NFL Playoffs scores and more: What happened in the NFL on Wild Card Saturday
Wild Card Saturday is in the books, and the Chiefs and Steelers advanced. Danny Kelly walks you through all the action.
Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
Kansas City's Knile Davis took the opening kickoff in Houston 106 yards untouched to put the Chiefs up early, and the 2015 NFL Wild Card Round was off with a bang. It immediately screeched to a crawl from there. Texans quarterback Brian Hoyer had four first half turnovers -- three picks and a lost fumble -- but Kansas City squandered those opportunities for the most part and converted them into just two field goals, carrying a 13-0 lead into the half.
Despite those two disastrous quarters, the Texans were somehow still in the game going coming out of the half, but it was just more of the same from there on out. Houston couldn't mount much of a fight --Hoyer added another pick for good measure -- and Kansas City ran away with it with a Chris Conley touchdown catch and a Spencer Ware touchdown run. It was Kansas City's 11th straight victory, and their first playoff win since January 16th, 1994, a drought of nearly 22 years. All in all, it was a lopsided and pretty boring win by the Chiefs.
The night game, well, it was not boring. The Steelers completely dominated a rain-soaked and sloppy first three quarters and took a 15-0 lead into the final frame, and for a while there, it looked pretty possible that neither home team in Saturday's action would come out with any points on the board. However, when Ben Roethlisberger was sacked on the final play of the 3rd quarter and headed into the locker room on a cart with a shoulder injury, the Bengals regained some of the momentum. A Jeremy Hill touchdown run with 14:00 left cut the lead to 15-7, a Mike Nugent field goal with 5:17 left cut it to 15-10, and then an AJ McCarron to A.J. Green touchdown connection with 1:56 to go finally gave the Bengals the lead for the first time all day.
After Vontaze Burfict intercepted Landry Jones on the Steelers' next offensive play, it looked like it was in the bag for Cincy. But boy oh boy, it was not.
Looking to run the clock out, Jeremy Hill fumbled on the next play from scrimmage, and Ben Roethlisberger returned to the game to become the savior for the city of Pittsburgh. He proceeded to lead the Steelers on a 9-play, 74 yard drive (while barely throwing beyond the line of scrimmage) that culminated in a game winning field goal by Chris Boswell. This game-winner was aided by two straight personal foul penalties by the Bengals -- a hit to the head by Vontaze Burfict and an incident in the ensuing scrum by Pacman Jones -- and it was a chaotic ending to an ugly, insanely strange game.
After it was all said and done, Pittsburgh will move on to face the Broncos in Denver, while the Chiefs head to New England to play the Patriots next week.
SB Nation presents: Bengals self-destruct at end of game against the Steelers
Final scores for Saturday
Kansas City Chiefs 30, Houston Texans 0
Pittsburgh Steelers 18, Cincinnati Bengals 16
Key numbers:
Arm yourself with a few essential tidbits from Saturday’s action ... impress your coworkers around the water cooler.
Brian Hoyer
Texans quarterback Brian Hoyer picked a bad time to have his worst game of the season. Coming into this Wild Card matchup, he hadn’t thrown more than one interception in a game all season and had yet to give the ball away in the redzone this year. Well, he ended both of those streaks on Saturday, throwing four picks, including one from the Chiefs’ 3-yard line.
All in all, Hoyer had five turnovers in this one -- the first player with at least four since Eli Manning did it in the 2005 Wild Card round (per ESPN Stats and Info). On the plus side, he did not set the all time record for interceptions in a postseason game -- that's still owned by Brett Favre, who threw six picks back in 2002 against the Rams (per Pro Football Reference).
Alex Smith, on the other hand, had himself a typically efficient postseason performance, completing 17 of 22 passes for 197 yards with one touchdown and one interception. Smith, who became the first Chiefs quarterback to win a playoff game since Joe Montana did it in 1994, had previously thrown 9 touchdowns and no picks in his postseason career (the most touchdown passes without an interception in postseason history to start a career, per ESPN Stats and Info). Smith also owns the NFL record for most postseason passes without a pick -- 119 -- but of course, that streak ended when he was picked in the 1st quarter.
Spencer Ware
Spencer Ware was a bruiser for the Chiefs in the second half, and helped Kansas City wear down the Texans as the game closed out. He rushed 16 times on the day for 67 yards and a touchdown, and had one of the plays of the day when he absolutely trucked Quintin Demps in the open field. He's not Jamaal Charles, obviously, but he runs with a ferocious brand of physicality and it's helped Kansas City get past the loss of their best offensive player down the stretch run of the season. He came up big again in their first playoff game.
Kelce, meanwhile, looked like a mini Rob Gronkowski out there. The third-year tight end finished with 8 catches for 128 yards -- a career high -- after not catching more than 6 passes in any regular season game all year. One of his catches was this beastly grab and run for 48 yards.
Travis Kelce 48 yard catch. pic.twitter.com/5a7tZBPlMV
— MarcusD (@_MarcusD_) January 9, 2016 Kelce had two 100+ yard games all season (including this one), and both came against the Texans. With Jeremy Maclin's status for next week up in the air, expect Kelce to be a major focal point next week regardless.
Jordan Todman, Fitzgerald Toussaint
The Steelers came into the game missing their top two running backs -- Le'Veon Bell has been on IR since early in the season and then they lost DeAngelo Williams to a foot injury this past week -- so two relative unknowns had to step up: Jordan Todman and Fitzgerald Toussaint.
Surprisingly, both looked pretty effective against a strong Cincinnati defense. They combined for 120 yards on 28 carries while Toussaint added 4 catches for 60 yards though the air. With rainy and crappy conditions in Cincinnati all day, the Steelers had to rely on their ground game a little more than typical, and getting quality carries from Todman and Toussaint was an unexpected boon.
Everyone knows that Antonio Brown is going to show up to play and he didn't disappoint with a 7-catch, 119 yard performance. That said, Martavis Bryant was a key figure in this one as well, grabbing 5 catches for 29 yards, including one of the most absurdly acrobatic touchdowns I've ever seen.
Bryant also added 44 yards on a nifty end-around.
Biggest Moments
You have to see this DeAndre Hopkins toe-drag catch in slow motion to appreciate its majesty.
Steelers coach Mike Munchak was penalized for yanking Bengals player’s hair.
The Texans’ wildcat play with J.J. Watt and Vince Wilfork was the most beautiful failure ever.
Bengals players and fans were livid after a helmet-to-helmet on Giovani Bernard.
The Bengals stunned the Steelers with go-ahead TD strike to A.J. Green.
The Steelers committed the worst turnover of the postseason until the Bengals topped it on the next play.
The late penalty that doomed the Bengals was provoked by a Steelers coach illegally on the field.
Injuries
An emotional Jeremy Maclin was carted off with knee injury, but there’s no indication yet if it was a tear.
Bengals’ Reggie Nelson, Dre Kirkpatrick left their Wild Card game with injuries.
See More:
