The Mighty MJD of Yahoo’s Shutdown Corner joins the show to talk about the best weekend of the NFL season. It’s widely thought that Division Round weekend is the best weekend in the NFL so we “tackle” all that happened on Saturday and Sunday with one of the top NFL bloggers around.

First, we talk about his podcast, On the Corner (a member of the On the... sports podcasting family) as well as writing Shutdown Corner. Could he do his job covering the NFL without ever talking about the games? There is so much going on around the league that the games sometimes seen secondary.  We also talk a little about Chris Cooley’s contributions to the Corner and ask MJD what other football player or coach he’d like to see blogging.

MJD has some good ones, but Ray Lewis, thanking God for his blog entries, is hilarious.

On to the games. Three road teams won, so what was the most surprising thing about Divisional Round weekend? This leads to a conversation about Carolina and how terribly Jake Delhomme played. Was it because he was terrible, or because the Cardinals played well? You have to give the AZ defense credit. They are playing better than anyone thought they would. Now, that doesn’t excuse Delhomme.

And speaking of the Cardinals, we ask MJD what we’re supposed to think about Kurt Warner. Is he likeable, or is his public persona too good to be true? See, around the country, everyone likes Donovan McNabb, but if you listen to him all the time it’s pretty easy to see through the bullshit. I don’t believe anything McNabb says. I think he’s a total phony. I don’t necessarily blame him for the way he is (one might say he’s like that because of the Philly media as a protective mechanism) but it doesn’t excuse the fact that he comes off as a fake. For some reason, I get a similar vibe from Warner, so we ask MJD about that. What are we supposed to think about Warner?

We cover the biggest surprises, so we look at the flip side - what happened that shouldn’t have surprised us? And who is the best player left in the playoffs. MJD goes defense first, but we all come around to wonder at the spectacle that is Larry Fitzgerald. We also talk about how the safety position is more valuable than the cornerback position. Maybe his site should be called Shutdown Safety.

Looking forward - is a nine-win team slated to go to the Super Bowl a good thing? MJD wrote yesterday that it shouldn’t even be a factor. They are in the title game for a reason, and that reason is that they are playing the best football right now. We discuss that, the importance of hot streaks and discuss if the bye week has become more of a hindrance for teams. Why not expand the playoffs to 16 teams and eliminate the bye week?

Get this: in the last four years, teams coming off a playoff bye are 7-9 in the next round. If people are concerned about letting teams in with 8 and 9 wins...well that shipped has sailed. And think about the 1 and 2 seeds making another playoff gate. Cash. Cow. It’s a no-brainer.

Moving on...

If the Eagles win the title, it will be the first Super Bowl for Philadelphia. Even though everyone will agree that this isn’t even close to the best Eagles team, it’d be the one with the trophy. We ask MJD which is more important: the legacy (like the Pats going 16-0 and 18-1) or the trophy? Is it more important to be remembered as one of the best, or be an average team that got hot and won a ring?

We’re in a bubble here, so we ask who America is rooting for. We also talk about Josh McDaniels getting the Denver job at 32-years old and lament what we’re all doing with our lives.

After the interview, Nick and I talk about some of the potential Super Bowl storylines, like Ken Wisenhunt and Russ Grimm going up against their old team, or John Harbaugh going up against Big Red. Oh, and the whole Pennsylvania thing too.

Link to this:

| | | | | |