Zach's Fearless NFL Predictions 2015: Super Bowl XLIX

            If you were in Las Vegas last week and put money on Bill Nye, false fire alarms, and My Cousin Vinny as playing significant roles in the increasingly elaborate storyline leading up to this year’s Super Bowl, then congratulations – your prescience is so amazing that you probably don’t need a Super Bowl 49 preview column like this one to figure out which team will emerge victorious.  But for the rest of us mere mortals who predicted the Super Bowl 49 storylines would principally revolve around Pete Carroll’s rematch with Robert Craft, Brandon Browner’s rematch with the Legion of Boom, and whether the team of the 2010s is better than the team of the 2000s – you know, the normal kind of football storylines going into a championship game – then obviously you don’t understand the NFL, the National Fallacy League.

            It’s been 21 weeks since the opening week of the 2014 season, but it feels like it has been about 21 years.  Back then, in August, the biggest questions being asked by football fans were mostly “When will Johnny Football take over as starter for the Browns?” or “What team, if any, will pick up Michael Sam?” or “Can the league finally adopt a firm policy about concussions/pass interference calls/PATs?” Since then, the league has suffered tremendous public relations fiascos ranging from Ray Rice to Adrian Peterson to Ray McDonald to (yes, somewhat predictably) Johnny Manziel.  None of these situations has shed positive light on the tenure of Roger Goodell, who has come across as much corrupt and incompetent as staggeringly hypocritical.  Meanwhile, we’re stuck with two teams in the title game, one of which got caught illegally deflating footballs which, according to some, isn’t as uncommon an incidence in the NFL as actually getting caught doing it.  And while the other team may not have deflated footballs, they haven’t exactly been immune to bending the rules themselves. 

            It’s a dog-eat-world out there and as Jeremy Irons says in Margin Call, there are only three ways of making a living in the professional football business: Being first, being smarter, or cheating.  Let’s assume that the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks are spectacularly guilty of the last two.  That only leaves being first (as in first place, not the way Irons actually means it in the movie, as in “first to liquidate all the firm’s shares en route to the systematic collapse of Wall Street.”)  As the defending champs, the Seahawks are still technically first.  The Patriots have finished first three times, but the last time they actually hoisted the Lombardi Trophy, George W. Bush had just won reelection, no one had ever heard of Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Mark Zuckerberg or YouTube, and the city of New Orleans was intact and had a quarterback named Aaron Brooks.  Hell, the last time the Patriots won the Super Bowl, the most promising athletic hopes for the city of Seattle lay in the hands of the Rashard Lewis/Ray Allen-led Sonics.

            So we get the point: If the Patriots are old money, the Seahawks are nouveau riche.  If New England is East Egg, then Seattle is West Egg.  If Tom Brady is Cal Hockley in Titanic, then Russell Wilson is Jack Dawson (shout out to bros from Wisconsin!)  Shall we keep going?  In 1964, the New York Yankees, led by 32-year-old Mickey Mantle and 35-year-old Whitey Ford, were vying for their 10^th title in the Casey Stengel era, but lost to the upstart St. Louis Cardinals, a team led by 28-year-old Bob Gibson and 25-year-old Lou Brock – a team which would win two of the next four World Series.  The Yankees’ Golden era ended with that defeat.  In 1989, the Los Angeles Lakers were playing for their 6^th championship in the 1980s, but after the Bad Boy Pistons stunned them in a 4-0 series sweep, the Kareem/Magic Lakers dynasty collapsed, while Detroit won two straight titles.  From 1981 to 1996, the NFC won 16 straight Super Bowls; since John Elway’s shocking upset of Brett Favre’s Packers in Super Bowl 32, the NFC has gone 7-10.

            The problem with that analogy is that the Yankees, Lakers and the NFC did not experience a ten-year stretch without a title like the 2014 Patriots have.  That would mean that they would no longer be considered dynasties.  Therefore, can we all just agree right now that the Patriots are no longer a dynasty?  They certainly were in the era of Rodney Harrison, Ty Law, and Mike Vrabel.  But outside of Tom Brady, Big Vince, and Coach Belichick’s hoodies, there are no real remnants from those Super Bowl championships (whether we should have won somewhere between two and five Super Bowls since 2004 is another debate entirely.)  But at the same time, are we not being premature by declaring the Seahawks already this decade’s dynasty?  Sure they annihilated Peyton Manning in the playoffs last year, but so did Billy Volek and Jay Fiedler. 

            This is a long, roundabout way of saying one of two things: Either we’re overestimating the greatness of both of these teams since neither are technically dynasties at this point, or Super Bowl 49 will go a very long way in how the legacies of the Patriots and the Seahawks are remembered.  If the Patriots win, their title of the “Team of the 2000s” holds up to scrutiny (at least for now).  And if the Seahawks win, that signifies that the torch has been officially passed; at this point, they’ve pretty much owned every other NFL franchise/great quarterback since the beginning of the Carroll/DangerRuss era (with the exceptions of Andrew Luck, Joe Flacco, and every team they actually have to go on the road to play).  If Tom Brady wins, he will join Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana as the only quarterbacks with four Super Bowl rings.  If Russell Wilson wins, he will join the immortal, illustrious company of such luminaries as Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, and Jim Plunkett.

            (OK, OK.  I told myself I would limit my cheapshots directed at the Seahawks, but I couldn’t resist that one.  But hey, I just wrote three paragraphs essentially outlining why the Patriots are overrated in the public consciousness, so give me a break.)

