Better Send Them Refunds, Pollard Suffers a Broken Leg, Diggs Drama, and Other NFL Bullets

I’m not going to say I told you so. But, you know … I told you that the Bengals were going to beat the Bills on Sunday. It was a beautiful scene in Buffalo. There’s something so aesthetically beautiful about a snowy playoff game. From a distance, of course, keep that snow over there.

  • Joe Brrr. Joe Cool. Snow Joe. It doesn’t matter what you call Joe Burrow; he’s going to the AFC Championship game again. Burrow and the Bengals knocked off the consensus preseason favorites to win the AFC, and quite convincingly at that.
  • Bengals defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo deserves a ton of credit for the game plan that he cooked up for Josh Allen and the Bills. Cincinnati’s defense had the Bills uncomfortable all afternoon. Josh Allen completed 25 of 42 passes for 264 yards, no touchdowns, and an interception, good for a 68.0 passer rating.
  • Cincinnati’s offense was a balanced attack that the Bills failed to have an answer for from the opening kick off. Burrow was 9 for 9 for 105 yards and two touchdowns on the first two drives as the Bengals jumped out to a 14-0 lead.
  • For the second time in as many seasons, we’re getting an AFC title game between Joe Burrow and the Bengals and Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium.
  • Burrow was asked after the game how the discussion about ticket sales to the alternate venue that would have hosted the AFC Championship had it not featured the Bengals, and his answer was perfect:
  • Better send those refunds. That’s the line from the Bengals this morning. I honestly can’t understand how the Bengals went to the Super Bowl last year, and it’s like people forgot about it or something. No one picked them on Sunday. No one. Mind-boggling, honestly.
  • This might amount to nothing but emotions in the heat of the moment, but Stefon Diggs was visibly upset with Josh Allen on the sideline after the Bills final drive. Diggs was seen leaving the Bills’ locker room before some coaches even made it up the tunnel. Joe Buscaglia reported that Bills running back Duke Johnson stopped Diggs, who was trying to leave the stadium, and convinced him to return to the locker room.
  • It wasn’t a banner game for Diggs, who was held to two catches for 11 yards on three targets when covered by Cam Taylor-Britt. Diggs had no catches on two targets when matched up with Eli Apple. But let’s relax with the “oh my god, Stefon Diggs might request a trade!” talk and let these guys get over the emotion of a tough loss.
  • The 49ers are heading back to the conference championship game on the NFC side. San Francisco and Dallas played in a ground-it-out back-and-forth game.
  • Unfortunately, Tony Pollard was injured in the Dallas loss when he was rolled up after an 8-yard catch with under two minutes to play in the first half. Pollard was carted off the field and has been diagnosed with a broken leg since.
  • Pollard was set to become a free agent this offseason. He’ll still get paid this offseason, but the injury will affect his market value. Of course, maybe the Cowboys decided to pay Pollard and keep him in Dallas. Pollard ran for 1,007 yards on 193 carries this season and scored 12 touchdowns. Ezekiel Elliott, who is signed through 2026, averaged a career-low 3.8 yards per carry this season and was highly ineffective in the loss to the 49ers.
  • In today’s installment of idiotic ideas, we have a hypothetical proposal to move the conference championship games to a neutral site in the future. No, thank you.
  • Yo, someone won $72K on a first touchdown parlay yesterday! That’s one way to turn $5 into a yearly salary for some.
  • With the divisional round in the books, let’s take a look at where we stand on our playoff picks:
  • Uh, are we talking outside of Connor Bedard?
  • written by

    Patrick grew up in Chicago's Bridgeport and Garfield Ridge neighborhoods before moving to the Western Suburbs of Chicago before eventually relocating to the Las Vegas area with his family in 2023. He started with Bleacher Nation in 2021 and has spent time as a Staff Writer and on the Chicago Blackhawks beat. He is currently a writer and editor at Bleacher Nation covering the Chicago Bears and the NFL at large and the author of the Bleacher Nation Newsletter. Patrick is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA).

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