NFL 2011 Season Discussion

[Associate Justice PiT]

Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?

I really do not see how the Saints can be stopped by the 49ers, Packers or anybody in the AFC. Aaron Rodgers better bring his AAA game in the NFC Championship and hope it's a terribly frosty/snowy day. I strongly suspect the NFC Championship is going to be the real Super Bowl.

     Saints better hope that Drew Brees doesn't throw any picks out there. You guys may have a nice offense, but your defense is terrible at forcing turnovers. You may be able to lose the turnover battle & win against the Niners too, but you'll be destroyed if you can't handle the Packers there.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     If Denver actually beats New England, that probably would suggest divine intervention.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Well, NE's secondary is just garbage, so if Tebow can throw the ball decently, he will likely do better against them than he did against the Steelers. Of course, Brady and co can hang 49 points if they want to, which I doubt the Steelers could ever do even at their best.

     The recurring theme with these big offenses is their uselessness on defense. The big thing that separates Green Bay from the rest is that they can generate turnovers like nobody's business, so Rodgers at least has help in holding off the opposition.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     All season, nobody in prognostication has given the Niners respect. Win or lose, maybe they'll finally give the team its due.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     In a sense this is still kind of pathetic, though; 5 takeaways & we're still only up by 6.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Can I just mention that I nearly died today because of that Niners-Saints game? My mom's a big Saints fan and I'm a big Niners fan, so it was tense all throughout the day in my house.

     Niners games are perpetually intense. I'd say they're probably the most exciting team in the NFL today for the number of last-minute victories they pull out.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I would have loved it if we beat the Packers & the Patriots to win the Vince Lombardi trophy (& thereby defeat the top five passers in the NFL on the way to the top). This is pretty sweet too, though.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Raise your hand if you had the Giants vs. 49ers in the 2011-2012 NFC Championship?  A lot of people could see Ravens at Patriots, but I'm not sure many people, including those diehard fans on both coasts, had the road to Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis going through San Francisco.

     After the Niners won yesterday, I saw a lot of diehard fans predicting a Giants victory over the Packers. That was probably just wishful thinking, though. I don't know how many of them actually thought it would come true.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I'm a lot more scared of the Ravens than the Patriots. I'm not too concerned that the 49ers lost to the Ravens, since they only had three days off and had to cross three time zones, but that game was ugly; Alex Smith was sacked nine times, and Jim Harbaugh apparently never considered calling a screen pass. The Patriots have no defense. I think they can handle that.

When the Niners won in Week 1, I was disappointed because it hurt their chances at Andrew Luck, so this is cool.

     Yeah, the thought of playing the Ravens is not appealing, since they function so much like the Niners do; well-rounded, unpredictable, & dangerous. Patriots on the other hand, are another big-time offense to shut down. Not necessarily easy, but much more straightforward.

     Still, I think a Niners-Ravens Super Bowl would go a long way towards discrediting the offense-obssessive attitude that has seized the league lately. Offense wins announcer kudos, defense wins Super Bowls.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     The Giants are notorious road warriors. On the other hand, the Packers were really, really off out there. Still, the Giants are much easier opponents than the Packers would have been.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Alex Smith's not an elite quarterback, but he doesn't make mistakes and try to force things when they aren't there. If there's one thing I'm absolutely not worried about, it's interceptions. They're not going to happen.

     I was reading in the paper today that Alex Smith has had the fifth lowest single-season interception percentage of all time (obviously with some unstated stipulations to weed out guys who threw one attempt). He has thrown five picks on 445 attempts this season, for an interception on 1.1% of passing attempts.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Ouch. That was a really tough loss. Oh well, go Brady.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I think the Pats need to pay back the Giants for ruining their perfect season.

     I actually rooted for the Giants last time because I wanted them to ruin the Patriots' perfect season. This time I don't particularly care about either team, but I do like Tom Brady. So there.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Here's to 10+ years of the Saints missing the playoffs to come. Hopefully the Rams will try to defend Gregg Williams & lose their fanbase, then the Cowboys & Eagles somehow get implicated & tank as well. Won't happen, but I can dream.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Of course I agree with that, with the exception of the Eagles hate. I can't say I care about the Eagles at all.

     Normally I would agree, but signing Vick makes them an acceptable target in my book. I actually enjoyed them for the couple of games that he was out this season.