NFL Playoffs 2015 season - the other teams
 

Seattle @ Minnesota

Good lord, they are saying it will be zero (0) degrees in Minneapolis on Sunday.... Not fit for man or beast.....

Gotta think Viking fan and Bengal fan are further up the pain meter today than some of us... very tough losses.....

And all four home teams lost during wild card weekend. Doubt if that continues. But who knows.
Seven games to go including the Super Bowl.

We shall see but seems many are currently picking Arizona vs New England for Super Bowl 50 at new Levi Stadium in Santa Clara on Feb. 7.

I'd like to see the Broncos take on the Cardinals. Peyton rides off into the sunset with a ring. Pretty cool ending to a historic career.

That's of course if Playoff Peyton doesn't show up.

All 4 teams with the less-experienced QB lost although you can't really blame their losses on McCarron or Bridgewater. There was a time when the Super Bowls were routinely boring and lopsided so the NFL suits have all bus scripted the postseasons ever since. Starting around 2001, it seems the Super Bowls have been close and exciting with one or two exceptions and part of that is the league giving favoritism calls to certain franchises with high merchandize sales so the teams who are the "in" clubs get the favorable calls late in the game.

Look who survived this weekend:
The Packers
The Steelers
The Seahawks
The Chiefs

Look who got beat:
The Redskins
The Vikings
The Bengals
The Texans

Not to say the Texans could have won even with beneficial officiating but my point is that a handful of favored clubs show up in the playoffs every year and it is more than coincidence.

Of those favored clubs, almost all are still alive (Cowboys and Colts the exceptions) and the non-favored clubs are just the Chiefs and the Cardinals. Expect the Chiefs and Cardinals to get screwed next.

https://youtu.be/snqFHjpDpes

I couldn't figure out how to embed this.

If you didn't know it before, now you do. Bob is nuts.

Andy Reid showed again why he might be the worst game day coach ever today. They huddled with under 2 minutes to go while trailing by 14. They ran over 5 minutes off the clock to score with just over a minute left. Just brutal clock management. He is like a more extreme version of Kubiak (even better Monday-Saturday, even worse on Sunday, and even stupider looking).

And it's definitely not playoff news, but the Titans decided to keep Mularkey. I guess his 2-7 finish coupled with his 18-37 career record was just too hard for Tennessee to pass up?

We really do have the 3 worst run franchises in football in our division. If we stumble into a competent QB we might go on a 10 year playoff streak without ever getting past the divisional round.

Unfortunately, fans of the other 3 AFCS teams probably include us in that list.

Indy might because they've been lucky enough to get the first pick in the right 2 drafts. There is no way Tennessee or Jax look at us like that. We are not the Patriots, but we've won 3 of 5 division titles while those train wreck franchises still have whether to fire their coach as their most important January decision.

Early lines on Championship weekend:

New England by 3 @ Denver

Carolina by 3 @ home vs. Arizona

I think NE has a shot to win it or at least make it a competitive Super Bowl against the NFC. But IMO, DEN will get crushed by either of those teams.

I think Denver's defense makes them a break away from beating anyone. Wade is an All-Timer as a DC. It would be hilarious to watch him win Gary Kubiak a super bowl.

That said, New England owned Wade his whole time here.

I was on Denver -6.5 and -7 depending on the contest/wager. After the game started, it all came back to me how Kubes kinda puckers up and gets conservative during big games - running the ball, FG's instead of TD's, etc.... Somehow, they got the lead up to 10 with just a couple of minutes left in the game but then Pittsburgh quickly went down the field and kicked a FG to put it back at 7. So, I ended up with a win on the -6.5 line and a push on the -7 line.

All the spreads this weekend were "sharp". A couple were decided by 1 point - only Carolina winning by 7 (spread was -2.5) actually covered "well". The books seem to be on top of their game this time of year..... See Alabama vs. Clemson with 10 million dollars changing sides in the last minute on the meaningless (to the Tide) Clemson TD.

