BuffOrange

Well obviously there's no point in having divisions if the winners aren't rewarded. Having eight of them instead of six only increases the chances of things like this year happening, but what can you do...in 1999 we were 11-5 @13-3 Tennessee while 9-7 Miami was @9-7 Seattle in the first round; nobody complained about that.

Me too. Carter I don't like as much; but lumping either of them in with Emmitt Smith (who is the biggest epic failure of an analyst ever) - WTF.

I mean seriously? This is getting absurd, their defense always sucked pre Jimmy Johnson and you're the only person ever to argue otherwise.

I guess we'll agree to disagree then. I would say the Cardinals & Steelers (this year at least w/ Parker hurt) are two of those teams in the bottom 14. Disagree?

The Raiders, Redskins & 49ers were pretty good that year, no?

Nice. How strange is it that I had to switch from espnews to sportscenter to get it on tv? The AP article made it sound like he was taunting the dunkee but it didn't look that way at all; just having some fun with the crowd. <3 Johnny

SD and Zona could be hosting championship games. Has there been a worse final 4 in nfl history?

Would you mind quoting said post again and bolding the "full of facts" parts? I count one: Teams draft RB's in the 1st round. lol who is the one who brought up these backs? Yes the Lions one playoff win in the Barry era was clearly a larger success than Dolphins' eleven under Marino. Admittedly Dan always had a killer defense and Herman Moore, Brett Perriman, Lomas Brown were all chumps.

Well said - I was going to write a longer more confusing version of this. Peterson is special. Rank RB's 2-18 in the league (I bet you'll get 5 incredibly different looking lists when you ask 5 different people btw) and the gap between 2 and 18 is going to have a minimal impact on your win total compared to other positions. Most teams (in the playoffs or not) have a back on their roster who was drafted in the 1st round. This shows that teams do in fact seek them out. That most playoff teams have them shows nothing, as most non-playoff teams do as well: Pats, Jets, Bills, Bengals, Browns, Jags, Chiefs, Raiders for sure... I guess there are teams whose offensive production has seen a big drop-off with their back-up behind a decent OL exist. For every one of those examples though I can come up with 10 to the contrary. Antoine Smith was a 1st round pick, but he was one of the worst starters in the league when the Pats won in 01 and 03. I don't think you can even name the '02 Bucs starter without looking him up. The Colts got it done with Addai in a time-share; which was the year after Edge was let go which was the year after both they and Seattle tried and failed to trade their guy for a 3rd rounder; and of course the Giants the year after Tikki retired. Teams drafting them in the 1st round is one point I really can't counter. That might be an interesting case study, but I would think part of it is even the good RB's needing to be replenished at a high rate due to their incredibly short average shelf-life (a guy like Curtis Martin was freakishly durable), which is yet another thing that diminishes their value imo.

Read about the dunk; hopefully it'll be on espnews or something. Good to be 4-0 heading into the murderer's row portion of the schedule (wait have I said this before?).

Fitzgerald is sick for sure. It's weird how every available metric says the Panthers are very good vs. the pass but they've looked awful at times: vs. TB, NO, etc. And Delhomme again.

Are you taking on the Daquix role of arguing for the sake of arguing? The only position less important than RB is Safety.

OMG Delhomme WTF

They were definitely lucky today and will have to play better to win next week. I think they will. The Steelers had some similar luck in the 2 reg. season games; and plus they've lost like 200 straight championship games at home.

Yeah, they should've called time out on defense after the 1st down run before the FG too.

I mean it's great that they "proved the world wrong" after winning an undeserved home game in which they were a 1 pt underdog last week; but I don't like any team's chances when they pour gatorade on their coach after a wildcard game.

No, not even +10 ATS.

Yes. Every team should have a guy like this.

They showed the replay on the postgame show and he clearly stayed in bounds. Terribly gut-wrencher for the Titans (but how can you feel bad for them?). Nice job by Fisher of leaving time outs on the board.

