Waiting for playoff greatness might take a while

Pardon the glass-is-half-empty take on the NFL divisional playoff games, but ...

Yuck!

Three of the four home teams choked. Both No. 1 seeds gagged. And now the NFC is without its top three seeds, meaning Sunday's title game will be in ... Arizona?!

The only things missing on the postseason Choke-O-Meter are Tony Romo and a crowd shot of a pouty-lipped Jessica Simpson.

The glass-is-half-full TV types being paid by the NFL will tell us we're supposed to be happy for the Eagles and Ravens. It is, after all, the first time both No. 6 seeds have advanced to the conference championship games in the same season.

By Sunday, ESPN will have brainwashed us into being downright giddy for the Cardinals. After all, they're the last team to reach an NFC Championship Game since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. (By the way, that's so long ago, not even Kurt Warner had been born yet.)

We're supposed to drink in the parity potion, relax and ignore that three out of four divisional games were won when average teams beat sloppy teams in uninspiring games.

Before last weekend, no NFL team with fewer than 10 regular-season victories had reached the conference championship since the Jaguars in 1996. No NFC team had done it since 1987 when the Vikings went 8-7 during a strike-shortened season.

This year, both NFC finalists won fewer than 10 games. The Cardinals were 9-7 in the league's worst division and the Eagles were 9-6-1. One of them will join the 1979 Los Angeles Rams (9-7) as the only teams to reach the Super Bowl with fewer than 10 victories in a 16-game regular season.

In the AFC Championship Game, No. 6 Baltimore travels to No. 2 Pittsburgh. It's the first time neither conference championship will have a No. 1 seed since the playoffs were expanded in 1990. That guarantees the first Super Bowl without a No. 1 seed since the 1997 season.

The Cardinals, Eagles and Ravens played well enough to win. But those of us who picked the Panthers, Giants and Titans to beat them expected better ball security and a lot better play from the quarterbacks.

The Panthers, Giants and Titans entered the weekend with a combined plus-29 in turnover differential. They played the weekend in a combined minus-9 as the Panthers lost to the Cardinals 33-13, the Giants lost to the Eagles 23-11 and the Titans lost to the Ravens 13-10 with three turnovers in the red zone.

"The Titans could beat the Ravens nine out of 10 times they played," said Titans running back LenDale White.

Sorry, LenDale, but this ain't baseball.

The great ones do it right the first time in football. The ones who start their offseasons early play like quarterbacks Eli Manning of the Giants, Jake Delhomme of the Panthers and Kerry Collins of the Titans.

The three of them combined for eight interceptions and one touchdown. With the ball in their hands on a combined 34 third- and fourth-down situations, they got the first down only nine times. That's 26.5 percent of the time. At home! And, no, great defense didn't cause all of those wobbling floaters to fall incomplete or to be intercepted.

Delhomme's six turnovers (five interceptions, one fumble) led to 23 Cardinals points. Manning played like his right hand was a block of ice, missing wide-open receivers and throwing an interception that was returned to the Giants 1-yard line. Collins wasn't as bad, but he threw an interception inside the Baltimore 20-yard line and let the game fizzle to an end. Needing about 20 yards to give his team at least a chance at a tying field goal, Collins threw three consecutive incompletions from the Tennessee 40 and turned the ball over on downs with 12 seconds left.

Those of us raised on the likes of Montana and Elway making clutch plays in exciting postseason games watched that last ball fall incomplete Saturday and were left with a feeling of "That's all you got?" It became a familiar feeling throughout the weekend.

Maybe this weekend will be better. Let's hope so.

Mark Craig • mcraig@startribune.com