Conference Championship Redux: Patriots, Giants Punch Tickets to Arizona

Slowly recovering from a massive-celebratory hangover. 

Where to start?

At approximately 5:30 PM on Sunday, I ran out of fingernails.  

In desperation, I made the switch to toenails, which caused me to pull a hamstring (my four year old makes it look so easy). 

When that happened I had no choice but to start drinking heavily.

OK, I was already drinking heavily, but at least at that point I had a legit reason.


AFC Championship Thoughts

-After the Steelers game, when the anti-Lawrence Maroney bandwagon was rolling at full speed, I said “I’m still convinced that if they needed 25 carries, 120 yards he could do it.”

Lawrence Maroney in the playoffs:  23 carries per game, 122 yards per game.

-What can you say about the job Kevin Faulk did on Sunday?  Big third down catch after big third down catch, with none bigger than the diving circus catch to extend the game ending drive late in the fourth quarter.

Maroney and Faulk combined to lead the Patriots in rushing and receiving, respectively.

Not a bad day for the Patriots’ running backs.

-Let me get this straight.  Philip Rivers plays with two sprained MCLs and a partially torn ACL. Gates plays with a dislocated toe, but LaDainian Tomlinson can’t play with a sprained knee?

That’s not a very classy way to have your season end, LT.

I agree with Deion Sanders (and trust me, I don’t say that often)—no surgery for LT, no respect from me.  If your knee is not hanging from a thread (and I mean Robert Edwards at a beach flag football game type thread), you play in the AFC championship game.

Anything less is cowardly and inexcusable.

-Welcome back Norv Turner!   Where to start...

1) Punting from the Patriots’ 35 yard line in the fourth quarter when you’re down two scores?  Genius!
   
2) Leaving yourself with only one timeout in the last five minutes of a relatively close playoff game?  Brilliant!
   
3) Calling a slow developing, off-tackle run on third and less-than-one inside the five yard line?  Tremendous!
   
4) Staying in the nickel the entire nine minute, game ending drive even though the Patriots were featuring three tight-end sets and doing nothing but running the ball?  Fantastic!
   
5) Putting linebackers man-to-man on Welker during his touchdown, Gaffney during his touchdown, and Faulk the entire fourth quarter?  Stupendous!

It’s good to have the old Norv back.  I missed him.

-Tom Brady picked a good time to have his worst game of the season.  Hopefully it’s out of his system, as their opponent in the Super Bowl isn’t going to sit back in the nickel and watch their poor DBs get run over by Maroney for an entire half.

NFC Championship Thoughts

-Some people are being a NFL-Brett_Favre_Another_Awful_Performance_and_Big_Loss-200108">little hard on Brett Favre.  He had a tremendous season, and he played better than Tom Brady on Sunday.  He just didn’t have the horses (or the coaching staff) to make up for his deficiencies.

Favre earned the right to call this season a success. 

-Remember Ryan Grant?  Put up over 200 yards in the Divisional Round? 

Apparently, the Green Bay coaching staff didn’t remember him either… 

Memo to Mike McCarthy:  when it’s minus-five degrees, relatively windy, and the wind-chill is less than minus-twenty degrees: RUN THE DAMN BALL!

-Dave Metrick wrote an outstanding article that very well could have been written by Eli Manning himself.  Great stuff.

-It can’t be stressed enough exactly how cold it was in Green Bay.  It was so cold that it froze the normal home-field advantage for the Packers.

No team can be used to playing in that crap.  Neither team had an advantage. 

-This game didn’t come down to talent, it came down to toughness, and the Giants are a far superior team in that category. 

That may be the ONLY category that they’re superior to the Packers, but it was enough on Sunday.

-Back in Week 16, I came up with twenty-nine words that described Eli Manning as a quarterback, and I think the nicest one was odious. 

It’s hard to believe that this is the same Eli Manning I wrote about that week.

The fact that he’s gone three weeks in a row without a turnover is surprising enough, the fact that he's done it in the playoffs is “holy crap, you're not a chick—you’re a dude!” level surprising.

-Plaxico Burress has come a long way from his Plexy-glass days in Pittsburgh.  He was the best player on the field in Green Bay.  Al Harris is going to have Plaxico-induced nightmares all off-season.

Early Super Bowl Predictions

The 2007 Giants remind me a little of the 2000 Giants.

Anyone remember how that worked out?

I’m SeanMC.

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