Philly Sports Today

The Pittsburgh Steelers are Super Bowl champions. Again. With their 27-23 come-from-behind win over the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII, the Steelers became the first NFL franchise to win six Super Bowls. While the game as a whole wasn’t particularly exciting for the first three quarters (James Harrison’s 100-yard interception return for a touchdown that ended the first half), the fourth quarter was absolutely tremendous.

Arizona looked dead in the water when they took the ball trailing 20-7 with 11:30 left in the game. Then, their offense started clicking on all cylinders. Kurt Warner went 8-for-8 for 87 yards on a 3:57 drive that culminated in a one-yard touchdown by Larry Fitzgerald on a play that everyone on the planet knew was coming, but nobody could stop. Just like that, it’s 20-14 Steelers and the Cardinals are still very much alive.

Pittsburgh went three-and-out on their next possession. Then Arizona’s drive stalled at Pittsburgh’s 36-yard line. The Cardinals opted to punt and pinned the Steelers at their own one-yard line. Ben Roethlisberger threw an incomplete pass. Willie Parker barely got out of the end zone to avoid a safety, but it could not be avoided. On 3rd and 10 from the one-yard line, the Steelers committed a holding penalty in the end zone. Safety. Put two on the board for ‘Zona. 20-16 Steelers, but Uncle Mo is on Arizona’s sidelines.

Arizona took over at their own 36-yard line. After an incomplete pass on first down, Warner hit Fitzgerald over the middle and he bolted straight down the middle of the field for a 64-yard touchdown. He just straight up out ran everyone. 23-20 Cardinals with 2:37 left in the game. So in less than 9 minutes of game time, when the Cards got the ball trailing 20-7, they scored 16 points, completely erased their deficit, and were in prime position to win the Super Bowl. Incredible for a team that should have been totally demoralized after giving up that touchdown to Harrison to end the first half.

Trailing 23-20, the Steelers took over at their own 22-yard line with 2:30 left in their season. The drive got off to an inauspicious start with a 10-yard penalty that backed Pitt up to their own 12. Big Ben found Santonio Holmes on a 14-yard reception, but then threw an incompletion to set up 3rd-and-6. Roethlisberger and Holmes hooked up again for a 13-yard catch to pick up a first down. Then Big Ben found Nate Washington for an 11-yard pass that moved the ball to midfield. Roethlisberger ran for four yards and then Holmes had a fantastic 40-yard reception that took Pittsburgh down to the Arizona six-yard line with 48 seconds remaining. On first and goal, Roethlisberger was looking for Holmes in the left side of the end zone, but the pass sailed away from him. The Steelers then ran the same exact play with Holmes on the right side of the end zone, and this time he came down with it. Touchdown! 27-23 Steelers! Santonio’s catch was probably the most incredible catch ever in Super Bowl history. Sorry David Tyree, but Holmes actually scored a touchdown on his impossible grab. In fact, in my opinion, that catch rivals “The Catch” (i.e. San Francisco’s Joe Montana to Dwight Clark for the game-winning touchdown in the 1982 NFC Championship Game). With three Cardinals around him, Holmes stretched out to make the catch and somehow was able to keep both toes in bounds. Check out the picture above to see how ridiculous Santonio’s catch was. Just amazing. However, there was still 35 seconds on the clock, which is plenty of time for the Cards.

Kurt Warner and Co. took over at their own 23-yard line, but two plays and 33 yards later, the Cards were in Pittsburgh territory with 15 seconds to play. Unfortunately, it was not to be for Arizona as Warner fumbled and Brett Keisel recovered for the Steelers with five seconds left to seal the 23-27 win and the Super Bowl title. I still think that Warner’s fumble should have been reviewed since his arm was probably going forward, so the Cards deserved one more shot at the end zone. Oh well. It was still an amazing finish. Holmes was named Super Bowl MVP and finished with 9 catches for 131 yards and the game-winning touchdown reception. On the game-winning TD drive, Holmes made four catches for 73 yards. He definitely deserved to win the MVP.

