NFL Championship weekend

[Jedi Master Carr]

The road to the superbowl gets closer

3PM Sunday Janurary 20th

San Diego Chargers at New England Patriots

6:30 PM

NY Giants at Green Bay Packers

[Figrin D'an]

San Diego Chargers at New England Patriots (W)

Whether or not San Diego can make this a game will depend upon the health of their big name players. The Charger defense is much, much better than it was in the first part of the season when they visited Foxboro, and I do think they will have some success at putting pressure on Tom Brady. This will keep the Chargers in the game for a while, but if Rivers can't play and if Tomlinson isn't his normal self, it's not going to matter. The Chargers need long drives to control time of possession. They can't win a shootout. If New England has a weakness, it's their rush defense, but as Jacksonville found out, that really won't matter if New England gets a lead and can force an inexperienced quarterback to try to pass his team back into the game. It's a good game at half time, but the Pats win by a couple of touchdowns in the end.


New York Giants at Green Bay Packers (W)

The Giants come into this game with a lot of confidence. The question is whether or not, like San Diego, injuries will catch up to them. A secondary riddled with backups may have been able to handle Jeff Garcia and Tony Romo. Expecting them to handle Brett Favre is another matter entirely. The Giants must get pressure on Favre with four or five. If they can't get pressure, or have to bring six or seven on blitzes, the Packers passing attack will kill them. On the flip side, the Giants must establish the running game early and keep the down & distance manageable for Eli Manning. Eli has elevated his game a bit in the past few weeks, but he is not yet able to win a game by throwing the ball 40 times. Much like the Chargers, the Giants simply do not have the firepower to stay with Green Bay. Turnovers are the great equalizer of course, but unless the Giants get 2-3 of them and don't give up any themselves, Green Bay will sew things up in the second half. Favre has a good game and the Packers punch their ticket to Arizona.

[Yog]

San Diego Chargers at New England Patriots (W)

NY Giants at Green Bay Packers (W)

[Rutabaga]

San Diego Chargers (W) at New England Patriots (a girl can dream, can't she?)

NY Giants at Green Bay Packers (W)

[jjwr]

Pats and Packers.

Not my idea matchup for my Pats but I know they can take the Packers and if nothing else it should be a great game.

[Yog]

Pats and Packers.

Not my idea matchup for my Pats but I know they can take the Packers and if nothing else it should be a great game.

Does that mean you concede the swfans pickem victory to me? You are 3 games behind in the season total with 3 games to go. Come on, I know you want to pick the Chargers and the Giants.. ;)

[Miranda Tarkin]

I vote for ...

New England Patriots

and

Green Bay Packers

[Jedi Master Carr]

The Superbowl will be the New England Patriots vs the Green Bay Packers. We also have to factor weather in this. Who knows if either place will get snow, but early forecasts say that both places will be darn cold. GB might be under 0 during part of the game. Maybe we will have the second coming of the ice bowl.

[Liam Jinn]

Patriots and Packers

[Park Kraken]

San Diego Chargers and Green Bay Packers are my picks.

[jjwr]

Does that mean you concede the swfans pickem victory to me? You are 3 games behind in the season total with 3 games to go. Come on, I know you want to pick the Chargers and the Giants..

Sadly its all yours. I just can't pick against my Pats, even to try and win a pick'em :)

[Rutabaga]

San Diego Chargers and Green Bay Packers are my picks.

Thank you! :hug Now I don't feel so lonely.

[Aurelias Kazaar]

Pats and Pack

[Nathanial K'cansce]

Packers
Patriots.

[Yog]

The game is on! Goooooooo Chargers!!! :dance

[Yog]

The Chargers have been very effective at limiting Pats passing game so far, so now they ramped up the running game, and had a really good drive well into field goal range, until...

Brady intercepted, muahahaha..

Chargers only 2 points behind, 12-14, and now they have the ball.

[Figrin D'an]

Touchdowns beat field goals. San Diego will look back at this game and count probably 6-8 questionable red zone play calls and missed opportunities as the reason they lost this one. They got a great effort from their defense that ultimately ended up being wasted.

[Yog]

Yeah, it was a great effort, but it is all over now.

