The Absolutely Worst of the NFL, Divisional-Round Edition

This NFL Playoff Divisional Round has been one for the record books. Full of fantastic finishes, eye-popping plays and legendary comebacks, you'd think this week would be safe. But if there's anything we know, it's that nobody knows what's going to happen in an NFL football game.

From the sublime to the ridiculous we go, in this week's The Absolutely Worst of the NFL.

The Absolutely Worst End-of-First-Half Defense: Green Bay Packers

Having failed to answer the New York Giants' go-ahead field goal, the Packers punted it to the Giants with only 48 seconds left in the first half. Eli Manning and the Giants tried to chip away at the 69 yards between them and the end zone, but two quick pass attempts netted only nine yards.

Though the Giants were out of timeouts, the Packers obligingly called one of theirs. Apparently, the Packers spent that time discussing wedding presents for a mutual friend. I hear candlesticks always make a nice gift.

When play resumed, Ahmad Bradshaw took a simple draw and slashed through half the Packers defense. Incredibly, he bounced an inside draw to his left all the way to the right sideline and got there, stopping the clock with a critical six seconds left.

Rather than attempt a long field goal, Manning and the Giants went for the jugular. Manning heaved a Hail Mary towards the back corner of the end zone, and the Packers did a miserable job of defending it. Hakeem Nicks came down with it, and the Packers went into the half down by 10.

The Packers could have kept the Giants close at any point in that sequence: the unnecessary timeout, the horrible tackling on the draw play or the terrible defending on the Hail Mary. Instead, they failed at every point, and never recovered the lead.

The Absolutely Worst Clever Play: San Francisco 49ers

Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers thought they could take advantage of the defensive attention Frank Gore draws. So, in the third quarter of their playoff game against the aggressive New Orleans Saints defense, the Niners uncorked this gem.

Gore does draw a crowd, but that's where the resemblance between the playbook and reality ends.

Gore throws an awful pass back to Alex Smith, Smith does a horrible job of adjusting to it and then "JUST FALLS ON IT" like he's a 350-pound lineman and not a highly-tuned athlete paid millions to handle the football on every single play.

The coaches coach, and the players play, but it looked like the coaches hadn't coached those players on how to play that play.

The Absolutely Worst Quest for Redemption: Tim Tebow

At this point, we at The Absolutely Worst are resolved to leave poor Tebow alone. But when he followed up his wild-card round performance at Mile High with a 9-of-26, 136-yard debacle we were left no choice.

The Broncos were thrashed, 45-10, in the divisional round, and that's not even the worst part. The worst part is once again, Tebow converted masses of his naysayers with an undeniably great game, and then immediately looked very mortal. Do the Broncos have a quarterback or not? Is he the franchise savior or not? It's almost impossible to tell.

Somewhere, John Elway is signing "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Tim Tebow?"

The Absolutely Worst Referees: NFL referees

Once again, NFL refs turned in an awful performance when the audience was huge and the stakes enormous. Amongst several other missed calls/no-calls, the Packers vs. Giant game turned when referee Bill Leavy was the only one on planet Earth who didn't think this was a fumble.

Once again, millions tune in to see a great game, and once again millions come away thinking the NFL has to find a way to improve official accuracy and consistency.