And we're in! It's playoff time!

Happy new year!



Okay, so we knew last week that Seattle would be in the playoffs at least as a wild card. But it took a close finish yesterday to secure the division title, and the right to host the Rams next weekend...





Well, so much for my theory that you can't play divisional rivals in the first round.... I guess that only applies in baseball...



I was kind of rooting for the Rams to lose so Seattle would have gotten the Vikings instead (and Green Bay would have gotten the Saints), but oh well. I feel pretty good about playing the Rams again at home. I mean, come on, the Rams and Mike Martz just won their last two games against playoff-bound teams (although the Eagles were playing their scrubs).. Do you really think he can keep that up?



In related but unrelated news, Shaun Alexander came up one yard short of winning the rushing title. On the final Seattle scoring drive, they had the ball 3rd and goal from the 1. And Hasselbeck ran a sneak... Giving the ball to Alexander there would have tied him for the rushing title with Curtis Martin. Now there were about 5 minutes left, so all the defense needs is a decent stop and they'll get the ball back and can get him 2 yards for the title. But it never happened. On one hand, it's a shame he didn't get it because he has been a workhorse and deserved it. On the other hand, being a free agent at the end of the season, you KNOW he would use that as leverage for a few extra million dollars.



Early spreads for next weekend's games:



Seattle -4 Rams

Chargers -6 Jets

Indy -8.5 Broncos

Packers -6 Vikes



Two other things going in both Seattle and Green Bay's favor: no 8-8 team has ever won a playoff game. And no team who has lost their final two regular season games has won a Super Bowl (Atlanta, Philly).



We'll wait til later in the week for playoff picks, but just to wrap things up, here are our final regular season picks records:



Samichlaus: 33-29 (Last week: 11-5)

St. Ides: 32-30 (Last week: 11-5)