Wasting An Era?

The Green Bay Packers lost more than just a 16-point lead in Sunday’s NFC title game, they lost a valuable season.

Green Bay seemed not only like the better team in Seattle, a place where visiting team’s hopes go to die, it appeared as if the Packers were a varsity team playing against their JV opponents.

A deadly cocktail of ultra-conservative play calling despite having the most talented quarterback in decades, combined with poor tackling and a botched onside kick recovery was enough to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory for the Pack.

“If you want to question my playcalling… I’m not questioning it,” Packers head coach McCarthy said.

“I didn’t think it would take a lot of points to win this game. I came in here to run the ball. The one statistic I had a target to hit was 20.”

Running the ball and controlling the clock is fantastic with an average or even good quarterback. The Packers have Aaron Rodgers. He’s the best quarterback on the planet.

“It’s going to be a missed opportunity that I’ll probably think about for the rest of my career,” Rodgers said. “We were the better team today, we played well enough to win. We can’t blame anybody but ourselves.”

McCarthy coached “not to lose” and found a way to. He did anything but maximize his team’s ability to score the most points possible, rather opting to stay the course by kicking an early field goal from inside the 1-yard line.

“Field goals early in the game, we knew that points were at a premium,” McCarthy said. “Frankly, I would have liked to have gone for it there on fourth down, but based on what we saw, on second and third down, I just felt that you had to take points.”

While McCarthy was coaching 1950’s football in the house of the defending Super Bowl champs, Pete Carroll jumpstarted his inept offense by faking a field goal where holder Jon Ryan found tackle eligible Garry Gilliam in the end zone to cut the Packers lead to 16-7.

“Well orchestrated play,” the Packers head coach explained. “It was well executed, so. They were having trouble, obviously, generating point production obviously. The awareness there – and the execution on them – that was obviously a big play. Big plays on special teams were definitely a factor.”

Although the Packers have made the playoffs for six consecutive seasons, outside of their improbable 2010 title run they have little other than amazing statistics to show for it. They have an amazing quarterback in his prime and have won just two playoff games outside of that 2010 run.

Everything is magnified in the postseason. Great games become legendary and mistakes are often unforgiven. Mike McCarthy and his team made a series of mistakes and it’s more than acceptable to question whether he’s the right guy to navigate the Ferrari that is Aaron Rodgers and the Packers offense.

Best Possible Matchup For Pats

The New England Patriots have been the best team in the AFC for most of the season so seeing them in the Super Bowl for the sixth time in the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick era is far from surprising.

When New England came back from a pair of 14-point deficits against Baltimore and Indianapolis upset Denver, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that we’d see the Pats playing for another title.

“I know we’ve had some ups and downs this year,” Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said.  “But right now we’re up, baby, and we’re going to try to stay up for one more game.”

New England was nothing short of dominant in their 45-7 victory over the Colts, outclassing Chuck Pagano’s team in every possible way.

For the third consecutive year, Andrew Luck’s season ended in Foxborough as he struggled mightily, completing just 12 of 33 throws for 126 yards with no touchdowns and two interceptions.

“My play wasn’t up to par to give you a chance to beat a great team,” Luck said.

Although Luck has struggled in road playoff games, it’s tough to blame him for all of the Colts’ woes.  Luck is tied with both John Elway and Jake Plummer for the most times in the playoffs that a team has allowed 40 or more points (three times).  He is only 25 years old.

“It’s a very disappointing loss,” Pagano said. “We’ll learn from this. We’ll grow from this.”

Waltzing through a weakened AFC is nothing new for the Patriots as they’ve accomplished the feat in both 2007 and 2011. Both seasons they faced a very good pass defense and efficient enough offense in the New York Giants. This time around, they face an even better opponent in Seattle, which defeated the Pats during their Super Bowl season in 2013.

“I only have one thing to say. We’re on to Seattle,” Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said.

Kubiak Is Elway’s Man

ESPN’s Adam Schefter is reporting that Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak is set to accept the Denver Broncos head coaching job.

Kubiak spent nearly eight seasons as the head coach of the Houston Texans and led them to their only two playoff appearances, playoff wins and AFC South title before being fired in December of 2013.

The impending engagement between Gary Kubiak and Broncos general manager John Elway seemed inevitable as they were teammates in Denver for Kubiak’s entire career before he took over as offensive coordinator and Elway’s quarterbacks coach.

Kubiak is a hands-on type of offensive mind and his offenses are known for bootlegs and overall quarterback mobility. Peyton Manning has always run his own offense and has an obvious lack of anything resembling mobility.

This move appears to be a signal that Peyton Manning’s time may be up in Denver.