NFL Conference Championship games

After last week's total embarrassment going 0-4 in the NFL playoff picks, I achieve redemption today by going 2-0 with last week's prediction of the Colts and Saints making it to Super Bowl XLIV.

Jets and Colts

The Colts and Jets began the Sunday afternoon excitement in a game that a lot of people had going either way. I was confident, however, in the Colts ultimately taking the game.

The game didn't start that way, though. The first quarter ended scoreless, but the whole first half of the game was entirely controlled by NY. Often, the Colts would go through a drive marching down the field, yet they would end up leaving the drive with only 3 points.

Meanwhile, the Jets would respond with touchdowns, giving them, at one point, a 17-6 lead. The Colts put up one more touchdown toward the end of the 2nd quarter, making it 17-13, and putting the team back in contention.

On Twitter, I continuously read conversations, saying the Jets had this one, and the Colts were going to be upset, and all that nonsense. The only doubt I had was because I have this problem with sports gods and the teams that I choose to win. But that's another story for another day...

I maintained my faith, despite all of the doubters on Twitter asking me about this being the biggest upset ever. Game ain't over yet!...

...Well, it wasn't over until the Colts touchdown that came about 7 minutes into the second half to Pierre Garcon. Garcon, who ended up with 151 yards on 11 receptions, and the other big guy for the game, Austin Collie (123 yards on 7 receptions), were able to offensively lead Indianapolis to a 30-17 win over the seemingly unstoppable Jets.

1 down, 1 more to go for me.

With the Jets coming off of a win against the San Diego Chargers, a serious run game, and the top rated defense this playoff season, it did look hard to go against the momentum. Also, with the skeptics of the Colts' ability to get their receivers around Jets safety Darrelle Revis, and the idea of "resting starters" it made the Colts look weaker.

But that's exactly what it was; an illusion. It was all in their heads to rationalize why the Colts could lose to justify why the Jets would win. But no worries. I understand.

Vikes and Saints

The next game was enough to cause a heart attack for anyone who wasn't even a fan of either team. I can tell you that as a Dallas Cowboys fan, who now technically could care less about who wins the Super Bowl, I was DYING at the suspense this game provided.

The beginning of the Saints/Vikings match had the makings of a shootout between the two teams, which I think a lot of people had expected.

Now I had expected the shenanigans that occurred with Adrian Peterson to happen the previous week with Dallas (I guarantee you they would have won that way), but the Saints seemed to take ownice of my game plan and forced AP to fumble - more than once.

In fact, the Vikings had a bajillion turnovers. AP most of all must been using that wave-grease that Cowboys WR Roy Williams usually uses that makes him drop balls. As much as I knew the lack of ball control issue, WHAT TEAM GETS 6 FUMBLES!? The Saints made sure to get points off of the turnovers.

Nonetheless, the Vikings remained tied after the 7 minute mark in the 4th quarter, 28-28. The Saints let them hang around after all. But once again, the Saints defense forced the INT from Brett Favre in Saints territory, ruining the opportunity the Vikes had in winning the game in regulation.

This nail-biter now headed to OT. The Saints began OT on offense, and, rather quickly via passes and Vikes penalties, entered into the Minnesota side of the field. Thanks to a suave completion to Meachem from Brees, the Saints were at the Vikings' 22 yard line. An incompletion following that play caused a 4th and 3 to go situation.

Long story short, Saints kick a 40 yard field goal, actually make it, and the Saints made the Super Bowl for the first time in their franchise's history.

BTW, Drew Brees made a nice post-game outfit selection. Sharp, my friend, sharp.

Super Bowl XLIV Picks

The Super Bowl winner will be the Colts. I will explain why after we see all the players waste time at the Pro Bowl.

The Obvious is Too Obvious?

So the two #1 seeds face off in the Super Bowl as I predicted last week, the Colts and the Saints. It would have been easy to call this way back since the regular season.

