One: That was one of the best NFL regular season finales I can ever remember watching.
On Sunday night, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens battled it out for the last remaining playoff spot and the division crown. At the confluence of the three rivers, these two combined for a gritty, mostly defensive first half that saw the Ravens take a 10-3 lead into the break.
In the second half, though, we saw an explosion of offense. Aaron Rodgers and Lamar Jackson took turns throwing bombs down the field and a shootout ensued in the fourth quarter. The Steelers thought they had the game locked away after Rodgers hit Calvin Austin for a touchdown with 55 seconds left. But an extremely rare missed extra point from Chris Boswell left it a two-point game, meaning the Ravens had a chance to seal it with a field goal.
It all culminated in a game-deciding field goal kick by Ravens rookie Tyler Loop, and, well…
Is this the game of the year?
Two: Amidst all of the chaos around this game, I just want to take a moment to talk about the excellence of Mike Tirico.
Tirico has done an amazing job ever since taking over the Sunday night broadcast from Al Michaels on NBC a few years back, but he saved one of his best moments from the booth for this year’s regular season finale. If you somehow missed this game, I just want you to listen to how he sets up the last play of the game.
The backstory, the build-up, the kick itself, and the aftermath. It was all so perfect.
Calls like these are what make an unbelievable, storybook-like moment all the more thrilling to watch.
Three: So after all of this, we get to see at least one more game from Aaron Rodgers.
The 42-year-old quarterback has been asked several times whether this will be his last NFL season. He signed a one-year deal with the Steelers in the offseason and has danced around officially declaring when he will officially ride off into the sunset.
But, he’ll have a chance to lead his team to a playoff run in what is (maybe) his final season. Pittsburgh will host Houston in the wild card round on Monday night, and Rodgers will have a chance to help the Steelers do something they haven’t done since 2016: win a playoff game.
Four: Do you want to know how wide open the NFL in this season? The 8-9 Carolina Panthers just won their division and will host a playoff game.
Carolina did that despite losing their last game of the season, against a fellow 8-9 team in Tampa Bay who was also vying for the NFC South, their only possible way to get into the postseason.
For the Panthers, Saturday was a simple win-and-get-in game, but the Buccaneers outlasted them in a 16-14 game that saw some…questionable officiating go Tampa’s way. But for Tampa, a win wasn’t all they needed to get into the postseason. The Buccaneers also needed New Orleans to beat Atlanta the following day to give them the edge and avoid a three-way tie, which they did not hold tiebreakers in.
In the end, Atlanta won it 19-17, getting themselves to 8-9 as well and sending Carolina to the postseason.
Five: Call me crazy, but this kind of beautiful chaos is the kind of stuff I want to see every year during the final week of the NFL season.
The NFL has a serious problem with their product in the last week. Ever since moving to a 17-game schedule, it feels like the last week features more and more boring, borderline unwatchable games. Yes, this year did feature Seattle and San Francisco batting for the one-seed, Tampa Bay and Carolina fighting for the four-seed and the division, and Pittsburgh and Baltimore in a win-and-get-in.
But the general product is far less watchable than it is earlier in the season. One of the ways to make it more fun is to have goofiness like that to make it more interesting.
I don’t know, I just like chaos. Thank you to the NFC South for combining to give us some.
Six: Carolina will be written off by everyone as they gear up for the postseason.
They are a young team with a quarterback who is making his postseason debut, and their 8-9 record makes it pretty hard to take them seriously as host San Francisco next weekend. But, it’s the playoffs, and this year in the NFL truly feels like it’s wide open.
It would be really fun to see a team like that go on a bit of a run and make some noise. In the rare event that a team this “bad” gets into the postseason, they usually are dismissed rather quickly. But Carolina has some talent, and sometimes the teams without any pressure are the ones that are the most dangerous.
Anyone remember the Beast Quake? Anything can happen in the postseason.
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