The Time Has Come: The NFL Playoffs Are Upon Us

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 3^rd 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 4^th 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 20^th 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 15^th 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 1^st in total offense, 1^st in passing offense (obviously), and 6^th 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 2^nd round matchups. Unit we cross paths again.

Geoff Jablonski

Theo’s last gift to the Red Sox and the Astros head West

Today was a big day for Major League Baseball with three major announcements coming out within a few hours of each other. I know I know three announcements doesn’t sound like much but during football season anytime MLB can grab headlines it’s a win. As a Red Sox fan the biggest news of the day was probably former Boston great Theo Epstein flanked by Jed Hoyer offering the managerial position of the Chicago Cubs to Brewers bench coach Dale Sveum. The Red Sox and Cubs list of managerial candidates were carbon copies including Sandy Alomar, Jr., Mike Maddux (who withdrew his name from both jobs), and Sveum. It was no surprise then that both teams targeted Sveum as their leading candidate for the job considering that GM Ben Cherington and Epstein are old pals with identical organizational philosophies, don’t believe that malarkey the Sox came out with today that they didn’t offer Sveum the job yesterday because they want a guy with experience they made it clear Sveum was their man all along. The Cubs took the leap yesterday and Sveum said yes today. Thank god and thank you Theo from saving the Red Sox from making a horrible decision. Dale Sveum was not the answer to this teams problems he would’ve been a stopgap guy who was forced out of town quicker than Wendell Kim could have waved him in from third. During the 2004 and 2005 seasons Sveum was the 3^rd base coach for my beloved Red Sox and he managed to become the butt of many a joke during his short stint in beantown. He was an aggressive third base coach with a slight problem of knowing when to and when not to send runners home.  I’ll say it again Dale Sveum isn’t the right guy for the Boston Red Sox manager position. I personally would’ve liked to see Mike Maddux in here cleaning up this pitching staff but we’ll see what direction they choose to go. One last time thanks Theo for saving the Red Sox from themselves.

In other news around the Majors the Houston Astros sale to Jim Crane was finalized with his agreement to move the ‘Stros to the AL West in 2013. This shift is a big one because it leaves Major League Baseball with a 15/15 split meaning an interleague series being played every day of the week. It makes sense to move the ‘Stros to the AL West because it finally creates a balance between all 6 divisions. Instead of the NL Central teams having to deal with 5 adversaries and the AL West teams only have to beat out 3 other teams for a playoff spot all divisions now have balance. It also makes sense from the standpoint that there is a natural rivalry within America’s best baseball state that’s been waiting to be exploited. The Texas Rangers and Houston Astros are only 3 hours apart but only played once a year during interleague play with people barely caring about the outcome now these games are important division games. I see this rivalry becoming a good one down the line, much better than any ‘rivalry’ the Rangers had with the Mariners, Angels, or Athletics. The only drawback is that the Astros now have to travel to the west coast instead of playing teams all within their time zone but I think it’s a sacrifice worth making for the good of baseball. Now for the final news of the day and probably, no definitely, the most controversial…

Bud Selig announced today that MLB is going to expand their playoffs from 8 teams to 10 teams with an additional wild card in each conference. This final piece is contingent on the Players Union agreeing to it but all indications are that they will agree to include it in the next CBA. Just for information purposes: the current CBA is set to expire on December 11 but I like baseball’s chances of agreeing especially after watching the self inflicted wounds the NBA is suffering from currently.  People are pretty split on whether or not it’s a good idea for baseball to introduce an extra wild card I personally am ok with it as long as it’s a one game winner take all playoff between the wild card teams. A one game playoff doesn’t deplete either team and adds a little bit more excitement to the end of a regular season that far too often is dull and drawn out. This year was an exception with the Rays and Cardinals punching tickets to the dance on the final day but when else has the final day of a regular season been anywhere near that exciting? A one game wild card round would provide some excitement and allow another team a chance at glory. Baseball’s biggest problem for years has been finding a way to increase excitement in markets like Kansas City and Pittsburgh when they know that they have no chance at getting a playoff spot maybe now that’ll change a little bit. In the end though everyone knows that the MLB big wigs due to the Tampa Bay Rays emergence are necessitating this extra playoff spot. Major League Baseball can’t afford to have either the Red Sox or Yankees and their massive TV markets sitting home for the playoffs. The Rays are a great story every year but they don’t bring in the cake like Boston and New York. Most years unless the Angels or White Sox crash the party you’re going to get the Sox and Yanks into at least the wild card showdown round. 

Agree? Disagree? Let me know what you think folks.

Geoff Jablonski