NFL Divisional Round Open Thread

Kansas City (+4 1/2) at New England This game is particularly tough to call given that it’s hard to say what exactly the Patriots will look like — will they have any semblance of an offensive line? Why, given have that he had so semblance of an offensive line and a game plan that expressed indifference to getting the #1 seed, did Smilin’ Bill Belichick put Tom Brady out on the field as a target for Ndamukong Suh and will this have effects that are felt two weeks later? Will Edelman be an actual factor or just a decoy like Gronk in Super Bowl I forget the roman numeral? Given this combination of injury concerns, it’s hard for me to give up 4 and a half points, given that when all was said and done the Chiefs and Patriots were basically dead even in quality this year (and note that in weighted DVOA KC comes in #2 and New England #9.) I still pick KC with trepidation — the Maclin injury is significant, and while Andy Reid can match up with almost anyone as a Monday-to-Friday coach having him on the sideline against Belichick in a playoff game has to give Chiefs fans chills (and Eagles fans nightmares.) Still, Reid’s adventures in clock and timeout management are most significant at the end of close games, and if it’s a close game there’s a 4 1/2 point cushion. I think this game will at least be close. And if it’s a blowout, I frankly think the Chiefs are more likely to be on the long end.

Green Bay at Arizona (-7 1/2) Actually betting NFL games against the spread is generally about as fiscally sound as paying people large commissions to pick stocks, but on exception is betting on games where I talk myself into a different team at the last minute — betting against the team I settle on has a 1.000 winning percentage. I can’t even reconstruct my reasoning behind talking myself into taking Kirk Cousins over Aaron Rodgers last week and let us forget this ever happened. I’m not going to go the other way, though, and overcompensate by tabbing Green Bay this week. The Pack looked better against the rich man’s version of the Texans* last week, but it was also the first time they looked like a team that belongs in the divisional round since November 22. And they’ve moved up in class from the narrowly best in an unspeakably bad division to the team that was, soup to nuts, the best in the league this year. Granted, the injuries to the Arizona defense — most notably the sublime Tyrann Mathieu — are starting to pile up, and this could be an issue against Carolina or Seattle. And who knows, maybe Aaron Rodgers will go crazy one more once. But I just don’t see Green Bay having the depth to hang with Arizona on the road.

Seattle (+2) at Carolina Do I think the 10-6 Seahawks are a better team than the 15-1 Panthers? I do. Much of the difference in records comes down to luck in close games — the Panthers were only a game better in terms of their point differential, and when you consider that the Panthers played literally the easiest schedule in the league…”15-1″ is really neither here nor there. And while the teams were close to a wash this season, there’s also fact that Seattle has been at this level or better for four years while the Panthers were outscored by 35 points last year with personnel that wasn’t radically different. Do I think Russell Wilson is a better QB than the consensus MVP? Sorry, but I do (and that’s no knock on Newton.) None of this is to say that I feel as confident as this might imply. The Panthers’ only decent receiving weapon is a tight end, but as it happens tight ends have eaten Seattle alive this year (including, of course, Olsen himself.) After the Carolina fiasco I had assumed that Carroll and Richard would be able to scheme to attenuate this problem, but at least in the Minnesota game their stategery was “put Kam Chancellor on him and pray,” which “worked” only thanks to the endless generosity of Blair Walsh. I would assume they’ll try something different this week but then I would have thought that last week. And speaking of timeout management, the Seahawks were burning timeouts because they couldn’t get their offense organized like Rex Ryan himself was on the sideline — if Carroll/Bevell/Wilson can’t get that straightened out it could really cost them a playoff game, and indeed already should have. But still — I think the Seahawks are a better team, by a greater margin than the implcit point they’re getting as the road team. Figures to be the best game of the weekend, at least.

Pittsburgh at Denver (-7 1/2) The easiest pick of the week for me, which is not to say that I don’t have misgivings. The last two years, the issue with picking the Broncos in the playoffs is trying to figure out how much worse Peyton Manning was than his season’s statistics would be in January and February. This year, it’s trying to figure out how much better Manning will be in January than his horrific season stats, if any. Manning wasn’t exactly throwing lasers in his relief appearance, and it’s hard to think of him throwing ducks and give up more than a TD. On the other hand, I’d rather have a washed-up Manning than a green A.J. McCarran, who Pittsburgh struggled to beat despite getting upwards of ten points from dubious-to-horrible calls — the phantom unnecessary roughness call on Smith, the failure to call the leading-with-the-crown penalty on Shazier, and most crucially the failure to flag Porter for unsportsmanlike conduct that the NFL was effectively conceded was erroneous — in high-leverage spots. To be clear, this doesn’t mean that the Steelers didn’t “deserve” to win the game or some such — sometimes you get breaks, you have take advantage of them, the Hill fumble wasn’t just a blunder by the Bengals but a fantastic play by Shazier, plus they lost their QB to injury and they’ll be without the services of their star wideout, who was injured by a cheap shot that received a four-game suspension that was probably inadequate. But, still, Brown will be out as the Steelers go from playing a very good defense to a great one. And while Roethlisberger is genuinely great player and can be remarkably effective playing through injuries, I’m not picking a QB with a separated shoulder against the league’s best pass defense on the road. The Broncos QB situation will be a serious issue if they make it to the conference championship, but I don’t think it catches up with them here.

*This blog really should acknowledge Bill O’Brien scouring through Chuck Pagano’s archive of 1960s high school footage and coming up with a wildcat play to his defensive end with a bad groin, which worked out exactly as well as you’d expect. SUPERGENIUS!