Super Bowl 46: The Edge Starts On Defense

So who’s going to win the Super Bowl? Better yet, who’s going to cover? There are a lot of factors to examine carefully when trying to determine who has the edge. One of the simplest to examine, and very revealing, is defense. Defense wins championships, of course, and when we look at the defensive merits of the Giants and Patriots, it’s a mixed bag. Both ranked in the bottom half of the league in points allowed with the Giants 25th and the Pats were second worst in yards allowed. On... 

Super Bowl 46 Preview

Rematch of the 2008 Super Bowl thriller with the Giants scoring late to stop the 18-0 Patriots, 17-14. Much of the same cast returns for both teams, including the head coaches. The Giants have 14 players remaining from the 2008 Super Bowl team, the Patriots have seven. Back in August the Patriots were 5-to-1 and the Giants 18-to-1 to win the Super Bowl. We have been in a golden age for the AFC for a while. It’s almost as if the pendulum has swung. During the 1980s and much of the 90s, the NFC... 

Giants at 49ers Odds and Picks

Apparently defense does still win championships. San Francisco will host New York at 4:30 p.m. EST on Sunday for the NFC Championship Game. The winner advances to the Super Bowl (you may have heard of that) to face either Baltimore or New England. The 49ers and Giants advanced to the NFC Title Game thanks to incredible defensive efforts last week, out muscling the No. 1 and No. 3 offenses in football, respectively, in wins over the Saints and Packers. San Francisco and New York forced turnovers and... 

NFL Playoffs: Conference Champions at Stake!

This is it, the final weekend of games before the Super Bowl with the Ravens, Patriots, Giants and 49ers squaring off. The last month we’ve been hearing about playoff seedings, bye weeks and home field advantage. Are all those things really important? Historically it has been during the second round of the playoffs. Teams with the bye have home field advantage and two weeks to prepare, both of which are usually important edges this time of year. However, during the conference championship... 

NFL 2012 Championship Sunday Power Preview

In this Piece we will Preview both the AFC and NFC Championship Games on Sunday as we surge towards another entertaining Super Bowl. On Sunday, January 22nd Its Championship Sunday. At 3:00 eastern it all kicks off with familiar faces with the Baltimore Ravens traveling up to New England in a Playoff rematch from 2010. In that game the Ravens garnered their first ever road win in New England catching a Patriots team off guard racing out to a 21-0 lead en route to a 33-10 win in a game where Ray Rice... 

College Basketball: The Four Seasons

There are four seasons packed into a college basketball year: Non-conference play, conference play, conference tournament time and postseason action (NIT and March Madness). Each has unique attributes. Non-conference action starts off the year where teams are getting acquainted with new personnel and facing many schools they’ve never played before. Conference action finds teams battling for positioning against teams they face two or three times every year, while tournament time in February... 

BCS Hysteria: No. 1 vs. No. 2!

Happy New Year! After recovering from the weekend’s New Year festivities, we glide through the end of the bowl season. A few more bowls are appetizers for the tune-up that is the January 9 Alabama/LSU rematch for all the marbles. Cotton Bowl (Fri., Jan., 6): The all-running team against the all-passing one…and a pair of dynamite scoring offenses. Kansas State (10-2 SU, 9-2 ATS) is not flashy, with a ground game carrying the offense (33.1 points, 193.7 yards rushing), as the poor passing game... 

The Best Offense is a Great Defense

There has been a lot of focus on offense the last few years in NFL. Two years ago the Saints and Colts were dynamite offensive teams with below average defenses and met in the Super Bowl, and last year the incredible Green Bay offense bested the Steelers dominant defense for the title. Many shrugged off the importance of defense, but that was more of an aberration: Don’t understate the importance of defense this time of the NFL season with so much at stake. Teams in playoff races like the Jets,...