Week 10: What Happened?

Hi everyone! How are we all doing today? Ready for some football recap? Of course you are...
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Morning Games:
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CINCINNATI BENGALS AT PITTSBURGH STEELERS:
The Bengals have beaten the Steelers for the second time this season, sweeping the season series for the first time since 1998. The Steelers won 10 straight games at home until the Bengals came in and beat them, holding the Steelers to just 4 field goals. There weren’t many big plays on offense but both defenses played tough. The Bengals have Oakland Raiders, Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions coming up so expect them to get a few more victories for their record. The Bengals are playing great football these days and the Steelers need to keep winning to keep up with them.

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS AT ST. LOUIS RAMS:
Well the Saints stay undefeated but they barely beat the Rams winning the game 28-23. Kim Kardashian's boyfriend Reggie Bush (insert Khloe joke here if necessary) scored one rushing TD and one receiving TD. Rams RB Steven Jackson is the only person who seems to be playing hard on the Rams these days. He carried the ball 26 times for 131 yards and a TD. The Rams are an awful 1-9 but Jackson is in the top 10 in rushing yards for the season. I’m guessing he’ll want to be traded soon. New Orleans QB Drew Brees had a decent day but threw 2 interceptions. The Saints stay undefeated but they need to play better if they want to stay undefeated.
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None of the afternoon games were very exciting so we will skip to the Night game, the Game of the Year:
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NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS AT INDIANAPOLIS COLTS:
This was the best game of the year. It will go down in history, not only because Colts QB Payton Manning beat Patriots QB Tom Brady for the fifth time in the last six times these teams have met, not because the Colts stay undefeated, not because since 2003 the regular season winner of this matchup has gone on to win the AFC title 4 times and the superbowl 3 times, but because Patriots coach Bill Belichick made a risky call at the end of the game that cost them the win. The Patriots were up by 6 points with 2 minutes left and had 4th down and 2 yards to go. The standard procedure would be to punt the ball to give the colts a longer field to score but Belichick went for it on 4th down and they failed to convert. This gave the Colts and Payton Manning a little under 2 minutes to go less than 30 yards and score, and score they did. This is the play that will be remembered but the entire game was GREAT!!!!!!! The Colts trailed by 17 points in the 4th quarter and it looked like the Pats had the victory but we now know to NEVER count Payton Manning out of a game. The Colts scored 21 points in the 4th quarter and won the game 35-34 keeping their undefeated season alive. Payton Manning threw for 327 yards, 4 TDs and 2 interceptions. On the other side Tom Brady threw for 375 yards, 3 TDs and 1 interception. There were also two of the top WRs in this game and they definitely did not disappoint us. Pats WR Randy Moss had 9 catches for 179 yards and 2 TDs. Moss became the 7th player in NFL History to catch for 14,000 yards putting him on the list with the likes of Jerry Rice and Tim Brown. He also became the 11th player in NFL history to catch 900 balls in his career and it doesn’t look like he’s slowing down. On the other side colts WR Reggie Wayne had 10 catches totaling 126 yards and 2 TDs the second of which was the game winning TD. There were so many highlights to this game that it’s tough to put them all into one paragraph but as I said before this was the best game of the year, if not the best game in the last couple of years. Yet another GREAT primetime Sunday night game.
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Other news around the league:
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-The Minnesota Vikings won again giving them a record of 8-1. Brett Favre passed for 300+yards most of which went to WR Sidney Rice who had over 200 yards receiving (big game for a WR). "All Day" Adrian Peterson had another great game--133 yards rushing and 2 TDs.

-Jacksonville Jaguars RB Maurice Jones-Drew stopped at the 1 yard line instead of going into the endzone so they could run the clock down to 1 second before kicking the game winning field goal. He apologized to fantasy owners.

- Tennessee Titans won their 3rd game in a row being carried by the leagues leading rusher, Chris Johnson, who had 100+yards rushing and 2 TDs along with 9 catches and 100 yards receiving. Needless to say he is the only thing holding this team together

-The Denver Broncos who were once one of the undefeated teams in the league lost to the terrible Washington Redskins. The Broncos need to pull it together if they want to win the AFC West division as San Diego is now tied at 6-3 with them

Until next time....next up: DEFENSE.

{AFC + NFC = NFL} and other random musings

Ok, so it's finally time to decode these mysterious acronyms that plague our Sunday watching festivities. AFC West? AFC North? WFC (Who Effing Cares) South? Ok, so I made that last one up, but you know what I'm talking about.