            But in the midst of DeflateGate, there are other factors too.  If the Patriots win, people will remember the 2014 as one that should have an asterisk next to their name.  If the Pats lose, it will only reaffirm the notion that Belichick cannot win without cheating.  And the repercussions of DeflateGate aren’t too rosy for the Seahawks either; even if Seattle wins, their victory will be somewhat tarnished by the histrionics directed disproportionally at the Patriots in the weeks leading up to the game, inevitably adding an atypical “lack of focus” and “dysfunction” to how the Patriots will have played.  Meanwhile, Seattle fans should be very nervous when they recall the times overwhelming public scrutiny has drawn the ire of Belichick/Brady; after SpyGate in 2007, they were 39 seconds away from a 19-0 season, and after losing 41-14 to Kansas City this season, it was “on to Cincinnati” and a virtual resurrection of the 2007 team’s anger and relentless focus.

            As a Patriots fan and a Seahawks hater, this game represents everything.  If the Pats lose, there will be no worse feeling in the world – except maybe knowing that we’ve now lost three Super Bowls in the Brady/Belichick era, while the Royals and Ducks just recently blew their most realistic shots at a title for the foreseeable future.  Yikes.  If the Patriots win, that’s great and wonderful and validates everything I love about this team.  But that I already know.  It’s like how psychologists say that it takes at least six positive experiences to outweigh the emotional damage of a single negative experience.  Being a sports fan, we all know it really takes more like twenty or thirty.

            I watch these teams a lot and know their strengths and weaknesses.  I am not a football coach, but their wins and losses have affected me in unusually impactful ways.  As someone originally from Oregon, I get real tired of answering the question of why I hate the Seahawks.  The answer?  I don’t really know.  I started hating them in the Holmgren/Kitna era (you can read a more detailed history from my Super Bowl preview from last year).  To me, they’re like the little brother that quietly gets everything he wants because he knows how to manipulate Mom and Dad.  “Oh, playing in the same division as John Elway and Rich Gannon is too tough?  Then let’s move you to the NFC West – at precisely the time the Rams and 49ers enter a dormant period.”  “Oh, you got hazed over in the Super Bowl because of bad officials?  Let’s give you an unbelievable stretch of luck, like this or this or getting a home playoff game with a 7-9 record and doing this.  Oh, we’ll also make sure you don’t get any more bad calls for many years to come, so everyone just turn the other cheek when this or this happens.”  “Don’t like playing on the road?  Let’s give you an endless supply of Microsoft money and make our stadium unreasonably difficult to play in.  Then all you have to do is win against heavyweights like Arizona and St. Louis!  And feel free to be total douchebags while you’re at it.” If you’re a Breaking Bad fan, the Seahawks are like Jesse Pinkman’s little brother in that one episode from the first season.

            Anyway, where was I?  Oh yes, I know these two teams’ strengths and weaknesses. The Patriots’ strengths are: Playing a ridiculously tough schedule (Denver, Baltimore, Indy twice, Green Bay, Detroit, San Diego, Kansas City, Buffalo twice, and Cincinnati – that’s 11 games against teams above .500 for those of you counting at home); playing virtually unstoppable offensive football since the debacle in Kansas City on September 29 (12-2 since then; the two losses being a five-point defeat at Lambeau and a meaningless Week 17 loss to the Bills without Brady, Edelman, or Gronk); the best secondary in the AFC; the best tight end in the history of football; and the best third-down offense I’ve ever seen in person. 

            The Seahawks’ strengths: Playing unreal defense down the stretch (39 points surrendered in their final six games); having the best rushing offense in the league (Beast Mode and Wilson combining for over 2,100 yards on the ground); playing an OK schedule (9 games versus above-.500 opponents, although a few of those games came against Ryan Lindley, Mark Sanchez, and injured Aaron Rodgers); finding ways to remain competitive in games even when their offense chooses to not show up (see the Dallas, San Diego, and Green Bay games); and being unbeatable at home – except, of course, to the one team that beat them at Qwest Field this year.  That’s right, the same team that missed advancing to Seattle by this much. 

            Both teams have similar weaknesses: When the opposing team controls the ball on the ground, converts key third downs, and when the offense is out of rhythm.  The Patriots are 12-0 when scoring 23 or more points; the Seahawks are 1-4 when allowing 24 or more points.  Seattle is 13-0 when allowing under 22 points; New England is 2-4 when they score less than 22. The Patriots’ offensive line has occasionally been a sore point during the season (as evidenced by the pitiful ground performance against the Ravens) while injuries to Brandon Mebane and Jordan Hill have made the Seahawks interior defensive line vulnerable more than one time.  Both teams needed miraculous comeback performances this season that involved trickery and downright luck (the Patriots’ recovered fumbles vs. Baltimore, the Seahawks’ onside kick and two-point conversion vs. Green Bay).  It’s more than fair to say that the Seahawks haven’t seen an offense like the Patriots, while the Patriots haven’t seen a defense like the Seahawks. 

            In terms of player matchups: The key one will be Gronk versus Kam Chancellor, but what interests me more is how Seattle’s lengthy and physical secondary (with the questionable health of Sherman and Earl Thomas) will have to find ways to stop Brady’s near-nondefensible short seam routes to Edelman, Vereen, and Amendola.  This was a secondary engineered to stop Demaryius Thomas and Randall Cobb, not receivers like Edelman.  No, LaGarrette Blount probably won’t tear up Seattle like he did to Indianapolis, but we know that Belichick won’t hesitate from abandoning the run entirely, as he did against Baltimore (and as Mike McCarthy and too many other coaches did not against Seattle).  As for when the Seahawks have the ball, Lynch can certainly emulate the likes of Knowshon Moreno and Eddie Lacy and tear New England apart across the middle (in a game like this, Patriots fans undoubtedly miss Jerod Mayo).  This offense certainly has no problems moving the ball after halftime and when facing double-digit deficits.  But I suspect that Carroll will make no hesitations and be aggressive with Wilson, daring Revis and Browner to play safe in the secondary while he pulls the ball and scrambles downfield for big gains.  The responsibility of stopping Wilson will fall on the hands of Chandler Jones, Dont’a Hightower, and particularly Jamie Collins, whose speed and agility make him a formidable defensive threat.

