Napalmered

If you are a fan of any team, that team's losses in the playoffs can be pretty frustrating. The further the team advances in the playoffs, the more the losses hurt as the expectations grow higher with every round of the playoffs and consequently, the fall is harder. And every team has to fall and fail in every league eventually except one champion. I have seen many highs and mostly lows being a fan of the Phoenix Suns. Comparatively speaking, I am not as emotionally attached to the Arizona Cardinals as I am to the Phoenix Suns. But their loss against the Carolina Panthers was still one of the most frustrating losses I have seen. Carson Palmer single-handedly lost this game for the Cardinals. He didn't lose by making a big mistake at a crucial moment, but rather by not showing up nor playing with any level of consistency or quality. The Cardinals were basically napalmed by Palmer.

The final score was a horrible 49-15 in favor of the Panthers and they seemed to dominate every aspect of this game. It's not just the Cardinals offense and Palmer that had troubles. Their defense wasn't much better either. Despite all of that, the most frustrating part of this game for me was, it was a very winnable game for the Cards. Even late into the second quarter with the Panthers having scored a couple of times and Palmer having fumbled once already, the Cards still had a legitimate shot at winning this game. David Johnson was running pretty effectively, Cards had scored once, and even forced the Panthers into a couple of 3 and outs. With less than 6 minutes to go in the first half and the score at 17-7, Patrick Peterson committed a costly mistake. He fumbled the punt return after one of the few Panther's 3 and outs and that was a punch in the Cardinals' gut. Panthers pushed it to 24-7. Peterson redeemed himself by intercepting Cam Newton in one of the subsequent possessions and returning it all the way to Carolina 22. But then Palmer followed that up right away with a break-breaking interception in the end zone - a horrible throw forced into double coverage. That was pretty much the ballgame.

The second half was quite an abuse of the Cardinals with more turnovers from Palmer. The bottom-line was, ugly Palmer showed up instead of the good Palmer we have been seeing all regular season. This game confirmed everybody's worst fears about Carson Palmer -- that he is not a big-game player, he is not a clutch performer, he makes big mistakes at the worst moments etc. He proved all of those theories right. I have always been a fan of Palmer and thought that the public perception and injuries have been pretty unfair to him. But after this game, I am a believer in all the haters. I even heard one talking head say Palmer was considered a one-read QB in USC who can be easily confused and they simplified the offense big-time during his Heisman season. The skeptics are right and he can't recover from this performance. God help the Cardinals next season.

In the AFC championship game, the Broncos pulled a Pats and outsmarted them with a brilliant game plan. I thought they had the Pats confused the entire first half on both sides of the ball. They have incredible talent on defense and got to Brady at will. But the way they bottled up Edelman was brilliant and they also had a great plan on offense. Now we have the sheriff in his final Super Bowl. He has an opportunity to walk off into the sunset as a champion like his boss Elway. Broncos will face the Panthers in what should be a close Super Bowl. Brady has dominated Manning 11-6 in their personal series, but that includes a 2-3 record in the playoffs, including losses in their last three postseason meetings, all in the AFC Championship Game. Seems like Brady beats Manning except in the AFC Championship games. Goes to show how all these stereotypes that the media builds are just that - stereotypes. Football is the ultimate team game and even a Brady or a Manning need a team around them, not to mention home-field to win.

We will definitely miss the Brady-Manning rivalry. That was a long-running, high-profile, yearly event, the kind of which we may never see again.

Instant Masterpiece!

There are instant classics and then there was the Cards-Packers game last Saturday night. I don't think the term instant classic does this game justice. This was an instant masterpiece. The game featured 2 crazy hail-marys at the end of regulation to send it to OT and an exciting 75-yard play to start the OT. This little commentary will tell you all you need to know about this game. I was re-watching the 4th quarter and with around 4 mins to go in regulation, with all of the end of the game and OT drama yet to play out, analyst Cris Collinsworth already says "I have never seen anything like this game!" And then all the mayhem happened! The reason he said that was because the game already had some wild twists and turns. There was a pick-6 by Patrick Peterson called back in the first half. Also, when Cris made that comment, the Cards had just scored a go-ahead TD where Carson Palmer's pass was tipped in the end zone and somehow the ball ended up in the hands of Michael Floyd. Thats a pass that could have easily been intercepted if the ball had bounced a different way. That drive also featured a couple of passes by Palmer that could have and should have been intercepted and returned to the house the other way.

