NFL Report Card after the Divisional Round: Bright lights and big moments

The NFL playoffs are brutal for players and fans alike. After months of building up, 18 weeks of games, suddenly all of your hard work is for nothing. Following a weekend of enthralling football, we are going to grade every team's performance from the divisional round.

It's difficult to criticize the Chiefs after they have made what feels like the 100th-straight AFC Championship game. However, we still feel like this is a beatable team. Maybe it's just disappointment at this point as they only lost one game in which they tried all season. We just thought we would see more against the Texans.

Travis Kelce has clearly lost a bit of his athleticism at this stage of his career, but he is able to save his body for the biggest moment, and the Texans had no answer. The Mahomes-Kelce connection accounted for 117 of the Chiefs' 177 passing yards, and that was arguably the difference. This defense also stepped up with sack after sack to ruin Houston's passing attack.

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The Texans have opportunities to win on Saturday, but were never able to capitalize in the big moments. Houston moved the ball with relative ease for most of the day, but weren't able to score with the same regularity. Giving up eight sacks to a Chiefs defense not renowned for having an elite pass rush is also disappointing.

As we stated above, if you can move the ball with ease in a low-scoring game, you have to capitalize. CJ Stroud played a game that suggests some of his regular season struggles were a blip rather than something to be worried about. It's fair to argue this was a missed opportunity, but Houston will be back and hopefully healthier in the future.

As NFL writer Jon Ledyard wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “Sorry, but Jameson Williams isn't throwing the ball with my season on the line.” We, and the rest of the NFL media have praised Lions' OC Ben Johnson for his creativity all year but the Williams reverse-pass was a step too far. Giving up 45 points and losing the turnover differential 5-0 is inexcusable for a team this good.

Jared Goff played exceptionally all season except for one game where he threw five picks. After that game we wrote that he has multiple-interception games in him, unfortunately for Detroit, another game at the worst time. Who knows whether Detroit will be back next season given the presumed loss of at least one coordinator. A tough one to take for Lions fans.

Jayden Daniels is proving time and time again that he is built different. Given his cool demeanour, you wouldn't know that it was just his second-ever playoff game. The Commanders marched up and down the field all game, humiliating the seventh-ranked defense by EPA/Play, per SumerSports. An incredible game by all involved.

In one word: Everywhere. This defense hasn’t got the talent of other units in the playoffs, and they conceded 31 points despite turning the ball over five times. But Dan Quinn and his coaching staff understand that and lean on their offense to win them games, going for fourth downs when many wouldn’t. That boldness won them the game.

With around 4:20 left in the fourth quarter, we would've given the Birds an A+, however, some late defensive lapses and bizarre play calling made this game a nail-biter. Jalen Hurts looked banged up after his knee got twisted underneath him, he played through it and made some nice throws, but it could be a worry moving forward.

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We didn’t mention them in the previous slides, but the story of this game can’t be written without mentioning Saquon Barkley and Jalen Carter, who were the Eagles’ standout performances on the night. Zach Baun deserves his flowers too after yet another near-perfect display of linebacker play. This team may have more talent and depth than any team left.

So close, and yet so far. The Rams were unable to contain the Eagles rushing attack all day, giving up two long TDs to Saquon Barkley (again) and one to Jalen Hurts. During the worst of the awful conditions, the Rams almost committed two costly fumbles. Jared Verse backed up his smack talk with an excellent performance, but it wasn’t enough in the end.

Saquon Barkley is proving to be the Rams' kryptonite after accounting for 534 yards and four touchdowns in the two matchups between these teams this season, per ESPN. Matthew Stafford showed us he could operate an effective passing attack late in the game, which makes us wonder if Sean McVay could have tried that earlier. Given the changing conditions, it’s hard to know.

The Bills did enough on Sunday night to get the win against an excellent Ravens team that refused to quit. The offensive performance in the second half was less than inspiring but, as we mentioned, they did just enough to win. Josh Allen looked composed and was able to not turn the ball over, which was arguably the difference in the game.

The 14 points scored in the second quarter proved all important as the Bills were able to pull away from the Ravens, who could never quite catch up. The defense was also able to force three turnovers, which is proving to be the difference consistently in these playoffs. Now the Bills have a great chance to beat Kansas City at Arrowhead next Sunday.

Lamar Jackson played a near-perfect regular season, and certainly didn’t play badly in the divisional round loss, but the two turnovers he committed will haunt him. He’s too good a player to make those mistakes. Given his play on the night, he also certainly wasn’t at fault for the loss, either. Another tough playoff loss for Jim Harbaugh’s team.

The second quarter proved costly as they allowed the Bills to build an 11-point cushion which proved too much. It's a difficult one to diagnose as they were a dropped catch away from tying the game late, with no guarantee of winning the game, of course. This is a great team that lost to another great team, but the opportunities to win were there.

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