Of Knees And Super Bowls

Pretty amazing news tonight, as it is revealed that Philip Rivers played the entire AFC championship game on a torn ACL, suffered last week in Indianapolis. Having gone through two of those in my life, I must say that I'm quite impressed. When I tore the first, I knew that I had done something, but didn't think it was very severe, and I played a half-dozen more points on it that game, which happened to be the last of the day. The second, although less serious-looking, was quite a bit more painful, and I definitely knew that my weekend was over when it happened.

But either way, there was no way in hell I would have been back on the field 7 days later - it was 4 or 5 days before I was walking without a decided limp.

Although, watching Rivers yesterday, he still had a pretty decided limp, so maybe it's just that he's much, much tougher than me. I'm damn impressed that he was able to get around the field at all, although he was clearly pretty gimpy, and amazed at how well he threw, given that he couldn't really push off his back foot.

Shame the Chargers were laid so low by injuries. I don't hold anything against Tomlinson for not being able to play; the differences in the physical requirements between playing quarterback and running back are pretty vast. It would be impossible for a running back to run with Rivers' injury, and while a partially torn MCL isn't nearly as serious, it's still enough to keep him from being anywhere near 100%, and that's probably enough to make him functionally useless as a running back in a playoff game.

So, of the games, clearly the second one was the better one. Neither teams in the early game were playing particularly well, while both teams were competitive in the NFC Championship. I thought the Giants were pretty clearly playing better - the Packers benefited from one 90 yard pass play that resulted from a blown coverage, a dead-ball personal foul that kept a drive alive, and a very questionable roughing the passer call. So I'm glad the better team won.

I don't really understand why the Patriots keep getting favored by double digits in these games. They've really been eking out a lot of wins the last 6 games or so. And I know that they keep winning. I'm on record as saying that if they win the Super Bowl they'll be the best team in NFL history, and I'll stand by that. But, of course, the lines are designed to split the betting action, not to act as a prediction of the outcome, so I guess the lines stay high because people keep betting on the Pats.

And, can I just say - thank goodness we get a chance to have another Boston/New York matchup in a major sports event. Those are two cities that have just been underexposed the last few years.