2008 Woodie Awards
Respect the Bears and don't listen to the suits
Peter Locke
Issue date: 1/17/07 Section: Sports
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The best SportsCenter commercial going right now has to be Stu Scott and Van Pelt walking onto the SportsCenter set in suits and ripping them off like basketball warm-ups only to reveal different colored suits. I mention this because this is sort of what happens after the second weekend of the NFL playoffs. Twelve teams come in and, if you watch enough SportsCenter to be familiar with said commercial, you know that they get the stuffing analyzed out of them. Mostly by Ron Jaworski. But it seems that nobody really knows their ass from first base when it comes to making predictions. All the analysts have a framework for what's going to happen, but not any of those guys (Salisbury or John Clayton, who, by the way, may not have arms and legs) really know what's going to happen.
Of course I could launch into a rant about how the unpredictability-the anything-can-happen feeling -- is what makes sports special, but that's a dead horse not worth the beating. The more interesting point is that most of the time a team will get framed by the media, and every pundit will talk themselves into picking the same games the same way...and it almost never pans out. There are notable exceptions to this; the Patriots always finding a way to win as long as Brady and Belichick are near a stadium, Peyton Manning choking in January (he already has and is lucky to be alive), and the G-Men coming out of the New York media machine every year like Johnny Knoxville after a fight with Butterbean.
But as a general rule, it works out as it did this year. Larry Johnson is going to run all over the Colts. Nope. Indy got lucky against the LJ and the Herm and Baltimore is a more physical team that will knock them around. Nope. The Chargers have too many weapons, LT can't be stopped. He can't, but the Pats still squeaked it out because nobody in this universe can beat the Pats in the playoffs, except Jake Plummer. Noticing a pattern? We have the general idea for each team, but the actual game is never as much of a certainty as ESPN and everyone else who fills up the 6 days in between NFL contests would have you believe. They're going to wear suits, but nobody can tell you what color they'll be.
Of course I could launch into a rant about how the unpredictability-the anything-can-happen feeling -- is what makes sports special, but that's a dead horse not worth the beating. The more interesting point is that most of the time a team will get framed by the media, and every pundit will talk themselves into picking the same games the same way...and it almost never pans out. There are notable exceptions to this; the Patriots always finding a way to win as long as Brady and Belichick are near a stadium, Peyton Manning choking in January (he already has and is lucky to be alive), and the G-Men coming out of the New York media machine every year like Johnny Knoxville after a fight with Butterbean.
But as a general rule, it works out as it did this year. Larry Johnson is going to run all over the Colts. Nope. Indy got lucky against the LJ and the Herm and Baltimore is a more physical team that will knock them around. Nope. The Chargers have too many weapons, LT can't be stopped. He can't, but the Pats still squeaked it out because nobody in this universe can beat the Pats in the playoffs, except Jake Plummer. Noticing a pattern? We have the general idea for each team, but the actual game is never as much of a certainty as ESPN and everyone else who fills up the 6 days in between NFL contests would have you believe. They're going to wear suits, but nobody can tell you what color they'll be.
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