Giving my all to the games was a joyride

This weekend I starred in my own reality show -- "Survivor: My Basement."

The challenge: Watch the biggest weekend of the NFL playoffs without missing a play, watching a commercial or sitting so still for so long that I get that tingly feeling in my lower extremities.

The result:

• One Manning and one former Vikings defensive coordinator advance -- just not the ones you expected. Eli won, Peyton lost. Chargers coordinator Ted Cottrell, formerly of the Vikings, won, and Colts coach Tony Dungy lost. Reasons 1,004,999 and 1,005,000 I don't bet on sports.

• Brett Favre throws more snowballs than interceptions in the HD version of the Ice Bowl, cementing his reputation among talking heads as The Guy Who Really Loves Football And Plays Like A Little Kid. Which would be nauseating if it weren't true.

• The Patriots have the path to an undefeated season cleared as the Colts and Cowboys go down.

My couch-sitting endurance test proved this much: The good ol' days stunk. You want to get serious about watching football, you can't do better than HDTV (you could count the blades of grass sticking through the snow on Lambeau's snowy tundra), a one-click fireplace and digital video recording.

Packers-Seahawks

Why do I get so excited by the mixture of snowflakes and football? Maybe because, when the field and ball become slippery, football looks more like a child's game, more charming than complex.

Favre supports that view with the DVR moment of the weekend, stumbling away from a sack, glancing up and flipping the ball underhand for a completion.

While Mike Holmgren's jowls grow stalactites, Packers coach Mike McCarthy becomes the Wisconsin Man of the Year for wearing what looks like brown corduroy pants and a third chin to a playoff game, and saying in an interview Sunday, "We'll play anybody, anywhere."

Patriots-Jaguars

I'm pulling for Jags coaches Jack Del Rio and Mike Tice, two of the best guys I ever covered as players. Jags quarterback David Garrard plays brilliantly. The best-thrown pass of the whole weekend is Garrard's falling-away, wrist-flick line drive between Pats defenders at the goal line, but it's dropped, and the Patriots win going away.

Watching Favre, Tom Brady and Garrard makes you realize how much quarterback play has changed. The great modern-day quarterbacks often make their biggest plays throwing to well-covered receivers, relying on telepathy or timing or a defensive back turning his head for a split-second.

Colts-Chargers

All the factors favor the Colts -- coaching matchup, a bye week of rest for the Colts, home-field advantage, quarterback play, defensive ranking.

Chargers coach Norv Turner spends much of the game screaming at the officials, turning shades of purple you have to see in HD to appreciate, and most of the time he's right. In the end it's Billy Volek running out the clock on the Colts and what we all hoped would be the latest game of the millennium, Colts at Pats.

Isn't it strange that Roger Clemens is being hauled before Congress to discuss suspected steroid use, while admitted steroid user Shawne Merriman is winning playoff games and being celebrated as an on-field hero?

Giants-Cowboys

Can the same Giants team that got whipped at home by the Vikings be heading to the NFC title game? Can that really be Eli looking composed and making clutch throws? Yes, and yes.

This is why the NFL is so compelling -- because coaching, game plans and ever-changing circumstances can alter the landscape of the league at any time.

Giants coach Tom Coughlin, with a shredded secondary, finds a way to shut down Tony Romo, and by the end of the game Giants players on the sideline are linking their arms like high school kids.

Now Eli will play in an NFC title game in Lambeau. Maybe Favre will autograph a snowball for him.

Jim Souhan can be heard Sundays from 10 a.m.-noon on AM-1500 KSTP. jsouhan@startribune.com