Palmer didn't have a great game. He was up and down and kept the Cards fans on pins and needles the entire game with every pass he made. But at the end of the night, he made enough great plays to win the game. Fitz was his amazing self as always and dominated the OT to single-handedly carry the Cards home. The big 75 yard pass play in OT was a beauty by both Palmer and Fitz. Aaron Rodgers made some amazing plays as well in that last drive to send the game into OT. I can't believe he completed two hail-mary TD passes at the end of games this season. For all the enjoyment this game gave us Cards fans, if the result was any different, this would have been one of the most painful losses. I am not sure if I would still be calling it a masterpiece. A-Rod completed a 61 yard pass on 4th and 20 from his own end zone with 50 seconds to go in regulation. I encourage you to do a search on Google for "4th and 26" and you will see a play from the 2004 divisional round where Donovan McNabb completes a 4th and 26 pass to Freddie Mitchell to keep a late-game drive alive against the same Packers. The Eagles forced OT and eventually won that game. To this day, thats a signature play and a painful memory for the Packer fans. If the Cards had lost this game, us Cards fans would have had multiple A-Rod plays painfully etched in our memory forever. But the Cards survived those plays behind Fitz's own signature moves.

For the second playoffs in a row, Aaron Rodgers lost in OT where he didn't even get to touch the ball. As excited as I am about this game and happy that the Cards won, I agree with Clay Matthews that they have to change the OT rules. Few years back, NFL changed the rule to make sure a field goal in the first drive of OT didn't end the game right there. That change was good, but didn't go far enough.  Now, a TD in the first drive in OT ends the game. The logic being, football is a team sport and the defense has to do it's job and prevent the TD to be able to continue the game. I don't agree with this and both offenses deserve at least one shot. NFL has a hard salary cap and super star QBs like Aaron Rodgers are paid handsomely, every dollar of which they richly deserve. This means such teams may not have enough money to build a strong defense as much as they may want to. Point being, different teams have different philosophies of team building and different strengths and weaknesses. If a team doesn't have a good enough defense, today they will probably lose the game if they lose the coin flip in OT. Thats not right.

Forget whats right and whats wrong. Purely from a business and entertainment perspective, how does it make sense for the NFL to decide a big playoff game in overtime with Aaron Rodgers, one of the legendary players in the history of the league, standing on the sidelines and not even being allowed to participate? Thats like Cleveland Cavaliers playing the OT of a game 7 in the NBA playoffs and the result being decided by the bench players of the Cavs with LeBron just standing on the sideline and not getting a chance to touch the ball. NFL better fix this. I will add this though. The college type OT rule is better, but it is also flawed. In that scheme, the team playing second has a huge advantage in that they know exactly how much to score and are in 4 down territory the entire way. The team playing first on the other hand, has to pick between a field goal or a TD as they get close to field goal territory. May be we should just have a 10 minute OT period and let the chips fall where they may at the end of it.

This is a good topic for the off-season, though I doubt if the NFL will touch this. For now, the Cards march on and don't have to explain a bunch of crazy events from this game. I loved Bruce Arians throwing on 2nd down towards the end in an attempt to completely keep the ball away from Aaron Rodgers. The throw fell on the ground and they ended up giving A-Rod an extra 35 seconds. A QB like that can do a lot of damage, whether you give him 90 seconds or 120 seconds. So I was fine with them going for the kill there. But if they had lost, that would have been the talk of the town. It turns out it was Palmer's call based on what he saw at the line. Arians would have still had to explain that call, plus he would not have thrown Palmer under the bus if they had lost. All of this is moot now since they won. Now they get to play the scary looking Panthers in Carolina. Panthers dominated the first half against the Seahawks and barely held on to win the game in the second half. Broncos and Pats won at home too. There were 4 good games last weekend, but the other 3 pale in comparison to the masterpiece theatre that was the Packers-Cards featuring the prestigious thespian Larry Fitzgerald.

Get well, Mort. The rest is mere details.

This was an eventful and action-packed sports week with many ups and downs, but the latest news is a bit of a downer. ESPN NFL expert Chris Mortensen announced he is suffering from throat cancer and is taking a sabbatical. I don't know him personally, but he comes off as a decent guy on TV and I am going to miss him. These guys actually spend more time in our living rooms than some of our dear friends and we develop an attachment towards them whether we like it or not. This is a sad news and I wish Mort a speedy recovery. Hope to see him soon in his bus tours across the NFL training camps. A lot happened between last week's wild card weekend and the bad news from Mort. The NCAA championship game, a NFL move to LA, and a bunch of interesting head coaching hires in the NFL.

It turned out Vegas did get the Wild Card weekend right with all 4 road teams winning. I got 3 of the 4 games right with Aaron Rodgers and the Packers putting me in my place in Washington. It wasn't even close for the Washington no-namers. To be fair, we might have gotten the games right, but 2 of those 4 were coin-flip games. Seattle was incredibly lucky that Blair Walsh missed a game-winning chip shot field goal. Adrian Peterson had a costly fumble in this low-scoring game first and then supposedly didn't rush to the right to set Walsh up at his preferred right hash for the game ending field goal. He cut back left hoping for a first down. He fell a yard short of the first down and won't have an opportunity for a meaningful carry for another 8 months. The dangerous Seattle team gets to live another day.

The Cincinnati Bengals lost in an even more excruciating way than the Vikings as a series of unfortunate events gave 30 free yards and the game on a platter to the Pittsburgh Steelers. A questionable penalty called on the troubled Sun Devil Vontaze Burfict and a bone-headed penalty by Pacman Jones ended the Bengals season and almost got Marvin Lewis fired. He survived, but paid the ultimate price for signing talented nut-jobs like Pacman. Sometimes, these players hurt you at the most inappropriate moments. Pacman sure was incited by Pittsburgh Steelers' coach Joey Porter, who is no choir boy himself, but such excuses don't win games, smart, disciplined plays do. Bengals have to start all over again next season without their OC Hue Jackson, who is now the head coach upstate in Cleveland.

Now on to the divisional round, which is arguably the best football weekend of the NFL season. The Arizona Cardinals will be hosting the Green Bay Packers for the second time in 4 weeks. They crushed the Packers the first time around, but the Packers looked a lot better last weekend at Washington. Aaron Rodgers can always become a serious problem for any defense, but I still think the Packers have not improved that much in a month to pull off the upset on the road against a potent team. They will make this much closer than last time, but the Cards should win. I expect the same with the Pats - a close game with the home team winning. Chiefs are rolling and I won't be surprised if they win against a shaky Pats team. But if Brady can't beat Alex Smith, hoodie will figure out a way to.

On Sunday, the lucky Seahawks are going into the Panthers. I have no idea who will or even who I want to win in this one. I am always up for a good Seattle loss and they are a dangerous team for the Cards to face if the Cards do make it to the NFC Championship game, but if Seattle wins they have to come to the desert. I don't mind the Panthers winning, but that means the Cards will be going to Cam's house and deal with the dab and the nene. Leaving my and Cards preferences aside, this is an amazing matchup and anybody's game. The Hawks are good on both sides of the ball, but they looked beatable last weekend. Their run ends here and the Panthers will finish the job that the Vikes started. The Steelers-Broncos game is also hard to predict only because of the injuries to Big Ben and Antonio Brown. With them healthy, I would have no hesitation in picking them to beat Peyton Manning, who looks more ready to shop for Centrum silver than play in the NFL playoffs. But I give the Broncos and that defense a slight edge at home against a hobbled Big Ben and a Brown-less Steelers.

On the coaching front, aside from the Browns hiring Hue Jackson, Dirk Koetter (Bucs), Ben McAdoo (NYG), Adam Gase (Dolphins), Chip Kelly (Niners), and Doug Pederson (Eagles) have all landed on their feet and grabbed one of the top jobs in America. The most fascinating among those hires is Chip Kelly in San Francisco for his second shot. The ownership and front-office that had issues with Jim Harbaugh is hiring another guy with a questionable personality. On top of his personality, he is also known to have issues with managing players his way. The jury is still out on his unique, up-tempo offense and the Niners have Colin Kaepernick, who they were expected to get rid of, but might fit the aforementioned offense a lot better than most other QBs. Do they now keep him? How will this all shake out? We will find out in the next 6 months. Niners also have around 50 mill in salary cap as well.

