NFL Wild Card Recap. Divisional Round Preview.
“So Much To Say, Yo, I DONT know where To Start With The Basics and Flow From The Heart.”
Part of Why The General Opinion Or Discourse Of wildcard Weekend felt So languid. Chastened As The NFL New Matrix’s Reloaded reboot of A long Hit At The Weekend anticlimactic Finished That Also felt A Bit confusing. It’s Over But You Don’t Quite Know why It Happened And why You Couldnt look Away.
Beyond the Blowouts, Suspect Officiating And The Sketchy if Not Sometime-y Broadcasting. Beyond the formality.
The NFL Weekend Loss Its Narrative. “Losing is one thing, but when you don’t even make it competitive, it’s another thing.”
The Divisional Rematches Playout Out More Like The Opening Rounds Of Chess Tournaments. One Piece Forward And Another Piece Falls.
The Steelers, who Made No Qualms Their Dubious Presence In the Playoffs, were Understandably Put To The Chains; A Playoff Team Only In Status Not For Any Other Reason. Only Now We Understand That too Many of The Wild Card Share That Prevailing Narrative Unfolding The Entire Weekend.
The Weekend Ended With A Lack of reasoning.
When The Jags Lost the 2017 AFC Championship, Their History of Dysfunction Had Come Undone, Even In Shortcoming. As Four Teams Headed For The Curtain, It Never “Throbbed.” The sense Of Loss Never Pervaded. One Dimensional Character. Pawns.
No? You Know The ‘we’re Here With So Much To prove.”
It's Here; We Just Happen To be The Cast Always That Made It This Far. The Moment Never Seemed too Big For Some Of The Teams Presence Because They Never had A moment. Aside From The Raiders Who Have Enough Drama For A Screen Play. The Cards, Eagles, And Steelers all padded up. On the clock, Mostly For Counterweight. The Absence Of That “we Want To Be Here.” The Sense That Some Team We're There To Win A Championship But fail For Not Being Good Enough.
The Saints Of Old Couldn’t Squeeze in. Neither Could The spark on, Spark Off Vikings. The Chargers Loss Their Tickets On The Trains. Everybody else fellInto The Motif Of Steelers Who Just Kind Of Stumbled Into Position. Once They Lost, The Sense That A Season’s Worth Of Work Went Up In smoke Because These Teams Just Happened To Be Less Inadequate Of Had A More Favorable Season Schedule.
In the NFL “Nothing EXceeds Like Exceeds” Should Be the Motto. But This Postseason Opening Doesn’t Boil Dow to excess. “Seven Seeds Are too Deep For Football.” The Death In Competitive Value Certainly Didn’t Dent The Viewership.
Year 1 of The Ever-Expansive Field Of The NFL Postseason Started Last year.
The Andy Dalton Bears And The Heinicke Washington Football Team Of A YEAR Could All Had Viable Confidence And Credible Championship Pedigree. If Not For Their Unpredictable Offense Then They're Obstructive, Take Over The Game Pass Rush.
“It’s exhausting, but it’s football,”
Wild Card weekend hit a wall After The Bengals And Raiders Tore The Gate Down; some Controversy Would Pervade Into Monday, But Not The Proficiency. The Product on The field Haled.
The Steam Machine Just hit the dirt An extended trailer for The 2021 playoffs.
Maybe the expectations, that these Would game draw On And out in some microscopic installment of the season that spawned it.
Your Know, Like how, in some stories, the character are themselves caricatures of the plot or message of the movie
It's Bittersweet. “From Third And Twenty To Down Two Touchdowns.”
Back To The Marathon. I Think I Understand Now Why A Eighteen Game Season of Football should Stand as The Assumed Recommended Dosage Of Tackle Touchdown And Completion Probability Models. “NFL games accounted for 48 of the top 50 most-watched broadcasts in the 2021 regular season, and 91 of the top 100.” This Weekend Feel Like The First Weekend Without A Regular Season Ever. Perhaps As a Writer, I Am More Invested. Not Only In The Outcomes But Even More in the Manifestation. I Pick up The Mac To Write As Sunday’s Slate Took Field and A Void Came Through. A Relapse Effect From A Full Season Locked To Grids With Football Content. It Done But The Emptiness Inside Me. “Addicted Like Poogie Those Deep Passes keep Controlling me.”
