Miami's desperate comeback attempt, Houston's futile comeback and the Romo taking apart the Philadelphia Eagles were my personal highlights. The upshot of all the action was that amazingly, three of next weeks four play-offs are repeats of pairings from this week. The drama of the whole thing had me on the edge of my seat for all of the 6 hours it was on TV and I went to sleep rooting for the Bengals to do Houston a favour. Alas, it was not to be and Houston will have to wait for their first ever play-off appearance.
On a more personal note, my fantasy team failed miserably once again to earn me a free trip to Miami for the Superbowl. Despite getting good performances from Tony Romo (16 points), Vernon Davis (14) and Chris Johnson (27), the rest of my team was a dissappointment. New England's vunerable secondary shut down Andre Johnson, but annoyingly let everyone else in. Baltimore had a good day running against Oakland, but unfortunately it wasn't Ray Rice (6 points) that got in the end-zone. Damn Willis McGahee got more points with a single 77 yard run for a touchdown than Rice got in the whole match. More depressingly, my pessimism about Cleveland's upturn in fortune remained unrewarded (Mike Sims-Walker was limited to TWO points). So add in Miami's defence putting in a decent 15 point performance gave me 94 points for the week, a mere 67 short of the weekly winner. Sigh.
Looking forward to next week, I'm predicting wins for New England, Cincinnati, Dallas and Green Bay.
New England are good are defending against their opponents strongest attacking weapon (see above about Andre Johnson). In Baltimore's case this is the run. Take that away and they're boned; they're only 18th in the NFL in passing yardage and Joe Flacco's 88.6 QB rating is not enough for the Ravens to mount a serious challenge. On the other side of the ball, the Patriots have Brady and Moss. Enough said.
The Jets have been the quiet team to sneak into the play-offs this year, but I can't see them get past the first round. Despite beating the Bengals in New York this weekend, I just don't think they have the quality Cincinnati have. The Bengals had nothing to play for and the Jets were playing to get into the play-offs. Palmer, Ochocinco, Benson have all been on fire this year, but who's been on song for the Jets? They have 3 Pro-Bowlers to the Bengals zero, but none in game-making positions (centre, guard, corner).
In Dallas on Sunday, the Eagles just didn't turn up and Romo ripped them apart. Crucially, it was without doing anything too spectacular. Bad defense decision making from Ashante Samuel cost the Eagles sorely and they couldn't get any pressure on Tony Romo. Unless the Philly defence turns up on Saturday, it'll be another easy win for the Cowboys.
The Green Bay-Arizona clash is the tightest one, but I'm going to go with the Packers. Why? Well, for starters I'm biased. I am a bone-fide cheeshead. Not just that but Green Bay's defence has been performing brilliantly and Aaron Rogers has matured into a real quality quarter-back. Arizona haven't shown any form in the regular that would suggest they could be contenders and have a weak division to thank for their appearance in the play-offs. Then again, they didn't last year either...
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