NFL News Feed, Playoff Edition

Washington Post NFL columnist and blogger Mark Maske was online Monday, Jan. 5 at 3 p.m. ET to take your questions and comments about the first round of the playoffs and all the latest news from around the league.

The transcript follows.

Mark writes the NFL News Feed blog for the washingtonpost.com's pro football group blog, The League. He is the author of War Without Death: A Year of Extreme Competition in Pro Football's NFC East.

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Mark Maske: Hey, everyone. I'm just back from Minneapolis and there's plenty to talk about, so let's get right to it.

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Washington, D.C.: How much credit does Norv deserve for the dramatic turnaround in San Diego

Mark Maske: I thought Norv did an outstanding coaching job last season to get that team to the AFC title game. I don't know how much credit he deserves this season for taking a talented team to an 8-8 record during the regular season. It was a fluke that the Chargers had any chance at all to get into the playoffs after being 4-8. That speaks more to how weak the division was than to anything that Norv did or the Chargers did. And then it's a quirk in the system that they get to play a 12-win team at home in the first round.

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Arlington, Va.: I gotta say this Giants/Eagles game has all the makings of an upset by the Eagles. They are a lot like the Giants were coming into the playoffs last year. Similar turmoil early on but a hot team going in. Their defense has been playing well. And now with Westbrook looking healthy again, they are dangerous.

How much will the loss of Madison affect the Giants? Also, will Jacobs be ready to go 100 percent (he is the key to the game as far as I am concerned).

Mark Maske: I've heard that comparison to last season's Giants being made a lot today. I'm not sure I'm buying it. We'll see. This Eagles team has just been so unpredictable--as good as anyone in the league one week, very bad at other times. That performance against the Redskins in the next-to-last game of the regular season was beyond terrible. They're extremely lucky to be in the playoffs with what had to happen in other games for them to get there.

I'm assuming that Jacobs will be fine with the bye week to rest. I don't think losing Madison makes a significant difference to the Giants on defense.

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Urbana, Md.: Is there talk among the NFL owners to change the playoff scheme - as the current system prevented an 11-5 team from making the playoffs while allowing an 8-8 team to qualify...?

Mark Maske: No, not really. There's much, much less sentiment for that than you'd think. There was a reseeding proposal that came up last offseason and it didn't come anywhere close to being passed. Most owners think there should be a reward for a team winning its division, even at 8-8.

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New Orleans: It seems obvious that the Vickings need a new quarterback. Do they draft one or pick one up in free agency?

Mark Maske: It seems obvious to many, but not to Brad Childress. He has been very loyal to Tarvaris Jackson. He did bench Jackson early in the season and go to Gus Frerotte. That worked out very well. Then Frerotte hurt his back and Jackson played well down the stretch. But Frerotte was healthy enough to play yesterday and Jackson played poorly, yet Childress never went to Frerotte during the loss to the Eagles.

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Baltimore: On ESPN yesterday, Mike Ditka ripped the NFL, AP and all other organizations that name player of the year and coach of the year for designating the winners before the Super Bowl is played. As Mike pointed out, Mike Smith and Tony Sparano, who led in coach of the year voting from AP, are out of the playoffs, while John Harbaugh, another rookie coach taking over a troubled team, won handily in the wild card first round.

Any chance people will listen to Iron Mike on this issue?

Mark Maske: I don't have a big problem with it. The award is a regular season award. Everyone understands that. That's the way it works in other sports as well. I don't see anything changing there.

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Anonymous: No one gave the Cards a chance, being a big fan of the NFC West I am pleased to see the sports commentators eating their words after Arizona's dominant performance against the Falcons. I think they have a shot against Carolina. What say you?

Mark Maske: It's funny. You never hear a coach or a player say after a loss, "The so-called experts didn't give us any chance and, you know what? They were right. They knew exactly what they were talking about."

