Friday Football and Other Things

by Ryan

Just a reminder that we will be live blogging the two games on Sunday. Why? Well, we are watching anyway, so why not talk about it? If you want to stop by, or even just pick games in the comments, you're more than welcome. Here are some football links to get you ready for the weekend, as well as a few other things.

- This post on Kissing Suzy Kolber is absolutely terrifying, and also pretty fantastic. They've forever changed the way I look at quarterbacks.

- Question: Where is the "it's tough to beat a team three times" theory coming from? John Clayton wrote about it this week and says this:

This is the fifth time a team will face a divisional rival in the championship round after beating it twice in the regular season. The 2-0 team got the sweep in three of the four previous instances. The 1982 Miami Dolphins won their third matchup against the New York Jets. The 1986 New York Giants swept the Washington Redskins. The 1999 Tennessee Titans went to Jacksonville and got their third win over the Jaguars.

The only team that didn't complete the sweep was the 1983 Seahawks, who lost to the Raiders. In that case, the Seahawks pulled off the upsets during the regular season, but the Raiders were a superior team.

So... the team going for the third win is 75% successfully? Am I missing something here?

- It's good to see Tim Graham is still doing work for ESPN despite the fact that the AFC East died this year.

- Sidney Crosby is out tonight, and holy crap Scott Burnside's giant head. Sometimes I think ESPN is taking their video player a bit too far.

- Getting Caught From Behind has the new Bisons uniforms up. I'm not a huge fan of the "B" but it's better than the first logo on the cap. Everything looks so... busy.

- Use the force, Luke.

- Here, of course, is Simmons' NFL picks column. He has done terrible this postseason, but I'd read it if only to confirm that the only hockey game he's ever watched was during the 1980 Olympics.

- Bolden is likely to play for Arizona on Sunday, which hopefully means Fitzgerald gets free. I'm not exactly rooting for the Buzzsaw that is, I just really enjoy watching him play.

- Just for the record... the Baltimore-Pittsburgh game will wind up like 13-12, right? Last week we thought the final in Tennessee would total under 20 points. We got close. I'd take the under on this one, too.

- With Gruden getting the axe, how many coaches were fired this year that were better than Dick Jauron? Three? Five? All of them? Ugh.