Instant Hippo Thoughts – Divisional Sunday!

Yes, folks, it’s the very last one of these we have left as a free republic. Four MORE days until we’uns a client state of the Kremlin, thanks to racists and dipshits and woman/gay haters, etc.

Hey, at least we had two close games yesterday, and one of ’em was even GOOD!

Starting with what was supposed to be the finale, and would have been a fitting one. DAK! had a damned fine game for a rookie’s playoff baptism. A couple of key drops and penalties in the first half didn’t help, nor did some shitty protection (to everyone’s surprise). Troy’s dopey wistfulness for Romo made sense only if’n he wanted him dead.

Rodgers, on the other hand, was firing on all cylinders, running off 21 straight (no pun intended) after DAL’s opening drive FG. DAK! found Dez to cut the lead to 11, then got another FG drive scraped together at the end of the half. 21-13, and a game looked at hand.

But Rodgers and palz got the ball first, and he stuck it in (tee hee) for 7 almost instantly. Green Bay called an excellent read and jumped Dez’ route for a pickerception that looked likely to seal the deal as the Packers neared FG range as Q3 drew near its end.

But Rodgers overthrew an open Adams (his only REAL mistake) on 3rd down, leading to his OWN pickerception. DAK! got 7 back, and the game was indeed on. When his defense got him the needed stop, he got the remaining 8, with 4 and some-odd left for Rodgers to work.

That’s when everything went bananas. It looked like GB would run the clock down and kick the winner, but you know…McCarthy. They ended up having to try a 56-yarder with still 1:45 left (which I thought was a stretch to even try) and it was JUST good. Then DAK! got in FG range so fast it looked as if maybe he’d get the winning TD instead. But no, a 3rd down pass got batted down, and the Dan Bailey kick (dead center, natch) tied things again at 31.

32 seconds. 2 timeouts. If you’re Green Bay, you KNOW you won’t get the ball back if you lose the OT coinflip. And fortunately, they operated with that in mind.

Unfortunately, Rodgers got sacked on a nice CB blitz, leaving them with 3rd and 20 at their own 32, and only 12 seconds left. A miracle they needed, and a miracle they got in the form of Jared Cook and his surprising ballerina feet. Crosby made the pre- and post-icing kicks from 50 (though #2 was terrifying), and onto Atlanta we go.

PROUD MARY, KEEP ON ROLLIN’ INDEED. CHUH CHUH!!!

The second game was an absolute shitshow that Chris Boswell won, 18-16. Or, you could also say that Jake Fisher (is that his name??) lost with an obvious (though probably unnecessary) hold on the would-be tying 2-pointer. The Ben then made by far his best throw of the night to secure the one first down his Yinzers needed to advance for their ass-blasting in Foxboro.

I mean, words fail to put in context what shame this fixture did to the masterpiece that preceded it. Definitely had Andy Reid’s BBQ sauce-laden fingerprints all over it.

But I guess this is what you get from a conference that had fucking Miami qualify for its post-season slate. I mean, JEEBUS FUCK.

Happy MLK Day, y’all!! Make sure to hug any black ppl you see, and thank them for their service. I’m sure they will love that just as much as military folk do when they is just trying to mind they own business ,, amirite??