Quote of the day
"We took one in the chin today. We got outplayed." -- Saints QB Drew Brees, after a 34-7 beatdown in SeattleDaily blurb
Wow, I am really slacking off on these “daily” blurbs. More like “every now and then” blurbs. It looks like the road to the Super Bowl in the NFC goes through Seattle. They effectively have a three game advantage, since the only two teams that are two games back (N.O. and Carolina) each lost to the Seahawks. And winning on the road in Seattle looks like a daunting proposition.
Home field advantage in the AFC is still up for grabs. Denver has the edge if they can win out, but New England would overtake them with a one-game shift in standings, based on the tiebreaker. And Kansas City, Indy, and Cincy are still in play, if Denver and the Pats should falter.
The RIFC leagues have completed the regular season. Eight teams from each 14-team league now advance to a three-week single-elimination playoff. For teams that have dominated through the regular season, this is the most maddening part of the season, as history shows that the top seed seldom prevails. I don’t have time to sift through all of the QL results, but for the nine years of the RIFC, the top seed has only won the playoffs once – and that was my team in 2005. The #6 seed has won three times, the #2 and #3 seeds have each won twice, and the #5 seed won once. So while it’s a maddening experience for top seeds, it’s a time of hope for all the others. On any given weekend…
In this year’s RIFC, the top seed is Holt, who dominated all season long, averaging almost 170 points per week, more than 25 points better than the weekly average for any other team. Can he buck the trend? He won from the #5 seed slot last year, but…