It was [.
Gary Davenport is an analyst for the NFL playoffs.
The Associated Press's Aaron Gash.
Five of six games last week were won by the higher-seeded team in the Wild Card Round of the NFL playoffs.
The chalk went out the window.
The first day of the Divisional Round featured the first performances from the top seeds. Green Bay Packers welcomed the San Francisco 49ers to Lambeau Field while the TennesseeTitans hosted the CincinnatiBengals.
The last playoff game of the season was on Saturday. Green Bay and Tennessee both missed field goals.
The Packers lost a snowy, frigid game 13-10), while the young quarterback Joe Burrow led the Bengal to a 19-16 upset in Nashville.
As we wait for the other two semifinalists to be determined on Sunday, we have several things to learn.
A quarterback who has to up his game to give his team a chance next week is the first one.
Matt Ludtke is an Associated Press photographer.
One of the best offensive minds in the league is the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers.
It's no secret that Shanahan has something of an old-school approach to innovation. The 49ers played defense and ran the football.
It was a strategy the team used to upset the top-seeded Green Bay Packers. It was a plan born of necessity.
The Niners did not win because of Jimmy Garoppolo.
Garoppolo came into the game with injuries to his thumb and shoulder. Nick Wagoner wrote that the signal-caller said before the game that he would have to tough it out and play well to win.
Garoppolo said it's playoff football. We know when it is, and there is no time to rest.
He did it tough. The part about playing well isn't that much.
Garoppolo completed just 11 of 19 passes for 131 yards with a passer rating of just 57.1. He threw a pick-six deep in Packers territory at the end of the first half.
San Francisco overcame Garoppolo's poor showing by grinding out 106 yards on the ground and holding Green Bay's potent offense to just 263 yards of offense and one touchdown.
The Packers had a huge problem on special teams in this game, which was played in brutal weather conditions. Next week, the Niners will either be inside or playing in Florida, and they will face an opponent that ranks inside the top 10 in both yards and points per game.
Garoppolo will need to be at his best to get the 49ers into the Super Bowl for the second time in three years. He's going to have to make more throws.
John Lynch will have a decision to make between Garoppolo and Lance in the summer.
Mark Zaleski.
There's a lot of good news for the Cincinnati Bengals after they upset the top-seeded TennesseeTitans. For the first time in franchise history, the Bengal's have won a playoff game away from home, and they are going to the playoffs for the first time since the 1988 season.
The young quarterback threw . Ja'Marr Chase caught five of the passes.
It's party time in Cincinnati and you should break out the chili and cinnamon.
There's a lot of celebrating and back-slapping going on, but there's also a lot of concern about the Cincinnati Bengals as they prepare to hit the road again and head to Buffalo or Kansas City. A number that should worry "Who Dey" nation a lot.
Nine.
That's how many times that he was sacked. He was one of two quarterbacks to win a game after being dropped eight or more times.
The nine sacks were tied for the most in a playoff game, and the 13 quarterback hits were tied for the most in a playoff game.
It's not like we didn't know that the offensive line was not very strong. The Cincinnati team allowed more sacks than any other team in the league, and the quarterback, Joe Burrow, hit the ground 51 times.
In PFF's final offensive line rankings, the Bengals checked in 20th.
With the Bills and Chiefs among the league's leaders in generating pressure on quarterbacks, it's important that the protection in front of Burrow is improved.
They are not going to get away with allowing nine sacks.
The images are by Quinn Harris.
It wasn't supposed to end this way. Not like this. Green Bay has won 13 games in a row.
There will be a lot of second-guessing about what went wrong for the Packers.
Green Bay marched the length of the field on their first drive, but didn't score another touchdown the rest of the game. Green Bay is short of the Super Bowl for the 16th time.
Green Bay was stunned 13-10) by the 49ers.
The Packers special teams were terrible.
This is not a new problem. Crosby has struggled to kick the ball for much of the season, hitting on less than 75 percent of his field goal attempts for the second time in his career.
The Pack was ranked dead last in the National Football League's special teams units by Rick Gosselin of Sports.
Green Bay's special teams were responsible for the Packers' downfall against the Niners.
Crosby had a field goal attempt blocked by Niners safety Jimmie Ward. A fourth-quarter punt was blocked by a defensive lineman and then Talanoa Hufanga ran into the end zone for San Francisco's only touchdown.
Jimmy Garoppolo was outplayed by Rodgers by a country mile. Green Bay out-gained the 49ers by a large margin and limited San Francisco to just 212 yards of offense.
The Niners and Packers are both headed home because of Green Bay's special teams being anything but special.
The era in Titletown may have ended with a bang.
John Amis is a photographer.
There was talk in Nashville before the game that the top seed was being disrespected.
Tennessee had the third-worst odds to win the Super Bowl, according to DraftKings sportsbook. The worst No. 1 seed in the last 30 years has been the 2021.Titans.
One might think that Tennessee had proven all the doubters wrong, based on many of the statistics from the game. The 140 yards on the ground were averaged over five yards a carry, despite the fact that Henry was held largely in check.
The defense allowed 65 rushing yards, didn't allow a touchdown through the air, and dropped Joe Burrow nine times.
The game will be played on TV instead of at Nissan Stadium. Tennessee's season is over because of one primary reason.
Ryan Tannehill was awful.
Tannehill's first pass of the game was picked off by a safety. The first throw of the second half was picked off by Mike Hilton. His final throw was caught by Wilson.
The field goal that sent Cincinnati to the title game was the result of two of those picks.
Tannehill was 15-of-24 for 220 yards with a touchdown and three picks. His passer rating for the game was dismal. It was the only position in the game where Tannehill was outplayed badly.
The head coach of the Tennessee Titans came to the defense of his quarterback after the game.
"It's not going to be about one person," he said.
The problem is that it really was.
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