Dart Adams presents The Wild Card Report Day One

Live from Boston, it's Saturday night!

I'm Dart Adams, that asshole from the blog Poisonous Paragraphs that doesn't know when to stop typing. I'll be dropping my two cents about the NFL playoffs here as they happen. My writing will improve the closer we get to the Patriots smacking some fools so bear with me until next week (January 12th).

It’s finally playoff time in the NFL, at last it comes down to the best of the best each beating the shit out of each other just to have the right to play the Super Bowl Champion Indianapolis Colts or get stomped out like they just assbet in a game of Staten Island Ceelo by the eventual Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots. On the other side, teams can look forward to getting their asses handed to them by the Cowboys and/or Packers (who in turn will just get folded into eights by the eventual Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots).

While the Patriots have been busy tightening up problem areas and collecting hardware (Belichick is the AP Coach Of The Year and Tom Brady won the AP NFL MVP Award) the other teams in the playoffs have been either scheming and getting ready for the first playoff games of the year. Tonight we had two big matchups in the first half of the Wild Card rounds, Seattle Seahawks (10-6) vs. Washington Redskins (9-7) and Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Pittsburgh Steelers. Let’s talk about the games:

The first game of the night pit the feel good story of the 2007 playoffs in the Washington Redskins vs. the Seattle Seahawks. Now, those of us that really know football (including myself..I came in 2nd in the DP Dot Com Pro Football Pick ‘ Em Pool this year) knew that unless Jesus AND Sean Taylor’s ghosts were playing on D that Seattle was going to walk away with this one.

The death of Sean Taylor was a tragic event and as good as it was to see the Skins bounce back after their coach cost them a game with an inexcusable brain fart it was painfully obvious that no matter how many people pulled for them, they were completely overmatched in this contest (kinda like the Dallas squad in Tecmo Bowl versus...well, damn near everybody except for the Colts).

The sad thing is that the Seahawks don’t have a redneck’s chance in Harlem of realistically advancing to the NFC Championship game, either. Hasselbeck didn’t really win the game for his squad and the defense capitalized on some of backup quarterback Todd Collins’ throwing errors (no one in Walpole, MA wants to claim him now!). The running game wasn’t very dominant, either. The Redskins made a game of it for a second and then ran out of gas at 14-13.

The Seattle Seahawks live to play another week after winning 35-14 in a weird ass game that wasn't nearly as dominant as the final score would lead you to think it was. They won that shit with smoke and mirrors. Rest in eternal peace, Sean Taylor.


The next contest of the night featured the AFC matchup, Pittsburgh Steelers (10-6) vs. Jacksonville Jaguars (11-5). Most experts picked the Jags to win the game due to the fact that Willie Parker wasn’t going to be playing and the Jacksonville defense would pressure Big Ben into throwing picks while holding the running game to modest numbers. All David Garard had to do was manage the game, run the ball with the talented tandem of Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew and make some throws on 3rd down to win the game without turning the pigskin over..Yeah, easier said than fuckin’ done.
The Steelers came out the gate and drove down the field to score. A graphic flashed across the screen announcing that when the Jags don’t score first they lose about 2/3rds of those games. Immediately afterwards the kickoff is run back to the 1 yard line and Jacksonville punches it in to tie the game at 7-7. It was a brand new ball game. Then Big Ben decides that’s much easier to throw completions to the players on the opposing team (I guess his teams black jerseys made them invisible..yunno, like ninjas), one went for a 63 yard touchdown and the second in less than 2 minutes led to a 43 yard TD pass from Garard to Maurice Jones-Drew. The score was 21-7 and I was calling this game over.

At the end of the 3rd quarter the lead was pushed up to 28-10 and Big Ben had tossed three picks already. Convinced the game was over I instead switched over to the biggest game of the NBA season so far.. Boston Celtics (27-3) vs. Detroit Pistons (27-7) in the D.

The Celtics/Pistons was a nailbiter and the Pistons forced the Celtics to play an extremely physical grind it out, half court game. Each team went back and forth making runs and playing tough defense. During one of the commercial breaks in the C’s game I turned back to the AFC Wild Card game just as Santonio Holmes broke the plane of the goal line on a Roethlisberger pass to make the game 28-17.

Convinced it was still over I switched back to the Celtics/Pistons game. After a few more grimy ass minutes of that contest I turned back again and the Steelers had the ball at the 15 yard line about to score again! Heath Miller scored a touchdown to make the score 28-23 with a two point conversion attempt pending. “Why can’t these motherfuckers hold on to a fuckin’ lead?” I asked myself. A bunch of weird shit happened next and the Steelers ended up getting nothing, keeping the lead at 5.

With just slightly more than 10 minutes remaining on the play clock I knew that the game was now far from over. I turned back to the Celtics game which was entering the 4th quarter and the C’s were down. I stuck with the game for a while before I turned back, when I did I caught the pass interference penalty on 4th & Goal which lead to the Steelers taking the lead 29-28. “Y’all suck!” I screamed at the screen. Then the Steelers blew yet another 2 pt conversion and I was like “Oh great, a field goal can win it.”. I turned back and forth between both games for the duration of both contests.
I then watched Jacksonville slowly and deliberately drive down the field and put away the game with a 25 yard FG when they could’ve just as easily got the touchdown and instead of worrying about the Steelers getting in field goal range with 29 seconds left on the clock to win it, they’d have to go the entire length of the field to score a fuckin’ touchdown. What’s harder to do in YOUR opinion? Well, all of my opinions on football strategy were made moot because Big Ben coughed the fuckin’ ball up on cue and the Jags won by the skin of their collective teeth, 31-29.

The Celtics ended up pulling out the game 92-85 as rookie PF Glen “Big Baby” Davis scored 20 points off the bench (including 16 in the 4th quarter alone), powering the Celtics to their 9th straight win and ending the Pistons 11 game winning streak. Now the Jaguars look like they'll get the opportunity to come to Foxboro and catch a prison shower beating next week.

Tomorrow, I’ll post up my take on NY vs. Tampa Bay and Tennessee vs. San Diego after both of the games have aired.

One.