The NFL this week played the Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs, and once again they gave us plenty of talking points in the aftermath of the final whistles. 

It’s going to sound cliche, but it is what it is… and then there were four. Following the Divisional ROunds this past weekend, we are now essentially in the ‘Super Bowl semi-final’ stage (although personally I’ve never really liked that phrase), as just the Kansas City Chiefs, Cincinnati Bengals, Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers remain in the hunt for the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

Some of those teams you might have expected to stick around until this point in the season, some of them might be a surprise to you, but either way we are sure to see two great matchups this upcoming weekend during their respective conference championship games.

But before we look to the future, we must first wrap up what happened this past weekend, and more importantly what the bigger implications are beyond what the final score was. So with theat being said, for the penultimate time before the Super Bowl, here are five things we learned from this past weekend:

5 - From NFC Least to NFC Beasts

The fact that three of the four spots were taken up by teams from the NFC East shows what a great turnaround the division has gone through in the past few years, it wasn’t too long ago that the Washington Commanders won the division with a losing record.

Now though, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to doubt why we might not be in the same situation next year, as all of them will likely be returning a lot of their key players and next year looks to be just as competitive at the top as it was this year.

4 - Mr. Irrelevant now totally relevant

The story of Brock Purdy is honestly something that we here and a lot of people are going to keep riding until it stops being fun, and we don’t see it not being fun anytime soon as he helped the San Francisco 49ers make it to their 3rd NFC Championship game in four seasons.

But beyond that, it seems as though this run has put him in a place where he might not have envisioned himself being at the start of the year, as reports seem to be indicating that he will be the team’s starter next season regardless of what happens the rest of the way in these next few weeks.

3 - Just the beginning for the Jacksonville Jaguars?

Speaking of next year, you had better watch out for the Jacksonville Jaguars, as they managed to come on quite the tear in the latter half of the season and gave the Kansas City Chiefs quite the scare on Saturday night as they fell to a narrow defeat.

This is a very young team on both sides of the ball and in very key positions and this was a great first year for them under Doug Pederson. But we probably said the same thing after the ‘Sacksonville’ season of 2017, and they fell off a cliff soon after. The question here is, are they doomed to repeat themselves, or will the franchise have learned their lessons?

2 - Dallas Cowboys doomed themselves once again

Speaking of not learning their lessons (we promise this flow wasn’t intended when the list was drawn up), for the second straight year, the Dallas Cowboys were their own worst enemy. Last year it was penalties that cost them, this year it was game management:

For an organisation that is so associated with winning (at least historically), you would think things would be a little more buttoned up on the coaching front, and whilst Mike McCarthy’s job might be safe for now, if he makes it a third year with mistakes in 2023, then you really have to question his long-term future. 

1 - Have the Buffalo Bills blown their best chance?

When it comes to misses opportunities, this might arguably be the biggest one around the whole NFL, as the Buffalo Bills, many people’s favourites to win the Super Bowl this year fell, and fell hard against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday afternoon.

With the top of the AFC as strong as it is, and with teams emerging like the Los Angeles Chargers, Jacksonville Jaguars and Pittsburgh Steelers that could cause them problems, it feels like this was the year they had to get it done, and now they are left to wonder if they’ll even make it this far again next year.