A great Super Wild Card Weekend of exciting playoff football came to a lackluster close on Monday night but, one way or the other, the Divisional Round picture is set. I was doing really well, having gone five-for-five through Sunday night, but that came to a screeching halt on Monday.
The Dallas Cowboys came out a little cold to start but, once they got the motor warmed up, they steamrolled the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31-14. It was disappointing that we didn’t get a better game out of it, but when looking at the two teams’ seasons as a whole, it’s easy to see why it wasn’t competitive.
I did pick the Bucs, more out of fear of Brady’s playoff resume than out of pure logic, but credit to Dallas for not allowing the moment to get the better of them and imposing their will on Tampa instead of the other way around. The Cowboys did start the game with back-to-back 3 & outs, but once they leaned into the run game it took some of the pressure off Dak and allowed them to find their flow offensively.
It wasn’t just the Dallas offense either. The defense stepped up in a big way right when they needed it most. Leading 6-0, after a missed extra point, Tampa had driven it all the way to the Boys’ 5-yard line to set up a 1st & goal. Tampa was averaging nearly 7 yards per carry on this drive but for some stupid reason, didn’t try to run it once they got that close. Instead, they opted to throw twice and Brady got picked off trying to throw the second ball away. It could have been a very different type of game had the Bucs taken the lead there early in the 2nd quarter, but they made dumb decisions and Dallas made them pay for it.
From that point on until just before the 4th quarter, it was the Cowboys scoring TDs, Brett Maher missing one extra point after another (4 in total), and the Bucs doing jack squat. The Bucs eventually scored as time expired in the 3rd quarter, but it was much too little too late. Dallas answered with a TD and when Tampa tried to respond, they once again found themselves inside the Coybows’ 5-yard line refusing to even try to run the football. The result: turnover on downs.
I’m not exactly sure what the plan was, but Tom Brady threw the ball 66 times. Seriously, what the F? Tampa ran the ball 12 times. Twelve! And refused to do so in the most obvious run scenarios while Rachaad White was averaging 5.85 YPC. It makes no sense so I could see why Byron Leftwich might get fired after that. In all that, I don’t know how Brady only got sacked twice, but he was inaccurate for the majority of the night and, unfortunately, one of his guys got seriously injured on one of those misses. I am not saying Tom is responsible for Russell Gage’s injury, it’s football and weird things happen, but you could see the look on his face when he saw his teammate on the ground. I don’t know if this is the last we will see of Brady, but his demeanor after the game seemed like a send-off kind of moment.
The Bengals are moving on in the playoffs once again with a 24-17 win over the Ravens, but it was thanks in large part to the heroics of their defense. A lot of people had already counted the Ravens out, myself partially included, but Baltimore came to win and even held the lead at halftime 10-9. They were even in position to take the lead early in the 4th quarter but that’s where the game was ultimately decided.
Tied at 17-17, Baltimore had a 1st & Goal at the Bengals’ 2-yard line. Being a run-dominant team, of course, they are going to run the ball on 1st…oh wait, that was incomplete. They did run with Gus Edwards on 2nd down & got stuffed. That set up the 3rd and a very long 1 where Tyler Huntley attempted to jump over everyone and break the plane, but he was well short and the ball was just sitting there. It got punched loose by Logan Wilson and Sam Hubbard found it behind the line of scrimmage, picked it up, and returned it 98 yards for what turned out to be the game-winning score.
The teams would trade punts after that until Baltimore eventually turned the ball over on downs to end the game and leave J.K. Dobbins and company wondering why he didn’t get a crack at that goal-line opportunity. Now the future of the franchise faces an interesting off-season as Lamar Jackson has to reconcile not getting a contract, getting hurt, missing the playoffs, and potentially saying goodbye to Baltimore.
The New York Giants made the most of their second trip to Minnesota this season, eliminating the Vikings from the NFL playoffs with a 31-24 road win. Even though this was Minny’s best season with Kirk Cousins at the helm and his hardest-earned, most-complete success as a QB, I still bet against them in this game because the defense never gave me any confidence.
It is convenient to point to Cousins’ struggles in high-profile games, but he isn’t the reason they lost this game. The Giants dictated the pace of the game with their dominant ground game, and the majority of that came from Daniel Jones. However, Jones threw for over 300 yards as well which is something that hasn’t been the most common thing for him. In fact, it was only the 3rd time this season he eclipsed that mark, and only the 6th time he had broken the 200-yard mark this season. If there was a game where his arrival was imperative, this was it.
