NFL Conference Championship Picks

I really need to start picking based on point spread instead of straight up. I would have been three for four. The miss would have been the Colts. No way they should have failed to cover the spread, let alone lost to the Chargers. The Chargers didn't even have star running back LaDanian Tomlinson when they made the game winning drive, nor did they have Philip Rivers. Of course, the lack of Rivers meant the Colts had to face Billy Volek. And with Volek, you can't stop him. You can only hope to contain him. I guess last year was an aberration and the Colts are going to keep choking in the playoffs. The Cowgirls too. A lot of people (Terrell Owens mainly) are saying that Tony Romo's trip to Cabo should not be blamed for the loss. In theory, that's true. He choked in last year's playoff. It just seems he doesn't do too well with pressure on him. Which means you can't really blame Jessica Simpson unless one truly thinks her bodily secretions are toxic (something I'm willing to risk my life checking). The truly ironic aftermath of the Cowboys' loss was offensive coordinator Jason Garrett became the hot coaching property with Baltimore and Atlanta making a big push to hire him before he re-upped as OC with Dallas and got head coach pay (sucks to be Wade Phillips). All that for a one year coordinator who took over what was already a top 5 offense and simply maintained it until it coughed up a hairball against New York.

One interesting thing to note is both conference championship games are rematches of week 2 beatdowns. New England beat San Diego 38-14 then, and the Packers beat the Giants 35-13. Now, the Giants can take comfort in the fact that they've already won a rematch in the playoffs, but that's skewed by the fact that it was their third game against the Cowgirls and they lost the other two. Plus, in three other rematches in the playoffs, the original winner also won the second game. Jacksonville beating Pittsburgh for the second time and San Diego won rematches over both Tennessee and Indianapolis. Now, on to the games.

San Deigo @ New England
San Diego got absolutely thumped by the Patriots the first time around. Now, the Chargers played much better ball down the stretch. Is it enough to pull out a win this time around? Well, it will probably have to be without Philip Rivers. I think they would be foolish to put Rivers out there if he's got a partially torn ACL. I saw Dennis Dixon try to play with one of those for Oregon this year. He sucked and then completely blew it out on a play he didn't even take a hit. It's not so much that I'm concerned for Rivers' long term health. He showed by his antics again (jawing with Colts' fans when you aren't even playing anymore is chump behavior) that he's pretty much an ass. No, it's the fact that while Rivers may be a competant quarterback, I'm not convinced he's in an elite category or even a whole lot better than Volek. Give him a bad leg, and he's worse than Volek.

In fact, I think Volek may do a little better than a healthy Rivers would. Jacksonville had a good game plan going against the Patriots offensively. They didn't put up big rushing numbers, but the Patriots fear of it opened up the field for a safe play-action passing game for David Garrard. The Jags burned clock and moved the ball well with only one punt. Unfortunately for them, the only two turnovers were by Jacksonville. When those are combined with a defense that couldn't make one stop, the Jags were always just behind. Rivers has the ability to have a huge game, but he also can be inconsistent. Volek has two things going for him. He's been less mistake prone in previous seasons (mostly in Tennessee) than Rivers. He also hasn't played a whole lot this year. One big advantage the Patriots have is they always seem to have better info on their opponents (often by cheating). Not much game film on Volek with the Chargers, and a couple of other non-starters (Kyle Boller and AJ Feeley) had some of the better quarterback performances against them.

San Diego has some other things going for them. Their defense is better than Jacksonville, and they lead the league in interceptions. That could be a key since the game could be windy which could affect the passing game. If play action worked with Jacksonville, it should work with LaDanian Tomlinson. Only hitch could be that LT got hurt in the last game. While he's expected to play, a less than 100% LT could give the game to the Patriots. Michael Turner is a good back, but he doesn't have the shiftiness that LT does. Another problem is safe passes often go to tight ends and San Diego has a good one in Antonio Gates, but he's hurt too.

The biggest problem for the Chargers is the Patriots. They haven't lost a game. They've been lucky, but they are good. And San Diego isn't going to sneak up on them after the Chargers' giant Russian called them out (although I like the confidence). The Patriots are now running the ball well, so the wind may not hurt the Pats' passing game as much as it could have. Plus, the Chargers need to get away from the Jags' idea to shut down Randy Moss. They did shut him down, but Tom Brady completed 25 out of 27 passes to everyone else because everything short was open. So, who is the pick? The spread opened at 15, and if I could get that now, I would definitely take the Chargers to cover that spread. While they absolutely killed a lot of opponents, they weren't doing it so often at the end of the year. In their last nine games (including playoffs), only three teams didn't cover a 12 point spread spread, let alone 15 points. However, I think the Patriots make the Super Bowl.

New York Giants @ Green Bay
This is a weird game. Green Bay thumps Seattle to get a home game in a freezing cold Green Bay against a Giants' team that needed Dallas to self-destruct to even be here. I'm still not sure how the Giants pulled that off, but I'll let Hitler give it a shot (note: this video could be considered pretty offensive, but I hate the Cowboys so I'm linking it). Yet, to read a lot of the press, the Giants should be the 6 1/2 point favorite, not the Packers. It's almost like there is a bias towards teams that are based on the eastern seaboard. Almost like an East Coast Bias in sports writing. The assumption this is based on is the Giants are a hot team who win on the road and are led by a newly mature Eli Manning.

Let's look at these assumptions. The "hot team" assumption is based on winning two playoff games and only losing to New England by three. Well, since their week 9 bye week, the Giants are 6-4 including those two playoff wins. Really scorching there. As for the road wins, it is impressive that they've only lost one road game, but until wins over Tampa and Dallas in the playoffs, they only played two other playoff teams on the road and went 1-1 at Dallas and Washington. Color me not totally impressed. As for Eli Manning suddenly maturing, don't make me laugh. The concept of Eli playing great is that he doesn't throw the crippling interception at a crucial point like he has so many times. Of course, the reason is that the Giants don't want him passing at all in the second half. In the second half at Dallas, the Giants had only one scoring drive, and it began on Dallas' 37 yard line. On the other drives, he tried three passes with one completion. The other two didn't really count as attempts because he took bad sacks on both of them. Which I guess is better than throwing a pick. The question is - if they had needed to drive the field for a touchdown, would anyone have put money on Eli getting them one?

The Giants do have a chance. For one, their defense is playing pretty well. And they have a strong running game which is important when playing in Siberia, Wisconsin. However, I'm not sure their defense is playing as well as some think. Tampa really wasn't an explosive offense, and Dallas just choked. The plays were there for them, but the Cowgirls just didn't execute. Minnesota and New England flat blew the Giants up in the latter half of the season. Otherwise, the Giants were shutting down teams with less than stellar offenses. I don't think the Packers are going to fold as easily. Yeah, Brett Favre didn't play that well in the cold a few weeks ago, but I think it was the Bears' defense that was the bigger problem. He's really struggled with them of late. Last week against Seattle, he played great in the snow. So did running back Ryan Grant. I think the Giants will need more than 24 points this week.

As for the Giants running in the snow, they might be able to, but they've been talking a lot about how they plan on dealing with it. That's a bad sign for New York fans. If their team is that worried about the cold, they won't be focused on the actual playing. I think playing in that kind of cold is somewhat psychological. Yes, Green Bay players are more used to it, but how many games have they actually played in absolutely freezing weather? Not a whole lot. The Packers don't practice outside when it's that cold either. Sure, living in it means they are more used to it. And I think that gives them the edge because they just aren't worried about it. So, I think the Packers win and they cover the 6 1/2 point spread.