This Football Blog

I’m guessing you don’t need one more person to point out that the Divisional Playoffs have been the toughest round of the post-season for road teams since the NFL moved to a 12-team playoff system in 1990. Everybody and their brother-in-law has pointed out that the home teams are 40-10 since then. They’ve also noted that last season, after the road teams went 3-1 on Wild Card weekend (as they did last weekend) the home teams swept the Divisional Playoff round. So there’s that.

You also probably don’t need me to tell you that the reasons the home teams have tended to do so well in this round include the fact that those home teams come into the week well rested after a first-round bye. Or that the reason they’re coming off a bye, and playing at home, is that they posted the best regular-season records in their conferences (and typically that doesn’t happen by accident).

Nor do you need me to point out that a 3-1 finish by the road teams in the Wild Card round means three out of four Divisional Playoff games pit conference six and five seeds playing tough road games for a second consecutive week against those well-rested one- and two-seed home squads. But when I do point all of that stuff out, one fact after the next, it does become pretty clear how that .800 winning percentage has come about.

All that said, it’s hardly unheard of for one, and even two, road teams to win in this round. Two of them did two years ago (Indianapolis and Carolina beat Kansas City and St. Louis; and, of course, Carolina went on to beat Philadelphia and advance to the Super Bowl). Philadelphia did it in 2001 (well, 2002, but it was at the end of the 2001 season). Baltimore did it in 2000 (and went on to win the Super Bowl). Tennessee did it in 1999 (and beat Jacksonville a week later to advance to the Super Bowl). Denver did it in 1997 (and went on to win the Super Bowl). I could go on, but you get the point, right?

So the question now is, is this another 4-0 year, or is there an upset or two on the way for the weekend? I see the potential for two, but I only like the odds of one. And I’m picking the one that involves the two-time defending champs/the team coming into the week with a record 10-game post-season win streak. Surprised? Of course you aren’t.

Anyhow, here’s how I see the weekend shaking out:

Washington (+9) at Seattle
Wanna know how I know the Redskins are gonna win this game? Because I’ve finally stopped believing that the Seahawks are destined to collapse. All through the regular season, I kept waiting and waiting and waiting for the Seahawks to fall apart, the way they always do. But then they kept not doing it. And not doing it. And so now, at long last, I’ve stopped expecting them to do it. And, in fact, I quite expect them to win this week. Because, look, the Redskins have certainly been on a hell of a run of late, and all the credit in the world to the team and to Joe Gibbs for getting it together, making the playoffs and eliminating Tampa Bay last weekend. But let’s be realistic here. The Skins didn’t look all that good in that game. They came within a dropped pass of an overtime in which they likely would have lost. And that was against a Bucs team that’s been anything but consistent this season, and that had a guy with no playoff experience (and relatively little regular season experience) taking snaps. What do you think happens when they take their show on the road for the second consecutive week (see above for my thoughts on that) and play the conference’s one seed, a team that’s been lighting it up all season long? I’ve got a pretty good guess. And, now, I know that a lot of smart people think Washington has a chance here, largely because their defense has been beyond solid. And fair enough. But in a way that’s just the point, because the things the Redskins D has been doing have included scoring and setting up the offense for easy scores. Last week in Tampa Bay, the Washington D scored one of the team’s two touchdowns. The Skins’ sole offensive TD came on a one-play, six-yard drive that was set up by LaVar Arrington interception deep in Tampa territory. A week earlier, in the come-from-behind win over the down-and-out Philadelphia Eagles, the game that got Washington into the playoffs, the Redskins defense not only scored the late touchdown that effectively put the game away, it also recorded an interception earlier in the final period that set up the one-play scoring drive that put the Skins ahead in the first place. So that’s 28 of 48 points over the course of two games that can be traced to great defensive play. And you can’t be unhappy about that if you’re the Redskins. And you don’t apologize about where the points come from. But those stats also underscore the fact that the Redskins’ offense hasn’t been doing much. So it would appear, at least to me, that while there are probably seven (or at least six) teams playing this weekend that can win even if they only manage to come up even in the giveaway/takeaway battle, the one that clearly cannot is Washington. And here’s where the problem comes in, because the Seattle Seahawks simply don’t commit turnovers. Seattle had fewer giveaways than any team in the league during the regular season. They lost just six fumbles and threw just nine picks all season. Compare that to the Bucs, who committed 23 turnovers during the season, and the Eagles, who gave the ball away 28 times. The difference is obvious, as is its chief implication: you can’t go counting on Seattle to give you the kind of opportunities Tampa Bay and Philadelphia did. You can, however, count on the Seahawks to put up more points than the Bucs and Eagles. Or at least you could during the regular season, during which the Seahawks outscored both of those teams by an average of nine points a game. And that, to my mind, makes the difference more than the Skins’ D can absorb. So I’m taking the Seahawks to fail to choke, which is to say I like Seattle to win and cover. And that, of course, means the Redskins will come out on top.

