The NFL season has come to a close with 12 teams moving on and 20 setting up tee times in south Florida. Here is how the AFC and NFC brackets set up going forward into the Wild Card Weekend:
AFC
1. New England Patriots (13-3)
2. Baltimore Ravens (12-4)
3. Houston Texans (10-6)
4. Denver Broncos (8-8)
5. Pittsburgh Steelers (12-4)
6. Cincinnati Bengals (9-7)
NFC
1. Green Bay Packers (15-1)
2. San Francisco 49ers (13-3)
3. New Orleans Saints (13-3)
4. New York Giants (9-7)
5. Atlanta Falcons (10-6)
6. Detroit Lions (10-6)
The Patriots, Ravens, Packers, and 49ers will be taking Wild Card Weekend off to party and ‘rest’ while they get ready to defend their turf in round 2. That leaves the other 8 teams across 4 matchups to duke it out for 4 spots in the next round. All the matchups have interesting caveats and are going to be interesting matchups well worth tuning in to. Here at The Couch I’m going to breakdown for you each of those matchups starting in the AFC. Don’t forget all the higher seeds are the home team in the matchups below.
(3) Houston Texans vs. (6) Cincinnati Bengals
This matchup pits two of the leagues top defenses and two rookie quarterbacks against one another. The Texans key acquisition this offseason appears to have been defensive coordinator Wade Phillips who helped turn around the league’s worst pass defense and made it one of the best. Signing #1 corner Jonathan Joseph away from the Bengals didn’t hurt either. Defensively the Bengals have been a revelation a year after being a sieve ranking in the top 10 against both the pass and run. Their forte though is being able to stop the run. This matchup is going to have an immovable object banging up against a giant boulder in the form of the Texans dominant run offense behind all world RB Arian Foster and more than capable backup RB Ben Tate taking on the Bengals stout run defense. If Foster can have a big game, he’s more than capable of putting up 150 yards and 2 scores, it’ll limit the amount of work that 3rd string rookie QB T.J. Yates needs to do. If Yates can just manage the game and not turn the ball over, he’s only thrown 3 interceptions in the 5 games he’s started, the Texans can let their run game run them right into the AFC semifinals. The Bengals will be leaning on rookie redhead QB Andy Dalton to manage the game and throw a few touchdown’s to last years #4 overall draft pick and absolute beast WR A.J. Green. A low scoring game is probably in the cards.
PICKS: Geoff: Texans, Justin: Texans, Norton: Bengals
(4) Denver Broncos vs. (5) Pittsburgh Steelers
The two quarterbacks in this game have both spent copious amounts of their life under the watchful eye of the media for very different reasons. The Steelers Ben Roethlisberger for not once but twice being accused of raping intoxicated women and the Broncos Tim Tebow for being a devout and extremely vocal soldier in the Army of Christ. How does that relate to this weekend’s matchup in Mile High? It doesn’t at all. Roethlisberger is a two-time Super Bowl champion quarterback who is a top 10 field general when he’s healthy. Key word there: when. He’s currently not healthy having to sit out week 17 against the Browns, a game the Steelers narrowly squeaked out, with a busted ankle. He says he’ll play this weekend and I don’t doubt him in any way but with RB Rashard Mendenhall being placed on IR this week the Steelers are going into this matchup shorthanded. Luckily for them they drew the weak link in the AFC, the Denver Broncos led by the inconsistent at best Tim Tebow. The Broncos started off 1-4 ditched Kyle Orton as quarterback and inserted Tim Tebow and subsequently won 7 of 8 including 6 in a row but finished the season off headed the wrong direction losing 3 in a row. The Broncos have the NFL’s top ranked running game behind Willis McGahee and Tebow. Tebow can’t throw the ball until the 4th quarter therefore leaving the Broncos no choice but to run it. The problem with that is that the Steelers are notoriously stingy against the run making this a game where if the Broncos plan to win Tebow’s going to need to throw the pill around a little bit.
PICKS: Geoff: Steelers, Justin: Steelers, Norton: Steelers
Now that we’ve dealt with the two matchups in the AFC let’s take a look at what the NFC has to offer up this weekend.