The other big news this week was the St. Louis Rams getting the approval for their LA move. How ironic is it that Stan Kreonke, the guy from Missouri who was brought in as a minority owner by the LA owners when the Rams moved into that region is now spearheading the move out of St. Louis back to LA. It's a smart business decision and he is not even asking for a whole lot of public funds in LA. Looks like he will sink 1.8+ billion of his personal money into this stadium. He will make enough money in return for years to come, but the real returns will be in terms of the equity and his franchise's value. If the Clippers are worth 2 bills in LA, god knows how much the Rams will be worth in 5 years with that spanking new stadium in Inglewood.  Good for Stan and as always, the fans lose, despite the city of St. Louis promising public funds. To quote someone in St. Louis, "we are throwing money at the stripper and she is throwing it back in our face."

It's Stan's business and he can do whatever he wants, but sports teams are civic entities and there needs to be better checks and balances on uprooting a team from it's city. NFL does have strong bylaws and wordings around encouraging teams to stay in their communities, but those seem to be just words. None of that really matters when cash-money comes knocking. Now, San Diego is supposed to work it out with the Rams and move in to those new digs. That leaves the Raiders out and they are back to square one. They don't have a lease in Oakland as of today and San Antonio is back in the picture. Raiders owner Mark Davis keeps talking about Raider-nation as if it's some form of an universal entity not bound by any geographic boundaries. The Raiders do have bit of a distributed following due to their multiple moves and catchy colors, but can he be any more disingenuous and delusional? He is trying to convince us that Raider fans are a thing with or without Oakland. Thats his way out of town, if he needs one. The Raider fans in Oakland are not too bothered either because they are either too cool to care or they are convinced the Raiders have nowhere to go and will stay back, at least for a year or two. Let's hope for the best here. I am sick of the business of sports treating the paying fans as the least relevant entity in the World.

I would be remiss if I don't mention the NCAA Championship game last Monday. Alabama won over Clemson in an instant classic. I was really impressed with Clemson QB Deshaun Watson. Alabama's Jake Coker kept pace with him and it was amazing to see how many big plays this game featured on both sides of the ball. Nick Saban is not quite the legend that Bear Bryant is, but his resume is already better. He is playing in a more competitive era with a playoff. It's hard to believe that Bear Bryant actually lost his final bowl game and still won a couple of championships back in the day. It was indeed a different time and place and Saban is already at 4 rings versus Bryant's 6 at Alabama. Saban has one more from LSU. He is indeed a super legend in the making.

Bring on the Cards-season, AKA post-season!

There is always what you think is going to happen and then there is what you want to happen. The title of this article probably give it all away, though I am not sure what part of that is what I think versus what I want. My Super Bowl pick is Arizona Cardinals over the New England Patriots, a matchup supposedly America also wants based on a recent poll on the most exciting potential Super Bowl even over the Seahawks-Pats possibility that was awesome last year. I may be biased in favor of the Cards, but they are definitely capable and poised to make a deep run this post-season. It won't be a walk in the park - it never is, especially if they play like they did in week 16 against the Seahawks, but they didn't have much to play for then and they did show us they are way better over the previous 15 weeks. So I am going to cut them some slack. As for the Pats, they have been in a funk too, but I can't imagine the other AFC wannabes unseating Brady and Belichick this season. Thats my prognostication, but thats neither here nor there this weekend because the Super Bowl at Levi is a month away. The first round of the playoffs is kicking off today and these two teams are not even playing this weekend.

The wild card weekend is the best weekend of the NFL playoffs in a lot of ways. We get two games on Saturday and two on Sunday. The divisional round also feature 4 games, but then the well-rested big boys come out and blow fools out sometimes. Wild card weekend on the other hand usually features good, but not great teams and they typically give us closer games. This year's version lacks a little bit of sex appeal due to some new teams and injuries, but the games may be even crazier than usual. This is illustrated by the fact that all four road teams are favored to win this wild card weekend! I am not a gambling junkie, but I really doubt if the lines look like that often. Let's see if Vegas got it right this time, but here are my picks.

Kansas City Chiefs @ Houston Texans: This is probably the toughest game to pick. It involves two teams that have turned their season around and are rolling into the playoffs, but the Chiefs' transformation is a lot more impressive. Neither team has a hall of fame QB and that always makes it hard to dissect, but I pick the Chiefs to win this one on the road. We don't get to see Arian Foster or Jamaal Charles, but we will see a good game here.

