Ok holidays are over. Lots to talk about today at work. What Santa brought, how much food you ate, what family fight happened, who got drunk at the family party…and who is going to the NFL playoffs….

Because of the hugeness of #1 I’m not going to give a huge list today. #1 will be dominating all conversations tomorrow, and actually for the whole month! But here are the top  things you need to know to survive the sports football dominated world this Monday morning.

1. The NFL Playoffs have finally been decided.

San Diego Chargers

Friday was a huge day in the shopping world, Sunday was a huge day in the football world. Most years the teams going to the playoffs were predictable weeks ahead (does that sentence even make sense? It sounds sporty….Hmm). In any case, it is usually easy to see who would be going to the playoffs and the wildcard game was like a mere formality. This year, it all came down to the last week–actually, the last game–of the regular season. (NOTE: I made a huge oops a few weeks ago in my discussion of the playoffs due to an inaccurate blog that I read. They had a bracket already filled in with determined spots and it was WRONG! Nothing was decided until yesterday. Not amused.)

So what happened? Here’s your who’s who of who’s going to the playoffs:

WILDCARDS (Playing on Jan 3 & 4)

AFC:

Baltimore Ravens vs. Miami Dolphins

Indianapolis Colts vs. San Diego Chargers

NFC:

Atlanta Falcons vs. Arizona Cardinals

Philadelphia Eagles vs. Minnesota Vikings

BYES: (Um… worst name ever. Thought that meant they didn’t get in. These are teams that automatically placed into first round of the playoffs without having to battle in the wildcard spot because they had the best records in their divisions.There is more too it I’m sure but that’s the important part. Stupid name.)

Tennessee Titans

Pittsburgh Steelers

NY Giants

Carolina Panthers

I will be doing more analysis of the NFL playoffs later this week.

2.  The New England Patriots are not going to the playoffs

Last year they were 18-0 going into the Superbowl and seemed likely to become the first NFL team in history to have a perfect winning season only the Giants stopped that. Then this year they proceeded to go 11- 4 and failed to get even into the playoffs for the first time since 2002. That did make them one of a very exclusive bunch of teams to win 11 regular season games and not make it to the playoffs!

3. The Biggest Losers… in NFL History

The Detroit Lions! Congrats guys, you lost every game! Never been done before. A full 0-16 season. Not really much else you can say about that except, they paid each of you how much this season?

um....if you want to win you have to 1. not be afraid of the football and 2. Catch the football

4. Bowls full of Roses, Sugar, Chick-fil-A,  Emeralds, Oranges, Gators….and College Football

Yeah… Gotta be honest here, have absolutely no clue about any of this yet. However, heard many a conversation about them this weekend. These are…wow. No idea. Heard of some of them like the Rose Bowl and know it’s College Football. I’ll cover more about this later this week but for now, here is the breakdown of who won and when and what bowls are still coming up!

College Football Bowls

look how pretty football can be! The Rose Bowl on New Year's Day

and because I need a 5th thing….

5. Boston’s Win Streak was Snapped on Christmas

The LA Lakers snapped Boston’s franchise record 19-game winning streak as a nice present for them in a grueling game on Christmas. The C’s then went on to lose again Friday night but bounced back with avengance on Sunday with a 108-63 stomping against the Sacramento Kings.

About the author: Jennifer Taglione is the owner of this fabulous website Stiletto Sports. Despite writing well over 500 posts, she still maintains that she is not a sports writer! She is however a huge fan of Kurt Warner, Larry Fitzgerald, Mark Sanchez, the Celtics, and totally kicks butt on March Madness brackets! Connect with her by following her on Twitter @StilettoSportsJ and subscribing to her weekly newsletter. For more info check out the About the Editor page!

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