One other note about the Super Bowl is that Kurt Warner played in three this decade and all of them were classics. Warner led the St. Louis Rams over the Tennessee Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV where Rams linebacker Mike Jones tackled Titan’s receiver Kevin Dyson one-yard short of the game-tying touchdown as time expired. Two years later in Super Bowl XXXVI, Warner and the Rams returned to the Big Game as 14-point favorites over an unknown quarterback named Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. This time, Warner was on the other side of a close game as Brady led the Pats on a 9-play, 53 yard drive that set-up Adam Vinatieri’s game-winning 48-yard field goal as time expired. Now this. I think Kurt Warner needs to play in every Super Bowl if they’re all going to be as good as the other three that he played in.

Finally, from a gambling standpoint, I had a very nice season picking against the spread and pretty good Super Bowl in terms of total bets. While I didn’t hit the point spread since I had the Steelers covering six, I nailed 9 of my 14 prop bet picks. Not too bad. I’ll be back for the 2009 NFL season ready to improve on this year’s picks record. Below is a list of all of my picks from yesterday’s game and the result of each:

Pittsburgh (-6.5) over ARIZONA (Wrong)
Over/Under: Over 46.5 (Right)
Pittsburgh rushing yards: Over 113.5 rushing yards (Wrong)
Arizona rushing yards: Under 65.5 rushing yards (Right)
Total Sacks by both teams: Over 5 (Wrong)
First team to call a timeout: Arizona (Wrong)
Total Field Goals: Over 3.5 (Wrong)
Longest Field Goal: Under 45.5 yards (Right)
Longest Touchdown: Over 49.5 yards (Right)
Shortest Touchdown: Under 1.5 yards (Right)
First team to have a penalty: Arizona (Right)
Total Fumbles lost: Over 1.5 (Wrong)
Jersey Number of player that scores first touchdown: Odd (Right)
Distance of first successful field goal: Under 34.5 yards (Right)
National Anthem Length: Over 1 minute and 54 seconds (Right)

Playoffs: 7-4
Overall Season Record: 160-105-5

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me three more times, shame on me. That pretty much sums up what many Eagles fans are thinking the day after yet another disappointing loss in the NFC Championship to a team that had never been to the Super Bowl. The Iggles have been to five NFC title games in the past eight years. Four times, including yesterday, they were kicked in the teeth. The other time, a 2004 win over the Atlanta Falcons that sent Philly to its second Super Bowl appearance, led to a crushing defeat at the hands of the New England Patriots. However, this year was supposed to be different. The Eagles looked like a team of destiny. The Cards were just another speed bump on the road to a Super Bowl title. The Phillies supposedly had broken the curse on Philly sports. It was supposed to be OK for Donovan McNabb and Andy Reid to win big games. Apparently, they didn’t get the memo. The Cards partied in the desert after their 32-25 win.

Arizona completely molested Philadelphia for the first 30 minutes of the game. Despite the fact that the Eagles saw Larry Fitzgerald completely destroy the Carolina Panthers last week, they still allowed him to run buck wild and Fitz torched them for THREE TOUCHDOWNS! IN THE FIRST HALF! How could they let him get open that often? It also didn’t help that McNabb was absolutely terrible. At halftime, the Cards led 24-6. To their credit, the Iggles fought back and led 25-24 late into the fourth quarter. As everyone should have expected, this is the Eagles. They always seem to rope you in just so they can get close enough to rip your heart out with their hands. They certainly didn’t disappoint in terms of disappointing the city of Philadelphia yet again. Kurt Warner and Co. orchestrated a 14-play, 72-yard drive over the course of 7:46 to put Arizona back in front. As has been the case throughout his entire career, McNabb came up short. 47 yards short to be exact. Hey, he got five yards closer to the winning TD yesterday than when he lost to Kurt Warner and the Rams.

Another star of the game for the Birds was David Akers. A missed field goal, a missed extra point, and a kickoff out of bounds. Could a kicker have a better game than that? While Akers was not the reason they lost, he certainly played a pretty big part in it.

