The Ravens beat the Texans in Baltimore by two scores back in October, and that was before T.J. Yates Time was dumped on the world. Plus there’s the tidbit that Bawlmer is 18-1 in its last 19 home games, so an NFL playoffs still seeking its first road team victory appears bound to stay chalktastic. Unless Joe Flacco wings multiple pick-sixes and Ray Rice goes down on the first play, which we all hope they will.

It’s been a rough weekend for overtly religious NFL stars, with Breesus and Tebow already shown the door. Could God’s Stabbacker, Ray Lewis, be next? Probably not, but it’s enticing to think about His Lordiness taking a weekend away from more pressing matters to spurn those most vocal about about faith’s impact on a stupid sport that affects nothing.

Anyone who sat through the BCS National Championship this week got their fill of hearing about anything honey badger-related, given Brent Musburger’s insistence on dropping Tyrann Mathieu’s nickname on damn near every play. So it’s probably poor timing for Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers to tell reporters that they are using the honey badger as their inspiration or spirit animal or what have you in advance of the team’s playoff showdown with the Saints this weekend.

We’re not adverse to the little critter having crossover appeal. Far from it. Recall that KSK featured the honey badger in a KILL KILL KILL post a year and a half back. Our only suggestion is maybe go a little easy on the honey badger overkill, sports figures in search of cheap motivational ploys. Can’t hurt to give the Golden Eagle a chance at being an avatar of badassery. At least you won’t be piggybacking on a nickname that was widely mocked just days ago on a national stage.

The Ravens are days away from hosting a home playoff game for the first time in five years and who do they have to thank for it? Ray Rice? Terrell Suggs? Haloti Ngata? Ed Reed? Yes, mainly those guys. But also Joe Flacco, who has quietly become a downright capable NFL starter most of the time. Though he’s on the verge of becoming a very noisy capable NFL starter with delusions of grandeur. Nevertheless, in Flacco’s mind, being just about adequate is something deserving of high praise and recognition lest a QB be forced to unleash a great media-scolding through huffy press conference passive aggression.

“If you look at the teams that won, yeah you can look at the quarterbacks but that’s just because you guys, ESPN, everybody wants to pump them up as being the best quarterback that year. It’s really going to come down to what team is the best,” Flacco said. “I’m sure if we win, I’ll have nothing to do with why we won according to you guys. It is what it is. We’re going to do our best to try to win it and it doesn’t really matter what the reason is.”

REEEEEERRRR! Another tragedy of Tebow-slurping: it leads the other quarterbacks in the bottom half of the league in completion percentage and passer rating to believe they should get their due.

“I don’t care if people look at it that way. I don’t necessarily see it that way,” Flacco said. “You guys want everybody to be Aaron Rodgers and be Tom Brady, but you guys do realize, those guys’ [teams] don’t run the ball?

HAVE YOU EVEN SEEN RODGERS’ HANDOFF MECHANICS!? LAUGHABLE! LOOK AT THAT AWKWARD CHECKDOWN!

“If we try to do that, the criticism that we’d take around here would be ridiculous. We could win eight games like that and we could lose one and you guys would be like, ‘Oh man, what are you guys doing?’ This is what you guys said you wanted and if you lose one game, oh my God. You guys got to remember that. You guys want an elite quarterback. You have to stop complaining when we go out there and throw the ball 60 times a game.’”

No, Joe, that criticism would be incredibly valid. For you see, Ray Rice is a top-five running back. Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers are top-five quarterbacks. When the Patriots and Packers execute pass-heavy offenses, they are playing to their strength, just as the Ravens are when they lock Cam Cameron in a tool shed and actually stick with running the ball. Remember that Monday night loss to Jacksonville when Ray Rice only got eight carries and Flacco got 38 pass attempts? I do. It was hilarious.

I’ll grant that Flacco is decent enough to be a winner in the postseason and if the Ravens are actually to win the Super Bowl, ol’ Bert will have probably had to drop a bomb or two to Torrey Smith. But that’s not happening unless the running game is also working well in tandem. Jeebus, you finally get a QB to move out of his parents house, and he wants to world to hand him a big old medal.

Tebow played well. Or the Steelers defense was extra sh*tty. I’m inclined the say the former. The Steelers stacked the box and dared his holiness to throw deep and, with the help of Demaryius Thomas batting off Ike Taylor in coverage, he was able to do just that. Once Pittsburgh tied it late, I expected the Broncos to grind out an overtime drive that would end in a record-setting 70-yard overtime field goal by Matt Prater, only for Shaun Suisham to miss on a 30-yard potential tying kick. This was a lot quicker, at least.

