Making plays and taking blame

So who made the Play of the Weekend in the NFL playoff games?

▪▪ Was it the Patriots' Ben Watson? He came out of nowhere to tackle Denver's Champ Bailey after intercepting Tom Brady and running it back 100 yards (an amazing play in itself). It looked like he ran off the bench to make the tackle. And he almost forced a turnover on the play, too! Every NFL coach should show a tape of that play before training camp next season.

▪▪ Was it Pittsburgh's Ben Roethlisberger? With the Colts' Nick Harper on his way to a possible touchdown after picking up Jerome Bettis's goal-line fumble, Roethlisberger desperately reached back and lunged for Harper's feet, tripping him at the 40-yard line. A quarterback saving the game for his team with a tackle?

▪▪ Am I underselling Carolina's Steve Smith? How about the play in which he ripped the ball away for Chicago's Charles Tillman, resulting in a 46-yard gain? Or that sweet deke on Mike Brown to score Carolina's first touchdown? (Actually, I was most impressed by Mike Minter's touchdown-preventing tackles at the goal line.)

♦ Did Peyton Manning affirm his status as one of the NFL's all-time babies by taking a shot at his offensive lineman for not picking up the Steelers' blitzes? "I'm trying to be a good teammate here," he said. "Let's just say we had some protection problems."

Let's just say you're an @$$hole for saying that, Peyton. It's never your fault, is it? Never mind that the referees bailed you out by ruling Troy Palomalu's interception as an incomplete pass. (What the $#@% did the replay officials see on that play?)

Unfortunately, that "can't win the big game" reputation will stick for yet another season. Peyton now has more time to bug stock boys to sign loaves of bread for his little brother and beg the buffet staff for their aprons.

♦ As a new member of the Manly Beard club, I was going to write about the long-haired-and-bearded look that's now the new black for NFL quarterbacks. But Kevin Antcliff already did it so well, with an excellent point-by-point comparison of the hirsute quarterbacks in Sunday's AFC championship game. (But how do we explain the success of Seattle's nearly hairless Matt Hasselbeck?)

(Photo by Matt Freed/ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)