Surely You Jets

I used to suspect this was a really shitty NFL season with no good teams, but now I know for sure. Here's how I know. The NY Jets at one point had lost six out of seven games this season. Count the bye week that was sandwiched in there, and you've got a team that went two months with only one win to show for it. Two months, one win.

Now that team is one game away from playing in the Super Bowl after a dumbfounding 17-14 win in San Diego yesterday.

The Jets won despite racking up a whopping 262 yards of total offense. They won despite giving up 204 combined receiving yards to Antonio Gates and Vincent Jackson. They won because ALL-PRO kicker Nate Kaeding missed all three of his field goal attempts. That's ALL PRO, as in, the guy who was supposed to be the best kicker in the league this year. He missed all three field goal attempts.

Yes, Shonn Greene has been a breakout star of the playoffs...he ran for 128 yards and the game-sealing TD, and he probably should be a first round fantasy pick next year. But the Jets are probably the worst team I have ever seen get this far. This loss by the Chargers is probably the worst NFL playoff faceplant I've seen since the Vikings losing to the Falcons in the 98 NFC Championship game, and at least the Vikings had won a game before that, so this is the worst. At least the worst that did not involve Marty Schottenheimer. This was Cub-like. I don't see how they bring Norv Turner back after this, except that I'm sure they probably will.

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Meanwhile, in the NFC the Vikings just came out and squashed the Cowboys. This was not the team that got it handed to them by the not so good Panthers and Bears, this was the Vikings team that was on a tear at the beginning of the season. Brett Favre threw 4 TD passes, 3 to Sidney Rice and one to Visanthe Shiancoe at the end of the game just to rub it in and show everyone how Jesus-like he is. Tony Romo got sacked six times, as apparently the Cowboys didn't watch any film of the great Matt Moore and the incomparable Jay Cutler picking the Vikings apart using three step drops that negated their pass rush. Instead we saw Romo dropping deep into the pocket and getting beat up all day.

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Not a lot of soccer heavyweights were in action yesterday.

In the EPL, 3rd place Arsenal got a goal from the healed Cesc Fabregas as they handled 19th place Bolton and their new manager Owen Coyle (who was Burnley's manager for most of this season), 2-0.

Valencia is breathing down Real Madrid's neck for second place in La Liga. They throttled Villarreal 4-1 with 2 goals from David Villa, who is tied for the league lead in goals with 14.

AC Milan pulled back within 6 points of Serie A leaders Inter with a 4-0 romp over cellar dwellers Siena. A hat trick for Ronaldinho!! AS Roma vaulted into third place (which is the final automatic Champions League bid for Serie A), with an easy 3-0 home win over Genoa. Luca Toni, the Italian national team and Roma icon who is back in the Graffitti Capital of the World on loan from Bayern Munich, had a pair of goals. Roma takes third place from Juventus, whose coach Ciro Ferrara is feeling the heat, and its hotter now after a 1-0 loss at Chievo Verona.