I fully expect the Jets to come out trying to run the ball, unlike the last time these two teams faced each other. There’s no scheming to be had here, it just who wins the battle in the trenches.  I think that Vince Wilfork will have a monster game, dominating the line and helping to shut down the run.  On offense, the Patriots will do their usual, spreading the ball around to the open man, and getting some good running yards from Green-Ellis and Woodhead. My prediction: Patriots 35 - Jets 17.

I don’t understand what all the issue is with having the Super Bowl in New York.  Weather is part of the game!  If the Super Bowl were to be played in snow, freezing temperatures, ice, etc, I think it would only make it more exciting. And football is meant to be played in any weather, not just secluded to domes and warm weather.  I’ve heard people say the ‘fans’ won’t want to sit in this weather at the Super Bowl. But the fans will, the problem is that the Super Bowl crowd is mostly made up of corporate sponsors who won’t want to sit in the weather. But maybe this will mean there will be fewer corporate sponsors at the game and more true fans can go!  I hope Super Bowl XXXVIII is a success and that more cold weather stadiums are able to host it in the future.

This is blasphemy as a Patriots fan, but I find myself rooting for the Jets this year.  There are a bunch of reasons: 1) there’s no more Mangini, 2) they have an amazing defense, 3) they have a great running game, and 4) Rex Ryan is hilarious. Plus I’d much rather root for them than Peyton Manning.  J-E-T-S?

After a dominating win by the Ravens, the Patriots season is over. They really did not seem to have it this year. Brady never seemed quite right, whether it was from his injury last year, his injuries this year, or just wanting to be back on vacation with his supermodel wife. And the defense was lacking in leaders. No one had that us against them mentality, that bravado that Rodney Harrison would bring.  Thus, Dan Shaughnessy says the dynasty is over. I wouldn’t go quite that far. Although if they get back to their winning ways perhaps it will be a new dynasty.  Makes you wish they had just made a few more plays in the 2006 AFC Championship collapse against the Colts or the 2007 Super Bowl against the Giants. Make 2-3 more plays and we would have had 5 super bowls and a 19-0 season…

So, what do they need to do for next year?  Hopefully Belichick and the staff do a solid internal review to figure out where they went wrong this year. In 2006 they had poor receivers and they went out and got Moss, Welker, and Stallworth.  I’d expect to see some big names this year as well. Offensively, they need way better play calling. They need a new offensive coordinator. They also need to get a 3rd WR as Sam Aiken really doesn’t cut it.  I’d expect to see them both sign a few guys and draft some for this role.  On defense, the biggest thing they need is some leadership. Then they also need some pass rush and some run stoppers. If there aren’t any new labor talks, next year is going to be an uncapped year, with some different free agency rules, so it could be really interesting.

That was an impressive performance by the Patriots. Perhaps their best game of the year, at least #2 after the Titans game.  The run game was going (197 yards), the pass game was beautiful (more touchdown passes than incompletions), and the defense looked great, stopping the Jags on 4th and 1 early in the first quarter to get things going and getting two interceptions.

Now the question is, what do the Patriots do next week?  The game means virtually nothing to us - it decides if we’re the 3rd or 4th seed, but we have no idea who either will play.  So it could be a good opportunity to get a bye week before the playoffs start, BUT it would be nice to see if we could be conistent and continue this great performance next week, on the ROAD at Houston.  It will be interesting to see what the Patriots try to do.  Personally, I would like to see them keep the momentum going, although resting any injured players.

On a side note, the starting Colts players sure looked deflated and demoralized after being benched and losing that game to the Jets…

I think the Steelers will win the Super Bowl, mostly because they have the #1 defense in the league.  James Harrison is amazing, Ike Taylor will mostly shut down Larry Fitzgerald (with help from Ryan Clark and Troy Polamalu) and the Steelers will win.  I was originally picking the Ravens because of their defense (#2 to the Steelers) but defense usually wins.  I’m still hoping to see some excitement from Kurt Warner and some ridiculous catches from Fitzgerald, but its the Steelers.  With their pass rush, they should force Kurt Warner into some bad throws, and I think their D will get some turnovers out of it.  On the other side, Roethlisburger and Willie Parker should be able to do enough to win the game.

Here are my playoff predictions.  My somewhat ’sleeper’ teams that I really like are the Ravens and Falcons.  As is the usual with the NFL playoffs, I would expect the teams with the best defenses to go far.  So the Titans, Steelers, Ravens, Panthers, and Giants.  Here we go:

Wildcard Round:

Ravens over Dolphins
Colts over Chargers
Vikings over Eagles
Falcons over Cardinals

Divisional Round:

Ravens over Titans
Steelers over Colts
Falcons over Giants
Panthers over Vikings

Conference Championships:

Ravens over Steelers
Falcons over Panthers

Super Bowl:

Ravens over Falcons

I’m finally ready to talk about the Super Bowl. What a disappointing game. I’m not sure which loss was worse, this one or the AFC Championship game to the Colts the year before. To think we were just a few plays from being 19-0, the greatest team in history, etc. So awful.  To go from winning every single game during the regular season, a crazy comeback against the Colts, dominating 40 point wins to losing the Super Bowl like this is just terrible.
This game left me with lots of questions:

• Why couldn’t the Patriots make the adjustments to block the Giants’ pass rush?
• Was Brady’s injury slowing him from ducking their rush?
• Why couldn’t we get any pressure on Peyton Manning?
• And the one that really bothers me - Why did we pass the ball three straight times when were on the goal line trying to take the lead with a little over 2 minutes to play? I know that our team was pass-happy this year, but still thats a situation where you should ALWAYS run the ball. If you have the chance to give the ball back to the other team with an extra minute and a half off the clock, you do it. In addition to running be safer, etc. Why, why, why did we pass three times?

I think the Bears are going to win this game.  Why, you ask?  Well the Bears defense is pretty nasty.  I’ve never seen a defense create turnovers the way the Bears do.  Standing guys up and ripping at the ball and tipping passes high in the air to give other defenders time to run underneath and intercept them.  Indy will be playing outside, on grass, possibly in the rain, and Peyton has not been particularly good in the postseason.  And although the Colts have their new playoff defense going, they did give up 34 points to the Patriots.  And Grossman has played well in both his playoff starts so far, and he had two weeks to prepare for this game.  If the Bears can get some of their big plays to Berrian, they have a shot.  Also, the Bears have the most dangerous returner in the game with Devin Hester while the Colts are near the bottom of league in kickoff and punt coverage.  I predict Bears 31, Colts 24.

Super Bowl XLI Prediction
Colts 24 - Bears 20
Last Week:
Picked winning team: 2-0, 1
Against the spread: 2-0, 1
Picking over/under: 1-1, 0.5