- So if I would have dropped this game with my original pick, the Saints, the season's contest would not have been over between Jason and me. He would be 12.5 points ahead of me with 13 points still to be had. Instead, Jason is 9.5 points ahead of me, which means that I still have to take the opposite of his picks for the conference title games because if I only differ on one game and win 4 points, that leaves me 5.5 points behind with the 5-point Super Bowl pick left. So, as it turns out, Jason could have enjoyed this game to its fullest because it wound up having no effect on how far behind I'd still end up. I'm sure Jason enjoyed the game anyway, because he texted "What a game!" when it ended. This thing had a little bit of everything--Saints offense getting it done, 49ers defense responding, 49ers offense shocking everyone by staking San Francisco to a 17-0 lead, Drew Brees and the Saints roaring back, and just big plays back and forth at the end like Ali and Frazier trading bombs to the head. The tone was set during the very first New Orleans drive, when Brees marched the Saints down the field and hit Pierre Thomas with a pass at the 2-yard line, only to watch Thomas get his lights turned out by safety Donte Whitner and fumble the ball to SF. From sure TD to TO in one massive hit--the Saints had to know they were in for the fight of their lives right there. New Orleans had other fumbles throughout the game, a testament to the Niners' physicality. Yet there the Saints were in the middle of the 4th quarter, with Darren Sproles scampering for a TD catch and putting NO in front. That means that Alex Smith is going to have to lead a game-winning drive for SF to pull off the upset. You damn right, I snickered at the thought. Two minutes later, Smith pulled off a Tebow-like naked bootleg around the left side, and no one touched him because everyone was so shocked, and the Niners led again, and I stood up and slow-clapped Coach Insane, because I have no doubt that Jim Harbaugh drew that one up. Then Brees scoffed and took 34 seconds to go down the field and hit his stud TE Jimmy Graham for a TD. Saints back in front, and Smith's gonna have to lead another game-winning drive. No way, right? Yes way! Vernon Davis down the seam, the hardest throw Smith can make because he had to stick it in between defenders, perfect throw, great catch in traffic, tears of joy from Davis--it was Steve Young to Terrell Owens all over again. The Catch III, they're calling it. Un-fucking real. I learned that two weeks in a row, quarterbacks discovered big-play abilities that no one, maybe not even themselves, knew that they possessed--Tebow last week, Smith this week. This is today's NFL. Put the ball in the air. Let your Mandingoes make plays. Stop being a scared little punk and just do it. And like Tebow in the next game, I don't believe Smith has another performance like that in him two weeks in a row, just because it would be a monumental leap into superstardom to just find big-play ability and start doing it consistently, and I'm not about to predict that.
- And here's Tim Tebow, leading his army of Jesus freaks into Foxboro to take down Tom Brady and the Patriots, who had not won a playoff game in forever, and you can just feel the magic on Tebow's side, and the Lord is going to show the way to...oh wait, Tebow sucks again, and Brady is highly motivated to show the world who the superior QB is. And some of the Bill Belichick geniusness was on display as well--TE Aaron Hernandez with a straight run out of the backfield for 43 yards, a merciless pass rush similar to the Week 15 game in Denver that punished Tebow and confused him all night, and even a late 4th-quarter Brady punt on 3rd down to show some sort of weird mercy while also displaying a sense of superiority. "You're so weak, we'll give you the ball on 3rd down instead of throwing some more and risking a cheap shot on our quarterback. Here. Take the damn thing. We don't need it anymore." Great fireworks display by New England. Do that shit against the Houston or Baltimore defense. As for Denver, it's months of hand-wringing and worrying about committing resources to the Tebow Thing and submitting all hope for your franchise to contend for a title soon. Have fun with that, Broncos.
- The Houston-Baltimore contest was about as boring and methodical as people suspected it would be, and yet, it was high drama and kept you guessing to the end. Jacoby Jones, the Texans kick and punt returner, tried his best to bury his team with muffs and fumbles, and the Ravens end up with 17 points in the 1st quarter as a result of the great field position. A big game for WR Anquan Boldin helped push the Ravens along, as he kept several drives going with tremendous catches. Curiously, Houston didn't stick their best CB Jonathan Joseph on Boldin, and he lit up the other CBs all day. The Ravens didn't need the other starting WR Torrey Smith because Boldin was the man. Houston covered the number because they got good field position from their own defense making big plays, sacking QB Joe Flacco several times, and that was enough to let them score 10 points in the 2nd quarter to get within 4 points, and they were able to hold on. Their stud players showed up on offense as well--RB Arian Foster and WR Andre Johnson brought their "A" games. Ray Rice never got going for Baltimore, but that should change next week at the New England defense. The three INTs snuffed out a T.J. Yates comeback attempt, but let's see the Ravens do that next week against the New England offense.
- And forgive me for not getting too deep into breaking down how the Giants beat the Packers, because the numbers should tell the story--2 fumbles by Green Bay RBs, both lost. Fumble by QB Aaron Rodgers, lost. INT thrown by Rodgers. Four sacks by the New York defense. And most importantly, so many dropped passes that I lost count. The Giants offensive output wasn't the problem, because that was to be expected against Green Bay's pitiful defense. It was up to Rodgers and the offense to do what they did to make the Packers 15-1, and that's execute and succeed more times than the opposition. And that's impossible when big plays are simply dropped with no defenders anywhere near the fucking ball. Some teams respond well to the bye week, some get thrown off rhythm. No telling what can happen with a certain team. The two plays I will bring up that also signaled a bad night for the Pack would be the 2nd half Hail Mary and the Rodgers fumble. The Hail Mary was huge because the G-Men led 13-10, and I thought they would be content with less than 30 seconds left running out the clock and going into halftime. But the Packers D was so inept that they allowed Ahmad Bradshaw to make a big run into Green Bay territory AND get out of bounds to stop the clock, and with six seconds left, Eli Manning heaved a Hail Mary pass into the end zone. This is where it got even stranger: I have never in all my years of watching football seen a Hail Mary pass with that many receivers on that side of the end zone. There had to be four Giants WRs there! I knew it would get caught before it came down, I just didn't know by whom. But usually on a Hail Mary, two or three WRs take one side of the end zone and the remainders take the other. I've never seen four guys on one side waiting for the ball. Hakeem Nicks wound up going to the high point and snatching the rock, but if he didn't, some other Giant would because there weren't enough Packers in the area. They apparently thought that Eli was going to run for it or something. Then the Pack take the ball to start the 3rd quarter and march down the field, culminating with Rodgers pulling off a pump fake to get the cornerback out of position and set up WR Greg Jennings for the most wide-open TD of his life. One small problem--New York has some great players on the defensive line, and one of them is named Osi Umenyiora, and Osi popped the ball out of Rodgers' hands like he was swatting a forbidden toy out of a child's grip, and the drive ended with that turnover, and you got the uneasy feeling that Green Bay was going to be so out of sync that they wouldn't be able to come back and beat a 9-7 division champion at home. And sure enough, they couldn't. And now the Giants get to go to a much easier offensive opponent in San Francisco. Eli and coach Tom Coughlin may get to yet another improbable Super Bowl. And even if they don't, dopes like me who keep doubting them have to give them mad props for what they've accomplished thus far.
Dre--95.1 + 9 = 104.1 pts; Jay--107.6 + 6 = 113.6 pts
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