Finally, playoff football is here. After a long and gruelling season, the NFL’s Wildcard Round is in the books after a crazy weekend of football. It’s the third season of the 14-team playoff format, and in recent history, the additional seventh seeds have struggled to make much of an impact. This season was a little different. Both teams, the Seattle Seahawks and Miami Dolphins, lost, but put up a hell of a fight in the process.
Elsewhere, we got one of the best comebacks of all-time, a slugfest between divisional opponents, and Tom Brady bowing out of the playoffs for, potentially, the final time. And through it all? We continued to learn.
The San Francisco 49ers just have too many offensive weapons
The opening matchup of the Wildcard reinforced something we already knew: the San Francisco 49ers have an embarrassment of riches on offense. The offensive core of Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, and Kyle Juszczyk is a quintet as good as they come in the NFL and they were all on show against the Seattle Seahawks on Saturday afternoon.
The Seahawks kept the game close in the first half, even leading 17-16 at half time, but the offensive talent of the 49ers shone through in the second half, out-scoring Seattle 25-6 and running away 41-23 winners.
What the 49ers are able to do with all that talent is scary. It’s also the versatility of each player that makes them so much more dangerous. We’ve seen Brock Purdy in shotgun with McCaffrey and Samuel in the backfield, and variations of that dependant on the play call, with Juszcyzk often there to provide a block and release. On one play, Samuel lined up as the running back in a singleback formation with McCaffrey lined up as the slot receiver.
There’s all the bells and whistles in the pre-snap motion, as well as in the play-action game that you’d expect from Kyle Shanahan. Despite the numbers, Brock Purdy didn’t play his greatest game of the year, but he was stable enough, able to avoid the pass rush and find open receivers. This 49ers team appears to be peaking at the perfect time.
One of the wildest comebacks in NFL history in Jacksonville
Holy Duval, what a game we saw on Saturday night. Down 27-0 after witnessing Trevor Lawrence throw four first half interceptions, there was no reason to believe the Los Angeles Chargers wouldn’t walk away with the win against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Despite a storybook run in the second half of the season, it looked like the Jaguars would be a one-and-down.
Oh, how the tables have turned. The second half from the Jaguars was flawless with Lawrence throwing four touchdowns to four different receivers as the Jaguars came from 27-0 down to win it with a walk-off field goal. The defense did an incredible job of holding the Chargers to just three points in the second half, which allowed the Jaguars to go out and play. Doug Pederson made some excellent adjustments, stayed aggressive and never lost confidence in his quarterback as the Jaguars mounted their comeback.
Those adjustments and certain play-calls, the game-winning run from Etienne that set up the field goal in particular, really helped swing the pendulum in Jacksonville’s favour. On the Chargers side of things, they really let this one slip. A turnover differential of plus-five and a 27-point lead should be insurmountable. But it wasn’t. Big questions must be asked in the Chargers front office.
Even when they’re bad, the Buffalo Bills are good
That was…too close for comfort for the Buffalo Bills. Double-digit favourites with home field advantage and coming up against a third-string quarterback. This should have been a relatively plain-sailing Sunday afternoon for the Bills.
Instead, we got a pretty close game – even if it didn’t start that way. The Bills rolled out to a 14-0 lead early on, taking advantage of the Dolphins zero blitzing with one-on-one matchups across the board, hitting Stefon Diggs for a big gain before a touchdown pass to Dawson Knox.
But for most of the game, the Bills offense didn’t look particularly great – turning the ball over three times while Josh Allen completed just 23 of his 39 pass attempts for 352 yards. The offensive line, a sore point for the Bills all season, struggled to protect Allen for large stretches of the game as well. Allen was sacked 7 times, with a couple of those sacks coming from the interior of the line while he tried to step up in the pocket to evade pressure. Most of the targets in the passing game were dished out to Diggs and Gabe Davis, with a couple of players dropping passes in big spots.
Of course, the defense giving up 31 points to an offense led by Skylar Thompson, a third-string, seventh-round rookie, is a worrying sign – even if it was only two touchdowns, with the other points coming from field goals and a defensive touchdown. But it was still a unit that held the Dolphins to 3.3 yards per play, and 4-of-16 on third down.
