[Rob Instigator]

suchfriends, don't try and confuse me with your liberal biblicisms

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Bill Simmons had me laughing my ass off at my dream Superbowl if it both my teams, the Falcons and Ravens were to meet. He called it the indecisive Superbowl

That got me thinking … how crazy would an Atlanta-Baltimore Super Bowl be? And what would happen in that game? How could both teams execute the "I'm going to let you hang around and eventually cobble together just enough decent football to eke out a victory that leaves our fans simultaneously excited and unimpressed" game plan to perfection when they're playing each other? Would we be headed for multiple overtimes? Would the game just keep going indefinitely while one team waited for the other team to screw up and gift-wrap them a win? Would we be sitting there for two or three days? If we get a Falcons-Ravens Super Bowl, I'm changing my travel plans to leave on the Wednesday after the game just to be safe.

It really could last several days of back and forth moments of sheer brilliance blended with overall mediocrity. Sounds like Atlanta or Baltimore football to me

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

RG3 is this year's Lin Tebow

[Bytor Peltor]

The day afer: when 11 wins feels like 2 and 2 loses feels like 11

 

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Nonsense. Texans are still solidly contending for the second if not first seed in the AFC. In truth Atlanta has more of that feeling, but even for my Falcons, we got a solid chance at the first seed. Texans are climbing the ladder at a steady pace, and their year will come soon enough. I sense a regime change in the coming seasons where the 2008 class will begin to mature towards the Superbowl.

[Bytor Peltor]

Notice how I said, "feels like." The Texans are the envy of the AFC and as a fan, I wouldn't want to change places with anyone! However, the simple NFL truth is......the Texans that played the first nine games of the season IS NOT the same Texans team that played the last four games. Injurys to the secondary is taking it's toll, but a first round bye will be something to look forward to.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

But that is the NFL. Mid-November through December is when the REAL season begins. Teams with a soft schedule start facing more difficult opponents, and those teams which were slumping to get into rhythm in the beginning really pick up steam and even can steamroll over other really good teams. For example the Broncos and Colts are exploding, at a time when the Ravens and Falcons are slipping. In September it was the opposite, Ravens and Falcons were eating good teams for breakfast and Broncos had noodle arm version of Peyton instead of this TD scoring beast in orange playing now. The real season is in December, and the real post-season is at the Conference games.

My prediction still stands..

I would have had Broncos-Niners until Harbaugh dissed a more veteran Alex Smith for a flavor of the month which I predict will be disastrous come the play-offs. I now say its is Broncos- *sigh* Packers

NFC Conference will be

Giants-Packers

AFC Conference will be

Broncos-Patriots

The Patriots will have again beat Baltimore and the Broncos will vanquish the over-achieving Texans, and the Packers will crush the cocky Ninerz while the Giants will throw miracle pass after miracle pass to dish out the Falcon's first loss in the Conference Game after getting their first win in the Smith-Ryan era in the Divisional series...

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Rob. After a weird mid-season Nick Cage John Travolta Face Off kind of switch, the Texans and Ravens are looking back like their old selves. Baltimore was slipping so bad they looked like they might not make the play-offs, and Houston was rising so fast they looked like they could win it all. Now that reality has set back in, I stand by my original post-season predictions:

Ravens will play the Texans, and will win that game. Ravens will then go on to lose to the Broncos in the AFC Conference Game. Broncos will go to the Superbowl. As to the NFC, I originally had the Ninerz as a Superbowl contender, but that was with Alex Smith's methodical, small pass with great running Westcoast offense. With Kaepernick making such riskier plays and his inexperience at playing in high-level games, Ninerz will choke in the Divisional Game against the Falcons and interestingly, I hate to even jinx it, but it looks like Atlanta could seriously dance their way to the Superbowl this year.

I have then two scenarios for the NFC, but my AFC predictions remain firm.

AFC=

Houston-Baltimore for the Divisional.
New England-Denver for the Divisional.

Baltimore-Denver for the AFC Championship

Broncos to the Superbowl.

NFC:

Ninerz-Falcons in the Divisional.
Packers-Seattle in the Divisional.

Falcons-Packers in the NFC Championship.

Falcons to the Superbowl to meet the Broncos in New Orleans.

The real question is, who the fuck wins it all?

