[stkelly52]

Regular season review
At the end of week 17 we are third in the NFC, meaning we will have to play this week in the wild card round. While it is frustrating because we really had a great season it is also disturbing considering that we closed out the season so poorly. As I have said before, most of my goals for this season were reached. We won 13 games, we won our division, Leland set a new record for rushing yards with 2250 and rushing TDs with 18. The big area that Leland let us down was in rushing average, were he only managed 4.09. I should also point out that Leland broke the record for rushing attempts with 550 (48 more than the previous record and 155 more than anyone else this year). Leland also had 9 fumbles this year, which isn't great, but not bad for him.

Wild Card Round
Minnesota 9-7 @ Atlanta 13-3
We are favored by four as we square off against the Vikings. The Vikes are in a tough situation as their starting QB was injured in the final game of the season and will not be available for today's game. This is good for us, but we will still have to contend with a RB who averaged 5.26 yards per carry this year. That will not be an easy feat for us. They are a little below average in run defense as well as scoring defense. Considering that they will be starting an undrafted rookie free agent at QB, I think that our chances are better than good.

The game got off to an ominous start for us. After we both missed field goals on our first possessions, Minnesota had a great drive that quickly moved the ball down to our 8 yard line for first and goal. Without a solid QB, the Vikings were largely relying on the run, and it was serving them well. From the 8 yard line, they ran one time and easily ran around the RT to put the ball in the end zone.

Trailing 7-0 we started our next drive with a first and 10 from our 15. Leland tried to run a counterplay, but the ball was knocked out of his hands. The SS scooped it up and sprinted 15 yards to the end zone. It was only the first quarter and we were down 14-0. This was not good, especially considering how we ended the year.

When we couldn't do anything with our next drive I began to grow very worried. But our defense stepped up and forced a 3 and out. In response we went to the air. We really do have a good passing game, even though we don't often use it. On this drive that paid off as all but 18 yards of the drive came on passes. We capped the drive off with a reverse that scored from 3 yards out. We now just trailed by 7.

Minnesota had some success moving the ball on their next drive, but the drive stalled just inside our 40. It was to far to kick the field goal, and facing 4th and 10 it was too far to go for it. They instead punted, and the corner kick failed. We took over at the 20

On our next drive Leland ran very well, but a penalty killed it. We were forced to punt the ball back. But that was OK as the Vikings gave us the ball back on the very next play courtesy of an interception by our SS. We took over at their 29 yard line. We tired to go back to the air again, but we failed miserable, and settled for the long field goal to cut our deficit to 4.

Time was closing in the half, so the Vikings just ran out the clock. We went into half time trailing 10-14.

To start off the second half we gave the ball to Leland and let him and our offensive line do its things. During the course of the drive we had one play that was not a first down play. Leland had carries of 11, 13, and 41, yards before he capped it all off with a 4 yard TD run. The one play were we didn't get a first down was the play when we tried to give the ball to someone else. We took the lead 17-14, and we could feel that momentum was truly swinging in our favor.

We traded punts for the rest of the third quarter. We were usually picking up on or two first downs, mostly thanks to Nixon, but we just never seemed to get anything sustained. This carried well into the fourth quarter as well. We had the lead, but it was just 3 points and we knew that another TD would just about seal the game. That is exactly what we got. We used a good number of short passes to move the ball in the drive, but the bulk of the yardage in today's game came from Leland Nixon. He scored his second TD of the game with a 4 yard dive, which gave us a 24-14 lead with 2:56 left to play. Two plays later the game was iced when our safety picked off his second pass of the day. We let Leland carry the ball several times to eat all of Minnesota's timeouts, and most of the clock before tacking on an additional field goal. And thus the final score of 27-14.

Leland had a spectacular day, picking up 205 yards, 2 TDs and the MVP award. Two big interceptions by my FS helped out in a big way as well. This was exactly the kind of game that we like to see in our first round of the playoffs. No new injuries and just a great team effort led us to a 27-10 win.