Well, That Sucked

The thing about sports is that it isn't ultimately about what you hope or what you dream. In a world in which we devote way too much effort to building self esteem and not enough to building character sports are the one arena in which losses and wins are tallied, ruthlessly, cruelly even.

The Giants beat the Patriots. They came in with a great defensive scheme and executed that scheme. The Pats went ahead near the end and could not hold on to that lead. It is as simple as that.

Tonight's loss was easily the most painful I have felt as a sports fan since that hideous October night in 2003 involving Grady Little and a cast of too many. But that's what being a sports fan is about. I'm a grown man, and I'm feeling tremendous hurt over a football game played in Arizona by a bunch of men I'll never know. It's a silly emotional investment to make I suppose. But I've made it. And so the next couple of weeks will drag along, I'll feel an emptiness, and before long Valentine's day will be here and pitchers and catchers will report to spring training for the Red Sox. It's small solace right now, but that pain is ok. I'll survive.

One Game to Glory: Super Bowl Preview

There have been approximately eleventy-billion words written and more than that many spoken about the Pats-Giants Super Bowl matchup today. I'm not going to be able to add much insight. But since when has that ever stopped me?

While I think the Patriots are going to mash the Giants, there are ways that the Ginats can win. If their front four can get to Brady, allowing their secondary and linebackers to be in pass coverage without blitzing, if Eli Manning can connect with Plaxico Burress and the rest of that receiving corps in that 10-15 yard zone where the Pats have previously shown themselves to be sort of vulnerable, if the Giants can pound the ball, keeping the Patriot defense on the field and more importantly, the Pats offense off of it, the Giants will make a game of this. The Giants are a good team or else they would not be here. But keep in mind my mantra: The best team going in almost always wins these sorts of matchups. I know that sounds obvious, but in our zeal to talk ourselves into good games, we let this fact slip away.

But the following are not good reasons for why the Giants might win the Super Bowl, even though I have actually heard people try to use them to boost the Giants:

That they have momentum. Are these people insane? The Patriots are 18-0, the only team in history ever to reach that level. The Giants have won three games in a row. Their loss was to the Patriots. One of those wins was a Wild Card game victory over Tampa, a game they had to play because, well, they were not that good during the regular season.

As a subset of the momentum argument, some have asserted that the Giants' record ten-game road winning streak gives them an advantage. Fforget, of course, that the Patriots have an eight game road winning streak. The Giants have won games on the road because, again, they were not good enough to get so much as a single home playoff game. The Giants have lost at ome this season. Let's not make too much of this road winning streak given that, again, the Patriots are undefeated. they win every single momentum discussion.

We've heard a lot of the "Eli has grown" arguments. But let me ask you this: Do we really think that three games have turned Eli from a wildly inconsistent quarterback with a nearly 1:1 interception-to-touchdoen ratio into Joe Montana? He's been good in the playoffs. Let's not make more of it than that.

So what do I see happening?

And finally, we've heard all sorts of things about the 38-35 game to close ouyt the regular season. And the Giants did play one hell of a game. But the Pats didn't do anything on defense in terms of game planning. And the Pats won that game and put up 38 points. I do not see them scoring less than 38 and I don't see the Giants scoring as much as 35. Overstate the Giants learning how to beat the Patriots based on that game. What they actually learned is that they know how to lose to the Patriots. maybe only by three, but a three-point loss is a loss nonetheless, and forgive me if I think that Belichick will have done a better job of working from that game and using the two-week interregnum since the conference championship games than Coughlin has.

I can envision the Patriots coming out and leaning on the running game, with Laurence Maroney pounding inside and breaking outside. With Kevin Faulk as a change of pace back. With Heath Evans ensuring third-and-short success. And perhaps with an occasional attempt to hit Moss deep. Establishing the run will neutralize the Giants' admittedly stellar pass pressure, because they will not be able to pin their ears back. They will need to play the run. By the second quarter the Pats will be able to go to the passing game more -- mostly mid-range passes to Watson, Faulk, Welker, and just about every other guy on the roster who does not line up from tackle to tackle.

