Saturday's Playoff Games
There is a tendency to say that the Jets should not have even been in the game against Pittsburgh; take the two long returns out and the Steelers win easily. But really there is not a lot to chose from among the teams statistically. Pennington had the better passer rating (65.5 to 57.8), making this the only game of the playoffs so far where the lower-rated passer won. The Steelers did outgain the Jets on the ground, but by less than half a yard per attempt. The big difference is that they rushed a lot more--43 times to the Jets' 27.
Of course, the big news on the day was that Ben Roethlisberger suddenly looked like a rookie. He will have to play quite a bit better than this next weekend if the Steelers are going to get to the Super Bowl, and I would not be surprised to see the Steelers as home underdogs for the AFC title game.
As for the Atlanta/St. Louis game, what can I say? The Rams let the Falcons run all over them. You won't lose many games where you get 327 yards rushing at 8.2 yards a pop. Barring injury, it will be a white quarterback versus a black quarterback in the Super Bowl, and to a certain extent you could say the white quarterback style versus the black quarterback style. The black quarterbacks can beat you with their feet as well as their arms, while the white quarterbacks are slower and not as stocky, but pass just enough better for the scales to come out reasonably balanced.
Lest you think I'm engaging in racism here, look at the black QBs remaining compared to the white guys. The white guys rushed 124 times for 210 yards. The black QBs rushed twice as often (249) for seven times as many yards (1528). Ben Roethlisberger was the most effective rusher among the white QBs, averaging 2.6 yards per carry. Daunte Culpepper was (arguably) the least effective rusher among the black QBs at 4.6 yards per attempt.
