Don't rush to judgement

It's a good thing Peyton Manning can't win the big game, Donovan McNabb is overrated as a quarterback and the Rams are unbeatable at home, because this weekend's conference championship slate of Kansas City-New England and Green Bay-St. Louis looks pretty good. \nIn college, Peyton Manning couldn't pull off a win during the big game. His alma mater, Tennessee, won the national championship the year after he graduated. The same was said about the Colts' quarterback after putting up stellar numbers year after year as that first playoff win still eluded him. After last year's 41-0 drubbing by the New York Jets in the first round of the playoffs, the grumbles in Indianapolis began again, and questions arose about whether Manning had the necessary tools to make the jump to elite status. So what's the best way to silence the critics? \nGo out in the first-round game against a Denver Broncos team that, two weeks earlier, beat the Colts and played flawlessly. Manning threw more touchdowns than incompletions in the Colts 41-10 drilling of Denver. His final line: 22-26 for 377 yards and five TDs. Manning's performance against the Broncos ranks right up there with some of the greatest playoff performances ever by a quarterback, but it would have been all for naught if the Colts bowed out to the Chiefs this past weekend.\nAnother big game now simply means another big performance for Manning. Manning and the Colts once again ran their offense to perfection against the porous Kansas City defense. Despite the hostile crowd and the Chiefs' 13-game winning streak at Arrowhead, Manning picked apart the Chiefs' secondary, going 22-30 with 304 yards and three touchdowns. \nWhen the Philadelphia Eagles started the season with consecutive losses, many looked to quarterback Donovan McNabb's poor play as the reason for the team stumbling out of the gate. All McNabb has done is taken his Eagles to the NFC Championship game for the third straight year, despite throwing the ball to receivers who wouldn't get recognized by their own families. James Thrash? Todd Pinkston? At the beginning of the season, the Eagles' starting running back hadn't started a single game since his senior year in high school. \nThe San Diego Chargers have more offensive weapons than the Eagles. Heck, I'd take Southern Cal's receivers and backs over the stable of Philly's no-names. Yet McNabb, who is only popular because he's black, according to Captain Sensitivity Rush Limbaugh, continues to win. The stats aren't always eye-popping like Manning's or Steve McNair's, but when the game is on the line, no. 5 will calmly roll out of the pocket, evade numerous defenders and fire a strike into the end zone to the rail-thin Pinkston. \nNot enough you say? How about running for 107 yards, a playoff record for quarterbacks. No? You need more? Going 21-39 for nearly 250 yards and two touchdowns, out-dueling one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game -- Brett Favre. Yeah you're right Rush, that's not doing it for me either. \nOkay, so now it's 4th and 26, 1:12 left on the clock and the Eagles are down 17-14. \nSomewhere in southern Florida, Rush sits gleefully in front of his television set, maybe because it looks as if McNabb won't be able to rescue the Eagles, but probably because he's too hopped up on pain killers to know the difference. The ball is snapped to McNabb, who calmly surveys the field, fires the ball to a wide open Freddie Mitchell for 28 yards and the first down, setting up the tying field goal. \nPalm Beach County EMS crews receive a call regarding everyone's favorite conservative radio talk show host collapsing in his beach-side mansion. No folks, not an overdose, at least not this time -- Rush was just choking on some humble pie. \nIn a year when the NHL provided some of the most exciting playoff hockey in years with Cinderella stories and five-overtime games and Major League Baseball's postseason had everything from suicide squeezes by a catcher to win a game (ala "Major League's" Jake Taylor) to the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox both being a game within reaching the World Series. The NFL is trying to keep pace in the "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better" race. \nStarting with the Titans' field goal victory over the Ravens, football fans around the country have been given numerous reasons to forget the debacle of the BCS and co-national champions. With overtime games in Green Bay, St. Louis and Philadelphia, the NFL has solidified its case for being the country's premiere sports league as millions of fans are fixated on what will happen next.