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I’m gonna go out on a limb here: I know Memorial Day and Labor Day have sick weather, DUI Checkpoints, and baseball, but I’m not even sure which is which… and that July 4th turns the country into a real-life Coors Light Ad, but what happens when it’s on a Wednesday?…

Always the best day... but not always the best weekend...

I know that Veterans Day is really important, but it doesn’t exactly have “Wings Day” at Hooters type atmosphere… Columbus Day, perhaps the most random holiday that people take seriously, has recently been maligned so deeply by the sensitivity police that it now serves as a “Heritage Day” for 4/5ths of the world’s ethnic groups… and President’s Day… while a godsend in the year’s most beat-ass month (sorry February kids, but it’s true) lacks major upside aside from the “wait, is this when Washington was born or when Lincoln died?” conversation to which nobody can really explain the answer… But the best random holiday on the calendar has to be MLK Day… Granted I may be skewed by the scheduling of “Beer Olympics” on that weekend while I was in college, but this weekend has major upside: Situated 2 weeks after the Xmas and New Years, it is timed perfectly for holiday withdrawal. Mostly though, it is the best weekend in football: The Divisional Round. To make matters even crazier, not a single one of these games looks obvious… In fact, each features a “hot team” that dominates aspects of a game going against bye teams that have “momentum issues” (IND,MIN,NO) or match up particularly poorly against their opponent (SD).

You Only have Homefield Advantage in a Dome?

In honor of this last matchup, I called up the best NYJ and Bolts fans I knew to get their takes on the game, and as a result: a 2 Part podcast with Len and Garver ensued. In Part 1, Len and I go deep into the Jets, the game, and the state of football. He says his boys have a 40% chance. In Part 2, Garver and I talk some about the game and football in San Diego, but also some about the winter season in movies. We agree: the previews for “Legion” are misleading and don’t get across that it is another “christian apocalypse” movie. Hope you enjoy them… since likely one of them will be back on next week…

As always, you can subscribe to the podcast here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=345209516
Part one of the podcast can be downloaded here: http://nickcoman.com/lenjetscast.m4a
Part one can be streamed below:

Part two of the podcast can be downloaed here: http://nickcoman.com/garvercast.m4a
Part two can be streamed below:

Arizona OVER New Orleans
I’m going to start off my analysis of this game with the two most important points:
The Saints were always overrated. They barely beat the Rams, Reskins, etc… violated Pats, Eagles, and Giants teams that may just have been prone to be violated… When they were 13-0, they looked like 10-3 with a lot of luck… At 13-3, they are really a 10-6 team.
While on the topic of 10-6 teams, even if you can’t trust regular season Arizona, you can trust playoff Arizona. I don’t know if it’s the strategy or the motivation or Kurt Warner… or some reverse jinx compensating for how bad the Cards have been in the regular season for the last X decades….
This is a classic: “season stats don’t match up with the guys on the team” matchup. For example, do you even think the Saints running game is better than the Cardinals given that the Saints are the #1 ranked rushing attack in the league statistically? Beat up Pierre Thomas? Reg’ Bush? Mike Bell?… Deuce McAllister? The #1 ranked rushing team in the NFL is “letting the deuce loose”? Would you take any two of those guys against Beannie Wells and Hightower (not that these guys are that sick – but they have performed a lot better of late). Much of this success stems from the efficiency of the Saints’ O-Line… generally ranked in the top 10 this year… but with few names of note. The Saints did dominate big blitz teams like NYJ and PHI, but whatever is on the Dal-NO tape… let alone the 2nd half of the TB-NO tape… has to be the road-map to stopping them. On the other hand, Beannie Wells dominated the “best defense in the NFC” last week, and the Cards O-line clearly did a sick job protecting Warner… What can you really say? In terms of pass offenses, I know the Saints have been #1 all year and ‘Zona is around #6-10, but which do you like more: Warner + Fitzgerald Breaston (Boldin) Doucet Urban etc… or Brees + Colston Meachem Moore Shockey Reg’ Bush etc…

He's White... It never gets old.