[Bombarded by "Tebow 3:16 passed for 316 yards" messages as proof that God hates me]

Kind of a shame that Tebow was actually effective, because there was so much to hate about Phil Simms’ covering for the mistakes Tebow did make. Here’s Simms’ flagrant fluffing over Timmy being inaccurate in the first quarter, calling a clear misfire a “good throwaway”.

The Broncos advance to play New England, who Denver will likely lose to by 30 once again. The AFC divisional playoffs are going to be unwatchable blowouts, but at least the media will have a lot to gush about in the run-up to them. So that’s nice. Maybe Prater can do another of his deflections off the crossbar that lands on the 20. It’ll be his way of parting rubes from their dollars and women from their panties in his post-NFL life.

Who will more visibly venerate the Lord through on-field piety: Tebow Tebowing or Polamalu crossing himself after every play? Or will it be a surprise entrant? Like Demariyus Thomas showering the front row in communion wafers following a score?

Peter King says that the Steelers are the better team were they to meet in Wichita, but Tebow has invoked his evangelical warlock sorcery to bring Pittsburgh low, making The Ben and LaMarr Woodley gimpy, taking out Maurkice Pouncey and Rashard Mendenhall, and inflicting lifelong sickle cell on Ryan Clark. Now conditions are ripe for possible postseason Tebow Time, the legend of which will be passed down through the ages, but only after it has been altered to suit the whims of kings and other lords who will rewrite it every few generations.

There was a time when it was The Ben who was the young QB irritating people with vocal statements about his faith. You might recall that the NFL wanted to fine Roethlisberger $10,000 for writing PFJ (PRAY FER JEEBUS) on his shoes before every game his 2004 rookie season. Oh, how Benjamin changed where he strayed from the flock into the land of body shots and rapeyness. Such a shame. We can only hope for similar identity killing lapses out of Tebowmania.

Hours before the game, Jay Glazer reported that the Broncos might use Brady Quinn on critical 3rd downs, which might be proof of the existence of a benevolent God who enjoys our laughter.

Don’t mock the Dirty Bird! That’s only what every Falcons opponent has done since 1998. Fairly certain all Jamal Anderson does these days does is feign outrage whenever a Falcons opponent imitates it on a score.

Anyway, Eli spotted the Falcons a hilarious grounding penalty for a safety, but after the dust of a million punts and terrible Atlanta 4th down calls cleared, the Giants had won decisively. The score will lead some to believe it might have a better outing by New York than it really was, given they did things like this:

But even though the Giants dicked around most of the first half, the Falcons, much like Detroit on Saturday, just got sick of trying late. Best of luck to the Giants to try to the Packers another noble loss next week in Lambeau. The Giants did win the last playoff game played in Green Bay, which Peter King think is INTERESTING and reminiscent of Favre.

With Mike Shanahan unlikely to qualify for the postseason anytime soon, the next two most red-faced head coaches must vie for supremacy on the big stage. Falcons-Giants is one of those games where a team that is consistently decent but never great goes against a wildly erratic opponent who can one week actually hang with Green Bay until the final whistle and then get plowed by the Redskins the next. So as much as it sucks for tepid Atlanta fans to hear, this game will be decided by which version of this schizophrenic Giants team shows up. Personally, I’d rather we wait a week for the petulant Eli derpface version, for that would at least give the blowout next week in Lambeau a watchable sideshow.

One of the main subplots for pundit yammering today will be whether Matt Ryan can be on a team that happens to win a game in the playoffs for the first time in three career tries. We’re obviously down with unfairly maligning a quarterback by boiling down his team’s shortcomings to his singular crushing failure, but it’s just not as fun to shake the choker stick at Matt Ryan as it was and is to do so at, say, Tony Romo or Peyton Manning. Clearly Matty Ice needs to be featured in more ubiquitous advertising campaigns.

Black Monday saw several coaches and team executives being shown the door like the miserable incompetents that they are. Then Black Tuesday did as well. Surely, some more people will be fired and those days will get to dress in blackface as well. Everyone knows firings are great, except for when reporters repeat that euphemistic bullsh*t that someone was “relieved of their duties” by a team, like they’ve been granted freedom from the manacles of their football job and are now able to go frolic freely with smiling, singing forest creatures. They got fired. Just say it. Anyway, here’s a rundown of who’s been canned and who probably should have been canned but was mysteriously given another chance to suck.

