Scribbler's Recap: NFL Conference Championship Weekend

Whelp, despite being perfect during the Divisional Round, I just can't get all of my picks right every single week.  Glass half full moment though: some poor guy out there bet on the Patriots and Cardinals and his old lady set her Jesus to the side to cuss him out for pissing away her emergency stash for her Newports.  Anyway, since we as avid football fanatics are forced to wait two weeks before the last and most important game of the NFL season, I am not making my highly-anticipated Super Bowl prediction until next Tuesday.  In fact, I'm strongly considering not even doing a typical prediction post, but I'll see how I feel by then.  However, do not fret as I am here to 1) provide a more extensive recap of the AFC and NFC Championships than I have with the other playoff games and 2) help all five of you with your growing case of #FOFSE (Fear of Football Season Ending).  Let's not waste any more time, good people...

DID MORTIMER AND RANDOLPH DUKE PLACE A $1 WAGER ON BRADY AND MANNING?!?!  During the regular season, the only quarterback who threw more interceptions than Peyton Manning (17) was Blake Bortles (18).  Then again, Bortles played in six more games, threw 26 more touchdowns (35) and nearly doubled Manning in passing yards (4,428 to 2,249).  Simply put, it's a sad day when any quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars outplays Peyton Manning.  However, Tom Brady looked more like Louis Winthorpe III on Skid Row in the first half as he threw two picks in his first 19 attempts after not throwing a single pick in his last 147 attempts at Denver.  Meanwhile, Manning had two quarters worth of a Billy Ray Valentine come up as he threw two TDs to Owen Daniels, which assisted in giving the Broncos a 17-9 halftime lead and building the foundation of their eventual 20-18 win to get to Super Bowl 50.  Maybe this game was the epic comeback that was supposed to start right now instead of against a miniature ping-pong shark.

With all of that said, most of this matchup was about the stubbornness of the defenses.  By the start of the fourth quarter, the Patriots only had 181 yards of total offense while the Broncos fared no better with 189.  Even with Manning having better success than Brady in the first half, both quarterbacks were constantly under fire and often off-target.  Despite tossing two TDs early, Manning couldn't easily pick apart the Patriots' defense as he was only 17 of 32 for 176 yards, missed a few near touchdowns--including overthrowing Jordan Norwood with 10:06 left in the game that would've made it a two-score game--and was sacked three times.  However, Brady was clearly more "rattled" (as Aqib Talib astutely asserted) as he missed 32 of 59 pass attempts, six of which were underthrown and several more overthrown; was sacked four times, primarily at the hands of Von Miller (2.5); and was hit a total of 20 times, mainly by Demarcus Ware (7) and which was more than any other quarterback during a single game this entire season.  After being beat down for four quarters, Brady probably felt like getting drunk in a Santa suit, stuffing some smoked salmon down his shirt and choking out his best frenemy, who would've probably responded with "IT WAS THE DUKES! IT WAS THE DUKES!"

GIVE IT AWAY, GIVE IT AWAY, GIVE IT AWAY NOW!!!  Tied for the most amount of turnovers in an NFC Conference Championship game with the '78 Rams, that's all Carson Palmer and the Cardinals could do against the league's best defensive unit in turnover differential (+20)--turning these Red Hot Chili Peppers in the passing game (2nd best in the league) into the Ice Blue Chilly Willies.  After escaping with an unimpressive performance against the Green Bay Packers, the Panthers made him pay as I predicted with constant pressure, two sacks, two lost fumbles and four really bad INTs--including two to Kurt Coleman and a dagger to Luke Kuechly aka Mr. Pick Six.  Speaking of another wannabe Captain Save-a-Game, Peterson attempted to field a short punt on the run, but muffed it and clearly blamed himself for an eventual Cam Newton TD run.  Once it was 24-7 at halftime, the first thing I said to myself was, "I don't believe in Carson Palmer like I do Russell Wilson to overcome such a large deficit.  It's over, slim."  Summarized by all of the exasperated looks on the faces of Palmer and Peterson, it just wasn't in the cards.  (Yup...I just said that...and you loved it.  Don't front.)

At the end of the day, this was all about the Panthers' hunger and dominance from the door as they did whatever they wanted to do in every phase of the game and the Cardinals had no answers for them.  At one point, FOX showed Calais Campbell and a hot-and-bothered Cardinals defense on the sidelines, obviously frustrated from the inability to get in Newton's face.  Outside of his lone interception, Cam made some deftly-accurate intermediate throws on his franchise-playoff-record setting day (335 yards) while darn near every receiver in this group performed clinics on their defenders and consistently got open.  Contributing to 49 offensive TDs for the Panthers this season, Newton kept the party going with two more Superman-like TD runs and leaps into the end zone that further epitomized his dual-threat ability.  In this 49-15 shellacking, Cam Newton and the Panthers aka Superman & Friends essentially sent three messages to their upcoming opponent: 1) they do know how to keep their foot on the gas; 2) the Broncos' defense might have had a field day with Tom Brady, but he darn sure isn't double trouble like Killa Cam; and 3) Peyton will need to rewind the clock ten years if he expects to beat this opportunistic group of ball hawks.  Then again, the Broncos won't be any pushovers either.  This is gonna be good just like my Super Bowl post will be...next Tuesday.