This sounds like a bit of revisionist history to me. Who wasn't giving the Cardinals any chance? They were a division-winning team playing at home against a wild-card team. Now, what they haven't been able to do very well is go on the road and beat a good team, especially when they have to come to the East coast. No, I don't see them beating a good and rested Carolina team in Charlotte. Any time you have the sort of players that the Cardinals have at quarterback and receiver, you have a puncher's chance. But I would be pretty surprised to see them beat the Panthers.

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Chicago: I understand that the NFL wants to keep divisions with winners going to the playoffs, 11-5 New England and 8-8 San Diego notwithstanding. But is there any talk around the league that maybe 4-team divisions are too small?

They work in the World Cup, for example, because the 4 teams in each group are deliberately seeded so the strong (and weak) ones are evenly distributed. But in the NFL the 4-team groupings are basically arbitrary.

The result is certain teams, like those in the NFC East, have to compete with 3 other teams that are totally committed to winning, whereas teams in divisions like the NFC North or AFC West get a leg up every year because at least one franchise, if not 2 or even 3, is totally dysfunctional. It's simply easier to win the AFC West than the NFC East. Wouldn't a conference with 2 8-team divisions solve that competitive imbalance?

Mark Maske: You make some good points. I just don't sense much sentiment at all among the powers-that-be in the NFL to change the setup. It doesn't have to be fair, necessarily. It just has to be interesting, if you're talking about selling your product. I think, in the NFL's view, the fairness evens out over time.

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York, Pa.: What will be the biggest challenge for the Ravens playing at Tennessee? Scoring? Their lone weakness on D seems to be slants and short routes, but the Titans may not have the personnel to exploit that.

Mark Maske: I don't know that they have a biggest problem. I think the Ravens match up extremely well with the Titans. I was at the regular season game between these two in Baltimore and the Ravens, really, deserved to win. The Titans got the benefit of that extremely questionable roughing-the-passer call against Terrell Suggs on Kerry Collins on their winning drive. Suggs was called for hitting Collins in the helmet. In reality, he hit Collins on the shoulder, with the lighest of brushes against the side of the helmet along the way. Hey, that call gets made in the NFL. Quarterbacks get protected. The Ravens had other chances to stop that drive. Give Kerry Collins and the Titans credit for making the plays when it counted in that game. But what I'm saying is, the Titans really, really struggled to do much of anything offensively in that game. Now you have the Ravens probably playing better, and you have some injury question marks for Tennessee on defense with Albert Haynesworth and Kyle Vanden Bosch. I think the Ravens have a terrific shot to win this game.

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Arlington, Va.: As a fan of defense, this weekend can't come fast enough -- there is some serious defensive talent taking the field between Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Tennessee.

Mark Maske: It's funny. It was a big year for scoring and yet the top defensive teams are still very, very dominant. You're right. It's enjoyable to watch those teams play defense. The game in Tennessee this weekend will be great to watch if you're a football purist and enjoy seeing good defense played.

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Princeton, N.J.: O.K. so what about the strategy of running Westbrook over and over, getting nothin' until he wins the game? It seems to work, but it's driving me nuts.

Mark Maske: That's the thing about staying committed to the running game in the NFL--it can pay off in other ways, like opening things up for one big run on a screen pass or keeping your defense off the field and fresh. I'm not saying the Eagles need to hand the ball to Brian Westbrook 30 times a game. But they do need to stay committed to the run enough to make some other things work. Andy Reid often fails to do that. He did it Sunday, and it paid off.

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New Orleans: I wonder if people who voted for Harrison for Defensive Player of the Year wish they could change it to Ed Reed after watching yesterday's game.

Mark Maske: Ed Reed could be the defensive player of the year every season and I wouldn't have a problem with it. The guy is amazing as a game-changer. But I don't have any problem with James Harrison winning, either. I saw the Steelers a bunch in person this season and it seemed like every time you turned around, he was knocking the ball free from some quarterback on a sack. There was some great defensive performances this sesson. You could make a case for DeMarcus Ware to win defensive player of the year. You could make a case for Troy Polamalu. You could make a case for Albert Haynesworth. Joey Porter had a fine, fine season and he didn't get a single vote.