Pittsburgh Steelers @ Cincinnati Bengals: Andy Dalton has been ruled out of this game and I am not even sure if it's a bad thing given his past post-season performances. All kidding aside, the Bengals will miss him and the Steelers should steal this one. Big Ben and Antonio Brown need to be on their A Game, but they are capable of an A+ game any given day. Ben has not consistently been A+ this season, but has been good enough to put the fear of god in most opponents. They are actually a trendy Super Bowl pick due to that reason. I won't go that far, but the Steelers should win this AFC North matchup, a division which more than any other seem to throw an intra-division wild card contest year in and year out. Those 3rd rivalry game of the season are always fun.

Seattle Seahawks @ Minnesota Vikings: Last week, the Vikings went into Green Bay and rudely snatched the NFC North title from the Packers. What do they get in return? A home playoff game and a lot of money for their owners, but possibly a loss to the surging Seattle Seahawks. They probably would have been better off losing a close game and the division last week and going back into Green Bay this week for a wild-card matchup on the road. The Seahawks look scary good on offense and their defense has not dropped off that much. Russell Wilson has absolutely played at a MVP level the last half of the season and he has reinvented this offense behind his arm and Doug Baldwin's legs. I doubt if any amount of Minnesota cold can stop them. I want the Vikes to win, but Seahwaks will win this one.

Green Bay Packers @ Washington No-Namers: Why are the Packers, who started the season 6-0 and have Aaron Rodgers playing QB, going into Washington to play a wild-card game on the road? This defies explanation except the obvious cliche "football games are won in the trenches." The Packers offensive line has been offensive much like their opponent's nicknames that I try to avoid. This O-line has made Rodgers look shaky and Eddie Lacy look fat! I can't believe I am saying this, but Rodgers is going to lose to Kirk Daniel Cousins this weekend. The Washington players and their leader Cousins might be penny pinchers and cheap off the field (what a cute story that is), but their offense has been prolific and confident on the field. I can't see this Packers team dominating them on either side of the ball. Rogers need to play at a hall-of-fame level to win this one and he absolutely can, but I am picking the No-Namers to win.

There you have it. Four more teams will be gone fishing in a couple of days and lets start the countdown to the Super Bowl.

NFL pre-post-season

The first couple of weeks of the post-season is the best time of the NFL year, but it always has an ominous beginning. Black Monday, right after the final Sunday of the season is when all the under-performing coaches are usually fired. This is the big news for a few days before the actual post-season games start. The timing of the firings was actually slightly better this year for their families since it happened after the new year. Sometimes, black monday falls right in the middle of the holidays. Much like black Friday after Thanksgiving, black Monday is starting earlier and earlier these days. Few coaches got fired Sunday night, not to mention Chip Kelly losing his job a week earlier. All in all, 6 coaches have left the building so far this year.

The teams looking for a new coach now are Cleveland (whats new?), San Francisco (again), Tennessee (after firing Whisenhunt mid-season), Miami, Philadelphia, and the New York Giants (after Tom Coughlin's "resignation"). The surprisingly smart decision came from the usually dumb Jim Irsay, the Colts owner. Common sense seems to have prevailed in Indy as they decided to re-sign and extend coach Chuck Pagano despite reports all Sunday claiming he will not be back. Apparently Chuck and general manager Ryan Grigson have agreed to settle their differences and work towards a common goal, which is to use Andrew Luck's immense talents to win a Super Bowl instead of wasting his prime away.

Ironically, San Francisco is looking for a new coach again in less than a year. If only they had brokered a working relationship between Jim Harbaugh and Trent Balke much like the Colts did this week, they might be in a much better position than where they are now. Out of all these teams, the Niner search might be the most intriguing only because they are looking for an upgrade in less than a year and have to make a splash to justify all that has happened in the last year. Many interesting names - some old and some new, are in the running for all these jobs including Sean Payton, who will cost some draft picks, and Mike Shanahan. Even Mike Holmgren's name is back in the mix for the Niners' job. For some of these rebuilding teams, the hiring of the coach may be the high point of their off-season. Good luck to them!

I can't believe the 2015 NFL season is already over. I took a break from blogging after last year's Super Bowl and the next thing you know, we are staring at the 2016 Super Bowl in a few weeks. I missed writing about a lot of interesting things in the sports world including the Golden State Warriors winning a NBA championship. That was the least likely event when I stopped blogging in Feb 2015. May be I should stop again next year and hope my Phoenix Suns win the championship.