Sporting Madness

This year’s Super Bowl is more than just a battle between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts; it’s also a clash of styles between the Colts’ pass-heavy offence and the Saints’ balanced attack. New Orleans was sixth in the league in rushing this year, averaging 131.6 yards per regular-season game, and fourth in passing, averaging 272.2 yards per game. The Colts were second in the NFL in passing yards per game, averaging 282.2 yards per game, but dead last in rushing, putting up only 80.9 yards on the ground. The Colts’ rushing game hasn’t improved by the numbers in the playoffs, as they’re still only averaging 2.9 yards per attempt and 71.5 yards per game. However, those stats are somewhat deceiving. The Colts got nowhere on the ground against the Baltimore Ravens in the divisional round, putting up only 44 yards on 23 carries, but that game was out of hand early and the Colts were often running just to control the clock. Against the notably effective rushing defence of the...

Who will face the Colts in this year's Super Bowl? Join me in the live blog below to find out! NFC Championship Live Blog

Jets. Colts. Join me below for all your coverage of the AFC championship game! AFC Championship Live Blog

I'll be live-blogging today's games shortly, but first I thought I'd put up some predictions. Both these games could go either way, like anything in the playoffs, so these are just idle thoughts, not guarantees. If you want something with a better chance of success, check out Peter Pattakos ' picks over at Cleveland Frowns ; he's 8-0 so far these playoffs! With that out the way, let's get to the games. AFC: New York Jets at Indianapolis Colts: The Colts were a dominant team during the regular season. They went 14-2, and weren't particularly trying in the games they lost (one against the Jets). Meanwhile, Jets' head coach Rex Ryan thought they were eliminated at one point, and they only snuck into the playoffs on the last day. The Colts also beat their curse of resting starters with last weekend's win over the Ravens, so there's lots of logical reasons to pick them. However, I'm not going to. For one thing, small athletic teams like the ...

To get some material for the Vikings section of this preview of today's NFC championship game, I spoke with Dan Zinski . Dan does a great job of covering the team for Fansided's The Viking Age . My questions and his responses are below. Andrew Bucholtz: At the start of the year, did you think the Vikings would be in the NFC championship game? How about at the start of the playoffs? Dan Zinski: I'm not embarrassed to admit I thought the Favre experiment would be a flop. I figured he'd stink or his arm would drop off and we'd limp to the finish with Tarvaris Jackson as our quarterback, and not even make the playoffs. Once we made the playoffs, however, I thought we had a good shot to beat whoever we faced in the divisional round, just because we've been so dominant at home. I was surprised we crushed Dallas as bad as we did but I wasn't surprised that we beat them. A.B.: Adrian Peterson seems to be getting less attention these days, as much of i...

As part of this preview of today's NFC championship game, I spoke to my Fanball colleague Mark Hooper of Who Dat Blog to get his thoughts on the Saints. My questions and his responses are below. Andrew Bucholtz: The Saints didn't finish the regular season particularly convincingly, but they turned in a very impressive win over the Cardinals last weekend. Were you expecting more rust from them, or did you see that kind of dominant performance coming? Mark Hooper: To be honest, I didn't see that coming. I expected more of a track meet, and I thought that first play from scrimmage set the tone. I really was thinking the Saints would do their normal slow start then finish strong, but they were cranking on all cylinders from play one. Drew Brees had arguably the best game of his season balancing the running and passing game, keeping the Cardinals on their heels all day. The Saints could do anything they wanted at any time. A.B.: Both the Saints and the Vikings have ...

I had a difficult time finding a Colts blogger who was available for an interview for this piece , but I found a great pinch-hitter in Samer Kalaf , a colleague of mine from The Rookies and the editor of the excellent NFL blog Second-String Fullback . . Samer really knows his football and gave some great insight into the Colts' matchup this weekend. My questions and his responses are below. Andrew Bucholtz: The Colts were criticized heavily by many for playing some backups in the last few weeks of the season, including against the Jets, instead of going for a perfect season. What did you think of the decision at the time, and has your opinion changed at all since then? Samer Kalaf: I feel like that the decision by Colts head coach Jim Caldwell to rest the starters against the Jets was an incredibly terrible decision. I wrote long-winded posts about it, and how I feel it disgraces the history of the NFL, but I'll try to condense it. The Colts had a chance to be the se...

