The NFL playoffs have pared the league's 32 teams down an Elite 8 as we reach the divisional semifinals this weekend.

Playoff pressure is unlike anything I experienced in my four years of major college football, and 17 years in the NFL. I got my first playoff start in just my second season, when I started for the LA Rams against the St. Louis Cardinals in 1975 . I will never forget the electricity in the air when I walked onto the field at the LA Coliseum that Sunday.

I knew I was going to have to push myself to a higher level. Everything you have worked a lifetime for is there for the taking if you can climb up to it. I did that. We won 35-23. I ran five yards for a touchdown, and threw a 66-yarder toHarold Jackson.