Post-Season Update: Playoffs?

And there you have it. The NFL Playoffs - done and done!

Playoffs are an interesting concept. You play 16 games to get to the post-season, only to have it all come down to one game.

I most certainly took a bit of a hiatus during the playoffs as I just couldn't make sense of who was there! Cincinnati Bengals? San Francisco 49ers? Denver Broncos? Detroit Lions?

The San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens suffered heart breaking losses. Your heart has to go out to Billy Cundiff and Lee Evans of the Ravens. I've never really been able to trust kickers... and obviously with just cause. When I was a coach's daughter, those moments that came down to a field goal usually sent me into the back corner of our laundry room. I'd crouch down on the floor by the dryer with my ears plugged and wait for some sort of indication from Taylor. This time, I was sitting front and center. I was on the phone relaying the play-by-play to my mother who was in transit at the airport; and, I just dropped the phone. Impossible that he would miss a 32 yard kick.

Kyle Williams suffered the same ill fate with the 49ers fumbling the ball on a punt return, putting the New York Giants in field goal range. His face looked like he had lost his last friend, and he may have. It was a tough day for the Harbaugh family.

The end to those games would have put me in mourning for days. I probably would have cried spontaneously reliving it all. But, as my father always told me in those moments (when he was having to console me ironically), "a game never boils down to one play". There were a series of events in both of the games on Sunday that led to those moments. What could have been? For the Ravens, they could have made that kick and very well gone on and lost in OT. The 49ers fumble was a bit more of a nail in the coffin and harder to reason out, but the 49ers had an opportunity to score prior to that in OT and didn't get it done then either. There are 60 minutes of regulation football. As much as the papers plastered those players faces on the front pages - it wasn't just them.

Life's Lesson from Football: When faced with what appears to be a pivotal moment in life, be confident and decisive (and don't hide in the fetal position in the corner of your laundry room), but don't overvalue the place it holds in the greater context of your body of work. Life never comes down to just one moment, but rather a chain of events that simply leads you there.

Post Script - Tebow still isn't that good...