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Wild Card Observations

I'm honestly not in the mood to write this after the Giants loss and the overall low quality of the games, so I'm not going to break down each game in much detail or painstakingly document the precise places on the field Ben McAdoo punted on 4th-and-medium in plus territory as if he weren't facing Aaron Rodgers. I've already spent too much time ranting about that on Twitter and on the SXM show, and I'm bored of it. Instead, I'll simply offer a few notes.

• Thomas Rawls finally looked like the version of himself we saw last year, and the Seahawks will need him this week in Atlanta during a 10 am pacific time body-clock game, something that tripped them up in Carolina last year and in Atlanta in 2012.

• Le'Veon Bell is the most patient runner I've ever watched. He seems to stand still and wait for holes that didn't exist yet to open up, and suddenly he's running free in the open field. There are very few backs I've seen play who I'd take ahead of peak Bell. Maybe Marshall Faulk.

• Like Rawls, Bell will be needed by his team in a road game this week. Ben Roethlisberger's home/road splits since 2014 have been extreme, Andy Reid is nearly unbeatable off the bye and Arrowhead will be an unwelcoming place.

• It's bizarre the Steelers left their big three in during the late stages of the Miami blowout. Antonio Brown was even returning punts, and he fielded a bouncing one, risking the fumble and necessitating a tackle, rather than letting it roll harmlessly to a stop. Roethlisberger was actually nicked up at the very end, but it looks like he'll be fine to play this week.

• I watched the Texans-Raiders but don't have anything to say about it. The sooner Houston is dispatched from the postseason the better. As I type this, the line is 16, and I'm probably laying the wood at anything short of 20. If the line were 20-plus, I'd take Houston, but I still wouldn't feel good about it.

• The Giants won 10 games solely due to their defense. Ben McAdoo runs their 26th-ranked offense and has nothing whatsoever to do with the team's success. He should be fired.

• The Giants defense shut down Aaron Rodgers for nearly the entire first half, but eventually he cracked them, with the help of McAdoo's cowardly punting. I said I don't want to re-hash my rants, so I'm going to stop now.

• Mike McCarthy coached a good game, surprisingly, but it was bizarre he called a timeout up 7-6 when the Giants had 2nd-and-9 at their 33 with 2:04 left in the first half. Normally, the team with the ball is trying to conserve clock for a final drive, and the defense only uses a timeout if (1) it has the offense backed up; or (2) it's third-and-long. But it was as if McCarthy knew McAdoo wasn't seriously trying to muster a drive and instead was simply playing a field-possession game and biding his time to punt. Which he was because he punted on 4th-and-1 from his own 41 two plays later. The Packers followed up with a Hail Mary, and it was more or less game over.

• Odell Beckham had a poor game, but he's a generational talent and will bounce back next season.