The same goes for the offense. Despite looking a little funky and turning the ball over, this is still a team that posted 34 points and over 400 yards of offense. Even when they’re not at their best, most teams would probably feel pretty envious.
Brian Daboll’s New York Football Giants
Wow, wow, wow. The New York Giants were never expected to be a serious football team in 2022. A first-year head coach taking on a team that had some real talent deficiencies, the odds were stacked against Brian Daboll and the Giants. But they kept winning. And against the Minnesota Vikings, they did it again – and looked fantastic doing so.
The Giants were underdogs heading into Minnesota on Sunday, but the Vikings tendency to run every opponent close, win or lose, meant that they had a chance to get something from this game. The modus operandi of this team has been its ability to execute their assignments well and their ability to manipulate the run game – whether it’s Saquon Barkley or Daniel Jones carrying the ball. The two combined for 131 yards on 26 carries, with Barkley scoring two touchdowns – including the decisive game-winner – on the ground.
Jones was consistently able to keep drives alive with his legs, but he was just as efficient in the air, completing 24-of-35 pass attempts for 301 yards and two touchdowns. A lot of that good work came down to Jones’ play, but Brian Daboll and offensive play caller Mike Kafka have put him in an excellent position to succeed with the details of the offense.
Jones does still leave a lot of meat on the bone, but his efficiency this season has been much improved. After knocking off the Vikings, the Giants face an even tougher test against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Baltimore Ravens’ defense keeps it close in Cincinnati
This was a reminder, to this writer at least, that the Ravens are an excellent team with or without Lamar Jackson as the starting quarterback. Okay, so maybe the offense absolutely misses him – how could they not? He’s one of the 10 best quarterbacks in the league and there isn’t another quarterback as dynamic as he is.
Just look at how the Ravens offense has performed with Tyler Huntley under center – they hadn’t scored more than 17 points in a game and coming up against Lou Anarumo’s defense would be an incredibly tough test.
But the Ravens hung in there, largely thanks to the defense – a unit that had been in the middle of the pack in the regular season. They got after Joe Burrow all day, sacking him four times and holding the Bengals offense to just 4.3 yards per play. It was an impressive performance against one of the best offenses in the NFL and it put the Ravens within range of stealing the game.
The offense did enough, but the turning point of the game came at the 2-yard line, with the Ravens trying to put the game away. Tyler Huntley attempted to jump over the pile and into the endzone, but the ball was swatted away and Sam Hubbard took the ball back 98 yards for the game-winning touchdown.
That was the big difference. And it’s a timely reminder of how well-coached the Ravens are. The decision to sneak with Huntley instead of running with J.K. Dobbins or Gus Edwards wasn’t the best decision, but the Ravens had no right to keep this close. But they did. Where they go from here, though, is a big storyline.
Dak Prescott looks fantastic
The Dallas Cowboys have gotten a lot of criticism for their postseason performances in recent years. A lot of that criticism has been fair. They were bounced out of the playoffs in the Wildcard round last year, and had won just one playoff game in the last six years. For a team that claims to be America’s Team, that’s not enough. The Dak Prescott-era has been great regular season performances with little to show for in the postseason.
Well, Monday night’s win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will go down as Prescott’s, and the Cowboys’, best performance in the postseason in this era. On the road against a Tom Brady team is never an easy prospect, no matter how up-and-down the Buccaneers had been in 2022. There were even more questions due to apparent concerns of the Cowboys performances on grass.
Those concerns were nowhere to be found as the Cowboys defeated the Bucs 31-14, delivering a near-perfect game. Prescott picked apart the defense in the pocket, completing 25-of-33 pass attempts for 305 yards and four touchdown passes while adding one on the ground.
Prescott has been under fire for his penchant for turning the ball over recently, and that has maybe skewed the perception of him. He’s absolutely an elite quarterback and is one of the best pocket passers in the game. After returning from injury in Week 7, Prescott finished 7th in EPA per play and, most importantly, Prescott is a gamer. He finds ways to win.
It couldn’t have happened without an excellent performance from the defense, but the Cowboys are absolutely rolling and face the 49ers, winners of 11 straight games this weekend. What a game that could be. But for now, give Prescott his flowers.
-Thomas Valentine
Twitter: @tvalentinesport
Photo: All-Pro Reels. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.