            If there is a gameplan for the Patriots to imitate, it should be San Diego from the Chargers’ Week Two win over Seattle.  In that game, the Chargers didn’t overly commit to the run, while Rivers picked up key third downs and Antonio Gates assaulted the secondary for three touchdown receptions.  Lynch only had six carries, and San Diego controlled the ball for over 42 minutes.  I think the Patriots will opt for a more aggressive game plan – especially in light of the Packers’ epic meltdown as a result of being overly conservative – but ball control will be a key for New England, which worries me if the running game won’t be overly emphasized.

            And if there’s a game for the Seahawks to watch closely, the best example would be the Ravens from three weeks ago.  For the first 35 minutes of the game, Baltimore executed practically everything perfectly, with Justin Forsett having little difficulties gaining copious yards on the ground and Joe Flacco finding open receivers on long passes (and pass interference calls on his incompletions). We couldn’t move the ball on the ground, and even our passing game was unstoppable in the second half, we had to resort to trick plays and gimmicks.  We still could have blown that game in the final seconds.  But hey, the Seahawks were dead-to-rights with five minutes left in the NFC Championship.

            Well, let’s just get the obligatory drama out of the way: I’m picking the Patriots.  You know that.  The question is why.  Three central things stick out to me.  First, I genuinely believe the Patriots have played far better competition than the Seahawks this season.  The Seahawks played four good offenses all year –San Diego, Dallas, Denver, and Green Bay.  They lost to San Diego and Dallas, had to go to overtime to beat Denver at home, and we all know what happened against the Packers two weeks ago.  They looked vulnerable in all four the AFC games they played, while New England looked strong in its four NFC games (including its loss at Lambeau – the Packers' closest margin of victory at home all year). The AFC East was better than the NFC West (especially after Carson Palmer’s injury) and overall, the AFC was a stronger conference than the NFC.  Don’t believe me?  Look at the strength of schedule rankings.  The eight toughest schedules in the league all belonged to AFC teams, including New England (Seattle still ranked a respectable 14^th).

            Secondly, I think playing on the road is a considerably tougher challenge for Seattle than it is for New England – especially considering that University of Phoenix Stadium should be much more conducive to the offenses.  Sure, Seattle is the only team of the two to have won a game there this year; but once again, Ryan Lindley and Stepfan Taylor will sadly not be on the playing field this Sunday.  Of the 17 receiving touchdowns Seattle gave up during the regular season, 11 of them came to tight ends.  During the five games the Seahawks faced a top-10 tight end (by receiving yardage), that tight end averaged 13.6 yards per reception.  Seahawk fans can make a case that Bobby Wagner’s injury affected coverage in the middle of the field, but simply put, no one in the league has proven to successfully contain a healthy Rob Gronkowski.  If this game was to be played in snowy New York City (like last year’s Super Bowl should have been), there would be fewer concerns about offenses and moving the ball through the air.  Playing indoor football favors New England; however, that does not eradicate the respect this Seattle defense obviously commands.

            Finally, I think the Pats will emerge from the events of the past couple weeks with a renewed discipline, ferocity, and commitment to executing all phases of the game (if I’m sounding like Belichick, sorry).  As for the Seahawks, there is a reason why so few NFL teams have proven capable of repeating as champions.  Sure they’ve played hungry, agitated football for the last six months.  Sure, they have something to prove (and believe me, DangerRuss wants that maxed contract extension).  But for Tom Brady, the anger has lasted ten years, and in 2014, he was given everything he’s been missing the last decade: A spectacular secondary, a healthy Gronkowski, a core of reliable receivers, and a reshuffled offensive line that makes the offense look very 2007-ish at times.  When I saw that Vegas is favoring the Patriots by two points, I immediately felt sick to my stomach – I thought, “we’re giving two points to the defending champions in the very same stadium where we blew our perfect season seven years ago?”  But then I thought about all the adversity this Patriots team has faced all season – from those embarrassing losses to Miami and Kansas City, to losing Stevan Ridley and Jerod Mayo for the season, to that insane five-week stretch where we played the Broncos/Colts/Lions/Packers/Chargers, to being down 14 points at two different times in the Baltimore game.  Then I thought of the adversity of being called cheaters and liars by the media and former players, and everyone doubting our abilities on the field.  But then I remembered how Bill Belichick pulled a Mona Lisa Vito in his press conference, and basically kicked ass in front of all the haters by publicly defending his team.  And then I remembered that in 2014, we always overcame that adversity and ended up playing like the best team in football, which is fully the way I expect this team to play Sunday.  On to Seattle.

Prediction: Just as I predicted back in September... New England 31, Seattle 30. 

Prop Bets:

Covert gambling references made by Al Michaels +4.5

Total musical scales covered by Idina Menzel +6.5

Number of people who will think that Idina Menzel is Johnny Manziel's sister +7 million

Odds that John Travolta will introduce Adele Dahzin Idina Menzel: 1000 to 1 (hey, it is Roger Goodell's league we're talking about)

Odds that Gronk's favorite movie is Frozen: 3 to 1

Odds that Belichick's favorite movie is My Cousin Vinny: 2 to 1

Odds that Roger Goodell's favorite movie is Inglourious Basterds: Even.

