nfl picks abound! don't worry, only one more of these entries (plus two analyzing the rounds of games) and we're done with football until april.
i like football.
so i'm going to put a little more work into this weekend's game. for example, when examining the falcons +5.5 at philly, we already know the line has jumped about a point favoring the eagles (meaning, from +4.5 to +5.5). we also have a weather forecast for snow on saturday and a wintry mix and a high of 26 on sunday. can vick work his magic in the snow? can dunn or duckett? after all, the falcons are a running team, built around the finesse running of vick and dunn. will the eagles be able to do anything? their crazy pass-happy offense will of course still be without TO, but the weather is the factor i'm looking at. westbrook isn't exactly a grind it out back by any means. i could see this game being pretty low-scoring and somewhat sloppy, with a final score around 20-14 in favor of the eagles. so yeah, i'll take the eagles -5.5 just because of the weather and the whole homefield thing.
oooh weather reports. let's see what pittsburgh's forecast looks like. snow/wind on both saturday and sunday. goody. unlike atlanta, new england doesn't look to be overly affected by the weather. kicking field goals is going to be treacherous though, with the wind and heinz field and all - it's one of the toughest places to kick. the line right now has the patriots -3.0 at steelers (a road favorite!!!), but the bookies are clearly looking to drop that line down to -2.5 if they can, since some books are offering +100 on the -3.0 and the line still hasn't fluctuated to -3.5 or -3.0 without the added odds across the board. if you didn't get that, just trust me. the bookies are nervous.
the pats won last week in downright dominating fashion. that was the best pats game i've ever seen them play. i didn't feel like they pulled off dirty shit or got lucky or anything. they played very good defense, they played incredibly smart offense (took one or two chances downfield all game, but really relied on running the ball and even more so on just controlling the ball. look at how long each of their drives were. the brilliance of the plan was that peyton had about 15 minutes to think about how badly the last drive went in between each drive. peyton is really high on the list of qbs who can't recover from mistakes when he's forced to think about them. also high on that list, i would think, is a rookie qb who made his biggest mistakes of the season in his first ever playoff game last week.
i like the steelers defense a lot. i think that front 7 is going to be hell for dillon to run through. sports guy was talking about how much dillon wanted to play in a big game and that was a huge reason why he did well. that and the fucking colts defense isn't that good. it's not the worst in the league, but its surely not as good as the steelers. furthermore, the steelers defense was second in the league this year in shutting down top receivers (the pats were 4th). i don't see the pats moving up and down the field with a slow ease like they did against the colts.
the pats defense is clicking on all cylinders. how is roethlisberger going to fare against this multiple-look defense? how is the aging bus going to run against these incredibly good linebackers? i'm guessing seymour should be back in time for this game too... actually let me go check.
ha no new injury report yet.
so i'm torn on this game. i find it really hard to pick against the pats. i don't know how the pats are going to move the ball in the blizzard against the steelers defense. however, i really don't know how the steelers are going to move the ball against the pats defense. and if i've learned anything, its that the patriots always make enough good plays and make just few enough mistakes to win. win by 3? sure, why not. patriots -3.0 to face the iggles in the super bowl.
i'll be rooting for the two teams i picked against. so this should be interesting. hehe.
let's get this over with
1019-january19-2005
comments
re: what about the colts?
from: niv (2005-01-19 10:48:09)
who do you trust more? peyton to wayne/manning/stokley or the rookie to hines/plax/randle-el?
yeah.
and who do you trust more? the bus or edge?
yeah. i have no problem dismissing the steelers offense
re: niv...re-read your comment...
from: chad (2005-01-19 16:03:42)
In cold weather, in the snow and (by far most importantly) against the patriots, I absolutely take the Steelers offense over the Colts offense. Wayne/Harrison/Stokley are all very very good receivers but i think the steelers receivers (not QB, just WR's) are comparable. Ward has great hands, like harrison, plex is the best deep threat of the 6, randle el is the fastest of the 6...comparable, thats what i would say. but the BIG difference is that the Steelers receivers play in a system where they are expected to, and are therefore accustomed to, taking a beating week in and week out. they do much much more blocking and run more underneath routes (not slants which are more finesse plays, but crossing patterns and the like). The Colts WR dropped lots of passes and had more batted away, mostly because they are not used to or very comfortable with lots of jamming and contact. The Pats played legal but VERY aggressive defense, as they are known for and the Colts receivers were not and never really are up to this challenge. In two games this year, the Colts offense put up 27 against the Pats (and the vast majority of those came in their happy little dome). In one game against the Pats, the Steelers put up 34. And they did it in the same stadium they play in on Sunday. The Steelers offense isn't nearly as good as the Colts, but they are much much much much better suited to a matchup with the Patriots.
