Today's kickoff of the NFL playoffs for the most part showed us two teams who simply were not ready for playoff competition.

The day started off with a close first half of football up until the final minute of the Texans/Bengals game. A late first half pick six by J.J. Wyatt. Afterwards we witnessed Arian Foster's playoff coming out party by completely running wild on the Cincinnati defense. Foster's 24 carries on 156 yards made him only the third undrafted player to rush for 100 yards+ in a playoff game. Pretty meaningless stat, but, that's what it is.

Andre Johnson also enjoyed his first playoff game in his nine year career catching five passes for 90 yards as well as a 40 yard touchdown reception from Yates.

By mid third quarter, the Texans' defense began to just overwhelm rookie Andy Dalton and the young Bengal offense. And, Yates combined witH Foster and Johnson began to overwhelm the Bengals D. Andy Dalton was picked off three times and sacked 4. We pretty much knew the game was over in the 4th quarter when Dalton threw a completely wild INT under duress. Afterwards, it seemed as if the Bengals gave up. Chris Croker's dropped INT which led to Pacman Jones being completely burned alive by Johnson on a 40 yard TD catch sealed the deal. We next seen a complete lack of effort on a Arian Foster 42 yard TD run where Jennings and Crocker just completely disengaged themselves in tackling Foster near the sideline. The Bengals simply were out of gas and accepting defeat.

Although by no means am I convinced that this is a conviction that Houston is the real deal in these AFC playoffs, they did however prove they are pretty solid when vulnerability makes itself known.

For the night cap we seen the Detroit Lions put up a VERY solid 3 quarters of football. Then the Saints mashed the gas and ran away with the game. Drew Brees' 466 yards of passing was just too much for the Lions to handle. However, one should believe that this was just a game where the Lions were just happy to be in the post season for the first time in what seems like forever. Despite their 7 consecutive losses in the playoffs, the Lions were still just proud to have made that next step further and further away from that 0-16 season. I'm pretty sure only Charles Barkley thought the Lions would beat the Saints.....IN NEW ORLEANS..

At the end of the day we mainly witnessed 2 solid young teams who were good enough to get in but simply not good enough to win and move on. On Cincinnati's end, Marvin Lewis now drops to 0-3 in the playoffs. He's growing a reputation of a coach who simply doesn't know how to put together a solid gameplan in the postseason. Marvin Lewis has had the floor mopped with him each of his 3 postseason appearances by double digits. Something has to change or the Bengals may need to make CHANGES.

On the Detroit end, the Lions will one day soon stop their playoff woes and perhaps (pending the health of Megatron, Jhavid Best, and Matt Stafford), make consecutive visits to the playoffs. The potential of the Lions looks big and bright. This game was just testing the waters.
Written by AyronTheGreat