For the part of my AFC Championship preview focusing on the Jets, I spoke with my Fanball colleague Joe Caporoso . Joe's a great writer who runs Turn on the Jets and knows the team as well as anyone. His Turn On The Jets TV episode focusing on this weekend's game is particularly worth a look. My questions and his answers are below. Andrew Bucholtz: At the start of the season, did you think the Jets had a chance to make it to the AFC Championship Game? How about at the start of the playoffs? Joe Caporoso: At the start of the season, I picked the Jets to go 10-6 and make the playoffs as a wild-card team. I figured they might steal a game in the playoffs, but back in August, it was hard to picture a team with a rookie head coach and rookie quarterback going to the AFC Championship Game. At the start of the playoffs, I felt confident because of how well they were running the ball and how their defense was playing. Also, I loved the matchup with the Bengals in the first rou...

Today will feature the NFL's conference championship games, and I'll have plenty of coverage of them here. For starters, I wrote a pair of pieces for The Good Point talking to notable football bloggers about some elements of this weekend's matchups. You can check out the preview of the AFC contest between the Indianapolis Colts and the New York Jets (3:00 p.m. Eastern, CBS) here and the preview of the NFC clash between the New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings (6:40 p.m. Eastern, FOX) here . To go along with those pieces, I'll be posting the complete interviews I conducted with each of the bloggers here. The AFC ones will be up shortly, with the NFC ones to follow in the morning. I'll also have my breakdown of each game with predictions up in the morning. Finally, I'll be live-blogging both games right here. Feel free to stop on by and join in the fun!

So, I went 1-3 last weekend , which certainly isn't promising. However, it was a rather bizarre weekend of games, and I did beat ESPN's Bill Simmons , who makes about a kajillion dollars more for his writing than I do, so I'm okay with that. The thing is, the NFL is a league of parity; as we often recite, anything can happen on any given Sunday. This becomes even more evident in the playoffs because only decent teams make it this far; the gap between a 14-2 team like the Colts and a 9-7 team like the Ravens is far closer than the gap between the Ravens and the 1-15 St. Louis Rams, so it's much harder to figure out who's going to win.With that in mind, I do have a few thoughts about this weekend's slate of games. As always, these predictions are nowhere near guaranteed and are intended for recreational purposes only. Cardinals at Saints: (4:30 p.m. Eastern Saturday, FOX) This should be one of the most entertaining games of the weekend, featuring two high-po...

The NFL playoffs are underway, so it's time for some picks! My pick for the Super Bowl this year is the Chargers over the Saints; this weekend's games aren't terribly relevant to that prediction, as both teams have a first-round bye, but they should still be entertaining. Let's get to the breakdowns. Jets at Bengals: (today, 4:30 p.m. ET) The Jets thumped Cincinnati last week, but I don't think they'll do it again. For one thing, they're too one-dimensional on offence; they have a great running attack, but they're in the playoffs despite Mark Sanchez , not because of him. I like their defence, especially Darrelle Revis , but I'm not sure they'll be able to stop the Bengals' ground game with Cedric Benson (who didn't play last week). Keep in mind that the Jets backed into the playoffs after the Colts and Bengals laid down for them in the past two weeks. I'm also taking Carson Palmer over Sanchez any day. Pick: Bengals Eagl...

Update: Yeah, they're pretty much dead . "That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die." - H.P. Lovecraft , The Call of Cthulhu There are lots of similarities between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cthulhu, of course. One is steeped in ancient history and tradition, has strange rituals associated with its supporters and can inspire terror, revulsion and insanity in those who look upon it. The other, of course, is Cthulhu. Seriously, though, the Steelers' play these past few weeks has been pretty horrific. They suffered bad losses against the Bengals and Chiefs, then showed some promise against the Ravens with backup quarterback Dennis Dixon , but still lost in overtime. It looked like they might have turned a corner. However, they followed that with perhaps their worst loss of the season last week, where they allowed the not-so-fearsome Oakland Raiders and quarterback Bruce Gradkowski to beat them at home on a last-minut...