It’s the NFL Championship round weekend. There’s a counter-intuitive waxing and waning in the football world around this time. This weekend’s games are the second most important games of the year. Win this one and you go to the Super Bowl. They are among the most exciting games of the year. But at the same time, there’s only two of them. After weekends of 11-16 games all fall and then two weekends in a row of four games each in the earlier playoff rounds, two games seems like just a little bit of football. In this way interest wanes as it waxes.
This year, my friend Brendan and I recorded 10-15 minute preview podcasts of each of the games. I’ve linked to those in the game titles below. But, lucky for you, it’s not just Brendan and me blathering on about the NFL. Fresh of a season of previewing all the NFL games, our favorite police duo bring their good cop, bad cop act into the playoffs and preview all the matchups in the National Football League this weekend.
Championship Weekend
Sunday, January 18, at 3:05 p.m. ET, on Fox
Green Bay Packers at Seattle Seahawks
Good cop: The best quarterback in the league, Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers, against the best defense in the league, the Seattle Seahawks?!! Sign me up for that! Seattle had the record for loudest stadium in the world stolen from them earlier this season by the Kansas City fans! My guess is that they take it back on Sunday! They make so much noise that they need to be monitored for seismic consequences! Yikes!!
Bad cop: The story of this game is either going to be ‘quarterback on one leg plays hero and wins against all odds’ or ‘smothering defense key to back-to-back championship run.’ Either one is too cliched and mundane for words. Show me something new, please.
Sunday, January 18, at 6:40 p.m. ET, on CBS
Indianapolis Colts at New England Patriots
Good cop: Tom Brady, Tom Brady, Tom Brady! Andrew Luck, Andrew Luck, Andrew Luck! This game is a massive battle between two quarterbacks at the top of their games!! It’s old school vs. new school! Both teams have earned their spot in this championship game! The Patriots came back from being down by 14 points twice against their playoff arch-nemesis, the Baltiomre Ravens! The Colts went into Denver and took down the big, bad, Super Bowl or bust Denver Broncos!
Bad cop: Indianapolis beat Cincinnati without their best player, A.J. Green, and then Denver without their best player, Peyton Manning, being healthy enough to play at even close to his normal level. New England needed to pull out all their trickiest trick plays to beat the Ravens, a team with one of the worst pass defenses around. This game features two average teams masquerading as great teams. Bah.