Well, the field is set. Buckle up those chin straps, grab your beer helmet and lets get ready for some playoff football. As expected all the postseason hopefuls won their final games so there weren’t any surprises with the bracket. Dallas and Kansas City will be watching from home and both legendary coaches could be calling it quits. Interesting symmetry, that.
In the NFC we’ve got a couple of interesting match-ups. NFC East vs. NFC South all the way. Lets take a closer look. I’m not going to worry about point spreads here, though I’ll post them just for reference later in the week. Since it’s the post-season in most cases I’m expecting the home teams to be 3 point faves across the board anyways.
Bye Weeks: #1 Seahawks, #2 Bears, #1 Colts, #2 Broncos
NFC Wildcard Match-ups
Saturday, January 7th 4:30 ET
#6 Washington @ #3 Tampa Bay
I said it last week and I’ll repeat it here. Washington scares the Bears fan in me. From a rooting standpoint this one could go either way. If the Redskins win here they go on to face the Seahawks, which pits the two most dangerous NFC teams in my estimation. If they lose, one of the scary NFC teams is already out. Obviously I think Washington is the better team in this match-up. Defensively I expect them to give the young Buccaneer offense trouble. The only caveat is that the Skins haven’t played a really tough road game in a long time. The early season match-up between these squads isn’t very informative because Washington is playing much better and more consistently than earlier this year. Tampa hasn’t looked really good in about a month and a half, with the possible exception of that Panther road win. I don’t expect Cadillac to run that well against this D, and the Redskins are more talented at RB, QB and WR. The Bucs D is a bit better, but not good enough to totally shut down the Redskins which is what they’d need to do.
The Pick: Redskins
Sunday, January 8th 1:00 ET
#5 Carolina @ #4 NY Giants
Here’s another game in which I don’t expect the NFC South team to have much of a chance to win. The Giants have a really potent offense and have proven a knack for exploiting defenses weaknesses. The Panthers have plenty of talent, and guys like Steve Smith and DeShaun Foster can move the ball against the Ginats, but it won’t be enough to outpace Tiki, Plax, and Eli. Tiki has been flat out dominant over the past 4 weeks or so and unless Eli implodes the Giants have more than enough weapons to win this game. The Panthers defense just hasn’t been doing enough to get it done against physical teams. Both teams have some excellent playmakers on defense, but unless the Panther are able to pressure Eli severely the Giants will win this one going away at home.
The Pick: Giants
AFC Wildcard Match-ups
Saturday, January 7th 8:00 ET
#5 Jacksonville @ #4 New England
The Pats should be thankful that they played in such a poor division this year and a weak schedule. The way they played for most of the season showed that they didn’t really belong in a playoff game. They certainly didn’t deserve a home game. But, by virtue of a divisional championship they get a home game against a team that lost its start QB a month ago. The stars are aligned. Even so, you cannot argue that the Pats aren’t playing exceptionally well right now. Brady held this team together for about 11 weeks and people finally got healthy and started played well over the last month or so. The Jags, even with Leftwich, are the worst team in the playoffs. Without Leftwich it’ll be even more pronounced. Gerrard is a pretty solid back up, certainly one of the best out there, so they won’t get totally embarrassed but he can’t match up with Brady and the Belichick defense. I expect the Pats to struggle early in this one, but once they get their legs under them they’ll charge back. The Jags simply cannot keep up with that depleted offense.
The Pick: Patriots
Sunday, January 8th 4:30 ET
#6 Pittsburgh @ #3 Cincinatti
It’s always really difficult to play a divisional opponent in a Wildcard playoff game. The familiarity and the edge that the underdog takes into these types of games always levels the playing field. It doesn’t matter how the records end up or how talented these two teams are, it’s going to be a slugfest. I can see scenarios in which both teams win this game. Palmer, CJ and Housh could end up playing catch against the Steeler defense. The Steelers have played a quietly crappy schedule and have struggled against teams who were able to pass the ball effectively. The Bengals on the other hand have played an equally flimsy schedule and have only beaten 2 good teams. These Steelers and the Bears before they got their legs under themselves. It’s certainly not difficult to envision the Steelers running the ball down the Bengals throat all day long and keeping the Bengals off the field. I’m more than a little conflicted on this match-up and it doesn’t help that these guys split their season series, each winning on the road. Something in me doesn’t trust Bill Cowher in the postseason and I’m leaning towards a Cincy win. But it is Bettis’ going away party which could motivate the Steelers to control the ball all game. The deciding factor for me would be the fact that over the final 3 weeks the Steelers have look much more dominant.
The Pick: Steelers
So what do you folks think? This is a loaded playoff field and none of the teams look to be an easy out. 5 weeks ago I’d have said the Pats were one-and-done but then they got healthy and decided to kick people’s teeth in. The Bears looked like a paper tiger with Orton struggling at QB but then Grossman came in and ignited the offense. The Jags looked really scary and were probably the Colts biggest threat in the AFC but Leftwich got hurt….though he might still be back.
I’m going to keep this thread on going for the rest of the playoffs and hopefully there’ll be plenty of banter and trash talk between you junkies. You can be sure I’ll be slinging obscenities at whomever plays the Bears next week so you’d better get your fill this week before you get eliminated.
Tune in later for a quick review of my end-of-season prediction totals and I’ll post the spreads once they come in. Lets hear some chatter folks, and let me be the first to welcome any Panther cheerleaders to join me in Detroit in a few weeks!