Monday Mash- Wild Card Weekend
Hello one and all, welcome back for the Monday Mash's postseason debut!
For those of you that aren't fans of the New York Jets, you will have to excuse the eccentric mood of Gang Green's fans on this work Monday. I imagine that their entrance into the office today may have looked eerily similar to the "Too Heavy" arrival.
But can you blame them? Dopes such as myself were digging the Jets' grave about a month ago, and now they're two wins away from the...Super Bowl??
(Waiting for my goosebumps to go down...)
Ok, back to business. Simply put, Jets game this weekend against the Bengals must have played out exactly the way they prayed it would. After he threw for no yards and an interception in week 17 at the Meadowlands, Cincy QB Carson Palmer didn't make any significant improvements. Sure Cedric Benson delivered a few gut punches that temporarily knocked the wind out of the Jets. But New York was the only team able to deliver knockout blows.
Following the sage advice of an unknown NY sport blogger (let's call him the C-Horse) the Jets finally showed what can happen if Mark Sanchez finds Dustin Keller in the open field. If the athletic tight end wasn't sneaking past the secondary deep, he was turning moderate first-down gains into game-changing home run plays. Throw in Jones and Greene running wild and the defense suffocating the banged-up Bengal receivers, and you have yourself a resounding 10-point win on the road. Easy, right?
Well nothing will be easy this week against the Chargers. San Diego was my preseason pick to go to the Super Bowl, and unfortunately they look even better than I thought. Winners of 11 straight games, an unflappable (though whiny) quarterback, tons of receivers that are as tall as Paul Bunyon, and a respectable two-headed running attack of Tomlinson and Sproles. Oy.
But as per the usual, the Monday Mash will not be used as a spot to worry. We'll save that for the analysis posts later in the week. For the second straight Monday, the Jets and their fans are on cloud nine. Thrilled that they made the playoffs, I admit that anything the Jets did against the Bengals on Saturday would be 'gravy.' Now that they've won a playoff game, anything else should be considered a Thanksgiving feast. Not bad for the 7-7 squad that was a dead-team-walking just a few weeks ago.
Here's the rest from a playoff weekend that was sometimes boring, but sometimes berserk,..
The Montauk BeverageWorks Delicious Performance of the Week:
Kurt Warner, Cardinals. Sure, I loved Sanchez, Greene, and the rest of the Jets just as much as anyone. But Warner's performance against Green Bay was historic. 29-33, 379 yards, 5 touchdowns. Those numbers are hard to get if you're playing Madden on rookie! Sure, Green Bay made defense optional throughout the game, but the guy had more touchdowns than incompletions. After all the retirement hints throughout the week, for him to go out and play like that, without the dangerous Anquan Boldin, was legendary. A certain Hall of Famer if you ask me.
The Favorite Flop of the Week:
Cincinnati Bengals. Don't get me wrong...i'm appreciative of this. But anyone who tracked the Bengals' progress throughout the year knows that they shouldn't have lost to a rookie at home. When the Jets ran up and down on Cincy in week 17, people threw fits that the Bengals didn't come to play for that game. Well in a playoff game 6 days later, the Jets still put up 170 on the ground, and the big pass plays to Keller came on run-fakes that drove the defense crazy. Carson Palmer overthrew everybody in the stadium, receivers were still dropping passes, and Shayne Graham missed two high-school range kicks. Across the board, a Cincinnati flop.
The Underdog Uprising of the Week:
Baltimore Ravens. As if there was any doubt. Heaven forbid that any Patriots fans got hung up at security trying to enter the building...because this game was a rout from the very first play (a Ray Rice 83 yard TD.) The Ravens' ferocity on defense couldn't help but spark memories of the 2000 Super Bowl squad. The Pats offense was inept without Wes Welker and gave Brady no protection. Each of the four Raven takeaways were on plays where a Pats player either got out-worked or potentially murdered (Ben Watson still doesn't know what country he's in.) Joe Flacco threw for 34 yards and an interception (a gaudy QB rating of 10.0) and the Ravens still won by 3 touchdowns. I'm not hopping on board with the notion that the Patriots are finished as an elite team. But I am completely on board with the fact that Indianapolis has their hands full with the diabolical Ravens.
For those of you that aren't fans of the New York Jets, you will have to excuse the eccentric mood of Gang Green's fans on this work Monday. I imagine that their entrance into the office today may have looked eerily similar to the "Too Heavy" arrival.
But can you blame them? Dopes such as myself were digging the Jets' grave about a month ago, and now they're two wins away from the...Super Bowl??
(Waiting for my goosebumps to go down...)
