May Tebow Be With You

It's been a week and I'm over the Steelers loss to the Denver Tebows, er...Broncos. It was painful to watch, but the reality was, with the team as banged up as they were, they just weren't going to be able to make another Super Bowl run this year, and I suppose I'd rather have them lose to a silly sideshow than a team I actually hate, like the New England Patriots.

We didn't deserve to win the game, with the way we played. After our second drive, our offense pretty much shut down until the second half, which allowed the Broncos to build a two touchdown lead on their own field. Our secondary looked like it belonged in the Alamo Bowl. How a team allows over 300 passing yards on just 10 completions is beyond me. Sure, with a lot of our defensive linemen hurt, the pass rush isn't going to be as good, but that doesn't directly result in our corner backs and safeties not being able to tackle. I can't really explain how Tim Tebow keeps winning, I just know that he does. I hope he will at least continue it this week. The Patriots have 13 players listed as questionable going into tonight's game, according to Mike Rodak of ESPN. This gives me hope that more Tebow magic could be available. That, and the fact the Patriots have just a terrible defense. I feel that this game will be much closer than the beat down that took place in Denver, but I feel Tebow might turn back into a pumpkin soon and the carriage ride could be over.

I'm taking the Patriots in this one: 27-20 (Prove me wrong, Tim Tebow, prove me wrong!)

As for the early game on Saturday between the 49ers and Saints, I feel that the matchup probably favors San Francisco. They're at home for one and they have the top rushing defense to pit against the Saints' strong rushing attack. When a top offense takes on a top defense, the defense usually wins. That said, the St. Louis Rams stayed with the 49ers twice and they looked really unimpressive in both games. I still don't feel that they're that good of a team, nor do I feel that Alex Smith is that great of an NFL quarterback. Drew Brees, on the other hand, is a former Super Bowl MVP and if the ground attack doesn't do much, he can still make the offense work by throwing screen passes to Darren Sproles and hitting his myriad of receivers. Brees spreads the ball around like Antonio Cromartie spreads his, well, you know (click the link if you don't know). I have to take the Saints in this one, just due to experience and the quarterback factor.

Saints 38 - 49ers 30

The early game on Sunday I feel, is the easiest straight up pick of the week. The Ravens have finally gotten their home playoff game that has alluded them for years. Their defense is as strong as ever. And the Ravens beat the Texans 29-14 in Week 5 when Houston was at their best and still had Matt Schaub taking snaps. They're now down to their third string quarterback, rookie T.J. Yates, at this point. I just don't see a rookie going on the road against a top defense and being mistake-free enough to come away with this win. I mean, the Ravens don't have a great quarterback either in Joe Flacco, but he has much more experience managing games than Yates does. I think the Texans' only chance is if they can completely shut down Ray Rice and the Baltimore running game. Houston's defense is certainly their strong suit, so they can for Flacco to beat them, they might have a shot. I'm still taking the Ravens.

Ravens 16 Texans 10

For the last game of the weekend, we have one of those classic playoff scenarios. We have the best team, the dominant team, in the Green Bay Packers. They nearly went undefeated in the regular season and simply dominated the NFL this season. We also have the New York Giants, the classic "they're hot at the right time" team. We saw this match up in the NLDS between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Philadelphia Phillies and we know how that ended (See right for emphasis, especially Carp's face).

I'm going to go ahead and ride the crazy train, and pick the Giants on this one. A lot can be said for hot teams and the Packers aren't in mid-season form right now. Their offensive line is beat up and Aaron Rodgers hasn't thrown a pass in a game situation in three weeks. On the other side of the ball, the Giants defensive line finally has all of its starters together, which was not the case when these two teams met during the regular season. Eli Manning has been in the zone lately and the Giants have managed to get their running game going again in recent weeks. I went with the most logical picks last week and only went two for four. Let's see what a little bit of crazy will do.

Giants 27 Packers 25

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...


The Rams announced yesterday that they have hired Jeff Fisher as the team's new head coach. Or should I say Fisher hired the Rams, as he was choosing between them and Miami? Either way, this was a big victory for the Rams. The head coaching pool was pretty thin this season with Bill Cowher and Jon Gruden looking to remain with their television jobs for at least one more year. Fisher was the best candidate available, so it was important for the Rams to acquire him. For the first time since Dick Vermeil left, they've hired a coach who has previous experience in the NFL as a head coach (I'm not counting Jim Haslett since he was an interim and wasn't hired as an actual head coach).

