Fired Up Friday

Ed Werder

Earlier this week, ESPN published a story about Brett Favre and his thoughts on the rest of the playoffs.  Favre spoke glowingly of Aaron Rodgers (who he has gone on record saying he dislikes) and stated that the Packers were the best team in the playoffs.  One of my first posts on this blog speaks of the hatred among Packers fans for Favre and how unusual of a situation Favre has put himself in.  This story was the first part of Favre attempting to win the love of Packers fans again, which will allow him to be the legend he once was in Green Bay.

This "story" is just another example of the ridiculous nature of modern sports journalism.  Instead of attempting to break an interesting story, Werder simply printed the thoughts Favre gave to him an email.  This, just like Lebron James' "The Decision", is another example of athletes attempting to report news themselves.  Instead of actually interviewing Favre and asking him tough questions, Werder allowed Favre to control what was reported, which essentially makes the athlete the journalist.  Werder's "story" is the furthest thing from journalism and, in my opinion, an embarassment to ESPN as a whole.

The New York Jets

Last week, I had discussed how much I loved the Jets' trash-talking and how it was paramount to their success.  The Jets have done essentially no trash talking this week and keep talking about how much they respect the Steelers.  I really don't think this is the way to go about winning the game.  No one will admit it, but in a way I think the Jets' trash talking last week distracted the Steelers from carrying with their business as usual.

Also trash-talking has become the Jets' season.  They have been talking themselves up and playing with a undeserved sense of accomplishment all season and now all of a sudden they are going to stop doing this.  Why?  Why stop playing with the confidence you had all season?  It makes no sense.  Instead of backing down from your cockiness, they need to continue to embrace it and use it dominate their next game.

Playoff Quarterbacks

The quarterbacks left in the playoffs at this point are extremely impressive.  One of my friends, Steve Mahne, had mentioned that Roethlisberger is 9-2 with 2 Super Bowl rings, while the other quarterbacks remaining are 7-2 with no Super Bowl rings.  Though this obviously means that Roethlisberger is significantly more experienced than these other quarterbacks, the record of the other quarterbacks isn't bad at all. 

Rodgers is 2-1, Cutler is 1-0, and Sanchez is 4-1.  All of these quarterbacks are either in their first or second year in the playoffs and all of them have been impressive so far.  Rodgers has been UNBELIEVABLE thus far in his playoff career, completing 75.3% of his passes, and compiling a Quarterback Rating of 129.4.  Cutler has won his one and only playoff game and looked very good throwing the ball in last week's game against the Seahawks.  Sanchez has yet to do anything truly stunning or amazing in the playoffs, but has been remarkably consistent and has kept the Jets in every playoff game he has participated in, which is all you can ask for from a game manager like Sanchez.  Great quarterback play makes playoff games considerably more watchable and should make for a great weekend of football