Championship Weekend is in the books, which means it’s time for the second to last Hangover of the season. Stock up on alcohol now friends, because there’s only one more meaningful football game left this season.
Green Bay Defense/Special Teams on Drugs
The Green Bay Packers defense played well for most of the day on Sunday. But despite recording four interceptions against Russell Wilson, they made a bunch of mistakes.
First, on the fourth interception of the game, Morgan Burnett gave himself up instead of advancing the ball. The Packers were up 19-7 at the time with just five minutes remaining and it seemed like that interception would end the game, but Burnett forgot four important things: there was plenty of time left, the Seahawks had all three timeouts and the two minute warning, the Seahawks defense is really good, and Mike McCarthy had a terrible day calling plays. The Packers ended up losing four yards in three plays on the ensuing drive before being forced to punt, and, well, you know how the rest of the game went.
The only time an intercepting player should give himself up is when it leads to his teams offense trotting on the field and taking a knee. Otherwise, advance the ball and don’t be dumb enough to fumble it. Not only do you run time off the clock, but you also put your offense in a better position to score more points and really put the game away.
Second, what the hell were they doing on that two-point conversion? Wilson threw a 20-yard hail mary across the field and instead of batting it down, the two Green Bay players wished upon a floating football that nothing bad would happen. Instead Luke Wilson caught the ball in the endzone to put the Seahawks up by three, turning a potential game-winning field goal by Mason Crosby into a game-tying field goal.
Third, they completely fell asleep on the fake field that turned into a touchdown. A field goal would’ve made it a 16-3 game, not exactly breathing a lot of life into Seattle. Instead of rushing the field goal try, they should’ve played a safe coverage and shut down any trickery that Seattle came up with.
Finally, and this one is all on Brandon Bostick, YOU HAVE TO CATCH THE BALL ON AN ONSIDE KICK! I’m not even sure he was supposed to go after the ball considering he’s a back-up tight end with nine career catches and Jordy Nelson was right behind him, but if you’re going to go for the ball, YOU HAVE TO CATCH IT!
The Overtime Rule
The NFL changed the overtime rule a few years ago from “first team to score” to “complicated nonsense” and the rule still sucks. Seattle won the coin toss, scored a touchdown, and soon-to-be-league-MVP Aaron Rodgers could do nothing but watch as the Seahawks celebrated their victory. It sure would’ve been nice if he had a chance to match what Seattle did. Now some people will say, “the defense should make a stop.” And maybe they should. But if they don’t maybe the opposing defense should be forced to make a stop as well. NFL OT comes down to a coin toss, and if you don’t believe that, you’d probably be stupid enough to give the other team the ball if you won the toss.
I’m not a fan of the college football OT, but at least both teams get a chance to possess the ball. In every other major sport, both teams get a fair chance at possession before the game is decided. The NFL rules are equivalent to NBA changing the overtime rules to say, “the team with the leading scorer in the game will get the ball first. If they hit a three or two foul shots, they win. But if they only get a two-point field goal, the other team has a chance to match or win with a three or two foul shots. If they match, the next team that scores wins.” That’s stupid.
How simple is it to just give both teams an equal amount of possessions? Seattle scored a touchdown, so Green Bay should’ve had a chance to score a touchdown. If they didn’t, they lose. But if they did, Seattle would get the ball back. If they scored a field goal, Green Bay would have a chance to match and extend the game or win with a touchdown. The only way a game could end without the other team getting an offensive possession is if the defense scores. This could actually lead to more teams choosing to put their defense on the field first even if they win the coin toss. WHY IS THIS SO HARD?!?!?! (phrasing).
Seattle Defense Dominant
Giving up 22 points doesn’t seem like the sign of a dominant defense, but this game could’ve been a lot worse if Seattle’s defense sucked. The Seattle offense turned the ball over five times and their only touchdown through three quarters came on a fake field goal. Green Bay spent the entire first half on the Seattle side of the field and only came up with 16 points. Richard Sherman picked off Aaron Rodgers in the endzone on the first drive of the game and, aside from a broken play where Green Bay desperately needed yards to set-up Crosby’s potential game-tying field goal, Rodgers never looked Sherman’s way again. This despite the fact that Sherman was playing with one arm for most of the fourth quarter.
Seattle’s defense scared Mike McCarthy. He didn’t go for it on fourth-and-one on the Seattle 1 on two separate occasions for no other reason than he was afraid of not putting points on the board. Even though the safest play in the world is a dive over the pile on the goal line (remember, once the ball breaks the plane, you can fumble it without a worry), McCarthy wouldn’t go for it because he feared Seattle.
Look at the numbers for Rodgers. 19/34 for 178 yards and two interceptions. If Russell Wilson didn’t put up equally bad numbers and we all haven’t come to expect this from Seattle’s defense, we’d be killing Rodgers today. Seattle didn’t win this game because Green Bay made a bunch of mistakes (although that helped) or because the OT rules are dumb (that helped too). They won because they have the best defense in the league and their reputation alone worries players and coaches.
New England Won, Moving On
Even though the Colts were only down 10 at the half, no one really thought they had a chance. The Colts weren’t good against good teams all season. They were fortunate in the playoffs to play Andy Dalton and the Bengals and Cold Weather Peyton Manning and the Broncos. On Sunday they played the best team in the league during the regular season and the best post-season QB in league history.
The Patriots were the better team. They dominated every aspect of the game en route to another Super Bowl appearance. The NFC Championship Game had everything you could want in a football game. The AFC Championship Game was better off not being played.
And I don’t care if they deflated the ball. The Colts weren’t winning the game. You don’t deflate a ball and still win 45-7. You out-play and out-coach the other team so bad that someone has to come up with a wacky theory as to how it happened.
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