Week 18, In Which We All Revel In The Spectacle That Is The Playoffs

Well, friends, we apologize for the down time. We know how much you’ve all been counting on us to provide the NFL commentary that we are known so well for…

While we hate to resort to weak excuses (and we think this is a surprisingly bold statement for us to make considering how frequently we resort to weak excuses), the one-two-three combo of vacation, illness, and unexpected workloads at The Day Job have had a significant impact on our ability to craft our weekly diatribe.

We’ve had colds and flus before, but we’ve never been so ill that our chills have made it nearly impossible to change the channel on our TV because our hands were shaking so hard that they couldn’t hit the keys on the remote… For a moment or two on Christmas Day, we found ourselves wishing that it weren’t Christmas so that we could find a minor medical emergency clinic open…

And it’s sad because, in our fevered dreams, we had drafted a rather eloquent argument that any so-called “expert” who uses the word “clinch” to refer to a playoff scenario that is only realized after the season is over should be disemboweled. You can “clinch” playoff spots only when there are games remaining. At the end of the season, you don’t “clinch”—you “earn” or “win.” The Kansas City Chiefs, for example, did not “clinch” a playoff spot with their last victory of the season. The technically correct term is “fell ass-backward into the playoffs.”

(This “clinch” thing irritates us almost as much as the rampant use of the non-word “untracked” and virtually everything that comes out of the festering piehole of Tony Kornheiser.)

And now, on to the games…

Kansas City @ Indianapolis: While we were touched by the story on the pregame show about the friendship shared by Tony Dungy and Herm Edwards, we were still hoping that somehow, some way, Herm’s Chiefs would find a way to skunk the Colts. We can’t help but think that a quick exit from the playoffs would go a long way toward killing Peyton Manning’s commercial career, an event we wish for with near religious fervor. Sadly, it was not meant to be, as the Chiefs offense was completely absent on Saturday. We’ve seen a lot of poor performances in the playoffs (remember—we are old Houston Oilers fans), but we don’t think we’ve ever seen an offense play as poorly in a playoff game as the Chiefs did on Saturday.

OK, so yeah, we can think of other games that were as bad. (Marino’s swan song as a Dolphin, for example…) But still, our point remains. Chiefs offense? Very disappointing, friends.

Dallas @ Seattle: So much for Tony Romo Fairy Dust… We were rooting for the Seahawks in this game, and while we were hoping for a blowout (anything to help stamp out the cancer that is Terrell Owens), we will take what we can get.

In all seriousness, this game was quite exciting. It’s rare to see such an important game come down to such a boneheaded error. Like most fans, we tend to think that field goals are automatic, at least from such a short distance. On every kick, though, there are so many things that have to go right, and it’s rather impressive when you stop and think about it that “routine” field goals can ever be thought of as “routine.” So, thank you, Tony Romo, for reintroducing us to the wonder of a well-executed play.

Commercial Break: First, who’s bright idea was it to compare Jeep Wranglers to insects? You know the spots we mean, where Jeeps are seen from above, and the surfboards and kayaks tied to their tops make them look like insects. Large gorillas try to eat them, hawks are fooled into trying to catch them, we see them driving into and out of what looks like a large termite mound… Does any of this make you want to buy a Jeep? And be, if we complete the metaphor, a bug’s guts? This does not appeal to us at all.

We are glad, however, that Coors Light has moved on to other coaches for their press conference spots. We think the ad featuring Mike Ditka is strong (a lot of good material there in Ditka’s conferences!), but the spot featuring Jim Mora (“Playoffs?!?”) got really, really old really, really quickly. We can only hope that it falls out of the rotation just as quickly…

And oh, for the sweet love of humanity, we now have to endure promos for American Idol? Criminy…

New York Jets @ New England: Didn’t you just love the coach meeting at the end of the game? When Belichick angrily pushed the cameramen out of his way so that he could hug Mangini? Was this the face of a man who just won a playoff game by a huge margin? We think that, just perhaps, Belichick might be close to a breakdown.

And for a moment there, we thought the Jets might actually pull out a shocker victory. We even toyed with the idea of publicly repudiating our tendency to mock Mangini. We were preparing to publicly proclaim Mr Mangini to be off-limits for age jokes, at least until the middle of next season… And then the Jets lost control.

So, while the team we were rooting for lost, at least we can still make fun of Eric “Two Cheese” Mangini, the amazing boy-genius coach of the NFL…

New York Giants @ Philadelphia: Personally, we were hoping that the Giants would be creamed. We wanted to see them shattered, broken… We were even hoping for some weeping. Anything that would lead to the Giants seeing the errors of their ways and firing the Evil One. But hey, we’ll take the last minute field goal victory, and we’ll just have to find a way to hang on to our slim, slim hopes that Coughlin will be fired anyway.

And, while we will miss Tiki Barber, we are surprised that there are some who think he might be Hall of Fame material. On what are they basing this judgment, the last three years when he’s been a decent runner, or the many, many years before that when he was a mediocre back whose greatest strength was fumbling at inopportune times? We respect Mr Barber, and as we said above, we’ll miss him next season (assuming he does indeed retire as he says he will), but Hall of Fame? We laugh at the possibility.