By the time halftime approaches the Pats will have all of their weapons at their disposal, they will be up by a couple of touchdowns, and the Giants will have to rely on Eli Manning to lead them from behind. The last month notwithstanding, I don't think Eli having to make up a big deficit inspires confidence among Giants fans. The Pats will force Manning into at least two interceptions. The Pats will swarm runners and force at least one fumble. And the Patriot special teams will have at least one big play. by the time the fourth quarter rolls around, we'll see a coronation, not a contest.

Patriots 45-Giants 16

Tom Brady: The Best of All Time

The Boston Globe has an article speculating on Tom Brady's place in the all-time pantheon of quarterbacks. My own view is that if he never takes another snap in the NFL he is assured of being on any top five lists. If he leads the Pats to Super Bowl title number four and caps off the perfect season I think it puts him in any conversation of the best ever. And keep in mind that Brady is only 30 years old. before he is done he might have such a stranglehold on the top spot that the conversation will be settled for a generation.

On Vince Lombardi

The Super Bowl week buildup continues unabated. My team is involved and I find most of it to be practically unbearable. It must be awful for those of you who are still paying attention or have been unable to convert all of the blather into soothing white noise. Ralph Whitehead, Jr. had a nice piece on Vince Lombardi in The Boston Globe that might remind you of, as others say in a different context for a very different purpose, the reason for the season, or at least one of them. Here is the introduction:

BECAUSE THE Super Bowl trophy bears the name of Vince Lombardi, yearly media countdowns to the game often revisit his triumphant years as coach of the Green Bay Packers. But too often these portraits of him are skewed. They depict him as a severe taskmaster - but play down his achievements as an innovator.

In such portraits, he is a George Patton. In fact, however, he was a Steve Jobs.

The whole thing, as we blogger types are wont to say, is worth reading.

The Greatest of All Time?

At The Boston Globe Jim McCabe, using the current Patriots as a springboard, explores the futility of figuring out which team is the "greatest of all time" but also acknowledges that the very futility of it may be what makes such arguments so enduring and alluring.

The next week is destined to pass slowly. The NFL does itself, and more importantly its fans, a disservice by having the off week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl. There is no real reason why this game should not be going on today, though if Tom Brady's ankle really is injured, pats fans are thankful for the respite. Nonetheless, it feels as if the league has killed some of its own carefully cultivated momentum.

Bring the Hype

I'm back from Colorado and our great weekend with Tom and his better half, so while I try to get back to the grind, let's get going with the Super Bowl XLII hype: In the pre-Patriot era, the New York Giants were actually New England's football team, which explains why Dan Shaughnessy was rooting for Eli Manning and company on Sunday.

My comments on the Chargers game: First, let's keep in mind that the only reason the Pats did not score on the drive that closed out the game was because they chose not to. The game was reasonably close, but virtually never in doubt. As for San Diego's injuries, all I'll say is that injuries are a part of the game, and as a result the Pats did not have one of their best defensive players, Roosevelt Colvin, or the guy who was leading the Pats in rushing when he went down for the season, Sammy Morris. On the whole, the Pats got it done with defense and a brutally efficient running game. Brady did not have his best game, but my guess is that the weather and turf in Glendale will see a return of the Patriots who can put up 50 in ruthless fashion.

NFL Playoffs: The Divisional Round

Here are my quick assessments of the NFL playoffs this weekend, with my always-entertaining predictions. (Unless I'm betting Holmes, in which case I always win, I'm pretty mediocre at this sort of thing.):

Seattle at Green Bay: Green Bay is at home and is by most measures the better team. Bret Favre's magical run continues for at least another week as Seattle on the road is not a great team. This is a nice JV game before the varsity takes the field in Foxborough. Green Bay 34-Seattle 17

