Best moments from a wild NFL divisional round (1:15)Relive the spectacular catches and game-winning plays from the NFL divisional round. (1:15)
2. Nix hits Lil’Jordan Humphrey for a 29-yard touchdown
4. Ja’Quan McMillian intercepts Allen in overtime … I think
5. Rashid Shaheed returns the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown
6. Kenneth Walker III runs outside for a 15-yard score
7. Drake Maye hits DeMario Douglas for a 28-yard touchdown
8. Marcus Jones returns a Stroud interception 26 yards for a touchdown
9. Caleb Williams hits Cole Kmet for the longest 14-yard touchdown ever
The NFL playoffs divisional round didn’t lack drama. There were tears, broken bones, comprehensive blowouts, dramatic comebacks, a lot of snow and a controversial call or two.
I’ve highlighted 11 plays or moments that stood out to me from the divisional round, and sized up how they decided the games we watched. We’ll go roughly chronologically by starting with Bills-Broncos from Saturday afternoon.
The situation: First-and-10 from the Denver 32-yard line, Bills up 7-3 with 13:27 to go in the second quarter
You know what makes up for a lot of that? Thwap. On this pitch to Cook, Singleton was initially blocked by Dion Dawkins, but the left tackle knocked the Broncos linebacker one gap over. Singleton did a great job of regaining his footing, steadying himself and delivering a perfect driving tackle on Cook, who lost the ball. Talanoa Hufanga didn’t have his best game, but he was quickest to jump on the ball, giving the Broncos a key fumble recovery.
And it played a huge role in this game. The Bills were marching up and down the field on the Broncos early on. Buffalo led 7-3 and had the ball in field goal range with a new set of downs. If the Bills go up 14-3, does the game change? Instead, the Broncos took over on their 31-yard line and marched downfield without needing a third down until the final play of the drive, when Bo Nix hit backup lineman Frank Crum in the flat for a 1-yard touchdown.
Fumble luck is something nerds like me say is meaningful, and it played a huge role in deciding this game. There were seven fumbles in the game. A Jaleel McLaughlin fumble inside the 5-yard line was recovered by the Bills, but it was wiped off because of an offside penalty by Larry Ogunjobi. Nix should have had a touchdown pass shortly thereafter, but a drop led to a field goal. The Broncos came away with three points.
Those three field goals helped send the game to overtime. And though some fumbles can’t be prevented, sending Allen out with 17 seconds to go in the first half and no timeouts was clearly an ill-advised decision. It would be one thing to launch a ball to the sideline, but even if Allen had gotten down after the scramble, the Bills wouldn’t have had time for anything more than a Hail Mary. It was awful situational football from a veteran team that should know better.
Coach Sean McDermott hadn’t gotten much value for those timeouts. The Bills used one on offense after the first play of the game, the second on defense when they had 12 men on the field after a Broncos timeout and the third after the next play, when Cam Lewis made a tackle and couldn’t get off the field after suffering a cramp. And when that happened, the game swung again …
The situation: Second-and-10 from the Buffalo 29-yard line, score tied 10-10 with 0:22 to go in the second quarter
When Lewis went down cramping, though, the Bills were forced to turn to safety Darnell Savage, who was cut in-season by Jacksonville and spent most of the year in Washington. Savage joined the Bills in December, played one defensive snap against the Eagles, a full game in Week 18 alongside backups against the Jets and then came on the field for a grand total of three defensive snaps against the Broncos. The third and final defensive snap will haunt Savage and Bills fans for a long time.
The situation: Third-and-10 from the Denver 32-yard line, Broncos up 30-27 with 0:16 to go in the fourth quarter
One week after playing a nearly flawless game against the Jaguars, though, Allen had a handful of plays he would like to take back against the Broncos. We discussed the fumble before halftime earlier, when Allen wasn’t careful with the football at the wrong time. The Bonitto strip sack after halftime was perhaps less on the quarterback, but no one wants to fumble on back-to-back series. There were a number of pass plays, though, with which the Bills had an opportunity to score and didn’t.
Two key ones played out in the fourth quarter, and this was the bigger of the two. With the Bills having driven into field goal range trailing by three points, Allen had a couple of chances to take shots to the end zone. Facing a third-and-10 from the Denver 32-yard line with 16 seconds left, the Bills got into empty and had the Broncos defense in Cover 3.
