Pitarresi: Tough to pick title games

My picks for the AFC and NFC championships?

 

Boy, that is hard.

 

I like Curt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald, and I love underdogs. There aren’t many underdogs doggier than the Arizona Cardinals, who haven’t won a title since 1947, when they were the Chicago Cardinals, and have won exactly one playoff game in the 62  years since. However, Donovan McNabb is the Philadelphia Eagle quarterback, and I’m not going against him. Plus I’m a big fan of Brian Westbrook and have been since I watched him have a great game as a freshman against Colgate in the NCAA I-AA playoffs in 1997. I’m picking the Eagles to win, 38-31.

 

The Ravens and Steelers in the AFC? Tougher yet. I like Joe Flacco, the Baltimore quarterback, because I like to see guys from smaller schools (Delaware) do well, and I like Jim Leonhard, the 5-foot-8 safety, because I like small players who were college walk-ons (Wisconsin) do well, too. My favorite Steelers player is Hines Ward. Tough guy and clutch.  I’ll go with the Ravens here, 17-10.

 

How about Donovan McNabb’s spur-of-the-moment telephone on the sidelines in the last couple of minutes of the Eagles-Giants game Sunday has gotten quite a lot of play.

 

Your reaction to that stunt probably has a lot to do with whether you like McNabb in the first place, and whether you’re a Giant fan. I know that had he done that while he was beating the Buffalo Bills I wouldn’t have been amused. And, as a football purist, I didn’t like the gag. You’re up by 12 with 3:07 to go, so it isn’t over yet. Teams have lost bigger leads in less time than that. Plus, you can cost your team 15 yards, which McNabb did.

 

However, I don’t hold it against him. McNabb is a smart, gentlemanly, first-class guy, and he’s pretty funny, too, in a silly way. He didn’t mean anything by picking up the phone. He shouldn’t have done it, but in the end it didn’t hurt anyone.