- We learned that Andrew Luck has arrived as the ultimate in comeback QB. Never, ever count him out, no matter who his receivers are. I wasn't able to watch the comeback live, as my wife needed to be taken to a medical facility, but Jason texted me when the comeback was complete, and I wasn't the least bit surprised. Not just because of Luck, but because I picked the Chiefs, and this would serve as the final insult, one last middle finger to me for picking Kansas City just to eliminate them from the playoffs. They left, but not before leading 38-10 and trying to make me think they were going to come through for me. I wasn't fooled, not for a second. I knew they would choke. I didn't learn anything new about the Chiefs. Their short passes and using the width of the field allowed them to matriculate up and down, just as they had done all season. We saw what backup RB Knile Davis had to offer thanks to his outing last week against San Diego, so when he was pressed into duty after Jamaal Charles got concussed, it wasn't a shock that he could play. But Andy Reid and the Chiefs will have to ponder if Charles would have put the ball in the end zone either of the two times Davis got stuffed by Kavell Conner or Cory Redding. That resulted in a 19-yd. FG in a game they lost by one. Besides how awesome Luck is, that's what I learned about the Colts: They really have tried to add some ass to their defense so that they don't get ran over as easily as they used to. Redding had a nice game containing Davis when he tried to run up the middle. The 3rd-string RB for KC, Cyrus Gray, was wide open on a flanker go route to start the 4th quarter, and QB Alex Smith treated him like an experienced WR and tried to lead him down the sideline with his throw instead of just gunning it to him and letting him make a move or two to get free. The throw was too long. That was a huge miss. There was a lot of luck (the Donald Brown fumble that bounced off lineman Samson Satele's head into Luck's hands for a TD), there was a lot of skill (Da'Rick Rogers made some plays, and T.Y. Hilton was hellacious, dare I say, THE SHIT), but there were some plays Kansas City left in RCA Dome, never to be recovered, and they have to live with that all offseason. To which I say, with all due respect: Fuck The Chiefs.
- The anatomy of how the veteran Saints went into the house of the new jack Eagles and earned their first road playoff win in franchise history is different from how I thought it would be. New Orleans didn't really go bombs away with Drew Brees in the cold; he only had 250 yards passing and one TD. They actually hammered Philadelphia on the ground with Mark Ingram, Darren Sproles, and Khiry Robinson. Yeah, those guys. Brees appeared to get a glimpse of how tough it would be to throw long in that cold because his first deep attempt to Sproles just died ten yards short, and a bomb attempt to Kenny Stills was picked off. So he and coach Sean Payton switched gears and set about gashing the Eagles with the run game. New Orleans denied LeSean McCoy big yardage rushing, making the Eagles rely more on Nick Foles in his first playoff game, and he wasn't bad, but he wasn't sharp. The big mistake by Philly was actually a Riley Cooper drop down 13-7 in the 3rd; he may have scored, he was so wide open. From there, Brees mixed in key passes when he had to, toasting Phi DBs Roc Carmichael and Patrick Chung repeatedly. Foles took advantage of an injury to Saints CB Keenan Lewis, toasting Rod Sweeting and getting Philly back in the game. It was Foles with the nice drive in the 4th to give the Eagles the lead, but Sproles came up with a big kickoff return (and tack on a horse collar penalty), and Brees and the running game sucked up the rest of the clock while setting up the game-winning FG. It was impressive in that Brees didn't need to light it up for the Saints to grind out a win. I still feel like the running game was better off missing Pierre Thomas because Sproles was perfect in his role as the fast little bastard and Ingram was perfect as the bruiser getting the tough yards. They get overshadowed sometimes when Thomas is in. I'd be afraid of New Orleans if they've figured out how to win games on the road.
- In Cincinnati, Andy Dalton was THE DRIZZLING SHITS, completely losing his composure as the day wore on and the pressure tightened around his neck until the Chargers had suffocated the Bengals. Marvin Lewis isn't getting creamed for this loss, but fuck, he hasn't won a single playoff game in ten years coaching. This needs to change now. I had it changing this year as Cincy made it to the Super Bowl, but the big bad San Diego Chargers got in the way. Dalton was bad but not horrible in the 1st half. The problem was Cincy's defenders. Our co-X factors in the middle of the Bengal D-line were getting pushed around like 2nd graders, and much to my dismay, San Diego did indeed continue their run of solid rushing by Ryan Mathews and Danny Woodhead, and even Ronnie Brown got into the act. Dalton was running some more read options, which I hate him doing because he's not athletic enough, but he pulled out a 49-yd. bomb to Marvin Jones in the 2-minute drill, then watched Gio Bernard get stripped and cough up all the momentum. In the 2nd half, Melvin Ingram and friends dialed up the blitz on Dalton and completely rattled him. He looked scared to throw, he was running for his life, and finally he fumbled on a scramble without being touched, then threw up a terrible INT on the next drive that basically put the game away. He has to make quicker decisions when pressured. If he doesn't, he'll be on the road to being a former starting NFL quarterback. The Chargers had a very good gameplan on offense, using the running game mercilessly, which set up a play-action long ball of Philip Rivers to Eddie Royal in the 3rd, which set up a TD. They never put Rivers in a position where he had to throw all around the yard. It was a comfortable win for him. It shouldn't have been, but once again, Cincinnati came up limp in the big moment.
- The story in Green Bay, yet again, was how much better of an athlete Colin Kaepernick was than everyone else on the field. I am a fan. That guy might be an idiot for wearing no sleeves on an evening where it was 0° and then bitching about the cold after the game, but he's the real deal between the whistles. The 227 yards passing by Kaep through that cold was nothing to sneeze at, but the 98 yards rushing, almost all on coverage situations where he just took off and dared someone to catch him, was next-level. He's still so far from as good as he could be, too. His lack of touch on certain passes still is glaring. Coach Insane came right out on San Francisco's first drive, going for it on 4th-and-6 and mentally taking control with the conversion and subsequent FG. Green Bay and Aaron Rodgers knew they were in for a day because after running the first four plays, they finally run play-action and get ready to throw, and no one's open, and Rodgers goes down on a coverage sack. The Pack had to slowly inch the ball down the field with RBs Eddie Lacy and James Starks because the 49ers weren't letting big plays happen through the air. The poor Packers had to watch Kaepernick make big plays with his legs anytime he wanted, and that's why the game looked to be controlled by SF the whole way, even when it was tied in the 4th quarter. Shout out to my bowling ball X-factor, Mike Daniels, who did make some stops in the run game and even sacked Kaep. And Kaep did make the throw that should have cost the Niners a game they controlled, but DB Micah Hyde dropped an easy INT during the final SF drive. Kaep shook off the mistake and led the drive all the way down the field, converting one 3rd down through the air and another on a scramble, setting up the game-winning FG with no time left. San Francisco is an intriguing combination of athleticism and strategy, and they won't be easily knocked out of the playoffs, already installed as a road fav again for the next game in Charlotte. Green Bay will have to keep reigning as the class of their division, but they can't get over the hump and compete for something better until they shore up their injured defense.
Dre--94.4 + 2 = 96.4 pts; Jay--107.2 + 4 = 111.2 pts
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