Divisional Playoff Thoughts

What we found out this weekend:

1. Seattle ended it's 21-year playoff drought by beating the Redskins, 20-10.
2. Mike Vanderjagt added to his "idiot kicker" image.
3. The 2005 Indianapolis Colts are the proud owners of the biggest choke in recent NFL playoff history.
4. Steve Smith is good...very good.
5. The state of officiating in the NFL isn't very good. While the officiating in Denver was mediocre (and that's being generous), the calls in the Steelers-Colts game were ridiculously bad. Polamalu INTs being overturned, the refusal to call an offsides penalty on that 4th and 1-the list goes on and on. The guys over at profootballtalk.com actually have some lucid ideas on this matter, which is more than anyone can say about the powers that be in the NFL offices.

Don't Speak

Tom Brady got the ball rolling when he claimed the Patriots didn't get enough respect in the media or from their fans, then he acted like a major league prick during an interview with former Wolverine teammate Dhani Jones. Tiki Barber continued with the verbal diarrhea when he said the Giants were outcoached by John Fox and the Panthers, after the Panthers shut Tiki down on Wild Card Weekend. Peyton Manning chalked up the loss to the Steelers to "protection problems", which was his way of throwing the guys that worked their asses off all season keeping Manning upright, under the bus. Should I mention that recognizing who's blitzing and making sure he's picked up is the QBs responsibility? I think I just did.

The point is, these were 3 of the 5 top vote-getters for MVP, and none of them was able to muster up the class and high-character we normally expect from them. Heck, Brady's attitude was after a win, which is just inexcusable.

Was Peter King In "The Ringer"

In today's MMQB, King offers up his "Fine Fifteen", where he ranks the Top 15 teams in the NFL, King has 2 teams that are getting helmets autographed as they pack up their lockers today. None of his Top 5 are in the NFC.

The Patriots, whom King has a man-crush on, are ranked 4th. Right below them, are the Seattle Seahawks. His comment on the Seahawks? " 'Hawks had better get some Krazy Glue for their return game." Hmm...why are the Patriots out of the playoffs right now?

Look, we know I'm biased, but for the Seahawks to turn the ball over 3 times, lose the league's leading rusher (and MVP) and still win, is pretty damn impressive. That doesn't happen in the regular season, nevermind in the playoffs. King really has nothing to say about the efforts of Matt Hasselbeck, the defense that shut down Clinton Portis and forced Brunell to run around all day? Very disappointed in King (again) today. What makes it worse is that King was in Seattle for the game. If you have the NFL Network, and watched the postgame coverage, you would've seen King waiting to talk to Hasselbeck while Matt was being interviewed by Trent Dilfer.

As if that wasn't bad enough, his "Offensive Player of the Week" was Ben Roethlisberger, who threw what, 5 passes in the second half. Hey, Big Ben played great yesterday, but let's not forget that the Colts nearly won that game. He made a nice tackle, but Harper wouldn't have scored on that play, anyways. Two Steelers had the angle on Harper, who was running on two gimpy legs (one hurt during the game, one had a fresh knife wound courtesy of Mrs. Nick Harper).

The real offensive player of the week, and perhaps the most explosive offensive player in the entire NFL, was Carolina WR Steve Smith. The "best" defense in the NFL couldn't contain him, which doesn't surprise me because nobody contain him all season long. What made me happy watching Smith's performance is that the guy is also a "nice guy". Don't let the tattoos and end zone celebrations fool you, Smith has a geniune respect for the game.

Commercially Speaking

Yes, adverts have nothing to do with the games they're shown during, but all of the "major market" teams are out of the playoffs, more fans will be tuning in on Super Bowl Sunday for the commercials. Which actually got me thinking this weekend:

- Are the people that drink Miller Lite functionally retarded? If you were getting together to watch "the game", and couldn't bare to miss a second of the action, wouldn't you have purchased your beer in advance?

I'm working on a theory that the worse the beer is, the more unbearable the commercials will be. The current commercials for Bud Light (Ted Ferguson), Miller Lite (idiot football fans who don't gameplan) and Coors Light (stupid train interwoven into classic NFL Films moments) should be burned.

Everyone knows that good beer doesn't ever need to be advertised. And yes, on Saturday night, I washed down my salmon burger with a couple of ice cold Red Hook IPAs.

Looking Ahead

Denver opened as 3.5 point favorites over the Steelers. Denver is 9-0 at home this season (including the playoffs) and while I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the Steelers win, I think that this is the Broncos season. After all, I did predict them to go 5-11 and finish 4th in the AFC West.

Seattle opened as 5.5 point favorites over the Panthers. That line has moved down to 4.5 with some early action on the Panthers. Are the Panthers good enough to go into Seattle and win? Absolutely. You know how I feel about Steve Smith, and I love Jake Delhomme and John Fox, especially on the road. They've been there before, and know how to get it done. An interesting tidbit is that Seattle traded up with the Panthers to draft rookie MLB Lofa Tatupu. I don't know why, but I found that interesting.

I just think that without DeShaun Foster (broken ankle) in the game, Seattle can focus on slowing down Steve Smith (who can't be totally stopped). The Bears were able to hang 21 points on Carolina, and the Seahawks offense is much better than Chicago's.

So right now, I'm predicting the following:

Denver 27, Pittsburgh 21
Seattle 31, Carolina 27

I'll have more on this as the week progresses.