Drew Brees will get to celebrate his 42nd birthday by preparing for a playoff game that will also feature the one active NFL quarterback older than him.
Brees completed 28 of 39 passes for 265 yards, connecting with Michael Thomas and Latavius Murray for touchdowns, and the New Orleans Saints defeated the Chicago Bears 21-9 in an NFC wildcard game on Monday (AEDT).
Saints quarterback Drew Brees will turn 42 on Friday.Credit: Getty Images
Alvin Kamara rushed for 99 yards and added a three-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter after sitting out the regular-season finale and not practising this past week because of COVID-19 protocols.
The victory for the Saints (13-4) and Brees, who turns 42 on Friday, sets up a divisional-round meeting next weekend in the Superdome with Tampa Bay and 43-year-old quarterback Tom Brady.
The Bears (8-9) put forth a scrappy performance defensively that prevented the Saints from building more than a one-touchdown lead until Murray's six-yard catch-and-run score made it 14-3 late in the third quarter.
That score resulted from a big Bears mistake: safety Eddie Jackson, lined up for an apparent blitz, jumped offside on fourth-and-three from the Bears 13-yard line.
Two plays later, Brees was scrambling to his right when he spotted Murray waving for the ball. Brees got it there with a short touch pass over onrushing linebacker Khalil Mack, and Murray sprinted straight to the goal line, diving through converging tacklers to reach the end zone.
In the late game, the Cleveland Browns dismantled the Pittsburgh Steelers 48-29, overcoming the weight of history, lack of practice, being without their head coach on the sideline and their emotional leader on the field.
It's the franchise's first post-season victory in more than a quarter century and earned them a trip to Kansas City next week to face the defending Super Bowl champions.
Playing with first-year head coach Kevin Stefanski, Pro Bowl guard Joel Bitonio and top cornerback Denzel Ward back in Cleveland after all tested positive for COVID-19, Cleveland (12-5) raced to the biggest first half by a road team in NFL playoff history, then held on.
Baker Mayfield threw for 263 yards and three touchdowns, including a screen pass that Nick Chubb turned into a 40-yard score that halted Pittsburgh's momentum after the Steelers had pulled within 12. Kareem Hunt added 48 yards and two touchdowns on the ground while Cleveland's defence forced five turnovers to hand the Steelers (12-5) a staggering loss.
The victory was the Browns' first post-season triumph of any kind since beating New England on New Year's Day 1995 – three months before Mayfield was born – and their first playoff win on the road since December 28, 1969.
They did it despite practising just once over the last two weeks and having lost 17 straight at Heinz Field. They did it with efficiency and a little bit of swagger. And they did it with special teams coordinator Mike Priefer – a Cleveland native – filling in for Stefanski and with offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt – who played collegiately at Pitt – taking over the play-calling duties.
The Steelers certainly helped, ending a season in which they started 11-0 with a thud that could reverberate for years. Ben Roethlisberger ended his comeback season by throwing for 501 yards on an NFL-record 47 completions with four touchdowns and four interceptions.
The 48 points were the most the Steelers have given up in the playoffs, surpassing the 45 they gave up to Jacksonville in the 2017 playoffs.
Earlier, Lamar Jackson finally got his first post-season victory, and coming away from Baltimore made it even more impressive.
Jackson ran for 136 yards and a 48-yard touchdown while throwing for 179 more as the Ravens rallied from 10 points down and beat the Tennessee Titans 20-13 in their AFC wildcard game.
Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson celebrates victory over the Titans.Credit: Getty Images
Baltimore also shut down 2000-yard rusher Derrick Henry and held Tennessee to their fewest points all season.
The Titans (11-6) had the ball and a chance to tie when Marcus Peters intercepted Ryan Tannehill's pass intended for Kalif Raymond with 1:50 left. After the turnover, the Ravens came onto the field and started waving goodbye to the Titans – drawing a taunting penalty they didn't mind at all.
"We finished finally," Jackson said. "We finally finished."
The Ravens kept Derrick Henry under wraps.Credit: AP
The Ravens (12-5) snapped a string of 21 straight games lost by the franchise in either the regular season or playoffs when trailing by 10 or more. They will play either top-seeded Kansas City or Buffalo in a divisional game set up by how Baltimore stopped Henry for the first time in three games.
The All-Pro ran all over the Ravens with 328 yards rushing combined in the past two meetings. With both Calais Campbell and Brandon Williams back on the Baltimore D-line, Henry had his worst performance this season with 18 carries for 40 yards.
Baltimore smothered a Tennessee offence that tied for fourth averaging 30.7 points a game and had more offensive yards per game during the season than any team but Kansas City. The Ravens finished with a 401-209 yards edge in total offence.
The Titans lost their first home playoff game in 12 years and now have had three of their past eight post-seasons ended on their own field by Baltimore.
AP