Offences took a holiday on wild-card weekend

Maybe it was the absence of all those high-powered offences on byes.

Perhaps it was the jitters for some younger teams, particularly their quarterbacks: Deshaun Watson, Mitchell Trubisky and Lamar Jackson.

Or maybe defence actually still has a place in the NFL, especially in the playoffs.

The most points anyone scored during wild-card weekend, when only Dallas won at home, was 24 by the Cowboys. In total, 145 points were scored, an average of 36.2 per game. The Chiefs averaged 35.3 all by themselves this season.

As Nick Foles - St. Nick in Philly for his clutch work as a relief pitcher and, oh yes, as a Super Bowl champion - observed following the Eagles’ 16-15 comeback escape in Chicago : “Our defence really kept us in this game. It was a hard-fought defensive battle tonight and we were able to come up big in the end.”

Or as coach Anthony Lynn noted following the Chargers’ 23-17 win at Baltimore in which Los Angeles forced three turnovers and held the Ravens to 229 total yards, 90 on the ground: “Our defence was outstanding. We held that team down to 100 yards rushing. No one has played that team the way our defence played today. I was really impressed with the way our defence stepped up.”

All the winning defences will need to step up a few more rungs next weekend. Consider that aside from the Chiefs scoring 565 points this season, the Rams got 527, the Saints 504 and the Patriots 436. All of them will be at home.

The Colts (11-6) head to Kansas City (12-4) on Saturday, followed by the Cowboys (11-6) at the Rams (13-3). On Sunday, the Chargers (13-4) are at the Patriots (11-5), while the Eagles, who lost 48-7 at the Saints during the season, finish off the divisional round at New Orleans (13-3).

While the NFL loves to tout all the scoring records set during the 2018 season, all of the yards gained and general wide-openness of weekly contests, when it comes down to deciding who winds up in the conference title games, maybe the guys trying to stop those video-game offences will have a say.

It’s unlikely that any of the wild-card victors can win a Super Bowl without being balanced. The Eagles will need to play far better defence in the Big Easy or Drew Brees will have, well, an easy time picking apart a secondary playing mostly backups.