With better execution, that screen might have scored or picked up a first down. A touchdown there would have put the Bills up eight with an extra point or nine if they had been brave enough to attempt (and then convert) a 2-point conversion. In the end, they settled for three, and the Broncos scored a touchdown to take the lead on the ensuing drive.
The situation: Third-and-11 from the Buffalo 36-yard line, scored tied 30-30 with 7:55 to go in overtime
What will linger with Bills fans deep into the offseason, of course, is what happened in overtime. On the play after Hardman’s miss, the Bills got Cooks matched up on a deep post away from McMillian in the slot. Cooks had a step on the younger cornerback, but after they both went up for the contested catch, McMillian came out of the pile with the football.
I’m glad I didn’t have to make this call. It seems impossibly close, and obviously, it played a huge role in deciding the game, given that the Bills would have been in field goal range if Cooks had caught the pass. There was also some push after-the-fact to call pass interference on McMillian given what happened on the ensuing drive, although I’m not sure that’s really warranted.
What made this worse, of course, is what happened next. The Broncos threw a quick pass to RJ Harvey, and Shaq Thompson and Cole Bishop both missed tackles, with Harvey going for 24 yards. The rest of Denver’s yardage to get in range for the game-winning field goal came on pass interference penalties, as Taron Johnson was flagged for 17 yards before White took a 30-yard penalty. The veteran corner added an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for throwing a tantrum and his helmet after the next snap.
The easiest thing to do is reduce a close game to a (perceived) bad call or subpar coaching decision. It’s a lot more difficult to break down what actually happened over the entirety of it and contextualize what happened around those calls. And I’m not sure that the Bills were actually impacted by a wrong call among those three overtime snaps, given that the roughing the passer penalty would have simply replaced the first pass interference call on Johnson.
That’s not going to stop some Bills fans from remembering this loss as a product of bad officiating, and while I don’t agree, that’s their right. I’d look back to another game from the past as an example of how reducing games to one snap or one call doesn’t do what actually happened justice. And coincidentally, of course, it’s a very famous game where the calls didn’t go Payton’s way.
What’s lost to history, though, is all the ways the Saints didn’t win the game without needing to rely on one call. The Saints dominated the Rams early, but they settled for two field goals in the red zone in the first quarter. Up 13-0 after 15 minutes, one of the league’s best offenses scored a total of seven points across its next five possessions. The Saints should have ended this game as a contest before that abysmal non-call.
The situation: Kickoff from the San Francisco 35-yard line, score tied 0-0 with 15:00 to go in the first quarter
There’s much less controversy to be had in the second game of the weekend, when the Seahawks got off to a dominant start and never looked back. Shaheed’s kickoff return touchdown was a spectacular moment from a battle of two of the league’s best special teams units.
The situation: First-and-10 from the San Francisco 15-yard line, Seahawks up 27-6 with 2:23 to go in the third quarter
We already know the Seattle defense is great, though, and what happened on the Seahawks’ offensive side of the ball might be more interesting. In my playoff preview, I noted that the Seattle running game had improved in the second half of the season, most notably by creating more explosive plays on the ground. Walker is simply too athletic of a back to go long stretches without creating 20-yard runs, and we saw more big plays from him and Zach Charbonnet down the stretch.
At its core, coordinator Klint Kubiak’s offense wants to run the ball on these zone runs with a consistently high success rate. Seattle hasn’t been able to run well for most of the season, with Darnold bailing out the offense by picking up huge chunks of yardage off play-action. (That serves as a reminder that teams don’t need to run the ball well to get play-action going; they simply need to convince linebackers that they’re willing to run the ball.)
Darnold has struggled badly since the first game against the Rams in November, dropping from first in Total QBR before the game to 27th since. The Seahawks have been able to survive, instead, by rushing. The 49ers aren’t stiff competition given the injuries they have on defense, but if the Seahawks can run the ball this effectively in the NFC Championship Game, it could be transformative for their offense.
The situation: Fourth-and-1 from the Houston 28-yard line, score tied 0-0 with 9:35 to go in the first quarter
This wasn’t a great game for the MVP candidate. For the second consecutive week, Maye simply held the ball too long in the pocket and didn’t do a good enough job of protecting it. While one of those fumbles came on a broken play in which Maye didn’t have a handoff option, decided to run upfield himself and had the ball knocked out as he was picking up a first down, Maye just didn’t play well.