With Super Bowl LVI on the horizon and a spot in the conference championships at stake, the four games in the divisional round of the 2021-22 National Football League playoffs each went down to the dying seconds and one final kick.
In what proved to be the greatest divisional round in the history of the playoffs, first up on Saturday it was the Cincinnati Bengals rookie Evan McPherson who took advantage of an interception by Logan Wilson and the almost telepathic relationship between quarterback Joe Burrow and wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase.
At the end of a scoreless fourth quarter, with the game tied at 16-16, Wilson’s interception from a tipped pass by the Tennessee Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill gave the Bengals just twenty seconds to make a play. One 15-yard pass to Chase and a couple of running plays put McPherson on the edge of field goal range, with his 52-yard kick as time expired sending the Bengals into raptures and crushing the Titans crowd, even though A. J. Brown ended the game as the top receiver and their star running back Derrick Henry made a successful return having been out with a fractured foot since week eight.
Hours later as the snow covered Lambeau Field, it was the turn of the San Francisco 49ers to plunge a dagger into the heart of Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers, as the Red and Gold burst into life late in the fourth quarter amid the freezing conditions towards the end of another low-scoring game.
The 49ers had managed a solitary field goal deep into the fourth quarter, with a first quarter touchdown and a late field goal handing the Packers a 10-3 lead. But as both teams struggled in the bitter conditions, a punt from the Green Bay 12-yard line was blocked by the San Francisco defensive end Jordan Willis, with Talanoa Hufanga scooping up the ball and scrambling six yards into the end zone to tie the game.
Aaron Rodgers tried to find his favourite target Davante Adams over the top of the San Francisco defence, but when the Packers were forced into another punt the 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo received the ball with three minutes and 20 seconds remaining. As has so often been the case this season, Deebo Samuel stepped up as an all-purpose offensive threat, catching a couple of passes and completing a handful of driving and darting runs to put Bobby Gould within 45 yards of the posts. His field goal as time expired sent Green Bay packing for another year.
History was prone to repeat itself even as wars of attrition gave way to breakneck action. After the slugfests of Saturday night, on Sunday it was a similar story in coastal Tampa, where a late surge from the Buccaneers seemed to carry with it a brisk air of inevitability. Football fans had watched this tale unfold so many times before as Tom Brady willed his team towards an improbable comeback.
By the mid-point of the third quarter, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were trailing 27-3 versus the Los Angeles Rams, not helped by some slack play on special teams and three penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct. Just as Brady appeared to be building up a head of steam, a sack from the venerable linebacker Von Miller gave Los Angeles the ball, only for the Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford to miss the snap in a frantic start to the fourth quarter.
Both sides spurned opportunities with the Bucs twice turning the ball over on downs, and with three minutes and 56 seconds left on the clock, Brady received the ball 77 yards from the goal line. A 55-yard pass to Mike Evans cut the deficit to 27-20, and when Ndamukong Suh forced a fumble on the second play of the Rams drive, Los Angeles fans began to lament what by now felt like the cruel hands of fate. Brady the seven-time Super Bowl champion helped the Bucs down the field before Leonard Fournette tied the score with a nine-yard running touchdown.
Just 42 seconds of the game remained, and after all the brilliance of the first half – capped by Stafford’s 70-yard touchdown pass to Cooper Kupp, the National Football League’s standout receiver – now the Rams looked shell-shocked and ripe for the taking. Instead they managed to pull themselves back together. Two passes from Stafford to Kupp for a combined total of 64 yards put the Rams on the 12-yard line, where a hurried spike with 4 seconds left was followed by the winning field goal from Matt Gay, leaving the Bucs season in embers.
All three games had been decided by a walk-off field goal from the away side. Defeats for the Tennessee Titans and the Green Bay Packers will make this the first postseason since 2010-11 to feature neither of the top seeds in their respective championships. Meanwhile the Tampa Bay Buccaneers remain the reigning Super Bowl champions, no longer with the opportunity to defend their crown.