New England (+3) at Denver
OK, you know what? Let’s dispense with all the stuff about all the Patriots starters who were out injured when these teams last met back on October 16. It’s an entirely valid consideration, of course, but I don’t need to get into it, because the point has been made and made and made again. Likewise the bit about how much better New England’s run defense played in the latter half of the season than it had in the early going. That’s relevant, too, but the facts have been pointed out everywhere you care to look, and I really see no need to get into the details of it here. And the fact of the matter is that while New England has been doing a terrific job of stopping the run of late, Denver’s run offense is always tough to stop, no matter how good your D is, and the Patriots are going to have to find a way to deal with that. The Pats are also gonna have to find a way to move the ball on the ground, but I don’t think that’s such a big deal. Denver’s run defense hasn’t given up much by way of yards per game (85 on average over the course of the season), but it has allowed four yards per carry and that’s all any team that doesn’t have to pass, pass, pass to catch up should need. What I want to look at is pass offense and defense, because I believe that’s where this game will be won and lost. And that’s good news for the Patriots. Earlier this week, I got to thinking about the widely referenced weakness of the Pats’ secondary. And, you know, even though the secondary has got better as the new mostly patchwork unit of replacement DBs (filling in for injured stars) has spent more time on the field together and learned Bill Belichick’s system, there are still some significant question marks there. But the fact of the matter is that the Broncos secondary, except for Champ Bailey, its one star (and a pretty major star at that), is a very young unit that has been prone to giving up big plays. So I decided to take a close look at the stats. This is what came up: Denver allowed 227. 7 yards per game through the air during the regular season. The Pats allowed 231.4. That’s a difference of less than four yards per game. (It’s also worth noting that last week, the Pats allowed only 205 yards of passing offense to the Jacksonville Jaguars, this despite the fact that the Jags abandoned the run almost entirely early in the third quarter.) The Pats offense, meanwhile, logged an average of 257.5 yards per game in the air during the regular season. (They had 189 passing yards vs. Jacksonville despite the fact that Tom Brady threw exactly twice, for a total of 15 yards, in the fourth quarter.) Denver’s offense meanwhile managed only 201.7 yards per game in the air. That’s a difference of nearly 56 yards per game. Moreover, while the Pats allowed five more passing touchdowns during the season (25 to the Broncos’ 20), they also scored 10 more touchdowns in the air (28 to the Broncos’ 18). And while it’s certainly the case that part of what’s behind those offensive passing stats is the fact that the Broncos ran the ball much more effectively than the Pats, the numbers pretty clearly illustrate that if this game turns into a shootout, the advantage belongs to the Pats. And I expect the Patriots to make it a shootout in part by bringing the same kind of defensive pressure that held a Jaguars team that averaged 122 yards a game on the ground in the regular season to just 87 last week in Foxborough, and in part by coming out throwing, putting up some points and making Denver abandon the run in order to play catch-up. If the Pats can keep Denver throwing, and can make Jake Plummer feel like he’s got to win the game, they should be able to put this thing away. I expect to see the Pats go up by 10 sometime late in the second quarter and to never look back.

Pittsburgh (+9.5) at Indianapolis
OK, folks, here’s the thing. The Steelers aren’t winning this game. They’re not. Yeah, it’s true, the Colts are choke artists who will falter next week whether they get Denver or New England. And it’s also true that the Steelers are a bruising, physical team that has the ability to beat any team in the league if its able to play its game, to knock opposing offenses around and to grind out the clock with its running game, throwing the ball only when it’s completely necessary. But the Steelers simply aren’t gonna be able to do that here. The Colts are going to do to Pittsburgh exactly what the Cincinnati Bengals set out to do last week (and would have done had Carson Palmer not been knocked out of the game on the Bengals’ second offensive play): they’re going to come out throwing, put the Steelers on their heels, build a lead and create a situation in which Ben Roethlisberger has to throw 25 or 30 passes in an attempt to get his team back into the game. That’s a recipe for disaster for Pittsburgh. The only way the Steelers pull off the upset is if the defense manages to come up with one or two huge (and I mean huge) plays early on, giving the Pittsburgh offense the chance to start grinding it out on the ground, and potentially flustering Peyton Manning, whose game suffers when you take him out of his rhythm. But I just don’t see it going that way. So I’m taking the Colts and giving the points.

Carolina (+3) at Chicago
Last week I wondered whether the good Panthers, the ones who look like champions on every play, or the sloppy Panthers, the ones who find ways to blow games, would show up to play the Giants in New Jersey. We all know how that went. (I also wondered whether the good or bad Giants would show up, and we know how that went, too.) This week, I’m not sure it matters. Yes, the Panthers have the ability to beat the Bears. Any team in the league that can put up 14 to 17 points in a game has the potential to beat the Bears, and the Panthers averaged 24 during the regular season. They didn’t quite manage their average the last time they traveled to Chicago, however. In that game, played November 20, Carolina fell three touchdowns short of their average, and 10 points short of keeping up with the Bears, losing 13-3. And I don’t think Carolina’s offense is any better, or Chicago’s defense any less dominating, than they were back then. And, sure, Chicago’s offense is still shaky, and its quarterback, Rex Grossman, has no playoff experience (and next to no regular season experience, since he’s been injured through most of two seasons). But the Bears don’t win games with their offense. They win games with their smothering D. You simply can’t move the ball against them. So if Carolina’s gonna win this game, it’s gonna have to do it on defense. The Panthers D is gonna have to give its offense short fields to work with. That’s something they can do, for certain. Carolina came out of the regular season with a +12 giveaway/takeaway ratio, tied with the Giants for the best in the conference. But the Bears weren’t prone to giving the ball up, and they posted a +6 giveaway/takeaway mark themselves, so it’s not like it’s a given that Carolina can spend the day stripping fumbles and making picks. And I don’t think they will. I think this is gonna be a quick game, played mainly on the ground and won in the trenches. And I expect Chicago to come out ahead, by a score of about 9-7. (Note: there are four ways that I can think of to get to nine points in the NFL. The only route I’d be surprised to see Chicago take there would be a touchdown with a two point conversion plus a missed Carolina PAT returned 100+ yards.)