I typed up a quick reaction/analysis after I watched each game this weekend, and here they are. All games were viewed on tape, and really, that's the only way to go. At this point I can't imagine sitting through an entire 3.5 hour game with 2.5 hours of commericals and dead time. It's such a better expenditure of time to run errands or work on the computer or sleep late, and then watch the game in an hour once it ends. There are risks, of course; the Carolina@Chicago game went very long with all of the offense, and my tape ended with about 3 minutes left and Chicago driving for a tying touchdown, and I would have missed the end of the Pitts@Indy game if it had gone to overtime. But hey, it's still worth it to save 8 or 10 hours of weekend for other things, and to miss all of those commercials and the interminable delays while plays are "reviewed."
Anyway, here are the game recaps, in chronological order.
Washington 10 @ Seattle 20. Wow, what a dreadful game. Thank god I taped it or I'd have clawed my eyes out at some point during that 7-3 first half. Things picked up a bit in the second half, but the 20-10 final was still far from thrilling. Seattle hadn't won a playoff game in like 25 years, and they certainly played like they didn't want this one. MVP running back fumbles twice, gains no yards, gets an early concussion, and never returns. They also fumbled a punt
and a kickoff return, their defense dropped at least two easy interceptions, let the other team's only receiver get open against triple coverage on 4th and 20, and if not for the Washington kicker shanking a gimme in the 4th quarter, the Redskins would
still have been driving for the tying TD in the last minute. Seattle had such a huge talent advantage that they won, even with the turnovers and constant nervous play.
I was amazed at how bad the Redskins were. How the hell did they ever win 5 straight to close out the season? They were wretched last week and beat Tampa thanks to a deflected pass and two lucky bounces on a fumble recovery, and this week they weren't much better. Who calls their offense? Are they aware that all running plays don't need to travel 10-15 yards sideways before turning up field? Was their defensive line playing some sort of playground "one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand..." rush strategy? I have never seen a QB with as long to stand around and look for receivers as Hassleback had. Credit to Washington's defensive backs and their zone coverage for keeping it close, but they've got to send a LB every now and then, or get some better linemen, with that complete lack of a pass rush.
Seattle won, but did nothing to impress anyone, which should make next weeks' game more interesting, if either Chicago or Carolina can play adequately tomorrow. Maybe Seattle will get over their playoff jitters after this win and show something next week to keep the Super Bowl spread under 10, but if they were going to the big game right now, I'd imagine that all 4 remaining AFC teams would be heavy favorites.
I picked Seattle 27-13, and was right on the winner, and the under.
New England 13 @ Denver 27. Well, NE seemed to be taking lessons from Seattle, but unfortunately for them, they didn't have enough of a skill advantage to win despite numerous stupid turnovers. I don't think I've ever seen two games in the same day where a team fumbled both a kickoff and a punt return, much less in the playoffs. The killer was the interception return, of course, since it was basically a 14 point swing, but NE's double turnovers for 10 free points just before halftime were painful, as was their missed field goal.
NE outplayed Denver, and substantially out-gained them, and Brady is clearly a far better QB than Plummer, but as is so often the case in playoff football, the team that made more mistakes of a turnover-based nature lost. Now if NE can just draft/sign some decent defensive backs, a fast running back, and avoid injuries, they'll be right back in Super Bowl contention next season.
I picked Denver to win 31-21, and was right on the winner and the cover, but said it would go over when it did not.
Pittsburgh 21 @ Indy 18. A mediocre game with a fantastically-entertaining last few minutes. It's fortunate that Pittsburgh won, or this one would have replaced the infamous "tuck rule" game, and have been forever be remembered for the single worst call in the history of the NFL, when the referee overruled an obvious interception by Polamalu that would have iced the game for Pittsburgh. At least the "tuck rule" when Brady clearly fumbled against the Raiders but had it ruled an incomplete pass, was by the rules; just a stupid, illogical rule. This one was laugh out loud insane; a Pittsburgh defender dives, catches the ball, takes a step, rolls over, gets up, drops it, and falls on his own fumble. And the ref reviews it, takes a thick envelope of cash from the Indy owner on the sidelines, and whips up some insane "never had possession" argument. Truly a travesty of justice.
