Championship Weekend

Question: How do you get 12 network executives to have a simultaneous heart attack?

Answer: Suggest a AFC/NFC Championship weekend which takes place entirely outside of the eastern and central time zones.

No New York, no Boston, no Florida, no Indianapolis, no Chicago, no Twin Cities. When your biggest market is Pittsburgh, well that's just begging for the "terrible" towels.

Regardless, it's still a big weekend, so here are my predictions, followed by the predictions of the man who taught me about sports, verbatum from his own words. Neither of us take any responsibility if you lose any money on it, we suck at gambling too.

Pittsburgh at Denver: I think I just invented a general rule here: if your defense can confuse, befuddle, and force mistakes from Tom Brady you are going to be in pretty good shape against every 2nd year quarterback in the history of football. I don't see how a defense can make the best QB in the NFL look somewhat confused one week and not have at least the same and probably a worse effect on Ben Roethlisberger the following week. Furthermore, no 6 seed has ever made it to the championship game before this year for a reason. Winning 2 games on the road in the playoffs is hard enough, winning 3 is damn near impossible. I think that Pittsburgh has a chance to win with a similar game plan to last week (get a lead, pray) but I don't think they will. Last week's game against Indy was their Super Bowl, now they're playing with house money. The last team that was playing with house money in Denver went home on the wrong end of a 27-13 decision. Also, Jerome Bettis is going to be trying so hard to hold on to the ball that he'll just fall down before anyone touches him to avoid fumbling, which might actually be good for Pittsburgh since he is just a horrible big game back. Pick: Denver by 5.

Carolina at Seattle: 2 regular season games against each of the following: San Francisco, Arizona, and St. Louis. No team in the NFL has 6 wins as gift wrapped each season as the Seattle Seahawks. Any other questions about why they had not won a playoff game prior to last weeks victory over Washington since 1984? While Carolina is looking to do the impossible, win 3 road playoff games en-route to the Super Bowl Seattle is looking to defy logic by coming out of the NFC West to win anything. I just can't see it. Shaun Alexander's health is in question and while Matt Hasselbeck played great last week his numbers on the season are padded by weak competition (1 300 yard passing game on the season against St. Louis, 4 total games against playoff teams). We saw last week what Carolina did to a highly touted team at home who had not played anyone all year long. I see nothing standing in the way of a repeat. Steve Smith won't go off like he did against the ridiculously overrated Bears (and my God if he does Mike Holmgren should be taken out on into the Seattle rain and drowned in it) because EVERYONE knows where the Panthers want to go with the ball and Seattle should focus all of their efforts on preventing it. But all the attention that will be paid to Smith will open up the field for the rest of the offense, led by a highly underrated (yes I know I've often written about him as overrated but his numbers in the post season don't lie) Jake Delhomme. Carolina won't run away with it, but their defense will look like the morgul hordes compared to the cup-cake show the Seahawks faced last week and the birds will wilt on their own damp home field. Pick: Carolina by 3.

Now the second opinion from Mr. Boston Slant Sr., as copied and pasted from an e-mail to me.

MY PREDICTIONS: Call your bookie, go to Vegas... Pittsburgh and Carolina. It seems strange to pick two visiting teams but what the heck. (By the way, now that you know my picks I did not mean you should call your bookie and bet on Denver and Seatle, although I would understand!)

There you have it, the family B-Slant agrees on the NFC game and is divided on the AFC, which means that for the first time ever at least one of us will be right. However, the world will not come to a cataclysmic end this weekend as there is no chance of us both being right which would clearly signal the end of days. Fear not the apocalypse is delayed until at least the Super Bowl.