I still do not know whom I will root for or even bet on in the upcoming Supe, but any thoughts I had regarding “jinxing” the Pats because of any association between Tom Brady and DT Trump, have disappeared, after hearing the almost, always classy Brady in his weekly WEEI (Boston radio) interview.
Brady’s focus is on the team and in trying to win what he perceives will be a tough game, vs a certainly very good Atlanta Falcons’ team.
As one who could only dream and perhaps aspire victory, as Brady does, but even in my own field where I have “Brady like” knowledge, if not talent, but not only failed, but essentially never tried, my admiration for him is great.
Trust me, as you knowing reading this, sports means little to me nowadays. Yet this Brady is special, something I knew watching him, in his only non playoff season of ’02, as usual I was slightly ahead of the curve.
Leave him alone regarding Trump. In fact, as you well know I am not a Trump fan, but one thing on which I totally agree with the current president, is how lacking in justice, the four game suspension of Brady was.
Now let’s go on with some perspective. That quality of perspective in Brady, as impressive, if not important as his playing performances have been/are, is so much greater.
If I check, I find the factual mistakes. Below from ESPN.com news services. The Pats were in their 6th consecutive AFC Title Game (2011-2016) that is SIX, NOT SEVEN!
“Brady improved to 5-0 at home against Pittsburgh in helping the Patriots paste the Steelers 36-17 in New England’s seventh consecutive AFC Championship Game. ”
Click the link below to see if they correct their mistake.
They’re back: Brady, Belichick into record 7th SB
They do but with ESPN.com, far more often than they should.
In the title games following the presidential election of 2012, the last one before 2016, both the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons lost at home. Playing first as was the case yesterday, Atlanta, of course unlike yesterday lost its home title tilt to the S.F. 49ers.
Later, New England lost at home to the eventual Super Bowl champion, Baltimore Ravens. It was/is just the third time in 51 seasons of title games for Super Bowl entry that both teams lost. However, the interesting? correlations, as you might have guessed, do not end there.
The first time both home teams lost in games that determined Super Bowl entry was in the first year of such possibility, 1966 also the Falcons’ first season and a year in which the Packers (the losing team yesterday at Atlanta) won it all.
That season with the AFL and NFL still “separate but merged” (another sham promoting racism in this country was “separate but equal”) both the Buffalo Bills playing first and the Dallas Cowboys lost at home to the K.C. Chiefs and “GB” Packers respectively. (Of course in another “Coincidence ’66” the Pack and Chiefs each played slots games on the exact 50th anniversary of their clash in the first Supe with GB again winning and KC losing on that day).
The next time both road teams won title tilts in the same season was 26 years later after the ’92 season, another presidential election year and the ’92 road winners were the ’66 home losers as with Buffalo again playing first, this time at Miami vs the Dolphins and winning, while Dallas with Alvin Harper’s big catch, won at S.F. vs the Niners.
Eight years earlier, also in a presidential election year, the Orwellian “1984” both the Dolphins (vs the Steelers, who also lost yesterday) and 49ers (vs the Bears, who would win their lone Supe, the following season vs New England) won home title tilts.
Now of course, the teams losing at home the third time both home teams tasted defeat in same season title tilts in the presidential election year of 2012, the Falcons and Pats, each win following the 2016 “election” and will meet in the 51st Supe.
In that tilt, the Falcons in their 51st season will try to win their first Supe, while N.E. (o-2) in Supes before Belichick/Brady, will try to avoid a third Belichick/Brady Supe loss as stated in the last post, the other two, to “mediocre record” “HACK”ensack Giants’ teams.
It will be the New England Patriots seeking their 5th Super Bowl crown against the Atlanta Falcons, seeking their first, in this their 51st season, in the 51st Super Bowl on February 5th in Houston, Texas.
N.E. will be favored, I said originally by 4, now say 5 plus, (the line opened at 3–what are they telling us, but remember NE won 3 of their 4 Supe crowns by 3 points, the other by 4. Additionally their 2 Supe losses in the Belichick/Brady era, both to “Hack” teams with inferior records, (alas the “Pieman” had “Hack” and I fear that well healed “Ghlub” had “the odds” with Trump, whom he once met on a plane) were by 3 and 4 points in ’07 and ’11 respectively) in their 51st ‘offs game and 34th starting in ’01, all with Bill Belichick as coach and Tom Brady as their quarterback.
