I've been watching football since the mid-1970s and I can honestly say, without hesitation, that this past weekend's playoff games were the best I've ever seen. Period! I defy anyone to prove me wrong.
You might find one game that matched what we saw yesterday; hell, you might even find two; but you'll never find four. If you're a fan of the game, this was special; this was a treat.
Consider the following: Each game was decided on the last play and the combined margin for all four games was 15 points: three field goals and an overtime touchdown.
Game one: Cincinnati at Tennessee
Joe "Cool" Burrow against Derrick "King" Henry. If ever there was a player with ice water in his veins it's Burrow. The Bengals quarterback was sacked nine times, yet still hung in the pocket to complete 28 of 37 pass attempts for 348 yards.
But as good as Burrow was, the reason the Bengals won this game was because for some strange reason, Titans' head coach Mike Vrabel thought his quarterback was Peyton Manning. With the best running game in the NFL, Vrabel allowed Ryan Tannehill to throw the ball 24 times, resulting in three picks; the last one led to the winning field goal.
Look, I wasn't a big believer in Tennessee going all the way. In this game you need an elite quarterback to have a shot at a Super Bowl, but this was a winnable game for the Titans and their coach chose a particular inopportune time to have a bad day. Dumb, simply dumb.
Game two: San Francisco at Green Bay
January at Lambeau, the frozen tundra, scene of the infamous ice bowl. Game-time temps in the single digits, wind chill below zero. The team from the Bay area taking on the team that was built for this weather. There was just one tiny problem: the team from the fair-weather city seemed to handle the elements better, or at least came better prepared, than the home-town team.
Yes, the blocked field goal and the blocked punt hurt, but that was not the reason the Packers lost. They lost because they scored only ten points; and they scored only ten points because the most celebrated quarterback in a generation played like shit when his team needed him most. The fact is in the middle of a snow squall, with 3:40 left in regulation, and the scored tied at 10, with the ball at his own 28 and needing only 11 yards for a first down, Aaron Rodgers decided to heave a 40-yard pass downfield to Davante Adams that the Niners were all over. The pass was broken up and the Packers were forced to punt.
That gave Jimmy Garoppolo three minutes to navigate his team down field and set up the game-winning field goal. Yes, as strange as it may seem, Jimmy G, God's gift to defensive coordinators, looked like the king of the two-minute drill, while his counterpart looked like Daniel Jones.
If that sounds harsh, it was meant to. There's a reason why Rodgers has only one Super Bowl ring despite a plethora of opportunities to get more. He's simply not a clutch performer when it counts. Think about it. He could've chosen to, as Hank Stram used to say, "matriculate the football down the field." But, alas, his ego got in the way. So he forced a play he had no business forcing and cost his team a win they should've had going away. Chalk this one up to sheer arrogance.
Oh, and by the way, Aaron, Brandon sends his love.
Game three: Los Angeles at Tampa Bay
Matt Stafford versus the GOAT. The last time Sean McVay went head to head with Tom Brady, Brady beat him in the Super Bowl. This time around, he brought his own gun slinger with him. To be honest, I wasn't much of a Stafford fan, but he showed me something yesterday. Stafford was a cool customer, besting Brady in yards and completion percentage. Indeed, the only interception in the game was thrown by Brady.
The fact is, had it not been for the four turnovers the Rams committed, none of which were Stafford's fault, this game would've been a rout. Even after the Bucs mounted a successful comeback to tie the game, Stafford had enough composure to throw a strike to a wide open Cooper Kupp at the 12 yard line line to set up the winning field goal as time expired. Not bad for a guy everybody, including yours truly, thought was overrated.
Didn't think it could get any better? Well...
Game four: Buffalo at Kansas City
Now we come to the pièce de résistance. If you missed this game, you missed one helluva match. Three lead changes in the final two minutes of regulation; both quarterbacks combining for 707 yards, 7 touchdowns and no picks.
This was not a game for the faint of heart, believe me. I must've said "Holy shit" at least a dozen times. Hey, Giants and Jets fans, this is how football was meant to be played.
It's a shame that one of these quarterbacks had to lose; that's how great both Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen were. We might never see a performance like this again. But if you're a Buffalo Bills fan, you have a right to be pissed at your coaching staff, particularly the special teams coaching staff.
After Mahomes threw a slant to Tyreek Hill that he took all the way to the end zone goal for the go-ahead touchdown with 1:02 left, Allen successfully navigated his team downfield and threw his 4th touchdown of the night with 13 seconds remaining to put the Bills ahead 36-33. All the Bills had to do was protect that lead for a lousy 13 seconds - a lousy 13 seconds!
But rather than attempt a squib kick and force the Chiefs to field the ball, thus running some time off the clock, the Bills elected to kick the ball into the end zone, which gave Mahomes the full 13 seconds to get his team in position to kick the game-tying field goal and force overtime. And that's exactly what Mahomes did. And after the Chiefs won the coin toss, Mahomes sliced and diced his way through an exhausted Buffalo defense and connected with Travis Kelce for the game-winning touchdown.
It was a heartbreaking loss for a Bills team that, two years in a row, has lost to the Chiefs in the postseason. They deserved a better fate this time around. But for the majority of us football fans who didn't have a horse in this race, this was a game for the ages.
Memo to Joe Schoen, new GM of the New York Giants: as you continue your search for the team's next head coach, Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy and Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll should be at the top of your list. Both men have done an outstanding job with their respective teams, and either would make a great choice, especially for an organization that hasn't had a functioning offense in more than a decade.
No comments:
Post a Comment