A Quick Look Back at the AFC and NFC Championship Games

Yesterday, the AFC and NFC played their respective championship games sending the winner of both to face each other in Super Bowl XLII. Well, one of the games yesterday turned out the way I thought it would and another did not. Let’s start with the game that ended up as I thought it would.

The AFC pitted the New England Patriots against the San Diego Chargers. The Chargers were the mystery guest here as pretty much everyone, including myself, thought it was a given that they would lose last week to the Colts and we would, yet again, have an AFC championship between Indy and New England. Well, San Diego played hard and fought the good fight but in the end New England had too many weapons and outlasted the Chargers just as they had done 17 previous times this year. New England now becomes the only team in NFL history to go 18-0. And despite winning the game, the Patriots didn’t play particularly sharp on either side of the ball. Brady was not really “Bradyesque” yesterday as he threw 3 interceptions. San Diego refused to sit back and let Brady pick them apart (as they did the first time they play NE this year) and got pressure on him forcing him into bad throws.

On the defensive side of the ball, New England gave up 4 red zone trips to San Diego, however they stiffened each time only surrendering a field goal each trip. Part of the reason for this is because LaDanian Tomlinson was only in for a few plays at the beginning of the game but then his coaches held him out the rest of the game due to his nagging injury. LT’s absence limited the options for the offense and New England took full advantage. This is where San Diego lost the game. You CAN’T get that close to scoring a touchdown 4 times and only come away with 12 points, especially against the Patriots. So, the Pats win another game…ho, hum. However, the NFC championship game turned out to be twice as entertaining and intriguing.

In the NFC championship game, we saw the New Yawk Giants take on the Green Bay Packers. The temperature of the game was bone chilling to say the least. At kick off, the actual temp was -1 with a wind chill of -23. It was the 2nd coldest game ever at Lambeau Field (of course the Ice Bowl was the coldest). I expected Green Bay to come out and torch the Giants, much like they did last week vs. Seattle. However, for most of the first quarter Green Bay didn’t really look like they wanted to be playing. New Yawk was running ok, Eli was passing well (much to EVERYONE’S amazement) and the Giant’s defense was holding up pretty well. Basically it looked like the Giants picked up where they left off last week in Dallas. The whole game, the Packers had absolutely no answer for Plaxico Burress which, in my mind, is now an elite WR in the league.

But Green Bay picked things up in the second quarter and started playing like we expected. They never really got their running game going on a consistent basis but had a couple of bursts here and there which helped keep the Giant’s defense on their toes. However, Green Bay has multiple penalties (much like Dallas did last week) at crucial times. The Giants, though, didn’t seem like they wanted to win as Lawrence Tynes missed 2 field goals late in the game, one in the last 4 seconds, which pushed the game into overtime.

In overtime, the Packers won the toss and started with the ball. Green Bay started working down the field and I really thought the Giants were about to lose. But as great as Brett Farve is, he has the propensity of throwing costly interceptions which he did last night in the overtime period. The ending result…well, I’ll let Eddie Murphy tell you:



If I would have told you 2 weeks ago that one of the Manning brothers would be going to the Super Bowl, I bet you would have said, "Great! Peyton beat Brady!"...as would I. Who would have thought little "dumb face" Eli would take his team all the way to the Super Bowl ("dumb face" does not mean I think he is dumb. Eli just has a "dumb" expression on his face seemingly all the time. It doesn't look like he can 2+2 but he probably can. Wait, he went to Ole Piss so he probably can't...). Well, let just hope he still has a little magic left in him. He's gonna need every weapon he's got (and then some) to beat the Pats. I never thought I would say this but, Let's Go G-Men!