Top 10 NFL Games of the 2013 Season, Part II

In the spirit of easing the withdrawal after the Super Bowl, we conclude with the second half of what I'm calling the Top 10 NFL Games of the 2013 Season.  In case you missed it, here's Part I.

5) Baltimore Ravens 29, Minnesota Vikings 26 - Week 14
Week 14 will be remembered as a frozen tundra bonanza with lots of runners up for this list like the Steelers' last chance lateral that almost got them the W against Miami and a powder-packed field for the Eagles and Lions to duke it out.  But the last 2 minutes between the Ravens and Vikings were so insane, I had to put this game in the top half despite having zero playoff implications.  It all started with a TD pass from Joe Flacco to returning TE Dennis Pitta for a 3-point lead with 2 minutes to go in the 4th quarter.  Vikings RB Toby Gerhart answered 30 seconds later with a 40-yard TD run to put Minnesota up by 4.  Then Baltimore's Jacoby Jones promptly returned the kickoff for another TD.  That alone would have been an exciting enough sequence, but we've still got two TDs to go.  With less than a minute remaining, Vikings QB Matt Cassel hit speedster Cordarrelle Patterson for a 79-yard reception.  Victory to Minnesota, right?  Wrong.  Flacco made the most of the 45 seconds remaining, driving the Ravens down the field for a final TD pass to Marlon Brown in the final seconds of the game.  This wild one in Baltimore ended with an unprecedented 5 touchdowns in 2 minutes, which did wonders for each team's win probability (and their fans' cardiac distress) in one of the most exciting tennis match games that has ever been played.

4) Green Bay Packers 33, Chicago Bears 28 - Week 17
The majority of the 2013 season left much to be desired for the rival Packers and Bears.  Green Bay was hit hard with the injury bug throughout the season and looked dead in the water once Aaron Rodgers went down with a broken collar bone.  The Bears had plenty of challenges of their own with the annual Jay Cutler injury and an aging defense that has lost some steam from previous years.  Nevertheless, these two teams were resilient enough to keep their playoff hopes alive in Week 17 in another classic rivalry elimination game.  Rodgers would have his first start since the Bears took him down two months earlier, and he had his ups and downs in shaking off the rust.  Chicago held onto the lead in the 4th quarter, which saw Green Bay down by one with 30 seconds to go, fourth down on the 48 yard line.  On a snap that would have been a forgettable whimper for most QBs, Rodgers evaded the pass rush, rolled left, and found Randall Cobb wide open with the game-winning TD.  It was arguably the play of the year and a clear reminder that Rodgers is always dangerous on the field... except when he plays the 49ers.

3) Seattle Seahawks 23, San Francisco 17 - Divisional Round
These playoffs didn't exactly hold a candle to the 2012-13 season when it comes to exciting, competitive games for the most part.  And the Seahawks' total domination over the Broncos on Super Bowl Sunday will be dismissed as a rare boring blowout in the modern era.  So I'll go with Richard Sherman's take that the NFC Championship game would have been a much better Super Bowl and certainly a more electrifying game to watch.  After being decimated on their two previous trips to CenturyLink, the 49ers erased any inkling of Seattle's homefield advantage during the first half of this third clash of the rivals.  San Francisco kept the Seattle offense at bay, jumping out to a 10-point lead and holding the Seahawks to just a field goal in the first half.  But as he's done to victimize overconfident defenses all season long, Marshawn Lynch unleashed a 40-yard TD run in the third quarter to a rain of Skittles in the Seattle stands.  Then the Seahawks' defense became the stuff of nightmares for Colin Kaepernick, who'd been having great success mixing up some mid-range passes and scrambles to keep them guessing until the 4th quarter.  In the ending we all hoped for, the game came down to one final drive.  The 49ers were down by 6 but had the chance to win despite an interception and a lost fumble on two previous drives.  Kaepernick threw a near-perfect fade to Michael Crabtree in the corner of the end zone that could have only been deflected for a game-ending interception by someone as athletic as Richard Sherman.  And then, if you recall, we heard a whole lot more from Sherman about how awesome he is.

