NFL Conference Championship Preview

It's the final four, NFL style. This Sunday the last four teams left in the NFL playoffs face each other for the right to go to the Superbowl. A championship weekend this big meant that Mr. Miyagi and the Special One had to collaborate to cover every angle (insert Rex Ryan foot-fetish camera man joke here). Check out Mr. Miyagi's NFC Conference Championship preview and the Special One's AFC Conference Championship preview.

NFC Conference Championship

#2 Chicago vs. #6 Green Bay

Soldier Field, Chicago, Illinois

Sunday 23rd January 2011 at 3 PM 

And then there were 2…

The last two teams standing in the NFC are the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears. These teams know plenty about one another because they are in the same division (NFC North) and have already played each other twice. In week 3 the Bears were victorious 20-17 at home while the Packers won 10-3 in week 17. The week 17 game was very important to the Packers because they needed to win it in order to qualify for the playoffs.  The Bears had already wrapped up the #2 seed in the NFC and a home bye, but played their starters anyway because they wanted to knock the Pack out of the playoffs. While the Packers had everything to lose and the Bears had nothing to gain, both teams played hard  and I think we could learn a lot from looking at that game. Basically, the Packers are better and they should earn a berth in the Superbowl.

Green Bay is fresh off giving the #1 seed Atlanta Falcons a beat down on the road. Packers QB Aaron Rodgers was extremely impressive and moved the ball at will. Ron “Jaws” Jaworski tells me (well, he told Wilbon and Kornheiser on PTI, but they are basically me…) that 15 times the Falcons had a free rusher get to Rodgers and on those 15 plays Rodgers completed 13 of 15 passes for 152 yards and 2 touchdowns. Rodgers is easily the hottest player in the playoffs and the Pack also have who might be the hottest defensive player in the playoffs, undrafted CB Tramon Williams, who has 3 interceptions and 1 TD in two playoff games.

Meanwhile, the Bears beat the 8-9 Seattle Seahawks at home in QB Jay Cutler’s first postseason win, at any level of football (including Madden, I hear Cutler is the WORST at Madden…). The Bears looked every bit the #2 seed they are last weekend and terrorized the Seahawks en route to a 35-24 win. But, this weekend the Bears don’t have the benefit of playing the only football team in the history of football to play 18 games and lose 10 (Random stat of the week).

How will it play out? Well, we here at Onions! are the proud owners of a crystal ball and we like to break it out on occasions like this.

The Packers get to their first Superbowl in the post Brett Favre era by beating the bears 28-13. Write it down! Go tell your bookie! And send Onions! a check for 5% of your take…

AFC Conference Championship

#2 Pittsburgh vs. #6 New York

Heinz Field, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Sunday 23rd January 2011 at 6:30 PM

The Sanchize vs. the Rapesleberger; Loud and foot loving Rex Ryan vs. Stoic, presumably non-foot fetishist Mike Tomlin; Cromartie’s Love of Creating Life vs. Harrison’s Love of Taking Life Away

The Jets stomped the Patriots in Gillette Stadium last week to win 28-21. A couple of foot-in-mouth decisions by Rex Ryan and his crew gave the Patriots another chance in the fourth but this game was pretty much over after Santonio Holmes decided to make Sanchez look like Brady instead of Sexy Rexy Grossman. Sanchez does not stand with the elite quarterbacks but he only needs to be Trent Dilfer good (remember him). Throw in the general area of your receivers but not close to defenders or don’t lose games. New York’s D can curbstomp you to the ground (ask Brady) but need help from the offense. When the offense makes mistakes, the defense slips and plays like the Texans secondary (OK maybe not that historically bad). Make no mistakes and the Jets have a firm footing to play their game and win. Plus, who does not want more fetishly-good Rex Ryan press conferences.

In another memorable chapter of their hard-hitting series, Pittsburgh surged from a first half deficit to beat the Ravens 31-24. Ben Roethlisberger slung passes to all his willing receivers. He got little help from his run game (Mendenhall 20 carries for 46 yds). Pittsburgh’s defense swarmed the Ravens’ ball carriers preventing them from penetrating the end zone in the second half. Surely, Polamalu and company will make the Jets turn the ball over but can the offense depend on just Big Ben’s arm. Roethlisberger rarely takes no for an anwer and does all he can to make plays happen even forcing it at times.

Prediction: The offenses will probably struggle to put points up. Jets win in an ugly 12-10 game because as Rex Ryan says, “Football is a game of feet not yards.”

That leaves us with the Packers and the Jets in Dallas squaring off for Superbowl 45. CAN'T WAIT!

Weekly Sports Style - Past Week's Worst Edition

Face: Al Davis- When the zombie outbreak occurs in 2012, Al Davis is Patient Zero.


Place: University of Oregon's Basketball Court: Onions supports Oregon and Nike's bold football uniforms, but this atrocity makes us hesitate to support this partnership. It looks like the designer saw his three year old throw up on a wooden table and thought it looked good. The trees supposedly represent their 1939 National Championship team, "The Tall Firs," which seems out of place in a school that wants to be the future and not care for the past. Finally, where is the half court line?


Threads: Venus Williams' Yellow Dress - Yes, Venus that was the same face we had when we saw that dress. Who knew that by missing tournaments due to injury since last year's US Open meant that you could not afford a dress without holes. The cross hatch looked like yellow duct tape. The dress caused Pam Shriver to wonder how much weight Venus gained.


