birds going nuts

 
I've had mixed feelings about birds over the years. I hated birds when I was a kid. Apparently when I was young I used to cry and scream when flocks of birds approached. Anything with wings just did not sit well with me -I hated planes also, and still do. Anyway one of the strangest childhood memories I still harbor happened when for some reason I had to go to this humongous church to take part in a choir practice. This church had a skylight like 100 feet high that we were placed directly under. The problem for me was that for some reason they had been showing previews for "The Birds II" recently, and I literally have never been more terrified by a movie trailer in my life. I've never seen "The Birds" or "The Birds II" to this day, but from what I can gather its about birds going insane and attacking humans. At this age the idea of that happening completely freaked me out. For like a week all I could think about was bird attacks. And then here at this church, you could see birds through the skylight windows roosting and chilling and there were even birds inside the church because it was so high. This choir practice lasted like 5 hours and the entire time all I was doing was staring up in abject terror at these birds and imagining them swooping down and clawing my eyes out. Luckily none of the little bastards spotted a mouse on the floor or something or I would have probably run out of the church screaming with piss running down my pants. Nevertheless, I will never forget the feeling I had that day. There might as well have been velociraptors pounding on the glass trying to get into the church.

On that note, welcome to my NFL championship weekend preview. What does this have to do with birds? Here's the deal - there were four bird teams coming into the playoffs: the Falcons, Eagles, the Ravens, and the Cardinals. The only bird team to lose has been the Falcons, in a bird battle with the Cardinals in Round 1. The other avian teams are 5-0, including an unbelievable run last weekend when all three bird underdogs won outright on the road. Bill Simmons had a take on the situation, noting also that birds just took down a plane headed to Charlotte, where the Cards had just emerged victorious over the second-seeded Panthers. The bottom line is that for whatever reason these flying maniacs are on the rampage.


Ravens(+6) at Steelers

All of that coincides well with the fact that the Ravens are underdogs going into basically a street brawl of a game. I don't know about you, but in any street brawl I want the dude who stabbed someone to death. And just for historical reference here are the last five championship games played in Pittsburgh:

1995: San Diego Chargers 17, Pittsburgh Steelers 13 - Chargers were a decent team, led by Stan Humphries and Natrone Means (Natrone Means Business), but not a powerhouse. Steelers were favored, but bowed out to a Chargers team that went on to get annihilated by the Niners in the Superbowl, 49-26.

1996: Pittsburgh Steelers 20, Indianapolis Colts 16 - I'm just old enough to remember this game. Nobody really expected the Colts to do anything in this playoffs, but Jim Harbaugh and Co. surprised the Chargers and Chiefs and came within a hail mary pass of beating the Steelers. The hail mary actually went through the hands of Aaron Bailey - otherwise we'd be talking about 2 decades of Steeler futility in home championship games.

1998: Denver Broncos 24, Pittsburgh Steelers 21 - Probably the most excusable of the home losses here. The Broncos finally put it together with Elway and Terrell Davis and weren't your average wildcard team by a longshot. When you've got Kordell Stewart going against John Elway in a championship game and it ends up coming down to the wire, you're basically hoping for an injury or some kind of Immaculate Reception type play.

2002: New England Patriots 24, Pittsburgh Steelers 17 - This was during Tom Brady's coming out season, but Brady got hurt in the second quarter and got replaced by erstwhile starter Drew Bledsoe. Not good times when you let Drew Bledsoe enter mid-game after sitting most of the season and lead his team to a Superbowl berth on your home turf.

2005: New England Patriots 41, Pittsburgh Steelers 27 - I left for Italy the day this game happened so I can't really comment on it. I don't think there's much to say anyway except that the Pittsburgh went 15-1 that year and still ended up being New England's bitch. On a sidenote, I'll never forget leaving the house that day for the airport and Falcons at Eagles was playing on the TV. As I was stepping out the door a handicapped kid in a wheelchair came onto the field to sing the national anthem. He was struggling and putting everything he had into it and dammit if it wasn't the most heart-wrenching thing I've ever seen. The soldiers on the field had tears coming down and it was almost too much for me being on the verge of leaving the country for 5 months. I tried recently to find online video of that, but i think part of me didn't really want to see it again because that kid's face would haunt your dreams.

Anyway back to the point, the Steelers have sucked at home in the AFC championship game. Obviously games from like 1994 have no bearing on today, and Pittsburgh doesn't even have the same coach they did in 2005. I just like interjecting historical perspectives. As far as the upcoming matchup, I think people are making a lot out of a great performance last week against an 8-8 Chargers team that was travelling east from San Diego to play in the snow and was coming off like 6 straight win-or-die games. Also you have to take into account that numerous members of the Ravens are legitimately insane, and do things like put bounties on opposing players' heads. There's a good chance Hines Ward gets a helmet to the spine if he turns his back on Sunday. You just know that a team built like the Ravens is gonna fight, claw, and play dirty, basically do anything in this kind of game to come out on top. Steelers won both regular season games by a combined 7 pts, so I don't see any reason why this one won't come down to the wire. Its always tough to call these kinds of games since turnovers and key plays late are bound to play such a huge role. But I really do think its closer to a tossup than the line indicates, thus I gotta go with the team getting 6 pts. So I'm going with Baltimore in this one.

Ravens 19, Steelers 17

Eagles at Cardinals (+4.5)

The most disrespected bird in the playoffs has been the cardinal. They're underdogs at home in the NFC championship game, Chris Berman dogged them for tanking games, Deion Sanders said he would sell his Superbowl tickets if Arizona made it; meanwhile Magic Time just rolls on.

The thing is I don't know if I'd even take the Cardinals without all this media nonsense - the Eagles are playing great football and Kurt Warner against that blitz should and does alarm me. But here's what I think should alarm the Eagles and those betting on Philly: Arizona went across the country to face off against the well-rested champion of arguably the best division in football this year and beat their asses to a pulp. They didn't eke out a win, they friggin lowered the boom. And now they're 4.5 pt dogs in their own house. The understandable knocks on Arizona before last week were playing a soft schedule, not having impressive wins, not having a great defense, and Kurt Warner having the ground speed of a turtle in a tray of Nyquil jello. I would say only one of those is still valid at this point.

To be sure, I'm not confident about Arizona winning this one outright, but I am confident as to which team is holding the "no respect" card right now. So I'm going with the Cardinals out of principle. If they lose? Well I guess they ARE...what the oddsmakers THOUGHT THEY WERE.

Cardinals 31, Eagles 26