E.K. NATION

ROGER FEDERER

E.K. NATION'S 2006 MAN OF THE YEAR

We haven't done a check on this, but we think the only mention of tennis that has ever been made on this blog is whenever we refer to Maria Sharapova's hotness. Which makes it kind of weird to suddenly proclaim Roger Federer to be E.K. Nation's Man Of The Year.

We don't follow tennis much. But one thing is undeniable: The guy had another amazing year, and he's been turning into one of the most dominant athletes in the world, all below the radar of the typical American sports media outlets. But we notice here at E.K. Nation. The guy won twelve tournaments, including three more Grand Slam championships. He was won 90 of his 95 matches, losing only to Rafael Nadal and Andrew Murray. The guy is on fire and is not to be trifled with. And he's now involved with UNICEF and Goodwill, doing some charity work, so that pretty much seals the deal. He'll retire the greatest player that tennis has ever seen, and we'll look back on our selection with pride.

Now, on to our annual week-by-week NFL playoffs prediction spectacular.

It must be said that we suck at predicting the NFL. For the second time in our short four-years of predicting the NFL playoffs, neither team we picked to go to the Super Bowl even made the playoffs. Congrats Denver and Carolina on fine seasons. We are pathetic at this. But we ramble on...

AFC Wild-Card Round:
• The Chiefs? The Chiefs made it? Well, now, that was out of the blue, wasn't it? Gosh. Well, Indy's not going to falter in this one. They've got some making up to do for last year's bungling of the Steeler game. And they will. Colts (-7) WIN and COVER, 36-17.

• The last two Jets playoff games have gone to overtime. We see it happening again, for some reason. Thus, we offer this one up: Patriots (-8.5) WIN but DO NOT COVER, 23-20 in overtime.

NFC Wild-Card Round:
• Dallas was looking good for a while, maybe even Super-Bowl-good. Now, not so much. But the Seahawks have been pretty crap-tacular all year, relatively speaking. The Niners made their asses into hats, twice, for cryin' out loud. Here's why we're going with Seattle: We picked Dallas to be in the NFC title game. Seahawks (-3)WIN and COVER, 20-7.

• The Eagles are strong, folks. Five wins in a row to complete the season, with Jeff Garcia of all people running the show at QB. And the Giants are faltering. Eli Manning is not a solid quarterback yet. The Eagles, save for about a quarter's worth of football, dominated New York in their two games this year. Which is totally why we're going to say this: Tiki's not done yet. He'll run for 222 yards and four TDs. Giants (+7) WIN and COVER, 37-32.