San Diego chokes again

There are two things that has not changed a whole lot in the last 5 years - Nate Kaeding's playoff performance and my life. Whenever I think of Kaeding, I think of Marty Schottenheimer stalling the offense in the dying stages of a playoff game and asking Kaeding to kick the field goal that was supposed to win or tie the game for the Chargers. Kaeding invariably missed those and ended the Chargers season pre-maturely. The same thing happened today, only that he missed the kicks throughout this game and not just at the end. He is a good kicker and has great regular season stats, but he always screws up in the playoffs. The fact that he has survived so long in San Diego tells you that he is good. He just missed 3 field goals all season long, but he missed 3 today. The middle one was a 57 yarder and could have put the Chargers up 13-0. But the other 2 field goals were very makable and I don't know what gets into his head during the playoffs.

The Jets were lucky with those missed kicks, but they once again proved the adage that "defense wins championship". We all love offensive football and points, but the Jets are the only team this weekend that went into a hostile environment, didn't get a first down until the second quarter and still won the game. Thats because the defense came to play and induced Rivers into 2 interceptions. Very familiar type of loss to the Chargers. They have been losing like this pretty much every year. All the teams that lost this weekend had at least 2 turnovers. The defenses at home are especially aggressive and they come after the offense and induce a boatload of turnovers. Dallas had to deal with the same thing as they got blown out of Minnesota. The Vikes got to Romo repeatedly and forced him to fumble the ball. Dallas missed a field goal too and they couldn't stop Favre to Sidney Rice either. Favre had 4 TDs and the last one actually pissed off the Boys.

Now the Vikes goto the dome in N'aalians and the Colts host the Jets. I can't believe the Jets are in the AFC championship game after making the playoffs only because the Colts and the Bengals sat all their starters when they played the Jets towards the end of the season. The Colts won comfortably yesterday, but they had their share of problems against the Ravens D. I saw something in that game that I might not see ever again. Ed Reed intercepted Peyton Manning not once, but twice on the same drive and the Ravens didn't get the ball both times. Pierre Garcon chased after Reed and knocked the ball out for a fumble after the first interception. The second one was called back because the receiver was interfered by another guy while Reed was busy catching the ball. I guess even Peyton Manning has to be more lucky than good sometimes. They ran for negative yards almost always on first down and Peyton got them the first down anyways from 2-Nd and 12 or whatever, Jets D might even be tougher. Not sure if the Colts can succeed without running the ball effectively. Plus the Jets run the ball well too. Both games have a potential to be interesting, but they might be blowouts too.