Seeing as the Season Ended Yesterday...

[pontiacj]

I thought I would go ahead and list the playoff teams:

NFC

• Washington
  
• Chicago
  
• New Orleans
  
• Arizona
  
• Green Bay - WC
  
• Philadelphia - WC
  

AFC

• New York
  
• Baltimore
  
• Houston
  
• San Diego
  
• Jacksonville - WC
  
• Cincinnati - WC
  

Oh, and Houston wins the Super Bowl due to their aggregate point advantage in a divisional win. Now that that's decided, I can just stick my head under a rock for the next 51 weeks until I know who the next Super Bowl champion is.

In all reality, yesterday was embarrassing. I expect much more from this team. I know all of us do. Dealing with that Bears D-line was too much for Hawley and Reynolds in their respective first starts. Much of the success this team experienced last year was predicated on controlling the line of scrimmage, and time of possession. When you can't do the first, you can't do the second, and the defense tends to struggle when playing from behind.

On the bright side, the front seven looked better yesterday (except on that screen pass) than it has in a long time. Julio Jones didn't have much impact on the outcome of the game (most of his catches coming when the game was out of reach), but he looked like an NFL wide receiver out there. Most importantly, the team never quit.

There was a lot of garbage that went on, and that is well covered on the rest of the board, so no need to rehash it. At the end of the day, this coaching staff has earned the benefit of the doubt from me to go out and try to fix this thing before the season gets out of hand. Count on this team coming out with a new focus and intensity next Sunday night.