NFC Championship Game Facts

This year's NFC representative in the Super Bowl will be either a team that hasn't been to the big game in 33 years or a team that has never been there. Either way, that's kinda cool.

The most points ever scored in an NFC Championship Game is 66, when the 49ers beat the Cowboys 38-28 in January 1995. There's a reasonable chance that will be exceeded on Sunday.

Only the Cowboys (14), 49ers (12), and Rams (9) have been in more NFC Championship Games than the Vikings (8). The 49ers and Cowboys have squared off five times in the game.

Road teams are 13-26 in the NFC Championship Game.

The last time Brett Favre was in an NFC Championship Game (1998), Drew Brees was a sophomore at Purdue and Percy Harvin was nine years old.

Chester Taylor had more combined rush-receive yards (727) in 2009 than Reggie Bush (725).

I am officially tired of typing "NFC Championship Game."

Thank you, 49ers

The 49ers gave the Vikings a nice holiday gift this year, in the form of a 24-9 whipping of the Arizona Cardinals. To be fair, the Cards beat themselves, making seven turnovers and making me more confident that, apart from New Orleans and maybe Philadelphia (which just frightens me based on last year), I don't think there's an NFC team the Vikings can't handle, and handle fairly easily at home once the playoffs start. (More on the Vikings' playoff potential seeding at the end of this post.)

Around this time of year, once teams start clinching home-field advantage and other playoff positioning, the inevitably tired conversations pop up about whether teams should rest their players or keep playing hard. This year, with two 13-0 teams, the talk is even more spirited. There are, in effect, four possible outcomes, and three of them are bad:

Team rests its starters:
A) They then win their first playoff game -- Good call, coach, they needed the rest!
B) They lose their first playoff game -- Coach, you were too soft on them!

Team doesn't rest its starters:
A) There's a crucial injury in a "meaningless" game -- What were you thinking playing that guy?
B) There are no injuries -- Whew, we got away with that one!

Remember when the Patriots were 15-0 a few years ago and played all-out in that Saturday game against the Giants? What if Tom Brady or Randy Moss would have been injured during that game? It would have gone down at Bill Belichick's second-worst decision ever (after the 4th and 2 this year, of course).

There are simply so many variables that can happen during a game or games that any talk ascribing any particular meaning or consequences to whether guys play or not during their "meaningless" games is just that -- talk. No matter how it's approached, if something bad happens, it will be because the coach played guys he shouldn't have or didn't give them enough rest.

I especially "love" the argument that guys need to keep playing to stay sharp and if they lose in the first round (result B from above), it was because they got too much rest at the end of the season. Consider this: Suppose that Peyton Manning was hurt in, say, week 8. We'll assume it's a type of injury that wouldn't be expected to linger or otherwise affect his football performance when he comes back, say a poke in the eye or a concussion (which I realize is bad, but once you recover from it, it doesn't generally hamper you like, say, a dislocated shoulder or broken leg). When he comes back in, say, week 12, everybody expects him to be at full strength and to play like he always did. Even Peyton himself, who's been able to work out this entire time and still do pretty much everything expected of him except get out on the field, would think that he'll be perfectly fine when he comes back. And he probably will. If he's a little off or has a bad game, hardly anyone would attribute it to rust or other consequences of missing three weeks.

Ah, but now it's week 15 of the regular season. If Peyton misses the next three games -- strictly on a voluntary basis -- and the Colts lay an egg in their playoff game, it'll be because they "took those three games off," and that will be the beginning and the end of the discussion as to why the team lost. Never mind that most teams that do rest their starters do so because they're good teams that have secured a high seed and have the ability to rest them and usually progress far in the playoffs. It's only the failures that we notice and that we try to ascribe some higher meaning to, other than, "The other team was better."

All of which brings us back to the Vikings. If they can beat Carolina next week and if Philadelphia loses either of its next two games, and the Saints can somehow find a way past Dallas and Tampa Bay at home, then, by the time the Vikings take the field against Chicago on Monday night in 13 days, the NFC standings would look like this:

1) New Orleans: 15-0
2) Minnesota: 12-2
3) Philadelphia: 10-5

No other team in the conference could be better than 10-5 except the Packers, who could be 11-4, but the Vikings would still hold tiebreak over them in the division. Thus, the Vikings would be locked into the #2 seed, with two games left to play, thus allowing them to give vital rest to Brett Favre -- who will probably play enough to keep his streak going -- Adrian Peterson, and other vital members of the team. And if that makes the team go 12-4 and keeps everyone fresh for the playoffs, I'm all for it.

