After a totally mediocre and dubious week of picking who will win football games, we have decided to come back this week to do it again for some reason. I suppose it’s not unlike eating a box of chocolates, where this time you hope it isn’t a coconut one again… but it is.
Game 1: Arizona Cardinals at New Orleans Saints
Marsh: SAINTS
Dave: SAINTS – I actually empathize with Saints fans a little bit. Even though their team got the home-field advantage over the Vikings, like the Vikings, the Saints have been panned across the football world for their stumble into the postseason. I suppose you could say that I don’t judge teams based on their last two or three games: I’ve always felt that a year-long view is a much better barometer of how good a team is. That doesn’t mean that recent performance doesn’t matter, but what it does mean is that how a team has performed recently shouldn’t be the sole reason for judging who will win a game.
There is something working against New Orleans, though: their defensive performance in the first half of the season subsisted on turnovers. In their first four games, they forced 13 turnovers. That kind of turnover rate is simply unsustainable on defense, and the New Orleans defense suffered as a result.
With that having been said, I still like the Saints to win this game. Arizona’s defense hasn’t been exactly on fire lately either, and if you give me the choice of Kurt Warner or Drew Brees in a shootout, while Warner turns into Superman sometimes, I’ll take Brees every time.
(Watch: this game will be 17-6 or something. Football is weird that way.)
Kyle: CARDINALS: The Saints didn’t finish the season in a very positive way, and the trend seems to be towards the lower seeded teams winning in the playoffs. I’ll go with the Cardinals in a shootout.
Coin: SAINTS
Game 2: Baltimore Ravens at Indianapolis Colts
Marsh: RAVENS
Dave: RAVENS – I would go so far as to say that Baltimore is not the team the Colts wanted to see win against New England on Sunday. In fact, I would go even farther and say that the Ravens are exactly the right team to beat the Colts.
Now, I generally go against conventional wisdom, and no wisdom is more conventional than “you need to run the ball and stop the run to win games.” Never mind that the Colts of 2006 won a Super Bowl by doing neither. So it pains me to say that the running game is why I think Baltimore will win.
See, the Colts are not a strong running team. You would think that, on offense, the Colts do everything well, but you’d be mistaken. In fact, Joseph Addai had only 3.8 yards per carry and Donald Brown managed a mere 3.6 yards per carry. This was reflected in these teams’ regular season meeting, where Addai rushed for 71 yards on 19 carries. However, Baltimore lost, 17-15, largely because they only got 71 yards on 20 carries from their own running back, Ray Rice. This time, I think Rice will perform much better against a Colts defense that, according to Football Outsiders, was exactly average stopping the run in 2009.
As for the passing games? Yes, Peyton Manning is better than Joe Flacco. However, on the same Football Outsiders page, you see that the Ravens had a far superior defense against the passing game. My pick, as it was in the regular season, is Baltimore. What am I not looking forward to? Everybody saying that it’s all because the Colts rested their starters at the end of the season.
Kyle: COLTS: Part of me wants to pick the Ravens, but I think that the Colts have something to prove here. It was pretty obvious that the starters wanted to go for perfection but management wouldn’t let them. I like the Colts to come out and pick apart the Ravens.
Coin: RAVENS
Game 3: Dallas Cowboys at Minnesota Vikings
Marsh: VIKINGS
Dave: VIKINGS – I’m a Vikings fan. As such, my sworn enemies in football are the Packers and the Bears. (I love the Lions… two free wins per year.) But damn if the media isn’t going to make the Cowboys the third team on that list. I won’t spend more time on it; the thoughts and musings post adequately expresses my feelings. Still, it will have been a long time since I was so passionate about a Vikings playoff game.
Objectivity time: the Cowboys were ON FIRE late in the season. The Vikings were about as hot as a Minnesota winter. As I explained in the Arizona/New Orleans game, I look less at how teams finish and more at how they perform throughout the year. If this game was in Dallas, the Cowboys would be very likely to win. In Minnesota, the Vikings have the edge.
See, here are some numbers for you, and please do take the time to digest them. The Vikings are 8-0 at home this season. Their point differential? +137. Brett Favre? Two interceptions. TWO. The Cowboys, on the other hand, have an offense that whimpers more often than you’d think: 10 points against Denver, 7 against Green Bay, 7 and 17 in their games against Washington, and 17 against San Diego. The Vikings need to shut down the Dallas running game to force Romo to make mistakes on third and long.
Here’s where I cut things short. Are there other factors in this game that favor Dallas? Absolutely. You can find them in the sports media EVERYWHERE. So I’d suggest looking there.
Kyle: VIKINGS: I hate how many people are picking Dallas because they are “hot”. In ’07, the Redskins were “hot” after a four game win streak and got killed by Seattle. “Hot” means nothing.
Coin: VIKINGS
Game 4: New York Jets at San Diego Chargers
Marsh: CHARGERS
Dave: CHARGERS – I’m going to talk a bit about a team that relied on its running game and defense to win games. This team had a ton of talent on both sides of the ball, but a glaring hole at quarterback forced the team to win by limiting their QB’s attempts, and hoping to get enough points out of their running game to allow their defense to win the game. Unfortunately, having no passing game ultimately doomed this team in the playoffs.
Am I talking about this year’s Jets? No, I’m talking about last year’s Vikings. The simple fact was that Gus Frerotte and Tarvaris Jackson didn’t have what it took to get Minnesota to elite status last year, and much like Jets QB Mark Sanchez, Jackson’s better games generally consisted of efficiency spread out over 15-20 pass attempts. In those games, the Vikings generally steamrolled their opponents. Unfortunately, those games were few and far between, and to pass the ball so infrequently, you’re putting a lot of pressure on your running game and defense to produce. The difference is that the Jets’ defense is much better than the Vikings’ defense last year.
San Diego’s offense is too good for the Jets to shut them down the whole game. They’ll get their 20 to 27 points, and the moment the Jets have to pass the ball to win, it’ll be all over.
Kyle: CHRGERS: Mark Sanchez will go down in beautiful flames fueled by the collapse of the Jets running game and the howitzer shells thrown by Phillip Rivers.
Coin: CHARGERS
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