Well, that was fun. Say what you will about the officiating, but these games featured the top teams in each conference, with the superior two ultimately getting the job done. There was no way anybody watching those games could reasonably tell me that San Francisco or Cincinnati deserved the win any more than Philly or Kansas City. The refs will always provide a storyline for us, even when they're rarely, objectively good; let's just be grateful for no Rams-Saints-esque blunder again with the big game on the line. To Philly we go...
Eagles 31- 49ers 7
...where the Eagles absolutely steamrolled the Niners. Two challengeable plays set the tone for this one right off the jump, with the first coming on what appeared to be a dazzling one-handed reception by Devonta Smith on 4th and 3. Hurts hurried the offense to the line and got a play off before Shanahan could throw the red flag, sparing his team the loss of possession that a review would've led to. Miles Sanders pounded the rock into the end zone two plays later, putting the #1 seed up early.
On the subsequent possession, we saw Haason Reddick crack Brock Purdy on the throwing arm as he tried to deliver a pass downfield. The initial call was incomplete, but a Philadelphia challenge quickly showed that the hit caused a fumble, which was recovered by the defense. The Eagles didn't score off the turnover, but the sack did force Purdy out of commission (for all intents and purposes) with an injured elbow.
Josh Johnson came in under center from there, and surprisingly performed admirably, going 7/13 for 74 yards and a scoring drive. Unfortunately for the San Francisco faithful, he too was knocked from the game after hitting the back of his head onto the turf trying to recover a fumble. This left them with Christian McCaffery as the emergency quarterback before Purdy gutted out the rest of the game. Their offense predictably sank.
It was all Eagles from there. Sanders scored again on the ground, as did Jalen Hurts and Boston Scott. It was the first time since 1938 that a team scored four rushing touchdowns in a playoff game. Hurts has only thrown for 275 yards this postseason, yet the team's racked up 69 points. Nice effort...feels like they haven't even had to hit their stride yet. Philly is (and was) my pick to win in two weeks.
Chiefs 23- Bengals 20
They'll be squaring off against the Kansas City Chiefs, who showed a ton of grit and determination pulling this victory out. Bum ankle, playing without his top three receivers, top corner and MLB? No problem for Patrick Mahomes.
The KC quarterback was magnificent as he hobbled through the pocket all evening, finding his generational tight end and patchwork receivers for 326 passing yards. His fourth down TD strike to Travis Kelce was a thing of beauty, with #87 just boxing out Jessie Bates in the end zone. The touchdown to Marques Valdes-Scantling was even more remarkable, with Mahomes evading the rush and putting an absolute seed onto his impromptu WR1. Any pass slightly slower or off target would've been defended; it was perfect.
Cincinnati didn't go down without a fight however. After the MVS score, Sam Hubbard recovered a Mahomes fumble that he simply seemed to drop. Six plays later, Joe Burrow hit Tee Higgins with a dime in the right corner of the end zone to knot things up. Then things got weird.
Neither team was able to manufacture a go-ahead drive, with Kansas City sandwiching a Burrow interception between two punts. Chris Jones gave the home team one final opportunity by sacking the Bengals QB with about 40 seconds left on the clock. He was an absolute game wrecker. A nice punt return and late hit penalty on Joseph Ossai put the Chiefs in position for the game winning Harrison Butker field goal, and that was all she wrote.
I don't feel the slightest bit of remorse for sad Cincinnati fans. Bad calls happen every game, this included. You want a block in the back on a punt return? What about the blatant one on Mark Andrews during the Hubbard fumble return score in the wild card round? Tomato-tomato. They were too stagnant for too many possessions on offense, completely abandoning the running game that was so successful a week ago. Too many field goals, not enough touchdowns. Burrowhead no longer.
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@Choppinglines
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