NFL Wildcard Weekend

I was hoping for some different matchups than what we got (i.e. Det @ NY, Atl @ NO), but I don't think they will change things up to cater to my wagering.  Here are my thoughts on all of the wildcard matchups, nothing has been played as of yet.

Atlanta Falcons @ New York Giants

The Atlanta Falcons have played 10 teams this year who have a .500 record or worse and 6 with a better than .500 record.  Against the former, whose combined record is on average 5-11, Atlanta is 8-2 SU and 7-3 ATS.  In these games, the Falcons have averaged 29 points and allowed 20 per game.  Against the winning teams, whose combined record is on average 12-4, Atlanta is 2-4 SU and 1-5 ATS.  In these games, the Falcons have averaged 18 points and allowed 24 per game.  But that's regular season, so don't put too much stock into those numbers.  What the Giants do real well is put pressure on the QB.  In two road games this season against teams in the top 10 in sacks, Ryan has completed 50% of his passes, thrown on average for 242 yards with 4 touchdowns against 4 interceptions.  In those games, the Falcons went 1-1, but averaged only 19.5 points per game.  What the Falcons don't do so well is defend the pass and Eli Manning has excelled this year against sub par defenses.  This season, against sub-par passing defenses, which statistically the Falcons are, Eli has completed 65% of his passes, thrown on average for 369 yards per game with 12 touchdowns and 3 interceptions.

Both of these teams have been quite Jekyl and Hyde all year, so beyond gambling, generally speaking, you will be gambling from a literal sense as well.  When I look over the Falcons schedule, I see one impressive victory, which was on the road at Detroit back on October 23rd.  Since that win, the Falcons have beat Tenn, Minn, Jax and TB all at home, Car and Indy on the road and lost to two playoff teams (NO twice and Hou with a 3rd stringer). 

Leans : New York -3, UNDER 47, ATL TT UNDER ?, Ryan UNDER Passing Yards

Pittsburgh Steelers @ Denver Broncos

On paper, this appears to be a David vs. Goliath matchup... You see what I did there?  A biblical reference for Mr. Tebow.  All kidding aside, I don't think Tebow has played good football consistently since he took over as QB.  He has had moments, but bottom line is that he is 7-4 as a starter and he helped bring a division title back to Denver.  I am extremely down on Pittsburgh and while they have the talent to make a run to the Super Bowl, I don't think they will.  The offense has been very inconsistent, Ben is banged up, Mendenhall is out and the OL hasn't been great. 

This will be the first true road playoff game for Pittsburgh since 2005 and while Denver's home field is not overly daunting, it's still a different environment.  On top of this, Ben has really struggled on the road this year as evidenced by the below.

Road:

77.5 QB Rating

7 TD's / 10 Interceptions

25 sacks for a loss of 172 yards

5 fumbles

Home:

107.1 QB Rating

14 Touchdowns / 4 Interceptions

15 sacks for a loss of 97 yards

0 fumbles

In four road games vs. playoff teams this year, Ben has completed 56% of his passes, averaged 265 yards passing per game with 2 TD's and 8 interceptions. 

Beyond Ben, Mendenhall is out, but he hasn't been productive all season.  Mendenhall has two games this season where he rushed for over 80 yards, home for Jaz and home for StL.  On the road?  Mendenhall has one game over 60 yards rushing.  But he is out and in steps Isaac Redman who is coming off his largest workload of his NFL career.  Mendenhall's issues have been a product of the OL as well as a down year for him.  Maybe Redman has some success, but the OL is the same and I think we can agree the talent is a drop off from Mendenhall. 

On to the Receivers... Mike Wallace has all but disappeared with the emergence of Antonio Brown and the inconsistencies of Ben.  Wallace has not had a 100 yard receiving game since Week 7 and only has two touchdowns on the road.  Hines Ward is not the same WR and really hasn't had an impact on any of the Steelers games this year save for the one vs. Tenn where he scored twice... the only two TD's of the season for him. Antonio Brown has come on, but still only two touchdowns this year.  He is also young and will be facing a Denver secondary with some experience under their belt.  He won't benefit from a mistake that potentially benefited him during the regular season.

Now for some Tebow Time... Following a 6 game winning streak, the Broncos and Tebow really fell off the horse.  So what happened?  Turnovers.  In the three losses to close out the season, Denver turned the ball over 9 times in three games, two of which went for TD's.  They lost to NE, no shame there as the Pats are the AFC's # 1 team. They lost to Buffalo on the road, which isn't all too bad and the final score looks worse than it was.  Denver was in the game until two turnovers in the 4th went for Buffalo touchdowns.  And then the last game vs. the Chiefs.  Bad loss for sure.  Home game, division on the line.  This was a game they should have played better.  The turnovers killed the Broncos in all three games.  Interestingly, the Pats and Bills rank 4th and 5th in takeaways and even the Chiefs come in at 13th..  The Pittsburgh Steelers?  Ranked 32nd.. Dead last in the NFL in takeaways with a total of 15.   

Leans : Denver +9 (waiting for 9.5/10), Denver ML, Pittsburgh-Denver OVER

alec, Primetime - thanks fellas

FrankT - I can't argue that the Giants might not show up.  I mean they lost at home to Seattle and got dominated by Wash.  Atlanta has been up and down as well. 

lancer - most of the ESPN experts don't want to see a QB like Tebow do well. 

