Blazers struggles come home

The Blazers win-at-home-lose-on-the-road trend seems to be reversing a bit. Unfortunately, so far it's only the win-at-home part that is changing as the Blazers lost to the Pacers last night 95-89. After starting the season 4-0 at home, the Blazers have now dropped 3 of their last 4 at home to drop to 5-10 overall. On the bright side, they're still in 3rd in the Northwest thanks to the horrendous play of the Kevin Garnett-less Timberwolves and a Sonics team that seems determined to waste Kevin Durants talents with bad coaching. The Blazers are going to get tested hard on the road for the next few games as they travel to San Antonio, Dallas, and Memphis. While the Blazers aren't winning as much as I thought they would, they are showing improvement at times in running McMillan's new uptempo offense. Once this young team gets used to the faster pace and gets more comfortable with each other in the transition game, they will start improving exponentially.

Tonight the Packers and Cowboys face off in what right now looks to be a preview of the NFC Championship game. Brett Favre has never won at Texas Stadium, but looks to change that tonight against Tony Romo(who is apparently bumpin uglies with Jessica Simpson again). This game looks to me like it will come down to whichever quarterback makes the fewest mistakes. In years past Favre could always be counted on to throw bad picks that often hurt him in big games, but is playing better this year than I think he ever has. Now that he's gotten a little older(ok, alot older) he can't rely on his pure talent and physical strength anymore and it has forced him to play a much cleaner, less risky game and it's been working to the tune of the Packers best record since the Lombardi days. A key matchup in this game will be Terrell Owens against the Packers physical corners. If they can keep TO in check, I think Favre gets his first win at Dallas and the Packers set themselves up for homefield advantage throughout the playoffs.

Packers +7 over COWBOYS

Unfortunately 95% of the country won't be able to watch it at home thanks to the ongoing dispute between the NFL Network and cable companies. Except for satellite customers and the cable viewers that ponied up the extra cash for the NFL Network on cable, most people will be forced to travel to a local drinking establishment to watch the game.