I must say I was somewhat surprised by my own results this week. Just in: Buffalo Bills coach DOUG MARRONE has opted out of his contract. The out clause was activated by he sale of the team. Could a short hop to the N.Y. Jets be in order? Now we are at the CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES. “SUPER BOWL”. Last weeks HIGHLIGHTS: Houston’s J.J. Watt, became the only 2 time player to record 20 sacks in a season. To top it off his 20th sack also scored a SAFETY. Tampa Bay Buccaneers “won” the first pick for next years draft. Both Tennessee Titans, and Tampa Bay tied with a 2-14 record. HOWEVER the tie breaker ( whichever team whose opponents had the lowest winning percentage) favored the Bucs. Miami Dolphins Lamar Miller carried the ball from the 3 yd. line for a 97 yard TD. and cap 1000 yard season. Longest run was in 1983 when Cowboy TONY DORSETT, ran 99 yds. Following Dorsett is Green Bay Packers’ RB Ahman Green. Green ran a 98 yd. TD in 2003. In 1939 Packer Andy Urham also ran a 97 yd. TD. As of this writing, we know of 4 coaches who have been relieved of duty. First is the Jets’ Rex Ryan. Ryan has not finished above 500 the last 4 seasons. Will he land at Chicago? Atlanta Coach Mike Smith is looking for another job. Smith went 10-22 the last 2 seasons, and was 1-4 in post season. Chicago Bears’ Coach Marc Trestman, with a 5-11 season is out. So is Bears’ GM Phil Emery. I think this is a much needed move. I think, there should be more releases up the ladder. Jay Cutler took the blame much of the season for the Bears poor performance. However in all the games I watched the ENTIRE TEAM, Seemed somewhat amiss. I saw no real heart in their actions on the field. I’m not saying Cutler is the caliber player he is being paid as…. BUT I would most likely give him another year under new leadership. Then we come to San Francisco 49’ers. Will they be able to replace Jim Harbaugh. Probably not. But, the way I see it. Winning is secondary to 49’ers management. Much like the Indianapolis Colts when Jim Irsay took over. Irsay wanted to tell the coaches who to play what plays to run, etc. etc. It wasn’t until he learned to trust his coaching staff that the Colts started to do any good. I believe San Francisco’s management staff have yet to learn that lesson. AND we all know JIM HARBAUGH is no YES MAN! GOOD LUCK AT MICHIGAN COACH HARBAUGH. One last note. WHAT TEAM FINISHED THE SEASON WITHOUT A TD BY A WR? ….Kansas City Chiefs. Of course. Looking Ahead NFL Divisional Playoffs Saturday, Jan. 10 AFC: 4:35 p.m. (ET) Baltimore at New England (NBC) NFC: 8:15 p.m. (ET) Carolina at Seattle (FOX) Sunday, Jan. 11 NFC: 1:05 p.m. (ET) Dallas at Green Bay (FOX) AFC: 4:40 p.m. (ET) Indianapolis at Denver (CBS) For those of you who do not know how confidence ranking goes, let me explain If we were playing an office pool,(which we ARE NOT). The object is to score the most points. To obtain the score YOU rank the teams by how confident you are a team will win its game. EXAMPLE: Say this week we have 17 games. The team you are most confident will win you would assign the number 17 and follow down to the team you are least confident in and assign that number 1. We use the Monday night game as a TIE BREAKER. The tie is broken by the closest to the total (that is the COMBINED score of the two participating teams) final score, without going over. If we were playing this is how my sheet would look; My pick will be in bold Capital letters. you can use circling, underlining, or highlighting. I will show my correct points in Bold This year I am making a change in the scoring. YOU can adopt the new scoring or continue to use the old scoring. This year we get a negative score for missed games. We will continue to get a positive score for correct predictions. EXAMPLE: LAST YEAR if you scored 1 pt on the first game and you had 15 pt on the second game and was wrong you would still have a Positive 1. HOWEVER. this year the same scenario would result with a -14 score. I will fill in my picks Friday. Until then feel free to: Just copy and paste for your own Fun Pool Use. Or to see if you can beat me. IF YOU SEE I MADE A MIS COPY OF THE GAMES AND TIMES FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME AND TELL ME I GOOFED. All Times EST GAME VISITOR SCORE HOME SCORE CONFIDENCE RUNNING SCORE SATURDAY 01/03/15 16:35 1 Ariz. Cardinals 16 @ CAR. PANTHERS 27 3 3/3 SATURDAY 01/03/15 20:15 2 Bal. Ravens 30 @ PIT. STEELERS 17 1 2/3 SUNDAY 01/04/15 13:05 3 Cincy Bengals 10 @ INDY COLTS 26 2 4/5 SUNDAY 01/04/15 16:40 4 Det. Lions 20 @ DAL. COWBOYS 24 4 8/9 Tie Breaker (Sunday 2 team total) 48 GAME 4 Actual Score 44 Points Off -4 Possible Points 10 80%/90% Post Views: 110