If the Saints lose two of their next three games, the Vikings could run the table and tie them at 14-2 and own a better conference record, thus winning the tiebreaker and securing the #1 seed. There's about zero chance the Saints lose to the Bucs at home in two weeks, so that would require them losing to Dallas at home and one the road against Carolina, an unlikely proposition.

But hey, it doesn't hurt to dream.

The post that never was

My blog post was about 90% written in my head before "The Play" yesterday. In it, I was going to lay into Brett "five yards and a cloud of RAC yardage" Favre and his mediocre play. I was going to make fun of everyone who was chirping about his 77% completion percentage and 110 passer rating and how "all he does is win" when he completed barely 50% of his passes and led the offense to just 13 points (20 minus Percy Harvin's TD return).

Then Favre and Greg Lewis made all that moot.

On the one hand: Happy to be 3-0!

On the other hand: Unhappy because the "Favre is God" crowd will be even more insufferable than usual.

(On the third hand: Disgusted at the media-gasm likely to propagate over the next week leading to Packers/Vikings on Monday night.)

I can try to counter with all sorts of reality-based arguments. Like that, 9 times out of 10, Greg Lewis doesn't make that catch or his left foot scrapes the back goal line. Favre made a hell of a throw -- and probably the first I've seen all year that I would put beyond Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels -- but one pass, which required a miracle catch by a receiver can't overshadow the rest of the drive, game, or season, in which Favre hasn't looked like a quarterback you'd want to pay $12 million for.

But I'll stick with this one simple comparison, to illustrate how much of a difference one play can make, especially this early in the season:

Passer rating A: 94.5
Passer rating B: 87.8

Adjusted Yards Per Attempt A: 6.6
Adjusted Yards Per Attempt B: 6.0

Yards per attempt A: 6.0
Yards per attempt B: 5.6

Yards per completion A: 9.3
Yards per completion B: 8.9

Situation A is Favre's actual stats. Situation B is his stats if Lewis doesn't come down with the ball (and with one extra game-ending incompletion thrown in). That 87.8 passer rating is nice, but it would still be only 15th in the league. With the Lewis catch, he's 16th in AY/A and would be 22nd without it (just ahead of Tom Brady, for whatever that's worth). Brett Favre's numbers still look pretty good, but he's one unlikely play away from looking average, at best.

But regardless of what was likely to happen, what did happen is that Favre made a play as improbable as just about any we've seen and delivered the goods the first time he was really asked to do so in a Vikings uniform. For that I'm grateful and happy. I'm just not ready to crown him yet.

San Francisco 89ers

I started watching football in 1989. In those heady days, George Bush (the first) reigned as president, the U.S.S.R. still existed, Thursday night on NBC was real "must-see TV," thanks to The Cosby Show and Cheers, and I was a huge Debbie Gibson fan. (Shaddap!)

And the San Francisco 49ers were the best football team on the planet, by far. And I've never really gotten over it.

Even though I only started watching football full time in '89, I can vaguely remember the Vikings' playoff games against the 49ers in the late '80s. There was the improbable victory in the '87 playoffs, which was followed by a pair of thrashings in '88 and '89. And then there was this game in 1988, from which you've almost assuredly seen this highlight. Sorry, Mike Vick, but you don't have the best run of all time by a QB against the Vikings. (In fact, you probably don't even have the second-best, but I can't find video of Vinny Testaverde's absurd 48-yard TD run against the team in this game.)

Joe Montana, Roger Craig, Jerry Rice, and even Steve Young are all long gone. Jeff Garcia and Ricky Watters and Terrell Owens all had their moments, but, for the better part of this decade, the 49ers have been a mediocre to bad team. Still, I still can't help but feel something special every time the Vikings play the 49ers. As a tribute, and because I wanted to play around with PFR.com's Play Index, here are some notable Vikings-vs.-49ers all-time stats:

First, unless I've missed something (entirely possible), the Vikings have played the 49ers 39 times in the regular season since 1960, and the teams are, rather unusually, deadlocked at 19-19-1.

