NFL | Oddities and adventures

Weird things often happen during the first weekend of the NFL playoffs.

There are adventures happening too. From the Titans’ “Music City Miracle” to Tim Tebow who took out the Steelers with his cannon arm, without forgetting the 1992 Bills who closed a 35-3 deficit against those poor Oilers who had to leave Houston because they were so ashamed, the first playoff weekend is often reminiscent of David Lynch films, the ones where no one ever understands anything.

So here we are. In order, starting Saturday 4:30 p.m.: Browns vs. Texans, Dolphins vs. Chiefs, Steelers vs. Bills, Packers vs. Cowboys, Rams vs. Lions, and finally, Monday evening, the conclusion of this quality menu with the Eagles who will go to Tampa in hopes of salvaging what’s left of their season. A quick exit from the Eagles, and the collapse would be total and would not be unlike the solo career of John Oates, also from Philadelphia, by the way.

Partisanship is of course prohibited in the press box, but this column will still focus on the Cleveland Browns, who have won only one playoff game since 1995.

We were recently referring to the poor people of Buffalo, forced to support bad teams on top of having to live in Buffalo, but it’s not like the people of Cleveland wake up every morning with palm trees in their backyard. They too would need something, anything, to extricate them from this dreary existence of defeats and disappointments, except once in 2016 (thanks LeBron!). Their hopes now turn to 38-year-old quarterback Joe Flacco, who has transformed the Browns’ season since his arrival, much to our amazement and perhaps his own as well.

But it is not him who will decide this result, rather his teammates in defense, who have the fate of the club directly in their hands. If they slow down Texans quarterback CJ Stroud – who has just concluded a phenomenal season with 4,108 yards, 23 touchdowns and only 5 interceptions – the Browns will be able to continue dreaming.

Apart from that, the Cowboys will humiliate the Packers, the Bills will survive the tenacious Steelers, like the Chiefs will survive the Dolphins, and if there is a surprise, it will be on the Detroit side, where the Lions will have plenty of them. arm against the Rams.

But such learned analyzes no longer mean anything at the moment of truth, and to quote Descartes: it is played out on the ground.

As expected, there will be a new boss in Foxboro. Bill Belichick is no longer the coach of the Patriots, he who left this field for one last time last Sunday, balaclava in his face and hood on his head, as he should.

The biggest? We will never be able to take away his six Super Bowl rings, but as with Barry Bonds or Milli Vanilli, there will always be doubts, among other things with these spy stories which have tarnished his legacy.

It was no coincidence, and the old fox knew very well what he was doing by creating such a climate of distrust for the adversaries who landed in Foxboro; ex-quarterback Mark Sanchez recently told journalist Peter King that he was told never to leave his playbook lying around there, that you always had to have an emergency plan in case communications in the stadium suddenly stopped functioning. Clearly, Belichick felt that the time each opponent wasted on these details was good business for his club.

But good Bill never won without Tom Brady. For this reason, in addition to wanting to surpass Don Shula’s 347 lifetime victories – Belichick has 333 – he will eventually reappear elsewhere.

As usual, the millions of fans who consume this column from Montmagny to Montpellier have questions, and that’s good, we have answers.

First of all, Luc Girouard wants to know if Taylor Swift might be the Yoko Ono of the Chiefs, which isn’t super nice for Taylor, especially for anyone who’s ever heard Yoko sing.

Then there’s Jean-Pierre, who claims that Travis Kelce hasn’t caught anything since Taylor showered him with her unconditional love, but that’s reductive, since Kelce has 984 yards this season, the second-most among tight ends in this league.

Finally, Mario Lefebvre believes that this column is on fire, and who are we to contradict him?

We wrote that it will be a big weekend of football, and it will be, firstly because we wrote it.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens wait in their respective comforts, each having collected the best record in their conference. They will take the stage in a week, in the division finals.

Could these two powers be surprised? Of course, and besides, we have already established that anyone can win in this league.

Except the New York Jets.