National Football League

NFC Championship: A perfect time for Sean McVay to finally beat the Niners?

Updated Jan. 26, 2022 12:12 p.m. ET

By Peter Schrager
FOX Sports NFL Analyst

Welcome to the conference championship edition of the Schrager Cheat Sheet, presented by Intuit QuickBooks.

Each week, I take a look at several things you need to know heading into the NFL weekend. This week we examine the Kyle Shanahan-Sean McVay rivalry, break down Matthew Stafford's "For the Love of the Game" pass to Cooper Kupp, ponder Sean Payton's next move and more.

Schrager's Cheat Sheet: Can Stafford carry Rams all the way?

Peter Schrager takes a closer look at the coaching matchup between Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan, questions whether Matthew Stafford is capable of leading the Rams to the Super Bowl and speculates on what's next for Sean Payton.

1. Shanahan-McVay, yet again

It's been the storyline all week, and rightfully so. It's not just the 49ers and the Rams playing, or the 5-seed facing off with the 6-seed — an NFL postseason rarity. It's Sean McVay facing Kyle Shanahan, his former colleague in Washington, and the guy who's beaten him six straight times. The truth is, the storyline isn't going to fade away, and the narrative will be what it is until McVay beats his friend and foe. Fortunately for McVay, there is some history of coaches — like him — who've used the playoffs to rid themselves of a narrative that they just can't beat a certain coach.

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When he was coaching the Browns, Bill Belichick lost five straight times to the Steelers under Bill Cowher. It took him five years and a new team, quarterback, and opportunity, but in the 2001 AFC divisional round, Belichick — with Drew Bledsoe coming in during the second quarter to throw a touchdown pass to David Patten — finally got the best of Cowher. Does anyone remember Cowher's dominance over Belichick? No. Because he beat him, and he beat him when it mattered most.

Brian Billick had Jeff Fisher's number. Five straight times, including three times in one season, the Ravens beat the Titans.

Ray Lewis was asked before the 2003 wild-card game if he thought his Baltimore defense was in the Titans' players' heads. His answer? "Honestly? Probably, yes."

Steve McNair wasn't perfect that day (he threw three interceptions), but he orchestrated a game-winning drive when they needed him most. The Titans won 20-17, and Fisher never had to hear about Billick's dominance ever again.

And Bruce Arians couldn't beat Sean Payton for years, going back to his Arizona days. Even with Tom Brady as his QB, Arians was swept by Payton in the 2020 regular season. But then, when they met in the Superdome in the NFC divisional round, Arians' Buccaneers came from behind to finally get past Payton. No one ever discusses it now.

McVay can envision it, he can game-plan all he wants and he can do a million other things leading up to the game. But the narrative won't go away unless the Rams beat the 49ers on Sunday. What better opportunity to silence everyone than in the NFC Championship Game with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line?

2. The "For the Love of the Game" ball

I don't care who you are, including Buccaneers fans, there has to be a small part of you that feels good for Matthew Stafford this week. Thirteen years. Zero playoff wins before this season. Never included with names like Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, or Brady — despite all the natural physical gifts in the world. And there's Stafford, after his team surrendered a 24-point lead, making the pass of a lifetime to Cooper Kupp.

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The route was dubbed by Stafford as the "For the Love of the Game" route, because of just how hard the receiver has to run. If you watch Kupp on the deep pass, he's running a full-out sprint, relentlessly, and blowing past Antoine Winfield Jr. What's so unique about the route is that it's rarely a situation where the player running it is actually a legitimate target. Rather, it's supposed to force the safety to travel, leaving an opening underneath. But, in what might have been the case one out of 100 times, Stafford knew that Todd Bowles would be calling a zero blitz, and that there was a chance Kupp could actually be open on the play. They went for it. Aggressively. And it landed.

In the moments that followed, Stafford spiked the ball to stop the clock and pumped his fist as he trotted to the sidelines, fully confident that Matt Gay would finish the job and make the field goal. He did. And Stafford — after 13 years of waiting — finally had his triumphant moment. He finally had his play. It's awesome. Thirteen years of no big NFL history, no hallmark plays, no truly significant games or wins. And there he is, beating Brady and the defending champions on their field with a perfect deep ball.

3. Sean Payton's next move

After 16 years, Sean Payton is stepping away as coach of the Saints. There have been plenty of moments on the field that I can share about Payton's coaching career, but I'll go into the production meetings we are always told to never talk about outside those rooms.

Prior to the 2018 NFC divisional-round game against the Eagles, FOX Sports assigned me to join Pam Oliver on the sidelines of the playoff game. It was a cool honor and an awesome opportunity to spend some real time with Payton prior to a postseason game in which a lot of folks were picking the defending champion Eagles. Payton was loose in the production meeting, and instead of talking legacy or in-the-weeds offensive line play, he told us about how he spent the beginning of the season hiring different college mascots to come and show up at practice to torment his players whose alma mater's had lost the week before.

I wish I still had my notes, but I have four pages of stories from that Friday afternoon production meeting. Off the top of my head, I think it was the week after David Blough and Purdue upset Ohio State that season. He had a ton of Buckeyes on the roster that year — from Von Bell to Marshon Lattimore to Michael Thomas. When they wrapped up practice that week, there was Purdue Pete at the end of one of the afternoons, coming out of the locker room, dapping up all the Buckeyes.

Payton's got a funny side. He's also an incredible storyteller. I don't know what's next, but I think he's interesting and would make for a great TV analyst — whether in the booth or at one of the tables.

4. Jet McKinnon's re-emergence

I love that Jerick McKinnon is having a moment. In 2017, McKinnon was the Swiss Army knife in the Vikings' offensive backfield that raised eyebrows every time he touched the ball. He signed a huge free-agent contract with San Francisco but tore up his knee the week before the start of the season. He came all the way back the next offseason, only to hurt his knee again.

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Two years later, here's McKinnon, not only a feel-good story, but a key piece to the Chiefs' offense. He was feeling good earlier this year, but a hamstring injury kept him off the field.

"When you get in a place like that and you're just fighting and battling back, the only thing you can do is just put your head down and keep working and know in the back of your mind one of these days that work is going to pay off," he said. "The hard work I put in the past couple of years to overcome everything, it showed."

Perseverance.

5. Ratings ... who cares? I do.

The NFL ratings releases every week can be a bit much, but I think it's at least worth noting after numbers like this past weekend's. For the divisional round of the NFL playoffs, the four games averaged 38.2 million viewers (TV and digital), which resulted in a duplicated total of more than 152 million viewers. For context, after months of promotion, NBC's "This Is Us" season premiere had one million viewers. It's not just the Mandy Moore-led show (which I've never seen but I hear is fine as those types of TV shows tend to go); basically all network TV shows average in the 1-3 million range.

The 38.2-million average ranks as the highest divisional round average on record (dating back to 1988), and is up 20% over 2020 and 12% over 2019.

Additionally, nearly half of all Americans using television in NFL windows during the divisional round were watching NFL games with a share of 49.3% — the highest share on record for the divisional round.

On top of these astounding numbers, 91 of the top 100 viewed shows on TV during the 2021 calendar year were football games.

The NFL? It's doing OK.

Enjoy the championship games!

Peter Schrager is an NFL writer for FOX Sports and a host of "Good Morning Football" on NFL Network.