Zach's Fearless NFL Playoff Predictions 2015: Conference Championships

            It’s championship Sunday!  What better antidote to witnessing the unthinkably catastrophic than six hours of in-your-face, edge-of-your-seat, mildly predictable NFL football?  Here is the only thing we know right now: The four remaining teams in the NFL playoffs unquestionably deserve to be here.  Need some reasons why?  Take a look at the resumes of the final four contenders for this year’s Super Bowl:

A.    The defending Super Bowl champs with the best defense since the 2000 Ravens and maybe the best homefield advantage in league history.

B.     The greatest playoff quarterback/coach combination of all time with arguably its most talented lineup – on both sides of the ball – ever.

C.     This year’s NFL MVP looking for his second title, but this time with a substantially better running game and defensive line.

D.    The most versatile young quarterback in football coming off a career-defining win against his franchise’s most venerated figure (and the only aforementioned team to defeat Team A).

            But of course the very thing that makes the NFL so compelling and decidedly unpredictable is that depending on your outlook, you could also characterize those four teams in the following ways:

A.    A team that just beat a 7-win team with a hobbling QB at home, still struggling to overcome injuries, and is by all accounts facing its first quality quarterback since Week 6.

B.     A team that last week had to overcome two 14-point deficits while rushing for 14 yards.

C.     A team going against a squad it has lost to by margins of 25, 21, and 22 points in its last three games since 2012.

D.    A team traveling into the toughest environment to play in the NFL, having lost four regular-season road games by an average of 15 points.

            Depending on which perspective you agree with, you can look like either a genius or a moron after Sunday’s slate of games.  But as General Eisenhower once said, “Preparation is everything until the battle starts, and then it doesn’t mean anything.”  Thus, without further ado, here are my observations and picks for this weekend that soon won’t mean anything.

Green Bay Packers at Seattle Seahawks (- 7½)
Sunday, January 18, 3:05pm EST, FOX.

            Are the Packers really one of those classic New Orleans Saints/Atlanta Falcons/(dare-I-say) Seattle Seahawks type Jeckyll-and-Hyde teams that look phenomenal at home but lousy on the road?  This is the critical question going into this Sunday’s matchup because if the Packers have any hope of upsetting the Seahawks, they will have to play a virtually perfect game.  This may be a lot to ask, considering that Aaron Rodgers is at roughly 70 percent health, that last week Tony Romo (143.6 QB rating) and company probably should have won,  and that the Packers already lost by 20 points to the Seahawks at Qwest Field earlier this season. 

            Is there any meaningful evidence to suggest that the Packers’ woes on the road are statistical outliers?  For Seahawk haters like myself who are desperate for hope, there is some relief in this category.  Green Bay’s Sunday night loss to the Saints on October 26 has to be thrown out due to Rodgers’ injury midway through the game.  Their loss to the Bills on December 21 came against a stellar Buffalo defense that also beat the Lions and Patriots and nearly beat the Broncos.  That leaves the Pack’s other two losses, both of which occurred in the first three weeks of the season (before Aaron Rodgers to everyone to relaxxxxx).  Yes, Green Bay scored a ton more points at home (316) than they did on the road (168) and Rodgers’ QB rating was comically better at home (109.8 or above in every game) than on the road (109.7 or below in every game but one).  But their takeaway totals were about even (14 at home, 13 on the road), as were Eddie Lacy’s rush totals (601 yards at home, 538 on the road).  Hey those things are important, right?

            If you’re going to believe that Green Bay has a chance to win, you have to invest faith in the theory that the NFC Championship Game has sometime produced fluky results – especially when it involves teams from the old NFC Central.  Remember the infamous Gary Anderson game in 1999 when Minnesota was an 11-point favorite and did the unthinkable by losing to lowly Atlanta?  Or the Bert Emmanuel game in 2000 when the Greatest Show on Turf was held to 11 points – and still won?  Or when the Kerry Collins-led Giants did their best impression of the ’85 Bears and beat the Vikings 41-0?  Even last year was pretty weird; the Seahawks had dominated the 49ers at home in their previous two contests, but found themselves quicky trailing 10-0 and needed three fourth-quarter Kaepernick turnovers and horrendous officiating to eek out a close victory.  Did you know that each of the last seven NFC title games have been decided by 7 points or less?

            If you’re going to believe that Green Bay can win, you have to go back to January 2011 when the Packers won three road games en route to an improbable Super Bowl championship.  In that NFC title game, Rodgers was statistically subpar (17/30 passing, 0 TDs, 2 INTs) and the Packers nearly survived a late rally helmed by the inimitable Caleb Hanie.  You also have to believe that the Packers can line one of their three outstanding receivers (Adams, Cobb, Nelson) against Richard Sherman and still have two dangerous downfield vertical threats.  You have to believe that the Green Bay coaching staff will make considerable adjustments since the two teams’ Week One matchup, in which Rodgers was held under 200 yards, no Green Bay rusher had over 38 yards, the Packers had eight penalties, and the Seattle offensive line was barely challenged.  You have to believe the Seahawks have had fun feasting on the Ryan Lindleys and Shaun Hills of the league and as a result, their defensive statistics have been exaggerated and overlook key injuries to Brandon Mebane, Jordan Hill, and Tony McDaniel.  And you have to believe that if Aaron Rodgers really is the MVP of the NFL, he will play like one in spite of grievous overacting injuries.

