As usual, we had a couple of blowouts for the Conference Championships this year.  This followed a bunch of butt-kickings in the Divisional Round. This is typical of the NFL playoffs; the Wild Card round usually has some good games, and the rest of them end up in blowout city.

    Let's start with the Eagles' annihilation of the Falcons. What went wrong? Nothing, really. The Eagles defense ranked 10th in total yards, and 2nd in scoring defense, compared to the Falcons who were 14th in yards, 14th  in scoring. Defense wins championships, and this includes Conference Championships. Anybody who thought the Falcons were going to win haven't paid enough attention to playoff football in the last century. The Eagles have now cleared the Conference Championship hurdle on their 4th consecutive try, and are fully prepared to lose Superbowl XXXIX.

    New England dismantled the Pittsburgh Steelers, scoring in a variety of fashions, and confusing the inexperienced rookie QB Roethlisberger. I told you last week that Pittsburgh was #1 in scoring and total defense, and that all their predecessors had won the Superbowl. The Patriots, however, were not too far behind, ranking 9th in total defense and tied for 2nd in scoring D. With the defenses very similar, the difference in this case was the offense.

    Pittsburgh relied heavily on their 2nd ranked rushing game (NE 7th), but the Pats led in all other categories, including 4th in scoring offense (compared to Pitt's 11th). The Pats ranked 11th in passing yards, while the Steelers were the 5th worst passing team. Simply put, Brady is a much more viable QB than any rookie this side of Marino (who incidentally lost his first playoff game as a rookie). Brady hasn't lost a playoff game in his career, winning the Superbowl in both of his previous playoff adventures.  Defense still does win championships, but with two great defenses, the difference would be found in offense and coaching.

    Their was another factor in this game: the retardation of Bill Cowher.  This coach has now hosted 5 AFC championship games, and won only 1 of them.  In that 1 Superbowl, his team performed admirably except for the insistence of Neil O'donnell in throwing passes directly to Larry Brown of the Cowboys. How can you be the top ranked team left in the conference, and lose 4 out of 5 times on your own field. This was after a narrow escape of the Jets, who would have won if their kicker had made 1 of his 2 40+ yard field goal attempts. 

    Cowher is just not a good playoff coach. He ran the ball repeatedly on 1st and 2nd down, leaving his rookie QB to make the play on 3rd and long. Gee, do you think the Patriots may have been expecting that?  The only thing surprising about the Steelers game plan was that is was so shockingly stupid and predictable. The only success Ben had passing was on the very rare 1st and 2nd down passes that they called. His three interceptions all came on 3rd down when he was forced to make the play for his team but could not.  When you're playing against Bill Belichick, you can't be predictable, and you can't put it on the back of your rookie QB to win for you. They should have called 1st down passes at least 100% of the time in the 1st half, to get the Pats defense to back up a little bit. Just bomb a few deep, complete or not, it will get the Pats thinking about it. Then you can run the ball more effectively. Cowher is just too bull-headed to get it right in the playoffs. A 15-1 team that beat 2 of the other 3 teams in the Conference Championship games, should go to the Superbowl every time.

    It's amazing how great some of these coaches can be at teaching fundamentals, blocking, drawing up plays, etc, but how awful they can be at game management. As far as the other aspects of game management, Cowher started off by doing a good job, challenging when he should have and going for it on 4th down in the 1st half. Even though he missed, it was the right call. In the 4th quarter, down by 2 TD's, he then inexplicably kicked a field goal on 4th and 1, when they obviously needed 14 points, not an arrangement of 3-pointers. The Steelers are 1 team that is obviously in need of a game manager, particularly in the playoffs. I'm for hire, if anyone's interested.

Related article: Defense Wins Championships in the NFL

Doug Cooke

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