I Like It, I Love It

It's the football postseason, and this is perhaps the most interesting week, effectively the quarter finals.

Yesterday, the Redskins played the Seahawks. I had felt certain that the Redskins would fare much better against the Seahawks than they did against Tampa Bay, where they managed a win despite a woeful offensive effort. They earned points on defense efforts with a Lavar Arrington interception and a Sean Taylor fumble recovery for a touchdown.

The Seahawks hadn't played anybody that good the whole season, and yet sat atop the NFC with a 13-3 record. Still, they had Shaun Alexander, who was the NFL MVP. Even so, the Redskins had shut him down (more or less) the first time the teams played one another. When Alexander left the game early with a concussion, surely, the Redskins would have a chance to slow down the Seahawks.

But this was not the case. Both defenses played extremely well in the first quarter, with both sides going 3 and out over and over again. Unfortunately, for the second week in a row, the Redskins could not muster much offense. Although Clinton Portis played a fair bit, the Seahawks stacked the line, and Portis went nowhere. The Redskins had somewhat more success in the air.

However, the Redskins could have own if they had managed to take advantage of three turnovers. Last week, turnovers lead to 14 points. This week, it lead to 3 points. Even though the Redskins had a chance to tie it (missed a field goal, then had a touchdown batted away from Santana Moss), it was clear that the Seahawks were the better team, and had they won it, the Seahawks would have been left shaking their heads.

The second game had Denver against New England. New England had looked bad in the middle of the year, decimated with injuries. Still, their division was weak, and they were winning games. By the end of the year, however, their defense was getting healthier, and people began to seriously talk about the Patriots three-peating.

Denver also had a very solid season. Jake Plummer, who struggled quarterbacking Arizona, had done much better under the tutelage of Mike Shanahan. He was seen as one of those players you could rattle and force into mistakes, although this year, he had cut down on many of these errors. Even so, the Patriots were playing very good defense.

Although Denver ended up winning this game, 27-13, you had to say that New England had their chances. Brady was making efficient progress. Were it not for an interception by Champ Bailey returned to the 1 yard line, which replays showed he fumbled into the endzone, which should have turned the ball over to the Patriots for a touchback, but instead was given the Denver at the 1, where they proceeded to make a touchdown, then New England should have made it 13-10. Instead, they found themselves down 6-17. It was a 14 point turnaround.

Brady, undefeated in the post-season, with 10 consecutive wins in a row, found himself with his first loss in a game that the Patriots should have won.

Today's game put the Colts, a team that looked on the verge of undefeated this year, but finished 14-2, against the Steelers, who had a 15-1 record last year (eventually losing in the playoffs to the Super Bowl winner, the Patriots), but had also lost a game earlier in the season to the Colts. That game was marked by a quick touchdown within the first two plays of the game, and a failed onside kick by Pittsburgh which lead to another Colts score.

This time, it was Pittsburgh that ran to an early lead, up 14-0. The Colts only managed 3 points in the first half.

Several times, it looked like the Colts were done for. At one point, Polamalu appeared to have an interception. He caught the ball, rolled around, then had his knee kick the ball out, and then he recovered the ball. Replays seemed to show, for certain, that Pittsburgh recovered.

Yet, officials ruled it incomplete. The Colts scored in a minute, and brought the score 21-18. Then, once Indianapolis had the ball again, Peyton was sacked on fourth down on what almost appeared to be a safety, and Pittsburgh had the ball with around a minute and a half, and simply had to kneel on the ball several times. True, Indy had three time outs and could have stopped the clock, but Pittsburgh seemed like they didn't need to do anything. If all failed, they'd kick an easy field goal, forcing Manning to score. Still, they were quite capable of that.

So they had Jerome Bettis attempt to bull his way in. One of the Indy defenders hit his helmet on the ball, and out it popped, and Indy recovers. Indy can still score a touchdown to win, or a field goal to tie.

Eventually, they get so that Vanderjagt, their usually reliable kicker, has a 46 yd kick to tie. And. He shanks it to the right. Game over.

Pittsburgh had many chances to win more outright. The Colts simply didn't look that sharp. At times, their offense was extremely efficient, but they couldn't muster more than 3 points in the first half, and still, they came that close to sending it to overtime.

The Bears and Panthers played a much higher scoring game than expected. The Panthers had pretty much shut out the Giants last week, and the Bears had only allowed the Panthers to score 3 points last time they met.

The Bears gave up 200 plus yards in the first half, and nearly as many in the second. Even so, by the end, the Bears had chances to tie. Down by 8 points, they were finally unable to muster a final drive. Delhomme and Smith looked real good in piling up 29 points in their victory (the Bears gave up only 61 points all season, showing how ineffective they were this time around).

So, this means the Seahawks will play Carolina, and Denver hosts Pittsburgh. Ought to be interesting.

The Colts will have to figure out what went wrong. Their defense still isn't where it should be, and they spent a lot of time passing the ball, hardly running it at all.