Essentially what happened yesterday was that both teams that were supposed to win both won in convincing fashion. The Green Bay Packers started out the game down 14-0 behind two early Ryan Grant fumbles and the New England Patriots gave up a touchdown on the game's initial drive to go down 7-0 behind a miraculous TD toss (while in the act of being sacked) from David Garrard. Both teams faced early adversity often and persevered. It had a lot to do with the fact the the quarterbacks of both the Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots (Brett Favre and Tom Brady respectively) are among the greatest postseason performers in NFL history and they have great support on both defense and offense.
The Green Bay Packers had the perfect scenario in place to play a playoff game in Lambeau Field. The icy cold tundra was in full effect mode like Al B. Sure (minus the curly hair, unibrow, leather vest and uncomfortably tight pants) and it looked like the Pack was gonna stop Seattle. After the Seattle jumped up to the 14-0 lead I said "If they don't get the lead out to 21-0, they're still gonna lose". Sure enough, Brett Favre marched his squad right on down the field and hit pay dirt to make it 14-7 off of an improvised pass play to Greg Jennings. After Seattle failed to get anything going, Brett marched the squad down the field with the help of black superhero Ryan Grant. He overcame his previous obstacles (read: the Seahawk defense) and punched it in to tie the game at 14-14.
In the second quarter, Favre once again hit Gregg Jennings in the end zone to give the Pack the lead 21-14. The Seahawks drove down the field but failed to get a tying score so the settled for a FG to make it 21-17. Ryan Grant then decided to go Super Saiyan on the Seahawks collective ass and ran like both the IRS and KKK were chasing him. He eventually took it to the house to make the score 28-17 before halftime. As far as I was concerned the game was already over.
The snow began to accumulate and pretty soon you couldn't even see the field...perfect! The combination of the passing game and the reinvigorated running attack eventually led to 42-20 asskicking. The Green Bay Packers will now face the winner of today's contest against the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants. This game is a veritable Choose Your Own Path Dungeons & Dragons children's book in my opinion. Which teams will show up? Will Eli play like Peyton...or Eli? Will Tony Romo be regular season Tony Romo or that Tony Romo that couldn't complete a pass unless it was made at Jessica Simpson (why is her dad always around)?
The late game was a game I was waiting on for weeks. The Patriots in Gillette Stadium versus anyone. Last night the "anyone" was the Jacksonville Jaguars. I heard NFL handicappers and analysts all saying that the Patriots were gonna lose because they wouldn't be able to stop the Jags tandem of running backs, Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew.
The Patriots are notorious for stuffing great running teams rushing attacks so I wasn't concerned. The Jags were gonna throw the ball...this season some okay quarterbacks have had great games throwing versus the Pats D. However, they've all turned the ball over at a crucial time which ended up costing them the game. All the Pats needed was a turnover. I couldn't wait for the game to start.
The Jags got the ball first and drove 80 yards down the field by getting big plays and converting a tough 4th down along the way before coming away with a miraculous TD grab on the game's initial drive. The Patriots were actually behind in a game. They didn't care, it was just time to go to work. The Patriots took their time and took what the defense gave as Tom Brady picked apart the Jags defense like a nagging girlfriend does to a man's (or a lesbian's) self esteem. They even mixed in the run by running Maroney and Faulk up the gaps caused by the defenses used by the Jags to contain Moss and not give up the big play. Eventually, the Pats ended up in the end zone and Benjamin Watson was holding the football. 7-7.
The New England defense did their job and forced a turnover via a Garrard fumble and the Patriots were back in business. Laurence Maroney took it to the house and the Patriots had a 14-7 lead. This lead was made all the more important because the Jaguars usually had the put together long drives to score since they couldn't break big runs due to the Patriots defense and they would have to kick the ball off to the Patriots to start the second half. If they Jags went down by more than a touchdown and had to abandon the running game and throw, it would put them in position to turn the ball over again.
Once again, Jacksonville converted tough 3rd downs time and time again. They hung tough and eventually scored another touchdown on a 95 yard drive capped off by another amazing pass from David Garrard. No problem, all the Patriots need to do was score before the half and then score again with the first possession of the second half and the Jags would be in jeopardy since they had no hurry up offense...Until the Patriots came down the field and Gostkowski missed the goddamn field goal! The half ended 14-14 and the Patriots needed to play "I get a touchdown, you get a..." for another quarter.
The Patriots got the ball to start out the second half and stuck to their game plan of running and screening into the gaps left by the defensive backs while Randy Moss was an effective blocking wide receiver. Then something amazing happened...Tom Brady threw an incompletion. Oh wait, did I fail to mention that Tom Brady didn't throw an incomplete pass until 5 minutes had gone in the 3rd quarter and hit his first 16 passes in a row? It's not important, anyways because the Patriots weren't winning the game yet.
The Patriots marched down the field and Tom Brady hit Wes Welker with a touchdown pass to make the game 21-14. The Patriots defense dug in and sent pressure Garrard's way, this forced the Jags to settle for a FG. The score was now 21-17 and all the Patriots had to do was get a touchdown and the game would be theirs. Seeing that Randy Moss was being guarded the same way all game but the other side was open, Brady tossed it up the Donte Stallworth and he pulled down a 53 yard pass play that came a shoestring tackle away from being a quick six. The Jags had given up the big play anyways. Damn, these guys are good!
Tom Brady did some sleight of hand trickery and hit Ben Watson for a 9 yard TD pass to push the lead to 28-17. The Jaguars were in deep shit now and they knew it. They had to score quickly and often. To make it worse, the Jacksonville defense hadn't once stopped the Patriots and capitalized off of it. They needed to get into a hurry up style offense and score a touchdown desperately. The Patriots defense was in a groove now and held them to yet another FG to make it 20-28 with 9:44 left in the game. Once more score would all put put the game out of reach for the Patriots and put them in their 5th AFC Championship game in 7 years.The Pats marched down the field and tacked on a huge Gostkowski field goal with 6:39 left to go in the game to make it 31-20. The Patriots were able to stuff the Jacksonville run defense and stop David Garrard (although Rodney Harrison kept giving them second chances) after Rodney Harrison did what he normally does and intercepted yet another ball in yet another big game.
The Patriots won the game to tie the 17-0 mark previously only held by the 1972 Miami Dolphins (Mercury Morris is shittin' his pants right now!) and Tom Brady set an NFL single game record by going 26-28 for a 93% completion rating. I can't even do that on Tecmo Super Bowl! The Patriots are waiting to play the winner of the Indianapolis Colts/San Diego Chargers game today. At the typing of this blog, the Colts are up 7-0 and San Diego is driving after Marvin Harrison coughed the ball up.
I didn't wanna say I told ya so but I told ya so. Who's next to catch a bad one, son?
One.
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