Six Pack of Picks for the Weekend: DIVISIONAL PLAYOFF EDITION!!

Brace yourself and go get a snack and a beverage of choice, for this is a traditional Football Friday post with more detail and links galore that are thrown in for your reading and relaxing pleasure. Go ahead, I'll wait!

I'll kill some time (high score: 1406)...

Ok, have your Coke and Frito's? Then carry on.

In the Wild Card weekend of the playoffs I went a respectable 4-2 including a pair of meaningless bowl games. But then I went ahead with the bonehead decision to put my faith in Penn State's Big Ten brother in Ohio, and picked the Ohio State Buckeyes to topple the hometown LSU Tigers in my BCS Championship bonus pick. That terrible decision dropped me to 4-3. For the season I currently sit with a record of 73-44.

And now that bowl season is over let us review all of my bowl game picks this season.

San Diego County Credit Union Bowl: I picked Utah over Navy. CORRECT!
New Orleans Bowl: I picked Memphis over Florida Atlantic. WRONG!
Papajohns.com Bowl: I picked Cincinnati over Southern Mississippi. CORRECT!
New Mexico Bowl: I picked Nevada over New Mexico. Oops. WRONG!
Las Vegas Bowl: I picked BYU over UCLA. CORRECT!
Hawaii Bowl: I picked Boise State over Eastern Carolina. WRONG!
Motor City Bowl: I picked Purdue over Central Michigan. CORRECT!
Holiday Bowl: In picked Texas over Arizona State. CORRECT!
Champs Sports Bowl: I picked Boston College over Michigan State. CORRECT!
Texas Bowl: I picked TCU over Houston. CORRECT!
Emerald Bowl: I picked Oregon State over Maryland. CORRECT!
Meineke Car Care Bowl. I picked UConn over Wake Forest. WRONG!
Liberty Bowl: I picked UCF over Mississippi St. WRONG!
Alamo Bowl: I picked Penn State over Texas A&M. CORRECT! (Of course!)
Independence Bowl: I picked Alabama over Colorado. CORRECT!
Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl: I picked Air Force over California. WRONG!
Humanitarian Bowl: I picked Fresno State over Georgia Tech. CORRECT!
Sun Bowl: I picked South Florida over Oregon. WRONG!
Music City Bowl: I picked Kentucky over Florida State. CORRECT!
Insight Bowl: I picked Indiana over Oklahoma State. WRONG!
Chick-fil-a Bowl: I picked Auburn over Clemson. CORRECT!
Outback Bowl: I picked Wisconsin over Tennessee. WRONG!
Cotton Bowl: I picked Missouri over Arkansas. CORRECT!
Gator Bowl: I picked Virginia over Texas Tech. WRONG!
Capital One Bowl: I picked Florida over Michigan. WRONG!
Rose Bowl: I picked USC over Illinois. CORRECT!
Sugar Bowl: I picked Georgia over Hawaii. CORRECT!
Fiesta Bowl: I picked Oklahoma over West Virginia. WRONG!
Orange Bowl: I picked Virginia Tech over Kansas. WRONG!
International Bowl: I picked Rutgers over Ball State. CORRECT!
GMAC Bowl: I picked Tulsa over Bowling Green. CORRECT!
BCS Championship: I picked Ohio State over LSU. WRONG!

Bowl record: 18-14


Hideous! Embarrassing! Humiliating! On ESPN's College Bowl Mania I ranked #233,938! GASP! That's awful! That is a finish in the 18.94 percentile! Yuck! Let's just move on please, can we?

This weekend's Six Pack of Picks for the Weekend focuses on the NFL's divisional round of playoff action. Some good match-ups here folks.

