Alright the first round of the NFL playoffs are over. In the AFC I was rooting for the Jags over the Steelers and the Titans over San Diego. In the NFC I honestly did not care who won or who lost. Who was playing again? Seattle, New York, Tampa Bay and.. Seriously, who did Seattle play? Oh yeah the Redskins. Yes, I really did have to check. As you can see I've had zero interest in the goings on over in the NFC this past season. It's all about Dallas and Green Bay in that conference anyway, so whatever.
In the AFC, The Jags got the upset over the Steelers that I was expecting, but The Titans could not get it done against San Diego. Going into the Titans / Chargers game, I didn't really feel like the Titans had a shot, but San Diego has become my NFL hate binky so I was really rooting for the Chargers to go down in defeat in front of their home crowd. It would have been interesting to hear the tirade of bitching and excuses that would have assuredly been spewing from the Chargers locker-room had they lost the game today. Oh well, next week they're in Indy so expect to hear it then.. It's going to be hard to know who to root against in that game since I hate both teams almost equally.. Hmmm. That will require some thought.
So this Saturday night The Patriots will face Jacksonville in the Divisional Round, the first of what will hopefully be Three More Games to Glory for The Pats.. For The Patriots to move on they are going to have to earn it this weekend. The Jags are a lower seed but I think they are probably the toughest of the three teams The Pats could have potentially faced (Steelers, Jags, Titans). They have a good running game, a good defense and a QB who can get the job done with his arm or his legs. They play in what is arguably the toughest division in the AFC so they are used to facing quality teams on an almost weekly basis.
Do the Jags have what it takes to hang with the Pats for 60 min though? That remains to be seen. Although the Jags are certainly a very good team, if The Pats can get a decent number of points, 10, 13, 17, up on them early on I think it will be hard for The Jags to keep up the scoring pace that The Patriots are capable of. Of course that could be said about just about any team in any game once they get that kind of lead..
I'm not going to waste any time or energy trying to guess or predict what will or will not happen in the game on Saturday. In fact, just talking about this topic makes me nervous... I was listening to Boston sports radio station WEEI the other day (My iPod battery died and I decided to try and listen to what they were saying. As usual it was hard to make anything out as the hosts and the callers tried to shout over each other..) Most of the callers were so ridiculously over-confident in The Pats, they were already talking about the off-season. It was ridiculous. I am not one of those people. I am fully aware of the fact that The Football Gods have a way of punishing the over-confident. They are vindictive like that.
Thankfully I know that there is no one in the Patriots locker room that is expecting to just show up and win on Saturday. With a bye this past weekend, The Pats worked on their own team during the break to try and fine tune their game. The benefit of an extra week off while their opponent had to play a grueling playoff game will hopefully pay off this Saturday. Until then, I'll be ignoring the hype and working on generating the best positive football karma that I possibly can.
GO PATS
