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My esteemed writing colleague, Cherie Burbach, wrote about the Jay Cutler debacle as created by the media, judgmental football viewers, and others in her article, Who Gets to Judge Jay Cutler? In keeping with the “Jay Quitler” theme, the story lays out all of the NFL twitterheads’ comments and the prevailing opinions of others regarding what people believe Jay Cutler should have done.  I come at this entire situation from the other side.  My contention is that what people who would comment about what Jay Cutler should have done – is:  “can it”.

The reality is simple, none of us, NFL players included, could possibly have known the extent of Jay Cutler’s injury and its impact on his ability to effectively play out the rest of the NFC Championship game.  In this day-and-age of instant feedback – we can’t stop people from shooting their collective mouths off about such experiences.  It’s especially humorous coming from those of us who have never played a meaningful down of high performance football in our lives.  Frankly, it’s alarming that it would come from fellow union members in the NFLPA.

Another reality is this:  Short of a Chicago Bears comeback win with Jay Cutler at the helm, there was no good ending for this for him.

1 – He leaves the game or is pulled from the game by staff.  We all know how that turned out already.  It involves uninformed and unnecessary criticism of Jay Cutler before the facts are ever revealed.

2 – He stays in and plays poorly.  He gets criticized, as he sometimes deserves, for his erratic play and he has “choked” in a big post-season game.

3 – He stays in and plays poorly and it’s later revealed that he has a severe knee injury, now known to be a grade 2 sprain of his medial collateral ligament with a partial tear.  He and/or the training staff are vilified for allowing him to remain in the game and sink the team’s chances to win the NFC Championship Game.

Hurray for Jay Cutler.  He loses anyone you slice it if he doesn’t win this game, regardless of the circumstances.  Why?  Because we allegedly know better – what, with all of our knowledge and NFL experience.  In the words of Chicago Bears General Manager, Jerry Angelo, “I think it’s crap.”

Why we should leave Cutler alone after the jump >>

What’s that about a sixth seed? The Packers blew out the first seed of the NFL playoffs, the Atlanta Falcons, yesterday with 48-21 win. Blow. Out. Packers dominated to the point where the announcers at the end of the game started talked about other teams and games. You know it’s bad when they do that.

Packers runningback James Starks fumbled on the first play of the game and the Falcons went on to capitalize with a touchdown. But that was the only time in the game the Falcons appeared to dominate. The rest of the day all went Green Bay’s way. Even when Atlanta had opportunities to capitalize, they didn’t take them. Perfectly thrown passes were dropped, defensive holes were huge, and it added up to a team who looked very different than they did during the regular season.

After two major defensive pass interference penalties against the Packers, it looked like the Falcons were coming back at the end of the first half to make it a game. But Tremon Williams intercepted Matt Ryan and ran it back 70 yards for a touchdown.

At the start of the fourth quarter, the Falcons tried an on-side kick, but it failed to go the required ten yards. The play really summed up the entire game, because the ball never bounced their way and there was absolutely no interior pressure on Rodgers.

The Packers never even punted the entire game. They also set a record for number of points scored in a single playoff game.

Packers next take on either Chicago or Seattle, once again playing on the road. No matter, because did you hear the crowd noise during the Atlanta game? Packer fans travel well, and there will likely be even more fans at the NFC Championship game next week.

The Artist Formerly Known as the Ambiguous Symbol You Can’t Pronounce has written a song for his beloved Minnesota Vikings. Who knew His Purple Badness was such a football fan? As for the song, well, let’s just say it’s not what one would expect when words “fight song” are mentioned. In fact, it sounds like Prince wrote a gospel tune for Brett Favre and his band of Just A Kid players — which, in a word, is weird.

Don’t get me wrong, considering NFL football has given us some fantastic team-related music — “Super Bowl Shuffle” anyone? — I expected a little more from “Purple and Gold” and from Prince himself. Here’s an idea of the lyrics, courtesy of Fox 9 in Minneapolis:

the veil of the sky draws open
the roar of the chariots touch down
we r the ones who have now come again
and walk upon water like solid ground
as we approach the throne we won’t bow down
this time we won’t b denied

raise every voice and let it b known
in the name of the purple and gold

So yeah, um, Go Vikings?

H/t to SbB for the heads up.

Now with YouTube goodness:

While all credit has been going to the ageless wonder; the 40-year old kid who plays the game like a gunslinger, where would Brett Favre be without the studly play of Sidney Rice to make him look good? Yeah, since Favre has been the recipient of hyperbole overload, I figured it was only right Sidney Rice got some of that love, too. Thankfully, Peter King restrained his Favre-ian love in order to do the same, which, to be honest, was quite surprising. You had to figure King would unleash a love poem/ode to Favre that would rival Romeo and Juliet in its depth and heartfelt worship.

Alas, King restrained himself — for the most part, anyway.

Without Rice’s three touchdown receptions, who knows how the outcome might have changed? Granted, the Vikings defense, especially their line, did a great job disrupting the Dallas Cowboys attack and making Tony Romo look lost. And yes, the Vikings defense did hold the Cowboys to only three points, however, without Rice’s torching of the Cowboys secondary, who knows how well Favre would’ve played?

Maybe one or two of those passes turns into interceptions and puts the Cowboys right back in the game. Who knows? One thing’s for sure, however, thanks to Sidney Rice’s Jerry Rice-like performance (six catches, 141 yards, three touchdowns), no one who supports the Vikings had to find out. Next up for the Vikings? The New Orleans Saints, in a game where a final score of 48-45 is certainly a possibility.

I thought folks from Bright-Lights-Big-City areas were inherently smarter than the SEC Football crowd. At least, that’s what were told by the thousands upon thousands of Manhattan-ites populating the sports blogosphere. I mean, SEC country is nothing but a bunch of flyover states with hicks for fans, right? Well, it looks like fan stupidity isn’t something the south has a corner on, thanks the brilliance on display from this group of New York Giants fans after they got smacked in the face by the Philadelphia Eagles.

I think the videos speak for themselves:

There’s also longer video of this group’s unadulterated brilliance: After the jump >>

…And a Packers game broke out.

Run!!! It’s a Wild Goose.

The conditions for the Packers/Seahawks game were insane–making it an awesome game to watch… absolutely brilliant football weather.

Final score:

Green Bay – 42
Seattle - 20

Guess what folks: the Packers are going the NFC Conference Championship.

Hat-tip to never odd or even, who’s following the game at Fark’s thread. Nicely done.