It’s that time. Let’s go.
Here’s the Wild Card round schedule (times are PST time zone):
Saturday the 5th, 1:35 PM
Colts at Texans
Saturday the 5th, 5:15 PM
Seahawks at Cowboys
Sunday the 6th, 10:05 AM
Chargers at Ravens
Sunday the 6th, 1:40 PM
Eagles at Bears
Interesting that both Saturday games are played in Texas.
Right now on vegasinsider.com, the home team is favored by 2 1/2 points in each of the first 3 games. Bears are a 6 point favorite. These might be all really fun games to watch.
Let’s go, COLTS!
Interesting that none of the 5 teams that that Patriots lost to this season (Jaguars, Lions, Titans, Dolphins, and Steelers) made the playoffs.
And they’re 4-0 against playoff teams. Undefeated at home, too.
Yep. And after the Pats win their first playoff game, and the Chiefs lose their playoff game at Arrowhead (again), NE will be defending its AFC crown in Foxboro.
The Chiefs should be able to beat the Ravens, Chargers or Colts in Arrowhead. History doesn’t favor them but this year’s team seems pretty well balanced. I think the Pats would beat Houston, but the Ravens or Chargers would be tight games.
A west coast team having to travel to the east coast, and play what’s going to feel like 10 AM to them, is just going to be brutal for the Chargers. Add to it that the weather is supposed to be in the 30s with a potential wintry mix, and I like the Ravens’ chances here. While on a neutral field, or indoors, I’d be confident laying 7 or more with the Chargers.
I easily can see the Colts running away with this one at Houston. Houston’s secondary is held together with spit and bubble gum at this point, not that they were able to stop guys like T.Y. Hilton while mostly healthy.
The other two? You’ve got me. Bears defense is awfully imposing this year.
I’m speaking as a Chiefs fan. They just lost to the Chargers in Arrowhead 3 weeks ago. The week before that, in Arrowhead, they beat the Ravens in OT in a game that they really should have lost in regulation. Colts are playing as well as anybody in the AFC right now.
KC has the highest-scoring offense in the league but their defense is down near the bottom in many statistical categories, and they have trouble stopping the run. I don’t like their chances on a cold Saturday evening in Kansas City.
The problem with the Chiefs is that they don’t appear to step up in big games. Did they even have a winning record in their nationally televised games this year? I watched two of their games over here in Connecticut and they lost both of them. I’m sure those weren’t their only two national games, but still.
I like the Chiefs new-look offense, and I think Mahomes is a special quarterback. His stats are obviously impressive, but what impresses me more are his poise and fearlessness when he plays. He likes to go on the attack, and he can shrug off an interception or two by responding with a touchdown or two.
The potential problem I see is Andy Reid’s tendency to want to slow the game down as the game progresses. He came of age at a time when ball-control football was a thing, when you could hand the ball off to Edgar Bennett, William Floyd, or Rickey Watters and run out the clock. The game doesn’t work like that now, and while I think Reid’s offense is definitely modernizing, it remains to be seen whether his new-look offense will win over his career-long tendencies…especially when the game gets tight.
My guess is that, when it comes down to it, Andy Reid will end up being Andy Reid again. He’ll script out a great game plan for the first half, probably take a lead into the locker room, and then blow it late by becoming too predictable. If the Chiefs are lucky, maybe they’ll blow out their opposition so badly in the first half that it’ll be too late for Reid to screw it up.
Of course, it’s also possible that I’m wrong and Andy Reid really has changed and decides to keep the foot on the gas pedal offensively for the entire game. I mean, he’s kinda done that this year, so maybe that carries into the playoffs. I just worry that Mahomes will throw an interception or two and that will be enough to convince Reid of the need to run out the clock. If the Chiefs are to do what they’ve not done in decades and advance to the Super Bowl, they need to trust their stud. Mahomes reminds me a lot of a modernized Joe Montana, and I’m not trying to be hyperbolic. The kid has what all elite athletes have: a high percentage of intelligent play, coupled with the emotional balance to not let the occasional mistake or error discourage him. He’s mentally resilient. He comes back from errors. He doesn’t let it bother him. Mahomes is the key for KC. Of course it would be good if their defense could step up to being a reliably bend-don’t break type defense to complement the Mahomes offensive machine.
