If you don't learn anything else from It's Always Sunny, You Gotta Let the wild card do his thing: Wild Card Playoff Preview

Well the regular season is over. 17 weeks of action and we are down to 12 teams. 4 of them have the weekend off. The other 8 play for their playoff lives this weekend.

Saturday: Jets vs. Bengals

I would definitely say the Jets are the worst of the playoff bunch. They have been in dysfunctional since a 3-0 start, they have a rookie QB in Mark Sanchez who had a less than stellar season. It looked like they were on the verge of giving up sometime in November. But with last sunday's game the deciding factor between whether the Bengals would face the Texans or Jets, the Bengals got "dominated" and are rewarded with facing an inferior team.

The Bengals, they are the surprise team of the season. Nothing was expected of them, they went through way more adversity than any other team in the league and they have come out the stronger team for it. I'm indifferent towards both teams but i'll probably be pulling for the Bengals in this one. I'd like to see what Carson Palmer can do in a playoff game. His last opportunity was cut to one play due to a gruesome injury. For a couple years it didn't look like he'd get a second chance. The motivation between this second chance and an inferior opponent will lead to a Bengals rout.

Bengals 31 Jets 10

Eagles vs. Cowboys

Personally don't care for either of these teams. The Eagles have played as well as one could for the last decade without actually winning a Super Bowl. Donovan McNabb and Andy Reid have taken a lot of heat for this but outside of the T.O. fiasco this team has been a year-in, year-out playoff contender.

The Cowboys played better down the stretch than they have in the last few years. While McNabb has usually led the Eagles to a playoff win or two before bowing out, he's practically Joe Montana compared to Tony Romo. Unless Romo actually goes through a playoff game without laying an egg and/or losing, I can't in good conscience pick the Cowboys to win a playoff game.

Eagles 28 Cowboys 24

Sunday

Ravens vs. Patriots

Not to high on either team's Super Bowl hopes. The Ravens are more talented than their 9-7 record (but not that much more talented). I thought the Ravens were going to break out with Flacco having another year of experience under his wing.

The Patriots return to the post-season after a brief absence. They had a good season but seem to be missing that killer instinct that they had during their Super Bowl run plus losing Wes Welker to injury doesn't help things. However, i'm applying the reverse Tony Romo principle for this game. Hard to pick against Brady in a playoff game.

Patriots 21 Ravens 10

Packers vs. Cardinals

Obviously, this is the game out of the four that I am anticipating the most. This is going to be Aaron Rodgers' debut on the big stage. He's proven to be more than worthy in his two years as a starting QB and I can't wait to see him light up the Cardinals D.

The Cardinals are coming off a crushing Super Bowl loss to the Steelers last year. The Cardinals (well their second string) are coming off a blow out loss to the Packers.

Obviously, the degree of difficulty this Sunday is going to be a lot higher. With Rodgers on one side and Warner on the other, look for lots of yards and points to be accumulated on both sides. This will come down to who can make A stop (not necessarily a lot) of stops on defense and considering the Packers have Charles Woodson and the Cardinals don't that is being reflected in my pick.

Packers 45 Cardinals 35

Top 10 Sports Cities---Not Top 10 Aspects

Recently, Forbes Magazine wrote an article with their top-10 list of hottest sports cities.

Well, I decided to twist things around a little bit and give a sarcastic take on some of these top cities not top 10 sports elements/moments/whatever comes to mind/etc.

# 10 San Diego

Out of the cities listed on here this one surprised me the most. The Chargers sleepwalk through a month hoping to squeak into the playoffs (works better when everyone else is .500 or worse) and they have the Padres (beyond Adrian Gonzales and Heath Bell....nothing special there)........losing 85+ games a year and David Eckstein......so not top 10

# 9 Chicago

I admit i'm biased on this one as many of my least favorite teams play in Chicago. I'd go with 101 years of no World Series titles but deflecting the blame on billy goats and scapegoating a die-hard fans who instinctively reach for foul balls.

# 8 Indianapolis

Nothing against Peyton Manning personally but he's in way too many TV Commercials but its all good as long as he keeps my fantasy team competitive

# 7 Detroit

Tigers inability to hold a 3-game lead with 4 games left......The Matt Millen Era.........Making 0-16 a reality.......its all good because the Lions being in the NFC North gives the Packers a couple easy wins per season

# 6 Pittsburgh

Its crazy to think that despite being 26 years old, the Pirates haven't had a winning season since I was in 4th grade.

# 5 Dallas

Tony Romo, The Cowboys in General, The irony of spending boatloads of cash on a stadium but placing the scoreboard so low that punted footballs hit it on a regular basis......

