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Jimmy Garoppolo screened his way back to a conference championship, the Bengals’ defensive front outshone its stars, and only Kansas City benefited from home-field advantage.
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By Diante Lee
This weekend’s divisional-round games provided a few surprises, beginning with the top seeds in both conferences getting tossed, Joe Burrow’s being sacked nine times overcoming Ryan Tannehill’s three interceptions and Aaron Rodgers’s earlier-than-predicted consideration of his next team.
Perhaps the biggest shock, however, is this: Jimmy Garoppolo is one plane ride and 60 minutes of game time away from his second Super Bowl appearance in three seasons. In spite of an offensive performance in which yardage gains were hard to attain in Green Bay’s snowy weather, San Francisco escaped with a 13-10 win over the N.F.C.’s top-seeded Packers and will face the Los Angeles Rams on the road in the conference championship game.
On Saturday night, playing through injuries to a hand and a shoulder, Garoppolo had just 131 passing yards on 19 attempts, with no touchdowns and an interception. His just-enough performance won’t tamp down the excitement of 49ers fans who have eagerly awaited the emergence of his understudy, the rookie Trey Lance, who is set to lead the franchise into the future. But it was good enough, or as good as the Packers’ special teams, at toppling Green Bay, as was the case in the 49ers’ win in the N.F.C. championship game for the 2019 season.
Now, as then, the 49ers are finding success without needing much from their quarterback, an ethos that flies in the face of modern football orthodoxy. So much has been made of the kind of quarterback play needed to win playoff games — on the road, especially — and Saturday only solidified Garoppolo’s legacy as a caretaker. But the 49ers’ season has spotlighted everything (gesturing wildly) required of the other 52 men on the roster.
The 49ers complement, but do not depend on, Jimmy Garoppolo.
Start with the offensive line, which has two potential Hall of Famers in Trent Williams and Alex Mack. In Coach Kyle Shanahan’s scheme, which attacks the edges of defenses with the run game, having a center point out what is happening up front and a human steamroller at tackle puts the offense in position to feature the five players who are typically blamed before they are lauded.
Beside and behind the offensive line is a triumvirate of the most versatile players in football: Kyle Juszczyk, George Kittle and Deebo Samuel. While the field in Saturday’s game was too slippery to use all of Shanahan’s play-actions, bootlegs and misdirection, each of those nearly positionless players was able to make plays.
How Kansas City Won an Overtime Thriller

How Kansas City Won an Overtime Thriller

Kansas City and Buffalo combined to score 25 points in the last two minutes of regulation, a wild finish that sent their playoff showdown to overtime.
Here’s how the ending unfolded →
How Kansas City Won an Overtime Thriller
Quarterbacks Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes traded touchdowns the entire game. Allen led the Bills on a 17-play, 75-yard drive to take a 3-point lead with two minutes left in the fourth quarter.
How Kansas City Won an Overtime Thriller

Mahomes has arguably the fastest player in the N.F.L. in receiver Tyreek Hill. When Hill caught a pass and sped into the end zone for a 64-yard touchdown, Kansas City regained the lead with 1:02 to go.
How Kansas City Won an Overtime Thriller

Buffalo also has a game-changer in Allen. He connected with Gabriel Davis for Davis’s fourth touchdown of the night, and the Bills looked as if they had won the game with 13 seconds left.
How Kansas City Won an Overtime Thriller

But 13 seconds was all Mahomes needed. He guided Kansas City into field-goal range in two plays, with Travis Kelce’s catch setting up Harrison Butker’s field goal to force overtime.
How Kansas City Won an Overtime Thriller

Kansas City got the ball first in overtime, and on its eighth play Mahomes hit Kelce again for the winning score, sending Kansas City to the A.F.C. Championship game. Allen never got a chance to respond.
It was a perfect finish to a wild playoff weekend in which the first three games were decided by last-second field goals.
- Matthew Stafford, in a reversal, seals a Rams win in the final minutes.
- Two upsets of No. 1 seeds. Two last-play field goals. Lots of wild defensive plays.
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