Observations from NFL's Divisional Round Saturday

This one will be known as upset Saturday. Both top seeds—the No. 1 Tennessee Titans and No. 2 Carolina Panthers—fell in front of their home fans and saw their promising seasons upended by underdogs.

First we'll begin in Tennessee. The Titans actually outplayed the Ravens the entire day. Baltimore had relatively little success at pressuring Collins and in turn he was able to locate his receivers and move down the field.

On the ground, the Ravens had no answer for rookie speed demon, Chris Johnson, who amassed 72 yards and a TD on 11 first-half carries. And defensively, the Titans were smothering QB Joe Flacco and the running game and forcing the Ravens into numerous three-and-outs to get the ball back into the hands of the offense.

So what went wrong? What went wrong was that the Titans couldn't hold onto the football at crucial times and on defense, the big play killed them.

With a chance to take a 10-7 lead before the half, RB LenDale White fumbled the ball near the 20 and the Ravens were able to head into the locker room with the score tied. Then, after driving down the field, Collins located backup TE Alge Crumpler, who took a bone crushing hit inside the five and fumbled the football back to the Ravens, who took over at the one.

On the flip side of the ball, the Ravens received a huge break on its game-winning drive. After watching the Titans tie the score at 10 with under four minutes to play, Flacco made a huge play to TE Todd Heap on third down, which put them in better position to kick the GW FG.

Only the play should have never happened. The play clock had hit zero and appeared to be sitting there for at least a second before the play was the run; the refs missed it, the first down was picked up and the rest is history.

The setting was eerily similar to the game between these two teams back in 2001. The Titans outplayed that Ravens team for the better half of the game before self destructing in the fourth quarter.

This one wasn't as bad (in terms of self destructing late), but the resulting disappointment feel the same nonetheless.

The late game was even more head scratching. The Carolina Panthers, a 10-point home favorite, were annihilated at the hands of the Arizona Cardinals, 33-13. And it wasn't even close. But what's more mind boggling than anything was HC John Fox's game plan and why he abandoned the run so early.

On the first drive of the series, the Panthers marched down, led by the legs of RB DeAngelo Williams and RB Jonathan Stewart, to an easy score and many of us felt that this game would be a blowout. Well it would, but just not by the team we all thought it would be by.

After that, the Cards began to find success on both the ground and through the air, primarily with WR Larry Fitzgerald, and before the Panthers knew it, they were in a 14-7 hole which was about to become much larger in a short amount of time. And the reason for that was QB Jake Delhomme and his five interceptions.

He'll draw a tremendous amount of blame for the outcome and he'll rightly deserve most of it, but what lost this game for the Panthers was the decision to abandon the run in the beginning of the second quarter. The Cards were able to drop seven guys back into coverage and feast on Delhomme's passes.

Most times coaches try and outsmart the competition, but this was clearly a case where Fox outsmarted himself. The ground game had been there all year long and would've been there again on this night, but it would take patience. Fox didn't have it and now he'll be watching the NFC Championship Game from his living room.