Happy Wednesday everybody. Championship week is upon us. The Super Bowl gets all the hype, but to me championship weekend is much more exciting. This is the weekend in which the two teams are just one step away, and lay it all on the line. Regardless of a team losing the Super Bowl, the team will be considered to have a successful season (except last year’s Pats.) But a team who loses the conference championship game goes away largely with a feeling of emptiness. So without further ado, let’s take a gander at both title games.
NFC
I love love love the fact that the Cardinals, maybe the worst team ever in a conference title game, get to host. As a result, if I were a gambling man that is, I could absolutely hammer away at that money line knowing that the Cardinals get three more points. The Cardinals were able to run the ball very well last weekend against Carolina, but I think that was just a mirage. Tim Hightower is probably the most overrated back in the league, and there is just no way that offensive line will be able to block Philadelphia’s front seven, who have very quietly been playing very well.
Passing-wise, Arizona gets a big boost from getting to play this one at home. Kurt Warner will be able to hold onto the ball better, and if he has Anquan Boldin to throw the ball to they could keep it close, but in the end I think Philadelphia wins 34-21.
AFC
This game should be boring as all hell. Both offenses in this game are terrible, and both defenses are very good. Joe Flacco is the first rookie (Thanks SEA: Can you tell I wrote this in about 5 minutes yet?) quarterback to ever win two playoff games. Look at what a Blue Hen can do eh? Right now Flacco is mostly a game manager due to his rookie status, but he has an absolute cannon for an arm, and will quickly move into the upper eschelon of quarterbacks in the NFL.
Honestly, I love this Baltimore defense. The Ravens are rated #2 in Football Outsider’s rankings, and the defense is 99.9999999% of the reason why. Ed Reed and Ray Lewis are playing as well as they ever have right now, and Ben Roethlisberger is not a good enough quarterback to throw on this secondary. It will be up to Willie Parker and Mwelde Moore to try to run on the Ravens defense. In the end I don’t think they’ll be able to. In fact, combined with the terrible field surface there, I think the Ravens win 16-10.
Moving on to other sports, Steve Phillips was on Sportscenter yesterday with Brian Kenny talkng about the Hall of Fame, and man it was a trainwreck. Phillips was just terrible, saying Rice should have gotten in due to him being “feared” and saying Tim Raines didn’t deserve to get in, while in the same sentence acknowledging he was the second best leadoff hitter of all time. Brian Kenny, however, was fantastic. I always knew him as the boxing guy at ESPN, but he correctly said that OBP is the most telling of the traditional statistics, cited Raines’s net steals, and said that Rice’s numbers got a boost from playing in Fenway Park. Brian Kenny should be a baseball analyst and Steve Phillips should be a garbage man somewhere. And just as a little footnote: On PTI Tony Kornheiser said that Blyleven was indistinguishable from Jack Morris, Jim Kaat and Tommy John. I already proved that one wrong yesterday so I won’t get into it, but they thought Morris was the best of those pitchers. I’m a Twins fan so I will obviously love Jack Morris forever for what he did in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, and I’ll be happy if he gets in, but he doesn’t belong.
The All Star rosters for the AHL All-Star game were released recently. Making it was former Hobey Baker winner Jason Krog, along with a host of players that make me nostalgic: Teddy Purcell (Maine), Alex Goligoski (Minnesota), Jimmy Howard (Maine), TJ Hensick (Michigan), Jeff Tambellini (Michigan), and Brian Lee (North Dakota). It should be a great time.
Since I need some filler space, I figure I’ll announce it here that we’re going to be doing a “50 states in 50 days” feature here at MLJ where we will be giving out cool facts and whatnot about all of our great states. Of course this won’t be 50 days in a row, just whenever I’m bored. We’ll start off with the nation’s 49th state: Alaska
State Flag: Can be seen here. It is, quite frankly, fuckin awesome.
State Bird: Willow Ptarmigan
State Animal: Moose
State Sport: Dog mushing
Famous Alaskans: Trajan Langdon, former Duke Blue Devil. Scott Gomez, New Jersey Devil. Jack London, writer. FUCKING MARIO CHALMERS IS FROM THERE! Thanks Tampa.
Dumbest Alaskan: Sarah Palin
In 1867 William Seward bought Alaska for $7,200,000 which is roughly 2 cents an acre.
Rhode Island could fit into Alaska 425 times.
Alaska is almost as close to Tokyo as it is to New York City.
Juneau is the only capital accessible only by boat or plane.
Three Pointers Update
Three point Percentage:
2008: 35.1%
2009: 34%
3 pointers attempted/field goals attempted:
2008: 34.4%
2009: 33.1%
Links
Some ladies who do things on film were at the Adult Entertainment Expo. You might want to wait until you get home to look at this one (Complex)
A couple of these are just hilarious. (College Humor)
How the Big 12 shakes out right now. (It’s Business Time)
Some Bracketology. Not basketball. (USCHO)
Shawn Johnson has written a book. Someone paypal me 22 dollars. (Hyvee)
University of North Dakota fans are excited they won’t have to deal with Michael Crabtree next season. (ESPN)
I need to stop watching Scrubs on Tuesday nights because it makes me want to post 80,000 Sarah Chalke pictures every week. But alas, we have a couple other ladies for you this week.
I wouldn’t know who any of these girls were if they delivered me a pizza. I would have sex with them though. (FHM)
damn, I even waited a couple minutes first, but…
holy fucking jump, fetchman!
Rhode Island could fit into Alaska 425 times
ummm, that’s what she said?
Huh? Even Rex Grossman has won 2 playoff games!
