Pittsburgh vs. Arizona?
So we have a situation here. An unheard of, unexpected, and damn near unbelievable situation. Arizona is going to the Superbowl! Wow.
And our little pool is yet to be decided… It’s down to the battle of the brothers. If Pittsburgh wins then brother Joe will win the pool. If Arizona wins (is that even possible?) then brother Tino will win. Good luck to both of you!
Obviously the loser of this little battle will finish second.
In third we have another unheard of situation. A four way tie. Wow! No matter what happens next week, Aaron, Adrian, Bob, and Sean will split the $40 third place prize! Congratulations all of you!!
To the rest, good luck next year!
Divisional Champions
Probably the biggest surprise in a weekend of upsets is that the only favorite to hold up was Pittsburgh. Although the Steelers had the highest ranked defence in the league this year, they seemed very beatable most of the season. Even still they managed to make the Chargers look like a college team, and they look very good going into the AFC Championship next weekend.
The other upsets were all reasonably predictable, especially Baltimore holding off the Titans (who never really seemed to deserve their amazing record), and in particular I don’t think anyone was surprised that the Giants lost to the Eagles (who beat them in Philly in week 14) as their season ending skid (they lost 3 of their last 4) was particularly ugly (can anyone say Plaxico?).
Jake Delhomme personally managed to ensure that the Panthers would not be able to stand up to the streaking Cardinals by allowing 6 (yes, six) turnovers (5 INT, 1 FUM). On the other hand Kurt Warner looked solid and made some very nice touch passes to lead Arizona to an easy win. Who could ever have imagined that Arizona would be hosting the NFC Championship game?? I wonder what the Vegas odds were on that back in September??
So the lineup for the Conference Championship round will be:
NFC
(Jan 18 @ 3:00 ET)
Philadelphia vs Arizona
AFC
(Jan 18 @ 6:30 ET)
Baltimore vs Pittsburgh
Birds In, Fins/Vikes Out
Well it was a day for the lower seeds as the Ravens and the Eagles preyed on the favorites in the second day of Wild card games. With the way these two teams have been playing lately, this is really no surprise…
So the lineup for the Divisional round will be:
SATURDAY
Baltimore at Tennessee
Arizona at Carolina
SUNDAY
Philadelphia at New York Giants
San Diego at Pittsburgh
Good luck next week!
Indy / Atlanta Out, SD / Arizona In
So the higher seeds held up today (going counter to the Vegas odds AND the majority of players in our pool) and will advance to the Divisional round next week. But the real story is that those of us that took Indy to win the Superbowl are pretty much eliminated from contention in this pool. I haven’t checked to see if we are mathematically out, but I’m pretty sure…
UPDATE: Well, I did a bit of playing and it seems that since nobody took Arizona or San Diego to advance very far, it is still possible for those of us that took Indy to go all the way to win the pool. It’s not very likely, but possible!
NFL Playoffs 2009 Pick Summary
A summary of everyone’s picks is now available:
http://www.poolaholic.com/nfl-playoffs-2009/pick-summary/
We have 13 entries this year and so the prize breakdown is as follows:
| Prizes | Total | $ 260 |
| 1st | 60% | $ 155 |
| 2nd | 25% | $ 65 |
| 3rd | 10% | $ 25 |
Good luck to everyone!
