NFL Playoffs.... Woo-hoo!

Ahhhhh, yes. The NFL Playoffs: where things are decided on the field. Proceedings commence in just a few hours as Wild Card weekend gets underway with Washington going on the road at Seattle.

There’s an axiom about not betting on a team whose quarterback is making his first playoff start (Brother Eli, Chris Simms, Byron Leftwich and though he didn’t play poorly last year, Philip Rivers, are all cases in point over the past 2 years) but does this apply to a quarterback who is a 10-year veteran like the Redskin’s Todd Collins? The Redskins have been playing inspired football since the death of Sean Taylor and we like their defense against a Seattle team that has all but given up on the running game. Take the ‘Skins and the 3-1/2 pts. to keep it close in the rain (love that half-point!).



It appears that the Steelers have had to make some “adjustments” to new coach Mike Tomlin just as the Chargers have to Norv Turner. Unfortunately, its been in fits and starts all season and they do not have any of the forward momentum the Chargers do. Give the 3 points and Jacksonville’s power running game against the Steelers’ nicked-up defense in the slop at Heinz field this evening in the primetime.



Tomorrow… Two competing thoughts of conventional wisdom we’ve heard circulating regarding the New York football Giants visit to Tampa Bay: a) The Giants showed they could play with the best team in football by hanging tough against the Patriots last week – this gives them the confidence to beat anybody they meet in the NFC side of the bracket and b) instead of possibly resting some of their starters, the Giants played their “Super Bowl” last week and will have an emotional letdown against the Bucs. Both are viable opinions though we are siding with option “a”. Take the G-men (+2-1/2) against a Bucs team that has zero momentum going in. This pick in no way reflects the utter contempt we have for Tampa coach Jon “Chucky” Gruden. None, whatsoever.

And last but certainly not least…. A caller in to Hacksaw’s show yesterday noted the karmic reversal of fortune as it was the Titans who were accused of cheap-shotting the Chargers when they played early in December and it is now the Titans who enter their game against these same Chargers as perhaps the most banged-up team in the playoffs. Titans head coach, Jeff Fisher, says the starting QB will not be named until right before the game

tomorrow. Whether this is truly to allow more time to assess Vince Young’s quadriceps injury or just gamesmanship is indeterminate. We prefer to see a hobbling Vince Young (first playoff start) to the veteran Kerry Collins who is perfectly capable of the “veteran-backup-pulls-off-the-stunner” routine. The Chargers are about as healthy as they have been since the start of the season, but…. jeez, we Charger fans are developing a complex… barely enough tickets were sold to avoid the T.V. blackout. We were in the Murph just 3 years ago when the Chargers laid an egg in the rain against a 9-point dog in the New York Jets. We’re hedging: like the Chargers to win in a sloppy game but take the Titans and the 10(!) points.

… there’s something called the International Bowl (from Toronto) on right now between Rutgers and Ball St. If we can execute a portion of BwD’s foreign policy plan by annexing parts of Canada… the cool parts like British Columbia, the oil fields in Alberta and T-Town itself, we can just rename it the National Bowl and avoid the horrible exchange rate.