperer badly enough to give up assets to Green Bay to land LaFleur? Or do the Packers really intend to lock him up long term? That will be interesting to monitor in the coming days. ANY IMPACT ON HAFLEY? It will also be interesting to see how Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley’s head coaching candidacy is impacted by the Bears’ 28-point second half and 25-point fourth quarter in Saturday’s 31-27 Chicago comeback win. There has been a ton of hype about Hafley, the former Boston College head coach, after his two years running the Packers’ system. But that was a troubling finish by a talented defense after Green Bay’s offense had spotted them a 21-3 halftime lead. They also had a rough end of regular season run after being one of the better units in football for the first half of the year, coinciding with Micah Parsons’ ACL tear. ...read more read less