“Playoffs?! Don’t talk about—playoffs?! You kidding me?! Playoffs?!”
Yes, that is most of former Indianapolis Colts Head Coach Jim Mora’s famous quote when discussing his team making the playoffs back in 2001.
A quarter of a century later it is still being used.
And this weekend the 14 teams (12 teams in action with top seeds earning byes) that qualified for the National Football League (NFL) playoffs begin their quest for the Super Bowl.
We’ll start with Sunday, and the Buffalo Bills who finished at (12-5) good for the six seed in the American Football Conference (AFC) and a trip to Jacksonville, Florida to take on the AFC South Champion and third ranked (13-4 Jaguars.
The Jags have won eight in a row entering the post-season and feature the NFL’s top-ranked rushing defense.
The Bills on the other hand are the top rushing team in the league with 159.6 yards per game, led by James Cook, who rushed for 1,621 yards and 12 touchdowns,
Jacksonville allows just 85.6 rushing yards per game. The Jaguars did not allow a back to gain 75 yards in a game all season. To put that in perspective, only two other teams since 2000 have accomplished that feat.
So the trenches is where this game could be won, but here’s another interesting tidbit.
Jacksonville beat teams by an average of 19.1 points per game over their eight-game win streak.
Buffalo has lost eight straight road playoff games. The Bills last win outside of soon to be closed Highmark Stadium (formerly Rich and Ralph Wilson Stadium) – 1992 in Miami against the Dolphins in the AFC Championship game.
Many so called experts and pundits feel Josh Allen is the best quarterback in the playoffs, and that includes Jags head coach Liam Coen who told ESPN’s Rich Eisen:
“Huge respect for Josh, and really the whole Buffalo Bills. They’ve won at so many different levels, and have won a lot of critical games over the years.
He’s (Allen) the man. A total freak that plays the game, he’s a football player that also happens to play quarterback. He can run, can throw it, can improvise, do so many different things,
I really respect the way they run the football and run things there,” said Coen.
“We’re going to have a huge test this week.”
With no clear number one receiver, Allen has relied a lot on veteran tight end Dawson Know down the stretch.
“All the work that we put in starting in April leads us to this moment. Countless hours and days of preparation, the hard practices, camp, the whole regular season, all of it gets you ready,” Knox said.
“It’s a famous quote that: you don’t rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your training. I think that’s really important. So, falling back to that training that we’ve already put in – that preparation – gives you confidence.”
The other NFL playoff matchups are as follows:
AFC
(7) Los Angeles Chargers at (2) New England Patriots
Sunday, Jan. 11 at 8 p.m. ET
(5) Houston Texans at (4) Pittsburgh Steelers
Monday, Jan. 12 at 8:15 p.m. ET
Bye: (1) Denver Broncos
NFC
(7) Green Bay Packers at (2) Chicago Bears
Saturday, Jan. 10 at 8 p.m. ET
(6) San Francisco 49ers at (3) Philadelphia Eagles
Sunday, Jan. 11 at 4:30 p.m. ET
(5) Los Angeles Rams at (4) Carolina Panthers
Saturday, Jan. 10 at 4:30 p.m. ET
Bye: (1) Seattle Seahawks
Rod Mawhood is a lifelong Niagara native who has had the pleasure of working in all three mediums – Radio, Print and TV – for over 20 years. His first announcing gig was with the then St. Catharines Stompers. Since then he’s worked in radio and TV in Toronto, and currently is the announcer for the Niagara IceDogs and Niagara River Lions.
Rod also covers the Buffalo Bills for FOX Sports and the Buffalo Sabres for NBC Sports.