            So there you have it: The best case scenario for the Packers.  As you can probably tell, those are not really substantive reasons.  The Seahawks are a not only a significantly better team than the Packers, but the luckier one: Instead of a rematch with the lone team (Dallas) to defeat them in Seattle – the same team that went 8-0 on the road in the regular season, and is a much healthier and worrisome matchup – they get the hobbled team that can’t play on the road and needed a controversial call to cement what should have been a much more authoritative win.  There’s no argument that the Packers are a classic Jeckyll-and-Hyde team, and the most damning evidence that they cannot win on the road is this: Their 2014 road victories came against Chicago (by 21 points), Tampa Bay (17 points), Minnesota (3 points), and Miami (a 3-point win coming on Rodgers’ miraculous last-second touchdown to Andrew Quarless).  You’re telling me that a team whose only impressive road wins came against a 2-win Bucs team and this guy can suddenly march into the most fearsome stadium in pro football and come away with a win?   

            But it’s more than just the Seahawks’ homefield advantage.  The Packers offensive line is mediocre at best, and will have a mighty challenge trying to defend a quarterback whose mobility has been taken away.  News has come out of Green Bay this week that Eddie Lacy is now banged up (maybe suffering from a food hangover after an all-night cheeseburger binge?) and the defensive line gave up over 5 yards per carry last week to the Cowboys.  We all know who the Seahawks are – the team that looks offensively incompetent for two-and-a-half quarters until a big defensive play effectively clinches the game.  They’re also a team which only loses because of insane fake punts or overheating or playing legit quarterbacks away from home.  They don’t lose games they’re expected to win, against teams they’ve already beat, against quarterbacks who are injured, in front of a national TV audience.  This one will be over in the first quarter.

Prediction: Seattle 44, Green Bay 10.

Playoff doppelganger: 2000 NFC Championship, New York 41, Minnesota 0.  This game was over in the first five minutes, when the Giants took a 14-0 lead after two Vikings turnovers and never looked back.  The most memorable thing about this game?  Besides the ridiculous overhype it gave the otherwise mediocre Giants (the 2000 Ravens were only favored by 3 points in Super Bowl 35), the over/under for this game was 41½.  When it was 34-0 at halftime (and 41-0 with 12:13 left in the 3^rd Quarter), those who took the over were buying rounds of drinks for everyone at the bar, celebrating the easiest bet in the history of sports gambling.  Whoops.  For those of us who took the under (like me and my dad), it was one of the most nervous, tense, and heart-pounding quarters-and-a-half of 41-0 blowout football anyone’s ever seen.  Long live Kerry Collins!

Indianapolis Colts at New England Patriots (-7)

Sunday, January 18, 6:40pm EST, CBS.

            Can we talk about Tom Brady for a second?  This last weekend was pretty big for him.  For the first 10 years of his career, his biggest foe in the AFC was Peyton Manning and the Colts, but since 2011 the rivalry has sharply shifted to the Baltimore Ravens, a team whose defense always had Brady’s number.  Last week not only did Brady singlehandedly beat the Ravens (and definitively answer the eternal “Brady vs. Manning” debate by the end of the weekend) but tore the Baltimore secondary apart with his throwing arm.  He also had one of the top-five best throws of his career in the first NFL playoff game where a team overcame two different 14-point deficits.  

            Side note: I didn’t see the final ten minutes of last week’s game.  I had to make an airport run (I did listen to the radio broadcast).  I’ve missed a surprising number of fantastic Patriots finishes over the last few years: The Saints in 2013 (on a cross-country road trip), the 24-point comeback against the Broncos (on a plane), and the onside kick game against the Browns (on a jog after I thought a 12-point deficit with two minutes left was too much for Tom and company).  I’ve certainly been there for all the bad finishes – don’t worry about that.  More evidence for why I shouldn’t even bother to watch the inevitable Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl?

            Here’s the question I have about this week’s game: Both of these teams are coming off improbable, once-in-every-three-seasons type wins.   We know about the Patriots, but how often do you go into Peyton Manning’s home stadium in the playoffs with an unproven running game and mediocre secondary, score only 24 points, and come away with a win?  (I’m not even including the two interceptions thrown by Luck, or the ten penalties, or the missed field goal by the greatest kicker of all time).  Sure, there are certain types of unbelievable, improbable, come-from-behind wins that propel a team toward a championship (ask Joe Flaccid).  But what the Patriots and Colts did last week were respective gifts from the gods and frankly it feels weird that one of them will win at least one more game this postseason.

            All signs in this matchup point to New England.  In the Andrew Luck era, the Pats have defeated the Colts by scores of 59-24, 43-22, and 42-20.  In two of those games, New England had rusher slash the Indianapolis defense for over 160 yards and four touchdowns.  Luck has thrown a total of eight interceptions against the Patriots and has never had a lead after the second quarter.  In their most recent matchup two months ago, the Colts’ best rusher (Ahmad Bradshaw) was injured in the first half and Indy mustered a paltry 19 yards on the ground all game (I don’t think it was Belichick’s intention to replicate that game plan versus the Ravens last week).  The Colts were also missing Dwayne Allen and both teams were sorely missing the Jones Brothers, Chandler and Arthur. 

