January 18th: THIS Given Sunday

If the television networks and journalism community could have a meeting at the beginning of the year and write a script for the NFL season, I’m sure they would in a heartbeat. This year, though, it doesn’t look like they would have needed to. They are getting everything they could have dreamed of.

The NFL Conference Championship games are to play this weekend, with the Broncos hosting the Patriots in the AFC and the Seahawks squaring off against the 49ers in the NFC. Both games feature rematches of earlier regular season games. The Broncos and Patriots game went to overtime. The Seahawks and Niners split their season series.

That would have been enough to set the stage for an epic Sunday of football. Now enter the quarterbacks. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are the golden boys of the NFL. Each has almost 2 decades of success in the league, with a combined four Super Bowl rings. Yet, each has something to prove. Of those four rings, only one belongs to Manning, who has been accused of being a regular season stud and a post-season dud. Brady, on the other hand, has made two Super Bowl appearances in the last 5 years, and failed to win it both times. He and his depleted wide receiver corps are playing with a chip on their shoulder, looking to prove that the Patriots are truly the sum of its (somewhat undersized) parts.

In Seattle, the contrast is a little more conflicting, rather than complimenting. Russell Wilson is clean-cut, well-spoken, and proper. He plays with a good head on his shoulders, and uses his small size to make a big statement. Colin Kaepernick is tattooed, edgy, a fierce competitor, with huge physical talent and a cannon for an arm. Both have been in the league for a fraction of the Manning/Brady era, yet have already accumulated wins at a historic pace.

The NFL TV community loves to say “Any Given Sunday.” Basically, anyone can beat anyone else if all of the pieces fall into place. This often leads to the playoffs looking nothing like they did in the predictions issued at the beginning of the year.

This year, the parity in the league was even more intense. There was a graphic that showed how each team has beaten a team that beat someone else, winding around in a circle. It was meant to prove that, if the Broncos beat the Chiefs, who beat the Cowboys, who beat the Eagles, all the way around and around until the Bengals who beat the Patriots, who beat the Broncos, than the league has reached a certain level of competition.

The matchups this weekend, though, were exactly as many envisioned. It also shows, only mildly arguably, that the best four teams in the sport are playing for a chance to go to the Super Bowl.

With plenty of storylines, these matchups offer the kind of television that CBS and Fox Sports producers can drool over. No matter what happens in the game, nothing is as good for them as a matchup that Sportscenter can’t stop talking about.

The scores, of course, are much harder to predict, but that didn’t stop every sports analyst from attempting it. Vegas has the Broncos and Seahawks as the favorites, while many others believe that the underdog role suits both the 49ers and Patriots just fine.

None of it really matters. What does matter is that, on Sunday, every NFL fan will be glued to the television. Because as much as we love a surprise hero or a Cinderella, we save our big dances for the kings of football.