Today the NFL powers-that-be voted to change the overtime rules, so that in the postseason, the loser of the OT coin toss will still be granted one posession if the winner of the coin toss scores only a field goal.

Obviously, there is only one man to thank.

No, not Roger Goodell silly. Though his support and lobbying helped gain the number of votes required to pass the measure, Roger is merely a foot soldier to the real power behind the NFL.

Brett Favre.

After massive out-cry from the press that their favored son was never given an opportunity to throw yet another game-ending NFC championship interception, it finally became convenient for the NFL to recognize the long-held truth that field goal kickers are better today than they were when the OT rules were put in place thirty plus years ago.

Goodell has been in the commissioner’s office for almost 4 years. The statistics for improved accuracy of field goals and the impact of moving the kick-off spot back 5 yards have been availble for longer than that.

The only difference between a year ago at this time and today – beside Obama’s finally passing some legislation – is that Brett Favre failed on the biggest stage and helped shine a spotlight  on the problem for his media apologists to rail against.

In this view, Brett didn’t throw away the NFC Championship when he threw that interception in the final minutes that ended what should have been the game winning drive for the Vikings. No, it is the arcane OT rules that kept Brett from the Super Bowl.

I have long joked about the massive crush many in the media harbor for the Wrangler-wearing, gun-slinger from Mississippi. But never did I imagine the NFL would actually change the rules to help off-set his inevitable post-season failure.

Mea culpa, Brett. I shall never doubt your power again.

When was the last time that the NFC was the more exciting conference than the AFC? The Rams ‘greatest-show-on-turf’ days? The Cowboys/Forty-Niners rivalry? Whatever team you choose the real answer is ‘it has been a long time’.

Yet, thanks to two high powered offenses in the NFC and one defense-run oriented major underdog in the AFC, the NFC title game looks to be much more entertaining and fun this weekend.

After a decade of AFC superiority anchored by the quasi-dynasties of the Patriots, Colts and Steelers could the pendulum be swinging back to the NFC? While the Vikings (thanks to putting all their eggs in an old, back-stabbing, egotistical basket) may only be real challengers for just a year or two, the Saints, Cowboys, and even the Giants or Eagles (if they don’t get too fancy and let McNabb go) could be challengers for years. On the other side, the Patriots are showing their age, the Chargers can’t get over the hump (and lost the LT-dominating running game) and the Colts are 100% reliant on a 33 year old quarterback.

So, is this the turning point? Are we looking at a sustained NFC run like their 14 straight Super Bowls from the mid-80’s to the late 90’s (How ‘bout them Broncos)?

Hardly. Look at the AFC dominated ‘aughts’. Those years still saw the Bucs win a Super Bowl, the Giants win a Super Bowl and the refs decide that the Steelers deserved a Super Bowl more than the Seahawks.

Every year we see a team or two rise up and join the elite teams (at least temporarily). I just don’t think we are going to see a team or a conference completely dominate like the 80’s Forty-Niners, 90’s Cowboys,70’s Steelers or even to a lesser extent the 00’s Patriots.

Global warming doesn’t become a myth because the country has a cold snap, if we have a year every now and then when there is a small group of very dominant teams that doesn’t mean that there is no more parity among the teams.

Didn’t you see The Day After Tomorrow? Paradoxically, global warming could actually lead to the climates of the globe shifting further south and dropping the U.S. into a deep freeze.

This is the equivalent of abysmal, perennial loser franchises like the Lions, Rams, Redskins and Chiefs proving parity.

Don’t question me, it is just science. You can look it up.

Speaking of movies (Segue warning!), we are making this the second annual Golden Globe-Championship weekend THH in which we use movies from (filmed in or based in) each home town to determine who to cheer on.

Unfortunately Turner, isn’t really able to provide much commentary this week, so I am just including his picks with little context. Apparently his boss doesn’t realize how important this THH is. Priorities, priorities.  

Shadow: At the beginning of the NFL Season, there were a couple of things I knew for sure:  the Broncos were not going to make the playoffs, Cutler would not suddenly turn into John Elway, and the Brett Favre experiment in Minnesota would end badly.  Well, two out of three ain’t bad.  If we end up with a Saints/Colts Super Bowl who will Archie Manning cheer for?  In spending my fictional winnings from last weekend’s betting, I will now parlay my winnings into laying it back down on the Vikings and Jets and taking the points.  Now on to the annual Siskel and Ebert NFL Championship Game Weekend THH.

