Five NFL wild-card games are in the books (we still have Monday-night’s Cowboys-Buccaneers matchup) and the best performances deserve to be recognized by our MMQB staff.
Here are this weekend’s standouts.
Gary Gramling: Abracadaniel, franchise quarterback, Giants. There was a long list of “is he worth another contract?” quarterbacks coming into the season, and only one of them emphatically answered in the affirmative. For whatever reason, Daniel Jones—who has drawn unwarranted cackles from the punditry since the day he was drafted—was still getting heat early this season despite, for instance, spending a Monday night conjuring time and space in the face of the Cowboys’ relentless pass rush and firing peas all over the field only to see them dropped by a collection of also-ran receivers. He spent the season working with those receivers and often overcoming their struggles. He also had a creative offensive brain trust, led by Brian Daboll, and they all found a way through Jones’s increasingly reliable work from the pocket, underrated ability to create late in the down and tendency to turn in big plays with his legs. Now, here we are, a historic performance (24-of-35, 301 yards passing, two TDs and 78 yards rushing against the Vikings) in a road playoff win for a quarterback who has earned the right to quarterback the Giants for the next half decade.
