The 18 weeks of the biggest season of all are now in the history books. The longest schedule man has known since the game’s inception, culminated in a dramatic match it took the last second of overtime to put the final pieces of the postseason puzzle in place.
The Steelers needed a miracle to extend Ben Roethlisberger’s career a few more hours and they did it with a carom of results that included defeating the Ravens; for the Colts to lose and for the Chargers and Raiders not to tie.
Although around midnight the Pittsburgh float was about to turn into a pumpkin with the score tied between Chargers and Raiders, a Daniel Carlson field goal gave Big Ben and the Steelers a bit more rope who have put on Cinderella’s slippers.
The 2021 playoffs are upon us. The road to Los Angeles is already laid out for the celebration of Super Bowl LVI, but before it starts el Wild Card Weekend —with the first conclusion on Monday Night — it is worth reviewing some points that the recently concluded campaign inherited from us.
The path to the Vince Lombardi trophy is laid out
You are never too old to do the things you love right
44-year-old Tom Brady You could be retired as an NFL player and enjoying your millions of dollars while sipping margaritas on some beautiful Caribbean beach. But contrary to the narrative, the winningest man in the Super Bowl era prefers to stay in competition and dominate.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback keeps rewriting the history books. At the end of Week 18 he became the second player in NFL history to pass 5,000 passing yards in multiple seasons and became the oldest man to reach the iconic milestone for a player at his position.
The man who never grows old ended up with 5,316 passing yards (third all-time, first in franchise history), 43 passing touchdowns (10th all-time, first in Bucs history) and 485 completions.
Brady finished the year as the NFL leader in touchdown passes and passing yards, becoming the greatest to accomplish either feat.
Not many records were broken as expected
As a measure to obtain greater resources after the millionaire losses suffered by teams due to the coronavirus pandemic, the NFL approved extending the season to 17 games per organization.
With an extra week for all teams, before the kickoff it was speculated that the last Sunday of the season would create a boom of new records.
Little of that happened.
No receiver finally exceeded 2,000 yards. Eric Dickerson’s mark (2,105) for the most rushing yards has remained the same since 1984.
The first year of the 17-game schedule will be remembered by an old acquaintance and collector of marks, milestones, Super Bowl rings, and millions of dollars in his accounts: Tom Brady.
The man who never gets old for the game left Drew Brees (471) behind with the most completions in a season by reaching 485 this year.
On the other side of the ball, the highest paid defender in the NFL, TJ Watt tied Michael Strahan for the most sacks in a year (22.5).
The NFL survived the covid pandemic despite multiple controversies
With the Omicron variant altering the lives of thousands of people around the world and causing the cancellation of hundreds of flights due to multiple infections among crews, the NFL ended its campaign with all its games played. Only three encounters suffered alteration in their programming.
Although just over 90 percent of players and coaches are fully vaccinated, Ómicron brought dozens of items to reserve / covid lists. In the last week of 2021, a record of infections was registered, exceeding the 100 virus infected players.
Throughout the campaign we learned that Aaron Rodgers did not receive any vaccinations as he suggested earlier in the season and that Antonio Brown presented a false vaccination card.
The eye of the NFL fan gets used to everything, except not watching football
In Week 1 of the NFL a wave of criticism arose when most of the league’s fans realized that multiple players were wearing unaccustomed jersey numbers at their position.
NFL owners approved a rule change governing the choice of numbers on players’ jerseys. The new guideline allowed running backs, fullbacks, tight ends and wide receivers to use any number between 1-49, as well as 80-89. The defensive backs were also eligible to range from 1 to 49, while the linebackers were between 1-59, in addition to 90-99.
Over the weeks, the controversy subsided until it became a normal element like helmets.
Everything evolves, few things remain.
Home advantage returned
After a year in which the pandemic forced to put cardboard fans in the seats to make up for the absence of people confined by the coronavirus pandemic, the NFL restored a bit of its previous order and local teams were once again the most successful. they were carried in the season.
In 272 games of the season, 140 wins went to the locals and 131 to the visitors. You have to remember that there was a tie between the Steelers and the Lions.
Last season the total was 127-128 in favor of teams on the road.
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The 5 things we learned from NFL Week 18