BALTIMORE – The NFL Divisional Round may be the best weekend of football all season, because it combines a multitude of games with the excellence of the teams, all with a trip to the Super Bowl tantalizingly within reach. On Saturday, that was especially true, because both No. 1 seeds -- the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers, the two most dominant teams of the season -- finally joined the playoff fray after their first-round byes.
The first two teams are set for the conference championship games, with Baltimore routing Houston and San Francisco eking out a win over Green Bay. It's the first AFC Championship Game to be hosted by the Ravens and the first conference championship game to be played in Baltimore since January 1971, when the Colts beat the Raiders in the old Memorial Stadium.
Here are the winners are losers from Saturday, as the NFL awaits the rest of its final four.
1) The presumptive MVP: If there was a ding on Lamar Jackson's résumé, it was his performance and a 1-3 record in postseason games. This game should go a long way toward ending those concerns. In critical game situations Saturday, the Ravens did the only logical thing and put the ball in Jackson's hands. On the important opening drive of the second half, with the game tied, Jackson ran a quarterback draw for a 15-yard touchdown. On a fourth-and-1 from midfield late in the third quarter, Jackson kept it again, ran to the left, stutter stepped and then took off for 14 yards to keep a 12-play drive alive that ended with a touchdown that gave the Ravens a 14-point lead. The Texans' blitz limited Jackson in the first half – Houston blitzed on 13 of 18 dropbacks, pressuring Jackson 10 times, sacking him three times and holding the Ravens to just
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