There is playoff football and then there is good playoff football. Unfortunately we didn't get the later in the NFL this weekend. The best weekends in the playoffs are the wild card and divisional rounds because we get 4 games spread over both Saturday and Sunday with no scheduling conflicts on TV. Of those 2 weekends, I usually prefer the wild card weekend even more than the divisional round. The divisional round usually features better teams, bigger names and more hyped up match-ups, but sometimes those teams are so good and well rested, they end up blowing out the visitors at home. The wild card games tend to be closer and exciting. Not the case this year, though the final scores do look decent in all 4 games. Cincinnati almost beat Houston, but they never seemed like they were in the game. Not with the red-head Andy Dalton throwing for a paltry 127 yards to go with an interception and with Arian Foster running all over them for 140 yards and one "namaste". It was also a repeat of the playoff match-up from last year and this one was even less exciting. I am happy Schaub finally got his first playoff action and earned a victory. Of course the Patriots will put the Texans out of their misery next weekend.
I was personally looking forward to the Saturday night contest between the Packers and the Vikings. While I did expect the Packers to win at home, I expected some fireworks from Adrian Peterson. But just before the game, Christian Ponder was surprisingly declared inactive. Ponder is no Joe Montana, but he a'int no Joe Webb either. Despite some people predicting that such a last minute start for Joe Webb might even be a plus for the Vikings given his running abilities, we were left to ponder if we would have gotten a better game with Ponder behind center. All-Day and Joe Webb started well, but the Packers wrested control soon and poor Joe was clearly over-matched. He tried to donate the ball to the Packers a couple of times early, but the Packers didn't take it. Of course they didn't need it as they won it rather easily. All-Day almost got to 100 yards, but he couldn't get it all done by himself. Webb was no help and we didn't get the marquee matchup I was expecting with 2 MVP candidates - All-Day and A-Rod, in the mix.
Ironically, I thought the closest game of the weekend was the one with the widest margin score-wise. Andrew Luck moved the ball well against the Ravens in Ray Lewis's last home game ever, but the Colts just could not score TDs. 3 field goals can beat Flacco if he is on the road, but not at home. The Colts had another health episode with their offensive coordinator Bruce Arians ending up in the hospital on game day. Tough season for them, but nothing to be ashamed of. Great performance by Luck all year. Let's see where they go from here. More on Ray Lewis later. He probably deserves a separate blog post all by himself. In the final game of the weekend, the story ended up being RG III's knees. He started very well and the Redskins were up 14-0, but the game then deteriorated into a sloppy, no-fun contest for a couple of quarters until Lynch went Beast Mode. He first fumbled at the goal line and then atoned for it with a great TD run. Russell Wilson was great in that game too. He is just solid and always under control. RG III twisted his knee and left for good in the 4-Th quarter after laboring around due to a lesser knee incident in quarter 1.
This happened on the same day when news leaked that the doctor didn't agree with some of the procedures Mike Shanahan followed or did not after RG III got hurt the first time around. So Shanahan didn't handle RGIII right when he first got hurt, then he let him come back a few games earlier than he should have, and then didn't take him out on time when he got hurt again in this game. Thats a trifecta Shanahan doesn't want on his resume. Good to know Shanahan treats the million-dollar, future of his franchise worse than his pet hamster. I know it's not a concussion, but looks like the NFL coaches are still behaving like it's the 70's when it comes to other injuries. The games were so mediocre this knee-gate is the biggest story for this week. Let's hope for better games next weekend. The BCS championship game today sure was no help to starving football fans. Notre Dame lost 14-42 to Alabama showing us all why it should have been Oregon playing in that game. I can't stand the SEC hype, but it's hard to make that argument if SEC teams keep winning the title every year. 7 straight for the SEC and 3 out of 4 for Nick Saban and Bama. I don't know if nice guys finish last, but bad guys do seem to finish first in the BCS. As you can tell, I am not a big Saban fan, but Congrats anyways.
I was personally looking forward to the Saturday night contest between the Packers and the Vikings. While I did expect the Packers to win at home, I expected some fireworks from Adrian Peterson. But just before the game, Christian Ponder was surprisingly declared inactive. Ponder is no Joe Montana, but he a'int no Joe Webb either. Despite some people predicting that such a last minute start for Joe Webb might even be a plus for the Vikings given his running abilities, we were left to ponder if we would have gotten a better game with Ponder behind center. All-Day and Joe Webb started well, but the Packers wrested control soon and poor Joe was clearly over-matched. He tried to donate the ball to the Packers a couple of times early, but the Packers didn't take it. Of course they didn't need it as they won it rather easily. All-Day almost got to 100 yards, but he couldn't get it all done by himself. Webb was no help and we didn't get the marquee matchup I was expecting with 2 MVP candidates - All-Day and A-Rod, in the mix.
Ironically, I thought the closest game of the weekend was the one with the widest margin score-wise. Andrew Luck moved the ball well against the Ravens in Ray Lewis's last home game ever, but the Colts just could not score TDs. 3 field goals can beat Flacco if he is on the road, but not at home. The Colts had another health episode with their offensive coordinator Bruce Arians ending up in the hospital on game day. Tough season for them, but nothing to be ashamed of. Great performance by Luck all year. Let's see where they go from here. More on Ray Lewis later. He probably deserves a separate blog post all by himself. In the final game of the weekend, the story ended up being RG III's knees. He started very well and the Redskins were up 14-0, but the game then deteriorated into a sloppy, no-fun contest for a couple of quarters until Lynch went Beast Mode. He first fumbled at the goal line and then atoned for it with a great TD run. Russell Wilson was great in that game too. He is just solid and always under control. RG III twisted his knee and left for good in the 4-Th quarter after laboring around due to a lesser knee incident in quarter 1.
This happened on the same day when news leaked that the doctor didn't agree with some of the procedures Mike Shanahan followed or did not after RG III got hurt the first time around. So Shanahan didn't handle RGIII right when he first got hurt, then he let him come back a few games earlier than he should have, and then didn't take him out on time when he got hurt again in this game. Thats a trifecta Shanahan doesn't want on his resume. Good to know Shanahan treats the million-dollar, future of his franchise worse than his pet hamster. I know it's not a concussion, but looks like the NFL coaches are still behaving like it's the 70's when it comes to other injuries. The games were so mediocre this knee-gate is the biggest story for this week. Let's hope for better games next weekend. The BCS championship game today sure was no help to starving football fans. Notre Dame lost 14-42 to Alabama showing us all why it should have been Oregon playing in that game. I can't stand the SEC hype, but it's hard to make that argument if SEC teams keep winning the title every year. 7 straight for the SEC and 3 out of 4 for Nick Saban and Bama. I don't know if nice guys finish last, but bad guys do seem to finish first in the BCS. As you can tell, I am not a big Saban fan, but Congrats anyways.
1 comment:
Your post brings up a good point about close games and score. Is there a good way to define temas are in the game even if the score is not that close?
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