Coincidentally

Remember that al Jazeera report that was total garbage? I'm sure it was garbage; no doubt in my mind. I mean, Peyton Manning wouldn't tell a lie.

I'm sure this Taylor Teagarden suspension is merely a coincidence.

Legacy

When you hear the name Ty Cobb, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Is it one of the greatest hitters in major league history? Or is it redneck racist asshole?

Here's the weird thing. Both answers are correct.

With a Whimper

This one game shouldn’t be a referendum on his career. Besides, he was playing with a torn quad. Or a strained quad. It was something that didn’t need to be listed on an injury report and yet significant enough to impact the outcome of the game whatever it was.

Bitterly Cold

Is it simply petty bitterness on my part? Well, so what if it is?

The Men Who Stare at GOATs

No! Nooooooooooooooo! Not again! Not again. Please. Not. Again. Fourteen times wasn’t enough?

Drew Brees 5476*

So this is fair.

Worth It

I should be used to this by now, shouldn’t I?

A Cold Night in November

The fellow Patriots’ fans I’ve spoken with seem to be dealing with this Sunday night’s game with a mix of resignation and hope. On the one hand, New England’s defense is just two beaten up to hang with Denver’s offense. If the Pats D was healthy and whole, this would be the biggest regular season game in recent memory, a game for the ages really, with all the anticipation and anxiety of a Super Bowl. Instead, with Wilfork, Mayo, Kelly out and Talib, Arrington and Dennard – their top three cornerbacks – banged up and questionable, this is a game Patriots Nation can shrug off if their heroes should fail.

We’ll party if they win, of course. There’s some spark of light and hope inside all of us who root for the Patriots that cannot be denied. Peyton Manning is coming to town. It doesn’t get any better than this. It’s never been better than this.

Seven

The only thing that looked better than the Broncos' passing game last night were the Broncos' cheerleaders. And not by much. Peyton Manning is now on pace to throw 112 TD passes this season.

Pigskin Roller Coaster

The pigskin roller coaster. For some the ride is already over. Perhaps they’re the lucky ones. Peyton and Rodgers, RG III and Russell Wilson. Thanks for playing. The stakes and the existential angst rise with each round of the playoffs. Playing for the conference championship is far, far better than going 7-9-0. We know this. It is the pigskin truth. And yet it’s going to suck wicked bad for half the NFL’s core audience this coming Sunday. Somebody’s going to emergency, somebody’s going to jail. And somebody is losing a football game.

Legacy Schmegacy

I’ve been trying to imagine what it must’ve been like for the tens of thousands of Broncos fans who sat through sub-zero wind chills only to drive home knowing their football season was over. Before Saturday, I would guess most pigskin pundits and bobbleheads – and most fans – had ceded the AFC spot in the Super Bowl to Denver. Home field, eleven game winning streak, Top 5 defense, Top 5 offense and Peyton Manning playing like it’s 2009. The AFC Championship was scripted for Peyton to face Tom Brady one more time in a game certain to coronate Manning and his Comeback/MVP Season. The Patriots would present a worthy challenge, but that relentless defense, Manning, home field and high altitude would carry the day.

Super Bowl XLVII.

Right there.

Gone.

Karma Has a Really Weird Sense of Humor

The agitprop of Saturday’s Ravens-Broncos game should provide a final reminder to the Patriots that nothing is written. Maybe they really meant everything they said about the Texans and the playoffs but now they have the evidence that it’s real. Really real.

You saw what happened to Denver!

Sunday morning, pigskin pundits and bobbleheads will certainly be deconstructing what Colin Kaepernick’s record-setting performance in dispatching Aaron Rodgers and the Packers means to the future of the quarterback position (we’re all just waiting for his knee injury, aren’t we?) and they will also be dissecting the choke job by Peyton Manning and the #1 seeded Denver Broncos.

And that will be fun – but not too much fun. After all, the Patriots still have to play the Texans and you saw what happened to the Broncos, didn’t you?

 

Never spike the ball early.

 

Every New Beginning

Sometimes things just work out. Sometimes they don’t, especially if Tony Romo is involved.

The Giants won but it didn’t matter because the Bears won but that didn’t matter either because the Vikings won. I think. I lost track of the various tiebreakers/win-and-they’re-in scenarios as the 1:00pm games were ending. Could have been the vodka, I suppose. Anyway, the brackets are set and if everything goes to form we’ll get Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning in the AFC Championship game. And yes, that sound you just heard was Jim Nantz’s and Phil Simms’s pants exploding.

Thinking Out Loud

The NFL season is, in and of itself, a small data sample. Just sixteen games over seventeen weeks. A key injury in week three can destroy a team’s chances to make the playoffs; a blown call in the 4^th quarter, a pass slips through a receiver’s hands into the waiting arms of a defensive back who takes it in for the winning score, a potential game-winning field goal hits the upright and falls harmlessly to the ground. All of a sudden, 10-6-0 is 7-9-0 and your fans are reenacting Act III of Oedipus Rex. That’s right; a tie is like kissing your sister and finishing out of the playoffs is like having sex with your mother.

Sorry, Bills’ fans.

The Bandwagon Leaves Promptly at 5:00pm

Nine weeks in the record books. Nine chapters complete in the novel “The Ballad of Necky McManning.” I wonder how it ends…

Redemption Songs

Does a first ballot Hall of Fame quarterback need redemption? Apparently so. And he’s not the only one.