January 16, 2008
NFL Conference Championship Predictions
January 16, 2008, 4:39 PM | 3 Comments
This week has been pretty busy, so I’m going to keep it really short in the interests of actually getting this posted. Last week was a whole lot of fun for Packers fans to watch, and it’s exciting to see the transformation that’s taken place in Green Bay over the past year.
The conference championships this week are going to be a lot of fun to watch as well, but I honestly don’t expect the same kind of drama that took place in the divisional championship round last weekend. We’ll see, it could be surprising, but I don’t think we’ll be shocked by the outcomes.
Here are my picks for the Conference Championship games!
| Away | Home | Comments | Pick | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Chargers(13-5) |
 Patriots(17-0) |
See below: | |
• |
| Is there really any doubt about this? Honestly, I was shocked last week when the Chargers beat up the Colts in Indianapolis. Immediately after Peyton Manning threw his last pass of the game (which fell incomplete when Dallas Clark couldn’t haul it in) I thought in my head “OK, may as well write the Patriots tickets to the Super Bowl.” After giving it some more thought, I’m pretty comfortable with that original assessment, but maybe the Chargers are actually a lot better than we’ve all given them credit for… or maybe the Colts just laid an egg last week, just like they did the last time they had a bye week in the first round of the playoffs (memo to Peyton: the 3 seed is your friend!). I’ll take the latter one, which means I still don’t think the Chargers have much of a shot. | ||||
 Giants(12-6) |
 Packers(14-3) |
See below: | |
• |
| Credit where credit is due – I was very skeptical about the job that Packers GM Ted Thompson was doing even through most of last season. The lack of action during free agency, the hiring of Mike McCarthy, the odd draft choices… everything. After seeing what’s gone on this year, I think I’ve come around. Thompson and McCarthy have proved to work very well together as a team, and Mike McCarthy has been great as the head coach of the Packers. So far, he’s been better (in terms of wins/losses) than any Packers coach in history through their first 2 years. That’s impressive. Anyways, onto the game. The Packers will tell you that their previous game against the Giants this year really won’t help them game-plan much for this NFC Championship bout, and I’d have to agree with that. The Giants are a lot better now than the team we saw back in week 2 and they’ve surprised me by how well they’ve done this year. Without over-analyzing (I’ll leave that to the sports networks), I think this game is going to come down to the Giants secondary and how well they can hold together against the Packers 2nd ranked passing offense. I’m expecting the Packers to utilize their “Big 5” (5 wide receivers) set a lot more than they have in the last few games and really try to take it to the Giants D. Packers win, Favre gets back to the Super Bowl, and I get really excited about it! Go Pack Go!!! | ||||
Anywho, that’s enough, I’m tired and ready to hit the publish button. Here are this week’s ESPN Expert Picks.
Posted in: Sports