Buccaneers vs. Eagles.
Nothing To See Here. The Bucs Lead The Outclass Eagles 31-0 Entering The fourth. Visually, The Game Never Took On The Malaise Mauling The Score Seemed To Portend. But The Difference In Scale Between these Two Teams could Be Felt Across The Board. The Scales Were Palpable. Broadcasters Were sure To Note The Difference In Age Between Brady and Jalen Hurts. Twenty-One Years. That’s How This Game Felt As The Game Unfolded. A Veteran Turning Its opponents Aggression Back Against themselves. The Bucs Play “Mirror Force” Getting Out on the Ground. Utilizing Back And Tights End In The Screen. Even As The Eagles Rounded Another three And Outs And The Buc’s Lead Continued To Climb, It Never Took A Buffalo Onslaught. They Were Always The Better Team. They Never Had To prove That. The Only Necessary Ingredient To A Win Would Have Been Showing Up. Jalen Hurts Put The Ball to The Air More Than I Anticipated. More Than Brady By Games End. Hurts Push The Ball Down Field Some, An Average Depth of target 11.4 But He Only Completed 23 of his 46 Drop Backs.
More than Tampa’s Disruptive Secondary, Hurts Succumb To Drops on The Part of His Receivers And Tight Ends. He Processes The Game A lot Slower Than You Hope His Limited Arm strength Proposes Another Threat To Overcome Once He read To Unfold. Before the Half, Hurts Targeted Devonta Smith Near The Edge of The Endzone. INTERCEPTION, Mike Edwards. Ending The Half. The Window Opened. The Fault Shouldn’t fall on Hurt’s recognition. A Little Late on The Roll But The Opportunity Awakened for A Moment. A Quarterback with The Arm Strength of A Jay Cutler Or Justin Herbert Could Force A Ball Into The Window or At Worst Force An Incompletion. Hurts Finished The Game with 258 Yards. The Oklahoma Product Applies Excellent Touch Amd trajectory Of His Throws. SomeWhat Remeinsesnat Of Drew Brees. But His Mental Acquisition of The GAme Needs to Dial-In with Better Acuity. Leading The Team to 15 Late Points. Phillies Famed rushing Game Couldn’t Hold Ground And Hurts Roughed Forcing Throws. All inAll I Liked Hurts. He finished As One of The Most Aggressive Quarterbacks of the Weekend.
The Eagles Got The Chance To evaluate, What Hurts, A Potential Quarterback of The Future Could Achieve. Not Only His Production With Multiple Dropbacks But His Conditioning with Multiple Dropbacks.
The Bucs Settled In For the Show And Prepare For whose next. Their Elite Offensive Line Got Hiurt Some. After gobbling Serving s of Praise All through the Week, offensive Lineman Tristan Wirfs got flattened Some From Eagles Pass Rushers and Ankle Injury That Could Sideline Him for The Following Weekend. An Inauspicious Omen For Their oncoming Opponent.
Rams Vs. Cardinals.
After A Decade Plus Of Success And Let Down. It All Came Down To one Game; The Most Important Game Of Stafford Career. For A-Team, Billed “the Most Bought In” To This Season, The Hollywood Ending On The Lines. But Football Doesn’t Follow The Script. The Ram’s reflect another of the Los Angeles Team. Not Far From. So-Fi A group of Underachieving, Large Name Stars Hoping for Hollywood Script To Take Form Over The Rest Of Their Season.
The Former Number 1 Overall Pick. Stafford First Night Of Play In These Playoffs, Dashing And Dismissal. The Rams Suffered A Similar Fate A year Ago. Taking On A Cardinals Team Damage And Far Remove From The Team That Started The 7-0 Including Hand The Rams Their First Loss of The Season. Sean McVay Conceded Not Let His Now Erratic Quarterback Lose This Game On Everyone Behalf. McVay Hand, The Keys To The Offense Over To Former promising Quarterback Jared Goff, Then watched Almost Helplessly As Goff Threw 29 Interceptions In two Season. Tantamount To A Son Crashing A million Dollar Ferrari. McVay Had Another Had Such A Melt Downs at Hand.