After ending the longest active playoff drought in the sport, the upset caused by the Cincinnati Bengals gave them their first road playoff win in franchise history. The San Francisco 49ers on the other hand were merely rubbing salt into old wounds, as Aaron Rodgers and Green Bay are now 0-4 in playoff games versus their hard-hitting opponents from the West Coast. Matthew Stafford continues his first run in the postseason, but his quarterback heroics were overshadowed by the usual questions surrounding Tom Brady’s future.
The final game of the weekend between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills seemed like the cherry on top of the icing, pitting two of the most attacking sides in American football against each other for the second consecutive year. Instead the match provided fans with more layers of sponge and thick squirts of creamy filling, climaxing with an astonishing 25 points scored inside the final two minutes.
Two long scoring drives had opened proceedings, the first finished off by Devin Singletary after the Bills twice converted on fourth down, while the second was capped by the Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes who dove with outstretched arms to reach the end zone pylon. Then it was anything you can do, I can do better as the Bills responded swiftly to a couple of Kansas City touchdowns, with a 75-yard pass from Josh Allen to Gabriel Davis keeping the Buffalo side well in contention at the end of the third.
At the start of the fourth quarter, offsetting penalties allowed the Chiefs to retake a punt return. With Tyreek Hill in the backfield, the speedster raced for 45 yards and Harrison Butker kicked a field goal to put Kansas ahead by 26-21. Then as the clock edged inside two minutes, the Bills completed a manic 19-play drive as Josh Allen harried and scrambled before facing fourth down and long. His 27-yard touchdown pass to Davis, followed by a miraculous 2-point conversion which found Stefon Diggs in the back of the end zone, handed the Bills a three point lead with one minute and 57 seconds on the clock.
Normally enough time for one last drive, it took Mahomes and the Chiefs less than a minute to charge down the field with a 64-yard pass to Hill putting them back in the ascendancy. But with the ball back in Allen’s hands, the Bills talisman bundled through a handful of plays before another pass to Davis split the Chiefs down the middle, putting Buffalo on the cusp of a memorable victory with just 13 seconds left to play.
The Chiefs had to move fast and nobody moves faster than Tyreek Hill, who bounded for 19 yards before a 25-yard pass from Mahomes found the tight end Travis Kelce. Now Harrison Butker – who had spurned a 50-yard field goal attempt at the end of the first half before botching an extra point in the third quarter – was 49 yards away from a tied game, and the usually formidable kicker hit his mark to send the Chiefs and the Bills into overtime.
With the defences tiring while the offences were now firing on all cylinders, it felt like whoever won the toss would see out the match, and so it proved as Mahomes completed five passes for 50 yards, with Jerick McKinnon and Mecole Hardman scampering down the field before Travis Kelce sealed the game with an eight-yard touchdown pass caught over his left shoulder.
The combined 25 points scored in the final two minutes of regular time stand as the second-most of any game in the Super Bowl era. With a touchdown ending the match, in overtime the Bills and Josh Allen never laid hands on the football. The four end zone passes caught by Gabriel Davis during the course of the game sets a new benchmark for the postseason, while Allen exits the playoffs with nine touchdown throws from just two matches.
The Chiefs meanwhile were the only home side to progress at the end of a staggering weekend of American football. As both sides paid their tributes at the end of a thrilling match, Patrick Mahomes said:
‘It was definitely special to win a game like this at Arrowhead. Obviously the Super Bow was probably number one for me, but this one is right up there. To be able to come back a couple of times, get points when we needed to get points, score touchdowns, get in field goal range, I’ll remember it forever.’
The Cincinnati Bengals will travel to the Kansas City Chiefs for the American Football Conference championship game next weekend, while the San Francisco 49ers will shuffle their way down the coast to face the Los Angeles Rams for the National Football Conference championship. SoFi Stadium, home to the Los Angeles Chargers and Los Angeles Rams, will host Super Bowl LVI on 13 February, with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, and Kendrick Lamar providing the halftime entertainment.