Jacksonville at New England: Lots of folks love the Jags because they can run and stop the run and thus are a good bet in a cold weather stadium against a team predicated on passing. This is, to put it bluntly, nonsense. The Jags are also not a great pass D, and the Pats not only have the best passing offense in the league, but arguably the best passing offense in the history of the NFL. Meanwhile the Pats have had two weeks off, Belichick has been able to game plan for the Jags, the game is at home, and the weather is supposed to be conducive to a passing offense. I have a pretty demonstrable history of getting insanely nervous before these games. But I am confident that the Pats are going to maul the Jags. The Pats may lose before completing the run to perfection. But not today and not against this team. New England 44-Jacksonville 23

San Diego at Indianapolis: My guess is that Tony Dungy, Peyton Manning, and the rest of the Colts love flying this low below the radar. No one is talking about them. Meanwhile the Chargers won their playoff game last week, but in far from compelling fashion. There has been lots of talk about Marvin Harrison this week, but his return won't be as much of a factor as the inevitable implosion that the Chargers will engage in sometime around the third quarter. maybe this would be a game in San Diego. It won't be in Indy. Indianapolis 38-San Diego 27

New York at Dallas: This will likely be the closest game of the weekend, and in that sense the most entertaining, but for some reason I see this being a typically ugly NFC east slugfest in which the team that turns the ball over last watches their playoff hopes fade. Given that a Cowboys-Pack, Pats-Colts weekend might be the greatest pair of games in the history of the NFL, and given that I don't think Eli can get it done again, even if they are on a roll and this is the dreaded third matchup this season after two Cowboy wins, I think Dallas will win. Dallas 21-New York 17

Enjoy the games, and Go Pats!!!

Super Bowl XLI

I'm heading out to watch the Super Bowl in just a few minutes. I must admit, my interest in this game is at an all-time low. Surely that is due in huge part to the letdown over the Pats not being involved, but there are other factors as well. Nonetheless, I will put forth a tentative pick for the game.

It's rare that the team with both the best defense and the best running game would be an underdog, especially inasmuch as they are playing an opponent that has a history of choking in big games. It is especially rare for that team to be a 7 point underdog. Nonetheless, these are the circumstances the Bears will face as they take the field in Miami today. And naturally, taking a cue from the Patriots of recent years, the Bears are playing that disrespect element up just as much as possible. The question is, will it matter?

My head says no. My head says that Peyton Manning has climbed the mountain, that he has too many weapons, and that he will have so many weapons at his disposal that he will neutralize the aggressiveness of the Bears' D. Furthermore, the Bears got pasted whenever they ran up against even middle-shelf AFC competition. There is a reason why Vegas has given the game a relatively wide line, right? Surely, the smart line of thinking goes, the Colts are going to win, but the question is by how much.

Then there is my gut. My gut may not be smart, but it is intuitive. And my gut says that the Colts have crested, the Bears will come out gnashing their teeth, and Peytom Manning will find a way to steal defeat from the jaws of victory. The supposedly rejuvenated Colts D were a huge part of why the Pats scored 34 points in the AFC championship, and the Bears come forward with a two-headed thunder and more thunder running combo that will wear the Colts down. Of course the Bears have Rex Grossman, but while Grossman is no superstar, it is my firm belief that he can manage a game well enough to keep the Bears in the contest. Grossman does not need to be perfect, and knowing as much should allow him to be good.

So the question becomes the Adam Vinatieri factor: Not what sort of difference the greatest kicker of all time will make, so much as whether or not the game will come down to his pressure-tempered right leg. As Patriots fan I really do not want to think of that prospect. But on this question my head and my guts are working in tandem. My head says that the odds of Vinatieri having yet another shot at a Super Bowl winning kick are too improbable. And my guts say that the Bears are going to keep in just out of range in the end.

Maybe it's wishful thinking. maybe it is post-AFC Championship sour grapes. Maybe it is just the matter of me wanting to be contrarian. Whatever the motivation, I see it ending Bears 34-Colts 30.

The Super Bowl Teams Ranked (Dubiously)

ESPN.com's Page 2 has a list guaranteed to inspire controversy, outrage and discussion. The authors rank the Super Bowl teams from one to eighty.

