Wild Card Weekend Review-AFC Games

Wild Card weekend is over and it sets up a very interesting Divisional Playoff weekend. One of the themes going into the weekend was the fact that the QBs for the home teams had 0 combined playoff starts, and the road teams featured the group of Russell Wilson, Ben Roethlisberger, Alex Smith, and Aaron Rodgers. Well, the proven QBs ended up coming out on top as all four road teams won on Wild Card weekend for the first time since the current playoff format was instituted in 1990. The weekend featured a blowout, a nail-biter, throwback played on negative weather, a statement game by a superstar QB, and a complete XFL-style game in the primetime spot on Saturday. Here are my thoughts on the games based on their order of appearance....

Kansas City-30 Houston-0
AFC Wild Card Game

1) The tone of this game was set when Knile Davis took the opening kickoff 106 yards back for a touchdown to give KC the early lead. It took the air out of the stadium, and from that point on, it felt like the Texans had no chance to win.

2) Besides the kickoff, the only other aspect of note in this game was the play of Brian Hoyer. Hoyer threw 3 interceptions in the first half and fumbled another time in KC territory. He was flat out awful and should have been benched before he threw his fourth pick of the game in the second half. He finished 15-34 for 136 yards and 4 interceptions and a fumble. You can't overcome bad QB play in the playoffs, and Hoyer put up one of the most horrific games of any QB in recent playoff history.

3) This game was 13-0 in the first half, and Houston was driving inside the 5, when Bill O'Brien called a play where J.J. Watt lined up as a wildcat QB and ran it up the middle. Watt was stuffed for a loss of one, and on the next play, Hoyer got picked off at the goal line. That effectively ended the game. The Texans got too cute there and it burned them.

4) The Chiefs didn't have to do too much in the 2nd half. Give them credit though because they were only 13-0 in the first half when it felt like they should have been up like 28-0, but they did what they had to do in second half. Alex Smith picked apart the "vaunted" Texans defense and put together two long scoring drives to really put the game away.

5) The Chiefs got their first playoff victory since 1993, and they now have an 11 game winning streak heading into Foxboro to take on the Patriots in the Divisional Round.

Pittsburgh-18 Cincinnati-16
AFC Wild Card Game

1) This might go down as one of the wildest, craziest, and borderline insane game of all time. It was pouring the entire game, and the first three quarters were pretty mundane. Pittsburgh built a 15-0 lead on their defense, an ice-cold A.J. McCarron, and one of best catches of the year when Martavis Bryant made an amazing catch in the corner of the end zone to give the Steelers what seemed like an unsurmountable lead heading into the 4th quarter.

2) At 15-0, the Bengals finally put together a drive, but Ryan Shazier knocked out Giovanni Bernard on a questionable helmet-to-helmet hit, and Bernard fumbled and the Steelers recovered. The replay showed that Shazier led with the crown of his helmet, and the Bengals and the crowd went nuts because Cincy was getting flagged for some questionable hits earlier in the game. This hit by Shazier sent the game into a frenzy.

3) From there, Vontaze Burfict sacked Ben Roethlisberger deep in his own end, and Big Ben came down on his shoulder and was hurt, and the momentum in the game completely turned. Cincy started to get hot, and they scored a touchdown to make it 15-7. After Landry Jones came in and basically crapped in his pants, so Cincy gets the ball back and A.J. McCarron gets hot and Cincy moves the ball down the field to make it 15-10.

4) After another Pittsburgh punt, Adam Jones had a big return, and A.J. McCarron led a big drive and hit A.J. Green on a 25-yard touchdown on a 3rd and 7 with 1:50 left. Cincy takes a 16-15 lead, and they go for two, but Hue Jackson, who is somehow a hot head-coaching candidate, called the worst play for a two-point conversion and a swing pass to Mohammad Sanu. Now, the Bengals lead 16-15, and this game then turned into the crazy zone.

5) On the very next play, Jones gets picked off by Vontaze Burfict, who was going insane this entire game, and the game looks like it is over and Cincy is going to win the game. Burfict also ran off the field into the end zone after he picked off Jones for some reason that no one seems to understand. Just bizarre.

6) With 1:36 left, at the Pittsburgh 26, Cincy had to run the ball because Pittsburgh had three timeouts left. Jeremy Hill gets 6 yards on first down, but he gets stripped by Shazier and he fumbles and Pittsburgh recovers at their own 9 yard line. The one thing that Hill could not do in that situation was fumble, but he fumbles and now Pittsburgh has a chance.

7) At this point, Big Ben came back into the game with a banged up shoulder just to try and give it a go. He couldn't really throw the ball more than 10 yards, but he gutted it out and put together a very gutsy drive to give his team a chance. Why did Cincy play so off and give them so much more room with Ben obviously compromised by his shoulder? Of course, Roethlisberger goes down the field and even hits Antonio Brown on a 4th and 3 conversion for 12 yards to the Cincy 47, but Pittsburgh has no timeouts and only 22 seconds left. Amazing that the Steelers were even in this game at the point.

8) After an incomplete pass to Antonio Brown, Vontaze Burfict hits Brown in the head with his shoulder, knocks Brown out cold, and gets flagged with a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty. Brown is laying there concussed, and for some reason Steelers assistant coach Joey Porter was on the field helping to tend to Brown, and Adam Jones gets flagged for an unsportsmanlike conduct for bumping an official while arguing with Porter, and now the Steelers have the ball at the Cincy 17. The Steelers then kick the game-winning field goal with only 14 seconds left. It was a complete meltdown by everyone involved with the Bengals. Burfict went head-hunting for Brown and got flagged, and Adam Jones reverts back to his "Pacman" days and gets flagged that essentially costs Cincy the game. It was one of the craziest moments I have ever seen in a playoff game.

9) The Steelers shouldn't avoid some criticism here. Why the hell is Joey Porter even on the field at this point of the game? It was just ridiculous and it added to the WWE-style aspect of this game. Just another crazy subplot in this crazy game.

10) This game reminded of what Vince McMahon envisioned when he created the XFL. This game will be always known to me as the "XFL" game. It was really just a wild and crazy night in Cincy. The Bengals now fall to 0-7 with Marvin Lewis as a head coach in the playoffs, and Cincy still hasn't won a playoff game since 1990. They were pound-for-pound the best team in the AFC all year, and now they are going home once again after their first playoff game. That is about as bad of a loss you can have as a Bengals fan, and there was a shot of a woman crying in the stands after the game, and it just about summed up what happened in this game to the Bengals and their fanbase.

11) The Steelers move on to Denver to take on the Broncos in the Divisional Round next week, and the injuries to Big Ben and Antonio Brown will be a very interesting theme going into this game.