All 4 higher seeds won in the Wild Card Weekend for the first time since 2006, but that does not mean that there were several surprises. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the Denver Broncos upsetting the Pittsburgh Steelers 29-23...in OOOOOOOoooooovertime. Nobody really gave Tim Tebow a shot at leading Denver to a playoff victory coming off 3 straight losses. Most of the "experts" believed that Tebow was a fairly nice story, but probably would crack under the pressure, especially playing the Steel Curtain, banged up as they were. Defenses like the Steelers eat mobile quarterbacks like Tebow for lunch. However, John Elway this week said that Tebow needed to make plays from the pocket...and make plays he did, none bigger than an 80 yard strike to Demaryus Thomas on the first play of the extra session. You could even see Elway on the sideline doing his best Jerry Jones impersonation.
This game was the first game to be played using the new playoff overtime rules. In the regular season, overtime games end on the first score regardless of what that score is. However, in the playoffs, if the team that receives the ball first scores a field goal on their opening possession, they have to kick off and give the other team a chance to answer. A touchdown ends the game as it always has. Denver won the toss, and instead of deferring (which most teams would have been expected to do), they decided to receive, knowing if they settled for a field goal, they would have to kick back to Pittsburgh. That ended being a moot point after the first play, but it is in an interesting case of how teams strategize now in NFL playoff games. Denver took the ball instead of kicking, having confidence in an offense to score a TD that had been highly inconsistent for the majority of the season. That confidence payed off.
Elsewhere, Houston played their first playoff game in team history against a plucky Cincinnati team that featured a matchup of two rookie quarterbacks: TJ Yates and Andy Dalton. Dalton played better over the entire course of the season while Yates was an injury replacement for Matt Schaub. Most expected Cincinnati to win based on the quarterback situation alone, but nobody really gave much to the winner of this game, whover it ended up being, since Houston would have to travel to Baltimore next week and Cincinnati would have to go to New England. In the end, Houston won convincingly, thanks to a defense that did not allow the Bengals to get into any rhythm offensively and balance through the air and on the ground, scoring 40+ yard TDs both rushing and passing. Next week, Houston has a rematch with Baltimore, who is notorious for playing up or down to the level of their competition.
In the NFC, the Giants handled the Falcons after giving up an early safety. Neither team was able to generate much offensively, but the Falcons had two 4th and short situations that the Giants were able to stuff defensively. In a game where points were a premium, especially in the playoffs, sometimes it's OK to settle for a field goal, especially in a 3rd quarter situation where the score was only 10-2 at the time. A field goal would have brought the Falcons within 5 with well over a quarter to play and a defense that had been able to stop the Giants for most of the afternoon. However, those missed 4th down attempts revitalized the Giants, who went on to score 2 more times and earn a date with the defending champs at Lambeau next week.
Finally, really the only game that went according to script was the Lions-Saints game, which featured 73 points combined. The Saints were expected to outlast the Lions offensively, and that's exactly what happened. Detroit took the lead early and kept it through halftime, only to eventually see Brees throw for 466 and 3 as the Saints scored 35 points in the 2nd half. New Orleans travels to San Francisco in the divisional round next week in a very intriguing matchup. Expect the Saints to be favored in this game (as if that helped the road teams this week) as many are hoping for a rematch of the Week 1 shootout at Lambeau between New Orleans and Green Bay. Should we see a Saints-Packers NFC Championship, DO NOT expect Sean Payton to give the ball to Mark Ingram on the last play of the game.
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