Mcvay’s Hand Push the Stafford Trade Forward, Now those Hand s Would Have To Pull His Prized Season Catch Back Off Of The Offense. Stafford completed 13 of 17 passes for 202 yards no interceptions. Take Off To Tampa This weekend’s divisional round, where the team will play The Buccaneers on Sunday. It's Going To be the Most Debated Battle Of This Sunday. It Could Come Down To Quarterback Play. Who The Most trusted Arm To Finish The Game. Those 17 Attempts are the Lowest of Any Quarterback In the Playoffs. Stafford Finish With two Touchdowns, But For Most Of His Yardage, A Product Of Low Model Aggressive Throws. The Rams’ receiving Production apportioned Across The Board with Odell Beckham. Jr. Cooper Kupp, Tyler Higbee, and Van Jefferson all recorded between 40 and 65 receiving yards.
The Cardinals Resemble More of the Team That Falters Against The Lions than The Inspired Team That Took The Cowboys.
“I just want to be a part of this team and help us win,” Stafford said. Stafford Noted For “benefiting” From The Team’s Steady Group Of Receivers. Often Sure Handed. Amongst the Fewest Drops In The League. Not exceptional, just Reliant.
The Rams Heralded Pass rush Lead By Aaron Darnold didn’t Dominate The Trenches. Two Sacks, 41% Win rate. But The Cards Offensive Line Ranks Amongst The Average Groups in The League. Against the Bucs Week, Three Donald Finished with One Sack and 4 Hurries. They need Him if Stafford continues To contain For His Good.
I Can't Say Whether The Rams are transforming Matthew Stafford Into The More Fluent Carson Wentz Bodes well for Their Championship Aspiration. The List of teams That Have Won Championships in Inspite Of Their Quarterbacks Hasn’t Grown Much In recent Memory
It's Said, “I think technology has proven over the past few years that it’s able to think faster than humans and react faster in a precise, pristine environment.” Tom Brady Can't be Define As Technology, But And Endorsement As Clinical In His Approach to revenge Games In the playoffs could stand Cold.
The Rams Are Build to Disrupt The Bucs Just As the Saints Had All Season. Deep Secondary, limited Use of Line Backers And Adept Pass rushers.
The Bucs Secondary Has eaten up the team lately. I don’t trust Mike Evans to Out Face off Jalen Ramsey. Evans To My Observations Remains One Of The Quieter Star Receivers. A Number 1000 Yard Guy, Few Mention. I don’t Mean “Quieter” In a good Way. Set Across From Saints Cornerback MArshon Lattimore, The Cornerback in The NFL In mY Opinion, Evans Gets Flatout Erased In One-on-One. Ramsey Played Corner With A Siliar Style and Type To Lattimore.
Of Course, I Dont Mean Quiet in A Nice Way. On the Other Side, I Expect the Rams To Play Good despite Their quarterback wallowing Quarterback Wasteland.
The Rush And Screen Game Could Be critical For Tampa. “Take out your entire enemy, virtually risk-free.”
Cowboys Vs. 49ers
Fans rushed… Scratched That. Fans Stormed Into The ATT&T Stadium For Sunday’s Affair Between Historic Rivals. These Two Stories Franchise Have Had Bouts Not only Defined legacies, The NFC But entire Dynasties And Decade. As Media, We tend To Exaggerate The Significants, But This Game Had Stakes That Go Beyond Just 2021.
Of The Fans Who Didn’t Brave The Walls Of Bodies And Climb the Barricades To be Bear Witness To History. Their eyes Took On The Splendor From Miles Away. Locked To Every Move On the Board. Every Word of The Broadcast.
These Wild Card Weekend would have Disappointed Regardless Of Matchup, But This Cowboys Niners On Paper looked To be the Only Obtrusively Non-Miss-Match Game. Still, It Played Out Like One. The 49ers Had This game In Hand Most Of The Way. The Lead Most of The Way And control The Ebbs And Flows of The Game. The Cowboys Had 307 Yards of Offense But Punted on Three Of Their first Four Possessions. Dak Finished The Game With One of His Least Efficient Outings23/43 258. The Lost Nick Bosa To A Concussion But The Defensive Line Finish The Game, five sacks and 22 pressures In Tow.
