"They played a little bit better..."

According to Ravens QB, "they [the Patriots] played a little bit better." But from where I was sitting, that's not the case. I'm still not sure how the Patriots, with Brady playing poorly (in his own words, he "s*cked pretty bad"), with three turnovers to one takeaway, with no TD passes, settling for three field goals, with the defense unable to stop the Ravens on 3rd down in the second and third quarters, managed to come out of that game yesterday with a win.

But they did. And in two weeks, they'll play in the Super Bowl. Again. Against the Giants. Again.

Odds and ends from yesterday's game:

• I think that there's a world of difference between a "drop" and what happened on the Lee Evans play at the end of the game, and people putting Evans on a par with Billy Cundiff - or worse - are underestimating the contribution of Sterling Moore. Yes, Evans did get both hands on the ball and yes, if he held on the Ravens would have won the game. But he never had an opportunity to put the ball away, as the ball was hit by the defender as he was trying to establish control. A little more credit to Moore and less blame to Evans is appropriate than what I've heard and read.
• There is no excuse, however, for Cundiff.
• Did Terrell Suggs play?
• I did not realize, until they talked about it during the game yesterday, that Bernard Pollard was the Houston defender who tackled Wes Welker on the play in 2009 on which Welker tore up his knee. Pollard was, of course, the safety for the Kansas City Chiefs whose low tackle tore up Tom Brady's knee. And then, in the 3rd quarter of yesterday's game, he took down Rob Gronkowski, landing on and twisting his ankle in such a fashion that Gronkowski had to leave the game. Thankfully, he returned. But I don't want to see the Patriots playing against Pollard ever again...
• That was a poor performance from the Patriots quarterback yesterday. The biggest surprise from the game may be that they're going to Indianapolis despite Brady, rather than because of him.
• It wasn't just the picks. One of the most blatant mistakes came early, as Brady missed Gronkowski for a TD in the first quarter. Instead, they ended up settling for 3, and it affected everything that followed.
• He's lucky that walked off the field after his diving sneak TD, when Ray Lewis put his helmet into Brady's spine while he was upside down. (And well after the TD had been scored...)
• The best player on the field yesterday may have been Vince Wilfork. The Ravens couldn't block him.

The Giants go on to Indianapolis on the strength of not one but two blown punt returns by the 49ers - a muff in the fourth quarter that led to a NY touchdown, and a fumble in OT that gave NY the ball in field goal position (which they'd shown no likelihood of reaching on their own.)

And the number of replays of the David Tyree helmet catch that we're all going to see over the next two weeks is appalling to contemplate...

AFC Championship Game Pre-Preview

On Sunday afternoon, the New England Patriots will host the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship Game. The Patriots are the early favorites, which probably shouldn't surprise me, but does.

But there are more than a few numbers that suggest that they should be. And I'll share those later this week...

NFL Divisional weekend preview

So, gathered in one spot, are my predictions for Divisional weekend in the NFL:

AFC Game 1 (Saturday afternoon): Pittsburgh over Baltimore
NFC Game 1 (Saturday evening):   Green Bay over Atlanta
NFC Game 1 (Sunday afternoon):   Chicago over Seattle
AFC Game 1 (Sunday afternoon):   New England over NY Jets

NFL Playoff previews: AFC Divisional game 1

Saturday, January 15 - AFC Divisional Game 1
Baltimore Ravens (12-4) at Pittsburgh Steelers (12-4)

By the numbers:

Baltimore @ Pittsburgh

Team	W	L	PF	PA	Dif	Pyth
Baltimore	12	4	357	270	87	.660
Pittsburgh	12	4	375	232	143	.757

The AFC divisional weekend features two divisional matchups. So this is the third meeting of the year for the Ravens and Steelers. Conventional wisdom is that these are two physical teams, built on defense and running games. There's some truth to that, but it's also probably overstated.

They split the first two, with Baltimore winning in Pittsburgh and the Steelers returning the favor in week 13 in Baltimore. Over the past four years, the Steelers lead the series 5-3, splitting in '07, '09 and '10, while the Steelers swept in 2008. In addition, the Steelers beat the Ravens in the playoffs in 2008. All of which makes it sound like there's been a Steeler advantage, but not a big one.

