WOW! That doesn’t come close to expressing my feelings after watching this past weekend’s four NFL playoff games. A field goal in the final seconds played a major role in determining the winner of all four. In fact, a field goal did determine the winner in the first three--Cincinnati over Tennessee, San Francisco over Green Bay and the Rams over Tampa Bay. In the Kansas City-Buffalo game Sunday night, a last-second field goal tied the game and sent it into overtime. When has a weekend of NFL playoffs been so exciting?

Of course, the last game, between the Chiefs and the Bills was the best. The final six minutes of action was back and forth with one team taking a lead and then the other team responding. I was ready to concede defeat when Buffalo went ahead by three points with 13 seconds remaining on the game clock. But then KC’s Patrick Mahomes and his teammates put together some magic to tie the score in those 13 seconds and then win the game outright in overtime.

There has been a lot of discussion about the NFL playoff overtime rules. The way it turned out Sunday, by winning the coin toss, Kansas City got the ball first and was able to end it all by scoring a touchdown. Buffalo and their superb quarterback Josh Allen didn’t have a chance in overtime to respond as the overtime is basically sudden death. Many of the sports commentators I heard feel that the overtime rules should allow both teams to have possession of the ball before the game ends. I didn’t hear anyone call the rule unfair--rules are rules after all. But they were calling the way the game ended unsatisfying. Most wanted the Bills to have had a chance to respond to the Chiefs’ touchdown. Just as an aside, the way those two teams were playing, the game might have gone on forever if Buffalo had a chance to respond and then the Chiefs had a chance to respond, etc.

As another aside, I remember three years ago in the AFC Championship game between the New England Patriots and the Chiefs, the game ended in a tie and the Patriots won the coin toss and scored right away to end the game. As a Chiefs’ fan I understand how the Bills felt this year. It felt as if the most important play in the game was a simple toss of a coin.

Many of the commentators were calling the Bills-Chiefs contest as the greatest NFL game in history. I am a little conservative when it comes to tossing superlatives around, especially since I am a little biased about the outcome of Sunday’s game, but I would agree that it is difficult to remember any game that was better.

Back in the day, people were saying that the 1958 NFL Championship between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants was the best ever.

I remember that game quite well. I was in high school at the time and was listening to the game on radio. My family had a sun porch and there was a radio back there and I was camped out in front of it. I was a huge Johnny Unitas fan and consequently cheered for the Colts. In refreshing my memory I found out that the game was played on Dec. 28, the Sunday after Christmas. I see that the game was televised, but for some reason I was not taking advantage of that reality. The sun porch was sort of my hangout, and I loved to listen to sporting events that came over the radio. I can remember listening to many LSU football games on Saturday night, beamed over 50,000 watt station WWL.

As I remember the 1958 contest, Unitas and Raymond Berry, his favorite receiver at the time, each had a big game for the Colts. Berry caught 12 passes for 178 yards (I looked it up) which was a record for championship games and wasn’t broken until 55 years later by Denver Broncos Demaryius Thomas.

The Colts took advantage of two turnovers by the Giants to lead 14-3 at the half. Both turnovers came on fumbles by Frank Gifford, the same guy that years later teamed up with Don Meredith and Howard Cosell on the Monday Night Football telecasts. Gifford redeemed himself by having an outstanding second half, catching a pass for a touchdown and making some significant gains carrying the ball. I remember one really big play for the giants, Quarterback Charlie Conerly threw a pass to Kyle Rote and Rote ran to the Colts’ 25 where he fumbled after being hit from behind. The Giants’ Alex Webster, who was running behind Rote, picked up the ball and ran it to the one, where he was knocked out of bounds. The Giants then scored a play later to make the score 14-10.

In the fourth quarter, Gifford scored on a 15-yard pass play and gave the Giants a 17-14 advantage. The Colts moved the ball well on two drives later in the quarter, but each drive stalled. Late in the game, Unitas engineered a long drive and from the 13-yard line with time running out, the Colts kicked a field goal to tie.

The game went into overtime, the first in NFL history. Before this, even in a championship game, the game would have ended in a tie. The Giants got the ball first, but were forced to punt. Unitas drove Baltimore 80 yards on 13 plays for the winning touchdown. Alan Ameche ran the ball in for the score from oneyard out. It was truly a great game deserving of the title “Greatest game ever played,” at least until Sunday’s Chiefs-Bills game.

Another memorable playoff game involved the Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins played on Christmas Day, 1971. I was watching this game from my den in Decatur, Ill. I didn’t get to watch the entire game, it was Christmas after all. In fact, I wasn’t very popular when I broke away from family activities to see how the game was going. But this game went into overtime and is to this day the longest game in NFL history. After looking it up, I see that the game lasted 82 minutes and 40 seconds (playing time). The Chiefs were heavily favored in this game. Len Dawson was the KC quarterback and Otis Taylor was his favorite target. The Chiefs defense was loaded with future Hall of Famers Willie Lanier, Buck Buchanan, Emmitt Thomas, Bobby Bell and Johnny Robinson. On the other side, Miami was an upand-coming team with Don Shula as its coach and quarterback Bob Griese and running backs Jim Kiick, Mercury Morris and Larry Csonka leading the offense.

The star of the day turned out to be KC’s Ed Podolak, who ran for 85 yards and a touchdown and caught eight passes for 110 yards and a touchdown. The score was tied 10-10 at the half. Kansas City led 24-17 in the fourth quarter before Miami tied things up with 1:36 left in the game.

Miami then kicked the ball to Podolak, who ran 78 yards on the return to put the Chiefs in good position. Jan Stenerud of the Chiefs, thought to be the best kicker in the NFL at the time, was set up for a 31-field goal attempt as time was running out. To the shock of me in Illinois and to almost everyone else, Stenerud missed and the game went into overtime. Stenerud went on to miss another attempt in overtime and the Dolphins kicker Garo Ypremian also missed a field goal attempt. But eventually, Ypremian did kick a field goal that gave the Dolphins the 27-24 victory.

I remember being devastated after that game, and I can relate somewhat to the feeling Buffalo Bills fans must have had at the end of Sunday’s loss. Kansas City was favored by experts to win the Super Bowl in 1971, but it wasn’t until 2019 that the Chiefs got that far again. Miami went on a threeconsecutive Super Bowl binge that year. After momentous events like

After momentous events like Sunday’s game and the 1971 Chiefs loss, I have to remind myself--“after all, it is just a game.” But games like those don’t come along every day.