NFL Playoffs: XXI - XXII
Anyway, the combatants for this year's playoffs are set. In the National Football Conference, we have the St. Louis Rams, Chicago Bears, Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers, San Francisco 49ers, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. For only the second time in a decade, the Minnesota Vikings won't be there. I guess Minnesota fans will just have to get a head start in preparing to watch the Minnesota Twins. Oh, wait! Nevermind.
In the American Football Conference, we have the Pittsburgh Steelers, New England Patriots, Oakland Raiders, Miami Dolphins, Baltimore Ravens, and the New York Jets.
Clearly, the NFC has a nearly insurmountable lead in city names with two words (and team nicknames with numeric characters)!
Let's look at board team by team.
Eleven of the twelve teams play home games outside. The only that doesn't is the St. Louis Rams. That's a huge advantage because the Super Bowl is going to be played in the Superdome. St. Louis is built for that. Not only that, but they have home field advantage before the Super Bowl. Plus they have an outstanding. They have too much going for them to do anything but win. So, naturally, they'll lose.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have tradition on their side. In the mid-70's, the Steelers were four-time Super Bowl Champions. They were THE team. On the plus side, the Superdome is climate controlled to around 70. On the negative side, they'll have the playoff games in Pittsburgh, which averages a high of 33 degrees in January: no where near the mid-70's in which they gained their fame. Sorry, Pittsburgh, you lose.
The Chicago Bears are back in the limelight. It started back in around Halloween when Mike Brown returned overtime interceptions for touchdowns in consecutive weeks. The Super Bowl will be near another costumed pagan holiday: Mardi Gras. If the Bears get to the Super Bowl, all indications point to them winning. Well, THIS indication points to them winning.
The New England Patriots are finally back in the playoffs. Their starting quarterback, Drew Bledsoe, went down early this season with an injury. His replacement, Tom Brady, lit up the league with an outstanding season. Because Cinderella stories are heart-warming in this cold era of professional sports, the sports reporters would jump on the story and I would hate to be bombarded with all kinds of "Brady's bunch" references (like this one). The Patriots must leave the playoffs immediately!
The Philadelphia Eagles are in the playoffs because no one else in the NFC East division seemed to want the division title. As someone who had Donovan McNabb on his fantasy football team for the second half of the season, I can say that they didn't really seem to want it either. Philly fizzles out early.
The Miami Dolphins also have a great Super Bowl history in that they could beat the Minnesota Vikings and Washington Redskins. Neither team is in the running this year. Neither are the Dolphins.
The Green Bay Packers could end up playing against the Chicago Bears in the NFC Championship game: perhaps with snow and cold! That is what football is all about! It would be a great game. And since, by my definition, any game in which Green Bay wins could not be a great game, the Packers would have to lose.
The Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl last year. Quoth the raven, nevermore! (Ya see? Do we really need Raven jokes AND Brady Bunch jokes?)
The San Francisco 49ers are in the playoffs. A year or so back, the 49ers were penalized for violating the NFL salary cap. They lost a third round pick and a fifth round pick and were fined a total of $900,000. When the Minnesota Timberwolves violated the NBA salary cap, they were penalized 5 first round draft choices, $3,500,000, and two executives were suspended for a year. That's not fair and the 49ers will pay for it. With my rooting for them to lose. After they beat the Packers, of course. (I have two teams beating the Packers! I do not like the Packers.)
The New York Jets are in the playoffs. (Yawn.) Hopefully, they won't be there long enough for me to think of something clever about them.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are fascinating. For years the ownership stood around while coaches lost 10 or more games a season. Now, if they don't advance a couple of games into the playoffs, the coach that brought the team to respectability stands to lose his job. Tony Dungy is my favorite coach, so I'll predict him to win a couple of games, but lose the Super Bowl.
The Oakland Raiders are back in the playoffs. They took a few years away to refresh themselves and ruin a few coaches' careers, but they're here now. They won the division early and were a favorite to be the AFC Super Bowl entry. Then they went out on a losing spree. Now experts talk about how their elder players are tired and how even players on winning teams just want to get the season over with. They melodramatically droned about how devastatingly long the season is. Never in my life had I heard such comments during a football game. It's not like they added an extra five games this year. As a reward for giving commentators something new to use as game filler, I predict the Raiders to win the entire thing. They can thank me later.
That is, if they survive the physical and emotional drain of this average-length football season.
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The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not neccessarily reflect those of the rest of the family.
© 2002, Mark Wentz