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Seattle: I'm a bit curious. What's gone on with Vince Young after his pre-season crisis?

Mark Maske: Not much. It's been very quiet. He plays only in mop-up duty now. To me, that incident showed that, on a personal level, he needed some time out of the spotlight. Hopefully that has been a benefit to him because he is a talented player and you never want to see anyone waste talent. The Titans have indicated that he remains in their long-term plans. We'll see. That's about all you can say at this point.

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Running Westbrook: Running Westbrook did not win the game. It was the Eagles finally (why they waited so long I don't know) throwing the screen to Westbrook and letting him run. He is great at this but the Eagles waited all day for this one.

Mark Maske: I disagree. The Eagles made the Vikings respect the run. They made the Minnesota defense have to defend a multi-dimensional offense. They saved the screen until a time when it would work.

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Lorton, Va.: Back from Minneapolis?

You attended the worst of the four games. Do you get your choice, or do you get assigned to certain games? Nonetheless, let's hope you don't get shafted with Cards-Panthers next weekend...I smell blowout!

Mark Maske: It's a little of each. Actually, I will be in Charlotte on Saturday night, then on to Giants Stadium on Sunday.

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Orlando, Fla.: Two upsets took place on Saturday. Which most suprised you and which team between the Cards and Chargers have a better shot of winning this weekend?

Mark Maske: They both surprised me. I guess I'd say the San Diego game surprised me more because the Colts had been playing so well. Which of those teams do I think can win this weekend? It's a long shot for either one, really. I guess I'd give the Chargers a slightly better chance because they have gone on the road in the playoffs and won a tough game before, just last postseason.

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Reston, Va.: I've heard a number of commentators say that the playoff overtime rules should be modified so that both offenses have a chance to score. I agree with Tony Dungy: If you lose the coin toss, your defense has to step up. I'm sure many Manning sycophants wanted to see him have a chance to win the game...but honestly, he had that chance in the fourth quarter. Where do you come down on overtime: fine the way it is, or give both offenses a shot?

Mark Maske: I think the overtime format is okay as it is. The NFL tracks the numbers and the team that wins the coin flip does not win an overwhelming percentage of overtime games. Not at all. How would you make it work if you say that each team is guaranteed of at least one possession? What if each team gets a touchdown, and then the first team gets a field goal? Does it win? Does the game end there or is the other team guaranteed a second possession? Then you get into the college system, which I think is silly. That's not the same game any more. There's no perfect system. I know the status quo is not perfect, but I'm okay with it.

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Alexandria, VA: Not to take away from Ed Reed - he's truly one of the best, but in watching that game it seemed to me that those were a couple of poorly advised passes by Pennington. I mean, if the opposing quarterback throws it right into coverage it's your job to catch an easy interception. Now Troy Polamalu's one-handed upside-down interception from earlier this year - that was one for the ages.

Mark Maske: Yes, they were ill-advised passes. But the Ravens do get some credit for that, I think. It's not like Pennington threw a lot of ill-advised passes all season. The things the Ravens were doing must have had something to do with it.

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Washington, D.C.: Re the Ravens defense: To me, the sign that they are a complete unit is the way they handle the changeover to going on offense after a pick or fumble recovery. Look at Ed Reed's TD return and you see not just a beautiful run, but a group of guys who did a terrific job setting up to block as soon as Reed got the ball. I give Chad Pennington a lot of credit for even thinking about taking on Terrell Suggs when Pennington was the last Dolphin with a shot at forcing Reed out.

Mark Maske: The Ravens make that transition extremely well, yes. But the guy running the ball makes a huge difference.

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"there is some serious defensive talent taking the field between Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Tennessee.": And Philadelphia.

Mark Maske: And the Giants.

Simply put, there are some good defensive teams still in the playoff field.

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Mark Maske: I've got to run, folks. Thanks for the questions and sorry I didn't get to all of them. Talk to you next week.

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