The "Elite Eight", the home bye week, the quarterfinals. Whatev, dude... To me, this is the REAL start of the playoffs, growing up in the seventies when each conference only GOT four entrants in the Super Derby (three divisions and one wild card, BTW). The best from each of the NFL's eight divisions stack up Saturday and Sunday, and here's some conjectures as to how the games might go...Remember, as Gregg Easterbrook of TMQ likes to say, All Predictions Wrong Or Your Money Back. (Easterbrook says because the home team with the bye historically wins these games at a MUCH higher rate than normal home field advantage, he ALWAYS recommends taking the home team in this round.)
Baltimore Ravens at New England Patriots: The line in Vegas has New England by 7; Jeff Sagarin also says 7. Their respective ESPN bloggers think the margin will be ten or eleven; Sports Illustrated's Don Banks says 27-20, home team; Grantland's Bill Simmons says 20-17 for his beloved Pats; and Nate Silver's 538 calls this a 5.5 point spread. Fox Sports is predicting a New England victory by ghe score of 24-20. Following Football has been following suit, calling this a 7.5 point game, but we highly suspect we'll be off by at LEAST a half point! NOBODY, however, will be shellshocked if 5-0 in the playoffs Joe Flacco goes into Foxboro and moves to 3.5 - 0.5 all time in Massachusetts against Belechick (the one loss was a fluke shanked field goal).
Carolina Panthers at Seattle Seahawks: When you send a 7-win "playoff" team coming off a win over a shell of a football club into the raucous home of the defending champions, you get the kind of spreads you see for the late game Saturday. Vegas started at 10 1/2 and went UP to 11; Sagarin said 13 from the get-go. Amazingly, David Newton of ESPN has the Panthers winning 16-14: the cable giant is testing him for hallucinogens as we speak. His blog partnerhas a more appropriate 20-10 score planned. Fox Sports predicts a 26-18 Seattle win; Banks calls it 23-17; Nate Silver lists the spread at eleven; and Bill Simmons is betting his house, forecasting a 30-3 final score. Our numbers predict a more conservative 9.5 point margin, but this is the one game where we'd be GENUINELY shocked to see an upset.
Dallas Cowboys at Green Bay Packers: There is an amazingly consistent set of prognostications coming from all corners for the renewal of the Ice Bowl: everyone predicts a home team victory, but nobody doubts that it'll be very close (within a touchdown, guaranteed!). The casino spread started at 6 1/2 and has fallen to 5 1/2 (in the Pack's favor, of course); Sagarin's numbers suggest a spread of just a shade over four points; the two ESPN bloggers for these teams foresee margins of two and four; Silver believes it'll be 2.5; Banks is going 31-27 (a VERY common score prediction); Fox says 26-24; and the official, verified, often-imitated-but-never-duplicated Following Football tier system says it'll be exactly the 5 1/2 point spread Las Vegas predicts, which worries me, because if it IS, there will have to be a scoring play like none other in history. Only Bill Simmons breaks ranks, originally just figuring on the Cowboys beating the spread, and then at the end just throwing up his hands and saying 24-22, Dallas. Good luck, Bill - you'll make Governor Christie a very happy man if you're right!
Indianapolis Colts at Denver Broncos: Set aside the "Manning versus his old team" stuff for a minute and think about what his Colts' biggest drawback was...yep, it wad the lack of a defense. (And a running game, for that matter, but irrelevant...) This time, the fact that the weaker defense wears blue again will be his blessing, not his curse, and we see a six point Broncos victory here at FF. Most prognosticators we're looking at agree: Fox says 28-25 Broncos; Simmons goes with 31-20, Denver; Silver says it'll be about a 5.5 point spread; Banks sees a 34-31 game in the offing. Jeff Sagarin's ratings are placing this as a 4 1/2 spread, while Vegas goes with a full touchdown and extra point. Only one of the two ESPN bloggers dares to predict another one-and-done for Eli and Cooper's middle brother, seeing a 35-31 win on the strength of Andrew Luck, not any weakness in Denver's offense; the other has Peyton winning, 31-22.
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