Kicking off the playoffs on Saturday was the Fourth seed Bengals playing the Fifth seed Raiders. This game was quite possibly the best of the wildcard round. The Bengals have been electric recently and this game was no different. They were firing on all cylinders through the first half having scored 20 points by halftime off of touchdowns from C.J Uzomah and Tyler Boyd. The biggest controversy of the game was brought on by the Tyler Boyd touchdown where a referee blew the whistle while the ball was still in the air. According to NFL Rules when a whistle is blown the play is dead so the play should have ended when the whistle was blown thus negating the touchdown. This was not the case though, the pass was counted as a touchdown. If this play had been called off and the Raiders held the Bengals to a field goal then this game could have had a completely different outcome.

The rest of the second half was the Raiders driving down the field with under a minute. With 15 seconds left Zay Jones catches a rifle from Carr to bring the score to 13-20. The third quarter consisted of a Bengals field goal and a lot of punts. With the score sitting at 13-23 the fourth quarter starts with a Raiders field goal followed by a Bengals field goal and another Raiders field goal. The score at 26-19 the Raiders get the ball with 1:51 on the clock in the fourth. They quickly marched down the field and got to the eight yard line with about 40 seconds left. To stop the clock the Raiders spiked it on first down. On 2nd down Derek Carr lined up in shotgun got snapped the ball he took a shot to the end zone to Zay Jones but in feel incomplete. With a daunting third and goal coming up Carr again lined up in shotgun with nothing open he escaped out left. He took a shot to the left side of the end zone where Hunter Renfrow had fallen. In my opinion Carr was trying to draw a defensive pass interference in the corner who got caught up on Renfrow. Carr threw there ball it landed incomplete and no flags were thrown. To keep the season going Carr gets snapped the ball on fourth down, he surveys the field and takes a shot. Picked, it got picked by Germaine Pratt on the one yard line. Carr threw into triple coverage on most important play of the season. To say it was a sad end to the season is an understatement. Although I was rooting for the Raiders, I’m happy the Bengals finally secured their first playoff win in 32 years.