Upsets have been the dominant narrative of NFL post-season coverage this year, and that narrative hasn’t been lost on the players or coaches.
One of the biggest upsets of the playoffs came before they even began — when the Seattle Seahawks won the National Football Conference Northwest Division with a 7–9 record. They became the first losing team to make the playoffs in NFL history, a remarkable (and largely unforeseen) feat.
The Seahawks took the approach, as articulated by several of their players, that the only thing worse than being the first playoff team with a losing record would be to lose to that team. The Seahawks trounced the New Orleans Saints — the defending Super Bowl champions — in Seattle, and pulled off one of the biggest upsets in recent playoff history.
The Seahawks’ had a remarkable year, despite the fact that their path to the Super Bowl was interrupted by the Chicago Bears last weekend. The Chicago Bears fell to the Green Bay Packers yesterday afternoon, which effectively ended their chase for the Super Bowl as well.
Any conversation about upsets has to centre around the New York Jets’ performance this postseason, though. The Jets came into the first round against the Indianapolis Colts with a massive bull’s-eye on their backs after head coach Rex Ryan called the rivalry “personal.” The Jets pieced together a good enough game, capitalizing on key mistakes by Peyton Manning, and pounding home the winning field goal with no time left on the clock.
The Jets went to New England the next weekend to play the dynastic Patriots. The week prior to the game featured a lot of public chatter, most of it by Ryan, about the importance — and yes, personal nature — of the game. When it came time to play, the Jets flat-out delivered and wound up winning 28–21 in a game that they had greater control of than the final score suggests.
They fizzled out this weekend against Super Bowl favourite the Pittsburgh Steelers who will be playing the Green Bay Packers in two weeks.
Playoff upsets pose interesting questions about the nature of the sport. The goal of each team heading into a season is to win the championship, but the winner of the championship depends more on the one-month playoff period than the regular season.
In the NFL’s short playoff series, factors such as momentum, luck, and injury can do more to determine the outcome than which team is better. That is not to take away from teams that post big upsets, but it’s a self-evident fact when a six-month season’s final outcome is determined in a compressed time frame.
But after all, isn’t that the fun of the playoffs?
