Myron Rolle, Conference Championships - Friday, January 16, 2009

Biggest Winner
Myron Rolle, FSU Safety, Rhodes Scholar. He’s turning down millions to play football so that he can go study as a Rhodes Scholar and wants to become a neurosurgeon. Pretty damn unbelievable. However, I can’t remember where I heard it but some guy said that every NFL team would want to sign this guy because he’d be a great person in the community etc. I agree that he would be a good role model and community person. However, I don’t agree that every NFL team will be pining to draft him whenever he makes himself eligible for the draft. NFL personnel types have made it abundantly clear that they like players who are smart, but not too smart. If a player has too much intelligence, then they may start questioning the logic of a coaching staff and that causes dissention, which causes a team to lose. Also, NFL types are jealous types. They want their players to love football and football only, at least outwardly. When a player like Rolle, who at this point in his career, is already expressing that his life is about more than just football, and makes an overt statement to that effect—like I don’t know, say choosing to study at Oxford instead of going to the NFL for instance—then they’ll be skeptical of him and won’t pick him. I’m sure someone will pick him up whenever he’s ready and he’ll probably be a good player, but to think that he’ll be universally loved by the NFL universe is a mistake. But he’s a big winner in my book and he made a pretty cool choice.

Biggest Loser
Probably Jake Delhomme for putting on an amazing display of incompetence, and perhaps incontinence, by turning the ball over six times in a home playoff game. I thought he was dreadful a few years ago against Seattle in the playoffs (but that was because they bottled up Steve Smith and were down to their third-string RB), but I really thought that Carolina would take this game. He was terrible and is the sole reason why they lost. It was like they were filming one of those Southwest Airlines “want to get away” commercials during the game. He seems like a good guy, but that performance was infected, open-sore bad.

Playoff Predictions
Philly at Arizona
I’m not sure where to go with this game. Here’s what we know:

1. Arizona is playing great on both sides of the ball during these playoffs.
2. Larry Fitzgerald looks like the best WR in the game right now. He can do anything and does everything well. He’s big, fast, has great hands, he’s physical, and he makes plays. He’s the perfect WR. I would change nothing about him.
3. Kurt Warner has not turned the ball over. I thought that Atlanta was going to give him problems because they were putting pressure on him, but they weren’t sacking him. I thought that he’d get rattled and fumble. Never happened. Didn’t happen against Carolina either. If he keeps getting the ball out early, their offense will be unstoppable.
4. Edgerrin James is running well. He’s a good running back and wasn’t getting a lot of love during the season, but he’s so versatile and runs hard. If they continue to run the ball even if they aren’t getting a lot out of it, they’ll be better for it.
5. Their defense is playing very tough. Of course, when Jake Delhomme gives them the ball it makes them look better, which is why I’m skeptical about picking them. Their D was made to look fantastic after what Jake gave them last week.
6. They have a good kicker with a big leg.
7. They are at home and will be playing in a dome because I’m sure they’ll close the roof, just as they did in the Atlanta game.
8. Anquan Boldin is hurt and as of right now, I don’t know if he’s going to play, if he does, he’ll still be hurt, but will take a lot of pressure off of Fitzgerald.
9. Donovan McNabb is playing great. He’s moving around in the pocket and making very accurate throws on the run and doing so at clutch times. I’m surprised by this.
10. Bryan Westbrook has almost been bottled up in both games that they’ve played, but he’s broken out a couple different times to make up it. But he’s hurt, and I really don’t know if he can give them what they need.
11. Philly’s defense is very good and can apply a lot of pressure on teams and has done so the past couple of weeks, but they’ve also played an F-level QB in Tarvaris Jackson and a QB who looked like he decided to throw with his left hand just to keep things interesting in Eli Manning. Warner will be playing in warm confines and is much better than both of those QBs I just mentioned, at least he’s playing better.
12. While Philly’s D is good, they haven’t seen the talent at WR that they’ll see this week (even if Boldin doesn’t play, Breaston is good).
13. Andy Reid looks like he’s wearing five layers of down, puffy coats when he’s really only wearing a windbreaker.
14. Ken Wisenhunt looks like Ed Harris.
15. Asante Samuel and Bryan Dawkins are playing great in the secondary.

All that said, I still don’t feel great either way. I can see a case for either team winning, but I really think that Arizona is going to pull it out, but I would not be surprised to see Philly take it. Which means that I’m interested in watching the game, so that’s good.

Prediction: Arizona 27 Philly 13

Baltimore at Pittsburgh
As I said before, these two teams (and Tennessee) are pretty much the same team. They have great defenses with big DTs, athletic and hard-hitting LBs, and playmaking DBs. I really like their teams, a lot. I’d love to root for a defense that beats the hell out of people and can get off of the field on third down. Because their defenses are so good, they run very conservative offenses, as I’ve said before, but I’ve also said that Pittsburgh takes way more chances with Roethlisberger than Baltimore does with Flacco. I do not think that Baltimore will be able to run the ball, at all. They’ll probably end up with like 45 rushing yards total for the game. I can also see Flacco with a line like 11-27, 1 TD, 2 INT. I think that they get the TD late and I don’t think it’ll matter. I think that Pittsburgh will be able to run a little since Willy Parker seems to be back from whatever ailed him earlier and Roethlisberger is mobile enough and strong enough to evade too many sacks and make some plays. He completed a lot of passes for first downs last week and it seemed to kill San Diego. I think this game gets out of hand and Pittsburgh, a team that I absolutely loathe because of Super Bowl XL, takes the game easily.

Prediction: Pittsburgh 23 Baltimore 7

So we’ll have a Pittsburgh Arizona Super Bowl and Pittsburgh will be favored by 8 points at least if that happens. I really don’t want them to win again.