If there is any readjustment to this list, I'd say that Falcons could lose to the Packers at the NFC game and it could be Packers-Broncos. Either way, *sigh* I think Peyton is a sure bet to get that far. After all, the Broncos ALMOST made it that way with Tim Tebow, I can only imagine what they can do with a truly elite QB. Further, Falcons really had our chances, our consolation prize is that all of our Smith-Ryan era play-off loses have been to the teams that won it all, so its not like ANYONE beat the Packers or the Giants in the play-offs, and the year we loss to the Cards was Ryan's rookie year and Arizona made it the Bowl so they also almost went undefeated. I think this can be our year now that the offense trusts Matty Ice with the ball to throw it deep when it counts.

[Bytor Peltor]

It's halftime and the Texans have a two point lead. The Texans have dominated in yards and time of possession, but have been held to FG's. Cincinnati's only TD was a pick six. Have a sick feeling about the Texans chances in the 2nd half, but feeling pretty confident about my UNDER 43.5 wager : )

This morning I was looking for Minnesota to pull the upset......but I wake up to find the line has moved from GB - 7 to -10 and there is some concern who will start at QB for Minn......not sure what to think about that game now???

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

that was a great game. Bengals defense established them as an AFC North team of the future with both Steelers and Ravens declining, and Houston gets to advance for the second consecutive season. Everybody wins. Even if Vikings lose tonight, they were 3 win team last season, just making the playoffs is good enough. Hope my Ravens can do it tomorrow. As to Falcons, we're looking like we got to face the Seahawks. Damn. Who the fuck wants to play them? Their like the Memphis Grizzlies of football!

[Bytor Peltor]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

that was a great game. Bengals defense established them as an AFC North team of the future with both Steelers and Ravens declining, and Houston gets to advance for the second consecutive season. Everybody wins.

The Texans defense never trailed and their defense held the Bengals offence to two field goals. The Texans offence dominated the yardage and time of possession, but the offence was almost a total failure in scoring TD's. Dominating yardage and time of possession is the formula to winning in New England next week......settling for FG's is not!

I believe your Ravens will dominate the smoke and mirror Colts. Unless Flaco has multiple turnovers, I don't see the game being close!

Looking forward to Seattle vs. Washington......Seattle should win.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor

The Texans never trailed and their defense held the Bengals offence to two field goals. The Texans offence dominated the yardage and time of possession, but the offence was almost a total failure in scoring TD's. Dominating yardage and time of possession is the formula to winning in New England next week......settling for FG's is not!

I believe your Ravens will dominate the smoke and mirror Colts. Unless Flaco has multiple turnovers, I don't see the game being close!

Looking forward to Seattle vs. Washington......Seattle should win.

Oh, its not the Colts I'm worried about, its the Patriots or Broncos or whoever in the NFC we'd have to face even if we made it to the Superbowl

Seattle scares me for my Falcons sake. As to the Bengals defense, they shutdown Houston to only 19 points, kept is as a 1 possession game, and managed to choke out Texans to a lot of field goals and punts, I'd say their defense came through fantastically.

[!@#$%!]

im trying to watch the racistnames/seahawks game and all i get is a bunch of commercials-- fuck! nonstop bullshit. SHOW MORE GAME FUCKERS. anyway, go *cough* red *cough* skins *cough* !

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

im trying to watch the racistnames/seahawks game and all i get is a bunch of commercials-- fuck! nonstop bullshit. SHOW MORE GAME FUCKERS. anyway, go *cough* red *cough* skins *cough* !

Football is a drinking and hanging out with people kind of sport. Lots of commercial breaks so you can kick it, and lots of great replay coverage so that you can pay in and out of attention to the game without missing anything. Redskins and Colts are tied for this years' Cinderella story, but I am hoping that Washington can do it, because to be honest, as a Falcons fan I am very scared of facing Seattle next week. They are a perfect team, sick offense that can score 50-plus and yet shut-out, smashmouth defense that don't take no shit even on the road. Falcons defense can contain Seattle, but their D will kill our offense. As to Redskins, we can take em.

