One of the greatest sports weekends of the year is here to get us going in 2025. The NFL divisional round features teams with either a playoff win under their belt (for the first time in two decades for the Commanders) or are coming off a well-earned bye week as the No. 1 seed.

While the divisional round is surely going to feature the league’s best going at it and emptying their respective playbooks, three of the games feature bigger spreads than we commonly get divisional weekend; the Houston Texans are 8.5-point underdogs, while the Commanders are 9-point underdogs and the Rams 6.

For this week’s Football 301 Playbook, I’m going to preview each divisional round matchup — but with the angle of how an upset could happen for the underdogs (plus the Buffalo Bills, who are currently 1-point home dogs to the Baltimore Ravens).

Read the full breakdown here.

On Jan. 17, 2006, the Dallas Cowboys and team owner Jerry Jones lost.

They didn’t lose a playoff game; their Bill Parcells-coached team had won just nine games that season and failed to advance to the playoffs.

Instead, the Cowboys lost their assistant head coach and passing game coordinator when the New Orleans Saints reached a deal to hire Sean Payton as head coach.

At the moment, Dallas still had a Hall of Fame head coach in Parcells in the building. Letting a masterful offensive mind out the door was disappointing but not devastating. But as the years elapsed, and Payton developed the Saints into one of the winningest teams in football and a Super Bowl champion, Jones never forgot the one that got away.

Keep that in mind when assessing the Cowboys’ search for their next head coach.

Read more here.

Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury wants to focus on his team's divisional playoff matchup versus the Lions on Saturday. As a result, any team that wants to interview him for a head coaching vacancy will have to wait.

The Bears and Saints have requested permission to interview Kingsbury. And the Jaguars may also make a request, according to Pro Football Talk.

However, Kingsbury is still being paid by the Cardinals, who fired him after the 2023 season with four years remaining on his contract. So jumping to another head coaching job isn't urgent from a financial standpoint.

Moore is in his first season with the Philadelphia Eagles, and has familiarity with Jerry Jones and the Cowboys after playing there for three seasons and then serving as quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator from 2018-2022.

Moore has been requested to be interviewed for head coaching jobs with the Jacksonville Jaguars and New Orleans Saints.

The Texans are currently preparing for Saturday's Divisional Round game against the Kansas City Chiefs, so Slowik's interview will be done virtually.

The Jets have already spoke to Aaron Glenn, Matt Nagy, Rex Ryan, Ron Rivera, and Steve Spagnuolo, among others so far in their search for a new head coach.

The Jaguars announced late on Wednesday night that they have completed an interview with Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Liam Coen for their top job.

Coen spent this past season with the Bucs, and was the Los Angeles Rams' offensive coordinator in 2022. He held the same position at Kentucky in both 2021 and 2023.

The Bears' interview with Mike McCarthy is officially over. McCarthy flew to the Chicagoland area meet the Bears on Wednesday, just two days after he split with the Dallas Cowboys. It was the team's second in-person interview.

Diontae Johnson has been claimed on waivers by the Baltimore Ravens one day after he parted ways with the Houston Texans, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter.

Johnson joined the Texans on Dec. 26 after being waived by the Ravens. He played one regular season game and one playoff game for Houston, recording three receptions for 24 yards in those two games.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t work out," said Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans. "We are onto the Chiefs.”

Why would the Ravens bring Johnson back, especially if he's ineligible to play again this season? Johnson cannot technically join Baltimore until after the Super Bowl and since he's an unrestricted free agent this offseason he can potentially earn the Ravens an extra draft pick in 2026 if he signs with another team through the NFL's compensatory pick formula.

Read more here.

The Colts will host the game next season at Berlin's Olympic Stadium.

This news comes just a few days after the NFL announced the Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars and New York Jets will be the host teams for the NFL's yearly games in London. There will also be a 2025 regular-season game played in Madrid, Spain, for the first time.

This will be the Colts' third international game in recent years and second in Germany. In 2016, they were the designated away team against the Jacksonville Jaguars for a game in London at Wembley Stadium. Then in 2023 they played the New England Patriots at Deutsche Bank Park in Frankfort.

Read more here.

Joseph, the current Denver Broncos defensive coordinator, has been a head coach once in the NFL when he was in charge of the Broncos from 2017-2018. In two seasons as head coach of the Broncos, he led them to an 11-21 record and did not make the playoffs.

After he was fired as Broncos head coach, he was hired to lead the Arizona Cardinals' defense before returning to the Broncos in 2023 as their defensive coordinator.

The current Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator and former Atlanta Falcons head coach.

Smith led the Falcons to a 7-10 record in each of his three seasons in charge. Atlanta did not make the playoffs under Smith.

The Bears have spoken to former Stanford head coach David Shaw about their head coaching position.

Shaw resigned from his position at Stanford after a second straight 3-9 record and has not worked as an NFL coach since 2005, when he was the Ravens' wide receivers coach. He is currently working in the Broncos' front office as a senior personnel executive.

Starting Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair missed practice Tuesday with a knee injury. The severity of the injury isn't clear. Al-Shaair played on all but one snap in Houston's wild-card win over the Chargers on Saturday. His status will be worth watching as the Texans prepare for their divisional-round matchup against the Chiefs on Saturday.

Neither Dak Prescott nor Micah Parsons sound too excited about the Dallas Cowboys’ decision to split with coach Mike McCarthy this week.

"Bummed, because we built some things," Prescott texted a local reporter after learning of McCarthy's departure in Dallas. "But I guess they couldn't reach an agreement. SMH."

For more on the Cowboys' reactions to McCarthy leaving the organization click here.

A juggernaut Detroit Lions offense appears to be getting stronger.