I'd be quite willing to accept conspiracy theories about this game's officiating being slanted towards league favorites Indy, especially when you add in the incredibly blatant pass interference Indy was not called for an a long Pittsburgh pass in the 2nd quarter, when the Steelers were up 14-0 and driving for more. Except for the fact that Pittsburgh converted line plunges on 2 straight 4th downs in the 4th quarter, and made them both by about 1 inch each, and each mark appeared to be pretty accurate. If the refs were really out to get them, instead of just situationally-incompetent, they would have scooted the ball back half a foot one or both times and given the ball right back to Indy.
It's now clear, when you consider his college career as well, that Payton Manning is simply
not a big game QB. He's the best in the world against a bad team in the early season, and against mediocre competition, but every year his last game is his worst game, as another team figures out a way to get pressure on him and slow his receivers, and he goes out with a whimper. His stats weren't that horrible in this one, and he didn't molt his usual 3 or 4 INTs, but he was much worse than his season average, when it was most important that he step up and lead his team to victory. And this year I think Indy runs out of excuses. They had home field advantage, they had the best record in the league, they had no injury problems on offense, and they even had an easy match up, going against the 6th seed, largely thanks to Carson Palmer's knee being destroyed on the first pass of the game in last week's action.
You'd think that Payton will have to win it some year; he's good enough and there's enough offensive talent around him that the Colts can count on winning 11-13 games every season, and sooner or later they'll get lucky, or other teams will have injury problems, or whatever. Then again, everyone thought Dan Marino was sure to rack up Super Bowl titles too, and look
how that turned out.
I picked Indy to win 35-17, and was wrong on every aspect of that pick, with the wrong team and the over. I wasn't that shocked that Pittsburgh won, but how they won was surprising. I could see Pittsburgh losing a close one, say 20-28, or winning a high-scoring game, say 38-34, but holding Indy to 18 and winning? Color me amazed. Perhaps if the Chargers @ Indy game had been on TV here I might have had an inkling, since I'd have been reminded just how mediocre Payton is when he gets pressured by a tough defense, but I'd only seen him playing his masterful pitch and catch a few times against mediocre defenses during the regular season, and expected more of the same against Blitzburgh. So did he, apparently.
Carolina 29 @ Chicago 21. Well, who knew? Everyone had this figured as the worst game of the weekend, it had by far the lowest over/under, and I expected it to be like 12-9. I also expected colder temperatures and a muddy muck of a field though, and that would certainly have held scoring down quite a bit. Instead it was dry and the turn looked good, and as a result the game went back and forth with plenty of offense, great defensive plays, and thanks to Carolina blowing an extra point, it even had a dramatic finish, with Chicago within one touchdown of tying the game in the last minutes. They did not, but Grossman was certainly an adequate QB, at least in comparison to Orton. Chicago's problem was their defense, and their inexcusable inability to cover the only decent receiver on the other team.
Steve Smith caught half of Carolina's passes for 2/3 of their yards and 2/3 of their touchdowns. And yet he was still streaking, basically uncovered, through Chicago's defensive secondary late in the 4th quarter. It puzzles me; these teams played on November 20th, and Smith did much the same thing, catching 14 passes for 167 yards, both more than 80% of Carolina's total. I guess since Chicago won
that game 13-3, they figured they'd let Smith have his fun and just shut everything else down and be able to win again? This time Smith caught touchdowns too, Carolina's running game worked pretty well too, and if Chicago hadn't had one of their best offensive games of the year, they would have been blown out.
Also, what does this say about the NY Giants' effort last week, when they lost 23-0 to Carolina? How wretched was their offense, when the Bears were 21 points and 200 yards better? Eli got an early start on living under the Manning family curse, or what?
I picked Chicago to win 20-16, a pick I revised from my initial 20-17 prediction when I realized the spread was 3, and that I was picking a push. Lowering Carolina's score just made me more wrong on the under, and the winner, though.
For the weekend I was 2-2 on winners/spread, but only 1-3 on the over/under. Which is, as always, why I don't bet on sports.
The best news is that next week's games are damn interesting. Denver and Seattle won in unimpressive fashion, and while they're both hosting wild card teams, Carolina and Pittsburgh have both won two road games already in the playoffs and they've looked very good doing it. The home teams will be favored, but not by very much, and the prognosticators should be in high gear this week, with good arguments to be made for all four teams.
The early line has Denver by 3.5 and Seattle by 4.5, both very low spreads for home teams in the playoffs. And I wouldn't be surprised if those came down over the week; Seattle opened at 6 point favorites and that one's already down a point and a half.
