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An Objective Guide to the Best Ads of the NFL Playoffs

From pizza brands to insurance companies, the commercial breaks of the NFL Playoffs have been full of winners. But we, the viewers, are the biggest winners.

There is just less football, there's no way around it. The days are colder and darker and shorter, and the season has shrunk as it has shaken off the teams that are less deserving or less lucky; we are in the pressurized gloaming, now, when the season halves itself by the week until one team is left. The dwindling football left means more than any of the games that have preceded it, and will feel that way. Which is good news, because it means that the grunty, stop-and-go football stuff that spaces out the commercial breaks will pass more quickly.

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The glory tends to go to the big guys in shoulder pads, sure, and that's fair enough. But while the players are, by this point in the season, dragging their strained, sprained, torn, bruised, turf-toe'd and subluxated bodies through a fog of tragic testosterone and off-label painkiller use, the advertising professionals that give NFL broadcasts their rhythm have never been better. This is their postseason, too; the Super Bowl is their Super Bowl. Every moment counts, during the games and during the commercial breaks.

So let's treasure what's left, together. Below are the best advertisements of the NFL Playoffs so far.

Ford F-150, "Is Your Truck Wearing A Skirt?"

The latest installments in Ford's long-running series of ads for its line of rugged four-wheel-drive trucks once again features Denis Leary on voiceover duties; his line-reading on "J.D. Power and Associates" has the same tang and sizzle as ever. But where recent ads in this series have largely focused on Ford's patented Eco-Boost technology and hauling power, "Is Your Truck Wearing A Skirt?" marks a return to this campaign's confrontational roots. "Look at this fancy nancy," Leary sneers as a bespectacled man parks a clean, non-Ford truck outside a Home Depot, "hope there's room in that delicate glove box for your sad little baby nuts, my bitch." The ad concludes with a mud-streaked F-150 quad cab hauling a load of broken concrete through a library as patrons scatter, screaming, while Leary barks that the F-150 "puts the power back between your legs, where it belongs."

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Papa John's, "Get The App"

How has Papa John Schnatter been able to make his eponymous pizza chain a global giant despite selling pizza that tastes like vinyl-wrapped Nerf? It's not a rhetorical question. No one quite knows, but innovative advertising certainly has something to do with it. Schnatter has dialed back the direct-to-camera monologues that first made Papa John's a major advertising presence-Papa John's 2005 ad, "I'm Not Leaving Until You Admit You Can Taste The Difference, Denise" won six CLIO awards-but his brand is still innovating in the 30-second space. While "Get The App" at first appears to be another in the line of lighthearted ads that Schnatter has made with Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, this time aimed at promoting the Papa John's mobile app, it quickly becomes apparent that something else is afoot, here.

The ad opens to reveal Manning tied to a folding chair in a dank, seemingly subterranean setting; Schnatter sits opposite, unblinking, poreless, and with the complexion of a traffic cone. Manning, clearly distraught, appears to have been crying; Schnatter is slowly eating a large green bell pepper as if it was an apple. After nearly 20 seconds of silence, Manning finally sobs, "all right, all right, I'll get the app, I'll get your stupid app." Schnatter turns to the camera and smiles. Unsettling? Surely. But you'll never forget it.

Carfax, "I'm Sorry"

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This advertisement may be the one that saves the relationship between Carfax, an online repository of vehicle histories for used cars, and its longtime mascot, Carfox. For years, Carfox kept a low public profile, granting few interviews and generally insisting that any public conversation hew to the fine points of buying used cars. That changed in November of 2014, when the Carfox sent a series of since-deleted late-night tweets-which began with an eccentrically punctuated series of complaints about "the food stamp crowd;" devolved into a series of increasingly heated @-messages directed at his ex-wife, "Everybody Loves Raymond" actress Patricia Heaton; and ended with Carfox making repeated overtures to novelist Bret Easton Ellis to send him "just whatever kind of pills."

In a marked departure from Carfax's usual ads, which feature the Carfox assisting auto shoppers by helping them learn vital information about used cars available in their area, "I'm Sorry" finds the Carfox in front of a white screen, his usual "Car Fox" t-shirt and smirk swapped for a dark suit and somber expression. For 30 emotional seconds, Carfox speaks earnestly about his recent struggles, his belief that he "has let [potential Carfax users] down," and promising that he will strive to be "the Carfox that America deserves." Searing, real, and utterly unlike any other ad on television.

McDonald's, "Thank You, Drive Through"

The first entry in McDonald's controversial promotional partnership with Clint Eastwood's American Sniper is simply the most striking ad of the postseason so far. The ad, directed by Eastwood himself, is immediately recognizable as a stylistic departure from the usual, with the setting of an implausibly airy and clean McDonald's full of attractive young professionals replaced by the harsh lighting and jarring immediacy of a firefight in Iraq. Three soldiers are pinned down by enemy fire when a Humvee comes roaring through the street. It's driven by Grimace, McDonaldland's smiling purple potato mascot, and he gestures to the soldiers to jump into the vehicle; as they do, the Hamburglar unleashes furious covering fire from a high-caliber machine gun. The soldiers pile into the back, safe and sound, and find that Grimace and the Hamburglar remembered each soldier's favorite McDonald's order--Jeff wants no onions on his McDouble, Darrell wants a 32-ounce Dr. Pepper instead of a Coke--and picked them up at a drive-thru en route to the rescue mission.

As the vehicle speeds away, McDonald's iconic logo and new slogan, "McDonald's is a real person with feelings, and your friend," appears.

Allstate, "Crawlspace/Lurking Gruden"

Sometimes the simplest approach is best, and given the recent spate of baroquely weird insurance ads, there's something refreshing about this one, in which the legendarily intense former NFL coach Jon Gruden lives in the crawlspace of a family's home, and prevents them from getting into accidents minor and major. Allstate's message comes through clearly, and thanks to some inventive sound design, the ad also taps into the universal human fear of having Jon Gruden sneaking around your home.