The Lions listed David Montgomery as a full participant in an estimated practice report on Tuesday just weeks after he was believed to be lost for the season with a knee injury.

For more, read here.

Martindale was the Ravens' defensive coordinator from 2018-2021 before working in the same role with the Giants for the 2022 and 2023 seasons. After parting ways with the Giants, he was hired by the University of Michigan last February.

The top 24 picks of the first round of the 2025 NFL draft are now set following wild-card weekend.

You can read the latest mock draft from Nate Tice and Charles McDonald here.

1. Tennessee Titans (3-14)

2. Cleveland Browns (3-14)

3. New York Giants (3-14)

4. New England Patriots (4-13)

5. Jacksonville Jaguars (4-13)

6. Las Vegas Raiders (4-13)

7. New York Jets (5-12)

8. Carolina Panthers (5-12)

9. New Orleans Saints (5-12)

10. Chicago Bears (5-12)

11. San Francisco 49ers (6-11)

12. Dallas Cowboys (7-10)

13. Miami Dolphins (8-9)

14. Indianapolis Colts (8-9)

15. Atlanta Falcons (8-9)

16. Arizona Cardinals (8-9)

17. Cincinnati Bengals (9-8)

18. Seattle Seahawks (10-7)

19. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (10-7)

20. Denver Broncos (10-7)

21. Pittsburgh Steelers (10-7)

22. Los Angeles Chargers (11-6)

23. Green Bay Packers (11-6)

24. Minnesota Vikings (14-3)

25. Houston Texans (10-7)

26. Los Angeles Rams (10-7)

27. Washington Commanders (12-5)

28. Baltimore Ravens (12-5)

29. Buffalo Bills (13-4)

30. Philadelphia Eagles (14-3)

31. Kansas City Chiefs (15-2)

32. Detroit Lions (15-2)

Deion Sanders and Jerry Jones have spoken about the head coaching job in Dallas, according to multiple reports on Monday night. Though the Colorado head coach has denied interest in leaving the Buffaloes for the NFL, he's apparently at least open to the Cowboys position.

With Mike McCarthy out of the picture now in Dallas, Could Prime would certainly be a choice for his replacement. According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, "their talks will continue."

For more on Deion Sanders and the Cowboys, click here.

Mike McCarthy has an interview scheduled with the Bears on Wednesday, according to David Moore of the Dallas Morning News.

News broke last week that the Bears were interested in McCarthy and requested permission from the Cowboys to interview him that the Cowboys denied. With McCarthy's contract set to expire Tuesday, he's free to interview with the Bears and anybody else starting Wednesday.

Pittsburgh's upside is capped with Russell Wilson, but finding a quarterback to compete with the likes of Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen in the AFC is not a realistic goal. What are the Steelers to do?

For more read here.

Troy Aikman doesn't quite agree with the Dallas Cowboys' decision to part ways with Mike McCarthy. The longtime Cowboys quarterback and Hall of Famer ripped the organization on ESPN on Monday night.

"It suggests that there's not a real plan ... To say that it's a coveted job, I'm not sure I would necessarily agree with that."

Mike McCarthy will not re-sign as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, NFL Network reported and sources confirmed to Yahoo Sports' Jori Epstein on Monday. (His original five-year deal expires Tuesday.)

For championship-starved Cowboys fans, the news was a bit infuriating — why the delay of a week, if not months, in making a coaching change? That's a time period when top potential candidates have either come off the market or gone far down the road in the interview process with more aggressive franchises.

Then came the truly baffling, if telling, news. The reason for the parting was that after a week of meetings between McCarthy and team owner Jerry Jones, “the two sides could not come to terms on an agreement on the length of a new contract.”

The length of a new contract?

The length of a contract, from the ownership side, is twofold. One is to keep a coach from leaving if he is successful. The second is it sets the initial terms of a potential buyout if he needs to be fired early (either pay it all or perhaps negotiate down).

It’s a money equation.

Any consideration on the length of the deal suggests that Jones believed McCarthy was the best guy for the Cowboys job in 2025, but was prohibitively concerned about potentially doling out millions if he was wrong about it.

Read the full column here.

Mike McCarthy's contract with the Dallas Cowboys ran out, and his time with the team has run its course.

McCarthy, whose contract expired after the 2024 season, won't return as Dallas' coach next season. NFL Network's Tom Pelissero reported that the two sides were unable to come to terms on the length of contract, and decided to part ways.

The Cowboys finished 7-10 with several blowout losses, including a 41-7 defeat against the rival Philadelphia Eagles in Week 17 as Saquon Barkley surpassed 2,000 yards rushing for the season. McCarthy helped turn things around late in the, with winning four of five games after falling to 3-7. But it was time for a change.

Read more here.

Generations went by in the NFL and one thing held true for all but a few outliers: Rookie quarterbacks struggled, they didn’t carry their teams to the playoffs and they surely didn’t go on the road in the playoffs and win.

There were some rookie QBs who started for very good teams and were parts of playoff appearances and even some wins. Few were the driving force behind those clubs. Not many rookie quarterbacks throughout NFL history have been Jayden Daniels.

He helped the Washington Commanders beat the Tampa Bay Bucs 23-20 on a Zane Gonzalez field goal that bounced off the upright and in as time expired in Sunday's wild-card playoff game.

Daniels looks nothing like a rookie and hasn’t since very early this season. He looks like a superstar already. Daniels was a key, yet again, in the Commanders’ win that sent Washington to the divisional round where they'll face top-seeded Detroit on Saturday night. Daniels completed a fourth-down pass for a touchdown in the fourth quarter for the lead, and after the Buccaneers tied the game 20-20 with 4:41 left, he calmly led a drive for the win. As was the case all season, Daniels was completely unaffected in pressure situations.

Read more here.