Now where does the team go from here? Who knows? There are a lot of veteran players that are free agents. McNabb and Reid will certainly be back after a late-season push that saved both of their jobs. However, it seems fairly evident now that these two have hit their ceiling, and that ceiling is losing in the NFC title game again and again and again and again. On paper, the Eagles have a lot of talent and young pieces in place that should keep them competitive. Hopefully Philly will sign an impact player in free agency with their tons of cap room and make some good draft picks like they always seem to do. They need to rebuild their aging offensive line, get some more play-makers for McNabb, maybe get some linebacking help and just general depth all over the defense.

Will this team ever get back to the Super Bowl with McNabb and Reid. Personally, I think their window of opportunity is now officially closed barring the addition of some more impact players on both sides of the ball. It’s going to be another long off-season in Philadelphia and the mantra of “There’s always next year” is definitely getting very stale. If they can’t beat the Cardinals in an NFC title game, who exactly are they going to beat in the NFC title game? As always seems to be the case with the Philadelphia Eagles, there are way more questions than answers. Oh well, there are only 25 days until Spring Training.

After what can only be described as a roller coaster year, the Philadelphia Eagles are one win away from returning to the Super Bowl. The Birds, who were only 9-6-1 during the regular season, went into Giants Stadium for the second time this year and kicked the NFC East and defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants straight in the teeth. It certainly wasn’t pretty, but when the smoke cleared, the Eagles emerged as a 23-11 winner. While Philly’s offense didn’t do anything spectacular, their defense was phenomenal. The Birds forced three turnovers, including two interceptions, one of which was returned by Asante Samuel to the New York one-yard line and set-up Donovan McNabb’s rushing touchdown. Samuel has certainly earned his money this postseason with an interception in each game and a touchdown. Additionally, watching the Eagles stuff the Giants twice on fourth down was incredible. Philly played one of its worst offensive games of the year and still won by double-digits thanks to their defense. If they want to advance to and win the Super Bowl, Brian Westbrook is certainly going to have to play a lot better than he did on Sunday. Same goes for McNabb and the rest of the offense. By the way, McNabb has now led this team to five NFC title games. That’s an amazing feat in itself, especially after the season that he had. The Iggles so close to returning to the promised land, but I don’t want to get my hopes up because they’ve been known to break hearts during the NFC Championship games that they were supposed to win (see: 2002 against Tampa Bay and 2003 against Carolina). However, it looks like there’s something special about this squad and there’s no reason to stop believing in them now. E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!

The team that the Eagles will travel to face in the NFC Championship is the Arizona Cardinals, who shocked the world with their 33-13 dismantling of the Carolina Panthers. The Cards forced SIX turnovers, including five interceptions off of Jake Delhomme. Arizona’s D certainly came to play and they’ve been playing really well the past three weeks. However, I think ‘Zona may have caught the over-confident Panthers looking ahead to the NFC Championship, something the Eagles will certainly not do. While the Cards have an explosive offense, I think Philly will be able to contain it. However, Arizona is no pushover and they can certainly win the game, especially since it’s at home. All I know is that the last time a Philly team (i.e. the Phillies) faced off against a team that nobody believed in and had home-field advantage (i.e. the Rays) it worked out pretty well for the City of Brotherly Love.

In the most physical game of the weekend, the Baltimore Ravens escaped Tennessee by knocking off the top-seeded Titans 13-10. In my opinion, the Ravens were saved by an atrocious non-call by the refs on a clear delay of game. If the officials make the correct call in that situation, the outcome might have been different. I also found it kind of weird that after they blew that call, the refs were extremely quick to call delay of game penalties in the other three playoff games. Coincidence? I think not. Basically, this game was a blood-bath and the Titans shot themselves in the foot with turnovers. Tennessee could have blown out Baltimore, but they choked. Now the Titans have seven months to think about what they could have done differently, like securing the ball better would be a good start. One final note on this game, Baltimore’s Joe Flacco wrote his name in the history books by becoming the first rookie QB to win two playoff games.

