Coming off last week’s playoff games, we had four badass teams, teaming with pure badassitude, going into the championship week. Two games were played. In the AFC, the Colts, despite a shaky first half, won handily. We knew they were badass. We knew they had gobbles of badassitude. Both things held. Two things were apparent and instructive, speaking of the total badassitude of the colts: a) The drive for a touchdown just before the end of the first half, and b) Watching their head coach, Jim Caldwell talk about the game at half time and what he thought they needed to and would do in the second half. Badassitude aplenty is what that was! The Jets were badass and to the extent possible, most of their badassitude held. They just ran into a superior Colts team. They lost, but one came away thinking they were badass and their badassitude held.

In the NFC championship game, the Vikings came in looking very badass. Across the board, led by Favre, Minnesota had proven without a doubt that they were badass. There was, again, badassitude aplenty on that team. And it held. Bret had his ass kicked every which way during the game. You saw clear indication that the old man was in with vicious young ‘uns. They knocked him down, pushed him around, roughed him up, but the old man kept picking himself  up, dusting himself off, and kicking ass himself. The team lost fumbles, were intercepted, were pushed around but they fought to the very end. Badass, were the Vikings, holding on, without a doubt to their badassitude!!

The Saints came into the game looking very badass. Yours truly thought they came with more badassitude than any other team coming into this championship weekend. Yours truly thinks they were the one team that left the weekend with decidedly less badassitude than they came in with. The offense seemed to hesitate, couldn’t quite figure out how to kick ass with the many turnovers and advantages they had, and mostly got lucky. Luck does not a badass make and is not the stuff of which badassitude is made. In an interesting irony, a winning team, the New Orleans Saints, came out of the championship weekend having lost the most badassitude of all the teams we watched. If I was a betting man, and I am not, and I discourage it, I would put my money on the Colts.