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Finesse? Forget it These playoffs are about cut blocks and blitzes
Updated: Tuesday January 02, 2001 3:32 PM
Eddie George's elbows are absolute mush. They are ugly. They are scarred. Compared to those beat-up 'bows, that's barely a hickey on Evander Holyfield's ear. Last summer, Esquire magazine ran a photo of George's elbows. Bloodied almost to the bone from years of scraping through turf, the running back's tortured joints were displayed like some badge of honor. This is what the NFL comes down to, almost always, at this time of the season. This is what it comes down to, especially, this season. Blood and elbows. Finesse? Forget it. Not this postseason. These playoffs are about cut blocks and blitzes, straining for the extra yard and linebackers who go sideline to sideline like some windshield wiper set on high. This is a postseason for Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis, who plays with a fury. It's for George, who runs with a fury. It's for big La'Roi Glover of New Orleans, and Steve Wisniewski of Oakland and a bunch of no-name players in the trenches who never get their names mentioned on TV.
The rest of the divisional games? New Orleans-Minnesota, or Philadelphia and the New York Giants? Miami at Oakland? Minnesota and Oakland can cut a fine figure once in a while. But nobody will get by this postseason on cutting a fine figure. It didn't work for St. Louis. Didn't work for Denver. Didn't work for Indianapolis. It won't work for anyone else. "I was kind of surprised we were able to do that to them," Baltimore offensive tackle Harry Swayne told the Baltimore Sun after the Ravens humiliated the Broncos on Sunday, 21-3. "I know how Denver prides itself on offense, but they had out-and-out total breakdowns. Receivers were dropping balls, and they never drop balls. I think they were a little surprised by how hard we bring it." There are times, like last season, when a team comes along that can out-finesse opponents. The St. Louis Rams, the 1999 ones, were like that. They had a decent defense and a back in Marshall Faulk that could put a hurt on any defense. But they were successful because of the pinpoint precision of their passing game, with Kurt Warner and Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt and Az-Zahir Hakim and Faulk out of the backfield. The '99 Rams were the exception, though. John Elway won back-to-back Super Bowls with the Broncos before that, but that was because of an underrated defense and an offense that featured a pummeling Terrell Davis . Before that, think Emmitt Smith pounding the ball behind an awesome offensive line, the Green Bay defense with Reggie White, an underrated San Francisco defense, the defense of the Giants and the Chicago Bears. This season, the top three offenses in the game were not all finesse. No team ever is. But the St. Louis, Denver and Indianapolis offenses were not hardened enough to win in the opening round of the playoffs. All were done in by monster defenses. So Oakland, Minnesota and New Orleans are the only teams left in the playoffs with offenses in the Top 10, and New Orleans is tied for 10th. Meanwhile, the teams with the best defenses still are in it. Five of the eight teams remaining have defenses in the Top 10, and one more is at No. 11. Only one playoff team with a Top 10 defense, ninth-ranked Tampa Bay, failed to advance. Sunday in Nashville, the best two defenses in the league play in a game that features a pair of mediocre offenses, even with the incomparable George running for the Titans. It will not be pretty. Finesse will not be in the same zip code. But this year, as in most, this is what is needed. It's what gets the job done. It is what wins Super Bowls. John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
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