AFC Championship – Jets @ Colts

SD: When I started looking for movies to signify this game, of the 567,743 movies filmed in or about New York I quickly decided on The Thomas Crown Affair, which felt appropriate since I just watched it and once used quotes from it to frame an argument here on the site. For Indiana I decided on Eight Men Out. This was fitting to me because when combined with TTCA it actually provides a nice parallel to this game. One of these shouldn’t be here because I don’t know anything about it. The other is an old reliable. A staple. I have never actually seen all of Eight Men Out so it doesn’t make sense to include them here, and have seen TTCA more times than I can count. Sort of like the Jets and Colts – the Jets have no business here after appearing to be mediocre all season, while the Colts are practically always here. So even though TTCA represents New York, it is actually more like Indianapolis. This is making my head hurt even though I swear it made sense at one point. There is a quote in TTCA: “I hope it’s not because you find my company monotonous.” Which would actually be pretty fitting for Peyton Manning to say to AFC fans.  Because of that and how much I enjoy TTCA I say, J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets.

Turner: Hoosiers vs. Sleepless in Seattle.  Ollie and Jimmy will win this every time

Shadow: So many quality movies to choose from.  New York may be considered by some to be the Media Capital of the world, and to be sure there have been many excellent movies filmed there, alas, for the Jets, although they say ‘New York’, they play in East Rutherford, New Jersey.  Sadly, that town can’t even offer up a sports movie into the equation…the best it can do is Highlander (if you are a girl, or Turner, substitute When Harry Met Sally).  As someone once said, ‘There can be only one’, and in this battle Indy clearly wins with Hoosiers and Eight Men Out.

NFC Championship – Vikings @ Saints

SD: I looked through a list of Minnesota based movies and one jumped off the page at me – Mystery Science Theater 3000. I stand by an earlier assertion that MST3k does not get the credit it should for its impact on pop culture. Do we have Beavis and Butthead, Pop-Up Video or that bad ESPN Classic show with the Sklar brothers without MST3k? We would be a lesser society without 2 of those. For New Orleans, there was only one choice. Similar to the previous match-up, if I used a quote from a movie as a title to a post, it has to be the representative here. That is really the only fair way to do it. Therefore I am going with The Pelican Brief. It may not have had the cultural importance of MST3k (at least in my mind) but it was pretty entertaining and may go down as the best of the Grisham movies – though that is like saying that it is the best of the Alvin and Chipmunk franchise. Well, on a historically important weekend, we have to go with the historically important movie. Sure, it isn’t as good as the TV show but most likely these games will disappoint as well, so that can’t be held against it. Viking power! This is the paradox of the Theme THH – I don’t want to cheer for the Vikings but by the rules I must.

Damn you, Brett you win again.

Turner: Options for Minnesota (w/o research): The Mighty Ducks, Fargo, and Grumpy Old Men  vs. Pelican Brief, A Street Car Named Desire, Double Jeopardy (OOOOO ASHLEY JUDD), Possibly every vampire movie ever made.   Ashley has to push this one over for me while Fargo almost pushed Favre to the top; too bad Emilio neutralized that…. 

Shadow: The Vikings bring it strong with Mallrats, High Fidelity, With Honors, and Backdraft.  The Saints counter with Glory Road, Blown Away, and Live and Let Die.  With all due respect to Don Haskins and Bond, James Bond, it would take a lot more to take it over Jason Lee’s Brodie and this memorable exchange (or at least memorable to those of us who have ever been pestered by a mom or girlfriend or wife over a video game, especially one that we have paused and resumed hours later):

[Brodie picks up a controller and continues a paused video game]
Rene: What are you doing? You promised me breakfast.
Brodie: Breakfast, shmreakfast. Look at the score, for Christ’s sake. It’s only the second period and I’m up 12 to 2. Breakfasts come and go, Rene, but Hartford, “the Whale,” they only beat Vancouver once, maybe twice in a lifetime.

 Go Favrians!

A few weeks ago, I came under intense scrutiny in THH land for labeling conference Championship games ‘historically important’. My thinking is simple: the game that decides who plays for the Lombardi trophy is important. Sure, the losing team claims a place in history on par with the losing Vice Presidential nominee but the fact is the winner becomes part of a story that we will all remember years later. I wasn’t even alive for the first 9 Super Bowls yet, I can, to this day, name both teams that played in all or nearly all 44 Super Bowls.

Of course, maybe I am just some sort of loser or freak.

But rather than entertaining that possibility, I stand by championship games being important. The Drive, The Fumble, The Catch. Did any of these happen in the Super Bowl?

So, with that. Let’s look at this year’s games. Rather than just deciding who to cheer for (that will be tomorrow), let’s take a shot at actually predicting what will happen.

AFC: Colts vs. Jets

It is still a little hard to imagine that the Jets made the AFC title game. Sure, I am thrilled they eliminated the Chargers – cementing forever the Chargers underachieving status (at least the 1990’s Bills made the Super Bowl) but it is hard to imagine this team that lost to the Bills and Falcons and gave up a combined 61 points to the Dolphins in two losses are now one more upset from the Super Bowl.

