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Real championship football Conference title games more intriguing than Super Bowl
Posted: Saturday January 22, 2000 06:40 PM
If you like great football, this is the weekend. The championship games are absolutely the best weekend of football in America. It's 10 times better than the Super Bowl, because you get two games. And the matchups are better than the typical Super Bowl. That said, let's get to the games: the Titans vs. Jaguars in the AFC Championship Game and the Buccaneers vs. Rams in the NFC title game. There's a belief in pro football that you can't beat the same team three times in one season. You hear it time and again in locker rooms throughout the league. So most of the analysts are giving the edge to the Jaguars, who were beaten twice by the Titans during the regular season. I'm going against that conventional wisdom and picking the Titans. I love the speed in the Titans' defensive secondary with cornerbacks Denard Walker and Samari Rolle, and free safety Marcus Robertson and strong safety Blaine Bishop. I think they will do a good job on the Jaguars' outstanding receivers -- Jimmy Smith and Keenan McCardell. The defensive line of the Titans also has a good pass rush and could be a dominant factor with Jevon Kearse. On the other side of the line, the mobility of Jaguars quarterback Mark Brunell is limited with his knee injury, and without question they miss Tony Boselli at left tackle. On the plus side, they feature Fred Taylor, who I think is this year's Terrell Davis. He's the speediest running back I've seen since Eric Dickerson. Taylor outruns cornerbacks even though he's lugging a football. Too bad he wasn't healthy all season. But I'm going to roll with the Titans. They just need to take their Peyton Manning game plan -- pressuring Brunell at every turn -- and transfer it to Jacksonville. In the NFC matchup, the adage of defenses winning championships is going to be tested. Tampa Bay, obviously, is going to have to slow the game down, pound the ball on the ground with Mike Alstott, and try to keep the ball away from the St. Louis offense. If the Buccaneers can stay close into the fourth quarter, they have a chance to take advantage of the Rams' only weakness, the inability to convert field goals. And the Bucs have an excellent field goal kicker in Martin Gramatica. But the Rams offense is kind of like basketball in cleats. It's fast break all the way. Kurt Warner has the hottest hand in pro football, and he's got not just one or two speedy receivers, but a plethora of people he can throw to, including running back Marshall Faulk. And the Rams also have an excellent return game with Tony Horne on kickoffs and Az-zahir Hakim on punts. Wide receivers Hakim and Ricky Proehl would see a lot of playing time for most other teams, but the Rams also have Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt. The number of weapons is just astounding, so I look for the Rams to win this one. It will be an interesting matchup to watch because of the top offense versus the strong defense. Ron Meyer, a former NFL head coach, is a pro football analyst with CNN/SI and appears weekly on CNN's NFL Preview. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.
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