            Luck is obviously a talented quarterback who has stepped up this postseason (and his porous numbers against the Pats scream “small sampling”), but to be honest, the Colts’ success has been mostly due to their defense.  Excluding their Week 16 debacle in Dallas, Indianapolis has only allowed 43 points in its last four games and has been especially stout in defending the pass; they’ve allowed only one 300-yard passer since their bye on November 9 (props for the three of you who correctly guessed that that passer was Colt McCoy).  The brilliant game planning of Belichick Jr. Chuck Pagano has called for superb man coverage by Vontae Davis and LaRon Landry, and with the absence of Patriots OL Bryan Stork, I highly doubt New England will annihilate the Colts on the ground like they’ve done so in the past.  I do question how the Colts plan to defend Rob Gronkowski, but it’s not like any team has successfully done so all season (Gronk had only four catches for 71 yards and a TD on November 16, which wasn’t terrible).

            I watch the Patriots far more than I like to admit (except, naturally, during their clutch wins) and I intimately know the way this team loses games: When they can’t pick up first downs, when they can’t stop the run, when they’re playing from behind, and when they’re held to field goals.  Those are not radical observations, but it was noteworthy how the Ravens were able successfully hold the Patriots to three of those four things (fortunately for New England, Stephen Gostkowski’s leg was a virtual non-factor last week).  The Colts will have to replicate the Ravens’ success in those categories, plus one additional component that Baltimore failed to tap into last Saturday: They can’t settle.  The Ravens looked unstoppable on long passes last week, but chose to go away from that game plan when they had leads of 14-0 and 28-14.  It’s certainly understandable in those situations to opt for more conservative game calling (especially when Forsett was torching the Pats’ defense in the way that he was) but Baltimore lost its aggressive edge until it was too late – and it was precisely that aggression that, perhaps poetically, led to its downfall.

            The Patriots feel like a considerably better team than the Colts – but then again, they felt like a considerably better team against the Ravens in the 2012 AFC Championship game, and also the considerably better team against Mark Sanchez and the Jets in 2010.  Last season’s loss to the Broncos was the first time in a while Patriots fans weren’t necessarily shocked to lose in January.  Would I be shocked if the Patriots lose this Sunday?  Considering how bad they looked at times last week (along with their increasingly long list of post-2004 bad playoff performances), I cannot say I would be shocked.  Preparation or prognostication doesn’t mean anything, to paraphrase our 34^th President.  But I would be surprised if they lose, and regardless of the outcome of this game, Seattle fans should be worried (and not just because what 50 Shades of Grey did to the city of Seattle, the new Gronkowski erotic novella will do for Boston). 

Prediction: New England 34, Indianapolis 27.

Playoff doppelganger: Either the 2007 AFC Championship (New England 21, San Diego 12), or the 2012 AFC Championship (Baltimore 28, New England 13).  Either we’re playing an injured team coming off a huge win over Peyton Manning on the road – a team coming off its best game of the season and is just happy to be there – or a team we have an excessive amount of confidence against, gleefully overlooking the fact that the post-2004 Patriots lay more playoff duds than Tom Brady douchebag photo shoots.  

Thoughts? Disagreements? Impressed that in September I predicted a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl? Let me know below.

2014 at Halftime: The NFL Mid-Season Report and Awards

 

           Remember the good ole days when the biggest offseason storylines from the NFL were limited to treatment of concussions and long-term effects of brain injuries?  With the unresolved sagas of Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Breaking Bad-style de-evolution of Roger Goodell into a Vince McMahon-like league villain, it’s safe to say those days are gone.  There has been, however, some good football to come out of the 2014 season at its mid-point – it just hasn’t involved any of the following: Geno Smith, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Jay Cutler, Thursday Night Football, professional football in Washington D.C. and Oakland, London games played at 6:00am PST, and ghosts of Bill Gramatica.

Biggest Surprise: There are a few viable candidates here.  The Cleveland Browns are somehow 5-3 despite 0 yards being gained from Johnny Football, the non-reinstatement of their best receiver, injuries to their second-best pass catcher (Jordan Cameron), playing in a super-competitive division where everyone is above .500, and having a bottom-three rush defense.  And yet Cleveland has victories over New Orleans and Pittsburgh, along with two last-second losses to the Ravens and Steelers.  Their lone bad performance all season came against the Jaguars in Jacksonville (go figure).  And perhaps most amazingly of all, Mike Pettine has not even been fired yet!

            You could also go with the Buffalo Bills (5-3 in spite of a bad draft, major injuries on offense and defense, and Kyle Orton as QB) or the Miami Dolphins (also 5-3 with dominant victories over New England, Chicago and San Diego, with Ryan Tannehill turning into a white Michael Vick).  Or you could go with DeMarco Murray, a guy who suffered through severe sprained ankle, foot and MCL injuries the last three seasons before reaching a career high in rushing yards for a season . . . through the first nine games of 2014.  He is on pace for 2,000 rushing and 440 receiving yards while taking the title of unquestionably the NFL’s best runningback. 

            But the winner here has to be the only team to have held Murray under 100 yards in a game, which is precisely what the 7-1 Arizona Cardinals did last week.  If you were to ask at the beginning of the season which NFC team would start out with the best record through eight games, I realistically would have picked eight other teams before the Cards (Seattle, San Francisco, New Orleans, Green Bay, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Atlanta).  It’s not as though the Cardinals are statistically blowing opponents away; the Cardinals rank dead last in pass yards allowed, 5^th worst in rushing offense, and have only outscored their opponents by a total of 36 points.  Hell, they’ve had to turn to the likes of Drew Stanton, Logan Thomas, and Larry Foote to cement key wins.  They are winning games for two primary reasons: They don’t turn the ball over (six turnovers through eight games) and they know how to win close games.

