Bokolis is not sure what I learned from this year's NFL regular season. Every time I sit down to watch, something puts me to sleep. Historically, the Jets have been the culprit. But, we've had so many weeks where the Giants or the Jets were not playing on Sunday afternoon that out-of-town teams were regularly dumped on us. All manner of bullshit conspired to put me to sleep.
So, really, the season wasn't that memorable. It was just a bunch of plodding; sometimes certain teams were good, sometimes they weren't. The Bears, Eagles, Jets and Ravens fit this description. The only team that stood out was the Patriots. Others, the Falcons Saints and Steelers, looked like they could do some work on their best day, but weren't always on their best day. The Packers and Colts were too hurt to key us in on what they really have. Similarly, the Chiefs could be a dark horse, or could be the team that lost twice to the Raiders.
So these are your playoff teams. The Seahawks are only involved to piss people off. Two ten win teams are home. Tampa Bay pulled about a half-dozen games out of its ass and can look to build on that, as they will still play a third place schedule next year. The Giants won 10 games without really pulling a game out of their ass and were well beaten- though they had a sniff at stealing the first Eagles game-in 5 out their 6 losses. Fans will point to the meltdown against the Eagles as what did them in, conveniently forgetting that they were smoked against Tennessee and Dallas at home.
Onward we go, in hopes of atoning for last year's disaster.
SEAHAWKS (+10.5) over Saints - There are no match-ups to discuss. The Saints are the defending champs and the Seahawks are in because they play in the NFC West. Nonetheless, I think Seattle's home field advantage has been discounted too much. Putting an indoor team in a raw setting should inject some counterbalance into this game. If the elements can keep the Saints from flying out of the blocks, the Seahawks may stay close enough to keep focus.
Jets (+3) over COLTS - What has changed from last year? The Jets aren't really playing better ball than they were at this time last year, but they can afford more mistakes than last year. Even last year's outfit was ahead at halftime before the injury to the RB scuttled the ship. The Colts are banged up, can't quite move the ball as well as last year and can have the ball moved on them. P. Manning may be the best player on the field, but he is not the overwhelming force. This game is here for the taking.
Ravens (-3) over CHIEFS - I don't think much of Flacco, but I don't think the Chiefs have much to offer. Much has been made about Arrowhead being a tough place to play. The Chiefs were 7-1 at home this year, but they have played NOBODY this year. Am I to believe that they will outperform against relative quality when they didn't look all that impressive against scrubs?
Packers (+2.5) over EAGLES - Will the Packers be able to move and score on the Eagles without having a running game of note? What I'm seeing out of the Eagles is that Vick is allowing himself to get a little full of himself. I don't see the same solid QBing that I saw the first half of the year. He's been sloppy. Not surprisingly, the Eagles went 3-3 in their last six games. Even when you toss out the Vickless finale, the Eagles were behind entering the 4th quarter in the other five. As it turned out, they were a freakish 8 minutes from being the ones out on their asses. I don't believe Vick will be able to dial it back up for the playoffs.
No comments:
Post a Comment