(3) New Orleans Saints vs. (6) Detroit Lions
The Lions are making their first appearance in the playoffs since the 20th century, 1999, too bad they are pitted against arguably the NFC’s hottest team. The Saints are buoyed by their juggernaut of an offense led by record setting QB Drew Brees. Brees smashed Dan Marino’s 27-year old single season passing record by close to 400 yards. He broke the record in only his 15th game and ended up finishing the year with 5,476 yards and led the league in touchdown passes too with 46. The Saints offense finished 1st in total offense, 1st in passing offense (obviously), and 6th in rushing. Their offense has no holes the only problems this team has is on the other side of the ball though the defense gets bailed out on many occasions by the offense’s firepower. Teams are forced to throw early on the Saints because the Saints tend to get out in front early and that allows the secondary to force turnovers. This isn’t a terrible thing for the Lions who are pretty good at throwing the ball themselves. Their third year QB Matthew Stafford finally was healthy for a full year and put up over 5,000 yards and threw for over 40 TDs. The weapon on the Lions offense that the Saints will be hard pressed to stop is WR Calvin Johnson a.k.a. Megatron who finished the year with 1,681 yards receiving and 16 TDs. Look at those numbers again and realize just how good a year he had. Unreal. TE Brandon Pettigrew also grew into his own this year and had 83 recs, 777 yards, and 5 TDs. The Lions don’t have a very good running game but that shouldn’t matter much the Saints are going to turn this thing into a shootout quick. The game will come down to whether or not the Lions can keep pace with the Saints and their up-tempo offense that has been running on all cylinders for 5 weeks or so now.
PICKS: Geoff: Saints, Justin: Saints, Norton: Saints
(4) New York Giants vs. (5) Atlanta Falcons
The final game I’ll be breaking down will be taking place at MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands. The Giants are coming into the playoffs after beating the Cowboys 31-14 on Sunday night to snipe the NFC East crown from the ‘Boys. The Giants started off 6-2 fell back to earth but then we’re able to pull it together somewhat down the stretch and win their season finale to get into the playoffs. On the other sideline the Falcons are coming off a somewhat inconsistent season though they appeared to hit their stride towards the end of the year. They are a dangerous team led by QB Matt Ryan, RB Michael Turner, WR Roddy White, and rookie burner WR Julio Jones. Their defense is very stout against the run giving up only 97 yards a game and their pass defense does a pretty good job not giving up too many big plays. They have a solid pass rush behind DE John Abraham. Playing outside of the dome in the cold New York weather won’t be easy however and Ryan won’t have a lot of time to throw the ball either against the Giants vaunted pass rush led by DE Jason Pierre-Paul and DE Osi Umenyiora. Don’t forget about DE Justin Tuck either who’s had a rough year but is always capable of taking over a game. Pierre-Paul had a breakout year registering 16.5 sacks. The Giants secondary is beat up down to their third string in a few spots but luckily for them their rushers’ ability to disrupt the pocket has made it easier for the corners and safeties.
Offensively the Giants are extremely one-dimensional but that hasn’t been such a bad thing considering Eli Manning backed up all the preseason talk he threw around by putting up just south of 5,000 yards (4,933) and 29 TDs with only 16 interceptions compared to 25 INTs last year. The running game has been brutal due to multiple injuries on the offensive line and a broken foot for starting RB Ahmad Bradshaw. The Giants are gaining just under 90 yards a game on the ground but as long as the running game can be a show me pitch and give Eli a little bit of room to throw then the Giants have a shot. The Giants are also armed with a two-headed receiving monster in Victor Cruz, UMass shoutout, and Hakeem Nicks. Cruz came out of nowhere this year to set a Giants single season receiving yards record with 1,536 yards. Nicks missed a few games but still managed to rack up 1,192 yards. The Giants can throw the ball and their matchup with the Falcons pass defense will probably define the game. If the G Men can’t throw the ball expect the Falcons to run away early if they can throw the ball against the Falcons then I like their odds of hanging with the Dirty Birds.
PICKS: Geoff: Falcons, Justin: Giants, Norton: Giants
That’s it for Wild Card Weekend in the NFL; take these picks to the bank at your own risk. Check back next week for a breakdown of the AFC/NFC 2nd round matchups. Unit we cross paths again.
Geoff Jablonski
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