2008 NFL Conference Championship Picks

I had trouble sitting down for a better part of the week after the shoein’ I took last week. Of course, it could be worse – I could be Jon Gruden. What is “Chuckie” going to do with his 20 hours a day of free time?

The picks:

Philadelphia (-3.5) at Arizona – There are a lot of conference championship “firsts” in this game – first time a four seed has hosted the game, first time the home team is an underdog of more than one point, first time the Cardinals are playing the game and the first time the Eagles will play in the surprisingly load University of Phoenix stadium.

This is another very difficult game to handicap as we are dealing with a plethora of unknowns – will the Cardinals continue to feed off this “no respect, chop on their shoulder” mantra or will they show up and be what we expect the historically bad Cardinals to be, will the Eagles be impacted by a third road game and cross country travel, can McNabb continue to play at this high level, can the Cardinals protect Warner.

I can make a strong case for both teams wining this game. I can see the Eagles pressuring Warner into a couple of early turnovers, getting a lead and effectively taking the crowd out of the game.

On the flipside, it’s no secret that pressuring Warner is the key to beating the Cardinals, yet the Falcons and Panthers could apply no significant pressure to Warner despite finishing the regular season in the top 11 in sacks. I can see that trend continuing and the Cardinals keeping Warner pressure-free.

(Cliché alert) The key to this game is turnovers. Duh! And in turnovers in most cases are somewhat random, so predicting which team wins the turnover battle is “best guess” at best.

So how did I arrive at my pick for this game? You should be relieved to know that it was not by a flip of coin and dart board or video game were not involved. Instead I used one thin trend and a general observation.

The trend is – teams that play physical, road games in the divisional playoff round and then travel cross country for the Championship game are rarely successful – recent examples, the 2002 Titans, after a physical game with the Steelers in the divisional round, traveled to Oakland and were soundly defeated (41-24) and the 2005 Panthers who played a physical game in Chicago and then were destroyed in Seattle.

My general observation is that Eagles fans are becoming content with Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb. And I just not ready to live in that world. Eagle fan wanted Reid fired and McNabb released after the loss in Washington. That was all of four weeks ago!

Now Eagle fans riding the nut-sack of both guys and if the Eagles were to win the Super Bowl look for a statue of Reid hugging McNabb to be erected right next to Rocky, with financing paid for by “Eagle Nation”.

Instead this has the makings of the worst case scenario – win or lose, Reid and McNabb have locked up their return in Philly with this playoff run. McNabb will finish his career in Eagle green and Reid has bought himself at least five more years. A loss to the Cardinals and Eagle fans are back to hating McNabb and wanting Reid fired, just like it should be.

Arizona 27 Philadelphia 21

 

Baltimore at Pittsburgh (-6) – This is one of the easier games (see Carolina last week) of the season to handicap. But the Ravens are out of gas while the Steelers looked re-energized last week and the teams know each other so well that there will be no surprises.

The Ravens were extremely fortunate to win last week; they basically made two offensive plays all game – the blown coverage long TD to Mason and the “play call expired” pass to Heap. And though they had several huge plays on defense, they were picked apart by Kerry Collins. Further, if Chris Johnson plays the second half that game might have been a Titan blowout.

Quick tangent about the Titans fans, remember this franchise was the Oilers who recorded several mammoth chokes jobs but now the Titans are building quite resume themselves. They have the Super Bowl loss at the one, the choke to the Ravens in 2000 and the eerily similar 2008 choke last week again to the Ravens. It might be time for Tennessee to stop selling knives, guns, even sleeping pills every January.

The Ravens are playing for the 18^th consecutive week and in that time they have some physical teams, Steelers twice, Eagles, Giants, Cowboys and Redskin. They’re out of gas and the Steelers will show no mercy.

Pittsburgh 23 Baltimore 3

Last Week: 1-3

2008 Playoffs: 4-4

All-Time Playoff Record (1995-2007): 78-73

Best Playoff Record: 7-4 (2007)