"Who-Cares" round of the playoffs

While the Pats, Colts, Boys and the Packers are chilling at home and waiting for their next opponent, the NFL wild-card playoffs are starting this weekend. It feels more like a "who cares" round this year more than in the past. I don't think the wild-card teams ever had a great shot at winning the Super Bowl in the NFL, but they seem to have even less of a chance this year mostly because of how good the 4 teams with the bye are. I would say the Packers are the most vulnerable among the 4 at home and the Chargers and the Jaguars are the best teams playing this weekend. I still don't know how and why the Tennessee Titans made the playoffs. Wasn't the AFC supposed to be the better and tougher conference? In the NFC, Washington sneaked in and is now playing Seattle with the Giants playing the Bucs. Decent games though none of these teams seem to be in the same class as the Cowboys or the Packers and even those 2 teams in turn are not in the same class as the Colts or Pats.

With all that said, it's still the NFL playoffs and I can't wait for it to begin. The games will be fun and the Jville-Pitt game in particular should be a dandy. Two good teams that play a physical style and look like a mirror-image of each other slugging it out for all the playoff marbles. This one will be close, but I am tempted to pick Jville. San Diego should handle VY And the Titans. They better, or else Norvell will be in a world of trouble. Chargers need to win a playoff contest one of these days. In the JV, I like Seattle and the Giants to get the job done this weekend. Two teams on a roll though not great teams by any stretch of the imagination. The Bucs aren't too bad either. At the end of the day, the games will be fun and somebody will move on to lose in the next round.

The Bowl season is also winding down. I have been ignoring it ever since Texas man-handled my Sun Devils! But the bigger bowls in Jan are always fun. Some surprising results and upsets made it even more fun. I can't believe Michigan ended the season by beating a good SEC team in Florida featuring a Heisman winning QB after beginning this season with a loss against Appalachian state! Talk about night and day. I suppose the guys really stepped up to send Lloyd Carr off in style. In the Fiesta bowl, number 11 West Virginia crushed the 3-Rd ranked Oklahoma in another upset and how pissed are the West Virginians now? If they are this good, how the heck did they lose to a bad Pitt team at home with a national championship berth at stake? What a waste of a season. Well at least they got their BCS dollars and embarrassed a big name program like the Sooners. Easier said than done for most schools. Number 8 Kansas took care of number 5 Va-Tech in an interesting game at the Orange Bowl.

The college football season was crazy with multiple upsets and great parity this year. I am happy some of these lesser known schools continued their good run in the bowls and showed the nation their wins during the regular season were no flukes. Rose and Sugar stayed true to form as USC crushed Illinois at Pasadena and Georgia took care of business against a over-matched Hawaii squad. Now all eyes are on the BCS national championship game. I pick LSU to win, win big and win it in style against the Suck-eyes. Michigan's upset not withstanding, I don't expect this Big-10 team to beat a real good SEC team like the tigers. OSU better hope it's not a repeat of last year's final.