Aaron Schatz's blog

Here's the final NFL Power Rankings on AOL for the 2007 season, with comments.

Here we are, me and Bill Simmons, previewing this weekend's championship games. We get a little Patriots-centric in here, apologies to those of you from the rest of the country. Also, can you tell from the quality of my voice that I'm fighting off a cold? Man, this has been the sickest year of my life. My stuff starts the podcast, it goes about a half hour, and you can hear it by going to the Sports Guy page and looking in the upper right corner.

Let the debate begin. Who deserves it, and who does not?

Cris Carter – Wide Receiver – 1987-89 Philadelphia Eagles, 1990-2001 Minnesota Vikings, 2002 Miami Dolphins
Fred Dean – Defensive End – 1975-1981 San Diego Chargers, 1981-85 San Francisco 49ers
Richard Dent – Defensive End – 1983-1993, 1995 Chicago Bears, 1994 San Francisco 49ers, 1996 Indianapolis Colts, 1997 Philadelphia Eagles
Marshall Goldberg – Back – 1939-1943, 1946-48 Chicago Cardinals
Randy Gradishar – Linebacker – 1974-1983 Denver Broncos

FO readers: check out the second annual MIT Sloan Sports Business Conference, to be held on Saturday, February 9. They did a great job last year with the first conference, but this year, the expansion is just amazing. The students at MIT have put a ton of work into this, as have Jessica Gelman from the Pats and Daryl Morey from the Houston Rockets. There are a number of great panels, but three in particular will interest FO readers.

Does the Giants appearance in the NFC Championship game prove their mediocre regular-season DVOA was an error? No. Have we ever seen a team turn things around in the playoffs like this? Yes. Plus: The Patriots re-establish their dominance over the rest of the NFL.

For the first time since at least 1996, all eight quarterbacks had above-average performances during one four-game playoff weekend. One reason is the thing you only saw in Green Bay. Learn more at Quick Reads.

Our AFC preview tries to figure out whether the Jaguars and Chargers can do anything to prevent yet another sanity-destroying Pats-Colts hypefest. Answer: Probably not. Plus, a long discussion of teams that either improved or declined significantly at midseason.

The Packers and Seahawks know each other well because of their similarities. The Cowboys and Giants know each other well because of their division rivalry. Who moves on to the NFC Championship? It all may depend on injuries and hot pants. Plus: Jason Beattie's latest cartoon!

Here's your heavy helping of Football Outsiders hardcore stats for this weekend's four games. No disrespect is meant to Giants and Cowboys fans because their section is shorter -- I just couldn't find as much compelling Giants/Cowboys material. As for the other three matchups, believe me, there's plenty of stuff still left over for the FO previews. Thanks to Doug Farrar for helping me to put a few of these together.

Sort of a companion piece to Mike Tanier's Too Deep Zone today: Lito Sheppard, Will Allen, and Jabari Greer discuss the strategies they used to try to contain Randy Moss when they had to cover him during the regular season.