Which is not quite true. Here's the interesting thing - the last time that the Ravens beat the Steelers with Roethlisberger starting was Christmas Eve in 2006. They've beaten Pittsburgh three times in the last four years, but in none of those games did Pittsburgh's starting QB play. Over the last four years, Ben Roethlisberger is 6-0 against the Ravens as a starting QB.

Does that mean that Pittsburgh wins this week? No. But that, combined with the facts that Pittsburgh was a better team both offensively and defensively, and they're playing at home, means that the Steelers are probably a better bet than one would think, given that they split this year and each finished 12-4.

Reason to pick the Ravens:

They've already won in Pittsburgh this season, the losses have all been close, and they're certain to beat Roethlisberger at some point.

Reason to pick the Steelers:

They've scored more points and allowed fewer, and the Ravens haven't beaten their QB in four years.

Baltimore wins if:

They can protect a lead against a good team, something they've had trouble doing this year.

Pittsburgh wins if:

They can play well early, allowing them to play from ahead instead of behind.

My Pick:

Pittsburgh

Thoughts on Wild Card weekend

With some important other things going on this weekend, I didn't see all of any of the games, with Baltimore-KC being both the least interesting game of the weekend and the only that I really saw in more-or-less real time. But there are a couple of odds and ends:

• Obviously, the Seahawks pulled off a huge upset. I had seen the halftime score on this one, and assumed that Seattle had jumped out to a lead and managed to keep it. I was shocked, when reviewing it on the DVR later, to discover that the Saints had actually jumped out to the lead. And scored a late touchdown. In between, Seattle beat them 41-10. Absolutely shocking. They scored 25% more points than in any of their regular season games. Even if you could envision the Saints' offense struggling without its running backs, how did they give up 41 to the moribund Seahawk offense?
  
  Part of that was a highlight run that we'll see for the rest of our lives, as Marshawn Lynch broke tackles from almost every New Orleans player on the field in the course of a 67 yard touchdown run that put the game away. For you young football players, this is why you keep your legs moving, this is why you don't arm tackle.
• I thought that the Colts mis-managed the end of the game. Badly. They were in field goal range and, instead of forcing the Jets to use one of their timeouts, they threw an incompletion that stopped the clock and preserved the Jets' first timeout, then later used on of their own preserving the Jets' second. And obviously, the kickoff return just killed them. It's a very different situation if Sanchez takes the field with one timeout needing 45 yards instead of needing only about 20 with two.
• I said last week that the Chiefs were a fraud team. This game would seem to have provided some validation for that position.
• The Packers-Eagles game should have been compelling. It finished close. But I never got into it, and have no comment other than it appeared to me that both teams were a) talented and b) sloppy.
• Three of the games went about the way that I envisioned, the obvious exception being in Seattle. I did expect the Colts to win, and when they got to the 36 with less than two minutes less, I was confident that they had. But they didn't, so I was 0-2 on Saturday and 2-0 on Sunday.

Let me just say one thing, as the week dawns, about the upcoming New England-New York re-rematch: I'm not predicting, I'm not talking trash, and anyone can win anywhere on any given Sunday, as we saw this weekend in Seattle. All that said, it's hard for me to imagine a scenario in which New England plays poorly enough on Sunday to lose to the Jets.

NFL Playoff previews: AFC Wild Card game 2

Sunday, January 9 - AFC Wild Card Game 2
Baltimore Ravens (11-5) at Kansas City Chiefs (10-6)

By the numbers:

Baltimore @ Kansas City

Team	W	L	PF	PA	Dif	Pyth
Baltimore	12	4	357	270	87	.660
Kansas City	10	6	366	326	40	.568

The superficial numbers would indicate that the Ravens are a better team than the Chiefs. But when you drill down in, just a little bit, you discover that they're actually a much better team. Everyone recognizes that the Seahawks are a fraud playoff team - that 7-9 record is a dead giveaway - but they also happen to be one of the only two playoff teams that the Chiefs faced during the regular season, and the only one that they beat. Their victory over the 9-7 Chargers way back in week 1 is the Chiefs only win against a team that finished over .500. They had one of the ultimate creampuff schedules, and the 10-6 record is a schedule-based illusion.

Baltimore is an overrated but clearly better defensive team. They're a better offensive team, too. They're tougher and more battle-tested. This is not a mismatch on the scale of New Orleans-Seattle, but it's not a pick 'em, either.