You gotta say that these passing attacks at the very least “look” even… and do we know we can trust Drew Brees? (only 3 starts so far).
Then there are the defenses… both considered mediocre but capable of “playmaking” – pretty much the truth, but tell me which squad you like more: Bertrand Berry, Adrian Wilson, Karlos Dansby, Calais Campbell, Antrelle Rolle, Dominique Rogers-Cromartie or Will Smith (not the actor), Sedrick Ellis, Scott Fujita, Jonathan Vilma, Darren Sharper, Malcolm Jenkins… Granted Darren Sharper may have been playing his best football ever this year, but the ‘Zona team seems like a lot of guys playing in their peak years… while the Saints team seems like a lot of guys who are either a little too young (Ellis, Jenkins) or a little too old (Sharper, Vilma) to be at their peaks… Maybe we are talking about a B Defense for ‘Zona vs a B- Defense for the Saints… so not a huge deal… but I think it is easy to assume the Saints are “just better” than ‘Zona… but to that I ask: Where? (Even on special teams, Rackers is a better kicker than Hartley and Larod Stephens-Howling has proven to be in Reggie Bush’s league of explosivity).
I know it seems like i’ve spent most of the previous section proving that the Saints “arent better” than the Cards, and not really talking about Zona’s upside, but come on: Warner went 29-31 5td 379 yd against the “Best Defense in the NFC”… and are now going to go play THE SAINTS… (If you skimmed it and only got Warner 5TD SAINTS… that’s about right). If there is no reason for the Saints to dominate (and there isn’t), then expect Arizona to.
Cardinals 41 Saints 31

Minnesota OVER Dallas

By far the best game this week: Favre, Romo… It’s the NFC DIVISIONAL PLAYOFFS ON FOX.  This is the game of teams that don’t rely on anything… When I say that I mean: IND,ARI, SD, NO are riding their QBs and Bal and NYJ are riding their RBs and Defenses, but Dal and Min are actually “complete teams”. Favre and Romo could hypothetically do nothing and have their teams have great games… basically rendering them the Jets and Ravens in round 1… but thats what makes this matchup so great… there really are no Xs and Os matchups to exploit. Both teams can run, pass, defend the run, rush the passer, etc… It’s just hard to say that a single “phase of the game” is clearly going to be tilt in one direction or another.

This Adrian Peterson will not have a costly fumble..

Token NFL wisdom on this one says (imagine Marino in the CBS studio): this game is going to come down to execution, turnovers, and red-zone defense. Turnover wise, the two “slingers” cancel each other out… but, in the red-zone, Dallas has struggled this year, amassing huge yardage totals without huge scoring totals…  They also have [wikipedia]Sean Suisham.  The Cowboys may be all-around statistically slightly better… and the Vikings may have slightly more talent at a glance… but the Red Zone stuff really hurt the Cowboys, and Minny is 8-0 at home this year.

Favre 31, Romo 27

Indianapolis OVER Baltimore:

I went back and forth multiple times on this one like so: Instinct 1) Baltimore is really really good statistically, played the Colts close in the regular season, lost a ton of similar close games, absolutely shit on the Pats… they got to give the Colts trouble… Instinct 2) Indy was 14-0 before taking two games off; they are actually sick and have a chip on their shoulder… they may come out and blow Baltimore off of the radar. Baltimore playing behind won’t be able to do a thing… Flacco is their QB. Manning wants this; Clark is the best he’s ever been; The running attack is balanced with Donald Brown and Addai; Who cares that they can’t really stop the run?… Instinct 3) The Ravens will make this game a slog and keep it close. Even if the Colts can rush the passer, what does that matter against a running team and a good O-line?  They control too much clock to get blown away… They may even make plays and take the lead for portions of the game… but in the fourth quarter, can you really believe in Joe Flacco? No, you believe in Peyton Manning refusing to let his team lose. Something weird is going to happen in this one…

Colts 35 Ravens 31

San Diego OVER The Jets:

Can Shawn Merriman recover from Tila? Should he use steroids again?

