Another (regular) season over, a new one just begun. The playoffs are upon us and going back to the beginning, what have we learned. First off, the Colts, Chargers, Patriots, Bengals, Jets, Ravens, Saints, Vikings, Cowboys, Cardinals, Packers & Eagles are all in the quest for Lombardi geatness. Everyone else… thanks for playing, here’s a set of steak knives.
The Rams are on the clock and likely will be choosing Suh of Nebraska. Everyone else pretty much ended up mediocre. The Lions once again have a top 5 pick, will they chose a wide receiver?!
It’s all about how you finish. The Broncos started 6-0 and were riding high. The Titans started 0-6 and seemingly were ready to fire Jeff Fisher after he donned a Peyton Manning jersey in the Bye Week and said ‘hey, I just wanted to know what it felt like to be a winner.’ Flash forward to the end of the season. The Titans are 8-8 but so are the Broncos. The Titans are pumped because they finished 8-2 and if not for run-ins with Indianapolis and San Diego could have possibly made the AFC wild card. The Broncos on the other hand finished 2-8 down the stretch and people are trying to find the highest cliff to jump off of in Denver.
256 games in and we don’t really know all that much. The Bengals surprised us with being a division winner and sweeping the AFC North. The Steelers surprised us in not making the playoffs after winning the Superbowl the year before. The Jets are the first team with 20+ INT’s to make the playoffs. But perhaps the biggest surprise of all comes from Old Man River in the NFC. Bret Favre silenced (mostly) his critics and has made a very serious run at the MVP award, though if the voters are truely paying attention and voting for the mVp, emphasis on Valuable, they will Vote for Peyton Manning who was 14-0 in games where he played and did not leave a game when trailing, yet in the roughly 4 quarters that he sat because his team felt they had it all sowed up, they were outscored 42-0 (and looked worse, if that is possible). We will see what happens in the coming weeks.