Reason to pick the Ravens:

They've demonstrated that they're a better team by putting together a better record against a much tougher schedule.

Reason to pick the Chiefs:

They're at home, with an efficient QB and a good running game.

Baltimore wins if:

They can force the Chiefs offense into passing situations on most drives.

Kansas City wins if:

Cassel is mistake-free and they're able to run the ball and score touchdowns.

My Pick:

Baltimore

Note to Peter King...

...and everyone else raving about Ray Rice's day running the ball against the New England defense, and raving about the Ravens' great day running the ball against New England's defense, and bemoaning the terrible job New England's defense did against the run:

On the first play from scrimmage, Rice broke an 83 yard run, with the perfect call against the defense that New England was running, a couple of excellent blocks and a bad route by a New England defender. After that, Rice carried the ball 21 times for 76 yards, 3.62 yards/carry. And after that run, New England allowed Baltimore to rush the ball 51 times for 151 yards, or 2.96 yards/carry.

So let's not overstate a) the success of the Ravens or b) the awfulness of the Patriots defense.

I have no words of support or praise for the Patriots' offense.

NFL week 2 wrapup

Eventually, they actually played football this weekend.

• The biggest shock of the weekend took place in Cleveland. If you'd asked me on Friday to order the teams in the NFL on the likeliness of them scoring 51 points, Cleveland would have been 32nd on that list. I didn't see much of the game, and don't know how, exactly, that happened, but given the chance of betting my house on Cleveland scoring over/under 50 this past weekend, I'd now be homeless.


• There's not much to add to my earlier comments about the Patriots/Chargers game. New England dominated from start to finish. San Diego is (probably) still one of the very good teams in the league, but they were absolutely not competitive in Foxboro.


• Did Donovan McNabb ever deserve his reputation and status? Does he give the Eagles the best chance to win now? How long will it be before they score a touchdown?


• Tom Coughlin came in as the disciplinarian to fix the Giants. To make the dumb penalties stop, to keep the players on the field, to run a tough defense. I have affection for Tom from his days at Boston College, but the kindest thing that you can say about his tenure in New York right now is that, on that list, he's 0-3. What's more clear is that the players have completely tuned him out. They're just waiting for him to get fired, and see what happens next. At least, that's how it looks to me.


• I'm developing a level of skepticism about the Baltimore defense. If they were what people think they are, they wouldn't have let the Jets drive down the field with a QB making his first NFL start and tie the game inside the last two minutes. What's that? They didn't? Well, yes, they did. The Jets just failed to score the points. McCareins dropped one touchdown, Clemens overthrew a second. No credit to the Baltimore defense.


• I think that the Saints are a) not as good as they were expected to be and b) better than they've played so far. I'd still bet them in that division.


• When looking at the schedule for week 3 before the season, Indianapolis at Houston would no have jumped out as a game of interest. And even after week 1, well, everyone understands that Kansas City's bad, so what did it mean that Houston started 1-0? But Carolina is still a hyped team, and Houston went in and beat them handily. Now, this game looks like a real measuring stick - what are the Texans? Are they real? Are they a threat?


• So the New York Jets cheated this week, breaking an NFL rule to gain a competitive advantage. When do we suppose that the $500,000 fine for Mangini and loss of a first-round draft pick will be announced? (I'm not holding my breath, but, for consistency...


• My best analysis of the week (tie):
  1. Houston (+7) at Carolina - AFC 98-pound weakling kicks sand in the face of NFC bully. Carolina played a good game in St. Louis last week - I'm betting that they can't do it two weeks in a row. Houston with the upset.
  
  
  2. San Diego at New England (-4) - ...let me keep this short and simple - the Patriots are a better team, they have better players, they have better coaching, and they'll win this one by a touchdown or more.


• My worst analysis of the week (again, there's an embarassment of riches here): The lock of the week. Cleveland spent 7 weeks of training camp choosing the quarterback who gave them the best chance to win. And then benched him after 1 half and traded him after one game. Cincinnati covers this if they score 8 or more. I vote "more." Instead, Cincinnati scored 45. And lost.


• For the week:
  7-8-1 against the spread
  9-7 on winners
  (No, I'm not giving up my day job and moving to Vegas any time soon...)