Welcome back to Kolodkin’s Corner, folks. This past weekend featured some of the finest football ever played. Let’s begin.

Divisional Round

I’m no old timer.

I can’t boast about having seen every Super Bowl. I don’t remember the days of Dan Marino and John Elway battling in the playoffs. Or Joe Montana, Phil Simms and Doug Williams.

But for my money, I’d argue that if this past weekend wasn’t the greatest divisional round of all time, it’s certainly in the top three.

Not only should it be included among the greatest divisional rounds ever, but the greatest playoff weekends ever. The Bengals and Titans and 49ers and Packers grinded it out in good ‘ol fashioned slugfests.

Joe Burrow showed the difference between a solid quarterback and a great one. The 49ers upset the Packers, in Lambeau, with both QBs combining for zero TDs.

Then Sunday somehow upped the ante.

It started with Los Angeles doing everything possible to lose in the second half. Tom Brady doing what he does to turn a 17-point halftime deficit into a tied game with 42 seconds on the clock. And then somehow, if that craziness wasn’t enough for us, Matt Stafford decided he didn’t like overtime.

So he unleashed a monster 44-yard heave to Cooper Kupp, who inexplicably had one man on him.

Needless to say, Kupp caught the ball, Matt Gay made an easy 30-yard field goal and the Rams are back in the NFC Championship game for the first time since 2018.

And then the Bills and Chiefs played.

And despite three excellent football games prior, none of those three will be remembered all that well. Because if the Bills vs Chiefs game wasn’t one of the five greatest games I’ve ever witnessed, I don’t know what is.

Not just football games. Sports. All of it.

Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes at the height of their powers.

Did both defenses make some plays? Yes, but that wasn’t why anyone was watching. No offense to Jordan Poyer, Micah Parsons, Nick Bolton or the other fine members of the KC and Buffalo defenses. We wanted to see Allen and Mahomes go blow-for-blow like a heavyweight boxing contest.

And they obliged.

Allen threw for 329 yards and tossed four TDs. Mahomes had 378 yards and three scores passing. Allen rushed for 68 yards while Mahomes had 69 and another TD. The game had four punts combined.

This coming week features some more excellent matchups.

Two prime young QBs in Mahomes and Burrow. A great divisional rivalry between the 9ers and Rams that doubles as a territorial dispute for LA and San Francisco. In the immortal words of an oft-maligned Hall of Fame wide receiver, “Get your popcorn ready.”

Overtime

Unfortunately, despite the magnificence that unfolded on Sunday, one aspect of the game will hang like a cloud over the NFL for the next few months.

The overtime rules.

Buffalo and Kansas City went to overtime, KC won the coin toss, unsurprisingly chose to receive the kickoff and drove down the field with Travis Kelce catching a walkoff game-winning touchdown.

Allen never got to touch the ball.

Which has led to a renewed push from fans for the NFL’s overtime rules to be modified. To find some way to give both teams a chance to score in the extra period.

As unpopular as this may make me with Bills fans, I don’t want the OT rules to change at all.

The KC vs Buffalo game was an all-timer. But the vast majority of games that go to overtime aren’t great games. Think of Lions vs Steelers, a game that ended in a tie, with neither team playing like it deserved to win.

More importantly and contrary to popular belief, the coin toss doesn’t determine who wins in the extra period.

As Louis Reddick of ESPN pointed out, there have been 163 games that went to overtime under the current rules. That includes the regular season and playoffs. Of those, just 35 were won on a TD on the opening drive. That’s just 21.5%, or less than a quarter.

The rules don’t need to change because they’re working properly.

There were 16 games this season that went to overtime (17 if you count Bills-Chiefs). Of those 16, three games ended on their first possession in overtime. Three!

The Giants beat the Saints, the Ravens beat the Colts and the Chiefs beat the Chargers. The other 13 games gave each side at least one chance to touch the ball.

The coin flip isn’t deciding games. The teams are deciding games.

And to be clear, the Bills have no excuses.

They had a lead with 13 seconds left in the game. The Chiefs needed to go 44 yards. The kickoff, the coverage, everything that happened was inexcusable and nonsensical. The scramble and slide that everyone roasted the Cowboys and Dak Prescott for. That took 14 seconds.

Could the Bills have won the game had they gotten the ball first in OT?

With the way that Allen was playing, most likely. But they also shouldn’t have been in overtime in the first place. Neither team should have.

The Chiefs had a four-point lead with 1:02 remaining.

Gabriel Davis looked like prime Jerry Rice, catching his fourth TD of the night from Allen to give the Bills a three point lead with 13 seconds left. Then Mahomes got KC into position for a field goal as time expired.

Frankly, this ruling and game could have given us the next great interdivisional rivalry.

The way Brady and Peyton Manning battled for decades, we can only hope Mahomes and Allen light up the league in the same manner.

As a football viewer and enjoyer, to put it bluntly, that would be awesome.