Below decks on the Good Pirate Ship RedState’s Sports Desk, we sort through stacks after stacks listing the Sunday in sports. It was quite an interesting day.
We start with the NFL and a final regular-season weekend that should have been set to “Yakety Sax” by Boots Randolph, or as many of us old-timers prefer to remember it, the music used by Benny Hill. The Indianapolis Colts first made the woeful Jacksonville Jaguars seem like 1985 Chicago Bears, and then they lost 26-11 to make them lose in the playoffs. This became official when the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Baltimore Ravens in overtime 16-13, thus postponing Ben Roethlisberger’s retirement party by at least one weekend. The table was now set for the Steelers to squeak into the playoffs provided the Los Angeles Squatters … er, Chargers and the Las Vegas Raiders didn’t end their game in a tie. Both teams would have been guaranteed a spot in the playoffs if they had done everything possible. However, the Raiders spoiled the Chargers’ day (and ended their season) by kicking a 47-yard field goal as time expired in overtime.
The first week of the NFL playoffs is now complete. The Raiders will travel to Cincinnati this Saturday to face the Bengals. Next, the New England Patriots will move to Buffalo to take on the Bills for their third consecutive season. Each team won one of their regular-season matches. It will begin at 8:15 Eastern Time, and it should be sunny. You can choose to ignore it.
Three games will be played on Sunday, the 16th. The Philadelphia Eagles are first to fly south to face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Next will be San Francisco 49ers vs Dallas Cowboys. This is, at least from paper, the most exciting matchup this weekend. The Steelers will host the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday evening. There will also be a Monday game, when the Arizona Cardinals host the Los Angeles Rams. This will be their third meeting between these division rivals. Also like New England or Buffalo, they split the series, with each team winning one of the games. We will be diving deeper into each game and making some, but not all-time accurate predictions in the latter part of the week.
Meanwhile, the NBA had some good news for once, as for the first time in 941 days the Golden State Warriors’ Klay Thompson stepped onto a court during a game. His stats were good — 17 points in nearly 20 minutes played, including three three-pointers. The most important thing was that he was himself and not an injured version. The Warriors will make everyone’s lives miserable with the reunited Splash Brothers (Thompson Curry and Steph Curry), and an experienced core of youth players and veterans.
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