 2) Indianapolis Colts 45, Kansas City Chiefs 44 - Wild Card
Although he's had the kind of growing pains you'd expect from any young prospect, Andrew Luck has never given fans much reason to doubt his talent or value as a rising star QB.  He didn't start out that way in the Wild Card round against the Kansas City Chiefs though.  On a career day from Alex Smith and 4 takeaways from its defense, the Chiefs built a seemingly insurmountable 28-point lead in the 3rd quarter.  But they had given just about all that they could in weathering a tidal wave of injuries throughout the afternoon that would ultimately leave the Chiefs without 3 Pro Bowlers and down to their third-string running back to try to milk the clock.  Despite these conditions, there's no denying the Colts' resolve in how this one would end.  Andrew Luck was stunning with laser-sharp passes down the seam, averaging nearly 10 yards per pass and notching 3 TD passes as well as a fumble recovery run-in for a TD in the second half.  It would be an agonizing end for a Chiefs team that did just about everything right until that point, especially Alex Smith, but the Colts' comeback on the arm of Andrew Luck was legendary, a testament to the many successful years Indy has ahead with the biggest up-and-coming star of the game (temporarily not named Russell Wilson).

1) Denver Broncos 51, Dallas Cowboys 48 - Week 5
Admittedly, it was hard for me to determine a true #1 game this season, and in the grand scheme of things, I wouldn't argue with you if you feel one of the others above should bump this one down.  Good thing this is a totally arbitrary exercise!  Anyway, let's set the stage here, shall we?  The Broncos were on a war path going into Week 5, winning their previous four games by an average of over 20 points with Peyton Manning well on his way to a fifth MVP nod and a record-breaking pace of production through the air.  The Cowboys were their usual uneven selves, but Tony Romo was having a solid year and the rest of the NFC East was falling apart.  The Cowboys surprised many by starting out with a 14-point lead before the Broncos stormed back with three consecutive TDs in the second quarter.  It's debatable whether either defense was really more than a hologram in JerryWorld after that point.  By my count, there was never a 5-minute span of the game without a score, which made for one heckuva shootout from start to finish between one of the most decorated QBs of all time versus one of the most debated.  When the dust finally settled, these two teams amassed over 1,000 yards including 984 passing yards and 12 total touchdowns, and the Cowboys had one final chance with the ball, under two minutes to go in a tie game, to take down a Broncos team that had previously looked like it couldn't lose.  But despite all that Tony Romo had done right that day to overcome the fallout of his defense (5 TDs and nearly 500 net yards in passing), he'll be remembered for just one thing: a bone-headed interception in his own territory to set up Denver for the game-winning field goal.  Bless him for trying.

Top 10 NFL Games of the 2013 Season, Part I

Have the withdrawal symptoms set in for you yet?  The Winter Olympics and Bob Costa's pink eye can only contain us for so long, let's be real.  It's a long road to September, so in the meantime, let's look back fondly on what I'm calling the Top 10 NFL Games of the 2013 Season:

10) New England Patriots 30, New Orleans Saints 27 - Week 6
Even recalling this game is as painful as Edward Norton pouring lye on his hand in Fight Club.  I can say that because it was fake, and I just want to move on from this one.  For Saints fans, that trip to New England in October was a dagger to the heart, but for everyone else, it was one heckuva game with another memorable comeback for Tom Terrific.  The Saints were leading by four with less than two minutes to go, and they got the ball back on an errant Brady pass-turned-interception.  But with some excellent clock management, the Pats got the ball back and drove downfield in less than a minute.  The Brady-to-Thompkins corner fade in the endzone will be on the highlight reel for a long time to come, a symbol of how resilient this year's Patriots were despite the enormous adversity they faced. 

