Worst Performances of the Wild Card Round

Despite it being late in the NFL season, I'm going to start this weekly post anyway. Everyone likes to talk about the top performances from the weekend and hand out game balls all the time. But that won't be happening here. The Wheelhouse will hand out the worst performances from the latest NFL week. We want to know who failed and really stunk it up each week. So instead of game balls being awarded for good play, this will be like eggs being thrown out for terrible play. We'll hand out a couple here each week, but there's no limit as we'll let the bad play deem how many to give out.

Here are the worst performances from this week's NFL wild card round...

Chad Pennington, 25/38 for 252 yards, 1 TD, 4 INTs. Chad Pennington's storybook season peaked last week when he led the Dolphins into his former place of work and defeated his old team to clinch the AFC East Division. This week his season ended with an early exit from the playoffs with a performance you can only describe as a lame effort. You can't turn the ball over against the Ravens defense...you just can't do it. Pennington threw seven picks all season and threw four today...two of them to Ed Reed, which by the way is unbelievable that people still throw Reed's way at all.

I believe the Jets were correct in getting rid of Pennington before this season because even though he had a great regular season, Pennington is the same guy he's always been. He might get you to the playoffs, but he won't win the big one for you or even get you close to the big one for that matter. Congrats Chad on getting the first egg thrown at you in the history of The Wheelhouse!

LaDainian Tomlinson, 5 rushes, 25 yards, 1 TD, a detached groin and a lot of sitting on the bench. I think it's time to declare that LaDainian Tomlinson disappears in the playoffs. And not because he doesn't perform, it's because it seems like every time a playoff game hits, LT has some weird injury that came out of nowhere. If you played all season with it, why can't he play now? It's the playoffs...show me something, get out there! Remember the AFC Championship game from last year where all LT did was sit on the bench with his helmet and coat on looking cold and bored in New England. He apparently was injured in that game too. But even if you're injured, show some emotion for your team LaDainian! He makes no attempt to be a cheerleader on the sideline and get behind his team...he just sits there, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else but at the game.

Thankfully for the Chargers playoff hopes, they had speedster Darren Sproles to carry the load and be the dagger to pierce the Colts hearts yesterday. LT has been one of the best running backs in the NFL the past five or so years, but let's face it...he disappears in the playoffs.

Honorable mention goes to Tarvaris Jackson. I don't care how great Adrian Peterson is, the Vikings will never go anywhere with Jackson at QB.