The Rams already have a few building blocks in place with Sam Bradford at quarterback, probably one more good year out of Steven Jackson in the backfield, James Laurinaitis at linebacker, and Chris Long on the defensive line, who had a Pro Bowl caliber year regardless of what the idiot voters said. 13 sacks in a season when your team is almost always behind is impressive. First-round pick Robert Quinn also looks like he could be a solid player in upcoming years, especially with better coaching. The Rams also have the second pick overall in the upcoming draft and quite a bit of cap space.

Fisher chose the Rams because they have an attractive situation, even after yet another abysmal season. I don't expect the Rams to return to the playoffs next year, but if they add more weapons around Bradford (including drafting Justin Blackmon out of Oklahoma State) the one year turn around from a weak team to a power is possible in this league. The 49ers have shown us that this season. The 1999 Rams showed us that more than a decade ago by being the first (and last) team to go from 0-8 in a division to 8-0 in a division in a year's time. I'll give a true prediction on what I see the Rams doing once I see the schedule come out this spring, but for the time being, I'm hopeful that my other team can get back on track.

Photo from prosportsblogging.com

NFL Playoff Preview

There are many sports holidays that I celebrate: MLB Opening Day, the first two days of the NCAA basketball tournament, and the opening of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Today, I celebrate another: the beginning of the NFL playoffs.

Wild-card weekend starts with the Houston Texans hosing the Cincinnati Bengals.I don't see the Texans, who haven't won a single game since clinching their first playoff spot in franchise history, turning it around now. Much of the Texans' success came early in the season when they had Matt Schaub at quarterback. They're now on their third string QB after Matt Leinart got injured in his first outing, and I just dont see rookie T.J. Yates making the plays that a team needs to win playoff game. And sure, the Bengals are also starting a rookie at quarterback, but Andy Dalton was a first-round pick and looks like a starting NFL quarterback. He has poise as well as a talented supporting cast with quick receivers and the rejuvenated Cedric Benson at running back. And speaking of the Bengals speedy receivers, here's my favorite moment of the season from that group:



I'm taking the Bengals 20-13.

The late game on Saturday could turn into a shootout between the Detroit Lions and the New Orleans Saints. The Lions put up 41 points last week at Lambeau Field and now they'll be back inside, which will just add to their speed. The Saints can score with anyone, so I think the difference in this game will be experience. The Saints have been there before and are just two years removed from winning the Super Bowl. The Lions haven't been to the playoffs since I was walking the halls of Parkway Southwest Middle School on a regular basis. I see the Lions putting up a fight and keeping the game close early, I just don't see them pulling it off.
I'll go with the Saints 41-30.

Sunday's games will probably both be a little ugly. The Atlanta Falcons and New York Giants have both been winning ugly for a while. A quarter of the Giants wins this season were against the Dallas Cowboys, which if you watched this season, you'll know that wasn't much of an accomplishment. For me, this game comes down to the experience factor. Tom Coughlin is a Super Bowl winning head coach (and God bless him for that!) and he has a quarterback in Eli Manning that has proven he can win in the playoffs. We're still yet to see if Matt Ryan of the Falcons can do the same and winning on the road won't be easy. I think Ryan's going to have to wait at least one more year before he gets that monkey off of his back.
I'll take the Giants 27-23

The weekend closes in the Mile-High City with the Denver Broncos hosting my Pittsburgh Steelers. I don't like my team's chances of going all the way now that we're down to our third-string running back and Ben Roethlisberger still nursing his high-ankle sprain, but they're not going to lose to Tim Tebow. Tebow and the Broncos offense only managed three points at home last week against the lowly Kansas City Chiefs. Even without Ryan Clark, who will be sitting out due to his sickle cell trait which makes it dangerous for him to play at that altitude, I fully expect the Steelers defense to dismantle Tebow and the Broncos. One of their top offensive linemen will miss the game and their top running back, Willis McGahee, is a bit dinged up as well. The illustration on the right is what I expect to happen this Sunday. Just insert James Harrison for Bane and Tim Tebow for Batman. In this case, it's a metaphor, but I wouldn't put it past Harrison to go for the real thing.