The rankings that got my dander up came when they rated the 2001 Rams about 20 places higher than the 2001 Patriots. Yes, the 2001 Patriots that beat the Rams on the field, the one place that we legitimately decide which team is better. And thus the ice skatification of sports continues apace wherein a bunch of guys decide that what they can derive from statistics and their own impervious logic is actually more significant in determining winners than the performance on the field of those teams that actually win.

My view on such a list is that the Super Bowl winners automatically claim spots one through forty. The losers, after all, lost in the biggest game where the winners did not. Doctrinaire? Sure. But I would defend my stance as also being right. I'm sure you will all have your own complaints and criticisms.

(Note that the link I have provided will take you to slots one through twenty -- at the top of the page you can go to the other groupings of twenty.)

Dazed & Confused

The Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy pretty well sums up the New England fan's stupor this week.

The Vegas Hangover

Let me just get it out of the way now: That was probably the most painful loss I have experienced as a football fan, and it really screwed up an otherwise fantastic weekend. There are no excuses -- I'm sure that the Colts fans would point to a couple of bad calls as would Pats fans (offensive pass interference on Brown, the awful roughing the passer call). And it is clear that Reche Caldwell could not catch the clap in a Bangkok whorehouse. But the Colts won, they deserve it, and while I'll be avoiding anything NFL related for the next week or so, the reality is that Patriots fans have gotten to be very, very spoiled. Since most of us are also Red Sox fans, we know what it is like to be doubled over in anguish from one of our teams, but we simply did not expect it from the Pats. But being a fan, like being an athlete, is as much about dealing with defeat as it is about celebrating victory. This one will hurt for a while, but pitchers and catchers report in less than a month.

So I made my maiden Vegas trip in a big, big way. We'll dispense with the cliches, and in so doing, dispense with the details, if only to protect the guilty, the innocent and the ones we are not sure about. On the way there and back I re-read Hunter S. Thompson's classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Toward the end he writes something like "A little bit of this city goes a long way. Five days can feel like five years." Most of us were more than ready to leave by Monday not because we did not have a good time but because we had too good of a time. The Thunderstick was a first-rate cruise director and we had the perfect mix of necessities and extra-curriculars (just which is which varied by each individual).

So just one question remains: When are we going back?

Oh, and for the guys: Touche. Touche indeed.

Pre-Vegas Championship Weekend Picks

It's championship weekend in the NFL. Historically offering a better weekend of games than the Super Bowl, the AFC and NFC Championship games usually bring together great plotlines, good games, and compelling stories. This year is no different. In the NFC we have the matchup involving this year's Team of Destiny, the New Orleans Saints, who will be playing with the support of everyone in America who does not live in the greater Chicago, Indianapolis, or New England regions.

And the Saints are a good story. That said, could we please stop freighting them with the weight of the region's recovery? It has become hackneyed to assert that the Saints are a feel-good story lifting an entire people with their plucky play on the field. I love football. New Orleans fans love football. If the Saints win, those fans will be happy. But I'd really appreciate it if everyone involved in looking at this game would stop maintaining that the Saints are a redemptive force in any meaningful way.

Back in 2001 writers and commentators and baseball people tried the same nonsense with the World Series, arguing that the Yankees and Mets facing off provided some sort of catharsis for a region and that thus those fans "deserved" that confrontation. (Not quite as blatantly, but equally as stupidly, people tried to claim that it was apt that a team called the "Patriots" won the first post-9/11 Super Bowl, as if the nickname of one billion dollar organization really conferred some sort of patriotic legitimacy over other billion dollar organizations).

Again, the Saints story is a nice one, even if I think we might be right to question the sort of priorities that allowed taxpayer monies to rehabilitate the playground of a gazillionaire when hundreds of thousands still remain without the basics and when by almost any standard the city is still in tatters. Furthermore, football is not the United Way. Sports are not a charity organization meting out wins like a sort of karmic Santa Claus, weighing which teams fans are most worthy of the largesse of a Super Bowl win. I am especially pleased for this reality because while I may hate to admit as much, I'm pretty sure that the rest of the country would find New England fans the least worthy of those remaining of winning the ultimate NFL prize.

