Puff’s Points, Pro Bowl

If no team steps forward and volunteers for next season, the NFL
will assign a team to participate in HBO's Hard Knocks next Summer.

No, I’m not going to write a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about the Pro Bowl. I’m excited for Sunday’s game because of the new set-up, but because I don’t know what to expect there really isn’t much to write about leading up to it.

This blog post is titled the way it is so that if I can come up with some more interesting topics and facts to address next week, I’ll have another title available.

So let’s get to what has piqued my interesting this week.

1. Battle of Ones

Super Bowl XLVIII will mark the 10^th time the top seeded teams from both conferences will meet with the Lombardi Trophy on the line.

The NFL implemented a seeding structure the playoffs following the 1975 regular season. In five of the first ten Super Bowls after that, the top seeded teams from both conferences made it all the way to the finish line.

But this year marks just the second time it has happened since 1993. The other was in 2009 when Peyton Manning’s Colts met the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV. Now Manning’s Broncos will look to avoid meeting the same fate against the Seattle Seahawks.

2. More New Rules Coming

Roger Goodell announced on Monday that the NFL may explore eliminating the PAT (point after touchdown) attempt, making touchdowns worth seven points and then possibly implementing a play from scrimmage that would give an eighth point if successful. You could elect not to attempt the extra play and keep the seven points or try for the eighth point and go back to six if you fail to convert it.

But I don’t understand why we need to change anything about the PAT. They are not really automatic. Sure there were only five misses this year and there were only five misses last year, but as recently as 2009 we had 20 missed PAT’s in a single regular season, and that followed a 2008 regular season in which only six PAT’s were missed.

There is some level of skill involved in these kicks. So the only reason that such a chance would be warranted, in my opinion, is if there are a lot of injuries occurring on these plays. I don’t have any official numbers, but I don’t believe there are many injuries on PAT or field goals attempts.

3. Review Changes On the Way

Even as Roger Goodell has me scratching my head on one possible rule change, he has me praising the league for considering another. Penalized hits may soon become reviewable. We have seen a number of legal hits draw penalty flags in the past couple seasons. One of the most memorable came when San Francisco visited Seattle during the 2012 regular season.

I haven’t complained too much about these flags. The speed of the game and the league’s emphasis on player safety forces referees to throw the flag for anything that could be considered a borderline illegal hit.

But now we may get the best of both worlds. The refs will still carry out the league’s safety initiative while coaches will be able to ask them to take a second look to confirm whether a given hit is legal or not.

It is important to continue to push player safety, but as defenders try to re-learn how to tackle in order to stay within the rules they should not be penalized for clean hits just because they can be heard from a mile away.

4. Denver Joins Elite Company

The Pittsburgh Steelers, Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots have each been to seven Super Bowls. The Steelers have six wins in eight trips, the Cowboys have five wins in eight trips and the Patriots have three victories in their seven Super Bowl appearances.

Denver’s win on Sunday vaulted them to the seventh appearance in their franchise’s history. The Broncos are 2-4 in the Super Bowl with their wins following the 1997 and 1998 regular seasons, John Elway’s last two seasons of his Hall of Fame career.

5. Hard Knocks

Some of you may remember that during the NFL’s fall meeting a rule was set in place that will allow the league to appoint a team to covered by HBO’s Hard Knocks if no team volunteers.

There are some rules concerning eligibility. If you have a first-year coach, have made the playoffs in the last two years, or have been a subject of the show in the past ten years, the NFL will not appoint you for the show. I am not sure if such teams are allowed to volunteer.

This year’s eligible teams are the Cardinals, Bills, Bears, Jaguars, Giants, Raiders, Steelers and Rams, according to NFL.com.

6. Super Injuries

The Denver Broncos got some good news on Monday when running back Knowshon Moreno’s X-rays came back negative. Moreno suffered a rib injury in Sunday’s game against New England and John Fox listed him as day-to-day this week. With two weeks to prepare and recover, there is no way Moreno will miss Super Bowl XLVIII.

Seattle hopes to have Percy Harvin for the Super Bowl. He did not pass concussion protocol last week and could not participate in the NFC Championship game against San Francisco. Seattle played without him all season and managed just fine without him on Sunday. But if they can clear him and get him working in practice this week he could be a key contributor to their offense next week.

7. Power Rankings

I don’t know how this will work with just two teams, and keep in mind that weather could completely screw with a lot of the components of these rankings. But since I’ve done it all postseason, I decided to go ahead and rank Denver and Seattle against each other in all the same categories that I have been comparing all the playoff teams to each other.

1. Seattle Seahawks (0.827)

2. Denver Broncos (1.024)

My guess is that adverse weather would swing this even more in Seattle’s favor, but there are other factors that will go into this game. Over the next week and a half I will be going back through game film of these two teams’ entire seasons. My official prediction, as usual, will come from Madden, but I will be supporting the outcome of my Madden game with the research I’ll be doing over the next several days.

Deion Sanders and Jerry Rice, along with the selected team captains, will be dividing up this year’s Pro Bowlers to their teams on Wednesday evening. I will write something up later this week about that game.