If you had been on the International Space Station for the last month and returned Sunday evening to see the matchups in the NFL conference championship games, you might have thought you’d taken a wrong turn at the moon and ended up on another planet.
Well, rest assured this is planet Earth. But our gravitational pull suddenly has little effect on underdogs. Over the weekend, three home teams lost, and three underdogs won.
Other strange things are happening too.
The coach of the postseason so far hasn’t been Jeff Fisher or Tom Coughlin. It has been Arizona’s Ken Whisenhunt.
There was a quarterback who had been benched and nearly run out of town a while back. Now Donovan McNabb is a playoff hero. Maybe he’ll lead a parade down Broad Street.
The most remarkable starting quarterback still standing, however, is a rookie who clearly has been in over his head. Right? Isn’t that what everybody said? Maybe the Ravens’ Joe Flacco didn’t hear all that. He certainly hasn’t played like he is overwhelmed in becoming the first rookie to win two playoff games.
Willie Parker went from MIA for most of the season to MVP in the Steelers’ victory over the Chargers on Sunday.
The most-watched person in the playoffs has been a 5-foot-6-inch dancer with great moves. And we are not referring to a member of the Charger Girls. Look, there goes Darren Sproles again!
The second-leading rusher in the postseason was written off as washed-up during the season and replaced by a rookie taken in the fifth round. After averaging 32 yards a game in the regular season, Arizona’s Edgerrin James has re-emerged and become the feel-good story of the playoffs.
The Cardinals, who ranked 19th in the NFL in rushing defense, have held the No. 2 rushing offense to 60 yards and the No. 3 rushing offense to 75 yards.
For the first time in history, not one of the NFC’s top three seeds will participate in the conference title game.
Is it the end zone or “The Twilight Zone”?
Wake me up. On second thought, don’t. I’m enjoying this.
The Cardinals-Eagles NFC championship game should be a classic, though their last meeting was far from that. The week after McNabb was benched in a loss to the Ravens, he was reinstated against Arizona and threw four touchdown passes in a 48-20 victory on Thanksgiving night in Philadelphia. Brian Westbrook rushed for 110 yards and two touchdowns. The Eagles also intercepted Kurt Warner three times.
But if there is anything these playoffs have taught us, it is that we can disregard everything that has happened previously. Hardly anything has gone according to form.
The Cardinals have morphed into a different team from the one that was slapped around by the Eagles in November, showing toughness on both sides of the ball.
And the sparks the Eagles generated that day have become a roaring blaze. They have gone 5-1 since and clearly are playing their best ball of the season.
The Ravens are another team on a roll, having won seven of their last eight games. The one game they lost in that stretch, however, was to the Steelers, the team they will face Sunday for the AFC championship.
In fact, the Steelers have beaten the Ravens twice this season, accounting for 40 percent of Baltimore’s losses. But beating an opponent three times in a season is no easy feat. Of the 19 teams that have had chances to do it since the NFL merger, only 11 have succeeded.
Just last year the Giants avenged two regular-season losses to the Cowboys with a playoff upset at Texas Stadium.
A total of seven points separated the Steelers from the Ravens in two games. And their third game promises to be another tight contest, especially if Flacco can play more like he has been playing lately and less like he played against the Steelers.
Since he left Heinz Field on Dec. 14, he has not thrown an interception.
In his two games against the Steelers, Flacco had a passer rating of 53.4. Against every other team, his passer rating was 84.6. He completed 46 percent of his passes against the Steelers and 62 percent of his passes against the rest of the league.
So if the postseason continues to play like a Bizarro World comic, Flacco will reverse course and bring the No. 1 defense to its knees.
The Steelers probably survived another day against the Chargers only to be slain by the Ravens, right?
Or am I dreaming?
———–
dpompei@tribune.com
No off-season for Huddle Up: Keep up with the Bears and the rest of the NFL all year round at chicagotribune.com/huddleup
