TMQ...very good read

i hate this article, it's all filler.

 

Normally, Easterbrook pisses me off but the "Princes Bride" joke in the sidebar was hilarious.

 

i think it might be wise, going forward, to call out "this is a page 2 article" before posting the link. it might save time for those that hate page 2. anywho, thanks for the link, i'll read it shortly

 

Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees -- the run-up to Title Weekend is sure to focus on them. For my money, the Colts, Jets, Saints and Vikings made the championship round because they have the league's four best offensive lines.

Ninety percent of the action in football occurs away from the ball. When Jersey/B runners burst into the clear, or Favre casually dissects a defense, what's going on is terrific blocking. Manning was sacked less than any other NFL quarterback this season because the Colts' offensive line is tremendous. The Jets are in the championship round because of the holes their blockers open. The Vikings' and Saints' offensive lines both pass-block and run-block equally well, which is a rare combination. The TV commentators will be watching the glory boys holding the football. I'll be watching the offensive lines. All four are tremendous.

Here are some title game talking points:

? Surely Colts players will say this week that they welcome a rematch with the Jets, the team they laid down against last month. What they won't say is how relieved they are not to be facing the Chargers. San Diego may be a postseason fade-out team, but the Chargers have the Colts' number -- in the past four years, Indianapolis is 0-2 against San Diego in the playoffs, and 4-0 against all other teams in the playoffs.

Indianapolis is viewed as a mega-offense squad, but this season, the Colts have been winning close games with defense. The Colts finished last in the league in rushing -- this hardly rules them out; a season ago, the Cardinals finished last in rushing and made the Super Bowl -- and second in both passing yards and pass attempts. When they won the Super Bowl in 2007, the Colts surprised opponents in the postseason by rushing more than expected; this is the tactic waiting to be tried. The Jets' defense is addicted to the blitz, and no NFL quarterback likes to be blitzed more than Manning. He'd request a blitz on every snap if he could. The Ravens just went all-out attempting to sack Manning, and the result was a 20-3 defeat. Manning expects the Jets to go all-out attempting to sack him, so the defensive tactic waiting to be tried by Jersey/B is not blitzing.

See more below on what makes the Jets' blitzing different from other teams' defensive tactics. Can you really win a title game with a quarterback whose season-long QB rating was 63.0, among the worst in the league, and then 60.1 in the divisional round? We shall find out. As TMQ notes, with defenses choking up to stop the Jersey/B run, all Mark Sanchez needs to do is hit one long pass per game, and the Jets' offense will become dangerous.

Pregame key: Watch Matt Stover in warm-ups. All five postseason field goal attempts against the Jets have been misses, one reason for Jersey/B's improbable run. Cincinnati and San Diego place-kickers missed tries from the 28, 35, 36 and 40, and NFL kickers average about 85 percent success in this range. If these kicks went through the uprights, we wouldn't be talking J-E-T-S today.

 

Jersey/B at San Diego Analysis: The whole "mad scientist transfers victory essence to Jets" theory that led last week's TMQ -- maybe that really happened? Power defense and power running are the traditionalist formula in football, but in a pass-wacky year, suddenly the Jersey/B approach seems like an unorthodox innovation. You'd think no team could win in the modern NFL with a 31st-ranked passing attack, but Jersey/B has reached the AFC title game on the best winning streak of any team in the final four. Because in the single-elimination NFL format, each individual postseason game means so much, often the team that prevails at season's end is the one that enters the tournament on a rising note. And the Jets sure are on a rising note.

The Jersey/B running game works because the blocking is good, and because offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer -- who must have been pleased to beat the team that fired his father -- doesn't abandon the run if it does not work in the first quarter. Strong-rushing teams often start slowly, when the opposing defense is fresh, and then prevail in the second half as the defense tires -- that's exactly what happened versus San Diego. The Jets' offensive line has four first-round draft choices. Tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson -- a finalist for the upcoming Tuesday Morning Quarterback Non-Quarterback Non-Running Back NFL MVP -- absolutely pancaked a Chargers defensive end at the point of attack on the Shonn Greene 53-yard touchdown run that turned the contest New Jersey's way. When Rex Ryan went for it on fourth-and-1 with a minute to play -- Jersey/B gained the first down that iced the contest -- he was challenging his offensive line to win the game, and it did.

