NFL Preview: Post-Season & Awards

Ok, this is the last sports related thing I'm going to write for a while. Perhaps some of you do not care for sports or are just sick of a week of NFL Previews, but next time I'll bring something more for the general reading audience. Hope you still find the stuff interesting though.

First, just a quick run down of the NFC East games this past week.

Eagles v. Packers:

What an embarrassing loss. We handed the Packers this game, and while the offense did struggle, that is to be expected in the first game of the season from this team. As for who is to blame for the loss and those horrible special team mistakes, it is clearly the Eagles organization and people like Tom Heckert, Joe Banner, and Andy Reid for not getting a capable punt returner on this roster. It comes down to the sheer ego of these men that they thought they could just throw anyone back there and things would be fine. There were plenty of capable return men available over the past year, but the front office opted for Jeremy Bloom. Since Bloom wasn't as explosive as the front office hoped he would be, they cut him. A 5th round pick from last year just cut. To make things worse the whole mantra of this years draft was that they were comfortable with the team they had and felt they had no areas of need, which allowed them to take a luxury pick of Kevin Kolb in the second round. Yeah, real nice move, guys.

Some of you may think you could do a better job than J.R. Reed and Greg Lewis did yesterday, and you'd be right. Anyone with a limited football IQ knows that on punts you can simply fair catch the ball, and you do not have to touch it. Sadly, our two return men did not. With that said, neither of them are punt returners and the coaching staff cannot expect them to just go back there and be steady contributors. The first punt Greg Lewis ever fielded was in the last pre-season game. That is unacceptable for an NFL franchise, let alone one that plans to win a Super Bowl sometime soon. Yes, I agree Reed and Lewis are professional football players, and they should know the rules of the game, but you never know what could be going through their heads when they're back there. Didn't the special teams coach tell them anything? The only positive from yesterday is that Greg Lewis will finally be released from the team, and he'll no longer be an Eagle.

Redskins v. Dolphins:

Pathetic game, but the 'Skins won (barely) and set themselves up nicely to get destroyed next Monday by the Birds.

Cowboys v. Giants:

Oh geez, here comes all of the Cowboy love. This game proved absolutely nothing to me. Everything that transpired I already knew. The Giants are going to be terrible, minus a career year from Eli Manning, and the Cowboys are terrible on defense. How do you let up that many points to the Giants? How? The Giants did whatever they wanted, without their starting RB! The only reason the Cowboys put up so many points was because the Giants defense is plain bad, and they didn't make any adjustments to the Cowboys attacking them over the middle until the 4th quarter. I'm telling you, mark it down for next week, I don't know what the line is going to be for the Cowboys at the Dolphins, but take the Dolphins. They have a solid defense and will cause more problems for Tony Romo than the Giants did.

Other than that, you gotta love the opening weekend of football, especially that Michael Mann directed Nike commercial with Shawne Merriman and Steven Jackson. They always have the coolest commercials.

Post-Season:

NFC -
East: Philadelphia Eagles
West: Seattle Seahawks
North: Green Bay Packers
South: New Orleans Saints
Wild cards: Chicago Bears, Washington Redskins

AFC -
East: New England Patriots
West: San Diego Chargers
North: Baltimore Ravens
South: Indianapolis Colts
Wild cards: Pittsburgh Steelers, Denver Broncos

Wild Card -
NFC:
Seattle over Chicago
Washington over Green Bay

AFC:
Baltimore over Denver
San Diego over Pittsburgh

Divisional -
NFC:
Seattle over Philadelphia
New Orleans over Washington

AFC:
New England over San Diego
Indianapolis over Baltimore

Conference Championship -
NFC: Seattle over New Orleans
AFC: New England over Indianapolis

Super Bowl: New England over Seattle




Awards -

MVP: Tom Brady
Coach of the Year: Sean Payton
NFC Offensive/Defensive Rookie of the Year: Calvin Johnson/Patrick Willis
AFC Offensive/Defensive Rookie of the Year: Marshawn Lynch/David Harris
Worst Eagle: Assuming Greg Lewis gets cut, Correll Buckhalter