Saturday, January 14, 2012

NFL Picks, Divisional Round

Okay, last week was a total train wreck. If not for the inability of Detroit’s defense to be even a speed bump against the New Orleans offense in the second half last Saturday night, I would have gone 0-4 on the weekend, which would have been rather embarrassing. Since I’m clearly not doing it correctly, I decided to look back to last year’s divisional round as an indicator for how these games will go this weekend:

New Orleans (-4) over SAN FRANCISCO
Last year’s game this reminds me of: Green Bay at Atlanta
Tell me if this sounds familiar: one team is coming off of a first-round win and has been an offensive juggernaut to close out the regular season. The other team achieved a first-round bye thanks to a great regular season, but is a significantly more limited team that needs to hold down the juggernaut to have a chance of winning this game at home.

I said last year that Atlanta wouldn’t give you anything less than a B/B+ game, but also wouldn’t give you anything more than that either, whereas Green Bay could give you anything from an A game to a C- one. New Orleans has been playing at A/A+ level for 8 solid weeks, but they do have D games in them away from home (see their losses to Tampa Bay and St. Louis). San Francisco is a limited team, but they’re good enough defensively to limit and frustrate their opponents and squeeze out wins in the end.

The problem is this puts a ton of pressure on the steady team, and a single mistake can turn the game into a rout. Last year that mistake was Matt Ryan’s pick-6 at the end of the first half. Atlanta simply couldn’t recover from that. San Francisco’s defense is miles better than Detroit’s, but at some point Alex Smith is going to have to make some plays to keep pace with the Saints, and he will not be equal to the task.

NEW ENGLAND (-13.5) over Denver
Last year’s game this reminds me of: Seattle at Chicago
One team is coming off of a shocking, emotional win at home over a heavy favorite, while the other is a team with a great record, but is visibly flawed and thus people aren’t talking them up as true contenders as much as one would expect. The key difference here is last year Seattle had defeated the Bears in Chicago during the season, while Denver hosted the Patriots already, and got blown out. The other difference, of course, being Mr. Tebow.

What happened last year to Seattle is essentially, they had won their Super Bowl the week prior. Beating New Orleans was so shockingly beautiful that they simply didn’t have it in them to reach that level again, let alone exceed it. Instead, they fattened up on clips of the 67-yard touchdown play that put the game away (Marshawn Lynch and Beastquake), and only Matt Hasselbeck came out ready to play the divisional round game. By the time Seattle had found their footing, they were down 28-0.

Every report out of Denver this week has the Broncos still riding high, and everywhere you go you see highlights of the 80-yard touchdown pass to Demariyus Thomas that won the game, and I see the Broncos suffering the same problems as last year’s Seahawks, by the time they get going, the Patriots will be up 2 or 3 scores and running on all cylinders.

Houston (+7.5) over BALTIMORE
Last year’s game this reminds me of: New York Jets at New England
Last year the Jets knocked off the Colts at the last minute, and nobody gave them a chance against the Patriots. Conventional wisdom said that no one had held down Tom Brady to that point, and you certainly weren’t going to bet on Sanchez over Brady with a Belichick defense. Of course, we hadn’t fully realized yet how devoid of talent the New England defense was (and is) and the Jets crafted a masterful game plan to hold down Brady and sneak off with the win.

This isn’t a perfect parallel, but few people believe in Houston because why would you trust TJ Yates against the Baltimore defense? Add in Baltimore (like New England last year) was a perfect 8-0 at home, and this seems like another occasion to back the favorite.

I admit, I don’t see Baltimore losing this game, but I also don’t see them running away from Houston either. Houston is (thanks to their injuries at QB) in a similar mold to Baltimore: great running game, great defense, enough from the passing game. Baltimore is better at it, but Houston actually defends the pass better than the Ravens. I see lots of field goals with the occasional touchdown, but neither team breaking out offensively.

New York Giants (+7.5) over GREEN BAY
Last year’s game this reminds me of: Baltimore at Pittsburgh
Last year the Ravens split their games with Pittsburgh, losing a close game to the Steelers late in the season. That made many believe they could take the next step when they drew Pittsburgh in the divisional round. And for a while, those people looked brilliant, as the Ravens jumped out to a 14-point halftime lead. But then the Ravens started making Ravens-ish mistakes: penalties, turnovers in big moments, brainfarts. Pittsburgh made some adjustments to counter their pass rush, and all of a sudden started putting up points.

The Giants came very close to upsetting the Packers late in the season, and they have the weapons to neutralize the dynamic Packer offense, but they were a 9-7 team for a reason. They have flaws, and they make some big mistakes (drops, turnovers, penalties). Last week the Falcons made most of the mistakes, but at the level Rodgers is playing at right now, you can’t expect similar results this week, and if the Giants’ pass rush is neutralized, they don’t cover well at all, which is death against Green Bay.

That being said, Eli Manning has had too good of a season to go down without a fight, and I say he at least gets it back within a one-score game late in the fourth, but that the Packers pull it out in the end.

Postseason: 1-3
Regular Season: 51-55-4 (.482)

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