Strange playoff picture: Bills in, Seahawks out
Titans and Falcons make way into post-season with wins on final day
The Buffalo Bills are in the NFL playoffs. No, we’re not kidding. They needed some last-minute help from Cincinnati, which stunned Baltimore 31-27 after Buffalo had won at Miami 22-16 on Sunday. Those results lifted the Bills into the final AFC wild-card spot and a visit to Jacksonville this Sunday.
The last time they reached the post-season, the Bills lost in the Music City Miracle game in Nashville in January 2000. Their playoff drought was the longest current string in North American professional sports. But the happiness comes with a caveat: star running back LeSean McCoy was injured and carted off in the second half. He was seen in a walking boot after the game.
“We have been working so hard for this,” said Bills guard Richie Incognito. “And now the monkey is off our back. We’re in the post-season and we’ve got new life.”
The Jaguars are coached by Doug Marrone, who resigned as Buffalo’s coach exactly three years ago.
Baltimore’s late meltdown was stunning. The Ravens needed to stop a fourth-and-12 from their 49, and Andy Dalton found Tyler Boyd with 44 seconds left to pull out the win — and send the Ravens home. Baltimore had trailed most of the game before taking a 27-24 lead with 8:48 left.
“Even the game, I think, epitomizes a little bit the way the season went,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. “We had to battle our way back the way we did, and then not to be able to finish and win the game is about as tough as it can be.”
Tennessee had a win-and-get-in scenario and took advantage by beating the AFC South champion Jags 15-10. That gave the Titans their first playoff berth since 2008. They head to AFC West winner Kansas City on Saturday to open the wild-card round.
“We refused to go home,” Brian Orakpo said. “I didn’t want to be on a Southwest flight back to Texas tomorrow wondering, ‘what if.’ “It’s an unbelievable feeling.” The Falcons will get another chance to reach the Super Bowl, though this time as a wild card. The team that blew a 28-3 lead in the second half of the big game in February defeated Carolina 22-10 to earn a trip to the NFC West champ Rams. Los Angeles sat most of its regulars in losing to San Francisco 34-13. Falcons-Rams is Saturday night.
Seattle fell short of reaching the post-season with Atlanta’s win, but lost anyway to Arizona 26-24.
“All you want is an opportunity,” said Falcons defensive tackle Grady Jarrett. “We have one. Now it’s up to us to take advantage of it.”
The Panthers already were in, and they will meet NFC South division winner New Orleans on Sunday to finish off the opening round. The Saints swept their two meetings with Carolina this season.
New England (13-3), as it almost always seems to do, secured home-field advantage for the AFC playoffs by beating the Jets 26-6. Pittsburgh (13-3) got the No. 2 seed — its controversial loss to the Patriots in Week 15 was the tiebreaker — with its 28-24 victory over Cleveland. They both are off next week.
Minnesota (13-3) already had qualified for the post-season, and the Vikings grabbed a wild-card round bye with a 23-10 win over Chicago. The other bye in the NFC went to Philadelphia (13-3) as the top seed, and the Eagles played plenty of backups in a 6-0 defeat against Dallas.
Eight of the 12 playoff teams are new from last year: Buffalo, Tennessee, Jacksonville, the Rams, Philadelphia, Carolina, New Orleans and Minnesota. That includes two teams that finished last in their division in 2016 and won it this season: the Eagles and Jags.
The divisional round will open in Philadelphia on Saturday, Jan. 13, and New England will host a game that night.
On Sunday, Jan. 14, Pittsburgh hosts the early game, then the round concludes in Minnesota.
Seahawks lose finale, miss playoffs for the first time since 2011
SEATTLE — Doug Baldwin spent the week preparing for the inevitable reality, knowing that even with a victory it was going to be difficult for the Seattle Seahawks to make the playoffs for a sixth straight season.
“For it to end this way is really just disappointing,” Baldwin said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for all the years we have played in the playoffs, for getting nine wins. But there is more out there.
“There is definitely more out there for us.”
Seattle will have an entire off-season to lament its issues after Sunday’s 26-24 loss to Arizona to finish the 2017 season.
The Seahawks started the day needing help for the first time in Pete Carroll’s tenure if they were going to make the playoffs. Seattle (9-7) needed to beat the Cardinals and get a Carolina victory over Atlanta to earn a wild-card berth.
Neither fell in Seattle’s favour. The Falcons beat the Panthers moments after Phil Dawson gave the Cardinals the lead with his fourth field goal.
Even with the playoff hopes dashed, Seattle had one more chance to still finish with at least 10 wins for the sixth straight season.
Russell Wilson led one final drive with key completions to Baldwin and Jimmy Graham along the way. But Blair Walsh’s 48-yard attempt with 32 seconds remaining missed wide right, his eighth missed kick this season.
The way the finale played out and Walsh’s missed kick was a microcosm of Seattle’s season. Early struggles, followed by a second-half rally and ultimately too much inconsistency and too many missed opportunities that left the Seahawks on the outside of the playoffs.
“The slow starts, the getting in our own way, making it hard on us at times when it wasn’t about the opponent, it was about us,” Carroll said. “There is a lot of stuff that kind of showed up again today.”
Seattle went 4-4 at home, three times losing games because Walsh’s kicks were inaccurate. The losses weren’t entirely his responsibility but losses to Washington, Atlanta and Arizona were partly due to Walsh missing kicks.
“I had some big games and some moments where I came up short. So it’s a tough year, it’s a weird year,” Walsh said.
Then again, if Seattle didn’t have another awful first half on Sunday, it wouldn’t have come down to Walsh. Seattle was flat from the start with only Tyler Lockett’s 99-yard kickoff return touchdown keeping the Seahawks close in the first half.
At one point in the second quarter, the Cardinals were outgaining Seattle 140-0 and had an 11-0 edge on first downs. The result was a 20-7 halftime deficit.