Commanders win first playoff game since 2005, beating Bucs 23-20

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Commanders win first playoff game since 2005, beating Bucs 23-20

2025-01-13 12:26 Last Updated At：12:41

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Jayden Daniels ran for a critical first down to set up Zane Gonzalez’s 37-yard field goal that clanged off the right upright and went through as time expired, and the Washington Commanders beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 23-20 in an NFC wild-card game Sunday night for the franchise’s first playoff win in 6,945 days.

Daniels, playing with a bandage beneath his right eye after his face was bloodied, became the third rookie quarterback in three years to win a playoff game.

The Commanders (13-5) will face the No. 1 seed Detroit Lions (15-2) in the divisional round.

Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers (10-8) missed several opportunities and the veteran quarterback committed a critical turnover in the fourth quarter. The Bucs couldn’t get 1 yard on two tries from the Commanders 12 and settled for a field goal to tie the game before Washington’s winning drive.

Daniels threw for 268 yards and two touchdowns, joining C.J. Stroud and Brock Purdy as rookie QBs to win playoff games in the past three seasons.

BILLS 31, BRONCOS 7

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — Josh Allen threw two touchdown passes, James Cook scored on a 5-yard run and finished with 120 yards rushing, and Buffalo leaned on a balanced offensive attack in a win over Denver in a wild-card playoff game.

The Bills methodically wore down the Broncos by scoring on six of their first seven drives in building a 31-7 lead in a game where they finished with a 23-minute edge in time of possession.

And Buffalo didn’t flinch after rookie Bo Nix capped Denver’s five-play game-opening drive with a 43-yard touchdown pass to Troy Franklin.

With Buffalo leading 13-7, Allen broke the game open with a 24-yard touchdown pass to sliding running back Ty Johnson in the back of the end zone on fourth-and-1 with 3:06 left in the third quarter.

On Buffalo’s next possession, Allen completed a 55-yard pass to Curtis Samuel on the first snap of the fourth quarter.

The five-time defending AFC East champion Bills advanced to the divisional round for a fifth straight postseason, and will face the third-seeded Baltimore Ravens Sunday.

EAGLS 22, PACKERS 10

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Jalen Hurts tossed two touchdown passes in his first game since a late-season concussion, Dallas Goedert threw three stiff-arms on a rugged touchdown catch and Philadelphia rode their NFL-best defense to a 22-10 wild-card playoff win over Green Bay.

Hurts threw for a modest 131 yards but played with no hesitation in his return from a three-week layoff after a concussion in December. He started strong — six straight completions to open the game — and held off the Packers with a 24-yard touchdown pass to Goedert in the third quarter that will be forever stamped on the franchise’s postseason highlight reel.

Philadelphia’s defense handled the rest.

The Eagles turned a recovered fumble on the opening kickoff into Hurts’ first TD pass three plays later and the defense picked off Jordan Love twice in the first half. Holding a 19-10 lead in the fourth, the Eagles forced a turnover on downs when Green Bay had a fourth-and-3 on its own 41 with five minutes left in the game.

Quinyon Mitchell had one final interception of Love with 1:51 left in the game that sealed the win for the NFC East champions, who’ll play either the L.A. Rams or the Minnesota Vikings Sunday at the Linc.

Love threw for 212 yards and was intercepted three times as he nursed a sore right elbow that was hurt in the regular-season finale against Chicago.

Arctic air sweeps south as residents of the Pacific Northwest remain on guard after severe flooding

MONROE, Wash. (AP) — A blast of arctic air swept south from Canada and spread into parts of the northern U.S., while residents of the Pacific Northwest braced for possible mudslides and levee failures from floodwaters that are expected to be slow to recede.

The catastrophic flooding forced thousands of people to evacuate, including Eddie Wicks and his wife, who live amid sunflowers and Christmas trees on a Washington state farm next to the Snoqualmie River. As they moved their two donkeys to higher ground and their eight goats to their outdoor kitchen, the water began to rise much quicker than anything they had experienced before.