[Nathanial K'cansce]

...I'm stunned.

The wrong upset team won this weekend :(

[Karl Valten]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHhh

WHY?

























Yeah, as much as I idol the Packers, they didn't deserve to win anyway. Played like crap the entire game.

[Jedi Master Carr]

I didn't see the Giants winning that game. First the Packers had a poor game plan. Why didn't they run the ball more? Also Favre forced the ball a couple of times where he should haven't and those INT cost them. I also can't see the Giants beating the Patriots. Sure the Giants gave them a good 2.5 quarters of football but they got torn up in the second half. The Pats also had two offense lineman out in that game and that hurt them early in the game.

[Figrin D'an]

Green Bay's offense was inept the entire second half. Terrible play calling, and some really bad decisions by Favre. This looking nothing like the team that rolled up 13 wins in the regular season. The only reason the game got to overtime in because the Packer's defense made a few plays in key spots, and the Giants screwed up a few times.

Kudos to the Giants though. They played better for essentially the entire game, they deserved to win far more than Packers did.


Grats to New England on their impending perfect season. This is going to be a terrible Super Bowl... I can sense a blow out coming already.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Green Bay's offense was inept the entire second half. Terrible play calling, and some really bad decisions by Favre. This looking nothing like the team that rolled up 13 wins in the regular season. The only reason the game got to overtime in because the Packer's defense made a few plays in key spots, and the Giants screwed up a few times.

Kudos to the Giants though. They played better for essentially the entire game, they deserved to win far more than Packers did.


Grats to New England on their impending perfect season. This is going to be a terrible Super Bowl... I can sense a blow out coming already.

I agree I didn't get the playcalling. They should have ran the ball more. It was just strange. I am with you I see a blow out as well. I think it will end up being similar to Super Bowl 24.

[Yog]

If the Patriots did not get the Lombardi Trophy on a silver platter last week, they sure as heck got it this week. It feels like Giants got less than a 1% chance of upsetting the perfect season streak.

Congrats Patriots fans.

[Rutabaga]

It's just a shame that the Packers' season ended with a Favre interception. :(

[jjwr]

I think most would agree (whether they wanted to admit it or not) that there was about a 50% liklihood their season would end on an interception :)

Kind of sad he's getting almost no flack for such a poor game.

[Yog]

Kind of sad he's getting almost no flack for such a poor game.

I guess it's because without Favre, I seriously doubt the Packers would have gotten so far this season. This in contrast with the season before which was a disaster. 13-3 is so much better than the 8-8.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Kind of sad he's getting almost no flack for such a poor game.

I guess it's because without Favre, I seriously doubt the Packers would have gotten so far this season. This in contrast with the season before which was a disaster. 13-3 is so much better than the 8-8.

I think Favre's bad game is ignored by critics because of his past results. I also don't think it was just Favre though. The Packers had a really bad game plan. Not sure why they didn't try to run the ball? Experts say the Giants stopped them but really they ran the ball like 10 times or something. You have to try more than that.

[Jedi Master Carr]

sorry so late, things were hectic and I forgot

Championship Weekend
Miranda Tarkin: 1-1 (7-3)
Aurelias Kazaar: 1-1 (6-4)
Nathanial K'cansce: 1-1 (7-3)
jjwr: 1-1 (6-4)
Rutabaga: 0-2 (4-6)
Jedi Master Carr: 1-1 (5-5)
Yog: 1-1 (6-4)
Liam Jinn 1-1 (7-3)
Figrin D'an 1-1 (7-3)
Park Kracken 0-2 (3-7)



Season Totals through week championship weekend
Yog (184-82)
jjwr (181-85)
Nathanial K'cansce (176-90)
Jedi Master Carr (171-95)
Aurelias Kazaar (166-100)
Kale (162-94)
Liam Jinn (160-90)
Miranda Tarkin (160-106)
Rutabaga (159-107)
Jedieb (150-80)
Park Kraken (147-96)
Ryan Pode (86-81)
JMK (84-46)
Lilaena De'Ville (62-38)

As always check your picks.

I am going to put the Superbowl thread up tomorrow.