[stkelly52]

I would like to point out to everyone that as of sometime this afternoon we reached 1000 viewers. What an incredible honor it has been to have all of you loyal readers.

Conference Semifinals
Carolina (10-7) @ Atlanta (13-3)
This is the last team that we faced in the regular season. Last week they were able to crush the Cardinals in Arizona. They are hoping to do the same against us. But we beat them two weeks ago without hardly even trying. Surely we can win if we put some effort behind ourselves.
Carolina won the toss and chose to receive. On their first drive, they picked up a first down by going for it on 4th and 2. They were showing right from the start of the game that they were willing to take chances. On the next play we blitzed and sacked the QB. The Panthers would not be able to make up for that loss of 7 yards and were forced to punt 3 plays later.

Our first drive was unimpressive, ending with a three and out. Carolina was able to pick up one more first down, this time on third and long, but they got nowhere on their second set of downs. Their punt was not able to be downed, instead rolling into the end zone giving us the ball at the 20. We then set off on a 17 play drive that took 8:52 off of the clock. During the drive we converted 5 of 5 third down conversions, the last of which was a three yard scramble for a TD. We used an excellent mix of running and passing to move the ball.

Our defense shut down the Panthers on their next drive, forcing a net gain of -1 yard. The Panthers were again forced to punt. Four our ensuing drive, the bulk of the 1st and 2nd down plays were carries by Leland Nixon. He consistently picked up 4-5 yards per carry as we marched down the field again. We capped off the drive with a 9 yard TD pass to put us up 14-0 with 5 and a half minutes left in the 2nd period.

Our defense again stifled Carolina. While they did pick up one first down, they could get no further and were once again forced to punt just after the 2 minute warning.

With 1:52 left, if we could march down and score again, then we knew that the game would be well in hand.
The drive that followed left me scratching my head. Nixon got the bulk of the carries at a time when you would expect to pass the ball. He did very well in the situation and was able to get the ball inside the 30, but it was just to far for our kicker to put it through as the half ended. So we went into the half leading 14-0

In the second half we got the ball first and we came out rolling. We went to the air for 6 of the drive's 8 plays. Five of those six passes were completions and we easily moved the ball down to the 8 yard line. Nixon finished off the drive with an 8 yard run around the left tackle.

From there things really got ugly for the Panthers. The Panthers only had 2 first downs for the rest of the game, while we added on a few field goals and another TD. The final score would be 34-8 in our favor. In the second half Leland picked up his workload trying to burn time off the clock. He did excellently, finishing the game with 184 yards in 45 carries. This is the kind of game that he was hoping for two weeks ago.

Next week we go to the NFC title game.

In other news around the League, 9-8 Miami stunned 14-2 Oakland. Oakland's stud QB was hurt early in the game, and it killed the Raiders. It was a shame for the year to end like this for Oakland. Their QB had set a new record for TD passes (48) and QB rating (124.9), and the team had set a new scoring record (31.7).

All of the road teams (except in our game) won their games this week. This makes our path to a championship much easier for us.