NFL 2010 Season Conference Championships Picks

Pittsburgh got this on lock they winning afc championship then off to bring home a seventh Superbowl title!!!!

Anyone going to Dallas?

How do you know? They had no objective reason to claim those things, and people don't retroactively get reasons to justify past arguments. No one is "vindicated." Not to mention half the point wasn't if it's right or wrong, but why so many people were so eager to make the point.
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I'm not sure if this is getting any coverage or not, but what was Collins smoking yesterday? He pretty much single handedly gave up 14 points.

Well, I know that when the majority (maybe the majority, but maybe just the majority among the media elites) makes some claim like that, and then it is fulfilled, maybe it should be looked at that they were indeed on to something. When an individual talks trash and then backs it up, it looks like they actually know what they are talking about; but if they talk trash and then fall flat on their face, they look like fools. The same can be said about a commentor making analysis or predictions about a game or a team. Pretty much everyone who was calling the Packers the hottest/best team in the NFL look like geniuses (and really, substitute hottest/best with most dangerous, and I think we are probably splitting hairs with terms); they turned out to be correct. And it wasn't based on nothing. As I have pointed out rather well in past arguments, the Packers had been playing pretty good football except for at Atlanta (1 seed), at New England (1 seed), and at detroit (no excuse here, just a bad game).

Maybe the President had a gut feeling.

As for laying an egg, they laid one egg in the last 10 games of the regular season, and blew out multiple opponents. so they "can" lay an egg, maybe 10% of the time.

(extra stat, with no implied meaning whatsoever: the Packers never trailed at any point during the 2011 season by more than 7 points. No NFL team has ever accomplished that)

edit: respond only if you want. I'm probably going to let this one go, unless of course you really say something that grinds me gears. Then I'll start the next post with "You know really grinds my gears?..."

I couldn't tell who was more at fault for Knox's big touchdown late. Woodson was on him initially, but it looked like he peeled off assuming Collins was going to come up. By the time Collins got off his couch, Woodson already had lost a step and Knox was gone. At least that's what it looked like to me from first glance. I couldn't tell if Woodson should have stayed on him longer or if Collins fell asleep. Either way, they booth looked as if they just stopped playing in the middle of that play.

They made a baseless assertion ignoring virtually all evidence to the contrary...

Besides, what does "Best" even mean? No one would argue that the Packers had the best regular season, that's what record is for. But ones you get into the final weeks of the season, "best" becomes a lot more subjective.

but the best team doesn't always win.

Or the Vikings would be 0-16!

Seriously though, this is the worst pointless "debate" you two have ever had. And in this case I define "worst" as I stopped reading your comments 3 weeks ago.

Well, tangential arguments notwithstanding, I feel like what I wrote before week 17 was confirmed:

This game aside, I want to say something about these two teams. They seem to have opposite reputations. The Bears do a lot of winning, but people struggle to accept them even as a good team. Meanwhile, the Packers have hovered in the mediocre range all year and yet are given the benefit of the doubt and are looked at as a fierce team. I understand the reasons for these views, but here's the thing. If a team keeps winning over a whole season, even though you think they shouldn't, they're probably a better team than you give them credit for. And if you spend an entire year waiting for a team to be consistently good, but they don't quite get there, odds are they just aren't the kind of team you're waiting for them to be.

Yeah, the Packers have lost a lot of close games this year. But that's sort of what happens in the NFL. If you give extra credit for those, then you have to discount the multiple close wins they've had as well. It wouldn't surprise me if the Packers make, and make a good run in, the playoffs. (Nothing in the NFL should surprise anyone at this point.) But I think it's more likely that they continue to be the team they've been all year and mix in some "really good" with a healthy amount of "blah."

Turns out the Bears weren't who a lot of people thought they were, seeing as their reputation was dirt and the Packers' was golden. Or maybe the conclusion is that both teams are crappy. Frankly, I don't really care which conclusion is drawn as long as there's some realization that the teams seemed to get basically opposite treatment despite proving to be basically equal. (2-1 head to head in 3 close games; Bears had better reg. season record). I don't really care what the motivation or reason for this was. In conclusion, I'd like all Packer fans to apologize to the Bears for not giving them their proper respect. Or, if they contend that the Bears actually were a sucky team, then I'd like them to admit that the Packers suck on essentially the same level. That's basically all I ask. Pretty reasonable, I think.

This is all I say, Packers are 3rd on this list, Bears are 16th. Any given week the Bears have a chance to win, but they would be largely dependent on their #1 special teams ranking (or TD passes being overruled). The defenses were pretty even, and I'll take the clearly superior offense over the clearly superior special teams every time.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teameff

And if you go the second chart it rates the Bears as the 30th most consistent team as opposed to the Packers at 15th. So yes there was media fawning, but it wasn't completely unbased at least, maybe just unprofessional.

This is all I say, Packers are 3rd on this list, Bears are 16th. Any given week the Bears have a chance to win, but they would be largely dependent on their #1 special teams ranking (or TD passes being overruled). ...

I think looking at the last how ever many games it takes to get to a loss or two when calling someone "hottest" is perfectly reasonable. If a team won 6 games in a row by 20, then lost two, would you call them "hot"?

And this is really a separate issue, but I don't think the playoff system determines the best team, and I don't really think you think that either, unless of course you define "best" as "team that won the Superbowl". Any team can win any Sunday, and obviously those teams are going to tend to be the cream of the crop, but the best team doesn't always win.

...they earned the tournament bid, won the tournament...

...winning earns you the right to be called "the best"...