Championship Week Thoughts

In no particular order:

I loved watching the snow and muck fall in Chicago. It's what the mind conjures up when you think "playoff football". Fast forward to Indy in the sterile dome.......exactly.......football should not be played in a dome.

It always amazes me that whenever the Bears play, if there is a ball on the carpet, a Bear will recover. That's not luck, that's good coaching.

The Patriots secondary is outstanding. I don't think I've ever seen so many passes defensed in a single game - all the same way as well - a big mitt right between the hands of the receivers.

Another thing that is pretty impressive is the fact that Brady is out there whizzing passes to two guys like Caldwell and Gaffney. Remember Marino's receivers after the Marks Brothers? Neither does anybody else. He is out there dueling with Peyton Manning who has a first ballot Hall-Of-Famer in Harrison, Reggie Wayne and an outstanding TE in Dallas Clark. It's almost like a gunfight where one man is armed with a Beretta 9mm and the other has an old board with a rusty nail stuck in it.

Phil Simms can be good, but he can be very bad as well. I could not believe he made the statement he made at the beginning of the game. He was liking the fact that Brady was throwing on first down and said the Patriots didn't want to make the same mistake as KC and the Ravens did....running the ball too much because of Indy's lack of run defense. What?! The Ravens ran the ball with a RB 17 times. Do these guys do their homework at all? Should Joe Schmoe sitting on his couch be able to say "that's bullshit" 3 times during a game when these guys are getting paid tons of money to just talk about football?

The stats they were showing on Manning's regular season prowess (.4 picks per game) vs. his playoff failures (2.4 per game) were amazing. It's almost hard to comprehend. I just remember the Colts killing the Steelers in the regular season last year and then physically being outmatched in the playoff game when they had Peyton on his back the entire game.

I'm happy for Tony Dungy. As an ex-Steeler player and coach and pretty good human being - I'm truly happy for him.

I wish to God Manning's people would talk to him and suggest that perhaps he take it easy on the endorsements. I've already talked about it, but geez it's tough sitting through all those commercials.

How about Eli's reaction to the one TD? Stoic would describe it perfectly - but then again he always looks stoned to me. I wonder if he's really happy for his brother, or secretly wishes it was him?

Drew Brees picked a bad week to have his worst game of the season. I feel bad for him as I genuinely like him as well. Where was Deuce McAllister in this game and why didn't they try to get him off earlier?

At least the Steelers 4 Super Bowls in 6 years won't be matched for at least another 6 years.

Reche Caldwell probably cost his team a trip to the Super Bowl. Now...in true Belichick fashion...will he be back next year? I can see Bill cutting him.

Steelers Playoff Scenarios

Wow. Still A. Oregon hooked me up today. Thanks, man. I was going to compute all of this out after talking with the Dog via email yesterday as he didn't pay much attention to the other 7-7 teams. The work was done for me and I'm glad to share. It's not impossible. I put our chances right at 10%. If we can just get Jax to implode! Here is what will get us back to the playoffs, and trust me - the way they're playing - not many teams will be happy to see them. especially the #3 seed who will get them first. I still think the hardest part of this is us winning out. If we don't make it, I hope it's because we're 8-8. I don't want to sit home because of a tie-breaker.

• Steelers (7-7) need to win out to finish 9-7.
• Cin (8-6) lose to Den and Pit to finish 8-8. steelers would lose tie breaker to cin at 9-7 based on conference record.
• Den therefore get 1st wild card based on finishing 9-7 or 10-6 and beating steelers on conference record tie breaker.
• Jax (8-6) lose to NE and KC to finish 8-8. steelers would lose tie breaker to jax due to head-to-head record.
• NYJ (8-6) lose to Mia and / or Oak to finish 9-7 or 8-8. steelers would win tie breaker based on record against common opponents (jax, cle, mia, and oak).
• TEN (7-7) remaining games against Buf and NE. steelers would win tie breaker based on record against common opponents (sd, mia, jax, and bal) so doesn't matter what happens.
• BUF (7-7) lose to Ten and / or Bal to finish 8-8 or 7-9. steelers would lose tie breaker to buf based on conference record.
• KC (7-7) remaining games against Oak and Jax. steelers would win tie breaker but we need KC to beat Jax last weekend.
• Week 16:
• Here's what is absolutely necessary this week to remain alive... wins by Pit (Bal), Den (Cin), NE (Jax).
• Here is what we would like from the rest for this week... wins by Mia (NYJ), Ten (Buf).
• Week 17:
• If still alive we'll need wins by Pit (Cin), KC (Jax) and losses by NYJ and Buf if they win in week 16.

Steeler Playoff Hopes Dim and Dimmer

Well, with three games remaining, the bengals and Jax are 8-5 while the Jets, Chiefs and Broncos are 7-6. Can you believe if we had the game back against the Raiders - we'd be in superb position to sneak back into the playoffs and potentially make noise again. It sounds conceited to say it - but I think the Steelers as a non-playoff team would have a better chance at winning the Super Bowl than most of the NFC teams in the playoffs and a few of the AFC teams as well....if they are playing the way they've played the last 3-4 weeks. It's too crazy to try and list the possibilities here, so I'm going to wait one more week to see if they win. If they do, I'll lay out some scenarios that could still get them in - but basically, they need the Bengals to lose 2 (and they play Indy and us) to have a real shot. The bigger problem is us winning our remaining three games. I think Denver will not end up 9-7 and we have the tie-breaker with the Chiefs. So, I'm not sure of the tie-breaker with the Jets, so it's hard to tell about them right now. They have the easiest schedule remaining, but I don't think anyone fears the Jets so we'll see what happens. Right now, I put our chances of making the playoffs at 3%. If they win this week and the Bengals, Jax, Jets, Broncos and Chiefs lose....I'll upgrade it to 10% for the remaining two weeks. I hope this doesn't get like their last 9-7 season when we had to wait until the end of the day on Sunday to find out we weren't going because the Vikings couldn't beat somebody (don't remember who).