In the AFC title game, the Ravens will meet up with an old friend, the Pittsburgh Steelers, who trounced the San Diego Chargers 35-24 in the only non-upset of the weekend. Pittsburgh finally looks healthy again and it couldn’t have come at a better time for them. Willie Parker had a monster game and looks like he’s 100% again. Though, right now, the main concern for the Steelers has to be the health of Ben Roethlisberger, who has recently suffered a concussion and a spinal injury. How he was able to play as well as he did on Sunday, I have no idea. If Pittsburgh plays like they did against the Chargers, they may need to make room for an NFL-record sixth Lombardi Trophy at Heinz Field. However, first they’re going to have to get through the Ravens for a third time this year after two extremely close calls. The AFC Championship should be an outright war between two division rivals. Football fans wouldn’t want it any other way.

Conference Championships–January 18, 2009
NFC: #6 Philadelphia at #4 Arizona, 3:00 p.m.
AFC: #6 Baltimore at #2 Pittsburgh, 6:30 p.m.

With their 26-14 win on the road over the NFC North champion Minnesota Vikings, Andy Reid has now guided the Philadelphia Eagles to a win in their first playoff game for seven consecutive postseasons. That’s straight-up money. If the Birds get to the playoffs, you know they’re moving on. It’s the rest of the games that should have the Eagles worried. Since Reid is now 9-6 in the playoffs as head coach, that means that the Eagles are a terrible 2-6 in their second playoff game and beyond. Not so good, but back to Philly’s game against the Vikings. It wasn’t their best game of the year and it wasn’t their worst game. The defense performed much better than the offense. Asante Samuel returned an interception for a touchdown and the Birds also recovered a fumble and had a sack. The run D wasn’t good, giving up 4.4 yards per carry and two rushing touchdowns, but the Eagles wreaked havoc on Tarvaris Jackson. Philly’s offense was alright and Donovan McNabb threw for 300 yards and a touchdown, which was a back-breaking 71 yard screen pass to Brian Westbrook. However, the Eagles couldn’t run the ball at all, which is cause for concern. With the win, Philly earned a rematch with the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants. It’ll most likely be a loss, but maybe the Eagles can shock the world, just like the Phillies did in October. The only way that I can see the Birds pulling the upset would be if they play exactly like they did when they went to Giants Stadium a few weeks ago. However, that’s highly unlikely.

In the other NFC playoff game, the NFC West champion Arizona Cardinals upset the Atlanta Falcons, winning 30-24. Nobody really thought the Cards would win (I actually picked Arizona to win in my picks), but they dominated for much of the game. The Falcons really only played well in the second quarter, where they scored 17 points. For all of the talk about how great Atlanta’s offense was, the Cardinals threw for more yards and actually out-rushed the Falcons. While Kurt Warner was expected to throw for a ton of yards, nobody really thought that Edgerrin James would out-rush Michael Turner. Either way, neither team would have beaten the Panthers in Carolina next week. By the way, we should see the Falcons in the playoffs again in the very near future, but since the NFC South is the most volatile division in football, who really knows.

On to the AFC, where the AFC West champion San Diego Chargers upset NFL MVP Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts 23-17 in overtime. This game was basically a coming out party for Darren “LaDainian Who?” Sproles, who gained 328 total yards and had 2 touchdowns, including the game-winning 22-yard TD run in overtime. Indy couldn’t run the ball, and San Diego’s D seemed to frustrate Manning for much of the game, especially down the stretch. The unsung hero of the game was San Diego punter Mike Scifres, who punted six times for an average of 52.7 yards, which included a 67-yard boomer, and pinned the Colts inside their own 20 and deep in their own territory on each punt. It was pretty remarkable. For some reason, the Chargers seem to have the Colts’ number. Now, San Diego is rewarded with a trip to face the AFC North champion Pittsburgh Steelers. The two teams met in Week 11 and the Steelers won 11-10. The Steelers’ defense should be able to shut the Chargers down again, but Pittsburgh’s offense is pretty bad, so this is anyone’s game.