Of the four teams with a first round bye, only San Diego went into the playoffs without “haters”… but then this one dimensional team got matched up with an opponent that dominates that dimension… This has been what everyone has been saying at least: Revis is going to shut down Vincent Jackson and all of San Diego. Here is the fallacy: San Diego isn’t a passing team in a traditional sense… they aren’t really like Indy or Arizona… a team that throws to WRs but also matriculates the ball downfield with the run. San Diego makes next to no effort to actually have run plays as the backbone of a drive (much like Philly). Instead, they use swing passes, screen passes, passes to the TE etc. to move the ball, and they have a talented O-Line. Basically, just because the Jets can defend the pass doesn’t mean they can defend the Chargers’ pass game. If the Jets’ defense has a weakness, it is probably downfield in the “guys not named Revis” portion of their secondary. I think the Chargers get the ball in that neighborhood and make more than enough big plays to win. On the other side of the ball, San Diego’s defense has been statistically mediocre, but simply upon glancing at the roster, you can tell that this team is capable of dominance… and I don’t know if you’ve watched some Jets games this year, but they can be dominated if they have trouble establishing the run. This Chargers Defense: Merriman Cromartie etc… is largely the same unit that was so feared circa 2007 – people seem to almost forget that. Maybe Thomas Jones and Shonn Green (who looked great last week) and [wikipedia]Brad Smith (who looked great last week) will give the Bolts fits, but doesn’t it seem more likely that looking so great last week will give the Chargers tape to go key on those guys and “make the Sanchize beat them”…

It’s hard to see that happening.

Bolts 28, Jets 10

As a side note: Saw a few movies that I want to give my two cents on that didn’t make it into the podcast with Garver.

Instead of going the Jessica Biel "I'm going to show the world how quirky I am by going nude in Indy films" route... which We all appreciate... Zooey goes "all hipster" on us... but that at least includes dresses that show 85% of each tit for the sake of "her unique style"

First off: “Sex Drive” (2008) is a pretty solid B grade Teen Comedy – lots of naked chicks… and dudes actually (but not Bruno level by any means… that may never happen again). The unrated edition actually just has random naked pornstars in a lot of the scenes as extras. It has the fat religious kid from “Greek” (who is apparently Michael Cera’s best friend), and he’s kind of funny… I can’t quite tell. This isn’t a masterpiece like Eurotrip or Superbad, but I’ll watch it next time it’s on Spike… Final Rating: 80 I also saw “Youth in Revolt”… a movie that won me over with it’s previews… which it was subsequently nothing like (next to zero of anybody but Cera in this movie)… Apparently this movie was filmed pre-Suberbad, but they kept delaying its release as each actor in the movie got more and more famous. The movie is actually about Cera trying to get with some hot girl who is as awkward/weird as he is (you know how they do up Cera as awkward/weird in everything… this is no exception). I guess I enjoyed it… but mainly I thought it was weird. Final Rating: 65 The Best movie I saw in the last couple days… and it pains me to say it… (500) Days of Summer (The Parenthesis are actually part of the title). The movie tells you what is gonna happen from the beginning… they don’t end up together… and somehow, that doesn’t make watching the whole thing miserable… The “Third Rock Kid” (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, who is apparently in the midst of a solid Indy movie career) is real likable, and the movie has “actually funny” parts (something you can never bank on in a “chickflick”). “Zooey” is the problem with the movie if there is one. Her character is a little underdeveloped… perhaps to make her seem “quirky” or “whimsical”, but the lack of development or explanation takes away from the movie. A lot of shit just happens… and you are like “but I thought a person like Zooey wouldn’t do that… that’s kinda wack”. Still, the movie was good in a lot of the same ways “Up in the Air” was good: great script with lots of under-the-radar moments… great development of relationships… and realistic… a movie that seems to exist in the “real world”… It is really on the fringe of “I would watch this again without a girl in the room” and definitely needs to go in the palatable chickflick arsenal. Final Grade: 89

Gonna be liveblogging the Zona-Saints game today…
And when it’s all over – I’ll sleep it off on monday.
Word,
Nick