Big Niner - Good to see buddy. Not sure I'll play the total, but I think Denver builds a lead forcing Ben to make plays, which will either work or lead to turnovers

played this already, but will potentially be looking for more..

Denver Broncos +9 (28 units to win 25.45)

additional thought on Pitt-Den before moving on to another game.. 

Pittsburgh has played four games this season against teams ranked in the top 10 of rushing offense.  In these games, Pitt is 0-4 SU and 0-4 ATS allowing 4.20 yards per carry and being outscored 95-40.  Before you argue that these teams were likely better than Denver, Pittsburgh also failed to cover the spread against Jax (12th) and KC (15th), the next highest ranked rushing teams the Steelers played.  Including these teams, Steelers are 2-4 SU and 0-6 ATS allowing 4 yds per carry and giving up an average of 19.5 points per game.  

Werker, valid point on Baltimore and SF, but if you'e going to remove the most dominant defenses he faced, then we should also remove the most favorable one he faced in Arizona (361 yards and 3 TDs).  Taking all three out, Ben completed 61% of his passes, threw for an average of 245 yards per game, had 3 TDs vs. 4 Ints and fumbled twice.  Additionally, in these games Pitt averaged 16 points per game.  The other 5 games were against Indy, Hou (with Yates), Cincy, KC and Cle. 

While I can agree Cincy and Hou are better than Denver, the other three are not.  In these 5 games, Pitt won by 3, lost by 7, won by 7, won by 4 and won by 4.  Based on how they have performed this year, both offensively and defensively, I see the 9 points as entirely too much

Detroit Lions @ New Orleans Saints

I was hoping Detroit opened up with a road playoff game @ NY or SF, so a bit of a let down to see them headed to NO.  I see a lot of people posting that the Lions won't stop Brees and he is in a complete zone lately.  I don't disagree at all.  But can the Saints stop Stafford and the Lions?  Stafford has equally been in a zone lately.  Like Pitt, one thing the Saints don't do well is take the ball away from their opponent.  NO ranks second in the league in takeaways behind Pittsburgh.  Detroit has played five games against teams ranked in the bottom 10 for takeaways.  In these games, Detroit has one combined turnover, which was a Stafford interception against NO on 12/4/2011 (note, the INT was on a 4th and 2 late in the 4th quarter).   Detroit, on the other hand, ranks 4th in takeaways, but didn't manage to get one in their last game vs. NO.  If stats don't lie, I'd expect the turnover battle to be more in line with the norm on Saturday.  Looking deeper at the Lions 31-17 loss on 12/4 @ NO, a few things stand out.   

First and foremost, Jason Hanson was 1-3 on FG attempts, but even more significant was the timing of his misses.   The first miss was a 42 yarder right before halftime with the Saints leading 24-7.  That would have brought the Lions within two scores, but more importantly a little momnetum heading into halftime.  The next miss was a 55 yarder with the Saints up 24-17.  Compounding the missed FG was given NO excellent field position, which Brees took full advantage of in leading the Saints into the endzone to take a 31-17 lead. 

The next thing was penalty yards.  Detroit was penalized 11 times for 107 yards while NO was penalized 3 times for 30 yards.  Giving Brees & Co. free yards is a recipe for trouble.  The Lions managed a very good game the first time around.  They had more yards, they had a sizeable advantage in TOP and they were effective in the red zone.  However, the game was lost on penalties, losing the turnover battle and untimely misses on scoring opportunities. 

I'm not saying that these issues won't resurface this time around, but unlikely that they all doom the Lions.    Their offense can go toe to toe with the Saints, so the key will be minimizing their mistakes, most of which were not caused by a pressuring Saints defense. 

Leans : Detroit Lions +10.5, Detroit TT OVER, Turnover Prop of Some Sort

Cincinnati / Houston OVER 38 (34 units to win 32.39)

Been sizing this up all week waiting for it to come down from the open.  One thing right out of the shoot that should be analyzed is the oddsmakers opening this up at 39.  The regular season meeting between these two teams resulted in a 20-19 Texans victory.  39 points and a winner for over backers where the total settled in at 37.5.  In that game, there were 6 turnovers and the over didn't come in until 2 seconds left in the game as Taylor Yates drove his team the length of the field for a game winning TD.  On top of that, Houston has only scored more than 20 once since Schaub went down and yet we still see a bump in the opening total for tomorrow's game.  Why?

Andre Johnson, even a banged up one, instantly makes this offense more dangerous by just being on the field. I don't care if it's Yates or Delhomme behind center, the offense gets a huge makeover with AJ back.  It showed last week vs. Tenn as the QBs comnbined to complete 22 of 32 passes for 258 yards.  Even more important was the running game averaging 5 yds per carry, all without stud runner Arian Foster. 

In my opinion, Houston will put up points tomorrow and Cincy will be forced to keep up.  The Bengals have only scored less than 16 points this season twice - once vs. Pitt and once vs. SF.   Houston's defense is neither of those two, who are arguably the two best defenses in the league.  I think they hit and exceed 16 points tomorrow, which should, in my opinion, put the total into the 40's.