Bill Polian

One of the most powerful executives in football, Polian made it possible for the Colts and Peyton Manning to thrive through a slight rejiggering of the rules to benefit Indy’s pass-happy attack. On the other hand, he’s a controlling asswipe and Jim Irsay would like to be able to have some say in his team’s operations between posting classic rock lyrics on his Twitter feed.

Status: FIRED

Jim Caldwell

To his credit, Caldwell showed marked gains in feigning understanding the responsibilities of his job this season.

Status: PROBABLY ALSO FIRED BUT COLTS HATERS HOPE NOT

Jerry Angelo

The Bears general manager had a draft record of futility to rival anyone’s. Oh, and there was that time he ignored the pleas of his coaches not to sign Kordell Stewart to big money and did it anyway. And still kept his job for almost another decade.

Status: FIRED

Mike Martz

Once again, an NFL offense fails to grasp the fantastic complexity of the Mike Martz system. Why, it’s not his fault football players are such simps. Who are you to question genius? How could he have known that Jay Cutler would get hurt and then the team couldn’t bring in another veteran because it would take too long to learn Martz’s Byzantine playbook? Force majeure. No refund.

Status: FIRED until he can sucker yet another team into giving him a job.

Norv Turner

The Chargers reportedly gave scroteface an ultimatum a few weeks back that either his team wins out and makes the postseason, or he gets canned. Well, the Chargers didn’t win out, so naturally…

Status: SHOCKINGLY NOT FIRED

Andy Reid

One season of tarnished expectations shouldn’t get in the way of many more seasons of tarnished expectations.

Status: NOT FIRED

Raheem Morris

Drew picked the Buccaneers to go to the Super Bowl and no one makes Drew look foolish and lives to tell about it.

Status: FIRED

Steve Spagnuolo

The Rams demand their next coaching sacrifice. At least they no longer have to worry about inheriting A.J. Smith from the Chargers. And by they, I mean a largely theory based idea of a Rams fan base.

Status: FIRED

Leslie Frazier

Frazier has capably maintained the level of ineptitude to which Vikings fans are accustomed, with or without Purple Jesus.

Status: NOT FIRED

Kyle Shanahan

Only including this to toy with Kogod’s and other ‘Skins fan emotions.

Status: Nepotism still alive and well.

Jeff Fisher

Meeting with the Dolphins. Does this spell a return to excessive sideline fistpumps?

Status: FISTPUMP

It wasn’t quite the dramatic collapse that made the first meeting between the Giants and the Cowboys so memorably hilarious, but Dallas failed to fall on enough giftwrapped New York fumbles that I barely minded. Romo’s swollen purple sausage fingers threatened to make a game of it in the second half, but Dallas did as Dallas does, which is derp so Dallas-y. The 4th and 1 attempt where the Cowboys rushed to the line to catch the Giants defense off guard only to get stuffed, leaving Romo to spring up pathetically screaming at the referees about the spot? Magnifique.

Amazing too was this, the most Romo of all things. Were there a dictionary that supported GIFs, that would be awesome if somewhat impractical. It’s a hoary cliche to suggest images belong with the definition to certain terms, but let me get all hoary cliche on you because this near desperation fumble ruled as a sack is Romo to all get-out.

[Watches on loop until I lose my job and have my power cut]

NBC felt it necessary to include a swatch of salsa music to coincide immediately with a Victor Cruz touchdown. It makes sense because Cruz whips out the salsa dance with each score and because NBC Sports’ stock in trade is being the worst whenever possible. That NBC had the music ready, not for a slow motion replay going into commercial, but the actual live dance, is a level of contempt for your audience I’m not capable of processing.

Laurent Robinson mocked the salsa following the Cowboys’ second score, but it apparently wasn’t impressive enough for NBC to package it with Savio Vega’s theme music.

Come-Get-Some, Atlanta will in the early game next Sunday. That and the Steelers-Tebow Time tilt will be the two games getting the KSK live blogification treatment in the Wild Card round, seeing as how I work Saturdays and have little other choice. Not that I really to be glued to my computer for the Bengals-Texans mess and the Saints’ inevitable blowout of the Lions.

There were three games this season that KSK live blogged that didn’t turn out to be complete disasters: the Saints-Packers opener, Bears-Eagles in early November and, finally and perhaps most spectacularly, the first meeting between the Giants and Cowboys that featured Tony Romo diving into his own end zone for a safety and ended with Jason Pierre-Paul blocking a potential game-tying Dallas field goal while Jerry Jones’ grandson looked on in delicious, delicious anguish. Should the second encounter, which will decide who “wins” the NFC East and hosts Atlanta next week, turn out anything like that, we can feel a tiny bit better about all those primetime games with Tyler Palko that we had to suffer through.