Divisional Round Sunday: An NFL Playoff Weekend for the Ages
Column - January 24, 2022
The discussion is one that tends to show up at least a handful of times throughout the NFL season. Yet, never has anyone seen the question arise multiple times in the same weekend–”Was that the game of the year?”. On Sunday, football fans everywhere were left to ponder that thought twice in the same day.
The National Football League kicked off its second weekend of playoff football Saturday afternoon with the Divisional Round and it did not disappoint for one second. After having a few blowouts games occur, largely between top seeds and bottomfeeder teams that just snuck into the playoff picture, all four contests of the second round were absolute nail biters that came down to the bitter end and were decided on last second field goals or overtime scores. One of the games featured another unreal comeback from 24-down and another saw 25 points scored in two minutes, a chance to tie in 13 seconds, and unbelievable heartache for the losing franchise left deprived once again of championship football.
Of course, flowers will be handed out to the Cincinnati Bengals and San Francisco 49ers for their victories on Saturday. In their second season with head coach Zac Taylor and quarterback Joe Burrow, the young Bengals weathered the storm of two touchdowns by Tennessee’s Derrick Henry and AJ Brown by trusting the leg of rookie kicker Evan McPherson, who hit five total field goals and whose last sent the AFC 1-seed home and Cincinnati to their first conference championship game since 1988.
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However, what will remain the unforgettable games from a historic weekend in the NFL came on the second day. The Sunday docket featured two blockbuster matchups between four teams with high-powered offenses and stockpiled defenses that were bound to be decided by which team could outduel the other. Basically, that’s what it took to ultimately get our advancers to the succeeding round.
My next morning column on Talking Points Sports for Divisional Round Sunday 2021. From all four games ending in a field goal’s difference to the unbelievable walk off fashion in which the Chiefs sent the Bills faithful packing once again, I covered every heart stopping detail in it’s entirely to offer one wholesome synopsis of a weekend of fo0tball fans won’t be forgetting anytime soon.