Holiday Hoopla

I'm back from a self-imposed holiday hiatus where I watched a little bit of the action but didn't bother making time to blog my thoughts. However, feeling refreshed from seeing the family back home and having settled back in to regularity in the big V, it's back to the grind and back to blogging.

There was plenty of action to enjoy over the last week and a half with most of the college bowl action taking place, the NFL regular season concluding, the World Junior Hockey Tournament getting under way, and the NHL playing an outdoor game in Buffalo in front of 70,000+ fans. The highlights for me so far have been watching New England finish up perfect in a great game against the Giants, seeing Sydney Crosby play the hero again winning the Winter Classic in a shootout, and seeing Michigan knock off Florida in coach Carr's swan song. I thought now would be a good time, though, to reflect on what I predicted for the NFL playoffs and what really happened those last two weeks of the season.

In the AFC I was fairly close. I predicted that Pittsburgh would hang on to win their division and they really only just hung on. I called Jacksonville to be stepping up and finishing strong for an 11-5 record and a wild card spot. Cleveland let me down though. Their pathetic performance against Cincy in week 16 left them needing help that they were never going to get and allowed Tennessee to jump up to the final wild card spot with three straight wins at the end of the year. This sets up a very interesting matchup this week between Pittsburgh and Jacksonville. I won't give away my pick just yet, but I think it could be a great game in a frozen Steel City.

My NFC forecast illustrated that I clearly cannot be trusted as any gauge of what's to come in the NFL. I called for the collapse of the Giants that never happened. They turned in a good enough performance to beat Buffalo and lock up a spot and then they played great in giving the Pats a challenge for that 16-0 season. They didn't win the game, but they can take a lot of positives from it. Washington beat the Vikings as I suspected, but they too suffered no collapse against Dallas. Rather they stepped it up further and beat the tar out of the Cowboys, rolling to a wild card spot of their own. The Vikes and Saints, who I expected to step up, both suffered those collapses that I was looking for and fell short of expectations. Wild Card weekend in the NFC should be interesting too with both road teams playing well recently and posing callenges for the weaker division winners. I'll chime in with my predictions on Friday!