Giants, Chargers Add Spice, But Patriots Vs. Packers Will Draw

There is good news in television-marketing land this morning: Peyton Manning has three extra weeks of offseason this year to tape a few more commercials. If need be, Tony Romo can stand in for Eli in the ones that involve the entire Manning family.

Just when you think the NFL playoffs can't possibly be more boring or more predictable, a day like Sunday jumps up and happens. The defending Super Bowl champions lose at home -- to a team that has more wounded than an episode of M*A*S*H -- and the Dallas/Hollywood Cowboys go down to a team that was suppposed to be firing its coach after a 6-10 season right about now.

The only problem with last Sunday is it might -- repeat might -- lead to two one-sided conference championship games this Sunday.

Raise your hand if you really think the San Diego Chargers with a hobbled quarterback, a hobbled running back and a hobbled star tight end are going into Foxboro and beating the unbeaten New England Patriots. Raise the other hand if you think the gritty New York Giants with young Eli are walking into Green Bay, in what is supposed to be single-digit weather, and ending the made-for-TV movie that is the 2007 Packers, starring 57-year-old Brett Favre.

Of course, the Giants weren't supposed to make the playoffs much less knock off Jessica Simpson's boyfriend and the resurgent Cowboys, with Jerry Jones taking time off from making his commercials to watch the game.

Let's get one thing straight here: the Cowboys didn't lose because Romo spent a weekend in Mexico with Jessica Simpson. They lost because they committed more than 100 yards in penalties, several at key moments. They lost because they allowed the Giants to score in the final minute of the second quarter when they appeared to be taking all the momentum in the world into halftime. They lost because, as Dean Smith used to say, "the other team gives scholarships too." As in, the Giants are pretty good. You don't win nine straight road games without being pretty good. (Memo to T.O., if you're going to do a crying act, you should take off your sunglasses to do it).

Even though fans in Dallas and Indianapolis won't see it this way (understandably) the NFL desperately needed Sunday. Think about the first weekend of the playoffs: there was exactly one competitive game: Jacksonville's win in Pittsburgh. For all the yammering in Washington about the "courage," of the Redskins, the fact is the team collapsed in the fourth quarter. The Giants beat Tampa Bay and the Chargers beat Tennessee in games that were watched only by fans of the four teams (maybe) for most of the four quarters.

Last Saturday wasn't a lot better. The Packers handed the Seahawks two touchdowns early and then made the Seattle defense look like it had never seen snow, scoring on their next six possessions. The Jaguars hung with the Patriots for a while. In fact, it isn't that much of a stretch to say that the Jags might be the second-best team in the league. They're young, strong, fast and well-coached. If the Chargers, with Billy Volek at quarterback in the fourth quarter and Michael Turner at tailback for most of the game, can beat the Colts in Indy, the Jags can beat them too. And it still says here that the best of the NFC -- Packers, Cowboys, Giants, take your pick -- is no better than the fourth- or fifth-best team in the AFC.

As good as the Jags were, Tom Brady was better. Isn't Brady almost always better? How good is 26 of 28. If the Patriots complete this storybook season, not only are they likely to go down as the best team that ever played, but it might be time to make the case that Brady's the best quarterback to play the game. Both those statements take in a lot of territory. The Patriots can lose because their defense has been vulnerable at times and if they do, either this week or in the Super Bowl, all the greatest tags go away.

Brady is another story. He already has three Super Bowl rings. He's probably got at least another five good years to play and he's playing for a great coach and a great organization. Odds are when he retires it is with more Super Bowl titles and more all-time records than anyone at his position. You can go back to Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham, Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr or Joe Montana or, for that matter Favre and Brady is absolutely in the argument right now. He may blow up any arguments before he's done, especially if he finished a 19-0 run of the table with two more victories.

But let's talk about Favre for a moment. More often than not, when an athlete keeps returning for one more year, the ending is sad. They're usually hanging on for the money or because they can't face "Life Without Stardom". Just go back to the great quarterback list for a moment and remember Unitas playing for the Chargers or Montana playing for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Favre looked like he might go out like that, coming back this season to a Packers team that had been awful last year. But Mike McCarthy has proven to be the right coach and Favre looks more like 28 than 38 (except in camera close-ups) and the Packers have been a wonderful story all season. Even if they were to lose to the Giants, no one can say Favre didn't do the right thing coming back.

(Momentary pause here to plead with all the TV and radio pundits to try to avoid the term, "frozen tundra," this week. There is no such thing. A tundra is, "frozen ground." That means if you are Chris Berman and you say "the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field 486 times this week you are saying, "the frozen frozen ground of Lambeau Field." Enough. Please.)

Back to Favre and Brady. You can bet the NFL, after a year that began with Michael Vick making several perp walks, is dying for a Favre-Brady Super Bowl. So is most of America. That's no knock on Eli and the Giants (although a week of Tom Coughlin at Super Bowl press conference might leave people pleading for Bill Belichick to take the microphone) or on the Chargers.

The number of people who believed Norv Turner could coach is probably in single digits. But if you were paying any attention at all you might have noticed that he and Charley Casserly took a moribund Washington team and went 11-5 and won a playoff game in 1999. The Redskins were still 7-6 the next year in spite of all sorts of silly free-agent signings made by the meddling owner when Turner got fired. The two years in Oakland simply don't count, because if there's an owner who has messed up his franchise more in recent year than the one in Washington it is the one in Oakland. Though, he did have his moments years ago. Many years ago.

Turner took over the Chargers under almost impossible circumstances this year, following Marty Schottenheimer, who went 14-2 but couldn't win in the playoffs. The Chargers started poorly, but turned it around, and now they're one step from the Super Bowl. That they probably won't get there is no reflection on Turner. Just as a Giants loss on Sunday won't cost Coughlin his job and should not have everyone in New York screaming that Eli Manning can't play in big games. Eli can pitch the football about as well as his brother pitches products.

The Giants and Chargers have already had terrific seasons. They have also given the NFL playoffs some much needed spice.

But the Super Bowl most of the country wants to see is the unbeaten Patriots against the storied Packers. Brady vs. Favre. That's the way this season should end.

And then the two quarterbacks can vacation anywhere they want to go and no one will ask any questions.