Championship Weekend - Random Thoughts

The world has turned upside down when Eli Manning goes into frigid Lambeau Field and plays the game of his life to propel the Giants to the Super Bowl. Have we just watched Manning come of age in these past four weeks? Can he continue it versus the Patriots? Will it carry over to next year? For Eagles fans, let's hope not.

Playing with exposed skin in 0 degree weather with -24 wind chill isn't "tough." It's moronic and is just asking for frostbite.

How disheartening it must be to the Chargers to get to play Brady on one of his really off days and still lose by two scores.

In fact, yesterday highlighted the "key" to beating the Patriots once again. You've got to score TDs and not FGs against the Pats when you get in the red zone. Worse for the Chargers, they got first and goal twice and came out of it with 6 points.

The play of the Chargers-Giants game has to be Junior Seau's stop of Turner (or was it Sproles) on 3rd and 1 from the Pats 6 yard line. The 3 yard loss forced the Chargers to abandon any thought of going for it on 4th down and they had to settle for the FG (the 3rd time in the game they had gotten inside the ten and the 3rd time they only got 3 points). That's basically two down territory, so not a big fan of the play call. Don't you have to run it up the middle on 3rd down there? It was hard to tell if the call was to go off tackle and the RB tried to bounce it outside or if it was a pure stretch/sweep play from the get go. Either way, the runner has to bull into the line and not get tackled from behind.

The other weak Chargers play was Norv "Play it Safe" Turner punting with 9:00 to go in the fourth, down by two scores. I know it was 4th and long, but you're across mid field. I don't care how good your punter is in pinning the opposition inside the 10. To have any hope of winning you need your defense to get a 3 and out. Same thing if you go for it on 4th down. So really, by not going for it, you are only gaining 35 yards of field position. In the AFC championship, that's not enough.

Who else was secretly rooting for multiple OTs in the Packers game? Do the teams go into the locker room after 2 OT quarters? I didn't think so, but i did see that each team gets 3 timeouts per "half" in OT, so maybe they do. If they don't, do you think the NFL would have stepped in after the 3rd OT and suspended the game for the health safety of the players and fans?

Did the Giants-Packers game take forever, or did it only seem that way? I looked up with 7 minutes to go in the 3rd and couldn't believe they hadn't made it to the 4th quarter yet.

My brother called it in the 3rd quarter. He called to say that he thought the Giants would win only cause a Patriots-Giants super bowl would be rematch just like both games yesterday and 2 games the previous week.

For Eagles fans, Favre's backbreaking INT in overtime recalled the INT he through to Brian Dawkins, also in OT, versus the Eagles in the divisional playoffs several years ago (the famous 4th and 26 game). Even down to the location of the INT, along the visitors sideline? Back then, Favre just heaved it up in old Brett Favre fashion and Dawkins caught it like a punt. Yesterday it was just a poorly thrown ball to a receiver in the area.

Is it possible that Peyton's younger brother could do what Peyton has so often failed to do in his career? Namely beat the Patriots? Vegas doesn't think so - they're 14 point underdogs.

Who to root for? The Patriots or the Giants? Could I live in a world where Eli Manning is a super bowl championship quarterback?