NFL Divisional Round Picks/Open Thread

What can I say — when you’re right 25% of the time, you’re wrong 75% of the time! (Even my win-but-not-cover game was tainted by being adjudicated by the Halbig panel.)

Ravens (+7) over PATRIOTS I’m sure many of you have seen Chopped, the Food Network show premised on the idea that the skill of a chef can be tested by seeing how they work with low quality or mismatched ingredients? It’s a bad theory of cooking skill but an entertaining show. Anyway, the Personnel Belichick seems to have been following this formula for years, challenging Coach Belichick to see how little talent he can have on defense and still win 11 games. The Chopped era of the Patriots is over; finally given some players in the secondary, their defense went from being below- to above- average. They’ve only moved from 5th to 4th in total DVOA from last year, but in terms of playoff prospects I like them more than that level of improvement reflects. But although the perception is that they limped into the playoffs, the Ravens are right behind them, a better team than they get credit for. (The Patriots were the big loser of the Steelers/Ravens game, as I think they would have destroyed Indianapolis.) As Barnwell says, you can say this about a lot of games, but the ability of the Ravens to get a pass rush without blitzing a lot will be crucial; they have the personnel to be capable of it but NE’s offensive line has looked a lot better. If the Patriots had a true #1 wideout who could reliable get down the field against the shaky Ravens secondary I’d pick them even with the spread, but without that I’m less confident. I hate dealing with the Ravens because of Flacco’s low floor and high ceiling, but they certainly have a reasonable chance to win the game, and with that it seems that the chances of a Ravens win + the chances of the Ravens losing by 7 or less are >50%.

SEAHAWKS (-11 1/2) over Panthers It’s not exactly news that not only the defending champions but still the best team in football, with a larger-than-normal home field advantage, going up against a significantly below-average team, is a huge mismatch. This doesn’t make the game easy to pick against the spread, of course; Seattle has a very good not necessarily explosive offense, and with Carolina’s only chance being getting a lot of takeaways they’re likely to have a conservative game plan; I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Panthers get a cover even if the game isn’t really competitive. But still…last week they were trailing at the half against a team that could have significantly improved its QB situation by signing Tim Tebow. It seems more likely that this gets really ugly for Carolina.

PACKERS (-5 1/2) over Cowboys I dithered a lot about this one, given Rodgers’s injury. But, still, assuming he’s mostly functional, the case for the Packers is clear — they’re a similar kind of team to the Cowboys but better. Admittedly, the difference in offences is less than you’d think — Romo actually had a better QBR than Rodgers this year and was #2 behind the likely MVP in DVOA (something apologists for Caldwell’s #punttowin last week fail to adequately take into account.) You can’t just look at this year’s stats when evaluating talent, so you’d have to give Rodgers a bigger edge than that, but it’s not close. Of bigger concern is the Cowboy defense, which I suspect is worse than even their below-average DVOA suggests. If Rodgers can remain upright, I can’t pick against Green Bay here.

BRONCOS (-7) over Colts The Colts have a better chance of winning than the Panthers, but IMHO not by an enormous amount; the market seems to think that the Colts are of similar quality to the Ravens, but I think the market is wrong. The only thing the Colts do better than the Broncos is kick field goals, and the very well-balanced Broncos should be able to exploit Indy’s many holes. Despite some concerns about Manning late in the season, he’s still a significantly better QB than Luck, and while the Broncos had the best defense in the conference with the arguable exception of Buffalo, the Colts…don’t. If I had to bet real money on any of these four games, I think I’d put it on Denver.