NFL Conference Championship Weekend

Well, I'm holding off on some political analysis because there's just too much news and commentary to digest. I'll be blogging the reactions to the South Carolina primary earthquake later today. Meanwhile, I'm getting ready for some football. I love the playoffs more than the Super Bowl, and Bill Plaschke does too, at the Los Angeles Times, "This Sunday is twice as good for NFL fans":

One of the hidden truths in professional football will make its annual appearance Sunday, bitten by frost, pelted by rain, awash in beauty.

Advertisers don't want you to know it. Party planners don't want you to feel it. The NFL itself would rather you not recognize it. But with the intensity of a John Elway scramble and the passion of a Dwight Clark leap, it is a truth that cannot be denied.

Sunday is the greatest single day of the NFL season. Sunday is the real Super Bowl, only twice as much and twice as good.

The two conference championship games played Sunday will be more compelling than the one game played two weeks later, and it won't even be close.

Sunday is the Super Bowl minus the capital letters, Roman numerals and incessant glitz. Sunday is real football, played in real weather, in front of real fans, for real stakes.

I've never seen a Super Bowl winner cry. I've seen New Orleans Saints players weeping when they beat the Minnesota Vikings to qualify for their first Super Bowl.

I've never seen a Super Bowl quarterback quiver. I've seen Peyton Manning nearly faint from emotion as he staggered off the field after finally beating Tom Brady and qualifying for his first Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl has become so big, both teams feel as if they've won by simply being there, and often act and play like it. The conference championships are very different, very down, very dirty. Heroes are made, chokers are discovered, every victory is much sweeter, each defeat more devastating.

The conference championship games create so many great moments, those moments have been given enduring names. The Catch. The Drive. The Fumble. Even perhaps the most legendary postseason game of the modern was a Super Bowl semifinal game, the 1967 Ice Bowl in Green Bay.

When as the last time the Super Bowl produced something so memorable that it was given a name? The Wardrobe Malfunction?

This Sunday's conference title clashes will be more of the same, a Super Bowl without some highbrow casual fan staring at the TV shouting "Super!" while other fans spend time grazing in appetizer bowls.

RTWT.

Also, at USA Today, "Three-and-out: Giants, 49ers set to add to playoff history," and "Three-and-out: Ravens, Patriots provide battle of contrasts."