But have I been buggin' you? I don't mean to bug ya. Because if the weather Gods cooperate, this weekend will represent for me the opposite of somber reflection or weighing of civic priorities. For all of the travelling I have done across the country and the world, tomorrow at 10:40 I will step onto a plane bound for the City of Sin, Las Vegas. Other than a brief layover on the way to California a few months back I have never set foot in Vegas. The Thunderstick has found that to represent a disgusting lacuna in my biography and sought to rectify it. Using the pending nuptials as an excuse he has organized a Vegas bachelor weekend for nine of us who will be congregating from all over the country tomorrow. (Yes, there are a number of my friends with whom I am not happy right now -- bums!) We wanted to organize the event around a major sporting weekend and narrowed it down to March Madness or else the AFC-NFC Championship weekend. With hopes that the Patriots would make it this far we settled on this January weekend and the roll of the dice, as it were, appears to have paid off.

I'll avoid the usual cliches. Maybe what happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, but my guess is that more likely we will create a lot of great stories in the next three days that demand retelling and augmenting. And since we will be in Vegas the picks that follow might even provide my own guidelines for gambling. Otherwise, I'm just going to say it: We're dealing with professional sports here. No one "deserves" to win other than if they take victory on the field. New Orleans is experiencing a great football story, which pales against what is otherwise a bleak and grim backdrop. For whatever reason some people have come to hate the Patriots. None of this will matter on Sunday either when four very good teams will play to get to the Super Bowl.

As for my merry little band of nine? Wish us good fortune in getting there, in staying in lady luck's graces, and in surviving dcat's initial Vegas foray. "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert . . ."

Saints at Bears: (Bears favored by 2.5) Vegas thinks the Bears hardly even warrant the benefit of home field advantage, apparently. And I can see why in a sense -- this is a tough game to call. The Bears have been underwhelming for several weeks now. They managed to get it done in theis first postseason game last week by slipping past a Seahawks team that scared no one. Seattle was the weakest team in the postseason this year and yet with a few bounces of the football they would be facing their second consecutive NFC Championship game. We know that Rex Grossman is sketchy at best. The Chicago defense has fallen from rarefied air -- back in midseason people spoke of this Chicago defense not in terms of the rest of the NFL, but in terms of the great defenses in history. For awhile some folks were foolish enough to utter comparisons with the 1985-1986 Bears defense, which is just insane.

Meanwhile we have everybody's darlings, the Saints of Drew Brees and Deuce McAllister and everyone's favorite rookie sensation, Reggie Bush. People tend to overlook the weaknesses of New Orleans even while they poke at every pockmark on the other three teams. Reggie Bush almost gave that game away. New Orleans played a Philly team that made a lot of mistakes and still let them be in it until the very last stages of the game. And as importantly, New Orleans is the least experienced team in the playoffs. Usually, that is the sort of thing that catches up with a football team. It almost always takes a team several shots to get through the playoff schedule. The Saints have won two playoff games in their star-crossed history. One of them came last weekend when they won to get to their first conference championship game. I'm not certain that the bright lights will shine too brightly for them. I'm not necessarily worried that the Saints will not be able to handle Chicago weather -- Brees played his college ball at Purdue, after all, while Grossman played at Florida. And I imagine that the Saints will not succumb to the intimidation factor of the Chicago fans -- fan intimidation is usually one of the most overrated factors in all of sports. Most of the time professional football players enjoy being hated in opposing arenas. Guys who get mashed by unfathomable amounts of force on the field are rarely cowed by fat guys from the suburbs dressed like dogs or wearing hog masks or garbed in Star Wars gear with spiked shoulder pads or wearing cheese on their heads.

But a confluence of factors will pile up in this game. The Saints looked somewhat tentative at times last week. Destiny almost always gives way to ability at this time of the season. New Orleans has been a great story. Whether the Saints win or lose will make little difference, however, in the city's recovery, and we all should be rooting for the people of the Gulf region irrespective of whether or not their NFL entry manages to overcome the Bears this weekend.