The Colts, on the other hand were practically ordained to be here from about week #3. They have the best player of this millennium, a coach that may or may not be alive, no running game and an exceedingly mediocre defense. Actually, that doesn’t look so pre-ordained when I see it in print.

Anyway, the question in this game comes down to whether the Jets defense can once again stop the Colts offense enough to win. They did in Week #16 in their 29-15 victory. Of course those 15 points were scored in a little over 2 quarters before Peyton sat and the Jets pulled away over an offense led by Curtis Painter – last seen dominating the Indiana Hoosiers in 2008.

So, can the Jets do it again? Can they win for a second time against the Colts? For the third time in 3 weeks can they go into an opponent’s field, stymie their offense and score just enough to win? In a word – no.

The Jets have won by shutting down the run and forcing teams to pass. Surprise! The Colts don’t run anyway. No one needs to force them to pass. They do it on their own – and they do it pretty well. All they need to do is keep the rush off of Peyton and let him do his magic.

On the other side of the ball, who trusts Mark Sanchez to keep playing mistake free football and let his running game wear down the opponent? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Remember they were behind the whole Chargers game until a downright Jamarcus-esque pass by Philip Rivers gave them the lead and one botched defensive play sealed the win.

Re-matches typically favor the team that lost – who can change their approach while the team that won typically has the same game plan and hopes to execute as well. Factor in that the team that lost is at home, rested and just plain better? Sorry, Jets fans. The magic carpet ride ends here. Back to New Jersey with you.

Colts: 24, Jets 10

NFC: Vikings @ Saints

Unlike the AFC game, I think this one comes down to one thing – which team can run the ball. It is hard to imagine that the team with Bryan McKinnie, Steve Hutchinson and Adrian Peterson isn’t that team but based on what we have seen the last several weeks, they aren’t.

Do you when the last time was that Adrian Peterson had 100 yards rushing? That would be Week #9. Against Detroit. Which frankly, I have trouble even really counting. Before that was Week #6 versus Baltimore.

Not so coincidentally the Vikings were 6-0 at that point. In the following ten weeks, they went 6-4.

Last week against the Cowboys A.P. had 63 yards rushing. Teams are stopping the Vikings running game. They are putting the ball in Favre’s hands and saying ‘ok, old man – beat us.’ When Favre plays well, they have won (see last week). When he hasn’t they lost (see at Carolina Week #15).

You might also note the location of those two games. In Favre’s 6 games with a QB rating under 100, 4 of those have been on the road.

The Saints played another team at home last week with an aging QB that leads a dynamic passing attack with little run support. That team scored on an 80 yard run on the first play of the game. A run. Yet, the Saints still won 45-14.

I just don’t think that the Vikings offense can score enough on the Saints defense without a running game. Favre could start forcing things, and have the 3-interception game that is just dying to bust out of him like grey stubble.

On the other side, the Vikings defense put on a great show against the porous Cowboys offensive line last week and Tony Romo was mentally relaxing in Cabo about 10 minutes into the first quarter. Will they have that same success against a line that has given up 20 total sacks all year? The Saints have a smarter, better quarterback and about 5 times as many offensive weapons as the Cowboys.

And after last week, they might have one of the most talented playmakers in the game. The Reggie Bush that showed up to last week’s game looked like the guy we all oohed and aahed about in college. He was unbelievably quick, decisive and made defenders look more foolish than Jared Allen with his mullet. In short he was the player the Saints thought they drafted – rather than that guy that carries Kim Kardashian’s purse that they have been paying the last few years.

If the Saints suddenly have that threat coming out of the backfield to go with their 5-6 downfield threats, it won’t matter how many Vikings rush Brees he will have his choice of scoring options.

The final factor is a little thing I call karma. The Vikings are here after selling their soul to a heartless ego-maniac prima donna and scoring a late meaningless touchdown last week that did nothing but pad said prima donna’s already over inflated stats. The Saints represent the hopes and dreams of the only city in the U.S. to experience something that can truly compete with the post-apocalyptic world we will see 400 times on Sunday in the trailers for that new Denzel Washington movie.

I don’t want to live in a world where Favre can beat the Saints. Whatever faith I do have would be gone for good.

Saints: 31, Vikings 17

For this week’s THH, with only NFL games to pick from (I refuse to acknowledge the New Mexico Bowl or St. Petersburg Bowl) I resurrected the theme approach – adding a level of complexity to our usual free-for-all picking approach.

Our three games this week are rematches of games played years ago and the rules are that we cheer for the team we would have cheered for back then. I didn’t tell Turner or Shadow what the common thread was between these games but instead used hints that the games played before had been ‘historically important’.

This choice of words set off a firestorm of email traffic as it quickly became apparent that based on the phrase ‘historically important’, the two of them had spent hours trying to determine what the common theme could be. Of course, they were in Jacksonville at the time, so it isn’t like they had anything better to do.