Atlanta built a (31-0) lead and ripped the Green Bay Packers. Matt Ryan, the one time Boston College quarterback who will be facing the New England Patriots for all the marbles, threw 4 touchdown passes and ran for another score as Atlanta reached their second Supe, squaring their title game/NFL semis record at (2-2), (1-1) home and away, winning (44-21).
The Pats made the faves (8-2) (8-2) in these ‘offs in a 6th over, riding Tom Brady’s 3 touchdown tosses in a (36-17) win over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Julio Jones of Atlanta and Chris Hogan of “N.E.” were the receiving stars, each with a pair of touchdown grabs.
The two underdog victories even vs the spread were last Sunday, by the Packers and Steelers, however, yesterday as the home teams won both title tilts for the fourth straight season matching (’81-84), for the first time in nine occasions when “Pitts” and “GB” played post-season tilts on the same day, both lost.
Today for the 51st time and for the 50th time with both games on Sunday (in ’82 the NFC game was on a Saturday), the NFL stages two games to determine Super Bowl entrants.
If both home team favorites which is just over an even money proposition, it would mark just the second time, home teams won both title/NFL semis tilts in four straight seasons and the first with all four double home team wins on a Sunday.
Seattle (Seahawks) going (2-0) at home and New England (Patriots), of course involved today as 6 point home “faves” vs Pittsburgh (Steelers), whose 3 such games went to the home team, two to Denver (Broncos) combined in 5 of the 6 results (’13-’15) that manifested in home team title game wins.
The other Carolina (Panthers) at home vs Arizona (Cardinals) last season after for just the third time, both road teams won the title tilts of the 2012 season. One of those tilts was an Atlanta (Falcons) home loss vs “Col” Kaepernick and S.F. (49ers). The Falcons get another chance today as 5 plus point “faves” vs the Green Bay Packers in just their second home title tilt.
Altogether the home team has won both title tilts with Supe berths on the line 20 times, which is forty percent of the fifty seasons. (in six seasons of “never the twain shall meet, NFL and AFL title games, the home team won both both 3 times, (’61,’63 and ’64) splitting in two seasons,(’60 and ’65), with the road team winning both in 1962, field goals as was the case in Sunday slots games last week providing the winning margin.)
In the AFL that year, it was Tom Brooker’s field goal in the 6th quarter/second overtime period, that lifted the then Dallas Texans (the next season they moved to Kansas City and became the Chiefs) over the Houston Oilers.
1962’s NL title tilt was won by Green Bay in bitter cold Yankee Stadium vs the N.Y. Giants, (16-7), Jerry Kramer, as cited yesterday snubbed by the NFL “Hall,” booting 3 field goals that accounted for the winning margin.
Last week playing on the exact 50th anniversary of their clash in the first Supe, the Packers and Chiefs were on different sides of the “field goal gods.”
“G.B.” again rode the field goals to victory, as Mason Crosby had two huge ones to put the Pack in their ninth scheduled NFL semi and seventh NFC title tilt. However Pittsburgh’s Chris Boswell booted an NFL playoff game record 6 as Pitts handed the Chiefs a 5th home slots loss in as many such games.
As cited above both road teams have won title tilts/NFL semis but thrice, the eventual champion Baltimore Ravens and 49ers, (each coached by a vastly over rated Harbaugh brother), in ’12, the eventual champion Cowboys and Buffalo Bills in ’92 and the aforementioned as first Supe opponents, eventual champion Packers and Chiefs in 1966.
The home/road teams have split the two “semi” games twenty seven times.
After the only run of four straight both home team wins in the title tilts of (’81-84), there were just nine such occurrences in the twenty eight seasons (’85-2012) before the current run of three (2013-2015).
As you might have noticed, Republican Donald Trump was inaugurated as United States President yesterday. Many fear that is bad news, for now let’s say, it is a historical “bad sign” for Green Bay Packers’ title hopes.
No NFL team has won more titles than the Packers’ TEN but ALL TEN occurred with Democrats in this nation’s highest office.
Already in “football 2016,” Alabama whose ten titles leads the way in college football was denied an eleventh, losing as near touchdown “faves” in the title tilt vs Clemson.
The Tides’ (Alabama) Democrat and title correlation is eerily similar, as all 10 were also won with a “Dem” either in office as President (nine times, ’61,’64.’65, ’78, ’79. ’09, ’10, ’12 and ’15 seasons) or after a Democrat, W.J. Clinton (what must have gone through his wife Hillary Rodham’s mind yesterday, as it would not be a stretch to say I lost as a 7:1 favorite—and you thought I would impugn Trump—-) had been elected, but not inaugurated in the ’92 season.
