Playoffs? A Blog About The Playoffs? Playoffs?

By Alex Cohen-Smith

Playoff football is one the great anomalies in sports playoffs. In hockey, baseball and basketball, players have at least 3 games to prove their worth and make a name for themselves in the postseason.

It doesn’t work that way in football. A superstar can have one bad game and suddenly he’s labeled as a guy that doesn’t come through in the clutch. On the other hand, a no-name can make a few big plays and he becomes a guy you can count on in a big moment. The playoffs are funny like that. They don’t care if you’re stats are comparable to Dan Marino or Brady Quinn. The playoffs are a whole new season.

No one is ever going to label Tom Brady a bad quarterback. No one is ever going to say Brady isn’t clutch, or that he can’t come through when it matters. That being said, on Sunday he ran into a very hungry, very determined Baltimore Ravens defense and he was stonewalled. The Patriots didn’t do terribly on the ground, but when Brady took it to the air he ran into trouble with everyone from Ed Reed to Tom Zbikowski. Ray Rice, “Straight from New Rochelle, New York!” as Chris Berman would say, ran through the Pats like they weren’t even there. Brady will go home, hang out with his beautiful wife, his newborn baby, and his three Super Bowl rings. Poor guy.

The Arizona Cardinals and Green Bay Packers both had ridiculous offensive outputs, but there was no defense to be found until the last play of the game. This was a little surprising considering the Packers did have the #2 defense in football this year behind the Jets. I didn’t see any video of Packers coach Mike McCarthy after the game, but I’m going to assume his conversation with his defense was worthy of a Bud light commercial or at least one of these nicely remixed Auto-Tune videos.

Chad OchoCinco should change his name to Chad VeinteYOcho, considering 28 is the number of receiving yards he had in two games being matched up against New York Jets stud cornerback Darrelle Revis. Has everyone seen the list of receivers Revis has shut down this year?

• Andre Johnson – 101 catches during the season – 4 on Revis Island
• Randy Moss – 1,264 yards during the season – 58 in 2 games on Revis Island
• Marques Colston – 1,074 yards during the season – 33 on Revis Island
• Terrell Owens – 1,006 career catches – 6 in 2 games on Revis Island
• Steve Smith – 982 yards during the season – 5 on Revis Island
• Roddy White – 1153 yards during the season – 33 on Revis Island
• Reggie Wayne – 100 catches during the season – 3 on Revis Island

Moral of this story: Revis = Scary good. I know deep in my heart, as much as it pains me to say it, that Charles Woodson will win Defensive MVP over Revis, but there is no chance he deserved it more. Woodson made more “flashy plays” (fumble recoveries, interceptions), but he also didn’t have to deal with the plethora of Pro-Bowl caliber receivers Revis had to face and Woodson got burned for a number of big passing plays during the season.

You know who else looked scary good? The entire Dallas Cowboys team. The last time the Cowboys won a playoff game in 1996, Marvin Harrison was just being drafted. No other team from this weekend was clicking quite like the Cowboys. Tony Romo looked perfect. Felix Jones looked like a Pro Bowl RB. The defense would have made the Doomsday crew proud.

At least for another couple weeks we get to enjoy the thrills of playoff football. Enjoy the games.