No action on wildcard weekend because I figured liking all 4 road favorites was a bad sign (though 2-2 wouldn't have been a disaster). The Ravens went from 3 pt dogs @Miami in the reg. season to giving 3 yesterday, which is a huge swing. Now that we're back to normal with 4 home favorites, my 2nd round outlook: Balt@Tenn -3 - Kinda iffy on this one, wouldn't be surprised to see the Titans semi-coast if they get the lead early, but I think the Ravens win outright about half the time. Tennessee is rested, but I don't like the way they mailed in the Indy game. I mean that's fine if you have to play the next week and I know the Bills did it under Marv, but haven't they learned from the Colts in the past that it's hard to take two weeks off and then turn it on again? Flacco has actually played better on the road this year. In his 1st career road start he took his team down the field for a TD on Monday night to force OT against the best D in the league when all the momentum was pointing the other way. @Dallas was a playoff atmosphere as well, though that's not an intimidating place to play. You can say he didn't play great in these games but the point is he hasn't been some huge liability that caused his team to get in a 17-0 hole. Pick: Baltimore +3 SD @ Pit -6 - I guess this comes down to how much you want to buy into Rivera revitalizing the Chargers defense. Personally I don't even though they played well vs. Indy. They needed a goaline stand to hold ATL to 22 in what at the time looked like a must-win at home; the Denver game just got out of hand quick and even then the SD D had problems. Against the Steelers it's not good enough to score a push against their OL - you have to hammer them there because that's their only weakness; I think either the Titans or Ravens will do it next week and advance to the SB but I don't see the Chargers getting it done. I don't have a problem laying 6 when I can't see the underdog winning outright. Pick: Pittsburgh -6 Philly @ NYG -4 - This is tough. I think missing Burress in the long run makes them a carbon copy of the Titans, meaning they're solid but have a very thin margin for error. The last game vs. Philly had to have been a big distraction for the team and Pierce in the first game after the shooting fiasco whether they admit it or not though, so I expect them to play a much better game. I kinda like the Giants to win, but unlike the Chargers I can see the Eagles winning outright, so I'll just take the points in case it's a FG game. Pick: Philly +4 Arizona @ Carolina -10 - Maybe I'm bitter over the Pats game, but I'm convinced the Cardinals are ultra-soft. If not showing any backbone in late season road games wasn't bad enough, they have to trot out the "nobody believed in us" crap after winning a home game they didn't deserve in the first place. Now with Boldin questionable, I think there's a good chance they get smoked here against what I think is the most complete team in football. Pick: Carolina -10

Because JP sucks? Seriously though I don't pity the team that potentially hires him like I did when the Greg Williams HC rumors were hot a couple years ago when the Redskins D had a good year (not that a Bills fan should pity anyone). I thought from a strategic and game/clock management standpoint he was much sharper than both Williams and Jauron (of course I was flamed when I said this a couple years ago). We also scored on our opening possession with amazing frequency considering what he had to work with, which I think is a good indicator that he can put together a gameplan. Whether or not he did a good job of holding together a lockeroom is another story, but that's not really something any of us here have enough info on based on a random newspaper quote from Eric Moulds or whoever. I mean seriously, if people didn't pay attention to these meangingless player quotes and just went by the games, what evidence is there that our Jauron teams play harder - the Jets/Broncos games? In December of '05 we beat the Bengals on the road who were a playoff team that year. You want to bring up the home loss in primetime to Denver that year? How was that different than the Pats game this year? Nice 'Cuse tidbit btw.

I thought the most interesting part was Cowher asking the same question 2-3 times before calling him 'Mike'.

Round 2 is one of the best sports weekends of the year. Back to normal with the home teams favored Balt @ Tenn -3 AZ @ Car -9.5 Philly @ NYG -4 SD @ Pit -6 I don't like the Chargers defense or the Steelers inability to block anyone, so I like the winner of Ravens-Titans to get to the Super Bowl. The Panthers are probably glad to be the #2 seed instead of the #1.

Have you ever seen both teams and the announcers butcher a single a play? Eagles WR drop actually helps them because Childress is too stupid to accept the penalty and push them back, instead giving them a 44yd FG. Buck & Aikman of course don't mention it. It's Wildcard Weekend on Fox!

Yeah it's like saying the garbage bubble team that got in the NCAA's deserved it because they won their 1st round game. I mean you either deserve a postseason birth based on reg. season performance or you don't and the Chargers really didn't. But whatever, at least everyone knows the rules ahead of time unlike March Madness.