For the Niner Deebo Continued His Insurgents against Traditional Offensive formula. Samuel Finished Averaging 7.2 Per Rush on ten and Nearly thirteen yards Per Reception. Quarterback Jimmy G Finish Under 200 yards, 172. The Niners Are Another Team trying To Survive These Playoffs in Inspite of Their Quarterback. Garoppolo's Inability To Push The Ball Deep Could Prove Consequential Against The Packers. According to NFLNextGenStats, Brandon Aiyuk Created On Average 3 Yards or more Separation on Route. He And Jimmy Connected 5 Times For 66 Yards, But They’ll Have To Be More Consistent down Downfield If The Hope To beat the Packers.
With An Extra Week in the tank After Securing The NFC, Bye A Week early. The Packers Are healthy. Their Pass Rush Will Be In Full Strength. The Last “credible” Lost The Packers Suffered, Week 11, At the Hands of The Vikings. How Kirk Cousins and Co. Manage To Slay the Mighty Pack. Down Field Attacks.
I Think Deebo Should Continue To Earn Praise For His Versatile Approach To offense But for The Niners To Continue in these playoffs. Do they need to go Deep? Can Jimmy Garoppolo Take Them there?
In The AFC:
Bills Vs. Pats
You know what they say: 'Only Zeus is perfect.' - Hephaestus. I would Add Josh Allen And The Buffalo Bills On Cold Night in Highmark Stadium To that List. The Bills Pummeled the Patriots. The Offense, Exploited Every opening The Patriots Defense Could Not cover. If You Ever Wondered What Decades Of Losses, A History of frustrations, Distilled Out On A Canvas, One Touchdown After Another After Another Looked Like, Sunday’s Final, A Picturesque Passing Mural.
Most Projections Saw The Bills-Patriots Matchup As At Best A toss Up Of AFC East Rivals. Either Could Vault Themselves Beyond The Sights Of The Other, well Uniformed Teams In The AFC Picture And Take Hold As The AFC Superbowl Favorites, With A Win. Only One Would Have A Salvo of Critical Questions To Answer. Where Had Things Gone Wrong? Can This Quarterback Lead the team? Will This franchise See Another Superbowl Appearance? Could This Be The State of Their Franchise? Another Loss To Add To A Mounting Streak? The Other Team Had A Rookie Quarterback.
One team Had Pressure The Other an opportunity. The Expected Outcome would Be A Bills Win, But It's been An Unpredictable Season. This Bills team Had A chilling Start To The Season. Shakiness, Being Their Only constant Through Seventeen Games.
After a 47-17 final. Only A Gasp Could Escape the Lungs Of Those Watching Outside of Buffalo. By The Time The Pats Scored Their Second Touchdown, It had Pulled The Deficit Down To three Scores. Josh Allen Needed Just 21 completions To Gain 300 plus Yards. A Belichick Team is getting Outright Outclass By A Familiar Foe, An AFC East Foe No Less. Inconceivable In Any Era Of Patriot Football. But That is What Sundays Outcome Proved. One team More Talented. Defter. Ahead of The Curve On The Rest Of The League. Sounds Familiar like Nino Brown Staring Down the Barrel of Gun. For So Many years, Belichicks Teams Outclass The Competition. Sunday In Buffalo Wouldn’t Serve As The Legendary coaches First Playoff Loss But Maybe The first Time The Sense That history Had Finally caught up With Him. The Tables Had turned On Him For At least One Playoff Game.
KC Vs. Pitts
The First Quarter Of Some The Most Miserable Football Conceivable Closed. Nil, Nil. The Faintest Clue That Another 40 Point Game Had Been In The Works Hadn’t formed yet. The Game Started With Five Punts, One Interception, And three More Punts. Mahomes notched The First interception of The Game. The Steelers Appear Prepared to muddied the Game And Win An Ugly One. The First Touchdown of The Game Cam On A Wild Cat Fumble Returned By T.J. Watt. Pittsburgh Appeared To Have Life, So Did A Narrative:
I began To Write: “if The Steelers Pull This Out, It's Because Of Discipline And Nothing Else.”
