Divisional Round Recap

It's a madhouse, a madhouse! Lower seeds winning, home field advantage counting four naught! Well, almost.

Steelers 35, Chargers 24 - Things just didn't seem to go San Diego's way. Darren Sproles busts off a 63 yard kickoff return? Rivers first pass afterward gets tipped at the line and intercepted. San Diego's D actually holds and forces a punt? It bounces off one of their player's heads and the Steelers recover.

I'm oversimplifying it, of course. The Steelers offensive line, which had been letting Ben Roethlisberger get a tad battered this year, actually held up well. San Diego got a grand total of 1 sack, and Ben had plenty of time to convert on all those third-and-long situations, even with the Chargers seemingly frequent blitzes. Plus, San Diego couldn't seem to stop Willie Parker after the 1st quarter. He wound up with 146 yards rushing, with an average of 5.4 yards a rush. On the other side, Sproles couldn't duplicate last week's magic. It seemed as though San Diego had him charging into the heart of the line an awful lot. I know the Steelers have a fast defense, but with a small back, I'm not sure that's the best use for him.

Eagles 23, Giants 11 - First time an NFL game had that final score. The Giants ran the ball pretty successfully, except on those two 4th and inches in the 4th quarter. Which, I guess, is when they needed it most. So maybe you could say they didn't run the ball successfully, if you wanted to. The Giants did their job on Westbrook, 46 total yards on 20 touches, but the Eagles had some excellent field position where they didn't have to move the ball much to score points. Oh, and the Giants kicker missed two field goals. I guess we can argue about how much those mattered, six points in a game with a 12 point margin of victory, but the miss could cost momentum, provide Philly with decent field position, and it wasn't a 12-point game when they were being missed, so who knows. I'd say what it boiled down to was Eli Manning had a less than impressive game. He couldn't seem to make the throws he needed to. Maybe it was the wind (McNabb wasn't exactly stellar, either), or his receivers (there were a couple of passes that just missed, and I can't tell whether Eli got too much on it, or if the receiver slowed down too soon), but the numbers say he didn't come through for them.

Ravens 13, Titans 10 - Credit to the Ravens' defense, they forced turnovers, whether it was by putting pressure on Collins (the INT), or hitting Titan ballcarriers really hard (the two fumbles). Still, the Titans shot themselves in the foot with all those penalties (12, costing 89 yards), and with all the turnovers deep in Ravens territory, they only have themselves to blame.

I don't know what to make of Flacco's performance. After two playoff games, he's 20 for 45, for about 320 yards. He does make a couple of nice deep passes each game, which I guess scares the defense just enough they have to play back, which helps the run. Still, I about did a spit-take when one of the announcers called him "Joe Cool". Uh, NO. That's Joe Montana's nickname. Until Flacco wins 4 Super Bowls (or at least starts completing more than 50% of his passes), he doesn't get tabbed with that name. No sirree.

Brief aside: I was really pleased with the day Justin Gage had (10 catches, 135 yards). Too bad his teammates cocked everything up. Two thoughts emerge from that performance, the first being where was that during his time in Chicago? I don't recall the Bears having a stupendous receiving core during his time there, so I can't figure whether it was a lack of effort by him, a misjudgment by the coaches, or a mark of how bad the QBs were. Secondly, if i were the ravens, I'd be concerned what Pittsburgh will do. I like Gage, but I have to say that Hines Ward is probably better, so what's he going to do to them?

Cardinals 33, Panthers 13 - Well, damn. That exceeded my expectations considerably. Arizona not only won, they went east and won. Not only that, they feel behind almost immediately, then scored 33 unanswered points, before Steve Smith's meaningless TD with 50 seconds left. I can't understand why Carolian abandoned the run so early. I know they fell behind, but it was only 20-7 with over 5 minutes left in the 2nd quarter. The Panthers were down 17-3 to Arizona in the 3rd quarter back in Week 8, and they kept running the ball. And it's not as if they weren't successful on Saturday, with 15 carries for 75 yards. Yes, 31 of those yards came on D'Angelo Williams' carry on the opening drive, and excluding that Arizona held them to 44 yards on 14 carries (3.14 yds./carry), but I don't think you can just forget about the running game. Well, if you were Kurt Warner throwing to Fitzgerald, Boldin and Breaston, you could but Delhomme is not Warner, past playoff performances to the contrary.

I'm glad Arizona decided to go beyond the "tackle Steve Smith" strategy, directly to the "keep the ball away from Steve Smith" plan, which worked all the way up to the final minute of the 3rd quarter. Curiously, Carolina adopted the "don't tackle" plan Arizona used on Smith in Week 8, and employed it against Larry Fitzgerald. Didn't work any better for them than it did the Cardinals. Also, big ups to Hightower. I've been down on him this year, owing largely to his poor showing once he became the starting RB. This time, he went for 76 yards on 17 carries, plus a 3-yard TD catch. James added another 57 yards on 20 carries. Granted, that's not a great average, and the team only averaged 3.4 yards a carry, but they ran it 43 times. Love that commitment to the running game (being way ahead helps, I imagine).

Also, congrats to the defense. I know Delhomme made some bad decisions, and Carolina's playcalling was questionable, but I think the defense deserves at least some of the credit for those six turnovers, you know? They pressured him, even if they only had 2 sacks, forced him to move, throw on the run, and when they had the chance, they held on to the passes he threw to them. Worth noting: Arizona had 30 takeaways in the regular season, which is nothing to sneeze at. So far they have 9 in the playoffs, compared to 2 turnovers.

And now, we see what happens in the conference finals.