OldBucsFan
Buc Waterboy
User is Offline
Joined: 07 Nov 2007
Posts: 155
 599
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:39 am Post subject: Does rest hurt NFL teams? |
|
|
As expected, Archie's boys went 1-1 on Sunday.
That's about the only thing that went according to form.
Peyton Manning was picked off twice in the red zone as the double-digit favorite Colts fell for the third straight time to their new nemesis, the Chargers.
Eli Manning, meanwhile, led the seven-point underdog Giants to an upset in Dallas, posting a 100+ QB rating for the third straight game.
And with that, Jessica Simpson is officially the Yoko Ono of the 2007 Cowboys.
How is it that Peyton was outscored 7-0 by Billy Volek over the final 10 minutes? How did Tony Romo become the first quarterback of an NFC No. 1 seed to lose in the divisional round since the current format was adopted in 1990?
Well, if ever there was a referendum on the merits of rest vs. staying sharp, these playoffs have provided it.
One week after a Giants team that played its starters all 60 minutes in Week 17 smoked a Tampa Bay team that had been coasting for weeks, the well-rested got rolled again.
The Cowboys were not only coming off a bye week, they had clinched the top seed in the NFC in Week 16 and barely went through the motions in the final week of the season, essentially allowing the Redskins to make the playoffs via forfeit.
This meant 22 days between meaningful games for the Cowboys (who beat Carolina on Saturday, Dec. 22 to clinch the top seed).
No doubt Dallas would be rested for the divisional round.
Romo may have been better rested than most, having taken coach Wade Phillips' orders to get away from football during the bye week very seriously. He got all the way to Los Cabos, Mexico with gal-pal Simpson. Can't imagine he broke down a lot of film while he was there.
Romo wasn't the only Cowboy on the trip. Jason Whitten, Marc Columbo and Bobby Carpenter were there as well. And other Cowboys — Akin Ayodele, Brady James and Marcus Spears — used the break to flee Big D for the Big Easy and the college football national title game.
None of this would have mattered if the Cowboys had been sharp on Sunday. But they weren't. Far from it.
In fact, they often looked like a team that had spent a little too much time poolside, sipping fruity drinks with umbrellas.
Romo wasn't awful, but his 64.7 QB rating was over 30 points below his season mark. Down the stretch, he also took a terrible intentional grounding penalty when he didn't have to after taking a 14-yard sack on an earlier play when he could have thrown the ball away.
The grounding penalty was one of 11 flags against a Dallas team that didn't tackle well (Greg Ellis and Anthony Henry whiffed on Amani Toomer's 52-yard TD), dropped passes (Patrick Crayton on a crucial third down) and gave up big returns on special teams.
Now they can get all the rest they want.
Even though Peyton Manning wouldn't be caught dead poolside during the playoffs — unless the commercial shoot called for it — the Colts met the same fate as the Cowboys on Sunday.
Not only had the Colts had a bye week before their game against the Chargers, they had treated their final regular-season game like a scrimmage, losing at home to the Titans. It had been 21 days since the team was firing on all cylinders in a 38-15 romp over the Texans in Week 16.
But Indy may have actually first contracted the malaise that seemed to do them in on Sunday in Week 10 in the rain — yes, rain — in San Diego. That Nov. 11 loss, coming on the heels of a loss to the Patriots, pretty much fated the Colts to the No. 2 seed in the AFC.
The rest of the way Indy was on autopilot, only no one knew it because its schedule was so soft. The Colts' last seven opponents had a combined 46-66 record (.411). They beat the Chiefs, who would finish 4-12, by a field goal in the RCA Dome. They beat the 4-12 Raiders with a touchdown in the final five minutes.
In Week 17, the Colts not only squandered an opportunity to get Marvin Harrison back on the field to see if he was game ready, they really stuck it to the Browns who would have made the playoffs with an Indy win. (And the Karma Gods apparently took note.)
Tony Dungy chose to pull Manning early and sit Harrison entirely against Tennessee. He hoped the Hall of Fame duo could brush off the cobwebs — Marv hadn't played in 10 weeks — and click against San Diego.
Instead, a tentative Harrison coughed up the ball after his first catch, caught only one pass the rest of the game and was on the sideline when Indy desperately needed to score at the end.
Why did Indy desperately need to score at the end? Because despite a series of huge breaks — a Nate Kaeding FG that hit the upright, a questionable holding call that negated a San Diego TD and a phantom pass interference call on the Bolts — and injuries to LaDainian Tomlinson and Philip Rivers, the Colts couldn't hold any of the four leads they had in this game.
And at the end, Manning was at his worst. On the final two possessions, which included a first-and-goal, the Colts came up empty as Manning went 1-for-his-last-7 for five yards.
One year after becoming the first quarterback to win the Super Bowl with more interceptions than touchdowns in the postseason, Manning couldn't overcome those two picks in the red zone on Sunday. In his last nine playoff games, Manning has thrown 12 touchdowns and 15 interceptions. (By comparison, Tom Brady has thrown 17 TDs and six picks in his last nine playoff games.)
The victory was the Chargers' eighth straight after a 5-5 start and they played all out in Week 17 to make sure they avoided the Jaguars in the first round. In Dallas, the Giants won their ninth straight road game as Eli Manning continued to build on the confidence he displayed in that supposedly meaningless (for the G-Men) Week 17 game against New England.
For both Dallas and Indy, though, rest looked a lot like rust. |
|