9) Philadelphia Eagles 33, Washington Redskins 27 - Week 1
In the grand scheme of things, this wasn't all that important of a game considering how far the Redskins fell from their magical wild card year in 2012.  But before we knew how awful Washington's defense was, we were blown away by Chip Kelly's NFL debut and the fast-paced spread offense that dazzled and decimated in Week 1.  The Redskins made a late charge to overcome a 33 - 7 deficit, but Philly's defense didn't break in the end, and Kelly's Eagles started the journey to a wild card bid in his first year.

8) Carolina Panthers 10, San Francisco 49ers 9 - Week 10
If you were looking for a blast from the NFL past this season, look no further than this low-scoring Week 10 clash of two powerhouse defenses in San Francisco.  The Panthers came in riding a 5-game win streak, but jerks like me were arguing that they'd hit a wall facing a much tougher opponent like the 49ers.  Carolina simply disagreed.  In fact, this team was downright brutal on the Niners' offense, holding them to 150 total yards and sacking Colin Kaepernick 6 times.  The difference in the game ended up being one 27-yard TD run from DeAngelo Williams and a forced fumble in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter to keep San Francisco from responding.  It was a stunner that would be a sign of good defensive things to come in the NFL this season and of the best Panthers season in years.

7) New England Patriots 34, Denver Broncos 31 (OT) - Week 12
Similar to the Panthers-49ers rumble above, this matchup played out so much better in the regular season than the playoffs in terms of excitement.  At halftime on that cold Foxboro night, the Patriots looked dead in the water after starting out 0 - 24 against the dark lord Peyton Manning.  More than a few fans filed out to start the traffic jam a little bit early, but I'm sure they'll tell you a year from now how they kept the faith and watched the Pats rack up 31 unanswered points and ultimately go to overtime.  It was a sloppy and wild affair that saw 6 fumbles between these two teams and kept the game very interesting. Evil genius Bill Belichick did the rare thing and opted to kick off in OT so that the Pats would have the wind against their backs if they could stop the Broncos.  Stop Denver they did as the game went scoreless for the first 13 minutes of extra time of back and forth punts.  But Wes Welker finally proved clutch for New England (old joke, I know) and muffed one of those punts with less than two minutes to go, sealing another unlikely win for the never-say-die Patriots.  This chilly overtime bout marked one of the better chapters in the long-standing Manning-Brady rivalry.

6) Detroit Lions 31, Dallas Cowboys 30 - Week 8
Confession: I am really starting to feel bad for the Dallas Cowboys.  Really.  When you look back over their recent history, I can't think of another team that has had more potential coupled with purely awful luck and self-sabotage - and this is just one of two examples I'll reference from this season.  In terms of individual accomplishment, this Week 8 game between the Lions and Cowboys was Calvin Johnson's day.  He racked up a staggering 329 reception yards, the second largest number in a single game in NFL history.  Still, Dallas had the game firmly in hand, leading by 10 with 6 minutes to go and by 6 in the final minute of play. But the Cowboys' defense being what it is, Matt Stafford had no problem marching his team downfield inside the two yard line with ten seconds to go.  Channeling Dan Marino, No. 9 made arguably the smartest play of his career, signaling to his team that he was going to spike the ball to set up a couple final shots at the end zone before sneaking the ball across the goal line to stun the Cowboys and give the Lions an extraordinary victory.

***Fasten your seat belt.  Part II coming later this week!***

4 Things That Didn't Suck About the Super Bowl... and 3 Other Things That Did

The resounding consensus from our national Super Bowl XLVIII hangover seems to be that it was a miserable game to watch.  Granted we're dealing with quite a bit of selection bias based on just how many people were pulling for Peyton's Broncos, but this was a far more lopsided affair than anyone could have guessed.  Couple Seattle's total domination with more forgettable commercials than usual, zero interesting weather conditions and what sounded like a hellish public transit experience for fans at the game, and this could justifiably go down as the worst Super Bowl experience we've seen in a decade. (Those who remember the Buccaneers-Raiders or Ravens-Giants blowouts of the early 2000s know what I’m talking about). But in the spirit of trying to fill our football glasses to half-full as we enter a deep depression of seven full months without meaningful games, here are 4 things that didn't suck about the Super Bowl.. and 3 other things that did:

