We know who'll be in Super Bowl 50 and have two weeks to stew over who will win. In the meantime, let's take a quick look at the Championship games.
2 New England @ 1 Denver:
Why was Denver #1 in the AFC? The Patriots went to Miami in Week 17 and lost. Were it not for that result, the AFC Championship would have been played in Foxboro and probably would have turned out differently.
Brady and co. play poorly in Denver; that's been established and there was little to no deviation from it on Sunday. It was an effort much like the one that was on display in Week 17.
Because of that and a few calls that went against the Patriots, the Broncos are an improbable Super Bowl entrant.
I don't think the Broncos deserve to be in the Super Bowl. Yes, their defense is good. The QB play leaves a lot to be desired and the offense in general is lackluster. I don't care for Kubiak's head coaching style and I think he was lucky that his right tackle didn't get worked over like he had in a couple previous games.
I also think that the Patriots weren't really prepared for this eventuality. When the draw came out, I think they expected that they would be in Foxboro hosting Pittsburgh for the Championship.
Denver was lucky to get past Pittsburgh and weren't a whole lot better than the Pats on a day where Brady was knocked around regularly. In order to win Super Bowl 50 (a likelihood I don't see, even after the previous two weeks), they'll have to be a lot better than they've showed to even be slightly better than the team they'll be up against.
2 Arizona @ 1 Carolina:
Over in the NFC, we had an old fashioned beatdown.
Carolina put it to Arizona pretty much from beginning to end, dominating on both sides of the ball as they put up 49 points. Cam Newton in particular was excellent, putting up two passing TD's and two rushing TD's.
The Panthers also made Palmer look completely foolish, which was a nice bonus. While some are already circling the wagons around their so-called MVP candidate, this was his third terrible game in a row and he really let it all hang out. He threw four INT's, most of which were inexcusably bad, one of which was a pick-six and fumbled twice to boot. His O-line wasn't great, to be sure, but the mistakes were generally on Palmer alone.
Newton made one mistake, an INT by Patrick Peterson that almost (but not quite) made up for his odd gaffe in special teams. However, Cam was helped out by Ted Ginn, Jr., who tackled Peterson before he reached the end zone, and safety Kurt Coleman, who picked off Palmer in the end zone on a nice play.
While I wouldn't call it a fait accompli, necessarily, I will say that the NFC Championship was basically the game that decided who gets the Lombardi Trophy. Carolina was the better team and I expect that to be the case in two weeks.
Given that the Panthers are coached by Ron Rivera, who played on the 1985 Bears and won Super Bowl 20, I thought it might be interesting to see which team the '85 Bears and 2015 Panthers lost to. Each of these teams lost once, the '85 Bears to Miami, the 2015 Panthers to Atlanta.
The '85 Dolphins went 12-4 and lost in the AFC Championship to New England.
The 2015 Falcons went 8-8 and missed the playoffs.
I'm not sure that means anything either way, but I found it to be an interesting tidbit.
As far as the picks went, I split. I took New England and Carolina and was quite close to being rewarded with a perfect Championship Round. Alas.
I'm going to take a week off, as I have no interest in Super Bowl 50 hype (which is sure to be even more outlandish than usual). See you in two weeks.
