In an NFL season marked by historic offensive production and a championship round that was conspicuously absent a top-10 defense, aficionados of low-scoring rock fights, filled with punts and field goals, have been left disappointed. The best defensive teams to make the playoffs were eliminated early in the tournament, with the Bears, Ravens and Texans […]
One of the most wonderfully ironic moments in Super Bowl history happened just before kickoff in February 2002, when St. Louis Rams wide receiver Ricky Proehl turned to NFL Films’ cameras during warmups and declared: “Tonight, a dynasty is born!” Proehl was right, of course. A dynasty was born that night — just not the […]
After a wild-card weekend marked by upsets, the NFL’s divisional round restored order to the playoffs: The home team won in all four matchups — only the second time that’s happened this decade. The resulting conference championship games — Rams vs. Saints and Patriots vs. Chiefs — could be explosive affairs. They feature the four […]
gfoster (Geoff Foster, sports editor): The Divisionals returned normalcy to the NFL. All four home favorites won outright – three of them covered the spread comfortably. There will be no wild card team making a run this year, which seems like a harder and harder path to the Super Bowl. But let’s start with the […]
The NFL’s wild-card round may have been a brutal showcase of grind-it-out defense and uninspired offensive play-calling. But at least it threw another intriguing wrench into what was already shaping up to be a chaotic postseason. Three of the four favorites (according to FiveThirtyEight’s pregame Elo ratings) lost on opening weekend: the home Texans, Ravens […]