NFL playoff thread

Except the new age quarterbacks will all be facing surgery by week 12

 

Yep. High reward comes at the price of high risk.

 

Solid.

 

Plenty of blame to go around for Denver, including Manning's bad throws and Fox's timid play-calling in the fourth quarter.

But the bottom line is that if the Broncos secondary had been merely mediocre, instead of rotten-egg putrid, Manning would have been in the locker room getting warm by 7 o'clock (Central), thinking about the Patriots, instead of having to trot back out into the ice box.

 

Especially in an era where you cannot hit a QB hard without drawing 15 yards, a speedy read-option is freaking genius.

 

Just in case our man Nate Silver hasn't gotten enough love on this site ...

... both of today's results help his Seahawks-Patriots Super Bowl prediction.

 

So hey I've been gone for a few hours but did I miss anything besides a quarterback falling to 0-1 playoff career record at Mile High with a game-losing interception?

 

I'm guessing this ranks right alongside the 1997 loss to Jacksonville as the most disappointing losses in playoff history. (I'm not counting the four SB losses because I don't see how anyone other than a wild-eye optimist could have expected to win any of those; the team was clearly overmatched in those SBs.)

But, hey, going from a 4-12 shitstorm to 8-8 to 13-3 and division champs in three years (under three different QBs) is still pretty good and there are a lot of other teams that would gladly trade places. I do still think the schedule made the record look better than the team actually was and maybe next year, they're better but the record may not be as good.

Hats off to the Ravens. They went basically the length of the field in the final 1:09 with no timeouts to score the tying touchdown against a defense that should have known better. And then their kicker didn't choke in overtime, like Cundiff did in the AFC Championship last year. So kudos to them for pulling it off.

Will someone please tell Ray Lewis to shut up now?

 

These are on pretty equal footing, although I might give Jacksonville the edge just because they were a 9-7 second-year team. But this loss was epic. With so much crap being flung by the Broncos they still had every chance to win and no excuse to lose. You just had a feeling something was going to happen the whole way, from the first bad PI call that likely cost the Broncos from taking a big lead in the first five minutes to that last pass by the Ravens. The Broncos just never could find separation despite all the chances in the world to do so.

Both the 1996 and 2012 teams had high hopes and were big favorites. Honestly, I'm still not over the Jacksonville loss and that's even with the two titles that followed it. If this team can follow this with a couple of Super Bowl wins in the aftermath of this stink then I'd take it in a heartbeat. But if not then this might surpass the Jacksonville defeat. I guess we'll see in 16 years how it feels, eh?

 

Joe Flacco is the worst quarterback ever to reach three conference championship games in his first five seasons.