At long last NFL Championship Weekend is finally almost here. If you haven't checked the weather forecast yet, we're in for one of the most memorable days in recent history. When talking casually among co-workers and friends, everybody thinks it's definitely Green Bay and New England in the Super Bowl. One problem, both teams face red hot visiting teams.
The Giants are now 9-1 on the road and playing their best football of the season. The Giants defense has bent, but not broken to perfection and Eli Manning has stepped up on the road each game more than the next. I'll be the first to admit, I was completely wrong about this Giants team. With momentum on their side, they face a young Packers team with a grizzled veteran at QB. Nearly everyone has already punched the Packers ticket to the Super Bowl...but isn't this a little premature?
The Chargers are the hottest team in the league right now and fresh off easily their biggest win of the year. Not only has this Chargers team won 9 straight games, they covered all 9 of them. The huge questions marks for them are the health of Rivers, Tomlinson, and Turner. If Rivers gets hit in the 1st quarter and the Chargers Super Bowl hopes rest on the shoulders of Billy Volek, the Pats will win this game by 20+ points easy. To me, the X-Factor in this game is the health of the previous 3 mentioned. If they play, this game will be close. If they don't, or aren't affective due to injury, the Pats will run away with this one.
CONCLUSION
Green Bay -7 NY Giants-As much as I hate not taking the points with a 9-1 road team, the forecast at Lambeau is a high of 6 degrees and windy. Eli Manning has a QB rating under 60 in cold weather games. The real key to this game: The Packers must blitz the absolute hell out of Manning. With a solid D, they should stop the run very well. Eli, in the cold, will not be able to rally the troops like in weeks past. Defensively, the Giants give up all kinds of "short" yardage that will add up fast for Favre and the Pack.
Green Bay 38 NY Giants 17
San Diego +14 New England-I'm not going to write a long explanation here. As talked about before, if Rivers/Tomlinson/Turner are healthy, the Chargers should be able to keep pace fairly well with a Pats team that will not succeed in 15 degree/20 MPH wind conditions. This game should be lower scoring than expected.
New England 24 San Diego 17
OK, I have NE-GB too....but I'm not going to be 100% shocked if one of these teams is upset this weekend. As always, good luck this weekend!
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