            Of course on the flip side, you could make the case that moving forward the Cardinals still have to face the 49ers, Lions, Chiefs and two games against the defending champs.  They still have a 35-year-old quarterback who has never won a playoff game and an offense that has eclipsed 30 points only once.  But you could also point to how they have the best secondary in football with the fearsome combination of Cromartie-Peterson-Matthieu and how Deone Bucannon is a viable defensive rookie of the year candidate.  In a year when everything that could go wrong for Seattle and San Francisco has gone really wrong, Arizona has stepped in out of nowhere and played better than anyone could have expected (in its last 17 games, the Cardinals are an amazing 14-3).  I expect nothing less than this team to go on a 2008-like playoff run, and if that is the case, Arians seems like a shoo-in for Coach of the Year, while Palmer (11 TDs, 2 INTs, 99.3 QB rating) could be a front-runner (along with Arian Foster and Kyle Orton) for Comeback Player of the Year.

Biggest Disappointment: It’s hard to find an example of a disappointing team in the group of five AFC teams with losing records (Jets, Texans, Titans, Jaguars, and Raiders).  I don’t think anyone expected New York to be 1-8 at this point but I also don’t think many people realistically estimated substantial growth from Geno Smith or considerable help from 34-year-old Michael Vick.  They’ve also played only one sub-.500 team all season – the Raiders – which accounted for their lone victory.  Their October16 loss to the Patriots on a short week – a loss eerily mirroring their questionably-officiated, game-winning FG victory from last year – was their 2014 season.  Meanwhile, I would argue that the Jaguars and Raiders are playing much better football than their record would suggest.

            That leads us to the NFC.  A cumulative record of 9-7 for the two best teams of 2013 (the Seahawks and 49ers) has to be considered a disappointment at some level, but both teams have suffered through throngs of injuries on both sides of the ball, along with a pair truly agonizing losses to the Rams.  If you had told Saints fans their team would be 4-4 at the break, you’d be met with some groans . . . but this would be amended after you told them that New Orleans is still the odds-on favorite to win the NFC South.  Atlanta and Carolina are certainly suffering through painful seasons after their successes in 2012 and 2013 respectively, but neither was exactly the Super Bowl favorite coming into 2014.

            Believe it or not, the only team that truly fits the bill for disappointment is the 3-5 Chicago Bears.  They are the very definition of an erratic and frustrating team: 0-3 at home, 3-2 on the road; blowout losses to the Dolphins and Packers, yet a truly impressive victory in San Francisco against the 49ers on national television; statistically outstanding seasons from Jay Cutler (17 TDs, 95.8 QB rating) and Matt Forte (1,000 total yards) but 9 fumbles by Cutler and only 3 rushing touchdowns for Forte.  Most beguiling of all, the Bears haven’t suffered any serious injuries outside of Peanut Tillman, meaning one of two things: Either (A) their starters really are just that bad, or (B) the team has lost focus due to turmoil in the locker room and lack of leadership on the parts of Cutler, Brandon Marshall, and Marc Trestman. 

            For the second half of the season, the Bears do get treated to home games against the Vikings, Buccaneers, Cowboys, Saints and Lions, meaning they have ample room make up ground in the NFC North.  But there’s no way of predicting which team will show up on the field on any given day – the one that held the Falcons to under 300 yards of total offense or the team that gave up 21 points to the Patriots in a span of48 seconds.  Is it too late to call up Josh McCown again?

Team to watch in the Second Half: Once again, the disappointing first halves for the Seahawks and 49ers suggest that both teams are more than capable of righting the ship in time for playoff runs virtually everyone banked on going into the season.  Meanwhile, someone has to win the NFC East and while history would suggest that Eli Manning and the Giants can be the beneficiaries of injuries to Nick Foles and Tony Romo, New York has also lost three straight, has to fly to Seattle this weekend, and hasn’t defeated a team over .500.

            There is, however, a 2013 playoff team that no one is talking about because Brady-Manning-Luck have overshadowed the race in the AFC.  This team has victories over the Dolphins, Patriots, and Chargers, and close losses to the 49ers and Broncos.  So yes, while everyone in Jayhawk country spent the majority of the month of October rooting for their incredible baseball team (or rooting unsuccessfully against their odious governor), you could make the case that quietly the 5-3 Kansas City Chiefs are playing the best football in the NFL right now. They have found a legitimately frightening two-headed beast at runningback with the combination of Jamaal Charles and Knile Davis, while Alex Smith is completing over 67 percent of his passes – most of which are going into the arms of breakout tight end Travis Kelce (419 yards, 4 TDs).  On defense, Justin Houston and Tamba Hali have remained healthy and fearsome, combining for 16 sacks, and the Chiefs defense has given up the fewest points in the AFC (138).

            The problem?  Kansas City has been absolutely incapable of creating turnovers.  Of the five (you read that correctly, five) takeaways they’ve forced through eight games, three came against one opponent (the Patriots, on that memorable Monday night stampeding). Due to the impressive ball control abilities of the offense, the lack of takeaways hasn’t received a lot of notice, but the upcoming return of Eric Berry (out of the lineup since Week Two) should help a secondary that gets stabs at Kyle Orton and Derek Carr twice . . . but also Russell Wilson, Peyton Manning, Carson Palmer, and Ben Roethlisberger.  I’m picking Kansas City here not so much because their schedule is favorable (which it is anyway) but because this is a legitimately talented team with playoff experience that is seriously going under the radar. We all now know what teams in KansasCity – along with their tremendous fans – are capable of.

Coach of the Year: Arians, for the reasons stated in the “Biggest Surprise” category.  But a close second would be Jim Caldwell, who has somehow turned the Lions into the best defense in football.  I don’t have complete faith in their 6-2 record, since two of those games were super-fluky wins over the Saints and Falcons, but Caldwell has done an amazing job of turning around a team that hasn’t had a top-ten defense since 1983.  All the more impressive is that defensive players haven’t revolted in wake of Ndamukong Suh’s lame-duck year.  I guess I just don’t understand how Caldwell is such a good coach – does he motivate his players through stern looks and unrelenting stares into empty space? 

