NFL Playoffs Round Two

Denver 27 New England 13
Those damned Denver Broncos. Imagine the nerve of them disrespecting Tom Brady and the Patriots by actually beating them in the playoffs. I hope Brady learned his lesson. Don't whine about disrespect and then play a lousy game. Sure, he had 341 yards passing, but he also had two interceptions, and built up those yards without really doing much. The Patriots only scored 13 points. Of course, he had some help as his teammates fumbled away the ball three times. Of course, I see a certain irony there. The Patriots "dynasty" began with the "tuck rule" BS that never should have overruled an obvious Brady fumble. Now it ends because they couldn't hang onto the ball. Plus, they weren't that good this year anyway.

Seattle 20 Washington 10
I think this game showed why Seattle was the best team in the NFC and possibly the league. Everything was set up for the Redskins. Shaun Alexander was knocked out early. Their defense was playing good. Mark Brunell actually threw for over 200 more yards than he did in their wild card game. Yet, they never really were in the game against Seattle. Why? Seattle did miss Alexander, but they had other weapons. For one, their defense is very good. Matt Hasselbeck has made himself into one of the top quarterbacks in the league. It doesn't hurt that Darrell Jackson is back and playing well. Besides, it was rather silly of "pundits" to take the Redskins' wild card win over the Bucs to mean much. There defense played good, but Tampa played poorly which is why they won.

Carolina 29 Chicago 21
I didn't think I would be saying this, but I can't believe Chicago's defense let them down. But it did. I thought the Panthers had a good shot at winning, but only because their defense was also good. However, Rex Grossman played a good game after a slow start, but he overcame early drops to move the team pretty well. Thomas Jones had a low yards per attempt average, but he got the tough yardage. If you had told me Chicago would score 21 points, I would have thought they had the game. I didn't think the Panthers' offense would do what it did. Actually, it wasn't all of their offense. The running game wasn't much even before DeShaun Foster got hurt. It was Jake Delhomme and Steve Smith. Say what you will about Tom Brady, but Delhomme has shown up in big games. His first year as a starter, he led the Panthers to the Super Bowl where he threw for over three hundred yards and three touchdowns in their tight shootout loss. Last year, after a bad start (1-7) caused by lots of injuries, the Panthers put the ball in Delhomme's hands and went 6-2 over the rest of the year and almost made the playoffs. Because of him and Smith, I wouldn't count them out against the Seahawks.

Pittsburgh 21 Indianapolis 18
The game I really wanted to talk about. I was really hoping that the Colts' playoff choke job would be this week instead of next. You knew it was coming. Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning on the same team. The two biggest chokers in big games. Actually, even though I thought the Colts were the favorite, I couldn't understand why so many people thought the Steelers didn't have a shot. Sure, the Steelers didn't look sharp in a game earlier at Indy, but it was the offense. Ben Roethlisberger was in his first game off knee surgery and looked rusty. However, considering how poorly the offense played, the Steelers defense was fine. They gave up two touchdowns and four field goals. One touchdown and three field goal drives started in Pittsburgh territory. So, I figured the Pittsburgh defense would be OK this time around. They are good at masking coverage which is where Peyton Manning struggles. He reads game film better than anyone, so if you can hide what you're doing before the snap, he has trouble with it. The Pittsburgh offense was playing very well at the end of the season, so I was hoping it would carry over. It did. However, the real reason for the victory was the Manning/Dungy choke duo. Look at the ending. The Colts had pulled within three because of a BS overturned interception call. Manning had the ball on his own 18. His next three plays were a pass that barely got 2 yards, a sack and an overthrow. Then he was sacked again on fourth down. Those sacks later led him to criticize his line while not talking about how many of his passes weren't even close to the intended receiver. He gets the ball back because of a fumble by Jerome Bettis (first of the year which thankfully was saved by a Roethlisberger shoe-string tackle) and gets them to second and 2 on the Pittsburgh 28 with 31 seconds left and two timeouts. What does he do? He throws for the endzone twice (one was almost intercepted) which forces a 46 yard field goal which missed. While I would expect the league's all time leading field goal kicker (by percentage) to make a 46 yarder, why not go short (or run) to get the first and use your timeouts? Blame the kicker all you want, but that decision making was inexcusable. They had two yards to go. Why go for the home run? Get it to overtime and go for the win.

Stay tuned for my Conference Championship game picks.