It Won’t be a Big Easy

By Pat Callahan

Random Post-Season thoughts…

- Talk about a foreboding statistic: in the divisional round of the NFL playoffs, since the expansion to 6 seeds in 1990, the home (bye) team has won 87% of the games. That, my friends, qualifies as a trend. Compare the NFL to the NBA or NHL, where a higher-seeded team gets one extra home game (maybe) in a seven game series, and you see how much the league emphasizes the regular season…

- Still, the path of the No. 3 seed might be too punitive. Take the Eagles: they finished with the same record as New Orleans and had the same conference record; the difference between resting for a week at home versus playing a first round game, then traveling on six days notice, was a John Carney FG on the game’s last play.

- Still, it can be done. Just last year both Carolina (at Chicago) and Pittsburgh (at Indy) won road games. But please, don’t bet on it, not even with the five points.

- Did you realize that seven of the 12 teams which made the playoffs in 2005 did not make it back in ’06? Nothing is guaranteed in this league.

- I’m surprised to hear that Tom Coughlin is staying in NY. It seems clear that he’s lost the team in the locker room, and with some aging defensive stars (Strahan, Arrington), no Tiki, and a very shaky Eli Manning, the future looks cloudy in the Big Apple.

- Three words to ensure an early playoff exit: “Coach Herman Edwards”

- Two really good AFC playoff games this weekend, and you could make a case for any one of these four going on to win SBXXI. If you, in fact, ranked the remaining eight teams in order of most likely to win the SB, the four AFC teams would be one to four. In the NFC, Seattle has no shot and the other three have glaring deficiencies.

- Let’s see: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Steve McNair, Rex Grossman. Which one doesn’t belong?