NFL Playoffs: Conference Championship

Julian Edelman has filled in well for the departed Wes Welker, and
will need to continue to do so to beat Welker's new team. (Getty)

Well everyone, this is what we have all been waiting for. Championship weekend is arguably the best week of football. This year is like a second Christmas. Could we ask for anything better than Brady vs. Manning and the third round of the heated Seattle-San Francisco rivalry. These are unquestionably the four best teams in the league right now. 

Will Tom Brady continue his dominance over Peyton Manning, and possibly solidify himself as the best quarterback in league history? Will it be the young Seahawks or the every aging 49ers who get a shot at one of these Hall of Fame quarterbacks in the Super Bowl? All this and more will be revealed today. Here is how us SOBs think the games will pan out and we will let you know what to look for in today's games.

Stally's Eight-Point Pick
2. New England over 1. @Denver

Stally: There's a quarter in every Patriots game when I think they might never win another game , and there's a quarter in every game when I think they're indestructible and are sure to win the Super Bowl.  Somehow, I feel like this game won't be any different.

Coaching Carousel: Round and Round We Go

Arizona's head coach Bruce Arians gets a free pass from the
SOBs for getting his overachieving Cards oh so close to the
playoffs.  Enjoy the offseason and watch out for that desert sun!

A favorite area of debate among fans is that of the head coaches.  It seems like we all forget how much someone's livelihood is at stake when we start debating hirings and firings of coaches like we're trying to figure out which restaurant we want to go to for brunch.

Nonetheless, the OXen are taking a look at the seven head coaching casualties from the 2013 season. We also take a look at every other head coach whose team missed the playoffs (except for Bruce Arians, whose Arizona Cardinals were an impressive 10-6), and discuss whether they should have been let go or not.  In some cases, it's an obvious no, and they're just on the list for the sake of fairness.  One playoff coach also made it into the discussion, as his team has yet to win a playoff game in his 11 seasons.

Let's put our quarter in and take a ride on the Coaching Carousel.  Stally gets the AFC, Austen gets the NFC:

Dust in the Brees

Why Drew Brees's status as an elite quarterback makes him overrated

Enough is enough.  Someone needs to point
a finger back at Drew Brees. (Getty)

Born January 15, 1979, Drew Brees turns 35 this coming week.  The media is likely wish him a Happy Birthday by excusing another shortcoming in the postseason and writing it off as a loss to a great defense in a hard-to-win road building.  Enough, already!

Brees has received a pass for far too long because he is such a (pun-intended) saintly human being.  He puts his faith in Jesus, has a cute little kid from a beautiful wife and willingly headed to New Orleans as a free agent in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, where he took on the process of giving something for his city to believe in.  He's a good person, but that's not a football statistic.

Thanks to the craze of fantasy football, Brees has been revered as one of the greatest quarterbacks of his generation.  That's simply not true.  He's a good quarterback, there's no argument there, but he is not among the elite.  To be blunt: he's overrated.

NFL Playoffs: Divisional Round

Seattle has not been hospitable to Drew Brees
when he's come to visit. (Getty)

The Wild Card Round of the playoffs was as unpredictable as expected last week.  Three games were decided by either a game-winning field goal (New Orleans and San Francisco) or a game-saving defensive stop (Indianapolis).

The OXen had split opinions on all three of those games, and it was Austen that got all three correct, albeit by a combined six points.  Interestingly enough, the only game on which they agreed was that Cincinnati would beat San Diego, and the Chargers ended up winning by a laughable 17 points.

This week, there's again a mutual agreement on the first game selected with the other three being split-decisions, so it's likely that we're in for some good games that won't be decided until late.

Austen's Eight-Point Pick
1. @Seattle over 6. New Orleans

NFL Playoffs: Wild Card Round

A.J. Green's 11 TDs this season were a big reason the Bengals
scored at least 34 points in their final five home games. (Getty)

This must be why they call it the "Wild Card" Round of the NFL playoffs.  Not one of the eight teams playing this weekend could be classified as elite, save maybe San Francisco, who is on the road, and whom the OXen had so little faith in winning that they waited until the last pick on what was a split-decision.

All eight teams are good, but they all have their flaws.  Some have struggled in games they shouldn't have, some are turnover prone, others struggle to win on the road.  It's possible that the OXen run the table, and it's just as possible that not one of the games is picked correctly.

Both of us will be skiing at Stratton Mountain this weekend, so let's get these picks done so we can go hit the slopes!