The Seattle Seahawks are the first teams on the 2011 NFL Playoff schedule, giving us NFC West fans an early chance to manipulate our Matt Hasselbeck voodoo dolls. They'll play the New Orleans Saints at 3:30 this afternoon—on NBC, if your NFL TV schedule hasn't yet been filled out. That's the game I'll be watching, but my football fandom is hyperlocal—I'm interested inasmuch as I spent an entire season following the Seahawks, much to my own chagrin.
↵At 7:00 the New York Jets will visit the Indianapolis Colts. I remain a Colts fan for life as a condition of having watched the Peyton Manning episode of Saturday Night Live, which remains one of the best non-actor SNL performances of all time. (Obligatory Peyton Manning United Way sketch link.)
↵That leaves the Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs—the noon game on CBS—and the Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday. Fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers, New England Patriots, Atlanta Falcons, and Chicago Bears have the distinct misfortune of not getting to watch their team potentially lose to the Seahawks this week. They'll just have to deal with it.
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