Wild Card Saturday

What a Saturday it was on the 2011 NFL Wild Card Weekend!

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New Orleans Saints (11-6) @ Seattle Seahawks (8-9)

The 7-9 Seattle Seahawks beat the defending champion 11-5 New Orleans Saints in an exciting game where the defenses decided not to show up.

The Seahawks came back from being down ten points twice to clinch the game on Marshawn Lynch's 67-yard TD run where he broke about seven tackles for a final score of 41-36.

Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck threw four touchdown passes in this win. He looked like the Matt Hasselbeck from six years ago, not the one from the past two years.

The Saints are now 0-4 in road playoff games in the history of the team.

Before this game, there was talk about re-seeding the playoffs by overall record because a 7-9 team won their weak division and got to host a playoff game at home while the visiting team went 11-5 and had to settle for a road game as a wild card team. Some people even wanted to discard the Seahawks from the playoffs all together (me included) and replace them with the New York Giants who went 10-6.

Well, the Seahawks changed my mind last night, somewhat.. While I am all for a re-seeding of the playoff seed three through six by record instead of giving the division winners an automatic home game, if you win your division (even with a sub-.500 record) you deserve to be in the playoffs. Like yesterday proved, any given Sunday (or in this case, Saturday), any team can win in the National Football League.

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New York Jets (12-5) @ Indianapolis Colts (10-7)

Rex Ryan said this was personal, beating Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. He has never done it as the defensive coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens. He couldn't do it to punch the Jets ticket to the Super Bowl last season.

This game was a stark contrast to the earlier game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New Orleans Saints. In this game, the defenses showed up.

Rex Ryan played tight coverage on the outside receivers and made Manning use the middle of the field for most of the night. Reggie Wayne, the Colts best receiver, was held to one catch for one yard on the only throw his way all game.

They often say that the best defense against Peyton Manning is a ball-control offense because Manning cannot beat you when he is standing on the sidelines. That is the approach that Rex Ryan and the Jets took as they controlled the clock.

The only score of the first half was Manning's 57-yard TD pass to Pierre Garcon for a 7-0 halftime lead. But all the Colts could muster in the second half was three field goals.

While the Colts could only kick field goals, the Jets scored two touchdowns on Ladanian Tomlinson runs of 1-yard apiece.

Then, after Colts kicker Adam Vinateri kicked a field goal to make it 16-14 with little time left on the clock.

But the Jets, like they did often this season, won the game in the waning seconds. Cromartie had a long run back of the kickoff and Mark Sanchez led the Jets down for a game winning field goal as time expired.

So this begs the question, is Peyton Manning one of the biggest playoff choke artists ever?

Not to take away from the Jets win, but Peyton Manning seems to be unable to get it done when the playoffs come around. I will discuss this more in a blog at a later time.

One thing is for sure after Saturday. The New York Jets are going to Foxborough, Massachusetts to take on the New England Patriots and the winner of the Kansas City Chiefs/Baltimore Ravens game will be going to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to take on the six time Super Bowl Champion Steelers.