Favored To Win
The NFL Divisional round of the playoffs provided few surprises. Well, except for that whole OT thing with the Steelers. The favorites won; The 1 seed is facing the 2 seed in both conferences. And with the exception of the Steelers, they all won pretty convincingly. Unfortunately for me, I could not watch but a few minutes of each game. Yes, today is Wednesday. Sorry, I got sick and couldn’t complete this on Tuesday.
Shut Your Hole
I don’t like the Indianapolis Colts. You might have gathered that from reading this column over the last few months. Then I read something like this and it gets my blood pressure up. Um, Tony, they’ll call it as they see it. Of course, you didn’t have much trouble a couple of seasons ago when the officials forgot the rules for a kick-off and you went on to win because of that. I guess you didn’t want it by the book then did you?
This kind of statement comes from Dungy knowing full well what needs to happen for his team to win. His fragile receivers have to be left untouched so that his prissy quarterback can compleld hasses to them. He knows his defense is going to have trouble against the Patriots, so they’ll have to try and run up the score like they like to do. Here’s the thing though, the supposedly banged-up inexperienced DB’s of the Patriots have been doing pretty good so far. And then there’s the almost clockwork Dungy and Manning pressure/championship collapse to count on. Even if they manage to win in Foxboro they’ll then have to try and repeat the effort in Pittsburgh (presumably).
But then, they’d have to manage to score even one touchdown in order to begin their standard procedure. But since they couldn’t manage that, they lost. All week the talk was how could the inexperienced DB’s of the Patriots even think about slowing down, let alone stopping, the mighty receiving corps of the Colts.
One wonders if the love affair with Tony Dungy is nearing it’s end in Indianapolis. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great guy and a pretty good coach. But he is loathe to change. The Patriots are his new Eagles and until he can beat them and move forward, he’s not likely to last much longer. If they can get some help on defense there’s a chance. But in the end the Colts are all about Peyton Manning and his passing prowess, so spending money or draft picks on defense is not likely to occur any time soon.
And please don’t get it twisted and think that I hate Tony Dungy. In fact, the opposite is true. My hatred for the Colts stems mostly from Peyton Manning’s presence.
Kick In The Pants
It takes skill and a good game plan to win a championship, that is true. But it also takes some luck. And the Steelers got a good dose of that luck on Saturday. What can you say when the opposing kicker misses two field goals that would have won the game? That’s luck pure and simple.
Go… Falcons?
It pains me to say that. Go Falcons. Beat the Eagles. It seems that Tommy’s prediction might be coming true. That 7223NFC Champion will be from the South division yet again. Scary ain’t it?
In Other News…
Remember Barrett Robbins? He was an offensive lineman for the Oakland Raiders when they met the Bucs in the Super Bowl. He went AWOL and it turned out he was having some kind of mental breakdown. Over the weekend, he was shot by police in Miami.
Running Items
WTF?
Two sucky editions of TALB in a row? WTF is up with that?
Breath Of A Salesman
The new NFL playoff spots are kind of crappy. The last few years they’ve used Don Cheadle as the spokesman. Now they’ve added Benjamin Bratt and that guy from The Practice (Durmott something…), and they just don’t do it for me.
Super Bowl XXXIX
Steelers vs. Falcons
