Oh, the questions that surround the National Football League playoffs as we head into the second round!

Will Peyton Manning finally break his own personal curse and lead his team to victory over a clearly superior opponent? Will Bill Belichick figure out a way to stop LaDainian Tomlinson without allowing Philip Rivers to take over the game? Can a team led by Jeff Garcia at quarterback possibly overcome an opponent whose entire 2006 season played out like a big “I’m sorry” from God? Did Rex Grossman actually spend the last two weeks preparing to play a football game or did he just say, “The hell with it – I’m going drinking with Orton,” and leave the outcome purely to chance?

Hello everyone, my name is Brian, the creator of and sole writer for the award-winning sports blog One More Dying Quail. (Note: I have not actually won any awards. That was a lie. Sorry. The rest is true, though.) This is my third live-blog appearance for Awful Announcing, who responded to my request to do both Saturday NFL games this week by referring to me as “psychotic”. I’ll be here for the next several hours, guiding you through the Colts-Ravens and Eagles-Saints tilts that the NFL has been kind enough to provide for us this afternoon, and attempting to answer questions 1 and 3 from above. (For the record, my pre-game answers are “not likely” and “not unless Satan won the ‘Run Heaven For A Day’ contest and decides to screw New Orleans again”, in that order.)

The next two hours are “laundry time” in the OMDQ household, but the computer is on and I expect to be within typing distance at all times, so let’s just go ahead and declare this thread to be open. Feel free to stop in with thoughts on the pregame buildup, your predictions for any of the four games this weekend, or anything else you might need to get off your chest. The official live-blog first quarter thread will begin around 4:30.

(2:31 note – the NHL on NBC? When did this happen? And since when does hockey look good on television? I’m not even a hockey fan, and the fact that the Bruins are playing might have something to do with it, but this has been on my television, uninterrupted, for the last five minutes. Just thought I’d point that out.)

4:02 – Someone refresh my memory: wasn’t Leslie Visser hot at one point in time?

4:32 – My wife on her first glimpse of Ray Lewis and his entrance dance: “What the hell is wrong with him?” She then launched into a five minute soliloquy on Greg Gumbel’s fatness. Should be a fun night!

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