Sunday, Smith and Holmgren, Black Monday

The weekend’s been over, the dust has settled, and the Ravens are going to Foxboro on Sunday to face the Patriots at 1 pm on CBS.  Oddly enough, they’re the only game this weekend that is not a rematch of Week 17.  Green Bay at Arizona, Philly at Dallas are exact rematches, with the same venue, and the Jets and Bengals meet again, with a change of scenery to Cincinnati.  Just some quick factoids for Sunday’s matchup:

• The Patriots are 8-0 in home playoff games with Tom Brady
• The Ravens are 7-2 in road playoff games
• Tom Brady is 13-3 in the playoffs
• Wes Welker will obviously be out with a torn ACL and MCL
• Not that it has much to do with the game, but the Ravens tied their franchise record of total points scored in a season with 391, and set a new record of touchdowns in a season with 44.
• I haven’t found any proof of this, but I’m assuming beyond a reasonable doubt that Joe Flacco and John Harbaugh are the only pair of coach and QB that get into the playoffs their first two years in the NFL.

I was listening to Scott Garceau and Anita Marks this afternoon, something I don’t do very often, and Troy Smith was a big conversation topic.  Several theories were raised, including Cam Cameron having interest in Smith if he gets the head coaching job in Buffalo, Mike Holmgren trying to trade for him with the Browns because Smith reminds him of Seneca Wallace, and that Smith may hold out with the Ravens.  Basically, nobody knows what’s going to happen.  It’s pretty much consensus now that Smith actually wants the trade, and his agent didn’t just randomly post the demand on Twitter.  The facts are that Smith is a restricted free agent, so if another team wanted him, they would sign him only if the Ravens allowed it, and the Ravens would be awarded compensation in a draft pick, so basically like a trade.  It’s a little more complicated then that, but simply put, that’s the process.

Black Monday was a bit disappointing in terms of surprising firings, with only Jim Zorn being let go by the Redskins and Perry Fewell, who was the interim head coach for Buffalo after Dick Jauron was fired, not being given an extension.  At least not yet.  The drama is to come however, with big names like Mike Shanahan, Brian Billick, Bill Cowher and possibly Jon Gruden being linked to coaching jobs.  Mike Holmgren hasn’t decided what he’ll do with Eric Mangini, but I think the Genie will be out by the end of the week.  Hopefully we don’t lose Cam Cameron anywhere,  but if so, he’s done a great job in 2 years.  More to come on the coaching drama, Smith and of course, the big game this week. Stay tuned.