After a relatively dull Wild Card Weekend, the NFL’s Divisional Round more than made up for the drama with every game coming down to the final play.
Road teams won three of the four games with Kansas City as the only favourite to win and cover.
This weekend may have also been the last opportunity to see Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady on an NFL field, although the latter seems unlikely (more on that later).
To top it all off, we saw the two best young quarterbacks in the game going toe to toe in what may well have been the game of the season with Patrick Mahomes & the Chiefs coming out on top.
Just four teams remain in contention to lift the Vince Lombardi trophy and we have our recap of the weekend below!
1 – Burrow Balls Out
The general rule in the NFL is when your quarterback gets sacked nine times, you are going to be coming off a random loss on November and hoping that he can shake off the bumps and bruises to try and bounce back next week.
That is of course unless you are Joe Burrow who withstood said beating from the Tennessee defensive line and rallied his team to an upset win on the road.
Needless to say, it their futility blocking the Titans provided the internet plenty of fodder.
Of course, it wasn’t all Burrow, he got plenty of help from the Titans defence who managed three interceptions including one to set up the game winning drive.
Then it came down to rookie kicker Evan McPherson who came up clutch once again for his team.
And didn’t the Bengals love it.
You just hope the Bengals can do a better job keeping Burrow upright next weekend.
2 – It’s Time for the Titans to Upgrade Tannehill
Ryan Tannehill is a perfectly serviceable quarterback for an NFL team… during the regular season.
But when it mattered, at home as the number one seed and a clear favourite, Tannehill fell flat on his face with an all time stinker of a performance.
This was his first pass attempt of the day.
Then came this horrendously bad read for his second interception.
Any person watching at home could have seen Hilton was coming on the blitz and throwing it right at him was a bad idea.
Especially when you have AJ Brown in space on the other side.
And then finally, in a tie game with time running out, the one thing you cannot do is turn the ball over…
It was a back breaking interception to end the Titans season on a disappointing note.
At least when the Titans got down on the goal line in the second quarter, they knew who to give the ball to and how it was best to cut out the tedious process of taking a snap and handing the ball off to Henry.
With the talent at the skill positions Tennessee has, they really need a quarterback who will not cost them the game.
3 – Rodgers Needs to Take the Blame
Aaron Rodgers has taken plenty of jabs throughout his career from defenders, family members and certain segments of the media while dodging others, but he has to come in for plenty of criticism after his latest playoff exit.
Green Bay got off to a phenomenal start, driving on the 49ers with ease with AJ Dillon barrelling over for a touchdown.
But after that 69 yard scoring drive, the Packers drives went as follows: fumble, punt, punt, punt, blocked field goal, punt, field goal, blocked punt and finally with 1:21 on the clock… another punt.
Five of those nine possessions were three and outs with three ending with negative yardage.
And those two blocked kicks turned out to be pivotal, especially the punt that lead to the game tying score.
And the final three and out gave San Francisco a chance to kick the game winning field goal, bundling the Packers out of the playoffs again despite finishing as the number one seed.
It’s not like this was a one time occurrence for the Packers with Rodgers either.
There will be plenty of blame levelled at the Packers coaching staff and special teams, but when your MVP favourite quarterback is only putting up those numbers with one of the best receivers and best running games in the league around him, he has to take the heat too.
And now the 49ers will move on to the NFC Championship
4 – Don’t Buy Brady’s Retirement Spin
Despite his insistence that he will continue to play in the NFL for a long time to come, some cryptic reports and rumours have emerged that the greatest quarterback of all time might be ready to walk away.
After the Buccaneers had their season ended by the LA Rams, Brady was non-committal about his long term playing future.
Few would blame Brady for deciding it was time to end his career, in fact some would be very happy to see the seven time Super Bowl winner step aside.
After all, he’s achieved all that he can in the NFL, several times over, holds just about every career record imaginable and has set himself and at least 12 future Brady generations up for life.
But something just doesn’t add up with the soon to be 45 year old signal caller’s alleged sudden change of mind.
The far more likely outcome is that he has become frustrated with life in Tampa and is trying to force through a change of coach to give himself the best chance of making one last Super Bowl run.
It puts the Buccaneers brass in a tough spot as Brady makes a power play two years into his Tampa tenure, do they side with their quarterback or their coach?
The Glazer family and general manager Jason Licht may have to choose a side sooner rather than later and it will come down to who gives them the best chance at winning a Super Bowl.
Neither of them will be around for more than another season or two, and based on their respective resumes, don’t be at all surprised if Arians announces a “shock retirement” in the next few weeks.
He’s done it twice already.
And this might be another time for him to walk away from the game on “his own terms”.
5 – Mahomes Over Allen When It Counts
Assuming they stay healthy, Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen are likely to be the two best quarterbacks in the league for the remainder of the decade.
For the second season in a row, they faced off in the playoffs and it was one of the best games you will see.
Both quarterbacks carried their teams with Allen throwing for 329 yards and adding another 68 on the ground out of the Bills 422 total while Mahomes threw for 378 and ran for 69 out of the Chiefs 552.
And Mahomes did that on what was statistically the best defence in the NFL this season.
But it was the ending of that game that was the best part of the season so far.
Josh Allen gave the Bills the lead with 1:54 to play after Gabriel Davis put a sick move on the Chiefs corner.
Of course Tyreek Hill had something to say about the Bills taking the lead, going to the house to hand the advantage back to the Chiefs.
But the Chiefs defence returned to its early season form when trying to defend that lead.
Seriously, the guy had three touchdowns before that catch, did nobody think it would be a good idea to cover him?
That would be Allen’s last pass of the game as Mahomes took over from there with 13 seconds to go, and most assumed that the 13 seconds left on the clock would just run off and the Bills would head home for the AFC Championship.
But 13 seconds was plenty of time for Mahomes to get the Chiefs back down the field again.
It just looked all too easy for the Chiefs and Harrison Butker nailed the game tying kick to send the game to overtime.
Kansas City won the toss, Mahomes took the ball and that was the end of the game.
You’d be hard pressed to go wrong with either quarterback for the foreseeable future but right now, Mahomes is the king.