Wild Card Weekend

A preview of my American Football Column which will appear in Ireland's Saturday Night two hours before Wild Card Weekend kicks off....

THE race to play in Super Bowl XL in Detroit on February 5th gets serious this weekend when Wild Card weekend kicks off tonight (Saturday). And it is set to be a weekend of tasty match-ups throughout the play-offs.

There are seven new playoff teams; one that has won three of the past four Super Bowls and there are four clubs that won 51 of their 64 games this year.

Tonight the action gets underway when the Washington Redskins visit the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, closely followed by Jacksonville’s visit to New England.

Sunday sees Carolina at the New York Giants, with Wild Card weekend closing with Pittsburgh’s trip to Cincinnati.

“What the regular season does is get you to the playoffs,” said the quarterback of one of those new playoff teams, Eli Manning of the New York Giants. “Now you see what you’ve really got.”

And what New York will be hoping is that teams based in warmer climates will struggle when travelling to cold and chilly pitches such as New York and New England.

But it could be the final game of the weekend that is the most promising, with the divisional match-up between the Steelers and the Bengals.

About 300 miles separate these two Ohio River cities and their teams like the other’s place – at least this year. The Steelers won (27-13) in Cincinnati on October 23, and the Bengals won (38-31) in Pittsburgh on December 4.

“We love this match-up with Pittsburgh,” said Bengals QB Carson Palmer. “They love playing us. It’s always a great, competitive game. It gets your mind ready. When you’ve got Pittsburgh coming in, you’ve got to get focused.”

If it’s cold or rainy or snowy, that focus may well stay primarily on the ground, and the teams are fine on that front. Cincinnati’s Rudi Johnson finished No. 7 in NFL rushing (1,458) and Pittsburgh’s Willie Parker No. 12 (1,202).