Like everyone else, I suppose my heart is with New Orleans. But on the field, the Bears are going to bring too much. Rex Grossman is going to manage the game rather than try to win it. The Bears defense will be a step too quick, the New Orleans stars a bit too callow. Chicago, which for almost all of this season has been the best team in the NFC by a long way, will be the best team on Sunday. It may not even be that close of a game. Bears 31-Saints 24

Patriots at Colts: (Colts by 3) I'm not even going to pretend that I am going to do anything but pick the Pats in this one. The Colts are scary talented on the offensive side of the ball. As the week has progressed, I, like lots of fans, have looked at the options the Colts have at their disposal -- it all starts with Manning and then goes to Harrison and Rhodes, Waynes and Addai and Clark -- and wonder how the Patriots can possibly stop them. I look at their reinvigorated D and am convinced that they have improved so much that maybe they will be able to shut down the Patriots. And of course the Colts now have the advantage of Adam Vinatieri. And that is a huge advantage.

But for all of the clear attributes the Colts bring onto the field, they still are not the Patriots. The Pats have won three of the last five Super Bowls for a reason. They have an opportunistic defense whose sustained body of work ranks as well as any in the history of the league. They know how to close out close games. They beat a better team than the Colts did last weekend. And as always, the Patriots have Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.

The rest of the league's fans hate that last assertion especially and call it smugness, but I've reconciled how the rest of the world looks at Patriots fans because that is how the rest of us always looked at Bears and Cowboys fans in the 90s, Niners fans in the 80s, and basically any team that has had a sustained level of excellence. All fans of winning teams become a bit obnoxious and hard to handle. All winning teams become dislikable over timne because their story line grows tiresome.

In any case, what it comes down to for me, and what it will continue to come down to, is that I am going to take a tautological view of Pats-Colts playoff games just as I'm sure, and it pains me to admit this, Yankees fans looked at the Sox before 2004: until they show that they can beat us, they cannot beat us. Peyton Manning may well win a Super Bowl. I cannot stand him because that's what fans do, but he is a tremendous quarterback who will more than likely lead a team to the promised land. If they can get past the Pats it will happen this year. But until they do it I won't believe that they can do it. The Patriots will find a way to win because at this stage of the season the Patriots have always found a way to win.

Plus I am going to be in Vegas this weekend, and that has to mean something. And no, it is not coming down to a Vinatieri kick. Patriots 34-Colts 30

And yes, I promised to avoid cliches, but what the hell -- Vegas baby! We are so money, and we don't even know it! "I feel like a monster incarnation of Horatio Alger . . . a Man on the Move, and just sick enough to be totally confident."

Seeking Confirmation

Wait a second -- in the intro to the Bears-Seahawks game, did Joe Buck really just use the word "funkified"?

Peyton Manning's Epitaph?

The fiancee, who knows absolutely nothing about football, just sat down next to me to eat a late lunch while I am watching the Colts-Ravens game. Peyton Manning came on the screen, and she said "Hey, that's the commercial guy."

Yes, yes it is.

NFL Playoffs: The Divisional Round

This might be the best weekend of the playoffs, so buckle yourselves in and enjoy the ride: Four games, the best teams playing, a couple of stellar matchups, and intensity kicked up a notch. Here are my picks for the weekend:

Colts at Ravens: (Ravens favored by 4) If the Colts play this week like they did against the Chiefs last weekend, the Ravens' defense will crush Indy like a bug. I suspect that we will see a better Colts team, however, and thus will get to test that age old NFL question: In a clash between a great offense and a great defense, which wins? It is too reflexive and pat simply to assert that great D beats great O. Sometimes it does. More often than you think, it doesn't. In the end a team with a great offense still needs a D to hold up its end of the bargain and vice versa, and special teams always play a role, as does game planning, matchups, and the thousand other things that determine the course of any football game. But that the Colts offense will improve is probably not sufficient. I see Baltimore shutting down the Colts running game -- I simply do not see the Ravens' D succumbing to a rookie like Joseph Addai. Which leads us to Peyton Manning and the Colts' passing game. Manning will be good. But he won't be good enough, and on Monday we will be discussion, among other things, whether Manning will ever be able to lead a team to a title. The Baltimore D is nearly as good as it was in 2000-2001 and their offense is better, even if it is still not a juggernaut. The Ravens will win by forcing a couple of crucial turnovers. Ravens 23-Colts 17

