Tebow Mania has been put to sleep for the offseason. The Texans came within a touchdown of beating a good Ravens team with their third string QB. The Saints lost to the 49ers in a whirlwind last couple minutes. And oh yeah, the defending champs got shellacked by the New York Giants.

Enough of last week, it’s now that great time of year when everyone looks an idiot for picking the two best teams to be in the Super Bowl, and as it ends up both are out by the divisional round.

And as the field shrinks by the week we still have the possibility to have the most boring Super Bowl in recent history, where more people tune in for the commercials than the actual game. Yes that’s right, we could still have a “Harbaugh Bowl”. Wouldn’t that be terrible? A dismal offense (San Francisco) against one that is OK (Baltimore), also a lot of big hits and a defensive showdown with probably a couple broken arms along the way (maybe I’m over exaggerating).

Or we could have the two better offenses (New England and New York) duke it out 2008 style.

This is probably starting to sound a bit like a Super Bowl preview. It’s not. The two teams aren’t determined yet. And frankly that’s why we play the game.

NFC

Alex Smith is a game manager. Just thought I’d get that into everyone’s head who doesn’t believe it. This isn’t a guy who racks up big numbers some games that are offset by bad games. Overall this makes his numbers “mediocre”, but his team gets it done, hence the “game manger” tag. This guy is not that (if that made any sense whatsoever), he’s a QB who isn’t relied on a ton by his team. This team relies on Frank Gore and because of Gore, the play action. San Francisco probably has and had the worst wide receiver core (remember Vernon Davis is a tight end) of any playoff team and maybe one of the worst in the league. Michael Crabtree is the only wide out who is going to make opposing coaches lose sleep. And that’s more of a wake-up-for-five-minutes-to-get-a-glass-of-water kind of lost sleep. And no one can stress the importance of their defense… yadda yadda yadda. If they struggle against Eli Manning it might be a long day for San Fran fans (corny, I know).

Prediction: New York Giants 24 San Francisco 49ers 20

AFC

Ray Rice needs the ball. Ray Rice needs to gash the Patriots front seven so Joe Flacco can thrash the Patriots porous defensive secondary. If Ray Rice can’t get it going and Flacco struggles. Ehh. Tom Brady will have some problems with Baltimore’s D early, but eventually will probably have his way with them as he does with all defenses.  Baltimore needs to slow down Gronk, Wes Welker and all of Brady’s other weapons in order to have a shot at winning. They also need to score points. 20 against New England probably isn’t going to cut it (if it does, joke’s on me).  If Joe Flacco can exploit the Pats’ D then the Ravens will have a very good chance to win this game. In the end, I think Flacco will respond to the criticism and have a good day. It probably won’t be enough to slow down Tom Brady and the Pats.

Prediction:  New England Patriots 35 Baltimore Ravens 17