Divisional Playoffs, Saturday

The question that can't help being asked while watching the Baltimore Ravens is how can one team assemble so many chippy, aggressive, nasty players? The defense is clearly the part of this team that embodies that description best. I can only imagine that when one carries the ball against the Ravens they expect not only to be hit hard, but be hit more than once, and have somebody land on them a second after the whistle blows.

The Ravens aren't cheap. But they do get every bit of physicality possible into every play. Even a tough, scrappy team like Tennessee didn't quite look ready for the Ravens intensity. And the Titans played pretty hard yesterday; don't read this as a "Tennessee is soft" piece. But the Ravens are just that... nasty.

The Titans had something figured out about the Ravens defense going into the game. No other team has thrown the ball that well against Baltimore this year. Kerry Collins was finding people (pretty much Justin Gage every time) open on 3rd downs repeatedly. Chris Johnson was gashing the Ravens on the ground until he got hurt. Dan Dierdorf kept telling us how tired the Ravens defense must have been, to play on the road last week and beat Miami, and come into Tennessee against the rested Titans, and be on the field so much.

But the Titans couldn't finish drives. The Ravens don't let teams finish drives. Some of those turnovers were pretty ugly. But that is what happens when a defense pressures you on every play. Eventually, Collins was going to throw the ball up for grabs, and eventually, one of those hits was going to jar the ball loose. And where was LenDale White? He looked slow. Once Johnson went down, the Titans run game was dead.

The most important thing to take away from this is that the Ravens might be the only team in the league that never has to worry about "match-ups". They can play against anybody, because no matter what team is on the other sideline, they are going to out-physical them, and never stop pressuring the quarterback. This is why everybody should love seeing Baltimore advance, because they are going to be in any game, and do it with sheer will.

Meanwhile, the Cardinals are making the most improbable playoff run since... the 2007 New York Giants. Basically, the Cardinals offense went to sleep for about a month and a half, and we all forgot how good their passing game is. Well, they woke up, and we should only be surprised by that fact, not that they are having success.

The one thing that should have been noticed about Carolina all year is that they were never able to throw the ball. They won a lot of games because they were rushing for over 200 yards. Is it safe to call Jake Delhomme "Chad Pennington with no arm"? If that isn't straightforward enough, let's just establish that Pennington has no arm. I'm not ready to list off a bunch of reasons why the Panthers are doomed, but one has to be a little perplexed about the fact that this team basically was a good quarterback away from being as good as any team in the league.

As for Arizona, Larry Fitzgerald sums it up. I still think Andre Johnson is the best wide receiver in the league, but Fitzgerald took that game over. And what about Edgerin James? Great late-season comeback, one that might actually land him on an NFL roster next year.