What’s Hot and What’s Knott in Football – Divisional Round

By Rhys Knott

The chaos of the 2025 season is largely over; it’s been replaced with brutal efficiency. The Broncos and Seahawks are hot (in their own way) and, in a continuation of the last few months, injuries are Knott! 

What’s even more Knott is how NFL teams report injuries and how coaches deal with players returning to the field. And there’s the officiating, you already know that’s Knott! 

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What’s Hot in Football – Divisional Round

Will Gavin is hot (figuratively and literally, just look at that absolute hunk of a man). Talksport’s NFL expert has been one of the best-connected journalists on this side of the pond for years, but now his play-by-play calls are the talk of the NFL. 

Kenneth Walker III is hot. Walker had only scored two touchdowns against the 49ers in his previous seven games. He fixed that this time out as he crossed the whitewash three times. James Cook had more rushing yards than Walker III (117 to 116), but Cook needed five more carries to rack up that extra yard. 

The former Michigan State Spartan ran for more yards than the entire 49ers team. Not only did he rack up 116 yards at 6.1 yards per carry, but he also hauled in all three of his targets and ended the game with more receiving yards than any Seahawk not named Cooper Kupp! 

Bo Nix is hot too, not just this week, he’s been doing hot things all season! The amount of discourse around the guy who has guided his team to the top of the AFC is frankly bizarre. 

He even turned this unintentional flea-flicker into an incomplete pass, saving his team from a loss of yards. 

Nix wasn’t the only quarterback performing minor miracles. The Pope really provided some devine intervention for Caleb on this one. 

Malik Mustapha is back as the Malik of the Week, too. The 23-year-old shone for a 49ers defense that almost ran out of players. 

On the topic of defensive standouts, 10 different players made interceptions in the Divisional round! Two of them, Carlton Davis and Cobie Durant, grabbed two each. But you all know we love a big guy pick, and they don’t come much bigger than rookie Deone Walker. 

The Bills’ defensive tackle is 6-foot-7 and 331 pounds. How Nix didn’t see him is one of the great mysteries of the world! 

White Boy Wednesday is hot, too. As is Azeez Al-Shaair’s description of Linkin Park’s seminal 2000 classic “In the End”.

We somewhat retired the What’s Hot Hall of Fame last week, as there were too many games to talk about. It’s back this week, though, if only to give DeMeco Ryans and this veteran member of the Steelers’ chain gang some much-deserved flowers. 

Charlie Batch is in, too. People can be mean on social media! Come on, man, Charlie never threw four picks in a game, and he was in the league for 12 years! 

What’s Knott in Football – Divisional Round

The NFL as an organisation is just Knott, and nothing proves that more than fining a player who is expressing their concerns over genocide. Not many people think genocide is a good thing. Apparently, the NFL are a bit on the fence about it.

Kyle Shanahan is very Knott in big games, and he seems to have developed a bit of a mental block where Mike Macdonald’s Seahawks are concerned. Since Macdonald took over in the Pacific Northwest, the Seahawks lead the rivalry 111-79 on aggregate! Yelling at a defensive back won’t help you, Kyle!

On the subject of 49er defensive backs, this is very Knott! Maybe Shanahan misdirected that rage?

Turning the ball over five times in one game is very Knott, but two teams did it this week! First up, the Bills managed to take their game to overtime, despite Josh Allen throwing two interceptions and fumbling the ball three times! 

As time ticked down in the first half, Allen appeared to be trying the old fumblerooski, but it ended up costing his team three points. 

The Texans (who historically Knott in the Divisional round) took their inspiration from Dickens’ Old Curiosity Shop, specifically the “Men who lived by plunder, profligacy and riot; squandering their gold in doing ill”. 

Turning the ball over five times is incredibly Knott. There were so many shambolic errors by the Texans that it’s impossible to go through them all here. 

Houston fans will point to the number of injuries they suffered, especially on offense. They have a point. 

A team that was without Tank Dell, Brevin Jordan and Joe Mixon all season, Nico Collins, out with a concussion, lost two tight ends during this game!  

No, Trent Brown from the get-go either meant they had to shuffle their offensive line from last week. Then Tytus Howard suffered an injury during the game!  

The Patriots weren’t error-free either. The home team surrendered the ball three times and allowed Drake Maye to take five sacks!  

Denver will be very interested in the way the Texans’ pass rush got home, but their own starting quarterback, but Denver has its own problems. 

Bo Nix’s broken ankle is very Knott, but if last week’s injury reporting is anything to go by, he’ll play next week! 

The 49ers opened Fred Warner’s practice window last week after he dislocated his ankle in Week 6, and multiple videos showed how ready he was to play.

Despite listing him as a “limited participant” on Tuesday and Wednesday, he was ruled out late on Thursday. 

Sam Darnold allegedly injured an oblique muscle and was reported as “questionable” at the end of the week! Not only did Darnold play the entire game, but he threw 17 passes and survived being sacked twice! 

Such vague reporting in the lead-up to important games wasn’t an issue when it only impacted journalists writing game previews. However, now that gambling is legal and the NFL is partnered with sportsbooks, it’s farcical that nobody knows who will play when the lines are set. 

Conversely, the Bills defensive tackle Ed Oliver, who could have realistically been out for 12 months after tearing his left bicep in Week 8, returned in Denver. That was until he injured his ankle at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

Oliver had also been listed as a “limited participant” by the Bills all week and was “questionable” at the end of the week. 

Running the ball 36 times against the defense that ranked second for the number of rushing yards they allowed during the regular season. That’s exactly what Joe Brady decided the Bills should do in Denver. 

In more very Knott injury news, and in Brady’s defense, Buffalo had three receivers on IR! And the Broncos’ pass defense are no mugs either. Vance Joseph’s guys ranked seventh in the league when it came to stopping passing offenses during the regular season!  

But when your quarterback ends a game with 283 yards through the air you should have continued to test that pass defense. 

The officials were more of an obstacle for the Bills’ passing offense than the Broncos’ defense proved to be.  

When is a catch not a catch? When it’s a turnover. Whatever this is, it’s absolutely Knott. Has Brandin Cooks completed this catch when his knee hits the ground? You might think so, but you’d be incorrect.

According to the officials, Brandin Cooks hasn’t caught the ball. It must be incomplete then, no? Also incorrect.

Somehow, Ja’Quan McMillian gained possession of the ball, but if Cooks didn’t catch the ball, how did McMillian? Only the officials know. 

As if to infuriate Bills Mafia even more, the officials in Denver proceeded to throw flags for things that been happening all game. They effectively handed the home team 47 yards on the final drive of the game. In overtime. After allowing some pretty aggressive “hand fighting” all day! 

And that’s not all, 24 hours later when the Rams played in Chicago, Davante Adams got his knee down, but didn’t survive the ground. The officials called this one a catch and not a turnover!

RHYS KNOTT

NFL/FANTASY FOOTBALL ANALYST

Rhys has been watching the NFL for 30 something years and still hasn’t managed to pick a team to support. When he’s not fixatED on pass rushers you can find him blithering on about most sports on Twitter @wrhys_writes

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