Wildcard Weekend Reaction

Wildcard Weekend turned out to be a great weekend of football. Three road teams advanced to the next round, and the only home team to win was of course Seattle. Three out of the four games were very competitive and fun to watch. This sets up a great slate of games for divisional weekend. Baltimore heads to Pittsburgh on Saturday at 4:30pm, and Green Bay travels to Atlanta at 8:00pm. On Sunday, Seattle goes to Chicago and 1:00pm, and the Jets head back to Foxboro to take on the Patriots at 4:30pm. I will dive into all the divisional games later in the week, but let's look back on Wildcard Weekend...........

Seattle-41 New Orleans-36
1) Seattle's upset of New Orleans was a classic moment of the playoffs. What a job by Seattle and Matt Hasselback played lights out throwing for four touchdown passes. Great job by Jeremy Bates and the entire Seattle staff and offensive unit.
2) Marshawn Lynch's run to clinch the game is one of greatest runs in NFL history. He broke 8 tackles on the way, and it will be remebered for a long time in Seahawks lore.
3) The Saints went down swinging, but just got outplayed by Seattle. It looked like New Orleans was going to roll when it took a 10-0 and 17-7 lead early in the game, but the Seahawks roared back. The injuries to Malcolm Jenkins and their running backs really hurt the Saints.
4) Good for the Seahawks getting this win. At 7-9, they were the worst team ever to reach the playoffs, but they justified it by beating the Saints on Saturday. I actually thought this win was good for the league. Forget about reseeding, just keep the system the way it is.

Baltimore-30 Kansas City-7
5) Baltimore continued their road dominance in the playoffs. The 30-7 win over Kansas City was their 4th road win in the last three postseasons. Their gameplan on offense was executed well, and their defense forced turnovers and shut down Dwayne Bowe.
6) I'm not the biggest Joe Flacco fan, but he absolutely played great yesterday. He killed the Chiefs down the middle of the field and made big throws time after time-Todd Heap was unstoppable. The Ravens are a very dangerous team, and when Flacco gets going, they are a tough out.
7) The Chiefs unraveled yesterday like many other sleeper teams do when they get to the playoffs. The Cheifs turned it over 5 times and they only turned over something like 14 times in the regular season. Matt Cassel was awful and Dwayne Bowe was a non factor. The Chiefs have now lost 7 consective playoff games, a NFL record, haven't won a playoff game since 1993, and haven't won a home playoff game since '93 as well.

Green Bay-21 Philly-16
8) The Packers and Aaron Rodgers held on to defeat the Eagles 21-16. The Packers have to be happy with their running game, which was on fire against Philly.
9) This game might have been over at the half, but James Jones dropped a touchdown pass from Rodgers that would have made it 21-3. With the score 14-3 Green Bay, you knew Mike Vick and Philly were going to make a run.
10) Vick's storybook season ended instantly yesterday. His endzone interception with 33 seconds left sealed the game, and put to rest the Eagles season. Who knew that at 10-4 after the Giant game, that Philly would lose three straight at home and get ousted in the first round.
11) If Desean Jackson doesn't get tripped up near the Packer 40 late in the game, he might have scored. It was a shoestring tackle, and that might have saved the Packers season.

New York Jets-17 Indianapolis-16
12) The Jets and Rex Ryan deserve all the credit for devising a gamplan to limit Peyton Manning. The Jets forced Manning into more running plays, as a result of their alignment in the box, and took the ball out of Mannin's hands on some critical downs.
13) If Manning completes the third down pass to Blair White late in the game, then the Colts win. The incompletion stops the clock and made the Colts kick a 50 yarder instead with 53 seconds left instead of taking the clock all the way down and making the Jets use timeouts.
14) Jim Caldwell's timeout with 35 seconds left was horrible and shows how shaky Caldwell can be. He got exposed as a game coach last year in the Super Bowl and got exposed on Saturday Night. If it weren't for Peyton Manning, Caldwell would probably be coaching in the UFL.
15) Mark Sanchez was awful in the first half, but made the plays to win the game late. His throw to Braylon Edwards was a big time play, and Sanchez has the ability to play well down the stretch late in these games. The big key was that the Jets went back to the running game in the second half and dominated with Shonn Greene and LaDaininan Tomlinson.
16) I don't think the window is closing on Peyton Manning. Next year, he will get Austin Collie, Dallas Clark, and Anthony Gonzalez back from injury. Eventhough he turns 35, the Colts will make the right moves to fill the holes on this team. Manning will be back and the Colts will be a contender again next year. This loss wasn't Manning's fault but his playoff record now stands at 9-10.