NFC GAMES
NFC TO SAINTS: IT’S YOUR MESS, YOU CLEAN IT UP
The Men They Couldn’t Hang return to New Orleans for an improbable playoff rematch and if the Saints can’t defeat them, if the Saints run their all-time postseason record to 0-5, they will have no one to blame but themselves.
The Rams may have the worst defense in the league, and won’t play at home again until next August, but no team in the NFC playoff field wanted to have anything to do with them. When the Rams went down to New Orleans needing the unlikely combination of a victory over the Saints and a Detroit loss to Chicago, the rest of the conference playoff contenders sighed, applauded and bade good riddance.
But then the Rams won and the Lions lost and Team Rasputin is back to defend its Super Bowl championship, armed with Kurt Warner and league MVP Marshall Faulk, and suddenly the No. 6-seeded team in the NFC is looking like the favorite for the conference championship.
At the very least, the Rams are talking like Super Bowl champions again.
“You couldn’t ask for a better script,” Ram Coach Mike Martz said after defeating the Saints last Sunday, 26-21. “Beat them on Christmas Eve, tell them ‘Merry Christmas,’ and then go back down the next week and hand it to them again.”
The Saints, meanwhile, are talking brave, though still sounding unconvinced.
“I’ve got to take the pacifier out of my mouth,” New Orleans rookie quarterback Aaron Brooks said. “You can baby me for only so long. It’s time for me to step up and be the leader. . . . Maybe I don’t have as much to do as some other quarterbacks, but I’ve got to do what I can, and I will.”
The line: St. Louis by 6.
FORTY DEGREES OF SEPARATION FROM PLAYOFFS
It will be a cold day in Hell when the Buccaneers win a game in cold weather, but until those logistics can be completed, Veterans Stadium will have to do.
When Tampa Bay lost last weekend in Green Bay, the Buccaneers not only lost a chance to play host to a first-round playoff game but also ran their record in games played in weather colder than 40 degrees to 0-19.
Forecast for this weekend in Philadelphia: Snow, freezing rain, 0-20.
In the best conditions, the artificial turf at Veterans Stadium is the grimy ashtray of the NFL. When it snowed before the Eagles’ regular-season finale against Cincinnati, stadium workers sprinkled calcium chloride on the turf to thaw the ice. What they got was an oily film on top of the turf, turning the playing surface into a giant frigid Slip-N-Slide.
Midway through a turnover-riddled 16-7 Eagle victory, an official asked Philadelphia Coach Andy Reid, “What did you all do to the ball?”
Eagle officials promise they won’t spread calcium chloride across the field this week. As for Shaun King, well, that’s another story.
The line: Tampa Bay by 3.