@Smiley:

Did you keep all the awakening trio alive, you only get the good rewards if they are all alive at the end.
Frederick still only gives you a pebble though lol.
Did you had Jakob talk to Frederick during the map?
Their conversation is hilarious.

Hmm, I don't remember any of them dying, but I wasn't too concerned. The Jakob and Frederick conversation was by far the best. The rest of them that I saw seemed pretty dull.

@Satsuki:

? The Awakening map is supposed to be free.

Expensive in regards to staff charges and things of that nature that I can't really afford in game. Maybe I shouldn't have started playing the game on the hard difficulty before really understanding the mechanics, but I'm a masochist I guess.

I went through all that trouble of beating the Awakening map for the first time at level 7, and Frederick rewards me with a freaking pebble. Hero's Brand my arse.

Since Conquest doesn't give exp for this stuff, that was the most expensive pebble ever.

Manning has also been dealing with Plantar Fascitis this year and had to sit out the 2nd half of the season with that. It's not just that he's old, but his body has also hit a breaking point. It was pretty telling that the team didn't really get any worse with Brock Osweiler at QB. He was one of the top 3 QB's in the league for most of his career, but at this point he's just another guy. He's immobile and he can't throw consistently anymore, so he has to win by outsmarting the defense presnap on every single play. That's a lot to ask against one of the very best defenses in the league.

Cam Newton is in his prime, and he can beat a defense that did everything correctly by simply running over people. Both teams have top notch defenses, but only the Panthers are playing offense at a very high level.

Of course… any given sunday the results can be different. Football is a very chaotic game.

I won a lot of money in fantasy football this year after going with the name "Master Deflator" and using a picture of Brady deflating stuff. So I can verify that his strategy works well.

@Steven:

Brady/Manning–hate the Pats but don't really see how they lose this one unless their defense is more banged up than it seems. I know Brady sucks in Denver, but the Broncos can barely get to the opponent's 30. Hope I'm wrong, though.

NFC championship looks like a better game as long as Palmer plays better than he did in the Packers game. Any interaction between Norman and Fitz will be great.

I think the Steelers defense looked better than anyone else in the AFC going into the playoffs, so it's hard to know. But I was surprised their corpse of an offense moved the ball so well against the Broncos D. I'm definitely not very high on them right now.

In other news, Jared Allen broke his foot in the game against the Seahawks.

Well now that's not very neighborly of you. Manning had a spinal fusion surgery in his neck which nearly ended his career. And from a fan who just got to enjoy a Super Bowl win last year, too.

I was just thinking that I hadn't seen enough Brady/Manning AFC Championship games in my life.

I can't remember the last time that all the 1 and 2 seeds got past the divisional round.

I'm a bit late, but any time a Wisconsin team goes to the West coast they always seem to get blasted with some sort of officiating weirdness. Seeing a coin flip get retracted is a first for me. That has nothing to do with why the Packers lost, though. In the end the game was decided on the field. They lost because they couldn't contain one of the big, fast, monster receivers of the NFL in the playoffs again. This time it was Fitz. That guy put the Cards on his back.

What a game. But I have a lot less faith in Carson Palmer now than I did a week ago. I mean, that was his first ever playoff win despite being 36, and he made a lot of dumb mistakes in it.

In regards to the laces, Walsh apparently said after that game that he should have been able to kick a watermelon through the uprights at that distance. He also cried.

Anyway, here's a fun stat. Between the four visiting teams this past weekend, the four starting QB's had a combined 37 playoff starts and 4 SB rings (Alex Smith, Big Ben, Wilson, Rodgers). Between the four home teams, the four starting QB's had a combined 0 playoff starts. All four visiting teams won.

The Packers apparently were better off losing to the Vikings last week, thus getting the easier game against the Redskins this week. Go figure.

@taboo:

i think i read somewhere that he kicked on the laces which wouldnt have been his fault

That wasn't the only field goal he kicked during that game with the laces pointed at him. He drilled a much longer field goal earlier under the same conditions. He was actually kicking the ball underneath the laces. Kickers hate it, and it's a big distraction, but it wasn't the laces themselves that made him miss. He just pulled the kick, badly.

The holder deserves plenty of blame for being terrible at his job. But the kicker could have easily made it anyway, especially from that distance. Both guys will be pointing the finger at themselves.

The NFL average for 27 yard field goals comes in at a 97% success rate, and Walsh is an above average kicker. Is this a Vikings thing or a Seahawks thing? I really can't tell, but that was depressing to watch either way.