This weekend was one for the record books and one for the birds most certainly. Just take a look at who won: The Eagles, Ravens and Cardinals. Even more stunning, they all won on the road against teams coming off of a bye week. In fact, it was the first time in NFL history that three home teams lost in the divisional round of the playoffs. Only the Steelers survived but were facing an overmatched Chargers team that was missing LDT.
Really, anyone who thought that lil’ Darren Sproles was ready to be a feature back might want to back off of their statement. The only run of value was his 60 yard TD scamper but happened in garbage time when the game was out of reach. I’m sure that someone will overpay for him in free agency but I wouldn’t want him as my go to guy unless I had a bigger back for the short yardage situations.
Now, since Pittsburgh won, we’re deprived of seeing San Diego and Arizona both hosting Championship games. The two, much-maligned, West division champions could have played next weekend and I’m sure the media would have had fits after writing them both off many weeks ago.
Speaking of write-offs, how about that Jake Delhomme? Six turnovers to the supposedly awful Cardinals defence? What the hell was that? It’s time to get a new QB in Raleigh because Jake’s mojo has certainly gone the way of the dodo.
And who would’ve thought that the Arizona Cardinals would win their first game of the season on the East coast a) against a team that was undefeated at home, b) without Anquan Boldin and c) in the divisional round of the playoffs. It just goes to show that anything can happen in this league and juts when you think you have all the answers,(to quote Roddy Piper) they go and change the questions.
Another not really amazing, but still kind of cool feat happened in the smashmouth Eagles-Giants game: It was the first game in NFL history to end 23-11. Seriously, I have no idea how these stat guys come up with these ridiculous things. It really goes to show how much effort goes into these NFL broadcasts.
And finally, there was the Ravens-Titans tilt that seemed like it took forever. When a game starts at 4, there should be no way that the third quarter is still in progress at 7 p.m. I understand these were two very defensive teams that create stops, punts and turnovers but a very conservative 13-10 doesn’t woo me over as a fan.
This week: 2-2.
This postseason: 5-3.
That’s what we love about the NFL. Anything can happen and usually does ! What were the odds of these 4 teams of being in the Superbowl ?