They didn’t Break Contain And Allowed Mahomes to Extend Plays early on. When Mahomes Did Extend, Line Backers Stay Home in Their Zone, they Induce By The Temptation Out of Position By Thought Allure Of An “easy Sack” That Would Ultimately Result in A Missed Tackle And Most Likely A Deep Down Field. The Corners Stay Home in their Zone. Surrendering Chunk Plays But Not Explosive Down Field Throws.
Mahomes And The chiefs Responded. They were using the Steelers Defense And Alertness Against Them. Pump Fakes Froze Linebackers And shovel Passes opened up Lanes In Short Yardage And The Chiefs First touchdown. Soon The Points Came In Pours. Before The Half, The Chiefs Had 21 Points. Those Chunks created Creases, and those Creases Created Voids. This game didn’t Reside In The Steelers Shortcomings The Many They Were But On The Cheifs Showing Up And Being The Better Team.
The Chief Moved Passed The Steeler And Now Have The Bills Coming For A Rematch Of Last Season AFC Championship Game. The Chiefs Had No trouble with The AFC East Champions Last Year, But This Bills Secondary, Even Without Tre White, If A Passing Defense Chastise Mahomes And Defend Deep For extended Possession, It’s the Bills. Against The Steelers, Mahomes Saw pressure 23.9% Of The Time On His Drop Backs But Still Found Nearly 4 Seconds Of Time To Throw Deep, No Less. He Got Sacked Three Times.
Onn the Other Hand:
The Bills Have The Offensive Prowess To win A Shootout Should It come To It, But Overall, The Bills Are The Better Team.
Cincy Vs. Oak
“Blow The Whistle.”
Who Played The Too Short. Touchdown And Official Folly’s Aside The Raiders Had A Chance To Win This Game, Or At least Tie. It's Been Said, The Difficulty In trusting Derek Carr. Carr Looks Over The Middle To A Crowd of bodies, Intended for Zay Jones, Who Had A less Than Remarkable Night. Outcome, Predictable Interception. Situation Withstanding. Under A minute Of Play And A touchdown to go. Carr Falls In Love with Throwing Over The middle. He Secured A Few Gutsy Completions In Those Zone On That Final Drive. But Twice He Had The Flat. On The Incompletion That preceded The Interception And The Final Play. Twice With Darren Waller Running And Out Route on The Boundary.
For Joe Burrow, Who Put Forth A Passing Performance For The Ages in His First Playoff Game. He Couldn’t. The Noise. He The Music And The Rhythm. “I go on And On. Cant understand How I Last So long. I Must Have That Superpower.” The Whistle Play, Malign For The Controversy Symbolized A Spectacular Marvel. Joe Burrow was hopping forward to Avoid Pressure and escaping to his Left, Throwing Back Across His Body For Touchdown. A Marvel To open Playoff Play.
The Bengals Entered Round One As Favorites. Now Enter Round two And Tennessee As Expected favorites As Well.
The Titans Have been under Scrutiny All Season. How Good Are the Titans?
No team in these Playoffs ooze “Pretender” As They Do. Now completely Healthy With Julio And Derrick Henry, the Titans Are Generally Expected To be One And Done This Weekend.
The Bengal’s Utilized Jamar Chase in The “Deebo Samuel” Swiss Army Knife offensive Weapon Role. When The Raiders Sold To Prevent Deep Assaults, The Bengals Began Rushing Chase Out of The BAck Feild. Quick End Arounds And Jet Sweep Taht Gained 22 On The Ground for Chase, To keep The Young Star Reciever Active And Alert Case The opportunity Arise for Him Late. The Bengals Keep The Raiders Honest By Returning To Passing Game As The Personel Burrow Faced Became A Bit More Auspicious. The Bengals Expected Chase To Earned The Bulk of The Defenses Attention, Given He(Chase) And Burrows Repute. Even the Thickest of Defensive Secondaries Get Worn Thin When So Many Resources Allocated To One Opponent.
Ball Control With Derrick Henry Always Remained Tennessee’s Winning Formula early In The Season And The Team’s offensive Approach Didnt Shift With Henry In Recovery. Henry’s Play Fell Hadn't fallen A bit from last Years Near Record-Setting Pace. That, before the Injury. If The Bengals Get out To A Hot Start, Henry’s Prowess could Become A none Factor In the Long.
Mitchell Trubisky’s Bears, Not Dalton.
