The playoffs are a unique Western invention. In other sports leagues around the world, most of the time, when you finish first in the regular season, you’re crowned the champion then and there. There is no need to qualify your greatness or try to etch your name into legend anymore. Someone else, meaning the calendar, did the job for you. There’s no more games to play, no more sudden death, no more churn to push through. You finished at the top of the standings, and here’s your reward:
A shiny trophy and an update, somewhere, to a Wikipedia entry. Two things of equal value.
In America, the playoffs are a gift. They’re an extra topping of dessert. Another month (or two) of play to decide the merits of a true champion who can live on the edge and manage to survive. In systems like this, such as the NFL’s, the best regular-season team doesn’t always finish the postseason on top. It’s rather quite rare, or at least happens less often than you’d think. The best isn’t always there when the dust settles.
If it happened this year, in this oh-so-memorable January, the Rams and Bengals wouldn’t be meeting in Super Bowl LVI in two weeks. It’d be the Packers and Titans. Think of the chaos we would’ve missed if this were the case; if Green Bay and Tennessee, the respective No. 1 seeds, steamrolled their way to the Super Bowl, with nary a second thought.
Rookie kicker Evan MacPherson wouldn’t have become a figure of Cincinnati folklore. A plate in Derrick Henry’s foot would’ve meant nothing en route a mack truck of a performance.
Robbie Gould wouldn’t have figuratively and metaphorically buried Green Bay as snowflakes fell around Lambeau Field. The Packers would have, instead, tossed aside the hapless 49ers.
Matthew Stafford’s heroics against the almost-mythical Tom Brady wouldn’t have mattered. They would’ve been forgotten by everyone outside of Los Angeles within a week after the Rams’ apparent loss to the Packers in the NFC Championship Game.
Every moment of consequence would’ve been washed away, for naught. All entries and happy memories stashed into a dark vault, to vanish forever. They wouldn’t have been allowed in the first place.
But then the Bengals went head-to-head with Patrick Mahomes, the epitome of a Goliath, and shut him down.
RING THAT BELL!
Watch on CBS pic.twitter.com/dDZVDGwW3i
— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) January 30, 2022
Later, with the 49ers on the precipice of a deflating three-game season sweep, this NFC-title clinching pick by Travin Howard would’ve taken place in a different dimension, because this was a Packers’ spot. Everyone else was just keeping it warm.
THE PRESSURE! THE PICK!
📺 @NFLonFOX pic.twitter.com/dqUUexZEIn
— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) January 31, 2022
What is clear from this evidence, Your Honor, is that what looks like the best on paper doesn’t always turn out to be the best in substance. We wouldn’t see one of the most dramatic January’s in NFL history, filled with so many chaotic twists and turns if the paper wasn’t ripped to shreds. It had to be. Everything’s more fun off the cuff, when it comes from the heart, when every moment comes down to the wire.
That dramatic postseason has gifted us Bengals-Rams in Super Bowl LVI (where the Rams are favored -4.5 by Tipico Sportsbook). The use of the word gift is intentional: We should embrace the end result of any incredible playoff like this because it’s a present.
Yes, please to two No. 4 seeds, one who knocked off Pat Mahomes, the other Tom Brady, both in their houses.
Joe Burrow, the cool young customer in his first full season as a starter in the Super Bowl against Matthew Stafford, a gifted but flawed player finally receiving acclaim. Keep it coming.
Give me every last bit of acrobatics from a spectacular set of playmakers in Cooper Kupp, Ja’Marr Chase, Odell Beckham Jr., and Tee Higgins.
Let’s see Trey Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard try to rack up more sacks and pressures than Von Miller and Aaron Donald. They may as well count them by stacks on a delicate plate the way both duos are playing lately.
Bengals-Rams wasn’t going to be the matchup we got on paper in Super Bowl LVI. That’s okay. This Super Bowl is a grand finale that will undoubtedly be worth tuning into for every last bit of drama.
One final act to an epic month, one no one in their right mind foresaw. With another round of fireworks undoubtedly on the horizon, we’re better off for it.
Gannett may earn revenue from Tipico for audience referrals to betting services. Tipico has no influence over nor are any such revenues in any way dependent on or linked to the newsrooms or news coverage. See Tipico.com for Terms and Conditions. 21+ only. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (NJ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO).
