NFL Wild Card Weekend





This NFL Wild Card weekend was great if you’re a football fan.





I mean the NFL, and not the international game where they don’t wear pads and where the players don’t automatically collapse in a heap when someone exhales on them. Even in these days of COVID, it takes a few days before exhaling on someone results in them collapsing. 





There were five games this weekend and that was enough. There is one tonight on Monday, and that is the game I’m looking forward to the most because the team that I root for, the Los Angeles Rams, are playing the Arizona Cardinals. 





The Cardinals are the oldest franchise in the National Football League, having been the first team to join in 1922. They were in Chicago then, and because they don’t win very often, they were kicked from city to city until they ended up in the desert. 





That said, the NFL games played this weekend ranged from entertaining to almost unwatchable. 





First up was the Las Vegas Raiders against the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals hadn’t won an NFL playoff game in 30 years, so their fans were hungry like a Bengal Tiger roaming the Bandipur. The Raiders were another lost franchise that found their way back to the playoffs via Las Vegas this time. 





It was close. I thought Derek Carr, the Raider quarterback, would rise up and overcome the Bengal defense due to his eight year veteran status, but it wasn’t to be. Despite getting weapons back like Josh Jacobs and Darren Waller, he couldn’t quite pull it off. 





Joe Burrow, the cigar chomping quarterback of the Bengals and his favorite receiver Ja’Marr Chase shot the Raiders defense to pieces. Bengals fans were pacing the floor waiting for another meltdown, but the defense held up and sent the hometown fans happy. 





The Buffalo Bills hosted the New England Patriots and were a hostile host.  Patriots head coach Bill Belichick usually has an answer for the Bills offense, but Bills quarterback Josh Allen did whatever he wanted against the Patriots NFL ranked number one defense and blew out the Patriots. It wasn’t even close. 





Saturday moved into Sunday and that brought us the defending NFL Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the greatest quarterback of all-time Tom Brady against the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles were under manned and over matched. Tom Brady’s typical quick release and pin point accuracy produced death by a thousand cuts against the Eagles defense. 





The best game of the NFL weekend was the San Francisco 49ers visiting the Dallas Cowboys.





It was a wild one, but it didn’t start out that way. The Cowboys were undisciplined to the point of embarrassment. The 49ers controlled everything at the beginning by driving for a touchdown without getting a third down. 





The 49ers kept the Cowboys down until the fourth quarter. Then the Cowboys finally checked in and mounted a furious comeback. They caught the 49ers back on their heels until the final minutes. It looked like San Francisco was going to choke before the Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott did it for them. He mismanaged the clock and time ran out before he could mount one last play. 





The last game of the weekend was the last stand for Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. They traveled to Kansas City to play the Chiefs. Big Ben knew his team didn’t have a chance. He said before the game that he was just going there to have some fun. He was right. 





The first ever Monday night NFL playoff game happened last night. The Los Angeles Rams secured a date with the Buccaneers by shellacking the Arizona Cardinals. I was going to say the hapless Cardinals, but a team doesn’t make it to the playoffs by being hapless. 





The Cardinals diminutive quarterback Kyler Murray is a disciple of legendary martial artist Bruce Lee. Murray says the Zen teachings of Lee help him focus and calm down. Well, everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth. 





The Rams continually hit the Cardinals in the mouth and now the Rams are moving on while the Cardinals wander the desert wondering what the hell happened.  


flickr.com by user "krisandapril", , via Wikimedia Commons


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