By Nick Shook | NFL.com
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NFL teams spend all season battling for the right to go to the postseason. Once a berth is locked up, the prime objective through Week 17 is to secure the best possible seed. Why?
Because the highest seed gets home-field advantage in the playoffs, and there’s no better place to play postseason football than at home. Crowds are raucous, stakes are high and historical records are in the favor of those wearing the home uniforms.
Postseason football on the road is often the most difficult, a fact proven by Wild Card weekend. Visiting teams went 1-3, and only one game was a one-possession contest inside two minutes.
That matchup — Cowboys vs. Lions — and its controversial end will likely be debated for days, before the collective attention of fans and media alike turns to Packers/Cowboys. The clock is ticking on that one.
But despite the loss, Detroit still featured at least a couple commendable performances. We’ll get to those later.
In the meantime, since we’ve reached the postseason and Baltimore is in said postseason, that one E word is going creep into consciousness.
But I have one pressing question: Is this column elite?
Here are Wild Card weekend’s greatest on the road:
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