Basically, think back to college (or high school, or even middle school for that matter). When the football team at your school played the regular season, they pretty much played the same local schools--sometimes several times. At the end of the season, if they did well, they advanced to the regional finals or something like that. And so on, and so on. This is basically how the NFL works.

A tad bit of history as to how this all came to be.... 
The NFL (National Football League) was founded in 1922. The sport really gained popularity and took off in 1925. In 1933, the NFL split into two divisions: the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. (Ok, so it was East vs. West. Got it?)

Then in 1960, another division called the American Football League (AFL) was formed. The AFL and the NFL now competed against each other. Ok. No more East vs. West (that would be too easy). Now fast forward to 1970 when the two leagues merge into one league--keeping the name "NFL" and essentially dividing into 2 conferences. So now, the NFL consists of the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC).

These conferences (NFC and AFC) are both split up into four divisions: North, South, East and West. This means there is an NFC North, NFC South, NFC East and NFC West as well as an AFC North, AFC South, AFC East and AFC West. There are four teams in each division. Do the math and you come up with....32 teams total!

So, now it's no longer really East vs. West or any sense-making model like that. It's kinda like McDonald's and Burger King. Both places are all over the country. During the playoffs all of the best McDonald's play each other and all of the best Burger King's play each other. The best McDonald's then plays the best Burger King to see who will win the title of best burger in the National Fast food League. You know what I mean. 

Ok, I've put together a chart listing all of the different teams and where they are in regards to their division.

So why do we need to know all of this, you ask? Well, we learn a couple of things--first, we can see how seemingly unrelated cities have rivalries. For instance you may wonder why the San Francisco 49ers and the St. Louis Rams have such a heated rivalry when they aren't even near each other? Well, they are both in the AFC West division. (To be fair, the Rams used to be in Los Angeles so it makes a little more sense.)

And second, we learn that this is not the "Football Olympics" meaning that the Superbowl will showcase the BEST two teams in the NFL for that season. It hopefully will, but the best team could have been knocked out a few rounds before. And say the two best teams happen to be in the AFC--then it's actually impossible for that rivalry to go down in the Superbowl. Allow me to explain. 

The road to the Superbowl begins this way: The team with the BEST RECORD during the regular season advances to the PLAYOFFS. In other words, there are no "special" games to determine who's in and who's out--it's just who's played the best (enter all those pesky stats that we all hate). Now, because this isn't always the most fair (there could be two amazing, undefeated teams on the AFC West for instance and one mediocre team on the AFC East) each season, two WILD CARD teams are selected. They are the two teams who have the best record in the whole conference (AFC or NFC) behind the four teams already chosen. So, six teams from one conference move on to the playoffs. And with six teams on the other side, that makes 12 total teams in the playoffs.

The playoffs are "sudden death" (kinda like college basketball's "March Madness") meaning once you lose, you are out of the running. So now you know why you always hear things like, "This Superbowl will be so lame...the best game already happened in week 2 of the playoffs."

This is when I stopped looking at football as the "Olympics of football" and started to see it for what it really is--unabashed capitalism at its finest! There's nothing really wrong with this, of course. I guess it just kind of ruined the illusion for me. When I actually started looking in to it and thinking, "Well, who decides who will play who? and where will the home games be? and how come some teams play each other 3 times a season and some not at all? where is the fairness in that?" (Yes, I tend to question in run-on sentences) I came to some startling "Chick" conclusions. They are presented below:

1. If a team has lots and lots of money, it can buy the best players.
2. To be fair, a "draft" system is used.
3. The owner of a team can really be any schmo who has millions and millions of dollars and wants the ultimate ego boost and supreme control over his own group of mega-athletes. They will be the team of his dreams--his fantasies. His.........own.........................wait.................................. fantasy football team???

Did I just come to the conclusion that the NFL is actually not much more than ONE BIG GIANT HIGH-STAKES GAME OF FANTASY FOOTBALL?????
Only instead of barbies, these are real people and you use real money?????
Yes, I think I did. And now, it's really a soap opera. 

Oh, and PS- if you really want to know how games are scheduled, I found this for you:
Quoted from CBS Sportsline press release May 2001

"...the new scheduling format, under which every team will meet every other at least once in four years. There will be six home-and-home divisional games; four against teams in another division within a conference; and four more against a division in the other conference on a rotating basis. The final two games will be against conference teams based on the previous year's standings--first against first, second against second, and so on."

 And yes, I'm sorry I asked too. Until next time!