Seats: Super Bowl Party Plaza- You can be this close to the game when you only pay $200(might be closer than the nosebleeds). Also, you get to watch the Super Bowl on a big TV (but not bigger than those indoors). How could you beat this deal? Watching it indoors with your friends on comfortable chairs for free.

Bowl Season Recap

Ok, to say that it's been too long since I've written a blog post is an understatement. We here at Onions! encountered a bit of erratic behavior at the conclusion of 2010 and posts went the way of the dinosaur. Never fear 2011 is a new year (new decade even) and like the 9-8 Miami Heat, we're gonna right the ship. Before you know it, we'll be the hottest team in the league and people will feel stupid that they ever questioned how good we could be. But, I digress, it's time to give the people what they came for. I present, the first Onions! post of 2011!

Lately, when it came to writing blog posts, I needed a little help staying in the game and turned to a trusty friend. No, not Levitra, college football. I can write about college football until my face turns blue (it is now) and I figured a bowl season recap was in order. No, we're not going through all 998,239 bowls that were played this holiday season, we're going to recap some of the games that I think mattered.

The Tostitos BCS National Championship Game

#1.  Auburn 22 –  #2. Oregon 19

This year’s BCS championship between the undisputed #1 and #2 teams in the country (Texas Christian fans can go f**k themselves if they think that TCU was better than either one of these teams) was supposed to be akin to an old-school gunfight at the O.K. Corral. There were supposed to be points early and often, in fact,  many experts projected the actual final score to be surpassed in the 2^nd or 3^rd quarter. Instead, the Auburn and Oregon defenses really showed up and dictated play to the offenses much more than expected (note: a 5 week layoff between the final regular season game/conference championship game and the National Championship Game is entirely too long. There is nothing like this in all of sports. The NFL has one week off before the Super Bowl, the NBA doesn’t have any artificially scheduled time between the conference finals and the NBA finals, the NHL…wait, I have NO CLUE (nor do I remotely care) what the NHL does between the conference finals and the Stanley Cup finals. The side of the ball most disadvantaged by these long layoffs is undeniably the offense. Offensive timing, crispness, and play-calling rhythm were noticeably absent for long stretches of this championship game and past championship games as well).  

This year was also the first in my memory where I didn’t actively root for one team to lose/win, I was captivated by two story lines: Auburn’s Cameron Newton’s controversy plagued Heisman Trophy season and trendy Oregon (seriously, their Nike uniforms are works of ART) trying to win its first national championship. Oregon’s play calling was everything Herm Edwards would’ve hoped for and more. Without a doubt, Oregon PLAYED TO WIN THE GAME! Oregon ran a reverse on a kick-off (and a fake reverse), a successful fake punt, and numerous misdirection plays that illustrated Oregon coach Chip Kelly’s desire to leave no stone unturned in the playbook. I would not have been upset with an Oregon victory though I felt that Auburn was the superior team (despite Auburn’s hyper-conservative play calling. Henry Kissinger, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity all thought the Auburn play-calling was disgustingly conservative…)

Onions! Bowl of the Year

Little Caesar’s Bowl

Florida International University 34 – Toledo 32

Props to Oregon who played to win the game (See Herm Edwards link above) but Auburn’s conservative play calling did not allow the National Championship Game to qualify for the Onions! Bowl of the Year. Instead, that honor goes to the Little Caesar’s Bowl (pizza pizza?) played in Detroit, Michigan and featuring Toledo and Florida International. These teams don’t come from AQ conferences (quick note: AQ stands for Automatic Qualifying or BCS conferences. It’s a just another jargon-y way that college football elites have created to elevate themselves above the masses.) but they held their own in the mid-major MAC and Sun Belt conference with Toledo going 7-1 in the MAC and Florida International going 6-2 in the Sun Belt. Now, normally, I would rail against the proliferation of bowls (rant begin) that allows a 7-6 team (Florida International) to play in a bowl. I mean, we’re rewarding people for winning 54% of their games. When’s the last time you were rewarded for finishing 54% of anything in life? Never? That’s what I thought (rant end). But the respectable conference records (even in conferences that don’t blow your socks off) of each team allowed me to tune in initially and the post-Christmas fireworks that followed in the game kept me on ESPN (it also doesn’t hurt that there is NOTHING else on tv the day after Christmas).

This game started out ordinarily enough. Toledo built a 24-7 lead early in the 3^rd Quarter and looked to be running away with the game. But then, Florida International’s T.Y. Hilton returned a kickoff 89 yards to the house after Toledo’s field goal and made the score 24-14. FIU then had a solid defensive possession and pulled within a field goal on their ensuing possession after T.Y. Hilton caught a 10 yd TD pass. Before I knew it, there were 3 minutes left in the 4^th Quarter and FIU held a 31 to 24 edge. Toledo responded with an amazing 2 minute TD drive and 2 point conversion to regain the lead 32 to 31 with 1:14 seconds left, but the drama in this game was far from over.

Toledo looked to have the game sealed following a 2^nd down sack and 3^rd down incompletion by FIU. FIU was facing a 4^th and 17 with 41 seconds remaining and resorted to one of my favorite football plays of all-time, the hook-and-lateral (video demonstration). The play was successful for 17 yards and a few inches and gave FIU new life with a fresh set of downs. A big pass and a couple of runs later and FIU had set up a 34 yard field goal to win the game. Jack Griffin’s 34 yard field goal sealed an improbable win for FIU, a team that went from down 21 to up 8 and down 1 with less than a minute left. Great game by FIU and Toledo, I watch so many sporting events where I want both teams to lose because of their awful style of play. It’s very rare that I watch a game where I wish that both teams could have walked away winners.