Blair Walsh and Martavis Bryant to the fore in wild weekend in NFL
Monday 11 January 2016 17:21, UK
No wonder they call it the Wild Card round. This past weekend in the NFL play-offs had a little bit of something for everybody - big plays, controversial moments, inclement weather, a heart-breaking and very shocking field goal miss and the return to form of a potential sleeping giant.
Here is what caught my eye after spending much of the weekend glued to the TV screens from the comfort of the Sky Sports studios.
Bengals have a melt-down
They are aptly naming Saturday night's play-off encounter in Cincinnati as the 'Meltdown in Paul Brown' (the name of the Bengals stadium). Given how they shot themselves in the foot late in their game with the Pittsburgh Steelers, it should come as no surprise that the Bengals have now gone 25 seasons since their last play-off victory.
Another five years and Baddiel and Skinner can release a single (do they still have singles these days?) about Cincinnati's own 30 years of hurt!
The worst thing about this 18-16 loss is that Cincinnati had the game won and even when they tried to blow it, victory should have still been very hard for Pittsburgh to achieve. But the Bengals handed their bitter rivals a ticket to the next round on a silver platter.
Jeremy Hill's fumble inside the game's final two minutes was bad enough, gifting Pittsburgh one more possession. And then things got really bad and a little out of control. Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict delivered the vicious and illegal head shot to Steelers star receiver Antonio Brown, who was knocked out cold. And it all kicked off!
But even with that 15-yard penalty, Pittsburgh's Chris Boswell was facing a 50-yard field goal in the cold and rainy conditions to win it. At least he would have been facing a testing kick had Bengals corner Adam Jones not got into a scuffle with Steelers assistant coach Joey Porter, who was actually about 53 yards from where he should have been on the opposite sideline! Jones bumped an official, was flagged another 15 yards and Boswell duly converted a very makeable 35-yard effort.
It was the stuff of nightmares for the Bengals and pointed to a team that was not capable of dealing with their emotions in the heat of the battle. And before you think I'm giving the Steelers a free pass, some of their actions were pretty questionable on the night and both teams showed an ugly side of the game I'd rather not see too often.
Best catch ever?
So much was made of Odell Beckham Jr's one-handed, over-his-head catch for the New York Giants last season and rightly so. But I think we should consider Martavis Bryant's effort for the Steelers on Saturday night to be every bit as good and possibly even better.
Bryant trapped the ball against the back of his thighs as he reeled in a 10-yard pass from Ben Roethlisberger. He had the ball secure and not moving as he got his feet down in the end zone but had to secure the ball all the way to the ground for the touchdown.
So even if Bryant had lost the ball five yards out of bounds as he fell to the ground, it would have been an incomplete pass. So how was he going to get the ball safely into his hands while it was trapped against the back of his legs and he was travelling at high speed?
The answer is simple, of course! You just do a forward front flip like an acrobat, switch the ball in front of you and secure your place in the annals of the greatest and most iconic catches in NFL history.
I think this catch tops OBJ's because of the athleticism required but also because of the thought Bryant had to put into the play in a mere split second in order to maintain control of the ball. It was a truly special effort from a freakishly athletic player.
Heart-break for Vikings
It was cruelly cold in Minneapolis on Sunday evening as the hometown Minnesota Vikings and Seattle Seahawks played in one of the coldest games in NFL history. When the game kicked off around lunchtime in America it was -21 degrees Celsius.
It felt a whole lot colder than that after the Vikings fought and scrapped for 59 and a half minutes only to lose 10-9 in a game that will hurt and haunt them throughout the long off-season. This was a game for fans of defensive football. There are often low scoring games brought about by bad offences, but not on this occasion. The defences were in top form and hitting hard and often.
Yet the Vikings found one final way to get into easy field goal range inside the last minute. Blair Walsh, who had made his previous kicks from 22, 43 and 47 yards, inexplicably hooked his 27-yard effort wide left and the Seahawks moved on to the next round of the play-offs.
Laces out?
You'll all be well aware of that phrase from the Ace Ventura movie and it certainly featured in Walsh's kicking on Sunday night. But did it cost the Vikings a place in the next round of the play-offs?
I did a bit of kicking when I played in the British leagues and was in Great Britain's squad as a kicker in the late 1990s. So I appreciate the fact that kickers don't like to boot the hard laces, especially when you kick without a shoe on like I did when I played.
You want the "laces out" and facing away from you. But it actually doesn't affect your accuracy - it would more affect the distance. If the laces were pointing to the left, the ball could hook that way and vice versa with the laces to the right.
But if the laces are facing right at you as they were for Walsh on Sunday, it will only affect you in terms of distance and perhaps mentally given the freezing conditions over the weekend. And we should remember that Walsh made an earlier 47-yard attempt with the laces facing him.
It was a very poor job of not spinning the ball around by holder Jeff Locke and while that might have got into the head of Walsh and put him off a little bit, the "laces out" theory did not have an impact on the direction of the ball on Sunday. And, of course, distance was never going to be a factor from 27 yards out.
Chiefs dominate Texans
Kansas City went into Saturday's game against the Houston Texans having lost eight play-off encounters in a row. But some of those games - dating back to the 1993 season - were against the likes of Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, John Elway, Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck.
The play-off streak did not feature any games against Brian Hoyer, who was terrible in the 30-0 Chiefs win. Houston's quarterback threw four interceptions and lost a fumble in an awful display and his team were never in this contest.
Houston's performance was summed up perfectly by this tweet from esteemed Houston Chronicle writer John McClain, who said: "The Texans are like puppies. So excited to be here and can't help but pee all over the carpet."
Hard to put it better than that, John.
Packers return to winning ways
There are many technical things we could discuss about the Green Bay Packers' 35-18 win over the Washington Redskins but here is one of the biggest things to come out of Sunday's game - quarterback Aaron Rodgers played with a smile on his face.
The Packers lost six of their last 10 games before entering the play-offs and the strain was beginning to show on Rodgers - he was not exuding the best of body language in Green Bay. He was looking frustrated and down in the dumps - and I think when the team looks to a leader like Rodgers, that is not a good thing.
Rodgers was better protected on Sunday and, of course, would have been happy about the performance and the result. But I think his happiness was more than just a reaction in Washington - I think he made a conscious effort to be a more upbeat and positive leader and it rubbed off on the whole team.
The Packers are not without flaws, but with Rodgers at the helm, they always have a Super Bowl chance.
