NFL: Week 12 Recap

Okay, I ask thee questions numbered three
1. Twenty-five psi potato gun pointed at your liver, who wins the NFC and why?
2. Superbowl winner: Colts, Chargers, and Pats vs. The Field. Who do you take?
3. More embarassing: Giants collapse in one game or Falcons collapse in one season?


1. Boy that potato gun is going to hurt, but I'm going with the Chicago Bears. They've embarassed every quality NFC opponent they've played this season (READ: Giants, Seahawks) and with the number one seed they will only have to win two games at home to make it to the Superbowl. Close second (and I never thought I'd say this): the Dallas Cowboys. Great all around team (yes, as you've been saying all year) but I simply will not agree to trust Tony Romo in the playoffs. He'll make a mistake.

2. Tough question. There is a fifty percent chance that one of those teams will win the AFC championship, greater if you consider they're all very good teams and two of them will have byes, and I don't know if there is an NFC team that can beat any of those three in a Superbowl. Still I'm going to have to take the field. Too many teams have the potential to hit a hot streak in the playoffs if they get in: Ravens, Chiefs, Broncos, Bears, Cowboys, Giants, Bengals, Saints, Seahawks, Panthers, and so on and so forth.

3. Giants collapse. Definitely more embarassing. It wasn't just a one game collapse, it was a FOURTH QUARTER COLLAPSE. Tennessee had exactly zero points until there were ten minutes left in the game. The Giants last four possessions? Interception, punt, punt, interception; each of which directly lead to a Titans scoring drive. That's a failure on both sides of the ball.

The two interceptions and one of the punt returns, thanks to Pacman Jones, resulted in Titan possession of the football on the Giants half of the field. The other punt, which was sent sailing out of bounds by Feagles at the Tennessee 24 (presumably to keep the ball out of Jones' hands) resulted in a two minute touchdown march by Vince Young to tie the game at 21. Two minute touchdown march! Vince Young!! And that's not even the most amazing part. The most amazing part was that on 4th and 10 from his own 24, after three straight incompletions, Giants rookie defensive lineman Mathias Kiwanuka had Vince Young wrapped up but suddenly released him, allowing Young to scamper for 19 yards and then out of bounds to stop the clock. Kiwanuka, having thought Young threw the ball, just let him go. If you didn't get to watch the game, go here. It looks like Young pointed up field and said, "hey look at that!" and as Kiwanuka turned to look, just took off. Like something from a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Four straight completions and 57 yards later the game was tied.

Post Script: I won't even get into Eli Manning and how right I was when I took all those potshots at him earlier in the season. Open your eyes world, Eli Manning sucks.

Tell me (partly because I didn't get to watch it): exactly how ugly was the Patriots Bears game?


1. I take the Seahawks if they can grab that second seed. I think they will, so that's that. They were the NFC champ last year and they're better this year, and their two stars will have a lot less tread on the tires compared to the rest of the conference.

2. I take those three teams. They're the best three teams in football, with the possible exception of the one-sided Ravens. Then again, the Ravens were one-sided in 2000, and Ray Lewis says this defense is better, so who knows. Still, your logic was brilliant and you shouldn't have doubted yourself. This is, of course, a departure from your typical football prognostication ability, a skill that should almost always be doubted.

3. I go Falcons. They're a complete embarrasment. The Giants scenario was just one isolated game, and that anomalous Kiwanuka play should have ended that one game with a Giants victory. The Falcons, eight weeks in, were a trendy pick to go to the freakin' Superbowl. Even you and I were huge on them, and not just because of Vick like countless unknowledgeable fans. Now, no one's picking them to even grab the sixth seed in the poorer conference. Throw in the internal turmoil (Mora Sr. vs Vick, Mora Jr. defending Vick against Mora Sr., Vick vs. Georgia Dome...hey a lot of Vick here) and this team is currently the biggest embarassment in football...with the possible exception of Brian Urlacher's jock.

The Pats-Bears game was the least ugly 9 turnover game I have ever seen, mostly because I had never seen a 9 turnover game before. Most of the takeaways were defensive plays, not offensive blunders. For instance, two of Asante Samuel's (favorite player alert!) three interceptions were incredible picks, remeniscent of Ty Law's play in New England earlier in the millenium. Also, Chicago forces fumbles like no one's business, it wasn't just this game. I've never seen a team claw at the ball and put helmets on the ball like the Bears did did on Sunday afternoon. It was a clinic.

That being said, the Corey Dillon fumble was the worst of his career. Bill Belichick finally has the reason to call Maroney his starting running back, and he'll get 80% of the runs between the 20's.

Let's talk more Giants. How do you rate their shot at winning the division (only one game back and playing the first place team IN New York on Sunday)? And short of the division, how do you like their chances of getting out of the first round?


The Giants are a befuddling team, but I still think they have a decent shot at winning the division. If they can handle the Dallas Cowboys at home on Sunday they will be tied (record-wise) for the division lead and have four division wins to the Giants one. And they have enough talent to at least keep pace with the Cowboys over the last four games of the season.

The problem that I do see with the Giants is their record against quality opponents. Of their five losses, three came at the hands of Indianapolis, Seattle, and Chicago; teams that will probably have first round byes in the playoffs. The fourth came against a Jacksonville team that is still in the AFC playoff picture and we all know about the fifth in Tennessee. For all this talk about their tough schedule, the only playoff bound team they've beaten was Dallas, and that was a game in which the Cowboys switched quarterbacks at halftime.


I think a question we should be asking is: How many wins does it take for team x to reach seed y? For instance, the Cowboys will have to get to at least 11 wins to get the 2 seed, and maybe win out for 12 wins, depending on how Seattle and New Orleans play. The Giants and Panthers need to worry about this algebra more than anyone. They NEED 9 wins to make the playoffs, but probably want 10 to ensure passage into January.

And there's the issue: Are the Giants playing well enough to ensure they go 3-2 the rest of the way to get to 9 wins? I'm not so sure. Dallas is a tough game, then they have to go to Carolina. Home games follow with rival (but depleted) Philadelphia, and the resurgent New Orleans Saints, who might be fighting for a division and home playoff game in that next to last week. In the closing week, the Giants travel to Washington to play a team and crowd that would LOVE to keep the G-Men out of the playoffs.

Could be trouble. I am not as sure as I used to be that they can get to 9 wins. We might be looking at an 8-8 team unless they considerably step up their level of play.


I completely agree. If the Giants can't beat Dallas they're a good bet to end the season at .500, which very well could be enough to sneak into the playoffs in the laughably mediocre NFC. And speaking of laughably mediocre, the NFC is like the National League is like the Eastern Conference. Just leagues behind the opposing conference.


Another .500 playoff team out of the NFC? Say it ain't so! Supposin' the Giants finish at 8-8, which team currently projected out of the playoffs is most likely to step up and take that 6th spot?


The four teams at 5-6 in the NFC, one game behind the Panthers and Giants for the two wildcard spots, are Philadelphia, Atlanta, Minnesota, and St. Louis. For lack of a better option, I'm going to have to give the nod to St. Louis, a team that had a shot at winning their division until they lost Orlando Pace for the season. Literally and figuratively, Pace was a huge loss for that team. A defensive end rounding the corner on Pace is like Vasco Da Gama rounding the Cape of Good Hope: it takes months and the natives are hostile. Simply the most dominant offensive lineman of this generation. And St. Louis has arguably the easiest schedule of the four.