2014 NFL Tournament of Champions First Round: Joe Montana Bracket

Okay, maybe my graphics skills need work... or maybe I didn't want to spend money and thus used Paint... but still. You get the idea.

It's time for me to begin another batch of craziness, only this batch will take me significantly less time than the NBA Tournament of Champions took. The fact that I'm only using 48 teams instead of 64 helps, but so does me not needing to run a best-of-seven series every time. Football is much easier in this regard.

Even with only needing a week for each round, that's still 32 games I need to get through in the span of the next two weeks, which is how long it took to get through one round of the NBA Tournament of Champions. As such, I decided it was easiest to break the tournament up into brackets again. I'm only using four brackets this time, but it will still work great in this regard.

I decided to name each bracket after the superstar that appears most in each. With all the Niners champs from the 80's in here, Joe Montana was the easy name for this one. Yet, he doesn't have the top seed and in fact will be playing in two of the three matchups that I'll simulate today. The seeds you see here are the overall rankings that I pulled from Pro Football Reference, and initial details about the tournament can be found on the preview post.

As a reminder, I'm going to do these simulations as a best-of-three, with the "clinching" game being the official result, and I'll try to tabulate stats as best I can. I will also try to get accurate weather forecasts for the areas as best as I can for these. All simulations for the tournament are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's get started.

Joe Montana Bracket

(XXXIII) '05 Pittsburgh Steelers @ (XXXII) '77 Dallas Cowboys
Game 1: '77 DAL 23, '05 PIT 3
Game 2: '77 DAL 13, '05 PIT 0
Dallas' defense was the dominant force today, as the Steelers only managed 119 yards of offense, and Big Ben managed 70 yards on a horrible 5-23 passing with an interception. Tony Dorsett ran for 79 yards and the lone touchdown in the game for the Cowboys.

(XLVIII) '70 Baltimore Colts @ (XVII) '89 San Francisco 49ers
Game 1: '70 BAL 23, '89 SF 17
Game 2: '89 SF 20, '70 BAL 13
Game 3: '89 SF 31, '70 BAL 16
The Niners scored 21 unanswered points to take a 21-7 halftime lead, and a 3rd quarter rally by the Colts came up a little short. Roger Craig ran for 81 yards and 3 touchdowns to lead San Fran, while Joe Montana threw for 207 yards, a touchdown, and an interception. Johnny Unitas threw for 201 yards and a pair of touchdowns, but also a pick, for the Colts.

(XL) '06 Indianapolis Colts @ (XXV) '86 New York Giants
Game 1: '86 NYG 31. '06 IND 10
Game 2: '86 NYG 35, '06 IND 28
A great back and forth game. The Colts scored the first ten points before the Giants came back and forced a see-saw battle with three touchdowns scored in the final three minutes. Peyton Manning completed 23 of 33 passes for 383 yards and a pair of touchdowns, but was picked off once and couldn't let a desperation last-second drive to win the game. Phil Simms only threw for 132 yards but notched a pair of touchdowns, while Joe Morris ran for 207 yards and a pair of scores, including the game winner.

(XLI) '88 San Francisco 49ers @ (XXIV) '67 Green Bay Packers
Game 1: '88 SF 31, '67 GB 14
Game 2: '67 GB 20, '88 SF 17
Game 3: '88 SF 27. '67 GB 0
Another shutout. Neither quarterback played particularly well, as Joe Montana and Bart Starr each threw two interceptions, but Montanta at least completed 15 passes for 145 yards; Starr only completed four for 41 yards. Roger Craig did the heavy lifting in the cold, going for 166 yards and three scores for the Niners.

To see the bracket so far, click here.

Ultimately, only one road team won (the '88 Niners) in a decent-sized upset, but looking at the talent I wasn't too surprised by any of these results. Any thoughts of recency bias aren't entirely true, as the more recent team advanced in just two of the four games played thus far.

This isn't all of my work for the day however; I still have one more bracket I plan on doing today before working the other two in tomorrow since there's plenty of games to be spread around. Tough matchups lurk in the next round for these four squads though with a few more elite offensive squads, plus my top-seeded team in the '91 Redskins.

Check back again a little later today for the Larry Csonka Bracket to be revealed and for four more teams for fall from contention.