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Necessary Roughness: Divisional Playoffs

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Sorry for leaving everyone hanging for the last month and change. Between touring and the holidays, Necessary Roughness had to take a bit of a back seat, plus I don’t think many of you were looking forward to killing time on New Year’s Eve reading what I thought about Week 17 games…

Anyway, the season wrapped up in its usual dramatic fashion with not one but TWO NFC East teams backing their way into the playoffs along with two NFC South teams! What were arguably the most feckless divisions in football through week 8 managed to turn things around and represent!

Wild Card weekend went about as planned, although I did expect a little more life out of the Ravens and the Bears. I think the Ravens were smart to stick with Jackson and with an entire offseason to gameplan around him, they’re going to be even tougher next season than they were in the back half of this one. The Bears are in the same boat, and if they can get Trubisky a single deep threat I think they’re on track to strangle the NFC North for at least another season.

Chiefs 31 – Colts 13: Jesus Christ, you think Andy Reid and the Chiefs felt like they had something to prove here? This was the big upset slated for this weekend and at no point in this game did it ever look like the Colts had a chance. I’ve said it a few times this season, but the Chiefs Defense is a lot better than they’ve been given credit for. Dee Ford and Justin Houston are animals and they proved it on Saturday. That said, the Colts O-Line is only going to get better over the next couple of seasons and I’m psyched to see what they can do now that Andrew Luck is healthy.

Rams 30 – Cowboys 22: This game was not as close as the score indicates. The only bad thing about this game was how apparent it was that the LA Coliseum was packed with jackass Cowboys fans. You guys are the worst, I wish 9-7 on you for the rest of Dak Prescott’s career. In more positive news… holy shit, CJ Anderson! When did he fuse with Jerome Bettis?

The Cowboys defense was talking an awful lot of shit leading up to this game. These jackasses got their asses handed to them by a grinding, pummeling running game and an offensive line with an axe to grind. The Rams currently look as unstoppable as they did in September. Their offense can do whatever it wants and the defense handled Zeke comfortably. Here’s my personal favorite play of the game:

Saints 20 – Eagles 14: The Rams would be a heavy favorite to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl if it weren’t for the brutal and heartless Saints. After two quick Eagles TDs, the Saints shifted gears and adjusted and just ground the Eagles into dust. All you need to know about how in control the Saints were for this game came during their 11+ minute drive in the third quarter. It’s almost as if they were committing penalties on purpose to give themselves a longer field to fuck around on.

The Rams are gonna have their hands full with Michael Thomas next week, and also Alvin Kamera, Mark Ingram, Ted Ginn, Taysom Hill…

Patriots 41 – Chargers 28: FFS.

Some ramblings/musings:

  • Every game on CBS from here to eternity should be called by Tony Romo, he’s just so enjoyable and good. The guys on for Fox on the Saints game were actually decent, too (especially compared to Buck/Aikman, blech.)
  • I pray to Satan the Giants don’t have some stupid plan to get Big Dick Nick on the team. I’m sure he’d actually be a fine starting QB somewhere, but it just feels like bad juju to take the Eagles good luck charm from them. Plus we don’t need some insane Christian here, keep that shit in the middle of the country please and thank you.

Next week is the Conference Championships; who ya got? I think we’re gonna end up with a pair of shootouts on our hands. I believe the Chiefs will manage to bug Tom Brady just enough to fluster him on defense. On the other side of the ball, the Chiefs just have too much speed and explosiveness on offense for the Pats to keep up.

In the NFC it’s way tighter. I want to say the Rams will pull it out of their asses and that CJ Anderson will bowling ball his way to 200 yards and three TDs, but it’s gonna be loud AF in the dome down in NOLA and they’re up against Drew Brees and Sean Payton, not Dak Prescott and Ginger Snaps. If the Rams defense can slow down Brees and Thomas they have a shot, but ultimately I think Brees comes out on top.

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