For the entirety of the NFL season the venerated and glassy eyed staff at Sports Amnesia have received their doses of NFL action in small dream-like quantities, fading in and out of consciousness between the hours of 1 and 4 in the morning every Sunday and Monday night.
This past weekend, although the Jacksonville @ New England match didn’t kick off until after 1 am locally, the other three playoff spots were decided in the relatively clear-headed hours of the late day and early, late mid evening and the first comment we have to make is that being awake for the NFL isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Not yet anyway.
For starters, other than the Redskins-Bucs game, there weren’t more than a handful of compelling moments in the 240 minutes of playoff football and 575 minutes of playoff commercial hysteria (that’s the Sports Amnesia Unofficial Estimate.) After a slow starvation of bad MNF scheduling all season however, the hype machines of the American football networks, in particular, the ESPN feed, gave one the impression they were watching either the beginning or the end of civilisation which of course, we weren’t at all, just another demonstration of media getting in the way of reality.
The predictable pasting of the Jags by the Pats, the surprisingly apathetic and almost feminine fashion in which the Giants succumbed to the Panthers, the fall of Cincinnati’s Magic Boy before the brie and cranberry puffs and three mustard sausage appetisers had even been finished, and the offensive slowdown of the Skins-Bucs game, bore none of the apocalyptic hallmarks of the NFL postseason - snooze-fests one and all, especially disappointing for such a greatly anticipated weekend, especially disheartening given the hyperbolic drum beating of the American network lead-ins but most of all, an utter waste of time patched together through a disappointing myriad of seemingly incessant commercial breaks which reminds the staff here what a pleasure it is to watch 45 minutes of uninterrupted sport Saturday and Sunday afternoons in England when Europe’s commercial free, non-stop football matches are played.
Let’s count off a few of the insults, shall we?
1. The net yardage gained by the Redskins in the slobber knocker against the number one ranked defence of Tampa Bay, was the lowest by a team ever to win a playoff game. Sure, the broken forearm of Renaldo Wynn was graphic and exciting but with the exception of a Goat of The Year drop of a certain touchdown pass by Edell Shepherd in the 4th quarter end zone which would have tied the game for the Bucs and barring another fool-hearted and inexperienced interception by Chris Simms, probably would have earned them the win ultimately, this game was a battle of watching the game at hand whilst somehow drowning out the natterings of an ESPN broadcast team whose offensiveness bordered on criminal, particularly Joe Theisman, who has never been anyone’s favourite, and was undeniably wrong in his predictions and observations so often, you could almost set your watch by it. It’s frightening that this was arguably the best game of Wild Card Weekend.
2. I never thought the Bengals-Steelers game was going to be very exciting but when Carson Palmer went down with a destroyed knee in the Bengals’ first series, they might as well have waved the white flag and let everyone go home early. It would have saved us about 400 commercial breaks, sitting through painful episodes of John Kitna attempting to pick up the slack in Palmer’s absence and of course, watching the inevitable breakdown of the Bengals before their arch rivals.
3. Two playoff teams appeared to quit one half too early, the Giants and the Bengals – the Giants were so out-coached they don’t appear to have belonged in the post season at all. It tells you something about parity scheduling and the lack of talent in the rest of the league that the Giants not only made the playoffs but won their division to boot. And the Bengals at least had a good excuse having lost their franchise quarterback straight away but still, having fought hard in the first half not to let down, halftime appears to have brought the reality home that they weren’t going to advance, regardless of the home field advantage which proved useful in the end, only to the New England Patriots.
4. The overall lack of excitement other than prior to kickoff, in any of these matches. You hope that since it’s the postseason, every team is laying it out there, do or die, now or never, blablabla. Instead, the matches seemed to underscore importance of good head coaches and stiff defences.
5. How many times in NFL history have two brothers lost two wildcard games for two different teams on the same weekend like Ronde and Tiki Barber?
But with the field narrowed, a brief farewell to the Giants, Bucs, Jags and Bengals and the return of the true powerhouses of the season to the playoff fold, Sports Amnesia is painfully aware that in spite of a 4-0 mark for the Wildcard Weekend, this week’s matches might prove altogether too difficult to pinpoint.
For starters, every single game this weekend features a rematch. The Bears have already pasted the Panthers at home, the Skins nipped the Seahawks albeit at home, the Broncos trounced the Patriots in Denver and the Colts slashed and burned the Steelers in the Dome.
Last season all four divisional playoff games were rematches and each team which has lost the regular season also lost the playoff rematch. If that were to be the case this season, the AFC Championship would see Denver at Indy and the NFC Championship: Washington at Chicago. Hopefully, trends, like records, are made to be broken.
