And the Super Bowl will be....

Baltimore and Philly

Now I know some of you are jumping up and down and screaming at the screen right now.


Let me explain why.

First, to go deep in the playoffs you usually need 3 things:

1. Good Defense
2. Strong running game
3. Good QB play

AFC

Baltimore. Baltimore has the best defense in the AFC, and with the Bears recent bad outings maybe the best in all of football. With Jamal Lewis and Mike Anderson they can pound the ball and Steve McNair is not going to make dumb mistakes to lose the game. He's been around a while and been to the Super Bowl before. He makes big plays when needed to.

San Diego. Great regular season. Issue #1 is their coach. Name the last big game that Marty Schottenheimer won. You can't. Cause he hasn't. Issue #2. Inexperienced QB. Philip Rivers is in his 3rd year in the league, but his 1st as a starter. His last 2 games, against Seattle and Kansas City have been poor performances. 18 for 53 for 278 yards, 2 TD and 2 INT. A whopping 34% completion percentage. The Chargers only hope is to ride LT into the promised land. If they get behind or teams slow down LT, don't count on Rivers to win the game for you...yet.

Patriots. Yeah they still have Brady and Belichick but what else? Their receiving corps that won the Super Bowl 2 years ago? Deion Branch gone, David Givens gone, David Patten gone. Replaced by guys that have been average receivers their entire career or young players nobody has ever heard of. Their defense is not getting any younger either. Junior Seau is out with a broken arm and Bruschi, Rodney Harrison and Mike Vrabel are not turning the clock back anytime soon.

Colts. Please. Unless they win each game 50-40 they aren't going anywhere. How ironic that Tony Dungy, who in Tampa had a great defense on a team that couldn't score, now has a great offense on a team that can't stop anybody. Any team with a running game beats them. The Broncos in Round 1 would be a terrible matchup for them with Mike and Tatum Bell. When will Bill Polian or Dungy be fired for building this team this way? They are wasting the best offensive team in 20 years with a defense that would let my grandma run for 150 yards and 2 scores.

Wild cards- Probably the Broncos and Jets but they are not going anywhere. Broncos have a rookie QB and the Jets just don't have enough on offense.



NFC

Philly. Jeff Garcia is playing very smart and they offensive play calling has been changed from McNabb to fit what he can do. As long as Brian Westbrook is healthy and gets his touches they will score points. Question is their defense, which has played better the past month. In their first game without McNabb, at Indy, they were terrible. Jim Johnson figured out what it took to get that side of the ball going.

Bears. Well in the first half of the season they were being crowned as the best defense in history. The last 3-4 games they have looked very average. Injuries to Mike Brown, Tommie Harris, and Nathan Vasher, and the criminal behavior of Tank Johnson have hurt that side of the ball. Then there is Rex Grossman. No faith in him. Bears probably win in their 1st playoff game but lose in the championship game.

Saints. Great story. Fun to watch and score a lot of points. Defense is suspect. They followed the Dallas beat down by losing at home to the Redskins. THE REDSKINS.

Seahawks. Defense is terrible. How do you let a guy behind you to catch the winning TD with less then a minute to go in the game? Alexander, Hasselbeck, Ingram, Jackson and Stevens all have been hurt this season on the offensive side of the ball. They won't win on the road.

Cowgirls. Is the "Tuna" really that great of a coach? I would argue that the Cowboys have more talent on their roster then any other team in the NFC. Yet Parcells has yet to win a playoff game in Dallas. Stat of the year: Dallas only has 1 win against a team over a .500 record. 21-14 over Indy. Their defense is their downfall.

Rams, Giants, Falcons, Panthers, Packers- Who cares which of these 5 get in they aren't going anywhere. Can we swap the Bengals or Jaguars in the NFC playoffs to make it interesting?

Rudd to go out with a thud?

So over the weekend the mystery contestant for who would fill the Robert Yates Racing #88 ride seems to have a winner. Based on 1 report so far, unconfirmed as of this writing, it is former RYR driver Ricky Rudd. Rudd drove the #28 Texaco car from 2000-2002 before leaving for the Wood Brothers in 2003.

First let's go back. The 3 years that Rudd drove for RYR rivaled any other 3 year period in his entire career for on track success. He recorded 3 wins, 34 top 5s, 52 top 10s and 4 Bud Pole awards. The only other period in his career to rival this success was when he drove for Bud Moore from 1985 to 1987. It was a great revival for a driver that had run into tough times with his own team in the late 90s with the loss of his primary sponsor, Tide.

Rudd and Yates had a less then amicable split in 2002 at that end of Rudd's contract. Rudd wanted a hefty pay raise, RYR was unable to meet those demands due to a low ball sponsor contract that Texaco had for their Nascar entry. As early as May of 2002 Rudd spoke openly of retirement and criticized the direction the sport was going in. He also spoke about how the sport is not family friendly for him to spend time with his only child, Landon.

"I have a lot of options, one of them is retirement, and it's something I'll give a lot of thought too," Rudd said while testing his Robert Yates Ford at Lowe's Motor Speedway. "I'm 45 years old and I certainly don't see myself doing this when I'm 50, so it's something I'll be thinking about."

Ricky is 50 now. That same day Rudd said he did not know what he wanted to do.

A month later at Pocono he said again he had not decided what he wanted to do and expected to decide something in July.

"Things sort of force your hand," he said. "I figured we'd just kind of wander into the season, kind of move along and see how the season progresses, see how I felt, you know? Get to about July and make some decisions, whether I'm coming back or I'm not coming back. And at that time, there wouldn't be any build-up, you know?"

