Jan 11, 2025, 11:00 PM ET
We’re through the first two games of the NFL’s wild-card weekend to kick off the playoffs. The Texans kicked off Saturday with a 32-12 victory over the Chargers in a game that featured seven total turnovers. In the night game, the Ravens beat the division-rival Steelers 28-14. What are the lessons from both matchups, and what’s next for each team?
We asked NFL analyst Ben Solak and national insider Dan Graziano to help size up the opening matchups and look forward from all angles. For each wild-card game, Ben answered one big remaining question and Dan judged the legitimacy of one potential overreaction.
Let’s jump in, making sense of the Ravens’ big win, the Steelers’ future and Justin Herbert‘s four-interception day:
Jump to a matchup:
Steelers-Ravens | Chargers-Texans
Ravens 28, Steelers 14
Overreaction? The Ravens are going to win the Super Bowl!
This is an overreaction, but only because I’m not ready to do the Chiefs and the Lions, both of whom have first-round byes, like that. I will freely admit it’s hard to imagine any team beating the Ravens when they look the way they’ve looked on both sides of the ball over the past month. Lamar Jackson — who might win his third regular-season MVP later this month — may well turn out to be the best football player any of us have ever seen, and they almost didn’t need him to win on Saturday.
This Baltimore offense can beat teams a bunch of different ways, and the way it chose Saturday was “physical humiliation.” Its second touchdown drive of the game covered 85 yards in 13 plays, all of which were runs. At one point the Ravens direct-snapped it to tight end Mark Andrews and he just ran for three yards. It might have been the most disrespectful drive in NFL postseason history.
But this was an out-of-gas Steelers team that was playing over its head when it was in first place a month and a half ago. Baltimore should have been able to beat Pittsburgh with one hand tied behind its back. As a longtime Lamar Jackson fan, I’m as fired up as anyone about this team’s chances to do what the 2023 Ravens couldn’t. But Saturday was just a warm-up. Jackson has never won two games in a single postseason, and his next one will have a lot more to say about whether this is his Super Bowl season. — Graziano
The lingering question: Will this loss finally lead to major changes in Pittsburgh?
With their to the Ravens, the Mike Tomlin-led Steelers have now lost their last six postseason games and have not won any playoff games since 2016. Frustrations are high with the fan base, and certainly within the building as well.
The first and biggest change in Pittsburgh has nothing to do with the coach, but the quarterback. The first few playoff losses came with an aging Ben Roethlisberger at the helm; the last couple have come with Mason Rudolph and Russell Wilson. The Roethlisberger era likely lasted too long, but in its wake, Pittsburgh missed on Kenny Pickett with the No. 20 overall pick in 2022 and some free agent bargain-binning with Wilson and Justin Fields. The coach of the 2025 Steelers, along with general manager Omar Khan, simply must make a greater investment in the quarterback position than the team has made in the past several years.
The second potential change trickles down from the first: Who will be responsible for that quarterback’s development? Coordinator Arthur Smith got a lot out of Ryan Tannehill in Tennessee in 2019 and 2020 but has struggled since. Tomlin is not an offensive mastermind — he can’t puppet the quarterback position the way other, offensive-minded head coaches can. If he is unwilling to take a big swing at quarterback — in free agency or in the draft — Pittsburgh will remain stuck in the mud of his own making. — Solak
What’s next: The Ravens could host a divisional-round game if the Bills lose to the Broncos on Sunday. If Buffalo wins, Baltimore will travel there next weekend.
Texans 32, Chargers 12
Overreaction? Justin Herbert is a quarterback who falls apart in the playoffs.
I say yes, overreaction. Oh, I watched Herbert’s game Saturday. It was awful. He threw three interceptions in the entire regular season and then four in this game. That is, for those who don’t like to do math, a poor ratio. Until Saturday, he hadn’t had a single game in the NFL or in college in which he’d thrown three interceptions.
This was a game the Chargers could and probably should have taken control of in the first quarter, when they shut out the Texans after 15 minutes. They couldn’t, and by the time they needed Herbert to play them back into the game, he was playing even worse. Combine Saturday’s 14-for-32 catastrophe with his three-sack, 47.7-QBR performance in the playoff game two years ago in which the Chargers blew a 27-0 lead to the Jaguars, and Herbert’s postseason career is off to a lousy start.
All of that said, Houston’s defense played absolutely out of its mind, and this L.A. team probably played above its roster talent all season. Year 2 of the Jim Harbaugh/Joe Hortiz tandem should surround Herbert with a better cast to help compete against seasoned playoff teams. Saturday was heinous, but the fact Herbert and the Chargers were there in the first place was a success.
The Chargers are ahead of schedule, and Herbert has shown enough in his larger sample that I’m not worried about his ability to deliver in the playoffs in the future. Yet. — Graziano
play
Justin Herbert on 4-INT day: ‘I let the team down’
Justin Herbert reflects on his struggles after the Chargers were eliminated by the Texans.
The lingering question: What is offensive coordinator Greg Roman actually bringing to the Chargers?
The wild-card loss to the Texans was a bad day for everyone on the Chargers’ offense not named Ladd McConkey, and lots of personnel help is needed this offseason. But the lack of schematic relief from Roman’s offense was glaring. With a dual-threat quarterback — as he had in Baltimore with Lamar Jackson (2017-22) and San Francisco with Colin Kaepernick (2011-14) — Roman’s legacy as a clever run game schemer starts to fade. There continued to be no easy targets in the passing game, as Herbert had near season highs in both pressure rate — he was pressured on exactly half of his 36 dropbacks — and time to throw (average of 3.1 seconds). The Chargers’ offensive line was underwater for most of the game, and relief never came from the playcalling.
I don’t think the Chargers will move on from Roman this offseason, but it’s worth wondering: Can he do a better job coaching around the players he has and their deficiencies? And if not, will Jim Harbaugh end up looking for a more modern offensive coordinator who actually puts stress on NFL defenses?
By opening up a search beyond Roman, who has always been the first page in the Harbaugh Rolodex, he should find plenty of playcallers eager to work with Herbert. Hire a chip off the old Shanahan or McVay block. Hire an offensive head coach castoff and in need of a new gig. Anyone who has built a modern, successful NFL passing game before. — Solak
What’s next: The Texans will await the outcome of Sunday’s Broncos-Bills game before it’s determined where they will play next weekend. If the Bills win, they’ll play at Kansas City.