 4 Things That Didn't Suck About the Super Bowl

1) Joe Namath Giving America the GIF It Deserves
In retrospect, some are saying Joe Namath's premature coin toss--and interception by referee Terry McAulay--was a sign of things to come for Peyton Manning.  No matter how you feel about everything that happened after that point, Namath did not disappoint with the now-commonplace trainwreck antics of his retirement. It's like he knows he's going back into solitary after any major media appearance so he's got to make it count. Bonus points awarded for Namath’s spectacular fur coat - he might not be kissing Suzy Kolber or PETA members anytime soon, but he sure looked prepared for the, ermm, elements.

2) Bruno Mars' Drum Solo
For those of us who are indifferent at best about Bruno Mars, he got a solid “That wasn’t as bad as I expected” kind of assessment. His performance could never top that of Beyonce or Prince, but I wouldn’t put him at the bottom with the smoke and mirrors of the Black Eyed Peas or the barely breathing members of The Who either. You might be rolling your eyes, but I thought Mars’ opening bit on the drums was a nice surprise - he had the chops to push it past the gimmick zone but also transitioned swiftly into “that song that everybody knows” before Twitter got antsy. I’d still trade it for a Flea bass solo any day though.

3) A Competitive MVP Race
Although certainly more diverse than the season MVP award, the Super Bowl MVP is going to go to the winning QB or the top offensive skill player nearly every time, and you generally know it by the second quarter. This Sunday night was different. If there was a single quality of the Seahawks’ total domination that stands out to me, it’s that this was a true team effort in all phases of the game. Linebacker Malcolm Smith made the game’s biggest plays early on to keep Denver from ever having a chance, so his MVP award is well-deserved. But Smith would agree that the Seahawks’ most memorable individual plays were precipitated by the efforts of many. He would never have returned his pick-6 without Cliff Avril getting to Peyton Manning’s arm, nor would he have recovered that fumble without Byron Maxwell forcing it out of Demaryius Thomas’ hands. Seattle’s pass rush was flawless from start-to-finish and the secondary put most of Denver’s receivers in the witness protection program when they weren’t lighting them up in the middle of the field for minimal gain and a whole lot of pain. On offense, Russell Wilson made some spectacular drive-extending plays on the ground and through the air to an array of receivers most of us barely know. The offensive line kept his pocket clean and let the running game milk the clock for most of regulation. Then, of course, there was Percy Harvin who some would argue earned all of that 2013 paycheck in three huge plays including a kickoff return TD to start the second half.  It was a bad night for prop bets for sure, but to be kept guessing who would end up with the MVP with so many outstanding performances to consider was a rare experience.

4) A Once-in-a-Lifetime Defensive Performance
Let's do a little thought experiment, shall we?  What if the score was flipped so that the Broncos walked away with a 43 - 8 victory?  It'd still be deemed a boring game, but the whole narrative today would be one of the highest praise for Peyton Manning's superhuman ability to dictate terms even to the best defense in the league.  But with the vast majority of attention being placed on the Broncos' collapse instead on Monday, the converse hasn't exactly been true for Seattle's defense--even though it should be.  This wasn't just any rout.  This was a younger, less experienced but supremely talented defense that took down the best offense in the history of the NFL record books like it was a Division III practice squad.  The Seahawks dominated an offensive line that had given Manning and his running backs alike all the time and space they could ever ask for in the pocket for 18 weeks.  Although Seattle recorded only one sack, they forced No. 18 off his block and into some awful passes including two interceptions. Richard Sherman ruined any drinking games you might have planned around Eric Decker's completion totals.  Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor destroyed all receivers who dared to catch anything in the flat, punctuating a performance that included four forced fumbles and a whole lot of big hits.  The Seahawks simply had an answer for every target in the Broncos' loaded arsenal, holding the highest scoring offense of all time to just 8 points while racking up 9 of their own.  Boring to some, sure, but to a football nerd this was a defensive masterpiece for the ages.