The Vikings have only had 2 100-yard rushers against the 49ers. 49er RBs have achieved the feat 9 times, but not since 1992.

The 49ers also lead the 100-yard receiver contest, 14 to 9.

300-yard passers have been very rare in the rivalry, with just 3 for San Fran and 2 for Minny.

You might be a little surprised to see which 49er is tied for the most sacks in a game against the Vikings, instead of the other way around.

Meanwhile, the all-time leader for TDs for the Vikings against the 49ers is someone I've never heard of. On the other side of the coin, I think I have heard of this guy.

And only one guy has ever had just 200 all-purpose yards against the 49ers as a Viking. C'mon Adrian (or even Percy), you can do better than that!

Finally, a little music to get you jacked up for the game! I promise, it's not Rick Astley

Favre wants out, but where will he be in?

I'm not sick of Brett Favre news, per se. What I'm sick of is Brett Favre innuendo, rumors, half-truths, "conversations with a source close to Favre," and news of what he does with his cell phone. (OMG WTF TXT MESSAGE LOL!)

But now there's some real, substantial news about #4, and it's seeming almost guaranteed that he'll come back to play in 2008. It's not all that surprising, really. Brett Favre loves Sundays. He'd kill for the joy of going out there every week in front of 70,000 screaming fans. For three hours a week, he's on top of the world, a nigh-invincible gladiator on the gridiron.

Unfortunately, there are 168 other hours in the week, and while I won't go so far as to say Favre's miserable those other 165 hours, they don't come close to the three hours on Sunday. He's like a junkie, getting his quick fix once a week and then having to endure the pale imitation of practice the rest of the week. And then there's the interminable off-season. If you think it's hard for us, the fans, to endure, at least we don't have to sweat it out in mini-camps, two-a-days, and OTAs all spring and summer long, just to get to that brief euphoria of Sunday afternoons.

Toss in the fact that Favre's 38 years old and his general propensity for "winging it" and you can see why he'd want to skip a good portion of that "unnecessary" prep time and just get to the good stuff. If all you had were those three hours every Sunday, Favre would play until he was 68. You think Allen Iverson hates practice? I promise you, Brett Favre hates it more.

So, now that he's coming back, and apparently not to the Packers, where will he go? What team needs a 38-year-old quarterback with a spotty recent track record who'll command a decent salary and won't accept a backup job? On the plus side, he'd be a major attraction and I hear he's fairly durable.

First things first: I think there's absolutely zero chance he goes to an NFC North team. If the Packers can't arrange that as a condition of his release, I still think it's a slim chance. Minnesota, for better or for worse, seems committed to Tarvaris Jackson, and I think adding Favre at this relatively late stage of things would seriously confuse a team that seems poised for a deep playoff run. Chicago has two QBs they're not sure about -- why add a third? And Detroit's got a junior version of Favre in Jon Kitna. Looking around the rest of the league, here are my thoughts on where he could go:

Atlanta. Would be poetic, wouldn't it? Favre goes back to the team that originally drafted him. He'd have to be a better mentor for Matt Ryan than Chris Redman and Joey Harrington. And remember how many butts Michael Vick put in the seats? Favre could immediately return the Falcons to watchability, if not relevance.

Baltimore. Almost the same situation as Atlanta. Young, highly drafted QB (Joe Flacco), questionable incumbent (Kyle Boller), no real expectations. Would there be room in the locker room, though, for both Favre's ego and that of Ray Lewis?

Buffalo. Here's a team that's got two young but only moderately talented quarterbacks (Trent Edwards and JP Losman), a top-flight wide receiver (Lee Evans), a good young running back (Marshawn Lynch), and, after a 7-9 season in 2007, some aspirations for a playoff spot. And I think he could handle the weather.

Houston. Yes, they still owe Matt Schaub too much money. But you have to think Favre would love to be reunited with Ahman Green and take a team that's never been to the playoffs into the promised land.

San Francisco. Just how committed are the 49ers to Alex Smith, Shaun Hill, and J.T. O'Sullivan? If the answer is "not very," then what happens when Brett Favre and Mike Martz join forces? (The answer is that Frank Gore gets about five carries a game.)

Tampa Bay. No real reason here except that Jon Gruden is still the head coach and Brett Favre is a quarterback. Do you need anything else?