14-year veteran and two-time Superbowl winner (!) Mike Shanahan was fired as head coach of the Denver Broncos on Tuesday. What the fuck? Tough year for NFL coaches hovering around .500. This AP story at Fifth Down provides a plausible enough argument. Despite a career 146-89 record, Shanahan has made increasingly poor roster choices since the departure of John Elway: “This year, as the defense floundered, it became obvious it wasn’t just a coaching problem. It was an issue of talent on the field, and in Denver, Shanahan makes all the personnel decisions. His top two draft picks in 2007, Jarvis Moss and Tim Crowder, were barely a factor this season. Two of Denver’s top veteran acquisitions from last year, Niko Koutouvides and Dewayne Robertson, also did very little.” More at Shutdown Corner, and the visual diarrhea that is Deadspin

From the Star Ledger This AP story detailing two improbable roads to a College Bowl game starts thusly: BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Halfway through this season, Rutgers and North Carolina State looked nothing like teams bound for bowl games. The Scarlet Knights of the Big East and the Wolfpack of the Atlantic Coast Conference survived terrible starts, then rode their rejuvenated quarterbacks to late-season rallies and berths in thePapajohns.com Bowl on Monday. I’m happy for my Scarlet Knights, of course. They did indeed survive not just a terrible start, but a TERRIBLE START, on their way to a respectable if not disappointing 7-5 season. And NC State has a little-offense-that-could, headed up by redshirt freshman QB Russell Wilson, who ended the season with 226 consecutive passes without a pick.  But, the Papajohns.com bowl? Really? The closest you could get to classy sponsorship was the punctuationally awkward web site of the third-biggest national pizza-substitute...

As has been duly pointed out at Fifth Down and Shutdown Corner, there is something odd about Vegas’s line for the first round of the NFL playoffs. When Favorite Spread Underdog Saturday, 4:30 Atlanta -2 ARIZONA Saturday, 8:00 Indianapolis -1½ SAN DIEGO Sunday, 1:00 Baltimore -3 MIAMI Sunday, 4:30 Philadelphia -3 MINNESOTA All the home teams (in CAPS) are underdogs. Despite the rarity (only one of eight road teams in the last two Wildcard rounds was favored to win), these lines make a good deal of sense. Though, just for grins, I’d take San Diego and Miami.