The Super Bowl is Set…

Now I don’t want to brag, but despite what many of the people who commented on Friday’s post thought of my picks, I correctly picked both games this past weekend (in your face David!!) But anyways, enough about my mad skills, here’s some of the things I took from each game.

The Colts – Jets game started exactly the way that I hoped it would.  Even though I picked the Colts to win I was cheering hard for the Jets, and after the touchdown pass to Dustin Keller put the Jets up 14-6, I found myself chanting “J-E-T-S, Jets Jets Jets.”   But the Jets made a huge mistake settling for a field goal after they recovered Addai’s fumble deep in Colts territory.  They needed to be more aggressive and make an attempt at getting in the endzone, or at least get a first down or 2 and take some time off the clock so Peyton Manning doesn’t have 2 and a half minutes left when he gets the ball back.  Instead they opt for a couple of of Run Turner-ish conservative and predictable runs and seemed happy with a field goal attempt.  Boo, that isn’t how you win playoff games on the road.

The Jets relied way too much on running the football.  Mark “The Dirty” Sanchez was playing pretty well.  He didn’t force any throws, was mobile in the pocket, accurate, and made good decisions all game.  He was their best offensive weapon in the game and they opted to keep the ball out of his hands as much as possible.  Boo, to win those types of games you have to put the ball in the hands of your quarterback, rookie or not, and the Jets chose not to.

Did the Jets defense have an off day or is Peyton Manning just that good?  I think its a little of both.  The Jets D played good at times.  They did a great job of taking Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark out of the game (which they had to do to have a shot at winning) but they too often missed assignments on Austin Collie and Pierre Garcon.  While they are solid NFL receivers who will only get better, they aren’t the all-pros Peyton Manning made them look like yesterday.  Give credit to Manning for find them when his other options were well covered.

The late game was the fun one.  What a game it was between the Saints and the Vikings.  The offenses dominated the first half, but the defenses were really what stood out most to me.  Both defenses were better than I expected.  While the Vikings put up a ton of yards, the Saints D did an outstanding job getting to Brett Favre.  They didn’t sack him, but its been a long time since Favre took a beating like that and you could tell the consistent pressure and the hits finally got to him towards the end of the game and probably affected the outcome.

The Vikings defense was outstanding as well.  Drew Brees threw 3 touchdown passes, but for the most part, was very average the entire game.  The Vikings did a good job of disguising coverages and getting enough pressure on Brees to really bother him all game.  Too bad their offense couldn’t hold on to the damn football.

I think Brad Childress is going to make sure Adrian Peterson spends the entire offseason with a football taped to his hands.  I know AP is an all-pro runningback and he led the league in touchdowns, but he sucks something fierce when it comes to holding on to the ball.  He had 3 of the 5 Viking fumbles in this game, and has most in the league since he turned pro, and it didn’t exactly take great defensive plays to get the ball out.  Although Favre was no better, 2 interceptions on 2 throws that should have never been made in the first place is a little disappointing for a guy as accomplished as Favre.  I think everyone expected better of him, I know I did.  But give credit to the Saints, I think those throws were a direct result of the pressure and hits they got on him all game.

In the event that this turns out being Brett Favre’s last game, I think he played outstanding and should have no regrets with that being his final game.  Yeah they lost and yes he threw 2 picks, including one that cost them a chance to win in regulation, but he took a pounding. At one point he had to be helped off the field and he looked like a beaten down man most of the game, but he never gave up and kept coming back in and making spectacular throw after spectacular throw with the defense right in his face waiting to plant him on his ass again.  The toughness he displayed throughout that entire game was vintage Favre and even though he lost, there is no shame in going out with the kind of game he played.

As great as the game was, the officiating was horrible.  I expected it to be bad because I really believe the NFL wanted a Manning-Favre Super Bowl, so I thought some calls would go the Vikings way, but some of what happened was ridiculous.  There were two personal fouls called on the Saints for legal hits on Favre.  Ironically enough, both of them happened on third down when the Saints defense held (hmmm).  The first one, Favre was a backside blocker on a reverse and got absolutely flattened by a Saint chasing the play.  Perfectly legal, especially when Favre was making a move to block the guy.  On the second one, Favre was hit AS HE RELEASED THE BALL and roughing was still called.  You know its a bad call when even Troy Aikman, a former quarterback, says he doesn’t agree with it.  I understand what Joe Buck was saying about lifting the QB in the air and driving him to the ground, but the same thing happened to Drew Brees in overtime and there was no call on that one, seems a little fishy to me.  Then there was the pass interference call on the Vikings in overtime.  Now I am glad the Saints won, but that call was a joke.  There was no contact at all, both players lost their footing while turning to look for the ball, not to mention it was 10 yards over their heads and in no way could have been caught.  Overall, it was a horrible game for the officials and I would be very surprised to see any of time officiating the Super Bowl.

In any case, this was an exciting weekend of football.  We saw Mark Sanchez prove that he can be a very good NFL quarterback, we may possibly have seen the last of Brett Favre (the annual “will he or won’t he” ritual has already begun), the Colts are back in the Super Bowl, and the Saint are there for the first time in their 43 year history.  Peyton Manning will try to add to his legacy while Drew Brees will try to prove he deserves to be mentioned with some of the all time greats.  The Colts look good right now.  With the emergence of Collie and Garcon they have too many weapons for a defense to contain, but I am going to spend some time analyzing and thinking about this one before I make my final predictions.