In the NFC we have the Seattle Seahawks, champions of the NFC West division and victors last week over the Washington Redskins, visiting the Green Bay Packers, who are coming off their first round bye week and are lead by none other than Brett Favre. Do you remember the last time these teams played in the playoffs? The game went to overtime and a young and over confident and excited quarterback Matt Hasselbeck called the coin flip for the Seahawks and said into the ref's microphone, "We want the ball and we're gonna win!" Obviously the Green Bay fans were not happy, but it was Hasselbeck who ended up tossing the game winning touchdown in that overtime. The only problem was Al Harris was the man who scored that touchdown, and he played for the Packers (and he still does). I am on the Packer band wagon in the NFC and I hope, and predict, the Packers will win this game and move on.

In the other game, the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys will meet for the first time in the playoffs. There have been 90 plus games between these two rivals but I found it hard to believe this is the first playoff game between the two. A lot of people are predicting the Giants to win this game, much to my chagrin. I find it impossible, as an Eagles fan, to "root" for either of these teams in this game. Therefore, I have no rooting interest. Both teams are evil in my mind. It is a lose-lose for me because I either hear about the heralded quarterbacking of the young gun-slinger Tony Romo or the wonderful evolution of Eli Manning. I either hear about Terrel Owens recovering from injury to help his team win or I get another week of Plaxico Burress thinking he is the man. Tom Coughlin is annoying and I detest all of the Wade Phillips hysteria. We know it doesn't take a genius to win in professional sports (see Terry Francona) so I don't want to hear people proclaim Phillips to be all that until he wins a playoff game, or two. Much is being made about Tony Romo going on a vacation with Jessica Simpson last week too, but I don't buy it. The Cowboys are a better team than the Giants and I think they will pull one more out. I would rather see New York win (assuming Green Bay wins) because I'd like to see the Packers host a conference championship game in the historic "Frozen Tundra" instead of seeing another game in that dump of a stadium in Irving, Texas.

As for the AFC, the unbeatable Patriots play host to what seems to be everybody's newest "Patriot Killer" darling, the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jags are getting attention and respect because they beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh twice this season. Sure, I picked the Steelers to win in the Wild Car round against the Jaguars, but there is nothing that tells me the Patriots are losing the rest of the season. They are just too good and at this point, they play their best. Everybody continues to point out the weaknesses of the Patriots and some say the Jaguars are just the team to expose them and beat them. Whatever.

The Patriots are at home. They have the edge in just about every category against Jacksonville, with the Jags maybe getting a slight edge at running back, but when was the last time New England needed to rely on their running game at any point this season? As long as Tom Brady is the quarterback and Randy Moss is one of his targets, who cares about a running game? Certainly not the Patriots. They also NEVER sweat or succumb to pressure. And now people think the Jaguars can overtake them this weekend. NO WAY.

Look, I am not a Patriots fan by any stretch of the imagination. If anything I would be ecstatic to see them lose just about any day. While I have no ounce of love for them I do respect history and I would love to see a team go undefeated. The Patriots just so happen to be that team that can pull it off, but alas, one game at a time. They will beat the Jaguars.

Oh yeah, did you know there is a team in Indianapolis? They play pretty well too and rumor has it they just won the Super Bowl last year. I need to confirm my sources because I didn't think anybody outside of Boston won championships lately, but I'll get back to you. The Colts play host to the San Diego Chargers this weekend, and while I'll be rooting for the Chargers, I find it hard to believe that the Colts will lose. This game may be close though and I believe will be a better game than the Pats-Jags match-up.

So let us recap the Six Pack of Picks for the Weekend...

Green Bay Packers over Seattle Seahawks
Dallas Cowboys over New York Giants
New England Patriots over Jacksonville Jaguars
Indianapolis Colts over San Diego Chargers

Wait, that's only four games! Ahh, I hate when college football ends. So, as I have done before, lets throw in some college basketball picks to round out the Six Pack until the NFL season is over.

#17 Villanova over Cincinnati (Saturday)
#5 UCLA over #4 Washington State (Saturday)

Here is my Playoff Fantasy roster for this weekend as well. My salary breaks even at $0.0.



Now THIS was a classic Football Friday post! How I missed them!