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Happy Monday, friends, and welcome to The Mothership.  We've got a couple more teams going fishing, and we'll explore their situations.  We'll also devote some early thought to the Super Bowl matchup.  Finally, since the Senior Bowl is this week, we'll get into that a little bit, and possibly also consider the less important Pro Bowl.  The NFC Championship game isn't over yet, as I start writing this, but I want to get a couple thousand words written before midnight.  Ready..... BEGIN!!!

1.  Both championship games were very interesting on Sunday, after the first two weekends had a lot of blowouts, and a few uninteresting close games.  I would venture to say that the only entertaining game in the first two weeks was Arizona vs. Green Bay.  It was a good Football Sunday, and we'll start by thinking about the losers.

a.  New York Jets - First of all, let me reiterate that anybody who made it to their conference championship game had a good season.  That said, this was not the year New York planned to be in Super Bowl contention, so I think they were already playing with house money on Sunday.  They wanted to win, and I know they believed that they could, but they're still developing into what they ultimately want to become.

First things first, since the MSM will always focus on the QB position first.  Mark Sanchez generally has a ways to go as a decision maker, but he showed a lot of poise during the recent run, and it has to make Jets fans very excited for the future.  He had a good day on Sunday, and the two TD passes he threw each showed a quality that the elite QBs possess.  He showed outstanding touch on the deep ball on the first, and impressive toughness and accuracy under pressure on the second.  My concerns about his ability to play in bad weather aside, it's pretty clear that the Jets have their guy of the future.

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The first thing that came to mind when I heard about the end if the Cardinals/Packers game was that the Overtime Apologists are about to come out of the woodwork.. And sure enough, they didn't disappoint (well, it is disappointing to me but you get the idea): Cut To The Chase »

Josh McDaniels is not stupid.
 
It would appear stupid that McDaniels would publicly demean Marshall by deactivating him, if indeed the intent was to jettison him (and therefore get maximum value).
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As an endurance athlete, I am very interested in the concept of fatigue as it relates in general to foot ball players, and specifically to the offensive and defensive lines of the Broncos (who seemed to be so solid through six games).
 
As a general concept, I can do a certain amount of work (running, blocking, etc.) at a certain effort level (a lot of times measured by heart rate) and then I need a certain amount of recovery in order to repeat it.
 
So I can effectively block/rush for X plays, then I need Y amount of recovery.
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