PIGSKIN: THE NFL PLAYOFFS

Saturday, January 9, 2010

NFL PLAYOFFS
The Playoffs are here, the Playoffs are here!!!

With apologies to the quadrennial World Cup and the annual mens college basketball tournament affectionately known as "March Madness" the most compelling sports playoff/postseason in my mind is the NFL playoffs.

And it’s not even close.

Why you ask when the World Cup involves the whole world and the NCAA tourney involves so many teams and the NFL playoffs is a U.S. only affair with only 12 contestants???

Simple. Because the NFL, like the NBA and MLB is a professional affair. Sorry, but twenty-five to thirty year old grown men make f0r better play than nineteen year old kids. That eliminates the NCAA tournament. And with all due respect to the World Cup, which I grow to like more and more every four years, soccer in America is not yet what the NFL is. Maybe one day it will be, and I do think it has the most upside among all sports among a changing American public, there's a reason it is still called soccer, and not as it is known all over the world, football in the continental 48.

There’s a more basic reason why the NFL playoffs are more compelling than the NBA, MLB, or the NHL playoffs, to the extent that your average American sports fan really pays attention to the Stanley Cup playoffs. The NFL is the only postseason where every game matters. There is no best of seven series or best of five series where no one game, unless it is a Game Seven or a Game Five is determinative. Every NFL playoff game is however, and unless it is a blowout by the third quarter that means a down to the wire contest that will leave everybody on the edge of your seat.

WILD CARD WEEKEND

This weekend I live each team with the more seasoned, playoff tested quarterback to beat their newbie opponent with the exception of the Cowboys and the Eagles. Both QBs Donovan McNabb and Tony Romo have playoff experience.

Saturday Games
New York JETS (9-7) @ Cincinnati BENGALS (10-6)
The Favorite: Cincinnati Bengals
The Line: 2.5 points and -135

Last weekend’s 37-0 victory by the Jets was embarrassing, but not indicative of what’s to come this week in their rematch. The Bengals were playing for nothing, the Jets for everything. Glad to see that Jets coach Rex Ryan believes in his team and thinks they are good enough to win the Super Bowl but he’s forgetting that they backed into the playoffs playing the Colts and Bengals who had nothing to play for the last two weeks and that his first year QB Mark Sanchez really isn’t very good. Carson Palmer is. And this game isn’t going to be in the Meadowlands but on the banks of the river in the Queen City.

My Pick: Cincinnati Bengals

Philadelphia EAGLES (11-5) @ Dallas COWBOYS (11-5)
The Favorite: Dallas Cowboys
The Line: 3.5 points and -200

The ‘Boys 24-0 win over the Eagles last week, in Dallas, unlike the Jets-Bengals matchup meant a whole lot and cannot be dismissed going into this week. Same teams, same place, same situation with everything on the line. How the Eagles couldn’t show up for a game in which if they had won they would have been off this week and assured at least one home playoff game next weekend and now have to play three consecutive weekends on the road in order to get to the Super Bowl is beyond me. I though Andy Reid was a better coach than that. I didn’t know that Cowboys coach Wade Phillips had it in him and Dallas seems to have shed their December/January doldrums and poised for a playoff run. Not so fast. Divisional rivalries are different than other matchups to handicap, particularly when two teams are playing for the third team this season. The Cowboys should win. The Eagles could win. I expect this game to be the best of the four this weekend. No wonder it’s scheduled for Saturday night.

My Pick: Dallas Cowboys

Sunday Games
Baltimore RAVENS (9-7) @ New England PATRIOTS (10-6)
The Favorite: New England Patriots
The Line: 3 points and -175

Even without the speedy and savvy WR Wes Welker I like the Patriots to win at home. Look for them to throw the ball less, run the ball more, and look more the like the Patriots of 2002-2005 than the Patriots of 2007-2009. Too bad, because QB Tom Brady is still the next best QB in the league not named Peyton Manning. He and coach Bill Belichick know how to win these types of games even when shorthanded and they still have a guy roaming the sidelines named Randy Moss.

My Pick: New England Patriots

Green Bay PACKERS (11-5) @ Arizona CARDINALS (10-6)
The Favorite: Even
The Line: Off

The line seems to indicate both support for the Packers and the way they finished the season strong, or the lack of confidence in Arizona and the way they finished the season. Arizona did this last year and came within one Santonio Holmes immaculate reception of winning the Super Bowl. Green Bay has shown much this year in getting back to the playoffs and proving their decision to go with QB Aaron Rodgers two years ago and not Brett Favre, but their new gunslinger, and most of their key players on defense, have yet to play a playoff game. QB Kurt Warner has done this before and these are no longer your father’s Arizona Cardinals.

My Pick: Arizona Cardinals

The Playoffs are here!

Last Week: 12-4
Regular Season: 176—80
~cmh