Ranking the playoff games
Here’s how good are the NFL playoffs. The Green Bay-Giant epic, played in the deep freeze of Lambeau two weeks ago, is the best game of the bunch, but not by a longshot. It wasn’t an easy decision, even though New York’s overtime victory is one of the best games I’ve ever seen. Here are the 10 playoff games so far, ranked in order:
10. New York 24, Tampa Bay 14: The Buccaners scored first, but Eli Manning took the Giants on two second-quarter touchdown drives, then New York sealed the game with a 92-yard TD drive in the fourth quarter.
9. Green Bay 42, Seattle 20: Ryan Grant fumbled twice in the opening minutes, giving the Seahawks two quick touchdowns, but Green Bay came back with a flurry — four first-half touchdowns, and Brett Favre was magnificent in a winter wonderland game, completing 18 of 23.
8. San Diego 17, Tennessee 6: The Chargers didn’t score for the longest time, trailing 6-0 at halftime. Finally, San Diego began to dominate and put away the game on LaDainian Tomlinson’s TD with 8:45 left.
7. New England 21, San Diego 12: The Chargers played tough and made Tom Brady look human, with three interceptions. But San Diego kept kicking field goals; the Patriots scored touchdowns.
6. Seattle 35, Washington 14: Not a bad game. Not bad at all. The Seahawks led 13-0 after three quarters, the Redskins took a 14-13 lead, then Seattle scored the last 22 points, including two interception returns for touchdowns in the final 5:38.
5. New England 31, Jacksonville 20: The Jaguars played a near-perfect game, yet were only tied 14-14 at halftime. Trouble was, Tom Brady played a near perfect game throughout, completing 26 of 28 passes and causing the rest of the league to know that beating New England required 60 minutes of flawless football.
4. New York 21, Dallas 17: The Giant defense held the Cowboys to a lone field goal in the second half, and R.W. McQuarters came up big, with a punt return that set up the go-ahead touchdown and a game-ending interception of Tony Romo in the final seconds.
3. San Diego 28, Indianapolis 24: The crippled Chargers staged a huge upset with big play after big play, then two big defensive stops in the waning minutes, turning back Peyton Manning twice on fourth down deep in San Diego territory.
2. Jacksonville 31, Pittsburgh 29: A magnificent game, in which the Steelers rallied from a 28-10 deficit with 19 fourth-quarter points, then the Jags came back on David Garrard’s fourth-down quarterback draw in the final two minutes, setting up Josh Scobee’s winning field goal. A game for the ages.
1. New York 23, Green Bay 20: Below zero weather, Old Man Winner Brett Favre against upstart Eli Manning, the greatest uniforms on Earth, teams hitting hard enough to knock your teeth out in Florida, much less in frozen Wisconsin. Two missed field goals, followed in overtime by the goat-turned-hero nailing the longest opposing kick in Green Bay’s ancient history. Football doesn’t get any better than this.
Look at these games, then tell me how college football is better than the pros. And no, it wouldn’t be different if college had a playoff system. College football’s games that do carry clout — the Big Bowl, the conference title games that serve as defacto playoff games — don’t carry the drama of the NFL.
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Remember this: Those games are played on someones home field, not a stage like the Bowl games. And if the college playoffs are played in bowl game atmosphere, they would not be the same. It would be more like the super bowl, played in front of big money people who have no real interest in the school, and those who are from the school and can afford to travel to two or three different bowl sights for playoff games.
And of course the media people who are paid to go and love to get away to those games!!
Home field atmosphere makes a lot of differnce to the loyal fan base!!