As the water engulfed their home Thursday afternoon, deputies from the King County Sheriff’s Office marine rescue dive unit were able to rescue them and their dog, taking them on a boat the half-mile (800 meters) across their field, which had been transformed into a lake. The rescue was captured on video.

Another round of rain and wind is in store for the region as early as late Sunday, forecasters said.

“Bottom line at this point in time is we’re not done despite the sunny conditions that we have across western Washington at this point,” said Reid Wolcott, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle.

“There is yet more still to come in terms of in terms of wind, in terms of rain, in terms in terms of flooding,” he said. “And Washingtonians need to be prepared for additional impacts, additional flooding, tree damage, power outages, etc.”

High winds expected at the end of the weekend and into the first part of week are a concern because the ground is extremely saturated, putting trees at risk of toppling, he said.

In Burlington, Washington, a farming community about an hour north of Seattle, the receding floodwaters allowed residents to assess damage and clean up their homes.

Friends and relatives helped empty Argentina Dominguez's home, filling trailers with soaked furniture, ripping carpet and mopping muddy floors.

“I know it’s materialistic stuff, but they were our stuff. It’s really hard. But we’re gonna try our best to like get through it all,” Dominguez said. “We’re just trying to get everything off the floor so we can start over.”

In Snohomish County, Washington, north of Seattle, emergency officials on Saturday led federal, state and local officials on a tour of the devastation.

“It’s obvious that thousands and thousands of Washingtonians and communities all across our state are in the process of digging out, and that’s going to be a challenging process,” Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said.

“It’s going to be expensive,” he said. “It’s going to be time consuming, and it’s going to be potentially dangerous at times. So I think we’re seeing here in Monroe is what we’re going to be seeing all across the state, and that’s what’s got our focus right now.”

As the Pacific Northwest begins to recover from the deluge, a separate weather system already brought dangerous wind-chill values — the combination of cold air temperatures and wind — to parts of the Upper Midwest.

Shortly before noon Saturday, it was minus 12 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 24 degrees Celsius) in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where the wind-chill value meant that it felt like minus 33 F (minus 36 C), the National Weather Service said.

For big cities like Minneapolis and Chicago, the coldest temperatures were expected late Saturday night into Sunday morning. In the Minneapolis area, low temperatures were expected to drop to around minus 15 F (minus 26 C), by early Sunday morning. Lows in the Chicago area are projected to be around 1 F(minus 17 C) by early Sunday, the weather service said.

The Arctic air mass was expected to continue pushing south and east over the weekend, expanding into Southern states by Sunday.

The National Weather Service on Saturday issued cold weather advisories that stretched as far south as the Alabama state capital city of Montgomery, where temperatures late Sunday night into Monday morning were expected to plummet to around 22 F (minus 6 C). To the east, lows in Savannah, Georgia, were expected to drop to around 24 F (minus 4 C) during the same time period.

The cold weather freezing much of the country comes as residents in the Pacific Northwest endure more misery after several days of flooding. Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate towns in the region as an unusually strong atmospheric river dumped a foot (30 centimeters) or more of rain in parts of western and central Washington over several days and swelled rivers, inundating communities and prompting dramatic rescues from rooftops and vehicles.

Many animals were also evacuated as waters raged over horse pastures, barns and farmland. At the peak of evacuations, roughly 170 horses, 140 chickens and 90 goats saved from the floodwaters were being cared for at a county park north of Seattle, said Kara Underwood, division manager of Snohomish County Parks. Most of those animals were still at the park on Saturday, she said.

The record floodwaters slowly receded Saturday, but authorities warn that waters will remain high for days, and that there is still danger from potential levee failures or mudslides. There is also the threat of more rain forecast for Sunday. Officials have conducted dozens of water rescues as debris and mudslides have closed highways and raging torrents have washed out roads and bridges.

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Associated Press writers Hallie Golden in Seattle and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed.