Divisional Championship Weekend!

First, let me say it’s great to be back. I want to thank our readers for their patience and support this week as I slogged through more project stuff here in the beautiful New York State Capital region. What a supportive bunch you are. You motherfuckers. While I’m banished to the consultant equivalent of Siberia, apparently the biggest pain points in your cushy little sister-went-to-Union-College worlds is the lack of reading material on this blog. So who am I to cause such angst? Lets agree to forgive St. Ides who deserves a proper mourning period. It’s all Samichlaus’s fault.

Enough vitriol.

A special snout-shout out goes to my wife, the beautiful Mrs. Samichlaus, also known by her blogger stage name “Ki KI”. If I didn’t have her to fight my battles I don’t know what I’d do. To quote James J. Braddock, “Ain’t she somethin’?”
So, I don’t know about anyone else around here, but goddamnit I am so ready for some football…


Let’s start with the Patriots vs. the Chargers.

Pats win,37-10. Nuff said.

Admit it. The Giants vs. the Packers is the premier game on Sunday, which is why the NFL scheduled it for the late kickoff. Now relax, this doesn’t mean the NFL is disrespecting a certain someone’s beloved Patriots. The truth is the Pats – Chargers just isn’t a very interesting matchup. Banged up Bolts vs. Picture of Health Pats? Norv Turner vs. Bill Belichick? Phillip (cry me a) Rivers vs. Tom Brady? Randy Moss vs. that Sarasota woman who has a restraining order against him? Whoopsie! Ol’ Randy just couldn’t keep out of trouble for a year now could he? How does one “accidentally” batter a woman? Anyway, here’s my take on the Packers / Giants and if you’ve heard this all before it’s because I’m a little late getting around to this, and all the smart sports bloggers have already written.

First and foremost, nothing that happened in the first meeting between these teams is of any value in the analysis of this game. Repeatedly we’ve heard all week “these are two different teams” and that essentially is true. Say what you want about Eli Manning but the young Manning has matured this season (want to try something cool? Re-read that sentence but do it in Howard Cosell voice. It works!). He is making quick decisions and crisp throws, and his team believes in him as a leader. Although he doesn’t have the strongest receiving corps, they are serviceable and pretty much catch everything thrown their way. Brandon Jacobs, the 265 lb running back is strong and remarkably agile for a man his size. Compare his physical stats to Nick Barnett, who goes about 235 soaking wet, and you’ll quickly understand the Giants game plan. In order to defeat the Packers, the Giants have to control the ball, and with Jacobs and the serviceable receiving corps they certainly have the personnel to accomplish this.

A lot has been written this week about the weather. If you haven’t heard, game time high temperature is expected to be a balmy 4 degrees. I don’t even want to guess what the wind chill is going to be. Most feel as though these conditions will favor the Packers but I disagree. When the Packers played the Bears in similar conditions at Soldier Field it was obvious the Packers didn’t want to be there. While the Bears sat on their bench, the Packers huddled around the heaters with these horrified looks on their faces. Brett Favre included. In the end it was all Bears. The truth is this Packer team doesn’t like the cold, and I’m not talking about last Saturday’s game against the Seahawks. To quote Mike McCarthy, “30 degrees with snow and no wind is a nice day in Wisconsin in January. 4 degrees is something completely different”. In fact, this kind of weather favors a team with a 265 lb running back that can hammer the living shit out of whoever tries to tackle him, including Atari Bigby and his 211 lbs. Of course, the mitigating factor here is Eli Manning. I saw a chart the other day that showed how dramatically Eli’s production drops off when the weather gets cold (at 30 degrees or less his QB rating was somewhere below 60), so Eli ain’t gonna be exactly slinging it.

I imagine the Packers know this.

I don’t expect a high scoring game. The cold weather will negate a lot of the Packers passing game. TE Donald Lee might not catch a pass, but Bubba Franks will. As far as the rest of the receivers go, my thought is there are going to be some easy drops, but there is yet another mitigating factor: according to the Milwaukee Journal – Sentinel, Donald Driver spoke to “his receiving corps” and essentially asked them to get him to the Super Bowl. The receivers all agreed to put the game on their backs. The last time I heard something like this was the Monday night game after Favre’s dad croaked. One can never tell how a pact like this will affect the team.

The Packers O line will have its work cut out for them. Everyone is well aware of how good and fast the Giants D is. Osi Umenyoria is arguably the best pass rushing lineman in the game (with all due respect to Patrick Kearney), and was an absolute beast the last 5 minutes of the Dallas game. Michael Strahan has also been playing lights out, although the Packers Mark Tauscher has never had a problem with him. I expect that this matchup will be similar to the Seattle game, with the Packers ultimately prevailing.

OK, so lets get down to it. This game will be close for the first half, with the Packers going into halftime with a 7 point lead. In the second half, the Packers will open it up. Forced to play from behind, Eli Manning will throw a key interception early in the 4th quarter to essentially ice it for the Pack. The Packers defense will force a fumble late in the 4th to clinch the game, and SBS becomes THE site for all your Packers – Patriots Super Bowl vitriolic spew (and analysis)

Packers 27 Giants 17