This weekend of the NFL playoffs saw both conference favorites - Atlanta Falcons and New England Patriots - get knocked off, following a Wild Card week that had its own share of surprises. All four games were high-scoring and high on energy and excitement. Looking ahead, there's a divisional grudge match between Chicago and Green Bay, and a matchup of defensive-minded teams with Pittsburgh and the New York Jets squaring off that surely won't disappoint. At the same time, columnists from the hometowns of the most recent teams to get knocked out of the playoffs are writing their final farewells to the season gone by. Here, what they're saying in New England, Atlanta, Baltimore, and Seattle today:
Patriots fell short: "What do you say when you are whipped, fair and square?" asks Bob Ryan in The Boston Globe. It happened last year, too, but that Patriots team wasn't that good and had "issues." This team, however, "had come in as the AFC top seed with a 14-2 record and had been playing very well during an eight-game winning streak. And no Belichick team had lost a playoff game after earning the much-coveted first-round bye." They should have gone further than they did.
Embarrassing Falcons: "It's year three of this great franchise awakening, and that means one thing: We don't grade seasons on the first 16 games," says Jeff Schultz in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. While the team made great progress, now they "should be graded on postseasons." And, according to that criteria, "they failed. Epically"; they got "bodyslammed" out of the playoffs. This kind of "meltdown" was supposed to be a thing of the past. "We thought the Falcons were past this."
Ravens didn't deserve it: The explanation is simple: "They just couldn't handle success," says Peter Schmuck in the Baltimore Sun. The Ravens had the game in hand, but couldn't hold on. "Who knows why fate frowns at certain times, but it made a very ugly face at the Ravens" late in the game. There's nobody to blame; it just wasn't the Ravens' day.
Seahawks were exposed: The Seahawks made a nice run, but "reality hit them Sunday with all the force of a Midwestern snowstorm," says Steve Kelley in The Seattle Times. It "felt more like the truth than last week's Qwest Field fantasy win" last week. "They awoke a slumbering city with a couple weeks of magic," but still remain in a state of rebuilding. "The Seahawks reached their modest goal. They reclaimed the West. But the Bears exposed them on Sunday, a biting reminder of the hard work ahead."