Needless to say they greatly overthought what could have been historically important about these three games. They actually arrived at the correct answer very quickly but moved right past and kept looking. Sort of like when my friend Greg and I were driving to Key West for the first time and we were excited to see the Seven-Mile Bridge but didn’t think we would ever get there because the bridge we were driving across just seemed to go on forever.

Anyway, this started a great debate on what constitutes ‘historically important’ which is probably 14 times more interesting than the resulting THH picks.

If a game is important at the time it is played (hypothetical example that might have something to do with today’s THH: AFC and NFC Championship games) but nothing about it stands up to time (compare: Dwight Clark’s ‘Catch’ in 1981 versus the following year’s Redskins vs. Cowboys game – and yes, I had to look up who the Redskins played) – is it historically important?

Games are certainly important to those that have a personal connection to the game – if your favorite team was the Redskins in the early 80’s, that 1982 game might be one of your greatest memories. But what about the rest of us? If the Cowboys had beaten the Redskins, would my life be different in any way, other than dealing with the ridiculous Cowboys bandwagon being rejuvenated a decade early? If I have no distinct memories of a game I most likely watched – does that mean it was unimportant?

If an important game was played yet nothing memorable happened – if the context of the game were taken out of consideration and the game played was no more remarkable than any of the 448 regular season NFL games that season – would the game be considered historic in hindsight?

Maybe I am in the minority, but I say yes. Ok, I know I am in the minority (at least among THHers). It doesn’t matter to me what happened on the field as much as the context of the game. Of the 43 Super Bowls played – how many individual plays can you remember today? Even the biggest NFL fan would only remember 3-4 plays per game. Hell, half of the Super Bowls were so boring or unwatchable that their only redeeming qualities were the commercials. For anyone that wasn’t there, the only reason most of us remember any plays at all are NFL Films. For any games before 1990 how many plays do any of us remember watching live?

Super Bowl XX in 1985 featured one of the greatest teams (the ‘85 Bears), greatest players (Walter Payton) and longest necks (Steve Grogan – #2 all-time behind Merton Hanks) in NFL history yet I literally remember nothing (that was the year they experimented with 60-second blank screen, overloading sewers nationwide) as much or more than I remember any particular play.

I don’t think Turner is even stubborn enough to argue that a Super Bowl is not historic, yet his feeling was that none of the games I picked this week were historic despite their determining one of the participants of that season’s Super Bowl. Last time I checked ‘memorable’ and ‘unforgettable’ are not synonyms for historically important.

Turner and Shadow were so disgusted by my labeling of these games as historically important they have decided to boycott this week. In fact, I think I hear them outside picketing right now.

This is yet another reason I wish I was friends with Chuck Klosterman so he could definitively resolve when a game is historically important.

NFL:

(Actual phrasing of email that started it all: The following 3 match-ups pair teams that met in important games that have something in common. Your job is to pick the game based on who you would have cheered for in that historically important game.)

Cincinnati @ San Diego (1981 AFC championship Game)

SD: Sure, you could argue that if I say I would have cheered for the Bengals, it is revisionist history based on my current hating of the Bolts but that isn’t strictly true. One of my best friends in 1983 was a huge Chargers fan. Like many childhood friends, in hindsight I didn’t really like him. You could say he was my frienemy or (to borrow from Chuck Klosterman again) my nemesis. Just to agitate Joel I would have been cheering against the Chargers in this game. Looking backward and using Dan Fouts’ subsequent announcing career and Ken Anderson’s rocking porn-stache as deciding factors only re-enforces my instincts at the time.

Oakland @ Denver (1977 AFC Championship Game)

SD: When this game was played I was still counting my age in months and pooping in my pants. Which may help explain why I would have cheered for the Raiders in this game – since I assume all Raiders fans still poop in their pants. At the time I was living in Kansas and to be honest had never even heard of the state of Colorado before my parents told me we were moving there a few years later. So as much as I want to write this as a tribute to the Barrel Man (who actually started in an Orange Crush can in honor of the Broncos defense), I can’t. I would have cheered for the Raiders in this one. And then I would have crapped my pants – even my bowels knew it was wrong to cheer for the Raiders.

NY Giants @ Washington (1986 NFC Championship Game)

SD: Today, this Giants team is glorified by the east coast biased media, as an all-time great. Yes, they had a great defense – especially for a bunch of guys drowning in piles of coke and whores but can we really forget that this offense relied on players like Mark Bavarro and Phil McConkey to catch passes from Phil Simms’ feathered hairdo? That is an all-time great team? The Redskins on the other hand had the Hogs and the Smurfs and Dexter Manley (to appeal to the coke and whores crowd) – how could you cheer against them? Even if their quarterback was Jay Shroeder. I loved the Smurfs.