On Saturday, in my column leading up to the Divisional Round, I prayed for a compelling weekend after four Wild Card games went down in the first half. I begged the football gods for thrills, surprises, hard-to-describe matchups, and boy did they listen. Had he known that the gates of heaven were open, he might have asked for something more important.
I don’t know where to start, if for the NFL: Raiders defeated Chargers in final play in overtime”>Bengals who are one step away from the Super Bowl after 20 months ago they had the # 1 Selection in the Draft after being the worst team in the League.
Or if for the new failure of Aaron Rodgers and the Packers falling again at home against his coconut.
Perhaps because of the death of the ‘King’, the Champion, perhaps Tom Brady’s last game in the NFL, because of everything the Rams did to open the door to the worst debacle in history.
Yes, for the new version of Manning-Brady that entertained us for almost two decades, but now the names are Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes.
We go chronologically, because I think that all the stories deserve to be the first in these lines.
The Bengals are the perfect example of what the NFL is, of how everything is designed to be able to turn a franchise around from one year to the next, that’s why there is no League that resembles it. In all or almost all professional sports, the team with the most power, with the most money, with the most prestige, with the possibility of becoming great stars, will reign. The NFL gives you parity and the opportunity to resemble any franchise by doing things well in a couple of years.
Of course, this depends on many factors, including luck. It starts with having a good management, that manages the salary cap and contracts well, that is complemented by a good coaching staff and their decisions in the Draft are correct, of having a good locker room, good coordinators around, of managing to keep their stars, but always leveling the payroll and not loading up with four or five players on one side or the other.
Two years ago the Bengals were hopeless, it was a franchise that nobody wanted to go to, without stars, the fans had abandoned them, their locality did not weigh, the basement of the division was reserved for them, they had 31 years without winning a game of Playoffs, then came Joe Burrow after one of the best seasons in college football history by making LSU champion.
He is a boy from Ohio, who had to overcome being delegated to the substitute by Urban Meyer at Ohio State, who went to LSU to revive his career, was selected # 1 in the 2020 Draft by the Bengals and on Saturday they won their first playoff game on the road for the first time in franchise history. Burrow has his team one victory away from the Super Bowl, difficult to believe and assimilate, but it is a reality. How not to fall in love with a story like that.
Months before the 2005 NFL Draft, everything pointed to Aaron Rodgers being the first player selected, the first quarterback; the 49ers had the first pick, urged by a quarterback, A-Rod was born in Chico, California, and was a 49ers fan since childhood. In terms of qualities, he had them to spare.
There are many myths about what happened before the Draft; 10 days before it was said that Rodgers would go to San Francisco, but suddenly everything changed. This isn’t the time to dwell on the subject, though we all remember the first interview Aaron gave after falling to 24th with the Packers: “How disappointed are you that you didn’t get drafted by the 49ers?” His response was clear, “not as disappointed as they will be that they didn’t select me.”
If we see it in dry numbers, maybe Rodgers was right, he has won a Super Bowl so far and the 49ers haven’t been monarchs since 1995; however, it is clear to me that he did not do what he said, losing four times against the Niners in the Playoffs, including two Championship Games. He did not charge them as he would have wanted.
It is incredible to assimilate that with so little the 49ers emerged victorious from Lambeau, the key plays were a field goal block and another punt. Only the third time in history that a team has achieved that in the playoffs.
Garoppolo only completed 11 passes for 131 yards and that was enough to beat Rodgers, who once again disappeared at the moment when we all expected to see the MVP and sat down tired of waiting for him.
At the end of the game, A-Rod talked about his future with the Packers in the NFL and don’t believe me, look at the statements and try to doubt that Saturday was the last time we saw him dressed in green and yellow.
Confession: The game in Tampa Bay yesterday blew me away, I still can’t believe it. It was a game for the Rams to dominate from start to finish without breaking a sweat. And all the conditions were met, Tristan Wirfs could not recover from the injury, a player who has been a guarantee on the Bucs’ offensive line in his two years in the League, a key piece of the Championship last season.
The matchup without Wirfs against the Rams defensive line was deadly, Brady, at this age, you push him and you’re going to hurt him. With the game 20-3 in favor of the Angels, Tom threw an interception before halftime, if the Rams scored, the game was out of reach, but Cam Akers fumbled the ball at the one yard line and the Tampa Bay had hope.
After that Akers error, Cooper Kupp fumbled a ball that led to points for the Bucs. And after a bad center and a sleeping Stafford, they fanned the flame again, Matt Gay fell short on a 47-yard field goal. The madness.
Those of Arians down by 14, a 55-yard pass to Mike Evans already put things ant color, however, the Rams needed a first and 10 to kill the game and Akers released the ball again, four plays later, Leonard Fournette tied the game. Unreal.
Stafford dressed as a hero with a couple of passes to Kupp, the defense failed at the right time, Gay got the field goal with zero seconds on the clock and for the third consecutive game the visiting team left the locals lying on the field in the last play.
At night, in the new Manning vs. Brady version, Allen and Mahomes gave us a memorable game, one of the best in history. They are two young people who will be in these instances for at least the next ten years; 25 points in the last two minutes, a poem, a recital, an indescribable emotion, Gabriel Davis, Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, being seen by hundreds of millions of viewers around the planet.
I have no words, what a weekend! All the matches were defined in the last play.
It will be difficult for the games for the Championship and even the Super Bowl to surpass what we are experiencing this week, the best round of the Postseason in the history of the NFL.
