2014 Divisional Roundup and Ranking the 4 Possible Super Bowl Matchups

Now that the conference championship stage is set, all but two playoff games to that point will have been rematches from the regular season.  We'll get two phenomenal rematches next weekend that may well upstage the big event itself in New York, but that's for another post.  Divisional weekend wasn't quite as thrilling this time around as it was a year ago, but there's still a lot to write home about from a solid weekend where most of the favorites won big:

The Best of Divisional Weekend 2014

All of the Defense - If you were hoping the old adage "Defense Wins Championships" would die soon, this weekend certainly didn't help but we saw tremendous defensive efforts in nearly every game in the divisional round.  Seattle's defense repeated its December effort against the Saints by holding them scoreless through three quarters, forcing the game's only turnover, and allowing just 3 of 12 conversions on third down.  Although the offense did too little too late, the Saints' defense deserves recognition in its own right, sacking the elusive Russell Wilson three times and keeping him to just 100 yards in the passing game.  We got the defensive slugfest between the 49ers and Panthers we expected on Sunday, but San Francisco made the bigger plays with two impressive goal line stands, two interceptions and four sacks on Cam Newton.  Outside of a couple Newton scrambles, the Niners also made Carolina's run game irrelevant and clearly took Ron Rivera out of his game plan early.  Finally, perhaps the biggest surprise on defense was Denver's Orange Crush sans Von Miller.  Like the Seahawks the day before, the Broncos held Philip Rivers' offense scoreless through three quarters.  Heck, they held the Chargers to one (!) net passing yard in the first half and to their lowest total yardage all season.  Conversely, San Diego gave itself a chance to come back in the 4th quarter by forcing two turnovers and yet again keeping high-flying Denver to just 24 points, but the Broncos' effort was simply less forgiving.

LeGarrette Blount's Ground Game Punch - There's something about all of those ex-Buccaneers in New England.  Aquib Talib did an admirable job against the explosive T.Y. Hilton, but the star of Saturday's Patriots-Colts matchup was LeGarrette Blount without question.  Now Indy's defensive line knows how Byron Hout feels.  Given the blustery weather conditions and the tempo New England was looking for against Indy, I wasn't at all surprised to see the Pats run the ball more than usual.  But I'm not sure anyone expected Blount to have this kind of career day with 4 TDs and not one but two runs of over 70 yards.  At 250 pounds, he's a tough matchup for any defensive line and the Broncos should feel less at ease about facing Blount (and Ridley and Vereen) than they did against the Chargers with a very limited Ryan Mathews.  An unfortunate side note: How much more angry must Chiefs fans feel now that they've seen how miserable the Colts were against the run late in the game this weekend?  One more piece of evidence that things would look a little different if Jamaal Charles had been able to stay healthy last week.

A Swagger Game Ric Flair Would Be Proud Of - If I’m looking at all of the “gamesmanship” between the 49ers and Panthers in between snaps Sunday objectively, I cannot assess it as anything but immature and silly. But in the No Fun League era when you can’t even spin the ball in place after a big play for fear of delaying the game (mmkay), I thoroughly enjoyed all of the trolling between these two teams all afternoon. Don’t get me wrong, it would get just as tired as trying to break stadium noise records and restricting ticket sales to your region if it happened every week, but it fit these highly aggressive squads to a tee in a playoff atmosphere. You can’t blame Carolina and San Francisco for the passion they showed in their theatrical swagger as they tried to pound each other into pink mist between whistles, but you sure can blame the poor Panthers for racking up some drive-extending penalties on defense and one of the worst flops I’ve ever seen in all of American football. At the very least made for a much more memorable game than most of the others on divisional weekend.

The Worst of Divisional Weekend 2014

Poor Marques Colston (and the Colston backlash) - Before Saturday, Marques "the quiet Beatle" Colston would mostly be remembered as the Saints' greatest receiver of all time and as an unlikely star drafted just a few spots ahead of 2006's Mr. Irrelevant in the seventh round.  But Colston became the bad kind of meme this weekend when he caught a pass near the Saints sideline with less than ten seconds to go and tried to toss a lateral across the field instead of running out of bounds. 
Was it a poorly executed play and a poor decision altogether? Definitely. But the mama bear homer in me is telling you to back off. Why? First of all, Colston’s the only reason the Saints had a chance there in the first place. He accounted for nearly half of Drew Brees’ passing yards including his only TD pass on the day AND recovered the onside kick with less than a minute to go. Second, other players cost the Saints a ton of earlier opportunities including a botched punt, a fumble, two missed field goals and two wasted timeouts in the second half to avoid delay of game. Third, even if Colston ran out of bounds, it’s a mighty big assumption that New Orleans would have successfully completed a Hail Mary TD pass from the 35 yard line and then a second 2-point conversion on the day against the league’s best defense. In other words, give the guy a break and buy him a drink if you see him around New Orleans in the offseason.

