Madonna will play the Super Bowl but who will be there?

 
John Riordan

MADONNA will be at the Super Bowl for the half-time show. It’s more wide open than ever who will join her there.

The Green Bay Packers were made to battle for their dream of an unbeaten season while their main rivals for the NFC Championship, the New Orleans Saints and the San Francisco 49ers, secured impressive victories on another exciting day of NFL action.

The AFC, meanwhile, on top of which the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Houston Texans and the New England Patriots continue to impress, is even more wide open with the Denver Broncos and Tim Tebow ruffling feathers with yet another dramatic win.

While the unorthodox style of young Broncs quarterback Tebow continues to divide opinion, there is no questioning the ability of Aaron Rodgers to pull out all the stops for his unbeaten Packers.

When it came to crunch time against the New York Giants who had battled back to level the score with a minute left, Rodgers produced a clinical drive that silenced the home crowd and pushed his team through to the play-offs.

But the Giants, who came into yesterday’s game on the back of a bruising loss at New Orleans last Monday, made their opponents work for the 38-35 victory which was clinched by Mason Crosby’s 31-yard field goal.

“Those are the fun ones when they end up like that,” Rodgers said.

“We’ve had a number of games we won by a couple scores. You get the ball on the 20, under a minute, and we get it down there for a chip-shot field goal, it’s very rewarding. It probably [ranks] right at the top.”

A farcical performance from the Giants’ NFC East rivals, the Dallas Cowboys, ensured they would fail to take advantage of Big Blue’s brave loss as they fell short at the Arizona Cardinals in overtime.

LaRod Stephens-Howling’s 52-yard rushing touchdown gave the Cardinals a 19-13 victory, bringing to an end the Cowboys’ four-game win streak.

However, Dallas had a chance to win in regular time. As Dan Bailey successfully kicked a field goal, his own coach inexplicably called a timeout and Bailey’s next shot fell short and left, forcing the overtime.

“The play clock was running down. We just wanted to make sure that he had a real clean opportunity at it,” Dallas coach Jason Garrett explained. “It was at about six [seconds] and we were still getting settled in, so we banged a time out to give him the opportunity to get the snap, hold and kick as clean as possible.”

The San Francisco 49ers bounced back in style from their Thanksgiving Day defeat to the Baltimore Ravens with a comprehensive 26-0 over the St Louis Rams. That victory secured their first NFC West crown and their first post-season run since 2002.

And the other NFC pace setters, New Orleans, showed once again why they may be best placed to knock the Packers off their pedestal, taking advantage of an ill-disciplined Detroit Lions outfit whose consistent fouling helped the Saints towards a 31-17 victory which puts them at 9-3 for the season.

Meanwhile in the AFC, the aforementioned anti-hero Tebow continued to display his enigmatic ability to produce the goods. He once again drove his Denver Broncos to a late victory, this time a 35-32 win at the Minnesota Vikings.

Tebow passed for a season-best 202 yards and two third-quarter touchdowns while also adding a two-point conversion before setting up a platform for Matt Prater’s winning field goal, their fifth win on the bounce giving them a share of the AFC West lead with the Oakland Raiders who lost in Miami to the Dolphins, 34-14.

“I know that I had a lot of help. Offensive line did a great job, and receivers stepped up and made me look a lot better than I really am,” said Tebow.

Elsewhere, a brave fourth quarter fightback failed to help the Indianapolis Colts avoid an 0-12 record as they lost 31-24 to the runaway AFC East leaders, the New England Patriots in Foxborough.

Despite three Rob Gronkowski touchdowns, the Colts rallied with scores from Donald Brown and Pierre Garcon and almost regained possession from an onside kick but the Pats survived, and now Indy have just four games to avoid becoming only the second team to finish a season 0-16.

Against all the odds, the injury-hit Houston Texans won a franchise record sixth game in-a-row, beating the Atlanta Falcons 17-10. And while third string quarterback TJ Yates enjoyed a solid debut, star wide receiver Andre Johnson’s hamstring injury was yet another setback for the AFC South leaders.

The defending AFC champions, the Pittsburgh Steelers, are really hitting their stride, crushing the Cincinnati Bengals 35-7 as Ben Roethlisberger threw two touchdown passes to Mike Wallace with Rashard Mendenhall running for two more.

“We always make it harder than it has to be,” Wallace said afterwards.

“Today, we came out with a lot of emotion and a lot of energy. The guys just wanted to win. We knew what we had to do. It’s getting closer to the playoffs and it’s time for us to get better.”

In the other AFC North clash, the Baltimore Ravens were almost as clinical, beating the Cleveland Browns 24-10 as Ray Rice enjoyed a career-best rushing total, 204 yards of running that blew the Browns away.
 
That Bengals defeat, not to mention the situation in the West where the Raiders slipped up, has lit up the AFC wild card race with the Tennessee Titans (who won 23-17 at the Buffalo Bills) and the New York Jets (34-19 at the Washington Redskins) taking full advantage. As many as four teams could end up vying for the second wild card spot in the coming weeks.

The one remaining AFC game of the weekend is tonight’s relatively meaningless clash between the San Diego Chargers and the Jacksonville Jaguars their first game since Jack Del Rio was last week and also their first game under the new ownership of Illinois businessman Shahid Khan.

Meanwhile back in the NFC, the Chicago Bears are on the verge of freefall, losing their second in a row, a tame home loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, 10-3 while rookie quarterback Cam Newton put in another impressive shift for the Carolina Panthers who won 38-19 at home to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And the Philadelphia Eagles’ season went from bad to worse on Thursday night, losing 31-14 at the Seattle Seahawks.

Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/NZ5MweEk2AA/post.aspx

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