With the final stretch of the National Football League (NFL) season finally in motion, it was an eventful and story-filled three days of games that kicked things off on the right note for the playoffs.

           The first game of the weekend on Saturday was, the Cincinnati Bengals vs. Las Vegas Raiders was a great first game to start the weekend and it went right down to the wire. The Bengals and their quarterback, Joe Burrow, kept a solid lead for a majority of the game keeping the Raiders at bay. But the Raiders trimmed the lead down to seven with it being 26-19 with under two minutes left. The Raiders drove down into the red zone but on 4th down quarterback, Derek Carr, threw the game-sealing interception and the Bengals won their first playoff game in 31 years. 

The second game of the Saturday was a primetime game with the New England Patriots vs. Buffalo Bills. This was to say the least a complete and utter annihilation with Bills quarterback Josh Allen throwing five touchdowns and the Bills winning 47-17.

          The start of Sunday’s games began with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Philadelphia Eagles. This was another blowout game as legendary quarterback Tom Brady put together another classic “Brady performance,” easily taking the Bucs to a 31-15 win. 

The mid-day Sunday game, the San Francisco 49ers  vs. Dallas Cowboys was my favorite game of the day, or at least the most interesting. The 49ers held the lead the whole way through but after late mistakes including an interception from quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. The Cowboys gave themselves one more drive to take the lead, with the score at 23-17. But after a run by Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, he made the mistake of not giving the ball to the referee and the time ran out before he could spike the ball. This would have stopped the clock but due to his mistake, there was no time, effectively ending the game and giving the 49ers an upset win. 

The final game of Sunday was the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Pittsburgh Steelers, which was another dominating performance on the favored Chiefs side. Star quarterback for the Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes, had a remarkable performance with five touchdown passes all being in just 10 and a half minutes of game time, that being the quickest to score that amount of touchdowns in NFL history. This performance led to a dominating 42-21 win for the Chiefs. The final game of the wild card weekend on Monday night was the Arizona Cardinals vs. Los Angeles Rams. This was the most dominating performance in my opinion of the weekend, as it wasn’t the biggest margin of victory, but the Rams had massive defensive pressure all game forcing mistake after mistake for Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray. This allowed the Rams to win 34-11 with no challenge from the Cardinals, making that a wrap on an eventful wild card weekend.