You Don’t Have To Be An NFL Fan To Appreciate These Playoff Games
Even if you’re not an NFL fan, the best four games ever played in one weekend took place in the recently completed NFL Divisional Playoff Round.
All four games were decided with exactly no time left on the clock, with the fourth game needing overtime to decide a winner.
Somehow, each game was closer than the one before it.
First, the Cincinnati Bengals defeated the Tennessee Titans 19-16 on a Field Goal with no time left.
Second, the San Francisco 49ers defeated the Green Bay Packers 13-10 with a Field Goal with no time left. The Green Bay Packers led for almost the entire game, ultimately losing because of very bad special teams play.
Third, the Los Angeles Rams held off ageless Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 30-27 … yep, you guessed it … on a field goal with no time left on the clock.
Bradly rallied Tampa Bay from a 27-6 deficit to tie the game 27-27 late in regulation. Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford led an improbable drive in the final seconds, setting up the game-winning Field Goal as time expired.
Each of these three games easily could have gone the other way.
Finally, the fourth and final game was the best of them all. It featured four scores and seemingly endless lead changes in the final two minutes of play.
It was the Kansas City Chiefs who staged a comeback for the ages … forcing overtime and winning by a touchdown while keeping the Buffalo Bills from even touching the ball in overtime … for a wild, 42-36 overtime win.
Explicable, the Buffalo Bills kicked off, with a touchback strategy, which took no time off the clock … Giving Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes 13 seconds to engineer a game-tying drive … which he did.
A toss of a coin perhaps never meant so much, as the Buffalo Bills called “tails” and it came up “heads.”
Mahomes and Kansas City took the first possession of overtime and promptly took it down the field for a game-winning, Mahomes to Travis Kelce touchdown pass.
We may never see anything like these toss-up games ever again.
This past weekend, the NFL reclaimed its title as “The Greatest Show on Turf” proving that when the NFL focuses purely on football, simply playing the games, there is no sport on the planet that can compete with them.
The NFL gets itself in trouble when it ventures into the areas of social justice and other divisive political issues, that have no place in the National Football League.
The best two games of the NFL season are typically the NFC and AFC Championship games as the winners go to the Super Bowl.
However, it will be very difficult to top this past weekend, wherein my view, the four best playoff games (in a row) ever played, took place this past Saturday and Sunday.
They may never be replicated ever, again.
54 Jersey natives playing in the NFL in 2021 (+ 2 head coaches)
KEEP READING: Greater Atlantic City Area Athletes Who Played Games In NFL