NFL Playoffs: Marcus Mariota throwing a touchdown pass to himself summed up how wild Wildcard Weekend could be

Wildcard weekend was every bit as wild as we'd hoped - and much more than we'd expected

If you wanted a moment to sum up precisely how ‘wild’ the NFL’s wildcard weekend was, it was almost certainly Marcus Mariota throwing a touchdown pass to himself in order to complete one of the most improbable playoff comebacks since, well, the last playoff game, Super Bowl 51.

A four-game slate that had looked like an easy win for all the favourites was shaken up from halfway through the weekend’s first fixture and never really got back on track. 21-3 ahead and cruising to victory, the Kansas City Chiefs lost Travis Kelce to a concussion and, just as important, defensive key Chris Jones as they let victory leak away and, with defeat, the winds of change are set to blow through Arrowhead during the off-season.

Without Kelce to keep the chains moving and Jones to halt Derrick Henry, the Titans’ human battering ram, the Chiefs crumbled from 21-3 to 21-22, capped by Mariota’s deflected pass that he caught himself and ran in for a touchdown.

The Titans’ stunning victory saves Mike Mularkey’s job, even in a game where his team were so obviously better when Mariota took the gameplan into his own hands.

Marcus Mariota dives for the pylon (Getty)

Underdogs prevailed in both of Saturday’s games after the Atlanta Falcons went to Los Angeles and unseated the Rams. An athletic, speedy defense kept a lid on one of the league’s most exciting offenses to stash another feather in the cap of second-year head coach Dan Quinn, and his team look good for successive NFC Championship games.

Buffalo and Jacksonville were both utterly bereft on offense and though the Jaguars’ defense continues to be monstrous - keeping a team to under 10 points for an eighth time this season – it is their only chance of further success. They won in Pittsburgh earlier this season but doing it in the playoffs is a different matter entirely and quarterback Blake Bortles simply looks incapable of taking them any further. Likewise the Titans appear to be no-hopers heading to Foxborough to face the Patriots.

After a weekend like this, however, you’d be a fool to write anyone off.

In the final game of wildcard weekend there was no upset but there was a tense finish as the injury-hit Carolina Panthers took their divisional rivals, the New Orleans Saints, down to the wire.

The Saints look like the most dangerous team in the NFC right now but will be tested in Minnesota. Atlanta head to Philadelphia as likely favourites, a label that seems more dangerous than any right now with the old post-season mantra proving truer than ever – “good teams make the playoffs, hot teams win them.”