#4 Philadelphia

Booing Santa Claus....seriously Santa Claus.......can't hate on Philly sports too much since Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia did an episode where the gang tries out for the Eagles....it was funny

# 3 New York

The Mets opening their new stadium with a thud....The fact that the Yankees are one win away from sucessfully completing their purchase of the AL Championship......The Knicks.......Letting Isiah Thomas be a GM

# 2 Los Angeles

LA........Number 2? They'll support teams....if its cool. The Clippers playing to half-empty arenas. Dodger fans arriving in the 3rd, leaving in the 7th. This brings me back to a couple weeks ago: I was watching Game 2 of the NLDS the Franklin/Holliday game....it was the bottom of the 9th inning they showed the stadium attendees... the first thing that comes to my mind is i've never seen Dodger Stadium that full ever (let alone that late in the game)

# 1 Boston

I was going to mention the Titans play against New England on Sunday....but that doesn't apply to the criteria for the posting.

One thing thats sort of bugs me is why does Boston College call itself Boston College? This would imply that the campus is in Boston....but according to the all-knowing Wikipedia its in Chestnut Hill........is there a reason they went the BC method for naming?

Lots of stuff to talk about.....some NFL, some BCS, some Playoffs?!

Alright, so Saturday was a pretty busy sports day where the Angels-Yankees game overshadowed a pretty good slate of college football games. Today was a strong follow up to yesterday but with no one particular event overshadowing the crowd......my observations from the day in sports

The Saints can and will beat anyone in the league

Going into today, the one non-Packers game that I anticipated the most was the Giants-Saints game. Both teams were undefeated and the upper-hand in the NFC was at hand. The Saints ended up winning the game 48-27. The final score does not do service to how one-sided this affair was. Dree Brews and Marques Colston had their way with the Giants defense. It is scary how good the Saints are with their high-octane offense complemented by a competent defense. At this point, I wouldn't be shocked if the Saints go marching to their first Super Bowl this year.

The Vikings have got to lose at some point.......

The Vikings were thiiiissss close to choking in the 4th quarter against the Ravens. The Vikings D had a bad breakdown in the 4th allowing the Ravens to get back into the game. Joe Flacco had an excellent game and deserved to win this one. If only their kicker would have made the last-second field goal. Still, there is no way Favre keeps up his strong performance this year.....they've narrowly escaped defeat twice and their defense hasn't exactly been top-shelf.

The First BCS Standings are out.....

The top 3 are Florida-Alabama-Texas as expected. While the voters are stretching to place less deserving one-loss teams to pass Boise State on a weekly basis (USC replacing Virginia Tech in this regard)....I was glad to see Boise State being 4th in the BCS standings.....they were dropped to 6th in the AP despite winning their game last week......seriously if two of the top 3 lose, Boise stays undefeated but Boise gets passed up by a 1-loss team...that will only escalate the calls for a playoff.......weak conference or not...if a non-BCS team is one of two teams to run the table they at least deserve a chance to prove they are worthy of winning a national championship....

Whatever dignity the Titans had left is gone....

The first few weeks of the season the Titans were 0-3 but they were at least competitive in their losses. The last couple weeks, things had gotten progressively worse. Today, they bottomed out. I didn't know it was physically impossible to give up 5 touchdowns in a quarter in an NFL game but the Titans proved it was possible today. This is the thing you normally see when Florida schedules some cupcake 1-AA team...........seriously, when I saw that New England went up 45-0 scrolling across the bottom of my tv....I pretty much did a double take.....this goes to prove that any given year a team can go from 13-wins to a laughing stock and vice versa.....

At least today...the Dodgers weaker pitching staff is coming back to bite them

When I previewed the Dodgers-Phillies NLCS series, the one thing that stuck out to me is the discrepancy between pitching staffs. The Dodgers had been getting by on Randy Wolf, Vicente Padilla, etc. However, when your facing Cliff Lee in the playoffs, you can only go so far. The Dodgers started Hiroki Kuroda started and abruptly got rocked for 6 runs in 1 1/3 innings....as a result, the Dodgers have had no realistic shot to go up 2-1 in the NLCS...that combined with the Dodgers offense no-showing leaves the Phils up 8-0 in the 8th and the Dodgers moving one-step closer to having their season ended by the Phils.........

What is it with NFC teams losing to the laughingstocks of the NFL

This is something the Redskins have turned into an art-form. They have found ways to lose to the Chiefs, Lions and Panthers.........not exactly the most imposing schedule. But their divisional rival Eagles one-upped them this week by losing to the Raiders. The Raiders haven't shown this much fight since Tom Cable confronted his assistant in the pre-season. The Eagles may still have a winning record at 3-2 but any team that loses to the Raiders can NOT be taken seriously and from here I see the Eagles joining the Redskins in irrelevancy this year......and for the Redskins, their bad loss puts Jim Zorn one step closer to getting fired........