NFL 2014 – Post Season
First, we will take a look at how the play-off seeding
shook out with comments about some of the teams who came close but never got
the proverbial cigar. With coaches falling out of the trees still we will look
at the coaching changes later in the week.
NFC
The Seattle Seahawks were able to reclaim top seed despite
losing to Dallas at home because their victories over 4-12 Washington and the
6-10 New York Giants counted for more in the tiebreaker than Dallas’s wins over
11-5 Indianapolis and 9-7 Houston and the head-to-head victory counted not at
all. We have no idea who dreams these things up but there is something very,
very wrong here. The Cowboys must now
beat Detroit and go on the road the rest of the way while the Seahawks get a
first round bye and are at home the rest of the way. Only in America.
The fact that Seattle was able to get back into top spot
at all speaks volumes at to the relative weakness of the NFC in general and the
NFC west specifically as the Seahawks had five of their last seven (all wins) against
divisional foes with the other two being a win over hapless Mark Sanchez and
the Philadelphia Eagles and a loss to AFC also ran Kansas City. The Seahawks
lost to the Chiefs and the Chargers, got past Denver in a single possession overtime
and managed beat the 3-13 Raiders 30-24 in regulation in their games against
the AFC this season.
Green Bay got out of the gate slowly but once they got
rolling were looking to all the world like they would be top seed. A late
season victory over New England seemed to clinch it for the Packers however the
very good 9-7 Buffalo Bills played the spoiler and that victory over New
England was deemed less important than the Seahawk win over Washington thus
they were relegated to second seed. They still get the bye and a home game but
if it comes down to it they will have to travel to Seattle on the way to
Arizona.
Dallas hasn’t lost since Thanksgiving but can point to
their overtime loss to Colt McCoy(? ) as the reason they ended up in the
tie-breaker. At 7-8-1 Carolina should just be glad to be in the play-offs
although 11-5 Arizona cannot be thrilled about having to play there next week.
The Cardinals controlled their own destiny however having started the season
without a real first-string quarterback and now down to their third string they
lost-out to end up at the number five seed. Rounding out the six are the
Detroit Lions who illustrate just how bad the NFC is this year. The Green Bay
Packers started the season extremely slowly and lucky for the Lions they caught
them Week 3, prompting Aaron Rodgers’s R-E-L-A-X message, as that was the only
victory the Lions scored over a team with a winning record the entire year.
The NFC was so weak this year that not all of the teams
making the play-offs were deserving let alone the ones that missed. The 10-6
Eagles could make some noise about the Panthers getting in instead of them but
the odds of Mark Sanchez playing four perfect or near-perfect games in a row are
out-of-this-world (just ask Rex Ryan) so it is incredibly unlikely, impossible
even, that the Eagles could have won it all so their missing the play-offs
really isn’t a big deal
AFC
The New England Patriots started the season as slowly as
the Packers, coming out of September at 2-2 causing many to question Brady,
Belichick etc. however as our Super Bowl selection we knew they would come
around. Revis, Brady, and Browner (suspended) took a while to hit second gear
but once they did they flew through the season. The Green Bay game (loss) was a
reminder that it only takes a couple of mistakes in this league to lose a game
sometimes and the Buffalo loss Week 17 evidenced just how tough the AFC was
this year. If the 9-7 Bills had a bit better quarterback than Orton they too
would be in the dance as they played the Patriots extremely tough. There was no
way New England was winning that game without giving it everything they had
which was pointless as they had already clinched. With another two weeks to
allow the bumps and bruises to fade they should be primed for action a week
from Sunday.
The Denver Broncos limped down the stretch, losing to Cincinnati
after almost losing to Miami and needing two interceptions to beat the Bills,
with Peyton Manning looking like a shadow of his former self every time the
weather got very cold. Denver very much has the look of a fading wallflower and
we would be very surprised to see them go very far this year. If on the other
hand New England loses early and the weather stays warm enough in Denver, the
Super Bowl is in Arizona this year. It could happen.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are coming on at the right time.
Roethlisbrger has shown no signs of slowing down, the offence is playing great
and the defence, though longh in the tooth, can still raise their level of play
on occasion. Add to that the genius of Dick Lebeau and it is easy to picture
the Steelers going to the Super Bowl and we see the Steelers as New England’s
stiffest competition this January.
Indianapolis had a relatively easy schedule this year
aided by Baltimore and Cincinnati leaving their “A” game at home when they visited (well Cinci
left their a-z game in Ohio) and had Bill O’Brien kept Case Keenum on the
roster in September the Colts could easily be sitting at home watching this
season. With no defence or running game it is hard to see them doing anything
however facing Andy Dalton Wild Card Weekend could get them a win over Cincinnati
after the Bengals lost the division to Pittsburgh on Sunday. Baltimore rounds
out the six, always dangerous if they catch fire in January.