But that's just the problem! It's just too obvious. I actually believe that everybody knew this matchup was coming. But who wants to pick the obvious teams? It looks like lazy pick because it's so easy to say they're clearly the two best teams. How often does that happen that legitimately, the two best teams in the league face each other in a championship game?

By seeding, this is the third time the two #1 teams played each other in the Super Bowl. But did that always mean that they were really that good? The world was, in fact, in denial about picking the Colts and Saints. As I explained before, people rationalized who was going to win besides the Colts or Saints.

People constantly tried to pick some sort of underdog because it seems every year, some team people least expected to make it, makes it. I mean, that makes sense, right? I suppose. And then you think about it, and this year, it really would make sense that these were the two best teams. We will see which one is actually THE BEST... in 2 weeks :-)

The Jets. (Yes, with the period at the end)

Ahh yes. The Jets lost. Good run, but you weren't beating the Colts. I won't rub it in though. I'm just going to say that Rex Ryan should have continued the "negative reinforcement" strategy.

In my mind, I see that strategy works the best. When you admit that things are going well for your team, it just messes the world order up, and makes every one work less hard. But mostly messes up the world order.

Saying your team is going to win it all in the conference championship game isn't going to work. This has been proven over and over again i.e. Tracey McGrady, Sports Illustrated (before the teams freakin' win anything they get on a cover), etc. Please, keep putting up the front that you need to play better and I promise you, the gods will allow things to work for you.

All jokes aside, however, (not entirely joking but anyway...) the Colts are a smart-as-hell team with a well-working coaching staff and players that know better. They wouldn't dare let the Jets win. After all, the Colts have a mean defense as well, in case you weren't paying attention.

Penguins and Flyers

Before all the football, there was hockey on NBC, the Flyers and the Penguins. Pittsburgh won in an also exciting sports outing by a score of 5-4.

Now, I hate to make a spectacle of hockey games because hockey is an amazing game, aside from the fights and shenanigans that happen around the game. But this was actually HILARIOUS and I had to share it because if you read carefully, you'll see how much sense this makes.

If you don't know already, one previous game between the two teams included an incident where Flyers' Scott Hartnell was accused of biting the finger of Kris Letang in a fight.

Here, this time, the accusations are from the Flyers' Aaron Asham, stating that the Penguins' goon, Matt Cooke, bit his finger.

All I'm going to say is, since when is it that "usually if you bite somebody"? LMAO! Because people just go around biting people in and out of hockey... oh Aaron Asham...

Here you go, from Puck Daddy's Greg Wyshynski: Penguins-Flyers Game Ends in Another Biting Accusation

*Sidenote: I will admit, after my relationship with a Lightning fan, that Matt Cooke was indeed slightly dirty even as a player on the Caps, and that hit on Vincent Lecavlier was uncalled for. This seems pointless, but I needed this off my conscience.

The Hockey Writers

Enjoy my last piece here on the Caps and Penguins game last week. The critics were hushed in the 6-3 victory over Pittsburgh. Ahhh, yes... #puckfittsburgh.

Happy reading!

NFL Divisional Playoffs - Disappointment

This is how I felt

Hello everybody!

So the NFL Divisional playoff series are now over and I was COMPLETELY, ENTIRELY WRONG in my picks to win. In fact, I was so wrong, I could probably be terminally depressed at the level of incorrectness I had. I'd might as well pack up and go home and sue myself for falsely posing myself as a knowledgeable sports fan...

...Okay, I won't take it that far, but considering I was 0-4 all weekend, picked 3 upsets that went the way they were supposed to, and the only non-upset I picked (Chargers/Jets), there was the hidden upset.

But that's not all my fault. I mean, I'm sure the majority of the world picked the Chargers to beat the Jets. A good number had the Cowboys beating the Vikings. There were more than enough cases of a few brave (and smart) souls chose the Ravens over the Colts. I can tell you that plenty others had the Cardinals winning in a close game against the Saints.