So you might imagine that this weekend’s matches are more a fait accompli than potentially memorable fixtures but with the weaker sisters left standing at the bus stop, these are all teams remaining who have enormously successful head coaches and will all be well prepared for the do or die moments ahead.
Carolina @ Chicago - John Fox and the Panthers, as I noted last week were in the Super Bowl only two seasons ago and if anything, appear stronger than they did that season. For the second week in a row their defence will be facing what amounts to an inexperienced QB (Rex Grossman, believe it or not, has only 7 career starts, fewer even than rookie QB Kyle Orton, whom he replaced, allegedly because he has more experience,) and an inexperienced team who will be just getting their post season feet wet.
Unlike the Jints before them, the Bears defence is not ailing in any way and in fact, are perhaps the most formidable defence this side of the Panthers. In their first meeting in Chicago the Bears sacked Carolina QB Delhomme 8 times. Clearly the addition of Foster to run wild and keep the Bears defence honest will be an advantage to the Panthers this time around and the fact that they were beaten so badly last time around will be a motivating factor for the Panthers.
This should be a low-scoring, smash-mouth sort of match up that might not look exciting on the telly but will be full of hard-hitting straight forward honest to god American football at its most brutal.
Panthers 10 Bears 7.
Pittsburgh @ Indianapolis - We can sum this one up neatly. No way does Bill Cowher, after going oh-for-his career on the road in the playoffs, suddenly reel off two playoff road victories in a row. Yes, the Steelers are hot. Yes, the Steelers defence is impressive. Yes, the Colts haven’t played a meaningful game since November and might be rusty. Yes, the Steelers aren’t likely to surrender an 80 yard touchdown pass on the game’s first play nor is Cowher likely to attempt another ill-conceived second half opening onside kick to surrender another easy touchdown to the league’s most powerful offence.
But Pittsburgh bears no resemblance to a team of destiny. Somehow, it’s difficult to imagine that the Colts won’t be jacked up playing at home, their first game since the death of their coach’s son, eager to prove themselves capable of living up to their season-long hype.
Colts 24 Steelers 9
New England @ Denver - This is bound to be the game of the weekend. With each passing week the Patriots begin to look more and more like the dominating team that won the last two Super Bowls. We all know Belichick has won his last 10 playoff games in a row, that Tom Brady has never lost and that the Broncos are 0-3 in the playoffs since John Elway retired.
(Interesting aside: Belichick and the other former Giant assistant coach in the playoffs, John Fox, are a combined 15-2 in the post season)
On the other hand, the Broncos lost only 3 games all season and two of those losses were by a total of 5 points so with a little luck, this team could have had as formidable a record as the Everybody Loves The Colts franchise.
The Broncos did a number on the Patriots earlier this season but we all know this is a different Patriots team altogether. And not only is this a different team but it hardly seems likely that after all this climbing and crawling back by the Patriots, the football gods are suddenly going to spoil this AFC Championship match for the ages by letting the Broncos or the Steelers squirt through in upsets.
Patriots 30, Broncos 26.
Washington @ Seattle - Did you know that the Seahawks QB Matt Hasselbeck was 9, and Shawn Alexander was 7 years old when the Seahawks last won a playoff game, December 22nd 1984?
Joe Gibbs is a hard man to defeat in the playoffs as his 18-5 career record in the post season attests to. In fact, when you look at the alleged coaching geniuses like Vince Lombardi, Bill Walsh, Jimmy Johnson Bill Belichick and Chuck Knoll, you’ll see that they all had Hall of Fame or future Hall of Fame QBs in Bart Starr, Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, Tom Brady and Terry Bradshaw respectively to lead these dynasties. Gibbs won three Super Bowls with three different QBs none of them even remotely Hall of Fame calibre. It makes you respect the Redskins chances, even if they aren’t favoured. Call it the Joe Gibbs Factor. Of course, there’s only so much one man, even a saviour, can do. The Redskin offence will not likely be as anaemic as it was against the Bucs last week, simply because the Seahawks defence is nothing to tremble in fear from. The Bucs were the number one ranked defence and it showed. The Seahawks will surrender points, even to a nearly crippled and overly fatigued Redskin offence.
The Skins are banged up, have been hurtling down this same do-or-die homestretch for almost two months now and at some point, whilst the motivation will be there, the ability to achieve the goal will not be. The Seahawks are my least favourite team still alive in the playoffs but they will advance at home, where they haven’t lost all season.
Seahawks 23, Skins 17 – and let’s home we’re wrong about this one.
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