I'll take my Steelers this week, 17-9.

Photo from DC Comics

Super Bowl XLIV, the Blues, and the Bubble

Technology has forever changed the way we follow sports. We can now watch games in HD, check scores on our phones, and even follow our favorite athletes on Twitter. Sports video games graphics improve each year, looking more and more realistic, and now even the results are becoming very realistic. For the sixth time in seven years, a simulation on EA Sports' Madden accurately predicted the winner of the Super Bowl. This year, it even got the MVP right by selecting Drew Brees. The game was more lopsided than the 35-31 score it projected, but that's still scary good. Betters will probably pay more attention when the Madden simulation is published next year, as it broke a streak of projecting favorites to win and it's choice still held up.

The game itself was still very entertaining, as the Saints did have to rally from a 10-0 deficit and they didn't put the game away until Tracy Porter's pick-6 put the Saints up by 14 and left the Colts just 3:12 to try and score twice. I was thinking that the Saints had left Peyton Manning too much time and that they might have to go to overtime, but Manning's throw, or moreover, Reggie Wayne's weak attempt to catch it or at least break up the play, cost the Colts the game.

Also doing some winning as of late, have been my St. Louis Blues. They flat out railed a weak Toronto Maple Leafs team on Friday night. They outplayed Toronto the vast majority of the night and getting a pair of shorthanded goals in under five minutes during the second period pretty much put the game away. A shortie, as Blues color man Darren Pang termed it, is a back-breaking goal. Giving up two within two power plays has to completely demoralize a team. It's something I rarely do on the PS2, so to actually have it happen is pretty much inexcusable. Toronto isn't even going to benefit from their low finish as they dealt away their first-rounder for Phil Kessel. Their GM Brian Burke has a plan, but we'll have to wait and see how that one turns out. Trading away Alex Steen and leaving T.J. Oshie off of the U.S.A Olympic roster didn't pan out too well for him, as those were the scorers of the shorties. Not a bad way to stick it to him a bit, huh?

The Blues still have quite a bit of work to do. They have the Washington Capitals coming in tomorrow night, fresh off a two-game losing streak to follow up a 14-game winning streak, which was the third longest in NHL history.  So to put it lightly, the Caps are almost due after dropping two in a row. This could be a great test for the Blues. Even if they get a lead, the thing they haven't been doing is closing out games. They have now blown third period leads nine times. And unlike in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, those nine blown leads won't disappear of the computer screen like Ferris' nine absences. The Blues managed to salvage their game against Detroit on Tuesday, but they still let the Wings get away with a point, which can't happen against a team that you're directly competing with for one of the last playoff spots. Washington will keep coming the entire game, so the Blues can't afford to be complacent for a minute. They were down 5-2 to Montreal on Wednesday night to begin the third period and came back to tie it and force overtime before succumbing to the Habs in overtime. The Blues have to close out games if they expect to close in on a playoff spot. They sit just four points back of the eighth spot right now and it would sure be nice to go into the Olympic break within two.

Another team that's had trouble closing this season is the St. Louis University Billikens. They've squandered a couple large leads on the road and with those wins, they'd be a top-100 RPI team. At this point, they're looking at a very small shot at getting an at-large bid into the NCAA tourney, but if they can run the table or even go 6-1 over their last seven, it would certainly have to be noticed by the committee. In their last seven games, they have five left at home and two on the road. One of the road games is at UMass and is very winnable. The other is at Dayton, which would not be a bad loss by any means. They currently rank seventh in the Atlantic-10 which is projected by ESPN's Bracketology to get six teams into the dance at this point, which is even more impressive when you see that the Big East is also projected to get six. So the Bills certainly are in a league that is getting respect this year. That being said, their 6-3 record has mainly been built against the weaklings of the conference with the lone exception being a home win over Richmond (Which won't look quite as good since SLU got pummeled at Richmond). They have the meat of the league coming in with home games against Dayton, Rhode Island, Xavier, Temple, in addition to one of the aforementioned patsies in Duquesne who the Bills beat in OT on the road. SLU is 12-1 at home this year, so if they can keep up their home-court advantage, they could be in good shape heading into the conference tournament. Let's just hope that like the Blues, they can start to close games out.