Home Field Sucks In NFL’s Wildcard Weekend

Three of the four home teams lost in the NFL’s opening round of the playoffs, leading one to wonder what’s so special about “home field advantage” anyway. Well, not much. The late Bill Walsh used to check his teams into hotel rooms on the nights before home games, realizing that his teams would be less distracted if they could get away from their families and friends for a night. In a sport where there’s little difference between a 10-6 team and a 6-10 team, every advantage matters.

Winning at home in the NFL makes up for a lot of shortcomings, and probably masks a few as well. Green Bay, Indianapolis and Seattle were playoff teams that all failed to post winning road records this season. Only Green Bay was on the road this past weekend. Like the two other road teams advancing to next weekend’s divisional round, theirs was a happy trip home.

Seattle Seahawks 41, New Orleans Saints 36.

Marshawn Lynch was truckin’ fools as the NFL’s losingest playoff entry in history shut up the doubters by knocking off the defending champs. Lynch had 19 carries, but none better than this 67-yard rumble through the heart of the Saints defense in the fourth quarter to give his team a lead that they would not relinquish.

It’s pretty awesome when set to Super Mario, yes? The Tecmo Bowl version is pretty good, too. Lynch doesn’t grab his balls at the end of this one, but it’s still notable.


New York Jets 17. Indianapolis Colts 16.

Adam Vinatieri happened, and then Nick Folk took it upon himself to out-Vinatieri Vinatieri, with a little help from Antonio Cromartie. After Vinatieri booted a 50-yarder with 53 seconds left in the game, but Cormartie’s 47-yard kickoff return set up a chip-shot 32-yard field goal from Folk, knocking last year’s AFC champs out of the post-season.

The Jets had a little help from a final drive after clock stoppages from a booth review and then a suspect timeout from Colts coach Jim Caldwell.

Caldwell said the strategy was to make the Jets run as many plays as possible, and pointed out that the week before, the Colts had recovered a late fumble by Titans quarterback Kerry Collins in a similar situation. The Colts drove for a game-winning field goal after Collins’ fumble and won, 23-20.

“It’s probably not much different than the week before,” Collins said. “They were in field goal range, use your timeouts, make them take another snap. In some cases, they will run it. If they do, then obviously they’ll run the clock down and they’ll take a stab at it from there. In other cases, they’ll throw it and that gives us some other opportunities, a sack, tackling them out of field goal range, sack-fumble, interception, tipped ball, a lot of things can happen in that situation.

–SF Chron.

Counterpoint: Jim Caldwell is the worst coach in the NFL today. At least now he’ll have a couple extra weeks to get ready for 2011.

Baltimore Ravens 30, Kansas City Chiefs 7.

Kansas City kept this game close in the first half and then decided that they didn’t want the ball anymore. Five turnovers–including three picks from Kansas City quarterback Matt Cassel–plagued the hopes of the Chiefs’ mounting a comeback. Todd Heap made 10 catches; that‘s a franchise best.

Green Bay Packers 21, Philadelphia Eagles 16.

Aaron Rodgers sort of avenges that early-round playoff exit from last season, throwing for three touchdowns and essentially closing the book on Michael Vick’s comeback season.

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