Conference Championship Sunday might have been better described as Inevitability Sunday.
It felt inevitable that Saquon Barkley would produce another big play, and the star back didn't take long, as he housed the first offensive snap of the game for the Eagles, giving Philadelphia a lead it would never relinquish. It felt inevitable that the Commanders would be overwhelmed by a far superior team on paper, and after they forced the Lions into a sloppy game last week, Dan Quinn's team was finally the squad that looked overmatched and made too many mistakes in a 55-23 loss.
It felt inevitable that the Bills-Chiefs game would come down to a big blitz in a key situation by Kansas City defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, and while Josh Allen did his best to produce a miracle, his prayer of a pass to Dalton Kincaid fell just short of being answered. And it seemed inevitable that the Chiefs were going to claw their way into Super Bowl LIX, as a team that won without being impressive week after week this year produced its best offensive output of the season in a 32-29 nail-biter.
Subscribe: 'The Bill Barnwell Show'
Inevitable doesn't mean obvious or easy to see, though. There are several fascinating nuggets and stories coming out of Sunday's games, and I'm excited to run through them here. Let's talk through what happened in the NFC and AFC title games, and how the Eagles and Chiefs won:
Jump to a section:
These games showed how football has changed
The Bills ran it back -- with different results
The Eagles' additions continue to dominate
Why it's sometimes good to just get lucky
Is Josh Allen ever going to make a Super Bowl?
These were four quintessentially 2024 teams
In September, I wrote about how the rise and spread of the mobile quarterback would make modern football unrecognizable to someone who stopped watching the NFL 15 years ago. These four teams, along with the Ravens and maybe one or two other teams, represent the cutting edge of NFL offenses. Their style of play and how that played out Sunday would be stark and surprising to a lapsed viewer.