A great defense nicknamed “The Orange Crush” led the 1977 Denver Broncos to an AFC title. A defense that was even better led the 2015 Denver Broncos to a Super Bowl championship. An MVP quarterback doesn’t do much good if you can’t keep him upright in the pocket and Carolina couldn’t protect Cam Newton from […]
To listen to the media and the betting public, you’d think a Carolina rout was a foregone conclusion. Carolina opened as a (-3.5) favorite over Denver in the Super Bowl, has been bet up as high as six in some places and seems to have settled in as a consensus (-5.5) favorite. The only real […]
The Washington Capitals might be having a dominant regular season, but given their troubled history in the postseason no one really cares. The Caps are 35-8-4, running away with the Metropolitan Division, the Eastern Conference and in the lead in the race for the President’s Cup, given to the regular season’s best team. But the […]
If this is the last time Peyton Manning and Tom Brady square off, we got our money’s worth. The AFC Championship Game was just a great football game to watch and the sheer effort both quarterbacks put on the line was something to behold. Some thoughts on Denver’s 20-18 win over New England… *Before the […]
I’ve often felt like the last believer left in Peyton Manning, that the Denver Broncos can win the Super Bowl with him at quarterback, and do so with him playing well in the process. There have been some rocky times holding on to that belief this season, but I still think Denver is going to […]
Arizona fans are elated and relieved. Green Bay fans are crushed. But those who didn’t have a dog in the fight on Saturday evening in the desert know we just watched something epic. “A game for the ages”, said Al Michaels—this from a man who called the Don Denkinger game in the 1985 World Series, […]
In the end, you just can’t lose the turnover battle, lose on special teams, blow coverages and expect to win a national championship game. Clemson did all those things and still came a lot closer than one might have expected, given those errors, but in the end they were the difference in Alabama’s 45-40 win […]
I’ve never been a big critic of Marvin Lewis, but the events of Saturday night’s playoff loss make it clear, at least to me, that he needs to go. And the best candidate to replace him is Stanford head coach David Shaw. Let’s review the case for Lewis’ dismissal by the Cincinnati Bengals. He’s been […]
To say that Kirk Cousins is coming into the playoffs on a roll understates the case. The Washington Redskins quarterback is positively surging into the postseason. In the month of December, Cousins has been transformed from a do-no-harm dink-and-dunk quarterback into one playing at an MVP level. One statistic tells the story. While Cousins has […]
Where I live in southeastern Wisconsin, the atmosphere is rife with despair as the Green Bay Packers head into the playoffs as a 5-seed following their blowing of the NFC North title last night at home to the Minnesota Vikings. No one can deny how poorly the 10-6 Packers have been playing for over two […]
College football’s major bowl games were awful this year. That’s just bad luck, but the poor scheduling and overload was not. Here’s the problems and how to fix them… *The most obvious problem that’s drawing attention in the mainstream media is the decision to show the two Playoff bowl games (Orange & Cotton) on New […]
Ohio State has been here before. “Here” is the Fiesta Bowl following a season in which the Buckeyes played well enough to get a bid of this magnitude, but didn’t really achieve their goals. And therefore coming into the game needing a victory to achieve some sort of validation for the season. It seems hard […]
