L O V E L I F E
Bluelighter
Can you fucking believe the COLTS, THE COLTS, got knocked out last night??
And arizona actually WON??
WTF IS GOING ON???
Yes and yes.
As last year's non-anomaly of a season showed us, the three most talented teams in the NFL (the AFC, at least), are the Patriots, the Colts, and the Chargers.
The Patriots were the recipients of bad bad luck TWICE this season (losing Brady, the NFL's second most valuable player when healthy) to an injury less than 1 percent of the way into this season, and THEN, after rallying to finish 11-5 ANYWAY, became only the second 11-5 team EVER to miss the play-offs.
The Colts and Chargers were also the recipients of bad luck this regular season, but to a lesser degree:
The Colts played with an injured Manning for the opening several games of this season, AND, additionally, the one out-of-nowhere-surprise team in the NFL this season just happened to be in their division, so even though the Colts rallied to finish 12-4 despite The Best Player In The NFL being injured for much of it, they were stuck with a #5 seed, instead of a #2 or #3 seed that a 12-4 record normally carries with it.
And the Chargers, because of possessing one of the worst head coaches in the history of the NFL (did you see how nervous he appeared WITH HIS TEAM ON THE OPPONENT'S 20 YARD LINE IN OVERTIME?! - this fucking abomination of a head coach actually EXPECTS his team to self-destruct whenever they're on the verge of victory! - PATHETIC!), and because of a horrendous call in Week 2, and because of several extremely close losses to excellent teams, finished 8-8, even though their talent suggests that they should go AT LEAST 11-5 even with their horrendous head coach.
So no - I'm not the slightest bit surprised that the Chargers beat the Colts - they have the two most high powered offenses in football, average to slightly above average defenses, and they played a pretty even game in every respect, and the home team won.
As for Arizona - they're terrible, the Falcons are also terrible, and, according to the rules of play-off football (that even Donovan McNabb probably knows), one of them HAD to win.