Titans Lose With Johnson Out; Jake's Mistakes Kill Carolina
Of the two NFL playoff games held Saturday, the first one between the Titans and the Ravens was good, old fashioned, smash mouth football. It reminded me of a Bears Giants game from the 80's.
The end result was a 13-10 Baltimore victory at the expense of the error prone Titans who turned the ball over three times inside the Baltimore 25 yard line. The killer was Algie Crumpler's fumble after picking up a first down.
The Titans lost running back Chris Johnson in the first half to an injury, which hurt them considering how effective Johnson was at running the football. Without Johnson who amassed 72 yards on only eleven carries before he left, the load was shifted to Lindell White who had 45 yards on 15 carries, a drop in production of three yards per carry. That and critical mistakes like Crumpler's fumble and an ill advised pass and a fumble by Tennessee quarterback Kerry Collins and the Titans are making their tee times for Monday.
Two things will result from this game: Ravens QB will be a folk hero for the next week (Peter King already has the knee pads out) and the Baltimore defense will their props as well.
Two questionable officiating calls also may have tipped this game to Baltimore. The first was a play where the Ravens were pinned in their end zone and it looked, at least on the TV angle I saw, that Flacco may have stepped on the end line. CBS did not even mention in, probably because Dan Dierdorf was enjoying hearing himself talk too much. The other play, which was a lot more obvious, involved the play clock expiring and Flacco get almost an addition two seconds to get off the play that led to the game winning score.
The Titans had plenty of opportunities, so while either of these plays could have been a bad calls, it still doesn't excuse the turnovers and mistakes they made all afternoon long.
On to Carolina, where the Cards-Panthers game was never in doubt. The Cardinals had a 17-7 lead before I could even finish my dinner. The Panthers turned the ball over on offense worse than the Titans did. On defense, Carolina missed big plays and were crushed 33-13 in their own stadium where they had not lost all year long.
I admit there was so little drama in this one, I fell asleep in my chair late in the third quarter.
The thing about this game that struck me was how good the Arizona defense was. The offense with Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald is a known commodity, but this Cardinal defense played with a ferocity last night that was pretty good. Whether they will be good enough to beat the Giants or Eagles next week remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, in a Manhattan sky scraper, the Commissioner of the NFL nervously rings his hands over the prospect of a Baltimore-Arizona Super Bowl.
The end result was a 13-10 Baltimore victory at the expense of the error prone Titans who turned the ball over three times inside the Baltimore 25 yard line. The killer was Algie Crumpler's fumble after picking up a first down.
The Titans lost running back Chris Johnson in the first half to an injury, which hurt them considering how effective Johnson was at running the football. Without Johnson who amassed 72 yards on only eleven carries before he left, the load was shifted to Lindell White who had 45 yards on 15 carries, a drop in production of three yards per carry. That and critical mistakes like Crumpler's fumble and an ill advised pass and a fumble by Tennessee quarterback Kerry Collins and the Titans are making their tee times for Monday.
Two things will result from this game: Ravens QB will be a folk hero for the next week (Peter King already has the knee pads out) and the Baltimore defense will their props as well.
Two questionable officiating calls also may have tipped this game to Baltimore. The first was a play where the Ravens were pinned in their end zone and it looked, at least on the TV angle I saw, that Flacco may have stepped on the end line. CBS did not even mention in, probably because Dan Dierdorf was enjoying hearing himself talk too much. The other play, which was a lot more obvious, involved the play clock expiring and Flacco get almost an addition two seconds to get off the play that led to the game winning score.
The Titans had plenty of opportunities, so while either of these plays could have been a bad calls, it still doesn't excuse the turnovers and mistakes they made all afternoon long.
On to Carolina, where the Cards-Panthers game was never in doubt. The Cardinals had a 17-7 lead before I could even finish my dinner. The Panthers turned the ball over on offense worse than the Titans did. On defense, Carolina missed big plays and were crushed 33-13 in their own stadium where they had not lost all year long.
I admit there was so little drama in this one, I fell asleep in my chair late in the third quarter.
The thing about this game that struck me was how good the Arizona defense was. The offense with Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald is a known commodity, but this Cardinal defense played with a ferocity last night that was pretty good. Whether they will be good enough to beat the Giants or Eagles next week remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, in a Manhattan sky scraper, the Commissioner of the NFL nervously rings his hands over the prospect of a Baltimore-Arizona Super Bowl.
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