Best Team: Come on.  This isn’t really all that tough, is it?  A month ago, the New England Patriots were sitting at 2-2.  They had two blowout conference losses, a home game against the Raiders they should have lost, and a borderline-unfair win against Matt Cassel and the Vikings the same week the Adrian Peterson scandal broke.  The beloved Belichick-Brady era seemed on its final ropes, as everyone had started predicting as long as five years ago.  “Trading Logan Mankins a week before the season was a terrible idea!” They chimed.  “No one can catch the ball other than Edelman and Gronk!” They proclaimed.  “They’re too old/slow/banged up/inexperienced/unmotivated/overmatched/untalented!” They insisted.

            It’s amazing to me that in year 14 of Brady-Belichick experiment people still don’t seem to realize that the Patriots feed off when the media criticizes them.  No way they can beat the Greatest Show on Turf in an indoors Super Bowl?  Not a problem.  No way they can recover from the penalties and repercussions of SpyGate?  No big deal.  No way they can win games after Brady goes down in the first quarter of Week One?  Nobody cares.  Take your pick of adversity and criticisms this team has faced: Losing Wes Welker and Randy Moss, the Aaron Hernandez saga, Gronkowski’s injuries, Brady’s age, bad officiating, bad drafting, 4^th-and-2, and the Manning Brothers (good times and bad). 

            And yet after that shellacking by the Chiefs, the media still insisted that the Patriots were done for.  Don’t get me wrong.  That Kansas City game was terrible.  But as awful as that game was for Tom and company (and the fans that had to watch it), New England has responded with precisely that much more intensity, anger, and outstanding play – and they have done so in spite of losing their best rusher (Stevan Ridley), their best tackler (Jerrod Mayo) and their best defensive lineman (Chandler Jones).  They put up 43 points on the Broncos and the Bengals; Tom went 150 passes without throwing an interception (the one he did throw last week was a tipped pass); and with Brandon Browner back in the lineup, the secondary is pretty clearly the best in the AFC.  And the losses of Wes Welker, Aqib Talib, and Logan Mankins?  Not exactly the first thing on Pats’ fans minds anymore . . .

            So here’s the real question: How far can this team really go?  We’ve heard all these glowing praises before, but the Pats always find ways to shoot themselves in the foot with injuries and inexplicably poor play in January.  They have an incredibly tough slate of games coming up (at Indianapolis, at Green Bay, at San Diego, home for Detroit and Miami; meanwhile, Denver gets Oakland twice).  They haven’t run the ball especially well without Ridley and we all know Gronk could have a fluke injury at any point (every game there’s at least one “hold-your-breath-for-dear-life” moment like this one).  Peyton Manning won’t forget last week any time soon.  But for the time being, I’d take this group against any other team in the league, and the tough schedule will help keep them disciplined in their quest for title #4.

MVP: This is a tough one.  Prior to the last few weeks, the obvious candidate was Murray, a guy who legitimately seemed unstoppable in the rare Adrian Peterson/Jamal Lewis-in-2003/Barry Sanders mode.  And of course Murray could still win it, but two things will almost certainly need to happen: He will need to break the 2,000 rushing yard mark and the Cowboys will need to make the playoffs. 

            Murray supporters will also need to root for more mediocre play from perennial MVP candidates like Brady, Manning, and Aaron Rodgers, but I think the real favorite here has to be Andrew Luck.  He’s on pace for 5,484 yards, which would pass Manning’s record breaking mark from last season.  He has accounted for at least two total touchdowns in every game this season, and hasn’t exactly been able to rely on the ground game of Trent Richardson and Ahmad Bradshaw (even though the latter has played better than anyone expected).  If the NFL’s PR campaign wants to brand the league as guys who take the game seriously, have no off-the-field issues, and who are universally loved by seemingly everybody, then Luck is precisely the player they would want to bestow the league’s highest individual honor on.  And let’s be honest – this Colts team is hardly loaded with talent, and a total of zero people were seriously panicked after Indy’s 0-2 start or their defensive meltdown against the Steelers.  Luck just promotes that kind of confidence in this team.

            I write all this and yet (you’re going to hate me for this) my MVP vote goes to Rob Gronkowski.  Simply put, he is the most explosive offensive weapon in football.  You can’t put a linebacker on him because he’s too mobile, but you can’t put a safety on him because he’ll run him over.  You can’t protect against his run-blocking because he’s too dominant, and there’s no way you can guard against him with one-on-one coverage.  And then there are plays like these which he makes once or twice per game, which no one can possibly defend against.  In his five years in the league, no team has sufficiently figured out how to cover him, and if you don’t believe me, take a look at his career game log: 31 five-catch games, 15 100-yard games, and 35 games with a TD. 

            Gronkowski has been the best player in football in 2014 and this is true even considering how limited he was in the Pats’ first four games (he still managed three TDs).  With a healthy Gronkowski, the New England offense is historically great, and this isn’t even factoring in the receiving play of Julian Edelman, Brandon LaFell, and Shane Vereen.  He has systematically redefined the position he plays – how many players can you say that about?

            So there’s my mid-season report and I’m still not wavering from the Super Bowl pick I made at the beginning of the season: 31-30 Patriots over Seahawks.  Comments?  Questions?  Not enough time spent talking about how great New England is playing?  Write them below!