We allowed them into the tournament, and they took out Dallas and Green Bay - 2 of the seeds above us. We beat Arizona easily, beat the Bucs (we made that harder than it needed to be) and then only had to beat San Fran - in our house.
The loss hurt at the time, but everything turned out great in the end. That's why predicting how things are going to go into the playoffs so rarely plays out as people expected. Just look at the Bengals.
