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NFL Playoffs preview posted on 01/09/2010

Is everyone ready for their repeat of Week 17 in the NFL? That’s certainly what it feels like, with the Eagles returning to Arlington to take on the Cowboys and the Packers returning to Glendale to face the Cardinals. At least the Bengals and Jets are giving us some variety by switching from New York to the Queen City for their rematch. The Patriots and Ravens are the only original match up of Wildcard Weekend, but when we look again, it’s still nothing new.

The Patriots beat the Ravens 27-21 at Gillette Stadium in Week 4. This fact would be surprising if you just looked at the box score. Joe Flacco threw two touchdown passes for the Ravens while Tom Brady had just one for the Pats. Ray Rice ran for 103 yards for the Ravens on his own while the Patriots had just 85 rushing yards as a team. Looking at that, one would think that the Ravens dominated this game and would have won by at least a touchdown. Baltimore did lose the turnover battle, but only 2-to-1, so it wasn’t that big of a difference. The Ravens simply didn’t get it done in the fourth quarter, getting stopped on fourth down twice. This game will likely come down to the wire again, but I’ll take the Ravens this time. Flacco’s got nearly two years of experience now and the Patriots will be without Wes Welker, one of the cornerstones of the New England offense. Sure, the Pats could get a running game going, but against Baltimore’s defense, I’d say that’s unlikely at best. They still have Terrell Suggs. They still have Ray Lewis, and Lewis hasn’t dropped off much despite his age. They can stop the run and they’ll stop the Patriots run on Sunday.

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The Steelers are No Longer Providing Relief from the Rams posted on 12/08/2009

1. Usually, if I'm watching the Rams game and they play terribly, which has typically been the case for the past few years, there is at least a consollation prize for me. The Steelers win and since they're my favorite team anyways, it takes the edge off of the Rams getting their brains beat in. Four the past four Sundays, this has not been the case. The Steelers and Rams have both lost, forcing me to be 0-2 each week. The worst part, is the Steelers are winning for most of the game before tanking it on defense for the last drive. It's been like watching the 2008 baseball Cardinals. That team always had leads but ended up blowing more than 30 saves. If they had won half of those games, they would have won the division that year. The Cardinals didn't have Jason Isringhausen for most of the season due to injuries and mental issues. Sure, he may not have been the best guy for the job, but he was designated as the team's closer. The Steelers have been without their closer for most of this season. Troy Polamalu is just one defender out of 11, but the guy is all over the field making plays that other players just don't make. It took less than a season for the NFL to turn his one-handed interception on opening night against the Titans into a commercial.

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St. Louis' Awful October and World Series Preview posted on 10/28/2009

It's been a while since I've written anything. It has certainly been a tough month. The Blues started their season by picking up a couple of huge wins over the Red Wings in Sweden, but now they've began to be plagued with injuries again. They've gone just 2-4-1 since returning to the United States and have lost Barret Jackman, T.J. Oshie, D.J. King, and Alex Steen to injuries. They were already without captain Eric Brewer. The only benefit to Jackman being out is that it's giving Alex Pietrangelo a chance to get some playing time. He recorded his first NHL goal on Saturday against Dallas. Unfortunately, nobody else scored in a 4-1 loss. The team admitted that they became unfocused after Dallas forward Steve Ott laid a cheap shot on Carlo Colaiacovo. That's fine if I'm playing a video game. If one of my guys gets hurt in playstation hockey, I spend the majority of the game afterwards trying to injure the other team, especially the player that got my guy hurt (Oh yeah, I go back in instant replay, find the guy, and place a personal vendetta against him for the rest of the contest).

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NFL Opening Weekend and US Open posted on 09/14/2009

It's time to make predictions for the NFL season. It should be a bit easier since most of the games from Week 1 are already out of the way. Also, my picks for the week were submitted before the games began, just not here.

Steelers over Titans (was submitted here prior to the game)

Seahawks over Rams

Falcons over Dolphins

Bengals over Broncos (Brandon Stokely, are you flipping kidding me?)

Vikings over Browns

Colts over Jaguars

Saints over Lions

Bucs over Cowboys (Tampa's definitely rebuilding now)

Eagles over Panthers

Ravens over Chiefs (Survivor/Lock of the week)

Texans over Jets

Giants over Redskins

Cards over Niners (San Fran is back)

Packers over Bears

Patriots over Bills

Chargers over Raiders

 

I'll look at my final results after the Monday night games are over, but those should be a couple of sure things too. Now here are my division and playoff picks for the year. Number indicates seed in playoffs.

AFC North

1 Steelers (Still the Champs)

5 Ravens (No more Rex Ryan)

Browns (QB controversy could last all year)

Bengals  (Marvin Lewis' last year with this mess)

 

AFC South 

2Titans (Running game + defense > Kerry Collins)

Colts (No more Dungy, no more dominance)

Texans (Every year a sleeper pick, every year a disappointment)

Jaguars (Maurice Jones-Drew can't play every position)

 

AFC West

4 Chargers (Another year of underachieving due to Norv Turner, no relation)

Broncos (No Cutler, no problem)

Chiefs (If they can hang with the Ravens, they can hang with this division)

Raiders (The PUNCHline of the AFC West. Ba dum shing!)

 

AFC East

3 Patriots (Brady's back, but the defense is starting to get old)

6 Dolphins (The Tuna won't let them be a one-year wonder)

Jets (Mark Sanchez will have his growing pains, but will be in the playoffs next year)

Bills (TO will provide entertainment, but that's about it)

 

NFC North

1 Vikings ( AP showed yesterday why he went number 1 in fantasy)

6 Packers (Rodgers is ready, defense is solid again)

Bears (Urlacher being out for the year is tough, too tough for the Bears to win)

Lions (Stafford starting might be the right call, but not to win games this year)

 

NFC South

2 Falcons (Atlanta will post back-to-back winning years for the 1st time in franchise history)

Saints (Brees threw 6 tds yesterday. I was right to be unhappy when I missed out on him in fantasy)

Panthers (Delhomme might be done winning games as a NFL QB)

Bucs (Already time to look towards next year)

 

NFC West

4 49ers (Decent team wins worst NFL division)

Cardinals (The second biggest hangover of the year)

Seahawks (That game was ugly yesterday. Needing a half to break away from the Rams doesn't look too good)

Rams (I'm still going to cheer for them, but in the end, another high draft pick could help. Bulger is awful)

 

NFC East

3Giants (Manning's new receivers appear to be ready to help)

5 Eagles (Probably pick them to win if McNabb doesn't get hurt)

Cowboys (Now that TO is gone, we'll see that Romo was the bigger problem all along)

Redskins (They could easily win the NFC West, this is the AL East of football)

 

I'll wait to pick the postseason until we get there. League MVP is Drew Brees.

 

Anyone who missed the US Open yesterday missed some crazy stuff. There was Roger Federer's dominating win over Novak Djokovic, including this magical shot to set up match point.

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Cards Continue September Tear and Recent Sports Oddities posted on 09/09/2009

The Cardinals continued their dominance of the National League Central this week, going 5-1 on a road trip with a blown save on Sunday, meaning it could've been a 6-0 trip. Last night the Cards got a boost from John Smoltz who was rocky early, giving up three runs in the first two innings, but he stuck with it and shut out the Brewers over the next three innings before turning it over to the bullpen. The Brewers had their chances for a knock out blow, but they couldn't capitalize, just as the Cards couldn't do so with runners in scoring position. When a team goes 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position and can still grind out a win, that's the make of a championship caliber team. Even when they don't play that well, they win.

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