In the other AFC playoff game, the Baltimore Ravens crushed the AFC East champion Miami Dolphins 27-9. The Ravens intercepted Chad Pennington four times and recovered a fumble. Ed Reed returned one of Pennington’s picks 64 yards for a touchdown. Reed just has a knack for big plays. There wasn’t really much of a difference in total yardage, but when you turn the ball over as much as the Dolphins did, it’s going to be pretty tough to beat a team with a defense that is as good as the Ravens’. Overall, the Dolphins had a very nice year and an amazing turnaround, going from 1-15 and the #1 pick in the draft in 2007 to 11-5 and the AFC East title in 2008. That’s what I call progress. Now, Baltimore will travel to the AFC South champion Tennessee Titans. This will definitely be a defensive struggle and I wouldn’t really be shocked by either team winning at this point. This season has been so crazy, especially in the AFC, that I wouldn’t be shocked if either team wins.

Playoff Schedule–Divisional Round
January 10, 2009:
AFC: #6 Baltimore at #1 Tennessee, 4:30 p.m.
NFC: #4 Arizona at #2 Carolina, 8:15 p.m.

January 11, 2009
NFC: #6 Philadelphia at #1 New York Giants, 1:00 p.m.
AFC: #4 San Diego at #2 Pittsburgh, 4:45 p.m.

It’s pretty pointless to recap Week 17, but I want to write a little somethin’ somethin’ about the Philadelphia Eagles.

A Hanukkah miracle landed the Philadelphia Eagles in the playoffs. After last week’s debacle in Washington (i.e. the first night of Hanukkah), it looked like the Birds would once again miss the playoffs because they would need to beat the Cowboys plus have Tampa to lose at home to Oakland and have Chicago lose to Houston or have Minnesota lose to the Giants. At best, it was a long shot (i.e. only having enough oil to burn in the menorah for one night when the oil needed to burn every night). Then a crazy thing happened in Week 17 (i.e. the eight night of Hanukkah). Michael Bush and the Raiders rolled over the Bucs and the Texans stampeded over the Bears during the early games. The stage was set for what was essentially a playoff game between the Eagles and Cowboys, with the winner claiming the #6 seed and the loser going home. Philly stepped up and played their most dominating game of the year and rolled to a 44-6 win.

Donovan McNabb and the offense looked energized. Andy Reid called a balanced offensive attack until the game was out of reach. While the offense was good, the defense was incredible. The Birds forced five turnovers (four fumble recoveries and an interception). Chris Clemons and Joselio Hanson returned both fumbles that were forced by Brian Dawkins for touchdowns. During the second and third quarters, the Eagles scored 41 unanswered points. Why the Eagles can’t play with that type of intensity every week, I have no idea. However, what I do know is that everything broke the right way for the Eagles, who had 25-1 odds of making the playoffs when the day started, and now they have a winnable road game against the Minnesota Vikings in the first round of the playoffs on Sunday (i.e. one night of oil burning for eight nights). Hopefully the Birds have more miracles left in them.

AFC Playoff teams:
1. South: Tennessee (Last Week’s Projection: Tennessee)
2. North: Pittsburgh (Last Week’s Projection: Pittsburgh)
3. East: Miami (Last Week’s Projection: Miami)
4. West: San Diego (Last Week’s Projection: San Diego)
5. Wild Card: Indianapolis (Last Week’s Projection: Indianapolis)
6. Wild Card: Baltimore (Last Week’s Projection: Baltimore)

NFC Playoff teams:
1. East: New York Giants (Last Week’s Projection: New York Giants)
2. South: Carolina (Last Week’s Projection: Atlanta)
3. North: Minnesota (Last Week’s Projection: Minnesota)
4. West: Arizona (Last Week’s Projection: Arizona)
5. Wild Card: Atlanta (Last Week’s Projection: Carolina)
6. Wild Card: Philadelphia (Last Week’s Projection: Dallas)