Turnovers pt. 1: The Story of the Playoffs

This pretty obviously is the going to discuss the Conference Championship games, and how they have followed the pattern of the rest of the playoffs in having turnovers be the deciding factor in the game.

NFC Championship:

First game first, the NFC Championship game.  Much to the dismay of Eagles fans (and I must say a little to my joy) the Eagles, Donovan McNabb, and Andy Reid choke in the NFC Championship game for the fourth time out of five in the past 8 years.  A lot of fans are blaming McNabb which is a little unfair.  He can be a very capable quarterback at times he just really hasn't had what he needed to win the big one.  People will argue the year they had TO he had enough but really he had just had enough of TO and the tension in the locker room clearly spilled over onto the field.  The real problem is Reid, but that's for later in the article.

Now on to the actual game.  My first reaction was "Wow."  A large part of that was due to the incredible Larry Fitzgerald who, as every analyst has pointed out since he actually got to the playoffs, is likely the best receiver in the league.  I have always liked Fitz especially considering I got to see him play fairly often during his time at Pitt and he has only gotten bigger and faster since he came to the NFL.  My theory is that he has something to prove because he lost the Heisman to Jason White.  (Where is he now exactly?  He owns an Oklahoma U memorabilia store.  Way to put that Heisman to good use, Jason.)  

So Larry pulled down 9 receptions for 150+ yards and 3 touchdowns.  In the first half.  The Eagles defense looked completely bewildered all first half and the Cardinals seemed unstoppable on offense.  And surprisingly, their defense continued their dominance as well after being practically non-existent during the regular season.  So far in this playoffs they have procured 12 turnovers.  Which explains the title of this article.  This is 100% the reason they have made it this far.  They have repeatedly taken the ball away and then kept control of it.

So the first half ended at 24-6, a tough deficit to make up for any team in any game, let alone the Eagles in the NFC Championship.  Needless to say they came up short again.  David Akers had one of the worst performances of his career missing not only a field goal but also shanking an extra point wide right.  There was a glimmer of hope towards the end of the game, but it was quickly snatched away by the Cardinals and the final score was 32-25 in a contest that brings to light the true potential of this Arizona Cardinals ball club after closing out the game on a time consuming 8 minute drive as well as the 4th down stop to truly put a cap on the contest.

AFC Championship:

Now onto the AFC, which was really one of the best games I have seen all season.  I mean you couldn't have planned a better matchup.  The number 1 and number 2 defenses in the league, a bitter division rivalry, and two teams that had already faced each other in two close games earlier in the year.  The advertising wrote itself (and the networks used it.)  Before the game I had discussed with many people how the key to this game was going to be the quarterbacks, and fortunately for the Steelers, the Ben that had come out against the Chargers came out in this game.  Also Joe Flacco couldn't quite get the job done, which was partially his fault and partially the fault of his receivers who started the game by dropping 3 big passes.  Both the quarterback battle and the previous trend of turnovers is what decided this game.  As Pat pointed out in his article before the game, this game was going to come down to one big play either way to win the game which came in the form of a turnover, a 40 yard interception return by Troy Polamalu with about 4 minutes left in the game.  After that the game was pretty uneventful besides the near decapitation of Willis McGahee by Ryan Clark.  Luckily Willis is okay and will make a full recovery with no negative repercussions to come.  Poor guy has had a lot of injuries in his career and luckily this one didn't end it.

This should be quite a Super Bowl matchup (Go Steelers).  The best defense against one of the best receiving corps ever seen and a defense that has come to life in the playoffs against an offense that has some great game, but also has the potential to be disastrous.  More to come on that matchup next week.

I will write the article Turnovers pt. 2:  Coach Edition soon to recap the coaching changes in the NFL and how I feel about them.  Tune in Tuesday at 1 pm for the show at http://desales.edu/wdsr.

Please feel free to comment on any of the articles on here.

Thanks for reading,

Tim