re: what?
from: niv (2005-01-19 19:58:53)
chad, when did the colts play new england in a dome this year? never. how is plaxico burress better than reggie wayne in any aspect, including as a deep threat? he isn't. look at stats.
the pats have hit their stride. comparing how they played against the steelers in a regular season game and how they played against the colts last week is nonsense, especially given the variance of the nfl season and the variance of the new england patriots. why not just say "the pats lost to the dolphins, so they won't beat the steelers"
re: chad gets me going
from: niv (2005-01-19 20:05:39)
also chad, look at a recap of the first steelers-pats game and tell me how many of those points were created in part or in total by the steelers defense creating turnovers (if you recall, the pats had their worst game in terms of turnovers against the steelers, both because of great steelers defense and somewhat unlucky/bad patriots play). here, i'll help you out. week 8. here's a recap. dillon didn't play. brady threw 2 picks and had a fumble. townsend returned one of those picks for a td. burress had one of his 3 good games this year. yeah. put a lot of weight into that game.
re: niv, come on
from: chad (2005-01-20 10:07:13)
You're right, the Colts never played the Pats in the Dome. Just in warm weather outdoors...sorry. But that affects my point...not at all.
Plex vs. Wayne...look at the stats? are you kidding? Those are nice, independent ways of comparing receivers. I'm sure that Wayne's stats are better than Plex's has NOTHING to do with, say, Wayne getting the ball from Peyton. Or, for example, that the Colts throw 50 times a game and the Steelers throw 5 (slight exagerration for effect). Don't give me bullshit like "look at the stats." You're smarter than that.
The Steelers offense is without a doubt better suited to a game against the Patriots. Period. There is no arguing this point. The Patriots biggest strength on D is that the beat the crap out of the opposing offense and they run crazy schemes that make it impossible to finesse them and impossible to trick them. The Colts rely on doing both of those things, whereas the Steelers rely on doing NEITHER of those things. 75% of the time, the Steelers are gonna run the ball up the guy. The Pats know this, the Steelers know this, we know this. The thing is, they know that their RB's and OL can make that work. You cannot bruise them into submission. And when they DO throw the ball, they have receivers who are used to getting knocked around. You can drill Hines Ward, but it wont cause him to drop the ball the way Wayne and Harrison and Stokley did last week.
This is definitely gonna be a close game, so you may be right that the Pats win, but don't try to claim that the Colts outdoors in bad weather are even close to as good a matchup for the Pats as the Steelers are.
re: chad extrapolates
from: niv (2005-01-20 10:50:41)
you said the steelers wrs were better matched. which i disagreed with. you also said the colts were unbalanced and pass happy. which isn't true. somehow you turned this into me thinking the steelers weren't going to match up well, which i never really said.
re: and just for the record
from: niv (2005-01-20 12:02:36)
"so i'm torn on this game." is not that dismissive of the steelers is it?
re: interesting thoughts
i agree with almsot everything you said, except that writing off ben as a "rookie QB" (which, obviously, he is in a literal sense, but which i dont think he is in any meaningful way) and bettis as "aging" is a pair of pretty broad strokes against an offense that i think has shown all year that their QB is no typical rookie and their bus is by no means aging. besides, when both of these teams push up to the line on D and tell the other team they will not run by winning, who do you trust more: plax, hines, and randle-el toughing it out over the middle against a depleted pats secondary or the quintuplets from the pats going up against the steelers? i have to lean towards the steelers. i think if the pats DO pull this off, it will be late and close and not by three, but i dont think the pats win. steelers it is.
the other game. blah, who knows? vick could run for 250 yards or he could throw 4 picks. mcnabb could redeem his career, or he could over think everything and choke again. i will take the falcons in this just cause i think this game is a complete toss up and therefore i would take the points.