NFL Takeaways: Divisional Round

Photo by Timothy Ludwig from Getty Images

We’re down to the final four.

It’s pretty crazy that there’s only three more games of football this year.

It feels like this season flew by.

Still, let’s enjoy the last few while we can.

Chiefs defeat Jaguars 27-20

The Chiefs are in their 5th straight AFC title game, and that’s great, but my main takeaway was how competitive the Jags were.

That was not a very good defense statistically, the team was 2-6 and, like many expected, pretty terrible this year.

But Trevor Lawrence and the whole team turned it up to another level to win the division, and very much so held their own against a clear favorite in the AFC.

It was a promising season, and a very promising sign for a young Jags team going forward.

Eagles defeat Giants 38-7

The Giants upsetting the Vikings wasn’t very surprising. Both teams have well coached offenses and bad defenses.

The issue is, the Giants upset led to some believing there was a possibility that they would upset the Eagles.

That was never going to happen, and the talent gap between the two squads was shown in full force.

That does not mean the Giants are bad.

It just means the Eagles are much, much better. And it was foolish for anyone to think otherwise.

Bengals defeat Bills 27-10

If you told me the Bengals would beat the Bills in a snowy Buffalo, I wouldn’t be surprised. I would have assumed Burrow had a tremendous game and won a close one against a good Bills team.

I was not expecting the Bengals to completely dominate the game in every aspect.

This wasn’t even as close as the score indicates, and it still wasn’t that close of a score.

The Bills started the year so promising.

It’s a little concerning how much it fell apart near the end compared to the Chiefs or Bengals.

Those two are now clearly the top 2 in the AFC, and you could potentially even put the Ravens above them considering how well they played the Bengals without Lamar.

It’ll be an interesting offseason in Buffalo.

49ers defeat Cowboys 19-12

The playoffs are a game of inches.

Each potential play can make or break your entire season.

The Cowboys had a redzone interception which led to a Niners field goal.

The Cowboys dropped an interception.

On that same drive, they had a 3rd and long holding penalty extend the drive. The Niners would score a touchdown.

KaVontae Turpin had a big kick return that, instead of cutting it outside for a touchdown, cut back inside and got tackled. The Cowboys ended up with a field goal.

By all accounts, the Cowboys were the better team all game long.

But the lack of capitalizing on what the Niners gave them and simple mistakes they made lead to another playoff exit.

They have nobody to blame but themselves.