Are the Saints joking? Who dat? Dat da Seattle Seahawks. New Orleans defense looks absolutely terrible. Hasselbeck has four touchdowns...I don't care if the Saints come back to win, they should be embarrassed.
The Seahawks aren't even letting up, they are currently driving and their up 31-20. Over halfway through the third quarter and I am embarrassed for the Saints. They have only scored 20 on a terrible defense, but it's not their fault that the defense has now given up 34 points.
I don't think the Saints are out of it by any means because they are the defending Super Bowl champs and Seattle finished 7-9 for a reason.
This is an interesting year for the NFL because all four Wild Card teams have better records than the team that is hosting them, except one. The Jets have a better record than the Colts by a game, the Ravens by two games over the Chiefs, the Saints by four games over Seattle, and Green Bay has the same record as Philly but beat them earlier this year.
This means that if the team the better record (or tiebreak) were to host, all four Wild Card teams would be hosting the division winners this week.
Game 1
Saints (-10) @ Seahawks - This is an interesting game because everyone is all over New Orleans since Seattle is, record-wise, the worst playoff team in NFL history. A lot of the Saints offensive weapons are banged up, with TE Jimmy Graham inactive and RBs Pierre Thomas and Chris Ivory on IR. I don't think this will matter too much because Brees could turn me into a 1,000-yard receiver. I expect for Reggie Bush to make some big plays in the passing game on a few screen plays. The screens, dump-offs and other short passes will act as the Saints rushing game today because of the injuries to the running backs.
The Seahawks will look to run-run-run and keep Brees off the field. Lynch has had some fumbling issues this year as he did twice in the regular season game against the Saints. I don't think it will work because the Saints should force Hasselbeck to beat them...which he won't.
My Prediction: Saints (-10) 34 Seahawks 16
Game 2
Jets (+2.5) @ Colts - In a rematch of last season's AFC Championship game, the Jets look to avenge their loss. The Colts are definitely not the same team as the only playoff team they defeated this season was the Kansas City Chiefs. The Colts run defense has vastly improved in the last four games and will look to continue that against the smashmouth run game of the Jets led by Shonn Greene. The Colts will hope to stop him and LT to force Mark Sanchez to beat him like they did last season. Sanchez did have some success against Indy's defense throwing for over 250 yards and two touchdowns in last year's contest.
I think the Jets will find some success but the game will be determined by Manning. Reggie Wayne will take a vacation to Revis Island like he did last year, so Manning will have to use other targets like Jacob Tamme, Blair White and Pierre Garcon. Dallas Clark and Austin Collie are both out which should make the Jets feel a bit better.
Stanford QB Andrew Luck has declared that he will be returning to school for his senior season. This decision is said not to change after Luck learned that his coach, Jim Harbaugh, signed a contract to be the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers.
Harbaugh signed a five year deal on Friday, worth approximately $25 million. It was speculated, especially by me, that he would choose San Fran because of the proximity to Stanford.
Back to Luck, who was said by many to be the consensus No. 1 overall pick of the 2011 NFL Draft. The Carolina Panthers have that pick and it was widely speculated that they wanted to take Luck even though they drafted Jimmy Clawful in the second round of last year's draft.
Carolina will now have to completely rethink their draft strategy because the other QBs available (Mallet, Newton, Locker, etc) aren't considered to be No. 1 status.
I respect Luck for his decision while other people have been ripping him a new one for it. One guy called in on 105.7 The Fan and said he would tell his son to go pro and get the money while he could.
I guess I understand why it would make sense to go pro. If Luck tears his ACL his draft stock will plummet. However, even a bad season could hurt him since he is already the consensus No. 1 pick there is nowhere to go but down. However, you have to respect a kid who knows he will probably be the first overall pick and is staying in school even though his coach has already left as well.
For those of you who are not accustomed to NFL terminologies or sayings, one being: Black Monday.
Black Monday refers to the Monday following week 17 of the NFL season. This is because on that Monday, the most coaching-related firings take place around the NFL.
However, there has been less firings than usual this past Monday. Many people believe this is partly due to the lack of Collective Bargaining Agreement set up for the future. Owners are not prepared to fire a coach and pay a new one if there won't be football next season. That doesn't mean coaches haven't been fired though!
Wade Phillips, Brad Childress, Mike Singletary and Josh McDaniels were among the coaches fired during the season. Tom Cable joined them on Black Monday.
Some surprises were the coaches that weren't fired. Gary Kubiak and Tony Sparano were two coaches who were expected to lose their jobs but haven't so far. Jim Harbaugh is one of the top candidates for some of the openings, but Minnesota and Dallas have already announced the decision to stick with their interim coaches.
We could see a few more firings depending on how the CBA situation plays out during the offseason.
The Sunday night football game was left open so that the NFL could put whatever game they wanted there based on how important it was. Well, the game that was moved was the St. Louis Rams @ Seattle Seahawks. The winner of the game would win the division and the loser would go home.
To my surprise, Seattle played fairly well and their defense came to life. The Rams couldn't do much on offense, even though it didn't look like they even tried. It wasn't an offensive explosion or anything, but the game was still exciting because of what it meant.
Many people were rooting for St. Louis because if they had won the game they would have finished 8-8. However, because Seattle won the game, they finished the season 7-9 and won the division. This is the first time in NFL history that a sub-.500 team has made the playoffs. Twice before an 8-8 team won their division.
Due to this, talk has emerged regarding reorganizing the divisions (this would never happen); there has also been talks about where the Wild Card games are played. There are discussions about allowing whichever team has a better record host the game. I would definitely not be opposed to that.
I am sitting on my couch watching NFL Redzone right now. If you don't know about it then you are probably not a football fan.
They are showing the Bengals @ Ravens because the Cincy is inside the five with 16 seconds left, and an incomplete pass puts them at fourth down and two yards to go.
Palmer makes a terrible throw to a an open receiver and the Ravens take over on downs. They knee the ball, win game number 12 and leave a lot of question marks as they head into Wild Card Weekend.
The Jets played their backups for almost the entire game against Buffalo, with the only thing that could change would be moving up to the fifth seed if Pittsburgh lost and Baltimore won. That didn't happen so the Jets will stick with the sixth seed.
Talking about the Steelers, they destroyed the Brownies 41-9 in Cleveland. The win clinched them the two seed and a first-round bye.
The Falcons win over Carolina clinched them home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, even though they would have earned it anyway because of the Saints loss to Tampa Bay. The Bucs keep their playoff hopes alive with the win. It was just about the only interesting thing to happen during the early games. They now need the Giants and Packers to lose to earn the six seed. If either win, the Bucs are eliminated.
It should be an interested set of late games. I think the Pack will take care of business against the Bears and clinch a playoff spot, but I also think the G-Men will beat the Skins to atleast keep the Pack looking over their shoulder during the game.
The other important factor is the Colts/Titans game. If Indy wins, they move up to the three seed and play the Jets in the first round. If they lose and Jacksonville wins, the Jags win the division and four seed. If the Jags lose and the Colts lose, the Colts get the four seed and host the Ravens. WOW, that's a lot to take and I'm ready to watch it all go down.