My biggest explanation here for why I failed so badly in my picks was that I mistook these teams who had bye-weeks who were "well-rested" for being "too rested". But apparently, for 3 out of the 4 teams, that was just the NFL just officially played my life. It went sort of like this:

Saints 45, Cardinals 14
Colts 20, Ravens 3
Vikings 34, Cowboys 3
Jets 17, Chargers 14

My Excuses:
Contrary to what I may say, I DO pick teams for a reason, although when I explain them now, it will sound like an excuse. To all my Greeks reading this, please don't ask for the stanzas of "Excuses". I already went through all that. So here we go...

• I picked the Cardinals because of the way the Saints ended the season and the fact that they had a bye-week. I don't know why - maybe it's because the Cowboys had a bye-week their last playoff entry and lost - but I thought that the teams that had sub-par endings and the extra week off would lose. I should have known better because of the close call with the Cardinals in the previous game against the Packers. They should have lost and didn't. Oh well.
• I picked the Ravens because of in their regular-season matchup; the Ravens came pretty close to beating the Colts in a battle of field goals. Also, the Colts were the team that I thought had too much rest. Finally, I was impressed with the way the Ravens played the Patriots in the first round. So I thought, with a little bit of offensive tweaking, they could hang in there at least against the Colts. However, I completely forgot that the Colts were, in fact, the Colts, and they knew better than to sleep in every day, only to wake up to some afternoon television (Maury or something). Shame on me.
• Yes, I chose the Dallas Cowboys to beat the Vikings. Before you assume I did it because of bias, I did not. I chose them because they were on fire. I thought they were the most serious team in this year's playoffs. Their defense went SO hard, with 2 back-to-back shutouts to end the season, and continued the great defensive plays in the first game against the Eagles. The Cowboys offense also came out the last game to win their first playoff game in 13 years. I had to be convinced that Dallas had it going for them.
  There was an underlying feeling, however, that they will have the same type of game they had when they played against the Packers in Green Bay. For some reason, Tony Romo and his squad can't play well west of Dallas, Texas! I also would like to put Nick Folk... I mean Shaun Suisham on the firing squad for killing any shot that Dallas would have at scoring some more points. That underlying feeling of a bad game came to be true, and my heart was broken. Now I need an alternative team.
• I can tell you right now that alternative team will not be the Jets, though. But I'll get to that in a bit. The Chargers were the team that actually played well down the stretch of the end of the NFL season. They won a close one in their last game against the Redskins, but still, one would assume that was a fluke. It seemed more like a foreshadowing of what would happen next. Regardless, I'm still going to say that this was an effort won by the Jets, rather than saying the Chargers lost it. The Jets have been put onto something after the regular season that allows them their defense to REALLY come out and just suffocate the opposing team's offensive talents. I also say the Jets won because the Chargers made it very close, very late, but the Jets held on and won the game. What can I say?

The Jets...

To continue on the issue of the Jets seeing abnormal success this postseason, this is a situation that was created by people like Colts head coach Jim Caldwell. I'm sorry if I offend some people here, but the Jets were LET into the playoffs. They were straight handed two games by the Colts and Bengals to enter into the playoffs. I'll put on the DC dialect for a second and rephrase a sentence and tell those two teams, "Y'all shoulda done NEVER gave that team a playoff spot!"

Now, I'm not saying that the Jets were given a playoff spot to be condescending towards the Jets. My statement is only referring to the fact that because the Jets were allowed in, it gave them new life; therefore, they plan to act upon it. Thus, I fear for the Colts because they may have given the Jets a pass to beat them at the end of the season, but now the question is: how uncompetitive was that game? It's a legitimate question to me.

The Jets did really beat the Bengals in the first round. They beat the Chargers, who seemed impossible to beat just the day before. So can they beat the Colts? We'll see if that comes to bite them in the butt.