Balanced in that the defense gives up almost as many points as the offense scores? They’re my team, but hoo boy, the only thing worse then their run defense is their secondary. Or maybe reverse that.
The Colts are my sleeper pick to make it out of the AFC, though I’m not at all confident about it considering incredible parity in the league this year. I don’t think there’s any team that doesn’t have some serious questions, and I can’t think of any team that’s really a lock.
But the Colts have a few things going for them. One is the fact that Andrew Luck doesn’t necessarily have to win the game by himself. Frank Reich as head coach and de facto QB coach is a potential game-changer for Luck, and the Colts, in the same way that Jim Harbaugh was for Alex Smith. I think Reich has given Luck a better sense of his approach to the game, and he has the tools in the backfield and at the WR position to mix it up.
That said, I’ve seen several instances in which Luck seems like he’s telegraphing his plays. Defenses sometimes know what he’s going to do next. He makes mistakes, and sometimes he still makes rather big mistakes. He’s a pick-six danger. But he’s slowly improving in this area, and he compensates by being resilient and making adjustments as the game goes on.
Andrew Luck reminds me of a starting pitcher that takes an inning or two to settle into the game. If you’re going to rattle Luck, the time to do it is in the first 15-20 minutes of the game, and to preferably get the crowd into the game. Once he settles into the game, he tends to start settling into the game and he recognizes what the defenses are and are not giving him in terms of spaces to throw. He starts to throw strikes, and he can dominate a defense when he’s feeling it.
The Colts have to get by Houston, which is no given - I think the odds are pretty much even, IMO. Moreover, I’ve been reading that they’re dealing with some injuries, which can obviously affect the outcome. But if they do get by Houston and remain relatively healthy, one reason why I’d probably give the Colts an ever-so-slight edge over KC is Adam Vinatieri, who could be consequential in pretty much every game they play from here on out.
The Pats have as good a chance as any, but their offense is starting to show some signs of age. It’s really hard to gauge the Pats right now because the only team they played in the last few weeks of the season that could be considered above average was Pittsburgh - and they lost.
I think physical teams like Houston or Baltimore would give Tom Brady and his offense fits. On the other hand, I think that Bill Belichick would scheme his ass off and probably make life hell for either Lamar Jackson or Deshaun Watson. I think Watson would probably be a tougher test for the Pats, but neither the Ravens nor the Texans really have what could be considered a balanced offense attack. There’s just too much of their offense that revolves around one player, and that’s not really the kind of offense you want to take into Foxborough. But a game against either of those teams would be a street fight.
Andrew Luck threw for 4,590 yards this season with 39 TD’s to 15 INT’s (not a bad ratio) and completed 67% of his passes (very, very good).
And all this in a season where the team started off 1-5. Eight of those picks happened in those games, and then only 7 INT’s over the next 10 games while having an 8 game stretch where he threw for three or more TD’s in each game.
He’s not flashy and doesn’t have gaudy stats, but Luck is just good, and the way the team is playing right now, they are going to be a tough out for Houston.
I’m not sure that I saw any Colts games this year until the last month. But when they won in Houston and followed that with a shutout of a Cowboys team that had won 5 games in a row, everybody, including me, had to take notice. And, yes, Luck is good and is having a good year after his early-season struggles.
The Texans-Colts game is probably going to be the best game of the weekend. Houston is now down to a 1 to 1 1/2 point favorite.
I was curious as to how Luck’s stats compared to Mahomes this year. Mahomes threw for 5,097 yards this year with 50 TDs to 12 INTs, with a completion percentage of 66%.
Missed the edit window. Roethlisberger led the NFL in passing yards this year. Big Ben threw for 5,129 yards with 34 TDs, 16 picks, and had a 67% completion percentage. He had 452 completions in 675 attempts. Mahomes was 383-580; Luck was 430-639.
I doubt the Texans are advancing to the next round.
Is there an announcer anywhere with a worse case of motormouth than “Booger” McFarland?