TMQ keeps predicting Ryan's constant-blitzing schemes will backfire. They sure did not at San Diego, where the Bolts seemed unprepared for overload blitzing -- there is practically a billboard above the Jets' sideline that reads "WE OVERLOAD BLITZ" -- six times, allowing a blitzer to come straight at Philip Rivers without being blocked by anyone. Normally, blitz-wacky teams have their corners play deep to prevent long gains -- the Jets use press corners when they blitz to prevent quick slants, the standard response to a blitz. Six-man rushes combined with press corners is a tactic no NFL team but the Jets employs, and the tactic works because Darrelle Revis (another TMQ MVP candidate) and Lito Sheppard are so good. Rivers' first interception was against an overload the Chargers failed to block. The second pick came when Jersey/B showed big-blitz and then backed out of it -- Ryan's defenses almost never back out of the blitz. Rivers assumed that a quick-curl route would be open because of the number of blitzers; instead the intended receiver was double-covered by safety Jim Leonhard, whom Rivers thought would be blitzing.

The Chargers seemed overconfident and ill-prepared, as if they thought all they needed to do was show up. The hosts dominated the first-half stats but led by only a touchdown at intermission -- a touchdown lead can disappear in one play -- yet seemed to think the game was already won. Rivers is now 3-4 in the postseason. Talk, talk, talk -- that Philip Rivers sure can talk.

Norv Turner was his usual timid self, and it hurt the Chargers dearly. Two years ago against New England in the AFC Championship Game, Turner's Chargers were trailing 21-12 with nine minutes remaining -- that's a two-score fourth-quarter deficit -- and Norv ordered a punt from the Patriots' 36-yard line. That was the worst Preposterous Punt yours truly has ever seen. With Sunday's game scoreless in the first half, San Diego faced fourth-and-4 on the Jets' 36 -- and Turner ordered a punt. San Diego was the heavy favorite, and in the first half things were going the home team's way. Don't mince around, knock 'em out! Instead, the Chargers minced around, which let the Jets hang around. Turner has now twice ordered punts from the opposition's 36-yard line in playoff games. You can't be surprised he lost both games.

Later, with San Diego leading 7-0, Turner ordered a punt on fourth-and-inches from midfield. Don't mince around, knock 'em out! With 4:42 left in the fourth quarter, and San Diego trailing 17-7, he ordered a field goal attempt on fourth-and-2 from the Jets' 22-yard line. Nate Kaeding is a good kicker -- it was a surprise when his attempt sailed wide. But you have one of the league's top offenses and you only need 2 yards. Don't play for 10 points to force overtime (which Turner was doing) -- play to win! That's what Ryan was doing.

Turner's onside kick decision at the end was puzzling as well. Pulling within 17-14 with 2:14 remaining, San Diego had one timeout left. Unexpected onside kicks are 60 percent successful, expected onside kicks are 10 percent successful. Had the Bolts kicked deep and then held the Jets, considering the clock stops at the two-minute warning, San Diego would have gotten the ball back with about a minute to play, trailing by three. You've got a better chance of getting into field goal range with one minute on the clock than of recovering an expected onside kick. True, if you recover the onside kick, you are in a position to win the game. But it's very unlikely you will recover an onside kick under these circumstances.

Thus, when Turner faced an attractive gamble (fourth-and-1, fourth-and-2), he was timid, and when he faced an unattractive gamble (expected onside kick) he went wild. Considering that gigantic Chargers coaching staff -- 17 coaches, including an assistant linebackers coach -- doesn't Norv have someone who knows the percentages of various football situations? Six seasons ago, the Chargers went 12-4, won a bye, then lost at home in the divisional round to the Jets. Marty Schottenheimer was fired in the aftermath. This season they went 13-3, won a bye, then lost at home in the divisional round to the Jets. The aftermath is a contract extension for Turner.

Sidelight: Mark Sanchez threw an interception, giving San Diego the ball, leading 7-3. On the first Bolts snap, a pass to Vincent Jackson advanced the ball to the Jersey/B 30-yard line, but Malcolm Floyd was called for an illegal block, moving the spot back to the 40-yard line. Two snaps later, Rivers tossed his first interception. During the penalized play, Floyd threw his hands up in the air in the "I didn't do anything" gesture. As TMQ cautions, football players should never make the hands-up gesture to officials -- it serves to alert the officials that you think you committed a foul.