By the way, the Tide’s ’92 national title win was called on national radio with the great Harry Kalas as the announcer.
That man, and certainly not the adored Republican/Reagan loving, Vin Scully, was the best baseball play by play man of this time.
Kalas died in Washington D.C. at the near start of the next season after getting to call “his” Phillies winning the ’08 title. So much of what Washington D.C. should stand for, died both before and certainly yesterday, as any violence is wrong and evokes Lincoln and Ford.
Maybe I will write a song regarding it, not a Saturday Night sketch ridiculing/making them money and solving nothing.
Incredibly, all ten Packers’ crowns were with Democrats in office, three with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, those won in 1936, 1939 and 1944, two with John F. Kennedy in ’61 and ’62, the earlier when “Jack” helped his friend Vince Lombardi’s Pack by granting a weekend pass, allowing U.S. “Reserve” Paul Hornung to play in that year’s title tilt, ’65-’67 with Lyndon Johnson, whose advice relayed yesterday by the venerable Bob Schiffer (meanwhile the CBS host, Scott Pelley was mistake prone, a veritable “turnover”/mistake machine as the U.S. government was “turned over,”) of never telling anyone to go to hell, unless you can send him there, (hopefully) already discarded by “DJ” Trump, will “bite” him you know where.
In the interest of avoiding “Guinness” for the longest run on sentence, the two less distinguished Pack titles won with the exponentially publicized Brett Favre in ’96, and the great, but “hold off on the key to Fort Knox,” Aaron Rodgers in ’10, were with the also less distinguished Presidents, certainly Bill “The Centrist” Clinton (’96) and the “blocked” Barack Obama in ’10.
Using Packers’ lore, Mr. Obama, unfortunately for him and I believe most of us, had instead of say Jerry Kramer (he is still not in the NFL Hall and that is a disgrace, no matter what your politics are and it is politics and utter morons who vote for such things that caused it) blocking for him, a slew of Republicans doing what they do best, BLOCKING his/our progress.
It once was great, such as above with Jerry Kramer (#64) blocking for Paul Hornung, on a muddy field, likely vs “my” Cleveland Browns in the ’65 title tilt, in which “GB” prevailed (23-12).
As a result of their close win at Dallas in the “slots” last week, the Green Bay Packers not only reached their 9th game in which a Supe entrant is determined (G.B. played in NFL title tilts in ’66 and ’67 that determined such, while subsequently appearing in 6 NFC title games before a 7th tomorrow in Atlanta), but also raised their ‘offs record vs the Dallas Cowboys to (4-4).
I believe the close wins in all four of their victories by the Packers, juxtaposed with the four easy wins by the Cowboys vs “G.B,” is unprecedented in football annals.
Perhaps this situation is only rivaled by the 1960 World Series, when the Pittsburgh Pirates “7’d” the New York Yankees, winning game 7 with key home runs by Rocky Nelson, Hal Smith and Bill Mazeroski, despite truly being routed in their 3 losses and winning the 4 closer games.
The Packers held off the Cowboys to win a thrilling 1966 NFL title tilt before “traversing” (the NFL Films narrator, not John Facenda, for just about the only time concerning title tilts, used the verb and great phrasing, which will always resonate), “68 yards over a polar ice cap” culminating in the great Bart Starr’s touchdown, to win the ’67 title tilt.
Two years ago, in the third slot at Green Bay, a call resulting in no catch for Dallas’ Dez Bryant was the key as the Pack again “close gamed” Dallas.
Last Sunday, after Dak Prescott and Bryant combined for 8 points to tie the tilt, GB, with Mason Crosby getting 2 field goals to Dallas’ Dan Bailey’s one, had another close win in the ‘offs vs Dallas.
In the strike marred 1982 season “slots,” as well as those in ’93 and ’94, Dallas eased at home vs the Packers. “Ditto” regarding the ’95 NFC title game/NFL semi.
Evoking the 1960 World Series again, in bringing up a 4 out of 7, that is the record of GB/Dallas ‘offs games winners in winning it all. Green Bay did so in ’66 and ’67, not 2014 while Dallas went on to the crown in ’93 and ’95 not so in ’82 and ’94.
The great Bart Starr, pictured above.
The Atlanta Falcons (1-2) in the previous three, will be in their fourth NFC Title Game, when they host the Green Bay Packers, in the earlier of the two title tilts/NFL “semis,” slated for Sunday.
