Snow, Cold...Football

The snow is blowing across Central Europe as it is across the top half of North America (except the west coast my dad tells me), that means it's time for some playoff football. The American kind of course, the NFL. As much as I can understand those who hate the game, from the box-like padded players to the rah-rah go America go, F-16 fly-by garishness, at least they play in this weather. In England they had to cancel most of the Premiership games because of a bit of snow and cold again this weekend.

Quick overview: This weekend sees the New York Jets kick it off against the Cincinnati Bungles, oops, Bengals it seems this year, followed by the Philadelphia Eagles travelling to the lone star state to visit Jerry Jones' shiny, futuristic toilet bowl and my Dallas Cowboys tonight. Tomorrow it'll be the Baltimore Ravens facing the New England Patriots and the Green Bay Packers at the Arizona Cardinals.

No Steelers as the defending champs couldn't make it to the dance with a 9-7 record. Other picks I screwed up at the beginning of the year were the Texans (yes, I called the Indianapolis Colts to only get a wild card), Bengals and the umm, Seattle Seahawks, oops, I mean Shithawks. Plus I also called the NFC East backwards as the Cowboys won the division with the Eagles grabbing the wildcard while I called the reverse. Did I also mention I predicted the Chicago Bears to be a wildcard, nothing to see here, move along. Not too bad though, only missed the Vikings, Saints and Bengals - got nine of the twelve playoff teams.

The last weekend of the regular season featured a scheduling quirk that saw a preview of three of this weekend's games, as the Cowboys, Jets and Packers all beat their wildcard game rivals - all three in blowout victories. While I gotta love the way my 'boys look coming in after such a dominating victory, I think all three losers last week were holding back and we'll see different games this time around. The Jets were playing for a playoff spot as well so...whatever, I'm gonna sticking with the Cowboys, but I'm thinking the Cardinals and Bengals reverse last weekends losses. I'm also looking for Tom Brady to find his stroke and win the best game of the weekend over the Ravens.

Next weekend (yes, I'm gonna look into the mists of the diminishing probability future) the Colts and San Diego Chargers look too good to lose in the AFC, while the NFC is a real crapshoot, let's say the Cowboys and Saints come through. The conference finals will have the Chargers upsetting the Colts and the Saints exacting revenge on the Cowboys for wrecking their perfect season last month. And, drum roll please, the San Diego Chargers win their first Super Bowl of the NFL's 44 come February 7th.

Enjoy the game while you can folks, I've got a feeling big changes are coming; in case you missed it, concussions have become the big story of the year, overshadowing Chris Johnson's 2000 yard rushing effort, or Brett Favre's 40-year-old come back, come back heroics (no, I'm not stuttering). Seems they just figured out that smashing heads hundreds of times a year over a couple of decades actually causes long term damage, even changing the return-to-play-rules mid-season (exaggerated gasp here)! Big name players were forced to take a couple of games off to give the old sponge in their skulls time to heal, Kurt Warner and even Ben Roesthlisberger (although Brian Westbrook came back too early...long term effects of back-to-back concussions anyone?). Lucky he wasn't playing for Texas Tech, where they lock guys in closets when they whine about concussions or not. Regardless, get back on the field and play is definitely gonna go away - and it better before the safety police take the game from us completely, or worse yet, it goes the way of boxing!