And doesn't Chris Boswell (Pittsburgh kicker) look like Mr. Dependable right about now..... Put him on the list of "ones that got away"...

Pretty good games this weekend.

Always amazed at the number of clock management blunders these guys have in crucial situations. It has to be a factor of all the commotion going on, as despite what we usually think about them when they lose, these coaches are all pretty smart people and know the game well. You would think they could hire someone for $100K or so, just to grab the coaches ear for these type of things.

NE/KC went about as expected. Will be interesting to see how long Belicheat stays coaching after he loses Brady. That dude is unreal. Saw an amazing stat that he has reached the conference championship 10 of 16 years. Really?

The Pack made it a better game than I thought they would. Old man Fitz came to life for the birds.

Pretty amazed that the Hawks made a game out of it. Only reason I stayed tuned in was lack of other options.

Didn't catch much of the Broncos/Steelers game. Happy Kubes and Wade won. Hope they put a spanking on NE, just don't really see that happening.

3 games left....... :(

Congratulations to Gary Kubiak, Wade Phillips and Owen Daniels for reaching Super Bowl 50. What a defensive slugfest.

My goodness, the CBS crew is sucking the Patriots like you can't believe. Boomer Esiason must have had money on the game. New England played well and you can question about 70 different calls or no-calls but the bottom line is Wade's defense beat the snot out of Brady and kept him off-balance almost the entire game.

Saw a tweet/Stat that Brady was hit 20 times during that game. Most in an NFL game this season. Belicheat did nothing to counter the pressure. Nutz.

When you play defense like that there isn't a game you can't win.

Early line is Carolina by 3.5 to 4.5 over Denver in "the big game".

Cam Newton is pretty dang hot right now and against the Denver defense, it should make for an intriguing matchup.....

Be prepared for the onslaught of those Peyton Manning Nationwide Ins. commercials over the next few weeks...

Cam is just so good in short yardage. He has to be accounted for and it makes them near unstoppable in the red zone. Combine that with a vertical passing game, and you have a guy who makes enough TDs that it more than makes up for completion percentage. They have done a great job of building an offense and team around Cam Newton's unique talents.

Agreed. The Panthers are not a fluke but they will lack Denver's experience. This is a classic old-school-vs-new-millenia matchup.

The temptation for most fans is to see Manning get his second ring and ride off to pasture so we don't have to watch another Brett Favre act but I'm not sure Manning is going away that easily. To be honest, he's been little more than ordinary since he came back and Denver's best move would be to tell him he's welcome back next year as a QB coach but not under center.

(BTW, one report is that if he retires he'll move into the Tennessee front office with Bill Polian).

This is Newton's MVP year but he'll have many more chances to win a title and if the Panthers come in too cocky or unfocused, he's not going to know what hit him until it's too late.

The Patriots no longer threaten you at all down field. They threw half a dozen balls deep in the 4th quarter and most were to the 3rd string RB, and he didn't come close to catching any of them. They score by converting 3rd downs. That means they need 4-6 conversions before giving up a sack to a risk taking Denver defense.

Carolina on the other hand scores on big plays. If they don't get any they don't score. But Wade's defenses play aggressive and give up big plays. Carolina also converts tons of turnovers. Plus, with no more games this year, Carolina can plan to run Cam 25 times.

I have picked against Carolina all year, but somewhere in there 50 points yesterday I became a believer.

Besides Wade Phillips and Owen Daniels, a few other ex Texans and coaches are in Denver.

Players on the Denver roster include defensive end Antonio Smith, offensive linemen Ryan Harris and James Ferentz and safety Shiloh Keo,.

The coaches are Rick Dennison (offensive coordinator), Greg Knapp (quarterbacks coach), Brian Pariani (tight ends), Bill Kollar (defensive line), Reggie Herring (linebackers) and Marc Lubick (assistant receivers).

Jeez, the Panthers beat the Cards/Carson as badly as the Chiefs did the Texans/Hoyer: margin was 34 points and Carson had 4 pics.

Cam is a pretty good quarterback.