Instant Hippo Thoughts – Setting the Owl, 2021 Season

Yes, at long lost, the AFC and NFC have set their champions.  4 seed against 4 seed.  Deliver us from emptiness, oh Great Sportsball Entropy.

The oft-repeated, and seemingly quite logical refrain – surely Championship Sunday would be a reversion to the mean, after all the balls-to-the-wall excellence of the Divisional Round.  But we got two really excellent games (ok, one excellent, one good), and deserving contestants for the greatest honoUr in sport.

Early on, it looked like our happy WKRP warriors (with heavy hearts for Dr. Johnny Fever, naturally) would play the role of “hey, we are just happy to have made it this far” contestant.  Despite getting the ball first, Cincy quickly fell into a 21-3 hole, which is less than ideal in Arrowhead, against locked-in Patrick Mahomes.  Joe Burrow, playing well beyond his years in wisdom, stayed cool, didn’t panic, and cut the lead to 11.  But KC still had time to deliver a kill shot going into the half.

It took maybe 2-3 plays to get into FG range, and despite being out of timeouts – made it all the way to the 1 with 9 seconds remaining.  A quick incompletion set up decision time, at :05.  Spoiler of TAEKS – I very much liked the call.  Get into the locker room 28-10 and receiving the kickoff?  Cincy would be dead.  I thought it was a nice play design, a little delayed swing route to Hill, on the wide side of the pitch.  Surely, he’d beat his man (or men) in the open field, needing just 3-4 feet?

But he wouldn’t, and we go into half 21-10, with a Bengals pulse.  And the switches flipped for each QB/defense.  Mahomes and Reid wouldn’t score another point until the last play of Normal Time.  Joe Burrow would play Peak John Elway, shrugging pass rushers off his back like brushing dandruff off his shoulder.  Kept plays alive, kept drives alive.  And his teammates fought for him.  How could they not?  FG, TD, 2-pointer – and tie game going into Q4.

Very hard to put words onto the entropic final stanza – but Cincy got another 52-yarder (just inside the upright), leading to Reid trying to score the winning TD while chewing every last second off the clock.  He achieved the latter, but maybe they got a little too cute in keeping the clock running, taking sacks in 2nd AND 3rd and goal.  The 3rd down sack came with fumble, forcing Joe Thuney to play hero so Butker could send us to Extra Time.  Which he did, from like 45.  Romo and Nantz noted that no team had ever won back-to-back playoff OT games, in NFL history.

Tails failed last week, so Cincy went heads.  It was tails.  Surely they’d die as surely and swiftly as Buffalo did?

Nope.  Mahomes stayed cold.  Fiona Apple dropped a pick on the very first play, which would have easily won the game right then and there (walk into the end zone, or easy FG range).  Surely, that would be the spark for the Chefs offense?

Nope.  Two plays later, Cincy made a much more difficult, downfield pickerception.  Burrow made no mistakes of his own, leading his group steadily down the field into chip shot range.  There were no dramatics on the winning kick, 27-24 to WKRP.

Amazingly, Redshirt is still alive.

With all these daemons slain, what’s one more with a re-match of Cincinnati’s prior two Owl appearances (two losses to the Tomsulas)?  Again, it sure looked like we’d get it, with Santa Clara (having at least half of the “home” support) leading 10-7 at the half, and then 17-7?  RRRRRRRRRRRAM IT!! did a fine job limiting the Tomsulas’ run game, but Janeane tossed two scores and seemed well in control.  Until Q4, when it all fell apart.

The Gospel According to Fatthew wasn’t great by any stretch of the imagination, but Cooper Kupp was on fire.  His 2nd TD catch made it 17-14, and not even OKC Bomber going Full Lovie Smith with his challenge flags would stop the momentum shift.  Avenging an earlier, bad miss – Gay kicker put two placements on the money, for a 20-17 lead just inside of two minutes.  You may have sensed a final drive, and Extra Time YET AGAIN (I sure did) – but incomplete/complete for -3 yards/shittastic pickerception was what we got.  Congratulations, Los Angeles.  Your pride and joy gets their home Superb Owl, and against the plucky (but maybe not scary?) Cincinnati Bengals.

Fascinating matchup, after a most glorious January of FITBAW.  Breathe easy for the next few weeks, and thank you so much for your readership.

(Grandson Noodles in his favourite chair, for your maximum cuteness above)