Hang around any football circle long enough, and you’ll hear a tried and true cliche about what makes the game, when played in January, so special. Divisional Weekend is the best time of the year to see top-level football, they say. It’s where the best teams, the best defenses, the best coaches, and the best quarterbacks play, they continue. But year after year, that truism doesn’t actually turn out to be so true. Sure, there’s the occasional solid effort on both sides here and there, and yeah, a buzzer-beater, game-winner might happen here and there, too.
Most often, playoff pro football is really only kind of just okay? It’s never anything to write home about. It’s nothing you’ll think about for days on end, your mind still racing over the excitement. And to an extreme, it’s not an event that makes you feel like you might want to subject yourself to a trusted vice such as a cigarette to cool off and ease up for fear of risking your health.
After this year’s Divisional Weekend, we should all feel like irrational, cynical dolts for ever daring to doubt what this oh-so, very American game — in each of the best and worst ways — brings to the table when the weather turns.
In this case, a wild walk-off winner in ways you could only ever dream of.
All four Divisional Playoff games this weekend ended on the last play.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 24, 2022
First, the Bengals and Titans duked it out in Nashville. What seemed like a sloppy affair for a majority of the proceedings turned out to be another budding late-game masterpiece: Mostly thanks to the heroics of Joe “Cool” Burrow and one Evan Macpherson.
A little recollection, for your euphoric pleasure.
EVAN MCPHERSON. A ROOKIE.
THE @BENGALS ADVANCE! #NFLPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/B6QsNNNhyX
— NFL (@NFL) January 23, 2022
Then the 49ers and Packers stood face to face in a frigid Lambeau Field. Despite some struggles and miscues, the mighty Packers, with likely MVP Aaron Rodgers at the helm, looked like a lock to advance. In a last-minute huff of a legendary game packed into a few short minutes, the 49ers would make them reconsider.
First, with a blocked punt touchdown — not exactly a play you see every day.
PUNT BLOCK TOUCHDOWN.
The @49ers have tied it! #NFLPlayoffs #FTTB
📺: #SFvsGB on FOX
📱: https://t.co/VWvPUv1xA7 pic.twitter.com/Cf55IHP2Rq— NFL (@NFL) January 23, 2022
And then, with a devastating dagger of a kick from a man who always proves to be as good as Gould.
GOULD IS GOOD.
THE @49ERS WIN IN LAMBEAU TO ADVANCE TO THE NFC CHAMPIONSHIP. #FTTB #NFLPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/7JouarMybq
— NFL (@NFL) January 23, 2022
After an evening like that, again, under normal circumstances, you would be forgiven if you didn’t have much of any higher expectations for the remaining football on the docket. It’s rare this level of play carries over from game to game. Life is short, and the best things about it are fleeting, after all.
But now? There’s no benefit of the doubt.
An early afternoon draw saw the respective star-studded Rams and Buccaneers take to battle. On paper, the Rams matched up well with Tampa Bay, and they showed it en route to what everyone assumed was an insurmountable 24-3 lead. But it’s never so easy when Tom Brady’s offense is the one chasing a lead, now is it?
PLAYOFF. LENNY.@Buccaneers tie it up!
📺: #LARvsTB on NBC
📱: https://t.co/6Hz1DjFj3t pic.twitter.com/sjPdUuExuf— NFL (@NFL) January 23, 2022
No matter. A legendary Brady moment this was not. It was a day that would belong to Cooper Kupp and the once-maligned, now-fully appreciated, Matthew Stafford.
COOP.@RamsNFL AT THE 10 YARD LINE. WOW.
📺: #LARvsTB on NBC
📱: https://t.co/6Hz1DjFj3t pic.twitter.com/PvQs7G5xKL— NFL (@NFL) January 23, 2022
That’s former Detroit Lion, Matthew Stafford, to all of you.
From there, once more, in the third straight quarterfinal, another few seconds, and another game ending on the final play.
RAMS WIN. WHAT A GAME.#LARvsTB | #NFLPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/FyEPdaXaqd
— NFL (@NFL) January 23, 2022
History rewritten and scrapped in a little over half a minute.
We weren’t done. Far from it, in fact.
In that mentioned typical year’s structure, three walk-off wins featuring some massive late-game swings would not merely be the appetizer.
But this was no ordinary year, and this was no ordinary time for the state of professional football.
Last but most certainly not least came the Chiefs and Bills. Patrick Mahomes, the best player in football. Josh Allen, a man more than worthy of snatching such a title belt away. It was billed the NFL’s new great rivalry between the sport’s two modern premier stars. And it could’ve fallen flat.
For once, such a billing lived up to the hype.
While too early to define for now — we can get stuck in some pointless, inane conversations in football, rather than simply appreciating the moment — it gave us what might be the best-played game in NFL history for two legends in the making.
The entire game was a masterclass of what football can be at its very best. Two well-coached and disciplined teams on both sides of the ball. Nary a mistake or error, at least any that seemed unforced. Plus, yeah, those two superb quarterbacks who the league, and the rest of us, have to hope duel every season come this time of year for a long time.
But its peak came in the last 20 minutes or so. From the late third quarter to overtime, the Chiefs and Bills, more Mahomes and Allen, exchanged haymaker after haymaker. In combining to score 47 points in the final 21 minutes and 21 seconds, Mahomes and Allen put on a five-star show for the entire football world watching at home. This was what the sport could, would, and probably should have always been: An adrenaline-addled roller-coaster of emotions where every single defining play felt like the end until it wasn’t.
A common referendum about this game coming in was that the team with the ball last in regulation would end up winning. That proved to be accurate, but only in that, the Chiefs wound up winning a coin toss in overtime. It was one of those moments where you knew that the Chiefs and Mahomes couldn’t give the ball back to Allen. Not now. Not with the havoc he and receiver Gabriel Davis created together en route to an NFL record four touchdowns for the receiver.
But as has been routine in the case of his young, transcendent career Mahomes was up to the challenge.
MAHOMES TO KELCE.
THE @CHIEFS WIN THE GAME OF THE YEAR! #NFLPlayoffs #ChiefsKingdom pic.twitter.com/9eM2Ur15O0
— NFL (@NFL) January 24, 2022
Mahomes to his safety valve Kelce in the clutch, and the perfect capper to a whirlwind slate of games.
The Chiefs (+125 to win the Super Bowl) opened as a surefire favorite over the Bengals in next weekend’s AFC title game, per Tipico. On the NFC side, the Rams (+210 to win the Super Bowl) figure to take care of business over the 49ers. But anyone would be foolish to bet against the Chiefs. Not after what we saw from Mahomes and his uncanny wizardry against Buffalo and the NFL’s No. 1 defense.
It’s Kansas City, and the rest has a heavy hint of a formality.
Four games took place on Saturday and Sunday. Every single one brought an unexpected pleasant surprise. Every matchup brought fireworks and jubilation and, ultimately, a feeling of deep sorrow at every opportunity left on the muck of the torn-up field. The best way to think of this is in a relatable manner. All of us rue and regret and rethink the smallest missteps in our lives on one side. And on the other, we try to celebrate every good decision, every victory, and every stroke of luck that happened to work out in our favor.
That was what the football of this momentous 48 hours managed to do: It made us all feel deeply connected to a game. It united us as an audience watching grown men wearing helmets and pads, pour their hearts and souls into hopeful wins.
On the surface, a strange prospect.
On second thought: How on earth could you not be romantic about football after what we just witnessed?
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