The NFL has a distinction that does what distinctions do.
Separates it from everything else.
It has the best postseason in all of sports.
Anyone who watched the games on Sunday would likely agree.
Tampa Bay versus the L.A. Rams and Buffalo against the K.C. Chiefs.
If those games didn’t scratch your sports itch, then there is no itch to scratch.
The defending champion Bucs fell behind 27-3, game over, right?
Not as long as Tom Brady is in the huddle. Tampa Bay, sure enough, roared back to tie the game near the end, but not at the end, leaving just enough time on the clock after its final score for the Rams to fiddle-faddle around, waiting for overtime, right?
Um … no.
Instead, the Rams flew down the field for the game-clinching score, a field goal by former Utah Ute Matt Gay. What … a … freaking … game, not to be matched.
Well. It took all of a few hours to match it with the overtime win by the Chiefs. One of the best games any sports fan could hope for — unless you’re a Bills fan.
Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, two of the great young quarterbacks in the game, went after each other, or after each other’s opposing defense, and the result was a stirring win for Kansas City. The Chiefs won the coin flip at the start of OT, and that’s what it took to give them the ball and, as it turned out, the victory.
All of that under the full duress that comes with the knowledge that whoever loses goes home.
In some years, historically, the Super Bowl has had some faults, what with mismatches and lopsided scores, especially with the massive hype that builds in the run-up to the championship game. Sometimes, it seems the extra time, the extra fluff, the emphasis on commercials and halftime shows and all the other stuff, in some people’s minds, clutters and dampens the football. Junks it up. Makes it an event more for corporate types and party-goers than hardcore football nuts.
But even that has often corrected itself in recent years.
Some fans might favor other postseasons — the NCAA Basketball Tournament, the NBA Finals and the World Series, as well as the playoff series that lead up to them, the Stanley Cup playoffs, the College Football Playoff … err, just kidding on that one.
But the NFL playoffs are the most riveting of the bunch, with all the drama wrapped up in a few hours each week, now or never. No second chances. No room for goof-ups and an opportunity to play another day in any sort of best-of-seven format. Some might like the buildup in a series, the questions that get asked and answered over two weeks of games against the same opponent to determine a winner, a survivor.
It’s cooler, though, to see that drama unfold now, inside of four quarters. The ebbs and the flows, the immediate changes in strategy and mood, the necessity to recover from adversity in the present, to bounce back from an onslaught and respond right away.
It was all there on Sunday, and it will be there again next week in the NFC and AFC championship games. But … already these playoffs have been fantastic. As they should be.
The NFL isn’t flawless. It has its troubles and its undulations regarding a number of issues.
But after a long regular season, with some games that are hardly filled with meaning, its postseason is perfect. That goes even for football fans in Utah, where there is no natural home team, where college football — between Utah, BYU and Utah State — rules the day.
If you’ve drifted away from professional football in recent times, for whatever reason, and you need a new reason to watch, if you don’t bet on outcomes to get a thrill and you need to root for a team in order to be interested enough to watch these games, go ahead and find one. Any one will do. Concoct one, if you must.
Then sit back in your seat and enjoy. Chances are good, by game’s end, you’ll end up on its edge.
