Dave’s Football Blog

There you have it. The Wild Card spots are in play. Pittsburgh likely needs to win to get into the playoffs. I think it is likely, but stranger things have happened…

Meanwhile, I’m at a wedding reception/New Year’s Eve party. There’s a jazz band here, and I’ve got nobody to dance with me tonight. And so it goes. Happy new year, everyone. See you tomorrow from Naptown.

So I’m supposed to be getting ready for a wedding right now, but I just wanted to let you know that Drew Brees was injured in that Chargers-Broncos game, and Philip Rivers came in with his team trailing 14-0.

Mark my words — if Rivers leads San Diego to a win today, you will not see Drew Brees in a Chargers uniform again.

Oh, and Max & Erma’s restaurant in Columbus, Indiana, gave us service tonight like Tommy Maddox played quarterback this year.

All for now. Liveblogging for real happens tomorrow, by the way.

Just thought I’d give you a few updates while I’m bored out of my brains in southern Indiana…

Jeremy Shockey will not play tonight against the Raiders because of an ankle injury. I think the Giants could put Strahan at tight end and beat the Raiders.

Meanwhile, Carson Palmer, whom the Bengals have now signed through the 2037 season, has expressed that he wants to play on Sunday despite a groin injury suffered last week against Buffalo. If I were Chris Berman, I would say they haven’t had that spirit there since 1989. But I’m not, so I won’t.

Finally, Panthers linebacker Dan Morgan has been downgraded to doubtful with nagging injuries and may not play against the Falcons on Sunday. Jake Delhomme was on ESPN radio giving his “playoffs start now” spiel, which is a nice change of pace from what was coming out of Panthers’ camp a few days ago. Earlier on the radio, the conversation turned to what might happen to Matt Schaub and Philip Rivers in the offseason. The more I think about it, the more I think they both stay put, though I’m sure the Falcons will get some offers for Schaub.

Does anyone else find it a little odd that I’m stressing Sunday’s Panthers-Falcons game more than the Panthers are?

I mean, the playoffs pretty much start now for Carolina, and they have to go into the Georgia Dome, where they’re 1-9 lifetime, and beat a Falcons team who has no shot at the playoffs but wants revenge against the team that clobbered them a few weeks ago.

As if that weren’t enough, DeShaun Foster is having toe trouble. Despite his inconsistency, he’s still the closest thing to a second playmaker Carolina has. Steve Smith can’t do everything for this team. Granted, Smith has 15,000 reasons to keep his cool, but he has to get the ball to do something…

I don’t know. I like the fact that it’s not so tense in the locker room — confidence in the game plan and all that — but this team hasb’t clinched anything yet. A sense of urgency might help a little, don’t you think?

There was a lot more I wanted to get to today — especially some good stuff on that ever-lovin’, ammonia-sniffin’, cell phone-abusin’, zebra-bashin’ Jim Mora Jr. — but I had to prepare for an early flight out of town tomorrow. An old college pal of mine is getting married in Indiana, and he had to go and hold the damn ceremony on New Year’s Eve.

Anyway, I’ll have my Treo 650 with me, so I’ll be able to keep tabs on the games on Saturday, and my friend Victor is planning on taking me out to a typical gameday hangout in Naptown on Sunday, so I’ll be covering the Steelers-Lions game and the Panthers-Falcons game. I may even attempt to blog a bit while I’m waiting in the airport terminals, though you’re more likely to find me bitching and moaning about my early departure time on my other blog.

I’ll see you guys here tomorrow. In the meantime, check out the madness that is Clinton Portis. I think these characters need their own line of action figures. Or Christmas ornaments, though it’s probably a little late to put Dr. I Don’t Know up on the tree now…

After two weeks of bafflingly excellent post-psychologist play, Kyle Boller is finally starting to look like the big time quarterback that Brian Billick thought he would be. This may be why the Baltimore Ravens have decided to bring Billick back for another year.

Said owner Steve Bisciotti:

We have an ongoing and extensive process to find ways to win. This included a thorough evaluation of Brian Billick. Collectively, we concluded that continuing with Brian as head coach gives us the best opportunity to win.

It also gives them the best opportunity to annoy the hell out of me and everyone else in the AFC North. Billick is starting to embrace the personna of his city, dressing like Jerry Glanville with a leather fetish and visually cursing up a storm at any zebra in his vicinity. No word on whether he’s told his team to stop snitchin’ on Boller…

So Patriots offensive lineman Matt Light has a charity called The Light Foundation. To raise some money for the foundation’s annual football camp, Light is auctioning off a set of four HDTVs — three LCDs and one 61″ plasma. Two of them have been signed by Light and his teammates.

Matt Light knows how to get my attention.

If you want to bid, you had better hurry. The auction ends tomorrow. I would bid myself, but I have a mortgage and stuff.

(Spotted on HD Beat.)

THIS is why.

Granted, I doubt I’ll ever be famous enough to warrant a sign like that, but the sheer possibly of it is horrifying.

With the division clinched, playoff seeding doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot to the Cincinnati Bengals. Reports are emerging out of Cincinnati that Marvin Lewis may sit Carson Palmer for Sunday’s game against Kansas City. Palmer has a slight groin pull that apparently could use a week’s rest.

I can’t help but think, though, that the Bengals are doing this to spite their division rivals. After all, a Pittsburgh loss and a Kansas City win on Sunday could put the Chiefs in the playoffs. Add to that a New England win over Miami, and Cincinnati drops to the #4 seed, which means they face Jacksonville at home to start the playoffs, forcing the Steelers — assuming they beat the Lions, of course, and they do seem focused on that — to go to Foxboro. The Patriots have already beaten Pittsburgh once this year, and that was in Heinz Field.

Of course, it could also mean that the Bengals don’t really want to face the Steelers in the first round of the playoffs. Maybe they saw that Steelers-Browns game and got scared. Maybe we should call them the Cincinnati Scaredy-Cats. Heh.

Memo to pissed of 49ers fans:

That DeAngelo Williams kid? He’s pretty good, too.