Wild Card Afterword, Part II

Donte Moncrief had three career touchdown reception entering Saturday,
and he added another to his tally on this third-quarter reception.

Cory Puffett

Cincinnati at Indianapolis

Andrew Luck may have only thrown one touchdown pass, but his performance Sunday afternoon had to have made his coaches very happy. Luck had his first turnover-free playoff game and had his first 300-yard passing game since a late-November home win against the Washington Redskins’ porous secondary.

With injuries to Indy’s top two members of the backfield, Zurlon Tipton stepped up to help Daniel Herron carry the Colts’ run game, and the duo did a fine job of keeping Cincinnati’s defense honest, combining for 96 yards on 23 carries. Luck added 18 rushing yards on a pair of attempts.

There isn’t much good to say about Cincinnati, so I’ll head the proverb and not say anything at all. It will, however, but interesting to see whether the Bengals shake things up in the coming weeks. Despite his 0-4 record in the playoffs I expect Andy Dalton to return as their quarterback for the 2015 season. I’m not as sure about Marvin Lewis, who is now 0-6 in the playoffs as their head coach.

It seems unthinkable that the Bengals could have a new man at the helm next year after making the playoffs five times in the last six seasons, but four straight first-round exits can lead to difficult and sometimes surprising decisions.

While the Bengals start looking toward next season, the Colts will travel to Denver where Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck will meet for a third time, with the head-to-head series split at one game apiece.

DeMarco Murray, the 2014 NFL rushing leader, had 97 yards on 22 touches
Sunday evening against the NFL's number one rush defense.

Detroit at Dallas

No one expected the Cowboys to duplicate their last home performance when they routed the Colts and nearly recorded their first home shutout in team history. Their fans had to be nervous when the team came out as lethargic as they did Sunday evening, though.

The Lions took advantage of some sloppy play for the Cowboys offense and several holes in the defense to build up a 14-0 that they held until the final couple minutes of the first half, when a major defensive lapse allowed Terrance Williams to break free for a 76-yard touchdown reception.

Though the Lions did manage to add a field goal just before the break, they’d clearly lost any momentum at that point.

Neither team came out in the second half looking like a team that deserved to advance, but Dallas slowly built up steam and after a 10-play, 80-yard touchdown drive near the end of the third quarter, it seemed inevitable that Detroit would give this game to the Cowboys.

It’s only fair to bring up the fact that there were one or two questionable calls (or non-calls) by the refs in the fourth quarter that went against Detroit, but there is no question that the team they put out there for the second half did not deserve to win that football game.

That doesn’t change the fact that the refs may have played a bigger part in Dallas’s win than they should have, but I do believe the better team won. The Lions had plenty of opportunities to put the game away on offense and instead fumbled twice on their last possession of the game.

Tony Romo, for his part, shook off a poor start to turn in a very solid playoff performance. Terrance Williams caught two touchdown passes in the game which may help Dallas create a more effective game plan for their game in Green Bay next week, but I’ll get into that later this week.


If you missed my recap of Saturday's wild card action, read it at Wild Card Afterword, Part I.