Is it Time to Get Rid of Super Wildcard Weekend?
Is it time to get rid of Super Wildcard Weekend? I think, yes. There have definitely been boring Wildcard Weekends before but this seemed exceptionally painful. I love watching football, every Sunday from 1 pm until 11:15 pm, I’m on the couch watching games. These games nearly all put me to sleep. I don’t watch college football because too many games end before halftime, this happened in three of five games this weekend. Truly boring, especially when it feels like another game was decided because of incompetent officiating.
(5) Las Vegas Raiders at (4) Cincinnati Bengals
This game was set in stone as soon as the Whistle Heard Round the World™ went called incorrectly. Why have rules if you’re not going to implement them properly? It doesn’t make sense to anyone. Then for the league to double down and lie, saying that the whistle was after the pass was caught. Blasphemy, we all heard it before the ball hit hands. Once again, the NFL ignored science as the brain processes sound faster than sight, so players heard the whistle and stopped because that ball is dead. That’s what they preach, play to the whistle. While the final score (26-19 Cincinnati) was a fairly close one, the game never felt close, in my not so humble opinion.
(6) New England Patriots at (3) Buffalo Bills
As a Patriots fan, it’s obvious that this one hit hardest for me but at halftime, the pain was dulled by my need to make jokes. I prepared all week to deal with the emotional damage of taking a loss but was also proud of this team for making it to Super Wildcard Weekend with a rookie QB and plenty of new additions to the roster. Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills are a competitive football team, the better football team right now. They deserved to win from the start of the game. New England, seemingly, never showed up to Orchard Park – particularly on defense. Mac Jones couldn’t buy a catch from a receiver not named Kendrick Bourne. The Patriots got their booty’s embarrassed on a national broadcast by a final score of 47-17 Bills. The only people who didn’t find the game boring were Bills fans (rightfully so) and Patriots’ haters.
(7) Philadelphia Eagles at (2) Tampa Bay Buccaneers
In Tampa, there was another bloodbath from start to finish. At first, it looked like the Eagles had the Patriots playing defense for them, could not slow Brady and Co. down at all. Eagles QB Jalen Hurts couldn’t get anything going on offense. When it looked like he had a rhythm going, Hurts was intercepted in the endzone. The Eagles’ defense bought some stops, when it came down to it, the game was already out of hand. With a final score of 31-15 for the Bucs, the game wasn’t ever as close as it seems via the box score. Everyone knew the Buccaneers would win handily, despite the Antonio Brown drama from the last couple of weeks.
(6) San Francisco 49ers at (3) Dallas Cowboys
The most exciting matchup of the week. Thankfully, it went the way that I hoped it would, not the way I predicted it would. The game changed drastically when 49ers DE Nick Bosa was ruled out with a concussion to start the second half, but the loss didn’t seem to slow San Fran’s defense down much. The 49ers still managed to sack Dak Prescott a total of 5 times. Jimmy G had a costly turnover late in the game to bring the momentum back to the Cowboys sideline. It didn’t slow his team down for too long, though. All in all, there were too many coaching mistakes from Mike McCarthy, and even Kyle Shanahan, too. No shock from either head coach, if we’re being honest. Both teams took turns shooting themselves in the foot late in the game. It was, overall, the most entertaining game of Super Wildcard weekend, despite how messy the final quarter was.
The game ended in absolute chaos, Dak ran for a first down with 14 seconds remaining, no timeouts, and never gave the ball to an official to set the ball properly. This led to a lot of angry Cowboys fans, players, and coaches. In reality, just another poor play call from the Dallas coaching staff. Final score, 23-17 San Francisco.
(7) Pittsburgh Steelers at (2) Kansas City Chiefs
This game was competitive for about 20 game minutes. No score after the first quarter finished, which I was pleasantly surprised it was going that direction. Then the second quarter started. Miscues on the Chiefs gave the Steelers a defensive touchdown at the hands of TJ Watt. That’s about where the positives stopped for Pittsburgh until a few garbage time TD passes. KC ran the Steelers, and Big Ben’s retirement party, into the ground. The final score was 42-21 in favor of Kansas City but if you watched that game, you know it was never that close – and that’s a blowout. Again, the only people who found this game entertaining were Chiefs fans or Steelers haters. As a Steelers hater, I still found it to be incredibly uninteresting. The Steelers had no chance against KC. They only made the postseason because the Chargers called a ludicrous timeout with :38 seconds left. At least Ben Roethlisberger all but confirmed his retirement in his postgame press conference.
Final Thoughts
The expanded playoff format stinks on ice. There isn’t much to watch for in terms of competitiveness. I think it’s time to get rid of Super Wildcard Weekend, no 7th seeded team won in both seasons since being implemented. It’s boring, there’s a significant drop off, in terms of competitiveness, from just the 6th seed to the 7th. One team fighting for a Bye is nice, in theory, but it hasn’t translated well at all. Blowout games are boring to the average fan and a superfan, especially in the postseason. I am praying that the final matchup between the Arizona Cardinals and Los Angeles Rams is a competitive game. Please, NFL, do away with the 14 team playoff format.
Featured image via SteelersDepot.com
-Jess Donahue (@jldx392)
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