NFL Divisional Weekend - 2014

            NFL Divisional Playoff Weekend. Arguably the most exciting weekend in the NFL season.  Doesn’t matter if your team is out, or you are out of you football pool, everyone is watching. All eyes are on the NFL’s best. Each team is on the quests to get to that place that every quarterback dreams of taking their team. The place that every coach fantasizes about. It’s a place where players are able to make a name for themselves. One of the biggest stages in all of professional sports. The Super Bowl.

            There’s no doubt at all that the matchups for the games in the divisional round of the 2013-2014 playoffs were something to talk about. Each team going in to the divisional round had the burning desire to get to the AFC and NFC championships. Now of course only 4 of the 8 teams could come out as winners. The first game of the weekend; The Seattle Seahawks (whom were favored by 10) vs. The New Orleans Saints. Seattle essentially dominated the first half, but an onside kick in the second half gave the Saints that little bit of momentum that they needed. Unfortunately for the Saints, the Seahawks won 23-15.

            The next game up; The Indianapolis Colts vs. The New England Patriots. The “big time matchup”. Andrew Luck started his game off with an interception, and as the game went on, Luck did not seem to come up as “lucky” compared to his wildcard game against the Kansas City Chiefs last week. The final score came out to be a 43-22 beat down by the Patriots. A big name to mention from this AFC matchup; LeGarrette Blount. 166 rushing yards, and 4 touchdowns. Enough said.

            On to the first game of Sunday; The San Francisco 49ers vs. The Carolina Panthers. To be totally honest, I’m one of the biggest Canadian San Francisco 49ers fan you will ever meet… so excuse the fact that I may be a little biased here. The biggest thing to come out of this game (other than the fact that the Niners won) was the controversy, which took place when Kaepernick rushed into the end zone and scored a touchdown. The controversy was not the touchdown itself. It was what came after the touchdown. We all know that when you score a touchdown, your going to want a little celebration... your own trademark perhaps. Kaep went above and beyond his own trademark. Anyone who is a NFL fan knows that Cam Newton is also known as “Superman”. He tends to unzip his imaginary shirt and pull out his imaginary superman emblem and show it to the crowd. On Sunday, Kaep unzipped his imaginary shirt, and showed the crowd his superman, followed by his own signature trademark “Kaepernicking”. Kaepernicking is when he kisses his bicep to the fans.  Obviously Kaepernick came out to be the winner of this game. The final being 23-10.

            Finally, the last game of divisional weekend; The Denver Broncos vs. The San Diego Chargers. Many people believed that the game was a complete write-off for the Chargers, but in the second half of the game, they came out to play: to show Peyton Manning and The Broncos what they were capable off. In the end, Manning displayed to the crowd at Sports Authority Field that he could not be stopped and went on to win the game, 24-17.

            A second after the Broncos game was finished yesterday night; everyone’s focus changed from the divisional round, to the AFC and NFC Championship games.

            AFC; The Denver Broncos vs. The New England Patriots. The ultimate quarterback showdown, Brady vs. Manning. The discussion has been going on forever. Who is the better QB? Who can win the big games? Which is the better playmaker/leader? Those questions will be answered Sunday at 3 o’clock. 

            NFC; The San Francisco 49ers vs. The Seattle Seahawks. Bitter division rivals. Pete Carroll vs. Jim Harbaugh. Division rivals from their college coaching days as well. Carroll was the coach of USC, Harbaugh the coach of Stanford. They played each other every year and Carroll always seemed to come up on top (mainly because he always had the better team). But Sunday at 6:30 will be Jim Harbaugh’s ultimate opportunity to beat out his old time opponent.

            No matter what the outcomes of the games next weekend, both promise to be amazing ones. The amount of history, and passion to win those games to get to the Super Bowl, ensures us that they will be games for us football fanatics to remember forever.