3 Other Things That Did

1) The Hype Bubble
 Now that I'm off my high horse about just how great Seattle's defense was on Sunday, I'm right there with you that the game was still a letdown when you consider what it might have been between two #1 seeds that looked unbeatable going in.  Madden and Tecmo had the thing going to overtime in a blizzard for Kanye's sake!  The Greatest Offense of All Time deserved a better show than they gave us, but we didn't even get a quarter's worth of healthy competition or a single snowflake after two weeks of swinging Vegas lines and hyper-vigilant weather forecasts.  Our expectations may have been sky-high for this game, but even a whimper would have been a better ending than the utter carnage we got... at least in terms of entertainment value. 

2) Pretty Much All of the Commercials
That familiar Super Bowl chorus "The Commercials Weren't That Good This Year" is about as tried and true as cheap beer and minor coronary blockage on game day, but I can't think of a worse slate of commercials in recent memory than these.  In fact, I'm having a hard time remembering most of them, which I'm guessing is just about the opposite of what the $8 million/minute was intended to accomplish.  Take that, society!  Anyway, I blame my intolerably snarky mood on a few key things here: 1) these suits trying to manipulate our tears for cancer, the troops and horse-on-puppy-love; 2) Axe body spray trying to be profound about body spray; and 3) Bob Dylan hawking grandma cars, burned into my retinas forever.  Counterpoint: 24 is back?

3) The Continuing Peyton Manning Debate
Although I was squarely in the Seahawks' corner in this game, there would have been a pretty solid silver lining had the Broncos won last night instead: we could have stopped the madness that is the debate about "Peyton Manning's legacy."  A few years from now, we'll still remember him as one of the very best quarterbacks ever to play the game.  He'll likely own nearly every major passing record all-time and in a season, and he'll have at least 5 MVP awards and 3 Super Bowl appearances to boot.  Manning's future coronation in Hall of Fame is a given.  Sure, he's had a rough postseason record, but you could say the same thing about Dan Marino, Brett Favre, Tom Brady and John Elway at different stretches of their careers.  Sunday wasn't the Hollywood ending we've all been conditioned to expect for Manning, but it'll be just a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things, whenever he hangs up his cleats.  All of the chatter about whether this one game erases all of the great performances that have defined his legacy is the wrong question altogether.  He's the greatest, and his playoff record isn't as good as you'd expect.  #solved

Bonus: The Part Where I Selectively Pat Myself on the Back

For the second year in a row, I went with the upset pick and emerged victorious.  That puts my playoff record at 7 - 4 outright and 8 - 2 - 1 against the spread, but it's a shame I didn't get to Floyd Mayweather first.  Anyway, it was a pretty solid pregame analysis if I do say so myself, so I'm throwing myself a blogger parade by reminding you that the following Lady Blitz prophecies came to pass while you were yawning your way through the fourth quarter on Sunday:

• "For the Seahawks to do well against this holy terror of an offense, we may need to hear a whole lot more about Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett than Richard Sherman."
• "Russell Wilson's best bet may be to work the play action and use some tricks up his sleeve with Percy Harvin, since there is almost zero film on how he fits into the Seahawks' scheme to prepare for."
• "If there's one thing I have a hard time shaking that puts the odds in the Seahawks' favor, it is that Denver had an insanely easy regular season and postseason schedule to glide through while they were racking up their Tecmo numbers.  That could lead to overconfidence at the least and total shell shock at worst if Seattle dictates the game's tempo and forces pressure and/or turnovers early."

Admittedly, the Simpsons did a much better job than me over a decade ago though: