This past week of NFL football has been amazing for the viewers of the game; with different coaching hires, exciting playoff games and seeing the New England Patriots lose at home in a wild card game! So, with so much happening in just a short time span, what all happened? Well, if I had to say what happened in one word it would be insane! It was actually insane how many coaching moves and games there were in a 48 hour time period!

The AFC Wild Card games were played first. The Buffalo Bills and Houston Texans started wild card weekend with a bang. The two franchise quarterbacks both looking for their first playoff game win. We knew it was going to be great going into it. Each team also had  a top-three defense. Buffalo took a 16 point lead into the third quarter and the chance of winning looked small for Deshaun Watson and the Texans team. However, the Texans started to crawl back and then boom we are in overtime with the game tied game at 19-19. Houston got the ball first in the extra period and had to punt to Buffalo. During this time it looked bright for the Bills. They were moving the ball well and going downfield for what looked like a Buffalo win. The Texans defense had a bend but don’t break defense and they came in big and made the Bills punt. Deshaun Watson got the ball back for the Texans and he was not giving it back. With one play, Watson broke two tackles at the same time and then threw a nice ball to running back Taiwan Jones for a 35-yard catch and putting the Texans in field goal range. Bill O’Brien decided to put the field goal unit out there and they got the job done and won the game for the Houston Texans 22-19.

After this wonderful game, the New England Patriots faced off against the Tennessee Titans in a slow defensive, running game that the Patriots could not hold up. The Titans star running back, Derrick Henry, had a productive 34 touches for 182 yards with a touchdown. Henry accounted for 73.6% of the Titans offense per Elias Sports Bureau. Those rushing yards were also a Tennessee Titans playoff record. The Tom Brady and Bill Belichick duo did not look like the ones of years past with a terrible showing that some may say was the end of their dynasty in New England. 

Predictions for the NFL Divisional Round

With two astounding games played in the AFC, how would the NFC compare for wild card weekend with the Minnesota Vikings versus the New Orleans Saints and the Seattle Seahawks versus the Philadelphia Eagles? The Vikings and Saints game was a very fun game to watch with both offenses being very good having two great quarterbacks in Drew Brees and Kirk Cousins. The New Orleans offense was not the greatest until the third quarter. It looked like they were not prepared or not fearing the Vikings going into the game. Because of that, Kirk Cousins had a great game and the Vikings won the game  in overtime because of a great Kirk Cousins to Thielen pass to start overtime. This was the third time the Saints lost in the playoffs due to a gaming winning play in the last three years. 

With the first NFC game being great, what about the second one? It was not very good in my opinion. The Eagles star QB Carson Wentz went down with a concussion in his second drive and that honestly ruined the game the Eagles. Philadelphia stayed in the game but it was ugly, to say the least. Seattle got the job done, but would they have won if Carson would have played the entire game? We will never know. Russell Wilson and the Seahawks won 17-9 in Philadelphia. 

This past week in NFL football has been great for the fans and the game. Hopefully, next week will be even more amazing with the divisional rounds starting up. With the statement wins that the wild card winners had maybe they will get the confidence to go another week and beat a higher seed and maybe even move on to the Superbowl in Miami, Florida.