Everyone’s natural instinct now is to look for trends in the league. Those that define the NFL playoffs. Trends that have shaped the offseason coaching cycle. The ones we’ll spend all offseason talking about as the new way of the NFL.
That’s all fine and good, but please don’t overlook one of the more obvious ones, if last weekend was any indication. The four teams that won in the divisional round all did so with dominant offensive line play.
Yeah, it’s not sexy, and it routinely gets overlooked. But one 30,000-foot view of those four games showed that winning up front might be as important now as it ever has been.