There also seemed clarification from Rudd that communication between he and Yates was open and clear.

"Robert and I sat down probably for two or three hours, just chatting," Rudd said. "Just covering a lot of areas. No scheduled meeting. Just kind of a casual meeting. So it went pretty good."

But two weeks later things started to unravel as rumors of a rift between Rudd and crewchief Fatback McSwain over a victory party became public. At that time both owner and driver stated Rudd's return to RYR was slim. Owner and driver both went public, disagreeing on the source of their disagreement. Rudd said it was over the makeup of the team, Yates said it was over driver compensation.

Things went quickly downhill from there with RYR employee clocking Rudd for comments made about the engine over the radio during a race in Richmond. McSwain left RYR completely to take a crew chief position at Joe Gibbs Racing. Texaco left RYR, even though they had 1 year left on their contract, and moved to Chip Ganassi Racing. The assumption was Rudd would go with them but when Ganassi and Rudd could not agree on a deal they settled on Jamie McMurray as their driver.

Rudd went to the Wood Brothers signing a 3 year deal, even though insisting he wanted to work on a 1 year deal during the 2002 season. He also had made it clear that he wanted to drive for a championship contender, not be part of a rebuilding process as he had in the 28 when he came to RYR. The Wood Brothers were anything but a title contender, having won a grand total of 2 races in the previous 10 years.

So with a year off, rumored rides in a 4th Gibbs car or a limited schedule for Wyler Racing in a Toyota, it appears Mars will sponsor the 88 with Rudd in it. Moving back to the 28 number is a possibility.

Question is, what is Rudd's expectations? Is he looking to contend for a title right away? If so he had been spending too much time racing go carts and not enough following the sport. RYR is a shell of the multi car team it was when he was there in its glory years of a 2 car operation. No wins in 2006 broke a string of 17 years with a win for the organization. It's only championship driver, Dale Jarrett left for Toyota.

Will Rudd be able to co-exist with crew chief Butch Hylton? A source of friction for his first 1 1/2 years with the Wood Brothers was the inability for Rudd and crew chiefs Ben Leslie and Pat Tryson to get on the same page. Results improved slightly with the return of Fatback to the pit box but still no victories. Will Rudd be speaking English while the crew chief se habla espanol? Will Rudd throw Hylton under the bus on national TV in an effort to get Fatback to work with him as he did with the Woods?

And how long is this for? Ricky is 50. 2 years max? Then what for RYR? No drivers of note will consider driving for them today. Brian Vickers flat out turned down the 88 ride this year. They have Stephen Leicht in the pipeline in the Busch series but he has yet to prove that he can compete on a regular basis on that circuit. To be fair he has never run a full season or had a stable crew chief situation, so this year will be a true indicator of what he can do. Maybe adding Rudd is the building block to stability at RYR and stop taking on water like the Titanic.

I just don't see it. RYR's equipment is behind the power teams more so then any other time in it's history. 2 team organizations have a very hard time competing in this sport. Look at what happened at Penske racing this year, and they have good drivers. RYR refuses to admit that having an army of engineers is essential in today's nascar. Losses in their ranks such as Kevin Buskirk, Mike Ford and Jimmy Elledge cannot be replaced with others. This will be vital for the organization to attract the best and brightest to return RYR to it's premier status.

Go back to counting laps Joe

Well the Skins now sit at 4-8 after throwing away a 14 point 1st quarter lead to the Falcons yesterday. You know the Skins, the highest paid coaching staff in human history, and the offseason winners of the free agency spending spree every year.

Joe Gibbs now has a losing record in his almost 3 full season return to the nation's capital. This off season they signed 4 prominent free agents:

Andre Carter
Antwaan Randle-El
Brandon Lloyd
Adam Archuleta

Hear that thud? That was the return on investment from this group. Now granted, Carter had a good game yesterday with 11 tackles, 9 solo, but that was the first game this year where you actually noticed he was on the field.

Archuleta, the highest paid safety when he signed his deal last summer, has been benched. First for Troy Vincent (38 years old) and then Vernon Fox. Vernon Fox?! Archuleta is now the highest paid protector in punt team history. We were told AA was benched because of his lack of pass coverage skills. Hello! Scouting? They didn't know this before giving him a 10 million dollar signing bonus?!

Lloyd, the #2 WR, has 20 catches in 12 games. And in at least 3 of those games he was the #1 WR as Santana Moss was hurt. He had at least 3 drops against Tampa in a road game they needed to win. It also would've helped his QB who was starting his first career game to haul those in too. Then on Sunday he got a stupid Michael Westbrook esque unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for taking his helmet off.

Randle El has played well. He did have a punt return for a TD earlier against the Colts this year, and he has 22 catches, more then the starter Lloyd. He also has 2 TDs to Lloyd's zero.

The defense went from 3rd ranked in 2004, to 9th last year to basically dead last this year, with basically the same personnel and Greg Williams at coach. Al Saunders came in at 2 million a year to call plays, and the offense is worse then it was last year. Granted, it doesn't help that Clinton Portis was hurt all year but still this is the guy that made Priest Holmes and Larry Johnson superstars. Or did those 2 guys make Al Saunders get this contract?

Joe, you are a Hall of Famer. The wear shows on your face and in your voice. We get the same 3 cliches every week. We know you are all in this together, and fighting your guts out etc. Ok we heard that for the 8 millionth time. Tell Mr. Snyder you appreciate the opporunity but you are going back to Charlotte and continue building Joe Gibbs Racing into the force in the Nascar world that it is becoming.