/knows he meant rookie QB
How can you forget that Mario Chalmers is from Alaska?
Don’t forget Curt Schilling is also from AK.
Please stop perpetuating the myth that the Cardinals ran well against Carolina last week. 3.4 ypc is not running the ball well.
The Ravens/Steelers game will be fantastic, and I am looking forward to that game far more than Cardinals/Eagles.
Do agree with your picks though.
Edgerrin James is the primary back now. Hightower was on mop up duty last week.
I for one think Tim Hightower is properly rated…he fucking blows donkey balls..I mean if that is overrated..find me a lower form of rating and give that to him then
3.4YPC is good enough to get a first down given a full set of downs. Could certainly be worse.
Fetch, if you need help reviewing the Greatest State in the Union, New Hampshire, just let me know. It’ll blow your fucking mind.
alright st. bear, when the time comes you can have at it. Please mention how many national titles UNH hockey has too.
Go Ravens!
Don’t worry, I’ll cover it all. It’ll be called, “New Hampshire, the Renaissance State. We we’re not the best at anything, but we’re not the worst either.”
Trajan Langdon, the Alaskan Assassin!
Carlos Boozer, the lying shithead
I used to wear Trajans before I got married…now she is on the pill
+1 RWH
spence and nick p., if you didn’t see it yet, hartline declared and coleman is coming back.
HARTLINE???????
That’s hilarious. He fucking sucks.
what the fuck has given you that impression? that he’ll be anything more than kyle boller?
ive watched probably 8 ravens games this year and flacco, aside from the ONE deep ball he miraculously gets per game, is absolute dogshit, even by rookie standards. yes, he never looks flustered, THAT’S BECAUSE HE’S TOO FUCKING DUMB TO EVEN KNOW WHERE THE FUCK HE IS!!!!!!!!!
i do not, for the life of me, understand how people can think a dude with a completion % in the 40’s-50’s is anything decent. especially considering he never throws the ball. he can’t even complete high % passes well, yet he’s destined for greatness? disgusting effort, fetch.
yea, hartline blows.
at least coleman is coming back…if only jenkins was given another year of eligibility.
Spencer- Flacco is in a great position he only has one thing to do and that is not to fuck up. Yea I’m not impressed either but hes a game manager great for teams with good Defense hes not going to win you games. But then again they don’t have the greatest receivers.
so letting your D and running game win games for you makes you a great QB even tho you can’t hit the broadside of a barn, have no recognition skills, don’t call audibles or hot routes, can’t call protections, don’t complete passes often and generally do nothing to help your team win other than not fuck up?
got it…now i know what makes an upper echelon QB…D and a running game.
He’s no Vince Vaughn, we can at least agree on that.
Flacco > Gaydy Queer
Spencer I said I wasn’t impressed. Hes not great but hes good. Hes doing what is asked of him. Like I said hes in a pretty good situation right now, where hes not being exposed.
tampa…im talking about fetch’s statement.
sparty…we don’t know that yet. neither has really attempted to fulfill any of the requirements of being an NFL QB. tho, and this may sound biased, but brady’s football acumen is lightyear’s beyond flacco’s.
lets see what flacco can do in the next two years when baltimore’s D either ages or goes elsewhere and he has to be called upon to actually move the ball down the field.
spencer-just pushin buttons.
though I think you are being hard on Flacco. Derrick Mason is like a 100, and Clayton is a terrible route runner. Heap is always injured, even when he is playing. I would like to see what he could do with a real weapon at receiver. Again, he is just a rookie.
Mason is still a beast, Flacco loves going to him.
Spencer I will bet you any amount of money that flacco has a better career than quinn
Mason is my man. He tore up Michigan when we played them. Him and Muhammed.
Sparty- I bet a lot of weed was involved.
whoa,fetch. you know your single A baseball players, but you be talkin crazy with that.
Damn Sparty, didn’t know either of them went to Michigan State, you guys have produced some quality WRs, maybe Devin Thomas will pan out after all.
CBH- what team is he on?
derrick mason is also still awesome.
and fetch, i’ll take that bet but lets set some limits on this…i guarantee in three years, quinn will have a higher yards per attempt, a better TD: INT ratio and less sacks taken.
we’ll put the limit on three years…and if we’re still around doing this in that time, the loser has to write 2,000 words on how great the other qb is.
then again, seeing as you think flacco is going to be an upper echelon QB, methinks you need to watch some more ravens games.
Redskins. They need him to pan out, they mortgaged their future at WR on two guys, him and Kelly last year, and both sucked donkey nuts this year.
Redskins need a new QB
Campbell is going into his contract year next year.
Worth it to give him that year, then if he doesn’t show marked improvement, let him walk and either try to develop Brennan or start over again at QB.
cbh- i am not sure about Thomas. He is great after the catch. He was a one year wonder at State.
MSU has produced some pretty good WR’s…
they also produced charles rogers, fwiw.
and Kirk Gibson!
Yes the Ravens have a good defense, but the Steelers have the #1 defense in the league and have dominated everyone. As for Rothelisberger throwing on the Ravens D, remember in the last game he had the ball on his own 10 yard line with a little over 2 minutes left and drove down the field on them for the winning touchdown.
This game is going to be phenomenal. As a Steeler fan I hope and expect them to win, but of all the teams that can stop them it is the Ravens. I am more worried about the Ravens run game then Flacco. The last game they came out with an extra offensive lineman and had some success. If they do that again, it could cause problems and really keep Flacco from having to do too much.
That being said, I still thing the Steelers pull it out in the end 17-9.