In the book “The Godfather,” by Mario Puzo, it is explained how back then, just after the second numbered war, (God help us, this country involved itself in many after that one, still glorifying its military, something surely to be on “display” Sunday in the military game of football) that “bookmakers” “slated” the odds and pitchers on baseball games.
At the racetrack, the Maras, eventual and still owning family of the New York NFL franchise, made their money doing so at the track, before parimutuel wagering.
Anyway the “slate” for Sunday has Atlanta “minus five.” All four Falcons’ title tilts (they are in their 50th anniversary season, 51st season) have been in the earlier of the two title tilts, two at home.
The Falcons started in 1966, the Packers won it all that year, winning a “semi” in Dallas, and getting a key, if not the key play from a number 89 in a victory in which they scored 34 points, an occurrence repeated in the same venue, in the “slots,” last week.
Atlanta’s lone NFC Title game win was at Minnesota in 1998, the penultimate of Pat “Super” Summerall’s many such games (another post for more on that) now most (not Johnny) “everyone talking at me” is awful, epitomized by Joe Buck, at his amateurish worst during GB/Dallas last Sunday as written by critic “M.L.” in multiple texts as he “muted” the volume, and “on” his 15th straight NFC title tilt Sunday.
They started as bookmakers, moved their team to a swamp, if they had their way “the above” would be back, as they put out an anti-choice video— those are the “wonderful” Maras, (“Well” did well in sharing television revenue, helping the league tremendously, but even that hurts me, as I truly despise what the league has become).
After the NFC Title Game was played later than the AFC such tilt for eight consecutive seasons (1988-1995), thus not alternating with the other conference for the last seven of those seasons, the title tilts will have alternated 21 straight times (’96-2016) after Sunday, when the AFC game is the later one.
I do add that the streak will not reach “21,” if the greedy NFL, which shamefully changed last week’s (Pitts/K.C.) time for ratings, decides it can hit figurative “Blackjack,” by moving the times yet again. That will not happen, but disgracefully, did last week in a 5th home “slots” loss for K.C., in as many possibilities.
This is the 51st season in which an AFL/AFC team will meet an NFL/NFC team for the crown, the 47th with the AFC/NFC configuration.
The leagues (AFL and NFL) alternated early/late starts in all four such seasons (1966-1969), the NFL playing later in 1966 and 1968.
It should be noted that at least one of those four seasons, 1968, the tilts had significant overlap time as I recall Jim Simpson saying “Baltimore is leading Cleveland,” as he effectively “painted” the blacked out in New York, Jets/Raiders AFL title game.
Exceptions in the 49 “alternating” possibilities (in ’82 the NFC title tilt was on a Saturday), regarding what are NFL semi-final games number 10.
They are the aforementioned 7, (’89-95), as the NFC had the “late show,” from (’88-95), ’74 (AFC later in ’73 and ’74), and ’78 and ’79 (NFC later ’77-79).
Speaking of “time,” the great band, Chicago celebrated their 50th year, (’67-2016) while this season marks the 50th anniversary of games to determine Super Bowl opponents.
During the course of the ongoing 2016 NFL season, Chicago (Cubs) won it all, while the NFL Bears, involved in five NFL semis during the referenced period (losing late at S.F. in ’84, winning early vs the Rams in ’85, losing at home to S.F. in ’88, winning at home vs the Saints in ’06 and losing to the Packers in ‘2010–among those 5 “semi” winners, only the ’06 Bears did not win the Supe), failed to make the ‘offs.
Click below to view Chicago perform “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is.”
Chicago – Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? – 7/21/1970 – Tanglewood (Official)
Simply put concerning the not so important Hall vote, today was not Prince Spaghetti day as Wednesdays were/are in Boston advertising past but evoking a “Meat Loaf” song refrain, “two out of three ain’t bad.”
That is surprising as I do not feel too many recent players worthy of Hall status and while Tim Raines and Ivan Rodriguez deserve the honor in my clearly not so humble opinion, they were not exactly Frank Robinson and Yogi Berra.
Bagwell as with his teammate and fellow never won anything Craig Biggio, is not a good choice. How many damn playoff non factor moments for this compiler?
It is a business, they want people to attend so every year lesser and lesser careers are rewarded.
Raines and Rodriguez were sans titles for most of their careers but “Rock” con Joe Torre’s Yankees, the two fine players finally winning as player and mgr together and Ivan taking out the Cubs (go ahead blame Bartman), before that an all-time type game vs SF (each franchise subsequently broke long title droughts) and after the Cubs, Torre’s (no longer Raines’) Yankees in ’03.
