Sunday's Games

Well, the Broncos didn't get my memo on not blitzing.

There's no mystery to these stats. 22 TDs and zero picks with a 137 passing rating vs. the blitz. What if I told you David Ortiz bats .600 with a homer every six swings against first-pitch fast balls and you went down in the playoffs because you just kept feeding this strength? That's what Mike Shanahan did yesterday. (We're not still calling him a genius, are we?)

Phil Simms said before the game that he thought the Broncos were going to use a game plan similar to what the Giants used on the Bills in the 1991 Super Bowl. I was hopeful. But then it went right out the window and Manning did against the blitz what he's done all year. (Shocker.)

The Patriots don't have their starting corners from September and may not have Richard Seymour either, but you're going to get a game plan here that forces Manning to do something different than he's been doing all year. Manning might be successful anyway, but he's going to have to be successful in a new way.

We've spoken about the Moss thing earlier on this blog. As for the actual game, the Vikings are dangerous, especially when Culpepper has five or six seconds to move around in the pocket and improvise something downfield. The first TD to Moe Williams (the 70-yarder) is the perfect illustration of this. Daunte dropped back and slid around and then dumped it to Williams (who broke his flat route and went deep) six full seconds after the snap. The last TD to Moss was similar, too.

I can't see the Eagles allowing this. Culpepper will need to make quick decisions to beat the blitz and resist the temptation to run, as you can't burn the defense bad enough that way to stop them from blitzing. Plus Culpepper is likely to have a severely limited Moss, who said after the game that he can only run in a straight line.

How does Favre throw all those intereceptions against a team that only picked off 11 passes all year? After the game, he went into Sherman's office and said he was retiring. Sherman took 45 minutes to talk him out of it so that he wouldn't announce it to the assmembled media. The Packers have a lot of holes. They blew it by firing their coordinator based on one play last year and now need a new system and, probably, new players. There are no pass rushers of note. The secondary needs to be blown up. The tread is getting thin on Ahman Green. The go-to receiver, Javon Walker, is like his QB: talented, explosive but undisciplined and prone to stupid mistakes.

Much more on all the games this week, of course, in the Breakfast Table and Forecast.