Division Round Playoff Picks » Brats & Beer

January 13, 2006
posted under: NFL playoffs

It’s the Division round of the playoffs and all four games this weekend offer a different level of pain, discomfort, and difficulty for me. Maybe I just won’t watch. Oh, who am I kidding, it’s the playoffs.

Saturday the Washington Redskins travel to Seattle to play the Mike Holmgren’s Seahawks. Yes, it’s been six long years since Holmgren abandoned us for fame, fortune, rain and fish guts, but the pain still lingers. There’s a small, small part of me that’s still rooting for the guy, but I guess I’m just a bitter man. So I won’t be rooting against the Seahawks per se, but I won’t really be rooting for them, either. Anyway, the Seahawks will probably win unless Joe Gibbs finds a way to generate some offense ans score some points this week.

More consternation in Saturday night’s tilt between New England and Denver. On the one hand, I do respect the Patriots and what they’ve been able to achieve and the way they’ve done it. On the other hand, we can’t have them winning three NFL championships in a row. However, I don;t have a lot of faith in Denver in the playoffs, but they are at home, so maybe this is the year Shanahan finds a way to get his charges ready for the big game.

Sunday offers us Pittsburgh at Indianapolis, and choice is clear in this one: rooting for the Steelers all the way. Sorry, I just can’t stand the Payton Place Manning and the Colts. And anyway, its the Pittsburgh Steelers, how can you not pull for this team, especially now that we have one of Steeltown’s finest as our own head coach?

The final game on Sunday is maybe the hardest one of all to pick. I know as a die-hard Packer fan I’m supposed to hate the Bears above all else, but at least they are a real team. The Panthers are just an expansion outfit festooned in their goofy pastel colors that could come or go and no one would be the wiser. I know I run the risk of drawing the ire of some Packer fans out there on the Interweb (looking with trepidation at green-n-gold), but I’ll be cheering on Da Bears on Sunday. (Then taking a long, long hot shower and scrubbing down with a brillo pad.)