Ok, back to business. Simply put, Jets game this weekend against the Bengals must have played out exactly the way they prayed it would. After he threw for no yards and an interception in week 17 at the Meadowlands, Cincy QB Carson Palmer didn't make any significant improvements. Sure Cedric Benson delivered a few gut punches that temporarily knocked the wind out of the Jets. But New York was the only team able to deliver knockout blows.
Following the sage advice of an unknown NY sport blogger (let's call him the C-Horse) the Jets finally showed what can happen if Mark Sanchez finds Dustin Keller in the open field. If the athletic tight end wasn't sneaking past the secondary deep, he was turning moderate first-down gains into game-changing home run plays. Throw in Jones and Greene running wild and the defense suffocating the banged-up Bengal receivers, and you have yourself a resounding 10-point win on the road. Easy, right?
Well nothing will be easy this week against the Chargers. San Diego was my preseason pick to go to the Super Bowl, and unfortunately they look even better than I thought. Winners of 11 straight games, an unflappable (though whiny) quarterback, tons of receivers that are as tall as Paul Bunyon, and a respectable two-headed running attack of Tomlinson and Sproles. Oy.
But as per the usual, the Monday Mash will not be used as a spot to worry. We'll save that for the analysis posts later in the week. For the second straight Monday, the Jets and their fans are on cloud nine. Thrilled that they made the playoffs, I admit that anything the Jets did against the Bengals on Saturday would be 'gravy.' Now that they've won a playoff game, anything else should be considered a Thanksgiving feast. Not bad for the 7-7 squad that was a dead-team-walking just a few weeks ago.
Here's the rest from a playoff weekend that was sometimes boring, but sometimes berserk,..
The Montauk BeverageWorks Delicious Performance of the Week:
Kurt Warner, Cardinals. Sure, I loved Sanchez, Greene, and the rest of the Jets just as much as anyone. But Warner's performance against Green Bay was historic. 29-33, 379 yards, 5 touchdowns. Those numbers are hard to get if you're playing Madden on rookie! Sure, Green Bay made defense optional throughout the game, but the guy had more touchdowns than incompletions. After all the retirement hints throughout the week, for him to go out and play like that, without the dangerous Anquan Boldin, was legendary. A certain Hall of Famer if you ask me.
The Favorite Flop of the Week:
Cincinnati Bengals. Don't get me wrong...i'm appreciative of this. But anyone who tracked the Bengals' progress throughout the year knows that they shouldn't have lost to a rookie at home. When the Jets ran up and down on Cincy in week 17, people threw fits that the Bengals didn't come to play for that game. Well in a playoff game 6 days later, the Jets still put up 170 on the ground, and the big pass plays to Keller came on run-fakes that drove the defense crazy. Carson Palmer overthrew everybody in the stadium, receivers were still dropping passes, and Shayne Graham missed two high-school range kicks. Across the board, a Cincinnati flop.
The Underdog Uprising of the Week:
Baltimore Ravens. As if there was any doubt. Heaven forbid that any Patriots fans got hung up at security trying to enter the building...because this game was a rout from the very first play (a Ray Rice 83 yard TD.) The Ravens' ferocity on defense couldn't help but spark memories of the 2000 Super Bowl squad. The Pats offense was inept without Wes Welker and gave Brady no protection. Each of the four Raven takeaways were on plays where a Pats player either got out-worked or potentially murdered (Ben Watson still doesn't know what country he's in.) Joe Flacco threw for 34 yards and an interception (a gaudy QB rating of 10.0) and the Ravens still won by 3 touchdowns. I'm not hopping on board with the notion that the Patriots are finished as an elite team. But I am completely on board with the fact that Indianapolis has their hands full with the diabolical Ravens.
- Well, there's one game you haven't heard about in this blog yet...Eagles-Cowboys. Sure, it's partly because I'm embarrassed to talk about it after picking Philly. But truth be told, it really was a dud. Michael Vick put a little spark into the game by throwing that long touchdown pass. But if Vick and Jeremy Maclin are the only players that show up for the game, a 34-14 final score should be expected. The Cowboys continue to roll, and their game against Favre and the Vikings next week may draw close to Super Bowl-type ratings.
- There is a lot of talk about the Packers getting hosed at the end of the game. I will readily admit that they got hosed throughout regulation time (Larry Fitzgerald's assaults on his routes come to mind) but I think that was all nullified by the ridiculous field goal "attempt" by Neil Rackers in the end. That was the equalizer. The Packers won the overtime coin toss and couldn't deliver. Arizona led the entire game and was the only team that actually made a play on defense. They deserved to advance.
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