All four off the 9-7 teams (Buffalo, Houston, San Diego
& Kansas City) could have made some noise if they had gotten in. San Diego
had the offence to compete while the other three had Super Bowl ready defences
and if they had gotten hot…..
Wild Card Weekend
Arizona Cardinals (21/10) at Carolina Panthers (5-11)
Hard to believe that a 7-8-1 team could be favoured in
the playoffs however that is the state of the NFC in 2014. With College
Football going with “Athletic” quarterbacks in an effort to win on the ground,
NFL-type quarterbacks are simply no longer being produced by the major schools
(New England had to go to Eastern Illinois to find someone to groom for
succession) and it is becoming a real problem for teams to find one decent
quarterback, let alone two. Carson Palmer should be long retired but who can
take his place? With him hurt, and now his back-up as well, it is unrealistic
to expect the Cardinals to compete for the Super Bowl but one can easily see
them shutting down the Panthers.
Carolina comes in to the play-offs on a four game winning
streak however none of those teams had a winning record. Three of the games
were against divisional foes where someone had to win and the fourth was
against Cleveland where both Quarterbacks, one of whom was Johnny Manziel, got
injured and there wasn’t a third one dressed to take over (give Brian Hoyer a
ton of credit for finishing the game while injured pretty significantly).
Carolina only beat one team with a winning record all year, Detroit in Week 2,
while Arizona was in the driver’s seat for top seed in the NFC right up until
Week 16 when a loss to Seattle relegated them to Wild Card status. Lindley played much better in his second
start and the Cardinals likely would have won were it not for his three
interceptions. As Arizona could not improve their lot either way they likely
used the game as a glorified practice for Lindley (he did throw for over 300 yards)
instead of playing conservatively for the win.
Arizona has been very good to us this year (winning at a
good price) and here again appears to be a situation where on the surface
things appear very different than they truly are. Bruce Arians is a pretty
clever guy. The Panthers were held to 20 points or less ten times this season (once
by the Saints for goodness sakes!) so the Cardinals are not likely going to
need to score a ton of points to beat them. We are going to give Arians enough
credit to put together a game plan that will enable Arizona to score more
points than they allow. We expect Lindley to be a lot more careful with the
ball this week. Arizona is definitely the play here at better than 2/1.
29/20 Baltimore Ravens @ 20/33 Pittsburgh Steelers
There are no hidden factors here, surprises lurking under
the surface or anything like that. These two teams play each other all the
time. Each team won at home this year by exactly 20 points. The line is about
exactly right. We expect the Steelers to win and if you are a favorite bettor
feel free to back them.
7/4 Cincinnati Bengals @ 10/21 Indianapolis Colts
The Colts absolutely destroyed the Bengals this year 27-0
in the first of two horrible games (the other was against Cleveland) the
Bengals threw this year and is, in our minds, a throw-out game. Curiously,
after the second one the Bengals did not lose another game that wasn’t against
Pitssburgh the rest of the way, beating the Broncos soundly and returning the
favor to the Browns with a 30-0 pasting. Indy on the other hand had a pretty
easy schedule this year and apart from the win mentioned above got beaten by
every team they faced with a winning record except Baltimore.
Much has been made about Andy Dalton’s inability to
answer the bell in the play-offs however football is a team game and the Bengals
just beat the Broncos with a solid team effort. The fact is that Cincinnati
earned their play-off berth while Indianapolis got theirs thanks in equal parts
to the soft schedule and Bill O’Brien’s inexplicable decision to bring in Ryan
Fitzpatrick to supplant Case Keenum in Houston. Bill brought Keenum back a bit
too late to knock of Indy but the Bengals are hoping to remedy that. Much has
been made of Dalton’s play-off woes, meanwhile Andrew Luck is one point away
from the same fate with 8 interceptions in three games to Dalton’s 6.
Cincinnati is definitely the play here at 7/4.
13/5 Detroit Lions at 1/3 Dallas Cowboys
The Cowboys have answered all the questions this year,
beat the two top teams in the AFC division they faced (South) and had a win on
the road over Seattle. They should have had a first-round bye were it not for a
very flawed Tiebreaker. It would have been interesting to see how Demarco
Murray fared against Detroit’s much hyped run-defence (although our favorite
running back Legarret Blount averaged 6.5 YPC and almost gained 100 yards
without breaking a sweat) however with Fairley hurt and Suh suspended even that
has been taken off the table. We won’t say the Lions have no chance however
outside their Week 3 win over Green Bay they haven’t beaten a team with a
winning record all year, Matthew Stafford has never won a playoff game and
Detroit is, well, Detroit. We don’t bet 1/3 shots but if we did…DO NOT BET
DETROIT
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