 

The highlight for today will always be Ray Lewis' final dance in Baltimore. Truly the end of an era, I've been watching Ray Lewis eat up NFL offenses since I was in middle school yo! Wow. And he STILL had 13 bad ass tackles in his first game back in 10 games with what is usually a season ending injury (tricep tear).. Ravens may not be the best team in football, but we are the dagger which breaks the play-off hearts of many Cinderellas of the past decade, which is a consolation prize enough for Ravens fans. Full disclosure: I follow two teams in NFL, the Ravens in the AFC and the Falcons in the NFC.

[Bytor Peltor]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

 

The highlight for today will always be Ray Lewis' final dance in Baltimore. Truly the end of an era,

I listened to the first three & half quarters on the radio and watched the final minutes on TV. Heck of a game today by Baltimore followed by that dance......it's a rare thing for a player of that caliber to experience a send off such as that. What made it all the more special is Ray acknowledged and appreciated it!

Sure hope to see the Ravens play at Houston two weeks from today : )

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

 

I rushed home from Mass to see this game, and I was not disappointed in any way. It was the first 10Am/1pm game I've seen all season. Ray said it best, I would have changed nothing, both in this game, and in his career. Houston, we would definitely rather see you than Patriots, it will be a pleasure.

As to the Seahawks, they earned it this season, so for my Falcons, now we got to earn ourz next week.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Football is a drinking and hanging out with people kind of sport.

yeah, i was trying to catch a break from work and it fucked me up.

plus, the skins lost. bah!

[Bytor Peltor]

The four AFC teams remaining this year all played this coming weekend last year (each home team won)

Houston at Baltimore

Denever at New England

[Rob Instigator]

I am very excited. Great slate of games this past weekend. Wild card and the first divisional round (next week) are my favorite football weekends of the year.

Did you see the JOY in Arian Foster's face when he got that last first down to ice the game against the Bengals? awesome to see. 140 yards against a tough tough D. The Bengals are gonna be very good for years to come. The Bulls on parade messed up the Bengals Offense though. If it wasn't for that pick-6 by Schaub (who worries me as he looks like he may be injured and they are not telling us. he is missing the ooomph on his throws he had a month ago,) the game would have been a blow out. The Texans SHOULD have won that game like 32-6.

The Pack did what the Pack does. Aaron Rodgers is a great QB. Jennthebenn roots for Minnesota I think, so she must have been upset.

Yesterday's games were great too. I hate the Colts, so fuck them and good one to the Ravens. (andrew luck is the real deal though)
I have always liked the Ravens and Ed Reed is one of my all-time fave players. It was great to watch ray Lewis go to town.

The Redskins looked like they had the game in hand early, but the Seahawks adjust on defense better than almost anyone. Monster game for the hawks. Their rook QB is a FREAk, did you see him haul ass sprinting to go and make blocks for Marshawn "The Monster" Lynch? I always like the chaotic way Lynch runs the ball. he hurts defenders.

RGIII getting hurt again really cost the skins. If he or the skins are not careful RGIII may not last more than one or two more seasons.

Now, the real test begins. Tom Brady and Bill "win by all means, including cheating" Bellicheck have had 2 weeks to prepare for the Texans. Field Goals are not gonna do it against the Pats. I yelled at Kubiak to go for it on 4th down a couple of times. You gotta play to win. You see the Pack , go for it early, while ahead, on 4th down and just drive a stake through the hearts of Minnesota? That is ho you play to win KUBIAK!!!!!

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

RG3 has to learn the Dwyane Wade rule. If you are going to be an athletic freak of nature and jump and leap around all crazy throwing your body around at every singly play for the ball, inevitably you will get hurt. Michael Vick learned it. Derrick Rose learned it.

Its time for my Falcons to man up this weekend. We can beat Seattle, but they won't make it easy at all for us. Ravens, we can take Denver, but we really really really have to stay focused and play perfect football. If we lose, we can still be happy, because we got so banged up this season that it was almost a total loss. Bengals can be happy even with a loss, they have two consecutive play-off berths since 1981 and with the 6th best overall defense and Pittsburgh and Baltimore inching into decline, Bengals can be the new sleeper in the AFC. Colts and Vikings can also be ecstatic about their season, they went from 2 and 3 wins last season to the play-offs with swagger. Just when the AFC thought that Colts would stop being a threat, poor Rob. Same thing with Redskins, they haven't been in playoffs for a long time, their franchise is thoroughly revived. Overall, its been a great year for the NFL, so much so that we've all forgotten about those shitty lock-out refz (well everybody but GreenBay )