(Photo: Sporting News)
Brian Daboll has shown that he was well deserving of the head coaching opportunity and also that Joe Judge was completely incompetent. The Giants were one of the most injured teams yet again this season, but Daboll was able to get guys like Richie James and Isaiah Hodgins to have a significant impact and he never let his team feel like they didn’t have a reason to compete. And one thing the Giants do, week in and week out, is compete. That’s why I ultimately took them in this matchup and why they are worth taking as underdogs against the Eagles in the divisional round.
(Photo: The Press Democrat)
The Sunday morning game was a little too close for my comfort, but the Bills hung on to win 34-31 over the Dolphins and advanced to the Divisional Round for the 3rd year in a row.
This Bills jumped to a 17-0 lead early in the 2nd quarter and it looked like they were going to cruise to victory, but the Dolphins had other plans. Miami came away with a pair of interceptions to give their offense a chance and they capitalized, tying the game at 17-17 one point right before the half. Buffalo was able to put a scoring drive together to regain the lead before the half, but that wasn’t the end of it.
Miami would get the ball to start the second half but it was their defense that came up with the strip-sack, fumble-return TD off of Josh Allen to put Miami ahead 24-20 in the 3rd quarter. The Bills’ offense was struggling and they needed something big to give them a spark. Enter rookie CB Kaiir Elam. Filling in for an injured Dane Jackson, Elam once again showed out against the Dolphins coming up with a huge interception that allowed the Bills to take the lead, but he also almost had another one and came away with a big pass defense later as well.
Buffalo would retake the lead on a Cole Beasley TD and then push the lead to 10 points on a Gabe Davis TD catch. The Fins still refused to go quietly though, cutting the lead to 34-31 at the start of the 4th quarter. From that point on it was just a defensive battle and the Bills’ defense continued to step up and make plays until Devin Singletary could ice the game with a key 1st down. Buffalo gets to host Cincinnati in what might be the game of the year while the Fins and head coach Mike McDaniel try to figure out what their future looks like.
The craziest game of the weekend has to go to the Jaguars and Chargers. Jacksonville was down 27-0 at one point late in the first half and rallied to win 31-30 on a last-second field goal. I had seen the jags’ resilience over the late stretch of the season, but Trevor Lawrence had 4 first-half interceptions and was teetering on the edge of losing all confidence. Even I was telling myself that if they didn’t get 7 before the half then it was over.
As it turned out, they did get that TD right before halftime, and whatever Coach Pederson’s message was at halftime…it worked. The Jags got a stop to start the 3rd quarter, got the ball, and scored again to make it 27-14 and suddenly it was starting to resemble a ball game again. The Jags kept applying pressure and after a missed FG by the Bolts, it was 30-20 with a lot of time left in the game.
Down by 10, Trevor Lawrence led a 9-play 70-yard drive that culminated in a Christian Kirk TD catch. However, due to the time and situation, the Jags opted to go for the 2-PT conversion and Lawrence used the full advantage of his frame to extend for the conversion and the Chargers were clinging to a 30-28 lead.
Rather than run the ball with 5 minutes left, Brandon Staley decided to throw and Justin Herbert was sacked for a 7-yard loss. Long story short, they couldn’t dig themselves out of that hole to convert a 3rd & 13 and punted it back to the Jags with about 3 minutes left. Being the opportunists they are, Pederson had his guys go for it on a 4th & 1 from the outskirts of potential FG range and Travis Etienne rewarded them with a 25-yard gain to set up the inevitable game-winning FG.
Jacksonville moves on to take on the Chiefs in the divisional round in what is going to be a closer game than people may have thought. Herbert and the Chargers head to the offseason and try to figure out who they are and how they let that happen. Despite some of the complaints, it’s bigger than one call against Joey Bosa. You don’t blow a 27-point lead because of that one play. We will have to wait and see if Brandon Staley is around for next season.
The Seahawks put up more of a fight than most people anticipated but, in the end, they were still overwhelmed by a superior 49ers team, 41-23. Seattle actually had the lead 17-16 at halftime and they were hanging right in there until the final minutes of the 3rd quarter.
Trailing 23-17, Seattle worked a 12-play drive down inside the red zone to set up a 1st & 10 at the San Francisco 15-yard line. A stuffed run, a penalty and an incompletion set them back into a 3rd & 14, but it looked like they would get points and the game would remain close. However, the vaunted 49ers’ defense rose to the occasion and strip-sacked Geno Smith to end the possession.
If taking points off the board for Seattle wasn’t enough, it was really salt in the wound as the Niners went on to score 17 unanswered points. By the time Seattle scored again, it was already too late.
Maybe the Wild Card round isn’t the best judge of things, but the Niners look like the scariest team in the playoffs right now. Last season, it was the 49ers heading into Dallas and picking up a win and now they get a playoff rematch with the boys, but in San Francisco this time.
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