Destination Indianapolis: Playoff Divisional Round

Photo courtesy of WIBC 93.1FM Indianapolis

Its divisional playoff week in the NFL. Here are the matchups:

NFC
New York at Green Bay
New Orleans at San Francisco

AFC
Denver at New England
Houston at Baltimore

Once again here's cheering for the Patriots all the way.

Destination Indianapolis: The Road to Super Bowl XLVI

Photo courtesy of WIBC 93.1FM Indianapolis

Here we go NFL Playoffs starts this week. Here are the playoff bound teams (listed in order of seeding):

NFC
Green Bay Packers
San Francisco 49Ers
New Orleans Saints
New York Giants
Atlanta Falcons
Detroit Falcons

AFC
New England Patriots
Baltimore Ravens
Houston Texans
Denver Broncos
Pittsburgh Steelers
Cincinnati Bengals

Green Bay, San Francisco, New England and Baltimore won't be playing till next week. Match ups for this week are as follows:

NFC: Detroit at New Orleans and Atlanta at New York
AFC: Cincinnati at Houston and Pittsburgh at Denver

Its bound to be a very exciting post season. Here's cheering all the way for my team, the Patriots.

RIP Boston Red Sox 2011 Season

Boston Red Sox logo courtesy of www.sportslogos.net 

What started out horribly ended up the same for my Boston Red Sox. Coming into the season, baseball fans, writers and analysts have expected the Red Sox to return to the playoffs after missing last season due to numerous injuries to key players. 2011 started with a bang with the acquisition of Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez. Things may have turned out right after all, hopefully (fingers crossed). Players like Jacoby Ellsbury, Jed Lowrie to name a few are returning from injuries that derailed their 2010 campaigns, maybe its was going to be a good season. Then it happend: the team got swept by both Texas Rangers and Cleveland Indians. It seems the team was caught flat footed out of the starting block. Then things started to look better. After a disastrous April, the team started to turn it around. Winning one game at a time. Red Sox players like Jacoby Ellsbury, Adrian Gonzalez and Dustin Pedroia were main cast of MVP discussions. Our team carried the lead till the start of September and everyone expected a trip to the playoffs. Then disaster after disaster happend. As if someone turned on the switch, Boston began to collpase. Losing one game after another. Who knew how September would've turned out had Ellsbury, Marco Scutaro and Alfredo Aces tried not to carry the team,. Sadly, our season ended a few days ago and questions are being asked left and right a about what went wrong. Reports on twitter circulating that jealously has been going around the Red Sox clubhouse as players with smaller contracts are outperforming players with bigger contracts. Could chemistry have been the main culprit? Sadly, the lost to the Orioles on our 162nd game of the year also signaled the end of Terry Francona's tenure as skipper of the team. Tito led us to 2 World Series titles (sweeping both WS opponents in 2004 and 2007) and sadly those are just memories now. We'll see what the off-season will be for us. But in my opinion we need to get pitchers, quality pitchers who'll be able to thrive in sports-mad Boston market. For anyone interviewing for the managerial position, be prepared and you must be thick skinned. Boston is not an easy place and will never be an easy place to manage. Hopefully, our team's collapse doesn't hurt the MVP chances of Jacoby Ellsbury who after just playing last season came out firing from all cylinders this year. Fingers crossed for Jacoby. Lastly, this Red Sox fan are rooting for either of the teams to win this season : Texas Ranger, Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies.

Off to follow my New England Patriots and Vancouver Canucks. Hopefully, those two teams will give something to cheer after coming short last season. Patriots losing to the Jets in the divisional round while the Canucks coming one game short of lifting the Stanley Cup (Boston Bruins still my second team, but my allegiance will always be to Vancouver for ice hockey), as for my Boston Celtics, looks like the NBA is headed for a lost season.

Peace!