SI:AM | Why This Was the Most Exciting NFL Wild-Card Weekend Ever

Four of the five games went down to the wire. Can the divisional round match that intensity?

Caleb Williams and the Bears engineered a massive comeback over the Packers. They weren’t the only team to win a tight one on wild-card weekend. / Matt Marton-Imagn Images

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. Saturday and Sunday’s playoff games were great, but I’m not expecting tonight’s matchup to be all that close. I think Aaron Rodgers is going to be tortured by a really tough Texans defense. 

In today’s SI:AM: 
🏈 Breer’s NFL takeaways
🦅 Big questions for the Eagles
📝 Cubs’ bold signing

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Best opening weekend ever?

If you went to bed last night thinking, “damn, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen two days of NFL playoff football that exciting,” you’re right. By at least one measure, it was the most thrilling opening weekend of the NFL postseason in history. 

To recap, the Rams beat the Panthers, 34–31; the Bears beat the Packers, 31–27; the Bills beat the Jaguars, 27–24; the 49ers beat the Eagles, 23–19; and the Patriots beat the Chargers, 16–3. 

There’s still one more game to be played tonight (Texans vs. Steelers), but this opening round has already seen more competitive games than any previous year. The first four games of the weekend were all decided by four points or fewer. No previous wild-card weekend had more than three such games, and that only happened one time (2013). Now, I must include the obvious caveat that the NFL expanded the playoffs somewhat recently. From 1990 to 2019, there were four games in the wild-card round. Since then, there have been six. It might not be that surprising, then, that since there are more opening-round games, more of them were competitive. This weekend’s games still stand out. 

There has never been an NFL postseason with more than six games decided by four or fewer points—in any round. With eight games left to play this postseason, there’s a good chance that number will be exceeded this year. 

It wasn’t just that the games were close, either. Aside from the Patriots-Chargers slog, each one went down to the wire. The Rams scored their winning touchdown with 38 seconds left, the Bears’ go-ahead score came with 1:43 on the clock and Josh Allen punched it in for the Bills with 1:04 remaining. The Eagles had the ball deep in Niners’ territory in the final minute but failed to convert on a fourth-and-11 from the 21-yard line with 43 seconds left. 

So what should we make of this weekend’s tighter-than-usual games? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps it’s just random chance that the bracket paired equally matched teams with complementary styles. Or maybe the weekend’s tightly contested games were more evidence of how the NFL has had fewer truly elite teams this season. Many of the teams that have been fixtures at the top of the standings in recent years, like the Chiefs, Eagles and Ravens, have underperformed this season. The teams with the best records this season (the Patriots, Broncos and Seahawks) all have their detractors, primarily because many observers have doubts about their quarterbacks with limited track records. 

This weekend’s results have set up some tantalizing matchups for the divisional round that should, at least on paper, be as competitive as the wild-card round was. Josh Allen and the high-powered Bills offense will face the Broncos’ tough defense in Denver; the Seahawks and 49ers are set for a rubber match after splitting their two regular-season games; Caleb Williams will get to continue his breakout season against the Rams and perhaps give Bears fans two home wins in the same postseason for the first time in 19 years; and the Patriots will face either a red-hot Texans team (winners of nine straight entering tonight’s game) or the Steelers in perhaps Aaron Rodgers’s final game. This past weekend will be a tough act to follow, but the upcoming slate of matchups could be just as good. 

The best of Sports Illustrated

Justin Herbert could be headed down the same path as other talented Chargers quarterbacks who never saw playoff success. / David Butler II-Imagn Images

• Defensive tackle Milton Williams tells Albert Breer about Mike Vrabel’s vision for the Patriots. Breer also has more on this weekend’s come-from-behind winsin his wild-card takeaways.
• The defending champions have been ousted, and Conor Orr says the Eagles must ask questions about their identity.
• Gilberto Manzano explains why quarterback Josh Allen and the Bills appear poised to go all the way to the Super Bowl.
• Justin Herbert has the talent to win a Super Bowl. Instead, the Chargers have him on the same path as Philip Rivers and Dan Fouts. Manzano argues that Jim Harbaugh needs to make serious changes to save Herbert from a similar fate.
• Tom Verducci explores the Cubs’ bold move in signing Alex Bregman despite some warning signs about the third baseman’s future.
• Anthony Kim was one of three to earn 2026 LIV Golf wild-card spots via a qualifying tournament that could be important to the league’s future, Bob Harig writes.

The top five…

… things I saw last night: 
5. This video breakdown by Ted Nguyen of The Athletic explaining how Kyle Shanahan designed the play that resulted in Christian McCaffrey’s game-winning touchdown catch. 
4. Alex Ovechkin’s one-timer for his 20th goal of the season. He’s the first 40-year-old since Jaromír Jágr in 2015–16 to have 20 goals in a season. 
3. The Pelicans bench’s reaction to Zion Williamson doing a boring dunk on a fast break. 
2. Josh Allen’s nine-yard gain on a tush push play on fourth-and-inches late in the fourth quarter. Buffalo ran the same play immediately after to score the winning touchdown. 
1. Jauan Jennings’s touchdown throw to McCaffrey on a trick play.