The Prelude, Wild Card Round: NFL Playoffs Salvage Another New Year

Matt Ufford is the editor of With Leather and a co-founder of Kissing Suzy Kolber. The Prelude is his sincere examination of the coming NFL weekend.

I've never been moved by the fresh starts and resolutions that come with a new calendar year. The year just reminds me of those short documentaries playing on loop in a museum: you catch the final ten minutes, watch as people leave, start from the beginning until you reach the point where you started watching, then leave with a feeling of completeness. As with the New Year, it's nice if you can catch the show at the beginning, but not critical.


Sport seasons, on the other hand, have a well-timed narrative: shorter than our too-long years and longer than the too-short hiccups of trends between solstice and equinox. Sports seasons put their feet up on the passage of time. They don't pay rent on the 1st, and they don't worry about deadlines. Super Bowl's in February instead of January? Oh well. Ice hockey in June? Sure thing. The World Series might end after Halloween? What're ya gonna do?

So, this new month doesn't matter to me because it's 2008. It matters because the NFL playoffs are finally here. And that, not a resolution for six-pack abs, is something worth celebrating.

The beginning of the NFL playoffs salvages the start of every new year. Without football, January is just a return to the grind of work, where work has piled up like the snowdrifts outside. The newness and holiday charm of cold weather in December has worn off, and going outside any time before March Madness becomes a trial of will.


The only things that can stave off my inevitable winter depression are the final 11 games. Save the Super Bowl bye, it's never more than six survivable days until we find out which road team can manage an upset, if the NFC can produce a suitable challenger, if the Patriots can continue their quest for perfection, if Eli Manning can become a reliable playoff quarterback, which teams were regular-season pretenders ...

Simply put, the playoffs give me something to care about besides the 18-degree weather. It may not sound like much, but every minute that I'm not watching the clock and waiting for spring is a thankful one. It's a long way until the first robin of spring -- or those other vernal harbingers: March Madness and pitchers and catchers.


Wild Card Round

In that spirit of thankfulness, I'll be highlighting the good things about each of the teams playing this weekend. With half of these eight teams headed home for the year, now seems like an excellent time to thank them all for what made this past season memorable. Even the Steelers. In accordance with established media bias, all times are Eastern.

Saturday

Redskins (9-7) at Seahawks (10-6), 4:30 on NBC -- The Redskins have a couple of heartwarming stories. Their four-game winning streak to close out the year came on the heels of Sean Taylor's tragic death and at the surprisingly steady hands of journeyman backup Todd Collins, the NFC's Offensive Player of the Month for December. I'm also grateful that they beat the Vikings in Week 16, because I didn't want the Seahawks to face Chester Taylor and Adrian Peterson.

As a Seahawks fan, I'm obviously grateful that they made the playoffs, and also for the reasons that got them there, which include but are not limited to: a delightfully weak schedule; Matt Hasselbeck's heroic performance in the face of a DOA rushing attack; and a tough defense highlighted by a ferocious front seven and four Pro Bowl starters. I also happen to like Hasselbeck's ridiculous mustache.

Jaguars (11-5) at Steelers (10-6), 8:00 on NBC -- The Jags don't catch too many breaks; they're trapped in the brutal AFC South, and they're the third pro team in a state that tends to favor three college teams. So even though their 11- and 12-win seasons can't earn them a home game, it's still good to see them in the playoffs. And I'm happy that Fred Taylor survived the season without injury and earned his first Pro Bowl berth. He was certainly due.

On the Steelers side of things ... hmm. This is tougher than I thought. I guess Hines Ward seems like a nice guy.

Sunday

Giants (10-6) at Buccaneers (9-7), 1:00 on FOX -- I always enjoy a departure from historical precedent, and so far this year the Giants have come through on that. As a team that had recently suffered through late-season collapses and first-round playoff exits, they've so far enjoyed a break from the former.

The Buccaneers, meanwhile, check the box as this year's most unlikely playoff team. With the Saints stumbling from their preseason status as chic pick to be a Super Bowl contender, Bucs players emerged from nowhere to help the team succeed: Earnest Graham became a dangerous running back, while Jeff Garcia and Joe Galloway shared both initials and excellent seasons in their twilight years.

Titans (10-6) at Chargers (11-5), 4:30 on CBS -- The Titans pushed the Browns out of the final playoff spot, thus preventing me from having to admit that I was wrong about the plucky Cleveland team. That big slow lummox Derek Anderson gets no apology from me! Also, as someone who scoffs at the notion of the "Madden Curse," I'm thankful that, barring a disastrous performance from Vince Young, we're very close to building evidence against its existence. VY hasn't by any means had a good year, but he survived the season without serious injury and his team made the playoffs. Good enough for me.

As for the Chargers, I'm thankful they bounced back from that ugly 1-3 start; it's always a pleasure to see the knee-jerk reaction of "conventional wisdom" -- say, calling for Norv Turner's head after four games -- thrown back in our faces. Also, we're lucky we get to watch LaDainian Tomlinson for at least one more week. And also the Chargers Girls, who are the LaDainian Tomlinson of NFL cheerleaders.



1. NFL TV Distribution Maps. Another great thing about the playoffs is that I no longer have to bother with breaking down the distribution maps every week.

2. NFL Style Watch. Someone complained to me over email recently about the hand warmers quarterbacks use between plays. His problem was that they always fell off and that quarterbacks barely used them. I'm not even sure how to respond to that, other than to wager a guess that the person has lived all his life in Florida.

3. Matt Leinart's next arm injury. The crocodile is a metaphor for an ex-girlfriend.

4. With the firings of Mike Martz and Brian Billick, the NFL has lost two of its most heralded offensive geniuses. Martz is best known for his "Give the ball to Marshall Faulk" playbook, while Billick pioneered the idea of throwing long passes to Randy Moss. You will be missed, gentlemen.

5. I can't stop studying this map of the Internet, partly because I can't decide if FanHouse is a peninsula of AOL or an island in the blogipelago.

6. Bill Belichick is the AP's selection for Coach of the Year, and SpyGate or not, I don't see what other choice there was. Romeo Crennel with a team that missed the playoffs? Wade Phillips? It has to go to the guy who led his team to the first 16-0 season in history.

7. For anyone betting on the Titans this Sunday: The team has lost reliable TE Bo Scaife to a lacerated liver and leading WR Roydell Williams to a broken ankle suffered in practice. That leaves Justin Gage as the only receiver any casual fan has possibly heard of, against one of the more talented secondaries in the league.

8. Wait a second. A lacerated liver? I really don't want to know what kind of pain that entails, or -- more frightening -- what kind of restrictions it places on the consumption of alcohol.

9. My attempt at a semi-objective ranking of the quality of games this weekend, with my picks in bold: 1. Jags-Steelers; 2. 'Skins-Seahawks; 3. Titans-Chargers; 4. Giants-Bucs. NOTE: I hate making picks, and they're always wrong.

10. Finally, I can wax poetic all I want about the NFL playoffs (and I did), but nothing can make me more thankful for them than the mere thought of the BCS running the NFL's championship. Honestly, if that link can't sway you to the perfection of the playoffs, I don't know how you managed to read this far.