Wonder why the media didn't pick up on that. I know theyt wrote about how the Seahawks hadn't played any tough teams...and at the time there was like .03% difference in difficulty of schedule between the Hawks and the Colts (it grew a little more different by the end).
They played the Colts AFTER Dungy's son died and the streak ended, completely meaningless game for both teams
Neither team played their number ones the whole game...while the number ones were in the Hawks were beating the Colts.
and by the time they got to the Panthers the name of their entire offense was Smith (Goings was their 3rd string RB, the real 4th stringer got hurt earlier in the season, so when Goings went down the Panthers were on their FIFTH string RB... wonder who the ball is going to).
True, however that's pretty much the way the Panthers offense played all year anyway...not just after Goings went down.
Nobody I saw underrated Hassleback, the mantra I saw was the chance Seattle had to win was because of him.
Perhaps I should clarify. I didn't mean that people were taking Hasselbeck down, I meant that he was generally underrated most of the year...meaning, he's much better than he's given credit for. He wasn't talked down all that much, but not given credit for being a top tier QB...which I believe it's clear he is. The receiving core is acceptable, but not studly...put a real recieving star and watch out. I'm guessing they will address defense and WR in the draft...and quite likely another RB, although I'd be surprised if they did that in the first round.
Which I said back in week 5, that they hadn't played anybody and wouldn't be playing much of anybody all season (though in the end they did play most of the AC playoff teams, problem is outside of that group they mostly played the Texans).
The media didn't pick up on that because they worship Manning and have east coast bias. Everybody knows it and half the sports press even admits it.
Right neither team played their #1s so who won and who didn't is completely immaterial.
Panthers had enough running to force defense to respect the run. Once Goings went down the coaching decision against the Panthers was pretty easy, 3 guys on Smith the other 8 go after Jake, any idiot could have shut down the Panthers. Like I said the Bears SHOULD have beat the Panthers except they got cocky and decided to single cover Smith with a rookie, being smarter than Lovie after than pathetic performance isn't going to garner a team much credit.
When a QB is on a team with the league MVP RB he's not going to get much credit. And Matt wasn't all that good for a few years which gave him a reputation of lameness (kind of like Jake Plummer, who did really well until the conference finals). IMHO it's all about the Ws not the credit. Every year there's 3 or 4 players who get less credit than they deserve, and 3 or 4 that get much more credit than they deserve, they're all making tons of money I don't worry about it too much.