Eagles at Saints: (Saints by 5) I don't see the Eagles as being good enough to derail the great story that is the Saints. It is as simple as that. Forget about the angles, the permutations, the ephemera. Oftentimes the answer is easier than it seems: The better team usually wins. By most measures, the Saints are the better team. The only question I have is whether they are too young and too inexperienced in games like this one. The Eagles have a great story with Jeff Garcia as well, but the surge of the post-Katrina Saints continues this weekend. Saints 34-Eagles 24

Seahawks at Bears: (Bears by 8.5) Let me be succinct: The Seahawks stink. The Bears, even with serious questions at quarterback and despite a sense that they peaked too early, do not. Any other assessment is superfluous. Bears 27-Seahawks 10

Patriots at Chargers (Chargers by 5) This will be the game of the weekend. All week I have had the same worries that has concerned everyone who roots for or is affiliated with the Patriots: Can they stop or at least contain LaDanian Tomlinson, and can they find a way to slow down Shawne "'Roid Rage" Merriman and the rest of that Chargers' D? But the Chargers also have a rookie quarterback. And the Patriots have Bill Belichick. In the colonial era in Africa, there was a bit of doggerel verse that the British liked to quote when issues of whether they could hold on to the colonies in the face of bitter native resistance emerged: "Whatever happens we have got, the Gatling gun and they have not." For this weekend I am going to adopt and provide a twist on this concept: "Whatever it is the Chargers have got, the Pats have Brady and they do not." Patriots 34-Chargers 27

The Wild Card Weekend

I was as surprised as anyone by how accurate my predictions for this past weekend turned out to be. The only game I got wrong was the game that I assessed most correctly, and only the truly bizarre botched field goal attempt failed me. otherwise I would have been a perfect four-for-four this weekend. (It appears that I may have been premature when I wrote that I was wrong in my initial assessments of Tony Romo.)

Realistically, I had the right winner and roughly the right margin for the Colts, but I don't think anyone expected such an ugly game, such ineffectual offense for long stretches and generally such a sluggish contest. If the Colts play like that against the Ravens, they are going to get mangled.

The last two days did nothing to dissuade me from my belief that the NFC is marginal. Both games ended up being entertaining because the teams were equally matched, but of the eight teams that played in the last two days, i would have a hard time accepting any argument that did not place at least three AFC teams -- the Patriots, Colts, and Jets -- above any of those NFC teams. Things might change when we bring the Saints and Bears into the equation, but as of right now, the AFC is the dominant conference.

The Patriots pounded the Jets, as I thought they would, and while a lot of commenters have said the game was closer than the final score, let's keep in mind that the Pats blew two opportunities to score in the red zone and instead kicked field goals. Add twelve points to the final score (for touchdowns and conversions) and it calls into question just how close that game was. Nonetheless, the Jets played well -- better than any os the losers this weekend -- and I was glad to see Belichick and Mangini embrace after the game. I was even happier to see Belichick engage in what appeared to be dwarf tossing of at least one cameraman.

Early impressions of next weekend:

The two AFC games should be incredible. The four teams are all very, very good. The matchup of the Colts offense against the Ravens defense will provide yet another test of the still unresolved question of whether a great D or a great O will win when they clash. My initial impression is that we should look at the opposite as well -- the Ravens O and the Colts D is dubious, but I think the Colts might be better defensively than the Ravens are on offense. I will change my mind ten times on this question between now and the weekend.

As for the Patriots and Chargers? I cannot imagine what it is like to be a Pats player or coach this week, because I imagine that I will be losing sleep over LaDanian Tomlinson, who really is the most devastating threat in the game. That said, I always like New England's chances against a callow quarterback, and while I think the woeful playoff history of Marty Schottenheimer sometimes is easy to overstate, to whom do you give a coaching advantage in a matchup between the Pats and the Chargers?