Andrew's Luck Ends - The greatest and most infuriating thing about Andrew Luck’s Colts over these past two seasons is how wildly variant they can be from game to game. They have beaten three out of the four NFL powerhouses that remain in the playoffs, but they’ve also had some really rough ones that have mostly fallen on Luck’s shoulders including Saturday’s stinker against the Patriots. After committing only 9 interceptions in his first 16 games, No. 12 nearly doubled that with 7 interceptions in his last 2 games. To be fair, he’s had to atone for a very inefficient running game and questionable offensive line this season so you can’t blame the guy for trying to keep his team in striking distance, but this time it cost him a whole lot more than it did a week ago against the Chiefs for good reason.

Riverboat Ron Folds 'Em - By now you know the narrative of the Carolina Panthers’ breakout season. Coach Ron Rivera was on the verge of a mid-season exit after starting the year 1 - 3 on a mountain of missed opportunities with his talented roster. But then, “Riverboat Ron” rose from the ashes as one of the best situational play callers in the game, willing to go for it on 4th-and-short and lead his team to victories wide and narrow. So you had the feeling that the Panthers were going to have their shot on Sunday when they faced 4th-and-1 in the first have of the game. Most unfortunately, this strength ended up being Carolina’s kryptonite in an unexpected way. They went for it the first time (which was the right call) and got stuffed. When they faced a nearly identical situation later in the half, they kicked a field goal and never attempted another 4th down conversion again in the game. You might be scratching your head since the latter decision is the only one that directly resulted in points, but you’d be forgetting a few things: 1) when the Panthers were stuffed the first time, they ended up forcing the 49ers to punt from their own end zone and gave Cam Newton perfect field position to throw a TD pass to Steve Smith; 2) probability would suggest the Panthers still had a great shot at scoring a TD or forcing a similar situation on their second 4th-and-goal; and 3) the issue was more the conservative up-the-gut play calling than the decision to go for it on 4th down itself. Anyway, I’m not complaining that Carolina lost that one, but let that be a lesson for next year for the usually calculated Riverboat Ron.

Ranking the Possible Super Bowl Matchups

And then there were four, which means the fans of the 28 other NFL teams can look forward only to the roster changes of the offseason and hope for the best possible Super Bowl matchup between the teams that remain.  From my perspective, here are the matchups we should hope for from most to least interesting:

1) Denver Broncos vs. Seattle Seahawks
Christmas continues with at least two of my four playoffs wish list matchups coming up this championship weekend. The only possibility remaining on that list is the “Feast and Famine Bowl,” should both #1 seeds make it to the Meadowlands. It would make too much sense for Peyton Manning to close out an unprecedented season at QB against one of the best passing defenses in the NFL’s modern era. Who wouldn’t want to see Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas cover the likes of Demaryius Thomas and Eric Decker? Or Peyton put on his best Manning-face when the first questionable pass interference non-call surfaces? On a neutral and [perhaps] brutally cold field, all bets are off.

2) New England Patriots vs. San Francisco 49ers
Admittedly, it’d be fascinating to see how the Broncos’ record-shattering offense fares against either potential NFC contender, but there’s no guarantee that those games wouldn’t end up lopsided one way or the other. We already know roughly how a Patriots-49ers game would go though if their meeting in Foxboro a year ago is any indicator. In case you forgot, it was a magical snowglobe of runs with San Francisco sprinting out to a 31 - 3 lead followed by 28 unanswered points from the Patriots. Bill Belichick vs. Jim Harbaugh would be an excellent coaching matchup that could soon leave us begging for the phrase “chess match” to be retired forever.

3) Denver Broncos vs. San Francisco 49ers
Per desired matchup #1 above, either NFC contender would serve as Peyton’s toughest defensive test all season long. A few different wrinkles with the 49ers compared to the Seahawks would be that they arguably have the better offense and a more intense desire to win it all after coming up just short two years in a row, similar to Peyton’s push to get one more ring. The San Francisco secondary just isn’t quite as intriguing.

4) New England Patriots vs. Seattle Seahawks

If there’s one interesting subplot in this one, it’s that Patriots fans would love to have their revenge on Pete Carroll for his tepid slide at head coach over a decade ago. Conversely, they ended up with Bill Belichick as a result and should probably just let this one go. Also, New England’s third-string receiving corps is an awful matchup for Seattle’s secondary and this one could get out of hand quickly.