NFL Wildcard Weekend Comes and Goes
The NFL Wildcard weekend is over and now it’s onto the divisional round. The games over this past weekend were not to wild as other years, but it provided some good viewing for NFL fans.
Texans vs Chargers:
The Houston Texans came into this game with the Los Angeles Chargers on a severe limp. After starting the season with a 6-2 record the Texans finished the season 4-5 and appeared to be lucky to be just in the playoffs. Nobody really expected them to compete with the Chargers who were playing some quality football. Los Angeles Head Coach, Jim Harbaugh, appeared to be ready to take his team on a playoff run.
However, that is why you play the game.
The Texans forced Chargers quarterback, Justin Herbert, into a disastrous performance on Sunday afternoon in Houston. Anybody watching the game saw what Houston was doing to Herbert and the Chargers. Houston came with consistent pressure all day long and that pressure forced four interceptions from Herbert. The last interception thrown by Herbert was the one that sealed the game for the Texans as Herbert threw high to Ladd McConkey and it was picked off by Eric Murray who ran it back 38 yards for the touchdown. That pick six made the score 20-6 and seemingly closed the game out for the Texans. Keep in mind that Justin Herbert threw three interceptions all season long, so this was his nightmare game.
To go along with his four interceptions, Justin Herbert also was sacked four times. The Chargers seemed to be in some sort of trance all day and it killed any type of momentum that they tried to muster up during this game. In the end, the Texans made Justin Herbert into a very average quarterback on Sunday and because of that they will one of the last eight teams standing when the NFL Divisional round plays out this upcoming weekend.
Steelers vs Ravens:
In a nutshell, the Steelers were run over by their rival. The Ravens lead the game 21-0 at halftime, but Ravens running back, Derrick Henry had already amassed 100 yards rushing. Ravens quarterback, Lamar Jackson, had 64 yards rushing as well.
The Steelers couldn’t do a thing offensively. Pittsburgh came out flat and almost appeared like they didn’t want to be there. Russell Wilson and the Steeler offense had a game plan, but could not execute it at all. On the opening drive for Pittsburgh they picked up a first down, but that was all they could do. That was it. After six plays on that drive stalled and they were forced to punt the ball to the Ravens. That opening drive just about summed up the rest of night for the Steelers.
“We had a game plan, but we didn’t execute it. We didn’t start fast. That’s it.” said Steeler linebacker Patrick Queen.
Pittsburgh did make some plays to score a couple of touchdowns, but in essence the game was already decided by then. The Ravens gashed the Steeler defense with Henry and Jackson leading the way for Baltimore.
By the end of the 28-14 win for the Ravens, Derrick Henry and Lamar Jackson had sliced up the Steeler defense for 299 yards on 50 carries. The 50 carries was more than the total amount of plays the Steelers offense had for the entire game.
For the Steelers to get beat up physically like this by anybody is not characteristic of them. The story is in the particulars of how the defense played the Ravens.
“The effort was there. The execution wasn’t. Execution, angles, in the playoffs you have to be on top of your execution. We weren’t. We all have a hand in using our hands, getting off of blocks. We all have to be accountable for that. We all have to own it.” said Steeler Cam Hayward.
Hayward is exactly right. There will be a ton of questions going into the offseason for the Pittsburgh Steelers and they will have to own all of that too.
Eagles vs Packers:
The Philadelphia Eagles were not going to be denied in their game with the Green Bay Packers. Dallas Goedert threw a stiff arm to a Green Bay defender and just for good measure threw another stiff arm towards the defender while he went into the end zone.
That play amplified the way the Eagles played against the Packers.
Jalen Hurts threw for a couple of touchdowns in his return from a late season concussion and the Eagles came out with a 22-10 win and will move onto the divisional round next weekend.
Along with his two touchdown passes, Hurts passed for 131 yards. Jalen started off by completing his first six passes of the game. The pass that will be remembered by Philly fans will be a 24 yard touchdown pass to Dallas Goedert who stiff-armed his way to a touchdown in the third quarter. It was the type of play that will be on highlight reels around Philadelphia for the foreseeable future.
“That was a fun play. It might be my favorite touchdown of my career.” Goedert said. (ESPN)
Green Bay kept themselves within reach for much of the game, but the interception by Quinyon Mitchell with little under two minutes left in the game sealed the win for the Eagles. With the win, the Eagles get to host a divisional round game at home against the winner of Monday’s game between the Los Angeles Rams and Minnesota Vikings.
The Eagles all world running back, Saquon Barkley, who rushed for 2,005 yards during the season ran for 119 yards against the Packers.
Barkley threw out compliments to his teammates, “Shoutout to my teammates, and most importantly, we move on. And we get another home game, so that’s good.
Bills vs Broncos:
MVP candidate, Josh Allen, took the approach that getting everybody involved in the offense was how the Buffalo Bills were going to beat the Denver Broncos on Sunday afternoon.
“I don’t think there was one certain thing over another. We just wanted to come out and execute well,” Allen said. “At the end of the day, we just wanted to come out and play our best football, and I feel like we did that today.”
Allen completed 20 of 26 passes for 272 yards passing and when you put that with the Bills rushing attack that ran for 210 yards. Having a very balanced attack wore the Broncos down as the Bills scored on six of their first seven drives. By scoring as often as they did it also made for a 23 minute advantage in time of possession for Buffalo.
Josh Allen completed passes to eight different receivers. One of those receivers was Curtis Samuel, who took a pass 55 yards from Allen to seal the game on the first play of the fourth quarter.
With the win, the Bills move onto the divisional round against the Baltimore Ravens next Sunday night. It’ll be the fifth straight season that Buffalo has made it to the divisional round of the NFL Playoffs.
This will be the second time that Josh Allen will be matched up against Lamar Jackson and the Ravens.
“This is what everyone’s been waiting for, right?” coach Sean McDermott said. “So it’ll be a nice week and everyone will be looking forward to it, and they’re a great football team. I mean they handled us pretty good the first go around and they’re certainly playing well.” (ESPN)
Michael J. Wilson-The Daily Waiver