Betting On NFL Championship Sunday: Do Dogs Have Their Day?
Published by Dan Boone on January 20, 2011
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
“This is a league of Shetland ponies- it’s not Kentucky Derby horses we are talking about.” Chicago Bear Hall of Fame defensive tackle Dan Hampton, in USA Today Sports Weekly, on NFL parity and the playoffs.
Parity has leveled the land of the NFL.
The Kentucky Derby super horse like dynasty teams are a thing of the NFL past, destined for dusty NFL film shelves.
The Chicago Bears, who looked like a bad disaster movie against the New York Giants and New England Patriots earlier this season, might win the big bowl.
A lucky streak in the playoffs could always go a long way, but in an era of parity, when the super teams of the seventies and eighties have been slain by free agency and rule swings, a lucky streak can take an average team to a ring.
Still sometimes Shetlands, sans a super horse, make for an exciting race.
And that, I guess, is the idea of parity.
This week the talking points of the endless television talking heads seem to be mostly the same.
Turnovers, like life, will kill ya.
An over abundance of penalties are very, very bad things.
Don’t punt to David Hester has been said seemingly several thousand times by several hundred ESPN heads, and it’s still only Wednesday.
Don’t give up the big play.
And don’t forget, the talking heads add sagely that the head coaches might shockingly throw some strange stuff at the quarterbacks because these are, after all, big games.
With sharp insights like this, it’s no wonder the television talking heads make the mega bucks.
Trash talk is a hot topic as is the ancient, bitter Green Bay Packer-Chicago Bear feud.
Football is just a job for the millionaires on the field, and an investment for the billionaires in the luxury box. The only on field hate a fan in Chicago is likely to see is if Forrest Gregg and Mike Ditka have too many pregame bourbons and bump each other on the way to the bathroom.
Actually, a Ditka vs Gregg—former teammates on the Dallas Cowboys—death brawl in a muddy Soldier Field sod pit would make for a lively halftime show.
Ditka, after all, still owes the nasty Gregg for telling Packer DE Charles “Too Mean” Martin to slam Bear QB Jim McMahon and end the Bears hopes of a repeat ring.
Gregg even ordered his vile minions to cheap shot Walter Payton. How cruel hearted was that?
Green Bay Packers [- 3 1/2] @ Chicago Bears [O/U 43 1/2]
The Bears [+ 3] beat the Pack in Chicago 20-17 in September.
The Pack paid the Bears [ + 11] back by beating the Bears 10-3 on the last week of the season.
The Bears covered in both games, and both games stayed under the total.
The rubber match for the NFC Championship is spawning lots of quarterback talk, but the weather, the poor field conditions, and how well they these two teams know each other will leave it in the hands of the defense.
Neither team has run the ball, save in spurts, particularly well all season. The Bears, with a sub par offensive line, still seem to revert to a pass, pass approach at times.
The Packers have three defensive players—LB Clay Matthews, CB Charles Woodson and DT B.J. Raji—peaking at the perfect time in Don Capers well run defense.
Despite all the talk of the superior defenses in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and in Rex Ryan’s mind, the Pack might have the best defense in the league playing its best ball at the perfect time.
That, along with a hot quarterback in Aaron Rogers, is a deadly playoff combination.
The Bears will counter with perhaps the biggest impact player in the league in DE Julius Peppers and old stalwarts like Urlacher and Briggs
But, Bear safety Chris Harris is hurting, and the Packers impact players seem more plentiful and peaking at the right time.
The Pack defense over the Bears defense.
Aaron Rogers over Jay Cutler.
The Pack front seven over the Bears blocking scheme.
Dom Capers over Mike Martz
Packers 22 Bears 17
New York Jets [+ 3 1/2] @ the Pittsburgh Steelers {O/U 37 1/2]
If Rex Ryan and Mike McCarthy both win, perhaps the NFL will have John Madden and Art Donovan flip the Super Bowl Coin to honor beefy, bloated red faced Irishman everywhere.
One of the big questions in this game is who does Terry Bradshaw despise more, the loud Gotham fat man or the obnoxious Steel City QB?
If he had only one shot to give a marlin spike MVP to the head, who would the increasingly unhinged Bradshaw deliver it to, Big Ben or the Fat Man?
The Jets [+ 5] best the Steelers 22-17 in Pittsburgh in December.
Did the Jets play their Super Bowl last week in Bean town against Brady and Belichick?
Mark Sanchez has wins, on their home courts, over Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in consecutive weeks. Can he beat Big Ben in his home court also?
Not since New York Giant Jeff Hostetler, filling in for an injured Phil Simms in the 1990 playoffs, has a relatively unproductive QB hammered enemy hall of fame signal callers in consecutive playoff weeks.
The Jets strength is, of course, their defense and their vicious pass rush, which rattled the relatively immobile Manning and Brady.
But, Big Ben is more mobile than the statue like Manning and Brady and will be able to roll with the Jet blitz blows.
The Steelers bring the big play Dick LeBeau defense, and his personnel are better than Bill Belichick’s young New England squad and the Colts second city players.
The Pittsburgh defense will bang and baffle Sanchez much more than the Gang Green bunch belts and batters Big Ben.
The Steeler defense will stymie the Jets and Big Ben will grind out enough points for a home win and a trip to Texas.
Steelers 23 Jets 13
MVPS
Dom Capers and Dick LeBeau
# All games are predicted on the hope that the face viewers see the most will not be one dressed as a zebra. Sadly sometimes it seems the referees believe they are the stars of the show and want more face time than J.Lo on American Idol or the annoying Geico lizard.
And when the games end, as they must, what happens besides the beginning of the Super Bowl blather weeks?
Expect foul words to begin flying like Mike Martz passes between owners and players.
Expect strike, lock out, work stoppage, season sans football, fixers, Congress, courts, corporate lawyers, living large labor lawyers, lobbyists, anti trust, double, double toil and trouble, fire burn, cauldron bubble to replace punt, pass, tackle and kick.
As Jimmy Johnson’s classmate Janis Joplin sang get it while ye can football fans because it will be awhile before football talk rebounds.
But fear not loyal fans, fore the billionaires, millionaires, lawyers, lobbyists, and politicos will find a way to pass the buck back to the fans.
Till then roll them bones…. and get ready for the big bowl in Jerry World.
To paraphrase Raoul Duke “Jerry’s World Super Bowl Bazooko Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing Saturday nights if the Nazis had won the war. This was the Sixth Reich.”
Early Super Bowl line
AFC – 1 { O/U 44 @ -125]
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