If They Met in Real Life: My Playoff Picks

Since they say that "on any given Sunday" any team can beat any other team in the NFL, I will ignore the Vegas odds makers and other criminals of the gambling world and employ my own method of picking the winners of this weekend's playoff games. The premise is simple: What would happen if you pitted the two mascots against each other in the real world? For example: if a Colt met a Bronco, that could conceivably end in a tie, as they are both horses. However, a Colt is a baby horse, so you would have to assume the more experienced and wild Bronco would be the victor in that battle.

Are you ready for some stupid football? Let's go.

I liked Baltimore's quarterback better when he was an Austrian rapper back in the 80's. That aside, what is a raven other than a roadkill-eating symbol of mythology and folklore? Can it really do much damage against the hard-working American steelworker? These people deal with molten metal and giant beams of solid steel, sparks flying, risks at every turn. A garbage-scavenging bird is not much to them. One whack from Polamalu's steel forearm to one of Flacco's little bird arms and game over. Alles klar, Herr Kommissar?

The packer, in essence, is a butcher, a meat packer. He wields a cleaver. The falcon, a noble bird to be sure, can maybe peck at his eyes a little bit, perhaps scratch an arm or the back of the packer. But in the end, the dirty bird's head is removed with a swift motion, blood splattering the packer's white apron. He holds the still twitching and headless bird aloft and shouts, "WHO NEEDS BRETT FAVRE NOW!"

This one is silly and too easy. While it is natural for us to regard the patriot kindly, holding him in our national memory as a strong and worthy foe, he is really not much more than a dirt farmer in rags, armed with a mere muzzle-loading musket. Some may think he's a handsome man with flowing locks, but in reality, those locks were infested with fleas and lice. He can maybe get off three shots in a minute if he is really good, (and not cheating) and those old guns aren't known for their accuracy. Of course we don't know what kind of jet he is up against. Could be a Gulf Stream, a 787 or an F-18. Either way, it's a jet, and that little musket ball is going to ding off the side of the fuselage with a very sad sound. The jet swings around and sucks the pretty boy patriot into its engine, leaving nothing but a fine pink mist in its wake.

The seahawk dines on fish. Good fish. Sushi-grade stuff from the waters of the Pacific northwest. This is also one of the habitats of the bear, who is himself a connoisseur of the scaly delicacies of the local waters. If we were deciding who is the better fisherman, the battle would go to the bird. If we were deciding "who wins the fight over the fish that the bear caught," the bird still wins. Think about it: bear catches fish, hawk swoops low and scares the bear into dropping the fish, then grabs it and flies away. But we are talking about the seahawk against the bear in a battle to the death. You can't hurt a bear without a really good gun designed for the sole purpose of hurting bear. Eventually, in all his beast mode confidence, the seahawk flies too close on one swoop and the bear slices him open with his murderous claw.

There you have it. Likely to be proven as accurate as anyone's predictions, and based in reality.