Today's thoughts

Wildcard weekend
I got 3 out of 4 in my predictions and strangely enough it had nothing to do with Tebow.  I picked the Broncos to win and win they did.  What a finish!  Congratulations to the the Bronco's for the playoffs first upset win. 

The impression I had in the Broncos-Steelers game was that the Steelers' defense didn't prepare for any kind of passing offense for the Broncos.  They pretty much went with the "I dare you to throw" defense and they got burned for it time and time again.  As a co-worker pointed out, the safeties cheated throughout the game trying to cover the run so the Broncos dealt with one-on-one matchups, which were easily picked apart. 

A lot of focus will go on Tebow's performance but the reality is this game was won by great coaching.  Dare I say it -- Mike Tomlin was flat out out-coached by John Fox.. which is actually kind of sad.

The Saints are playing better than I could have imagined.  They went for it on 4th down over and over and converted them.  Their running game was dominant -- Detroit could not tackle their runners, I was particularly impressed with Pierre Thomas.  Their matchup with the Lions ended up being more of a blowout than a shootout.  The Lions played great in the beginning but the mistakes started to pile up and the Saints played perfect.  I suspect the Lions would be entirely different if they had a decent running game -- i.e: a healthy Jahvid Best.  It's remarkable that Matthew Stafford is only 23 -- Detroit has a bright future ahead of them.

The Falcons' coach Mike Smith watched the Saints game and mistakenly thought his team was just as good.  Twice they tried to convert 4th downs and were stopped cold.  There wasn't even any creativity in their 4th down tries.. one of them had Matt Ryan trying to back his way through the pile.  That's not going to work!  Look at the way Brees jumped the pile with his arms stretched forward -- that's how you do it!  Meanwhile, as I mentioned in my previous post, the Giants' rushing offense is far better than what everyone thought.  Bradshaw and Jacobs carved up the Falcons D and led the way, and Eli played solid mistake-less football.

The Bungles were the only team to disappoint me.  I really thought they could take down the injured Texans, but they didn't.  It was pretty boring game, I didn't really pay much attention to it.