NFC Championship: WTF?

So far I'm 0 for 1 on recorded sports picks...

Probably should get used to that.

I went against my theory that in a game where two teams are evenly matched, you should always bet on the team who has the best player on the field. In the NFC championship this would have been Larry Fitzgerald.

The reason being, I did not think The Arizona Cardinals were anywhere near as good as the Philadelphia Eagles. Not even close. Philly had to go through the rugged NFC East division, lost a number of fluky games, and was ranked # 1 overall in DVOA by Football Outsiders.

The Cardinals meanwhile went 6-0 in their division ( Against The Rams, The Seahawks and the 49ers) and 2-8 against the rest of the league. Including giving 56 points to the Jets, 48 to this same Eagles team on Thanksgiving, and 47 to the Patriots two weeks before the playoffs.

You would think, or at least I did, that a wide receiver cannot possibly dominate a football game against a team with three good cornerbacks and Brian Dawkins. Right? Especially not after he destroyed The Carolina Panthers a week earlier because they decided not to double team him. Right? I get that Anquan Boldin was back and Kurt Warner was spectacular and religious all at the same time, but really? Jim Johnson is a defensive genius and he lets Fitzgerald get 3 touchdowns in the first half?

That was really the end of the game for The Eagles. Mcnabb was horrid in the first half and spectacular in the second. Until... Crunch time. I swear Donovan must hear the music from jaws when his team is down and he has to rally them back. Has there ever been a less clutch athlete? He's the Anti-John Elway. If you're rooting for the other team and Mcnabb has the ball with less than 5 minutes to go, you just wait for him to mess up. The same way I waited for Karl Malone to mess up, the same way I wait for Tony Romo to mess up.

Some guys just can't deal with pressure. Mcnabb is one of them. That's not the only reason TO and him couldn't get along, but it was one of them. One of the fascinating things about sports is how much it bares athletes psychology to the world. Mcnabb is not someone you can count on when the chips are down. He's probably like that in his day to day life as well. Can you imagine Mcnabb as a firefighter whose always great in drills, but freezes up as soon as there's a fire? I sure can.

If you can seperate Mcnabb from his annoying public persona, he has been(when healthy) one of the 5 best QBs in the league for almost a decade. But the numbers don't lie. He's been to 5 NFC championship games in 8 years and lost 4 of them. The one time he did break through to The Super Bowl he lost to Tom Brady. He also dry heaved through the most important two minute drill of his career. If you had switched Mcnabb with any of the other top 5 QBs over the last few years, I think The Eagles win a Super Bowl. Or two.

But that wasn't the story today, it was all about Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald. What won't be mentioned enough was the great job the defense did. I know they sucked really badly in during the season. But there is some talent on that side of the ball especially Bertrand Berry and Dominque Rodgers-Cromartie. Though Cromartie did get burned when he tipped a ball that Desean Jackson(A suprisingly good # 1 receiver) turned into a touchdown that gave the Eagles the lead after being down almost 20 points.

Overall the game came down to an 8 minute long drive after that play. Warner and Fitzgerald and Edgerrain James and Tim Hightower all stepped up. The Eagles couldn't get a stop and ultimately Warner hit Hightower for an 8 yard touchdown that sent Mcnabb onto the field down 7 with less than 3 minutes left. By now we all know how that story ends.


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