I'm just hoping I don't hear those "woe-is-me" Jets fans celebrating so I'm hoping they don't win in spite... >:-D... It also would destroy me to see the Yankees AND the Jets win. But that's just me...

Pick of Shame

Yes. I will still make picks for the conference championship games. Let's go:
NY Jets vs. Indianapolis Colts @3pm -- Colts
Minnesota Vikings vs. New Orleans Saints @6:30pm -- Saints

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Check out the site thehockeywriters.com and see "The Writers" section. A name might look slightly familiar to you ;-).

Philly, New York, and Mad Football

In this Sunday in sports, the Philadelphia Eagles demolished the New York Giants and the New York Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Phillies. I was hoping that Philly would sweep NY, but I guess you can't have it all.

In Game 4 of the World Series, the Phillies had Joe Blanton on the mound and the Yankees put on CC Sabathia on short rest. The Yankees immediately took control, getting 2 runs in the 1st inning.

It wasn't until the 4th inning when the Phillies came back and tied the game. The second run was questionable, however, as Ryan Howard coming from 2nd base ran and dove to touch home plate, but he never made contact with it.

What I found funny was just by how much he missed it,considering not only his hand missing the plate, but the fact that even his leg could have touched it and it flew right over.

At 2-2, the Yankees fired right back, scoring two more runs to go up 4-2 in the 5th inning, and recieve the 4th run on a sort of "soft" play. Nonetheless, the Phillies were back down.

The Phillies seemed sluggish for the rest of the game until the 7th inning when Chase Utley reminded Sabathia of the 2-homer performance he had in Game 1 by crushing the ball, putting the Phillies down by only 1 run.

Pedro Feliz followed suit by homering in the 8th inning, tying the game at 4. Unfortunately for the Phillies, the top of the 9th was their worst inning yet as they put Brad Lidge in the game. Lidge gave up 3 runs after allowing Johnny Damon to literally run around the bases.

Lidge started off smoothly, causing Hedeki Matsui to pop out and then struck out Derek Jeter. Then after Johnny Damon's single, he stole 2nd base, got up from his slide and continued on to 3rd base, which the Phillies seemed to forget about.

After the defensive mental lapse by Philadelphia, the Yankees took 3 runs in the 9th, and took out the Phillies 1-2-3 to win 7-4. They now have a comanding 3-1 series lead on the Phillies.

I wouldn't completely count out the Phillies yet, but of course, this doesn't look good for Philadelphia fans/residents/those who hate the Yankees. It would be absolutely epic if the Philles were to come back from being down 3-1 in a series, but it would be difficult.

It would be nice if Big-Mouth Jimmy Rollins would have backed up his pretentious prediction on the series, but he hasn't done much for the Phillies to win. And if they want a chance to win, he will have to get things going for their offense so that people like Howard and Utley have more to work with. I mean, a 2-run shot is better than a solo shot...

Game 5 will be tomorrow, same time, 7:57... still haven't recieved an answer as to what that's about. Stay tuned for a pitching matchup between Cliff Lee and A.J. Burnette.

NFL Week 8

The halfway point of the NFL season has been one of the more interesting weeks all season.

Rams 17, Lions 10

I would like to start off that I am shocked that the Lions couldn't pull the win against the St. Louis Rams, considering they were FAVORITED to take it! But they ended up losing (as they always do) 17-10. I'm even more shocked that the score was a lot higher than I had expected. I predicted somewhere between 6-3 to 9-7. But nope! Freakin' 17-10! lol...

Ravens 30, Broncos 7

It was delightful to see the Ravens play well again, defeating the Denver Broncos 30-7. Denver is now no longer undefeated, leaving only the New Orleans Saints as the only undefeated team left. The Broncos did play more subpar teams than quality teams, except for Dallas and New England (or have they really changed their names to the Boston Patriots now?). However, 30-7 was a prime victory for the Ravens, who have suffered from 3 straight of hard losses against the Bengals, Patriots, and Minnesota.

Vikings 38, Packers 26

Minnesota and Green Bay faced off today - yes, yes, Brett Favre's first game back to Green Bay as a non-Packer. When FOX went to the broadcast of the Packers game, all I heard was hostility. It was kind of hilarious to hear the massive amounts of boos, and to see all the Favre bashing signs in large contrast to the "We still love you" and "We miss you" signs for Favre.

The first half was awful for Green Bay. The Packers' offensive line gave Aaron Rodgers NO time. When he did have time, he was subject to being diven to the ground by 300 men. So there was little success, if any, for the Packers in the first half.

With the Vikings up 17-3 going into the 2nd half, however, the Packers had a hightened sense of awareness. They decided to pick themselves up and score 17 points in the 3rd quarter, and with just over 10 minutes to go, they were only down 31-26...

...And then Brett Favre comes in and destroys Green Bay's dreams of an epic comeback as Minnesota did on their own turf. After the Packers failed on the 2 pt conversion after their touchdown and missed the 51-yard field goal, Minnesota got a touchdown with 3:09 to run the game. Green Bay was unable to get anywhere, as they reverted back to 1st half form, and then Minnesota took the ball away, and won the game. The End.

Cowboys 38, Seahawks 17

In other games, Dallas played the way they should, defeating the Seahawks 38-17. The Cowboys have usually played poorly and have had to cut it close in the end of games against lower teams, but this game, they clearly looked superior. Good look for the team as they play the Eagles next week.

Eagles 40, Giants 17

Speaking of the Eagles, they destroyed the Giants 40-17 at home. With the number of turnovers throughout the whole game and the lack of concern by the Giants, I feel like they deserved to lose like that. Plus it humbles the NY fans/people.

And Tennesee beat Jacksonville 30-13... Congratz on the win today, Titans. You are now no longer winless. Vince Young was the QB today... think about that.

Phew! A lot of typing today. But a lot happened lately! I had to update y'all! Thanks for reading!

Is This News??? Favre is Back?

This is ridiculous... I'm only annoyed because this is actually being reported. It bothers me that you can be Brett Favre, and skip traning camp all together, have everybody talking as if Tavares Jackson is the starter, and all of this stuff, and then on a whim say I'm back and sign for 10-12 million to play for a year.

Brett Favre coming back makes things difficult for not only me and the viewers of any sports television, but for the Vikings players and staff. What are they to do when Favre comes AFTER training camp and AFTER preseason, and then start the season green as hell talking about some, "Okay receievers! Time to catch from Brett Favre!" or "Hey linemen! First game of the season, you'll learn block for Brett!" If I'm playing on the team, what am I supposed to make of all this time of training camp and preseason? I would definitely question the whole process that every other football player has to go through.

As for Favre, this is obnoxious. Why is this the biggest story today? We all knew it was gonna happen. I didn't want it to, but we knew it was about that time when Favre would make a random appearance and say, "Hey! I wana play," and then it's covered like a big surprise.
I wish he'd stay in Mississippi. I really do. Just enjoy your life. Please. Don't come out of the woodworks to try and play a couple games out of the year to show your face, and make me see your face non-stop now for my whole (usually enjoyable) time of football season.

For real though, I'm just going to pass over this and show no emotion, like as if this was another celebrity gossip story. I mean, that's what ESPN does these days anyway...

Notes...

Vinny Prospal is back, reunited with his former coach, John Tortorella after singing with the NY Rangers for $1.1 million. Trust me though, the Rangers will not win the Stanley Cup this year because of this.

Patrick Kane, the a-hole who couldn't just spare some change to his cab driver along with his brother, is looking for a plea deal on his robbery and assault charges that he recieved. Tsk tsk...

Don't forget to vote in the poll to your left, and hey! Follow me on Twitter! ZetaSportsFan1... You don't wanna miss any of my posts anyway!